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« 



m 



THE 



CATHOLIC WOELD. 

_4 



▲ 



^ pa0Hi^fnir 



or 



GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 



VOL. V. 
APRIL TO SEPTEMBEB, 1867. 



NEW YORK: 
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE, 



126 NASSAU STREET. 
1867. 

C 



660553 



• T\ • 



COIS^TENTS. 



) and Aughiim. 119. 

rutt, a New Giant City, 185. 

Quarrel, 145. 

nalist'A Home, 189. 

•, The Soul* of, .MO. 

u» Ve<>pur{iis and Ctiristopher Columbus, Cll. 

h SalIl^ C61. 

irchitecture of, 849. 

>rute«Unt Attacks upon the, 780. 

f Eber»tt:in, The, 846. 

and State, 1 

ftlozis to the Catholic Church, Dr Bacon on, 104. 
nee. The Reveille of, 236. 
c Doctrine and Natural Science, 280. 
, Victor, aJS. 

and the Roman Empire, The, 862. 
uiUy anil S-tclal Happiness, 414. 
Hcs. C^atholic, 488. 
c of Riden, The, 480, 672. 
c Churcti and Modern Art, The, M6. 
inity and its Conflicts, 701. 

ted, 794. 

Uslnir. 7M. 

in. The Bride of, 813. 

Tfroatia^ of St. Paul, 174. 
of Watf-rs, The, 354. 

Domltill.i. The Two Lovers of. 896, 629, 651, 815. 
of Uie Desert, Sayings of, 814. 

r Family, The, 81. 

•palchre. Procession In the Church of, 282. 
t about Doing Good, 258. 

, Inraslons of, by the Danes, 708, 
, The Churches of, &28. 

La Garaye, 227. 



Lectures and Conferences among tbt Ancients, 280L 
Libraries of the Middle Ages, 897. 
Lorraine, Lakes of, 523 

Miscellany, 140, 284, 433, 670, 714, 856L 

Biediaeral Universities, 207. 

Mercersburg IMiilosopby, 258. 

MorUllty of Great Capitals, 422. 

Minor Brethren, The, 495. 

Marriage, Indissolubility of,' 567, 684. 

Bfoore, Sir Thomas, 688. 

Blisslonary Journey in South America,Soenet firom, 80T. 

Miner, The, 852. 

ParU, A Talk about, 97. 

Pere Hyacinthe, Sketch of, 882. 

Papacy Schismatic, Ouett^'s, 468, 677. 

Plants, The Struggle for Existence among, 688. 

Procter, Adelaide Ann, 558. 

Parisian Problems, Solution of some, 69t. 

Playing with Fire, 697. 

Paris, Old, 824. 

Ritualism, 62. 

Roliert ; or. The Influence of a Good Mother, 66^ 194. 

Rationalism, I^ecky's History of, 77. 

Rome or Reason, 721. 

Sister, The Story of, 15. 

Spnin, Modern Writers of, 26. 

Spain, Impressions of, 160, 820, 448, 594, 738. 

Speech, VUible, 417. 

The Birds' Friend, 963. 

Time-Measurers, )tll. 

Three Leaves from an Old Journal, 627. 

Thermometers, 707. 

Tuscan Peasants and the Maremna, 710. 

Tetzel, John, S88. 

Yerheyden's Right Hand, 809. 

Wandering Jew, The, 761. 



POETRY. 



m,94. 

esMe. 1^. 
•eacore. 2:i5. 
ily Motto, 257. 
n Me, 767. 

I Sacrament, Praises of the, 347. 
758. 

err, «0«. 

m-, .V25. 

I the X at tlie Convent of Tustc, 671. 

finfs, 494. 
an* Song, The, 621. 
QnMdflxlon, The, 159. 



II Duomo, 608. 
Kettle Song, 51. 

Looking Down the Road, 172. 
lAudate Pueri Dominum, 418. 
Leaf of Last Tear, The, 545. 

May, A Fancy, 818. 
Bf ary's Dirge, 681. 
Mea Culpa, 690. 

Napoleon, The Death of, 879. 
Olive Branches in Oethsemanc, \k 
Planting of the Cross, 139. 



IV 



Contents. 



Regret, 4 12. 
Khoda, Tt4. 



Fleep, My Trarn In, liW. 

eir Ralph de Ulaiic-Mlnster, 400. 



Tho Church and the Sinner, 2Si 
The CrohH, U5. 

Under the Violets, CKIQ. 

Wasted Vigil, The, S23. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Art of niumlnating, Practical Hints on, 144. 
American HnvA and (iirU, 430. 
Antolne de Boiieval, 6T4. 
Appltitou'ii Aniiuul Cyclopedia, 719. 

Bible, Literary Characters of, 570. 
]tar1)iir<ni)<a, T1!K 
Iteuutieif of Fiilth, 720. 

Catholic TracH, 142, 71.\ 
Chri^tiiin I<<ivf, Three i'haseii of, 144. 
Cuiiitlu^hiuir-* Catholic Library, 144. 
Chri.Ml.'m I'niiy, lA'Ctiircs on, 2s7. 
Catholic AneMlntm, r)7a. 
Christianity ninl it-* CuiidirtM, r»:C. 
Critical anil ."i.M'inl K^-ayn, 7 IS. 
Cuniuiipk»-y*j» Juvenile Library, 740. 
Cvainn, 7:.U 

lie CSuertn. Maarire, Journal of, JhSI. 
DolUnjrcr'n Firai Ajje of Chribthtnlty, T16. 

Ktuden l')i!lolof;li|uos siir Quelques Languet Sau- 

vaire;* de rAniPrli|ue, 575. 
Frlthl«)r#8!»):u, 4:n. 
Fronde V Ilii>tory <.f Kngland, R73. 
Virst lllstorical Transformations of Clirlst«ndoiD, 717. 



F.-ithers and Sonn, 718. 
FalH.T's Nutvii, 71'J. 

L'Echo de la France, UX 

Labor, Sermon on the Dlgtilty and Value of, 431. 

AIQhlbacli's Historical Komances, 2S5. 
^fiioreV Iriih M«lA<iii-4, 4:ii. 
Monks u( thf Weit. The, 71'». 
Mnniiiil or the Liven of Ihv l*ui>es, 720. 
Meliionivna Divlna, s'>U. 

PotuiB, Miss Starr's, 7IC 

Roman routlffs, Lives and Times of, 670. 

Pt. Dominic, Life of, JjH 

Jltinlent of HK-nheim Fnrcut, The. 674. 

nndii'9 in Kn|;lUli, .^74. 

^■'tiiri*'!* of the Commindmeuts, 720, 

fVleriCf of Hap|)iu(>>!>, Si**. 

Studies in tiK* (ioyiK'i^, b(iO. 

Tracts, CaUiollr. 142, 71. \ 

Thro*' IMiaws of Ciirii«tlan Love. 144. 

The Man with the Broken E.ir, 720. 



THS 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. v., NO, 




CHURCH AND STATE.* 



The political changes and weighlj 
events that have occarred since, have 
almost obliterated from the memoiy 
the men and the revolutions or catas* 
trophes of 1848 and 1849. We seem 
removed from them bj centuries, and 
have lost all recollection of the great 
questions which then agitated the pub- 
lic mind, and on which seemed sus- 
pended the issues of the life and death 
of society. Then an irreligious lib- 
eralism threatened the destruction of 
all authority, of all belief in revela- 
tion, and piety toward God ; and aram- 
pant, and apparently victorious, social- 
ism, or more properly, anti-socialism, 
threatened the destruction of society 
itself, and to replunge the civilized 
world into the barbarism from which 
the church, by long centuries of pa- 
tient and unremitting toil, had been 
slowly recovering it. 

Among tlie noble and brave men 
who then placed themselves • on the 
side of religion and society, of faith 
and Christian civilization, and attempt- 
ed to stay the advancing tide df infi- 

* Efisay on Catholidun, UberaUsm, and SoolaUtm, 
considered In their Awdamental Prlndplet . By 
Donoso Cort«s, Marq^ of Valdegamu. From \ht 
oriftinal Spanhh. Towhieh Is prefixed a sketch oftiit 
Life and Works of tbt Author, from the Italian of 
G. E. de Cask-o. Translated bj Ibdeleine Vinton Ood- 
dard. Philadelphia : Upplnoott and Cti. 1862. Idmo. 
pp. «35. 

VOL. T. 1 



delity and barbarism, few were more* 
conspicuous, or did more to stir up- 
men's mmds and hearts to a sense of 
the danger, than the learned, earnest,, 
and most eloquent Donoso Cortes,. 
Marquis of Valdegamas. He was 
then in the prime and vigor of his man- 
hood. Bom and bred in Catholic 
Spain at a time when the philosophy 
of the eighteenth century had not yet 
ceased to be in vogoe, and faith, if not 
extinct, was obscured and weak, he 
had grown up without religious fer- 
vor, a philosophist rather tlutn a be- 
liever — a liberal in politics, and' dis- 
poeed to be a social reformer. He sus- 
tained the Christinos against the Carl- 
ists, and rose to faigb &vor with the 
court of Isabella Segunda. He was 
created a marquis, was appointed a 
senator, held varioos civil and diplo- 
matic appointments, and was in 1848 
one of die most prominent and influ- 
ential statesmen in Spain, I might al- 
most say, in Europe. 

The death of a dearly beloved bro- 
ther, some tilde before, had very deep- 
ly affected himf and became the occa- 
sion of awakening his dormant reli- 
gious fitith, and turning his attention 
to theological studies. His religious 
convictions became active and fruitful, 
and by the aid of divine grace viviftai 



Oharek and SuUe. 



all his thoagfats and actions, growing 
stronger and stronger, and more ab- 
sorbing every day He at length 
lived but for religion, and devoted 
his whole mind and soul to defend it 
against its enemies, to diffuse it in so- 
cietyi and to adorn it by his piety and 
deeds of charity, eepe^ialhr to the poor. 
'He died in the habit of a Jesuit at 
Paris, in May, 1853. 

Some of our readers must still ro- 
nember the remarkable speech which 
the Marquis de Yaldegamas pro- 
nounced in the Spanish Cortes, Jan- 
uary 4, 1849 — a speech that produced 
a marked effect in France, and indeed 
throughout all Europe, not to add 
America — in which he renounced all 
liberal ideas and tendencies, denounced 
constitutionalism and parliamentary 
governments, and demanded the dic- 
Catorship. It hod great effect in pre- 
paring even the friends of liberty, 
frightened by the excesses of the so- 
called liberals, red republicans, so- 
cialists, and revolutionists, if not to 
&vor, at least to accept the coup d^etat^ 
juid the re-establishment of the Impe- 
jial regime in France; and it, no- 
•doubt, helped to push the reaction that 
<was about to commence against the 
revolutionary movements of 1848, to 
a dangerous extreme, and to favor, 
b^ another sort of reaction, that re- 
crudescence of infidelity that has since 
4b]]owed throughout nearly all Europe. 
It is hardly less difficult to restrain re- 
actionary movements within just limits 
than it is the movements that provoke 
Ahem. 

The new American Cyclopedia says 
Donoso Cortes published his Essay 
•oo Catholicism, Liberalism, and Social- 
ism in French. That is a mistake. 
He wrote and published it in Spanish, 
•at Madrid, in 1851. The Fronch 
work published at Paris, the same 
year, was a translation, and very in- 
ferior to the original A presentation 
copy by the distinguished author of 
the original Spanish edition of 1851 to 
tiie hite Mr. Calderon do la Barca-^ 
«o long resident Spanish minister at 
WaihmgtoD, and who was hit lifis- 



long personal and political friend — is 
now in my possession, and is the ver}' 
copy from which Mrs. Goddard, now 
the noble wife of Rear Admiral Dahl- 
gron, made the transbtion cited at the 
head of this article. Mr. Calderon — 
a good judge — ^pronounced the work 
in Spanish by far the most eloqaent 
work that he ever read in any lan- 
guage ; and I can say, though that may 
not be much, that it far surpasses in 
the highest and truest order of ek> 
quencc any work in any language 
that I am acquainted with. In it 
one meets all the power and majesty, 
grace and unction of the old Castil- 
ian tongue, that noblest of modem 
languages, and in which Cicero might 
have surpassed himself. 

The work necessarily loses much 
in being transkted, but Mrs. God- 
dard's transktion comes as near to the 
original as any translation can. It is 
singularly faithful and elegant, and re- 
produces the thought and spirit of the 
author with felicity and exactness, in 
idiomatic English, which one can read 
without suspecting it to be not the 
language in iffhich the work was orig- 
inally written. There is scarcely a 
sentence in which the translation can 
be detected. It must have been made 
con amore, and we can recommend it 
as a model to translators, who too often 
do the work from the original hw- 
guage into no language. The follow- 
ing, from the opening pages, is a fair 
specimen of the thought and style of 
the author, and of the clearness, force, 
and beauty of the translation : 

" Mr. Proudhon, in his Coufeflsions of a 
RoTolutioniHt, has written thcie remarkabls 
words: Mt is surpriMiig to observe how 
constantly wc tind all onr political qaes- 
tions complicated with theological questions.* 
There is nothing in this to cause surprise, 
except it be the surprise of Mr. Proudhoo. 
Theology being the science of God, is the 
ocean which contains and embraces all the 
iciences, as (tod is the ocean in which all 
things arc coiiUiincd. All things existed, 
both prior to and after thctr creation, in the 
divine mind; because as God made them 
out of nothing, so did he form them accord- 
ing to a model which existed in himself from 
eternity. All things are in God in a pro- 
fyuad maoner in which cffwti ars io tLeir 



Okmtk tmd Am. 



1 in tMr prinoiplMi i«* 
\ in. la^li and forms in their eteraal 
•zemplan. ui him are united the TMtneM 
of the lea, the gloiy of the fldds, the har- 
mony of the epherea, the srandenr of the 
nniTcne, the 8|Aendor of the stars, and the 
magnifieenoe of the heavens. In him sre 
the measure, wdght, and number of all 
things, and idl things proceed from him with 
number, weisht, and measure. In him are 
the inviolabfo and sacred lavrs of beinc, and 
every being has its particular law. All thai 
fives, finds in hun the laws of life ; all that 
vq^etatea, the laws of vegetation ; all that 
moves, the laws of motion; all that has 
feeling, the law of sensation ; all that has 
nndenunding, the law of intelligence ; and 
all Uiat has liberty, the law of freedom. It 
may in this sense be affirmed, without fall- 
lug into Pantheism, that all things are in 
God, and God is in all things. This will 
serve to explain how in proportion as faith 
is impaired in this world, truth is weal[ened, 
and how the societv that turns its luck upon 
God, will find its horizon quickly enveloped 
in frightful obscurity. For this reason relig- 
ion has been considered by all men, and in 
all ages, as the indestructible foundation of 
human society. Omnu kumamm 9ocittatia 
/undamaUum eonvtUit qui religumem convdLU^ 
says Plato in Book 10 of his laws. Accord- 
ing to Xenophon (on Socrates), *'the most 
pious cities and nations have always been 
the most durable, and the wisest." Plutarch 
affirms (contra Colotes) * that it is easier to 
build a dty in the air than to establish society 
without a belief in the gods.* Roussea^i, 
in Us Social Contract, Book iv., ch. viii., 
observes, * that a State was never established 
without religion as a foundation.* A^'oltaire 
says, in his Treatise on Toleration, ch. xx., 
* that religion is, on all accounts, necessary 
wherever society exists.' All the IcgisUtion 
of the ancients rests upon a fear of gods. 
Pidybins declares that this holy fear is always 
more requisite in a free people than in others. 
That Rome might be the eternal city, Numa 
made it the holy city. Among the nations 
of antiquity 'the ftomsn was the greatest, 
precisely because It was the most religious. 
Cesar having one day uttered certain words. 
In open Senate, agalnsf the existence of the 
gods, Cato and Cicero arose from their seats 
and accused the irreverent youth of having 
spoken words fatal to the Republic. It is 
Tekted of Fabridus, a Roman captain, that 
having heard the philosopher Cineaa ridicule 
the Divinity in presence of Pyrrhus, he pro- 
nounced these memorable wonls : * Hay it 
please the gods, that our enemies follow this 
doctrine when they make war against the 
Republic' 

*■ The decline of faith that produces the 
decline of truth does not necessarily cripple, 
but certainly misleads the human mind. 
God, who is both oompssrionate and Jast» 



denies truth to guilty sods, bat does not 
deprive them of life. He condemns them 
to error, but not to death. As an evidenoo 
of this, every one hss witnessed those 
periods of prodigious incredulity and of 
highest culture that have shone In history 
with a phosphorescent light, leaving more of 
a buning than a luminous track behind them. 
If we carefully contempUte these ages, wo 
shall see that their splendor is only the 
inflamed glare of the li(^tohig*s flash. It is 
evident that their brightness is the sodden 
explosion of their obscure but combustible 
materials, rather than the calm light pro- 
ceeding from purest regions, and serenely 
.spread over heaven*s vault by the divhw 
pendl of the sovereign painter. 

*' What is here said of ages may also bo 
said of men. Tlie absence or the possession 
of faith, the denial of God or the abandon- 
ment of truth, neither gives them under- 
standing nor deprives them of it. That of 
the unbeliever may be of the highest order, 
and that of the believer very hmited; but 
the greatness of the first \% that of an abyss, 
while the second has the holiness of a taber> 
nacle. In the first dwells error, in tho 
second truth. In the abyss with error is 
death, In the tabernacle with truth is life 
Consequently there can be no hope whatever 
for those communities that renounce tho 
austere worship of truth for the idolatry 
of the intellect Sophisms produce revolu- 
tions and sophists are succeeded by hang- 
men. 

**He possesses political truth who under- 
stands the laws to which governments are 
amenable ; and he possesses socisl truth who 
comprehends, the laws to which human 
societies arc answerable. He who knows 
God knows these laws ; and he knows 
God who listens to what he affirms cf 
himself, and believes the same. Theol- 
ogy is tlie science which has for its ob- 
ject these affirmadons. Whence it follows 
that every affirmation respecting society or 
government, supposes anr aifirmation relative 
to God ; or, what is the same thing, that 
every political or social truth necessarily 
resolves itself into a theological truth. 

** If everything is intelligible in God and 
through God, and theology is the science of 
God, in whom and by whom evervthing Is 
elucidated, theology is the universal sdenoe. 
Such bcin^ the case, there is nothing not 
comprised in this sdenoe, which hss no 
plural ; because totality, which constitutes it,* 
has it not. Political and social sdences have 
no existence except as arbitrary classifications 
of the human mind. Han in his feebleness 
dassifies that which in God is characterized 
by the most simple unity. Thus, he distin- 
guishes political from social and rdigious 
affirmations ; while in God there is but one 
affirmation, indivisible and supreme. He 
who speaks ezplidtly of what thing soevor| 






aad ii ignomni thai be impUoidy ipeaks of 
Qod ; and who dots not know when he dia- 
cuaes explicitly anj acience whatever, that 
he implicitly iUastrates theology, has reoeiTed 
ikom God aimply the neceaaary amount of 
intelligence to oonatitnte him a man. Theol- 
ogy, then, conaidered in ita higheat accepta- 
tion, ia the perpetual object of all the 
adencea, even aa God ia the perpetual object 
of human apeculationa. 

" Every word that a man ottera ia a recogni- 
tion of the Die^, even that which curaea or 
deniea God. He who rebela againat God, 
and frantically exdalma, * I abhor thee ; thou 
art not 1* Uluitratea a complete aystem of 
theology, aa he doea who raises to him a 
oontrite heart, and aays, * Lord, have mercy 
on thy aervant, who adorca thee.\ The first 
blaaphemes him to his face, the second praya 
at his feet, yet both acknowledge him, each 
in his own way; for both pronounce hia 
incommunicable name.** 

The work shows no great familiar- 
ity with the writiDgs of the later theo- 
logians, and no fondness for the style 
and method of the schools, but it 
shows a profound study of the Fa- 
thers, and a perfect mastery of con- 
temporary theories and speculations. 
The author is a man of the nineteenth 
century, with the profound thought 
of an Augustine, the eloquence of a 
Chrysostom, and the tender piety of 
^ a Francis of Assissium. lie has 
studied the epistles of St. Paul, and 
been touched with the inspiratioo of 
that great apostle's burning zeal and 
oonsuming diarity. He observes not 
always the technical exactness of mod- 
em theological professors, and some 
French aobfs thought they detected 
in his Ensayo some grave theological 
errors, but only because they missed 
the signs which they were accustomed 
to identify with the things signified, 
and met with terms and illustrations 
with which they were unfamiliar. But 
he seizes with rare sagacity and firm- 
ness the living truth, and presents us 
theology as a thing of life and love. 

The principles of the essay are 
catholic, are the real principles of 
Christianity and society, set forth with 
a clearness, a depth, a logical force, a 
truthfulness, a richness of illustration 
acd an eloquence which have seldom, 
if <ever, been surpassed. But some of 
the inferences be draws from them. 



and some of the applications be makes 
of them to social and political science 
are not such as every Catholic even 
is prepared to accept. The author 
was drawn to religion by domestic af- 
flictions, which saddened while they 
softened his heart, and he writes, sks 
he felt, amid the ruins of a faUing 
world. All things seemed to him gone 
or going, and he looked out upon a 
universal wreck. His spirit is not 
soured, but his feelings are tinged with 
the gloom of the prospect, and while 
be hopes in God he well-nigh despairs 
of the world, of man, of society, o/i 
civilization, above all, of liberty, and 
sees no means of saving European soci- 
ety but in the dictatorship or pnre des- 
potism acting under the inspiration and 
direction of the church. He was evi- 
dently more deeply impressed by what 
was lost in the primitive fall or original 
sin than by what in our nature has sur- 
vived that catastrophe. He adored 
the justice of God displayed in the 
punishment of the wicked, justified 
him in all his deJEilings with men, but 
he saw in his providence no mercy for 
fallen nations, or a derelict society. 
This life he regarded a^ a trial, tbe 
earth as a scene of sufiering. a vale of 
tears, and found in religion a support, 
indeed, but hardly a consolation. The 
Christian has hope in God, but is a 
man of sorrows, and his life an expia- 
tion. Mucli of this is true and scrip- 
tural, and this world certainly is not 
our abiding place, and can afford us 
no abiding joy. But this is not saying 
that there are no fonsolations, no 
abiding joys for us even in this life. 
Consolations and joys a Christian has 
in this world, though they proceed not 
from it. It can neither give them nor 
take them away; yet we taste them 
even while in it. This world is not 
the contradictory of the world to come ; 
it is not heaven, indeed, and cannot 
be heaven, yet it is related to heaven 
as a medium, and the medium must 
partake, in some measure, of both tbe 
principle and the end. 

The great merit of the essay is in 
dedncing political and social from the* 



QlMre4 amd £kaUm 



olqgioJ prinoiples. This fe imdoabl- 
edlj not only the teaohing of the 
dnvehy bat of all soand phikMopby i 
and what I regard as the principal 
errcHr of the book is the desire to 
iransfer to the state the immobility 
and unchangeaUeiiess which belong 
to the church, an institution existing 
by the direct and immediate appoint- 
ment of Grod. The author seems to 
be as unwilling to recognize the 
interrention of man and man's nature 
in goTemment and society as in the 
diceet and immediate works of the 
Creator. He is no pantheist or Jan- 
aenist, and yet be seems to me to 
make too litfle account of the part 
of second causes, or the activity of 
creatures ; and sometimes to forget, or 
ahnost forget, that grace does not 
supersede nature, but supports it, 
strengthens it, elevates it, and com- 
pletes it. He sees only the Divine 
aqfion in events ; or in plain words, he 
does net make enough of nature, and 
does not sufficiently bring out the fact 
that natural and supernatural, nature 
and grace, reason and faith, earth and 
heaven, are not antagonistic forces, to 
be reconciled only by the suppression 
of the one or the other, but really 
parts of one dialectic whole, which, to 
the eye that can take in the whole in 
all its parts, and all the parts in the 
whole, in which they are integrated, 
would appear perfectly consistent with 
each other, living the same life in 
God, and directed by him to one and 
the same end. He, therefore, uneon- 
sdously and unintentionally, favors or 
appears to favor a dualism as un- 
christian as it is unphilosophicaL God 
being in his essence dialectical, nothing 
proceeding from him can be sophist- 
ical, or wanting in logical unity, and 
one part of his works can never be 
opposed to anotlier, or demand its 
suppression. The one must always be 
the comi^ement of the other. Christ- 
ianity was given to fulfil nature, not to 
destroy it. "« Think not tliat I am 
come to destroy the law or the proph- 
ets : I am not come to destroy, bat to 
fiiML'* (St. Matt. T. 17.) 



The misapprehensioD on this sub* 
ject arises from the ambiguity of the 
word world. This word is generally 
used by ascetic writers not to desig- 
nate the natural order, but the princi- 
ples, spirit, and conduct of those who 
live for this world alone; who look 
not beyond this life; who take the 
earth not as a medium, but as the 
end, and seek only the goods thii 
world offers. These are called world- 
ly, sensual, or carnal-minded people, 
and as such contrast with the spiritu* 
ally minded, or those who look above 
and beyond merely sensible goods— 
to heaven beyond the earth, to a 
life beyond the grave, a life of spiritual 
bliss in indissoluble union with Grod, 
the end of their existence, and their 
supreme good as well as the suprome 
good in itself. In this sense there ia 
a real antagonism between this worid 
and the next; but when the world is 
taken in its proper place, and for what 
it really is, in the plan of the Creator, 
there is no antagonism in the case; 
and to despise it would be to despise 
the work of God, and to neglect it 
would be not a virtue, but even a sin. 
This world has its temptations and its 
snares, and as long as we remain in 
the flesh we are in danger of mistaking 
it for the end of our existence, and 
therefore it is necessary that we be on 
our guard against its seductions. But 
the chief motive that leads souls hun- 
gering and thirsting for perfection to 
retire to the desort or to the monastery 
is not that they may fly its tempta- 
tions, or the enemies to their virtue, for 
they find greater temptations to strug- 
gle against and fiercer enemies to 
combat in solitude than in the thronged 
city ; it is the love of sacrifice, and the 
longing to take part with our Lord in 
his great work of expiation that moves 
them. Simply to get rid of the world, 
to turn the back on society, or to get 
away from the duties and cares of the 
world, is no proper motive for retire- 
ment from the world, and the church 
permits not her childron to do it and 
enter a religious order so long as they 
have duties to their fisunily or their 



Church and Slai0. 



eottntry ta perform. Nothing could 
better prove that the church does not 
iu0br UB to contemn or neglect the 
natural or temporal ordcr^ or regard 
as of slight importfltice the proper dis- 
charge of our duties lo oar familieg, our 
country* or natural aociety. The same 
thing 18 prov^ed by the fact that the 
process for canonization cannot ^ on 
m a cttse where the individual ba3 not 
fblflJM all his natural duties, growing 
out of his state or relations in society. 
Gratia iupponit nainram, 

lo consequence of his tendency to an 
exclusive asceticism, a tendency which 
be owetl to the unsettled times in which 
he lived, and the reaction in his own 
Diind againitt the liberalism he had at 

r one time favored, Don 030 Cortes coim* 
knanccd, lo some extent, political 
absolutism ; and had great influence in 
leading even eminent Catholics lo de- 

t^oouiice constitutionalism, legislative 
isemblies^ publicity, and free political 
dtscu^Hiou, as if these things were uu- 
catholic, and inseparable from the po- 
litical atheism of the age* There was 
a moment when the writer of this ar- 

1 tide himself, under the charm of his 
elnquenee, and the force of the argu- 
ments he drew from the imlividuiLl and 
focial crimes committed in t!ie name 
of liberty and progress, was almost con- 
verted to his side of the question, and 
iftupported popular institutions only bc- 
caUfie they w*TT' the hiw in hi"? own 
MUitry. But without pretending that 
the chtirch enjoins any particular form 
of civil polity, or maintaining the in- 
fallibility or impeccability of the people, 
either collectively or individually, a 
calmer study of history, and the recent 
experience of our own country, have 
jreet0r«d roe to my early faith in popu- 

^ lar forms of government, or democ- 
racy as organized under our Amer- 
ican system, which, though it has its 
dangers and attendtmt evils, h^ wherev- 
er practicable, the Ibnn of government 
that, upon the whole, beat conforms to 
thoge great Catholic principles on whicii 
the church herself is founded, 

Bui the people cannol govern wdl, 
maj more thao kiogd or kaisem, un- 



less trained to the exeretse of power» 
and subjected to moral and religious 
disctpHne. It is precisely here that the 
work of Dono^o Cbrtes lias its value« 
The reaction which has for a cen tury or 
two Ijeen going on against that mixture 
of civil and ecclesiastical government 
which grew up after the downfall of the 
Roman empire in the west, and which 
was not only natural but necessary, 
since the clergy had nearly all the 
learning, science, and cultivation of the 
times, and to which modern society is 
so deeply indebted for its ctviiizatton, 
has earned modem statesmen to an op* 
posiite extreme, and rci^ulted in almot^t 
universal politiinil athGii^m. Thti sep- 
aration of church and state in our age 
means not merely tfie separation of ihe 
church and the state as corporations 
or governments, which the poppa have 
always insisted on, but the separation 
of p<ditical principles from theological 
principles, and the subjection of the 
church and ecclesiastical afiaira to the 
state. Where monarchy, in its proper 
sense, obtains, the king or emperor, 
and where democracy, save in its 
American sense, is asserted the people, 
takes the place of God, at least in the 
political onJer, Statolatry is almost as 
prevalent in our days as idolatry was 
with the ancient Greeks and liomans. 
Even in ourown counlry, it maybe 
remarked that the gent? ml sympathy 
i^ with anli-Christinn — especially anti- 
papal insurrections and evolutions* 
We should witnesa little sympathy with 
tlje Cretans and Chri^itians of the 
Turkish empire, if they were not xxn* 
derstood to be schismatics, who ri*jeet 
the authority of the pope in spiritual* 
as well as in temporal:*. Yet, prior to 
the treaty of Paris in 18 '>6, the Greek 
prelates were, under the Turkish sover- 
eignty, the temjioral lords of their 
people, and tbe design of ihu! treaty, 
so tar as relates to the Eastern Christ- 
ians, was to deprive them of the hist 
remains of temi>onil independence^ and 
to complete the conquest of Mahomet 
1 1* The complete subjection of religion 
to tbe state is called religious liberty, 
the etuancipalkoti of cooadeooe. Oar_ 



I 




Ckmth md StaU. 



• Aneriaui pness applauds the Italian 
minittrf for lading down the law for 
the Italian Inshops, restored their sees, 
from which the state exiled them, and 
prescribing them their boundsy bejond 
which the J most not pass. The Italian 
State doea not, as with us, Teco<i^iae 
the freedom and independence of the 
spiritoal order, bat at best only tolerates 
it It asserts not only the freedom 
and independence of the slate in face 
of the church, but its supremacy, its 
Tight to govern the church, or at least 
to define the limits within which it may 
exist and operate. 

This is what our age understands 
by the separation of church and 
stale. If it foregoes, at any time or 
place, the authority to goyem the 
chnrch, it still holds that it has the 
right to gorem churchmen the same as 
any other class of persons ; that the 
civil law is the supreme law of the 
land ; and that religion, when it happens 
to conflict with it, must give way to it. 
The law of the state is the supreme 
law. This is everywhere the doctrine 
of European liberals, and the doctrine 
they reduce to practice wherever they 
have the power, and hence the reason 
why the church visits them with her 
censures. Many devout believers 
think the separation of church and 
state must mean this, and can mean 
nothing else, and therefore that the 
union of church and state must mean 
a return to the old mixture of civil and 
ecclesiastical government of the middle 
1^^. Hence a Donoso Cortes and a 
l^utm Bicasoli are on this point in 
singular accord. Our American press, 
which takes its cue principally from 
European liberals, takes the same 
view, and understands both the sepa-- 
ration and the union of church and 
state in the same sense. 

Yet the American solution of the 
mntnal relations of church and state 
is a Kving proof, a practical demon- 
stration that they are wrong. Here 
the state does not tolerate the church, 
nor the church either enslave or tolerate 
Che state, because the state recognizes 
die freedom of conscienee, and its in- 



dependence of all secular control. My 
church is my conscience, and mr 
conscience being free here, my chunm 
is free, and for me and all Catholics^ 
in the free exercise of her lidl spiritoal 
authority. Here it is not the state 
that bounds conscience, but oonscienoe 
that bounds the state. The state here 
is bound by its own constitution to re* 
spect and protect the rights of the citi- 
zen. Among these rights, the most 
precious is the right of conscience— 
the right to the free exercise of my 
religion. This right does notdedde 
what the civil law shall be, but it does 
decide what it shall not be. Any law 
abridging my right of conscience---that 
is, the freedom of my church — ^is un- 
constitutional, and, so far, null and 
void. This, which is my right. Is 
equally the right of every other citi- 
zen, whether his conscience — that is,^ 
his church — agrees with mine or not 
The Catholic and the Protestant stand 
on the same footing before the law, 
and the conscience of each is free be- 
fore the state, and a limit beyond 
which the civil law cannot extend its 
jurisdiction. Here, then, is a separa- 
tion of church and state that does not 
enslave the church, and a union of 
church and state that does not en- 
slave the state, or interfere with its 
free and independent action in its own 
proper sphere. The church maintains 
her independence and her superiority 
as i-cprcaenting the spiiilual order, for 
she governs those who are within, not 
those who are without, and the state 
acts in harmony, not in conflict with 
her, because it confines its acticm — 
where it has power — to things tem- 
poral. 

The only restriction, on any side, is, 
that the citizen must so asseit his own 
right of conscience as cot to abridge 
the equal right of conscience in hia 
fellow-citizen who difiers from him.. 
Of course the freedom of conscienee- 
cannot be made a pretext for disturb- 
ing the public peace, or outraging 
public decency, nor can it be sufleredi 
to be worn fB a cloak to cover disso* 
hiteness of manners or the transgres- 



Clmnk md Siak. 



ftkm of the universal moral law ; when 
•'tis BO made or woni it ceases to be the 
riffhi of conadeQce, ceases to be con- 
science at all, and the state has author- 
ity to mtenrene and protect the public 
peace and public decency. It maj^ 
therefore, suppress the Mormon concu- 
binage, and require the Latter Daj 
Saints to conform to the marriage law 
as recognized by the whole civilized 
world, alike in the interests of religion 
and of civilization. But beyond this 
the state cannot go, at least with us. 

It may be doubted whether this 
American system is practicable in any 
but a republican country — under a 
government based on equal rights, not 
on privilege, whether the privilege 
of the one, the few, or the many. De- 
mocracy, as Europeans understand it, 
is not based on equal rights, but is 
only the system of privilege, if I may 
so speak, expanded. It recognizes no 
equal rights, because it recognizes no 
rights of the individual at all before 
the state. It is the pagan republic 
which asserts the universal and abso- 
lute supremacy of the state. The 
American democracy is Christian, not 
pagan, and asserts, for every citi- 
sen, even the meanest, equal rights, 
which the state must treat aa sacred 
and inviolable. It is because our sys- 
tem is based on equal rights, not on 
privilege — on rights held not from the 
state, but which the state is bound to 
recognize and protect, that American 
democracy, instead of subjecting reli- 
gion to the state, secures its freedom 
and independence. 

Donoso Cortes can no more under- 
stand this than can the European dem- 
ocrat, because he has no conception of 
the equal rights of all men before the 
.state ; or rather, because he has no con- 
•eeption of the rights of man. Man, he 
says, has no rights ; he has only du- 
des. This is true, when we speak of 
man in rehition to his Maker. The 
thing made has no right to say to the 
maker, ^ Why hast thou made me 
thusP* Man has only duties before 
•God, because he owes to him all he is, 
iuwy or can do, and he finds beatitude 



in dischaiiging his duties to God, b6- m 
cause God is good, the good in itself, 
and would not be God and ooold not 
be creator if he were not. But thai 
man has no rights in relation to socie- 
tj\ to the stale, or to his fellow man, 
is not true. Otherwise there could be 
no justice between man and man, be- 
tween the individual and society, or 
the citizen and the state, and no injus- 
tice, for there is no injustice where no 
right is violated. Denying or miscon- 
ceiving the rights of man, and conceiv- 
ing the state as based on privilege, 
not on equal rights, the Spaniard is 
unable to conceive it possible to assert 
the freedom and independence of the 
state, without denying the freedom and 
independence of the church. 

But, if republican institutions based 
on equal rights are necessary to secure 
the freedom and independence of the 
church) the freedom and independence 
of the church, on the other hand, are 
no less necessary to the maintenance 
of such institutions. I say, of the 
churchy rather than of religion, because 
I choose to speak of things in the con- 
crete rather than in the abstract, and 
because it is only as concreted in the 
church that the freedom and indepen- 
dence of religion can be assailed, or 
that religion has power to protect or 
give security to institutions based on, 
equal rights. The church is concrete 
religion. Whether tliere is more than 
one church, or which of the thousand 
and one claimants is the true church, 
is not now the question. The answer 
of the Catholic is not doubtful. At 
present I am treating the question of 
equal rights, and asking no more ibr 
the church before tlie state than 
for the several sects. Of course, I rec- 
ognize none of the sects as the church, 
but I am free to say that I regard 
even the lowest of them as better for 
society than any form of downright in- 
fidelity. There is something in com- 
mon between Catholics and the sects 
that confess Christ as the Son of God, 
incarnate for our redemption and salva- 
tion, which there is not, and cannot be, 
between as and those who confess not 



ChiKtUi otuL 3UMi$* 



D 



Oiivi aft alL But this is a digrea- 



Equal righto most have a fbandation, 
something on which to stand. They 
euinot stand on the state or dvil so- 
detj, for that would denj them to he 
righto at all, and reduce Ihem to simple 
puTilegea granted bj the stote and rev- 
oeable at ito will. This is precisely 
the error <^ the European libenUs, who 
iarariably confound right with privi- 
lege. All European society has been, 
tod still is to a great extent, based on 
privilege, not right. Thus in England 
JOQ have the rights — more properly, 
the privileges or frandiises — of Eng- 
lishmen, but no righto of man which 
parliament is bound to recognize and 
protect aa such* There is no right or 
freedom of conscience which the state 
must respect as sacred and inviolable ; 
there is only toleration, more or less 
geneiaL In the new kingdom of Italy 
there are the privileges luid franchises 
of Italians, and, within certain limits, 
toleration for the church. Her bishops 
may exercise their spiritual functions 
10 long as they do not incur the dis- 
pleasure of the state. The supremacy 
of the state is asserted, ayd the eccle- 
siastical administration is at the mercy 
of the civiL It is so in every Euro- 
pean state, because in none of them 
is the state based on equal righto. The 
United States are the only stote in the 
world that is so based. Our political 
system is based on right, not privilege, 
Had the equal righto of all men. 

The state with us resto on equal 
righto of all men ; but on what do the 
equal righto themselves rest ? What 
sapporto' or upholds them? The 
state covers or represento the whole 
temporal order, and they, therefore, 
have not, and cannot have, their basis 
or support in that order. Besides the 
temporal there is no order but the 
spiritual, covered or represented by the 
dinrch. The equal rights, then, which 
arc with us the basis of the stote, de- 
pend themselves on the church or spir- 
itual order for their support. Take 
away that order or remove the church, 
or even suppress the freedom and in- 



"dependence of the chnrdl, and yon 
leave them without any support at all. 
The absolutism of the stote follows, 
then, as a necessary consequence, and 
might usurps the place of right. Hence 
political principles must find their 
support in theology, and the sep- 
aration of church and stote in the sense 
of separating political from theological 
principles is as hostile to the stote as 
to the church, and to liberty as to re> 
ligion. It is no( easy to controvert this 
conclusion, if we consider whence our 
rights are derived, and on what they 
depend for their reality and support. 

These rights, which we do not de- 
rive from the state or civil society, 
and hold independently of it, among 
which the Declaration of Independence 
enumerates ^ life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness," which it asserts to be 
^ inalienable," whence do we hold them 
but from Grod, our Creator ? This is 
what is meant when they are called 
the natural righto of man. They are 
called natural righto, because rights 
held under the natural law, but the 
natural law in the sense of the juristo 
and theologians, not in the sense of the 
physicists or natural philosophers — a 
monil law addressed to reason and 
free-will, and binding upon all men, 
whatever their stote or position; not 
a physical law, like that by which 
clouds are formed, seeds germinate, 
or heavy bodies tend to the centre of 
the earth ; for it is a law that does 
not execute itself^ and is not executed 
at all without the action of the reason 
and will of society. It is necessarily a 
law prescribed by the Author of nature, 
and is called the natural law, the law 
of natural justice, or the moral law, in 
distinction from the revealed or super- 
natural law. because promulgated by 
the supreme Lawgiver through natural ^ 
reason, or the reason common to all 
men, which is itself in intimate relation 
with the Divine Reason. 

These natural equal righto are the 
law for the stote or civil authority, 
and every law of the state that violates 
them violates natural justice, and is 
by that fact null and void ; is, as St 



aa 



Ckureh ami Siaif. 



Augustine says, and Sl Tboma* after 
iira, ^ Violence mtlier timn law," and 

i jCBn nerer be binding on tbe cinl courts, 
tbougb liuman courts not untVequentlj 

i«nfoiree %\ich biws. Not being derived 
from llic stale or ciril socieiy, tliese 

I rights a^e eTidenllj not in the tem- 
lorderTor ibe aatne order wilh the 
e« and therefore must have, as we 
bave deen, tlieir bi^id in the spiritual 
order, ibat is, m theology^ or bare no 

\ iMiais at all. 

The existence of God as Uie creator 
and upholder of nature, I do not here 
uuderiuke to prove; iror ihat has been 
done in the papers on 7 'he ProUems 
of the A^e^ which have appeared 
ill thru maj^ine. I am not arrjiiing 
aiirgiDat atheUm in general, but only 

' against what m called poliiical athcii^m, 
or tbe doctrine that theology, and there- 
fore the chun^h, has nothing to do with 
|Hditic^. The statet witlt u% m based 
on tlie equal rtghtA, not equal priv- 
ileges, of all men ; and if Ibei'e equal 
rights have no i-eal and Bolid basis be- 
yond and independent of civil sociely, 
the state itself bus no real hash, and 
IB a chitieau dTE^pagnt, or a m^re 
oafttle in the a in Hfuce political 
atlietsm is not only tlie exclusion of 
the church fixym f>oljL)Ct3^but U\fi denial 
of the state ilself, and the Bubstjlution 
for it of mere physical foi^'C. Political 
atheism cannot be asserted without 
atheism in general, without, in ^act, 
denying all exibleuoc, and, therefore, 
of tieceflsity, all right* FolitJcal athe* 
ism is, then, alike dejslructive of reli- 
gion and politics, chui*ch and states of 
authority atid liljerty* Deny all right 
independent of the state, luid the citi- 
jBcn can have no right not derived from 
the state* which denies all bberly ; 
deny all right indcfiendent of tbe stale, 
the state itself can have no right to 
govern, unle^ the state itself be God> 
wbidi would be stalolatry, alike absurd 
and blasphemous. 

The rights of tbe slate and of tbe 
citizen, alike must be derived from 
God) and have a theological basis, or 
be no rights at all, but words with* 
IM aesaiug* There is then no sucb 



eeparaiion between politic!! and tbeol* 

ogy a:^ Euro^iean democracy asserts, ■ 
Such separation is unpbiloi^ophical, and I 
again*it the truth of things. It has been 
so held in all ages and nations of the 
world* All the great tbf ologians, phi* M 
losophers, and moralists of the human | 
race have always held polities to be a 
bninch of etliici*, or morals, and thai 
branch which treats of the application 
of the catholic principles of thi 
lo Bcciety, or the social relatioi 
mankind. The permanent, uni 
and invariable principles of civil so^ 
ciety are all theological prlnciplca, for 
there are no such principles ontside 
of theology, snd the office of the state 
is to apply these principles only tti 
what is local, temporal, and variable. 
It is evident then that principlea, 
pro[>erly so called, lie in the th^log* 
ical order, and c^me within the pror* 
ince of the theologian, not of tho 
Htatesman, and are therefore to be do* 
termined by the spiritual society, not 
by the civiL 

It is, tlien« the spiritual not the tem- 
poral, religion not politico, that asserts 
and maintains these rights, and religioa 
does it in asyrting and maintaining the 
right of conscience, which is the right of 
God, and the basis of all rights. The 
right of conscience is exemption fix^m 
ali merely hutnan authority — a right to 
be held by all civil society as sacrod 
and inviolable ; and is the tirst and im* 
passable batTier to the power of the 
state. The state cannot pass it with* 
out violence, without the most out^ 
rageoua tyranny. It is then religion, 
not the state, that asserts and main- 
tains freedom ; for the statii whnn il 
acts, acts as authority, not as liberty* 
So, on tlie other hand, is it religioa 
that asserts and maintains the anthotv 
ity, I say, not the force, of the state. 
The authority of tlie state is its right 
to govern. In respect to civil society 
it»elf, il is liberty ; in respect to eiti* 
fens, it is authority. Being a right on 
the part of the state or society, it, like 
all other rights, lies in the spiritual 
order, and is equally saered and invi- 
olable. Religion, then, wliile it makes 



J 



Okmrk amd StaU. 



11 



it Ae dotj of tbe state to recognise 
and protect the rights of tbe individual 
dtijwii, makes it the datj of the indi- 
ridaal citisen to recognise, respect, 
ind defend the rights of the state or 
toaeHj. The duty in hoth cases is a 
leBgioas duty, because all right is held 
from €}od, and onlj Grod can enjoin 
dotj, or bind conscience. Deny God^ 
nod yon deny religion ; deny religion, 
ind yoa deny all duty and all right ; 
—alike the rights and duties of the 
state and the rights and duties of the 
individual citizen, and, therefore, alike 
both liberty and authority, which being 
correlatives can never exist the one 
without the other. There is no deny- 
ing this conclusion without denying 
reason itself. 

But religion, as an abstract theory, 
is powerless, as are all abstractions, 
and exists only as concreted, and re- 
ligion in the concrete is the church. 
In the state and in the individual, God 
operates indeed, but mediately, through 
natural or secondary causes; but in 
the chorch immediately, for the church 
is his body, and her vitality is the 
Holy Ghost, who dwells in her, and is 
to her something like what the soul is 
to the body, ybnita corporis. Religion 
withoat the church is a theory or a 
vague sentiment; religion concreted 
m the church is a living reality, a 
power, and is efficient in vindicating 
both rights and duties, and afibrdmg a 
solid support to both liberty and au- 
thority. The sects, as far as they go, 
ire concrete religion, but not religion 
in its unity and integrity. They are 
better than nothing ; but lacking the 
unity and catholicity of truth, and be- 
ing divided and subdivided among 
themselves, they can very imperfectly 
perform the office of religion or the 
Catholic Church. They are unable to 
make head against material forCe, and 
to muntain with any efficiency the 
rights of the spiritual against the en- 
croachments of the temporal, or to pre« 
vent the state from asserting its own 
absolute supremacy. They exist not 
by a recognized right, but by state 
tolerance ; Uiey are sufibred to exist and 



are protected, because they become anx* 
iharies of the state in its efforts to break 
the power and influence of the church, 
whose authority in spirituals is more 
repugnant to them than is state supre- 
macy. Hence we find that wherever, 
except in the United States, the spir- 
itual power is broken and divided into 
a great variety of sects, the state claims 
to be supreme alike in spirituab and 
temporals ; and it is very doubtful if 
the freedom and independence of the 
spiritual order oould long be preserved 
even in our country should our sec- 
tarian divisions continue. These divi- 
sions are already generating a wide- 
spread indifference to religion, almost 
a contempt for it ; while there are man- 
ifest and growing tendencies to ex- 
tend the authority of the state beyond 
its legitimate bounds into the domain 
of individual liberty. The unity and 
catholicity of the church, representing 
the unity and catholicity of the spirit- 
ual order, will soon be seen to be ne- 
cessary to preserve our free institu- 
tions. 

It was concrete religion, in its unity 
and catholicity embodied in the church 
as an institution, that was able during 
the middle ages to assert the freedom 
and independence of the spiritual or- 
der, which is only another term for 
the freedom and independence of con- 
science, against the political order. 
She was thus constituted a living re- 
ality, a concrete power, and the pow- 
ers of the earth had to reckon with 
her. Constituted as society then was, 
she needed and exercised more posi- 
tive power in the temporal order than 
was agreeable to her, or than is neces- 
sary in a society constituted like ours. 
The republic, then, was pagan, and 
sought to be supreme everywhere and 
in everything, or in other words, to 
subject the spiritual order to the tem- 
poral, as it was in pagan Rome, and 
for the most part contitiued to be even 
in Christian Rome of the East, till its 
conquest by the Turks. Hence the 
relation between Peter and Caesar, 
between the pope and emperor, was 
ordinarily that of antagonism. It was 



Ckureh and Siaie. 



sary ihtit the pope ahould be 
[clothed with a power that cotild con- 
] trol princes, and force therii to respect 
iliglits of conscience, or the inde- 
of the church, wbich to 1x3 
sufficient must be posirive as weli as 
negative. The tem[K>raJ authority, or 
the authority of the church o^ er the 
temporal, chiimed and exercised over 
i flecuhir princes Becking to combine in 
1 tliemsdvea Ixitb the imperial ami the 
I pontifical powers, wai no usurpation, 
and rested on no pcrant of civil sr>cie* 
itj* 01' Jus publiemn, as has somctiniea 
I Veen aAaeried, but grew out of the ne- 
) oessity of the ease ; its juHtiRcation 
was in ita necessity to maintain her 
own indc[*endence in gpiritaals, or the 
freedom of conRcience. It was her 
right »A representing the spiritual or* 
^der, and would be her right 8till in a 
'flimilarty const iaited society, and the 
modem world h reap in. !^ in its ad- 
vanced civilization the fruits of her 
liaving claimt^ ond exercij^ed it. 
The necessity for cluiminij and ex- 
leiviiiint: that power in u 6o<Mety cunati- 
tuted as i^ the American does not ex- 
istt becauise in our society the state 
frankly concedes all that t^he was iii 
I thoflc nges strn^jrlinfj f^j.. There was 
Tiothin|or which Gregory Vll,, Innocent 
HIm Boniiiiec VI IK, nnd oilier ^reat 
popes 8tni«^jrled tor aaainst the Ger- 
man emperors, the kings of Fmnee^ 
Aragon, and Enj^land, and the Ital- 
ian republics* lliut is not reef*gni«ed 
here by our republic ti^ bo th»3 
right of the spiritual order, Ucj'e 
the old ant apron ii^ni betwci^n ciiurch 
and state does not eiist* Tliere id 
htra H certain antt^^ntsm, no doubt, 
bolwedil the ehnrch tind the Bcet.^, but 
^none between the church and the state 
lar civil society. Here the church haa, 
fiur as civil society is coneerned, 
bMl that she has ever claim ed^ all that 
tAo hiia ever struggled for. Here «ibe 
I fa perfectly free. She summons her 
[prehitrs to ^eet in council when she 
pleases^ and promulgates her decreed 
»r the spiritual goveniment of her 
^nhildreii witlioul leave asked or ob- 
The plaeU of the civil power 



is not needed, b neither solicited nor 
accepted. She erects and fills sees as 
she jud)»e8 proper, founds and coa*,| 
diict^ schoolsi colleges, and seminaries 
in her own way, without let or hin- 
drance ; she manages her own tempo- ' 
ralities, not by virtue of a grant or , 
concession of the state, but as her; 
acknowledged rightn, lield as the right 
of conscience, independently of the 
stfite* Here she has nothing to con- , 
quer from the state, for the civil law 
affords her the same protection for her 
property that it does to the eitizeu for 
his ; and therefore all that she can seek « 
in rehition to the constitution of our , 
civil society, is that it should remain 
unaltered* 

True, the sects have liefore civil. 
society the same freedom that aho has, 
but the state pmtects her from any 
violence they might be disposed to of- 
fer her. They are not jjcrmltted to 
rob her of her churche^j, desecrate her 
altars, molest her worship, or in- 
terfere with her management of her 
own affair^t. Their freedom in no re- 
spect whatever abridges hers, and what- 
ever controversy she may liave with 
them, it is entirely on questious with 
which civil giwiety has nothing to do, 
which are wliolly within the spiritual 
order, and which could not be eettled 
by physical (brce, if slie had it at her 
command, and was disposed to use it. 
Lying in I he »pi ritual onler, they aits 
inde[»endeni of llie fttnte, and it hiLsno 
ri^dit tu interfere with them. There is 
uulhing, (ben, in the freedi>m of the 
se^ts to in telle re with the fullest liber- 
ty of the church, so long us tlio state 
recognizes and protects her freedom 
and independence as well as theirs* 
There is nothing, then, that the church 
can receive from civil society, that she 
has not in the United States, and 
guaranteed to her by tlie whole force 
of the civil constitution. 

It is one of the mysteries of Provi* 
dence that what the pope^ for aget 
struggled for and still struggle for in 
the old world » and in ail parts of tbo 
new world originally colonized by 
Catholic states, should for the iirst lime 



J 






M 



m liistorj be fully realised in a socie* 
iy founded bj the meet anti-papal peo- 
jile on earthy who held the chuxch to 
be the Seaiiet Ladj of the Apocalypse. 
Sarelj, they boilded better than they 
kaew. .Biitexplainita8youwill,8U(^ 
is the fiut. The United States is the 
iNdy country in the world where the 
cfaveh is really free. It would seem 
that both state and church had to emi- 
grate to the new world to escape the 
aotagonisms of the old, and to find a 
field for the free and untrammelled de- 
lelopment of each. It is idle to fear 
that the church will ever seek to dis- 
tufb the order established here, for she 
supports no principle and has no inter- 
est that would lead her to do it. In- 
diridnal Catholics, affected by the re- 
lations that have subsisted between 
church and state in the old world, and 
not aware that the church has here all 
diat she has ever straggled for against 
kii^ and princes, may think that 
the church lacks here some advantages 
which she ought to have, or may think 
it desirable to reproduce here the order 
of things which they have been accus- 
tomed to elsewhere, and which in fact 
the church has submitted to as the 
best she could get, but has never fully 
approved. These, however, are few, 
and are soon corrected by experience, 
soon convinced that the real solution 
of the questions which have so long 
and often so fearfully agitated the na- 
tions of Europe^ has been providential- 
ly obtained by the American people. 
The church has no wish to alter the 
relation that exists with us between her 
and the state. 

But there is a very important ques- 
tion for the American people to ask 
themselves. With the multiplicity of 
sects, the growing indifference to re- 
l%ion, and the political atheism con- 
sdoosly or unconsciously fostered by a 
larjre portion of the secular press and but 
feebly resisted by the religious press, 
will ihey be able to preserve the free- 
dom and independence of the spiritual 
order, or protect the equal rights on 
which our political institutions arc 
founded ? Instead of asking, as some 



do, are the presence and extension of 
the church dangerous to oar institu« 
tions, should they not rather ask, is 
she not necessary to their safety ? The 
higher question to be addressed to the 
sects undoubtedly is, can men save 
their souls without the church? bat in 
addressing politicians and patriots, it 
is not beneath the Catholic even to ask 
if the republic, the authority of the 
state, and the liberty of the citizen, 
both of which rest on the freedom and 
authority of conscience, can be saved 
or preserved without her? Are not 
the unity and catholicity which she as- 
serts and represents, and which the 
sects break and discard, necessary to 
maintain the freedom and independenoo 
of the spiritual order against the con- 
stant tendency of the political order 
and material interests to invade and 
subject it 1 

This is the great question for Ameri- 
can patriots and statesmen, and I have 
written in vain, if this article does not 
at least suggest the answer. Hith- 
erto almost everywhere Catholics have 
found themselves obliged to contend 
against the civil power to gain the 
freedom and independence of their 
church, and at the same time, in these 
later centuries, to sustain that power, 
even though hostile to liberty, in order 
to save society from dissolution. Here 
they have to do neither, for here church 
and state, liberty and authority, are in 
harmonious relation, and form really, 
as they should, but two distinct parts 
of one whole ; distinct, I say, not sep- 
arate parts. There is here a true 
union, not unity, of church and state — 
a union without which neither the lib- 
erty of the citizen nor the authority of 
the state has any solid basis or support. 
The duty of the Catholic on this ques- 
tion is, it seems to me, to do his best 
to preserve this union as it is, and to 
combat every influence or tendency 
hostile to it. 

Donoso Cortes demonstrates most 
clearly that religion w the basis of so- 
ciety and politics, but he is apparently 
disposed to assert the unity of church 
and state, with European liberals, but 



14 



On the OKve'Bt&mlm m Ab Gatim of G§A$mame. 



differing fiTHn them hj absorbing the 
state in the church, ax by Tirtaally 
suppressing it ; while thej woold sap^ 
press the church or absorb her in the 
state. My endeavor in what I have 
written has been to preserve both, and 
to defend not the unity, but the union 
of church and state. This union 
hi my judgment, has never existed or 
been practicable in the old world, and 
I do not believe it is even yet practi- 
cable there, and consequently, I regard 
whatever tends there to weaken the 
political influence of the church as un- 
favorable to civilization, and favorable 
only to political atheism, virtually as- 
serted by every European state, unless 
Bel^um be an exception. But here 
the union really exists, in the most 
perfect form that I am able to conceive 
it; and tor the harmonious progress 
of real civilization, wc only need the 
church, the real guardian of all rights 
that exist independently of civil socie- 
ty, to become sufficiently diffused or to 
embrace a sufficient number of the 
people in her communioa,' to preserve 



that umon intact, from whatever qoar* 
ter it may be assailed. 

This, we are permitted to hope, will 
ere long be the case. The sects, seuig 
their freedom and independence re- 
quire its nSaintenance, must in this 
respect make common cause with us; 
and hence the spiritual power is prob- 
ably already nearly, if not quite 
strong enough to maintain it againaC 
any and every enemy that may arise. 
As to the controversy between the 
church and the sects, I do not expect 
that to end very soon; but truth is 
mighty and in the end will prevaiL 
They will, no doubt, struggle to the 
last, but as the state cannot intervene 
in the dispute, and must maintain ao 
open field for the combatants, I have 
no doubt that they will yield at last» 
because the church has the truth in 
its unity and mtegrity, and they have it 
only as disunited or broken in scat- 
tered fragments. Reason demands 
unity and catholicity, and where rea- 
son is free, and assisted by grace, she 
must win the victory. 



ON THE OLIVE-BRANCHES IN THE GARDEN OP 
GETH8EMANE. 

Unto the spreading olive-branches thus spake I : 

" Emblems of peace ! 
Why do ye mock His bitter grief? 
He cometh here to seek relief : 

And ye His woes increase T 



When for the silent trees my Jesus made reply : 

^ It should be so; 
To men the sign of peace and life, 
To Me should be of death and strUe, 
Who save them by My woe.** 



n$ Slorf of a Sukr. 



TnnalUed from Le Correfpoodant. 

THE STORY OF A SISTER 



BY AUQU8TIN COCHm. 



Would joa wish to see happiness 
RftUsed on earth % It reigned in the 
pilaoe of Simonetti at Borne, in the 
&mUy of the amhassador of France, 
in the month of May, 183Q, The am- 
bassador was the Count de la Ferrb- 
najs. He had heen for a long time 
ambassador in Russia, where his char- 
acter, his natural gifts, his integritj, bad 
Criamphed over the reserve and hauteur 
af the Emperor Nicholas, who treat- 
ed him as a friend. He was also the 
firiend of the King of France, who, in 
1828, appointed him minister of foreign 
affairs. Handsome, brilliant, brave, 
mtelligenty he bore in his heart and 
in his appearance the qualities which 
constitute the true French gentleman. 
Efe had married the niece of the de- 
voted, faithful Duchess of Tourzel, who 
accompanied the king and queen to 
Varenncs as governess to their child- 
ren. Three boys and four girls were 
the result of this happj marriage. 
This fiunily, endowed with birth, rank, 
and so many gifts of this world, were 
united at Rome, under the most beau- 
tiful sky, in the most beautiful month 
of the year, in the sunny brightness of 
an unclouded existence. The revolu- 
tion of July, 1830, having wrested the 
monarchy from the Bourbons, the 
Ferronays were not unhappy. God 
had not yet taken everything from 
them, he had only taken their riches. 
The tathcr, by his fidelity, had grown 
in public respect ; his sons and daugh- 
ters had been prepared by a solid edu- 
cation for industry and self-sacrifice. 
For fifteen years the parents had en- 
joyed uninterrupted prosperity, but 
they had not forgotten their days of 
exile; and when poverty overtook 
them they met her as an old friend, 
meekly bowing to the hand from whom 
all changes come. They went to live 



in retirement at Castellamare, where 
their house was the image of their life, 
a small chamber and a magnificent 
view, a radiant horizon seen from a 
narrow dwelling. Soon afler we find 
them at Chiaja, gay, happy, the broth- 
ers quitting home for an active life, 
the sisters loving each other devotedly, 
gathering flowers in Lady Acton^a 
garden to wear them at the next ball, 
presented at court, deprived of their 
fortune, but still happy; tasting the 
pleasure that we find in travelling, and 
that we ought to find in the journey of 
life — the pleasure which consists in 
admiring ardently what we do possess 
without the vanity of personal posses- 
sion. However, this delightful life 
was not exempt from danger : a stran- 
ger has too much liberty ; he is not 
subject to the supervision of relatives, 
friendS) neighbor, or rivals, who exer- 
cise a control which, though often try- 
ing, is more often useful. Diplomatic 
families, above all, accustomed to be 
treated with consideration, to form 
transient acquaintances, passing from 
court to court, from St. Petersburg to 
London, from London to Rome, live 
in a cosmopolitan world, the most de- 
lightful, the most amusing, but by far 
the most dangerous. The family of 
M. dc la Ferronays had not long es- 
caped this danger, which was rendered 
still more seductive under the charm- 
ing sky and in the luxurious climate of 
Italy. However, we do not pretend 
that this story introduces us to excep- 
tional creatures ; this is not a voyage to 
the country of the angels ; wo are still 
upon earth with common mortals. Al- 
bert, one of the younger brothers, was 
the first to perceive the dangers of this 
too self-indulgent life, and he had the 
courage to escape from it. He was a 
brave heart in a frail body ; he was 



le 



THb Story of a Siiter. 



capable of mnking a mistake, but ut- 
terly incapable of excusing an unwor- 
tliy action by an unworthy doctrine. 
Providence gave liim tbc support of 
two friends, who drew him at eiji;htoen 
from the enervating influences which 
he held in such horrorj and the elevat- 
ing power of whose example tmns- 
formed the child inro a man* Both 
survived him. M. liio had been placed 
id the foreign otBee by M. de la Fer- 
rona)'3 j he i-efused to change hts opin- 
ions to please M* Poli^nac, or to ab- 
jure his oath to satisfy M. Guizot. M. 
dc Polignac and M. Guizot, respects 
iDg his coiimge and lirnniess, htu3 not 
fon^aken him; and making use of his 
leisure to gratify his taster as well as 
to show hid gratitude, he begged his 
old chief to allow him to return to his 
son the favord that he had received 
from hiniBilf, and to permit him to 
take Albert to be hid companion in 
that delightful journey among the 
churches and chissieal associations of 
Italy, to which we owe his great work 
OQ Chri^stian Art* The other tViend, 
the Count dc Montalcmbertt was 
younger, his heart wa.% tilled wiih love 
of the church and of liberty; and de- 
voting hi:n>!'df to their aervice, with 
an eloquence and activity which noth- 
ing could tire, he arrived in Italy 
to rejoin MM. de Lamennais and La- 
cordaii'c. They ^ct out all fhix*c for 
Rome in the month of January, 1832, 
and nothing appears more rare and 
more touching than tfie position of the 
git\ed trio who arrived in the eternal 
city, the first in search of beauty* the 
second in pursuit of truth, and the 
third g*jing unconsciously to encounier 
Uie pure love of hia lite. At St, Peters* . 
burg M* dc la Ferronays liad become 
acquainted with the family of the Count 
d*Alopeu8| Rtissiun niiiiiater at Berlin, 
whose daughter, Alexandrine, waa 
much attached to Albert's sisters. 
After the death of her husband, m 
1831, the Countess d'Alopeus came to 
Romci and the ^njung people met for 
the iirst time on the 1st of January, 
1832. 

W^ must read in Lc Rccit d'lme 



Soeur, or rather in the story of Alex* 
andrine, a journal which begins at tbis 
date, the origin, the progress, the inci- 
dents, and the development of the pure, 
innocent love of Alexandrine and Al- 
bert de Ferronays ; those conrersationa 
which touch so deeply the heart ; the 
friendsliip which changes into a warm- 
er sentiment the oatne of brother which 
no longer satisfies ; and at last the 
words** I love you" whispered on tlio 
stei>s of St* Peter's one beautiful even- 
ing in spring. A joumey to Naples 
united the two familiea at Vomero, ii^ 
the [iretty villa of Trecase. We pasaea 
the greatest parts of our evenings orf 
the terrace. Everything was enchant* 
ing ; the two gulfs, the shores, Vesu- 
vius, the sky gleaming w^itli stars, the 
air breathing perfume above all' 
to love — to love, yet to be able tQ 
speak of Go J. Delijihtful and tnno« 
cent hours, who would wish to effaeti 
you fi*om these pa^es, and who would 
wish not to have known your hiippi-' 
ncss ! 

liut I hear stem voices cry out in 
alarm, lest this iKKjk should fall into the 
handsof young o^irla. **Thi$ book,'* they 
say, ** is not written for them " Is it tlicn 
necessary because we are Christians, 
to cast down our eyes and blush, when 
wo hear those sacred words: Rea§on| 
lovcjlibe rtyl What would life be without 
these words ? Ah \ you may allow your 
daughters' eyes, without fear, to wander ' 
over these brilliant pages, if they will 
only turn the leaves, and read to the' 
end, to learn the imcertainty of human 
hope, the length of human suffering, 
the gentle con?^ohittons of fatth, and 
the beauty of this holy union of ten* 
derness and purilv, under the j^rotection 
of God. 

In the month of November, it was 
thought better that Albert and Alex- 
andrine should separate. They were 
engag«?d, hut one was without fortune, 
the other was a Protectant. Their 
friends wished them to reflect, to try 
the strength of their attachment. It 
was absence without painfull of hojit*. 
After three months Albert came back. 
The same family life recomoienced, 



The Story of a Sister. 



17 



Ml of little home scenes, nalr^, tender, 
sweet This continued for three more 
months, short but happy, sunny days 
without clouds; and doubtless the 
beauty of nature, the enchantment of 
an innocent affection, the presence of 
God, formed a paradise around and 
above them. 

"On Holy Thursday," wrote Alexan- 
drine, ^ ray mother allowed me to go 
with my friends, to Tenebrte at the 
chapel of the palace, to hear the charm- 
11^ musiCi In spite of my frivolity, the 
beautifiil chapel, the singing, and above 
all, perhaps, the happiness of praying 
with Albert, inspired me to such a de- 
gree, that I prayed with gentleness and 
' recollection. I was pleased to have the 
air of a Catholic M. de La Ferronays 
took us there, and the return on foot 
was delightfuL It was bright moon- 
light, and the air was heavy with the 
perfumes of spring. We went into 
several churches to pray before the 
holy tomb. Albert and I threw our- 
selves upon our knees, one besi<le the 
other, on the pavement of the church. 
I remember that I felt an indescribable 
calm ; and I don't know what I asked 
from God, but I felt that we both im- 
plored his protection for us, and that^ 
we felt it realized." The two families 
separated on the 30th of April. Alex- 
andrine went with her mother to Grer- 
many, Madame de Ferronays took her 
two oldest daughters and Albert to 
France, and their father placed the two 
youngest in the convent de la Trinity 
du Mont at Rome. They left Naples 
together, but separated at Civita 
Vecchia. Albert not feeling well, his 
father kept him with him ; leaving 
him at the inn, while he took his wife 
and children to the wharf for embarka- 
tion. He embraced them, following 
with his eyes the receding vessel, send- 
ing kisses from afar to the fast-fading 
shadows ; and then when the last faint 
smoke of the steamer disappears in the 
circle of the horizon, he sighs, oppress- 
ed with a weight to which all are 
fiuniliar, the h^vy weight of loneliness 
which is inseparable from farewell 
words to those we love. He returned 



silently and sadly to the inn, where 
a frightful spectacle met his eyes. 
Albert is dying! They are bleeding 
him ; one moment later he would be 
dead. It is necessary to read for one- 
self in his own words, the letters of a 
father to a mother. A father alone, a 
stranger in an inn, beside the death- 
bed of his child. ** We were kept in 
an agony of suspense from three o'clock 
until seven. At seven the perspira- 
tion which, until then, had resisted all 
our efforts, this welcome perspiration 
showed itself, and became excessive. 
O my friend ! with what faith, with 
what fervor of gratitude, I thanked 
heaven ! How everything changes its 
nature and aspect when we nurse an 
invalid whom we love! The physi- 
cians say that this dreadful crisis will 
reestablish his health. He is saved I 

my God ! I thank thee ! for to-day 

1 can feel only joy. O all you who are 
loved by heaven ! give thanks for me, 
and ask Grod to smite me, but to spare 
my poor children." During this time 
Mademoiselle Alopeus had arrived 
in Rome, and was once more amid 
the scenes and associates where she 
first met Albert, when she learned that, 
instead of returning to France, he 
was dying at Civita Vecchia. In de- 
spair, she wrote to him, and wished to 
fly to him ; she could not do so, and she 
quitted Rome without seeing him, feel- 
ing that he was only more dear to her 
because she had so nearly lost him. ** At 
Viterbo," she writes, " where we slept, I 
heard them speak of the death of a 
young man, whose body >yas exposed 
jn the neighboring church ; this distress- 
ed me. I could not bear to hear any- 
thing that reraiude<l me that Albert 
could die." • 

EUGENIE TO ALEXANDRINE. 

" I pray for you» for you and Paul- 
ine, for Pauline and you. I do not men- 
tion Albert. Albert is comprehended, 
in you ; it is the same prayer. God 
has loved him ; God has spared him. 
God will bless him, and to bless him 
is to bless you. With what fervor 
have I repeated my favorite prayer 



7%« Story of a Sister. 



that Qod would take ray share of hap- 
piDeas and unite it to yoursy that you 
may have h dotible portion. Thie de- 
sire reiilizt'd would insure my blJAs.'* 
In ordt«r that not King might be want* 
ing in tbiB union of nuble gouk, Albert, 
just conv^alescent, writes to hia friends, 
IfaDtalembert and Kio, letters full of 
energy and confidenee. Ca!m and se- 
renity succe4?ded to this anxiety and 
disquiet. Wc find tbe two famitiea 
united at Rome in September, 1833, 
where the youn^ sigter, Olga, makes 
her liret communion. They then went 
to Naples, where Albert met them, 
looking so well that his health had 
never seemed §o perfectly established. 
It was Alexandrine's health which, at 
thia lime^ gave them cause for anxiety* 
JIlt mind was distressed, though slic 
idid her best to conceal her trouble^ 
Her mother had not failed during their 
iravets in Germany to represent to 
lier Alhert*t»ba<l health and his poverty. 
Happily he had iTCOvered his health, 
^ut he was still poor. I do not know 
what prudent parents will say, but I 
agree with Monsieur de hi Fcrronays, 
who wrote thus to his wife : ** Tliey 
will be poor, Imt they will be truly 
iiappy. I hflveneitlier the con rage nor 
the v^hh to oppose them ; you will not 
lie more cruel than I am.*' Alexan- 
drine was still suffering. She was lying 
•adly on the sofa one evening at twi- 
light, when her sister came to her, and 
told hfr that her wishes were realized ; 
4 hat ishe might look Ufmn Albert as 
Jier ftjture hushaiul, Tlieso joyful 
fidings worked her cure — ^bappincss is 
the best medicine. The marriage of 
Blonsieur and Madame Alliert de la 
Perron ays was pnx^eded by that of 
the Countess d'Alopeus with the Prince 
Paul Lepoukhyn. Many drciiry 
i months of waiting elnpsedf but I will 
not resume the letters at this period — 
one word is sufficient, Tx»vers are 
alwaya permitted to rej^at the same 
things. It was at this time that the 
sad revolt of M. de Lamennais took 
place, and Albert causelessly* but nobly 
, anxious, writes thus to iiis friend : 
L0 Let us throw ourselTea at the foot of 



the cross, which is llie foundation of 
the church, not to undermine her, but 
to support and defend her; but, above 
all, I pray you doooL commit yuuraelf 
to M. de Lamennais. You know the 
happiness which is to be mine in Ihe^^ 
spring; bat I will postpone it and flyi 
to you if you wish me to do so-'* To, 
tlieee enthusiastic words his friend re- 
plied : ** There is not a word in your. 
letter which does not accortl with all I 
liave thought and desired. I used . 
every effort to induce M- de Lamen- 
nais to do as I have done — to bow iaf 
the inscrutable dispensations of pravi-. 
dence; and h'jmbly, and with docility, 
lo await the will of heaven," But wa 
must leave the two friends to return 
to the preparations for the marriage, 
which was at last celebrated on the 
17ih of April, IHtU. In the evening 
a carriage took Albert ami Alexan- 
drine to Ca?*teHajiiare* They were 
handsome, talented, good, and happy, 
and thfy loved. 

Bhssl'ul <lreainl whieh as yet knew no 
awakening. If we could judge of life by 
outward appearances, wc would be- 
lieve that these bright anticipations 
would last forever. All the family re- 
joined ihe newly married coupla at 
Castellamare. ** A stairt^ase,erabowep* 
e<l by vines and roses, led lo the pix^tty 
house, the ground lloor of whieli, occu- 
pied by Albert ainl Alexandrine, open- 
ed by large windows into the garden, 
Charles and Emma oceupied the first 
floor ; my parents* Fern and, my sisters 
and tnysflf the second, and at each 
story these terraces communleated by 
outside staircases. We wi^re always 
in comnmnicaiion by these terraces, 
and were only too glad of an excuse 
to be together, for never was a family 
more peHectly, more happily united," 
The sister who painted this little pio^ 
tare, which seems bathed in sunlight, 
added to the happiness of all during 
this pleasant summer, by her marriage ; 
and her younger sister, Eugenie, mel- 
ancholy and cnthusiastie, overpowered 
with happincs!*, exclaimed, ** Oh ! if life 
is so delightful, what must l»e the joy 
of heaven ; death is then lie Iter than 



I 



The SUny of a SitUr. 



10 



all r From Castellamare they went 
to SotrentOy thence to Borne, then to 
Tisau where they spent the winter, and 
where they were joined hy their faith- 
Ihl friend, like themselves young, in- 
telligent, and amiable. ^ You can imag* 
roe," wrote Albert to his sister, ^ that he 
do^ not render our life less charming." 
*" He lefl us in tears," writes Alexan- 
drine. This friend was the Count de 
Montalembert. From Pisa M. and 
Madame de la Ferronays embaHked for 
Naples in the month of March, and 
thence a month later for Malta, en 
rwUe for the east Thb journey was 
full of amaamg and piquant little in- 
cidents. Friendship and affection fol- 
io wed them wherever they went. What 
delight to visit Castellamare, Sorrento, 
Pisa, Naples, Malta, Smyrna, Constan- 
tinople, Odessa, Vienna, Venice, at 
twenty years of age with hearts full 
of love ! •* The dim light of my 
krop falling on her dear head — ^is not 
this worth all the world T* writes Al- 
bert. Alexandrine was filled with en- 
thusiasm on returning to Italy. ^ O 
dear Italy !" she cries, " I return to thee 
for the ninetieth time, and always with 
renewed pleasure." But alas ! this jour- 
ney, made under these happy auspices, 
r&sembled the course of the inhabitant 
of the seas whom the harpoon of the 
fisherman has wounded, and who 
plunges ahd escapes in agitation and 
iffright, carr}'ing the ironT in his side. 
The health of Albert and the religion 
of Alexandrine were the two poisons 
hidden under this smiling exterior. 
Ten days afler his marriage, Albert in 
potting his handkerchief to his mouth, 
drew it away covered with blood. At 
Pisa be was better, at Constantinople 
qaite weU, at Rouen he was at death's- 
door. At Venice he was again better, 
sod the husband and wife went to- 
gether to Lido. 

While the wife was disturbed for 
the health of her husband, he was 
trembling for mora important interests. 
From the OHnmencement of their love, 
Albert's most ardent desire had been 
to see Alexandrine kneel at the same 
altar, and practice the same faith, as 



himself. This hope seemed sure of 
realization when they married, for God 
was ever with them in their happiest 
hours ; since their marriage a feeling of 
delicacy had kept them silent on the 
great subjects of conversion. Albert 
did not wish that Alexandrine should 
be constrained by her affection for him, 
and she feared for herself the same 
powertul influence. She was not will- 
ing to sacrifice her reason to the 
dictates of her heart, and dreading 
the displeasure of her mother, she 
dreaded still more the censures of con- 
science. She desired to submit to con- 
viction, and to resist the pleadings 
of her love. We recognize here the 
transparent sincerity of a character of 
which Albert said traly, ^ I never saw 
in her the slightest affectation." 

Thus Albert's heahh and Alexan- 
drines religion agitated them both 
with a constant, silent anxiety, which 
introduces something tragical and sor- 
rowful into their history. Being pre- 
vented by his health from devoting 
himself to the service of his country 
and his church, Albert had concen- 
trated all his desires on the establish- 
ment of truth in the heart dearest to 
him. Nothing could be more touching 
than Alexandrine's care for Albert's 
health. The charming Swede, the 
graceful daughter of the North, the 
belle of the Neapolitan fiteSy was trans- 
formed into the attentive nurse, hiding 
her fears, and accepting disagreeable 
duties. Shut up in a sick room, closing 
with her delicate fingers the curtains, 
while Albert was asleep, weeping 
while he slept, and smiling when he 
woke. At this cruel moment hope is 
absent ; sorrow extends still more and 
more her heavy icy handover this hither- 
to so happy pair. Albert, at Venice, 
became so ill that they sent for his fam- 
ily. They come, they see him, he is 
dying, but he is consumed with an ir- 
resistible desire to revisit his country. 
They set out in a carriage at short 
journeys. They leave Venice the 
10th of April, and arrive in Paris on 
the 11th of May. On the 26th Albert 
is established 13 Rue de Madame, in 



20 



The Story of a Sister. 



a hired room near the Luxembourg. 
He 18 a little better and much happier, 
for he is in France, surrounded by his 
friends. Thej are young, they are 
good, they are happy — why then, death, 
sickness, and the crushing sorrow of 
approaching separation ? Why all this 
anguish at once— conversion refused 
to the prayers of Albert — recovery 
refused to the tears of Alexandrine ? 

God ! where art thou ? Thou art 
absent when they all wait for thee. 
Thou wert the witness of their inno- 
cent love, the author of their union. 
Thou wert with them when they were 
liappy, and now they suffer, they cry, 
and thou dost not hear, and yet tliey 
have had days of j>erfect happiness 
and a youth without clouds. Thou 
didst create them. Thou hast forsaken 
them. 

Thou permittest that they should bo 
afflicted, and when they cry, thou wilt 
not answer. Why didst thou say by 
thy prophet, " Before they call I will 
answer. As they are yet speaking, 

1 will hear." Thy promises but add 
to their sufferings the pain of disap- 
pointed hope. O Grod I where art thou ? 
With their hearts wrung by the same 
8onx)w, tlie disciples were walking on 
the road to Emmaus, when meeting 
a stranger they confided to him their 
trouble. " We hoped that it was he 
who would have redeemed Israel, and 
to-day is the third day since these 
things were done." They did not 
know that God was pn-sent, though 
hidden from them in the silence of the 
little chamber, where these poor Jews, 
who represent too well our patience 
so soon exhausted, and our unworlliy 
dejection, were sadly assembled togeth- 
er. Suddenly their hearts awoke and 
I hey recognized in the breaking of 
bread this ever-present God who 
gives himself to us as the pledge of 
future inunortality. The miracle of 
the little cottage of Emmaus is en- 
acted every day, and was visible at 
the death-bed of Albert do La Fer- 
ronay s. Already at Venice, during the 
night of the 6ih of March, Albert ap- 
peared oppressed in his sleep, and 



Alexandrine, overwhelmed by the 
agony of the coming separation^ 
watched by his bed. "At half-past 
five," she writes, ''the color left his 
lips, he spoke with effort and desired 
me to send for his confessor. ' Has it 
come to this ? Has it come to this T 
I cried; then I added at the same 
moment, ' now I am a Catholic' In 
pronouncing these words, firmness, if 
not happiness, filled my heart." On the 
14th of March she wrote to her mother 
a truly sublime letter, which I will quote 
at length. ** From love and respect to 
you, my mother, I have not inquired 
into the claims of the Catholic reli- 
gion for fear that I should find it 
true, and I should be forced to em- 
brace it. But now I am i>osse3sed 
with an irresistible desire to belong 
to the same faith as my All^ert. 
At no price, however, not even to 
soften the death-bed of my husband, 
would I act dis?loyally toward God. 
Be assured, 1 shall not act without 
conviction. Dear mother, allow me 
to be instructed, and when you meet 
again your poor widowed daughter, 
ah ! you will not repine at her being 
a Catholic. If the Catholic Church 
liad no other advantage over ours 
than that she prays for the dead, I 
should pi-efer her." On his side Al- 
bert, with his dying hand, traced in his 
journal these words, which were his 
last : ** O Lord ! 1 imi)lored thee by day 
and by night, Give her to me, grant 
me this joy if it only lasts for one day. 
Thou heardest me, O God ! why should 
1 compUiii). My happiness was com- 
plete, if it was short, and now thou 
hf St granted the rest of my prayei*s, 
and my dear one is about to enter the 
bosom of the church, thus giving me 
the assurance that I shall soe her 
again in that happy home where we 
sliall ])oth be lost in the beatific vis- 
ion of thy boundless love." On tlie 
27th of May, 183G, Madame de Fer- 
ronays knelt before an altar, arranged 
in her husband's room, on which the 
Abbo ]VLnitin de Mounen celebrated 
mass, and made her profession of the 
Catholic faith. On the night of the 



The SUny of a Sdter. 



21 



5th or 7th of June, she received her 
drst commuQion at the same mass 
where Albert received his last. I 
will describe this pathetic scene in the 
words of Alexandrine herself. "Al- 
bert was in bed, he had not been able 
to rise. I knelt beside him, I took his 
Iiand, it was thus that we commenced 
the mass of Abbe Gerbert. As the mass 
advanced, Albert made me let fall his 
hand, this dear hand that was to me 
BO sacred that in the most solemn hour 
of life I felt that I did not offend God 
in retaining it. Albert drew it from 
me, cxclairainf^, ' Go, go, belong only 
to God.' The Abbe Gerbert addressed 
a few words to me before giving me 
commanion, then he gave it to Albert, 
then again I took his beloved hand ; 
we expected every moment would be 
his last." No book could contain, no 
imagination could depict a scene more 
tenderly, more profoundly pathetic. 
At this point we read no more, we 
weep ; it is to thee, O God ! that the 
goul turns, to thee that the soul as- 
cends, to thee who truly and r«*ally 
wert present in his chamber of suffer- 
icg, walking so to speak on the waves 
of death, and saying, '* Fear not, I am 
with thee." O my Protestant breth- 
ren! it is to you that this page seems 
to be dedicated ; it is you who have 
formed the character of this young 
girl; it is to you that she owes the 
habit of living in the presence of God, 
to you she owes the loyalty, the per- 
fect sincerity of her intentions and the 
teal with which she purifies her con- 
ecience; at each moment guarding it 
as a stainless mirror which must ever 
reflect the image of God. She follow- 
ed you on the road to Emmuus, where 
Jesus explained to his disciples the 
sacred Scriptures ; but hke the disci- 
ples she has thrown down the book, 
it could not satisfy her; she has follow- 
tt\ God to his holy table. By the bed 
of death, on the edge of the yawning 
abyss of ih-eparable separation, hymns 
and words disappear like useless sounds 
and barren discourses. Famished for 
hope and for consolation, the soul has 
need of stronger food. She must tear 



down the veil, and lay hold of Grod. 
O my Protestant brethren I read this 
history of a Christian, who was yours 
until the moment when stretching oat 
her despairing hands toward nothing- 
ness, she came to us to be united in 
God with her djing husband. Read 
the sad but striking description of the 
days that follow the first communion. 
It is to you that I would dedicate 
the story of this sublime agony, ac- 
companied so tenderly by the Tjhurch 
to the last sigh of the passing eoul. 

On the 27th of June, after two years 
of married life, at twenty-two years of 
age, Albert returned to God ! 

Is not tins sad enough ? Why 
should we continue af\er such scenes ? 
What new spectacle can move us ? We 
have known the bride, the wife. We are 
going to follow the widow ; to foUow her 
from the extremity of human sorrow, 
to consolation, even to joy and love, re- 
formed again in God. The only dif- 
ference between the widow of India 
burned in the ashes of her husband 
and the Christian widow, is that the 
Christian is consumed more slowly. 
She waits for death, instead of seeking 
it ; from the first day of bereavement 
an invisible fire, which nothing can 
extinguish, saps the spring of her life. 

The first moments are the most cruel, 
but they are not the hardest to endure ; 
when one can say yesterday, the day 
before yesterday, it is only absence, it 
is not the abyss of an irreparable 
adieu. 

AliEXANDRINE TO PAUIilNK. 

"BouRY, July 10, 1836. 

** Pauline— Pauline ! I could have 
written to you on the 29th of June, 
had I not been occupied with other 
things. I repeat, I could have done it. 
God has given me the power to do 
and to endure much far beyond all I 
ever believed possible, for have I not 
seen the eyes of Albert close in death ? 
have I not felt his hand grow cold for 
ever? Eugenie will tell you that God 
has granted me tliat which I asked of 
him. He 'died resting in my arms, my 
hand in his. Alone, and very quietly, I 



t2 



The *Srory of a Sisier. 



elosecl his dear eyes, deprived of Biglit, 
»nd perhaps of feeling. I whispered 
close into his car the name so beloved, 
Albert I I had nothing more tender 
to say to him than thia word which 
exprvBfied everjthinj^ I felt. 1 wished 
that the ladt sound which should fall 
upon his ear should be my voice^grow-^ 
ing fuinter and fainter until it was lost 
in the distance and darkneaa of that 
gloomy pa^isage, which leads at lasst 
into the light. Alail my voice, like 
myself, was obliged to remain on the 
contines, obliged for the firs! time to be 
ge pa rated from him. O Parjline 1 I 
was strong then, uti naturally strong. 
I was still stronger for three days, 
then I commenced to grow weaker 
and weaker, and each morning I seem- 
ed feebler than the night befoi*e/' Thin 
estimable widow of twenty yeai-s, 
always ardent and always perfectly 
natimil, expresses a truth even in her 
firnt sensations. Little by little sorrow 
intensifies, courage fails, diispair com- 
mences. The sympathy of friendj^, 
which bad until then a little occupied, 
distracted, and deadened the pain, vvith- 
OQt healing it, becomes colder and more 
distant, and the soul is enveloped in 
the icy shades of :«ileuce and solitude. 

ALSXAXDKINS TO FAULINB. 

*• To tell me at my age that all Imp pi* 
ness is passed, that makes me shudder, 
and yet my only rest will be to feel 
entirely inconsolable, Ibr I should 
loathe my g elf if i felt that I could 
again enjoy the amusements of life, or 
look tijwn ihe world otherwise tlian I 
do now. Albert was to me the light 
which colored everything. With him 
pearls, jewels, pretty rooms, beautiful 
scenery, appeared to rae lovely. Now, 
nothing charms me, I have but one 
wish, to know whert* he is. To ^ee if 
he is happy, if he loves me fit ill ; to 
flhare all things with him now as i 
protnfsed to do on earth before God-** 

Yes, the faithful widow sees nothing, 
ihe is ever with the absent ; it is not he 
who is dead^ it is the world which has 
gone from her, which is shrouded in 
darkness. But iu the long weary 



hours, when she listens to the 
tive munnurings of her own heart, the 
Christian widow hears another voice of 
heavenly music, and angels whisper in 
her ear those gentle words, ** Blessed 
are tho^e who weep, for they shall be 
comforted/* *' Blessed are the pure in 
heart, for they shall sec God.** It is 
not only in heaven that pure hearts sec 
God, Uiey see him everywhere on 
earth, in all objects, in all creatures — in 
all events they recognize him, they 
contemplate him. An uaexpeeted 
brightness is introduced little by little 
into this desolate life. The world is 
colored anew ; obscured by sorrow, it is 
tninf<tigureil by faith. 

She who is afflicted is not consoled, 
she is accepted, supported ; from this 
day a miracle commences. She whose 
afieetions have been riven, seeks to 
love again in making friends for him 
whom she has lo!?t, in interesting for 
him the saints whom she invokes, the 
poor whom she assists. Some days 
after the death of Albert, Alexandrine 
sold a beautiful pearl collar, a relic of 
happy days, and she wrote^ 

'" iVArlf ? Bymbol of ip&ri I ■ 

tVarJs ! t^ATi of th«> »9tu 
Oiiitbered wlih tetraln tti« deptti* oftbe a«cmi, 
Warn often with te&n la the tultUt of tb« plu*iir«i 

vf the world *, 
Re»lgn««] to-dfty wlih lean In tbe grevk*! of Iibiiiao 

tOfTOWH 

Oc», dry tK%n^ bj olianglisg loto br«&d.** 

Tlie love of the poor became for 
this young Christian a sublime 
consolation — ^tlie love of Jesus Christ 
in the persons of the poor — the 
love of the poor in the thought of 
Albert To love the unhai>py when 
we are unhappy is an exquisite sign 
of perfection in our poor hnnuin na* 
ture, but a sign happily very common. 
Is it not much more difficult when we 
suffer to love the happy — not to be im- 
patient of their pleasures, to lend our- 
selves to them, and though our own 
hearts are for ever shut against joy, to 
be able to rejoice with those who re- 
joice? Le Hecit d'uneSceur shows us 
the Christian widow in the midst ot 
her family, among her young sisters 
and brotliers, smiling, amiable, com- 
municating, no doubt, by her presence 



I 



I%» Story of a SitUr. 



88 



to the pleasnres of the house the tinge 
of melkncholy which erer belongs to 
the joj8 of earth. 

The commencement of the second 
rolnme of Madame Craven's history is 
occupied with the tableau of the inte- 
rior of her family, *who were united at 
the Chateau of Boury during the years 
1836, '37, and '38, which followed the 
death of M. Albert de la Ferronays. 
Obliged, by the diplomatic career of 
her husband, to change frequently her 
residence — to go from Naples to Lis- 
bon, to London, to Carlsruhe, to Brus- 
sels- — Madame Craven was almost 
always separated from her parents and 
her sisters. To this separation we owe 
the correspondence which serves to- 
day to interest and console us. 

The description of the interior of the 
Giateau de Boory, depicted in these 
letters, resembles a conversation, where 
each speaks in his turn and with his 
own peculiar accent. But I will pass 
over this family picture to return to 
Madame Albert de la Ferronays, the 
principal character in my story. 

In the month of October, 1837, they 
removed the body of Albert to Boury, 
in order to bury it in a sepulchre, 
where they had arranged two places 
without separation. 

" Yesterday, alone with Julia, by the 
aid of a little ladder, Alexandrine de- 
scended into the excavation in order 
to touch and to kiss, for the last time, 
the coffin in which is enclosed all that 
she loves. In doing this she was on her 
knees in her own tomb. On the stone 
she had engraved : * What Grod hath 
put together, let no man put asunder.' " 
In 1838 she rejoined her mother in Ger- 
many, where she spent the second anni- 
versary of the 29th of June. From Ischl 
she wrote to her sister a touching de- 
scription of the death of a young priest, 
who died of consumption eleven months 
after bis ordination. From Germany 
Madame de la Ferronays went to 
Lamigny, from thence to Boury ; and 
when the family resolved to pass the 
winter of 1839 in Italy, she returned 
with a sad delight to this beautiful 
eoontryy where she had been so happy. 



She wished to revisit all the scenes of 
her past happiness — to see again the 
rocks, the trees, the mountains, which 
had been witnesses of her felicity— 
not without tears, but without com- 
plaining ; with the sweet serenity of 
perfect resignation. " It is here," she 
said, ^ that I have been so full of bliss 
that this world and life appeared too 
beautiful." After the description of the 
second journey to Italy, there follows 
the account of the successive deaths of 
M. de la Ferronays and the young 
daughters, Olga and Eugenie. At this 
time, always absolutely sincere, in- 
capable in anything of being carried 
away by feeling, Alexandrine thought 
of entering a convent ; she relinquish- 
ed the idea, but resolved to live in 
poverty for the poor. From this day 
she dreams no more, she writes no 
more, she acts. Her love express- 
es itself in joyous accents, in words 
of heavenly sweetness, accompanied by 
austere virtues. It is the miracle and 
the triumph of true piety. What is 
this ? demands a disdainful worid. Who 
is this devotee, draped in black, who 
ventures out in the most inclement 
season, laden with bundles ? Has she 
paralyzed her heart ? Does she love 
no one ? Is she a piece of mechanism, 
passing from the dreary garret to the 
dark cellar in the poor neighborhood 
which surrounds her ? No ; this wid- 
ow is a great lady, bearing one of the 
oldest names of France. She is going 
to visit the dying, to supply them with 
clothes and food, to teach their igno* 
rant children ; and on her return she 
takes her pen, and from this heart, 
which you believe cold and frozen^ 
flow forth these words : " O my dear 
sister ! can I fill you with joy and cour* 
age in writing ? Would that it were in. 
my power ; you do not know how II 
love you, but you will know in eter^- 
nity, where we shall enjoy each other'* 
love fully and completely." 

This devotee paid a visit to another* 
devotee, an old Russian lady, of whonr 
she writes : " I have seen Madame 
Swetchine; this delightful, excellent 
woman told me that we ought not ta 



The St4>ry of a Sister, 



5[>eak ill of life, far it is full of beauty ; 
and yet this vromaii, eo tender and &o 
pious f is overwhelmed wuU moral and 
[ihysical suflering. She said to me, * I 
love what is, because it is I rue ; I am 
coutenled/ The longer I li ve the more 
1 wi^h to have my heart filled witli 
love, atid only with love.** Of all 
Alexandrine'^ former plej^^ujgjs, iht^ 
ftole iTlaxfttiona she penniltM nerself 
were nmsie and rcadiog. Part onief*' 
time fiUe spent in Paris in the hoapitalH, 
which fthe entered with I he joyous, ani- 
mated air of a young girl who ^et^ out 
for a fete, or a warrior who returns 
fvom battle. She ended by hiring a 
little room in the Rue de Sevre<i in or- 
der to live more phiinly. Iler sisters, 
in looking into her wardrobe, found 
that it contain*-'d nothing. She had 
robbed herself to give to the poor. 
This noble woman had but one cause 
— the eau&ie of God. She became the 
genemus servant, almost the soldier of 
ihc chui'ch, interest iog iier^elf in tlie 
cauae of freedom, contributing to for- 
eign missions, seconding the educa- 
tional projects of her friend, 51. de 
Montalembert; and» from the quiet of 
her lit ih? chamber, giving forth her mon- 
ey and her prayer:* for the service of 
God. Madame Craven* in a letter, 
dated the SL^t of July, thus writea i 
**Tho cvcming of my departure from 
Boury we went into the cemetery to 
pray. AlexaDflrine knelt beside Al- 
bert 't* lomb, on the spot which, twelve 
years l>efore, had been pi-e pared lor 
her*tdf, , I was on my knees by 01 ga. 
The night wa^ warm and iKiautifuL Am 
we Htrolled slowly home, I turned and 
admired the getting sun, which was 
embellishing, with its mauy colored 
rays, this sail s[»oL * I love the getting 
3Un,' I exclaimed, ' Since my sorrow,' 
rt^plied Alexandrine, *the i^etting sun 
makes me £ad. It is the precur- 
sor of tiiglit^ I do not like tho 
night* 1 love the morning and iho 
spring — they bring befoi-e me the re- 
lity of life tlmt never ends. Night 

presents U> me darkness* and sin; 

ening the transitory nature of the 
world; but moniing and apring give 



me promise of tho reduri*ection and j 
newal of all things,* As we continue 
our walk, Alexandrine said ; * Rest 
assured thai all that pleases us most 
upon earth is but a shadow ; that the 
reality^ is aloue in heaven. What is 
there upon earth so sweet as to love 1 
And I ask you if it is not easy to cod- 
c^ i ve I ba t tW*lo ve of t li e d i v i n e lo v e 
ought tp Ji#The perfection of this swect- 
n^s?— and is not this the loveoPJesos 
Ciirist ? I sihould' never have been 
(^mforted if I had not leami tliat this 
love exists for God, and is everlasting,' 
I replied, * You are very happy so to 
love God/ She answered me — and her 
word-*, her expression, her attihide will 
remain ever engraved on my memory — 
*0 Pauline I should I not love God? 
should I not be Imnsported with joy 
when I think of hhn ? IJow can you 
imagine there is any merit in this* 
even tliat of faith, when. I think of the 
miracle that he has wrought in my 
soul ? I loved, and desired tho joy of 
earth — it was given to me. I lost it, 
and 1 waa overwhelmed wilh despair. 
Yet, to-ihiy my soul is so transformed 
that all the happiness I have ever 
known pales and grows dim in com- 
parison with the felicity with which 
God has filled my soul.* Surprise*! to 
hear her speak thus, T said : * If you 
had oflfered to you a long life to be 
8|Knit with Albert, would you ticcept 
it?* She replied, without hcsiiatioa, 
* I would not take it.'* This was our 
last conversation, and as I saiw her thya 
I see her nou% with a flower of jessa- 
mine ill her hand, her face lighted up 
w^ith heavenly beauty ; and so she will 
ever appear to me until I meet her 
again where there will be no more 
parting/' Alexandrine died somts 
montlLs after, on the 9th of February, 
1818. 

If the angeU could die, they would 
die as she did. Her hist words to 
Albert's mother were : " Tell Paulino 
it is so sweet to die.** 

On the Hill of Noveml>cr of the 
same year* Madame de la Ferronaya 
rejoined her husband, her son, and her 
three daughters. On the tombs of 



I 

I 

I 
I 

I 

I 




J%e Church and the Sinner, u 

Albert, AlezandriDe, Olga, and Eu- ome of their faith; it is the concla- 

genie, and of their father and mother, sion, the explanation, the design of 

one single epitaph is necessary. • It this book : ^ Love is stronger than 
comprehends their life; it is thej 



THE CHURCH AND THE SINNER. 

THE CHTTBCII. 

Fbithee, why continue eating. 

Child, the husks of swine? 
Thou thy soul art only cheating 

With this food of thine. 

THE SINNER. 

Other food hath long been wasted, 

Mother, by my sin ; 
All its empty joys are tasted, 

Sorrows now begin. 

THE cnuRcn. 

Hadst thou not a loving Father, 

Child, and happy home ? 
There witii him have rested, rather 

Shouldst thou than to roam. 



THE SINNER. 

Yes ; but he his now degraded 
Son would never know ; 

From his memoiy I have faded, 
Mother, long ago. 



THE CHURCH. 

Child, the Father ne'er forgetteth 

Whom he called his son. 
To him naught but pride now letteth 

Not thy feet to run. 



THE SINNER. 

Worthy for his lowly servant 

Am I not, I know ; 
Yet with love and sorrow fervent 

Will arise, and go ! 



«6 



Modem Wriien of Spain. 



From The Dublin Unlrenlty Magaslne. 



MODERN WRITERS OF SPAIN. 



• The literary portion of English and 
French people take little interest about 
what philosophers and romance wnt- 
ere are doing on the outer borders of 
Europe. Scarcely does an editor of 
a literary journal direct his subscrib- 
ers' attention to the current literature 
of Russia, Norway, Spain, or Portugal 
The most universally-read Englishman 
would be puzzled if you asked him 
who is the Dickens or the Braddon 
of Transylvania, or if anything wortli 
reading has lately appeared in the 
Portuguese province of Alentejo. 
Thanks to the talents and the genial 
disposition of Frederica Bremer, and 
the vigorous and original character of 
Emily Carlen's novels, and the in- 
terest excited for Norse literature by 
William and Mary Howitt, we have 
become familiarized with the popular 
literature of Sweden. Worsae and 
Andersen have made us attend to 
literary sayings and doings among the 
meadows and becchwoods and havns 
of the Danish Isles. The efforts of 
Count Sollogub and one or two other 
enlightened Russians have failed to dis- 
pel our apathy on the subject of native 
Russian literature, and at this mo- 
ment we can recollect among the con- 
tents of our own reviews and maga- 
zines for five or six years back, only 
two notices of the productions of living 
Spanish novelist or romancist. Either 
we (English and French) are too much 
absorbed in our own Uterature, and 
consequently negligent of that of our 
neighbors, or those neighbors are pro- 
ducing nothing worthy notice, and in 
either case our efforts will scarcely 
turn public attention into a new chan- 
nel. Our intention is merely to advert 
to some literary features in the life of 
the Spain of the present day. We 
sJmU not find her altogether neglect- 



ful of the claims of her children who 
are at the moment striving to add to 
her literary renown. 

CERVA>'T£S REMESiBERED TOO LATE. 

There is something very saddening 
in those solemnities held in honor of 
departed genius. We see much time 
taken from necessary business, much 
eloquence wasted— often with a side 
glance toward self-glorification, and 
much money thrown away, which, if 
once timely and prudently used, would 
have relieved the anxieties and cheer- 
ed the existence of the ill-favored son 
of genius. 

In the article on Cervantes which 
appeared in the University for Au- 
gust,* allusion was made to his im- 
prisonment and harsh treatment in a 
certain town of La Mancha. It is the 
same whose name, he says, in the 
commencement of Don Quixote, he 
does not chooee to remember. It has 
been ascertained that this village of 
unenviable reputation is Argamasilla ; 
and the vory house where he resided 
against his will, and dreamily arranged 
the plan of his prose epic, has been 
identified. The Infanta Don Sebas- 
tian has purchased it, with a view to 
its preservation, and a patriotic and 
spirited printer, Don Manuel de Riba- 
deneira, has obtained permission to 
work off two impressions tliere of the 
Life and Adventures of the ingenious 
Hidalgo, Don Quixote. One is, in 
the Paris idiom, an edition of luxury, 
intended for the libraries and salons 
of the great, the other a carefully ex- 
ecuted but low-priced edition for the 
populace. 

The English cannot be accused of 

* 8m Oatwduo WoiLDfor Oetobtr, 1861- 



Modem Writers of Sjxun. 



«Y 



hATing neglected their own Cervantes 
in his need. He appears to have unit- 
ed to bis comprehensive and migbtj 
genins, good business habits, consulted 
the tastes of his public while endeavor- 
ing to improve them, watched the be- 
havior of his door-keepers, and though 
probabl J not a rigid self-dcnier, made 
his outlay fall far short of his income, 
and enjoyed some jears of life in re- 
spectable retirement So his country- 
men feeling no remorse on his account, 
show their respect for his memory by 
eating and drinking heartily on stated 
occasions, and boring each other with 
stereotyped speeches. Wlien suitable 
days for jubilees or centenaries or 
tercentenaries arrive, they take more 
trouble on themselves. They journey 
10 a small town in Warwickshire, and 
celebrate the event in as tiresome a 
fashion as if they were members of the 
*• British Association -for bettering the 
Universe,** under all the inconven- 
iences of crowded rooms, crowded 
vehicles ^oing and coming, and dear 
hotels. They manage matters of the 
kind in Spain with a difference. 

Some years since a statue was 
erected to Cervantes in front of the 
Congress building, and the historian, 
Antonio Cavanilles, took occasion to 
mention the opinion of the ghost of 
the great Spaniard on the matter in a 
dialogue held between them. 

*' During my life they left mc in poverty. 
Xow they raise statues which are of no man« 
ner of use to me, and they never celebrate a 
mass for the repose of my soul — a thing of 
which I have much need.** 

Whether the Marquis of Molins, 
the same gentleman who superin- 
tended the editions of Don Quixote at 
Argamasilla, took this appeal to heart 
or not, it is certain that since the year 
1862 a solemn high mass and office 
have been celebrated for the above- 
mentioned purpose before the Royal 
Academy of Madrid. M. Antoine de 
Latonr,^ in his £tudes Litt^raires sur 



* Thlf gUlad and acTeeabl« writer was bom at Sainte 
Trldx (Haat« Vienne) In 1818, and educated at the 
eaUtfe of Dtjoo. He held professorthlpt at the col- 
1^ loortMMi and the college Heori Quatre. Louis 
f to tim ibff educMtioa of the joung 



TEspagne Modeme, has left an ac- 
count of one of these solemnities, 
some particulars of which are worth 
being presented. 

In 1616 Cervantes wis interred in 
the church of the Convent of the 
'Trinitarians, where his daughter had 
taken the veil. Some fifteen years 
afterward the community removed 
to the site now occupied by them, and 
the impression is strong that in the re 
moval the remains of the poet were 
brought to their own house, his daugh- 
ter being alive, or but recently dead at 
the time. In the chapel of their con- 
vent the annual solemnity takes place 
on the 16th April. The convent 
stands in the street called after Cer- 
vantes^ contemporary and dramatic 
rival, Lope de Vega. We proceed 
with M. de Latour's account of what 
he witnessed. 

Our visitor found the chapel hung 
with black cloth trimmed with gold 
fringe. In the centre was a catafalque 
on which rested the habit of St. Francis 
borne by Cervantes during the last 
three years of his life, a sword, prison- 
fetters, a crown of laurel, and a copy 
of the first edition of Don Quixote. 
At each comer of the catafalque stood 
a disabled soldier, and at each side, 
and extending the whole length of the 
chapel, ran two lines of seats for the 
members of the various academies. 

At the lower end of the chapel, on 
seats connecting the extremities of the 
long rows mentioned, sat the Alcaid, 
the rector of the University, and the 
cur6 of Alcala de Henares, Cervantes' 
birthplace, where the record of his 
baptism was discovered some time 
since. 

Among the remarkable personages 
met to celebrate the occasion, M. de 
Latour noticed the Marquis de Mo- 
lins, its institutor; M Hartzembuch, 
a dramatic poet, an idolizer of Cer- 

Due de Montpen^ier, and In 1S43 he shared the exlb 
of the house of Orleans. He made bis literary dib\A 
in poetry, his other productions being an Essay on Uie 
Ilistory of France in the Nineteenth Century, an Ac- 
count of the Due de Montpensier^s Journey to the 
East, and essays on Luther, tUcan, VeTto^^Wiexbe, 
Ac He luu resided for a considerable iVme Vu&pihi, 
Mad written tour or fire works onSpviUtL ftuV>^«etei. 



28 



Modem Writers of Spain. 



vantes, and the zealous superintendent 
of the two ArganiasiUa editions of the 
Don ; Ventura de la Vega, the Mar- 
quis de Santa Cruz, whoso ancestor 
fought at Le{)anto, and Antonio Cav- 
anillcs, the eminent historian before 
mentioned. Seated behind the acadc- 
micians were the most illustrious la- 
dies of Spain, all appropriately attired 
in mourning dress. 

The Arciibishop of Seville celebrat- 
ed high mass, the different parts of 
which were accompanied witii music 
as old as the days of Cervantes him- 
self. The distinguished composer, 
Don Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, had 
sought these pieces out with much 
trouble, some of them having for a 
long time been only heard in the Sis- 
tine chapel at Rome. We subjoin' the 
opening!* of some of these, with the au- 
thors and dates. 

Regem cut omnia vhunt (the king 
by wliom all things live) was compos- 
ed by Don Melchior Roblodo, chapel 
master in Sanigossa in 1569, tiie same 
year when Cervantes' little collection 
of elegiac poems on Queen Isabel ap- 
peared. 

Domine in furore tiio (Lord (rebuke) 
me not in thy fury) was the composi- 
tion of Don Andres Lorente, organist 
in Alcala de llenares, Cervantes' 
birthplace. He himself probably 
heard it sung there in his youth. 

Versa est in luctiun cithara mea 
(my harp has changed to sorrow) was 
composed for the funeral of Philip 
II. by Don Alfonso Lobo. . 

Libera me (deliver me), the com- 
position of Don Matias Romero, 
Chapel blaster to Philip III., dates 
from about the death of Cervantes. 

Don Francisco de Paula Benavides, 
the young bishop of Siguenza, 
preached the sermon. Taking his 
text from St. Paul, " Being dead he 
still speaketh llirough faith," he 
proceeded with the panegyric of the 
great-soulod poet and soldier, and of 
all the illustrious dead who have 
honoured Spain by their writings. 
lie did not neglect to interest the 
nuDs, who were listeoiog with all 



their might behind their lattices. 
Their order had been iostnimental in 
restoring the brave Saavedra to his 
country, and to their exertions Spain 
and the world were in part indebted 
for the Don Quixote and the Exem- 
plary Novels. They possessed the 
remains of the poet in their house, 
and thus bound to his memory they 
must not omit the care of his salva- 
tion in theu' prayers. The delivery 
of the discourse, according to M. 
Latour, was marked with a noble 
simplicity, and a manner combining 
sweetness with vigour. 

Next morning lie returned to the 
convent, hoping to be gratified with 
the sight of Cervantes' tomb. Alas ! 
he learned that when the remains 
were transferred from the old house, 
sufficient attention was not paid to 
keep them apart from those of others 
who were removed along with them. 
So, though it is morally certain that 
the present convent of the Trini- 
tarians guards all that remains of the 
body, once so full of life and active 
energy, they are now undistinguish- 
able from the relics of the nameless 
individuals who had recjived inter- 
ment in the same building. 

TUB MODEUN NOVEL: DONNA C^RCELIA 
DE FAUEIi. 

We are not to imagine Spain in- 
sensible to the merits of her living 
gifted sons and daughters, and ever 
employed in shedding tears over the 
tombs of her Cervantes, her Lope de 
Vega, or her Mendoza. No. She 
poss(»sses living writers whose names 
are not only known fi-om AnJalu9ia 
to Biscay, but are even spoken of in 
Paris salons. The most distinguished 
among these is the lady who chooses 
to style herstiif Fernan CalndlerOy 
her real name being Ciecilia de 
Faber, her birthplace Alorges in 
Switzerland, and her father, M. Bohl 
de Faber, a Hamburgh merchant, and 
consul for tliat city at Cadiz. 

She has been married more than 
once, and thus enabled to combine 
experience with natural ability in 



Moehm Writen of Spattu 



80 



ber pictures of life and mannen. 
Throogh the favor of the queen she 
holds apartments in the Alcazar of 
Seville, and the splendid old Moorish 
atj ooold not possess a writer better 
qualified to paint the manners of the 
filtle-doing, muchnsnjoying people of 
that soothem paradise, Andalu9ia, 
and the delights of the happy climate, 
where life is not only supportable, but 
enjoyable at very small expense. 

Besides happily seizing and vividly 
sketching what takes place among 
the aristocracy of Seville in their 
Patios* and Tertulias (reunions in 
their $alons\ this authoress has made 
herself thoroughly acquainted with 
the circumstances and characters 
and peculiar customs of the country 
kborers and shepherds. Melo- 
dramatic situations abound in some 
of them, and perhaps these are more 
relished by her Spanish readers than 
others whose chief merit consists in 
truthful and picturesque tableaux of 
the order of things among which they 
are placed, and which consi?quently 
possesses no novelty for them. We 
can readily conceive how French and 
English students of her novels and 
romances would prefer this latter 
class for their entertainment. Who 
would not rather listen to a couple of 
Andaln^ian peasants discussing the 
dime and people of Britain than 
to some terrible, exciting, though un- 
dignified, domestic tragedy ? {A. is 
dissuading B. from making the voy- 
age to Britain.) 

"•A. The earth is there covered with so 
deep a crust of sdow that people arc buried 
b it. 

- B, Most Blessed Mnry I But they are 
quiot folk, and do not carry stilettoes. 

" A, They have no olives, no gaspacho,! 
and most put up with black bread, potatoes, 
&od milk. 

^ B, Much good may it do them. 

** A The worst is, there are neither monks 
fior Duns there ; the churches arc few, and 

• Ti« Patio* are the Interior flapged courts %\xv- 
maoded by coloonadea from the roofn of which lamps 
are m*i>ended. In the centre of the court U a fouii- 
lali; formunded by •hrubs In fruit or flower. Scate<l 
«o rifaa In the corridor, or on carpets near the foun- 
tain, the princely owners cigoy on elysiuin during hot 
wcathrer. 

t S019 HUM* iv> ofoUr0 oil, rlnpgMT, tpioes, etc 



the walls of them as bare as if they were hos- 
pitals ; no private diapels, no altars, no cru- 
cifixion. 

"-B. Oh, my sun, my white bread, my 
church, my Maria Sc^itissima, my delightful 
land, my Dios Sacramcntado I How could I 
think to change you for that land of snow, of 
black bread, of bare-walled churches, of her- 
etics? Horrible!'* 

Feman Caballero enters with warm- 
hearted sympathy into the pleasures 
and troubles of her country people. 
Few could read without interest her 
sketch of tlie peasants returning at 
evening from their work. We fancy 
Sancho Fanza and a neighbor coming 
home to meet the greeting of Tereza 
and his children, himself mounted on 
Dapple^ while the little foal frolics 
about, unconscious of its own future 
life of labor. Sancho carries a bas- 
ket of fruit and vegetables covered 
with the sappy maize stalks, which 
will furnish a delightful supper to 
the patient hurra, Sancho's neigh- 
bor is riding beside him, and you 
will hear in a quarter of an hour of 
their conversation more proverbs tlian 
John Smith and Tom Brown would 
quote in seven years. The hurras 
quicken their pace as they approach 
the vilkige, for the children of both 
men are running to meet them, while 
their wives are looking out for them 
from the porches of their doors. 
Sancho dismounts and sets his younger 
child on Dapple, while his elder 
frolics about her and makes free with 
her eaiji. Sanchos neighbor gets 
his youngest into his lap, while one of 
the elder boys takes the halter and 
the other gambols about with the 
trusty house dog, asses and dog being 
much better treated than if their lot 
lay in Berkshire or Donegal. 

With their innumerable rhymed 
proverbs, their chatty propensities, 
their happy clime, fine country, facil- 
ity of procuring a livelihood, few 
wants, and lively and happy temper- 
aments, the Andalu^ian peasants afford 
suitable subjects to Fernau Caballero's 
pencil. They see in the many natural 
advnntan^rs Xhoy possess, the goodncfta 
of God and the favors of the samla \ 



80 



Modem Writen of Spain. 



and their pious legends, in connection 
with every object round them, are in- 
numerable. *' Toads and serpents are 
useful in absorbing the poisonous ex- 
halations of the earth ; the serpent at- 
tempted to bite the Holj Infant on the 
journey into Egypt, so Saint Joseph 
appointed him to creep on his belly 
thenceforth. Some trees have the 
privilege of permanent foliage because 
they sheltered the Holy Family on 
the same journey. The Blessed Vir- 
gin hung the clothes of the Infant 
Jesus on a rosemary bush to dry, so 
its sweetest perfume and brightest 
blossoms are reserved for Friday. 
The swallow plucked some of the 
thorns out of the Saviour's crown, 
therefore he is a favorite bird with 
all Christians, while the owl is ob- 
liged to keep his eyes shut and whim- 
per out, * cruz^ criLZj because he irrev- 
erently stared at our suffering Lord 
on the cross. The hedgehog siiould 
be well treated, because he presented 
to the Blessed Virgin some sweet ap- 
ples on the tips of his prickles, while 
the earwig is deservedly hated for 
boring his way into, and effectually 
spoiling the nicest of them." Most 
of these poetically devout fancies are 
or were familiar with the Roman Cath- 
olic peasantry of Ireland, and probably 
amongst the popukce of most conti- 
nental countries. 

Perhaps the most powerful of our 
autlioress's stories is La Craviota (the 
sea-gull), giving the career of a^ selfish, 
ill-disposed counti7 girl, gifted with 
some beauty and a fine voice. She 
obtains a gentle Grerman doctor for 
husband, is patronized by a duke, 
trained for the office of a prima donna, 
becomes fascinated by a bullfighter, 
proves false to her estimable husband, 
and ends badly of course. Devout 
and moral as the authoress undoubt- 
edly is, she does not avoid strong and 
exciting situations no more than Mrs. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe or Mrs. Oli- 
phant. Such is the scene where the 
betrayed husband sees her seated be- 
side the bullfighter among his un- 
edifying assoclateSi and that other of 



the death of her paramour by a 
furious animal in the arena before 
her eyes, and these are matched by 
passages in the Alvareda Family.* 
This story, which is entirely occupied 
with country folk, and incidents of the 
war in Buonaparte's time, and scenes 
of brigandage, is next to La Gaviota 
in power. The match-making scene 
between the garrulous and saving 
Pedro and his relative that is to be, 
the Tia Maria, fully as provident as 
himself, might have happened in a 
country farmhouse in Wexford or 
Carlow, and would have been de- 
scribed by Banim or Griffin or Carle- 
ton, nearly in the same terms. 

The Andalusians are as partial to 
bantering each other as the natives of 
Ealcullen or Bantry, but all is taken 
in good humor. 

In reading the country business in 
this and others of our authoress's tales 
we have been forcibly reminded of 
corresponding pictures so trutlifully 
painted in Adam Bode. We could 
scarcely iancy such a piece of extrava- 
gance as the following to be uttered by 
a Spanish lady, till assured of the fact 
by Foman Caballero. Casta wishes 
to induce her elderly lover, Don Judas 
Taddeo Barbo, to cease his persecu- 
tions. He does not read, and enter- 
tains feelings of repugnance to literary 
ladies in gencnU ; so she takes him 
into her confidence. 

" * Ye.«, ycf, I am a poet, but do not men- 
tion it, I beg. Some of my works are print- 
ed, but I bare put the names of my fricndd 
to them. Martinez do la llosa^s poems are 
mine, not his. I have also tried my hand on 
theatrical pieces. The Consolations of a 
Prisoner, attributed to the Duke dc Kivas, is 
my composition.' 

** * Who would have suspected a lady, so 
young, so beautiful, so womanly, so attrac- 
tive? Why, a writing woman ought to be 
old, ugly, and slovenly — a man-wouLin I* 

" * All prejudices, Don Judas. Have you 
read mv Tell ?' 

*** Miguel Tell, the Treasurer? Xo. I 
never read ; it injures my sight.* 

** * Well I must read an extract from my 
great historical work on William Tell, not 

^ A tnuiftlatlon of thU ttoiy waa given la Tbi 
Oatiiouc Wohlo of Ust year, at Perlco the Sad; 
or, Tte Alvareda Kamilj. 



Modem WrUen of JS^ndn. 



91 



X^gael the TreasQrer.* (Here poor Don Judas 
be^ to meditate aa escape, the Ycry thmg 
the ladT wished.) 

* * WHfiam Tdl, my hero, was a natire of 
Scotland who refused to bow down to the 
bttTer haft of the English General, Mdlbrun^ 
fet up on a high pole. Out of this circum- 
ftance arose the thirty years* war, at the end 
of which Ten was proclaimed King of England 
Older the title of William the Conqueror. He 
brooght disgrace on bis royal name by caus- 
ing lus wife, the beautiful Anne Bolcyn, to be 
breaded. Struck with remorse he sent his 
MD Richard Idon-heart on a pilgrimage to 
the Holy Land. On his return he was im- 
prisoDed for his great admiration of Luther, 
Gslvin, Yolt^re, and Rousseau, members of 
tbe ReTolntionary Directory which put the 
picas King Louis XIY. to death. About that 
time Don Pedro the Cruel established the iu- 
fnntioii in Spain to prevent such proceedings 
m bb kingdom, and thus he obtamed his sur- 



Poor I>on Judas was terrified by 
tbe erudition of the cunning lady, who 
dAs got rid of him. 

The collected, works of this lady 
bare been printed at the expense of 
the qaeen. It is only seventeen or 
eighteen years since she began to write, 
and, if we can trust the accuracy of 
foreign biographers, she is now in her 
KTentieth year. Two volumes of se- 
lections from her works entitled The 
Castle and Cottage in Spain, have ap- 
peared in an English dress. 

irsnc TArss : don antonio de trueba. 

The writer next to be noticed, by 
binh a Biscayan peasant, is now or 
was lately a sub editor of a newspaper. 
Doe Antonio de Trueba y la Qu in tana 
was bom 24th December, 1821. In 
the preface to one of his works he pre- 
sents this picture of his birthplace and 
his early life. 

^On the slope of one of the mountains of 
Hseay stand four white houses nearly hidden 
■ a wood of walnut and chestnut trees, and 
vhich cannot be seen at any distance till 
winter has deprived the trees of their foliage. 
Tbere I passed the first fifteen years of my 
Ufc 

**In the valley is a church whose spire 
pierces the surrounding canopy of foliage, and 
is aecn above the chestnut and ash trees. In 
this cfaorch they celebrate two masses, one at 
tbe rising of the sun, the other two hours af- 
lerwafd. 



" We, the young boys of the hamlet rose 
every Sunday with the song of the birds, and 
went down to the early mass, singing and 
jumping over the bushes. The elders of the 
families attended the later devotions. While 
the fathers and grandfathers were so occu- 
pied, I took my seat under a cherry tree op* 
posite the door, and had a full view of the 
entire vale till it approached the shore. I 
was soon joined by four or five young girls 
with cheeks "as blooming as the cherries 
which hung over our beads, or the red rib- 
bons which bound the long braids of their 
hair. They would request me to make some 
verses for them to sing in the evening to the 
accompaniment of the basque tambourine, 
when the young would be dancmg, and the 
aged looking ou in sympathy with their en- 
joyment." 

Don Antonio was already a poet, 
though his material sources of informa- 
tion and inspiration were very easily 
counted. His library consisted of the 
Fueros -(Customs) of Biscay, Sama- 
nego's Fables, Don Quixote, a book 
of ballads, and two or three vol- 
umes of the Lives of the Saints. At 
fifteen years of age (1836), the Carlist 
cause gathering the youth of Biscay to 
its side, Antonio's parents not being 
enthusiastic partisans of that party, 
sent their son to a distant relative in 
Madrid, who could do nothing better 
for the future poet and novelist than 
employ him in his hardware shop to 
take down door-hinges, pokers, and 
frying-pans for his customers. 

For ten tedious years did our poet 
in embryo do the duty of a shopman 
by day, treat himself to a book when 
be could, and spend in study great part 
of the time that should be given to 
sleep. Bad business or failure obliged 
him at the end of the time mentioned 
to look out for other occupation, and 
since that time he has been connected 
with journalism, the evenings still be- 
ing devoted to poetry and romance. 

The ordinary vehicle in which the 
nameless poets of Spain utter their 
thoughts to the people is the quatrain, 
in which the second and fourth lines 
rhyme after a fashion, the accented 
vowels corresponding without excep- 
tion, the consonants when it pleases 
Apollo. This is what they caVV \\iq 
jRamancey and in which Trueba \i«A 



92 



Modem Writers of Spain, 



endeavored to improve the taste of the 
people by a genuine poetic feeling, 
and perfection in the structure of the 
verse. 

But our Biscayau thought a poet's 
life incomplete without the sympathy 
which only a loving and intelligent 
wife can afford. So he incurred the 
expense of a household, as well as gave 
support to his aged parents. Along 
with laboring at the public press and 
writing and pubHshing Los Canta- 
res, he found time to compose his 
Rose-colored Tales, all concerned with 
the ordinary life of the country in 
whic!i his boyhood was pjussed, and all 
seen through that softly colored magic 
medium through which mature age 
loves to look back to the period of 
careless hopeful youth. These stories 
arc called Hie Resurrection of the 
Soul, The Stepmother, From our 
Country to Heaven, The Judas of 
the House, and Juan Palamo. All 
end happily, all are imbued with the 
purest morality, and breathe an atmos- 
phere in which live the best feelings 
of our nature. 

While writing the dedication of 
them to his wife, he was enlivened by 
the anticipation of a visit they would 
>>iiortly make to his natal village. 

*' Wliilo I write this, the most cheriiiihcd 
wish of inv life is ttiK)Ut to bo pji-atifiod. He- 
fore the .July sun withci-s up the flowers, the 
breezes and tlie flowera of my native hills 
hlmll eool our foreheads, and perfume our 
hair. The venerable man wjjo honors him- 
self and thee in callinj^ thee his dauj?ht<»r, is 
now poing from house to house in the village, 
and telliu}^ the companions of my boyhood, 
while tears of joy liud their way down his 
cheek, * My children arc coming ; my son is 
about revisituij; hi» native valleys as lovingly 
as he bade them adieu twenty years ago.' 

"And our father and our brother are 
thinking on us every moment, and doing all 
in their humble means to beautify and cheer 
the apartments destined for us. Every time 
they come to the windows, they expect to 
8ee my fonn on the hillock where they caught 
the last i^ighl of me seventeen years ago." 

Alas! what disappointments wait 
on such ]>leasant anticipations ! Pay- 
ing a tanly visit to the scenes so lov- 
ingly and pleasurably remembered, the 
carewora elderly man finds dear old 



houses levelled ; new, rair ooes remred 
on their site ; old paths and ways de- 
serted, and new roads laid down ; new 
and uninteresting topics filling np con- 
versation, the once fresh and fair ro- 
mantic boys and girls now common* 
place husbands and wives, except such 
as have been removed by death or 
change of residence. His former com- 
rades, youths and maids once buoyant 
with bright hopes, are now gray-liaired 
and wrinkled, or distressed, or depart- 
ed, and of the revered and loved old 
people of long ago not one has been 
left to bid him welcome. There are 
now no ties to detain hun in his long 
regretted native place ; he hastens 
back to his ordinary colorless occupa- 
tion and cares, rendered agreeable or 
tolerable by habit, and wishes he had 
not gone on that sorrowful journey. 

In the greater part of these tales 
figures the Indian, that is, one who has 
spent some time in Mexico or the 
West Indies, and returns to cheer or 
disturb the foi*mer companions of his 
early life. The narratives are made 
up of simple village annals, loves and 
jealousies, injustices and their punish- 
ments, generous deeds and their re- 
compenses, constancy sharply tried and 
victorious, unions at the threshing 
floors, Sunday morning devotions, Sun- 
day evening recreations, troubles of 
good housewives with their play-lov- 
ing little boys, and all the worries and 
comforts and joys and griefs that at- 
tend on the lives of those whoso lot is 
to cultivate the earth, the cure always 
filling the office of the good fairy in 
household tales. 

SATIRE : DON JOSE OONZ^VIiEZ D£ TEJADA. 

Don Jose Gonzalez de Tejada may 
be taken as the representative hian^ 
of the living Spanish satirists. Few ' 
looking on the steady, easy-going, fat, 
and florid young man with good-nature 
playing about the comers of his mouth, 
would suspc'ct the keen spirit of satire 
which inspires his verses. Making 
use of the romance form before ex- 
plained, he celebrated in the public 



JHMfm Wrtien of J^Knm. 



88 



pipen the late trhimphs of his coontry 
9rer tbe Moors, and these verses were 
io ereiy one's month. In his satires 
he never condescends to personalities. 
He huhes selfishness, ra^ for wealth, 
worldliness, lack of ^patriotism, etc 
He calls his collection ^Anacreontic 
Fbems of the latest Fashion," but they 
hare nothing of the genuine Anocre- 
ootics but the form* The classic stu- 
dent, or even the reader of Moore's 
tianslation, recollects the bibulous old 
poet's direction to the painter about 
Us mistress's portrait. Here is the 
Spanish equivalent : 

" Figure to me, photographer of m j ^ul t 
Ae besaty who holds me in thrall. 

** As to coontemnce, let her be dark or 
Ur, to me it*s all the same. 

" But lei sparkling diamonds give lustre to 
ker tresses, and two golden lamps hang from 
kerears. 

** Let her neck be dark, or possess the 
vhitenees of alabaster, but for decency^s sake 
corer it with pearls or sapphires. 

** Let her graceful form be shrouded with 
ndk Taluable stuffs. A rich binding always 
enhances the value of books. 

" While she rolls along in her caliche my 
attention is occupied with her rich liveries 
nd the cost of the equipage. 

^ Happy he who, prancing along by the car- 
riige, or seated by her side, cigar in mouth, 
can exclaim, * All that surrounds mo is 
■um!* 

** Pkint her for me in ball costume, at the 
OttU, or the rrtiro^ ever richly dressed, ever 
■UToanded by opulent charms. 

** B«t alas ! her greatef t charms you cannot 
tee to portray — her fiithcr's crowns I On 
tbest ia my heart fixed." 

Don Jose is somewhat old fashion- 
ed in his notions. He does not attrib- 
ute all the qualities of an overruling 
Pnwidence to the mere progress of 
science and the additions to our cor- 
poral conveniences. Here is his vision 
of the origin of printing : 

'^ Taming the earth into a sponf^e with his 
lean, man presented himself all drecpiog at 
the throne of Jupiter. 

•* And cried, * Good evening, powerful 
fad, naker of stars, of worlds, and of domes- 
tie A>wl! 

"••Thou createdat us one day from nothing 
mixed with a little mud ; thou hast bestowed 
on OS genius enveloped in a sof^ covering of 

■* *TImi world is j a^^ Mtuf mat of ag m 
VOL r. 8 



parrot dimbtng and baUwcing himself ofer 
his neighbor's head. 

"'Thou hast bestowed us ears which to 
the deaf are a mere ornament, and a tongae, 
best gift of all 

" ' Placed between the teeth the givea 
them to understand that unless she lies, they 
can have nothing to chew. 

" ' But alas ! in our time she is racapable to 
express all that the fruitful brain ooncaivM 
and brings forth. 

" ' Lengthen it then the third of a perofa, or 
give it for aid an additional organ. 

" ' Juppy made a grimace, and the affright- 
ed hills sunk, and the poles trembled. 

" ' Well; said the deity, always prodkal 
of gifls, ' I shall convert into tongues flundry 
vile things of this lower world. 

" ' Of old shirts, of disgusting rags, I shall 
make gay clothes for the press, flesh and 
blood for the daily paper. 

"'In the feathered garb of the gooae are- 
cannons sufficient to win treasures. - • 

*' ' Let your arms cease to brandish the war- 
like steel, and turn inert and fat bodi^ of . 
men into sieves. •' 

" ' Iron fashioned into slender tongues 
which sing along the paper, shall there en- - 
grave the conceptions of genius. 

" ' And in order that you may attain the 
steepest summits, I shall furnish your heads 
with pride and envy in abundance. 

" * Advance, throw shame behind, flatter 
the proud, copy, deride, calumniate, and be 
sure to bum incense in your own honor. 

" * I have spoken.* And he added, rubbing 
his chin, ' Henceforth you are a man ; hith- 
erto you were but an ape.* *' 

HISTORY : DON ANTONIO CAVANILLES. 

Don Antonio Cavanilles, an advo- 
cate and member of the Academy, has 
distinguished himself by his yet un- 
finished history of Spain, an interest- 
ing narrative, evincing the most patient 
research, and attractive from the ad- 
juncts of customs and phases of the 
different eras, and personal traits of 
the historical personages. Don Mo- 
desto Lafucnte is engaged on another 
history of the same country. Don 
Antonio belongs to the school of Livy 
and IIci*odotus, Don Modesto writes 
in the spirit and with the pen of a 
Manchester radical. 

THE drama: don adelardo lofbz db 

AYALA. 

Zealous as the first historian for the 
preserva/ion of the heroic and unaeV 
iah dmracter of the geauihe H\daA|^o, 



The Gad/ret^ Fcuntl^ ; or, QmiHom of thi Da^. 



Doo Adelanio Lopez de Ayala writes 
bis drama of " So Much per Cent," in 
wtiich lie excites unmeaisured contempt 
for the "freed of gold, and the rn^e of 
speculation, whose visit to the old soil 
of chivalry the author deprecates wiih 
all his might. 

Don Gaapar Bono Serrano, a 
brave and devout raititory chaplain* 
once attending the wounded in Dan 
Carlos^a camp, and an Arragonest^ by 
birth, has given the lie to the public 
inipre5>sion that no jwi+it is bom outside 
of Castile and Andaluyia. 

While it mu^t be owi>ed with regret 
that pestilent French Boveb have 
found their way in abundance across 
the Pyrenees^ the native literature of 
Spain, with Bcarce an exception, main* 
tains its ancient prestige for Christian 
morality. Long may the word coti- 
dnue to be said! 



Want of space pr*?vents any notice 
of th^ feuiUeion and the dmma of 
Spain at the present day, and other] 
literaiy topics interesting the Spanish I 
capital. An inatance of the interest 1 
taken in sound, fictional literature la 
high quarters is furnished by the pub- 
lication of tlie complete collected nor- , 
els of Fern an Caballero, and of An- 
tonio Trueba at the expense of the | 
Queen. Meanwhile Feman^or rather 
i>oEa Crocilia, (ntf) de Faber, dwells [ 
in the Royal Alcazar of Seville in 
apartments f^rawted by her qoeen^era* 
ploys herself writing an educational 
work for the junior portion of the roy- 
al family, and enjoys an extensive ^m 
view from her windows over I be old^| 
Moorish buildings, the Guadal quiver, ^* 
and the charming Andaluyian laud* 
scape througli which it winds. 



THE GODFREY FAMILY j OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY 



CHAITER XXyifL 

Wrm a woman's tact, Adelaide set 
to work to provide some powerful at- 
traction for her father; and luc-kily 
the proposed formation of a scienlific 
fk>ciety brought many men of his own 
way of thinking to town just then : and 
among them iln S pence, and a lord 
or two of " promotion of knowledge'* ee- 
kbrity. Having managed thoroughly 
10 interest her father in this society, 
Adelaide told him that sea air would 
benefit Hesters health, that she intend- 
ed to go with her for a few weeks to 
try it, that meantime Mr. Spence 
would keep him company in the 
house, which Lucy Fairfield would 
take charge of. To this Mr. Godfrey, 
though fiomewhat taken by surprise, as* 
sented : he had already, at Adelaide's 
roqaefit, invited Mr, Spence to spend 
m /pit weeks with him ; but that gen- 



tleman WAS not exactly well pleased 
to find on his arrival that the ladies 
were already preparing for departure. 
He hud intended to win a bride during 
his visit, thinking that even if Hester 
provtnl obdurate, he might have a 
chance with the fair young widow. 
But the carriage wjls alrt!ady at the 
door. ** I shall send the carriage back^ 
iather, in a dny or two,'' naid Adelaide. 
^'^ I do not care to have my horsea at a 
livery stable ; Hester and I are going 
to nisticate, ride donkeys, climb hitbi 
and tlirow pebbles into the sea: we 
take only Nomh with us^ and you will 
have to see that the carriage horses 
are duly ejcercised every day." She j 
waved her hand in adteti, giving no 
time tor reply. The gentlemen could 
only bow their assent. Mr. Godfrey 
was too well acquainted with Adelaides 
imperious temperament to think of dia- 
puting her oommandd \ he bad long 



^ 



■ 



TM thdfre^ Famtfy ; or^ Qu$8ti<ms of th§ Day. 



85 



IfftRied to respect even Uer eccen* 
rriettieK. Wiui she not a ducbee^a ? 

Tht? joomey went on well enough 
the first day, bat on the second, Ade- 
laide Borpriged ber retinue bv sending 
dMm back with the ejirrlage, telling 
tbem nbc woald proceed onward with 
a bin^ rebiele. The ooachman and 
foodnan looked as if they would like 
10 fBOMKiMrate, but it bad been proired 
b» be iiomewhat dangerous to argue 
vltb tbia Tery pesitive lady, accus- 
laaied to obey no will except her own, 
Tbej Bubmitted in silence, therefore, 
llMMlgll moch against their inclination. 
•Wow »*• aaid Adelaide, when they had 
|t|Mute<J, ** wc can enjoy the luxury 
rf beiDg ourselves, imencumbered by 
ilile and trappings, Hester, do you 
Itiok you can teach Norah to call me 
^Ittfi ' ma'am,' for a little while, till we 
TCfnm borne? I am again Adelaide 
Gtidfr^y* that name will tell nothing 
tod will enable ua to act as we like, 
Bn^baerred by any/* 

It wnA not found difficult to initiate 
Kormb into the idea that the great 
19 wanted to lay aside her dig* 
r a while, for the truth was 
'« difficulty had ever been to 
^1 beraeif to say ** your grace/* on re- 
raijfc' oce-aslons. These prtlimina- 
m ae tiled, the ladies proceeded on 
Adr journey, took rea*ly furnished 

Mj g hi g a in H , and prepared to 

lead thi! quiet life of the middle cla-^.^es 
«f toriety when out on a " bathing for 
laillb'* ratcui-sion. 

Tbr locution of the Catliolic chapel 
«aa ■oon examined, the pries t*t9 house 
innicaling with it. In neat stmw 
ts Irimmetl with white, and plain 
drt-sses, Adelaide and Hester 
[vaiited al the daily ma^s. lu the 
\ lliey recognized at once the AbbiS 
ai, acd in the noble-featured 
'who knelt by his side Adelaide 
tlie likeness, now first be- 
dear to her, of her lute hus- 
A day or two elapsed ere she 
eummoD con rage to caU at the 
At length the moment arrived 
ike looked-for Tisit; the listers 
, howerer gcarcely gahied entmooe 



Kormb 
■ |«iben 



to the ooter court, when their atten* 

tion was attracted by loud sobs front i 
a little boy and girl, who Blood weept 
ing as if their hearts would break, Tha 
abbe was speaking to the woman witli i 
whom they came \ he then turned to 
the children, and patting them on tha i 
heads, said tenderly: ** I will come di' 
rectly, ray poor children." He lurued 
hastily away without perceiving hb vi%* 
itor^. Adi^laide took the boy's band 
kindly, ** What b the matter ?** she ask* \ 
ed. The boy could not spejik for weep* I 
ing, bat the woman answered : " Ulf ' 
mother, my lady, poor Biddy, sbure, she 
has fallen from her seat, on to the stono * 
pavement, while she was claning the 
windows of a large house in Queea 
street, and they say she must die." 

Adelaide whispered, ** take rae to 
your mother;" the boy looked at the 
woman ; " aye/* said ahe, " do you and 
Sissy go home with the ladies, I will 
wait to show his reverence the way.** 
Led by Adelaide and Heater, the giri 
and boy threaded back the way to their 
wretched horne^ and entered it some 
time before the priest arrived. In 
one of those dreary places of lai^e 
cities caEed a " blind alley" — where the 
houses nearly mtet in the upper stories, 
and where the sunshine of heaven it 
excluded; surrounded by bad smells, 
and the very atmosphere of which 
makes us shrink and shudder as we 
enter the damp and dirly houaeiv 
the inhabitants of which are for tbo 
moat part vex'y dirty also — here in a 
cellar, darker even than its neighbora, 
lay a poor widow with four children 
weeping around her. The woman 
was barely sensible ; her brain and 
spine were injured ; the doctor had 
said she could not live till night ; two 
women, neighbors, were with her try* 
ing " to get sense out of her,*' as they 
said. It was the first time the sisters 
had ever witnessed such a scene. The 
very walls were covered with dirt ; the 
floor was partly brick, and where these 
were broken away, the foot slipped into 
holes of the bare earth j the window* 
were so eowered with dust and co\)we\» 
it WM3 diificuJt to Bod out whal Oi^y' 



M 



Tha Chdfre^ Famify ; or, Questions of Ma Ihjf> 



were made ot On a law palkt, on 
ft dirty Bt raw-bed, with do blanketd, 
no dlieet8, nau^lit eave one dirty cov- 
erlet, lay a figure wiih lonj^^dark, lank 
hair, almost covering her face and per- 
«(>Ti, Ad*jlaide approached* but the 
woman heeded her not ; her large 
dark eyes werL' set : she moaned from 
time to time, but apoke not. *' Where 
do you feel pain T * kindly inquired 
the kdy, ** Oh 1 ble^a you, my lady, 
[•«he cannot spake/' said one of the 
I women. **The Lord be praised, here 
[iotnes his reverence.'' said the other. 
19^ May the sweet Jesus lend her her 
, a few minutes* to let her spake 
[to the prie^st !'* The abbe entered ; he 
1 feoked very grave ; he sat down on 
the bed (there was no other seat in 
the room) to examloc tlie pulae and 
h breathing of the patient He spi>ke 
I Id hen She answered noL *^Try 
[lo rouse hcr^"" he said to tlie women, 
[They calh*d to her: *' Biddy » dear, 
iibare liere'a hi^i reverence* Biddy.won'l 
you ^pake to the priest?** Sh»> con- 
tinued uneonaciims, ^* llavo you a 
smelling bottle T he said to Adelaide. 
1^ We must bring her to consciousneas, 
wish I had some e&u-de Caloffiie." 
Jl*I will fetch you aomc/* said Ade- 
Ikidf*. 

The Bisters went out and purehaaed 
illie mtt^-CoIa^ne^ al^n bread and re* 
Dshmcnts for the children ; and then 
that damp, unwliule-ioine don^ the 
fduchess watched long huurs by the side 
|#f the unfortunate wonian. She wa^ 
natteoded too, /or Hester had grown 
Ifaint, auil Adelaide ha<l inslsleJ on her 
joing home, and the abbo had lefl for 
while. At length consciousness re- 
[fcirned, and the poor mother opened 
[her eyes again. The priest was irn- 
aodiately sent for, as he had desired 
I be, and the first word^f she whispered 
etmyed a consciousness of Ids pres- 
( 91100, for ihey were : ** Bring me my 
l&id ! my sweet Jesus, come l" 
^he room was cleared for a few mo- 
[ments* Biddy liad been a faithful 
timber foi the church — fthe waa a 
Bcxithly conimunieaftt, and the la^ 
cola brought miiptifakable ooii* 



gelation to her* She had remaiiiod 
silent and in prayer for some time, A 
change came over her, and she inotione4 
the father to come near to her* ** I 
am dying, father, and but for one 
thought it were sweet to die. My 
children — oh I my children I I have 
struggled — ^father, you know I have 
struggled to keep them in the true 
faith, to make them love Jesus and 
Mary ; and now^ must they go to the 
scoffers ? must they hear their faith 
laughed at ? O my God I O my 
Je^ius I Imve pity on my childreo ! 
Mary, my mother, send a mother to 
my 4»hUdren. Let loe come to thee in 
love and not in fear, O mother o*' 
God, pity my children V* Agony caused 
the drops to stand on the poor woman *a 
brow ; tears streamed down her cheeks ; 
her haudj were clasped c^invulsively 
together; it was as tliough the soul 
were anxious to depart, but delayed m 
order to plead with heaven in favor 
of the dear little ones it left behind. 
There was a solemn pau»e within that 
drcaiy chamber The dim caudle 
seemed to take a bright unearthly lighL 
The spirits of all were huj^hed in awe 
Surely angels were hovering near*, 
whispering to the mother that lier 
^ prayer was hear*!, for a smile brok^ 
over the features, the hanJs unclenched 
tliemselveri, peace overshadowed the 
room ; and then, a^* if moved by a pow- 
er she could not withstantl, Adt?laide 
came forward and knelt down in so- 
lemnity by the dying woman's dide. 
Taking within her own that now almost 
lifeless hand, slie said: *' I promise you, 
my sister, before Gi>d and this holy 
priest* that I wiU take care of you|* 
cliildren while I live^ and that they 
shall be carefully brought up in tl^'* 
holy Catholic Faith/^ The woman's 
^yes were no longer sensible to sight, 
but her spirit heai-d the promise. *' I 
thank thee, my GuJ!"she uttered. 
Shortly after a ray of indescribable 
rapture lighted up her features* 
" je^sus, ALiry» I come !** she said ; and 
the soul had llown to its home in the 
bright, bright realms of etrerlastiog 



I 
I 
1 
I 



ThM Godfrey Family: or, Qmstions of the Da^ 



87 




liir»v nis most not be a paoper's iiiTi«^ 
fsl,* nad Adelaide, as she rose from 
hat ktyetB, •* Father, I am a stranger 
iMre ; will jau appoint 8omc one to ^ee 
toky She placed her purse in \m 
liand as »be spoke. The lather looked 
At her. *• Sureij I have seen you be- 
far^-^ he said ; '* your face is faraiUar 
t»mmf bol I cannot rememlK^r where 
«« m^" Adelaide blushetL ** I will 
166 yoa after the funeral,** she said ; 
Awliile, may I a^ik you to point 
Die woman to ^o home with me, 
dmrge of these children ? I 
w3] pay ber well for her trouble." 
1^ abbe sent for a woman ; a coach 
iraa called, and Adelaide took the |>oor 
fiildren to her lodginp. Here they 
■tx« fed, washed, clothed in neat 
nonming, and miide ready to do the 
Jul and booora to their mother's re- 

A iaige oocKSonrse of Iiish neighbors 
ilteiid6d the faneral, though of course 
ill eves were attracted to the stranger 
hdi6jB, wbo walked up the aisle with 
a dktiii at each M%i of them. The 
pfkstwafi evidently moved as he turned 
liaddrtaa the assembly ; and ever and 

iua eye would glance to Ade- 

, aa if trying in vaio to make out 
wba ebe was. Hid discourse was on 
1^6 faiatory of poor Bridget who by 
bdbre IIictu It ran something after 
das fasyon : *^ My friends, a.^ we pass 
teoHgii life^ and the actions and 
dMMiglxis Of nal human beings come 
uader mar notice, one reflection seems 
ta strike ua more forcibly than all tlie 
real ; H ta this : that the retd heroism 
of tins earth is oi)en overlrxikcd, nc^t 
aoiy by tbe wcMrld at targe^ but also by 
4m adora themselves* The greatest 
aOt of ▼frtnc are performed by those 
«ba are uoccmscious of their greatness 

I greatest works done in this mis- 
world are done by those who 

' dream tliat they are heroines at 
alL A lady is tiiought wondrously 
aaadeeaendinjg if, troin charity, she sit 
fivafmf boan ia an ntmosfdiere which 
ibtpaoraiie ahe is tending endures at- 
■aja. She ta deemed charitable if, from 
\ita abaadaxice, sbu be^roH'^ alms oa 



the naked and stat^'ing. Now, all thia 
is fPeli, very well ; 1 would encourage , 
such efforts to tlie utmost ; they bnng 
a blessing both to the giver and re- 
ceiver : but for heroism, it is oftenest 
with the sufferer. I will relate to yoti 
a history with which I have only been 
made acquainted within these few 
honi-s. 1 had it from the lips of a 
friend who arrived from Ireland two 
days ago, in search of her who now 
lies before us. Bridget Norton wa« 
the daughter of an Irish fanner, who 
was somewhat better off than the ma- 
jority ; the farm-house was well kept$ 
the daily was a picture of neatness^ 
Everything around Ihe place was so fix- 
ed that thfy added to the completeness 
of the landscape, Bridget was a fin^S 
handsome girl, sought after by many^ 
and unfortunately among her suitors 
was one base enough to vow revenge 
for the preference she gave to the man 
she married. Bad times came ; the 
rejected suitor became agent for the 
landkiixl, and he perpetually harassed 
Norton for ca!?h on every possible pre* 
tence ; while he made base proposals 
to Ihe wife, which were rejeeled with 
the scorn they deserved, and the rage 
of the deceiver increased. The land- 
lord was unluckily a proselytizer. lie 
conferred great gifts to all who would 
go to the English church, but was re 
lentless against all who held out* 
Young Norton took sick ; when he 
was at the worst, the agent found a 
flaw iu his lease* and served an eject* 
men! on the family at the very time 
that the husband was unable to leavd 
hJ8 bed. Then his cattle died, somef i 
said by poison, and his crops failed. 
The nmn sank under these reverses, 
and died. The landlord made many 
offers to Bridget of assistance if she 
would send her children to his school 
and to church, and the agent contrived 
many S[>ecic8 of persecution to get her 
into his power, Bridget fled to Liver- 
pool, and by sheer hard work contrived 
to maiulaiu her family decently foi' 
some time ; liut her persecutor traoe<f 
her, folio well her, blackened het c\\at- 
Mcter, so iimt ihe lost her emp\o] 



as 



7^ Godfrey Famihf ; m^ Qu^gitomt of the Da^. 



meoL Aga,m she iM, but sickneas 
aTertcK»k her ere she had made herself 
knowD ^ she lost one of her chUdreii 
bj sickness ali§o» and, lastly, wa^ com- 
pelled to BcU her little furniture to huj 
bread; last week she inoved to the 
oelkr where she died. You know 
in what state she was found there* 

' Yet throughout iheae trials her confi- 
dence in God neTcr has faltered; »he 
baa for tlie last five years .suffered hard- 
ihip, penury, want, and persecution. 
Amid all she has kf^pt faithful to God^ 
forgiven her enemy, and taught her 
children the catechism. They have 
otlen wanted food, but never misaed 
their prayers ; they have often been 
clothed in rags, but never neglected a 
tnass of obligation. Thi:3, for one 
brought up as Bridget had been to love 
Btatoess and take pride in appearing 

I Mspectable, argues no ^mall victory 

[ over human respeet. But the love of 
God was deeply rooted in ht'r heart ; 

! the knew tiiat ejcercise elloitd virtue ; 

> nhe felt herself at school to an aU-wi/%e 
Father, who appointed for her the les- 
ions best suiteil to bring out that Un- 
failing truat which was conspicuous in 
her character, and which, in spite of 
her many triab, boi-e her cheerily 
(Usoughout litem all. Ye^, cheerful- 
Hess wfts (as is atte&te^l by all who 
knew her) Bridgets most amiable char* 
acteri^tiCf and it proceeded from her 
implicit trust in God. She had a 
niartyr*9 courage and a martyr's love, 
and I think it would be risking little 
to suppose that even now she may 
be wearing in heaven ihe martyr's 
emwn. Y'ct she passed through tlie 
world unii€»dG6d, and certainly was not 
oounted atnong its heroines/* 



C7HAPTER XXIX, 

Iiac£DiAT£LY after the funeral Ade- 
laide called on the abbe« according to 
her promise. She was acoompanied 
by Hester. 

*^ VVellf** said the g«x>d father as soon 
aa the preliminary compliments had 



passed, ** as you have taken possession 
of four of my spiritual children* to 
whom I am in some sort a guardian, 
you must allow me to ask your name 
and state. You arc a strange:, r m this 
city, it appears. ' 

** I am. My name is Adelaide : I 
am a widow." 

'^ And the name of 3rour husband ?** 

*^ My husband was the late Duke of 
Durimond.** 

The father slarte*!: he looked 
again* ** That accounts for my fancy,** 
he said< '* I was sure I had seen yoo 
before- I recognize you perfectly now :* 
but what can bring your grace hither« 
and in this guise ?*' 

** Father," said Adelaide, " I came 
to apologize to you for my conduct on 
that dreary occasion that you know of; 
to beg your pardon and your prayers/' 

The gotxl priest raised the hidy, for 
Adelaide had knelt to him as she ut- 
tered the last word'^* " You have my 
prayers, my child,'' ho said ; ** you have 
long had them : it wai his last request 
that 1 should daily pray for you. And 
as for pardon, such an act of humility 
would redeem a woree offence. Be at 
peace, I beg of you/* 

** And did the duke really interest 
himself on my account T* 

^ He did, and must sincerely ; it was 
a constant topic with him. He ever 
maintained that, with your nobility of 
character, you mu^t eventually follow 
in your brother's tbotsteps, I presume 
I may conclude you have now done so.** 

** Not so, father, Hester ( whom 
you probably also recognize) and my* 
self are but inquirert* as yet, and the 
difBculty is that our inquiry must not 
be suspected just now. We came to 
request assistance from your charity ; 
but we beg you not to name us other- 
wise tban as ladi^ of your acquaint- 
ance. The Misses Oodfrey will pass 
unbeeded by, but if you address me as 
your grace again, you will bring upon 
us the attention we are trying to avoid.'' 

** I will tiy to remember Miss God- 
frey ; it will be a little dil^^cuU, I fear, 
but I need not tell you my services 
arc at your disposal." 



I 



I 




The Godfrey Family; or, QuitHon$ of the Day. 



** This is indeod returning good for 
evO,^ fliatd Adelnide. 

** Do not &peak of it ; good has al- 
ready cotDe of that to which you al^ 
hide, at is usually tfic case if wo 
WAil long enough. Let the past be 
fittsL Bat surely I have seen you both 
ol mass; you h^ve, then, lost your f>fe- 
jodice against the church.^ 

** Indeed, yes, * said Adolaide. ** Our 
great regret b that we have not faiths 
The ay St em which you propose is l)eau^ 
tifui in all its bearings. It is our tor- 
meot to feel that all that is beautiful 
in poetry or in art* nayyCven in ethics*, 
belongs to Catholicity* yet we do not 
belong to it. A hall of sculpture rep- 
resettling the Catholic idt^aU as the 
Ifgures of the duke's pantheon rcpre- 
lent tlie pagan myth, would form the 
UKMt »ubUme elucidation of the hi^li 
triomphs of sout over ^clf that could 
be imagined. There is no act of he- 
roism, mental, raorul, or physical, that 
would not find a rcpresentuttve in 
&ome authenticated historic personage. 
From martyrdom endured i\i maintain 
the truth of alleged facts, to voluntary 
poyerty chosen as the best preserva* 
tive of the disposition to receive and 
Duuntain truth, there is a regular 
chain of virtue person iHed. There is 
a reality about Ciitholicity (in books at 
least) which we find nowhere else.*' 

*• Where is your difficulty, seeing 
that you adroit all this T* 

** 1 aiu hardly cAplain it, yet it seems 
to shape itself thus : Why, if men are 
aoUesacd with a divine rehgion, is the 
world so bad ? History gives us saints, 
sublime ones» who make our x^tj soub 
ihrill with the recilal of their uust Ifish 
spirit, exemplified in act ; but, on the 
oiher band, the same history telk us 
of multitudes of bad men for one good 
ODe* The men who attempted to poi- 
son St. Benedict, were monks, men 
who had renounced all for Christ ; and 
the moltitudes were Catholic up to 
Ibe tifloenth century, yet what fearful 
itruggles for power, and indulgence 
of luxury in high plMces* and of crime 
■moDg all, high and low ! Most of the 
► were reformers, comhaljfl^ with 




their fellow- Catholics for yirtue ; and 
now, are all Catholics unselfish, un- 
worldly T* 

**It &eems,'' said Hester, "that a 
very definite amount of good has been 
achieved by Christianity, in giving 
an impetus to the spirit of the masses 
to claim inlellectual rights by the re- 
cognition of man's spiritual equality 
before God ; and to strip oflf illegiti- 
mate uses of power from the sense of 
justice thus evolved. It has also placed 
our sex on a footing permitted by 
no other religion — this is much, very 
much ; but here it seems to stop^ and 
these are but indirect results, Religion 
professes to inculcate higher motives 
than the improvement of earthly posi- 
tion, desirable as this may be. Me 
are now selfiijh in their avowed prin 
ciple,and this, I think, must ultimately 
destroy all tluil has been achieve 
Self- gratification as a motive, and the 
only motive recognized, must lead 
back to want of discipline, and from 
that the step to barbarism is easy. 
Only under the Christian dispensation 
has labor been bonored ; in alt other 
civilizations, slaves, captives of tlic 
sword and spear, Irave peHbrraed byi 
compulsion I lie work of I it ling the soiT ' 
and so forth ; and yet men novf seek to 
avoid labor, the real labor of prixluc- 
ing, as if ibey still thoitght it fit for 
slaves only ; any other kind of occu- 
pation is preferred, as more noble. If 
tills is the resull of eighteen hundred 
years of Cbristian teaching, I own it 
puzzles me. Where are the direct re- 
sults of unseltishness and of corporal 
sac ri lice for the attainment of spirrtual 
gooib tbat books teach us to expect ?*' 

" These are very pain till facts," said 
the abbe* ** which distress the heart of 
many a Catholic priest; bn^with ref- 
erence to their influence on faith, I 
think a little reflection will explain, 
most of the phenomena without preju* 
dice to such souls as are earnestly 
seeking truth. We must remember 
that there was a time when whole na* 
tions suddenly assumed the name of 
Christians under the influence of tUii 
rulmg powera. The majotUj oi V^tvoa^ 



40 



The Godfrey FaaUfy; or^ QmtHoni of ike Dm/, 



people were not only IgnorBisttbut njanr 
did not care to leara higli spiriUiai 
trutlis; ihe conversion was necessarily 
parliai, even th&t which was genuine* 
Bat because ail dtvino truth is panitive 
find co-rfdative to natural truth, some 
de^^e of cnJigbtenment followed even 
in the natural order; and woHdly 
mindd, who had no affinity for spirituAi 
revelations, laid hold, notwith.standing 
ihii, Qf the types Ihat preacnied spirit- 
ual h*ufhs, and, finding tiiey bore an 
eaxihly Brpnitication also (as nil real 
enlightenment does, the body btting the 
mate for ihe soul), they aeized on the 
lower uxeaninn^, and hence the civiliza- 
tion of that ilk. This is not wrongs, 
but it is defective ; as far as it is moral, 
it is the mure rial expression of a spir- 
iluat idea ; but it does not touch the 
Hrft step of the ladder by whirh we 
rise to God — it ia the lest^or influence 
of a principle comprehending aflinitiea 
of an intinitely higher chamcter." 

"* But this does not explain the cor- 
ruption in big^ places." 

** Power and greatness and wealth 
do not confer npirituality ; no, nor 
doeg intellect* When the church grew 
wealthy and powerful, many a wolf 
eUMred in sbcep^g cloilfin^ for the ^ke 
of tl>e perquiftiten. The miracle is that 
the church survived such destructive 
influences, not that she sul^red by 
Ihem.'^ 

*^And tbe more immediate troable 
with the pref*ent conduct of C*at ho- 
lies r 

** May be referred to similar canaes. 
Tbcy inlierit their religion without 
giving its real conditions a thought ; 
to thi^ may be added the fact that, tor 
the last three hundred years, the alten- 
tlmi of immense numbers has been di- 
r€oled to polemics instead of to the re- 
t|D]l«MientB of religion. Then.' have 
htfiSk m many disputes about which id 
the truo faitli, that practically faith haa 
been assumed to mean ' holding a 
correet intellectual creed.' Now, with- 
out derogatmg^ in the least degree, 
firoro the importance of holding the 
right faillu even in this light, it h 
certain that these controversies have 



drawn the soul from thai more serious 
business to which a right intellectual 
creed is but the first step, tJiongh an 
important, a very important one. Tbe 
object of religion is, the union of the 
Bonl to the will of God* Tliis is an 
individual mattfr, one which cannot 
be laid hold of en mas9t\ but must be 
personally brought home to cTery in- 
dividual. To effect this, there must 
be, 1. Desire of good — real, earnest, 
sincere. 2. Prayer for good, arising 
from the firm conviction that in Grod 
only resides all good — from him only 
all good can come. 3. Co operation m 
act, including not only correct moral 
action, but a constant endeavor to in- 
struct ourselves, more and more, in 
divine lore, with an earnest zeal of 
rising continnally in spiritnal Hfe. 
Now, if you examine these conditions, 
you will tind tfiat few observe them^ 
compared with the numbers who bear 
the name of Catholics-^ — ihid the power 
of Calholicity mi»?t be judged of by Its 
eflfeet on tliose wIjo olx^erve its pre- 
cepts, not by the mtrltiludcs who con- 
form by halves, or by less than that 
proportion, to its teachings. You would 
not judge of the eflect of a medicine 
by those w ho keep it in their housed, 
but by those who take it.^' 

** Are not those Catholics, then, who 
do not act up lo their religion 'f 

** In as far as they neglect their re- 
ligion they are impn-feet Catholics* II 
would, however, be very dangerous for 
us to judge how tar their imperfections 
arise from culpability on their part 
All men are wounded by the fall in 
c^ome shape or other ; some have this 
faculty impaired, some tliat; conse- 
quently there will be gradations of 
viriue apparent everywhere, the cause 
of which we cannot fathom* and the 
delinquencies of whicli we cannot judge* 
As regards judgment, all we liave to 
do witli is with ourselves ; our fac- 
ulties, great or liltle, with imperfections 
greifcter or less, must, m far as in ns^ 
lies be devoted to God — ^be im proved 
for him — bo exercised in accordance 
with his will as maniteseed to us. 
^ This do and ye shall live,' '^ 



I 
4 



^ O^fWy Umilffi or, QuutioM tf Cb Day. 



41 



JUr IXTKSVIKW AND A LETTES. 

It were superfluous to reiterate the 
iDStmctioDs giyen by the good abbe to 
tbe neophytes under his guidance ; 
where the instructor is learned, patient, 
uA gentle, and the learner docile and 
hamUe, the result may be easily pre- 
dicted. One day, in the course of 
conversation, the abb6 said to Ade- 
laide : ^ If you are looking for exam- 
ples in Christian life, I could name one 
Briog in this neighborhood, living so 
BimpTe and beautiful a life, that those 
who have the happiness of knowing 
her, half believe her to be an angel in 
disguise.'' ^ 

**! think I know whom you mean,** 
Slid Adelaide ; '' already have I paused 
at the threshold of her dwelling, wish- 
Bg to enter, but hardly knowing wheth- 
er I dared.*' 

'*' She will be gfaid to see you. She 
lias a better memory than I ; she recog- 
aiied you at church, and has interest- 
ed herself warmly in your conversion.'^ 

Thus encouraged Adelaide ventured 
OQ the visit. The greeting between 
tbe two ladies was that of sisters; 
they wept together, clasping each 
other's hand in silence. We pass over 
tbe exciting scene. Adelaide was com- 
pletely fascinated by all she saw. For 
the first time in her life she felt that 
glow of thrilling interest that binds 
heart to heart, and makes us know 
what real love is, when tliat love is 
fiwnded in Grod. Ellen was one of 
those happy temperaments, so rare on 
earth, that seem formed to dispense 
the sunshine of happiness on all i^ho 
came under their influence. Heaven 
aeemed to have descended to earth to 
dwell with her, and in that heaven she 
had learned to live-— out of herself al- 
together. Her life was passed in do- 
ing good, but, so unconsciously to her- 
aelf was that good done, that she 
seemed but to be following her own 
pleasure all the time. The one great 
sorrow of her life surmounted, she 
had resigned herself (no I resignation 
would not express the depth of her de- 



Totedness) ; rather had she thrown her 
whole being into the profound abyss 
of the mystery of Grod, seeking only 
bis will, mysterious as it was to her. 
She came at last to live as a child' on 
the daily promise, forming no plans, 
asking nothing of the morrow, but ever 
seeking to pour out her great love in 
making others happy. The poor, the 
sick, the wretched, were her friends, 
her children, the objects of her tender- 
ness, and her presence was to them as 
a ray of sunshine to lighten every woe. 
There are few Ellens on this weary 
earth, for nature and grace seemed to 
combine in her to difiuse their charms. 
Those who knew her asked themselves, 
where was her share of the original 
taint, **of that trail of the serpent 
which is over us all" ? Though Ade- 
laide's senior by many yedTs, ^he had 
so youthful, so buoyant an expression, 
albeit chastened by the atmosphere of 
purity and sanctity in which she mo^'ed, 
that you could not connect the idea of 
age with her frame at all. Adelaide 
felt that she had obtained a friend, a 
sister, a guide for the future, and a 
friendship was quickly cemented be- 
tween the two that ended but with life. 

Meantime the liour approached 
when the sisters were to be received 
into the church. Hester was not a 
little agitated as she thought of the ef- 
fect that would be produced upon her 
father: it was as much as Adelaide 
and Ellen could do with their united 
efforts to calm her fears. Adelaide's 
firm mind bade hertake*her resolution 
according to her conviction, and face 
the consequences like a soldier. 

" Yes, if they were consequences to 
myself," sighed Hester; **but my fu- 
ture, will it not stiflTer from it ? Suppose 
he should sicken as my mother did !" 

'^Dear Hester," said Ellen, « you 
must leave off trusting yourself, in this 
manner, and apprehending conse- 
quences, as if you had the control 
of events. Do you not believe God 
reigns omnipotent ?" 

" Why, yes, certainly I do.'* 

** Then let your first offering to bun 
be a practical recognition of that be- 



J he Godfrey Family; or QuisHohm of ih$ Dny, 



lief i truBl lam for your father ad well 
afi fax joui-seir. * 

Heater had had deeds prepared, re- 
fltoring, aa be^i she migbt, the proi>er- 
Xy which had been ajipropriated to her 
cxpcrimeiil!*, tu iti former deslitmt ion. 
To her f«ther dunn<5 Kfe wa:* the in- 
come of the estate assigned ; to her 
brotlier the reversion. For herself 
fihe reseiTed only that portion which 
ahe had a right to eonisidcr ad her 
share. 

The deeds were haoded to Eugene 
for his inspeetion the night on which 
he arrived ut the abbe'u abode, on the 
day previou!* to rluit on which tbp* 
ceremony wa3 to tuke place. 

** Thia was not necessary/* he said 
lo llic abUt's ^ 1 had already given up 
my right, and w*as recoociled to the re- 

ftuit/ 

** That 18 a question for you to settle 

with your sister, my young friend /- 
aaid the abbe. **The younj? bdy 
haii acted on her own aense of what 
wad fitlin;^ in the matter. She did not 
coQ&ult ua% and if she had I should 
have declined inlcrforeuce in family 
QMltteri ; but I think you will hurt her 
jeeliug^ ifyuu make objections. Wait 
at least till her mind is more composed ; 
ehe >fi just now agitated on her father « 
account : best let tlie fir^t excitement 
pass away, ere you disturb her raitKl 
again." 

The ceremony was a private one, 
for it was a matter yet to be consider* 
cd how to break the mailer to Mr, 
Godfrey. After ita performance, the 
brother and »istera wer«* yet in con- 
eultation about the advisability of set- 
ting out at once for London, when a 
courier was a mi ou need from the JVIar* 
quiH de Villeneuve, wriih a letter lo 
Heater. The young lady «lauecdover 
the contents, then auddenly rose, and 
locked hertielf in her own room, Eu- 
gene invited the nnin to wait. But it 
was some hours ere Healer admitted 
even her sifter lo her apartment 
Thus run the letter : 

TO MISS HJCSTSU GODruSY. 

'*MosT HostoaiD Laot : 
I have been masxj thoes at li * * * 



Littf] y, but (Jarcd Dot rentumd to «oe jim^ *]• 
tiiougli fi'om iH}me wordd which tny rri«ud ih« 
ftblxi liU f&ll, 1 rc'joiced to learn ihAt iht ot>- 
jeci of your vL^it waj the reftliMtioii of «Dti> 
cipiif ion!! I har! lon^ indolged in. I hara . 
hjti^ fcU convinocd that % niind so oaroral i 
yourji fuujit tinnUj seek refuge in the , 
tlie true ehureh. I dared not d!Murt> \ 
retrcdi ; 1 dured not intrade on thu 
work uf (ichI. But lei ine be the fir«| i 
tuy congratulaiioaa ; let me now expf^ 
high regard, esteem, nny, may I use a { 
worU> and say love, with which I haro] 
rejrarded you. 

" Lsidv, [ will not epcak to you in the laai | 
gu&^e of paiidion ; for a long time pa^t 1 haf« 
hait to keep my foelinga under cotttrol, for | 
deep 118 has been my adtniration of yourvetf 
1 diired not make you aware of it wtiilc ili« I 
ob^Uicle of faith itood between oa, A Uatho- i 
lie man f*eeks in manage a HiLf-nairr for 
him» a partner in joy, a itoother in iorrow, a 
eoufidautand co-operator in hi# vii*'^* » '•*'•>- 
paoion and a friend under every r. 
Met out with diverse austaiuing po^^ i 

mar this idea in the out«et, to say nottitui; \tt i 
the want of that apecial bleeftug which God 
conferfl on thoac ho himself joins together. 

Bear lady, when I camo to Kurope 50m« 
few y^i' ■-*' \ - was with the special J 
lion (il k a wife. When my f 

Be McL, . kt uioft solemn hour T 

his death eoulided to me the care of hit 
dftughterg I thought the companioa I «oue;tii 1 
for was found \ but Euphrasie »oon showed | 
herself ao visitily the elected bride of heaven I 
thai all my anxiety was <]uickly directed to 
preserving her from Atenlege. You Ih^ii 
carne before me, witli your earnest mind, your 
indomitable courage, your high ititellect and I 
inteunity of KeiiL From that time my heart j 
wft5( no longer my own, though I dared 1 
^ve utterance to its dofures. The obftaoU^I 
whieh HtfMid between us u removed, ]rei 
ilure »i)t venture mto your preactica wUho 
your sanction ; I should feel a repulso loo ' 
keenly 

^' Lady, my father was an enthualast Uk# I 
yourself. He went to Americoi in the bop* of 
doing his part to sanctify the career of inlel- j 
li^zeoi'e and of Uberly opened for the lirsl j 
titue in the wurUl'e history for the laboring 
classes ^» a t>ody. Fte hi^lped to build eburchoti J 
lo foimd achooi^ in conjtinctkwi with 
astical authority, and did whatewr a 
lar could do to guide a movement wbtcti i 
he respected and pytnpathi/cd with^ but one j 
which ho fell would be exposed in gTralj 
peril, unlcAS that divine principle which Uiht j 
true sooree of governroenl both in the fattiU| 
and in the atate, coold be brought to 
upon it. He feared that ' liberty' on a ] 
rationalistic principle, that is, standing o#i 
purely human strength, serered from the d>I 
vino idea which gave it being, would, ho^l 
over beautiful ia its poetcj, soon dcgt^ncralij 



SM Ood/rey Family ; or, Queition* of iAe Day. 



ji|p fiMBil ; toon ttiocttmb b«ficaih tlio em- 
^^ psatfioOf and b« led tu tolorftte laws 
rsir« of true progress* It was the aim 
Ufe to inculcate that * Truih la one ;* 
he bntnAQ idea cannot be dbjoined from 
BO idea without fatal results; that 
A J bappiite^a, tbough differing io in- 
f^ ia the aamc i» c^cnce as that we look 
r Uercafier in heaven. That atl earth- 
_l?nce, all <?arth]y bcnvficjenee which 
F permanence, must be founded on tho 
non of »ueh inoniinnto dealrea as im- 
i fnistraie the dcveiopmcnt and em- 
cnt of our higher fAculties. For all 
f^ bartnonj, and love mmt be brought 
t afieoriuioe with that law of the »pirir^ 
, lu tiM given uo, aa our rule of action, 
I webfing cbUdren of the spirit 

"The working out of tins purpose ia tho 
rhk'h my dear fiither, liileiy deceased, 
qucathcd tjnto hl» children. To thia 
1 1 hare conaocrated mpelf ; and b<s 
)fX know your high power of intijlleot, 
M I have witne8144^d your z^al, your 
Jft y^****" d«%*otetluefls to good, I ask you 
'toWoome the help-meet to carry out thlji 



'*ln all aged of the church, since the first 
niiacle va^ performed at the request of 
Mai7,«oinanV aid has been in requisition for 
Ii%b pitrpoeea. The converi^ion of every na- 
lion of JSurope ia associated with the name 
Af a ivoman* and woman gives the tone to so- 
cirty in every Christian land. I feel then 
t without the aid thus apcoially appointed 
f far man, my fathor^B purposes would lo^e 
than half the influence necciisary t^? 
Mrry them out. liut woiking together, under 
1A« •aoctioii of tV ' fi^ surely two eartu 
I ini[$|ji ti ct HOQiethin;;!;. If 

; mak J ,,. . ..^ . ._^ion on a world of 
iafdclitjt it will yet be something if we are 
'to Instil into the roinda of Catholic 
that * Ct^o' meani something 
Uian an intellectual assent to a series 
inaa. If we can m^'i&i 
L^tora of the church in 
|V i of the divine Inslitu- 

iStm ' 1 of the state which is 

ih the etude notions of 
i ^ir«>gf««o wliioh sanction so eatiily the 
*'^ll of sacred tic»— if wc can throw 
Influence we do possess into the 
iieale, wc shall then have ample reason 

h^lli, and tij^p[)> are they who h^re on earth 
*1 Lave foniiH the royal guard of honor 
" " ' eital ~ ih, who ihall have 
|«0 MDliDc I i to watbh beneath 

Aiiu«(u, nurii the combat ia at 

r lady, may I hope you wilt think thifl 

et worthy of your ambition ? may I 

t iHU regard with lavor ^ne who ha* 



loved you so bng, Ihougb he dared not con- 
fess it until to-djty ? 

** One word from you will bring roe to your 
feet May 1 hope that word will be spoketi f 
Edward di ViLLJSniinri.»* 

**Well" said Adelnido, when at 
leng^tL she gained adD^is^ion, and had 
taken the letter froin ber sistei-'is un- 
iT'siatinff liand, •* I ihink vou have kept 
the courier waiting loDg enough^ and 
*ih not a long answer the poor man 
wan Is, 8mc€ one word U all he asks,*' 

" What will my father say, Ade- 
laide ?" 

** The old marqoia was my father*^ 
most dearly loved friend. He will 
accept tho son tor the father's sake ; 
the question is^ will you accept bim?'* 

** I have never thought of marrving 
at all." 

*• No, but you admire this jrentleman. 
Your eyeja, your voice lietray you. I 
shall Bend liini t be one word be askt» 
for so pi*eltily*" 

^'You will do no such thing ;*^»but 
Adelaide bad glided fronn the room, 
and ^shortly after Eujzene set Ibrtii wjilf 
the courier in quest of bin fneml, whom 
be finally succeeded in perauading to 
return with him, without awaiting a 
response to his missive. 

It is not our intention to present to 
our readers the details of the scenes 
that followed witliia the next iew 
weeks ; we leave to their more vivid 
imajriuaiions to fancy the arE^umeniiJ 
by which M* de Villeneuve won the 
consent of bis idealflady. A few days 
more, and he was I ravelling to London 
with Eujiene to obtain the formal con- 
sent of Mr, Gwlfrey. 

*' Is that the secret of Healer's de- 
jection ?** thought the father, and that 
tliougbt made bis consent the readier, 

^* But how can you« bo staunch a 
member of the church, resolve to marry 
a heretic P' 

** Hester ia no heretic,** replied th*f 
marquis* 

♦* Love covers all faults, I see," said 
Mr. Godfrey, smiling. " Well, settle 
that mailer between youi'selves, only 
you nmst put no consU'iiint on Hester 
OQ the score of religiou. She ia a 



T'hi Godfrey Famify ; or, QmHlons af tJm Drnf. 



spoiled child, and would ill brook op* 
position ; it would break her heart if 
it cnjnc from one jshe loved." 

Tlif^ arrival of I he earria|a;e whif*1i 
brought Hester and the duchess hack 
to Ihc inansion, put an end to the col- 
loquy, and Ht the next consultation 
witii (Ite ladies th<^ murquis DUggested 
that, eeein|r Mr. Godfrey had alreadj 
laid bohl of the wronj? idea* it was as 
wetJ to let time undeceive him in a 
I natural way* *^ Your English law/* 
said he, ** compels murriajre lo he h**4fil- 
ized hy the Erifi;lUh e?^tabli^ht!lellt, 
We will receive the sacrament of mar- 
Tfia^e privately in tlie morning and 
I legalize it in your draw Inf^. room ai'ier- 
{Ward, before an English minister,* 
|JLtier Hester ig once my wife, Mr. 
I Godfrey will not tnke it to lieart that 
19 thoiild follow hpr hushantrs reli- 
ijkllf even it' he inquire about the 
matter/' And thu;^ tlie matter waa 
managed, and the rnarquii and his 
love^' bride were alrtadyon the point 
oi' B farting on their wedding tour, when 
4 staHling missive from Annie threw 
all the firele in eommotiou. Sir Philip 
Ojiiway had been thrown from \m 
hor^e whrh? hunting, and hnd broken 
his neck. But his wickofhjefiH luvtl 
outlived him; he bad Ml orwJei-s in his 
win that bis wife should lie d«diarr4Ml 
riceesa to his house, or to hi.«» children, 
Itirther providing that neiher of those 
ehildcen should inherit one acre of land 
or one stiilling of his property unless 
they were brought up apart from their 
mother. Annie*« letter was dated from 
a hotel near to her late husbniid's 
dwelling' house. 

*' I doubt their power to enforce that 
will,** Bakl Eugene, as be handed the 
letter to his father, after reading it 
aloud- 

•* And so do 1," said Adehiide; **at 
all events, Annie shall have herehtld- 
ren, profierty or no projierty," 

The marquis, Hester, all the pftrty 
present expressed in varie<l lones their 
indignation, and Mr. ("t^idtVey, borne 
alwig by ihe current of family opinion, 

Olk CUAJMJfiAUMl MIL 



at length joine<l In the resolre to ie« 

Annie replaced in possession of the 
children coute qui coute. The wod- 
ding trip took the direction of Sir 
Philip's dwelling, and as soon as it 
was ascertained that the funeral tnw 
over, Adelaide, with that determinatioii 
that marked her diameter, drove op 
to the house, accoui|iunied by the party* 
comprising Iwr father, broHier, the 
marquis, and Hester. She demanded 
lo see the eliilJren. The dowager 
Lady Conway appeared with her 
dauphfer. The duchess bowed, and 
requested to see the children. 

The lady hemmed— hesitated-— did 
not know. '* The children were under 
the guardianship of Mr. Brookbaiik«^ 
she said ; she supposed he must be 
consulted* 

The name seemed to strike the 
marquis. *^ What Bronkbaiik ?" be 
asked. 

*' He waa Sir Phllip'a agent ftiid 
man of business, and is leA his execQ 
tor." 

*' Is he any rehitive to the family at 
Esteourt ?" 

"Why, yes it is the same family; 
they have moved here.** 

The entj'ance of the gentleman in 
f|ueslion put an end to the questioning, 
but the marquis kept a sharp eye upon 
him. 

With smooth, bland worda and de- 
precating gestures, Alfred Bro4:ikbaiik 
proceeded to e:x plain to the ducbeM 
that it was his duty, his very painful 
duty, to deny her grace's request at the 
present moment, until measures had 
been taken to secure the due and le- 
gal administration of Sir Philippe will 
Adelaide' 'b indignant remonstrances 
were unheeded, and a very painful 
feeling was pervading the party, when 
suddenly M. de Villeneuve rose and 
said : ^ Mr. Brookbank, may I beg the 
favor of a few words in private ?*' AJ« 
fred roae^ aad led the way to anoUioY 
apartiueoL Half ao-bour eJapeed; th« 
party awaite<] the event in silence. 
iUfred did not return, but the marquis 
did, and with him entered the two 
children and tlieir oura^ equipped for 



I 
I 



d 



Tk$ Ck/iffin) FwmUg; ar^ Qu€$iians of ike Jhif. 



tf 



• drive. With a bow, the marquis 
addressed the ladies of the house: 
<^Mr, Brookbaok has consented to 
eotrnst the guardianship of these two 
efaildren to me for the present. I have 
the honor to wish you good morning.** 
His wife and the rest of the party rose 
athis signal, and departed, carrying off 
the children with them. 

" Now,'* said he, ** when they were 
ODoa more together, ^ let no one ask 
• me how this was managed, because I 
bare passed my word that so long as 
Lady Conway is not molested in her 
custody of these children, I will ex- 
plain nothing. I do not know bow 
the law will decide respecting the 
property ; Mr. Godfrey will, perhaps, 
we to that. But I wish Lady Conway 
and her children oould be prevailed 
upon to cross the Atlantic with us ; I 
fear leaving that fellow any legal pow« 
er, when I am out of the way to hold 
him to the bargain he made with me 
to-day." 

^ I will go with you, Annie, if you 
like to take the trip," said £ugenc 

'^ And Euphrasie and tlie dear nuns 
are going," said Annie ; '^ I am willing 
to travel in such good company.^ 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

ahehica. 

Two years have passed since the 
eyents happened which we last pre- 
sented to our readers: it is on the 
other side of the Atlantic that our 
view now opens, but the friends we 
greet are of those wc lefl behind. 

The scene is in a beautiful exten- 
sive garden, well planted with trees ; 
behind, on an eminence, rises a large 
white house with numerous piazzas 
which contrast pleasingly with the 
green sward and shrubs before it. 
The slope before the house is covered 
with groups of children weaving gar- 
lands, for it is a holiday, the feast of 
Sl Aloysius ; and all the schools have 
freed their pupils great and smalL 



Feeling the privilege of the day, the 
children have bounded into the grounds 
of their patrons, M. and Madame de 
Yilleneuve. They knew that a straw- 
berry festival was preparing for them, 
and on their parts were anxious to be 
busy. Festoons were hung from pil- 
lar to pillar. The large refectory was 
opened, and the walls garhinded'; mer- 
ry voices were singing childish hymns 
and songs, and good humor was vuiUe 
everywhere. 

The grounds were very spacious; 
far away might be seen grown per- 
sons in holiday-trim ; lads and lasses 
preparing the tables, and a band of 
music sending up, every now and then, 
cheery notes to gladden all around. 

In yonder silent glade too, half hid 
by the thickness of the foliage, Eu- 
gene Gk)dfrey is walking with his 
young bride ; they are not yet past the 
honeymoon, and are bound for Eng- 
land. To morrow is the day fixed for 
their departure, and the lady -bride, for- 
merly Elise de Villeneuve, the young- 
est and fairest daughter of the house 
of De Yilleneuve, is sentimentalizing 
very prettily her regrets at leaving, 
perhaps for ever, the paternal mansion. 

Clotilde de Villeneuve, who has al 
ready entered as a postuhint at the 
convent which is visible on that emi- 
nence to the right — ^rising majestically 
above the world and backed in the 
distance by the interminable forest; 
from which it is separated by that 
lovely series «of lakes which lie nt the 
foot of the hill on which the building 
stands — Clotilde de Villeneuve has for 
this one day consented to break inclos- 
ure that she may bid good-by to the 
young sister she brought up so carefully 
since her mother died. 

There is another lady there, look- 
ing fairer and younger than when we 
saw her last, giving directions in a very 
pleasing tone; and ever and anon 
looking back, a little anxiously per- 
haps, to see what two young girls 
were doing with a something in a 
bundle of white muslin, which seemed 
very animated, and which the nurses 
^e trying to kill with kindness. 



46 



ThiB Godfrey Famt^ ; ar, QK^iiom «^ ih^ Day, 



The pastor approaches, a fine old 
man wUh fiiild eyes, white hair, and a 
very benpvolent aspect* AH the little 
onea rise and courlc.iy^Tind Heeler, VQ^, 
oar old friend Heater, coraoi forwairi 
to greet him affectionately. 

" Where is your husband, my dear 
lady?'* Hskcd the pond priest, iitlei* re- 
turning the preliminary greet in|;. 

** Well, I hardly know, he has been 
on the qui vive all day, here and there 
and everywhere* I hardly know where 
he is now* Do yon want hira partic- 
ularly, father? You seem uneasy.'* 

'* Let us go in out of this hot san,*' 
laid tlic pastor, wiping hia forehead. 

They adjourned to the parlor^ which 
openeil on tjoth sides to a piazza shad- 
ed by climbing plants, and thus prom- 
ised a cool retreat* Hester handed 
the old gentleman a retreshinia; drink^ 
for he seemed weary and excited. On 
setting down the gbiss, he whispered: 
'* Are we alone here ? Is any one lis- 
tening ?'' 

"Not that I am aware of/* said 
8t€r,glancin;5in all directions. ** I 

s no one, father, what is the matter ?** 

"There is mischief brewing in lh»? 
Pftity yonder ; I want to see your hu3- 
btod* For the last six weeks thei*e has 
b00n a strange man there, of gi ovu- 
lar eloquence, fomenting discot^ about 
CathoUes, getting up a no-jjopery cry^ 
uttering fearful scandals eoneerning 
the convent ; to-night the people threat- 
en to bum il down.*' 

** Can this be true? Who is jour ia- 
formant ?" 

** My man Walter. * It seems be 
knew the stranger in England.'' 

" I know Edward has been annoy- 
ed with reports of some plots, but he 
thought as tittle al>out it ao he could ; 
be tie ye r banned any body, and can- 
not imagine any body would barm 
him/' 

" This is a religious or rather a fanat- 
ical plot. AVbat the purpose is, it is 
difficult to discover. The designer 
means something dark, you may be 
sure, the multitude are but his took. 
He has used all the plea he could ftnd ; 
have not your committees refused 



many applications to receive pu- 
pils T 

**Yes, Edward acta on his father's 
plan, and he says the oM marquis al- 
ways insisted that a cbiH was more 
formed by hia companions than by bis 
teachers ; that one dissipated worldly 
companion ivould contaminate a school. 
It seems be loved real children, and 
hated the little bits of affectation* aping 
men and women, which we now so 
oflen see ; so EdwanJ will positivelj 
not have a child in the scbooh unless 
he knowB the home influence they arc 
under. In fact, our fchiKils are nor 
only exclusively Catholic, those we 
call normal schools are open only to 
picked Calboliv's. Edward wants them 
to turn out good and efficient teachers 
of practical Catliolicity, and before he 
receives a pupil he not only exocea 
certain promises fi"om the children, 
but from the parents also, aa to the 
influence? they will exercise from a 
distance. As long as they attend his 
schools they are under certain restric- 
tions, at home as well as abroad." 

** All this is good for the children, 
but it has made enemies. Thrise out of 
the [>ale pretend something must be 
wrong in so exclusive a system ; they 
are jealous of advantages from which 
their children are excluded,** 

** But a great deal of the intlueoce 
exerted is purely religious ; how can 
we bring that influence to bear on 
sueh as are not (.'at holier, or who are 
worldly Catliolies, who ex>me merely 
for secular advantages ?" 

*• I am not saying you are not right : 
I only say you have made enemies.*' 

**I believe my husband would rather fl 
give up the schools than compromise | 
bis principles. He has been intimate- 
ly acquainted with the management 
of some Catholic schools in which fl 
all parties were admitted : the rule fl 
was to all alike, it was diificult to make 
a distinction. Children, non-CuthoHcs, 
were admitted to religious soetetietf» fl 
services, and processions. He has a ™ 
very firm conviction that the result 
was that they were led to believe that 
auiBtillg with due outward decorum^ 



I 



d 



Tht G<ki/re^ Family ; or, Qdesfioni of the Day, 



4r 



without the btemal feelins: of rever- 

, enoe, waa nil that CathoHcity requir- 

I'fd; while the Catholics themselves, 

IfeHng others without faith were thus 

[idmltied, nuturally ceased to regard 

Ifluth as §o essential a matter as the 

ns beard in church proclaim it 

be, nnd became Hberal Catholics 

Irlicn they retained I heir faith at all 

iy btisband know a he is called bigot- 

led, but I do Tiot think it has chang:ed 

"bis feeling. He thinks tlie Catholic 

||tho(»l a sacred place ; and the doul 

little baptized ditld a thing to be 

ded with reverential awe.'' 

Bi I know De Yilleneuve'a rev- 
r he should have lived in the 
when the catechumens were 
out of the church before the 
Incred mysteries could be perfonned/' 
^Indeed, father, I have seen hia 
Ijrbole frame quiver with terror when 
'rone. Catholic or non- Catholic, be- 
irreverently in tlie pn:^sence of 
r ibf bless c»l sacra m e n t* H e m ai n la in a 
that the worldlinesa of the age springs . 
I from the want of thia reverence/' 

^ He may be right, but meantime 
we must provide for the present safety. 
Your brother is not gone ?" 

'*No, he starts to-morn:)w, I will 
' md for him to come and see you.'* 
M. de Villeneave was not to be 
for (he very ctiuse that brought 
3t to hia dwelling- llo was in 
inference with the prioBt's 
Iter on the guhject of the 
attack. ** Are you pare k 
wti your brother that you saw ?" 
*• Quite sure, eir*^ 
** You did not let him see you ?'* 

* I did not J I was very careful on 
tW point.** 

* And yott are sure they fixed to- 
I night r 

* Quite fiore, but if djsnppotntcd to- 
liligbt they will try some other night.^* 

' Did you hear of any one person 
ked out for any special object/' 
There will be an attempt made to 
(airy aft Lady Conway and her child- 
ftsii* 

*• I suspected an much. Well^ we must 
be prepared; I will row Lady Conway 



across the lake, and you can drive her 
up the country to neighbor Friendly^s 
house, without any one suspecting the 
matter. Be silent and cautious, I will 
prepare vvatnhes sc^iretly. You get 
liome as quickly as you can from the 
drive.** 

*a will sir." 

The feie passed off without' any 
alarm: no one would have dreamed 
that an attack was ex|K-cted. The 
nuna one by one left the convent^ which 
was auppoaed to be the object aimed 
at by the attack, and let the watchers 
giiard the dwelling, while they took 
refuge at M. de Villeneuve*R mansion. 
They dared not alarm the inmates of 
the school-house, which they thought 
was left out of the plot, leai their plan 
of safety should he frustrated^ But 
an armed band watched over its safety 
in the hovels, and wherever they could 
be stationed unseen* 

It was a dreary watch, though a 
lovely night ; the round, ftill moon 
threw its splendid light over hill and 
and valley, lake and forest gladea. * 
Not a sound was heaiti. The watch- 
ers did not trust themselves to apeak, 
lest ihey should give the alarm out- 
sidf!. Eleven^ twelve, one, two ; 
shall we wait longer ? Yes, there is 
a Bound outside? the outhouses ore 
already on fire, and the Bchool-bouse 
and the convent — all at once. A whole 
multitude of riot era are in the grounds ; 
tliey force the convenl doors, and, to 
their surprise, are met by armed men. 
** Save, save the children/* U the cry ; 
" let everything go» even the pri^soners, 
till they are saved/' There is no en- 
gine, the city is so far away, and riot- 
ei'* are all around ; but ladders had 
been pn^pared during the dny^ and 
every one was soon in requi:iition. 
But the fire seemed then the least evil, 
for as each young lady wa.s borne from 
the flames a mob surrounded her, and 
a tight en*5iied for possession. It was 
a terrible scene, the more terrible as it 
was impossible to get the children and 
teachers together to see if all were 
there. There was no resource but 
to Hre oo the aasatlauto, and accord- 



T%i Godfrey Fmm^ ; or^ Quedftom of A9 Day* 



\ng\y a volley was discharged This 
sobered the people st^inewhat; they 
loosed their hold and fled. One niao, 
with a few followers, lingered awhile, 
jippftnmtly very anxJous stiU to exaui- 
hie the; partifs Raved ; he was observ* 
ed and seized hy a strong hand and 
bonnd. Alfred Brook hank was the 
I prisoner of his hrotber Walter, 

And now are the pupils all saved ? 

' fur the house is burning fa^t. How 

aiiiiout^ly they were eouiiled ! What 

R relief to find tlioai all tlierc ! Tiicre 

were no livea loet, and hut (fiat the 

^ biiddinj^ hnd bf»en lired in many places 

f at onccT lliot could have Wen saved hy 

[the valiant anns* who were there to 

) defend it. But I he evil work had been 

I ^ne efleetually, the convent and school- 

] (toii^e were level \vith the gmund. 

f Jklx&ny of the valuables had been re- 

linovcd the day before; but the furni- 

lure was degitroyed. The iKnv,spaper3 

gaid it was tlie work of the luob ; yes, 

. tut that raob was exdied by one man's 

feveiigvfiil foiil, whieh had auimated 

hljc Bpirit of that mob to fixnzy< 

LAmericans tire too gt-nerou:* to make 

J war upon defeuceles-i women, unksa 

incited theruto by eotoe fali^e tale of 

I picked ne8i*. 

To bring the poor frightened child* 

tfen into the hou^et ai>d to send to the 

[city for police, occupied nearly all the 

I nights and part of the next day ; and 

Itlien they took time to examine the 

I prisoner wlio h:id been caat bound into 

the ceUar. lie was crestfallen and 

terrur-guiitten at last ! He knew the 

tale of terror his brother would have 

to tell; the quarrel ubtmt the estate ; 

llie offer to compniml^^e ; the attempt 

to drowu hiixi by tluoning him over- 

I |)oai'd near the i'uMs ; ai>d, finally, iho 

f! belief on Alfreds part that the crime 

bad been coni^umnuited when a Ixnly, 

Mdiatigured aud ehapeles'ti, had been 

picked up below the fiillg. Ho did not 

I "^ait long in jail to have this and ft 

I long catalogue brought out agams4 

b'uD — he died by his osvn hand, 

Walter Brookbauk wnnduriiig, rt^t- 
I lUtt, imd dij^9>ipated, had been ^lu^ed 
" " . feircr in & wretched hovel, where 



he was found by gome poor Cat he 
who brought the priest (then 00— m 
mission in that district) to see him. 
[The priest had him tended and tsAfed 
for till he was welh then invited hiktk 
to his houfle, and converted hirn to & 
Christian life; redeemed him doubly, 
firet from the death of this life, tbtitt 
from tlmt of I he next- Walter b^ 
been grateful, and prererred to U^ 
henceforth ns servant of the churck 
llian to re-eneoun(er the jKrils of the 
world by claiming hi;* inheritance i ii 
pa^ed by default to his mother and 
sisters. 

Our tale draws to its concluaino. 

The multitude who, deceived by Al- 
fred Broiikbank's iiiHanimatory tongoe, 
had lired the convent, slunk away 
to their homes, ashameth at length, of 
hating exj>ended all their energy in a 
cowardly attack (»n defi-nt^ele-'sg women 
and children* W^ould I eouhl say tliey 
repented and et idea voiced to repair the 
miBehief ; but it waa not i^o, the con- 
vent was rebuilt, but it was by Cath- 
olic money, by Catholic handsi and 
by Catholic hearts ; and save the Hag- 
leader, who, a*i we have Been, judged 
himself, the perpetrators of the das- 
tardly deed remained unsought for by 
the authorities, undiscovered and uo- 
|iunishi?^L 

Tills event checked for a while the 
work of the good stx*iety which M. de 
Villeneuve had founded, and of which 
he was the president and the *' aniilfius.'* 
This society was composed of enlight- 
eneil Catholic fathers and raolhtiTP^ 
whf* were fervent in their desires of 
esiabliiihing high Catholic edueiUion on 
a tinn and practical basis. It was a 
eominittee fonned to aid the practice 
ot* those precepts delivered by the 
zealnii^ pastors of the church ; to ex- 
amine the toiks put into the hands of 
children, and to have them written, if 
none suitable w^ere found, on the eub- 
JL'cts required : to discuss all points 
of discipline recommended to them by 
the teachers, and provide that the 
financial department should not haroM 
those who hud charge of the mtcllec- 
tual department. They wexc outside 



I 



I 




Ti$ Gotffirtg FamOg; or, QmBtimu of OU Dag. 



4* 



ei>opentofB in die good work of eda- 
cadon ; yalaable ooa^jutora in a matter 
ID which it ooDoerns every good CSa- 
tholic to interest himself, for society is 
made np of individoab, and on the 
good truning of those individuals de- 
pends the pablic welfare. 

Their schools comprised both sexes ; 
I will now speak of the girls only, as 
it was the matter in which oar fHend 
Hester moet interested herself, for the 
reason that she thought that the foiv 
mation of good women, wives and 
mothers, » lost sight of in the fashion- 
aUe circles of oar large cities. She had 
discovered that the fathers and bus* 
bands (men of large wealth and of 
thriving business) were^ through the 
extravagance and non-domesticity of 
tfaebr families (more particukirly of 
fliefr wives and daughters), leading a 
life of torture under the .appearance of 
prosperity ; and that young men, with 
ineomes of from $1,500 to $2,000 a 
year, shrank from marrying, because 
of the extravagance and selfishness 
they daily witnessed among the ladies. 
* Now," said Hester, with something 
of her old positiveness, '^ if this is so, 
the responsibility of the shame and 
degiudation of so many unfortunate 
women lies at the door of the rich and 
honored ladies who turn aside from 
them in disgust, and the education of 
true women must be the basis of the 
renovation of society : for to woman's 
influence is confided the happiness of 
the family, as to family influence is 
committed the guardianship of the 
•tate. Where the family is out of 
joint, the state will be out of joint too. 
my dear Edward ! I now compre- 
hend the prophecy you tliink so much 
of: *■ That the worship of the blessed 
mother of €rod will be in af^er times 
one such as is not dreamed of in the 
present age of disruption. The bless- 
ed Virgin is Uie example of all woman- 
hood ; the family of ISazareth the true 
type of the Christian family; labor, 
parity, intelligence, submission, such 
must be the watchwords of all womanly 
training ; such will form happy house- 
boidfl and forward true progress,' " 

VOL. V. 4 



The objects of the edncational insti* 
totions at ViUeneave were in strict ac- 
cordance with these views ; they oxxxk- 
prised several classes, and in each class 
were several departments. 

The highest was that of a boarding- 
school, reguUited by the nuns them- 
selves ; it was within the enclosure, 
though apart from the convent, and 
having its own allotted grounds. It 
was a normal school, the object of 
which was to prepare efficient school 
teachers for the parochial schools 
throughout the country. No pupil 
could enter this establishment under 
fifteen years of age, or for a shorter 
period than three years ; and if at the 
end of that time she had wen her di- 
ploma, she was expected for the two 
years following to pUice herself at the 
disposal of the church, to teach any 
parochial school that might require 
such assistance. Besides the thorough 
course of instruction given during these 
three years, to enable the pupils to 
fulfil their duties efficiently as school- 
teachers, and to keep pace with the 
secular knowledge required by the age, 
the pupils were required to do all their 
own work: they took it by turns to 
provide for the household ; the cooking, 
washing, every part of the household 
work, and making their own clothes* 
were all done by themselves ; so that 
at the end of the five years, when their 
terin of teaching had expired, they 
were ready to become either efficient 
members of society, fit to perform the 
duty of wife, mother, or teacher, or to 
enter religion, should such prove to be 
their vocation. 

The second class of schools were 
named the probation schools; these, 
in their various departments, received 
children of all ages under fifteen, but 
Catholics only. The parents of the^ 
children attending these schools were 
required to give a guarantee that, dur- 
ing the children*^ attendance at these 
schools, they should not be allowed to 
read either novels or any otlter books 
not approved by the committee, nor at- 
tend any place of amusement disap- 
proved by the church. In fact, during 



Th€ Godfrey Famitif ; or, QaesttmiM of the Dajf* 



their attendance at school, it wa* a part 
of the labor of the directors to provide 
suitable relaxation within the school 
grounda, that tliey might the more 
easily discourage all dit^sipation outnide. 
There were also regulations ooncernlnj* 
deport raenl and drcArtt which formed 
very efficient aids in inculcating Christ- 
ian manners, but the detail:^ of which 
it 13 not necei^sary to give here. 

These schools are sappofled to be 
the LhnstJan Bchooh par pre emtnence. 
The young ladies of the ftrj<t-named 
schools w(fre much sou;jht as wives, 
when iheir excellence became known ; 
most of them could have mnrried rich 
ment had they chosen to marry out of 
the church, but this, I need haixlly say? 
they refui*ed to do^. Many entered 
teaching sisteriioods, and proved very 
efficient members of the sodety which 
they joined. 

The children of llic second series 
were, on the other hand* Bini pie, joyous, 
affectionate^ pious, and obeJient. The 
Age for childhood was renewed, and 
the results were very plea^inj?. 

Besides these, the committee pre- 
vailed on >L de Villcneuve to establish 
(after the incendiary fire) ginienil 
schools open to the c^immimity at 
large. In tliese schools the n^utine 
wai* Catliolif' ; none but 1 utholie bcHikB 
were admitted^ and as luucli Carholic 
training was intro<Jueed as (he public 
mind would bean Thpso in^ritutiong 
were thronged, for the touchers were 
efficient, and the discii)line much ap- 
proved of. These were th*^ best re- 
munerating: schools of the series. But 
M, de Villeneuve could never be 
brought to be satisfied with the results, 
and only in deference to the wishes of 
bis friends did he tolerate them at all. 
His chief aire was to prevent children 
from these gehoals \mng admitted to 
serve in the church or tc3 tuke part in 
religious processions, unlit they bad 
been well proved, and then lie wished 
them removed to the Chriiitian schools 
before ho presented them to tlie pastor. 
Mjuiy^ thought the man a monomaniac, 
lie hlid 60 great a horit>r of sacrilege, 
or indeed of witnessing any irreverence 



in iheehurrh at all. Strangely enough, 
his wife Hester saw in this only aa 
additional virtue, which she endeavor- 
ed to assist her husband in enforcing 
as indeed she did in all his regula- 
tions. 

A week or two after the fire, wheo 
the excitement had somewhat subsid- 
eti, Eugene took his young wife to 
England, He found that Adelaide 
had been so butiy during the past two 
yeai-tt in providing orphan asylums, 
refuges^ and hotipiliils, and m forth, that 
Mr, GotJfi'cy had been very fmiueatlj 
alonci and this rendered him very glad 
to welcome his pretty, gentle daugh ter- 
in-lftw, and he persuaded Eugene to 
establish hinirtelfat Estcourt iiall, that 
lie himself might have a home for his 
old age. In due time ho learnt to 
amuse himaelf with his little grand- 
children, utterly forgetful that they 
were members* of a hated ehuivh. I 
never heard that he became a Catholic 
himself. 

Eugene soon found interest and em* 
ployment in aiding the' Catholic move- 
ment which first agitated for emanci- 
pation, find then employed earnest 
minds in co operating with the declared 
will of the church, to give olEeiency 
to the measures which soon atler pro- 
vided u Catholic hierarchy for Eng- 
land. 

As soon as Mr. Grodfrey's comfort 
was provided lor in Eugene's house- 
hold, Adelaide united her efforts to 
those of Ellen, and together they es- 
tablished a society, whidi in after yeara 
developed itself as one of the many 
orders of Mercy which blesa the great 
city of London. Without a unitonu, 
lliough living under a rule, these ladies 
and their associatea peiform eouutleM 
deeds of charity and kindues^t the ori- 
gin of which is oAeo unknown to the 
i*ecipi(jnts. Few among tliat saintly 
community are more anxious to obey, 
or to humble themselves, than the once 
proud duehess. Generous to all, to 
hcrt'clf alone she became fi]*aring and 
noil indulgent, and if the voice of praiao, 
ot\en publicly lauding her, met her ear 
in private aho would say, with a aighi 



■ 



XkA Shmg. SI 

'^ Ah ! how easy is all this, to give when to witness her death and hear her no- 

we have more than we want, and to ble martjr soul to heaven." 
lore those who spend their life in toil • . • . 

for the comfort and Inxurj of the Annie's children rewarded her care ; 

wealthy. Bnt to love Grod as Bridget the boj became a worthy priest, and 

Norton loved him ; to trust him when the girl, afiter witnessing the consecra- 

nothing bnt clouds and darkness were tion of her brother, requested permis- 

aronnd ; to (ace starvation, disgrace, sion to enter the convent in which she 

and all, in trust that God would bring was brought up. Mother and daugh- 

op those dear little ones for himself — ter received the veil on the same day. 
this is heroism. Oh ! talk not of the All efforts to recover the property 

goodness of the rich ; they are great for the children proved fruitless. Bnt 

people in this world of false show, but they had long since learned that hap- 

Bridget Norton called down the angels piness does not consist in wealth. 



KETTLE SONG.. 

SiNO, kettle, sing ! 
Busily boil away ! 
My goodmaa to the field has gone, 
The children are out at play. 

Sing, kettle, sing 1 
Sing me a merry song ! 
You and I have company kept 
This matay a year along. 

Sing, kettle, sing I 
I'll join wilh a low refrain — 
Needle and thread drawn through my work, 
Like steadily falling rain. 

Sing, kettle, sing! 
The far-off fancies come. 
Bat never a sad or a weary thought 
Along with your cheery hum. 

Sing, kettle, sing ! 
The hearth is swept and clean. 
And the tidy broom in the comer stands 
Like a little household queen. 

Sing, kettle, sing ! 
Evening is drawing nigh. 
The shadows are coming down the hill 
And coming np in the sky. 



Jtt 



JtkiuOiim. 



Sing, kctfle, sing I 
Shadows are on the wall— 
The last stitch done ! a merry shout ! 
And here are the rovers all 1 

Sing, kettle, sing 1 
Bj the merry candle-light, 
And jou and 1*11 keep company 
Again to-morrow night ! 



Fanitt FiKLDnre. 



ORIOIKll.. 

RITUALISM. 

BT JOHN R. G. HA88ARD. 



In one of the up-town streets of 
New-York there is a Protestant Epis- 
copal Church dedicated to St Alban. 
It is externally a plain, unattractive 
little building of brick and stone, in 
the early English style, with a modest 
little porch, and a sharp high roof, 
sarmounted by a belfry and a cross. 
Within there is little to be seen in the 
way of ornament about the body of the 
church. The seats are plain benches 
rather than pews, and are free to all 
comers. But any one who should en- 
ter St. Alban's, not knowing to what 
denomination it belonged, and should 
look toward the sanctuary, would be 
very apt to fancy for a moment that 
he had got into a Catholic Church* 
Let us imagine ourselves among the 
crowd of curious spectators who fill 
the edifice of a Sunday morning. In 
place of the reading-desk conspicuous 
in most Protestant meeting<4iouses, 
there is a very proper-looking altar 
:8et back against the chancel wall, and 
ornamented with a colored and em- 
broidered antependium. Behind it, in- 
stead of a painting, there is an illu- 
minated screen-work, with inscriptions 
in old English ecclesiastical text, not 
much easier to be read than if they 
were in Latin. Where the tabemado 
ought to be, stands a lai^ gilt cross ; 



on each side of it are vases and orna- 
ments. On a shelf which runs along 
the wall back of the altar there arc 
candlesticks, three tall ones at each 
side, and two others just over the altar 
itself. We see altar-cards, such as are 
used at mass ; a burse for holding the 
corporal ; and a chalice covered with 
a veil, the color of which varies with the 
season of the ecclesiastical year. To- 
day not being a festival, the hue is 
green. At one end of the altar is a 
big book on a movable stand. At 
the epistle side is a credence table with 
a sUver paten, on which is the wafer- 
bread for communion, and with vessels 
of wine and water that might be called 
cruets if they were only a little smaller. 
The pulpit stands just outside the rail- 
ings on the lef^. There is a little 
raised desk on it for the preacher's 
book or manuscript, and this desk is 
covered with a green veil. Opposite 
the pulpit on the right hand side is a 
lectern with a bible on it. The lect- 
ern likewise has green hangings. On 
one side of the sanctuary is a row of 
stalls, precisely like those we see in 
some of our cathedrals and seminary- 
chapels. On the other are benches for 
the choristers. The organ is in a re- 
cess just behind them, and the organist 
tits in the chance!, in full view oi the 



St 



people, with his bade to the instra- 
ment Be wears a white dnrplice, and 
presentB altogether a very respectable 
and ecclesiastical appearance. 

The appointments of St. Alban's 
being so very much like those of a real 
chnreh, we shall not be surprised to 
find the service almost equally like a 
real mass. At the appointed hour an 
acolyte in cassock and surplice lights 
the two candles on the altar. Then 
we hear a chorus of male voices — 
principally boys — intoning a chant, and 
presently a procession issues from the 
vestry door and files into the chancel. 
First comes a lad wearing a black 
cassock and short surplice, and carry- 
ing a cross on a tall staff. Then fol- 
bw the chanters, men and boys, simi- 
larly attired ; then one or two clergy- 
men, or perhaps theological students, 
ako in cassock and surpHce ; next two 
fittle boys in red cassodcs ; and finally 
two officiating ministers, wearing long 
albs. The ^ priest" has a green stole, 
crossed on his breast, and confined at 
the sides by a cincture ; the ** deacon's'* 
Kt(^e is worn over the lefV shoulder. 
The clerks take their places in the 
staib; the singers proceed to tlieir 
benches. The cross-bearer kneels at 
one side of the altar; the "priest" 
kneels at the foot of the steps, with the 
deacon behind him and the acolytes at 
hk side. The service about to be per- 
formed is not the ** Order of Morning 
Prayer" prescribed by the prayer- 
book, but simply the communion ser- 
vice. The officiating minister (for the 
sake of convenience let us call him 
what he calls himself — the priest ; 
(hough without, of course, admitting his 
»icerdotal character) chants a short 
prayer, very much in the style of the 
ehantin;; we hear at mass, and the 
choir respond " Amen." Then the 
litany is chanted antiphonally, by one 
of the clerpry and the choristers alter- 
nately ; it is in the main a translation 
of that part of our litany of tiic saints 
in which we address Almighty God 
directly, without asking the interce^s- 
8101^ of his blessed. This over, the 
mmisterB and acolytes retire in the 



same order in which they entered, and 
the organist plays a voluntary, during 
which the other six altar-candles are 
lighted. When the clergy return the 
priest is seen in a green maniple and 
chasuble. The latter differs from the 
vestment worn by the Catholic priest at 
mass only in being less stiff in texture, 
pointed behind, and covering the arm 
nearly to the elbow; and instead of 
being embroidered with a cross on the 
back it is marked^with a figure nearly 
resembling the letter Y. With hands 
clasped before his breast tho priest 
now ascends the steps, and standing 
before the altar, with his back to the 
people, goes on with the second part 
of the service. We need not de- 
scribe it, for it is principally translated 
from the missal. The words are all 
repeated in a tone which is half read- 
ing and half chanting, and whenever 
the minister says " I^t us Bray," or 
"The Lord be with you," he turns 
round to the people like a priest chant- 
ing "Oremus" or *<£)ominus Vobis- 
cum." The epistle and gospel are^ 
read by the deacon. The sermon fol- 
lows ; a rather vague and wordy dis- 
course, chiefly remarkable for the fre- 
quent and affectionate use of the term 
*' Catholic." The preacher begins by 
saying " In the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," 
and the more devoutly disposed of the 
congregation thereupon cross them- 
selves. Af\cr the sermon comes the 
most solemn part of the service, taken, 
nearly verbatim from the canon of the 
mass ; and at the commencement a great 
many of the congregation who appar- 
ently are not communicants, leave the 
church with reverential faces, as if 
they supposed the old law forbidding 
catechumens to witness the more sa- 
cred mysteries were still in force. But 
the curious spectators, who compose a 
large proportion of the audience, are 
under no such scruple about remain- 
ing. 

We need not describe the order of 
the service in detail, because the words- 
are almost exactly those to which we^ 
are ourselves accustomed, and the 



u 



Situali$m* 



cereroonies come as close to those of 
the maas as it 19 posdible to make lb em 
oome. Whenever the minlBterd or at- 
tendanta pass before the altar tliej 
make a low bow to tlic cross. Aa the 
lime of consecration approaches, the 
deacon goes to the corner of tlie iillar, 
and the acolytea bring him then? the 
bread and water and whR\ which he 
band^ to the piieet, the wine and water 
being mixed in the chalice* The pmyer 
of consecration (a fhinslation of our 
own) IS chanted like the re^t of the 
service?, until the priest reaches the 
wonU, ** This ia my body," etc, " This 
is my hlood,^' etc. ; those, suddenly 
dropjiing liJ3 Toice, he repeats in a low 
voice, betiding over, and immediately 
afterward liOing up the elements on 
high. The atiend^in t^, during this cer- 
emony, bold up tlie comers of his 
vestment. After the consecmtion all 
make genuflections, instead of bows, 
when they have occasion to pass before 
the altar. 

Ai)er receiving communion himiself, 
the priest administers it to the deacon 
and clergy and the altar b:>ys* The 
people then approach the railing and 
the priest gives them the eonaeerul4*d 
wafer, using the formula prei^crihed in 
the C^athoUc and the Prolehlant Epis- 
copal hturgies alike — ^*'Tho body of 
our Lord Jesus Christ," etc. ; but with 
each monel of bread before he gives 
it he makes the sign of the cross, which 
is a striking innovation in the Prot*>js- 
tant service* The deacon follows with 
the chalice. Before the communbu, 
however, a general confession is re- 
nted, and then the priest, turning 
toward the people wiih great solemnity, 
repeats the form of absolution, makin*; 
the sign of the cross as he does so with 
outstrtftched arm. After communion 
the celebrant scrapes the crumbs from 
die paten bto the clialice, and tiikes 
the ablutions at the comer of the altar 
exactly as the priest does at mas^. 
And when the congregation is dis- 
missed at the close, it is with a blessing 
and the sign of the cross, just as we 
are dismissed after the Ite^ Mma §si 
at the end of the mass* 



On specially solemn occasions 10- 
oense is used at St Alban*s, and yari' 
ous other ceremonies are performed 
which have been borrowed from the 
Catholic ritual For example, candles 
are placed about the corpse when ibe 
buria! service is ix'fid. 

We have described a service at St. 
Alban's, because that is tlie church in 
which the rituahstic ideas, as they are 
called, are carried out to the fullest 
development they have thui far at- 
tained in the United States, But ihe 
rector and congregation of St. Al ban's 
are by no means the only persons of 
the Protestant Epi-*copal denomination 
who entertain those ideas. They are 
only a htile more advanced in their 
views than the majority of the High 
Church Episcopal party. There are 
many places in Kew York where Sun- 
day services are conducted more or 
less in conformity with the practices of 
the ritualists ; and antiphonal chanting 
and other popish abominations have 
been iotroduoed, even into sober old 
Trinity Church itself. The number of 
those who believe that divine service 
ought lo bo condnctt'd with a more 
elaborate ceremonial than any I'rotc*- 
tant .^ect^ has thus far admitted is 
rapidly incmasing, and among ihem 
are many of tl»e moi^t distingui.^he*d 
and influential of the Episcopal clergy. 

But if so many strange things ara 
done in our own country, they are 
nothing to tlie innovations which are 
rapidly gaining ground in the Churcb 
of England. The ritualiatic move- 
ment in Great Britain is not so much 
the straggle of an enthusiastic party 
for change or refoinn as it is tlie spon- 
taneous working of a logical doctrinal 
development which is gnidually s[ tread- 
ing throughout the community. Therm 
is a struggle attending it ; but it is the 
struggle of the let-alone party for its 
repression, not of the apot^tles of ritual* 
ism for its e intension. And in spite, 
perhaps partly in consequence, of 'he 
bitterness of the oppo!?itJon, the num- 
ber of churches in which the gtiod old 
Catholic ceremonies are revived in 
their ancient splendor is dally aug- 



I 
I 



ji 



JSitmdum. 



U 



nendogv and the seal of the congrega- 
ionB 18 increasing. Ritualism in Eng- 
hnd ifl not what Punch is so fond of 
representing it — a mere system of 
ecclesiastical millinery, bom of the 
sick brains of foolish and fanciful young 
earaies ; but it is a genuine expression 
oT the sentiment of a respectable mi- 
nority of the Protestant laity. The 
sumerous prayer-books and similar 
works, prepared for the use of laymen 
Doder ritualistic inspiration, are sold 
by MiUiam of copies. One entitled 
-"The Churchman's Guide to Faith 
and Piety," contains formulas for 
morning and evening prayer, with an 
examination of conscience ; devotions 
for saints' days ; instructions for sys- 
tematic sacramental confession, and for 
devoutly receiving the boly Eucharist 
and assisting at the sacred mysteries ; 
and pra^s for the faithful departed* 
The real presence and the sacrificial 
character of the holy Eucharist are ex- 
pressed in the clearest possible manner. 
There are several hand-books of devo- 
tion toward the blessed sacrament, and 
manuals of religious exercises in honor 
of certain particular manifestations of 
the divine goodness, such, for instance, 
as the passion of our Saviour. A col- 
lection of ^ Hymns, Ancient and Mod- 
era,'' of which it was stated some 
time ago that over one and a half 
millions of copies had been sold, con- 
tains simply the principal hymns of 
the Breviary, and in a work entitled 
** An AppencUx to the Hymnal Noted," 
the advanced Puseyite will find com- 
plete directions for using tiiose hymns 
in public worship, according to tiie 
rabrics of the Breviary. An English 
publisher has just announced a new 
manual containing ^ the offices of prime 
and compline and the vigils for the 
dead ; the forms of blessing and sprin- 
kling holy water ; the MUsa in nocte 
Nativitatis Domini ; the Lenten lita- 
nies ; the blessing of the ashes and the 
palm branches; the washing of the 
altars and the Maundy ; the benediction 
of the fonts on Holy Saturday, and the 
like: translated from the Latin, with 
an introduction and explanatory notes, 



and illustrated with extracts from the 
consuetudinary of the church of Sarum 
and the plain-song of the M^lin 
office-books.'* 

" Matins" and " vespers" are chant- 
ed in many of the English churches by 
choristers robed in surplices and 
ranged on each side of the chancel 
The Gregorian tones are used to a great 
extent. The officiating clergyman 
wears a cope on festival days, and it 
has been the custom until lately to in- 
cense the altar during the chanting of 
the MagntficaL The most complete 
return, however, to the practice of the 
ancient church is seen in the celebra- 
tion of the Eucharist. All the Catholic 
vestments — the amice, alb, cincture, 
maniple, stole, and chasuble — ^have 
been restored. The regulations of the 
rubrics respecting diffisrent colors for 
different days and seasons are followed. 
Sometimes die celebrant is attended by 
a deacon and a subdeacon, acolytes, 
and censer bearers; and the use of 
candles on the altar is very common. 
Even in churches where candles, in- 
cense, and colored vestments are un- 
known, the Litroit, taken from the 
Roman missal or the missal of Salisbury, 
is frequently chanted at the beginning 
of the service, and it is a very common 
practice to add to the regular liturgy 
contained in the Book of Common 
Prayer various prayers taken from the 
ordinary and the canon of the mass. 
For example, the minister often pre- 
fixes to the service the psalm Judica 
me, Deus with the antiphon, the Ci?n- 
fieor, etc., which we hear every day 
at mass. So, too, when the celebrant 
is placing the bread and wine on the 
altar, he borrows our offertory and the 
prayers which follow it, his own littirgy 
not having furnished him with any- 
thing appropriate to the occasion. The 
Anglican office sets down no prayers 
for the priest^s own communion ; he, 
therefore, supplies the omission by re- 
citing in a low voice the unde et m#- 
mores of the missal 

The use of crucifixes and images, 
and especially the image of the blessed 
virgin, holding her divine Son in her 



96 



JtihMHim. 



I 



armSf is by no means uncommon amonf? 
the more advanced ritualists ; and 
dome clergymen are in the habit of 
blearing objet!ts of tie vol ion, Bueh as 
medals and crosses^ and even of bless- 
ing holy water- A correspondent of 
a London newspaper writer a letter of 
indicant complaint alx>ut the Christ- 
mas celobratioDS this season, at gome 
of the ** advanced*' churches, in one of 
which he declares that ** numbeilcsa 
tap«*r8 shod their halo of glory upon 
a veritMble JJambino,** or figure of ilje 
infant *Saviour lying in the manger. 
An Anglican Missal has been pub* 
it^had at Oxfoi'd, con lain in«f the orrler 
of the G)mnuinion eervice, without any 
Olber part of the Liiur|?y- This scrv* 
ice is commonly ftpoken of as the 
" ma?f*," and we even hear of *' high 
uia**fl," and " low mass/* to my nothing 
of maliua and vespers* A few weeks 
ago we read an account in an £n«:;U8h 
paper of a nuptial nuiss in one of the 
ritualistic churches. The ruithful ad- 
dress their niinislers as Father John* 
Father Peter* or whatt^vej* the Christ- 
ian name may be, and talk of tfieir 
"confesjions" and ** spiritual directors** 
with all the composure of genuine 
Oatholic^. 

The following deecription of a ser- 
vice at St, Alhan's in London in holy 
week, is taken fmm an Knglisb news- 
pa|)cr : The altar on Maundy Thurs- 
day was vested in white and the 
boiy Eucharist was solenirdy celebrated 
at 7 A. M^ when many of the members 
of a confrateniity attached to llie 
church coraraunicaled. After the morn- 
ing service the allar was entirely 
stripped of all its vestings and orna- 
ments except the candlestick^*, and so 
remained until Easter eve. On Good 
Friday, there was a roedilation at 8 
A* M., which was well attended. The 
charch wzis full at 10,30, when matins 
and U^e anlecommunion office were 
said. The sermon was followed by 
lh»* chanlini^ of the Reproaches, and 
the hymn Pange Lingita. At 2 P. M., 
after the siDgiog of tlie litany, the Rev, 
A. XL MackoDochio preached the three 
hours* agony, (he order of which was 




as follows: (L) One of the words of 
our Lord on the cross, was chanted by 
the choir ; (2.) A short sermon on the 
word was next pronounced ; (3*^ All 
knelt in silent meditation, the organ 
playing softly ; (4.) A hymn was suog* 
This ortler was observed for each of 
the words on the cross, tlic whole ser- 
vice lasting three hours and a half* 
At 3 o'clock, the hour of our Lord's 
death, the bell was tolled for five min- 
utes, while all knelt in silence. Even* 
song, or vespers, took place at 7 p. m. 
The sermon was followed by the chant- 
ing of the Siahat Mater and Miserere. 
A meditation on the taking down froni 
the cross closed the evening. All 
through the day the liell was tolled 
solemnly, and most of the congrcgatiau 
appeared in mourning. On Easter 
eve there was service at 9 P. M. Tlie 
church was elaborately decorated for 
the coming festival with white and 
scarlet hangings, hot*hou8c flowers, 
and candles. The .^ervien opened with 
a procesf-ion, the ehunters sininng the 
old Easier hymn fHi et jilice^ and 
tijrcc of the attendants carrying ban- 
ners. Then vcspi'rs were chanted, and 
after the reading of the second lesson 
the sacrament of baptism was admin- 
istered to twenty-eight personi^. On 
Easter Sunday the Eucharist wius cele- 
brated at 7, 8, and a. m. ; at 10,30, 
null ins were sung; and at 11,15 there 
was a gi-and Easier service which we 
suppose the highand dry " Anglo* 
Catholics" would cull high mass. The 
ministers and attondants, with lights 
and barmers, eniL'red in pmcegsion, 
while the choris lei's chanted the hymn 
Ad Cmnam Agnu As soon as they 
reached the altar, the Intro it was sung, 
and the ** mas?," or communion seiTice, 
was then celebrated in the usual man- 
ner, another breviary hymn, the victi- 
mm Paschali^ being chanted at the of- 
fertory. 

In an account of the holy week serv- 
ices at St. Philip's, Chn ken well, we 
read that on Pahn Sunday the altar 
was vested in black, the eroes veiled 
with crape, and the retable stivwa 
with pdm branches. The choir, beat- 



I 



I 



kg palmsy entered tlie churchy s inging 
tbe hymn ^ Kide on, etc," preceded by 
the processional cross which was also 
Toied with crape. At a church in the 
dioeese of Manchester recently, ^he 
MTTioes for Grood Friday began ait mid- 
night, with a litany and sermon. At 6 
A. iL there was a litany again, with a 
second sermon. At 9 a. m. followed 
matins and a sermon ; at noon a special 
•enrice and sermon ; at 3 p. H. litany 
snd sermon ; at 6, evensong, and ser- 
mon, at 9, litany, sermon and bene- 
diction. The Church Times, a ritual- 
ist periodical, remarked that it was 
''dieering to find the Catholic view of 
the observance of the great fast so ad- 
mirably develi^ped in a diocese so ter- 
ribly over-ridden by Puritanism.'' 

Some of our readers may remember 
the drcnmstances attending the fune- 
rol of the Rev. John Mason Neale at 
East Grinstead, England, in August 
1866. Dr. Neale was well known as 
the author of some admirable trans- 
ktioos of Breviary hymns, as one of 
the most earnest apostles of ritualism, 
sod as the founder of a convent of 
women. The burial ceremonies, in 
the chapel of Sackville College, in- 
ebded what might be called a high 
mass of requiem, with priest, deacon, 
lad sub^eacon, habited in magnificent 
vestments of black silk trimmed with 
BilTer ; an assistant priest ; and a mas- 
ter of ceremonies, or ceremoniarius. 
Tbe service commenced with the in- 
troil ^ Grant them eternal rest, O 
Lord." Afler the epistle the I)les 
friB was chanted in Grepjorian mel- 
ody, as the gradual. When choir 
and congregation assembled after com- 
manion in the college quadrangle, there 
to form themselves into a procession, 
one of the clergy repeated the prayer, 
Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mira- 
Wi, wiiich is always chanted in the 
Catholic church at the benediction of 
the btessed Sacrament. In the pro- 
cession, besides clerks, chanters, aco- 
lytes, and cross-bearer, appeared the 
*• sisters of the third order ;" novices ; 
" sisters of the second order" in white 
veils edged with blue; ^professed sis- 



ters f the mother superior, assbtant 
mother, and mistress of novices of Dr. 
Neale's convent; superiors of other 
ordenB ; " brothers associate ;" etc The 
corpse ^was vested in cassock, sur- 
plice, and black stole ; a crucifix was 
in his crossed hands, tbe same one 
which he was in the habit of having 
before him when hearing confessions." 
In an appendix to a virulent little 
treatise against ritualism by the Rev. 
Robert Vaughan, D.D.,* there are de- 
scriptions of services in several of the 
advanced churches; and the author 
says : " This is the course of things in 
a large number of our city and sub- 
urban churches over the kingdom ; and 
not a few churches in our smaller 
towns, and even in our villages, do 
their best, as before intimated, toward 
imitating the example set them by 
their more fashionable and wealthy 
neighbors. The editor of The Church 
Times filled some thirty columns of 
that journal with such reports as we 
have cited, relating to the celebrations 
of last Easter, and stated that the ac- 
counts he had published were * only a 
small selection irom the overwhelming 
mass' which had reached him." Proot 
enough that the movement, as we said 
before, is very widely extended and es- 
sentially popular. 

Everybody remembers the commo- 
tion raised a year or two ago by an 
enthusiastic gentleman named Lyne 
who called himself" Brother Ignatius," 
and made a very foolish and unfortu- 
nate attempt to establish a Protestant 
order of Benedictines in England. But 
other efforts to introduce religious com 
munities into the Church of England 
have been more prosperous, and there 
are now at least 40 D or 500 members 
of various sisterhoods, who take vows, 
some for life, some for three years-f 

* Ritualism In the English Church In Its Relation 
to Scripture, Pioty, and Lavr. By Robert Vaughau, 
D.D. I'lmo. Loudon: 1866. 

t Sisterhoods have obtained a prec.irlous footing 
In the United SUtea. There is one In New- York, 
whose members wear a costume suggestive somewhat 
of the cloister and somewhat of the mantua-maker's 
shop. They have neat little things, between caps 
an<I veils, on their heads ; make-believe rosaries 
lianglng from their girdles ; and black bombasine 
gowns distended to fashionable dimensions by. E 
of hooiHikirts. 



58 



SiiualimL 



Jn all cases there is a novitiate of one 
or two years, and it is said that women 
who take the vows ahnost always ad- 
here to them. Brotherhoods are not 
at all flourishing, but there ia a loud 
call for them among tlie ritualists, and 
we see no reasoA to doubt that they 
will soon follow in the general pro- 
gress of the Catholic revival. Of the 
nmnber of congregations in which rit- 
aalistic practices are followed, we have 
no exact account ; but a disinterested 
authority in which we have confidence 
eetimati^s the number of the clergy 
who entertain the advanced views at 
about 2000. Among them are a few 
of the bishops, the most prominent 
being Dr. Wilberforce, bishop of Ox- 
ford, and Dr. IlamiUon, bishop of Sal- 
isbury. Indeed, the rapid progress of 
the new ideas seems to have thrown 
the thorough-going Protestants inio a 
fever of alarm. Courses of lectures 
art) got up to counteract the growing 
spirit, and monster petitions and me- 
morials are presented to the bishops 
by the clergy and people of their dio- 
ct««ins, A remonstranc-e with five hun- 
dre<! sigiuituri's has been hud before 
tho Uishop of Salisbury ; a memorial 
with two thousand three hundred names 
has lHH»n pn»sentod to the Bishop of 
(ilouivHtor; and four hundred and 
twonty-tlmn^ of the clergy of London 
Imvo united in a protest Colored 
vestnuMits an* worn in twelve of the 
I^indon ohuri'hes, incense is used in 
six, anti terest of their service in the 
house of God." And as for the eflTect 
of the movement upon the low chureb* 
men, he believes that it will only be- 
come a more nuirkeddifititiclionbtit ween 
partjci^ which have Inn;^ exii<ted, and 
which might well be allovTcd to appear 
in a raoi'e decided form without danger 
to the peace and prosperity of the de- 
tiooii nation. 

As might be supposed, Bishop Hop- 
kins ftays a great mi\ny sensible things 
about ritualism in general i hough 
their npplicatiun to the particular case 

, before him is not always of the clear- 
The ceremonial part of divine 
ship ia nor, he declares, a mailer 
of indifference. God gave tbe mo^t ex- 
plicit inslruction«4 for the performance 
of public worship undar the Lcvldcal 
law, lie de!*erib*-d the tabeniacle that 
waa to be erected in the \vildern*?i>s 
and the temple of Solomon which suc- 
ceeded it* giving miauie directiona for 
the fashioning of all their parts; for 
tho incense, ih& golden censer?, the 
candlesticks, and the rich priestly ve^^t- 
metits that were to be used when the 
df*s<!endauts of Aaron approached his 
presence- And under the new di?*pen- 
eation this Iwautiful and elaborate 
ayatem, so ofieu pronounced by Al- 
mighty God "an ordinance for ever," 
was not ftwept wholly out of exi!*teneo, 
though certain parts of it parsed aw^ay 
into a higher and more extensive form 
of divine armngement. Tlie animal 
gacrifices ceased, because tliey were 
only types of the great sacrifii!e which 
the cross of Christ fulfille<L The re- 
strlctiou of the priesthood to the lamily 



of Aaron was zibolished^ beoauae 
new covenant fras oot restricted to i 
single nation, like the old, but 
made with all lite peoples of the e«rtli 
The rest of the Mosaic law. Dr. Hr»p 
kins argues, remained in force. Hii 
argument is not a good one^ for 
would lead him to absurditiojL If diQ 
old ritual was not abolished, why do 
modem Christians not observe it T 
What authority have they for omittini 
all the more onerous parts of Uie cer 
emonial, and retaining only the 
garments and lights and fragrant in<^ 
cense, which please the senses without 
imposing any particular burden? 
rituu!i.>^m luid no belter argument 
its favor than the book of LeviUcns,! 
there would he little to say in its de^l 
fence. Df, Vaughan, who reaLsonsj 
that rkualism is unlawful in the 
CKrlstian church, because there is no 
book of ntes in tlie New Testament 
corresponding to the book of Leviticua 
in I he old, is as logical as Dn Hop* 
kins. The Bishop of Vermont, how- 
ever, is apparently sensible that there | 
must be some atithoritativo enactment] 
on the subject ; lliat God. either by hiJ I 
church or by some other iospiredi 
mouthpiece, must have abolished orl 
moditied the Jewish ritual, and substi- 
tuted a new one. or else we ought still | 
to observe the full Mosaic ceremonial, j 
on the pntieiple that laws are bind- 
ing unlit they are re[>ealed. To us^ 
Calholici, the case h clear enough. 
We have the authority of the chuPclM 
of Gol for all we do; she abolished j 
the old Jewish rites, and she ordained 
the Christian cereiKoniaL And Dr, 
Hopkins is senslhle enough of the im- 
poriance of this authorizalion, for he 
tries to apply it to his own denomi- 
nation, and thereby, of course, aduiita 
that the church has uniformly followed < 
the rightful praciice, and that the Prot- 
estant seels have been all wrong, He 
shows, from the wriLiiigs of the early 
faUiers and IrLjm other ancioot docu«i 
ments. that the term ** altar' wa* con* 
stanily used in primitive time* in con- 
nectiou with the celebration of divine 
services ; that the altars wero boih of 



SiiHaKam. 



«1 



wood and of stone, and tbat hence 
there 18 no reason for the restriction 
which many Protestants would l&j 
spon the Lord's Table ; that it should 
be '^ an honest table, with legs to it ;" 
ttd that candles and incense were 
lisbitiiallj used at the celebration of 
the divine mysteries. A much more 
important matter. Bishop . Hopkins 
MIJ8, 18 the use of oil or chrism in con- 
Innation; and this, he admits, ^is 
plainly stated by Tertallian to have 
been the established practice in the 
jear 200." And he quotes a remark- 
ibie passage from Bingham^s ^ Anti- 
quities of the Christian Church" (a 
Protestant work), to the effect that 
''it was this unction at the completion 
of baptism to which they [the early 
Christians] ascribed the power of mak- 
B^ every Christian, in some sense, 
putaker of a royal priesthood, which 
18 not only said by Origen, but by Pope 
Leo, St. Jerome, and many others." 
His remarks on the subject of sacer- 
dotal vestments are not less striking. He 
mentions the proofs brought forward by 
Barooins, that St. James the Just, first 
hishop of Jerusalem, and St John the 
ETangelist "wore the golden oma- 
ment which was prescribed for the 
mitre of the high priest in the Mosaic 
ritual" He refers to Constantine's 
gift of ^ a rich vestment, embroidered 
with gold," to Macarius, bishop of 
Jerasalem, to be worn by him in the 
celebration of the sacred offices. He 
cites ancient decrees concerning the 
orantim, or stole, and the different 
manner in which it was to be worn by 
priests and by deacons ; mentions the 
ring and staff prescribed for a bishop ; 
and especially refers to the fact that 
Mack, as the symbol of sin and moam- 
ing, was everywhere excluded. Bishop 
Hopkins brings forward these things 
hj way of showing the multitude of 
pomts of conformity between the early 
Christian and the ancient Jewish ritual ; 
hat they do not seem to have awak- 
ened in his mind the question, '< Which, 
then, is the true Christian chnreh V 
nor does he perceive that, however 
stiongly they may support the Catholic 



practice, they do little good to the 
Episcopalians. The first Chureh of 
England men understood the propriety 
of ritualistic magnificence a great deal 
better than their descendants do. When 
they cast off faith and obedience they 
did not at the same time cast off the 
rich priestly robes, nor put out the 
altar lights, nor stop the swinging of 
censers and chanting of psalms. The 
ritual of the primitive Protestants was 
hardly less gorgeous than that of 
mother church herself. When Arch- 
bishop Parker was consecrated in the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth, he wore ^ a 
long scarlet gown and a hood, with 
four torches carried before him : Bishop 
Barlow had a silk cope, being to ad- 
minister the sacrament ; four arch- 
deacons, who attended ' him, wearing 
silk copes also.'' And a puritanical 
Protestant, Thomas Sampson, com- _ 
plained to Peter Martyr in 1550 that 
the ministry of Christ was banished 
from the English court, because the 
image of the crucifix was allowed there, 
with lights burning before it. Dr. 
Hopkins is at pains to show that the 
custom and unrepealed law of the 
Church of England justify the use of 
a processional cross, two lights on the 
altar, incense, surplice, alb, girdle, stole, 
dalmatic, tunicle, chasuble, cope, amice, 
cape or tippet, maniple, hood, and cas- 
sock ; that the use of oil in confirmation 
and extreme unction, and of prayerg 
for the dead, which are' found in the first 
Prayer-book of Edward VL, though 
they were subsequently omitted from 
the liturgy, has never been prohibited 
and is still lawful We suspect that 
to many Protestants this statement 
will be a little startling. 

It will not be more startling, how- 
ever, than a view of what the liturgy 
of the Church of England was in the 
first years of her heresy, and what, 
according to the ritualistic party, it 
ought rightly to be now. It seems to 
be generally admitted that what is 
known as the first Prayer-book of 
Edward VI., published in 1549, is the 
standard to which the ceremonial of 
the Establishment ought to be refer- 



Situalum, 



red ; that whatever waj? sftnctioned or 
permitted under the rubricA of that 
work raiiy be kwtiiUy used or done 
now ; and tbut the subsequent revis- 
ions of the Prayer-book, inasmuch es 
ihej have authoritatively condemned 
none oi* the ancient forms and ex- 
pre^aions of doctrine embodied in that 
earlier ritual, have no restrictive force 
upon the liberty of the modem revivers 
of old Catholic practices. Let us see, 
ihen, what the iirst Prayer-book of Ed- 
ward. VL wast, in its order of the com- 
, ^nunioti service, the present battle- 
ground of ritualijim. 

This portion of the liturjjy was en- 
titled* **Thf^ Supper of the Lord and 
the Holy Commimion, commonly call- 
ed the Mass." It ia divided into ^ the 
Ordinary/' and ^' the Canon/* Tlie 
first part begins with the Lonfs 
Prayer; and then follow the ( ollect 
for punly, the Introit (now omitted), 
I he Kyrie Elehnn, the GloriQ in ji- 
coUis^ Domintij Vohiaenmy Collects for 
the day and for the king» the Epistle, 
Goept^hnnd^ieene Creed, the sermon. 
Exhortation, Offertory, and Oblation ; 
Domlnus Vobihcum^ Surmm Oorda^ 
the Preface, and the Sanetui. The 
CftAUH DOW consists* of one long prayer 
of coiisecnvtion, but in the Prayer- 
book of 1549 it comprised many other 
parts copied pretty closely from the 
niissal ; and the confession and absolu- 
tion, which are now tran.sferred to an 
tjju*ly part ot IJie ordinary, came in 
their propor pkce immediately before 
the communion. After communion 
wore the Agnnt Dei and Post-Cora- 
niunion, the Collects, and other pray- 
ers and ceremonies, rery much as we 
liave them in \he ma^s. The rubric of 
1549 giays: ** When the clerks have 
done singinj^ the Sanetus^ then shall 
the priest or deacoB turn himself to 
the people and say, * Let us pray for 
the whole gtnte of Chrisl*8 church;* *' 
to wliich the present office adds the 
words* '* militant here on earth.** Aa 
able paper in a collection of essays by 
advanced ritualists, published in Lou* 
doQ last year,^ argues from this that 

*t1u Clmrcli and Ui« World : Kuajrvoo QgtBtiom 



prayers for the dead formerly had 
place and are still allowable in X\ 
English liturr^. If this be not so^' 
the author says, " we shall find oui*-' 
selves placed in a dilemma which 
a Catholic mind is inexpressibly pain- 
fuh For . . < . it follows that the] 
liturgy of the English Church is thi 
only living liturgy, the only known; 
extant liturgy which Ls wanting in r^ 
raembrance of its faithful departed, 
From which dilemma we may devoul*] 
ly say. Good Lord, deliver us/' 

In the consecration prayers there 
an important part found in the book 
1549, but now left out, of which tl 
same writer says : ** We can scarce! 
too deeply deplore the loss, or earn 
estiy desire that it may be restored 
to us.** This is the invi>cation of the 
Holy Ghost, and it reads as follows j 
** Hear us, merciful Father, we 
seech thee, and with thy holy spirit 
and word vouch sate to bl-|-es8 and^i 
sano-|-tify these thy gifts and c 
tures of bread and wine, that they ma 
be to us the body and blood of th^ 
most dearly beloved son Jesus Christ* 
Here we have not only an authoriza 
lion but an explicit direction for the 
use of the sign of the cfops, at whiclr 
many good Episcopalians Bhuddernef^ 
vously as at a diabolical popish inven* 
tion. It w^as lct\ out of the later Pray- 
er-books, but never prohibited. 

Before the communion there is a 
formula of invitatiou which the minis* 
ter is to read to the people, bidding 
them to the Lord's table. In the p: 
ent Prayer-book it contains nothing 
which calls for special remark ; but 
in that of 1549 it embraced the follow 
ing passage : ** And if there be any 
you whose conscience is troubled and 
grieved in anything, lacking comfort 
or counsel, lot him come to me, or ta 
some other discreet and learned priest^ 
taught in the law ot God, and cofifeii 
and open his sin and grief secretly • • 
. , iknU of fit he may reeeim comjbri 
and ab9ol%Aion^* etc. 



I 



of thft Dur. Bf virl9Qi wrltenw 



cdtijribeltrT. OrbjrSli 







68 



The writer of the essaj above 
(jaoted fiivon not onlj a return to the 
old Edwardian liturgj, bat a revival of 
Tsrioos other usages to which we need 
not more particalarlj refer than by 
ssjing that they all have a genuine 
Cfttholic flavor. He sees no reason, 
•part from prejudice, why Anglicans 
ilioald not caU their communion ser- 
Tice by ''the old £nglbh word 
'Massif* and he deprecates the Prot- 
eitant custom of consuming at once 
aD the bread and wine which are 
Messed for the Lord's Supper, without 
reterving any for the visitation of the 
BicL ^Thcoe who minister among 
the lowest poor in missionary work," 
he says, ''can bear witness how dis- 
tressing oftentimes are celebrations in 
the crowded and sick rooms of a town 
population.'' And he quotes an in- 
itince in which the Eucharist had to 
k consecrated for a dying man who 
oerapied one comer of a crowded room 
tesanted by several other families. In 
mother comer crouched a woman of 
the vilest dass, and during the conse- 
crstkm andean insects were crawling 
orer the ** fair white linen cloth" upon 
vhieh the elements were laid. Can 
we wonder that to a minister who be- 
lieves in the Real Presence, and in 
In own power to consecrate, a cele- 
bration sach as this must seem like 
profanation? 

If there Were nothing in tliis ritual- 
istic revival but an attempt to borrow 
the rich robes of faith and dress up in 
them the shranken form of heresy, it 
would hardly be worth our attention. 
It is little to us whether the human 
kws of the reahn of England permit 
the ministers of the Established 
Chorch to stand with their backs to 
the congregation ^r not ; whether they 
may le^ly bum candles in daylight, 
or swing censers, or chant their pray- 
ers instead of saying them, or wear 
coknred and embroidered vestments 
instead of the plain surplice and the 
hhkdk gown. Since they have taken 
the liberty to discard faith and obe- 
dience, one would think it of little mat- 
ter that they should discard ceremo- 



nies also. AAer they have lost the 
substance, why should they care for 
the form ? If they could abolish, for 
instance, the celibacy of the clergy, 
they had surely as good a right to 
abolish a red or green chasuble. In- 
deed, to be logical, they ought to 
ordain, alter, and abolish just what 
they please. But it is impossible 
not to see that there is a great 
deal more in this movement than a 
mere striving afler beautiful and im- 
pressive forms. There is first a re- 
awakening of the Catholic idea of pub*, 
lie worship, and a rejection of the com- 
mon Protestant theory. It is the 
Protestant principle, not always ex- 
pressly acknowledged, but practical- 
ly acted upon, that the primary object • 
of a religious service is the edification 
of the people ; it is the Catholii; idea 
that the chief purpose of that service 
is the worship of Almighty God. 
The Englishman, Thomas Sampson, 
whose complaint to Peter Martyr 
touching lights and cradfixes, we quot- 
ed just now, says in the same letter : 
"What hope is there of any good 
when our friends are disposed to look 
for religion in those dumb remnants of 
idolatry, and not in the preaching of 
the lively word of GodP' And what 
is it but a recognition of this principle 
which causes most of the Protestant 
sects to lay such stress upon sermons 
as to make them the predominating 
feature of every service, and otXen 
gives their public prayers such a doc- 
trinal and exhortatory character that 
they can hardly be distinguished from 
sermons except by the substitution of 
the phrase " Almighty God" for •< Be- 
loved brethren" ? Now, the ritualists, 
whatever their shortcomings, are at 
any rate free from this absurdity. Ser- 
mon-hearing or meditation, says one of 
their late writers, may be salutary 
enough in its proper time and place, 
but it is not worship. Here, no doubt, 
is a great advance in the right direc- 
tion. But this is not all. An essay 
"On the Eucharistic Sicrifice" in The 
Church and the World gives the Cath- 
olic doctrine still more explicitly, and 



Sitmiiim. 



acknowledges **that ClinMian wor- 
ttiip 18 really tht) earthly exUlbition of 
Christ^s perpetual intercession as the 
sole IiigU prieat of his cl]tircb,tbe eolo 
acceptable presenter uf tbe one wor- 
«bip of his one body in heaven and in 
earth, and that as such it culminates 
in his o\vn mysterioiw presence, in 
and by the t«a(irnment of his most pre- 
ciotis body and blood/* 

lu this recognition of the true func- 
tions of the Chriatinn ministry, tbe iriie 
character of the worship whifh cmglit 
to be offered in God*a holy temple, we 
may suppose tlie rilualHtij to he pretty 
well a;i;r-eed. But dtietrinally, they 
may be divided into two elasaes. With 
the one cla^s, a grji*geous ritual is mere- 
ly the gratification of an ajsthctic or an- 
tiquarian taste ; with the other it i-? the 
logical development of an advance in 
doctrine. The one class would bring 
back the practice of the Anglican 
Chnrcli to what it used to be in old days ; 
the other would imitate thfe rites and 
cei^monies which were iolbwed in tlie 
Catbohe Cbureh ages before Anglican- 
iara was heard of. 

The second class iSj we believe, the 
more numerous, as it certainly is by 
far the more inif>ortiint of the two. Its 
riews are tiot forth with frankness and 
dectded ability in the volume which 
we have already qnoted j and we aie 
ceruiin tliat no on<; c^n read these es- 
says without fechng that the ritualists 
are lecjiiimate successors of the tractari- 
miB of thirty yeat^ ago, and 'that there 
ift |>rcimiee of as much good from the 
agitation which they are leading as 
csirae from the great movement of Dr. 
Newman and Dr. Pusey. »* Ritual- 
ism,*' says one of I lie essayists, '* is not 
employed as a gid«^ wind, by which to 
bring in certain tenets surreptitiously, 
but as the natunil complement of those 
tenets after they have been long and 
SKlulously inculea*^ed," The burning 
of candles and incense is of very little 
nttmnent, considered as a mere form, but 
it is of gi*eat moment when it is done 
as the ritualists do it for the sake of 
rendering honor to the real presenco of 
our Iiord. It is of no ooateqaeace 



what oi^er of wordt tSftwhMi 
or what dress the JkAffStiUk 
uses in rt*ading the communion oflR^c 
because he has not the priestly chanio 
tor, and if he followed literally the mh 
sal itself, be could not celebrate a va 
mass. But if he comes as close to t\\ 
missal as he can, by way of tcstifyin 
that he believer in the doctrines state 
and symbolized in the missal ; if he imi* 
tates the ceremonies of the daily Christ* 
ian sacrilice, in order to show hia belief ] 
in the sacriticial character of the Ku 
charist, that fact becomes of serio 
importance, and indicates a geouizi 
progress toward truth, at which ever 
gooil Catholic ought to rejoice* Tii 
practice of aiincular confession is 
new in the Anglican Church; but 
acquires additional signiticanee when i 
is spoken of, as it is* in tbe Church an 
the Word, by the name of ** the sacra* _ 
ment of |>e nance,'* for the Church of 
England recognizes no sacraments ex- 
cept baptism and the supper of the 
Lord* 

If there is any name which a genit^^ 
ine ritualist really hates it is that Ol^l 
Protestant. The avowed purpose of 
the advanct^l school is to unprotest 
antize the Church of England ; and tl; 
writer just quoted ajwiaks of liavin] 
found comfort at a time of spiritm 
doubt and trial, in the belief, that I 
English i'liurch was still apart of t 
Caiholie Church, ^unless she sinu' 
sutRflently at the reformation to justify 
Itorae in cutting her off." ^ Our plac^ 
is appointed us,*' says the same eBStkl 
** among Frotistants and in a comrn 
nion deeply ttiinted in its practical 8, 
tem by Protestant hei*esy ; but o 
duty is the expulsion of the evil, 
not flight from it, any more than it 
a duty for those to leave the Rom 
Church who become conscious ul 
of abuses within her system/' Tj 
Church of England indeed, has but a 
weak hold ujion the faith or aflTection of 
the rilualijits of this school Wo fi 
the ' XX XIX- Articles spoken of 
" those ^i^testant articles tacked on 
a Catholic liturgy, those forty atri^ 
save one, od^Bome have called themi 



I of 




I%€ Oro8$. 



98 



laid on the back of the Anglican 
priesthood ;** and in the same book we 
are told that ^ the universal church, and 
not the Church of England, is becoming 
the standard to which doctrine and 
practice must be conformed, and the 
adnmtages in many respects of other 
d'rvisions of it over our own are becom- 
ii^ recognised." Prepared as many of 
these men are to accept the doctrines 
of the <^urch in every particular ex- 
cept the supremacy of the Pope and 
the immacalate conception of the 
blessed Virgin, and to follow her dls- 
ripfine even to clerical celibacy, re- 
U^ioas TOWS, and sacramental confea- 
sion, can we doubt that there is hope 
of their overcoming the remaining 
obstacles to their conversion, and 
that the London Weekly Register 
is right when it calls this ^ the most 
important religions crisis that England 
iiaa witnessed smce the so-called Refor- 
oation;' 

And even in the vagaries of the 
other iHtinch of ritualists, the church 
miDineTS, if we may be allowed the 
expression, who imagine they are 



bringing back their errant sect to the 
honest life of old, when they copy the 
forms and ceremonies, the lights and 
vestures, the incense and the chants of 
the^ primitive liturgy, without conform- 
ing to the doctrines which these observ- 
ances are intended to symbolize ; who 
set up as (heir standard of conformity 
not the universal church as she has 
been through all ages, but the Angli- 
can establishment as it was in its in- 
fancy, befon^ it had quite forgotten 
Catholic truth and propriety ; even in 
the hollow ritualism of this school, we 
say, there is cause for gratification. 
Unlike the builders of material temples* 
who must work up from base to sum- 
mit, these ecclesiastical architects can 
sometimes construct their foundation 
af^er the superstructure is finished. 
The mere copying of sacred forma is 
apt to lead them to the sacred faith 
and spirit ; and, any way, it is something 
gained to know that one can bend be- 
fore a crucifix without breaking the 
commandments, and that frankincense 
is not an abomination in the sight of 
the Lord. 



THE CROSS. 



O TREE, how Strong thy branches are. 
To bear such wondrous, weighty fruit 1 
** He strength imparts." 



Than all, thy fruit is sweeter far. 
What genial soil doth feed thy root ? 
** Men's loving hearts." 



Raheri; or, Th$ Injiuince of a Goad Mother, 



Tntulfttail from iim FVeMh. 

EGBERT ; OR, THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER 



GBAPTEE TII4 
" Tt> ht %a Hrtltt .... 

GENitJS, liowever greats will not 
make a man famous unless he work^ tor 
fame. Robc-H felt this arui hail strength, 
^>ei*evernnee, and couni|;e to labor. Jbr 
he was poor and of obscure iianje, and 
be knew what he could do, and wtm 
doren»ined to do it. But^ like all who 
(4tnig)?le through this Vtie^ he had his 
depn5S8ion8 and his griefs, which he 
bore bravely ; and if dieeouragement 
ever glided into lib soul* he inatmillj 
resorted to jintyer, and |ieftc«-* and re- 
pose would th-en spread their wintrs 
over him. He imposed upon himself 
the strict obligation of never WH8tiu;r a 
moment of time, and chained himself 
lo his work, a» a galley slave is chained; 
aeeeptinp hi^ present life, mercenary 
and prosaic as it is, with perfect reaig- 
nation and happiness*, feel in jr that God 
has made it thu.^, and that he mui»l l>e 
thankful for \t Kxisience was a hap- 
piness to bin J, for his heart was good, 
and duty wa^ to him i^erfeet joy ; and 
knowing he was necessary to the hap- 
piness of Madame Gaudin* he devotc^d 
hiiiiseU to her as u son. By degivea 
her strength iTturned, and at last bhe 
was able to resume the niaiiagerneiit of 
the household, which placed more lime 
at Robert's dis^wsition, and his mind, 
rid ot these cares, regains its elasticity 
and primiti^-e vigor. Artistic reveries 
come back, the fire of creative inspira- 
tion it lis his souk and he stands before 
his canvas, on which the faint outlines 
of the Virgin are Iraced. Then another 
dream seizes him^ and hours and days 
and weeks of patient kbor are neces- 
sary to faith fully bring out his ideas, 
and at first all is chaos ; but slowly the 
caovaji becotnes animated, and ^aUy 




Robert, like Pygmalion, etands in ec- 
stasy before his work* His body, 
trembles with enthusia^mf his eyea 
moisten, his knees give way under bini, 
— and why this emotion ? He has faith- 
fully prijsented the fccene where, be- 
tween God and his mother, bis happy 
childhood was passed. Tlie picture is 
astonishingly and wonderfully true* , 
Here stands out btjJdly t!ie su?ago 
grandeur of Ecorcharde, \vith its rugged 
sides and deep ravines — there the val- 
ley through which the silver waters of 
the Donlogue run — the v illage of Bains 
— the church spire, tlie rectory — and 
oil the crowning glory ot this mountain, 
its woods and socdjre verdure. There 
ihe little bouse where Rolxni had lived 
for twelve yeiirs, and, at tlie exti'eniity 
of tlie valley, the [wuk of Sauci, which 
majesliciilly crowned the whole. The 
menn-ry of the young artist rs faithful, 
and he forgets nothing. Stiuiding on 
a clearing on the mountain side is a 
woman, and a child is phiyin2 ne4ir 
her; it is liobert atid his motJier. The 
fiun is just sinking below the horizon, 
and sheds u[)on the scene the glory of its 
waves of gold and purple. Ktu^Ai day 
Robert gave many hours to this picture, 
in which he relived his childhood's days ; 
and, when completed, it was a perfect 
masterpiece of grace and taste, and 
finished with much care. His touch 
was fr'^sh and b<*Id — the animals tliut 
reposed in the valley were perfect, 
the trees of exquisite ibliage, and the 
lights and shades of delicious harmony. 

One morning the young painter was 
at work, bringing out a stronger effeci 
of liglit on his picture, when a loud 
knock at the doc^r drew him from liis 
work. He 0|>ened it. and standing 
before him was his late master. 

** Where have you been, my dear 
Bol»ert ?" asked the illustrious artist ; 



I 
I 

I 



I 



A 



JMrnrif ur^ Tk$ JkJLtma^ 0/ a Go^ Jtoiker. 



07 



^I have been so mieaay about you. 
Tell me why you have not been in my 
studio for BO long a dme ?^ 

Robert, touched by this mark of in* 
terest, given with bo much afibbility 
and gimplicity, replied by a recital if 
the painful position in which he had 
been thrown by the sidLnees of Madame 
Gandin, and told in such warm terms 
of her generous conduct to him, that 
the artist did not know which to ad* 
mire most — the Hvely gratitude of the 
ooe, or beaotifiil devotion of the other. 

The artist grasped his hand, and^ 
pressing it warmly, said, ** You have 
done yoor duty, and can never re- 
proach yourself with ingratitude.'* 
Then, turning toward the picture, he 
excfadmed, ** Can this be your work ? 
It is wonderfuL? After a few mo- 
ments, in which he was perfectly ab- 
forbed, he said, ** Robert, you are 
ignorant of your talent; you know 
iBoie than I do, and must be a great 
psinter ere long." Then, clasping the 
stupefied young man in his arms, he 
prised him to his heart in a generoua 
uinsport of admiration. 

Madame Gaudin, who had gone out 
ro buy provisions for the day, stopped 
at the open door to ask what it could 
all mean ; and when she understood 
what they were speaking about, she 
felt a great joy, and exclaimed, ^^ I 
knew it ; I knew he would be a great 
painter." Her excess of happiness 
nubde her steps a little trembling and 
uncertain ; and, without caring for the 
presence of the stranger, she said to 
Robert, *^ God will blesis thee, my boy ; 
God will recompense thy Christian 
virtues, and all the affection thou hast 
had for a poor old woman like me.** 
Then, noticing the artist, she said, ^ I 
cannot help it ; excuse me, sir, but I 
must embrace him, I must press him 
to my heart, and then £ will be oon- 
lent.'' 

Robert yiekied to her caresses in a 
manner which attested better than 
trords the sincerity of his attachment 
:br the worthy woman. 

The approbation and praises given 
lis work by his master made a pro- 



found impression on the mind of Rob* 
ert 

** My dear boy," said the artist, " I 
will buy your picture at a good price. 
Each one of us should aid others to find 
the road on whkh he has gathered the 
flowers of fortune. God has blessed 
my work and made me rich, but I can- 
not enjoy the favors of fortune alone ; 
I must aid others, and share with them 
the riches that God has loaned me. 
My purse, ray credit, my protection are 
yours to-da^, and I want you to use 
them without hesitation, for I cherish 
you as a pupil and love you as a friend. 
When I pay the debt of life, I hope to 
endow a great painter. Work, then, 
my boy ; work for glory ; you are now 
on the road to fame, and it will lead 
you to fortune." Before leaving he 
put in Madame Gaudin's hand a well- 
filled purse, and said, ^ Keep silence ; 
say nothing of this to Robert.*' 

Robert had another joy on. this, 
eventful day. Toward night he was 
going on an errand for Madame Gaudin, 
and near the Pont Neuf, by the Place 
Dauphine, he heard the voice of a man 
uttering a kind of lament for Napoleon. 
The voice was loud and strong, an<l 
in its modulations there was so much 
sorrow that he hastened toward the 
man, to see if his features verified a 
suspicion that came across his mind* 
He knew he had seen this man before^ 
He was a street singer ; and the longer 
he listened to him, the more convinced 
was he in his belief. Soon his eyes 
were fixed on a large wound in his 
forehead, and, no longer doubting, he 
called out, ** O Cyprien ! my good Cy« 
prien !'' at the same time holding out 
his hand. 

** Pardon — excuse me — ^I do not 
know you." 

** But are jou not Cyprien Hardy« 
cx-grenndier of the Imperial Guards ?" 
said Robert 

*' I am no other person ; but I can't 
remember to have seen you before." 

*< I remember you," said Robert, with 
expression. "• The little orphan that 
you took before the palace at Fontaine- 
bleau and conducted to Paris, although 



Rohert ; or. The Influence of a Goad Maiker* 



\ €lfhl jcars a|^, bas not forirotteTi hie 
protectur and frieiid, and now wiBbes 
to ehake Imnds with him ; you mU not 
refuee me that pleasure surely ?** 

" Ah ! truly no — a thousiind limes no 
— 'I cannot refuse. Touched iJaei-e," 
teaid he, putiin*^ hin hand on hii^ ht^artt 
** I know it ia Robert who speaks to 
me; ray little Robert, ^rown id be a 
inan. You have ciiao^ed muclu young 
man, and bo have I ; but ttijit dcn^s not 
matter ; I have suflTered cruelly. Oh 
my loved enipcror ! if I eould only go 
to him.'* 

** C'ome widi me," aaid Robert : ** we 
can talk entire? ly aa we please when 
alone ; come with me and I will lake 
you lo a pennon who knows yon aln-ady, 
and who, I am certain beforehand, will 
l}e glad to see you,^' 

The idle and eurioua people who 
were standing by when this louchinfr 
rtH'ogniii<»n took place all walked 
off and left I he plate clear to our 
friends* 

** A thousand thunders^ Mister Rob- 
ert, yon aro no prouder now in Parish 
than w hen we came in together, but 
} ou walk too itisi (or my old lega."" 

** Paitlpn me, C'yprien/* s>aid he, 
i*toppinp quiekly, '* hnt I am so anx- 
ious to gel you borne I Imt I h>rget you 
may be faiij^ued and may n*"ed my 
arm. Take it, my friend, for it in 
sure, like my afftiCtion lor you ; fake it 
and we enn walk fT<«T*M\ F nm afraid 
]Madame Gaudin will be uneasy if I 
Slay out so long, and I do not like lo 
give her the leiist uneasiness," 

*'Ohr «iid ihe soldier, etretehing 
up, for he was bent more by grief than 
yo^rs^ " you are a worthy young man, 
and not proud at all You do not 
blush to ifive your arm to a brigand 
of the Loire ; for that is what we poor 
soldiers who regret our emperor are 
eulled. But tell me, who is this Ma- 
dame Gauchin^ — what in the deuce do 
you call her ?" 

** (Taudiu, ray good Cyprien/' 

" Gaudin 1 Oh ! well, I sup|»o«e she is 
some particular person, is she ?'' 

** She is a good and excellent woman, 
to whom 1 owe all Uiat 1 am, and who 



has made every sacrifice for me, iml 
whom I love with all my heart" 

'^ Ah I I understand ; it is a widoff 
that wants to catch you ?^' 

** Oh I no, my gooil Cyprien," said 
Robert, hmghing; ^-it is a person tliat 
ymi know, the old housekeeper of the 
hi men ted Ahh*! Vetneuil, You know 
the priest who gave me so sweet a 
welcome when 1 arrived in Paris, and 
who placed me at the house of Ma* 
dame de Vernanges ?** 

^* YcS| yes ; it eome« back to my 
memi»ry now, and I took a bitter 
hatred against her the day I pulled 
the door bell at the cure's* She looked 
at me with a pair of eyes that shone 
likf halls of tire, hef*auiie I twisted my 
mu'^taelie when 1 spoke to her. Well, 
what has become of the priest ?" 

*" Alas ! he is dead, and much too 
soon for me. Oh! it was one of my 
dark days, Cyprien.^ 

**The same as mine for my emperori 
I weep for him ns you weep for thrf 
cure." 

" We have good reason, my friend^* 
to remember such men, and (o forget 
them would he to forgpt ourselves," 

** So you tell me, old Gaudin ii llrJ 
ing with you ?" 

" No, no ; I should have told you I" 
lived with the dear, gfjod woman ; for 
since the death of the abbe this gen-* 
erous woinno has provided for all m^ 
wants, s|ienr for m^ her 'inrrl savi 
ings, and In every way tried to con** 
sole me for what I liad lost. Yesi' 
my friend, tlus good Madame Gau** 
din pushed forward my laste fof 
drawing and painting ; and I fhank' 
her from the depths of my l»eart, and' 
can say without vanity that these sac-. 
rifices have not been lost. I am re* 
joieed that I can give her some happi- 
ness, and it may l*e that in the turning' 
of the wheel of fortnne I may gain' 
wealth, and all thai 1 have and all thai* 
1 may ever have shall be hers, for she 
has done everything for me.'' 

*• C-ertainly,** said Cyprien, ** and, 
I embrace ihe good woman with mj 
heart,' mounting slowly as he said il 
the four steps that led to their house. 




JMirt; or. The inflmam a/ a Good Motker. 



Robert bad gone in ahead of Lim 
and retamed with Madame Gaadin, 
who reoeiTed the old soldier kindlj, 
and feasted him as a friend, making 
his lonely and braised . h^rt feel 
happier ^n it had for a long time* 
Afler sapper Robert asked him to 
tell them all that had happened him 
since tbey last met. 

*^ There is but one subject for me, 
n J dear Kobert," said he, "* and that 
is my emperor. I have so much joy 
tnd 90 much sorrow when I pro- 
Doonce this dierished name ; I am 
•0 mored when I recall the days when 
foTtone abandoned him, that it is al- 
most better for me not to revert to the 
nbject ; bat, since you wish it, I will 
commence. When we had seen the 
kst of the Little Corporal, and I found 
I eoald do nothing more for him, I 
oommenoed singing his praises through 
the streets, even at the risk of being 
imprisoned; and now he is dead," sMd 
he, with a melancholy air — ^ died on 
that lonely rock where he was held a 
e4>tive, and the only hope I have left 
ii m heaven." 

He looked so tired now that Robert 
nadie hhn go to bed, and before he 
was ap in the morning ran out and 
boQgfat him suitable clothes, so that 
when he awakened he found new ones 
instead of the rags he had laid on his 
bed. •* I want Cyprien to stay with 
Bte," said Robert, *^ for he has been a 
fkidifVil soldier, and I am young, and 
can work for us both ;'' but it was a 
difficalt matter to get his consent for 
this arrangement, and he had to tell 
him many times that he would be so 
osefol to him, and that he really need- 
ed him before he would accept the 
Q^r. Finally he agreed to become 
an inmate of the modest household. He 
mixed colors for the young painter, 
lendered little services to Madame 
Gandin, who did all she could to aid 
Robert to make him happy. From 
this time God seemed to open to him 
the treasures of the choi^^est favors, and* 
to spread them in profusion on the 
bead of the yoang painter. Warmly 
eeonmended to the world by the great 



artist who had been his master, es- 
teemed for his excellent conduct, and 
justly appreciated for his talent, which 
was now burning in all its lustre, he 
could look forward to a happy future. 
His mother's prediction was being 
gradually accomplished, and this aid- 
ed him. Whenever he sat down to 
composing, he first implored the as- 
sistance of God, with the firm belief 
that it would not be refused ; and it 
was not, for the blessed Lord crowns 
with benefits those who serve him with 
love. Nothing gives courage like the 
certainty of success ; and, full of an in* 
defatigable ardor for his art, he work- 
ed hard, disdaining the vain pleasures 
of the world, and his labor was reoom* 
pensed. As he advanced in age, the 
love of his art consumed him the more, 
and in place of the wild enthusiasm he 
felt at first he was filled with a deep 
and serious sentiment, and wanted to 
study the old masters under the bright 
sky of Italy. The only drawback he 
had ever had to his dreams of study- 
ing there was the thought of leaving 
Madame Gaudin alone ; but now that 
Cyprien was with her, he would keep 
her company during his absence. He 
was too firmly convinced of the old 
man's affection to doubt for a moment 
that he would fail to fulfil any instruc- 
tions he might give him; but before 
leaving France he wished to visit his 
native mountain, and pray on the grave 
of his mother. He was now twenty- 
one years of age, and had not forgotten 
the package he was to receive when he 
attained his majority, and which ho 
felt sure contained some instructions 
from his well-beloved mother, which 
it would be a pleasure for him to obey. 
After quieting his fears about Cyprien 
and poor Madame Gaudin, he wiped 
away the tears of the good woman, 
embraced her tenderly, and, after re- 
ceiving Cyprien's promise to take good 
care of the charge confided to his 
friendship, Robert set out for TAu- 
vergne. 



TO 



B$tiri ; ar , The hifiHtm9 of a Good Moiher. 



csATTBR ym. 



" Bbe Rtrepi — nil U •ll^nt tum^ 
Ko more brmrt^bAMA,** 



TnE most touching and beautiful 
affect ion in tlie world 10 thut for pnr- 
eots, far their hornet, aud 'their graves* 
A child who reveres his raolherfl 
memory will keep his name free from 
blemish ; for a gooil name is a precjoua 
heritafje, and the n^membmnce of vir- 
tues in oil her father or mother will 
f^bield A^caiiiHt hud aeliun^ fike an im- 
peiieuiible buckler. But, alas I a ven- 
eration for the names of our fathen? is 
DO longer in honor among men. Fam* 
^y homesteads are ruthlessly dcstroy- 
ff\ hy those who forget that every 
9li>ne is saered to some lender memory ; 
and it eeems novr that emil inrlitfer- 
euee has repUiced that swet^t affection 
which of old united pamnts and child- 
ren. How eommon a thing it is in the 
pn*ftettt day to see children disre^fieet* 
fill to those who have given them birth ; 
4Uid lo what can this p(?rversicin of 
heart, which chills all natural (eehn*rs, 
he attributed but a want of reli>rious 
iminiug, that sanelifying, pnrit'vinf^ 
power which is based ypo[i Otxls holy 
will anJ divine eommiindnient8 ; and 
failh, hr>pe, antl eharily, Ihe releslial 
virtues which ought tv fill all hearts? 

Witli Ilobei-t, advancing years had 
not weakened in his soul the tender 
veneration he avowed lor the memory 
of his m(»tber and her virtues^ It was 
to the principles she had instiOcd into 
bis mind that he was indebted for his 
present prosperity and happiness, for, 
though genius is the inestimable gift of 
Go<J, it needs guidance and conseera* 
tion ; ami all the pious senlimenis which 
were afterward developed in his bouI 
wei*e from tiie seeds sown by that 
angel mother* 

liobcTt took the road to Clermont, 
ana could have flown the entire dis- 
tance, so eager w 11^ he to get to his old 
home* And again and again doubts 
would fill bis mind ns to whether he 
would find the lovetl grave; w^hether 
pitiless time would not in nine years, 



have effaeed the letters wbioli traced 
the name of his mother ? Clermont al 
last appeared in the distance, then the 
village of Bains, and then be was at 
the door of the i"ectory, standing w ith 
a beating heuil to see a loved &oet 
but the door is opentd by a strange 
priestt from wdiorn he le^ms that tba 
venenible cure whom he sought wad 
dead, but in dying be left instructions 
to his successor ; begging that Madame 
Dormeuirs grave should not be neg- 
lected, which gave li^^.be^t but another 
proof of his impenshabhf love. After 
obeying the lir^t wish of his heart and 
visiting Ids aiother s grave, he obtaio^ 
cd ibe papers which concerned him, 
a4id, o|)ening them with emotion, r*.'ad 
as follows: 

'* My dear son : I did not wish you 
to know the contents of these papen 
until you wei"^:? twenty-one, becny^ it 
seemed to me that bet ore this time 
you would hardly compreliend them, 
and I thought it best to wait until you 
had experi*'rjce and maturity of judg- 
ment. You know we are rarely will- 
ing to take the experience of others for 
our instruction ; beheving that what 
shipwrecked them we would have been 
wise enough to have avoSdeil ; that we 
would have acted better, reasoned bet. 
ler, than those wlio have preceded us 
on the perilous sea cjilled the world. 
The blind lead the blind, and when we 
fall we ai% astonished. It is so with 
all men. Being feeble, they think they 
are strong; being dependent, they think 
they an* free; being |M>werless, they 
think they are creatures of genius. 
But thou, my dear child, wilt have 
more strength than those who rej>aae 
in themselves the cai-e of their conduct^ 
and do not invoke Crod to light them 
with his divine rays. In die moment 
of trial they fall; it happened so to 
me, my son, when I lo«jk my own fee- 
ble reason for my guide* But, though 
1 have no grave faults to reproach my- 
self for, it is not the less tine tliat I 
have com prom i sell thy future^ and for- 
gotten my duties as a wife and my du- 
ties as a t hri.^tian, for I have not been 
iuduigcnt and forgetful of ii\jaiie^ To- 



I 



. Baimrt; 9r, The Influence of<jL Good Motker. 



71 



dajyhj God's grace, I am cahn. I judge 
mjseif more severely than he will judge 
me, and I feel guilty and cannot ex- 
eoee myself to thy eyes, by my youth, 
inexperience, and the isolation in which 
I foand myself, when I claimed the 
right of breaking the links which I 
oogbt to hare respected for my son. 
Bat it was my fault, and I will have 
the eoorage to tell you all — to confess 
all my sins, and then ask for pardon. 
Dormeu il is not thy name, my child ; 
it is mine, the name of my father, a 
plebeian name, but without blemish. 
Thy name is De Verceil, and thy father 
is the Count Sosthene de Verceil. At 
ten years of age, I lost my father ; my 
mother died in giving me birth, and I 
was led to the charge of an aunt who 
was my only relative. This worthy 
woman was not rich, but an annuity 
left her by ber husband and the rev- 
enue from some savings placed her 
above want, and her kind heart pitied 
vy orphanage, and she shared every- 
thing with me. I owe to her five years 
of h&ppiness, and oh! that it were 
more ; her counsels and her tenderness 
woold have spared me the regrets I 
^1 at this hour. She had placed me 
m a school of great renown, wishing, 
she said, to leave me, in lieu of fortune, 
a good education. Notwithstanding 
my plebeian name I had a crowd of 
fnends of rich and noble heritage, for 
youth never thinks of the differences 
in rank or the prerogatives of birth ; 
and it was thus that I became the 
friend of an amiable young girl, Hele- 
na de Verceil. Her brother came to 
BCe her often, and, as we were insep- 
arable, I was generally present at 
these visits. I was a simple and can- 
did girl, and these traits made a pro- 
found impression on the young count, 
and when I left the school some 
months af\er Helena I continued to 
see him from time to time, at his sis- 
ter's house, for she was married imme- 
£atety af^cr leaving school. Young, 
ardent, impetuous, and unused to any 
resistance, the count fell easily into 
the snare which was held out to his 
inexperience by an irresistible tender- 



ness. His passion, far from calming, 
grew stronger each day, and he resolv- 
ed to overcome all obstacles and ask 
to marry me, although his age and his 
tastes were fkr from this grave deter- 
mination. With his fortune and hand, 
he came to beg my aunt's consent, and 
to pray that she would not defer his 
happiness. Overwhelmed with joy at 
so brilliant and advantageous an ofier 
for her niece, she gave her consent, for 
in all her dreams for the daughter of 
her cherished brother she had never 
caressed so sweet an illusion as this. 
She accepted it with the more grati- 
tude as she knew she had a mortal 
malady which would soon leave me 
alone, in the midst of the manifold 
dangers that assail youth. In taking 
for his wife an obscure and poor girl 
the count was alienated from all his 
family, and his proud and noble par- 
ents would not pardon this unworthy 
mesalliance. He could, they said, have 
married a woman of rank and wealth, 
but this unprofitable union to the eyes of 
people blinded by thc'r titles, whatever 
may have been the qualities of heart, 
was nothing and worse than nothing. 
He con Id obtain no favor from them, 
after putting so dark a spot on their 
escutcheon. These humiliations and 
insults would have had no effect upon 
me, could I have been consoled by the 
tender affection of my aunt, who 8|iw 
but too late that wealth does not give 
happiness ; and in less than two years 
afler my marriage I was called to mourn 
her loss. The love of the count was soon 
extinguished, and men are very apt to 
be ungrateful and cruel when they cease 
to love. His conduct soon proved that 
he had only formed for me an epheuk- 
eral attachment, but I loved him 
above everything, and with all the 
energy of my soul ; and this love in- 
creased when I became a mother, and 
I dared to believe that this title im- 
posed by nature, and so dear to most 
men, would touch the heart of my hus- 
band, but the paternal sentiment could 
not triumph over the aversion the count 
felt for her whom, in a moment of insen^ 
sate passion, he had taken for his wife. 



n 



Soieri : or. The hjiuenee of a 



Far one moment a ray of joj burned 
in bis eyes when he gaw that lie had 
an inbtaritor J it was the pride of haviog 
a aoDt uoLliing more% He si>oq M\ my 
8ide« and I siiw no more of htm ^except 
in the rare momenta be consecrated to 
ihee. Carried away in a round of 
pleasures, stifling in ibe noise of revelry 
I be criert of conscience, regret lin^ his 
liberty, furiona al finding himself tied 
to a woman wbo was ibe only obstacle 
to his ambitious desires, he wii^bcil lo 
give the half of his fortune to get clear 
of roe; he overwbtdmed roe with re- 
proaches, and flew into furious ra^es 
about my being the cause of his misfor- 
tunes. 

** One day, after a fit of fury^ in wblcli 
he had treated me most cruelly, he 
said, ' I do not wi^h you lo nourish tins 
child any more; I am not goiof; lo 
have htm raised by yon I* These 
words struck me dumb* 1 had you in 
my arms J rny dtiar Ii4:)bert, and I re- 
bolved to keep you thei'c, and fly with 
you lo where he could not find me. I 
jiad laid by the mm of four thousand 
francs, which my aunt bad left nKs and 
'^ome savings from my father's i>ension, 
Willi the jewels my buiilwind gave me 
lU our marriage. These I iold» and 
that^ added to the rest»made ten thou- 
sand francs* I tilled a trunk with the 
clothing which was abi^oiukdy necej^- 
say for UB, leaving behind all luxuries, 
4ind all omamentf? and jewels, save a 
portrait of thy father, which is in a 
«liuill medallion set in pearls^ and may 
aid jou lo recognixe bim. All my 
propa rations being made, I waited untd 
ibe >^crvani« had gone to their eviining 
meal, and then, with a thou8aud pi'c- 
cautionsjeft by a stairway which led 
lo the vestibukv It was scarcely night 
M'hcn 1 came out and found a stage to 
take my baggage and myself- I did 
not know at tirst where to go, but I 
wanted to liy far from the city where 
I had emffered so much, and to assure 
mjfeelf of keeping my child ; this was 
my only thought, my only desire. In 
thinking over where I should go, I re- 
membered that my parents were origui- 
aUy of 1 Auvergne, and in my child- 



hood I liad beard my father describe 
this part of Frunee, and, above all, the 
baths of Mount Dore* 1 besilated lio 
longer^ taking I he road to Clermont, 
but filled with the most horrid lears 
Eacli time the stage stopped I fancied 
1 saw the angry figure of thy father, 
and that be jerked thee from my arme. 
What 1 suffered during this journey I 
can never express to you. A thousand 
terrors, shudderings, and anguishes of 
all kinds agitated me, until I feared I 
should lose my reason* If any one 
looked At me, 1 thought they knew say 
Recret, and was ready to scream with 
horror. The gallop of a horse made 
me tremble and think I was overtaken, 
and *my emotion would have betrayed 
me bad ibe ])ats6pngei*8 been interested 
in watching my movements. Every 
unknown jier^on I suspected as an 
ene^my, and the remembrance <if those 
hours of my life U 8lill *o vivid that 
they, even now till me with horror. 
However, I arrived at (. k-imont with- 
out accidient, and remained lbci*e long 
enough loinfuitn myiielfof the chances 
of being able to iiiid a smtdl house to 
let, in the neighborhood of the bailw of 
Mount Dore. Here the first years of 
thy life were passed, and no remarka- 
ble event has ever Iroubled our hap- 
py solitude. What 1 have most dread 
ed was that I might have to return lo 
the worlil, but God spares me this; he 
will lake me soon. Tbuu canst now 
judge of my anguiish at the thought of 
bt^ing fecparated frf>m I bee, and the 
dfBolalion of my soul, that 1 know wdl 
soon leave ibee alone in the world. 

my child I in this hour, when my 
love retloiibles its strength and struggles 
against death to enjoy some momenta 
more fjf tliy sweet society, 1 weep bit- 
terly at tlie loneliness I have made lur 
thee. I may, perhaps, exaggerate my 
wrongs ; I may have acted badly ; but 
when the moment comes when I will 
appear before my sovereign Judge, to 
remk r an account for all my actions, if 

1 reproach myself with voluntarily 
throwing off the yoke which weighed 
me down, I will say also, with the sama 
frankness, that I rejoice to haTe raised 



I 
I 



; ar, lie AJiuenee of a Good MMer. 



79 



thee fiw fraok the world's eorraptions 
and would nUher leave thee alone in 
life than sarroouded by wicked men. 
I hare tried to instil good principles 
into thy mind, and I know that thoa 
feaieetand lovest God and will cherish 
my memory, and the heart is the talis- 
man that will preserve thee from evil. 
I have the firm conviction that thoa 
wilt never foi^t the sublime teachings 
of religion, and that it will ever guide 
thee in the right way. Pardon me, my 
son, for having deprived thee of thy 
fiuber's caresses and protection ; and as 
I have need of thy indulgence, I will 
be indulgent to others, and efface all 
remembrance of what I have suffered, 
and will think only of the happiness 
thou hast given me. Then, if it pleases 
God that thou shouldst ever find thy 
&ther, tell him that I pardoned him 
long ago, but that I never forgave my- 
lelf for my conduct to him. Tell him 
^ that to the last hour of my life I regret- 
ted I could not make him happy ; and, 
if lemorse should fill bis heart, console 
him, my child, be to him an angel of 
mercy, be prodigal of thy cares and 
leodemess, for repentance is a second 
baptism ; it is the regeneration of the 
6oaL When tbou wilt read the lines 
I now trace with trembling hand, it 
will be long afler I Have bid adieu to 
the transitory things of time. Thou 
wik be a man and subject to passions. 
If thou art pui-e, God be blessed a 
thousand times ; if thou art feeble, re- 
pent sincerely and call upon God to 
assist thee. Respect, above all things, 
the purity of affection. Hold out thy 
hand to help all who need encourage- 
ment and pity. A word of compas- 
sion does more good than severity and 
reproach. What can I say more, but 
what thou knowest better than I do ? for 
I have seen little of the world, and 
what I have seen makes me regard it 
with horror. Flee from the wicked, 
from whom nothing can be gained and 
all lost Whatever career you may 
choose, fill it with honor and credit. 
Happiness consists neither in feasting 
nor the brilliancy of riches ; it is in the 
life Within, in doing good and making 



others happy, and in laying up treas- 
ures in heaven. Recall often the 
sweet and peaceful joys of thy child- 
hood, the twelve years of thy life which 
will forever be engraven in thy heart. 
May these simple pleasures inspire 
thee with wisdom to choose between 
the burning, wasting pleasures of a 
vain world, and the pure joys of re- 
tirement.'* 
Thus finished the letter. 
"O my precious mother!'* cried 
Robert, rabing his eyes toward heav- 
en, *' if thou wert living, I would say 
to thee, with lively gratitude, 'Thou 
hast done well f for, if I am exempt 
from the passions of youth, it is to thy 
tender care that I owe it ; it is to thy 
love and thy virtues that I am indebted 
for that peace of mind which makes 
my whole life happy. O my good 
mother I thy memory will ever be for 
me a precious talisman, and thy least 
desires and wishes will be sacred or- 
ders for thy son ; and I swear by thy 
revered memory to try and find my 
father, if the Lord will permit me." 

To the confession of his mother were 
joined the register of the birth of Rob- 
ert and the marriage of Mile. Stephanie 
Dormeuil with tiie Count Sosthene de 
Verceil. Though Robert had the right 
to take his father's name, he did not 
wish it. He preferred the more hum- 
ble one of his mother, and hoped, by 
his talent, to raise it above the noble 
Que of his father ; to efface its original 
plebeianism under a crown of fame. 
This was the generous idea of a good 
son, who wished to avenge the con- 
tempt his mother had received fix)m 
his noble grandparents. He had now 
but this desire, and determined the 
maternal name should be cited among 
the illustrious. 

After one more visit to the gi-ave of 
his mother, and another to his loved 
mountain, the little house, and all the 
place, which spoke so eloquently of 
her, he set out for the classic land of 
Italy, the cradle of the arts and sci- 
ences. 



74 



IMert ; or. The litfluenee of a Good Mother. 



■ 



CHAPTKR IX. 

** A mjut BUy lo»a tu « mfltneot 
Ubi flary> emttlre, uxl dat»]lnf throne.** 
— YiCTOk Ucoo. 

Robert, after having lingered long 
-on tbe shores of Lake Geneva, in ihe 
wtity and its environs, so rich in natunU 
IboaatieR, antl huvinj^ admired the vrmn- 
rdenr oF the Alps and, above all, Mount 
iBlane, the Jura, ami Mount Sulere, 
[arrived at Saint Ken«'s a small villaj:^e 
ikl the foot of the Great St. Bernard. 
[Tliis was the 20th of ]VIny, 1824 

The youn^ painter wished to pass 

[the night at the convent with th« 

Itnonks. so he asked for a gnide, but 

}va^ t/)ld tlmt the-j' only Blarted in the 

|lliomin^ to take travellers to tluit high 

[ Jpoinl^ and th^ innkeeper adviswl him lo 

|%ait until the next day; but he was 

not willing to take this advice, as time 

was M) precioas to hira that a day 

L |>tt8Bei in inaction was an irrepnnible 

llo^a, 8o he started out through the 

] tillage to look tor a guide, but I he rnan 

liad told him the truth — therc^ was not 

\u guide to Ix' found. Robert expres*sed 

Jio much regret at ]m disnppdinhneiit 

|tO a worthy old man that he n-plied ; 

••If it were any other day Joseph 

l^onld conduct monsieur belter ihnn 

Uny one el^e, for he was the oldeiit 

giiide^ but unfiu*iunutely he could not 

do it, for it was the 20lh of May, and 

this day he alwavjj spends at church 

In pniying for his benefactor. But 

if you will go to hifc* lioci^e you can see 

him ; it is down thei-e/' at tlic !»ame 

time [jointing to a pretty little cottage 

with a garden in front *' A famous 

history, mon^^iciir, tliat of Joseph, and 

if he g*>eg u(> with you, he will tell it 

you, and I must not take up more of 

your time,-* 

•* I am much oblijred for your infor- 
mation, my good man, and will try and 
put it lo'protit," Then he look the 
road toward the house, and soon 
reached it, but imagine his disappoint- 
ment to find it closed! As he was 
turning to leave^ he met a man of 
about iWy yean* of age, wiih a woman, 
^till frc^h and beautiful, leaning onhii 
arm, and they seemed to be abtorbcd 



I 
I 



i 



in each other; and in looking at them 
Hobcrt forgot for a moment the guids h 
he waa seeking. They stopped at tht H 
gate, and were about entering it when 
he asked, ^ Is this the man Joseph of 
whom I was told — the guide op the 
mountain ?*' 

"At your service, sir/* replied be. 
*' I am Ihe person ; do you wish lo be 
taken there?*' 

** I do, but they told me at the vil* 
lage that you could not be indulged tu 
go on the 20th of May, but I liiought 
I would ask for myself, and I aMure 
you I will be very gniteful if vou can 
make thi^ Raertfice in my favor, for I 
have the greatest desire to pass die 
night with the go<id monks.** Ilis 
amiable and poll I e manner had woo 
the favor of the guide, liut still he wai 
undeeided, Kobert, seeing his heslta* ^d 
tion» begged htm to give his consent, ^| 

** It seems a little late to start," said 
the guide^ reflecting and looking ui if 
he did not care to go, 

*' Ob, we can walk fast" said Robert 

'* Well, I find I must give up to 
you,'* said he, half sadly, half smiling- 
" Come in the house, sir, while I change 
my clothes, and you may tlatter your- 
self with having gained a victory. It 
has been many y^ars since 1 put my 
foot on the mountain on tlie anniversary 
of this great day. It has been twenty- 
four years since fhen." 

Itobeit was looking at a picture 
whUe he S[x>ke, representing Napoleon 
mcunted on a mule, climbiDg up the 
Saint Bernard, escorted by a guide. 

*• Aye, aye,'* said Joseph with em* 
phasis, "^ tliis is my history — thai gtiide 
who walks by the *ide of ihe fir^t con- 
sul is me, I had the honor of conduciing 
him." 

** Indeed," cried Robert, " oh ! do lei 
me about it. If my poor Cyprien was 
only here, how delighted he would be 
to hear of the emperor he loves ao 
much,'* 

" Is this CypHco one of his faithful 
soldiers, H'r ?" 

^^ Yee^ and he is more than that ; he 
is one of those soldier heroes who 



Atmi; «r, lie AJbismee qf a Good MtAker. 



7» 



wooid gire the last drop of their heart's 
blood (or the emperor. I haye had 
the happinesSf with Gk>d*s aid, to have 
saved from misery this noble wreck of 
isiperial ghny, for he was indeed mis* 
trikAt when he lost his emperor.' 

'^Well, my good young man, that 
decides me at once, for, since you have 
saved one of the old soldiers of the 
emperor, I can refuse you nothing, 
for I loved him also, and had good 
reasons for so doing. We will start, 
snd on the way I will tell you to whom 
I am indebted for this pretty little 
bouse, so good a wife, and children, 
that make aD my joy. We must go 
rspidly, or we wUl ran the risk of a 
Blorm, for we have only time to arrive 
before night, and in our mountains 
fliorms oome up very snddenly.^' Then 
tuning to his wife, he embraced her 
sad smd, *^ Don't be uneasy, Margaret, 
I wiU return to-morrow." They 
walked briskly, and soon leA the vil- 
kge behind them, and the guide com- 
■eoced bis history. 

** Twenty-four years ago, our valley 
vas not so peaceful as it now is. It 
vis invaded by French troops, whose 
mrnolt was rather a strange contrast 
(0 the usual noise of the mountains^- 
tbe roar of the tempest and the moving 
of the avalanches. The guides all be- 
came worn out with fatigue, and one 
morning I was ordered out. I did not 
receive the order with much pleasure, 
but I was young, poor, and unfortu- 
nately in love with the most beautiful 
girl in the valley. The officer whom 
I was to guide wore a three-cornered 
bat, and enveloped in a sort of gray 
riding coat. He had with him two 
other gentlemen, but he rode firut, and 
I was at his side. He was rather sin- 
golar, and did not seem to know or 
care where he was, though we were 
iibove frightful precipices which gave 
the bravest a vertigo, but \^ was as 
tnmqoil as if on a lounge in nis cham- 
ber. It seemed so strange to me that 
be had no fear and was so silent. But 
ailer awhile he spoke to me, questioned 
me about my life, my pleasures, my 
tioobles. His manner was so win- 



ding that I told him everything, and 
when on the chapter of my loves told 
him I would die if I could not marry 
Margaret. 

" Well," said he, smiling, « why not 
marry her then ?" 

" For a very simple reason," I re- 
plied. ^ I am poor and she is rich, and 
I cannot obtain the prize until I have 
a house and garden." 

He listened eagerly, then questioned 
me a great deal, and at last fell into a 
reverie, and remained silent and ab- 
sorbed, until we arrived at the con- * 
vent, where the good monks came oat 
to receive us. I did not pay much at- 
tention to this, I was so chagrined. A 
little time af^er, the officer came to me 
with a letter, which he directed me to 
take to the headquarters of the anny« 
on the other side of the mountain. I . 
went and returned in the evening frem 
Saint Pierre with the answer. Imag- 
ine my surprise and mortification 
when J found that the person with 
whom I had spoken so familiarly was 
none other than the first consul, and 
his com|>anions were General Duroc 
and Secretiiry Bourrienne. I was 
terrified, thinking I should be thrown 
into prison for daring to speak so fa- 
miliarly to ray superior. What an end 
to my fears I The first consul gave 
me for my trouble a house, garden, 
and money, so that all my dreams 
were in an instant realized. I cjuld 
now marry Margaret, and I was so 
completely overcome with joy that I 
thought it Wiis a miracle. This great 
man did all for me, and you can now 
see why I love the emperor, and 
why all my happy remembrances are 
dated fi-ora the 20th of May." 

This was only one of the many kind 
acts of Napoleon during his gloriou«| 
life ; and if we are electrified in read- 
ing of his high military deeds, how 
much more touching are those simple 
chai'itics which show the beauty of his 
soul, and the goodness and geneiosity 
of Ills heart, tiiat will ever render his 
memory immortal. 

Joseph had related with so much 
spirit and animation his astonishing 



76 



RobeH; or, The jhptenee of a Good MM^r. 



adventure, and Robert had listened with 
such eagerness, that neither thought of 
hastening their stepn. The guide had 
necessarily consumed more time in re- 
lating it than we take, and night was 
fast coming on. The sun had long 
gone down, and the guide listened 
uneasily to a kind of rolling noise that 
sounded like distant thunder. 

** Tlie deuce T he cried, ** it will not 
be long before it is upon us. It is the 
voice of the storm ; don*t you hear it ? 
.Oh! mercy! we have lost time, and 
1 have been the cause of it. O holy 
Virgin, come to our help I" 

Robert could not conceive the cause 
of his fright, but, stopping to listen, he 
felt the same terror. " O Lord my 
Qod, protect me!" was his simple pray- 
er, which gave him strength to follow 
the guide, and the consciousness of 
datiger gave them wings. 

A violent wind filled the air with the 
snow that was loosened by the mild- 
ness of the atmosphere, and it was so 
thick tliat they could scarcely see. 
Then the tempest flapped its strongest 
wings, and moved huge masses of snow, 
which threatened at each moment to 
ingulf them. These frightful ava- 
lanches, these precipices, these abysses 
without bottom, these peaks almost*lost 
to sight, these eternal glaciers, and the 
imminent peril which appeared on all 
sides, and presented, above all, the 
image of death ; all these sublime hor- 
rors, which freeze with fear the heart 
of guilty man, Robert contemplated 
with joyous tranquillity. Before the 
awful majesty of this grand scene, he 
adored God, whose powerful hand can 
raise the anger of the elements orcalm 
them at his pleasure. But the tem- 
pest inci^ased so much in fury that he 
was obliged to concentrate all his facul- ' 
ties to preserve his equilibrium. The 
snow was blinding, and the guide, in 
terror of making false steps that migh^ 
plunge them into some abyss, went 
along hesitatingly, lamenting and be- 
lieving they were lost. More uneasy 
lor the guide than himself, in their 
aknuing position, Robert tried to raise 
}m courage by speaking of bb wife 



and children, when in an opening of 
the path a large sign appeared. 

^ Oh ! we are saved !'' said the guide 
in a faltering voice, and, with a hand 
made stronger by hope, rang a large 
bell, which had a clear, vibrating somid. 

This was the signal of distress that 
told the good monks that travellers 
needed their help. But in the raging 
of the storm the sound of the bell is 
not heard at the convent, and, numbed 
with cold and fatigue, Joseph swoons 
on the snow. Robert tries to warm 
him and bring him back to conscious- 
ness, but without avail, and at last he 
is seized with vertigo and dreadful 
shiverings, and his numbed limbs re- 
fuse to take him further. But the 
strength of his soul is greater than his 
body, and he falls breathing a prayer 
to God. Not a sound but the noise ot' 
the elements is heard, and the sliding 
of the snow that covers their inanimate 
bodies, and threatens to leave no trace 
of them. 

** O God ! will you let the orphan, 
whom you have teken under the wings 
of your love, perish in this mountain 
solitude ? Will not his pious invoca- 
tion be carried to your throne by the 
angel of prayer?" 

Listen I The liberators come j the 
snow is scratched away with precau- 
tion, and they are found by the noble 
dogs, gifled with almost sublime in- 
stincts which they consecrate to man, 
with a devotion and fidelity that puts 
to shame many of the human species. 
Yes ; it was « Help" and " Saviour ' 
who had found the spot where Robert 
and the guide lay, and breathed on 
their hands and faces to try to relieve 
them ; but, being unable to do it, they 
made the mountain re-echo with their 
barks, which brought out the monks, 
whom they guided to the spot. The 
bodies were then carried to the con- 
vent, ani^fter a few hours restored to 
consciousness; and the kind monks 
heartily gave thanks that they were 
permitted to rescue from certain death 
two of their fellow-beings. Could any 
mission be more noble than theirs ; any 
devotion more self-«acrificing ? Im- 



Z«dly^« MHotf of BatCanaKim. 



77 



poniUe ; and in all the known world 
thej are honored for their snhlime 
▼irtoesy and acknowledged as noble 
mrtjrs of Christian charity. 

Robert passed eight days at the 
convent, and on each one saw the 
touching piety and indefatigable soHci- 
tode of the monks. The last few days 
he made several excursions over the 
moontain, where perpetual winter 
and was daisaled by the lus- 



tre of the immense glaciers, and the 
glory of his lonely surroundings. He- 
sometimes thought if he were not an 
artist he would consecrate the remain- 
der of his life to the practice of charity, 
but his love of art was too stronp^, and 
sunny Italy held out such attractions 
that he was lured on, carrying with 
him the benediction and good wishes 
of those noble men who had brought 
him back to life. 



From the Dablio Review. 



LECKTS HISTORY OF RATIONALISM.* 



It has been said by a very high 
aotfaority that the study of history is 
destined to assume a new aspect, from 
the application to it of a higher order 
of minds and a more philosophical 
nethod of treatment. We are passing 
oat of the age of speciality into the age 
of generalization. Innumerable ob- 
servers have collected facts, and innu- 
Berable speculators have multiplied 
theories ; and we now seem to have 
arrived at that period when it becomes 
the proper function of the thinker to 
co-ordinate the stores of knowledge 
which haye been set apart for him by 
others ; evolve laws from the multitude 
of bistances ; separate the truth from 
the falsehood of conflicting theories ; 
conjoin effects with their causes, and 
tiace the half-revealed and far-reach- 
ing lelaticms between distant and ap- 
parently unconnected phenomena. The 
infloence of soch a spirit — bng felt in 
the less complicated scienees—- is now, 
even in England, beginning to act on 
those which are more intricate* For 
history the time is rapidly passing away 
during which a great but much erring 
thinker ooold say that it was the nn- 



• BlrtoryortktRiMW4IiiflQ6iiMorihe8|4ritor 
In Borope. ^y W. 1. tecky, M.A. 
i,«t««iaCo, 



fortunate peculiarity of the history of 
man that, although its separate parts 
had each been handled with consider- 
able ability, hardly any one had hith- 
erto attempted to combine them into a 
whole, or to ascertain the way in which 
they are connected with each other. 
On the contrary, he said, a strange 
idea prevailed among historians that 
their business was merely to narrate 
events ; so that, according to the no- 
tion of history in his day prevalent 
any writer who, from indolence of 
thought or from natural incapacity, was 
unfit to deal with the highest branches 
of knowledge, had only to pass some 
years in reading a cei'tain number of 
books, and then he was, ipso faetOf 
qualified to be a historian. The time 
is fast coming when tliose dreary and 
monotonous narratives of court in- 
trigues and party cabals will exist only 
to memorialize an age when the his- 
tory of kings was substituted for the 
history of nations, and the considera* 
tion of the actions of a few individuals 
for the exposition of the life of the 
whole social organization. History is 
growing to be less of a chronicle and 
more of a science ; her office is no 
longer thought to be confined to the 
registratioii of a few snperfidally pram • 



n 



LsektfM JJutary of RationtHtm* 



facts ; but the diicoveryt by a 
^scientific induction, of historical laws, 
and the iuve$ ligation of causes^ id 
chiefly ainied al ; and, as the circutti- 
gtances wjiich have to be taken Into ac- 
count in such a nielhod of writinj^ his- 
[lory aiv often di.smissed hy the older 
LicJiOol of writers as almost unwortliy 
[©f notic?e, and are* moreover, exceed- 
ingly numerous and of almo*^t infinite 
I complication, a far wider and more di- 
iTergified range of learning and a far 
greater power of analysis than were 
formerly either reqnired or expected 
are ^iupjiosed in liie historian. 

It would he idle to iamgiae that the 

influence of this morephilos;ophical way 

of writing history will not extend, or 

haa not exteoded, to theology. One of 

its firsit results has been the napre- 

medilated vindieation by non-Catholie 

writers of the mediaeval ehurelL And 

ibat natnmlly ; for the action of the 

Icbur^jh in iiie middle a^eg W£is fotind* 

|:ed on tbeir Foeial dtate, and it was 

therefore only when history descended 

lilito the bo^om of society that ^he ooutd 

[■PEceive a fuller meed of justice. The 

Qlie Church has been more pliib- 

phieally treated, and her primary at- 

[ tribute, that she is a kingdom « more 

[pertbctly realized; while a flood of 

[tiglit has been thrown on the hir^torical 

cimraeter of Protestantism, and to that 

IfArrai^o of heresies I lie eonclnsions ar- 

1 rived al have lieen almost uniformly 

illtifavonible. Kor must we supjKise 

that it will affect only the treatment of 

the exiernal history of Christianity, 

and leave uatouehtHl the history of its 

I dogmas. It hai* effected, and will 

[ ker-eafter^ to a still greater extent 

^ effect, that both Catholle doctrines and 

heretical opinions will be studied not 

only, as heretofore, in their objective 

I fUi[)ect — with respect to their evidence 

I and totmections one with another — but 

[tBlore and more in their subjective 

it»ect, aji io their influence on the 

minds of those who hold them. W#» 

have, Io a great extent, yet to see the 

nMuUs of a firoibond and extensive 

I midT of dogmas in this light ; but to 

^'^dy tliefli in thia light is undoubted- 



ly the tendency of the present 
We have thuti opened to lu a field of 
investigation almost new, and in iti 
nature wjy different from the beaten 
tracks in which controveraialiata have 
hitherto followed one another. What- 
ever be the results that may be tiius 
in ally arrived at, there cannot be a 
doubt but that they will be fraught 
with immense advantage to the caoM 
of truth ; and in the course of any f€* 
searches that may be made into the 
fiubjective influence of individual dog- 
mas a number of fiK'ts hitherto but lit- 
tle attended to — will be brought for- 
ward from the most various sourc*?« ; 
po that it will exceedins^ly behove 
lho?c who have to attend to the defence 
of Christianity to make sure that these 
ai-e truly a^eged and represented. 

Mr. Leeky, as we Imve before 
noticed, endeavors to apply to relig- 
ious tbe more advanced method of 
secular hiitory. He attempts to traoo 
the subjective iiifliience of religicmi 
opinions, tlie manner in which they 
mutually affVeted each other, and in 
w*hieh they acted or were reacted on 
by the other influences of their time. 
He does not pay much attention to 
the question of evidence, or to the ar- 
guments by whiuh they were support* 
i'd, except in so far as the u>*e of par- 
ticular arguments or lines of argument 
affords him some indication of the tem- 
per of the times of which he writer* 
The very idea of his work — a history 
of religious opinions — compelled him 
to attend to this rather than to the al- 
leged evidence of particular doctrines : 
tbe latter being the proper proWnee 
of the theologian 03 tbe former is of 
the historian. But from this neces- 
sary one-«idednesti of bi4 work Mr, 
Lecky seems to have been led into a 
corresponding one-;)idedness of mind* 
Eveiy one will grant that education, 
disposition, the opinions^ and, still 
more, the tone of those around U3 
make it exceedingly diiBcuU to treat 
religious questions on the gole ground 
of evidence ; aatl Catholics are con- 
tinually nrgiiig this against tbe Prot- 
estants whof by their denial of tbe iQi 



I 
I 



1^*9 maarjf 0/ HaiianalUm. 



71 



fidUlftlity of the church, nmltiplj in- 
definitely the number of questions 
which have to be thus decided; but 
Mr. Lecky goes further, and says that 
there really is not sufficient evidence 
for us, situated as we are, to come to 
a reliable conclusion at all. It is nat- 
araly therefore, that he should now 
and then take occasion to sifl sup- 
posititioas evidence and fallacious ar- 
guments ; and in several places he 
states with great force the nature and 
kgical Talue of the reasons given 
i^nst some or other of the old doc- 
trines now denied by Protestants. 
Ad instance of this may be interest- 
ing to our readers ; the subjoined pas- 
8^ is taken from his second chapter 
Ob the Miracles of the Church : 

''If we ask, what are the groonds on which 
tW ooMtioQ of miracles is commonly main- 
uised ; they may, I suppose, be summed up 
uch as follows : 

** Miraclea, it is said, are the dlTine creden- 
ink oi Mi inspired messenger announdng 
doctrines which could not otherwise be es- 
tibiihed. They prove that he is neither an 
iapostor nor an enthusiast ; that his teach- 
ing if n<^ther the work of a designing intellect 
Mr of an orerfaeated imagination. From the 
man of the ease, this could not be proved 
is toy other way. . . . Miracles are, there- 
lore^ no more improbable than a revelation ; 
fir a revelation would be ineffectual without 
mirwlea. But, while this consideration do- 
ttroTS tbe common objection to the gospel 
Birftdei, it separates them clearly from those 
of the Chnrch of Rome. The former were 
tfowedly exceptional ; they were designed to 
iitroduoe a new religion, and to establish a 
•opematnral message. The latter were sim- 
ply means of edification ; they were directed 
to DO object that could not otherwise be at- 
tained, and they were represented as taking 
piftce in a dispensation that was intended to 
be not of sight but of faith. Besides this, 
miruies should be regarded as the most aw- 
ful and impreiBiTe manifestations of divine 
power. To make them habitual and com- 
■onp**» wonki be to degrade if not to de- 
moy their character, wtuch would be still 
forther abased if we admitted those which 
appear trivial and puerile. The miracles of 
the Xew Testament were always 'characterized 
by dignity and solemnity ; they always con- 
vejed some spiritual lesson, and conferred 
Mme actual benefit, beside attesting the 
character of the worker. The mediaeval 
mirades, on the contrary, were often trivial, 
pBrp w e k as, and nnimpreesive : constantly 
vtrging OB the grotesqoe, and not unfre- 
qoently paadng the border. 



" Such is, I think, a fair epitome of the 
common arguments in favor of the cessation 
of miracles ; and they are undoubtedly very 
plausible and very cogent; but, after all, 
what do they prove? Not that miradee 
have ceased, but that, tupponng them to 
have ceased, there is nothing surprising or 
alarming in the fact. . . . This ia the full ex- 
tent to which they can legitimately be carried. 
As an d priori proof, they are far too weak 
to withstand the smallest amount of positive 
testimony. Miracles, it is said, arc intended 
exclusively to accredit an inspired messenger. 
But, after all, what proof is there of this? 
It is simply an hypothesis, plausible and con- 
sistent it may be, but entirely unsupported 
by positive testimony. Indeed, we may go 
further, and say that it, is distinctly oppos- 
ed by your own facts. . . . You must admit 
that the Old Testament relates many mir- 
acles which will not fall under your can- 
on. . . . But the ecclesiastical miracles, it 
is said, are often grotesque; and appear 
primd facie absurd, and excite an irresisti- 
ble repugnance. A sufficiently dangerous 
test in an age when men find it more and 
more difficult to believe any miracles what- 
ever. A sufficiently dangerous test for those 
who know the tone that has been long adopted, 
over an immense part of Europe, toward such 
narratives as the deluge or the exploits of 
Samson, the speaking ass or the possessed 
pigs ! Besides this, a great proportion of the 
ecclesiastical miracles are simply reproduc- 
tions of those which are recorded in the 
Bible ; and if there are mingled with them 
some that appear manifest impostures, this 
may be a very good reason for treating these 
narratives with a more jealous scrutiny, but 
is certainly no reason for maintaining that 
they are all below contempt. The Bible 
neither asserts nor implies the revocation of 
supernatural gifte ; and if the general prom- 
ise that these gifts should be conferred may 
have been intended to apply only to tlie apos- 
tles, it is at least as susceptible of a different 
interpretation. If these miracles were act- 
ually continued, it is surely not difficult to 
discover the beneficial purpose which they 
would fulfil. They would stimulate a lan- 
guid piety ; they would prove invaluable aux- 
iliaries to missionaries laboring among bar- 
barous and unreasoning savages, who, from 
their circumstances and habits of mind, are 
utterly incapable of forming any just estimate 
of the evidences of the religion they are call- 
ed upon to embrace To say that these 

miracles are false because they are Roman 
Catholic is to assume the Tery question at 
issue."— Vol. i. pp. 173-177. 

There is nothing, indeed, that is 
particularly new in this reasoning; 
our readers must have frequently seen 
or beard it urged against Protestants ; 
hut it is valuable m Mr. Leekj's his^ 



Leeh/^s ffsiory of Ratianaiism. 



tory, aa showing the view taken of tb<j 
ordinary Protestant ar^uin**nts by I he 
higher chiss o^ anli-Cotholic writers. 
In ti similar mannf?r he disjioses of 
Ihe vulgar ar^ments against mjitjic 
ftn<J *orcerv in a pas^af^ii vvhicb, how- 
ever, 18, we reirrel lo say, Um lun*^ for 
quotation (Vol i, pp. 1»-1Q)* lie 
fhm* conckidi'8 by saving that the 
^viden(*e mi that stibjiict is so vast and 
60 varied, tl^al It \a iinpos)§ibh> to dis- 
believe it witljoul wliat, on any other 
tuliject, we filiould consider tlie most 
extraoixlinary nisbuess. The subject 
waa examined in tens of thousands of 
isftftes, in almost everj^ country in Eu- 
rope» by tribunah which inchided tho 
Acutest lawyerd and eecle^tiasiicB of the 
ajre, on the scene and at the time when 
the alleged acts liad taken idaee, and 
wiih the assistance of innuinoniblc 
eviom wi Inezes. As condemnation 
won Id be followed by a fearful death, 
and the accused were, for tlie most part, 
miserable being* who^e destruction can 
have been ati object to no one, the 
judgiA can have bad no i4ini.<>ter mo- 
tives in convictin<T, and had. on the 
contrary, the mo?t undent reasons <br 
cxereiein;:; their power with the utmost 
caution and delibenition. The fw^cu- 
eation^i were oOen of such a chiiracter 
that all mijBt have known the truth or 
fiiUelicxKl of wJiat was alleged. Hie 
evidence is ts^entiaUy cumuJttiit^e, 
Some cajses, it is added, may be ex- 
(dained by monomatna, other** by im- 
post uix% others by chance coincidences, 
and others by optiail dflusions; but, 
when we coueiider the mullitude-i of 
»l range statements tliat were iswom to 
and registered in legal documents, he 
confesspg that it is very difficult to 
triirac a general mttonalisiic explana- 
tion which wdl not involve an extreme 
S^nprobability. 

And now, passing to another subject, 
even Catholics may find in the f4dlow- 
ing passage something wortliy of being 
dwelt on : 

** The world la gorernH by Ita ideals, and 
•vUlom or nurer has ttiere b6<?ii one which 
his ci<?rciti«d a more prDfoqad «od ou the 
whole • more Mlutar/ iadueocc than the 



mi^irtievnl concf'pt'toit of th« Virgin. For ihii 
firat time worunn wu» elevated to lior rlglilfQi 
poaitiou, and the sanctity of weakneta wtS 
recognized as well us the sanctity of eorrowi 
No longer the alare or toy of nuin, no longer 
associftied oal j with ideas of degnkdation iyi4 
of «emauLlity, woman roae, in the pcrsou a( 
tho Virgin Mother^ into a new iphcre, and 
l>ccaiue the object of a reverential homnge of 
wliich flnrtqtiHy had liad no conception. Lo^e 
was Menlixed. The moral charm and beaaty 
of female excellence was for the firdt tiiAe 
felt A new type of character was called 
into being ; a new kind of admtratl<)n was 
fostered. Into a harsh and ignorant and be- 
nl^'hted age tUy ideal type infoaed a type of 
gettilenMiui and of purity unknown to tlio 
proudest cirilajitiond of the pa«L In the 
pages of living Icndernesa which many a 
motikbh writer has left h honor of hfa cete^ 
tlal patron ; in the miUion^ who, in many 
landa and In many ages, hare sought with no 
barren demre to mould their char • - vi 
her Imnge ; in tboee holy mald«.' r 
tlie love of Mary, hare leparated ' : ^ 

from all the glories and pleasures of the world, 
to seek In fastings and vigib and humble 
charity to render tbemselrea worthy of her 
benediction ; in tho new aenso of honor, in 
the chivalrous rcj^poct, In the 9oftcDiag of 
manners, Lo tho refinement of t4ltM displayed 
m all the wsilks of society; in these and fn 
many other wsiys we detect lt« infloence. Alt , 
that was hest in Europe clustered around it, 
and it is tVie origin of many of the purest 
clemenU of our cirilization/'^ — "Vol. i pp. 

*' Bat," he is pleased to add, ** th© 
price, and perhaps ihe necessary pric*%J 
of thiii was the exaltation of the Vir- 
gin tx^ an omnipresent deity of intinite^ 
power a:^ well as of infinite condc^ceri 
fiioti.'' Here we have an cxamnlc of 
the extraordinary mistftlses which or 
occasiofially made by Mr. Leckjr*} 
We by no means accuse him of inten<H 
tional misrepref^entation ; and in M 
work of nearly a thoufmnd paj^!?i, of! 
which there k §CArcely a page wtlhoulJ 
a nofetund fH^areely a note without bJjlI 
or 8even references or quotationfl» ilij 
was impossible but that some innccQ- 
racies should creep in. But he unfor* 
tiinately oOen uses a ]ooaen«s5 ao^l 
generality of reference which tnakes^l 
Ills notes almost useless to any one de- ' 
8iroa3 of verifying them, and hi-* In* 
ttceuracied* some of wliich bear with 
them ao appearanoo o(f great carelcM^ | 
nesR, are incredibly fimiQeni; whikj 



Leeb^t BUtary of BaUondlum. 



81 



we desiderate in him that fulness of 
theological knowledge which a writer 
oo(;ht to possess who criticises dog- 
miUic sjTstems so dogmatically as he 
does. In the present case he actually 
seems to think that the Blessed Virgin 
was r^arded aa an onuipresent deity 
becaose it was believed that she could 
t^ear prayers anywhere addressed to 
her. Bat the teaching of Catholic 
theologians makes a yery great differ- 
ence between the omnipresence of Grod 
and the manner in which the Blessed 
Virgin and the saints are cognizant of 
the prayers poured out to them on 
earth. The Scotists ordinarily teach 
that God reveals to the saints in glory 
whatever it is expedient that they 
dKmld know ; the Tbomists that they 
see in the vision of God the prayers 
and the necessities of men ; some have 
uged the elevation and expansion 
of even their natural faculties con- 
leqoent on their entrance into the 
state of glory ; but none have ever sup- 
posed them to be present, as God is, 
to the whole created universe. Mr. 
Lecky proceeds to state that before the 
belief that a finite spirit could hear 
prayer wherever offered was firmly 
established, it was believed that at 
least they hovered round the places 
where their relics had been deposited, 
and there, at least, attended to the 
prayers of their suppliants. In sup- 
port of this assertion he quotes the 
following words as from St. Jerome : 
"Ergo cineres suosamant animaemar- 
tjrom, et circumvolant eos, semperque 
pnesentes sunt; ne forte si aliquis 
precator advenerit absentes audire non 
possint,'' to which he gives the extm- 
ordinary reference, " Epistolae, 1. iii. c 
13." These words indeed occur in St. 
Jerome ; but they occur as the sarcasm 
of an opponent which St. Jerome gives 
only in order to refute it The pas- 
sage is quoted from Vigilantius in St. 
Jerome's book against that heretic ; but 
the saint himself calls it a ^^ portent wor- 
thy of hell," and argues, in reply to the 
idea expressed in it, that we cannot set 
laws to God ; that the martyrs follow the 
Lamb wheresoever he goeth ; that the 

VOL. T. 6 



demons wander over the whole world ; 
and are the martyrs to be shut up in a 
box ? As to the Blessed Virgin being 
regarded as a deity of infinite power 
and infinite condescension, those Cath- 
olic writers who in their devotional 
writings have spoken the most strong- 
ly of her power, have merely said t'hat 
God will never refuse her anything 
she asks, and that she will never ask 
anything inconsistent with his Prov- 
idence. Mr. Lecky shows in many 
other places the grossest ignorance of 
Catholic theology. He quotes, in evi- 
dence of the present belief, of the Ro. 
man Church in demoniacal possession, 
a ritual which, he says, ^' is used in the 
diocese of Tarbes." He need not have 
gone to an obscure provincial ritual for 
proof of his assertion ; he will hardly 
find any Catholic theologian who de- 
nies it ; and the most used, and best 
known of our modem theological wri- 
ters has devoted a special chapter to 
the subject (Perrone, De Deo Crea- 
tore, Part I., c. v.) The doctrine of 
punishment by a material fire *' still 
lingers," he tells us, " in the Roman 
Catholic manuals for the poor." If 
by this be meant that it does not re- 
main also among theologians, this is 
not true ; Perrone, one of the most 
moderate, calls it, ^* sententia commu- 
niter recepta." (De Deo Creatore, 
Part III., c. vi. a. 8.) 

In the latter part of his chapter " on 
the Developments of Rationalism," 
Mr. Lecky has put forward an opinion 
that the doctrine of the material char- 
acter of the penal fire is closely con- 
nected with the ancient opinion, that 
the soul is in some sense materiaL 
The doctrine of a material fire became,, 
he says, the foundation of an opinion 
that the soul is of a material nature ; 
and he refers to Tertullian, citing De 
Anim^ c. viii. This assertion is, how- 
ever, utterly without foundation. It 
nowhere appears that this was the 
chief foundation on which this error 
was rested. Far from making this 
material conception of punishment the 
chief ground of his argument, Tertul- 
liaoyin the passage quoted by Mr.. 



B2 



Lecbft History of Eationaliim, 



I^L^ckj, does not argae from tlm mtd^- 
mltty of the fire at all. What be 
does aro^e from is the corporeal man- 
ner in which Abrahara, Dives, and 
Lazam^, are represenLed in the Gos- 
i|>el ; from Abraham's bosora the tongiie 
of Divea, and the finger of Lazarus ; 
and he mentions the ^' ignis" merely in 
an incj dental manner, and not to ar^yue 
(Irom it^ material nature, but to found 
bis reasoning on the general proposi- 
tion that whatever is susceptible of 
•• fovela*' or of ** passio"' rau?t be coi^ 
poreaU It is, of course, quite conceiv- 
able that a writer^ who believed the 
soul to be of a material nature, might 
-Argue from the commonly received 
'opinion of a material ^re ; but the ori- 
gin of this opinion was in fact 
quite different. Some of thof^e who 
rkeld it even believed the '^fii^e*' 
rof hell to be metaphorical But 
before the advent of Christianitj the 
minds of the people had been cotL^tant- 
rly and peraistenlly directed to the een- 
klible and the material ; from the ranks 
rtf the people Christ iauity was re- 
l^ruited ; and it is not wonderful if 
jiomewluit of their former habits of 
I thought dun 15 to those who were con- 
[verted. It was only by degree.**, and 
afler a patient and silent op[K»«iition to 
prevailiii;r habits of thou;^ht, that 
I fchristianity eueceeded in spi ritualizing 
I rtdinrtous conceptions ; and the lime 
which elapsed before this had been 
j effcfied — a period of more than three 
\ iinndred years — was one of no little 
I confusion m this regard. Bui no one 
teems to have been led into the error 
of supi^osing the human soul to be ma- 
terial by the notion of a material Are. 
I Some believed this to be the case be- 
cause they could not see how it could 
I |>osaibly be otherwise ; they were un- 
[able to rise to the idea of a spirit, 
^ properly so called ; they could not con- 
ireeive atiything to be real, and not ma- 
terial. That this was the case, in 
I imrticular, with Tertullian, cannot be 
I ioubtedi, whether we consider his way 
I ©f speaking in the whole book De An- 
imd, in the book Adc. Praxeam, c, xi*, 
mid ID the I}§ €arm C/truU, c* xi^ or 



the pre-eminently eensaotis and realist- 
ic character of his mind. The Plato- 
nic philosopliy was another foundattOQ 
of this opinion respecting the human 
soul. Some writers who were es ped- 
al ly attached to Platonism, as Origeo, 
explained the Platonic doctrine 
emanation as meaning that God 
is a pure Spirit, all beings pj 
from God baring a trace of materiality 
greater or less as they are more or 
less removed from him. They there 
fore believed all created spirits to be in 
some sense material ; and forms of 
expression which lany seem properly 
to belong to this opinion remained, as 
is often the case, long after the opinion 
itself had vanished. But the source 
of the whole error was, as is evident, 
the materialized method of conception 
of pre-Christian times. 

But Mr. Lerkj goes much furtlier 
than this. He tells us that this opinion 
of the materiality of the human soul^ 
which, if we except at most two or 
three writers, had certainly died out in 
the sixth, if not in the fifth century- 
was the dominant opinion in tfie mid- 
die ages : 

*' Under the tafluenco of mcdi^evat hnUlfea 
of thought, every spiritual conception was 
materialize, and what at &a earlier and a la- 
ter period wa^ genemll j deemed the languaj^e 
of tncuphor, waa urn verbally r- •- ' ' 1^ lUo 
language of fact. Thercaliavi peo- 

ple wcreaH derived frompairr.i „ , . uirc, 
or cercmoniea that appealed to thu eenawi, and 
all HubJecLi were thei-cforo reduced to ptklp^ 
ble images. TLie an^l in the la^t judgiuenl 
was constantly represented wciji^hing tbt 
Boula in a literal balance, while deTib clinging 
to the Bcaies endcav^ored to disturb the equK 
librium. Soraetlmes the soul watt portrayed 
aa a iiutleat ehild, rising oat of the tnouUi of 
the corpse. Bat, above all, the doctrine of 
purgatory arrcAted and enchained th« iina^a* 
all on* , , Men who believed in a phydioal 
Boul readily belie74)d in a pliyskal punbb- 
mcnt, men who tDACerializod their view of iK« 
punli*hment, mateHalUod their view ol 
sufferers. 

"We find^ bowever/* he proceeds, " 
time before the reformation, evident .^tgns of 
an ctideairor on the part of a few writers to 
rid« to a pui-er conception of Uie «ouL" And 
ho gooa on to attribute thia to ^' the pantheit- 
tic wrlUnga that flowed from the suii(H»1 of 
Averrhoea;** and to aserlbe to the Gar* 
toaiaa philoMphj ** the fiiua downfall of ih« 



I 



I 



lMt^% £S$tory of BatumaMmn. 



M 



Btteriiaistio bypotbe^*' Vol. L pp. 873- 
378. 

It ifl not too much to say that the 
whole of thia is entirely unsupported 
Vy evidence. Any one who likes to 
gfauice over the Coimbricenses De 
AnimA, tfie beginning of the second 
book of the S^tences, the questions 
D9 AnimA in the Summa of St. Thom- 
as, the recapitnlation of the scholastic 
theology on that subject in the third 
Tolume of Snares, or the very earliest 
treatises De AngeliSj will see that, far 
from there being merely ^ a few wri- 
ters ** who mamtained the spirituality 
of the son], the notion of immateriality 
was as well deOncd in the dominant 
Mbokstic philosophy as ever it was by 
Descartes ; whose doctrine that the es- 
KDoe of the soul is thought, was dear* 
\j stated by the sdiohistics in the sense 
that intellection can only belong to the 
ipiritnaL and not to the material and 
the extended.* The manner in which 
the Scholastics ezphiined the pun* 
ishment of a spiritual being by a ma- 
terial fire affords us a test-question on 
this subject. IXd their ^ intense reali- 
ntion " of this doctrine lead them to 
infer the materiality of the soul ? Cer- ' 
tainly not On the contrary ; because 
aO thoroughly realized the spirituality 
of the soul, all felt this difficulty re- 
garding the manner of its punishment; 
bat, although there was sufficient di- 
versity among them as to its explana- 
tion, not one had recourse to the mate- 
rialistic hypothesis. 

Nor is BCr. Lecky correct in stating 
that the Arabian philosophy had a 
^ipiritnalizing influence on philosophy 
iod theology. That philosophy emi- 
nently favored the ^ multiplicatio en- 
tiinn sine necessitate," than which noth- 
ing is more nnspiritualizing. Some of 
those who held it expounded the doc- 
trine of matter and form in a manner 
dangeroos to the spirituality of the 
BouLt They held the perilous doctrine 
of emanation, and it would be quite a 

• 8m St Thomai Contra Genillet, 1. 8, c. 49, fiO, 51, 
A, cf. 66, where sd ImmenM number of arcumenUi, 
ta great part, of oourte, drawn from the philosophy 
of the dajt ^ heaped up U> proT« the iplrituality of 

t B» a TiMauM, Of. da Angelit, «p. a 



mistake to suppose that the description 
of error which they taught had any 
conformity of spirit with the poeticfd 
and sentimental pantheistic tlieories of 
tjie present day. 

It is chiefly from the character of 
the then religious art, which (of course) 
represented spiritual subjects by mate- 
rial s^-mbols, that Mr. Lecky argues 
that the middle ages materialized all 
spiritual conceptions. Thus, in a note 
to p. 232, vol. L, he speaks thus : 

*' The strong desire natarmi to the middle 
ages to give a palpable form to the mjstery 
of the Incarnation, was shown curiouslj in 
the notion of a conception by the ear. In a 
hymn, ascribed to St. Thomas k Beckot, ocear 
the lines: — 

** Are Tlrgo, Hater Ohritti. 
Qnn per aorem ooncepUti, 
Gabriele nantlo.** 

And in an old glass window, now I believe In 
one 'of the museums of Paris, the Holy Ghott 
is represented horering over the Virgin in ths 
form of a dove, while a ray of light paasas 
from his beak to her ear, along which ray aa 
infant Christ is descending." — Langlois, Pern- 
ture 8ur Verre^ p. 167. 

And our readers will remember re- 
marks of a like bearing in the quota- 
tion last given. Such criticisms are, 
however, to us merely evidence of so 
many curious misapprehensions. They 
merely show that an acquaintance 
with the history of religious art is but 
a very inadequate preparation for 
writing tlie history of religious dog- 
mas. It is perfectly impossible to 
represent spiritual things in painting 
and sculpture otherwise than by mate- 
rial images. Nothing is more conrnioo 
than so to represent them even among 
Protestants of the present day ; nothr 
ing was more common in the Old Tes- 
tament, the very stronghold of the an- 
cient anthropomorphites. We feel no 
inclination to deny that it is exceed- 
ingly difficult for the poor and the 
ignorant to rise to the conception of a 
spirit, and almost all mankind repre- 
sent to themselves even the very Deity 
under some refined material image; 
but when such representations occupied 
a prominent position in public worship, 
there was an opportunity, and that fro- 



d4 



Lei^y's HUtary of RcUianalum, 



qaently made use of» of correcting an 
mi truthful i in ag:i nation. 

We have no hesitation in saying 
that there is far more unconscious an- 
tlirofjotnorphism arnon;; the Prntestant 
than amon^ the Catholic poor. The 
doclrine^ of revelation make knowt^a 
world iikin to, yet not the same as, 
this ; they tell of an order of things 
ilaelf unseen, but possessing counter- 
partfl and shadows here. It is» there- 
fore, not wonderful that there exists a 
cons I ant tendency to forget that tliese 
are but imperfect types and symbols, 
nd to remodel the truths of failh into 
onforraity with wliat we see around 
09. To correct this lendenc}- is one of 
the functions of the science of theology ; 
and the conclusions of theology, infil- 
trating among the people, keep them 
from sinking into earthly and anthro- 
pomorphic views of religion^ these con- 
clarions being communicated by th« 
ordinary resources in the bands of the 
church, which, certainly, are far moie 
efficacious in the Cathoile than in llie 
Protestant system. Indeed, of all the 
reproaches wliich have been directed 
against the theology of tlio middle 
nges, that of being in its spirit gross 
and material is one of the moi^t un- 
founded and the most unjusL With 
ttir greater truth might t^nrh a repix)ach 
be directed agains^t the Proics'.ant 
theology of the lost throe centuries. 
In the middle ages, theology had a 
code and a standard of her own ; she 
was the queen of the seiene<*3 ; she reg- 
minted and moulded the ideas of Ihii 
^fnc. Now, condemned to oc-cupy a 
subordinate position, she is content to 
Lake her ideas from those current in 
the world* and to use her terms, not in 
their [>ri>per and theological significa- 
tion, but in the meanings derived from 
tJie maimer of tlieir present use in 
physiciil science and in common life. 
An example of this occurs in the case 
of the word person^ the loss of the 
theological meaning of which among 
Protestants ha.s confnscKl, if not obliter- 
ated, tlie doctrine of the Trinity. In 
Froicfttantisra, the belief of the people 
Uvei chiefly by a tradilion propagated 



I 



through no recognised theological chan- 
nel ; a tradition w^hich, consequently, 
dnily grows mi>rc feeble and less de- 
finite; which is conlinually becoming 
more and more corrupted, more low, 
aad earthly, and antbropomorphoiM* 
Lfook at the common Protestatit idea 
of the happinesa of the blessed. The 
great Calholic doctrine which places 
the essence of the beatitude of man, 
not in a prolongation and refinement 
of the pleasures of this world, not even 
in the sight of Christ's humanity* but 
in that vision of Clod as Gixl which is 
emphatically called lieatific, had almost 
faded out of sights They look forward 
to an earthly millenniuni, which \n 
little better than a glorification of com* 
raerce, material i>rosperity, and natural 
virtue, to be succeeded by a heaven of 
which the joys very much n^semble 
those which some Catholic theologians 
with Simrcz* assign to infants who die 
without baptism. But against the re- 
proach of lowness and m:ite rial ism of 
conception being ever directed against 
the theologians of mediaeval times, the 
doctrine of the beatific vision, which 
they BO fully and so beautifully evolv- 
ed, stands a perpetual protest. For 
in what was this coarseness and low- 
ness of thought more likely to appear, 
than in their conception of the greatest 
happintv'ss of man ? Or who were 
more likely to teach what is far removed 
fmin vulgar and worldly conceptions 
tiian men who placed the sum of all 
hapipiuess in the vision and fi nil ion of 
divine es^^ence^ whicli, according to 
them, could be seen by no eor|ioral 
eye,t and in which was, they *aid, Ihal, 
joy which eye had not seen nor ear 
heard, neither had it entered into tlie 
heart of man to conceive ? Tiie whole 
of the flchola^iic treatise De Deo Una ^ 
is but another magnificent protest ■ 
against such an accusation. The ^ 
hej*esy of GiU^ert Porreianus} would 
never be condemned by the ProiestiifilB 
of the present day ; nor has ever tbe 

• De Peccalo OrlglnftU. 

t KL Thcunai, In l"** A q. 12, a. 3^ and other oldur 
Aulhori Id SoqI. I 1. d. 1. 4 L 4, 4. *». 

t Lomb&rdiit la loiL 1. I, d. U, 94; ftOd Ibe 
tamata^naii ioe. 



I 
« 




Ltdt^M BUiarif of RaHanalitm. 



86 



oonceptioa of the diyine simplicitj in 
perfectkm beea so fully realized as it 
was by those mach-abused theologians. 
The mediatorship of our blessed Lord 
is DOW oomnKHily apprehended by Prot- 
estants in a mkoner which makes a 
real difference of character between 
the father and son ; but no one who 
knows anything of the scholastic doc- 
trine of. the Trinity and the Incarnation 
can imagine that these' theologians 
would have tolerated for a moment a 
notion so frightfully hereticaL With 
respect to psychology, the scholastic 
age saw the death of Traducianism ; 
and any one who has attended to the 
earlier scholastic opinions respecting 
the manner in which spirits suffer in 
the p^ial fire, will have seen that they 
are of a more ** spiritual" tendency 
than those of most Protestant theolo- 
gians.* 

Mr. Lecky*s criticisms on the opin- 
ion that the penal fire is literal and 
material, and on the supposed general 
materialism of religious conception in 
the middle ages, have led us into some- 
what of a digression. We have jet, 
however, one more remark to make. 
While he concedes that after the time 
of Averrhoes ** a few writers" endeav- 
ored to rise to a more spiritual man- 
ner of conceiving the truths of faith, 
he asserts that in the preceding pe- 
riod, before his infiuence and that of 
8Qch sects as the Beguins had begun 
U> be felt, the state of things was in- 
finitely worse. From the sixth to the 
twelAh century materialism in religion 
was absolutely dominant. That the 
period preceding the advent of the 
' scholastic epoch was one of great de- 
pression of theological science, cannot 
be doubted ; and the amount of what 
may in a general way be called an- 
thropomorphism current at any peri- 
od is to a great extent conditioned by 
the want of general cultivation. But 
t 

* Senfatfam aod ** teniltlre Imafflnatlon " appeared 
to the acbolaatlc to be of so material a chai-acter, that 
thej iroultl not admit that these and otiier tensltlve 
aSectioos can exist In a separate spirit ; and, conie- 
qoenily, those theolofrlans who explained the punlsh- 
■ent <k separate spirits by the analogy of the soul and 
body, vereeompelled to admit that the pain must be 

' ~ t In kind from the '* pMsio coqjunctl" 



it is very easy to overrate this depres- 
sion. The episcopal and syiiodical 
letters, for instance, which were ex- 
changed concerning the subject of 
adoptlonism do not present to us 
theological science at^ by any means, 
a low ebb. The same may be said 
respecting the controversy in the ninth 
century on the Eucharist; and the 
controversy on Predestination, if it 
do not reveal any large amount of his- 
torical learning, at least exhibits con- 
siderable activity of mind. Such of 
the writings of authors of that period 
as the present writer has looked into^ 
show an amount of learning and acute- 
ness which was certainly unexpected 
by him. That period was necessarily 
uncritical ; but we regard the taste for 
allegorizing, then as formerly preva- 
lent, to be an indication of sometbinff 
very different from a degraded and 
material habit of tli ought The great 
teacher of the pre-scholastic age waa 
St. Augustine, one of the most spiritual 
of the fathers; and the writer who 
was chosen to supplement him was St. 
Gregory the Great, who went farther 
than^ and improved on, St. Augustine 
himself. And, as to the religious art 
of that period, Mr. Lecky has himself 
alluded to a peculiarity which, strangely 
enough, seems to have given him no 
disquietude as to his general conclusion* 
In that period, he says : 

** We do not find the smallest tendency to 
represent God the Father.* Scenes, indeed, 
in which he acted were frequently depicted, 
but the First Person of the Trinity was ia- 
variably superseded by the Second. Christy 
in the dress and with the features appropriate ^ 
ed to him in the representations of soenet ^ 
from the New Testament, uid often with the 
monogram underneath his figure, is repre- 
sented creating man, condemning Adam and 
Eve to labor, ... or giving the law to Bfosoa. 
With the exception of a band sometimes ex* 
tended from the cloud, and occasionally en- 
circled with a nimbus, we find in this period 
no traces in art of the Creator. At tirst wt 
can easily imagine that a purely spiritual coi^ 

* We cannot ourselves, as Catholics, admit thai 
there Is necessarily the smallest impropriety or inex- 
pediency in picturelor sculptured representations^ 
God the Father (See Denslnger, n. 1182 and 1442) ; yflft 
we may fairly argue that the absence of such, at the 
period in question, disproves Mr. Lecky*s assertloa 
that the dominant tendency of that period was anthr^ 
pomorphous. 



86 



Lidt^^'s History of RcUionalUm, 



oeptioQ of the Deity^ tnd also the hatred that 
wAi inspired by the type of Juphcr, woulU 
have discouraged arlistu from attemplliig: 
iudi a subject, and Gnoattci^m, which exer- 
oUcd ft very gi*eat influence over Chrlslian 
&rt, and which umphatieulty denied the divini* 
ly of the God of the Old Tcj^tament, tendo^I 
in the same direction ; but it is very unlikely 
that these rea^ns can have hud any weight 
tnitwceti the sixth aud the twelfiii eortturiea, 
For tbo more tkOM centuries are studied, the 
more evident it becomes that the universal 
&nd irresistible tendcney w&s then to mate- 
ria Ukc every spiritual conception, to form & 
palpable image of eirery thing that was rev- 
#renccilt to reduce all subjects tvithin the do- 
\ of the aeuaea/' — (Vol. L pp. 224-5.) 



The most celebrated of tLo tlieolo- 
giunB of the middle ag(?8 \% undoubted- 
ly St, Thomas Aquinas. SL Thomas, 
however, comes in for an extra sbaro 
of misrepresentation. At p. 72, vol- 
ti,, we read of him, that he waa one 
of the ablest writera of the fourteenth 
century — he died in the thirteenth — 
and that ^' he assures ns that di8ease3 
and tempeslB are the direct acts of 
the devil, that he can transport men 
at bin pleasure tbroui^b the air,'' 
and that " omnes ani,^eh, bonj, et 
mah* ex natnrali virtuie tiabent po- 
testateni IfanamntaudieDrpora noalra.** 
Now till this is precisely what St. 
Tboinas denies. Iii the first place, 
any one would imagine from the man- 
ner in which our auttior writes, that 
the great mediieval theotogiati unagin- 
ed tba% in the ordinary coui-se of things* 
diseases and terapesta are produced 
by Satanic agency. Si. Tliomas never 
taught any such thing, but over and 
over again refers both the one and 
the other to natural causes • Ms, 
Lecky ought to have written " may 
be;** but the meaning of the worda 
would have been very difTereut, and 
their point would have been taken 
aw^ay. Secondly, while St. Thomas 
teaches, in accordance with Holy Writ, 
that the demons can exercise jxiwer 
aver material thing^^ he also teachea 
that they cannot diruetty change the 
qualities of things, nor produce m'^j 
preternatural change except local mo- 



* V, ff.^ Comm. In Pt. xtIU, a&d tn Arlat. 



I 



tion : nor that at their pleasune ; 
it is a principle with him th.*it God 
doi\s not permit them to do all that 
which they have per se the power of 
doing.* Tliirdly, as to their natural 
power of transmuting our bo^JieB, We 
have not been able to find the exaet 
words quoted at>ove, but many similar 
phrases occur tn the objectioru id the 
ninth article of the Qumitio de Dm^ 
mortibmf whlch^ it is sufficient to fiaji 
St. Thomas solves by saying: 

But on the other hail d,8t. Au^stinef tayf, 
'*Noii «oluiii anitnjim sod nee eorpuit qiiidem 
nulhi ruiioHQ credlderim dtemonom atio Vttl 
poteMAte in brutalm Itnentncnta posse con- 
vertl" ... I reply tiuit. as the apoitlfi 
says, "all thing* made by God in orde^ 
whence, as St Augustine says, "the eicd- 
lence of the UQlverse is the excellence of 
order. . . . tad therefore Satan aIwmi 
uses natyral agents W his instruments in tlw 
proihietion of physicml effects, and can so 
produce effects wbidi ciceed the efficacy of the 
natural agents ;| but he ciinnot cause the 
form of tJie human body to be chan;^ed into 
that of an aniuiul, because tliis would be con- 
trary to the order C3tab^lsl^e^l by God ; and 
all such coiivei-sions are, therefoi'e, as Augiit- 
tine shows In the place quoted. According lo 
pbiintaijticul uppearauco rather than tnilh. 

At p. 350 of vol I., ^Ir, Lecky 

tells ns that the mediaeval writers 
taught that God would make the con- 
teaiphuion of the sufferings of ihe lost 
an essential element in the happiness 
of the blessed. He dtx's not know of 
what be writes. It was taught that 
the essential element in their happiness 
— the Essentia Beatiindinis —\s the 
vision of God ; all else accessory and 
subonlinate. In a note lo justify bis 
a^sserlionT he adds these words ; — * St, 
Thomas Aquinas says, ^ Beat! in regno 
ccBles^ti videbunt poeaas damnaiorum 
ut beatitndo illis magis cora[)hiceal.*" 
The quotation is not accumtc. Alter 
quoting Isaias, ult. 24, he says, ** Ue- 
spondeo dicendura ad primam ques- 
tion em qn6d a beatis nihil subtraln 
debet quod ad perfectionem bfatitudinu fl 
€omm pertineat : unumq^uodque autem V 

• QtiietUonot fle Malo« q. tfl, art. 9, «le. ; QiMS- 
Uone« de l*PietiUA Del, q 4 art. a. 

T l>e Clr. l>el, 1. 18, e. SS. 

% /, #., vhkh «jcc0*d Uiflr ordluarj 
be can UM them toors tldlCkillx (et ad. 11), 



I 
I 



LBekjf$ History of Balumaltsm. 



87 



«r eomparaiume contrarU magi$ cog- 
noscitur^ quia contraria juxta se poeita 
magia eluoescuat ; et ide^, at beatitudo 
Banctonim eis magid complaceat, et de 
§d uberiarei gratiag Deo agant^ datur 
eis ot poBDam impioram perfecte intue- 
aotur.*^ The passage of St Thomas, 
as given by Mr. Lecky, is jast one of 
those which may very well bear either 
of two meanings. It might mean some- 
thing Tery repulsive and very crueL 
But the unmutilated passage can bear 
but one interpretation. St. Thomas 
does not say that they rejoice in the 
sufferings themselves ; but that they are 
permitted to see them, in order tliat 
they may feel yet more intensely how 
precious is their own beatitude, and 
thank Grod the more heartily for their 
own escape. 

In a note to his chapter on the In- 
dnstrial History of Rationalism, Mr. 
Lecky charges St. Thomas with what 
if nothing less than moral obliquity. 
The Duchess of Brabant, he says, had 
a scruple of conscience about tolerating 
the Jews. She therefore consulted St. 
Thomas ; ^ who replied, among other 
thingsi, that the Jews were doomed to 
perpetual servitude, and that all their 
property being derived from usury 
might lawfully be taken from them." 
Mr. Lecky is inaccurate both as to the 
confiscation of their property and as to 
the perpetual servitude. St. Thomas 
does not say that all their property 
was derived from usury, and it would, 
indeed, have been rather a rash judg- 
ment in him to say so. But the 
Dachess of Brabant had apparently 
desired to impose new burdens on the 
Jews, and in writing to St. Thomas 
had stated that all their property 
teemed to be derived from usury ; to 
which he replied, that if this were sOy 
they might lawfuUy be, compelled to 
make restitution. Nor does this by 
any means imply that all their prop- 
erty was to be taken away from them, 
as appears from St. Thomas's letter 
among his opuscula,t and from his 



a.L 



* Sappkme&tam ad tertUm purtem Samma, q. 94, 
OpoM. sodL, In cake OpateaU da Baflmlna Prln- 



general doctrine respecting restitution.* 
With respect to the perpetual servitude 
what St. Thonuis does say is this: 
^Although according to the laws the 
Jews be, or were, through their own 
fault doomed to perpetual servitude* 
and thus princes could appropriate 
their possessions as their own, yet thia 
is to be understood leniently, so thai 
the necessaries of life be by no means 
taken from them. But since we oughts 
as the aposiU declares^ to walk honestlg 
in the sight of those who are wit/iovUydf 
Jews, and Gentiles, and the Church of 
God, as the laws declare, compulsorg 
service is not to be required of them^ 
which they were not wont to perform w 
time past.** He goes on to say that if 
ill-gotten goods were taken itora the 
Jews, it would be unlawful for her to 
retain them, but they would have to 
be restored to those from whom they 
had been unjustly taken; and even 
under these conditions he declines to 
sanction any proceeding against them, 
but only ^ si nihil aliud obsistat*' Mr. 
Lecky also quotes, he says, the Hia- 
triones of St. Thomas. What the 
Histriones of St. Thomas are, we have 
not, we confess, the most remote idea^ 
Mr. Lecky professes to give the an- 
alyses of various theological beliefii 
and tones of thought which have pre- 
vailed in other times. Of these, how- 
ever, he has had but little or no practi- 
cal experience. He consequently puts 
before us only certain restricted pointa 
of view, which have strongly impresa- 
ed themselves on his mind in the 
course of his studies and meditations. 
We are hurried along by his words aa 
by a flood ; but while the effects which 
some particular doctrine possibly mi^ 
produce if it were held alone are vivid- 
ly set before us, he totally loses sight 
of those other doctrines, which were 
organically connected with it, and mod- 
ified and regulated its action. To 
evade one difficulty he falls into an- 
other: he concentrates his gaze on a. 
point that he may see more clearly; 
but, confining it there, loses sight of 
those harmonies and contrasts, which 

a Somaw, 1, 8, q. 61-CS) etc 



88 



Lech^t JRttory 0/ Ratianttlitm. 



I 



make up the beauty of ihe whole. In 
one diret'iion this defect baa had very 
great influence. " Veiitas'* is, it is 
iakl^ ** ill medio ;'* llie present age has 
raie wrong nil on one side ; and Mr, 
Lecky, who is an advanced disciple of 
tbe present age, consequently considers 
that preceding ages have gone wrong 
all on the oIIut, He gees thai there 
la ft very great difncully in adequately 
realizing phases of tliought so very 
different fTOUi those which now prevaih 
And, because of thist he expends his 
strength on tlte points* of ditfercnce, 
neglecting for their sake things nearer 
lo his apprehension ; and the very nat- 
ural consequence is that he gives us a 
distorl rd and exaggerated picture in 
wbicfi the cotomon elements ai-e not 
Bufficienlly brought out. 

An histance of this occurs in hia 
freAtmeni of the subject of eternal 
punishment. The general dis^organiza- 
tion and want of oitler which pervades 
his work is quite insufRcient to account 
for the p<*rtinacity with which he again 
and again feeura to the subject. Like 
the whole anti'Chri:5tian party, and 
very naturallv+ he detests the doctrine 
with his whole spirit; and he allows 
this detestation to color his whole views 
of the middle ages. He attributes to 
its inflLtence whatever he finds, or 
imagines himself lo have found, of a 
hard, cruel, and repiibive eharacier in 
their theory and practice. He begins 
by misinlerpreling thccliaractcrof the 
doctrine ltd elf. He sepamtes it from 
the conditioning doctrine?? which were 
taught along with it, and which regu- 
lated and direclod its influence. He 
dwells almost eiUirely on the terrible 
«ide of the then existing Christianity, 
and almost altogether neglects the 
operation of the concurring principle 
of love^ the opposite pole of the Christ- 
ian motives. And then he concludes 
that to its influence was due the sever* 
ity of punishments in the middle ages. 
A universal terrorism was produced. 
The sense of the divine mercy was da- 
ttroyed. The sufferings of the lost 
were at first regarded with horror; 
but as men became more used to tlie 




thing, the horror was changed to in* 
difference, and the indifference to a 
barbarous delight in the contemplation 
and even the infliction of pain. It will 
not require many arguments to show 
that such a method of treatment is mon- 
Btrotis. Mr Lecky ought to have no- 
ticed that the causes winch in the mid- 
dle ages led to peculiar strc:*^ being laid 
on the doctrine of eternal punishnjent, 
were causes external to, and mostly in 
direct opposition, lo the church j and 
that their tendency was met by a cor- 
responding realization of au opposite 
pole of Christian feeling. 

We cannot better introiluce what 
we have to aay on the severity of pun- 
ishments, and the alleged callonaness 
of disposition in mediieval times, and, 
indeed, on Mr. Lecky *8 whole cnticism 
of the subject of eternal punishment, 
than by a passage from a most able 
writer : 

** One oF the effects of civilization (not to 
ftny onv of the ingredients in ii) is, that thtf 
flpectade, &nd even the very idea, of pain, 19 
kept more and more out of sight of tliotfo 
cla33€« who enjoy in their full the benefits of 
civil] zAtion. The stiitc of pcrpetufil penonftl 
conflict, rendered ne<?efl5iiry by the cireum- 
Btances of former times, iind from which It 
was liardly possible for an j person, in what* 
erer rank of soclct j, to be cxctitpt, neceauh- 
rily habltuatiKl every one to the speetticlc of 
harahnoa:?, rndcness, and violence^ to tho 
fitruf^gle of 000 imlomitable niU ngahiat 
another, and to the alternate sulferirig And in* 
flietbn of pain. The»e things^ coiL^e^incnily, 
were not m revoUing even to the best and 
moft actively benevolent men of former daya, 
ns they arc to our own ; lunl ire find the r^ 
corded conduct of tha^ men frequently fluch 
aa would be universally coiiai Joined very un- 
feeling in a pcrdon of our own duy. They* 
however, thouf:;ht less of the infiicUon of 
pain, because they thought le^i* of pain alto- 
gether. When we rcjwi of netions of tho 
Greeks and Romans^ or of our o*rn ancestora, 
denoting callouine^* to human sufTcrinf^, we 
mu^t not think titat thoite who couiunitod 
theao actions were as cruel am wc must t>e< 
come before we could do the like. Tlie pain 
which they Inilicted, they were in the habit of 
Tohmiarily undergoing from alight causes ; U 
did not appear to them as great an evil aa St 
appemra, snd aa it really ia, to us, nor did it 
in any way degrade their mind^.* 

The scale, in fact, according to which 

« J. & urn, Dlu«ruil«u ukd Dbeoiriocw ; Ait 

Clvllisalton. 







LKhf$ Hklory of liaiionaiUsm. 



89 



degrees of pain were computed, was 
much less minute then than now. This 
arose from the imperfect subdivision 
of kbor in society, and the consequent- 
ly more frequently recurring necessity 
of personally putting forth powers of 
endurance and of action; from the 
continual wars and commotions ; from 
the imperfection of the mechanical ap- 
pliances which now alleviate suffering ; 
from a sterner and rougher manner of 
living, necessitated by the undeveloped 
state of the social arts ; from the inti- 
mate intermingling of the civil and the 
military life, arising out of the feudal 
system ; and from a multitude of other 
causes. To these, however, we must 
add another of far more potent in- 
fluence. The inchoate mediaeval na- 
tions were only emerging from a state 
of barbarism; and the associations of 
that barbarism still tenaciously clung 
to them, in 'the gloomy superstitions 
common among northern nations, in 
eniel ordeals, in internecine warfare, in 
the whole texture of their social and 
national traditions. The causes refer- 
red to by Mr. Mill were in operation 
almost as much in the civilization of 
Greece and Rome as in the middle 
ages ; but this circumstance, which is 
one on which we need not dilate* in- 
creased, and must have increased, to 
an enormous extent the activity of the 
tendencies on which he remarks. If, 
indeed, there were two nations exactly 
alike in e^ery particular, except that 
the one believed eternal punishment 
and set small store by pain, so as se- 
verely and even barbarously to punish 
ofieoces, while the other did neither of 
these things — we should in that case 
plaoslbly assert a direct causal con- 
nexion between holding the eternity of 
fntore punishment and a hardness and 
callousness of temper. But we can- 
not aigue in this free and easy man- 
ner, where the instances from which 
we have to make our induction are so 
moltifariously different as are the so- 
cial condition of the present day and 
thesodal condition of mediaeval times. 
We must not thus arbitrarily single one 
from out of a multitude of causes. 



Reasoning from the known principles 
of human nature, we can say with 
all confidence that the causes just enu- 
merated must have operated, and oper- 
ated very powerfully, to produce many 
and severe punishments, the careless- 
ness for and of suf^ring, the trials by 
ordeal and by torture, which existed 
at the period of which we write. And 
thus we also see that those representa- 
tions of the torments of the lost, on 
which Mr. Lecky expends such a vast 
amount of rhetoric, must have pro- 
duced these effects immeasurably less 
than they would now produce ; far 
more powerful means had to be re- 
sorted to then to produce an amount of 
feeling for which gentlei' methods now 
suffice. 

Nor has Mr. Lecky fairly represent- 
ed the doctrine of eternal punishment 
in itself. To contemplate the infli9tion 
of pain naturally produces, he says, a 
callousness and hardness of feeling. 
This statement embodies only a half 
truth, and the reasoning founded on it 
is in the highest degree fallacious. 
When the Catholics of ancient times 
contemplated the anguish of the lost, 
the habits which they endeavoured to 
form were habits of horror for the sin 
which entailed that anguish. There 
is a great difference between thus ac- 
tively contemplating suffering, and be- 
holding it merely in a passive manner, 
and with a view to some other end. 
The surgical operator, the public ex- 
ecutioner, the soldier, who look at it in 
this latter light, may and do in time 
become hardened and indifferent. But 
it is far otherwise in the former case ; 
and there is a great difference between 
reflecting on the pains of others, and 
reflecting on the pains which may one 
day be our own. It is reasonable and 
natural to suppose, and is found to be 
in reality the case, that one who con- 
templates the sufferings of others 
merely and purely as of others, and 
habitually avoids referring them in any 
way to himself, will in the end become 
hard and cruel. But the very essence 
of sympathy consists in an unconscious 
association of ourselves with others in 



M 



Leciyi History of Batianaliim, 



thevr eufFe rings. The Calvinist^ there- 
fore, the believer in ** assurance/* who 
^£incies himself lo l»e one of the eket. 
ftnd from his security safe!/ tblitks of 
all the torments of the reprobjue an 
^hinga in whitli It would be sinful for 
Ijimt'ven for amomtnt to ima;^ine that 
be civn have part, niuj but grow cal- 
ouB at the thought of hell — may even 
ielight to think of it, and revi'l in the 
fpresetitatiou of the anguish (here, 
Jut Buch a spirit is altogether opiK*sed 
the whole boat of Catholic medita- 
ftion on that suhjeet. The Catholic, 
T If hen be meditates on these torraents, 
jthinlca of them as of others, only that 
the thought may more vividly come 
home (o himself; he thinks of them as 
of what he may one day ha\'e lo en- 
dure. And again, the thought of our 
own f>ersoaal tfiuflerintf can make us 
"barci and firm only when we eondider 
, as a thing not to be avoided, but to 
braved. It is almost a Iruisia to 
[«ay, tliat tho.-^e men are of all the ino-it 
lioft and timid, who are conthiually rep- 
Ltesetuin^ to themselves meana of es- 
Mu\>Q from vividly imagined dangers. 
'And uo Cathohe would meditate on 
tiedo torments that he might nerve 
Bftetf to brave thomj but that be 
fht seek means to avoid them. 
[Catholics, of course, accept, oa the 
[ground of God*fl "Word, that awful 
[doctrine of our faith which we are now 
L contemplating. So far as they argu«! 
[for it from reason at all, they say that 
f fills doctrine is the necessary sanction 
[of the moral law; and the force of 
Lthat argument will be felt by ntmo 
llQore strongly than by Catholics them- 
f selves, who^ from holding the exist- 
fence both of a future teraponil and of 
a future eternal punishment for sin, 
are better able lo judg*^ what effects 
would be likLdy to be proiUieed, it' hell 
were, in the common teaching, resolved 
into a kind of purgatory* But it mu>t 
never be forgotten that in the Catholic 
I leligion the doctrine of eternal punish- 
Tment is taught under certain accompa- 
^ Dying conditions* which intimately «f< 
feet its practical bearing. The first 
of these conditions ia the doctrine of 



I 



purgatory, of wbicli M. Comte tliiti 

speaks: 

II scrait &cl1e de raooxiBAttrQ que t^iikilltn- 
tion, 81 MD^rcnieal eriuqu6e, du purgmloirB 
fut^ ttu oontrikire, tres heureusement ititro- 
diiilo, dans Ia pratiquo sociole du CathoUc- 
Umc, h thre d'indb|>cnMble oorrectif fond*, 
ineiiul de reterail6 des pcsineB fViture« ; oftr, 
AUtrrement, cett6 etorQlt^, eaiu laiiiielle lot 
prcsLTiptionse rcligicu^oa ue pouvniifiil 4tJK 
ctBcaces^ eut ^vtdetnineQt d6tcrmin6 
ou un reUcliemctit funcste, ou ufi elTt 

d^':^Mpoir» ^gAloment drtr -"^ Vwi 

tie pour I'individu H pr^ -, el ©ntre 

k'»c|uula le ^eme Cattjoli ^ ^ it veuu k of- 

(Ziaiiiiier cettii ingi*nitfu^6 i&suc, qui permetLiJI 
de graducr immediatcineiit, aveo une scrtipii- 
leu^o pr6irwion, Papp I i cation effective da pra* 
cudo reltgieaxaux con returnees de ohaqiM oi 
roeJ.* 

In reading this quotation, it mitit be 
remembered that M. Comte was not a 
Catholic, and regi\i*ded the Catholic 
Church u^ merely a human institutton. 
But* thf truths to which ihal onhappj 
thinker here draws attention, are 6<i 
evident, that they hardly requim 
proof. If the sole future punishm^ni 
of sin be believed to be an eternal 
punishment, such as is that of hell, 
it ii not diflienlt la perceive what 
effects will follow. The timid, and 
tho^e who are naturally religioiwly 
minded, will form a gloomy and atis- 
tci^e notion of religion, which will pro- 
duce some of the effects noted by Mr, 
Leckr, and in the end, by provoking 
a necessary reaction, work tlie destruc 
lion of all religion whatever. Those, 
on the contrary, who are irrelfgiously 
inclined, will be still further moved to 
give up all idea^ of religion as irapme- 
ticable, and will bo disgusted by its 
tone and flpirii ; while the doctrine of 
eternal puni.sbment will l(»de its force 
by being applied to light and trivial 
offences. 

But we must also ootico another 
condition of the reali2:ition of ihia 
dop trine, which is provided in the 
Cuiholic syatem ; and which, like that 
of purgatory, has been rather neglecfed 
by Protestantism. It has been notic- 
ed by ^ome writers that the sacmment* fl 
al system of the church provides an V 



4 

I 

I 



d 



LedBjf$ Bittory of EcUionali$m. 



91 



tdmirable safeguard, and one in an 
especial manner necessary in the mid- 
die ages, against outbreaks of fanatic- 
ism. According to the teaching of the 
Caliic^c Chan^ the sacraments are 
die great means, channels, and con- 
ditions of grace. And this produces 
a system and an order, a definite 
method of procedure in the spiritual 
life, which, assisted by the ascctical 
and mystical theology so minutely 
cultivated, abundantly directs enthu- 
siasm and represses fanaticism. And 
we do not doubt that if Protestantism, 
with its doctrine of private judgment 
and private direction, had been the 
form of Christianity existing in the 
middle ages, Christianity would have 
iQok into a condition of which pagan- 
inn and the Gnostic heresies alone 
afod a parallel But this sacra- 
mental system has also another, though 
t co-oidinate effect Grace is insen* 
iiUe and nnfelt, to confound it with 
die natural religious feelings and emo- 
tions is to make religion no longer a 
discipline and a duty, but a sentLmcnL 
And because it is unfelt, it is neces- 
•aiy that it should ordinarily be given 
dirough some external and sensible 
rite, in order to ward off undue and 
pemictous doubt and anxiety. Now, 
•ocording to Catholic teaching, while, 
on the one hand, it is impossible for 
lay one to know with absolute cer- 
tainty what is his spiritual state befoi*e 
God ; on the other hand, the doctrine 
of confession and absolution supplies 
all with a means of knowing, with a 
greater or less amount of probability, 
wiiat their real condition is. On the 
mocally beneficial tendency of the first 
part of this teaching it is unnecessary 
to diUue, and any scrupulosity or vain 
terror which, if it stood alone, it might 
exdte, is amply provided against by 
die second. And thus, through the 
correlative doctrines of purgatory, of 
the consequent distinction between 
mortal and venial sins, of confession 
and absolution, and by means of its 
moral theology, Catholicism provides 
that the doctrine of eternal punishment 
shall praw with greater or less force. 



exactly afi its inflaence is more or less 
required. It does not leave the be- 
liever to the diseased imaginations of 
his own mind, but provides an exter> 
nal code to' which he must submit, and 
an external direction by which he will 
be guided. It provides a means by 
which he may know whether he is or 
is not in a state of sin, and a definite 
remedy whereby he may extricate him- 
self from it ; while it holds out a hope 
of salvation to all, and teaches that no 
man ever existed whose case was so 
desperate that he could not, if he co- 
operated with grace, as he has the 
power of co-operating, look for par- 
don. With the heretical sects the 
case is widely different. The very 
name of Calvinism calls up associa- 
tions on which it would be painful to . 
dwell. The conjunction of the doc- 
trines of eternal punishment and 
necessitarianism must always, even 
where these doctrines are but to a 
very inadequate extent realized, pro- 
duce a type of religious thought and 
feeling as repulsive as it is degrading. 
Of this it would be superfluous to speak. 
But Protestantism repudiates the prac- 
tice of confession and the doctrine of 
absolution. Then, indeed, wherever 
the eternity of punishment was re- 
alized, it produced a diseased and un- 
healthy state of mind. Anxiety, doubt, 
terror, were necessarily the predomi- 
nating feelings in the minds of men; 
an anxiety which could be calmed no 
longer now that there was no confes- 
sional, and a doubt which admitted of 
no direction now that each man had 
to be almost entirely his own coun- 
sellor, while all were falteruig and di- 
vided as to the " direction of the ways 
of life.'' The ^< doctrine of final assur- 
ance'' was, indeed, put forward to rem- 
edy the evil. But that doctrine only 
served to aggravate it. For to one 
class of minds it only supplied a new 
cause of terror ; and to another it gave 
a very fruitful occasion of cultivating 
a disposition perhaps the most detest- 
ably proud, callous, and selfish, which 
has ever appeared among mankind. 
We must oot| however, be suppoeed 



n 



Leckj^i HistoTy of Ralionalism, 



ta deny tbat, tliroii^h causes the char* 
acter of which may partially be with- 
ered from the preceding remarks, the 
doctrine of eternal punishment was 
very pi-ominent in the middle a^ea. 
And haw, it will be asked, did the 
church of those ajres meet this extra- 
• ordmary prominence ? To have met 
it by merely insistinjr on the blessed- 
ness of heaven, would obviously have 
been ni03t inadequate. Our natural 
conf^titntion, and the circumstances of 
o«r life here, are such that our ideas 
of happiness, and especially of perma- 
nent happiness^ are, as il has often 
been urged, far lei^s definite and far 
Jei^s acute than our ideas of pain ; and 
I for this reason it has been wisely 
brought about that what has been made 
known to us of the blessedness of 
heaven u fur less definite and eom- 
Iplete, thnn is what we know of the 
[|mnifihment of the wicked. But for 
l&is very n^nson, tlic proraineneo of the 
Moctrine of tlieir eternal punishment 
[could not be efficaciously met by in- 
liisting on tliis blessedness. But there 
!a nnolher set of idefts and feelings 
dii ectly opposed to the despair and un- 
mitigated fear wbirb would be pro- 
dueed by the sole conlcmplatjon of the 
, torments of the lost ; and it is a set of 
at and feehn^ which now lie re find 
80 natural a home as in Catfiohcism. 

From the manner in which the doc- 
trine of the IncJimation is dwelt on in 
the Catholic system, and from the eon- 
iequently almost human chanicter 
> which is given to the love of God and 
to the contemplation of the divine per- 
fectiong as set forth in Chnst, there 
■ lesults an ardor, an intensity, an active 
leontinuity of that lovCt which is simply 
I incomprehensible to those who are ex* 
ternal fo the machinery of the Catholic 
Church. If it be a-sked» then, how did 
the church of thrtse times meet the ex- 
traordinary development of the doc- 
trine we have been eon side ring, the 
^Answer IB patent to llie most superficial 
reader of the mediaeval saints and 
t]ieolo!];iana. They met it by an, at 
least, equal development of tlie doctrine 
of divine love. St Bernard, Hugo of 



St. Victor, St. Anselm, all eepeciallj 
brtmthe in their works this sweet and 
devout spirit. The writings of Bl» 
Bernard, and those passages of sucK 
exquisitely tender devotion whiefi occur 
in the writings of St. Augustine^ be* 
came, in particular, the texts on which 
succeeding writers expanded and 
dilated* A spirit of meekness and 
tenderness of devotion, an intense and 
fervid love of God, are the themes oa 
which they peculiarly delight to dwell, 
and the virtues on which they pecu- 
liarly love to insist It was this age 
that produced the Imitation ; toward 
the close of it appeared the Paradi?u» 
Anim^ : and whoever was rlie actual 
author of the former work. It posseseei 
remarkable affinity with the spirit and 
even the style of Gerson. Nor was 
this temper of mind confined to purely 
mystical writei-s. Tlie writings of 8t^ 
Francis of Assisi^ of St. Bridget, St. 
Catherine of Sienna, anfl others, attestf 
indeedj that the type of sanctity was, 
in some sense, changing under its in- 
fluence ; liut it passed on to the great 
theological teachers of the age^ St, 
Thomas of Aquino, the best and great- 
est of them all, lived and struggled tn 
the wry midst of the eonflitt with in- 
fidelity which was then agitating the 
chuR'h, and yet even ho found time to 
write a number of short 8p*u*iiual trea- 
tises which display the most tender and 
the most delicate devotion. This is 
especially seen in his book De Bea- 
titudine. Riehiird of St Victor wroii 
a work De Gradibus Violentae Char • 
itatis, *'On the degrees of violejit 
charity.*' St. Bona venture received the 
name of *' The Seraphic Doctor'* from 
the ardor of his piety ; the titles of a 
few of his works — De Sept em Itin* 
ertbus jEterniLitis, Stimulus Anio- 
ns, Amatoriiini, Itinerariura Mentis 
ad Deiira — will Ik* sufficient to show 
its elniracter. The tender and loving 
spirit which those great doctors mani- 
fested tn their devotion, broke out also 
in their correspondence with their 
friends, as may be perceived even from 
the extracts from the leltei's and aer-, 
mons of certain of them which the 



I 




Ltehfi Hitiory of Ratiorud'unL 



98 



Goontde Montaleaibert has inserted 
m his Monks of the West. Other 
momenta of a more general nature 
ehoir the operation of the same ten- 
dency. For the first time detailed 
fires of our blessed Lord came into 
general circulation. Demotion to the 
passion assumed a far more prominent 
position than before ; of the spirit which 
animated it we hare a most touching 
example in the little book attributed to 
St. Jidiana of Norwich. The Canticle 
of Canticles suddenly took a place iu 
the affections of the pious, which even 
in the primitive church it had nerer 
known. St. Bernard composed on it 
bis celebrated Sermones super Can- 
tiea, St. Bonaventure and Richard of 
St Victor both wrote commentaries on 
it ; St. Thomas has lefl us two, and it 
was while dictating the second of these 
that he passed out of this world, cele- 
brating the blessedness of divine love. 
Nor can we altogether omit to notice 
three devotions, two of which certainly 
exercised a very considerable influence. 
In an age in which the spirit of love and 
devotion to our blessed Lord had as- 
ramed such large proportions, in which 
the doctrine of the Incarnation was for 
the first time completely treated in a 
acientific manner, and in which the 
subject of original sin was more pro- 
foaodly investigated, and the questions 
eooceming the Immaculate Conception 
consequently began to be cleared up 
and to assume a definite form and coher- 
ence, it was natural that a great devo- 
tion should manifest itself to our Bless- 
ed Lady. And of the tendency and 
the effects of this devotion Mr. Lecky 
has himself spoken. The character of 
the devotion to St. Joseph, also, is suf- 
ficiently well known, and it was first, 
we bdiieve, treated at length by Al- 
bertus ^lagnus. Devotion to the 
Blessed Sacrament was to an indefinite ! 
extent stimulated by the institution of 
the Feast of Corpus Christi ; and it, of 
a tmth, is a devotion which of all 
others breathes a spirit of tenderness 
and of love. 

We can now only make a few con- 
chiding remariui. We. have already 



given a general estimate of the work, 
on a few points of which we have here 
touched ; for we considered it better to 
speak of two or three connected sub- 
jects more fully, than to distract oui> 
selves and our readers by flying com- 
ments on the many and very diverse 
subjects there treated. We have only 
explicitly to add what we have before 
implied, that we consider it a very 
dangerous book. It is all the more 
dangerous, because Mr. Lecky is not a 
furious fanatic ; because of his spurious 
candor; because of his partial admis- 
sions ; because of his engaging style. 
And in an age like the present, when 
the dogmatic principle is so bitterly at- 
tacked by those without, and sits so 
lightly on the necks even of believers, 
it is exceedingly dangerous. For, as 
was to be expected, it sets the dog- 
matic principle utterly at defiance, and 
from beginning to end is a continued 
protest against it. Mr. Lecky's idea 
of education, and his theory of the 
manner of formation of religious opin- 
ions, are alike thoroughly opposed to 
it. In education he would have the 
bare principles of morality only, as far 
as possible, inculcated ; dogma, ai far 
as possible, excluded; and if any 
amount of dogmatic teaching is im- 
avoidably admitted, it is to be taught 
only so as to rest as lightly as possible 
on the mind, and with the proviso that 
the opinions then taught will have to be 
reconsidered in afterlife. With re- 
spect to the formation of religious 
opinions, his book teaches a kind of 
Hegelianisra. Society is continually 
changing, and the best thing we can 
do is to follow the most advanced 
minds in society. There is an ever- 
lasting process, in which we can never 
be sure that we have definitely attained 
to the truth. The end of this, of 
course, is to make all opinions uncer- 
tain. We may know what we like 
best, or what the tendencies of society 
incline it and us to believe ; but we can 
never, as to religious opinions, know 
what is objectively true. 

It is not very difficult to disco vei 
what is the nature of this process which 



u 



A Dream, 



is called rationalism. In former times 
the religious spirit predominated over 
the secular; but from a variety of 
causes, and in particular on account of 
the immense development of secular 
science since the time of Bacon and 
Descartes, the secular scientific spirit 
has since predominated over the relig- 
ious. And rationalism is merely one 
of the results of this predominance ; a 
consequence of the application to re- 
ligious subjects of secular habits of 
thought. This may manifest itself, 
now in one way, now in another ; in 
the denial now of transubstantiation, 
now of the doctrine of the Trinity ; but 
its root and origin is the same : it 
tends (and thb quite takes the romance 
out of it) to the elimination of the re- 
ligious ideas, and it is strengthened by 
whatever strengthens what we have 
called the secular scientific, or weakens 
the religious, spirit. Hence that dis- 
like of authority and that over-cloud- 



ing of the moral character of religious 
truth ; hence that distaste for the mii- 
aculous and Ihe mysterious, and that 
tendency to put into the background, 
and even to deny, the doctrine of 
grace; and if the internal wants of 
those who have just ** escaped from 
the wilderness of Christianity, and still 
have some of the thorns and brambles 
sticking to their clothes," make it ne- 
cessary that something should be sub- 
stituted for that which is being taken 
away — a baseless and often unreal 
sentimentalism is substituted for honest 
religious duty and earnest devotion. 
It is only too much to be feared that 
the world will educate itself out of 
this also; and that, in the case of those 
who refuse submission to the Catholic 
Church, the secular spirit will more 
and more grow toward its full ascend- 
ency, and therefore toward a total ex- 
tinction of the already weakened relig- 
ious ideas. 



A DREAM. 



A PROCESSION passed by in my fitful dreams, 

So strange that it now like a nightmare seems. 

I beheld a long line of wifeless men 

Whom their living wives might claim again. 

And widows and orphans who never gave 

Husband or parent up to the grave. 

In the hands of each of this motley train 

Was a broken heart and a broken chain : 

And a veil hung down over every face 

Hiding the shame of a deep disgrace. 

A figure they bore on a funeral bier. 

Of a form that belonged to another sphere. 

Not a line of humanity could I trace 

In its ghastly, shadowy, hideous face. 

From its jaws came a noisome, poisonous breath| 

That hung o'er the bier like the mist of death ; 

Then spread like a pestilence through the air, 

And husbands and wives standing here and there 



ADrtam. 

Its magical cirde of mischief within-— 

Opened their mouths and sucked it in. 

Then, straightway, like beasts, grovelled prone in the dost. 

Burning with jealousy, anger, and lust. 

I marvelled to see as I looked again 

All these were now widows and wifeless men. 

In their hands, like those in the funeral train, 

Was the broken heart and the broken chain. 

And as the strange throng passed horriedlj by, 

They chanted this dirge with a savage cry : 



Dig its grave deep. 
Hide it well out of sight, 
Lest it come to the light. 
And our hearths and homes smite 
With a curse and a blight 

Dig its grave deep. 



Dig its grave deep. 
Lest its treacherous smile 
May our reason b^uile ; 
Lest its rottenness vile 
May the nation defile. 

Dig its grave deep. 



Dig its grave deep. 
For lust and for gold 
It has bartered and sold 
All that dearest we hoki ; 
Let its death-knell be tolled. 

Dig its grave deep, 

Dig its grave deep. 
The land has been rife 
With its bloodshed and strife 
Between husband and wife. 
Crush, crush out its life. 

Dig its grave deep. 

IMg its grave deep. 
It has stood by the side 
Of bridegroom and bride 
Whom it meant to divide, 
And their troth falsified. 

Dig its grave deep. 

Dig its grave deep. 
It feedeth on lies, 
It breaketh all tics ; 



A JPrecan. 
•J* 

Xnd kdl inttoQence dies 
'Nearh the glance of its eyes. 
Dig its grave deep. 



. Dig its grave deep. 
^Tis an ofispring of shame 
Deserving no name ; 
From the devil it came 
To return to the same. 
Dig its grave deep. 



Dig its grave deep. 
*T\8 a curse and a bane : 
Its touch is profane ; 
And brings sorrow and pain 
In its murderous train. 

Dig its grave deep. 



Dig its grave deep. 
Tis a damning disgrace 
To a people or race. 
Who their nature abase 
To give this thing place. 

Dig its grave deep. 



Dig its grave deep. 
Pile earth, rocks, and stones 
On its festering bones : 
Naught for it atones : 
Hell its parentage owns. 

Dig its grave deep. 



As I looked once again on that funeral bier. 

My limbs became rigid through horror and fear ; 

For the hideous form breathed its breath in my face, 

And' spreading its arms to invite an embrace, 

Beckoned me on with an ominous nod ; 

I cried, Fiend, avaunt ! in the name of God ! 

And awoke. — On that bier I had seen the foul corse 

Of the scourge of our country, The Law op Divorce. 



A Tbft a^it I^ 






«t\^ 




97 



■Ar 



4 TALK ABOUT PARIS- 



BT AN OLD BACHELOR. 




So much has been said, written, 
rtioufftit, and exaggfenite<l iibotit Paris, 
little remains to be said, wriiten, 
hi, or exH*j^mted about it. Still, 
m^ clear of the broad road reserv- 
ftl to guide-books and [nivellera^ I 
Ibtler myself llmt a conirnrtiible, eaiiy 
dutt about It and its inhabit an it^, may 
Qui be unwelcome to my friends across 
the brua^l Ailuntie, 

If jou bope ftomc day to visit this 
gmt cily — and what American docp 
not cberi&h ibat hope? — pray Ihilt 
IL tlml day may not be made a dark one 
^M Vtbe uncrasinsf rain, and Blippery, 
^B t\mhy mud, which of\pn usher in the 
^H »niler* No ptacc so wretched as Par- 
^^UU^ the rainy season ; eUe where one 
^^^Bf male up one's mind phihrRophi- 
^^^Hj to indirt rubbei*s, umbrellas, and 
Ibe blurs, but he^^ it Heema a eort of 
peftoaal tnsuU when the sun dop^* not 
thine, f\nt^ lirighren the lonj; rows of 
Was not Paris made 
I, b;»ht-heartedne^s, and 
At thts seaiJort, it is not 
to hear visitors, with n 
pare ^hakc of the head, d^^clarc that 
thry are really quite disupijointed ; 
tfcal it IS not at all what they had ex- 
pected, and that other placeii an^ much 
more interesting* They quarrel with 
^- rt»ft rmpernr for hi^ great work of i*e- 
^m pmemting and beautifying the Paris 
^1 rf crooked, narrow, but picturesqne 
^H tn*ijii>ry. Theehai»p;efl lie hnis wroun-ht 
^^ arc indeed murvellou?; and thou^^h he 
Oay well gramble at the wholesale de* 
itiQCtion of oM placci, and also at the 
Aooinfort attendant on const an I pu li- 
fe^ down and bnilding up» yet th'? un- 
pftjudiced tra^'^l^^r mTHint but ftand 
xntftucd at all i dur- 

ooeniim'^ _ cl a 





certain degree of gratitude for 
eomfort of wide, well-payed »tr 
nnd well built modem houies. 

My tii-st visit to Paris was somo 
twenty year^ ago» when I wae sent on 
my travtds, before settling down to a 
huni-tlrum law ofliee. I remember 
well many qnaint mxiks and comers* 
which 1 look for in %'ain now. Among 
other place!;, I see in my mind's eye & 
certain queer old tavern restaurant^ 
famed for its English dishes, its gray- 
haired waiters, and its ebeapness; il 
stoo<l in Rue Sl Lazarre, at the head 
of the Clbaus.'?«'e d'Antin, a wide and 
popnUins iboroughfare. Ilero^ escap- 
ing fmm my e?^tahiishmcnt "de gar 
<jon " hard by, I used to find myself 
at about six oVlock waiting for my 
slice of '* Ros bif/* Well I remember 
tlie old room, with its comfortable half 
liirht, and white-covered tables ; well, 
too, do I n^member the old gentleman 
who invariably took the cosiest nook^ 
and secured the paper over which he 
invariably dozed ; and the student of 
racdieine who carved his chieketi with 
a skill that made my blood i-un cohl* 
But more vividly than all do I remem- 
ber ft young countryman of minc^ an 
artis^t, with his English wife, a yomig 
girlisli creaturcT who particularly inter- 
ested me; they seemed so happy, made^ 
go light of that hard struggle with 
poverty — which bo often turns the 
strength of young men to despair, and 
the love of young wives to sourness — 
that I made an effort^ notwithefanding 
my shyness, to become acquainted with 
then. We have been friends ever 
since, and a.5 I write, the young artist, 
having conquered in the battle of life, 
is both known ant] respected in bis na- 
tive country; as to bis wife, though 



A Taik ohuiBariB. 



M 



ntfier slices of houses, which people 
eall apartment^, but in the streets. At 
this season, one does not feel astonish- 
ed nt it ; ever? body, even the rheumat- 
ic old bachelor, feels tempted to leave 
the smoky chimney — why do French 
chnnneys always smoke ? — and wander 
op and down peering into all the shop 
windows, with their wealth of beautiful 
things, tempting one to buy a Christ- 
mas or New Year's gift for every body 
under the sun. We must acknowledge 
that our cousins of France have a 
most wonderful art of displaying their 
merchandise to the best advantage. 
Did any one ever imagine anything 
more seductive than a French confec- 
tiowrs? It is really dangerous to 
passtlie establishments of Boissier and 
odiers on the Boulevard, with their 
beautiful display of boxes, caskets, 
T«8cs, and quaintly dressed figures of 
grand ladies, etc., all filled with deli- 
cate bonbons. As to the toys, there 
is positive genius displayed in these 
pieasares of a moment ; indeed, these 
ihop-keepers are not only artists, they 
tre satirists. Approach, dear ladies, 
look at these dolLs, and si^^h for fashion, 
if you can ; these unimaginable gew-r 
g»ws, these extraordinarily long robes, 
which give the dear creatures the ap- 
pearance of being half on the floor, and 
half above it, these — these . . . Init I 
hck the milliner vocabulary, or I 
woaW stun you with the etceteras ; 
then the turn of the head, the stare 
tknwigh the miniature eye-glass, and 
tlw little curly dog led by a ribbon ! 
Messieurs the shop-keepers ! I bow to 
yoa, you are greater satirists even 
Ihan those sharp-penned writers of a 
wrtain New York literary review. 

The other day, having reached the 
'pper part of the Boulevard, near the 
?orte St Dennis, I could not but stop 
^ gaze down that long stream of 
homan life which lay before me ; not 
* particle of the pavement was to be 
'c^ nothing but a living mass of 
hostliog, pushing, quarrelling humani* 
^* All classes, all ages, almost all 
^oontries, were there. Men in blouses, 
ttd men in broad-cloth ; beggars and 



nobles; innocent children, and men 
with the inevitable mari^s of an in«> 
spent life on care-worn faces ; silk-ai- 
tired dames, and white-capped bonnes ; 
lond-voiced ladies with unimaginable 
boots, and the shortest possible walk* 
ing dresses; anxious mothers trying 
in vain to keep their excited little ones 
from running against portly gentlemen, 
or loaded comnnssionaires. Fancy all 
this, with a Babel of German, Italian, 
Spanish, and much more frequent Eng- 
lish, with the noise of street organists 
and Italian harpists, the screaming of 
itinerant merchants, the dashing of 
carriages, the swearing of drivers, and 
you will have some idea of the scene. 
As I stood in a sheltered nook observ- 
ing, I could not bnt think of Kribble 
Krabble, Hans Andersen's philosopher, 
who showed his firiend what seemed 
to be a dty full of fighting, devouring 
monsters, in a drop of water. I won- 
der if from thos^ quiet stars, so calm 
and pure, this busy scene does not also 
appear like that drop of ditch water ; 
whether some beings gifted with a 
penetrating vision denied to us, do not 
see into the true natures of this elbow- 
ing host, and weep over the monsters 
of cruelty, of cunning, of hypocrisy, of. 
degradation disclosed — ^inevitable ad- 
juncts of a large city. Let us look 
again ; we, less gifted, see only beings 
one much like the other, all seemingly 
busy in enjoying the gay scene around 
them, eagerly prying into the glitter^ 
ing shops, or passing quickly by the 
thousand booths that during Christ- 
mas week transform, the street into a 
real Vanity Fair. They laugh, chat, 
seem happy, and surely to be happy 
one must be innocent ! Let us belie\'e 
them so ; let us pass on, brushing by 
yon gaudily dressed woman, yon sinis- 
ter-eyed man, and thank heaven that 
we are not cursed with the magical 
glass of Kribble Krabble. After ail, 
do not those slashing satirists do more 
harm than good, in bringing so vividly 
to the light of day things that might 
as well be kept in the background ? Is 
it not better philosophy to shut one's 
eyes to mudi that passes around one. 



xoa 



A Taik about PaT%M. 



at this season especially, for it is 
imtmas time, when there should be 
eace on carih ? 
Speaking of Chnatmas, n* minds me 
■lo speak of the churches, which I have 
as yet ueglecled. Paintiri^is, engrav- 
ingSf atul photo^raplis hiivo already 
maili* tlie outride of these churches 
familiar to you, therefore I will not 
dwell on tliat bmnch of the suhjeet. 
Notre Dame, gmud old gothie Notre 
Dame, is on an idlmid in the Seine. 
It seems to look dowu, in iti^ gnindcur, 
on both old and new Fari^. On one 
Hide il seems sudly to recall the bloody 
raemoriea of years gone by ; the rise 
and downfall of dynaiities ; the rise and 
downfall uf fumiliea still shell errd in 
the old fitreeis of the old St. Germain 
quarter ; the death of Ih*' old rrtjime^ 
the breaking of he;irt8. On the other 
hartd, it ^cems to frown on gorgeous 
new Paris; on th^ beautiful [lanorama 
af buildings along iht^ bank of the riv- 
er, the Tuileries, ihe Louvn^ the Ho- 
tel de Ville, ete., and beyond these, 
scores of new white buildings, and the 
ruiii^ of others, comparaiively new, 
which are to give place to still finer 
ooea. The old church, with ild quaint- 
ly carved monsters and old towers, 
seems to stand as a warning of the 
time that is to come, when all these 
gfteat works of man shall be bnl vanity, • 
oad as chatf. Thi:^ is a i^olemn churcli, 
as it Hliould be^ and glooni seems to 
dwell in its lofry arches. 

It is the Madeleine, the beautiftjln, 
bright JMadeleine, which seems to be 
the favorite church of the Parb^ians. 
It wa?* here that, with gn^at difficulty, 
1 found a seat on Christmas morning. 
As 1 entered tfie services had l>egun, 
and a beautifully clear boy's voice was 
holding a high note^ while a full or- 
chestral band was plaving the aceom- 
p&niuient. The church was CTOwdetl, 
and I noticed that a great many Prot- 
estants, both English and Anierican, 
wen' [present, 1 have heard much mid 
read much of the impropriety and want 
of reppect evinced by these in sacred 
places* but, except for a little more 
iUriugf and perbiips same little more 



whispering, their conduct, as far as 1 
could observe, did not differ essentially 
from that of their Catholic neighbofti 
In these lai^ churches there is always 
an amount of bustle, and a want of re ver- 
eoee^ which, to an American Catholic, 
is, I confess, very shocking. The con- 
stant coming in and going out is oooa^ 
eioned, in some degree, by the fact thai 
often, during high mass, several low 
musses are going on at the side altars; 
but still the want of itn^erence evinced i 
by numbers and numbers of these 
French Catholics, is a fact too apparent 
to be denied. I do not mean to say that 
I have not observed many w^ho seemed 
to reidize what was g»n ng on betbre 
them, but most of these bad ^'old 
Ttffime*' written on tlieir laces. With 
youag France it is the fashion <o doubt, 
to scoff, or to be utterly indiffenMit, and 
who dares to disobey fashion? But 
let us return to the n^remony. 

The altar of this famed church has 
often been descril>fid» The marble 
group above it is singularly beautiful, 
it represenls Mary Magdalen, sup- 
jKjrted by angels ; the tigures are of 
heroic 6tze, and of the purest white 
marble* At this altar ministered a 
large number of golden -robed priests, 
surrounded by a bevy of boys in scarlet 
and white. Had I, too, been a Prot- 
estant, ignorant of the deup and lioly 
meaning hidden under these synjboli*, 
and seeing in theen but the glitter of 
gold and rich coh^rs, I dai^e &ay I 
shou!d, like them, have pronounced it 
but a gorgeous sliow, a theatrical dls* 
play ; as it was, my thoughts flew 
eagerly back to a ceiiain well re mem 
be red ehaf>el acn:>ss the Atlantic, wliew 
I had oOen assisted at the same cere* 
raony pertormefl with a simplicity and 
devotion which eontntsted pl'*asingly 
with this grand high ma<%s at the Ma- 
deleine^ Perseetiijon and poverty are 
wonderful safeguanls !o the virtue of 
man ; they are, perhaps, also necessary 
to the perfection of churchej*. Bell- 
gion — faith — ^musi always remain pure, 
but the prtifessors thereof may easily 
be influenced by the accidents of wealth 
aud splendor. While making thisse 




A Talk €iko%t/ Tint. 



lOi 



reflectioDS, and indoctrinating myself 
with charitj toward onr Protestant 
brethren, the mass went on, and the 
reallj beantifnl music filled the loAj 
charch. But there was something dis- 
cordant to my ears in the harmony of 
tbe Tiolins and brass instruments ; to 
my mind the organ alone, that most 
boly of instruments, is worthy of minis- 
tering to the service of God. Still, the 
masic wtfs beautiful, and after all true 
mastc is always sacred ; and when at 
the elevation the loud instruments held 
their breath, and a rich barytone voice 
alone was heard, I had to confess that, 
whatever its surroundings, religion and 
religious spirit are always to be found 
bj him who really seeks them. 

Remember, also, that I have been 
talking of the Madeleine, which is 
essentially the worldly church of Paris. 
At St. Roch, situated in Rue St. Ho- 
nori', and from whose steps' the blood- 
thirsty crowd jeered at Marie Antoi- 
nette as she was being led to the Place 
de la Concorde, where stood the awful 
gaillotine ; at Notre Dame de Lorette, 
and many others, there is less glitter, 
less parade, and apparently more de- 
motion. At Sl Boch, the beautifully 
trained choir of boys, and tbe good 
miuic given, attract many Protestants ; 
(tin tbe fecU'ng of the church is more 
Catholic than that of the Madeleine. 
Here, as elsewhere, I was struck by 
the ?ast number of priests in the sane- 
toary. I thought of our own over- 
worked, faithful priests, and could not 
help wondering whether a little of their 
iiaid work would not be good for those 
before me. 

As I look over what I have written 
I find that there is no small amount of 
gmmbling and fault-finding in the fore- 
going pages ; I smile to myself as I dis- 
cover that I have fallen into the little pe- 
coliarity which I have so oflen noticed 
in my countrymen and countrywomen 
in Paris : that of finding fault. No 
Afnerican, or Englishman either, whom 
jott may question, will utter ten words on 
the subject, without abusing the French. 
''There's no trust to be put in them; 
they ate a lymg, mean set," are among 



the inildefit accusations poured forth ; 
and thece^.Qd5tainly is some truth in 
the charge^*' •* •Americans, with the 
people at lat^e^^are a flodi: of rich 
fools, sent over li();€l}eif lucky stars, on 
purpose to be fieeced;;* consequently all 
the tradespeople you employ, jrour ser- 
vants and their ally the cothbierj/ey in- 
variably ask you about dou'Vle/Mi^uch 
as they would ask a Frencbnotiii^'and 
laugh at you while pocketing your giiSA* 
The art of cheapening things, so w'eUr • 
understood by the people here, is a* 
new experience to you. You do not 
like to walk into a handsome shop and 
ofier half the price asked for an article, 
you are not accustomed to it, feel awk- 
ward ; all of which the wily shopman 
sees well enough, and, of course, you 
end by giving the price required. But 
that French lady next to you, so hand- 
somely dressed, does not hesitate an 
instant ; you think she at lea^t would 
have disdained that art of the bour* 
geoine ; not a bit of it ; she insists, the 
clerk, bowing much more respectfully 
than he did to you, wraps up the arti- 
cle, and the lady sails out in triumph. 
But for all this, Americars seem 
to find wondrous charms in this city, 
and prolong their stay for one month 
to two, then to six, and not unfre- 
quently rush back to New York, settle 
up their affairs, and return to live 
here permanently, despising the French 
more and more every year, of course ! 
At this present moment, if all our 
countrymen and countrywomen, now 
residing here, were suddenly trans- 
planted to the western prairies, they 
would form quite a respectable 
siaed city, which would, according to 
the invariable western custom, begin 
to defy its sister cities to show a bigger 
figure when the census came to be 
taken. But I fancy very few of these 
Americans, if the question were put 
to them, would be willing thus to be 
transported for the good of their coun- 
try. We are undoubtedly a very pa- 
triotic people; but we believe, moat 
devoutly, that charity begins at home. 
Among these same countrymen of ours 
I notico the names of a number of 



A Jtalk, about Pant. 



wcU' known nrtUU, who» I nkdcrBhind* 
are well r bought of in th<ii^iriL4jic world. 
It is plensiiut to hear,il;i('ftf; pmised by 
our cousins ot* P^nmfe^'but I cunimt 
help thinking ibsiV, America, still so 
young in art;c»n', Jll spare hdr gifted 
childrem. '•- 

TftlJcinnr*of artiets, let me tell you 
[ of a'wjii little incident that came under 
f/»w^ obaervaJion. We are all 
^Fdiitjly conscious that poverty, aonie- 
* liimefi in it5 Jircst aspect, bara'^scs the 
. *bctfintiing o( nearly all artist lives* We 
have heard that N., whose beautifUl 
picture drew crowd a at the last ex- 
liibition, and who cannot lultH all the 
^commissions that pour in upon liim — 
Lthat the sam<* man, not many years 
l«go, mijfht have Blarvrd but i'or the 
Imid of hifl reiki w students; wo know 
this, but, f^urrojjndtnl by comforta and 
llttxuriest it \b the hardest thin^ iu the 
J world to realize poverty* Wta walk 
■the streets, brush by numbers of rap:- 
g«d women, thrcHv a copper to a batv- 
fooled little bc2<»jjr, but how often do 
we in our thou*3;bts foll».nv those poor 
erentures to the hovels or {rarrctfi or 
cellars which serve tlieui na homes I 
how little wc can ima*;ine the cold and 
damp which chill their bonca, or the 
hunjjcr which gnaws theral Still less 
do we realize, I think, tliat beings with 
I he education and feelings of gentle- 
men, should have to endure these same 
horrors. I have before my mmrl, fi^ 
I write, the face of a young man, an 
en(hy?ia!it in hia art, who, while en- 
^aLT^'d on a lon^ dreamt-of, cherish- 
ed work, fonnd tluit in conftcquence of 
the war in America, fl»e supphcs ou 
which he had calculated gave out. 
What to do? abandon his work, his 
career p**rhap3 ? return be^j^ured to 
hia native western town, without the 
promised work which was to show that 
his time had not been wa!*ted ? Never, 
better stan'c 1 and starve he actually 
would have done, but for the help of 
a student friend, almost a^j poor as 
himself, who shared his daily loaf 
with him : and 6o the young man tin- 
ished his picture, took it over to Am- 
aricfti where artists who saw it, flceiag 



that it showed more than oidinary 

talent, bestirn^d themselves, and mak- 
ing up a suilicient gura*srnt the young 
man back to his studies, feeling sure 
that the world would hear of him some 
day. But I am wandering, let us re- 
turn to Pari8,and to the incident which 
I was about to relate. 

Some few weeks ago I was invited 
to dinner by sorae friends setlled here 
for the winter. The meetiug was a 
pleasant one, and I left the brilliantly 
lighted, handsome rooms with a pleas 
ing glow over me, a reflection perhaps 
from the good cheer which both mind 
and bmly had enjoyed. As I was pasS' 
ing the inevitable concierge lodge, the 
( Vrbrrus kennel of every French liouse, 
I was stopyjed by the sound of a plain* 
tive voice, and looking around I saw 
a little girl, a child of some *en years, 
pleading evidently for some great favor 
with the grulf vonrierge liiinself, who, 
uotwithstanditsg all his decided nega- 
tive shakes of the head, jieem<Nl to be 
struggling with a certain degree of pity. 
The child was wretchedly dressed, and 
her little hands were blue with cold, 
but in her upturned, pitifully old child'a 
face, there was a certain look of re- 
finemeni that struck rue. I approach* 
ed and asked what the matter was. 

^' Ah, pardon, monsieur ! it is not of 
my fault; orders you see must b© 
obeyed, and the landlord . * ." 

Thnn lie told me the story. Ii 
seemed that a month or two before 
he had been a witness to the turning 
out from a misemble hole of a poor fam- 
ily ; the fnther called himself an artist, 
poor devil ! hts wife had a baby in her 
arms, and there wa^ a liuh^ girl. See- 
ing their utter distres*!, and remember* 
ing a couple of mi^^erable rooms digni- 
fied by the name of ^ Appariementsde 
pir^on,*' but which did not let easily 
BS Ihey were dark and unco m fort abk', 
he bad asked the landloi'd to allow 
thi^m to oci*upy them temporarily. 
Shortly afterward the poor wife, fi 
delicate, consumptive creature^ died ; 
the bnby did not survive her many 
hours, and the two were buried at the 
expense of the parish, '^ But now it 



I 




A Talk aioui Paris. 



108 



18 impossible that thej stay longer, the 
nxHiis arc let, and thej must leave. 
What will you? monsieur perceives 
that it is not of my faoU." Monsieur 
feels a pang cut to hU very heart. 
Id that same honsc, where sach a 
short time since he was feasting and 
laughing, a weary heart, perhaps, was 
breaking, and a young child struggling 
with sorrow that made it old. 

I asked the man if I might be al- 
lowed to see this unfortunate artist, 
and I saw the child's face brighten 
M she slipped from his side to mine. 
I took her hand and we went up, not 
the broad, handsome staircase which 
led to my friends' apartments, but a 
dingy flight of stairs at the back of the. 
court I was quite out of breath when 
we at last reached the door of this 
'*appartement de gan^n." The child 
ran m, crying out : ** Papa, papa I void 
Hn monsieur qui vient te voir/' 

A man dressed in miserable, ragged 
dothes, with a pitiful remnant of gen- 
tility about him, was sitting at a rick- 
ety white wood table, his face buried 
in his poor, thin hands, which I notic- 
ed were white and finely shaped. At 
the sound of his child's voice he hasti- 
\j got up, and seeing me, bowed and 
offered me the only chair in the room, 
with a grace worthy of a drawing-room. 
I felt the tears well up to ray eyes as 
I looked at this poor wreck, and thought 
to myself how many dead hopes and 
dead aspirations lay buried on iliat 
heart. I did not accept the chair, but 
held out my hand. Something in the 
simple action, or in my face, perhaps, 
expressed the sympathy I felt ; it was 
too much for the poor man ; be threw 
himself on the bed sobbing convul- 
lively ; you see he was weakened by 
hunger and cold and sickness. I put 
some money in the eoneiergtk hand, 
and he left us, bowing respectfully. 

When I turned I saw that the child 
had thrown herself by the side of her 
fiuber ; he was moaning, but tlie sobs 
had already ceased, f felt his forehead 
and hands, and found that he was in 
a raging fever. I looked around, the 
place was miserable enoogh, and ut- 



terly unfit to be a sick room. The 
etmcier^ shall be gratified, thought I, 
they shall leave to-night $ and sending 
the little girl out for a carriage, I was 
left alone with my patient 

His face was much flushed, his eyes 
wild, and all my efibrts to keep him 
quiet were vain ; I was obliged to let 
him talk. I soon gathered his whole' 
history from his incoherent words. 
There was nothing very new in it, it 
was the old story of a respectable father, 
with a prejudice against the fine arts ; 
of a weary struggle first for fame, and 
then, forsooth, for bread ; of a foolish 
marriage with a girl as poor as him- 
self, of children born to want and 
misery, of unappreciated talent, etc. 
There was an unfinished picture on 
the easel, and several others about the 
room ; the poor man's eager eya fol- 
lowed my movement as I looked at 
them, and he sank back comforted as 
I praised his works. Heaven forgive^ 
the charitable falsehoods I for that 
glance sufficed to show me that I 
was comforting one of those wretch- 
ed beings who had just talent enough 
to conceive great things, without the 
power of executing thera, which ia 
about the saddest of sad states. 

The child soon returned, and I caus- 
ed my poor invalid to be transported 
to the Hotel Dieu, until I could make 
some other arrangement for him ; his 
little girl I put under the care of an 
Loaotil woiuati who lived liai'J by, 
where she slept ; the days she spent 
by her poor father's bed. That bed 
he never left, the hard struggle had 
been too much for him ; the death of his 
wife and child had been too severe a 
blow to the weak, loving, unfortunate 
man. Brain fever soon declared itself 
and one dark, sad December day, his 
little daughter and I followed his poor 
coffin to the nearest cemetery. The- 
child was very quiet, but her tearless, 
eyes were unutterably sad. 

I interested my friends in the sad' 
story, and no happy mother, as she 
drew her own dear ones to her heart, 
refused to help this bereaved one. So- 
we made up a purse for her, and the- 



1«t 



Dr, Bacan an CimmriionM to the CathaUe Church* 



Otber (lay I took her to 5. ^ood school 
where she is to remain utitfl i^ho L» old 

linoogfa to support herself, poor little 
orphan! Ais I was aboiU to leave 
her, she turned and said in her quiet, 

^undemonstrative way, a few words 
rhlch I shall not put down here^ but 
which caused roc to luni towani the 
door rather quickly, and to pretend 
that I had a bad cold in my bead. 



This ia no tnere taney sketch; I 
only wish it were a fiolitiiry instance, 
Alas! for the poor in thia great, rich, 
bustling, worldly city I But we muil 
hid adieu to it, with its deligbtSy ila 
wonderful eights, its wild merriment, 
and its dumb misery. Adieu to it, ami 
lo you* my readers, a happy, happy 
New-Yt?ar I 



I 



DR. BACON ON CONVERSIONS TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,* 



We embrace the opj>ortunity of say- 
ing a few words on the topics of con- 
trovet^y which have been started be- 
tween the author of the article whicli 
appeared in our oohimn^^ on the ^' Plu- 
loeophy of i^'ouveraion*' and hi^ distiii- 
fTuished opponent ; not with the view of 
follow in fj^ up the line of at tuck opetjcd 
by our able eorrespondcnt ; hut niibcr, 
in €>njer to expi-ess our own imlepcnd- 
ent judgment, m a reviewer, on the 
qucfttion di*cu8§ed, in some of its hn- 
portant bcarin*r9. 

Minor questions and side issues we 
leave to the opinions of those who Imve 
read both sides, and we do not intend 
to meddle with them ourselves. The 
gentleman attacked by Dn Bacon has 
pre«*^'ii!ed his vievvof whjil Prolc^rant- 
I- iu*ed to its logical elements nnd 

c c principles* His opponent 

savv ; *'I do not recognize that which 
yon dcscnl>e as genuine Protestiint ism." 
This is all very fair. But lie pro<^eeds 
to hifer that the** Roman pbiloi^opher," 
as he designates the author of the es- 
-aay in question, either does not know 
what Pnjtestantigm is, or wilfully mis- 
represents it. The dtKtor aUt>, in 
turn, attempts to make a slatt^raeot of 
CathoUe doctrine, aa it appears to his 

• A Romui* PUUMop»ner, A Review at %n Arlkl« 
'ftn Conwfulon la Ww Oalbolle World, Uy ftpt. Dr. 
tkoon of V»lo C«llitt< **^ JSI^/em Laf Uuul«r/' jAUU&rjfi 




mind, when reduced to its logical ele- 
ments. We, on our part, do not rw 
cognize this as a true reoresentatioiii, 
We mighty tberefoi^, with just u» mucii 
reason reerimiaate upon Dr. Baodki 
his own accusations* We shall not do 
this, however ; if for no other reason, 
because these mutual recriminations iu 
controversy are useless* Those who 
love tlic truth can have no motive for 
misrcpreaenting the belief and opinions 
of any class of men. Sincere Cath* 
fdic^ and sincere Protestants must alike 
dcairo that the principles and ground's 
of both Catholicity and Protestantism 
should be placed in the clearest light 
possifilis «nd dit^cuHBcd ujjon their naked 
merits* with as little mixture as may 
be of questions concerning the intellect* 
nul or monit qualiliaUions of individ- 
ualfi. 

The original and genuine religion of 
New* England wa^ the Calvinistlc C'oo- 
gregntionalisra of the Puritans, which 
still survives, with more or lc^f« of mod- 
ilictitioiu among the Ortiiodox Congre- 
gah'omilfsts, and hiis i<s principal seat 
at Ne w- Havei i . T li e temper and lone 
of mind prevailing among the clergy 
and members of this denominatioa 
place them at an extremely remote 
distance fW>m the Catholic mind, and 
make any interchange of thought be* 
twccn ihe two very difficult* With 



Dr. Bacm on OnwenUmi ta iks Oa^^oUc Okurek 



105 



tiie exoeptioii of % slight movenfent 
stirted, withoot much effect that we 
hive ever heard of, b j the learned and 
aeeomplished Dr. Woods, at Bowdoin 
Oolite, there has been no tendency 
in thiB bodj of the clergy to return to 
any higher church principles than those 
of the Protestant Episcopal denomina- 
tioD. It is this latter body which is 
the mediom of contact between the 
CbUholic Church and the remoter Prot- 
estant bodies. It has therefore first 
felt the effect of the increased inter- 
oommnnication of thoaght and influ- 
ence between the two great divisions 
of western Christendom which is char- 
icteristic of our time. It is the hie- 
iirchical principle, distinguishing this 
body from other Protestant oommu- 
uons, upon which the influence of the 
Cttbolic church has been felt, and 
most of the controversy has taken this 
priodple as its starting-point Of 
eoBrse, therefore, it is in a great meas- 
ure irreleTant to the question as it 
sttods between us and the non-epis- 
eoptl communions, whether these are 
wbat is called evangelical, or liberal, 
b their theology. We arc disposed, 
tberefbre, in addressing members of 
theie communions to give the transecU 
totbe whole Oxford controversy, and 
to allow them to think what they 
pletae of the causes which have pro- 
dieed the current setting from Angli- 
cuiism toward Rome. Tlie contro- 
Teny as between us has to be com- 
menced de novo, and to be carried on 
opoD an entirely different basis. Cir- 
comstances over which neither of us 
ittre any control, make this controver- 
tj inevitable. We will conflne our- 
lelres, for the present, in order to sim- 
pCfy the question, to the relations ex- 
ifltiDg between Catholics and Con- 
gregationaHsts in the State of Connec- 
lieot We say, then, that these relor 
tioos make a controversy between us 
inevitable, just as much as other cir- 
comstances and relations have made it 
inevitable between Anglicans and Cath- 
ohGS in England and the United States. 
The reason of this necessity is, that we 
haste 60 many things in common, and 



so many points of difference, tliat wo 
cannot remain quiescent toward each 
other, except from isolation in distinct 
communities, or from mutual apathy to 
the interests of Christianity. Forty 
years ago, when Dr. Bacon was com- 
mepcing his long and distingubhed 
career as a pastor in New-Haven, the 
question of Catholicity had but little 
living and present interest for a Con- 
necticut theologian. It was a question 
of by-gone ages and distant countries. 
There was not a Catholic in New* 
Haven, and tliere were few, if any, in 
the state, excepting a small handful at 
Hartford, where the flrst feeble parish 
was collected in a small frame church, 
purchased by Bishop Fen wick from 
Bishop Brownell and dragged on roll- 
ers to a new site. We believe there 
were no Catholics at that time in 
Rhode-Island ; there were none in 
Vermont, Maine or New-Hampshire. 
There were a few thousands in Mas- 
sachusetts, mostly congregated in Bos- 
ton. The Bishop of Boston, whoso 
diocese included all New-England, 
had hardly half a dozen churches be- 
sides his very modest cathedral, or 
more than a dozen priests. When 
the saintly Cheverus went to Boston, 
his only cathedral was an old bam. 
As a matter of course, then, the Cath- 
olic religion was looked upon merely 
as the religion of a few poor immi- 
grants, a bit of wreck from the institu- 
tions of the middle ages cast on the 
New-England shore by the caprice of 
the waves. This habit of looking at 
the matter has remained to a great ex- 
tent unchanged, on account of the al- 
most complete social segregation of the 
rapidly increasing Catholic community. 
That it cannot remain unchanged, how- 
ever, is evident to every one. There 
are now fifty priests, one hundred con- 
gregations, four religious orders, and a 
population of 75,000, belonging to the 
Catholic Church in Connecticut. Al. 
though, therefore, isolation has render- 
ed the professors of the traditional re- 
ligion of the State in a great measure 
indifferent to the religion of this new 
element in the population, thus far, it 



loe 



Br* S'^tm &n Conmnloni to the CMhotie &iur€h. 



C4innof cniitinuc ; and this U apparent 
from Dr. Bacon's own atatementa and 
views, lis expressed in hia article. 
ApalUy is also out of the qiiestioo, es- 
pecmily as rei^ards tlic cIkt^v. It 13 
crident tliut the religious and moral 
doctrino»4 and teachings of the pa -i tors 
of one fittli of the people of the State 
cannot be a matter of apathetiu indif- 
Terence tij any one who takoi^ an inter- 
est in the reliji^iou* and moral welfare 
of his fellow citizen)^* It follows thcj^n, 
necessarily, that (he leadini2[ clergy and 
lheolo;Tijviiii of the Congregational body 
in Connecticut must engage with great 
application and industry in the study 
of the Catholic fiy^tcm of doctrine and 
polity, not in second-hand workt*, but 
lit the origiual and authentic sourcc'ii. 
They must pay attention al.^o to the 
coteinp<jrary CathoU<' lilerulurejjuth in 
thi:^ Engli?4h and in foreign languages. 
Studying and thinking on these topics, 
they will nece.^«arily write, speak, and 
converse upon tlicm. and thus the same 
topies v?ill engage the attention of all 
their brethren in the clerical profes 
gion^ and of the intelligi^nt hiity. We, 011 
our pa rt^ c4innot be indifferent to any- 
thing written or spoken by raen of learn 
ingand high position on the great topie<i 
of religion, Con.^equenlly. we say, 
there nm^t be tNjtilroversy between u^. 
In point of thei, a little preliminary 
controversy has already commeacLnl 
• between ours?lves arid the organ of 
tlie New-ifavea iiterali. 

We will not indulge in any prema- 
ture gralulations overvicloried we may 
hope to gain for the Catholic cause in 
controversy with the Congregational- 
i«lii, or eonvcrHions which may be look- 
ed for frofu nmong their ranks. We 
eh&ll on both side^ agree that the truth 
ifi likely to prevail in the end, and that 
Uever conquests (ruth may make 
mw\ more to the honor and advan- 
tage of the vanquished than of the vie* 
tore. In expressing our satisfaction 
that this controversy is inevitable, we 
do not intend to indicate a desim for a 
ip^iemtcai coniroTersy in the rig >roiis 
•code of the word* We do not wi»h 
to»ec the Catholic and Protestant pub 



pitJ? waging a theological artiller 
against each other; or a violent 
for mastery, with all the bitter^ hofttill 
feelings whicli it engenders, inaugur 
cd between the Catholic and Pr 
tant portions of the population, 
the contrary, we have particularly 
view in what we are writing at preser 
to bring forward certain consideration 
tending in an entirely opposite dir 
tion. We desire, so far jts our humbtl 
influi^nce extond^^, to forestall contr 
versy of the sort alluded to, and to polil 
oot what we conceive to be the tr 
spirit and tnanner in which both sid^ 
should approach the subject of the djj 
ferenees which unhappily divide us. 

There are two ways in whicFi 
may carry on controversy. One wa 
is, for each side to place its own ei 
elusive truth and right in the strong 
lights to atlirm its doctrines in it4 owl 
peculiar phraseology in the most po 
tive and dogmatic manner, and to tak 
a position as far remote from tlifl 
of the other side, and as unintelligtbll 
to its opponents as possible ; mor 
over, to take tlie worst and most unfa 
vorable view possible of the doetnnc 
and posi Lions of the other aide, and 
impute to them all the most extremll 
consequences of their [Jrinciples whiclj 
seem to oui-selves to follow logically 
from them. 

Anottier way, is to conduct contr 
vcrsy, not from the two opposite ei 
irciU)*:) of Jjjualiio where th; dllToronc 
is widest and most pa!pabli% but froQ 
those middle terms in which both par 
ties agreCi and in relation to whicli 
they are intelligible to e.a«h oti 
From these middle terms we inaf 
proceed to the extremes, and thus en 
deavor to settle the points in which w 
differ, by the aid of those in whtdi wc 
agree* The points of difference ab 
may be perhaps reduced by muu 
explanations, and a substantial 
mf?nt be proved to exi.st in somol 
trines where there is an apparent i 
tradicdon in the terms used to cxp 
them. 

In point of fact, these term«of agnM*| 
mcut are numerous, and bclude lht| 



Dr. Baeom «• ChnverrionM to the CathoKe Ckurek. 



107 



Bost fbndamental articles of the Gath- 
ofie faith. The trinity, the incarna- 
dooy the redemption, original sin, the 
regenerating, sanctifjing grace of the 
HoJj Spirit, the resurrection and eter- 
nal life ; the necessity of repentance 
far rin, and of good works, the canon- 
icity of the principal books of the Old 
Te9ttment,and of all those of the New 
Testament, their divine inspiration, 
the obligation of believing all the truths 
revealed by Giod, even if they arc su- 
per-intelligible mysteries, on the mo- 
tive of the divine veracity ; these are 
all doctrines and principles Id which 
there is a substantial agreement. 
Moreover, the New-Haven school has 
brought the Calvin istic doctrines in 
those respects in which it ha§ modified 
lhem,iDto a nearer approximation to 
ibe Catholic doctrines, than they were 
before. In regard to the Cardinal point 
of jnstification, the difference is really 
fen than it would appear. Although, 
b the New-Haven theology, faith is 
Bide to include what Catholics call the 
theological virtue of hope, yet it in- 
dodes also that which we call faith, 
and which the Council of Trent defines 
to be the " root of all justification f 
thu is, a firm, explicit belief in those 
revealed truths which are necessary 
a nMeuitaU medii, and a belief at least 
implicit in all other revealed truths. 
Ab Dr. Bacon says, it is held that faith, 
in order to justify, must be accompanied 
bj charity, or the love of God. It is 
our opinion, therefore, that the New- 
Htven divines really hold that it is fides 
formatOy or faith informed and vivi- 
fied by love which justifies, and that this 
doetrine is practically preached by the 
Coogregational clergy ^nerally. This 
ii identically the Catholic doctrine. 
Ib this case and in others, the saying 
of the learned Dollingcr is verified, 
that •< Protestants and Catholics have 
tkeologicalljr come nearer to each 
other." 

Perhaps we may now bo able to ex- 
pkin to Br. Bacon our notion of con- 
venion, in a way which will make it 
•ppesr not quite so repugnant to his 
icuoo and feelings, as it is at present 



In order to do this, we will resort to an 
illustration, which will make our mean- 
ing plain. 

Wo suppose Dr. Bacon will admit 
that the Jews before the time of our 
Lord did not generally have an explicit 
belief in the trinity or in the divinity 
of the Messiah ; and that probably the 
apostles, when they were first called 
did not have this explicit belief; al- 
though these doctrines, especially the 
latter, are really contained in the Old 
Testament Nevertheless, all who 
were Israelites indeed were in the state 
of grace, and the children of God. 
Let us suppose now, the case of a pious 
Jew, af^er the ascension of our Lord, 
who neither believed in Jesus ns the 
true Messiah, nor had culpably and 
wilfully rejected his claims when suffi- 
ciently proposed to him. We suppose 
Dr. Bacon - will admit that this good 
man had already saving faith, justifica- 
tion, the sanctifying grace of the Holy 
Spirit, was spiritually united to the uni- 
versal church of which Christ is the 
head, and was united therefore in faith 
and love with St Peter, and all the 
members of the apostolic communion. 
St. Peter preaches to him Jesus Christ 
and he believes his word, submits to 
his authority as the apostle of the 
Lord, is baptized, joins himself to the 
Christian community, and partakes of 
the communion. Let us suppose, for 
the sake of illustration, that this was 
the case with Stephen, who l>ecame the 
first martyr. 

Let us now take the case of Saul of 
Tarsus. Without deciding positively 
whether Saul was morally culpable or 
not, for his opposition to Christianity, 
we will suppose that he was so. At 
the time of his going to Damascus, ho 
was therefore without saving faith, un- 
justified, destitute of sanctifying grace, 
and therefore not spiritually united 
with the church of Christ and with St. 
Peter and his brethren. By the grace 
of G^d Saul believes in Jesus Christ, is 
baptized, and openly joins the Christian 
communion govern^ and taught by 
the apostles. 

Now, in those two cases, we have 



iJom U> ike aokalh 



indtanccs of an interior e!iauj»c of (ho 
intellect and will, folio wet! by an cx- 
terior rhange of ecde-^iastie4xl relations, 
which u properly called a conversion 
to Chri&lianity. Stephen and Saul are 
treated by the apostles and elders of 
the church in precisely the same man- 
ner, when they apply for baptiam* 
Yet, in the former case, the interior 
change h not a convereion of the mind 
fi-om unbelief to diirine faith* or of the 
vrill from Bin to the love of God. It 
is tk can version of the mind from an 
iochoate^ imperfect apprehension of the 
i-ev«ated object of faith to a C(»mp1ele 
and |H'rfcct appix? hens ion of the same 
obje<;t more cloarly ixrvcaled. It is a 

livers ion of the will from an implicit 
F'ditennination to submit to the ri^i^htful 
nuthority of tlic Messiah, to an explicit, 
nctnal obfdience to the Lord Jesus 
tu the Son of (iod, the Pixiphet. Prieiit 
luid King of the Jews and of the Gen- 
lUest 

in the other ease, conversion tnclud- 
ed in Iti^elf the renunciation of a proiid^ 
intellectual 5elf*rcliance which cxelud- 
«x! the spirit of submission to the au- 
thority af Lrt)d over the mind, and the 
aulij^titution of the humble, de»cile habit 
tif fjtith ; lo>jcthcr with a change of the 
will or hf»Hri frtmi a ^eltish, cruel devo- 
lion to the pundy national glory of 
Uida>^ III tk disintcrcistcd and divine 
lovt' of ih\d and all niankiutt 

In yiv'i^crai ti»nns, however, we speak 
of Cimverftion from JudaWm to Christ- 
ianity in ivtertnicc to all, who have 
btirn and brought up Jews, and 
IVtmi conviction profcsa their belief in 
Tosua ilirist, witliout diHcriminating 
ikOl^ig diftcrtntt (mrsons, in regard to 
their aiibjective state. If we should 
undc^riake to jjive the philosophy of 
ilili oouver^iiin, we sliould probably 
mippntie our subject to reprt*sent ftub- 
jwtiviilv what we consider to be objee* 
tivo Judni«tu, wh<i<e logical bu/u* Is a 
denial of the (hrij^t fnretuld in the Old 
'rcAtuiucnt, and |M^r*onnlly made 
kitowu hi tiie New, m Jata^ of Nasa- 
IY»lh* We Mlunitd tn^krrectly describe 
t|ds CHitivei^iim nn a surrender of the 
1 ftnd will to the authority of Jesus 



Christ ; and should correctly say tl 
no person was thoroughly convert) 
into a Christian, who merely approved 
of £uch doctrines, and practised sucii 
precepts of Jesus Christ as he might 
choose, or select, by his own personal 
judgment and will; but, who did not 
8ubmit his mind to all the truth which 
Christ has tau^ht^ on the motive of his 
divine in fallibility', and his will to all 
he has commanded, on the motive of 
Ids divine authority* 

It is jdiiiii that Stephen must have 
acknowledged St. Peter as the accred- 
ited representative of Jesus Christ, 
through whom he received the doctrine 
he was to believe, and the precepts he 
was to obey, as a Christian. The 
New Testament was yet unwritten, 
and the divine word could only be 
learned from the lifjs of the aposti 
Stephen could not, therefore, Rubi 
his mind and will to Jesu^ Christ, 
cept by submitting to their authority^ 
Now, if this authority has really be 
transmitted to the successors oC 
Peter, and to their eollea^^cs in th< 
episcopate, it h plain that it is by sub- 
mi^^sion to this autliority that we ai 
to submit the mind and will to Jesi 
Christ, who lias delegated it to thei 
^' He thiit heareth you heareth me 
** As my Father liatli sent me, even so 
send 1 you.*' Therefore, when a per- 
son who has not hitherto formally and 
explicitly recognized and submitted t<> 
this authority, makes his subuii^sion 
it^ we call it a conversion, b«7ouuse 
betokens a real interior change of 
intellect and will; accompanied by 
exterior cliange of ecclesiastical rebi- 
tions, if he haj belonged to any oti 
visible communion before, or, if not, 
the assumption of these relations ft 
the first time. This is without res[ 
to his former eubjertivc stale of ioti 
rior n?lation to Christ and the church. 
If he had a divine faith before, con- 
versiion does not include the pasaafj^ 
from a state of nnlRdief to faith. If 
this faith was previously vi%^itied by 
charity, it does not include the 
from a state of sin to the Blitteof 
It; on the eontmryy ho was bofore mi 



lO- 

1 

so 

er- 

nd 

lt»> 

i 





J)r. JSftecm m^ Ocmvenicns to the Catholic (^ureh. 



109 



ioidel, or a wilfal heretic, and desti- 
tote of cfaaritj, oonTersion includes 
both these transitions. We do not 
Imit the appBcatiou of the word con- 
venioD to a mere interior and exterior 
nbmission to the authority of the 
dmnch. Wo employ it also to desig- 
late coavenioa from sin, and con- 
tinQally preach to Catholics who are 
firing in sin the necessity of being coo- 
rerted to a holy life. We apply the 
leon also to a change from a tepid 
eoodition of the spiritual life to a habit 
•f more fervent pi^ty. It is used as a 
general term to denote any marked 
refigioas change for the better, and its 
ipeeifie meaning must be determined 
Wthe connection in which it is em- 
plmd. Its indiscriminate use in de- 
Bodng the act of transition from a 
Protestant communion to the Catholic 
eboith does not necessarily imply that 
10 Crimination can be made among 
time who make this transition. Nor 
does it follow that all the language of 
the writer whom Dr. Bacon criticizes, 
do be fully verified in regard to all 
Ottbolic converts. Numbers of them 
hiTe had from childhood a firm faith 
in tlie principal Christian mysteries, 
mdan habitual determination of the 
will, at least for many years, to the 
km; of God. In such instances, what 
IB tedmically called ^* conversion," is 
Kke what we have supposed the con- 
nrsion of Stephen to have been, the 
erolotioo of the principle of faith and 
obedience into a more perfect and com- 
plete actuation. Stephen had Jides 
formata before he was baptized, and 
so have converts of the kind we are 
<ie8cribing, fides formalaj that is faitli 
which worketh by love, before their 
external union to the body of the 
CatboHc church is consummated. 

The change which takes place in a 
ooovert of this kind, is not a transfer of 
meotal allegiance from the word of 
God to the arbitrary, irresponsible dic- 
tition of a hierarchy. It is simply an 
increased intelligence of the actual 
eoDtents of the word of God, and of 
the nature of the medium through 
thich fhe knowledge of that word is 



transmitted. The object of faith, upon 
which the inteUectual act of believing 
terminates, is the revealed truth con- 
sidered as revealed, or as credible on 
the veracity of God. The medium or 
instrument is the testimony by which 
we are authentically informed of the 
fact of revelation and of its contents. 
In the case supposed, the person has 
received from the testimony of the 
churc]^ which reaches him through the 
Christian tradition, the knowledge of 
the principal facts and mysteries re- 
vealed by Jesus Christ. Having, 
therefore, a reasonable motive for be- 
lieving, and the aid of divine grace, he 
was able, when he attained the use of 
reason, to elicit explicit acts of faith in 
the Trinity, the Incarnation, and other 
doctrines sufficiently proposed to him, 
to exercise continually the habit of 
faith, and to persevere in the same 
without any lapse. In this explicit 
faith,'or faith in actual exercise, was 
contained an implicit faith in all that 
God has revealed, but which was not 
known to the subject in an explicit 
manner. When he examined into 
that testimony through which the doc- 
trine of Christ had t>een proposed to 
him, he found that his undoubting be- 
lief in that testimony contained an im- 
plicit recognition of the infallibility of 
the witness, and that he must either 
draw the logic(jil conclusion, or renounce 
the premises. He also found that the 
article of the creed, " I believe in the 
Holy Catholic Church," as revealed 
in the Scripture, and explained by the 
living, concrete sense of the primitive 
Christians, contains in itself the idea 
of infallibility. Convinced, there- 
fore, that the Catholic Church, toge- 
ther with her testimony and instruction 
respecting the person of the incarnate 
Grod and Saviour, testifies and teaches 
her own infallibility as a witness, 
teacher, and judge of controversies, and 
that this doctrine is contained in the 
word of God, he perceives that he must 
believe on the veracity of God all that 
the church proposes to him as con- 
tained in the material object of faith, 
Uie objectum mcUeriale quod of theolo- 



2)a Bacon an Converiiom to Ae CafkoUe Church, 



glans. When lie is further convinced 
that the bishop who occupies the See 
of Peter, toj^ether with bb coHcagues, 
constitutes the eccfesia docens, the 
teaching church, find thai the infallible 
churcii has, therefore, pi'oclaimed her 
doctrine in the decrce.s of the Council* 
of Trent ; of course, nothing re- 
mains for bim to do but to seekadmis' 
sion into the fold of the Catholic 
Church, This act has not, lionever, 
changed tlie ei<i*ence of Im faith* The 
object urn materiale. qnod of faith need 
not incbide explicitly the infallibtlity 
of the church, since all ihcoKj^ians 
maintain that l!ie knowledge of God» 
the Trinity, and the Incarnution, \^ all 
that is necessary ex necessitate medit^ ur 
by an absolute necessity, to saving 
faitb ; and nuiriy maintain tiiat it in the 
kno^v ledge of lki<l as the supernatural 
re warder which is alone to ha placed 
I if) thii? category. Nor \% the infalli- 
bility of th^^ church included in the 
Y^ohjectum materiale quo of faitli, that is 
I in ibe objective motive or determining 
taliBe of belief* which is the veracity of 
^'God. Billuart and Be Lngo may be 
^condulted on thi.^ point by any ivbo 
wish to ascertain the germane sense of 
Catholic theology. Archbishop Man* 
' fling, in a letter to Br, Pusey. on the 
Workings of I he Hidy Spirit in the 
Cliurcb of England, has brought out 
^this doctrine with appropriate proofs 
i cilations in a very lucid and ad- 
able manner. The letter ean be 
found in the Catholic World tVir June, 
IBG'i. The sarnfe had been previously 
^ done by Father WalworlbT in a ser* 
^ mon entitled GofMl Samaritans^, pub- 
» lii-hed in the Volume of Paulist Ser- 
[imon.s for 18t34, 

The church is the medium through 
f^hicb the object of faith is inlellecln- 
, ally beheld, and the only medium. It 
fii, therefore, impossible for her to sub- 
iititute any other material object of 
[ faith in beu ot the true object, and 
equally impossible that the material 
I object of faith should be seen at all 
t'ihrougb any other medium. Whoever, 
^therefore, believe? what the church 
opoAes to hid beliet*, necessarily be- 



lieves in ibe true olject of h>\i 
whoever believes in the true o\\ 
faitb nece3surily lielieves in it th 

the proposition of the churcb. 

The tirst conclu-^ion we dran 
this postulate is. that the notion of 
olics being subject to an arbitra 
thorily of the liierarchy or the p 
impose whatever articles or belio 
may ehoose, is a pure misapppehe 
The church is a witness to thfl 
trine^ and facts once for all rei 
at her original foundation. ' 
doctrines and facts are on li 
The testimony of the church in t 
to them has been publicly given 
she cannot retniet her testimony 
out manifestly falsifying her cli 
be an infallible witness. As ft , 
of eontroversicii, she cao only jw 
contRivei^sies relating to these 
facts and doctrines. These judgfl 
once given, are irrevocable* 
have been already pronounced r^- 
ing all the gi^eat facts and doctrii 
Christianity, and are on record, 
who submits to 1 1 tese judgments k 
to what he is submitting. The n 
fiis of all Catholic doctrine is giv 
him in the decrees of the Coimi 
Trent, Since that Council ther 
been hut one definition of faith i 
and that t-as the dcBnitionof ado4 
already universally believed befc 
was defined. The notion that a Ca' 
is subject to capricious, urbilnir^ 
unlimited decrees bindin<r hi* fa 
altogether chimerical. There i 
room for furtlier definitions exoe 
reganl to certain theological q\ie( 
relating to doctrines already de 
and the practice of the churcl 
proved how slow .*he is to limit th 
erty of opinion in the schoob by a 
decision of questions of this kind. 
argument from the tyrannicAl nali 
church authority is therefore a 
begging of ihe question in dispul 
tween t^'atliolics and Protestants 
the church, as Catholii*s dellui 
churcfj, be not infallible* her ju 
deeisiims of doctrine are tyntn 
If site is infallible, they aire 
and do not enclave either faith m 



Dr. Baeon <m Corwersians io the CaAoUc CkurdL 



111 



MO. It is no tynaxoy o^er faith, to 
■ake known with unerring certainty 
vliat God has rsTealed, or what is a 
deduction from that which he has 
ie?ealedL It is no tyranny over rea- 
MB to fdmish it with certain universal 
prmciples and indisputable data, from 
vhieh to make its deductions. The 
only real question, therefore, respects 
the infallibility of the church. 80 far 
ts the great mysteries of faith which 
lie believed by orthodox Protestants 
ne concerned, they must admit that 
(be Catholic Church holds and teaches 
tbem; is compelled by her own formal 
principle to hold them, because she 
bts long ago put on record her testi- 
iMmj respecting them; and can never 
dw^ her doctrine on any of these 
Vila] points. 

Our second conclusion is, that the 
Mtkn of Catholic dcx^trine which con- 
onves of it as requiring one to believe 
^ there is no true IsJth or holiness 
antBide of the visible communion of 
the See of Peter, is equally erroneous. 
AU that Archbishop Manning has said 
of the workings of the Holy Spirit in 
the Chnrch of England is equally ap- 
pGctble to the Con<;regational Church 
of Connecticut We have no just rea- 
sons for regarding the original colo- 
nistd as formal heretics or schismatics, 
sod even less reason for including the 
nbeequent generations in that cate- 
fonr. All who have lived and died in 
that faith which worketh by charity 
we acknowledge as the children of 
God and our brethren in Jesus Christ. 
Those now Kving who have this Jides 
formata^ are spiritually united to the 
Holy Catholic Church, the communion 
of saints. Consequently, if any of 
these shall hereafter enter the visible 
hody of the church, not only will they 
Bot be required to deny the validity of 
their baptismal covenant with God, 
and to abjure their former spiritual 
ii^, but they will find in the tribunal 
of peoancc that both will be rccog- 
mzpd. 

We repeat, therefore, once more, 
that the proper basis on which we may 
confer together concerning the faith, is 



to be found in those doctrines in 
which we agree, and not in those in 
which we differ. We may not make 
a positive judgment in regard to the 
interior and subjective relation of in- 
dividuals toward God or the true 
Church of God. We leave that to 
him who is the only judge of hearts 
and consciences. We arc sure of 
this, however, that we are bound to 
cultivate the spirit of Christian charity 
toward those who profess allegiance to 
our common Lord, to the utmost possi- 
ble extent. This charity forbids us to 
make an arrogant and harsh judgment 
that they are, en masse and by the 
simple fact of their outward profession, 
aliens from the household of faith, or 
that any particular individual is so, un- 
less he makes it plainly manifest in his 
conduct. We are agreed on both 
sides that we are responsible to God 
to our belief ; and bound, as teachers 
and theologians, to study conscientious- 
ly the truths of the divine revelation. 
We have also a common interest in en- 
deavoring to come to an agreement, so 
far as this is necessary in order to es- 
tablish unity of faith and of ecclesias- 
tical fellowship. Let us suppose for a 
moment that Dr. Bacon represents the 
Congregational clergy of Connecticut, 
and that wc have the honor to repre- 
sent the Catholic clergy. We shall 
agree that it is our common interest to 
defend the authenticity and inspira- 
tion of all those books of (he Holy 
Scripture which we revere in common 
as canonical, and the historic truth of 
the Mosaic and Evangelical records, 
against infidel rationalism. Also, to 
solve the difficulties raised by modern 
science in relation to the harmony be- 
tween rational and revealed truth. 
Also, to preserve the faith of the people 
in the Trinity, the Incai*nation, and 
other doctrines which we hold in com- 
mon, and which are strongly attacked 
by many popular preachers and writers 
in New-England. Also, to counteract 
the tendency to indifferentism and 
apathy in regard to religion which is 
so common. Also, to take all possible 
means to bring the mass of the people 



Dr. Bacon an Vanueniona to the CatMie Churehw 



fl«r the influence of the spiritual 

and maml truths of tbe Grospel. Al^o, 

tjj protect the Christian onliaanee of 

marmge fmrn being to a grn^at extent 

aabrerted by the practice of divorce. 

' Also, to suppreiis intempenmce, licen- 

rttousness, and immorahties dei?lrijelive 

I of the well'beinfj; of society. Also, to 

proteet the reli^'^ioiis liber ties and nghtd 

of nil relijriou'i societies, mid tlie prup- 

erty wliieli in devoted to rchj^Jom?, char- 

' itftble* and scientific purposes. Also, 

io do all in vur power lo blend t)ie 

various elements of the pupubiliun into 

one homogeneous body* and to educate 

tbeni in an enlig:htened and devoted 

'attachment to tbe pollteal principles 

f of the founders of the state* 

We will not go any farther with our 
[enumeration, for fear of assimiing too 
I much in reipect to the ftentiments of 
r our respected friend* Dr, Bacon. We 
[speak for our individual «e!f alone, in 
^faying that we cannot hat deplore the 
obstacle which h put in the w^ay of 
IcJirrying out into practical resulta our 
t common desire for the 9|iintual, moral, 
- and social ivell-beinpf of the people of 
kour native and ancestral State, by the 
[iehism which exints among those who 
[|n'ofe>*3 in eonnnon ao large a [jortion 
lot the Chrifilian tlulh. The **pectaclo 

Ei>?sented by a dividetl Chri!*tianity is 
> us extremely painful We think it 
f Cnght to be, also, to a member of the 
ehun^h founded by the Pyritan>. The 
fin'efathers of New-Kngland undouht- 
cdly intended to plant the pure ebureb 
I and faith of Christ. They made the 
[greatest sacrifices and the most lieroic 
exertions in order to do it* They ex- 
[peeted their church to flourish* to re- 
^tnain, and to include in its fold all tlieir 
posterity; They look .^omesv hat sirin- 
gent nieiisurt'S lo seen re the ^uece^^s of 
their plan, and notvvilh*^tandit)g our 
difterence of jntlgment from them as 
f lo the justicf? or wisdom of their policy, 
^we must hUow that they were con- 
Seientiou^^ Things have tunied out, 
tliowever, quite otherwise iban they 
•anguinely expected. Not lo «peak 
it>t the mora extreme change which 
llmg taken place at tbe headquartera of 



Puritanism, ConQecticut is divtd 
among Congregationalists, Epi« 
liand, Methodists, and Baptists, ( 
nothing of the small sect^ which 
there. Rival colleges and 6 emit 
have been established, and even 
schools of theology among the 
gregationalij^ts dispute over the] 
spective interpret a tiona of tbe ai 
s t anda id s of dot.' trine. D r. Baco 
hk friends have bad lio little to i 
during their public career as min 
and professora of theology, from th 
putation of heterodoxy, and they 
well how frequently and how d 
religious diflTerenct^s have intci 
with the peace of familie?*, the utii 
friends, and the Buccec^s of reli 
efforts. The Catholic Church w 
nothing about, for lliij* has been a) 
exclusively tbe church of a lat« 
migmtion of poor people, who 
sought an a?iylum from Eaglinli t; 
ny among the descendanrs of 
who long ago fled from tlmt sam 
ranny, and so nobly broke its 
from their necks. 

Ilawever tolerable and anavoi< 
such a state of thingis may appe 
some, we cannot but think tliat 
foresight of it would liare made 
stem old Puritans of the ancient I 
groan in spirit. We ooufess tlia 
sympathize with them, and that i 
easioas mournful thought.*^ to lool 
the failure of i^utdi a high souled 
dertaking as theirs. We sympai 
with their strong afBrmation of t 
dogmatic and ecclesiastical princi 
and with ibe same affirmation a* i 
by thi>se who have adhered Ic 
doctrine banded down fi*om them, 
cannot help looking on divisioi 
spei^ting that which pertains lo tbe 
orthodox faith, and tlie essential t 
of Christian communion, as a | 
evil. The complaint made by 
late emioeni president of Brown 
ven^ity. Dr. Way land, of the eJ 
sive and grow uig scepticism of edi 
ed men, and tlie general dt^r^y of [ 
ticjil faith, must t>e well known U} 
edueacefl relif^ious public of I 
England. It is our opluion, thai 




JDK Baean cm Canversians to the CathoHe (Ukurek, 



118 



iqMuatkm and disagreement aa^ng 
the professed teachers of ChristiaDity 
IB one gieat cause of this, and that it 
breaks the moral force of the evidence 
of ChristiaDity in the minds of a large 
portion of the roost intelligent class, 
and in the popular mind also. It dis- 
integrates and neutralizes that power 
which a united body would have, and 
which would give it an irresistible 
moral force against infidelity, irreli- 
gion, and public immorality. We can- 
■ot help longing for the time, when 
aU those who are now disunited shall 
be brought together in one fold, pro- 
feBsing one faith, exhibiting the divine 
troth of the religion of Jesus Christ 
by their charity and peace, training up 
tbeir children from infancy in the 
practice of religion, worshipping at 
tbe same altar, participating in life 
aad at the hour of death in the same 
bolj rites, and fully realizing what 
a Christian people ought to be. 

The Puritan fathers of New-Eng- 
iiod had a foreshadowing of this state 
of things, a foreshadowing, as we hope, 
of a reality to come. In our opinion, 
**they builded better than they knew." 
We believe they were led here by the 
proFidence of God, and guided by a 
higber power than their own. So far 
ti their work was merely human and 
defective, it was temporary and must 
pass away. So far as it was divine, it 
was lasting and must stand forever. 
They have founded noble institutions 
of Icaniing and general education. 
They have transmitted a Christian 
tradition, which has entered into the 
rery roots and fibres of intellectual 
lad social life so strongly as to be in- 
eradicable. However the plant may 
bagoish, the root is still vitaL Even 
those who have wandered far beyond 
the region of Unitarianism into specu- 
huioos so vague and misty that they 
ii« almost atheistic, show in their lan- 
guage, habits of thought, and entire 
mental structure, that they have come 
from a Christian stock. The question 
of qaestions is always, what is the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ and the mean- 
ing of his life and death upon the 

VOL. V. 8 



earth? We hope, therefore, that 
the work commenced by these sternly 
earnest men may be completed. In 
our view of the matter, it was neces- 
sary for divine Providence to interfere, 
after a long lapse of time, to carry out its 
own far-seeing purposes, into which this 
first and human plan was to be made 
to blend and lose itself The first ref- 
ugees from the spiritual tyranny of 
the British crown sought only an asy- 
lum for themselves and their progeny, 
where they might realize their own pe- 
culiar ideal of a Christian state and 
church, in a condition of colonial de- 
pendence on the mother country. As 
in the political order, the results of the 
colonization of America have taken an^ 
unforeseen form and magnitude, so in^ 
the spiritual. Roger Williams led out 
a new band of Puritanissimi fromi 
among the Puritans, which made one 
division among them. The Chtftch of 
England stretched her roots also over 
to the virgin soil of New-England, and 
her •igorous offshoot, Methodism, fol- 
lowed. Rationalism, too, has run its 
course, as we all know, from the startr 
ing point of Channing, to the most ad- 
vanced position of Emerson. Finally, 
another race, distinct from the English, 
race by a difference of origin running 
back to the deluge, whose origin as a 
people dates from the period of the 
grandfather of Moses, and as a Christ- 
ian people from the period of the Fa- 
thers of the Church, has transplanted 
that form of Christianity which it has« 
kept unaltered for fourteen centuries, 
to the same soil, where it grows 
and flourishes " like a green bay-tree." 
It is our opinion, that the Providence 
of God will bring something out of this 
far grander and more perfect than the- 
ideal church of our ancestors. We* 
think that the blending of races will 
produce a more perfect type of man- 
hood and a stronger people. We 
think, also, that the religion of this 
people will contain all the positive 
qualities of the different elements 
that will combine to form it. Catho- 
lic dogma and discipline, which con- 
tains in itself all that is positive i» 



Ill 



Dr. Bacon on Gontfenions to ih$ Caikdic Church* 



every form of religion, will a,58iraikit0 
whatever m good in all it finds around 
it, ititegratiDg the noble fragmente 
whieh have been rent from the great 
LNlifice of C-hristianity into a perfect 
unity with architectanic skill. The 
coUision, intershock, abrasion, and 
mpUiiig together of these various in- 
tellectual and spiriiual forces will re- 
sult in the harinonizing of all into a 
unity in whieh the opposite tendencies 
counterbalance each oihcr. Depth and 
gimplieity of interior life wilb a rich 
and varied ritualisoi, moral strictness 
and aelf-abncgation witli a noble mag- 
nificence, taste and sobriety with fcr* 
vor of devotion* nnwaverhig orthodoxy 
with a genuine rationalism, stahihty of 
forms with a genial variety, hierarchi- 
cal order with a manly liberty of per- 
gonal action, form the grand features 
of the type of Christianity destined to 
he remiised in the future* This is 
merely our opinion, and we do not 
•expect that it will be generally re- 
•ceived by iboee who will read these 
words at the present time. AVe 
.-31 re confident, however, that their 
truth and force will be recognized 
hereafter, long after wo are numbcT- 
<?d with the dead* We have no ex- 
pectation that the schism among those 
who profcias the Christian name ivill 
be healed in a summary manner, or 
as the simple result of diseussion and 
•conference. It must be the work of 
the Creative Spirit, and cannot be ac- 
•oom [dished without an extraortlinnry 
j^oramuni cation €>f gi-ace. It requires 
time, also, and a gradual process. We 
have no intention of making an arrogant 
claim of immediate submission to the 
authority of the Catholic Church ui>on 
those who are not reasonably and calm- 
ly convinced of its legitimate founda- 
tion. We are simply desirous of 
making a begiuinng in the explina- 
tion of our own belief, in order to pro- 
mote A better mutual understanding 
•of the question at issue between us. 
We ask simply* what we are willing 
to concede to fair and honorable op- 
ponents, a hearing and a candid coa- 
siduration. The only weight we pro- 



"I 



fesa to give to the con versions out ' 
which this discussion has arisen is al 
moral weight entitling I he reasons and| 
causes whieh have produced them to ; 
serious examination. Dr. Bacon haii 
placed in the opposite scale the no- 
torious fact of the great losses the Cath- 
oUc Church lias sustained by the de-J 
fection of hyr own members. We beg 
leave to suggest, however, that thers 1 
is no parity between tlie two facts he 
endeavors to lialance against each 
other. Those who lapse into infi- 
deUty have lirst extinguished their oou- 
scicnce. They are not seeking to draw 
near to God and to serve Jesus Ciirist^i 
hut to escape from the dominion of both* 
Those who have become Protcstanti 
have not been instructed and pious Cath- 
olics who were seeking for more lighli 
and gracci hut the ofl&pring of parentgi 
through whose negligence or misfor* 
tune they had been letl to grow u|» 
without instruction or practical rclig^ 
ion. On the contrary, a brge nnm- 
Ix^r of int#-dbgeitt, well-instructed P^ol*^ 
estants, some of whom were rlergvmetl 
of the highest standing, like Dn New^ 
man, Dr. Manning, and Dr, Ives, have 
been luA by the very effort tliey bav0 
made to come up to the highcht standi 
ard of faith and piety presented bjp 
their church, after long and carefull 
deliberation, to the threshold of the 
Catholic Church, and have crossedi 
that threshold. Dr. Bacon dcnic 
that this fact lias any particular 
ment for those who are not in the viH. 
itiedid of the Anglican Church, but 
are standuifr on what he deems th€ 
surer foundation of the Reformed, 
religion as esL-iblished by Luther and 
Calvin* Let his exception have itff^ 
full value* Nevertlieless, the same 
thing has occurred on a lesser scale 
in the Lullieran and other churcheei 
of Switzerland and Germany. Ilallcr^ 
Schlegel, Hurler, and Phillips ar 
names probably not unknown to the 
learned Protestants of our country* 
In our own country, among the 
(tcnnan Ilcformed Presbyterians, 
Dn Nevin and othera have advanc* 
ed to a position whose logical dirceticKI 




iV. Baem om ComenUmt to the Catholic Church 



llA 



ii straight into the Catholic Chareh. 
The effbrts of the iUostmos Leibnitz 
in a former oentary, and of Goizot 
tt the jiTpeent moment, to span the 
(hum between Protestant orthodoxy 
and Catholicism are well known. The 
beginning of a reactionary movement 
of the orthodox Protestants toward 
Rome is indicated in the most terse 
and dedsive manner by the great 
historian Leo, whose authority is in- 
diBpatable. Leo is the friend of 
Hengstenberg the illustrious vindica- 
Uff of the Bible against neology ; a 
professor in the Protestant University 
of HaDe ; and the author of a Text 
Book of Universal Histoiy, which is 
both a scientific masterpiece and also 
one of the most splendid arguments for 
£Tine revelation and the truth of Christ- 
iuity which this century has produc- 
ed. These are his words taken from 
die work just mentioned : 

"We shall he obliged to seek for the au- 
ftoriiation of Protestantism and its mission 
is somethtng widely dtflTerent from church 
derdopment, and foroed to concede that 
Pratoiantiam in the main forms only an ex- 
ceptional case in the shape of a place of ehcl- 
terfrom ecclesiastical difficulties, and that the 
Boom Church, when once released from the 
(faituB of her mission in other quarters, will 
fka torn her attention, not to the abolition 
of papal authority, but to its more distinct 
de&ition, and secure it from arbitrary acts 
flf tdministration, such, for example, as occur 
io the statement of the Thomist theses re^ 
^rding the connection between indulgences 
i&dthe doctrines of the church, and in one of 
tbe decrees against the Jansenists, and then 
*ifl the possibility of the Protestant world re- 
tBrning to the church be realized."* 

We have nothing to say on the 
' particular point the learned historian 
nises about doctrinal decbions of the 
Holy See, but have quoted his words 
JQst as they stand in order to show the 
similarity of his position to that of Dr. 
pQsey, and to prove that thoughtful 
minds in Germany as well as in Englapd 
UB beginning to desire a reconciliation 
of the separate communions with the 
great body of Christendom. The Cath- 
oBc tendency is, tlierefore, not one 
iriiich has sprung solely out, of the 

• UkilT. CkKfalcbte, toL m., p. 181. 



hierarchical and sacramental doctrin#>s 
preserved by a kind of semi -Catholic 
tradition in the high church school of 
the Anglicans. It has a deeper seat 
and n wider extension. It is not pos* 
sible to nullify its importance by quali- 
fying converts to the Catholic Church 
as men who have made an ^ abnega> 
tion of reason, of the faculty which dis- 
cerns right and wrong, and even of 
choice and personal responsibility to 
God," stifled their faculties of think- 
ing for themselves and of discerning 
between truth and falsehood. This 
theory will not hold water, as the 
judgment of the English press on 
the controversy between Mr. Kingsley 
and Dr. Newman amply proves. The 
prejudice against Catholics is wearing 
away. Many, even devout Protestan ts, 
have no longer any objection to join 
in the prayers or listen to the sermons 
or read the books of Catholic priests. 
Catholics and Protestants are becom 
ing connected by ties of blood or 
marriage, they mingle in the social 
circle, and they have fought side by 
side on the bloody battle-field. The 
impressions made on the imagination 
of childhood must necessarily be effac- 
ed by contact with the reality. The 
Catholic religion will become known 
for what it is, and its advocates will 
receive the respectful hearing to which 
they are entitled. 

We have all along intimated that it 
is not so much the mere exterior argu- 
ment for the authority of the church, as 
the dogmatic theology and tlie interior 
spiritual doctrine preserved and trans- 
mitted by her authoritative teadiing, 
to which we desire to see the attention 
of our evangelical brethren directed. 
The soul of the church is the noblest 
of its parts, and the vivifying principle 
of the body. The really cardinal 
question at issue concerns the methoJ 
by which the individual soul is united 
with this soul of the church, nourished 
and perfected in divine knowledge and 
love. In this is included the nature 
of that manifestation of itself which the 
soul of the church makes in its visible 
body. We have no time to go into 



1M 



Dr* Bacon on Conveniont to tha Catholic Church, 



this subject at present* Courtcsj to 
both the writers whose articles we are 
reviewing requires, however, that we 
KhouW notice some of the topics over 
which their polemical weapons have 
ctasheil so vigorously* 

The writer of the article in thia 
raagazine denies that Protoalanls hold 
the doctrine of the visibility of the 
ctiurcht while the writer in the *'New 
Englnnder" in«J ignantty affirms Ihal they 
do hoM it* Both are in the rirjht, be- 
cause each has an entirely iljffi.Tcnt 
idea of the visible church from the 
other. TJie Catholic idea will be found 
very ably exhibited in an essay on the 
Two Sides of Catholicism, translat- 
ed from I lie German, and published in 
§ome of the euHiest numberi of this 
tniigazinc. W'ant of time and the ne- 
cessity of keeping our artiek within 
proper limits oblige us to leave the 
matter without further remark, i^imply 
observing tliat no Catholic theolotrian 
would evej* think of denying that ortlio- 
dox Protestants hold to a visible, uni- 
versal church, in the sense explained 
by Dr. Bacon. 

In rejjard to justification, the first 
writer asserts that, according to I he 
Protestant doctrine, ^xt^ry mim who 
lielieves he is saved by Christ is 
by tlmt sole belief united to the in- 
visible church, which his opponent 
also vehemently denies. It \a the 
original, genuine Lutheran doctrine, 
S<da Jid^s formaliler jtutljical^ Faith 
alone formally justifies, whi^^li is in 
question. We do not tliink J>r. 
Bjicon either understands or b< lieyes 
this doctrine. The New England 
theology has from the beginning had 
a character of itij own^ in which tlie 
subjective change calkd regeneration, 
n change of heart, or conversion, con- 
sisting in an inward, !f;upernatur;il 
tmnsibrraation of the soul through the 
^aee of the Holy Spirit, has been 
made very prominent. The Catholic 
formula, Fidi% una cnm alits reqatsi- 
iht dispoiitive jtisttficat^ Faith, U> 
ircther with other requbitcs, disposi- 
tively justifies, expresses better the 
spirit of this theology than the Lu- 



or- 

kOt| 



theran formula. That the meritfl of 
Chinht ai*e the meritorious cause of^ 
justi^calion is agreed upon by all par»H 
ties. The exact sense of the Lutheran 
formula h ditllcult of apprehension and 
of expression in clear terms. As we 
understand it, it imports that the justiB 
cation of the sinner, which is, in this sys- 
tem, a mere forsensic justification, atnl 
is from eternity objectively perfect, ia| 
subjeciively applied by an act of tlii 
mind firmly believing on Christ as ib^l 
substitute and mnsoraof the particularl 
f ubject making this act. In the strtdt } 
Calvinistic system, the doctrine that 
Christ redeemed only the elect is dis- 
tinctly made the basis of the doctrine 
of justifie^Uion by faith alone. Saving 
faifh, therefore, implies that the sub* 
ject believes that Christ died for him 
in |T(articiilar, and that consequently he 
is entitled to the favor of God and 
eternal life, irre^[)ective of his person* ■ 
al acts, although he cannot receive ^ 
tliis favor or be prepared' for the hap- 
piness of heaven without the gift of a 
grace wJiich gniduajly sanctifies him»fl 
Fletcher of Madfly, the great theolo-" 
gian of the Methodists, wrote most 
ably against this Solifidlan system* It^^ 
has abo been strongly combated witli*fl 
in the past few months by Dr. Young, ™ 
of Kdinburgh. It is our opinion that 
this doctrinr^ tends to reduce religion to 
pure individualism, and thus to oblit- 
erate both donfma and church* It 
concentrates the method of salvation 
into a mental or spiritual act by whicli^ 
Christ is apprehended in the relation f 
of Saviour, This act is supposed to lie 
excited by a supernatural inspiration of 
the Holy Spirit ; but, as I here w no test 
by which the reality of the inspiration 
can be certainly verified, it reduee9-'d 
personal reli^^ion to a subjective senti- 
ment. A subjective personal trust In 1 
and ftffeclion to Jesus Christ becomea, J 
therefoit», the principal mark of A^ 
Christian and of a member of the tni6 
chui'ch. All who have tins oughti 



1 

I 



tiiereforc, to fraternize and commune 

de 
judgment on matters of doctrine is 



tosrether. The principle of private ■ 
closely connected with this principle of 




Dr. Bacom an Camfenums to ike CaihoUe CkureL 



117 



iafindoalifim in the rekdoD of the soul 
to Qirist. Intellectual and spiritoal 
indiYidnalism is the metaphysical note 
cf Protestantism. Spiritual illumina- 
tioQ not being anything which can be 
rerified, except by miracles, the princi- 
ple of individaalism has a tendency to 
efiminate it, and to substitute pure ra- 
tkmalism. Hence, the great Protes- 
tut writer Leo says, in the immediate 
eontext of Uie passage above cited from 
kis history, that ^ entire Protestantism 
has continually complained of its ina- 
bility eTcr to arrive at any union as 
regards the question whether the 
Scripture is to be interpreted by rea- 
loo akxie or through interior illumina- 
tioQ." When we talk about Protes- 
tantism, we include the whole nominal 
Phitestant world, and do not restrict 
our remarks to the comparatively 
mall number of faithful adherents to 
tJK old orthodox confessions. We 
ifieak of the logical principles which 
&tinguish Protestantism from Cath- 
oBcity, as they are in their abstract 
weoce, and as they work out their ef- 
fects of negation and individualization. 
Ai to the actual, concrete condition of 
Frotestant bodies, it is very easy to 
Bse kMse expressions, and to make 
hiBty generalizations, which can easily 
be criticised. The writer attacked by 
Dr. Bacon may have fallen into some 
inaccuracies of this kind. They afford 
DO ground, however, for the charge of 
either ignorance or wilful misrepresen- 
tatkm. We do not caro to analyze either 
hisHtatanents or the counter statements 
of hb opponent. The manifest fact 
that a considerable body of Protestants 
do hold to the dogmatic formularies of 
tbeir churches, and to strict practical 
rales of moral and religious duty, is 
one which we not only acknowledge, 
bat take a great pleasure in knowing 
to exist We are glad to estimate the 
Christian fidth and piety which exist 
aoMNig them at its highest probable 
maxunnm. 

Another point to be noticed is the 
estimation in which the Holy Scrip- 
tures are heki among Catholics. This 
is a point of great importance in our 



estimation, and one in which it gives 
us great pain that the true Catholic 
sentiment should be misunderstood. 
Controversialists may sometimes exag^ 
gerate the difficulty of understanding 
the meaning of the Scriptures, when 
they are intent on proving the neces- 
sity of Catholic tradition and a teach- 
ing authority, or use expressions which 
would at first view appear to a devout 
Protestant like Richard Baxter or Dr. 
Bacon, lacking in due reverence for 
the written word of God. It is only, 
however, a want of acquaintance with 
the real doctrine and spirit of the Cath- 
olic Church which causes a person to 
be scandalized by such things. It is 
in the works of the fathers, of the doc- 
tors, of the great theologians, of the 
saints, that we find the just and ade- 
quate expression of the mind of the 
churoh. It is impossible to exaggerate 
the sentiment of reverence for the Holy 
Scriptures with which those great 
writers are filled. It is the perennial 
source, pure and undefiled, from which 
their inspiration is drawn. The Bible 
is the work of God, as the firmament 
of heaven is his work. It has the 
precedence of dignity over tradition, 
decrees of councils, theology, science, 
literature, every other work in which 
man concurs with the spirit of Grod ; 
because in the production of the Bible 
the Spirit of God has concurred with 
the spirit of man in a higher and more 
immediate manner. There is but one 
question to be asked : How shall we 
ascertain the true sense of the Scrip- 
ture ? For, as soon as it is ascertained, 
it demands the homage of the mind 
perse as the revelation of infinite truth. 
We concur in what Dr. Bacon has 
written on this point, so far as its 
general scope is concerned. He es- 
tablishes all we desire to maintain, 
namely, that the truths of revelation 
are not given in the form of systema- 
tized dogmatic teachings in the Scrip- 
ture. Therefore it is that we need 
to be imbued with the sense of the 
Scripture by traditional teaching, and 
to be furnished with a dogmatic for- 
mula in which its doctrines are clearly 



w 



Dr. Baton an Conver$ioni ta A« Catholie Church, 



defined, in onler to be able easily and 
certainly to perceive in tbeir sublimity 
and compleumess the divide truths 
con lai tied in it. IIencc% tlie Jews^ for 
naiit ot' til 18, ciinuot see Chnst in the 
Old Testament. Unilurians cannot 
nee the Trinity or Incarnation in tlic 
New Te&tametit. Calliolica, ADpilicans, 
Congre^atioiialistg, Calvtnisls, Arrne- 
niatitt, HatioDaltsts, Friends^ Camp- 
belliics, and many others, cannot ajii-ee 
aii to the combinatitin principle wbich 
wiil oiilock the whole meaning of tlje 
Scripture. We do not attribute this 
to the Scriptures theniBclves, but to 
the incapability of the individual mind 
or spirit to lake the fdaee of the 
divinely appointed, infallible witness, 
teacher, and judj^e of controversiea, to 
irhoee keeping the sacred Scriptures 
have been committ«?d. When faith 
19 fixed as regards the great universal 
dognias, and the canon authoriialively 
settled, a perlect univert^e is opened to 
the student of the Holy Scriptures, 
where he may prosecute his studies 
uncontrolled by anythiug: except rea* 
feon, conscience, and a just humility. 
Wo have no question whatever tlml 
all the articles of the Cathidic Faith 
con be eoncluKively proved by Scrip - 
tore. None wlmtever that the prin- 
ciples on whkli nound criticibin and 
eJtegcsis are conducted are truly scien- 
tific We believe that the books of 
Scripture are inteUi*Fib|p, and a perfect 
mine of iotellectual, spiritual and 
moral treasure. This is* true, emi- 
ncnlly^ of the sacred books as they are 
studied in their originul languages. It 
is no le^s true, however, that its most 
imjiortant treasures of knowleilge are 
equally open to those who can read 
the best versions. No book has ever 
been so many times well tran.^lated as 
the Bible. Let a version ha warranted 
by a t^mpetcnt authority, and one may 
cx|mtiate in it with as much freedom 
and confidence that his mind is really 
borne up on the ocean of divine truth, 
as if be could i"ead the Hebrew and 
Greek whh the readine^ of a Mai or 
a Heng^tenberg. It is, therefore, with- 
out doubt, a moat excellent and profit- 



able exercise for f^ood, plain 

able to read and undei^tand the En 
Bitde, to read it continually andatten* 
tivej}^ In proportion as one become! 
capable of understanding the Halj 
Scripture.^, and has the means of prots- 
ecuting hiK studies, in the some pro* 
portion will the advantage to l>e gained 
increase. We have no fear of aoj 
inleiligent, instructed Catholic being 
injured by reading the Bible, Nor do 
we consider the very general and high 
esteem of King James^ version among 
Engliish-speaking Protestants, and thea 
general tauiiliarity w^ith it, as an evil, 
or as an obstacle to the spread of* Cath- 
olic doctrines. We regard that ver- 
sion as among the best in literary ex- 
cellence, nnd as sulistantially accurate. 
We would us soon argue from it with 
a Protestant as from the original 
texts, indeed, we think it a s[>ecial 
blessing of God that one version, and 
tlmt one so generally faithful to the 
true sense of the Scrij»ture, should be 
almost universally diffused through the 
Engliah speaking world. Would that 
all who have inherited the Christian 
name wcni firmly pers^uaded of thc^ 
divine inspiration of the Scriptures and 
sincerely desirous to leani their true 
meaning I Wifh all tliosc who ac- 
knowledge Jesus Christ to be an iufaU^ 
lible Teacher sent from God, we feel 
that we have one firm spot to stand 
rrpon. AVbpre not only this Inith Is held, 
but, also, that he is the true and eter- 
nal Son of God, and that the New 
Testament of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Chj-ist is so in^^^ired by his Spirit 
that every 9tatemeni it contains 
specting doctrine, morals^ and the facts 
connected with them is infallibly true, 
we have another firm spot broader than 
the fii^t. Aj* for ihoee who have alto- 
gether lost their footing upon even the 
fijrst of these solid Christian principle, 
we may well shudder at the magnitude 
and diAiculty of the work of their n*- 
con vers ion to Christianity. Yet^ this 
is tlie great v^ork rvally im pending, 
unless we would see a large portion of 
Christendom swept away into infidehty, 
and involved in all its appalling coo* 



I 




AAione amdAttghrinu 



119 



sequences. For tbts reason we desire 
with aU our heart that the differences 
among those who helieve that all ihe 
hopes of the haman race are contained 
ID the Christian revelation should be 
finallj settled, and that all should agree 
IS to what that Christianity i^, which 
8liali be proposed to the acceptance of 
all mankind. This desire has been 
our motive for endeavoring to pierce 
through the special and personal issues 
of the controversy before us, and to 
bring it upon broader and more open 
ground. We have endeavored to get 
the question out of a region where we 
conceive that misunderstanding and 
Qieless contention will be interminable. 
There is an antecedent difficulty in the 
way which we know very well, and 
did know before we were so distinctly 
reminded of it by our learned friends of 
New»Haven. It is the preconceived 
opimon thej hold respecting the end 



and object which the advocates of the 
Catholic religion have in view, and 
the policy according to which they aoi 
Wc have not been sanguine enough to 
suppose that anything we can say will 
remove this difficulty. Until our . re- 
spected friends become familiar with the 
works of our great theologians and 
spiritual writers, and come into closer 
intellectual contact with the general 
Catholic mind and heart, there must 
be a non-conducting medium between 
us, which will obstruct the communi- 
cation of thought and sentimenL We 
aim only to recommend this study, on 
grounds of reason, policy, and Christian 
charity. We have already seen its ef- 
fects in many instances in bringing 
nearer together those who are widely 
sundered, and therefore we will cherish 
the hope that its ultimate result may 
be a complete and universal recon- 
ciliation. 



Abridged ftrom the Dablin Unirerslty Mag&siae. 

ATHLONE AND AUGHRIM. 



PIEPAIIATIOKS VOB THE BTBU60LE. 

DrRHTG the winter and spring of 
1691, General Ginckel had the comfort 
of aeeuig the forces under his command 
tolerably well clothed and fed, and 
boosed in different cities and towns, 
while their antagonists in Connaught 
enjoyed these advantages but spar- 
iogly. Tyrconnell returned from 
France in January, leaving 10,000 
kmis d*or at Brest to purchase pro- 
vifionSv etc, and bringing to Limerick 
aboQt 18,000. He established public 
confidence to some extent by reducing 
eopper crowns and half-crowns to 
iheir just value. He gratified the 
Irish party by producing a royal 
patent, creating Sarsfield Earl of 

xLocan, Viscount of Tully, and Baron 

of Bosbenj. 



In May of tne same year arrived in 
the Shannon the French fleet, laden 
with provisions, arms, ammunition, 
and clothing, but neither men nor 
money. However, what they did bring 
must have been a great boon to the 
poor soldiers, whose pay, when money 
was available, had hitherto not ex- 
ceeded a penny a day. With these 
supplies came Greneral St. Ruth to 
assume the command of James's forces 
in Ireland, which at and from that 
time included no French soldiers. 
The main strength of WiUiam's- 
armies was concentrated about Mul- 
lingar, and the Dutch commander - 
was ably seconded by his officers— 
Talmash, Mackay, and De Ruvigny, 
names familiar to the readers of 
Richard Ashton's play of the *• Battle 
of Anghrim.'' St. Ruth had for 



IM 



Athlmu and Aughrim. 



I 



aSBidtanfa Mfljors-Genernl d'Usson 
and De Tesac, ami Lloytennnt-General 
Patrick Sarsfleld, but Linlmppily for 
the cause he came to maintain he 
assumed aira of reserve and i?ttpenor- 
ity with the Irish nobleman, which 
the latter could til brook. 

On June the Cth of that eventful 
year the camf)aign may be said to 
have begun with the marcli from 
MuUingar* We learn from ^^ Tristram 
Shandy" that the army in Flaadera 
BWore friglitfully, and indeed it was 
not much better in AVestmeath. We 
find Baron de Gtnekel giving strict 
orderjjj, while the army wa.s pnjceedin*^ 
westward, that the cha[dain slioyld 
Ifead pmyera at the head of eaeh 
liejriracnt at ten in the morning, and 
Injruin at &even in the evcnrng, and 
eithort their fltx'ks to deHiHt from 
swearing, ** a vice (as Rev. Mr. Story 
complains) too common among ii.»/** 
** Stealing" secmi to have been another 
prevalent weaknesa ; the chaplain re- 
lates how " a fellow stole a horse and 
waa hanged for it, wldch wrou«^ht some 
refonnation for a time/* The follow* 
ing order implies considerable de- 
moitilization amonj^ the vari^nl popu- 
lace in arms niled by the able Dutch 
general : *' No sutler or other persoa 
whatever should buy any amniuni- 
tion» arms, or accoutrements, or any 
thing that belonged to the 8oldk*»*s 
on pain of death ; becau.se the soldiL^rs 
for a little money would be apt to sell 
iheir eloaihs or shoes; and if as great 
care were not t ak*;Q of most of ihem 
a5 of cliildren. {\iQy would soon be tu 
tft very indiflerent cxmditiotu" 

The only incident that varied their 
march to Atldone was the taking of 
the strong fort of BaUymore* Mr. 
jitory ceuHUit?(i the commander, Myles 
Burke, for ** not listening to the 
:jfencnir§ mild proposals," After 
vigorous salutations of powder and 
Rhot on both sides, Ginckel sent a 
verbal demand to surivnder within 

two hours or else 1 Governor 

Burke requested the message to be 
•conveyed to him In writing, liiit gained 
ing by the inolioa. The follow- 



ing missive was immediately sent in 
writing; 

*' Since the govcmour desires to wo la 
nv riling the intissnge which I just now MOt 
him by word of mouth, bo may knoir tlitl 
it' be surrenders tlic fort of Baltjmore to 
mc witliin two hours, I will give him and 
bis garri«on their lirea nnd m&ke thcni 
pnsoacrs of war. If not, neither he nor 
I hey shall have Any quarter, nor another 
opportunity of saving therosdvea. flow 
ever, if in that time their women and 
children will go out they hare my kftve 
** Given in the camp^ this 

«tb day of June, 1691, 

At eight a clock in the 

morttiug. 

Ba&, Di OiirociLL,' 



now- 

and 

i 




The general was not so severe in 
dcetl fm in word, for though rcdistanee 
contimied to be made with two 
Turkish cannon mounted on cart- 
wheels, much beyond the Htipuhvted 
two liouris, he si ill treated the de- 
ll- ad ers fis prisoners of war. 

TUt: fiIKr*E or ATUL025E. 

On llie 19th of June the English 
cannon bepjan to thunder on ihe de- 
voted outworks of the English town 
of Athlonc, to wit, that portion of it 
which stands on tlie eastern side of 
ihe Shannon. Story gives the nuiiil)er 
of the Enj^hsh army at this time as 
eijThteen thousand, well provided wdth 
all warlike apinirteaances* A breach 
Wfi3 made in the ind4tferent defence, 
and next day the assault was made by 
four thousand men. The defenders 
after losing two hundivd men made 
their way into the Irish town on the 
western bank, taking care to leave be- 
hind I hem toward their own side two 
wide chasms, below which flowed the 
Shannon deep anil rapid. Thid wii5 
the amount of the destructive work 
done on the second day. St, Ruth. 
hearing of the taking of the English 
town that evening, advanced withbl 
three miles of the still nntaken fK)rtioti> 
having about fifteen thousand men, 
horse and foot, under his command. 

The next things done were the 
erection of biitleries on the eastern 
Bide of the river, and the Bubsequeol 



I 
I 



\ 

1 



Atklane and AugKrinu 



131 



demolitioii of the eastern wall of the 
CMtfey and other tbrtificationa on the 
Irish side, by the incessant storm of 
eannon-bijls from the strong defence 
oo the eastern bank. A horrible in- 
cident of this siege was connected 
with a mill resting on the bridge, 
which, being fired by the English 
grenades, its sixty-four defenders 
were bamt alive. Two only escaped 
by springing into the river. 

As fast as castle walls and other 
fortifications were demolished, new 
posts of defence and annoyance were 
•et np on the Irish side, and the 
breaches in the bridge could not be 
floored over, owing to the unwelcome 
neighborhood of the Irish guns. 
Tbe English general, weighing the 
filBcaUy of an effectual transit, be- 
thought of sending a lieutenant with 
n exploring party to examine a re- 
potted ford toward Lanesborough : 

"Where there might be an easy and nn- 
iioofered paasage for most of our army, 
vkile our cannon amused the enemy at the 
tottt. This party went and found the pass 
• aeeordbg to information, but tho' be (the 
lieBtenant) was poeiti^ely ordered to return 
■ •MB as he had passed the river, yet such 
m the powerful charms of black cattle to 
Mse nits of people, that the lieutenant, es- 
pjiog a prey some distance from him on the 
other side, must needs be scampering after 
tbem, by which means our design was discov- 
ered, and the enemy immediately provided 
against it by throwing up strong works on 
ihe other side. The lieutenant, I heard, was 
afterward try*d, and suffered for it.'* 

Good-hearted as we imagine our 
duqi^lain to have been, he could never 
hrii^ himself np to the point of im- 
partial laudation of the good quali- 
ties of his opponents. The foni to- 
ward Lanesborough being out of. the 
<IQest]on, the most vigorous efforts 
were made to get possession of 
the bridge; but the stem determina- 
tioD of the Irish party foiled every at- 
tempt 

At last the Irish breastwork, 
which prevented the English engi- 
■eers from laying a flooring over the 
now solitary chasm, was destroyed. 
It eoQsisted in great part of fascines 
(bigots), whicli being in an unlucky 



moment set on tire by English gre- 
nades, were quickly consumed, owing 
to the dryness and heat of the weather. 
The opportunity was not lost, planks 
were thrown across, and even a floor- 
ing laid on in part, when a heroic 
band of ten men. of Maxwell's regi- 
ment, commandeil by a sergeant, and 
all in armor, advanced from the 
western end of the bridge, and began 
to tear up planks and boards, and 
fling them into the river. A storm 
of bullets soon levelled them despite 
their harness before they had com- 
pleted the daring deed; but their 
places were taken by another devoted 
eleven. They succeeded in precipi- 
tating the remaining beams into tbe 
river at the sacrifice of the lives of 
nine of their number. Two escaped, 
and the bridge was once more impas- 
sable. 

The name and fame of the historic 
or mythic Horatius Codes has been 
preserved for upward of two thou- 
sand years. There is not a verse ex- 
tant to the praise of these score of 
heroic men, martyrs to their cause. 
Their very names are lost, if we ex» 
cept the sergeant, and probably Cus- 
tume, the name by which his memory 
is preserved, is either a mistake or a 
nickname. 

The next attempt to pass the river 
was well arranged beforehand. It was 
decided that at an early hour in the 
day efforts should be made at three dif- 
ferent points — the bridge, a ford lately 
discovered below the bridge, and a point 
still lower to be crossed on pontoons. 
However, the boats required more time 
to reach their places than was calcu- 
lated on, and a covered gallery, intended 
to facilitate the passage at the bridge, 
was destroyed at the commencement of 
the advance. The Irish and English 
grenadiers on the bridge began to fling 
their peculiar weapons at each other, 
and luck being with the Irish on this 
occasion, their grenades set fire to the 
enemy^s fascines and to the covered 
gallery. There being a strong wester- 
ly wind at the time, the flames spread 
rapidly, and caused much confusion. 



IS3 



Alhlone and Autfknm, 



8t. Ruth liad received previous intima- 
tbci of the desiji^n, and the flower of the 
Irish iroop.^ were ready to receive the 
unwelcome visitors. DtJlachmenta had 
poured into the garrison, und the miuQ 
iirniv rr^mturied tioder Ihe t^>ver of the 
weBtem ramparts of the Irisli lovvQ, to 
ruuh in uti the stomiing body il' they 
succeeded iti crossing the river. The 
event of the strife on the bridge pre- 
vented the attempt by the ford or the 
])on toons. 

This check had a very disheartening 
effect u[>on the besieging forces; for, 
tiioujrh their cannon eeiiaelcssly con- 
tinu*3d to play on the defences of the 
Irifih town, a council of war wiw 
held, wherein tl»e ditHcultiea of stuping 
there iiny longer were re]riTBented. 

The council eame to a wise t*ei<oUi- 
tion under the circumstances. It wai 
dunizi-Toui* to retire, it wus danj^erous 
to advance ; but glory and lionor might 
wait on the latter alterriative, and it 
waa adopted. The report of two de- 

^fleriers who succeeded in coming across 
iiraged them in their courageous 

"molve. They represented St. Rtilh 
and his officers a^s put off their guard, 
and expecting to hear of the retreat of 
tiie Knglislk at any luomcnl. They 
aUo reported the garrison at that mo- 
ment as consisting of three of the raw- 
est regiments in the whole force. 

The report was in the main correct, 
Sl Kutli had given a large party to the 
ladies and gentlemen of the country* 
and universal joy and negligence ni led 
in the anny. The general, wii*hing to 
aatson Iho latest recj*uit», sent them to 
keep garrison, directing that the forti- 
fications in the rear, chiefly consisting 
or earth work «*, should be levelled, so as 
to afford facility for the new hands lo 
retire, if they found themselves crowd- 
ed by the foe, and also facility to the 
tried raen in the camp to come to their 
relief under ttie same undesirable cir- 
eum.stnnces. D^U^^son represented the 
want o^ wisdom in the appointment of 
the raw hands to the post of danger, 
and further objected to the def^tnietion 
of the mmparts. The Iiish chiefs did 
not cordially ca*opeRite ; aud there was 




liecn 
yep> J 
ver^ 

rtd^B 
werfl 



a palpable want of wisdom in their 
couTicils. The earthworks remainc 
untouched, and the inexperienced sc 
diers were set to leani their first ( 
gerous lesson, a tierce foe in front, 
means of tafe retreat in the rear, an 
a prodigious stake dependmg on theii 
finnness** 

The ford already mentioned had^ 
lH?en tried in the first lustanee by ihreofl 
Duichmeii in armor, the English gun« ■ 
firing volleys ap|>arenlly al them, but 
in reality over their heads during the 
transit-, This device protected them 
from the Irish bullets, as they wert 
supposed to he deserters. However/ 
when they turned round aller a rea.^oii^| 
ahJy near Ufvproach to the Irish sid 
they begun to find the leaden showe 
pelting aijout *hpir ears from that qini 
ter. They made their escafw; with 
some slight wounds, the water at tlie 
deepest having only reached their^ 
waists. The season was a remark ablj V 
dry one, and that ford had never been 
so shallow in the memory of man. 

Di? Ginekel and his chiefs, having 
come to the resolution of trying anothc 
bold assault, did not defer its executic 
till the enemy should become apprise 
of their intention. The hour of rcliev-< 
ing guard at six o'clock was chosen 
when the Irishtown men saw nothin j1 
very unusual lu the cnjwding of the J 
English soldiers into the garriso 
Everything being minutely arnin^ 
beuveen the Dutch geuenil and his^ 
officers, a body of determined men j 
moved toward the ford. This waa tbi 
critical movement on the sueoe^ of 
which dejicnded the action to be taken 
al the other two passages. Aud here 
a quotation from the memoir of Patrick 
Sarsfitdd, by J. W. Cole, Esq., wUl 
help to make the state of things at thai 
hour more clear : 






'' Sarstit4(l Apprised St Ruth of the eaeni; 
ititeutiou. Hu turned a deaf eftr to the 
st!Qgcr who found bltn drcftsiog for a shootiaf 



mi^ntt^nM In fome accounU thai vbea tt 
> I lh«niMlve* %\ thetr pofM theyi 
tti powdpr. UmTtng afUr Mflie ddi^ 
ir-, vhty |]ftd to applj acald for b 

Maxwell, u» whom t]i« •pplloiltoa 

tbojr were »lr««fly pro^^ldtd, jailiof 1/ ■ 

to abiMl tarlu t** 



ihluklnn 

'* w**a 



AfUone andAughrim, 



128 



oenrtioii, laughed at the idea of bringing up 
tbe armj to repel an imaginary attack, and 
ml aeoffinglj that his officers were tired with 
dindng at last night's ball. Sarsfield repeat- 
ad the iBteiUgence, representing in the most 
WffDt terms that not a moment was to be 
\t!k * They dare not do it,* said the confi- 
dent Frenchman, 'and I so near/ adding 
that he would give a thousand louis to hear 
that the English durst attempt to pass. 
'Spare jour money and ndnd your business/ 
vas the gruff retort of Sarsficld. * I know 
tbe Koglish better than you do. There is no 
(Btcrprise too desperate for their courage to 
tttempt.' " ^ 

GoL Charles (yKellj gives it as his 
opinion that the Scotch Colonel Max- 
well *^ sold the pass."' Here is a trans- 
kioo of his Latin : 

"One of his legions haring swam over the 
LvcoB that afternoon, no sooner came to Oro- 
m (GiDckel) and delirered him a private 
Msaee than the party was immediately de- 
toched to attack the river. When the soldiers 
aQed out to Maxilles for arrows (bullets), he 
iMkl gire them none, but asked them wheth- 
« tkey should shoot against the birds of the 
«r. He ordered the men to lie down and 
tdtt thdr rest, saying there would be no ac- 
tioB tin night. So that when the enemy en- 
lotd, the soldiers for the most part were 
■leap, and few or none in their posts. When 
tk ^t man of the enemy mounted the 
breKh, he boldly asked him, * Do you know 
■ef whereupon he got quarter, and all the 
Rrt were put to the sword ; thin it seems be- 
'ag the ai^ial to distinguish tbe betrayer from 
Ae rest, and it is supposed that Ororis com- 
■aaded those who were upon the attack, to 
OM the officer well who should put that ques- 
tkn. . . Lysander (Sarsfield) accused him a 
ttw days before in the general's presence, and 
It Is certain it was not prudently done, after 
^Ting him such a public affront, to intrust to 
hio the command of a post of that importance, 
bat it seems Corydon (TyroonncI) would have 
it ao, and P^hus (St Ruth) did not think fit 
to disoblige the vioeroy.'* 

. We are not convinced of Maxwell's 
tnacherjj CoL O'Kelly's surmises 
aotwitlistanding. He intensely dis- 
liked Tjroonnel, and this dislike was 
ihared in hj all who enjoyed his favor. 
Tbe public accusation, and the import- 
aot post intrusted soon after to the ac- 
coeed, are the reverse of cause and ef. 
feet We shall presently set his be. 
karior at the assault in a better light. 

THB PABSAGS OF THB SHANNON. 

A. few mmutes after the tolling of 
te duireh beU at $ o'dock p. il. the 



English batteries commenced playing 
furiously on the town, seconded by nu- 
merous volleys from marksmen who 
were stationed on ladders placed against 
the inside of the wall in English town. 
In directing this deafening uproar 
Ginckel seems to have badly co-oper- 
ated with Colonel Maxwell in putting 
the poor raw recruits to sleep. Simul- 
taneously with this flourish, the trial 
of the ford was made, to describe which 
we prefer the words of the eye-witness, 
Story, to those of any other, including 
our own. 

"About 2,000 detach* t men were now 
ready, and Major-Oencral Mackay to com- 
mand them. Major-General Tettcau, the 
Prince of Hesse, and Brigadeer La Molliner 
were likewise of the party, and Mnjor-General 
Talmarsh went a volunteer with a party of 
grannadcers, commanded by CoUonel Gusta- 
▼us Uamblcton. And for the greater encouf^ 
agement to the soldiers, the genend dis- 
tributed a sum of guinea's amongst them, 
knowing the powerflil influence of gold, 
though our armies had as little occasion 
for such gratuities (I mean as to that point 
of whetting their courage) as any in all the 
world, and have done as much without them. 

"The ford was over against a bastion of 
the enemies where a breach was made al- 
ready, and the river being try*d three daya 
before^ . . . and found passable ; so that all 
things being in this order, six minutes past 
six a clock, Captain Sandys and two lieuten- 
ants led the first party of 60 granadeers, 
all in armour and 20 a brcas^t, seconded by 
another good body, who all with an amazing 
resolution took the river, the stream being 
very rapid and deep (?) at which time our 
great r.iiJ small shot began to piny from onr 
batteries and works on our side upon the 
enemies works on the other, and they fired 
as thick as possible upon our men that were 
passing tho river, who forced their way thro 
fire and sraoak, and gaining the other bank 
the rest laid planks over the broken part of 
the bridge, and others were laying the bridge 
of boats, by which our men passed over so 
fast that in less than half an hour we were 
masters of the town. ... A great many of 
the Irish were killed in their works, and yet 
its observable that our men when they saw 
themselves really masters of the town, were 
not at all forward to kill those at their mercy, 
though it was in a manner in the heat of ac- 
tion. But the rubbish and stuff thrown down 
by our cannon was more difficult to climb 
over than a great part of the enemies works 
which occasioned our soldiers to swear and 
curse even among the bullets themselves, upon 
which Ifiyor-General Mackay told them that 
tfaey had more reMoa to fall upon their knees 



Jthbne cmd Aughrim, 




vid thank Go4 for their victory, and that 
they were brave luea and the best of men 
if they would §wcar lew. . , . Among tU© 
(Imh oflBccrs) were skhi iluHng the «iicgre 
and attack. Col. f J'Gara,* Col Kichurd Oracc, 
Col. Art. Oj^c Ma<:kmahon, two of the Mack 
Gcnne;^!^, and i^cvcral othorB,"' 

Notwitlifllandiiii;; the trcarliery im- 
putixl to ri>L Max well, lie exerted 
himi*eir £fallantly to cover tlic? retreat 
of the poor recruits, who fmmd the 
rere fort ili cat ions gadlj in t!ieir way. 
St-Kath, an receivin;? the fatal news, 
sent off Ma;or-General Jofm Hamilton 
with two bngades of infantry to drive 
out the enemj. But as ibe western 
Ttnnptirls had been coiifiiderately left 
for the protection and comfort of this 
same enemy, the seramblmg over th<-^se 
nvorku, and the subsequent driving out 
of the numerous and (ioshed forcps be- 
hind them, was not to be aecoinplis hfd by 
a mere coup de main^ and twt) infantry 

w brtgades. Th e y d id w ha t i n i It etn lay. 

fTWy covered the retreat of the fugi- 
tivefi, and gave the vanguard of their 

• pursuer!* a warm reci'ption. CoL 

I Maxwell, now a iirisoner, and n pas- 
Bive Bpeetalor, afterward dcelared I hat 
be had entertained great hopes of be* 
ing rescued during the short but dead* 
If gtrife between the combatants. St. 
Ralh*s feelings were not to be envied 
the night of that dismal day ; for he 
muijt have been sensible that, owing 
to hia contempt of the enemy, over- 
weening conildeiice, and neglecting 
necessary precautions, or not insis-t- 
iug on their execution, be wretchedly 

* Tltla !• {m>bftb)y i mtiUkc, as Uirre It rvtror 1 but 
of one Cot. O'Uwr* lo Klnj? J attic*' • furcf*. nnu\ hv ti 

t ■ ' ..->*.. - • ifj ihc •urrtnder 

id he nil«««l at 

ti!'"i»'Mvi ni'-|i, ;tri'i '-njo y»-'i iin" m u l ' ' ' ' "' " ' i» 

lieaU valiic<1 tii £5W by Crom^el*. I i» 

p«>nnlli^t In r^tlr* U* H<r Conlhieot irii it 

i ' ' '^■"' - ' ■ T' -'.''■'■ ' y rk »lwiit>9 tr.-uiicik iiita 
sft^r th« r«iU>raU0a 
wrrt- rf«ti^r«l tn him, 

naat of IhltearriHoti he Will li. y 

MUnfttteo Ihecounlry |MM>pl« 4.j ivK ui.iiu,i>, «.aJ 
•a on« oeea«lda he h*d t«ii tolilltfa hftiif al tli« mum 
llfiM from Ihc DUl«r wad finr mwk oIteic«iu 11« w«« 
Ie1U«4 tlM day prvttdiog the eapture, and bit b«<r 
dItoaverH wh«a Ibc fCngnib iroi poismitoi). Ulf ae« 
livlljr and cacriy eoold iMit be ■urpvisad. Tn biiiif> 
tug up forcM-* from a put of Ktlkcdinjr to JiUUAiie at 
V«lkH wlib Um men twent r n\\\<t% I a t«« ^lajr*' All* 
oU>er Uai« h« ro*1« from iJijblln to Atbloaa m ' ^ 
\\% trif b inllvtf In twenty four bouft. 



permitted the great stronghold of th«> 
king for whom he commanded to bo 
taken out of his hands. 

*' At Ballinastoo <w(^ quote Mr. Ch>1«) bn 
drew up hit forces intending to make a *xnn<[. 
SarAfield, backed by the other general tkffioere, 
reprcsenteiJ that it waa madnesato risk a cer- 
tain defeat there by engaging a snperior and 
better diBGiplined anny, flushed with the r^ 
C4»nt conquest of Athlone ; that tho wi^r plan 
would be to hold Galway and Limerick with 
strong garrisons^ to cnnrch with the remainder 
of the infantry and alt the csavalry into Mun- 
stcr auit Lctnsiter, intercept the cnemy^a com- 
inunicatimif*, and perhaps make a da«li upon _ 
Dublin^ which was lef^ m a alate unprcpanxl fl 
fur reaiataacc St. Ruth yielded lo tlitir re- | 
monatranceat and retreated to Aughrtm ; but 
bere he suddenly and in evil hour for hta own 
cauAo changed hid deteruiinution, and rcaolr> 
cd to rUk a battle. He was cither Btung br 
the loss of Athloue* or prompted by peraonu 
vanity which wbiapcred to him tliat ho was 
destined to immortalize hU name bj a great 
victory/' 

Having made up his mind to ab»de 
the biunt of Ginckera wellapix^inted 
and well* disciplined and numerous 
forces, he halted hia dispirited but de- 
termined troops on the hill-eide of Kil* 
coinedan, al>out three miles south -we&t 
of Ballinaj^loe. 



I 



THE rrELD OP AUGmUM. 

Probably most of our readers are 
in the same predicament with relation 
to this hill of dismal memory. They 
have not looked over that battle fields 
and probably never will, the Great 
Wei?teni railway notwithstanding. 
So we borrow tlie graphic ac4X>nnl 
of a writer who examined the ridge 
from end to end, the Danish fort on 
its summit, and the unlucky old easlle, 
conversed with an aged man of the 
village, who had long since sftokcn 
with an aged woman, who when a very 
yoimg girl had brought some country 
produce lo King James's soldiers, m t 
had wilnesfiod with terror and curir 
some of tlie o'*eurreuee« of the tatai 
12ih of duly. 1091/ 

^' The hilt of Kilcomedan ta in no part vcrj 
atecp. It forms a gradual alopc etietidl^ 
almost due nortli and from end to end, a db- 
tanco of about a mile and a half; and at the 
time of which wc Fpejik it w,i* perfectly open 
and ooverod with heath. Along tlie crc^t of 
Ihii hUl wai perohod the Iri^h camp, and ths 



AMm^ andAugkrim. 



1S5 



podtion in wfaidi 8L Ruth wu reaolred to 
ivait the enemy extended along its base. 

** The foremost line of the Irish composed 
CBtirelj oi musAceteers, occnpied a series of 
■Dtll enclosures, and was covered in front 
diroughout ito entire extent bj a morass 
thrangh which flows a little stream, and 
this swamp with difficulty passable bj infant- 
ry, was wholly so for cavalry. Through two 
poses only was the Irish position thus cov- 
cnd asB^laUe upon firm ground, the one at 
Ike extreme right much the more open of the 
t«o, and called the pass of Urrachree from 
a old house and demeene which lay close to 
it, and the other at the extreme left, by the 
loDg straight road leading into the town of 
Aoghrim. This road was broken, and so 
■arrow that some annalists state that two 
hones could not pass it abreast ; in addition 
to which it was commanded by the castle of 
Aoghrim, then as now it is true but a ruin, 
b«t whose walls and enclosures nevertheless 
ifbrded effectual cover, and a position such 
Mooght to have rendered the pass impreg- 
■Ue. Beyond these passes at cither side 
were extensive bogs, and dividing them the 
interposing morass. The enclosures in which 
die advanced musketeers were posted, afford- 
ed excellent cover, and from one to the other 
eoaununications had been cut, and at certain 
iotenrals their whole length was traversed by 
Imad passages, intended to admit the flank- 
ing charge of the Irish cavalry in case the 
wmfA infantry should succeed in forcing 
tiieir way thus far. The main line extended 
io t double row of columns parallel to the 
adruccd position of Uie musketeers, and the 
reserrc of the cavalry was drawn up on a 
imall plain a little behind the castle of 
Anghrim, which was occupied by a force of 
aboat two thousand men. The Irish army 
■umbered in all, perhaps, about twenty thou- 
sand men, and the position they held extend- 
ed more than an English mile, and was indeed 
as powerful a one as could possibly have been 
lelectcd.'* 

Begging the author's indulgence for 
this needful theft, we own ourselves 
unable to resist the temptation of com- 
mitting another, especially as, if he had 
been under harness himself that day 
m the Irish camp, he would not have 
▼dantarily shared in the solemn func- 
tion be so vividly describes : 

'* Many of our readers are doubtless awaro 
that the field of Aughrim was fought upon a 
Sonday, a circumstance which added one to 
the many tlirilliog incidents of the martial 
»cene. The army had hardly moved into 
tlist position wiiich was that day to be so 
hardly and devotedly maintained, when the 
solemn service of high mass was commenced 
at the head of every regiment by its re- 
spective chaplain; and durhig this solemn 



ceremonial were arriving at every moment 
fresh messengers from the outposts, their 
horses covered with dust and foam, with the 
stem intelligence that the enemy were steadi- 
ly approaching ; and amid all this excitement 
and suspense, in silence and bare-headed, 
kneeled the devoted thousands in the ranks 
in which they were to receive the foe, and 
on the very ground on which they were in 
a few hours so desperately to contend. This 
solemn and striking ceremonial under circum- 
stances which even the bravest admit to be 
full of awe, and amid the tramp and neighing 
of horses, and jingling of accoutrements, 
and the distant trumpet signals from the out- 
posts, invested the scene with a wildness and 
sublimity of grandeur, which blanched many 
a check, and fluttered many a heart with feel- 
ings very different from those of fear." 



THE PASS OF URRACmtEE. 

A thick vapor, called up from the 
surrounding bogs and marshes by the 
hot mominc; sun, kept the rival armies 
concealed from each other's sight till 
about 12 o'clock, when, all becoming 
cloiir, the men on Kilcomedan had a 
full sight of the allied forces, com- 
mandcd by eight mnjors-general, 
and arranged in double columns, their 
rich appointments presenting an un- 
pleasant contrast to their own much 
more modest if not shabby garb 
and accoutrements. As soon as 
General Ginckel could command a 
distinct view from a height toward 
the left of his lines, he was enabled to 
judge of the strength of the position 
held by the Irish, and the skill shown 
in the disposition of the forces adverted 
to above. He could sec one portion 
of the cavalry prepared to dispute the 
pass at Urrachree, another watching 
the pass at Aughrim, the main body of 
horse posted below the crest of the hill, 
the infantry still lower disposed in two 
columns, and he could guess the pres- 
ence of musketeers in the ditches at 
the bottom of the hill, prepared to re- 
ceive the hardy infantry who would 
venture across the morass to exchange 
shots with them. Sarsfit-lds horse 
beyond the brow of Kilcomedan on 
the Irish left, he probably did not ob- 
serve. There was the shrewd and 
fiery chief placed, with strict orders 
from his unfriendly superior not to 



A&kne and Auffhrim, 



stir from that spot till expm^sly or- 
dered. Had tlio giillant Dutchman at 
tbat momerit known (liat St. Ruth liad 
not oommuniealod to tiny of Im general 
' officers ibe scbeme he intended to ob- 
iicrve througfi the engagement, Iiis 
Ijojieij of victory would have been much 
more sanguine* Feeling tlic inexpe- 
' diency of commencing a general en- 
gagement, yel impatient of the secne 
uf innciivitj before him, he gim* oixlere 
to a Dfloish eaptuin of horse eomma rid- 
ing sixteen men to attempt the pass of 
Urrachree. The small boily was 
warmly received by some watching 
cavalry still fewer in number, and 
though the brave officer justified the 
reputation of \m country for dogged 
codragCt his men \v<^re deserted by that 
virtue so ei^^ential to every 6oidier,and 
"ran Uke men.*' 

(.Tinckel, fully aware of the import- 
ance of the pass in ease a geneml en 
gagement Hhnuld take place, next 
directed Colonel Albert t/onyngham to 
take possession of .'*ome ditehea ne;ir 
where one brunch of tfie stream en- 
tered the mora^i^, Tlie chief of this 
party had received orders not to ad- 
vance beyond the mere boundary, le^^t 
he filiould be inlercepled, and thus 
bring on a pn^mature engagement. 
The Irish party, atler receiving the 
enemy tf fire and reluming it, showed 
their backs, and their as^sailants pnr- 
laicd them beyond the limits poinied 
out by llie sagaeious DeCiinckeL An 
ainblisb bad been prepared in exf>ee- 
Mioii of this proceeding, and. while 
they were leasal expecting it» a de- 
structive fire was opened on tltem fmni 
behind cover* Many iramedintely dis- 
mounted, and, taking ad vantage of a 
hedge, returned tlie fire witl» deaJly 
inlere!*t. They had little time to enjoy 
the success of this move, when they 
were startled by the rush of a strong 
cavalry fore<3 sweeping down on tliem 
from behind the extremity of the bill, 
" tid the old manor-house of Urrachree. 
They were obliged to retire in disorder 
before this new enemy, but itie watch- 
ful eye of the justly displeased geneml 
bftd well marked the progress of the 



action, and provided for the expect* 
rejjulse. D'Eppinger's royal regimi 
of Holland dragoons came on amain t 
get between the pursuing Irish horsi 
and the bill. But other detachmeni 
of Irish cavalry were at hand to fru; 
trate this design ; the Earl of Portland' 
horse were ^ent to support the forcin 
party, and a stem combat was wag* 
for about an hour, fresh parlies joining 
the strife from the natural imf»atience 
of men of heart to i*emain still while 
blows are bandying betbre their eyes. 
At three oVloek this contention came 
to an end, both sides having lost sevetlU 
stout partisans, and the relative posi- 
tions being much the same as at the 
beginning of the skirmish. 

For the next hour and a half noth- 
ing was done on either side. The 
English genemls were in close consul- 
tation as to whether it were better to 
renew the attack or defer it till next 
morning. Tiie brave old Scotchnian» 
Mackay, decided his fellow command- 
ers for present action. He counsel led 
a renewed and more effective attempt 
at Urrachree, which, causing re-enforctJ- 
ments to be drawn from the Irish cen- 
tre and the neigh bo rbotxl of Anghrini, 
would enable the infantry to try the 
morass where it was narrowest, and 
also enable the cavalry on the riglil 
wing to force the dangerous pass at 
Aughrim, watched by the garrison of 
the ruined castle. 

Tim MORA89 AND TUE n£LX3Ba. 

At this time (half past four in the 
evening) the main body of the Eng- 
lish formed two lines directly before 
the morass, the generals on each side 
having a pretty correct idea of the 
state and efficiency of their foes. In 
other respects the advantage was with 
the allied army. There was a perfect 
cordiality and understanding between 
I)e Ginckel and his generals, and even 
in the case of his death and that of his 
second in command the TXike of Wir- 
temberg, Mackay, or Talmash, or De 
Kuvigny were perfectly npprbed of 
the general plan of the action. 

The Danish horse and a body of in- 



I 



J 



JiM&nd andAftgkrim. 



127 



ftntrj were ordered to the extreme 
left, with the apparent design to out- 
lank the eiieinj on that side, and thus 
draw awsj from the Irish centre and 
M wing much of the strength there 
needed. This body (the Dutch, to wit) 
kept that position during the remain- 
der of the battle, doing as good service 
at if actually engaged. Three French 
regiments, namely, those of La Mello- 
siere. Do Gambon, and Belcassel, com- 
menced to assail the advanced forces of 
ihe Irish in the neighborhood of these 
isactive troops, and obUged St. Ruth to 
weaken his left and centre to support 
them. Except the cannonading from 
both sides there was no fighting going 
00 until six o'clock along the entire 
Ime, except this in the neighborhood 
of Drrachree. 

Mackay, in order to weaken still 
more the Irish left wing, advised 
Ginckd to separate ft considerable 
body of horse from Talraash*s troops, 
who were waiting for a favorable op- 
portunity to tempt the narrow pass 
iDvard Aughrim. and to send them 
toward Urrachree. This had the de- 
aired effect, and now preparations were 
made to cross the morass at the 
narrowest part and attack the Irish 
centre. 

While detachments of the second 
fine of the left centre of the Irish were 
marchmg to defend the pass at Urra- 
chree, and thus leaving their late posi- 
tions comparatively weak, four Eng- 
lish r^ments, commanded by Colonels 
Erie, Herbert, Creighton, and Brewer, 
effected the passage of the marsh, and 
were received by a volley from the 
men ensconced behind the lowest fence. 
Openings (as before mentioned) being 
raidy, these marksmen, as soon as 
they were dislodged, retired behind the 
next shelter, and repeated the process 
till they had drawn the British soldiers 
neariy half a mile up the hill. 

Now their orders had been to wait 
till a much greater force had crossed 
at a wider portion of the morass lower 
down (that is, ndar Aughrim, the stream 
m the centre of the morass flowing in 
that direction), and effected a junction 



with them. So when they saw their 
cunning enemies, joined by the main 
central force, and these again backed 
by cavalry, all preparing to sweep 
down on them, they remembered too 
late the wise orders they had received. 
However, if the charging party were 
Irish wolfhounds, the charged were 
English bull-dogs, and determined to 
make courage repair evil done by rash- 
ness. The gallant Colonel Erie cried 
out : " There is no way to come off 
but to be* brave !" But neither the 
courage of the men nor the ability of 
the leaders could resist tlie downward 
charge of horse and foot, and the 
fianking bullets that rained on them. 
Colonels Erie and Herbert and some 
captains were taken prisoners and res- 
cued, and recaptured, and we are sorry 
to record that Colonel Herbert was 
killed while prisoner, from apprehen- 
sion of his rescue. The English did 
not or could not make use of the fences 
in their downward flight, as their pur- 
suers had done when enticing them 
upward, but were driven, as it were, 
by press of men till the survivors once 
more gained the bog. 

Meantime five regiments, for whose 
safe lodgment these rush men ought to 
have waited, had crossed the wider 
part of the morass lower down, under 
the command of the veteran Major- 
General Mackay and Prince George 
of Hesse. This fiery young warrior 
was ordered by his senior to keep his 
division stationary in a cornfield until 
he himself should have made a suffi- 
cient detour to the right among difficult 
ground and to attack the enemy in 
flank while Prince George was assail- 
ing them in front. 

The same error as that just pre- 
viously committed by the staid Eng- 
lish colonels was repeated by the im- 
petuous young German prince. Being 
fired at and probably jeered or mocked 
by the ditch holders he advanced to 
chastise them, and both parties came 
to such close quarters that the ends of 
their muskets nearly touched. Back 
went the Irish musketeers, after them 
pushed the assailauts, new shelter 



and Atiffhnm. 




taken, fresh shots fired, fVe&h disliKl'^- 
meDt^, no atr*^nfinn paid by Englander 
or foreigner till tliev fount] iheinselvea 
surrounded ami assailed front, flank, 
and rear, by ^bc Irish* There wus a 
sklrmishittg re I rent made till the eom- 
lield was reaelietl by the survivors, 
liome even whoBe eare for self over- 
powered love of fame or fighling, 
never stayed till they hml [mi the 
moniaa between thetuselve^ and the 
pestilent hed;:^men. 

General Mackay, having mastered 
tlie d i (Hon 1 ties heft) re him, was in hopr-* 
of luniofj the Irii?h loc between himself 
and the holders of the cornfield, but 
wa£ tlmmlerstruck on his return ut the 
demomlijced condition of hm r&.m 
iriends. He sent to request aid fmm 
(general Talma'^h. and the three par- 
ties rt'qevved a desperate onslaujjht 
on thcj jnijskelet'rd who oecupit'd the 
fejjce?. They were received witli the 
»anie delertnined ree»oiution and deadly 
fire a* otJ the two former oceOv'^ions, 
atid were obUfred by the close and im- 
intorrupted musket volley i* and flank 
cliai:jff-'^ of hor^e to fall back on the 
corn field, the marsh, and even to the 
dry j^'onnd on the nisteni side on 
a line with tlie En^ilish hatteriea. 

Three t'mes ditl the tide ol' battle 
flow and ebb aemss tlie hop: on that 
memorable nfitTtuion, fach parly in- 
gpired witli the do;yged determination 
and bate thai a Btru;rgle for life and 
for a darliuj;^ caui^w inspired. Even 
the Williamire ehafdain wa^ obliged in 
a manner to du juniice to the bmvery 
of the Irish eticmy. De?ioi*ibinp the 
begitming of the atlaek, he says : — 

"The /rW* in the wcanUint^ Uul so viosc* 
in llictr ditobc^ thnt sorent wer^? doubtful 
whether they had any nien ut that pUec or 
not, but they were convinced of H at last, foi* 

no prv' " ' • t!ic Frenchiind the rc-^t got 

Hitiii irdd Of lo»s of l!»e ditchcst^ hut 

tl»e i . most furiously Uf>on thom, 

lihieti uur lucii m bravely sastained, and prcsa- 
^ forward^ tlioui;h they could scarce leo one 
l^nother fur »moak. And now the thing 
•ccmcd BO doubtful for »unie time that tlie 
by-«tanders would rather have given it on th« 
Irlab side, for they had drivea our fuot in thu 
ecotrc 80 f^r that they W4;re got almost in a 
lino with tome of our great guiu planted neitr 
tk» bog, which wo bad not the tMiusfil of.Ai 




tltat juncture, bccatiae of ih^ tnixturo of our 
men and theirf.'* 

During the eontinuAnce of this de 
ly strife in the centre, De Gtnckc 
directing the eflurl* of the foreign^ 
iliaries a<;ratnsi the defenders of Ur 
chree. The. general himself, 
less of his own safely, exposed hb Itll 
on more than one occtiaion. 
was re-en forced more than once fron 
the lel^ but all that the gieales 
skill and energy on ihe jmrt of 
self and hi^ generals, and braver 
on the part of their men could 
were insufficient to remove the Irinlr^ 
cavalry from I heir frround of vantAge, 
Next to ihiii mingled war of eavaliy J 
and infantry, and nearer the eentr 
the French infantry regiments of Li^l 
Mellon i ere, Du Cambon, and Belean-J 
sel struggled^ like the flery stout fel- 
lows they wero» lo drive the Irish in- 
fantry u|i|io&cd to them from theij 
ditehe^. Tlioy (ihe French) fortifie 
their (Ki^itionfi when any advantage was I 
gained hy*chet^ftiur d^* frige^ but the* 
were again and again taken *iind d*5 
gtroyed by their opponents. Seareeli 
did any portion of the mingled people 
Buffer 8o much in the deadly struggle 
at Aiighrim as these F>al)ant French* 
men. Had De Ginckers cavalry, and 
these French infantry, succeeded in 
dislodging tficir n[tpi>neni-s, they would 
then be in a position lo take the Iri^h 
centre in flank, and tiring the stnip^jzle 
to a speedy elosc^ but this was not tbe 
mode in which it was the will of Prov- 
idence to decide the day. 

Where was Sl Ruth employed dur- 
ing these ra omen Ions struggles ? Ju*t 
where he Bhould have been^ in front of 
hiti camp near the crest of the hill, 
watching the flnctuiilions of the battle, 
issuing order-i, and sending aid wher- 
ever ihey were needefl. Ourchaplaio 
says that he wan so pleasmmbly excited 
by the eliar^es of hi.^ central iiifautry 
to the very line of the Britit^h batteriea 
that he flimg his gold-laced hat into the 
air» extolling the bravery of the IHfth 
infantry, and exclaiming that •*lie 
would now drive back the English to 
tlui gHtc5 of Dublin," 



4tU§m$ <md Att.,^kriM^ 



l» 



BDW THI PA88 OP XrOORIH WAS FORCED. 

So far the Irish forces were sus- 
tain«'d in their gallant struggle; but 
DOW the scale of fortune began to wa- 
ver. Their final defeiit began in a 
qnarter from which it was totally un- 
looked for by either themselves or 
their antagonists. The castle of Augfa- 
rlm, so well garrisoned, looked on a 
narrow pass crossed by the stream be- 
fore mentioned, but a little to the S. E. 
this isthmus of firm land opened oat to a 
tolerably wide space " in the shape of a 
spindle furnished with its complement 
of thread." Here at about this time 
of the fight, the extreme right of the 
Eoglbh force planted some cannon, 
and cleariMl of its defenders the gorge 
of the isthmus just between them and 
the space before the castle. So far a 
step was made in the right direction ; 
they were enabled to make the next 
by the stupidity or treachery of an of- 
ficer who had been directed to send to 
Urrachree a detachment from the sec- 
ond or rere line of the army toward 
the lefL Along with this complement 
he sent away^ a battalion from the 
front line ; * and this being remark- 
ed by the English officers, three in- 
fimtr)' battalions making use of hur- 
dles, slipped across the edge of the 
morass in front of the castle, f and 
took possession of a cornfield on the 
Irish side. The Irish musketeers sta- 
tioned behind the hedges in that quar- 
ter, aware of the wide breach in the 
main columns behind them, retreated 
after delivering one discharge, and 
took refuge in the hollow near the 
castle, the post of the reserve cavalry. 
A troop of these coming to the rescue, 
the Englishmen took to the shelter of 
the hedges where they had little to 
fear from a charge. 

This successful manoeuvre encour- 
aged the passage of two other regi- 

*C>kmH TTenry Lnttrell harlng had to do In this 
IruH'ier of tbe front line from where they were need- 
ed, f^yt X color to the tradition of h\s liavlng ** sold 
tte P«M at Aughrim.** 

tLtrt It be borne in mind that the castle wa« on the 
north «lde of tite narrow road or pass, and that itsde- 
teder« hail before thetr ejei the N. K side of Kilco- 
Bcdan and the moraM lo often mentioned. The vil- 
bffv of Aaghrim Uj to the west of the castle, and the 
Inik reserre Iiotm parll/ betwe«i castle and viUag •• 

VOL. V. 9 



ments nearer to the centre, namely, 
those commanded by Lord Greorge 
Hamilton and Sir Henry Belasyse, Bad 
the moment seemed favorable for the 
approach of the cavalry through the 
defile which they had cleared of its 
guards as already mentioned. They 
were accompanied by infantry, who 
not being restricted to the narrow lim* 
it of the boggy road, were prepared to 
fire on all the visible defenders of the 
occupants of the outer works of the 
place. After all, it is renlly difficult 
to account for the apparently rash 
movement. There were 2,000 men in 
and about the castle, and two field- 
pieces were in readiness to rake the 
pass in front. What possibility was 
there tlmt a line of horsemen two or 
three abreast, unable to return the fire 
of the protected enemy, could escape 
destruction? We know that small 
parties of men have exposed their 
lives as on forlorn hope enterprises^ 
but here were whole regiments. 

Could it be that the leaders were 
aware that the danger to be incun*ed 
did not exceed in degree the ordinary 
risks of warfare ] 

The chaplain says in referenoo to 
the apparent danger of the attempt : 

" The French general seeing oar men at- 
tempt to do fchU, askt, * What they meant dy 
itr and being anatrered that they would ccp- 
tainly endeavour to pass there, and attack 
him on the left, be is said to reply with an 
oath, *Tlicy arc bravo fellows; it*8 a pity 
they should bo so exposed.* " 

It is very probable that the words 
were uttered by the general, for the 
long file of horses and cavaliers were 
distant only thirty yards from the 
sheltered marksmen. 

The adventurous bands owed their 
safety to a direct interposition of ProT- 
idencc, to a detestable deed of treach- 
ery, or to the grossest piece of negli- 
gence or stupidity in the annals of* 
warfare. 

We are told that Colonel Walter 
Bourke, commander of the garrison, 
having sent to the camp for ammuni- 
tion, four barrels of gunpowder and 
four of bullets were sent to him. But 
when the barrels of ball were opened. 



m 



Aihlone <md Aughrim, 



iDn the appmaeh of the ciicra/, the 

I fiyes of the men cnj^^ed io the opera- 
moti were blasted by tim sight of can* 
Innn -balls ! The confusion nn*l mispry 
j of the defenders, otftcers and men, may 
■carccly be comprehended. However, 
I lh*-^y resorted to the only m^'uns in 
I their powL-r, To supply ammunition 
llhey loaded with butloiis, with naiLs, 
( with bita of stone, with their ramrods 
> when all eUe was expended, and did 
[ what exeeiition they could. 

The infantry re«Tiiiient9 of Hamil- 
ton and* Ki ike, having found material 
Tilt hand, barricaded a wide opening 
I en iho east side of the castle, in order 
™ prevent a charge on the cannon 
[when passiDg from the Irish reserve 
I In the rere, and then tliey took po-** 
i^^iion of a dry ditch, whence they 
'^dis^Wged the defenders of the castle's 
P^utworki, whose ammunition wa*^ ex- 
ended, and who for their misfortune 
lived before the bayonet Wiw in- 
[ vented, 

• The Irish reserre, hearing from the 

agitives how things wei*e going on, 

[sped round to the opening on their 

lltf), through which they might charge 

tm the ndvancing artillery train ; but 

fthertj they found themselves check- 

BHted by the barrier set up by the 

Sugh^h inruntrv. They wheeled 

round, and, having niadi^ the circuit 

^f the castle, they found themselve.^ 

a.ce to face with Lord OxfordV 

[regiment, who, under Sir Fmncis 

Domptou, had already gaine/1 the 

pen ground. A brisk engagement 

riook [ilace, and the English cavalry 

Cwerc twice driven back* but» being 

laoou re- en forced by the hor^e and 

Idragoons of De Rouvigny, Langston, 

ayerly, and Leving^ton, they made 

Kood their fooling, several being slaio 

both sides. 

It may well be supposed that St. 

tithwas not a little surprised to see 

he narrow and dangerous prisaage so 

^ell and safely achieved, and the 

Ddgm^nt effected at the bottom of 

jie hill by the English infantry. Still 

there was nothing very dL*; heartening 

. all ihia. Ue was at the head of & 



fine body of cavalry ; only four squad- 
rons of the enemy had as yet effected 
a standing at the north-eajit extremity 
of the hill ; he nnd hid troopers would 
charge down and annihilate the rash 
inirndors ; and if need were, he could 
easily summon the brave Earl of 
Lucan and his horse, who had been 
kept inactive to ttiis moment, and 
dared nut stir till the woM waJ 
given. 

Here a tirade might very appro- 
priiitely come in agairst the spite of 
fortune toward the Irish cause, and 
particularly toward the aRpirationa 
of the single minded a?id heroic 
Patrick SiirsliekL He had been kept 
at the tight of the Boyne in attend- 
ance on the king; at Aughrira be 
Bat his hoi*se on one side of Kilenme* 
dan while the exciting battle game 
w^iui being played at the other, and in 
neither case had he an opportunity of 
charging, or ordering to charge, or 
dii-ecting a movement, or striking a 
blow. A complete insight into the 
workings of hi^ troubled and ireful 
heart on the*ie days would not be do- 
strable. 

OXE SHOT DECIDES TBE VICTORT. 

The general, doomed to enjoy but 
a few minutes more of existence, wa.^ 
radiant with confident hope. Pre- 
paring for the Jiriul swoop, he cried, 
*' They are beaten ; let us beat them 
to the purpose P He gave riome 
directions to an artillery officer, place^l 
hitui^clf at tlie head of his guard, and 
Wiis about to give the command to 
charge when his head was blowu to 
pieces by a cannon-ball I 

Does not it now seem on easy 
thing for the next in command then to 
have sent at once to Lord Lucan, in- 
form him of the fatal accident, and 
summon him to take the eliief com- 
mand? It wa«i a simple matter to 
charge on the advancing columns, and 
tlirough superiority in number and 
fri'sh untired forces render what 
they had effected of no avail. Ko, 
A cloak was laid over the body, and it 
was conveyed to the rcre ; part of iho 



Jtkkm$ am4Aughrlm. 



181 



guard aooompanied it, and the rest 
soon followed. 

The historians do not agree on the 
final resting-place of the bodj of the 
gallant bat ill-advised Frenchman, 
but the probability is that it was 
conveyed to Atheniy and interred in 
its roofless church ; peace to his mem- 
ory I* 

However unaccountable it may 
seem, Sarsficld received no intelli- 
gence of St. Ruth's death till it was 
too late to repair the mischance. 
Meanwhile the English wh^ had 
crossed at Aughrim found time to as- 
sist their struggling friends in the 
centre, and the musketeers were grad- 
nally driven upward. The main 
body of Irish infantry on right of the 
centre were as much discouraged by 
the death of Rev. Dr. Stafibrd, an ener- 
getic chaplain, as the guards had been 
hf tliat of the commander-in-chief. 
Tlie right wing at Urrachree, after in- 
cessant fighting, were obliged to re- 
treat before the increasing numbers 
of their assailants released from duty 
elsewhere, and the English and Dan* 
ish cavalry at Urrachree were at lei- 
sore to relieve the Huguenot infantry 
on their right from the fierce attacks 
of the Irish infantry to whom they 
had been opposed. - 

It was n9w past sunset and the rout 
of King James's adherents had be- 



* rrom the Oreen Book of Mr. O^Oallachan, we ex- 
trad (abridged) a curious traditional passage connect- 
ed vith the death of St Ruth. The day before the 
bsttle, a neighboring gentleman, bjr name 0*KelIy, 
presented himself before him demanding payment of 
sundry sheep driven off his lands by the soldiers. 
Thtgeoeral reAised. alleging that he should not grudge 
food to the men who were fighting for him and his 
cooatry. Kelly persisting, the general used harsh 
hofsage, and the other, turning to his herdsman, bade 
Urn In Irish to mark St. Ruth and his appearance. 
'^Yoa are robbed, master,** said the herd, ** but any- 
kov. ask for the skins.** These were needed by the 
toMiers for bed furniture, and all that master and 
Wrd obtained by the second request was a peremp- 
tory order to begone. They obeyed and sought the 
IsfUsh general, who recommended them to the care 
sf scertain artillery officer named Trench. When the 
r««ge before the castle was made, Trench got his 
piles of ordnance fixed in an advantageous place on the 
edge of the marsli by means of planking, and as soon 
K the treacherous herd caught sight of St. Ruth he 
cried oat, ** Take aim ! there he is, the man dressed 
Bke a bandsman.** One wheel of the carriage being 
Isver Uian was requisite. Trench put his boot under 
IkiBd erenrthing being ac^usted aim was taken, and 
OXdly and bis herd got their revenge, and the fa- 
1« if Um lulinf powers. 



oome general, the hist to retreat being 
the in^ntry next to Urrachree, who 
had done such good service against 
the regiments of La Melloniere, Da 
Cambon, and Belcassel. 

AFTER THB BATTUE. 

The infantry fled to the protection 
of the large red bog on their leA, and 
the cavaliy made an orderly retreat 
south-west, along the road to Lough- 
rea. The poor infantry were slaugh- 
tered without mercy by the pursuing 
cavalry, but a thick mist mercifully 
sent saved the lives of many. An 
ingenious diversion in their favor 
was made by a brave and thoughtful 
officer of the old race of 0*Reilly, who. 
getting on a small eminence, sounded 
the charge for battle, and stopped for 
a few minutes the bloody pursuiL 
One skilled in the domestic economy 
of battles may explain why the Irish 
cavalry did not combine and present 
a strong and effective obstacle to 
the English horse, while the poor 
fellows on foot were getting away 
under their shelter. The present 
writer being a mere civilian can allege 
no sufficient reason. Neither does he 
seek to excuse the party to whom the 
garrison in the old castle surrendered. 
Two thousand living men occupied 
the premises in the morning, and of 
these (the few kiQed excepted) only 
the commander, Walter Bourkc, eleven 
officers, and forty soldiers, were 
granted their lives. To account for 
the absence of mercy on the English 
side it was asserted that no quarteb 
was among the instructions given to 
the Irish before the battle. We are 
not in condition to decide whether the 
fact was so or not. 

The number of killed and wounded 
on both sides is variously estimated* 
Story says the Irish loss was 7,000. 
Others state it at 4,000. Captain 
Parker, on the English side, says that 
there were slain of the allied troopa 
about 3,000. This is a problem in the 
solution of which we feel no interest- 
We are gratified by the heroism dis. 



T82 



ASidM andAu§hr{m» 



ployeil on holU Mtlct, anfi our ^alifim- 
lion would bo much cnhanct'tl by HuiU 
itig it reconkJ thtit vvlieii rosistjinee 
ceascii, qunrterwas genprou^ly granted- 
Wilh few L'X'^eptionjt this was not the 
rase, Aixlcnt [>a} tij»an as i\w cliapluiti 
vv;i8, wc are suiti ihat lii^ Utfttcr fei-l- 
higa were stirred by what In* looked 
an *'tbrcc days aOcrwhen all our own 
and some of theii's were irilerrod.'' 

^' I iL'ckLmctl iu Bortie small ciidosurrs 150' 
ill oiIr'tj^ 120, ki\, lying most of thorn by ibc 
dUclu * whvru tbey wrro shot, and the rosfH 
from the top of the liill, when? their camp ba«l 
l>eei», lookei hko a grcAi flo<:k of slictip, jibat- 
leretl u|i anJ down iiie countrcy for iilmoat 
fgijr luilci round.*' 

Wert* wc ^uro of keeping our tcm- 
|XT we would htM-e commenrc a lay 
sermon on the init|iiily of Ihase, whe- 
ther etnpercira, khigs. presidents, or evil 
coaneillon*, who for wretched ohjeots, 
m whieh vanity or covetousness ha« 
eliief i^hare, arm myriads of children 
of the great htinion family agauist each 
Fwherti' lives, and feel neither pity nor 
Ifemorse at the s^i'^ht of poor naked 
flkuman remains, flung broadeitst over 
l.lKmth, and moors, and bill-side';, like 
■rgrcy *^tonc?, or the scattered sheep of 
hour chaplain's Hlust ration. 
I The En;;lish occupiers of Ihe ^und 
J .after the battle buried only their own 
|»«]ead, unlcBS where tlie pm^enee of the 
] 'Other bodies interfered with their eon- 
I Ten ie nee, and as the Inhabitants of the 
I aelphhorhood had qaitled their bomea 
I ^hen the expectation of a battle bc- 
'Came strong, the bodies of the Iri^h 
[♦soldiers remained above ground till 
tiothing but the bones were left. We 
quote an affecting incident from our 
cbajilaia relative to this sad eondition 
of things : 

'^Matif dag<;« fi*qtjeiitotl the pliice Ion*; 

mftcrwat*^^ atid l»eeaiiic so ficteo by f^pediuj; 

mpon man*a Ceah, that it became dangerous 
1 401* Miy single tnan to pass thai wsy. And 

4tiero is n true* ^Qd remarkable story of a grey* 
' 4iauMd (ttolfbouDd?) bclon;;ln^ to an IrUh 

olficcn The goTiilornan waa killed and strip* 

* \m the butLlc, whose Ijody the dog re- 
Ted by, flight and day ; and thnui;h he fed 
■■^^ other corps with the rest of the dog*s yet 
nSewould not ilow them or anyihiug el^c to 

4ottcb that of hi mnatisr, Whco all the corp« 



were consulted all the dopadr^ ' 
u^uJ to ^o ill tbi> iil<^d\t to the ^i ; 
for food, and prcn^hily to rciuru tu the { 
where his maiiter'a boaes were only then lelL 
And thus ho eontinuorl lilt J»nu:try fi>[\oiifhi% 
when one of CttL Faulk's tinMio* btiti;; (pmr 
tered ni^h hand^ and going that w,iy bv 
chiinec, the dog, fearing he ejime to disturb 
his raafetcr's l)ont**, flew upon ibc soldier, who 
beiRf; f*urf)riaed al the siiddonnef^ of the thiuj;, 
uitH'lnn^ hi-i pit'ce thereupon bin b^iek &iid 
killed ibc poor dof;.'' 

Though cur dmrna cannot conclude 
till the articlesj come to he sifpied al 
Lime»ick, the fij^ht wc have endo - 
voured to describe with full justice tn 
both parties, may be eonj^i^lered the 
entaiitropheoroRmowe/w*/*^ of the pit;r^% 
no enjza;;emcnt of it^ ma^nitnue or j-n 
decisive in it^ rcsulu having taken place 
afterward. 

FROM Ai]niimM TO i^ntemcK 

SarsfielJ, at the head of the cavalry 
and some irJantry, proceeded to Lim- 
erick after the defeat of Au^^hruA; 
D'Ufson conducted the main bo«iy of) 
the infantry lo Gal way, before which 
city De Glnckel arrived on tlic 20lli.| 
of the month. D'L's^rm had but few 
of the quaiittes requisite for a goo^i ] 
military chief, and nej^otiaiions were 
entered on next day, the Irish evacu-/ 
aling ihc city, and the En<xli^h o^eneralJ 
allo\viD«c them to proceed to Limerick] 
widi the honors of war, and all tlitrJ 
conveniences in his power to afford^ 
them. 

After Baldearg 0*Donnel had mttcli 
excited the expectations of the countrji 
hein;; freed through his valor and wiaj 
dom, he is found at this lime a mere ehiel 
of straf^frling parties, a greater terror J 
to the natives by their cisacliona than] 
to the common enemy. lie opened a| 
correspondence wilh the Knglish gen-, 
cral, and like some modern patrioti 
wras rewarded for die annoyance hi] 
had hitherto given the English Gov*j 
ernment by a valnable pensicn for lif(a 

Such waa not the system acted ( 
by our brave old acquaintance, Thi^f 
ORegan, now a kni;i;ht, and Governo 
of Sligo, Baldear;^ having desertc 
hh old-fashioned and loyal &S($ociai<s 



Alhlom an4 Aufkrim, 



Itt 



Sfr Tfugue fcmnd himself on the Idih 
of September at the 'head of 600 men 
and provided with twelve days' food, 
tlie town and part of the citadel in the 
enemy's hands, and 5,000 fresh men 
sent against him by Lord Granard 
r(;ady to smash his fortifications, or 
starve him into a sense of his condition. 
The little man of the long periwig, red 
cloak, and plumed hat, had a head as 
well as a heart. He capitulated and 
received all the respect due to loyalty 
and courage. He and his garrison 
vere conducted out with honor, their 
twelve days' provisions (their own re- 
sidue) given them, and all conveniences 
supplied them for their march to Lim- 
erick. To honor the peppery old 
knights the same terms were granted 
to all the little garrisons in that country. 
Omitting negotiations, marches, and 
petty af&irs, important only to those 
coocemod, we come to De Ginckel's 
camp at Cariganless (as our chaplain 
spells the name) in his progress to 
Limerick. On August 25th, the army 
left that town. 

ldcebick's last defence. 

On the 26th of August the besiegers 
of Limerick were at their posts, and 
OQ the dOth the bombardment com- 
menced. It was so severe and spread 
rach devastation within Irish town that 
many inhabitants took their beds and 
migrated to the English town within 
the arms of the river, and Lords Jus- 
tices and delicate ladies and sundry 
loTere of quiet set up their rest two 
miles inknd in Clare. On the 10th 
of September forty yards of the defend- 
ing wall of English town were reduced 
to rabbish, but the arm of the river 
waa in the way, and no assault follow- 
ed. 

September 15th a bridge of boats was 
^ across the Shannon toward Anna- 
beg, and a large detachment of English 
horse and foot crossed to the right bank 
of the Shannon. These took up their 
statioQ beyond Thomond-bridge, the 
Irish cavalry, whose phice that was, 
being obliged to remove to Sixmiler 
bridge. The laying of the bridge and 



the passage of the detachment weve 
effected through the gross negligenee 
or treachery of Brigadier Clifford, who 
was tried by a court martial for thp 
ofience* He acknowledged the negli- 
gence, but stoutly denied the treason. 
Colonel Henry Luttrell *"proved trai- 
tor without any doubt, and was kept 
close prisoner till King James *s will 
could be ascertained. Before that 
time came the fortress was given up 
and Luttrell set at liberty. England 
rewarded him for his intentions ; and 
his name has since been a word of ill- 
omen in the mouths of the Irish peas- 
antry. 

22d. De Ginckel attacked the Irish 
post on the Clare side of Thomond- 
bridge. The three regiments of Kirke, 
Tiffin, and Lord George Hamilton, 
overpowered Colonel Lacy with his 
700 men, and when these sought shel- 
ter in the ^ity, they found themselves 
shut out by the town major, a Frencii- 
man, who feared that the foes would 
.enter pell-mell with the friends. Lit- 
tle quarter was given, and only 130 
got the privilege of being made prison- 
ers of war. This is one of those in- 
stances in which the Irish party suffer- 
ed so fatally from the treachery or de- 
testable negligence of some among 
themselves. 

The Duke of Tyrconnel died at the 
residence of D'Usson during the siege. 

This was the last trial of arms be- 
tween the friends of William and James 
in Ireland. Next day a truce was 
agreed on and preliminaries of peace 
commenced. With the " Conditions 
of Limerick," a dismal hoiisehold word 
with the peasantry of Ireland from that 
hour to the present, we shall not med- 
dle. They do not come within our 
scope, which merely embraces the stir- 
ring events of the three years' cam- 
paign, our design being to present these^ 
in a picturesque and interesting light,, 
and in a spirit of genuine impartiality.. 
This being our design, we have seized 
on everything that could reflect honor 
, or credit on the chiefs of both parties* 

* Tills U the nrae Colonel Luttrell who told Umi 
PMS at Aughrlm, as before mentioned. Id. 0. W. 



114 



JUp€fj^9 Mb$» 



or tlin coniliict of ihn common soldioni. 
W«^ Imvci fotmd much moro rancor and 
wmii of InimAiiltjr dUlinjciliihlng both 
fiiirlli«i, lli«i military clilofli oxcout^d, 
than wo could wUh. Tlioso wo naro 



softened as much as tnith wonld per- 
mit. No one reading our sketches tral 
will, as we hope, think better of the 
party whose principles he repudiates, 
than he did before the pemsal 



ASPERGES ME! 



»T MOHARD STORR3 WILUS. 



PRO$tiUTK at ihr aHar kiie«Uo^« 

llfnir tttt" err with inoMMt Rielii^ 

Ah t what Ma$ I <\>nfte ^wi^izur, 

SiM^ I ImsI nw^ftTipd thr bWssm^ ! 

Y<t with all lli» jpttk t>fynrniiag, 

Siailrk«i< 



$^rf ^W wn ^ *rfw^wLvfs«CMnL 
)Im^ a ;^c£nv«» law> iu^rKCMfK 
)la»5 «a )iM>r vr wdi &crKcSn — 

vH I 9niik «a Olrac Mstvir iw — 



C^mir I mot* irr :&m ohc Vit iw? 
Xi"^ iir ;«ninr 3a>c tunc sal im * 



r^Mt n« iwr^ 'tesBT r-Tw l um ig a> 
v^ ^^nii nan siinr ^nw TmiBL 



jMevT'Viat. 



186 



From Th« Montb. 



ANCOR-VIAT— A NEW GIANT CITY. 



If anj woald-be discoverer of an- 
dent mooumeiits is envious of the 
laarels of Mr. Lajard and other 
celebrities of the same class, let him 
at once set out by the overbind route, 
md make his waj as fast as he can to 
Ancor-Viat. Few people have yet 
heard of it, but if what is said of it 
be true, it must be simply the most 
stupendous collection of magnificent 
moDmnents in the world. If the 
tnveDer in Central America, who, 
fike Mr. Stephens, quits the beaten 
tnch and plunges into the depths of 
rast forests, is amazed at the ruins of 
Oopan, Pa]enque,Uxmal,and Chichen, 
with their huge truncated pyramids, 
pilaces, corridors, and sculptured bas- 
reliefs, he would, it seems, be still more 
rarprised if he extended his researches 
(0 d)e Empire of Annam, and, ad vane- 
iogtoward the utmost boundary of Cam- 
bodia, irhere it skirts Thibet, he came, 
moonted on an elephant, to the gigan- 
tic temples and forests of marble pil- 
Itrs which mark the site of which we 
ipeak. It was thus that a French 
officer in the service of the King of 
Slain recently visited the spot; and 
the account be has given of it may be 
tbond in the Eevue de T Architecture, 
and is 'in great part reproduced in the 
Berne Contemporaine of December, 
1866. No European writer before 
hun lias ever mentioned it, and in read- 
ing his letters we must make allowances 
^ possible exaggeration. He is a man- 
wn of the third class, and has ob- 
tiined the rank of general in command 
<^th€ Siamese army. M. Perrin (for 
nch is his name) proposes revisiting 
Ancor-Viat with a complete photo- 
fnphic apparatus ; and when he has 
^e thi«, and has given us the pleas- * 
tnt of examining hia photographs, we 



shall be better able to judge of his 
veracity. Meanwhile the editor of 
the Revue Contemporaine is of opin- 
ion that the clearness and simplicity 
of his account leaves little room ftM* 
doubting its truth. 

When M. Perrin first visited Ancor- 
Yiat, he saw nothing of its ancient 
splendor ; for in *• Indian China," 
as in Central America, monuments of 
large dimensions and great beauty are 
oilen unknown to the people who dwell 
within a few hundred yards of them. 
The concourse of intelligent and weal- 
thy travellers alone teaches ignorant 
natives the value of their own sur- 
roundings. On his second journey 
M. Perrin^s attention was directed to 
the ruins by a curious circumstance. 
The King of Kokien pays a yearly 
tribute to the King of Siam in kind, 
and among the articles sahpetre fig- 
ures largely. In the whole of India 
beyond the Granges — in the Birman 
Empire, Siam, Alalacca, and Annam 
— the people, children like, have a 
passion for fireworks, and consequent- 
ly consume a large quantity of salt- 
petre. Now the excrement of bats 
and night-birds that haunt in great 
abundance the cities of the dead fur^ 
Dishes, it seems, a copious supply of 
this substance, and ia, in fact, as fruit* 
ful in the production of squibs and 
rockets as guano — the dung of Peru- 
vian sea-birds — is in the cultivation 
of com and rye. It is collected by 
malefactors who work in chains, and is 
dissolved in water mixed widi ashes. 
Afler some days the water and ashes, 
with the macerated dung strongly im- 
pregnated with ammonia, is passed 
through tight sieves, and exposed in 
big caldrons to the action of huge fires. 
The entire substance then evaporates 



tt6 



Aneor - VUtt 



leaving bebind ft crystals of saltpetre. 
Tho East wfts famous of old for ilie 
manufacture of nitre ; and we liavc 
all noticed liow it forms Bpontan**o«s- 
ly on tlie walls of stabler, slaughter- 
houses, cellarfi, and the like, from the 
decomposition of animal matter, and 
even from I he breath and «weat of 

No wonder M. Perrin was struck as 
ft foreipiK^r by the strange spectaele of 
convicU eoUectinj^ bird-dung. The 
birds of night have a strong affinity 
for ruins, and crumbling towera and 
ferraees are — to use an exi>rc^sioii of 
Yirgirg— 

'*01rtruin nldU domutopportan* volncram/* 

9 along the northern part of the 
dty of Aneor- Via t that M. Per- 
?nTialted frequently to watch the cul- 
prit!* uf Cambodia plying their foul 
ta?k. During six days of elephant 
marefi he irn veiled on wirhoal eomin;:? 
to tlie end of the eity, J lei'e and then* 
be fieneirnted into the ruins where ex- 
plorers bad op*'ned a pafisanje. No 
one, he says, would behove him if he 
told all he saw. The monuments^ the 
palaces the temples, the pillars, stairs, 
wid blocks of marble pass descnplion. 
Tiie circle of the ruins was computed 
by the people of the country at ten or 
twelve Icat^ues in diameter* Now 
Considerini* that Londiin, with its 
Ihir^c mUiions of irdiabitant=^, meas- 
ures about eleven miles tmm east to 
west, and that Ancor-Viat by this cal- 
culation covered ft bout three times as 
muclj jrround, there mu.^t have been a 
pretty large concourse of human beings 
under the shadow of its colossal hall.s. 
It may have been the capital of an 
«#mpire; it may have been an empire 
in itself, There, doubtless, as in the 
ancient eities of Mexico, the rich and 
the great dwelt in spacious edifices, 
with gardens and graves enclosed, 
while the poorer sort henJed tf>getber 
in luits bke those of the rud^-st tribes 
of Indinns, There were ro parliaments 
and philanlhropie«iocteties then to look 
offer the dwtdtings of ilu* poor* but 
as spac42 was no abject iu ihoac day&» 



they made up for straitened acooro- 
moJatiou at home> by plenty of spATB 
room for building within the walls. 
Subaltern officers in the British army 
in Ceylon, who have surveyed tlml 
ijsland of late years, report cities of 
enormous si::e, and covered in with 
j»ingle,ft8 inviting excavation. Auara- 
japdpootTa, they tell us^ must have been 
larger than London, and Polonarooa 
(be indulgent to the spelling, ye stu- 
dents of Cingftlee !) contauis statues 
of A na k h ei gh t. The ivcik m ben t Bud - 
dha in the last of these two ciliei u 
24 feet in length, and the Buddhist 
temples, built of a kind of granite, are 
huge in proi>ortion. What bullock- 
power and elephant-power it mui»t 
have requin'd to move blockiS of stone 
so unvvieldy in an age when machin* 
ery and engineering were unknown! 
What thews mupit these Titans have 
had, before the time of eastern cflcmi- 
nacy, to build th<^ir towers of unce- 
men ted aslilars piled up like * Pelion 
upon Ossa"! M- l*errin as:^un^.s tis 
liiat he saw in AncorViat temples id 
a gocid state of preservation, but over- 
run witli weeds andshrub:;, which mea^ 
ured a league in cii'ciiit. Pillars rO06 
around liim on every sidii, tuU ascedara* 
and all in marble. The stairs, though 
partly burie<l under the soil, still mouair 
ed much higher than the noble flights 
one sees at Versailles or on tlie Piassa 
di Spagna at Rome. The buildings 
in some places were as solid as if thay 
had been raised yestenlay. Accord- 
ing to local tradition, they are four 
or five ihou&and years old; and yet, 
but for lightning and the overgrowth 
of luxuriant vegetation, they would 
even at this day be perfect and intact. 
" Oh ! ihat I had bTOUjrhl a p holograph- 
ic apparatus with mcT exeiaims this 
traveller. ** I assure you, whether 
you believe it or no, that thj most 
famous monuments ancient or morlern 
which we can boast of are mere &he(b 
compared with what I have seen: our 
[>alares, onr basilicas the Vatican, 
C olosseum, and the hke, twe just dog- 
kennels to it. and nothing more 1" 
It' wc had never h^ard of the laduia 



I 




Antar-VkfL 



lift 



dties of Central America which the 
tribes are supposed to have deserted 
six or seven hundred years ago, when 
warned by their priests of the coming 
of the Spaniards, we might feel dis- 
posed to reject M. Perrins account as 
no less fabulous than the travels of 
Baron Munchausen. But when we 
follow the steps of Captain Del Rio 
and Captain I)u Paix, and still more 
those of Mr. Stephens in Chiapas and 
Yucatan ; when we see them working 
their way through dense forests in 
Honduras with fire and axe, and arriv- 
ing at a wall six hundred feet long and 
fipoin sixty to ninety in height, forming 
one side of an oblong enclosure called 
the Temple, while the other three sides 
are formed by a succession of pyramids 
and terraced walls that measure from 
thirty to a hundred and forty teet in 
Wght, we are not easily repelled by 
any report of ancient cities merely be- 
'wise the measurements in it run very 
higlL There was a phase in the his- 
Uffj of civilization when half barbarous 
rafies, who knew not the use of iron, 
delighted in constructing tasting monu- 
nieni8,and made up for beauty of detail 
hyhage ph'oportions, and for writing 
and hieroglyphics by picture-painting. 
M. Perrfn may be guilty of great exag- 
f^emtion, but we ought not to charge 
bin with it too hastily. Modem re- 
search has more than verified all that 
the Spaniards vaguely reported i]^ the 
rides of the West, where immense ikr- 
Hficial mounds are crowned with stately 
palaces, and the dauntless industry of 
former races is proved by the provision 
thej made for water-supply in a dry 
and thirsty land — by the vast reser- 
▼oire for water which have been ex- 
cavated, and are found to be paved and 
lined with stone — by the pits around 
the ponds intended to furnish supplies 
of water when the upper basin was 
empty in the height of summer — by 
the wells hidden deep in the rock, and 
readied by the patient water-carriers by 
pathways cut in the mountain to a depth 
of 450 feet, and conducting them to that 
depth by wmdings 1400 feet in length 
— 4)y the k>ng li^en, madeof rough 



rounds of wood and bound together 
with osiers, up which the Indians car- 
ried, and still carry, on their backs 
from these deep sources the water re- 
quisite for the consumption of 7,000 
persons or more, according tA the size 
of the villages, during four months of 
the year — and by the subterranean 
chambers, which the Indians of old 
probably used as granaries for maize, 
and which were made, like the inge- 
nious cisterns just spoken of, by slaves 
obedient to more intelligent masters. 
These and similar discoveries in Amer- 
ica add a color of probability to the 
description M. Perrin has given of 
Ancor-Viat in Asia. At the same 
time we would rather he had not for- 
gotten his photographic machine. 

•* I was anxious," he says, " to ascend 
to a temple that seemed tolerably per* 
feet. There were eleven staircases, of 
I know not how many staii*s each, to 
reach the first live only of peristyles ! I 
began climbing at half- past six in the 
morning, and at half-past seven I had 
barely been able to examine two or 
three of the lower apartments. I was 
obliged to shorten my stay, fearing 
that I should have to descend the stairs 
while the sun was hot. All the walls 
are sculptured and ornamented. Tho 
first effect the ruins produced on me 
was that of stupefaction. Yet 1 am 
not a man to cry out with astonish- 
ment at trifles. The following day I 
went up by a winding staircase to the 
top of an immense tower situated on a * 
height, from whence 1 enjoyed a good 
view of the surrounding i^emains. In 
hollows and parts where one cannot 
penetrate there are palaces of colossal 
height and grandeur. I had an excel* 
lent opera-glass, and could observe the 
details. An untold store of architec- 
tural treasures was before me, stretch- 
ing as far as the frontier of Cambodia, 
which is ten or twelve leagues off! 
Just think what Paris would be in 
ruins. Heaps of stones and ashlars 
scattered over a surface no more than 
two or three leagues in diameter. Here 
there is on the ground, and under the 
ground, marble, already hewn, enough 



Pte. 



«»MUa&rrtke 
fhtfiUMmtkewmh 

Hm m M»da 
»w4i to fitt«K «al tmkebreatk belbve 
UkiiM'mi^ KL Ffrn jbbj fanhitr mp hii 
«wfia^ feaim Can we aiaick anj 
cr»iil ii!> oae wbo k to kmtb io Cbe 
mm: r/f'wcfrdb mod i|nii«it H« ba* 
crid««tl / a topftflK dkrr^aid fiir aiee 
imtmn'ifji», mod ofdinarr BMasnvs of 
Iflse and pfaMe. Maitile «io«gh !■ 
Aaeof'Viai to boild all ibe citiea in 
the world ? C^cit m pern fort, M. 
Perrin, But lei m bear fami to tbe 
cod. We can belMrre a i^ood deal 
alfcat aim ezeaTated or still under- 
^TMiiid, ftsr we ha%'e seen serend sodi 
wtcfa oor own eje« ; but crednlitT itself 
bas its limits, ^l saw," M. Perrin 
eootinoffiy ^'tbe le^ of a etatoe the 
great toe of wbicb measured eleven 
times my f##wlin^'pieoe in length. Il 
is in mariilet like the rest of the fignre : 
there is no other stone here nsed for 
bnildin^ except colored stones^ which 
are employed as borders or for the 
eyes of statues. There are pedestals 
with flights of steps, of which the 
crowning images haire disappeared, as 
high aiid as large as St. Cvermain 
FAuxcrrois. Fancy octagonal pyr»- 
mids cut short at half their proper 
heiglit — all in marble, recollect Who 
the dc'\'il raised all this? If it was 
some famous dynasty, it cannot be very 
well satisfied with the oblivion into 
which it bas fallen, in spite of its 
sumptuous roonctments. VVhat are 
the ruins c^ Palenque, or even of 
Thebes with its hundred gates, or of 
Babylon, compared with this unknown 
city without history and without 
name?" 

Now, setting aside Tliebes and Bab- 
ylon, it may be well to compare what 
we really know of Palenque with 
the f^cncraFs singular account of An- 
cor-Viat. It is more than a hundred 
years since the Spaniards first heard 
of it from Uic Indians, and the reports 
of its extent differ as widely now as 
they did then. Tlie natives say the 
ruins cover an area of sixty miles; 
Dtt Paix aud Del Rio seven lei^ocs; 




The largest 
fottr feet ls|Bhi, 



brthel 

wkk stooe,aBd 
310 fiect by S€0 at the base. 



ttfae%. 



the style proper Io the i 
MexicD;the< 
the i^ of I 
ores of giaali 
expressive of ■■tfiiii, The tallest 
slatne. however, that has been discov* 
ered is csly ten feet six incfaea h^^ 
by whidi it appears thai the stone %- 
ores of Mrxiran In£aas were dwaif> 
ish eompared with the hoge heroes and 
idols of the East. JL Perrin had 
been tfoestiooed about the existenee of 
religions moniments m the eastern 
peninsnla of India, and the answers 
which he returned are as follows: 
'^ Sacred stones are found here. Some 
of them are simply rocks which at 
some period or other were sidBciently 
soft to receive very clearly the impres- 
sions of the feet of men and animals. 
Of this sort the one most highly vener- 
ated is that of the Buddhist monastery 
at Phrsbat An immense number of 
pilgrims visit it annually. Others are 
enormous monoliths nused on socles 
ronghly quarried. If there ever were 
any inscriptions, they have been ef* 
fiioed. I have also seen here gate* 
ways or arches of triumph built of 
huge stones laid one upon another. 
What giants or what machines moved 
these immense blocks? They stand 
alone. Not a vestige of any building 
is near them. Sometimes there are 
not even any quarries to be found with* 
in a great distance. I saw two such 
monuments as those I now q»eak of 
among the Stiengs, when I conducted 
a military expedition against them. 
They stood in the midst ot' marshy and 
almost impassable forests, and had cer- 
tainly never before been seen by any 
European. Some of the people of 



On ike Pka^ffof the Cross. 



HW 



Laos bad spoken to me of these re- 
mains, but I very nearly missed seeing 
tbem. Tbe difficulties in the way of 
getting to tbem were so great that at 
first I did not think they would be 
worth tbe trouble. But they amply 
repaid me. I examined them most 
ounefiilly with a powerful glass. They 
did not appear to bear any inscriptions. 
Even the luxuriant vegetation of the 
tropics had been unable to disjoint 
tlnm. What roots could rend asunder 
these stones laid one upon the other 
without cement, and raise so heavy a 
weight? The side-supports were, I 
believe, as high as the top-stone laid 
•cross was long. The soil is evidently 
lused by the vigorous growth that 
marks the vegetation of these forests. 
These remains must rest on monolith 
lodes or on the rock, or on gigantic 
foondations ; for the ground on the sur- 
£use is so soft and wet that you may 
osilj thrust a cane into it up to tho 
htndle.'' 

When M. Perrin inquired of the na- 
tires who reared these monuments, 
they replied the 6ai ; and by the Grai 
tbej meant some barbarous white men, 
who came from the land of perpetual 
now, who were as tall as three Siam- 
cie, and whose fingers and toes, though 
atticiilated, were not separate from 
ooe another. They rode on horses 
double the size of those now seen, fmt 
booes of which are oflen found in the 
earth. Impious men were these Gai ; 
tbej hunted elephants, and feasted on' 
their fle&h; they offered sacrifices of 
blood to their gods. Chinese mer- 
diaots informed the general that 
mooaments of the same huge descrip- 
tioo are to be found in the north and 
west of China, and that the people 



there call them " giants' stones." The 
traveller in Central America is, we 
know, sometimes amazed to find mon- 
strous blocks evidently hewn by the 
hands of men, yet hundreds of leagues 
distant from any calcareous strata. 
Men in the neighborhood who are 
learned in other matters are quite at 
fault when their opinion respecting 
them is asked. Some will tell you 
that the nature of the soil is changed 
from what it was before the conquest, 
and others that the Incas had means of 
transport unknown to us. Probably 
there are quarries of granite under the 
surface of the savannas ; but how the 
Indians could extract the stone with- 
out gunpowder or machinery is a prob- 
lem we are unable to solve. 

Important discoveries are not always 
due to scientific and discerning men. 
The earliest accounts of anything new 
and surprising are likely to be over* 
drawn ; but they are not the less valu- 
able fi-om this circumstance. Theup 
very exaggeration may stimulate in* 
quiry, and thus be an advantage rather 
than otherwise in the outset. It was a 
poor Tungusian fisherman who discov- 
ered the most perfect specimen of tho 
mammoth near the mouth of the river 
Lena, nearly seventy years ago, and 
his sale of the creature's tusks for 
fifly rubles led to an accurate know- 
ledge of the monster's structure and 
habits, as well as to a great extension 
of the trade in ivory derived from 
mammoths' tusks. General Perrin's 
testimony appears to us well worthy 
of attention, in spite of its being highly 
colored here and there. It may, on 
the whole, fall far short of the reality, 
and may lead to the solution of ques- 
tions of importance in oriental history 



ON THE PLANTING OF THE CROSS. 

Dig deep : the tree will surely grow, 
And spread its branches far and wide ; 

No tree had e'er such fruit to show. 
Nor with its shade bo much tohida 



14f 



Jdeeliqfijf. 



MISCELLANY. 



The Cathedral Library at Cologne.— In 
the year 1794, when the French revolu- 
tionary army advanced to the Khino, the 
valuable library attached to the Cologne 
Cathedral was conveyed for safety to 
Darmstadt. Among its treasures are 
one hundred and ninety volumes, chiefly 
in manuscript. A careful catalogue of 
them was made so far back as 1752, by 
Harzhcim, a learned Jesuit, under the 
title of " An Historical and Critical Cat- 
alogue of the Manuscripts of the Library 
of the Metropolitan Church of Cologne." 
This valuable collection dates as far back 
as Charlemagne. It was commenced by 
Ilildebold, archbishop of Cologne, and 
archchancellor of that monarch, in the 
year 783. It was considerably Increased 
by gifts from Pope Leo the Third to the 
Kmperor Charles in 804. The Arch- 
bishops Heribertus, Evergerus, Hanno, 
and their successors, continued the collec- 
tion by the purchase of rare manuscripts 
and copies of ancient parchments. In the 
year 15C8, Ilittorp, in the preface of his 
work ** On Divine Oflftces,'* dedicated to 
Archbishop Salentin. alludes more than 
once to this rare collection. Wo might 
quote many other authorities to authen- 
ticate the manuscripts. Jacob Pamelius, 
in a work published at Cologne in 1577, 
entitled *^The Liturgy of the Latin 
Church'* (who is quoted by Ilarzhcim 
in his book **The old Codexes of Co- 
loene"), distinctly gives their date and 
ongin. The collection consists of eieht 
parts, namely : 1. Bibles ; 2. The Fa- 
thers ; 8. Ecclesiastical Law ; 4. Writers 
on Sacrifices, Sacraments, Offices of the 
Church, and Liturgies ; 5. Ilistories ; 6. 
Ascetics; 7. Scholastics; 8. Philosoph- 
ical, Rhetorical, and Grammatical writ- 
ers. Some of these manuscripts are 
richly illuminated, and some set with 
precious stones. The first codex dates 
from the ninth century, if not earlier, 
which is indicated by the capital letters, 
which are in gold. The seventh codex 
contains the Gallic, Roman, Hebrew, and 
Greek Psalmody, as edited by St Jerome 
— **a most rare and valuable codex." 
The twelfth codex, in elegant folio, 
adorned with many illumiiuitions aod an- 



notations of the eighth century, comprises 
the four Gospels. Codex one hundred 
and forty-three deserves particular men- 
tion. As fronti^'piece, there is a portrait 
of Archbishop Evergerus in his episcopal 
robes. It is richly illuminated and sot 
with jewels. The above quotations, 
which we have translated from the 
Latin, in which language the catalogue 
is written, will suffice to give such of onr 
readers as are bibliophiles some idea of 
a treasure which will shortly be restoreii 
to the shelves of the library attached to 
the Cologne Cathedral. We may men- 
tion another restoration which is on the 
eve of accomplishment. The celebrated 
collection of pictures, known as the Pus- 
seldorf collection, will shortly be returned 
to Prussia, negotiations having already 
commenced for that purpose. The col- 
lection, which comprises some of the 
finest .specimens of the German and 
Dutch schools, is at present at Munich. — 
All the Year Hound, 

On the Movements oftne Heart. — In a 
recent memoir Dr. Sibson describes his 
experiments 6n the movements of the 
heart, which were made on the ass un- 
der the influence of wourali, and on 
doga subjected to chloroform. He found 
that the contraction of the ventricles 
takes place in every direction toward 
a region of rest, which in the right 
ventricle corresponds with the anterior 
papillary muscle in the lefl ventricle, 
with a situation about midway between 
apex and base. Simultaneously with the 
universal contraction of the ventricles 
there is universal distention of both auri- 
cles, the pulmonary artery, and the aortse. 
The total amount of blood contained in 
the heart and great vessels is the same 
during both systole and diastole. Dur- 
ing the ventricular contraction, however, 
the distribution of the blood, lessened to- 
ward the region of the apex, balances 
itself by being increased in tliat of the 
base, since the auricles and great vessels 
are enlarged, not only toward the ven- 
tricles, but also outward and upward. 
During ventricular dilatation the reverse 
takes place. 



MiWoeBanj^ 



141 



Tke Phy$ie8 of a Meteor its. — In a re- 
cent note in the proceedings of the Royal 
Society, the Rev. Samuel Haughton, of 
Trinity College, Dublin, gives a very 
graphic account of the fall of an aerolite. 
The tire-ball was seen by two peasants, 
who have given the following written 
statement of their observations ; and 
since the facts described by these igno- 
rant men correspond exactly with the 
fiicts theoretically believed to present 
themselves, we think the description of 
the highest interest. It is headed, The 
Statement of Eye-witnesses, and runs as 
follows : ** I, John Johnson, of the parish 
of Clonoulty, near Cashel, Tipperary, was 
walking across my potato-garden at the 
back of my house, in company with 
Michael Falvy and William Furlong, on 
Aai;ast 12, 1865, at 7 p.m., when I heard 
a clap, like the shot out of a cannon, very 
quick and not like thunder; this was 
folloired by a buzzing noise, which con- 
tioacd for about a quarter of an hour, 
▼ben it came over our heads, and, look- 
ioK up, we saw an object falling down in 
a slanting direction ; wo were frightened 
at the spieed, which was so great that we 
could scarcely notice it ; but after it fell 
we proceeded to look for it, and found it 
at a distance of forty yards, half buried 
m the ground, where it had struck the 
top of a potato-drill. We were some 
tiioe looking for it (a longer time than 
that during which we heard the noise). 
On taking up the stone we found it warm 
(milk warm), but not enough to be incon- 
venient. The next day it was given up 
to Lord Ilawardcn." — Popular Science 

The Earth and Moon in Collision. — 
Mr. Jame^ Croll, who some time since 
asserted that, owing to peculiar solar and 
lunar action, the above extraordinary con- 
dition will eventually take place, has ju^t 
published a paper reasserting the truth 
of his proposition. The theory was op- 
posed by the astronomer royal and Pro- 
fessor William Thomson, who showed 
that, owing to the position of the tid.d 
wave, the moon is drawn not exactly 
in t*ic direction of the e.irtli's centre of 
I^Tairit)', but a little to the east of that 
centre, and that in consequence of this 
rf>c is made to recede from the earth. 
Her orbit is enlarged and her angular 
notion diminished. This argument d>es 
not, in Mr. Croll's opinion, affjct his 
»ie«r. The condition.-; described by Pro- 
ftssor Thomson and the astronomer 



royal do not in the least degree prevent 
the consumption of the vis viva of the 
earth^s motion round the common centre 
of gravity, although to a certain extent, 
at least, it must prevent this consumption 
from diminishing the moon s distance, 
and increasing her angular motion. But 
as this consumption of vis viva will go 
on through indefinil^ ages, if the present 
order of things remains unchanged, the 
earth and the moon must therefore ulti- 
mately come together. — Ibid. 

Sanskrit Library. — Prof. Goldstlicker 
lately communicated to a scientific meet- 
ing at London the intell-gence he^had 
received from Laiiore of the exi-itence in 
that city of a most extensive Sanskrit 
Library in the possession of Pandit Rad- 
ha Kishen. From an examination of the 
catalogue that had been sent to him, ho 
was able to state that that library con- 
tained a great many rare and valuable 
works, some of which had hitherto been 
supposed to be lost He had also been 
promised catalogues of similar collections 
of Sanskrit MSS. in other parts of India, 
of the contents of which he would keep 
the Society informed as they came to 
hand. The paper read was by Prof. Max 
Mullcr, ** On the Hymns of the Gaupay- 
anas, and the Legend of King Asainati." 
After some rcmirks on the proper u.se 
to be made of Sanskrit MSS. in general, 
and on the principles of criticism by 
which the writer was guided in his edi- 
tion of Sayana's Commentary on the 
Rig-veda, he proceeded to show by an 
example the characters of tlie three 
cl.isses of MSS. he had made use of, and 
the manner in which the growth of le- 
gends was favored by the traditional in- 
terpretation of the Vcdic Hymns. Ho 
had selected for this purpose the four 
hymns of the Gaupayanas (Mmdala x., 
57— CO), and the Legend of King Asa- 
mati quoted by Sayana in explanation of 
them; and then related the latter, ac- 
cording to the various forms in which it 
has been handed down to us, frojn the 
simple account given in the Tandya Brah- 
mana and Katyayana's Sarvanukrama, 
to the more expanded one in the Satya- 
yanaka Brahmina, the Brehaddvjvata and 
the Niti.nanjari. He then give a double 
translation of the hymns in q-.iestion — 
one in strict confoimily to Sayan I's in- 
terpretation, and another in acoonla ce 
with his own principles of tra jsl.ition — 
the latter asa.speoim;»n of what he intends 
to give in his forthc^jiiug traiislatioii of 



148 



New PMicaHonB. 



the whole of the Rig-yeda. The writer 
concluded with a reswnS of the different 
points of interest which these hymns, 
though by no means fair specimens of 
the best religious poetry of the Brah- 
mans, present ; the healing powers of the 
hands, the constant dwelling on divinities 



which govern the life of man, and the desr 
conception of a soul as separate from the 
body— of a soul after death going to 
Yama Varvasyata, the ruler of the de- 
parted, or hovering about heaven or 
earth ready to be called back to a new 
life.— /ftki 



NEW PUBLICATIONS, 



A CeNyERSATio!^ on Union A mono 
CHRisTf ANS ; Tbe Gospel door of Mer- 
ct; What shall I do to become a 
Christian? The Church and Child- 
ren ; A Voice in the Night, or Lessons 
OF The Sick Room ; The Gospel 
Church ; Who is Jesus Christ ? 
Tracts Nos. 13-19 ; Catholic Publica- 
tion SociETT, 146 Nassau st New- York. 

The number of Tracts issued and dis- 
tributed by the Catholic Publication So- 
ciety through direct sales and the aid of 
auxiliary societies is so great that its 
noble and zealous project must, by this 
time, have become a subject of interest 
to eyery Catholic in the country. It is 
hardly one year since the first steps were 
taken to establish it, and already oyer 
half a million Tracts haye been distrib- 
uted through the length and breadth of 
the land. This distribution goes on in- 
creasing; that made in the month of 
February alone amounted to anenty-Jite 
thotisaml. Large orders are constantly 
coming in for the books and tracts issued 
by the Society from the Rt Rev. Bishops, 
the Rcy. Clergy, and zealous laymen of 
eyery condition of life. 

Encouraged by these marks of uni- 
ycrsal approbation, and accredited with 
the high sanction of our late Plenary 
Council, the Society will enter upon its 
work this spring, upon a scale commen- 
surate with the increasing demands made 
upon it for its publications and the mag- 
nitude of its enterprise. A Publication 
House will bo obtained, supplied with its 
own types and presses and bindery, 
which will enable it to conduct its opera- 
tions with greater rapidity, and furnish its 
publications at the lowest possible cost 

Not a few have expressed thomselyes 
surprised at its present unparalleled suc- 



cess, and are anxious to know by what 
means so much has been accomplished 
in so short a time. 

For the information of the readers of 
the Catholic World, who, we are sure^ 
are all deeply interested in the work, it 
may be stated that a good fund was con- 
tributed by a number of wealthy gentle- 
men, principally in New York, that ena- 
bled it to begin its work, and which has 
been increas^ by the proceeds of lectures 
delivered in the diocese of Boston, Al- 
bany, and New- York, the aid of auxiliary 
societies, and the sales of tracts and 
books. 

It cannot be denied that within even the 
last five years, our holy religion has made 
great advances in the spiritual care of its 
own children, in the multiplication of 
churches, the foundation of seminaries 
for the priesthood, the greater interest 
shown iii the working of Sunday schools 
and religious associations of both sexes, 
as well as in the numerous conversions 
that have been made from the different 
denominations of Protestants, and in the 
earnest consideration of the claims of tbe 
Catholic Church manifested by the peo> 
pie of our country, of whom so many 
have hitherto been either indifferent to, 
or ignorant of it. 

The Catholic Publication Society being 
by its very character a ready arm for the 
diffusion of Catholic truth, must there- 
fore commend itself to the warmest sym- 
pathies and generous co-operation of evenr 
Catholic who rejoices to see his holy fidia 
spreading abroad and winning a multi- 
tudo of souls to a knowledge of Christtaii 
truth and the praetice of ChrisUan Tir* 
tua. In fact, the Society owes its es- 
istonce to the ardently cherished widi«C 
a large class for such an 
which found an aloiost i ' 



N^^ PMwnticnf 



lit 



pression. Letters of encouragoment and 
tDquirj are being constantly received 
from the venerable bishops and clergy, 
heads of literary and benevolent associa- 
tions, superintendents of Sunday-schools, 
and from dififerent individuals in the 
humblest walks of life. The news of 
the enterprise has oven penetrated to 
some of the most distant parts of the 
world ; as is shown by a letter of sym- 
pathy containing an offer of inter-com- 
munion sent to the Society by a zealous 
finest in Bombay, India, who bad started 
a Publication Society in that £ur-off city. 
It may not be judged out of place to 
repeat here the article of the constitution 
referring to the conditions of membership. 
It will show any of our readers who de- 
sire to become copartners in this great 
work, and thereby secure for themselves 
the blessing of having aided in the ^* in- 
stniction of many unto salvation/* how 
they may practically bring that aid to 
bcir upon the realization of their pious 
desires. 

^kaj person paying, at one time, one bun- 
MdoUtn into the treasury of the Society, 
B>7, bj request, become a * Patron,' and 
*M be entitled to receive three dollars* 
*wth of the Society's publications annually, 
'^inj person paying fifty dollars at one 
tine miy become a Life Member, and shall 
be entitled to receive two dollars* worUi of 
t^ Society's publications annuall v. 

"Any person paying thirty dollars may 
beoMDc a member for five years, and shall be 
entitled to receive one dollar's worth of the 
8«iety*8 publications for five years. 

"Persons paying five dollars at one time 
ibaD be members for one year, and be entitled 
to receive of the Society's puUieations to the 
nloeof half a dollar.** 

It is plain, however, that while many 
win be found to associate themselves as 
uembers of the General Society, in order 
to carry on the work in other places, 
inxiliary societies should be formed 
whidi receive all the publications at cost 
price. It is to the rapid formation of 
these auxiliary associations that those 
many zealous friends of the work should 
torn their attention. The same object 
▼iU also be gained by making it one of 
the labors of Societies of St Vincent de 
^v^ guilds, confraternities, sodalities, 
iod the like. 

We haye seen many communications 
^ whidk inquiries have been made in 
scftreooe to the publication of illustrated 
^^Mts and Sunday-school books, and 
^ establishment of a cheap and attrac- 
lifi Sondaj-fchod p^»er. The Society 



has all these objects in contemplation, and 
will proceed to their execution as soon as 
the Publication House is in operation. 

We would suggest, therefore, that each 
and every one who has this matter at 
heart, will make personal efforts to aid 
the Society in the establishment of the 
Publication House, by sending at once 
their own names as members with as 
many more as they can procure, and 
take measures to found at least one 
auxiliary society for homo distribution 
in the community where they reside. 

Our people have shown the greatest 
interest in the diffusion of Catholic litera- 
ture, and are ever ready to make heroic 
sacrifices, if necessary, for any work of 
charity ; and in the present aspect of af- 
fairs it must be evident that one of the 
most urgent calls upon our Christian 
zeal and love is that of bringing instruc- 
tion home to the thousands who need it, 
and who, experience has proved, receive 
it gladly. One little thought we cannot 
refrain from expressing, suggested by a 
remark made in our hearing, that it will 
bo for us and our children, when time 
shall show us and them the happy fruits 
of. this truly Apostolic work, a most con- 
soling reflection that we were among 
those who first encouraged and aided it, 
and bade it *^God specd^'as it started 
upon its high and glorious mission. 



L'EcHO DE LA France. Revue 4trangdre 
dc Science et de Litteraturc. Montreal : 
Louis Ricard, Directeur. 

By the Canadian public and the French- 
speaking portion of our population of the 
States, this well-edited eclectic has, we 
are glad to know, received a hearty wel- 
come and a liberal support It purposes 
to afford its readers a choice selection of 
articles culled from the best European 
magazines and reviews, chiefly those of 
France, and it certainly has accomplished 
its task hitherto with much ability. It is 
not to every one we would care to con- 
fide the duty of choosing our literary 
repast from the current literature of the 
day; and, to any one at all acquainted 
with the French periodicals, it must bo 
evident that it would require a caterer, 
who is himself possessed of high intel- 
lectual culture, to make from their pages 
a judicious and worthy selection of arti- 
cles suited to the varied tastes of tho 
American literary public. Tho "ficho 
dc la Fi-ance" is happily conducted by a 



144 



Hem PiiiUeatitmi. 



gentleman upon ^hosc judgment nnd 
taste in this matter we can confidently 
rel}', if we may judge from the num- 
bers already issued. 

We have only to odd that it ha.s our 
best wishes, and wo recommend it espe- 
cially to the notice of the readers of the 
Catholic AVokld who are ac<iuuinted 
with the French language. 



Pkactical Hints on the Art op Illumi- 
nation. By Alice Donlcvy. New- 
York : A. D. F. Randolph. 18C7. 

Together with this useful and elegant 
publication we have received a »set of 
]>la(es, designed by the same author, to 
illtistrate the poem of Miss Kossctti, called 
•^Consider." 

The work is intended, as we are told in 
its preface, to instruct those who wish to 
study illumination ; to assist those who, 
having commenced, find many stumbling- 
blocks in the way, and require aid in the 
minutise of the art; to furnish those who 
can paint, yet are unable to design with 
outlines, to illuminate, etc. This beauti- 
ful art is fast becoming with our young 
people a favorite recreation, and, with 
not a few, a remuncralSve study. To 
such as desire to engage in its pursuit, 
whether for pleasure or profit, we heartily 
recommend this volume as one calculated 
to give them much desirable information 
on the subject 



Devos, superior of the Sisters of Charity, 
as the religious. It is a book we would 
wish to see placed in the hands of every 
woman in our country ; for, whatever be 
her position in society, or whichsoever 
state of life she may have chosen, she will 
find in it an example of high Christian 
and womanly perfe<:tion, the view of 
which must claim her homage, and in 
turn exalt and refine her own clmractcr. 
Mr. Kehoc, in republishing Bentley*8 
superb English edition, offers us a volume 
of equal beauty and finish. As a publi- 
cation it must claim the attention of every 
connoisseur and lover of first-class books. 



LArKSTTA AND TUB Fables. Compiled 
by the author of Philip Hartley, etc. 

Alice ; ok, titk Rose op the Black Fok* 
EST. By the author of Grace Morton* 
etc. 

Tiiuee Petitions. A tale of Poland and 
Trevor Hall. A Christmas story. 

CoNKAD AND Gertrcde : thc Littlc 
Wanderers. Peter F. Cunningham, 
Catholic Bookseller, Philadelphia. 

These four 16mo volumes form a very 
acceptable addition to our list of Catho- 
lic tales for children. Their appearance 
is creditable to thc publisher. We hope 
these who have ability and leisure will 
furnish a larger number of such stories 
for Sunday-school libraries. 



Thkeh Phases of Christian Love. By 
Lady Herbert L. Kehoe. 18G7. 

We have received advanced sheets of 
this volume, which is to be presented to 
the public in a few days. It is not our 
purpose to speak of it at length in this 
place, but reserve it for a more extended 
and appreciative review which wo hope 
to give of it in the future pages of the 
Catholic AVorld. 

It is a rcmarkablo book ; the purity 
and beauty of its style fitly according 
with the saintly biographies which the 
distinguished authoress has so happily 
chosen to illustrate the three phases of 
a Christian woman's life and love. We 
have given us the life of St Mtmica as 
the mother ; of Victorine de Galard Tcr- 
raube, a young French lady of rani 
the maiden : and of the Vencra] " ^ 



/ 



DOOU BECXITKO. 

From LcrroLDT k Holt, New-York. The Journal of 
Manricc de Cuurin, with an eAcay by Matthew Ar- 
nohl, and a memoir by Salntc-Reuve. Kdited by 
O. S. Trcbiitlen. Tnmslated by Kdward Thornton 
Fisher. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 1N3. Price il.25.— Ka»y 
German Reading after a New System, i>y (je«ir|« 
Storme. Revised by Edward A. Open. 1 vol. irtiiM, 
pp. aue. Price $1. 

From P. F. CcxxijfoiUM, Plilladelphia. Conrad and 
Gertrude ; The Three Petition?, a Tale of Poland ; 
Alice, or the Rose of the UUck Korevt ; KiuretU 
and the Fables. 4 voIm. of the Youn;; Catholic** 
Library, pp. 143, 141, 124, 126. Price OO cento 
each. 

From D. Arrunwc, New-York. The Merchant «f 
Berlin ; an llirtorlcal Novel by L. Muhlbach. 
Translated from the tiirman by Amory CofHn, ll.D. 
pp. 894. Price ♦'i.— Berlin and San Pouci ; or, 
Fre«lerick the Groat and his Friends. An Histor- 
ical Romance. By L. Muhlbach. Translated froa 
the Geriuiin by Mrs. Chapman and her daughtcn. 
pp. 891. Price ?2. 

From J. J. O'CoHHOR ft Co., Newark. The exclusion 
of Protestant Wornhlp from thc City of Rome, tor 
he Itev. Georj?e II. D^ane, pastor of St. Patrlcra 
.•JmWwiL Newark, N. J. Pamphlet. Price 90 

^^^/^^ 






THE 






•fyV 



•■■^N 



H:^\iMi^^^J' 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. v., NO. 26.— MAY, 1867. 



AN OLD QUARREL. 



Tboss of oor readers who have stad- 
W with the care their importance de- 
"^ the papers on the " Problems of 
the Age" which have appeared in thia 
^"^ine, can not have failed to per- 
^e that the great questions now in 
<I^sion between Catholics and non- 
(^lics lie, for the most part, in the 
field of philosophy, and require for their 
M/afion a broader and profounder phi- 
iosophj than any which obtains general 
airrencjr outside of the church. We 
think, also, that no one can read and un- 
derstand them without finding the ele- 
ments or fundamental principles of a 
reallj CatholiQ philosophy, which, while 
it rests on scientific truth for \^j^ basis, 
enables us to see the innate correspond- 
ence or harmony of reason and faith, 
■Qenee and revelation, and nature and 
grace— the principles of a philosophy, 
too^ that is no modem invention or new- 
fiu)gled theory which is brought forward 
to meet a present emergency, but in 
snhstance the very philosophy that has 
•Iwajs been held by the great fathers 
ttd doctors of the church, and professed 
m Catholic schools and seminaries. 
Yet there is one point which the 
VOL. v.— 10 



writer necessarily touches upon an^ 
demonstrates as far as necessary to his 
purpose, which was theological rather 
than purely philosophical, that, without 
interfering in the least with his argu- 
ment, already complete, may admit of 
a more special treatment and further 
development. We refer to the objectiv- 
ity and reality of ideas. The reader ac- 
quainted with the history of philosophy 
in the middle ages will perceive at 
once that the question of the reality 
of ideas asserted by the writer takes 
up the subject-matter of the old quarrel 
of the nominalists, conceptualists, and: 
realists, provoked by the Proslogium' 
of St Anselm, archbishop of Canter- 
bury, in the eleventh century, really 
one of the profoundest thinkers, great- 
est theologians, and ingenious philoso- 
phers of any age. 

St. Anselm wished to retider an ao*> 
count to himself of his faith, and to 
know and understand the reasons for 
believing in Grod. He did not doubt 
the existence of Grod ; he indeed held 
that God cannot be thought not to be ; 
he did not seek to know the arguofenti 
which prove that Grod i8«that be might 



146 



Jn Old Quarrel 



believe, but tbat be might the better 
know and understand what he already 
1[)elieved. Thus he says: "Necque 
enim quero intelligere ut credam, sed 
credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo 
quia nisi credidero, non inteUigara." 
We believe that we may understand, 
and we cannot understand unless we 
believe — a great truth which modem 
speculators do not recognize. They 
reverse the process, and seek to know 
that they may believe, and hold that 
the first step to knowledge is to doubt 
or to deny. 

In his Monologium, St. Anselm had 
proved that God is, and determined his 
attributes by way of induction from the 
ideas in the human mind, but it would 
seem not wholly to his satisfaction, or, 
at least, that in writing that work he 
discovered, or thought be discovered, a 
briefer and more conclusive method of 
demonstrating that God is. lie had 
already proved by psychological analy- 
sis, in the way Cousin and others have 
since done, that the human mind 
thinks most perfect being, a' greater 
than which cannot be thought This 
he .had done in his Monologium. In 
his Proslogium he starts with this idea, 
that of ens perfectlmmum^ which is, in 
ftust, the idea of God. ^ The fool says 
in his heart there is no God f not be- 
cause he has no idea of God, not be- 
cause he does not think most per^ 
feet being, a greater than which cannot 
l>e thought, but because he does not un- 
(derstand that, if ho thinks it, such being 
i«ally is. It is greater and more per- 
'fect to be in re than it is to be only tn 
inteUectu^ and therefore the most per- 
fect being existing only in the mind is 
•not a greater than which cannot be 
thought, for I can think most perfect 
existing tn re. Moreover, if most perfect 
being does not exist tfi re^ my thought 
is greater and more perfect than reality, 
and consequently I can rise above God, 
•and judge him. quodvalde est absurdum. 

Leibnitz somewhere remarks that 
this argument is conclusive, if we first 
prove that most perfect being is possi- 
ble ; but Leibnitz should have remem- 
bered that the argument a^Mfioc^jMiM 



is always valid, and that Grod is both 
his own possibility and reality. Cousin 
accepts the argument, and says St. 
Anselm robbed Descartes of the glory 
of having produced it. But it is evi- 
dent to every philosophical student 
that the validity of the argument, if 
valid it is, depends on the fact that 
ideas are objective and real, that is, de- 
pends on the identity of the ideal and 
the real. 

Roscelinus, or Rosceline, did not con- 
cede this, and pronounced the argument 
of St. Anselm worthless. Confounding, 
it would seem, ideas with universals, 
he denied their reality, and maintained 
that they are mere words without any- 
thing cither in the mind or out of it 
to respond to them, and thus founded 
Nominalism, substantially what is now 
called materialism. He rejects the 
universals and the categories of the 
peripatetics, and recognizes only indi- 
vidual existences and words, which 
words, when not the names of individual 
things, are void of meaning. Hence he 
denied the whole ideal or intelligible 
world, and admitted only sensibles* 
Hobbes and Locke were nominalists, 
and so is the author of Mill's Logic 
Mr. Herbert Spencer is a nominalist, 
but is better described as an atomist of 
the school of Lendppus and DemocrituS| 
Epicurus and Lucretius. We knoir 
very little of Rosceline, except that he 
lived in the eleventh century, was bom 
in Brittany, the native land of Abelard 
and Descartes, and incurred, for some 
of his speculations concerning the Trin- 
ity, the censures of the church. None 
of his writings have come down to us, 
and we know his doctrine only from 
the representations of others. 

GuiUauroe de Champeaux, in the 
following century, who professed phi- 
losophy for a time at St Victor, and 
was subsequently Archbishop of Paris, 
is the founder, in the middle ages, of 
what is called Realism, and which 
counts among its disciples Duns Scotna 
and William of Occam. He is said to 
have maintained the exact opposite 
of Rosoeline's doctrine, and to luiTe 
held thai idea% or uniTersaki aa 



Am Old QuamL 



147 



they then said, are not empty words, 
bot entities, existing a parte rei. He 
beki, if we may believe Abelard, that 
not only genera and species, but such 
abstractions as whiteness, soundness, 
squareness, etc, are real entities. But 
from a passage cited from his writings 
by Abelard, from which Abelard infers 
be had changed his doctrine, Cousin, 
in his Philosophic Scholastique, argues 
that this must have been an ezaggera- 
tioD. and that Guillaume only held that 
mch so-called nniversals as are really 
genera and species have an entitative 
existence. This is most probably the 
&ct; and instead, then, of being driven 
to change his doctrine from what it was 
at first, as Abelard boasts, it is most like- 
ly thtt be never held any other doctrine* 
Uowever this may be, his doctrine, as 
lepresented by Abelard, is that which 
the old rcalista are generally supposed 
to have maintained. 
Abelard follows Guillaume de Cham- 
peaaz, with whom he was for the ear- 
lier part of his career a contemporary. 
Coofoonding, as it would seem, ideas 
vith universals. and universals with 
tbBtrections, he denied alike Bosce- 
lioe's doctrine that they are mere 
vords, and Guillaume do Cham- 
peaox's doctrine that they are entities 
or existences a pcurte reiy and main- 
tained that they are conceptions, really 
eiiating in tnente, but not in re. Hence 
lus p}iik]6ophy is called Conceptual- 
iim. He would seem to have held 
that universals are formed by the 
mind operating on the concrete ob- 
jeets presented by experience, not, as 
lioce maintained by Kant, that they 
are necessary forms of the under- 
itaoding. Thus, humanitas^ humanity, 
it fcvmed by the mind from the con- 
crete man, or h<nno. There is no 
hBmanity tit re ; there are only indi- 
vidaal men. In the word humanity 
the miud expresses the qualities which 
it observes to be common to all men, 
without paying attention to any par- 
ticular man. The idea humanity, 
then, is simply the abstraction or gen- 
ttilixatioo of these qualities. Abelard, 
it would appear from this, makes what 



we call the race a property or quality 
of individuals, which, of course, ex- 
cludes the idea of generation. There 
is, as far as we can see, no essential 
difference between the conceptualism 
of Abelard and the nominalism of 
Rosceline; for, by denying the ex- 
istence in re of genera and species, 
and making them only conceptions, 
it recognizes as really existing only 
individuals or particulars. 

St. Thomas Aquinas, than whom 
no higher authority in philosophy can 
be named, and from whose conclusions 
few who understand them will be dis- 
posed to dissent, differs from each of 
these schools, and maintains that uni- 
versals are conception^ existing in 
mente cum funcUmento m re, or con> 
ceptions with a basis in reality, which 
is true of aU abstractions ; for the mind 
can form no conceptions except from 
objects presented by experience. I 
could form no conception of whiteness 
if I had no experience of white things, 
or of roundness if I had seen nothing 
round. I imagine a golden mountain, 
but only on condition that gold and 
mountain are to me objects of experi- 
ence. This is certain, and accords with 
the peripatetic maxim, Nihil est in in- 
telleciUy quodpriu$ nonjuerit in sensu, 
which Leibnitz would amend by adding, 
nisi ipse inteUectus, an amendment 
which, perhaps, contains in germ the 
whole Kantian philosophy. 

But St. Thomas, as we shall see 
further on, does not confound ideas 
with universals, nor does he hold gen- 
era and species to be simply the ab- 
straction or generalization of the qual^ 
ities of individuals or particulars. 
Genera and species are real, or there 
could be no generation. But the genua 
or species does not exist apart from 
its individualization, or as a separate 
entity. There are no individuals without 
the race, and no race without individ- 
uals. Thus the whole race was in- 
dividualized in Adam, so that in his 
sin all men sinned. But as genera 
and species, the only real universals, 
do not exist apart from their particulars, 
and are distinctly possessed or appra- 



148 



An Old QuarreL 



hended onlj as disengaged from their 
particulars, which is done onlj by a 
mental operation, St. Thomas might 
•aj thej exist in menle cum funda- 
mento in re, without asserting them to 
be real only as properties or qualities 
of particulars. 

Plato is commonly held to be the 
dither of the ideal philosophy or ideal 
lealism. We know very little of the 
philosophy that prevailed before him, 
and cannot say how much of the Pla- 
tonic philosophy is original with him, 
or how much of it he took from his pre- 
decessors, but he is its originator as far 
M our knowledge extends. It is from 
him that we have the word idea^ and 
his whole philosophy is said to be in 
bis doctrine of ideas ; but what his 
doctrine of ideas really was is a ques- 
tion. He seems when treating the 
question, What is it necessary to know 
in order to have real science ? to under- 
stand by idea causa essentialts, or the 
thing itself, or what in anything is 
real, stable, and permanent, in distinc- 
tion from the sensible, the phenomenal, 
the variable, and the transitory. The 
real existence of things is their ideas, 
and ideas are in the Logos or divine 
mind. These ideas Grod impresses 
on an eternally existing matter, as the 
seal upon wax, and so impressed they 
constitute particulars. Aristotle ac- 
cuses Plato of placing the ideas extra 
Deum, and making them objects of the 
divine contemplation, but the accusa- 
tion is not easily sustained; and we 
diink all that Plato does is to repre- 
sent tlie ideas as extra Deum only as 
the idea or design of a picture or a 
temple in the mind of the artist is 
distinguishable from the artist himself. 
But in God all ideas must be eternal, 
and therefore really his essence, as is 
maintained by St. Thomas. If this 
is really Plato's doctrine, it is dualism 
inasmuch as it asserts the eternity of 
matter, and pantheism inasmuch as 
the ideas, the reality of things, are 
identical with the divine mind, and 
dierefore with God himself. On this 
doctrine, what is that soul the immor- 
tality of which Plato so strennoiuly 



maintains ? Is it the divine idea, or the 
copy of the idea on matter ? 

When treating the question. How 
we know? Plato seems to under- 
stand by ideas not the ideas in the 
divine mind, but their copies Impress- 
ed on matter, as the seal on wax. Ac- 
cording to him, all knowing is by simil- 
itude, and as the idea leaves its exact 
image or form on matter, so by study- 
ing that image or copy we arrive at 
an exact knowledge of the idea or 
archetype in the divine mind. This 
is plain enough ; but who are tr^ who 
study and know ? Are we the archetypal 
idea, or are we its iraa$i;e or copy im- 
pressed on matter ? Here is the dif- 
ficulty we find in understanding Plato's 
doctrine of ideas. According to him 
all reality is in the idea, and what is 
not idea is phenomenal, unsubstantial, 
variable, and evanescent. The impress 
or copy on matter is not the idea itself, 
and is no more the thing itself than 
the rcfiection I see in a mirror is my- 
self Plato speaks of the soul as im- 
prisoned in matter, and ascribes all evil 
to the intractableness of matter. Hence 
he originates or justifies that false 
asceticism which treats matter as im- 
pure or unclean, and makes the prop- 
er discipline of the soul consist in 
despising and maltreating the body, 
and in seeking deliverance from it, 
as if our bodies were not destined to 
rise again, and, reunited to the soul, to 
live forever. The real source of Mani- 
chseism is in the Platonic philosophy. 
We confess that we are not able to make 
out from Plato a complete, coherent, 
and self-consbtent doctrine of ideas. 
St. Thomas corrects Plato, and makes 
ideas the archetypes, exemplars, or 
models in the divine mind, and identi- 
cal with the essence of God, after 
which Grod creates or may create ex- 
istences. He holds the idea, as idea, 
to be causa exemplarisy not causa 
essentialiSj and thus escapes both 
pantheism and dualism, and all tenden- 
cy to either. 

Aristotle, a much more systematic 
genius, and, in my judgment, a much 
profomider phikaophcr than Plato^ 



Am Old Qmaffd. 



149 



rejects PlaU/t dootiine of ideas, and 
substitutes for them substantial forms, 
which ID his philosophy mean real ex- 
istences distinct from Grod^ and which 
ire not merely phenomenal, like Pla- 
to's copies on wax. Tme, he, as Plato^ 
recognizes an eternal matter, and makes 
all existences consist of matter and 
form. But the matter is purely pas- 
sive ; and, as nothing, according to his 
philosophy, exists, save in so far as 
active, it is really nothing, exists only 
m potentia ad formam^ and can only 
mean the ability of God to place ex- 
istences after the models eternal in his 
own mind. His philosophy is, at any 
rate, more easily reconciled with Christ- 
ian th^logy than is Plato's. 

Yet Aristotle nnd the schoolmen 
after him adopt Plato's doctrine that 
we know by similitude, or by ideas in 
the sense of images, or representations, 
i&terposed between the mind and the 
object, or thing existing a parte ret. 
They suppose these images, or intel- 
ligible species, form a sort of intenne- 
<lttry world, called the mundus logicusy 
dbtingoislied from the mundus phy- 
ami, or real world, which they are not, 
bot which they image or represent to 
the understanding. Hence the cate- 
gories or praedicaments are neither 
forms of the subject nor forms of the 
object, but the forms or laws of logic or 
tbis intermediary world. Hence has 
arisen the question whether our 
knowledge has any objective valid- 
ity, that is, whether there is any ob- 
jective reality that responds to the 
idea. Perhaps it is in this doctrine, 
misunderstood, that we are to seek 
the origin of scepticism, which always 
originates in the speculations of phi- 
losophers, never in the plain sense 
of the people, who never want, when 
they know, any proof that they know. 
This Platonic and peripatetic doc- 
trine, that ideas are not the reality, 
but, as Locke says, that '^ with which 
the understanding is immediately con- 
versant," has been vigorously assailed 
by the Scottish school, which denies 
intermediary ideas, and maintains that 
we peroeire directly and immediately 



things themselves. Still the old doo* 
trine obtains to a very considerable 
extent, and respectable schools teadi 
that ideas, if not precisely images, are 
nevertheless representative, and thai 
the idea is the first object of mental 
apprehension. Balmes never treats 
ideas as the object .existing in re, bot 
as its representation to the mind. 
Hence the importance attached to the 
question of certainty, or the objective 
validity of our knowledge, around 
which Balmes says turn all the ques- 
tions of philosophy ; that is, the great 
labor of philosophers is to prove thai 
in knowing we know something, or that 
to know is to know. This is really the 
pons astnarum of modern philosophy 
as it was of ancient philosophy : How 
know I that knowing is knowing, or 
that in knowing I know ? The ques- 
tion as asked is unanswerable and ab- 
8#rd, for I have only to know with 
which to prove that I know, and he 
who knows knows that ho knows. I 
know that I know says no more than I 
know. 

The quarrel has arisen from con- 
founding ideas, universals, genera and 
species, and abstractions or generaliza- 
tions, and treating them alias if pertain- 
ing to the same category. These three 
things are different, and cannot be 
scientifically treated as if they were 
the same ; yet nominalists, realists, and 
conceptualists recognize no differences 
among them, nor do tlie Platonists. 
These hold all the essential qualities, 
properties, or attributes of things to be 
ideas, objective and real. Ilippias 
visits Athens, and proposes during his 
stay in the city to give the eager 
Athenians a discourse, or, as they say 
nowadays, a lecture, on beautifid 
things. Socrates is delighted to hear 
it, and assures Uippias that he will be 
one of his audience ; but as he is slow 
of understanding, and has a friend 
who will be sure to question him very 
closely, ho begs Hippias to answer bo- 
forehand a few of the questions this 
friend is certain to ask. Hippias con- 
sents. You propose to discourse on 
beautiful things, bat tell me, if you 



150 



Am Oid QuamL 



please, what are beaotifbl things? 
Hippias mcnlioDs several things, and 
finally answers, a handsome girl. 
Bat that is not what my friend wants 
Co know. Tell me, by what are beau- 
tifal things beautiful? Hippias does 
not quite understand. Socrates ex- 
plains. All just things, are they not 
jost by participation of justice? 
Agreed. And all wise things by par- 
ticipation of wisdom? It cannot be 
denied. And all beautiful things by 
participation of beauty ? So it seems. 
'Now tell me, dear Hippias, what is 
beauty, that which is so not by parti- 
cipation but in itself, and by participa- 
tion of which all beautiful things are 
beautiful ? Hippias, of course, is puz- 
sled, and neither he nor Socrates an- 
swers the question. 

But we get here a clue to Plato*s 
doctrine, the doctrine of the methexis, 
to use his own term. He woi^ 
seem to teach that whatever particular 
thing exists, it does so by the methexis, 
or participation of the idea. The idea 
is that which makes the thing what it is, 
causa esMentioKs. Thus, a man is man 
by participation of the man-idea, or 
the ideal man, humanity ; a horse is a 
horse by participation of the horse- 
idea, or ideal horse ; a cow is a cow by 
participation of th3 cow-idea, ideal 
cow, or hovonty; and so of a sheep, a 
weazel, an eagle, a heron, a robin, a 
swallow, a wren, an oak, a pine, a juni- 
per. To know any particular thing 
is to know its idea or ideal, and to 
know its idea or ideal is to have true 
science, for it is science of that in the 
thing which is real, stable, invariable, 
and permanent. This doctrine is very 
true when by ideas wo understand 
genera and species, but not, as we hare 
already seen, and as both Bosceline 
and Abelard prove, when we take as 
ideas the abstract qualities of things. 
Man is man by participation of human- 
ity ; but is a thing white by participa- 
tion of whiteness, round by participa- 
tion of roundness, hard by participa- 
tion of nardness, beautiful by parti- 
cipation of beauty, or just by partici- 
pataoQ of josticei wise by partidpalioii 



of wisdom? What is whiteness, ixmnd- 
ness, hardness, beauty, justice, or wis- 
dom in the abstract, or abstracted from 
their respective concretes ? Mere con- 
ceptions, as said Abelard, or, rather, 
empty words, as said Rosceline. 
When Plato calls these ideas, and calls 
them real, he confounds ideas with 
genera and species, and asserts what is 
manifestly untenable. 

GSenera and species are not ab- 
stractions ; they are real, though sub- 
sisting never apart from individuals. 
Their reality is evinced by the process 
called generation, by which every kind 
generates its like. The race continues 
itself, and does not die with the indi- 
vidual Men die, humanity survives. 
It is all very well to say with Plato 
individuals are mimetic, and exist aa 
individuals by participation of the idea, 
if we assume ideas are genera and 
species, and created afler the models 
or archetypes in the divine mind ; but 
it will not do to say so when we iden- 
tify ideas with the divine mind, that is, 
with God himself. We then make 
genera and species ideas in God, and 
since ideas in God are God, we 
identify them with the divine essence 
— a doctrine which the Holy See 
has recently condemned, and which 
would deny all reality distinguish- 
able from God, and make all exist- 
ences merely phenomenal, and reduce 
all the categories, as Cousin does, to 
being and phenomenon, which is pure 
pantheism. The xde4E exempiarea, or 
archetypes of genera and species, 
afler which €rod creates them, are 
in the divine mind, but the genera 
and species, the real universals, are 
creatures, and as much so as individ- 
uals or particulars themselves. They 
are creatures by the direct crea- 
tion of God, without the intervention 
of the pkistic soul asserted by Plato, 
accepted by Cudworth, and, in hii 
posthumous essay on the Metlu'xis and 
Mimesis, even by GiobertL God cre- 
ates all living creatures in genera and 
species, as the Scripture plainly hints 
when it says : ^ And God said. Let the 
earth bring finlh the green herb^ and 



Jn out QuarttL 



161 



such as maj seed, and the fruit-tree 
yielding fruit after its kind^ which maj 
have seed in itself upon the earth.'' 
Not only in the vegetable but also in 
the animal world, each living creature 
brings forth its kind — a fact without 
which generation would be unintelligi- 
ble, and which our scientific men who 
dream of the fbrmation of species by 
oalural selection, and are laboring hard 
to prove that man has been developed 
from the tadpole or monkey, would do 
well to remember. 

Genera and species are real, and so 
far, if we call them ideas, ideas or 
trairersals are real, as Plalo and the 
old realists asserted. But when we 
imderBtand by ideas or universals the 
simple abstractions or generalizations 
of the essential qualities or attributes of 
things, as whiteness, redness, round- 
ness, hardness, beauty, justice, good- 
ness, they are real only in their con- 
cretes or subject Objects may be real- 
ly white, red, hard, heavy ; things may 
he really beautiful; actions may be 
really just, wise, and good ; but what 
we call beauty, justice, wisdom, good- 
ness, can exist only as attributes or 
qoalities of being, and are real only in 
their concretes. They can be reflect- 
ed by creatures, but hav6 no reality as 
abstractions. Abstractions, as St 
Thomas says, have a foundation in re- 
ality, because they are formed by the 
mind by way of abstraction from ob- 
jects presented by experience, and ex- 
perience can present only that which 
is real ; but as abstractions they are 
nullities, as Rosceline rightly held. 

It is necessary, then, to distinguish 
between genera and species and ab- 
Btnctions, and it would save much con- 
fnsion to drop the name of ideas as ap- 
plied to them, and even as applied to 
the intermediary world supposed to be 
inserted between the object and sub- 
ject, as that world is commonly rep- 
Ksented. This intermediary world, 
we think, has been successfully assailed 
by the Scottish school, as ordinarily 
iinderstood ; but we do not think that 
(be scholastics meant by it what is 
cottDMNily flopposed. These interme- 



diary ideas, or intelligible species, seem 
to me in St Thomas to perform in in- 
tellectual apprehension the office per- 
formed by light in external vision, and 
to be very defensible. They are not 
the understanding itself, but they are, 
if we may be allowed the expression, the 
light of the understanding. St. Thomas 
holds that we know by similitude. 
But God, he snys, is the similitude of 
all things, Deus est similituch omnium 
rerum. Now say, with him and all 
great theologians, that God, who is 
ligh* itself, is the light of the under- 
standing, the light of reason, the true 
light that lightetb every man coming 
into this world, and the whole difficulty 
is solved, and the scholastics and the 
philosophy so long taught in our Cath- 
olic schools and seminaries are freed 
at once from the censures so freely be- 
stowed on them by the Scottish school 
and others. We suspect that we shall 
find seldom any reason to dissent from 
the scholastic philosophy as represent^ 
ed by St Thomas, when once we real- 
ly understand it, and adjust it to our 
own habits of thought and expression. 
Supposing this interpretation to be 
admissible, the Scottish school, after all, 
must modify its doctrine that we know 
things directly and immediately ; for as 
in external things light is neccsftary as 
the medium of vision, why should not an 
intelh'gible light be necessary as the me- 
dium of the intellectual apprehension 
of intelligibles ? Now, as this light has 
in it the similitude of the things appre- 
hensible by it, and is for that same 
reason light to our understanding, it 
may, as Plato held, very properly 
be expressed by the word trf«a, which 
means likeness, image, or representa- 
tion. The error of Plato would not 
then be in holding that we know only 
per ideam or per similttudtnem, but in' 
confounding creator and creature, and 
recognizing nothing except the idea 
either to know or to be known. On this 
interpretation, the light may be identi- 
cal with the object, or it may not be. 
Being is its own light, and is intelligi- 
ble per «0 ; objects distinguishable from 
being are not, and are intelligible only 



ii» 



An OU QuamL 



in the light of being, or a light dis- 
tinguisliablc from themselves. As be- 
ing in its full sense is God, we may 
say with Malebranclie that we see all 
thingis in God. but must add, and by 
the light of God^ or in Deo et per 
Deum. 

Assuming ideas as the light by which 
we see to be the real doctrine of the 
scholastics, we can readily understand 
the relation of ideas to the peripatetic 
categories or pnedicamcnts, or forms 
under which all objects are and must 
be apprehended, and thus connect the 
old quarrel of the philosophers with 
their present quarrel. The categores, 
according to the Platonists, are ideas ; 
according to the peripatetics, they are 
the forms of the mundus logicuSy which, 
as we have seen, they distinguish from 
the mutiduB phyiicus. TJie Scottish 
school having demolished this munduB 
logicusi by exploding the doctrine of 
intermediary ideas which compose it, 
if we take that world as formal, and 
fail to identify it with the divine light, 
the question comes up, Are the catego- 
ries or self evident truths which pre- 
cede all experience, and without which 
no fact of experience is possible, really 
objective, or only subjective? The 
question is, if we duly consider it. Is 
the light by which we see or know on 
the side of the subject or on that of the 
object ? Or. in other words, are things 
intelligible because we know them, or 
do we know them because they are in- 
telligible ? Thus stated, the question 
seems to be no question at all ; but it is 
made a very serious question, and on 
the answer to it depends the validity or 
invalidity ofSt. Anselm's argument. 

"We have already expressed the opin- 
ion that the scholastics as represented by 
^8t. Thomas really mean by their phan- 
tasms and intelligible species, or inter- 
mediary ideas by which we attain to 
the knowledge of sensibles and intelli- 
gibles, simply the mediating light fur- 
nished by God himself, who is himself 
light and the Father of lights. In this 
case the light is objective, and by illu- 
mining the object renders it intelligible, 
and at the same time the tabject intel- 



h'gent But Reid, who denied inter- 
mediary ideas, seemed to suppose that 
the light emanates from the subject, 
and that it is our powers that render 
the object intelligible. Hence he calls 
the categories first principles of 
science, constituent principles of be- 
lief, or common sense, and sometimes 
constituent principles of human nature. 
He seems to have supposed that all 
the light and activity is on the side of 
the subject, forgetting that the light 
shineth in darkness, and the darkness 
comprehendelh it not, or that the light 
shines, and the darkness does not com- 
press it, or hinder it from shining, with- 
out our perceiving it or the objects it 
illumines. 

Kant, a German, but, on one side, 
of Scottish descent, adopts the princi- 
ples of Reid, but sets them forth with 
greater precision and more scientific 
depth. Denying with Reid the medi- 
ating ideas, he makes the categories, 
which, according to Aristotle, are forms 
of the mundus logicus^ or intermediary 
world, forms of the subject or the sub- 
jective laws of thought. He does not 
say with Rosceline that they are mere 
words, with Abelard that they are 
mere conceptions, nor with St. Thomas 
that they are, taken as universals, 
conceptions, cumfundamento in re, but 
forms of the reason, understanding, 
and sensibility, without any objective 
validity. They are not derivable from 
experience, because without them no 
experience is possible. Without wliat 
he calls synthetic judgments a priori^ 
such as, Every phenomenon that begins 
to exist must have a cause, which in- 
cludes the judgment of cause, of univer- 
sal cause, and of necessary cause, we can 
form no synthetic judgment apotUriori. 
Hence he concludes that the categories, 
what some philosophers call first prin- 
ciples, necessary truths, necessary 
ideas, without which we do not and 
cannot think, are inherent forms of the 
subject, and are constitutive of reason 
and understanding. He thus placed 
the intelligibleness of things in the ele- 
mental constitution of the subject, 
whenoe it follows that the aoliject may 



Jn Old Quarrel 



168 



be its own object, or think witboot 
tbinkin? anything distinct from him- 
lelf. We think God, man, and nature, 
not because thej are, and think them 
M we do not because they are really 
such as we think them, but because 
SQch is our mental constitution, and we 
are compelled by it to think them as 
we do. This the reader must see 
is hardly disguised scepticism, and 
Kant never pretended to the contrary, 
The only escape from scepticism, he 
himself contends, is to fall back from 
the pure or speculative reason on the 
practical reason, or the moral necessi- 
ties of our nature, and yield to the 
moral imperative, which commands us 
to believe in God, nature, and duty. 

Kant has been followed by Fichte, 
Schelling, and Hegel, who differ more 
or less Gx>m one another, but all follow 
the fundamental principle he asserted, 
and end in the doctrine of absolute 
identity of subject and object. ^' Cogito, 
trgo ivm," said Descartes : '< I think, 
therefore I am." '* To think," used to 
say our old friend Bronson Alcott, ^ms 
to thing ; to thing is to give or produce 
reality. My thought is creative : I think, 
therefore I am ; I think God, therefore 
he is; nature, and therefore nature ex- 
ists. I by thinking make them, that 
is. thing them, render them real" No 
had statement, as far as it goes, of the 
development Kant's doctrine received 
from his disciple Fichte. The only de- 
figet is that -his later disciples, instead 
of making thought creative, have made 
it identical with the object. St. An- 
sehn says : ^ I think most perfect being, 
therefore most perfect being is ;" and so 
does Descartes, only Descartes substi- 
tates God for most perfect being ; but 
St Anselm never said it in the sense 
that most perfect being is because I by 
my thought make it. Only a modem 
transceodentalist gone to seed could 
M? that. The trouble with this whole 
scheme is that it puts me in the place 
of God, and makes me myself God, 
which I am quite sure I am not. It 
would be much more philosophical to 
niy : I exist, therefore I think ; I think 
being because it is, not that it is be- 



cause I think it. Things do not exist 
because I think them, but I think them 
because they exist ; they are not intel- 
ligible because I think them, but I 
think them because they are intelligi- 
ble. Yet the germ of our friend Al- 
cott's philosophy was in Kant's doc- 
trine, which places the forma of the 
thought in the subject instead of the 
object. 

Whether the categories, as given by 
Aristotle, are inexact, as Kant alleges, 
or whether, as given by Kant himself, 
they are reducible in number to two, as 
M. Cousin pretends, or to one, as Rosmi- 
ni maintains, enters not into the present 
enquiry, which relates not to their num- 
ber, but their objective reality. Kant 
in regard to philosophy has done sim- 
ply what Reid did, only he has done it 
better or more scientiidcallj. He has 
fully demonstrated that in every fact 
of experience there enters a non-empir- 
ical element, and, if he holds with Leib- 
nitz that that element is the human 
understanding itselil, he has still dem- 
onstrated that it is not an abstraction 
or generalization of the concrete qual- 
ities of the objects presentea by expe- 
rience. 

Take the ideas or categories of the 
necessary, the perfect, the universal, 
the infinite, the perfect, the unmuta- 
ble, the eternal. These ideas, it is 
willingly conceded) never exist in the 
human mind, or are never thought, 
without their opposites, the contingent, 
the finite, the imperfect, the particular* 
the variable, the temporal; but they do 
not, even in our thought, depend on 
them, and are not derived or derivable 
from them by abstraction or general- 
ization. Take the synthetic judgment 
instanced by Kant, Everything that 
begins to exist must have a cause. 
The idea of cause itself, Hume baa 
shown, is not derivable from any fact 
of experience, and Reid and Kant say 
the same. The notion we have of 
power which founds the relation of 
cause and effect, or that what we call 
the cause actually produces or places 
the efi*ect, these pliilosophei^s tell us, is 
not an object of experience, and is not 



U4 



An (Md QuarrA 



obtaiDablo from any empirical facts. 
Experience gives only the relation of 
what we call cause and effect in time, 
that is, the relation of antecedence and 
consequence. Main do Biran and Vic- 
tor Cousin, it is true, deny this, and 
maintain that the idea of cause is 
derived from the acts of our own will, 
which we are conscious of in ourselves, 
andwhicii not merely precede their ef- 
fects, but actually produce them. I 
will to. raise my arm, and even if my 
arm be paralytic or held down by a 
stronger than I, so that I cannot raise 
it, I still by willing produce an effect, 
the volition to raise it, which is none 
the less real because, owing to exter- 
nal circumstances not under my con- 
trol, it does not pass beyond . my own 
interior. 

But even granting this, how from 
this particular act of causation conclude 
universal cause, or even from univer- 
sal cause necessar}' cause ? I by will- 
ing produce the volition to raise my 
arm, therefore everything that begins 
to exist must have a cause. The ar- 
gument from the particular to the uni- 
versal, non volet, say the logicians, 
and still less the argument from the 
contingent to the necessary. 

Take the idea of the perfect. That 
we have the idea or category in the 
mind is indisputable, and it evidently 
is not derivable by abstraction or gen- 
eralization from the facts of experience. 
We have experience only of imperfect 
- things, and no generalizing of imper- 
fection can give perfection. Indeed, 
without the category of the perfect, 
the imperfect cannot even be thought. 
We think a thing imperfect, that is, 
judge it to be imperfect — and every 
thought is a judgment, and contains 
an affirmation — because it falls short of 
the ideal standard with which the mind 
compares it. The universal is not de- 
rivable from the particular, for the par- 
ticular is not conceivable without the 
universal. We maj say the same of 
the immutable, the eternal, the infinite, 
the one, or unity. 

By abstraction or generalization we 
■imply ooQsider in the concrete a par- 



ticular property, quality, or attribata 
by itself, and take it in universo, with- 
out regard to anything else in the ooa- 
crete thing. It must then be a real prop- 
erty, quality, or attribute of the con- 
crete thing, or the abstraction will have 
no foundation in reality. But the uni- 
versal is no property, quality, or attri- 
bute of particulars, the immutable of 
mutables, the eternal of things tempo- 
rary, the necessary of continents, the 
infinite of finites, or unity of multiples, 
otherwise particulars would be univer- 
sals, mutables immutables, temporals 
eternals, contingents necessary, finite! 
infinite, and multiples one — a manifest 
contradiction in terms. The general- 
ization or abstraction of particulars is 
particularity, of mutables is mutability, 
of temporals temporality, of contingents 
contingency, of finites finiteness, of mul- 
tiples plurality or multiplicity. The 
overlooking of this obvious fact, and 
regarding the universal, immutable, 
eternal, etc., as abstractions or gen- 
eralizations of particulars, mutables, 
temporals, and so on, has given birth 
to the pantheistic philosophy, than 
which nothing can be more sopliisticaL 

The ideas or categories of the uni- 
versal, the immutable, and the eternal, 
the necessary, the infinite, the one or 
unity, are so far from being abstractions 
from particular concretes that in pmnt 
of fact we cannot even think things as 
particular, changeable, temporal, con- 
tingent, finite, or multiple without Uiem. 
Hence^ they are called necessary ideas, 
because without them no synthetic 
judgment a posteriori or fact of expe- 
rience is possible. They are not ab- 
stractions formed by the human mind 
by contemplating concrete things, be- 
cause the human mind cannot operate 
or even exist without them, and without 
them human intelligence, even if sup- 
posable, could not differ from the intelli- 
gence of the brute, which, though many 
eminent men in modem science are en- 
deavoring to prove it, cannot be ac- 
cepted, because in proving we should 
disprove it 

The question now for philosophy to 
answer, as we have already intimated, 



An Old QuarrtL 



165 



0, Are these ideas or categories, which 
jmcede and enter into every fact of 
experience, forms of the subject or 
Iniinan understanding, as Kant alleges, 
or are they objective and real, and, 
though necessary to the existence and 
operation of the human mind, are yet 
really distinct from it, and independent 
of it, as much so as if no human mind 
bad been created ? This is the prob- 
lem. 

St Thomas evidently holds them to 
be oljectiye, for he holds them to be 
necessary and self-evident principles, 
principles per se nolo, as may be seen 
in his answer to the question, ^rti/n 
Deum esse sit per se notum ? and we 
need strong reasons to induce us 
to dissent from any philosophical con- 
dnsion of the angelic doctor. More- 
o?er, Kant by no means proves his own 
coDcfaision, that they are forms of the 
eobject All he proves is that there is 
and can be no fact of human knowledge 
witfaoQt them, which may be true with- 
OQt their being subjective. He proves, 
if you will, that they are constituent 
principles of the human understanding, 
in the sense that the human under- 
standing cannot exist and operate with- 
oal their initiative and concurrence ; 
bot this no more proves that they are 
fbnns of the subject than the fact that 
the creature can neither exist nor act 
without the creative and concurrent act 
of the creator proves that the creator 
is an inherent law or form of the crea- 
tire. To our mind, Kant confirms a 
conclusion contrary to his own. His 
masterly Kritik der reinen Vernunft 
establishes simply this fact, that man's 
own subjective reason alone does not 
wfice for science, and that man, in 
icieQce as in existence, is dependent on 
that which is not himself; or, in a word, 
that man depends on the intelligible- 
Beas of the object, or that which ren- 
ders it intelligible, to be himself intel- 
Bgent, or knowing. Man is, no doubt, 
oeated with the power or faculty of 
intelligence, but that power or faculty 
ii not the power or faculty to know 
without an intelligible object, or to 
bow what is not knowable independ- 



ently of it. Hence, from Kant's facts, 
we conclude that the ideas or categories, 
without which no object is intelligible 
and no fact of intelligence possible, aro 
not subjective, but objective, real, and 
independent of the subject. 

The matter is simple enough if we 
look at it freed from the obscurity with 
which philosophers have surrounded it. 
Thought is a complex fact, the joint 
product of subject and object. God is 
his own object, because he is self exist- 
ent and self-sufficing: is in himself, 
as say the theologians, actus purissi" 
mus, most pure act, which permits us 
up to a certain point to understand the 
eternal generation of the Son and the 
procession of the Holy Ghost. God, 
being self existent and self sufficing, 
needs and can receive nothing from 
without his own most perfect being. 
But man is a dependent being, a crea- 
ture, and does not and cannot suffice in 
himself for either his own existence or 
his own intelligence. He cannot think 
by himself alone or without the con- 
currence of the object, which is not 
himself. If the concurrence of the ob- 
ject be essential to the production of 
my thought, then that concurrence must 
be active, for a passive concurrence is 
the same as no concurrence at all. 
Then the object must be active, there- 
fore real, for what is not real cannot 
act or be active. Then the object in 
my thought is not and cannot be my- 
self, but stands over against me. Now, 
I know that I think these ideas, and that 
they aro the object in my thought 
without which I cannot think at all. 
Therefore, they are objective and real, 
and neither myself nor ray creations, 
as are abstractions. 

This conclusion is questioned only 
by those persons who have not duly 
considered the fact that there can be 
no thought without both subject and 
object, and that man can never be his 
own object. To assume that bo can 
act, think, or know with himself alone, 
without the concurrence of that which 
is not himself and is independent of 
him, is to deny his dependence and 
to assume him to be God — a concluaioQ 



166 



Jim Old Quarrri. 



which some think follows from the fa- 
mous " Oogito^ ergo sum** of Descartes, 
and which is accepted and defended by 
the whole German pantheistic school 
of the present day. Indeed, as athe- 
" ism was in the last century, so panthe- 
ism is in the present century the real 
enemy philosophy has to combat. In 
concluding the reality of the object 
from the fact that I think it, I am far 
from pretending that thought cannot 
err ; but the error is not in regard to 
what I really think, but in regard to 
that which I do not thinks but infer 
from my thought. I think only what 
is intelligible, and what is intelligible 
is real, and therefore true, for falsehood, 
being unreal, is unintelligible, and 
therefore cannot be thought. But in 
converting my thought into a prop- 
osition, I may include in the propo- 
sition not only what I thought, but 
what I did not think. Hence the part 
of error, which is always the part not 
of knowledge, but of ignorance. It is 
so we understand St. Augustine and St. 
Thomas.* 

These considerations authorize, or we 
are much mistaken, the conclusion that 
the ideas or categories, which the school- 
men hold to be forms of the interme- 
diary or logical world, and Kant to be 
forms of the subject, are objective and 
real, and either the intelligible object 
itself or the objective light by which it 
is rendered intelligible or knowable. 
Plato, Aristotle, and the scholastics, if 
we have not misapprehended them, re- 
gard them, in explaining the fact of 
knowledge, rather as the light which 
illumines the object than the object it- 
self. Yet, when the object is intelligible 
in itsoU; or by its own light. St Thom- 
as clearly identifies it with the object, 
and distinguishes it from the object 
only when the object is not intelligible 
per se. Thus, he maintains with St. 
Augustine that God knows things per 
tdeam; but to the objection that God 
knows them by his essence, he answers 

* Summft. p. 1« qixmt. xv. a. 1 ad 8. 
• VWe St. AaKUBUne, in lib. Ixxxlll. Qq., qnvst- Uon is d« /</«'«, »od we think Oie rcfc.«^, 
zzlL, an<l 8t.Tuuinu,Sumina,p. 1, quaesU xvll. a.8 gulUn^ what 8U ThomM says In the bodj 
HL/h-. The wonls of St, Augustine are, " Omnis qui first article, will agree that, though we hairt 
fS!^;;\*^9'^f<M*^^^»»^i'*MUgU." VUavt^ dlffereiii pliraM«E>cy, we Ut« iliaplj gl 
iBHUoot la aiwajB trae. kbm. 



that Grod in his own essence i 
sunilitude, that is, the idea, of ail tl 
Unde idea in Deo nihil est aliud 
essentia Dei, Therefore, idea it 
is nothing else than the C8sen< 
God.* 

The doctrine of St Thomas i 
all knowledge is by ideas, in the 
of image, likeness, or similitude. 
Grod the idea, image, likeness, or 
itude, the species is not distinguiF 
from the divine essence, for he 
his essence similitudo omnium r 
Now, though we are created afl« 
idea exemplaris, or model eten 
his essence, and therefore in our d 
copy or imitate him, we have i 
us the types or models of all thin^ 
not in ourselves similitudo omniu 
rum, and therefore arc not intel 
in ourselves alone. The idef 
which things are intelligible an 
intelligent must be distinct from a 
exist independent of us. As no 
ture any more than we has in itse 
likeness of all things, or is in itM 
own idea exemplarisy no creatur 
be in itself alone intelligible. I 
what the schoolmen call idea or ii 
gible species must be equally di 
from and independent of the < 
when the object is aliquid creatu 
creature. Hence, while both the ci 
subject and the created object d< 
on the idea, the one to be intelli 
the other to be intelligent, the idi 
telligible species, the light — as we | 
to say — ^is independent of them 
The idea in re is not somethin 
termediary between subject ant 
ject, as is sometimes supposec 
the light that intervenes bei 
them, as the necessary conditio 
knowledge in creatures. This i 
to us to be the real doctrine o 
scholastics, as represented by 
Thomas, and is, in our judgmei 
disputable. 

We call the idea, regarded as 
vening in the fact of knowledge, the 

Tl 



Jn Old QuarreL 



157 



and thus avoid the question whether 
ifl knowledge is bj similitude or not. 
It maj be that the idea is light because 
i contains the image or likeness of 
tfae object, but that seems to us a 
qoestion more curious than practically 
importanL We cannot see that the ex- 
plication of the mystery of knowing 
ii carried any further by calling the 
idea image or similitude than by sim- 
plj calling it the intelligible light. The 
Pbtooists and peripatetics seem to us 
to come no nearer the secret of know- 
ledge by so calling it than do our phi* 
kso^hers to the secret of external 
▼ision, when they tell us that we do 
not see the visible object itself, but its 
image painted by theextemal light on 
the retina of the eye. How do I see 
the image or picture, and connect it 
wilh the external object] When I 
have called the objector the idea light, 
I seem to myself to have said all that 
an be said on the point, and to retain 
nbitaiitially the scholastic doctrine of 
ideas, or intelligible species, which as- 
lerts, I add, by the way, what is per- 
ittps very true, but which after all 
brings us no nearer to the secret of 
howliHige, or the explanation of how 
in the last analysis we do or can know 
«taU. 

How we do or can know seems to 
OS an inexplicable mystery, as is our 
existence itself. That we do know is 
eertain. Every man knows, and in 
knowing knows that he knows; but 
boir he knows no man knows. To 
deny is as much an act of reason as is 
to sdOirm, and no one can deny with- 
out knowing that he denies. Men 
may doubt many thin^ but universal 
doabt is a simple impossibility, for 
whoever doubts knows that he doubts, 
and never doubts that he doubts or 
that doubt is doubting. In all things 
>nd in all science we arrive at last, if 
we think long and deep enough, at a 
mystery which it is in no human pow- 
er to deny or to explain, and which is 
explicable only in Grod by his divine 
science. Hence it is that philosophy 
nerer fully suffices for itself, and al- 
ways needs to be supplemented by rev- 



elation, as nature to attain its end must 
not only be redeemed from the fall, 
but supplemented by grace. J^lan 
never suffices for himself, since hi^i 
Very being is not in himself; and how, 
then, shall philosophy, which is his 
creation, suffice for itself? Let phi- 
losophy go as far as it can, but let 
the philosopher never for a moment 
imagine that human reason will ever 
be able to explain itself. The secret 
as of all things is in God and with 
him. Would man be Grod, the crea- 
ture the Creator ? 

If we have seized the sense of the 
scholastic philosophy as represented by 
St« Thomas, and are right in under- 
standing by the intelligible species of 
the schoolmen the light by which the 
object is inteUigible, therefore the ob- 
ject itself when the object is intelligi- 
ble per se, and the intelligible light 
when it is not, the ideal is objective 
and real, and both the old quarrel and 
the new are voided. Abstractions are 
null ; genera and species are real, but 
creatures ; ideas, as the intelligible 
light by which we know, arc not forms 
of the subject, but objective and real, 
and in fact the light of the divine 
being, which, intelligible by itself, is the 
intelligibility of all created existences. 
St. Anselm's argument is, then, rigidly 
sound and conclusive : I think most 
perfect being %n re ; and therefore such 
being is, or I could not think it, since 
what is not cannot be thought. If the 
most perfect being, a greater than which 
and the contrary of which cannot be 
thought, be only in my thought, then I 
am myself greater than the most per- 
fect being, and my thought becomes 
the criterion of perfection, and I am 
greater than God, and can judge him. 

This follows from the fact that the 
ideal is real The ideas of the univer- 
sal, the infinite, the perfect, the neces- 
sary, the immutable, the eternal can- 
not be either the intelligible object or 
the intelligible light, unless they are be- 
ing. As abstractions, or as abstracted 
from being, they are simple nullities. 
To think thejn is fo think real, universal, 
infinite, perfect, necessary, immutable. 



158 



An Old Quarrd. 



and eternal being, the ens perfeetisn- 
mnm of St. Ansehn, the ens necessanum 
et reale of the tbeolo^iaDS, a greater 
than which or the contrary of which 
cannot be thought That this ens^ in- 
tuitively affirmed to every intellect, is 
God, is amply shown in the papers on 
"The Problems of the Age," and also 
tliat ens or being creates existences, and 
hence there is no occasion for us to 
rhow it over again. 

But it will not do to say, as 
many do, that we have intuition of 
God. The idea is intuitive ; and we 
know by intuition that which is God, 
and that he is would be indemonstra- 
ble if we did not ; but we do not know 
by intuition that what is affirmed or 
presented in intuition is Grod. When 
Descartes says, " I think God, there- 
fore God is," he misapprehends St. 
Anselm, and assumes what is not ten- 
able. St. Anselm does not Fay he 
thinks God, and therefore God is ; he 
says, '^ I think most perfect being, a 
greater than \^ hich cannot be thought," 
and therefore most perfect being is. 
The intuition is not God, but most 
perfect being. So the ideal formula, 
ens crecU cxistentiaSy so ably de- 
fended in the papers on ^ The Problems 
of the Age," would be indefensible, if 
Deus were substituted for ens, and it 
read, God creates existence 9. Tiiat is 
true, and ens^ no doubt, is Detu ; but 
we know not that by intuition, and 
it would be wrong to understand 
St. Augustine, who seems to teach that 
we know that God is by intuition, in 
any other sense than that wo have in- 
taition of thnt which can be demon- 
strated to be God. We know by in- 
tuition that which is God, but not that 
it is God. 

St. Thomas seems to us to set this 
matter right in his answer to the ques- 
tion, Utrum Deum esse sit per se no- 
tarn f He holds that ens is per se 
natum, or self-evident, and that first 
principles in knowing, as well as in 
being, evidence themselves, but de- 
nies that Deum esse sit per se notum^ 
because the meanii/g of the word 
Deus or God is not self-evkient and 



known by all. His own wofds are : 
" Dica ergo hcee proposition Dbus est, 
quantum in se est, per se nota est^ quia 
prcedicatum est idem cum suhfecto 
Deus enim est suum esse, ut infra 
patebit. Sed qua nos non scimus ds 
Deo QUID EST, non est per se nota est^ 
sed indiget demonstrari,''* 

St. Thomas adds, indeed, ^^ Sed indi- 
get demonstrarij per ea qum sunt magis 
nota quoad nos, et minus secundam 
naturam, scilicet per effectus ;'* but this 
is easily explained. The saint argues 
that it is not self-evident that God is, 
because it is not self-evident what 
he is; for,' accordmg to the scholastic 
philosophy, to be able to affirm that 
a thing is, it is necessary to know 
its quidity, since without knowing 
what the thing is we cannot know that 
it is. What God is can be demon- 
strated only by his works, and that it 
can be so demonstrated St. Paul as- 
sures us, Rom. 1 : 20 : " Invisibilia 
ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea qu» 
facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur : 
sempitema quoquc virtus et divinitas ;** 
or as we venture to English it: ^The 
invisible things of God, even his 
eternal power and divinity, are clear- 
ly seen from the foundation of the 
world, being understood (or known) by 
the things that are m «de." St. Paul 
appeals to the things that are made 
not t » prove that God is, but to show 
what he is, or rather, if we may so ex- 
press ourself, to prove that he is God, 
and leaves us, as does St Thomas, 
to prove, with Sl Augustine, St. 
Anselm, Fcnelon, atid others, that he 
is, by the ai^ument derived from in* 
tuitive ideas, or first principles, com- 
monly called the argumentum a priori^ 
though that, strictly speaking, it is 
not, tor there is nothing more ultimatd 
or universal in science than is Grod 
himself, or, rather, that which is God. 

The ideisd formula is true, for it is 
contained in the first verse of Grencsis* 
^ In the beginning Grod created heaven 
and earth,^' and in the first article of 
(he creed, ^ I believe in one God, maker 



IilIbo. 



The Bidden Crucifixion, 



1(W 



of beaTen and earth, and all things 
visible and invisible;*' and what it 
formulates is, as we have shown, and as 
issbown more at length in ** The Prob-^ 
lem3 of the Age," intuitive, and the 
boman mind could not exist and oper- 
ate if it were not so ; but the formula 
itself, or, rather, the formulation as 
in intellectiial judgment, is not so. 
The judgment was beyond the reach of 
•11 Gentile philosophy, which nowhere 
isserts or recognizes the fact of crea- 
tioD; it is beyond the reach of the 
mass even of the Christian people, who 
bold that Grod creates the world as an 
article of faith rather than as a scientific 
tmth ; it is denied by nearly all the 
BjstemB of philosophy constructed by 
DOR-Catholics even in our own day, and 
it may well be doubted if science, un- 
aided by revelation, could ever have at- 
tained fo it 

This relieves the formula of the 
principal objections urged against it 
The ideas formulated are the first 
principles in science with which all 
philosophy must commence, but the 



formulation, instead of being at the be- 
ginning, does not always appear even 
at its conclusion. The explanations 
we have offered show that tbere is no 
discrepancy between its assertion and 
the philosophy of St. Thomas. Indeed, 
the formula in substance is the com- 
mon doctrine of all great Catholic 
theologians in all ages of the church, 
and may be seen to be so if we will 
only take the pains to understand them 
and ourselves. The objection, that the 
doctrine that we have intuition of most 
perfect being assumes that we have 
the intuitive vision of God even in this 
life, cannot stand, because that vision 
is vision of God as he is in himself, 
and this asserts only intuition of him 
as idea, which we even know not by 
intuition is Grod. The result of our 
discus^on is to show that the sounder 
and better philosophy of our day is in 
reality nothing but the philosophy of 
St. Anselm and St. Thomas, and which 
in substance has been always, and still 
is, taught with more or less clearness 
and depth in all our Catholic schools. 



ORIGOriX. 

THE fflDDEN CRUCIFIXION. 

" And they crucified him there." 



Sat dot 'twas on dread Calvary's mountain top. 
And in the broad and glaring light 
Of noonday sun ; 
With hooting rabble crowded 'round 
To show 
The Holy One despite. 

No, DO I But in this guilty breast, alono^ 
God of my love, how could I dare ! — 
The deed was done. 
Ye angels, look upon this heart ; 
Ye know 
I cracified him there I 



ido 



Impretriont of Spam, 



IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN. 



BY LADT HERBERT. 



6T. BEBA8TIAN AND BURGOS. 

What is it that we seek for, we 
Englishmen and Englishwomen, wlio 
year by year, about the month of No- 
vember, are seen crowding the Folke- 
stone and Dover steamboats, with 
that unmistakable 'Agoing abroad" 
look of travelling — ba^ps and wide- 
awakes and bundles of wraps and 
alpaca gowns? I think it may be 
comprised in one word — sunshine. 
This dear old land of ours, with all its 
luxuries and all its comforts and all its 
associations of home and people, still 
lacks one thing — and that is climate. 
For climate means health to one half 
of us ; and health means power of en- 
joyment; for, without it, the most per- 
fect of homes (and nowhere is that 
word understood so well as in Eng- 
land) is spoiled and saddened. So, in 
pursuit of this great boon, a widow lady 
and her children, with a doctor and 
two otiier friends, started off in the 
winter of 186-, in spite of ominous 
warnings of revolutions, and grim sto- 
ries of brijrands, for that comparative- 
ly unvisited country called Spain. As 
far as St. Sebastian the journey was 
absolutely without interest or adven* 
ture of any kind. The express train 
dashed them past houses and villages, 
and picturesque old towns with fine 
church towers, from Paris to Bor- 
deaux, and from Bordeaux to Bay- 
on ne, and so on past the awful frontier, 
the scene of so many passages-at-arms 
between officials and ladies' maids, till 
they found themselves crossing the 
picturesque bridge which leads to the 
little town of St. Sebastian, with its 
beach of fine sand, washed by the 
long billowy waves of the Atlantic on 
the one liand, and its riant, well-culti- 



vated little Basque farms on the other. 
As to the town itself, time and the pre- 
fect may eventually make it a seoMid 
Biarritz, as in every direction lodging- 
houses are springing up, till it will be- 
come what one of Dickens's lieroen 
would call ** the most sea-bathingest 
place" that eviT was ! But at present 
it is a mass of rough stone and lime 
and scaffolding ; and the one straight 
street leading from the hotel to the 
church of St. Maria, with the castle 
above, are almost all that remains of 
the old town which stood so matiy 
sieges, and was looked upon as the 
key of Northern Spain. The hotel 
appeared but tolerably comfortable to 
our traveUers, fresh from the luxuries 
of Paris. When they returned, four 
or five months later, they thought it a 
perfect paradise of comfort and clean- 
liness. After wandering through the 
narrow streets, and walking into one 
or two uninteresting churches, it was 
resolved to climb up to the citadel 
which commands the town, and to 
which the ascent is by a fair zigzag 
road, like that which leads to Dover 
Castle. A small garrison remains in 
the keep, which is also a military pris- 
on. The officers received our party 
very courteously, inviting them to walk 
on the battlements, and climb up to 
the fiag-staff, and offering them the 
use of their large telescope for the 
view, which is certainly magnificent, 
especially toward the sea. There is a 
tiny chapel in the fortress, in which the 
Blessed Sacrament is reserved. It was 
pleasant to see the sentinel presenting 
arms to it each time bis round brought 
him past the ever open door. On the 
hill side, a few monumental slabs, let 
in here and there into the rock, and 
one or two square tombs, mark the 



Atpresiians of S^n. 



161 



gnves of the Englishmen killed dur- 
mg the siege, and also in the Don 
Carlos revolution. Of the siege itself, 
and of the historical interest attached 
to St. Sebastian, we will saj nothing : 
are thej not written in the book of the 
chranicles of Napier and Napoleon ? 

The following morning, after a fine 
and crowded service at the church of 
St Maria, where they first saw the 
beaatifiil Spanish custom of the women 
being all veiled, and in black, two of 
the party started at seven in the morn- 
ing, in a light carriage, for Loyola. The 
n»d throughout is beautiful, remind- 
ing one of the Tyrol, with picturesque 
Tillages, old Roman bridges, quaint 
manor-bouses, with coats of arms em- 
Uaioned over their porticoes ; rapid, 
dear trout-streams and fine glimpses 
of snowy mountains on the left, and of 
the bright blue sea on the right. The 
flowers, too, were lovely. There was 
a dwarf blue bugloss of an intensity of 
• cobr which is only equalled by the 
luge ibrgetme-not on the mountain- 
sides of Lebanon. The peasants are 
all small proprietors. They were cul- 
tivating their fields in the most primi- 
tire way, father, mother, and children 
working the ground with a two-prong- 
ed fork, called by them a ^* laya ;" 
but the result was certainly satisfac- 
tory. They speak a language as ut- 
terly hopeless for a foreigner to under- 
stand as Welsh or Graelic The say- 
ing among the Andalusians is that the 
devil, who is no fool, spent seven years 
inBilboa studying the Basque dialect, 
and learned three words only ; and of 
their pronunciation they add that the 
Basque write ** Solomon/' and pro- 
nounce it ** Nebuchadnezzar r* Be 
this as it may, they are a contented, 
happy, prosperous, sober race, rarely 
Waving their own country, to which 
they are passionately attached, and 
deserving, by their independence and 
•elf-reliance, their name of ** Bayas- 
cogara" — " Somos bastantes." 

iPassing through the baths Certosa, 
the mineral springs of which are much 
frequented by the Spaniards in sum- 
mer, our travellers came, after a four 
VOL. v.— 11 



hours' drive, to Azpeitia, a walled 
town, with a fine church containing the 
** pila," or font, in which St Ignatius 
was baptized. Here the good-natured 
cur^ Padre G , met them, and in- 
sisted on escorting them to the great 
college of Loyola, which is about a 
mile from the town. It has a fine 
Italian fa9ade, and is built in a fertile 
valley round the house of St. Ignatius, 
the college for missionary priests being 
on one side, and a fiorid, domed, cir- 
cular marble church on the other. 
The whole is thoroughly Roman in its 
aspect, but not eo beautiful as the 
Gothic buildings of the south. They 
first went, into the church, which is 
very rich in jaspers, marbles, and 
mosaics, the marbles being brought 
from the neighboring mountains. The 
cloisters at the back are still unfur- 
nished ; but the entrance to the monas- 
tery is of fine and good proportions, 
and the corridors and staircase are 
very handsome. Between the church 
and the convent is a kind of covered 
cloister, leading to the " Santuario," 
the actual house in which the saint 
was bom and lived. The outside is 
in raised brickwork, of curious old 
geometrical patterns ; and across the 
door is the identical wooden bar which 
in old times served as protection to 
the ch&teau. Entering the 'low door, 
you see on your right a staircase ; and 
on your left a long low room on the 
ground floor, in which is a picture of 
the Blessed Virgin. Here the saint 
was bom: his mother, having a par- 
ticular devotion to the Virgin, insisted 
on being brought down here to be con- 
fined. Going up the stairs, to a kind 
of corridor used as a confessional, you 
come first to the chapel of St. Francis 
Borgia, where he said his first mass. 
Next to it is one dedicated to Marian- 
ne di Jesu, the " Lily of Quito," with 
a beautiful picture of the South Amer- 
ican saint over the high altar. To the 
left, again, is another chapel, and here 
St. Fran9oi8 Xavier, the Apostle of 
the Indies, said his mass before start- 
ing on his glorious evangelical mission. 
Ascendmg a few steps higher, their 



168 



hymsiiant of Spam. 



guide led them ioto a loog low room, 
richly decorated and gilt, and full of 
pictures of the difierent events of the 
life of the saint. A gilt screen divid- 
ed the ante-chapel from the altar, 
raised on the very spot where he lay 
so long with his wounded leg, and 
where he was inspired by the Blessed 
Virgin to renounce the world, and de- 
vote himself, body and soul, to the 
work of God. There is a representation 
of him in white marble under the altar 
as he lay ; and opposite, a portrait, in 
his soldier's dress, said to be taken 
from life, and another of him after- 
ward, when he had become a priest. 
It is a beautifiil face, with strong pur- 
pose and high resolve in every line of 
the features. 

In the sacristy is the ^ baldachino," 
or tester of his bed, in red silk. It 
was in this room that he first fell sick 
and took to reading the Lives of the 
Saints to amuse himself, there being no 
other book within reach. Such are 
the " common ways," which we blindly 
call " accidents," in which God leads 
those whom he chooses, like Saul, for 
bis special service. The convent con- 
tains thirty fathers and twenty-five lay 
brothers. There are about 120 stu- 
dents, a fine library, refectory, etc 
They have a large day-school of poor 
children, whom they instruct in Basque 
and Spanish ; and distribute daily a 
certain number of dinners, soup, and 
bread, to the sick poor of the neigh- 
boring villages, about twenty of whom 
were waiting at the butteiy door for 
their daily supply. 

The English strangers, taking leave 
of the kind and courteous fathers, had 
luncheon at a little *^ posada" close by, 
where the hostess insisted on their 
drinking some of the cider of the coun- 
try, which the doctor, himself a Devon- 
shire man, was obliged to confess ex- 
celled that of his own country. The 
good cure entertained them meanwhile 
with stories of his people, who appear 
to be very like the Highlanders, both 
in their merits and their faults. Some 
of their customs seemed to be derived 
from pagan times, each as that of 



offering bread and wine on the i 
of those they love on the annirc 
of their death ; a custom in vof 
the early days of Christianity 
mentioned by St Augustine ii 
Confessions as being first put a 
to by St. Ambrose, at Milan, o 
count of the abuses which had 
into the practice. The drive bad 
if possible, even more beautiful 
that of the morning, and they re 
St Sebastian at eight o'clock, deli 
with their expedition. 

The next day they started for 
gos, by rail, only stopping for t 
minutes on theur way to the stat: 
see the " Albergo dei Poveri,'* f 
pital and home for incurables, n 
by the Spanish sisters of ch 
They are affiliated to the sisters 
Vincent de Paul, and follow theii 
but do not wear the *' white con 
of the French sisters. 

The railroad in this part of 
has been carried through most m 
icent scenery, which appeared 1 
travellers like a mixture of P( 
and Salvator Rosa. Fine | 
mountains, still sprinkled with 
with rugged and jagged peaks sta 
out against the clear blue sky 
with waterfalls and beautiful sti 
rushing down their sides ; an t 
wood of chestnut and beach trees ; 
valleys, with little brown village 
bright white convents perched c 
ing knolls, and picturesque bi 
spanning the little streams as 
dashed through the gorges ; and 
long tracks of bright rose-cc 
heather, out of which rose big boi 
stones or the wayside cross ; the ' 
forming, as it were, a successi) 
beautiful pictures such as wool 
light the heart of a painter, both 
composition and coloring. No 
can say much for the pace at ^ 
the Spanish railways travel; ye 
they all too quick in scenery su 
this, when one longs to stop and a 
at every turn. Suddenly, ho^ 
the train came to a stand-stiU 
enormous fragment of rock had t 
across the line in the night, bui^ 



Lnpresiiom of S^tn. 



163 



If^gage-traiDy bat forlanately without 
iojnry to its drivere ; and our partj 
had no alteraative but to get out, with 
then* manifold bags and packages, and 
walk across the debris to another train, 
which, fortunately, was waiting for them 
on the opposite side of the chasm. A 
little experience of Spanish travelling 
taught them to expect such incidents 
half a dozen times in the course of the 
day's journey ; but at first it seemed 
startling and strange. They reached 
Buri^os at six, and found themselves 
in a small but very decent " fonda," 
where the daughter of the landlord 
spoke a little French, to their great 
relief. They had had visions of Ital- 
ian serving nearly as well as Spanish 
for making themselves understood by 
the people ; but this idea was rudely 
dispelled the very first day of thdr 
arrival in Spain. Great as the simi- 
larity may be in reading, the accent of 
the Spaniard makes him utterly in- 
comprehensible to the bewildered Ital- 
ian scholar ; and the very likeness of 
8ome words increases the difficulty 
when he finds that, according to the 
pronanciation, a totally difierent mean- 
ing is attached to them. For instance, 
ooe of the English ladies, thinking 
to please the mistress of the house, 
made a little speech to her about the 
beauty and cleanliness of her kitchen, 
nslog the right word (cocina)^ but pro- 
nouncing it with the ItaUan accent 
She saw directly she had committed a 
blander, though Spanish civility sup- 
preiMed the laugh at her expense. She 
found afierwaid that the word she 
had used, with the ^ ci" soft, meant a 
fonale pig. And this was only a spe- 
cimen of mistakes hourly committed 
bj all who adventured themselves in 
this unknown tongue. 

A letter of introduction procured for 
our travellers an instant admission to 
the cardinal archbishop, who received 
tliem most kindly, and volunteered to be 
their escort over the cathedral. He 
had been educated at Ushaw, and 
spoke English fluently and well. He 
had a very pretty little chapel in his 
palace, with a picture m it of Sta. 



Maria della Pace at Rome, from 
whence he derives his cardinal's title. 
The cathedral at Burgos, with the 
exception of Toledo, is the most beau- 
tiful Gothic buildmg in Spain. It was 
begun by Bishop Maurice, an English- 
man, and a great friend of St Ferdi- 
nand^s, in the year 1220. The spires, 
with their lacework carving ; the door- 
ways, so rich in sculpture ; the rose- 
windows, with their exquisite tracery ; 
the beautiful lantern-shaped clerestory ; 
the curious double staircase of Diego 
de Siloe ; the wonderful " retablos" be- 
hind the altars, of the finest wood- 
carving; the magnificent marble and 
alabaster monuments in the side chap- 
els, vying with one another in beauty 
and richness of detail ; the wonderful 
wood-carving of the stalls in the choir ; 
the has reliefs carved in every portion 
of the stone ; in fact, every detail of 
this glorious building is equally per- 
fect; and even in Southern Spain, 
that paradise for lovers of cathedrals, 
can scarcely be surpassed. The finest 
of the monuments are those of the 
VeLaaco family, the hereditary high- 
constable of Castile. They are of 
Carrara marble, resting upon blocks 
of jasper : at the feet of the lady lies a 
little dog, as the emblem of " Fidelity.** 
Over the doorway of this chapel, lead- 
ing to a tiny sacristy, are carved the 
arms of Jerusalem. In the large 
sacristy is a Magdalen, by Leonardo 
da Vinci ; and some exquisite church 
plate, in gold and enamel, especially a 
chalice, a processional cross, a pax, 
etc. In the first chapel on the right, 
as you enter by the west door, is a 
very curious figure of Christ, brought 
from the Holy Land, with real hair 
and skin ; but painful in the extreme, 
and almost grotesque from the manner 
in which it has been dressed. This 
remark, however, applies to almost all 
the images of Christ and of the Blessed 
Virgin throughout Spain, which are 
rendered both sad and ludicrous to 
English eyes from the petticoats and 
finery with which modem devotion has 
disfigured them. This crucifix, how- 
ever, is greatly venerated by the peo- 



104 



Jbnprtiriani of Spain, « 



pie, who call it « The Christ of Bur- 
gos," and on Sundays or holidays there 
is no possibility of getting near it, on 
account of the crowd. In the Chapel 
of the Vipitation are three more beau- 
tifbl monuments, and a very fine pic- 
ture of the Virgin and Child, by Se- 
bastian del Piombo. But it was im- 
possible to take in every portion of 
this cathedral at once; and so our 
travellers went on to the cloisters, 
passing through a beautiful pointed 
doorway, richly carved, which leads to 
the chapter-house, now a receptacle for 
lumber, but containing the chest of the 
Cid, reorarding which the old chronicle 
says: "He filled it with sand, and 
then, telling the Jews it contained gold, 
raised money on security." In justice 
to the hero, however, we are bound to 
add, that when the necessities of the 
war were over, he repaid both prin- 
cipal and interest. Leaving, at last, 
the cloisters and cathedral, and taking 
leave of the kind archbishop, our party 
drove to the Town Hall, where, in a 
walnut- wood urn, are kept the bones 
of the Cid, which were removed twenty 
years ago from their original resting- 
place at Cardena. The sight of them 
strengthened their resolve to make a 
pilgrimage to his real tomb, which 
is in a Benedictine convent about 
eight miles from the town. Starting, 
therefore, in two primitive little car- 
riages, guiltless of springs, they crossed 
the river and wound up a steep hill 
till they cAmo in sight of Mirajlores^ 
the great Carthusian convent, which, 
seen from a distance, strongly resem- 
bles Eton College Chapel. It was 
built by John II. for a royal burial- 
place, and was finished by Isabella of 
Castile. Arriving at the monastery, 
from whence the monks have been 
expelled, and which is now tenanted 
by only one or two lay brothers of the 
order, they passed through a long 
cloister, shaded by fine cypresses, into 
the churcli, in the chancel of which is 
that which may really be called one of 
the seven wonders of the world. This 
is the alabjister sepulchre of John II. 
and his wife, the father and mother of 



Queen Isabella, with their son, the In- 
fante Alonso, who died young. In 
richness of detail, delicacy of carving, 
and beauty of execution, the work of 
these monuments is perfectly unrival- 
led — ^the very material seems to be 
changed into Mechlin lace. The artist 
was Maestro Gil, the father of tho 
famous Diego de Siloe, who carved 
the staircase in the cathedral. He 
finished it in 1493 ; and one does not 
wonder at Philip H.'s exclamation when 
he saw it : " We have done nothing at 
the Escurial." In the sacristy is a 
wonderful statue of St. Bruno, carved 
in wood, and so beautiful and life-like 
in expression that it was difficult to 
look at anything else. 

Leaving Miraflores, our travellers 
broke tenderly to their coachmen their 
wish to go on to Cardena. One of 
them utterly refused, saying the road 
was impassable ; the other, moyennant 
an extra gratuity, undertook to try it, 
but stipulated that the gentlemen should 
walk, and the ladies do the same, if 
necessary. Winding round the con- 
vent garden walls, and then across a 
bleak wild mooV, they started, and soon 
found themselves involved in a suc- 
cession of ruts and sloughs of despond 
which more than justified the hesita- 
tion of their driver. On the coach-box 
was an imp of a boy, whose delight con- 
sisted in quickening the fears of the 
most timid among the ladies by inva- 
riably making the horses gallop at the 
most difficult and precipitous parts of 
the road, and then turning round and 
grinning at the fright ho had given 
them. It is needless to say that the 
carriage was not his property. At 
last, the horses came to a stand-still ; 
they could go no further, and the rest 
of (he way had to be done on foot 
But our travellers were not to be 
pitied; for the day was lovely, and 
the path across the moor was studded 
with flowers. At last, on climbing over 
a steep hill which had intercepted their 
view, they came on a lovely panorama, 
with a background of blue mountains 
tipped with snow ; a wooded glen, in 
which the brown convent nestled, and 



LtipreiSMns of Spcdn. 



Ids 



a wild moor foreground, across which 
Jong strings of mules with gay trap- 
pings, driven by peasants in Spanish 
costumes, exactly as represented in 
Ansdell's paintin<rs, were wending their 
way toward the city. Tired as some 
of our party were, this glorious view 
seemed to give them fresh strength, 
and they rapidly descended the hill 
by the hollow path leading to the con- 
venL Over the great entrance is a 
statue of the Cid, mounted on his 
fovoritc horse, **Babicca,'* who bore 
him to his last resting-place, and was 
afterward buried beside the master 
he loved so well. But the grand old 
building seemed utterly deserted, and 
a big mastiff, fastened by an ominously 
slight chain to the doorway, appeared 
deiermined to defy their attempts to 
enter. At last, one of them, more 
coarageous than the rest, tempting 
the Cerberus with the remains of 
her luncheon, got past him, and wan- 
dered through the cloister, up a fine 
staircase to a spacious corridor, in hopes 
of findin^c a guide to show them the 
way to the chapel, where lay the ob- 
ject of their expedition, that is, the 
monument of the Cid. But she was only 
answered by the echo of her own foot- 
steps. The cells were empty ; the once 
beautiful library gutted and destroyed ; 
the refectory had nothing in it but 
bare walls — the whole place was like 
a city of the dead. At last, she dis- 
covered a staircase leading down to a 
cloister on the side opposite the great 
entrance, and there a low-arched door, 
which she found ajar, admitted her into 
the deserted church. The tomb of the 
Cid has been removed from the high 
altar to a side chapel; and there is 
interred likewise- his faithful and 
devoted wife Ximena, and their two 
daughters. On his shield is embla- 
zoned the " tizona," or sparkling brand, 
which the legends affirm he always car- 
ried in his hand, and with which he 
struck terror into the hearts of the in- 
fidels. This charch and convent, built 
for the Benedictines by the Princess 
Sancho, in memory of her son Theo- 
doric^ who was killed out hunting, was 



sacked by the Moors in the ninth cen- 
tury, when 200 of the monks were 
murdered. A tablet in the south 
transept still remains, recoi-ding the 
massacre; but the monument of Theo- 
doric has been mutilated and destroyed. 
The Christian spoilers have done their 
work more effectually than the Moslem I 
Sorrowfully our travellers left this 
beautiful spot, thinking bitterly on the 
so-called age of progress which had left 
the abode of so much learning and piety 
to the owls and the bats ; and partly 
walking, partly driving, returned with- 
out accident to the city. One more 
memento of the Cid at Burgos de- 
serves mention. It is the lock on 
which he compelled the king, Alonso 
VI., to swear that he had had no part 
in his brother Sancho's assassination 
at Zamora. All who wislied to con- 
firm their word with a solemn oath 
used to touch it, till the practice was 
abolished by Isabella, and the lock it- 
self hung up in the old church of St. 
Gadea, on the way to the castle hill, 
where it still rests. This is the origin 
of the peasant custom of closing the 
hand and raising the thumb, which 
they kiss in token of asseveration ; and 
in like manner we have the old High- 
land saying : " There's my thumb. I'll 
not betray you." 

Another charming expedition was 
made on the following day to Las 
Huelgas, the famous Cistercian nun- 
nery, built in some gardens outside the 
town by Alonso VIII. and his wife 
Leonora, daughter of our King Henry 

When one of the- ladies had asked 
the cai'dinal for a note of introduction 
to the abbess, l>e had replied laugh- 
ing : * I am afraid it would not be of 
much use to you. She certainly is not 
under my jurisdiction, and I am not 
sure whether she does not think I am 
under hers !" No lady abbess cer- 
tainly ever had more extraordinary 
privileges. She is a Princess Pala- 
tine — styled " By the grace of God " — 
and has feudal power over all the 
lands and villages round. She ap- 
points her own priests and confessors, 



106 



Inpresitcm of Spain. 



and has a hospital about a mile from 
the convent, nursed by the sisters, and 
entirely under her control. After some 
little delay at the porter's lodge, owing 
to their haying come at the inconven- 
ient hour of dinner, our party were ush- 
ered into the parlor, and there, behind 
a grille, saw a beautiful old lady, dress- 
ed in wimple and coif, exactly like a 
picture in the time of Chaucer. This 
was the redoubtable lady abbess. 
There are twenty-seven choir nuns and 
twenty-five lay sisters in the convent, 
and they follow the rule of St. Bernard. 
The abbess first showed them the 
Moorish standard, beautifully embroid- 
ered, taken at the battle of Las Navas 
de Tolosa, in 1180. A curious old 
fresco representing this battle remains 
over the arch of the church. She then 
took them to the choir, which is very 
rich in carving, and contains the tombs 
of the founders, Alonso and Leonora, 
and also of a number of infantas, whose 
royal bodies are placed in richly carved 
Gothic sepulchres, resting on lions, on 
each side of the choir. In the church 
is a curious hammered iron gilt pulpit, 
in which St. Vincent de Ferrer preach- 
ed. Here St. Ferdinand and Alonso 
XI. knighted themselves, and here our 
own king, Edward L, received the lionor 
of knighthood at the hands of Alonso 
el Sabio. 

The church is a curious jumble of 
different dates of architecture; but 
there is a beautiful tower and doorway, 
some very interesting old monuments, 
and a fine double rose-window. The 
cloisters are very beautiful, with round- 
headed arclies, grouped pillars, and 
Norman capitals. The lady abbess 
then ordered one of the priests of the 
convent to take her English visitors to 
see their hospital, called ** Del Roy," 
the walk to which from the convent is 
through pleasant fields like English 
meadows. It is admirably managed 
and nursed by the nuns. Each patient 
has a bed in a recess, which makes, as 
it were, a little private room for each, 
and this is lined with ** azulejos," or 
colored tiles, up to a certain height, 
giving that clean bright look which dis- 



tinguishes the Spanish hospitals from 
all others. At the end of each ward 
was a little altar, where mass is daily 
performed for the sick. There are 
fif^y men and fifty women, and the sur- 
gical department was careftiUy supplied 
with all tlie best and newest instru- 
ments, which the surgeon was eager 
to show off to the doctor, the only one 
of the party worthy of the privilege. 
The wards opened into a "patio," or 
court, with seats and bright flowers, 
where the patients who could leave 
their beds were sitting out and sunning 
themselves. Altogether, it is a noble 
institution ; and one must hope that the 
ruthless hand of government will not 
destroy it in common with the other 
charitable foundations of Spain. 

MADRID. 

But the cold winds blew sharply, 
and our travellers resolved to hurry 
south, and reserve the further treasures 
of Burgos for inspection on their re- 
turn. The night train conveyed them 
safely to Madrid, where they found a 
most comfortable hotel in the " Ville de 
Paris," lately opened by an enterpris- 
ing Frenchman, in the "Pueila del 
Sol ; " and received the kindest of wel- 
comes from the English minister, the 
Count T. D., and other old friends. It 
was Sunday morning, and the first ob- 
ject was to find a church near at hand. 
The^se are not wanting in Madrid, but 
all are modem, and few in good taste : 
the nicest and best served is undoubt- 
edly that of " St. Louis des Fran9ai3,* 
though the approach to it through the 
crowded market is rather disagreeable 
early in the morning. The witty 
writer of "Les Lettres d'Espagne* 
says truly: "Madrid ne me dit rien: 
c'est modeme, aligne, propre et civil- 
ise." As for the climate, it is detestii- 
ble : bitterly cold in winter, the east 
wind searching out every rlieumatio 
joint in one's frame, and pitilessly 
driving round the comers of every 
street ; burning hot in summer, with a 
glare and dust which nearly equal thai 
of Cairo in a simoom. 



Impremont of Spain. 



167 



The Gallery, however, compensates 
for alL Our trayellers had spent 
months at Florence, at Borne, at Dres- 
den, and fancied that nothing could 
oome up to the Pitti, the Ufl&zi, or the 
Vatican — that no picture could equal 
the <" San Sisto;"* but tbej found they 
bad jet much to learn. No one who 
has not been in Spain can so much as 
imagine what Mnrillo is. In Enghmd 
he is looked upon as the clever painter 
of picturesque brown beggar-boys: 
there is not one of these subjects to be 
found in Spain, from St Sebastian to 
Gibraltar ! At Madrid, at Cadiz, but 
especially at Seville, one learns to 
know him as he is — that is, the great 
mystical religious painter of the seven- 
teenth century, embodying in his won- 
derful conceptions all that is most sub- 
lime and ecstatic in devotion, and in 
the representation of divine love. The 
English minister, speaking of this one 
day to a lady of the party, explained 
it very simply, by saying that the Eng- 
lish generally only carried off those of 
his works in which the Catholic feeling 
was not so strongly displayed. It 
wonld be hopeless to attempt to de- 
scribe all his pictures in the Madrid 
Gallery. The Saviour and St. John, 
as bojs, drinking out of a shell, is per^ 
haps the most delicate and exquisite in 
coloring and expression ; but the " Con- 
ception '' surpasses all. No one should 
compare it with the Louvre pictures of 
the same subject There is a refine- 
ment, a tenderness, and a beauty in the 
Madrid "Conception" entirely want- 
ing in the one stolen by the French. 
Then there is Velasquez, with his in- 
imitable portraits ; full of droll original- 
ity, as the " .^Beop ; " or of deep histor- 
ical interest, as his « Philip IV. ;" or 
of sublime piety, as in his " Crucifix- 
ion,'' with the hair falling over one side 
of the Saviour^s face, which the pierced 
and fastened hands cannot push aside : 
each and all are priceless treasures, 
and there must be sixty or seventy in 
that one long room. Ford says that 
** Vehisquez is the Homer of the Span- 
ish school, of which Murillo is the Vir- 
giL'' Then there are Biberas, and 



Zurbarans, Divino Morales, Juan 
Joanes, Alonso Cafio, and half a-dozen 
' other artists, whose very names are 
scarcely known out of Spain, and all of 
whose works are impregnated with 
that mystic, devotional, self-sacrificing 
spirit which is the essence of Catho- 
licism. The Italian school is equally 
magnificently represented. There are 
exquisite Raphaels, one especially, 
^JjSL Perla," once belonging to our 
Charles L, and sold by the Puritans to 
the Spanish king ; the ^' Spasimo," the 
"Vergin del Pesce," etc; beautiful 
Titians, not only portraits, but one, a 
** Magdalen," which is unknown to us 
by engravings or photographs in Eng- 
land, where, in a green robe, she is fly- 
ing from the assaults of the devil, rep- 
resented by a naonstrous dragon, and 
in which the drawing is as wonderful 
as the coloring ; beautiful G. Bellinis, 
and Luinis, and Andrea del Sartos 
(especially one of his wife), and Paul 
Veronese, and others of the Venetian 
and Milanese schools. In a lower room 
there are Dutch and Flemish chefs- 
d'ceuvre without end: Rubens, and 
Vandyke, and Teniers, and Breughel, 
and Holbein, and the rest. It is a gal- 
lery bewildering from the number of 
its pictures, but with the rare merit of 
almost all being good ; and they are so 
arranged that the visitor can see them 
with perfect comfort at any hour of the 
day. In the ante-room to the long 
gallery are some pictures of the present 
century, but none are worth looking at 
save Goya's pictures of the wholesale 
massacre of the Spanish prisoners by 
the French, which are not likely to 
soAen the public feeling of bitterness 
and hostility toward that nation. 

There is nothing very good in 
sculpture, only two of the antiques 
being worth looking at ; but there is a 
fine statue of Charles V., and a won- 
derfully beautiful St. John of God, 
carrying a sick man out of the burn- 
ing hospital on his back, which is mod- 
em, but in admirable taste. Neglect- 
ed, in some side cupboards, and sev- 
eral of them broken and covered with 
dtfflt and dirt, are some exquisite tai- 



168 



Lnpreniont of Spain. 



EOS of Benvenuto Cellini, D'Arphes, 
aud Beceriles, in lapis, jade, agate, 
and enamel, finer than any to bo seen 
even in the Griine Grcwolbe of Dres- 
den. There is a gold mermaid, stud- 
ded with rubies, and with an emerald 
tail, and a cup with an enamelled jew- 
elled border and stand, which are per- 
fectly unrivalled in beauty of work- 
manship. Then, in addition to this 
matchless gallery, Madrid has its 
** Academia," containing three of Mu- 
rillo's most magniHcent conceptions. 
One is " St. Elizabeth of Hungary," 
washing the wounds of the sick, her 
fair young face and delicate white 
hands forming a beautiful contrast 
with the shrivelled brown old woman 
in the foreground. The expression of 
the saint's countenance is that of one 
absorbed in her work and yet looking 
beyond it.* The other is the ^ Dream," 
in which the Blessed Virgin appears 
to the founder of the church of St. 
Bfaria della Neve (afterward called 
St. Maria Maggiore) and his wife, and 
suggests to them the building of a 
church on a spot at Rome, which 
would be indicated to them by a fall 
of snow, though it was then in the 
monlh of August In the third pic- 
ture the founder and his wife arc 
kneeling at the feet of the Pope, tell- 
ing him of their vision, and imploring 
his benediction on their work. These 
two famous pictures were taken by 
Soult from Seville, and are of a lu- 
nette shape, being made to fit the orig- 
inal niche for which they were paint- 
ed : both are unequalled for beauty of 
color and design, and have recently 
been magnificently engraved, by order 
of the government. 

But apart from its galleries, Madrid 
id a disapi)ointment ; there is no an- 
tiquity or interest attached to any of 
its churches or public buildings. The 
daily afternoon diversion is the drive 
on ihc Prado; amusing fnim the 
ciowd, perhaps, but where, with the 
exception of the nurses, all national 



* Tbls filctare was ttolea from Iba Caridftd, at 
BeTiUe, by the French, and afterirard leai back to 
MMirtd, when U tUU remalct. 



costume has disappeared. Ther 
scarcely any mantillas ; but Faa1 
St.-Grermain bonnets, in badly ass 
colors, and horrible and exagge 
crinolines, replacing the soft, 1 
flowing dresses of the south, 
in fact, a bad rechauffi of the B( 
Boulogne. The queen, in a car 
drawn by six or eight mules, sum 
ed by her escort, and announce 
trumpeters, and the infantas, folk 
in similar carriages, form the 
*• event" of the afternoon, 
lady ! how heartily sick she mu 
of this promenade ! She is far 
pleasing-looking than her pictures 
her credit for, and has a frank 
manner which is an indication o 
good and simple nature. Her chi 
arc most carefully brought up, 
very well educated by the char 
English authoress, Madame CaU 
de la Barca, well known by her i 
esting work on Mexico. On Satur 
the queen and the royal family al 
drive to Atocha, a church at th 
treme end of the Prado, in vile 
but containing the famous imaj 
the Virgin, the patroness of Spa 
whom all the royalties are 8pe< 
devoted. It is a black image, bi 
most invisible from the gorgeous j< 
and dresses with which it is ador 
One of the shows of Madrid i 
royal stables, which are well wo 
visit. There are upward of two 
dred and fifty horses, and two hui 
fine mules ; the backs of the la tie 
invariably shaved down to a ce 
point, which gives them an uncon 
able appearance to English eyee 
is the custom throughout Spain, 
lady writer asserts that " it is 
modest !" There is a charming 
stud belonging to the prince impi 
which includes two tiny mules no 
ger than dogs, but in periect pn 
tions, about the size required to di 
perambulator. Some of the horse 
English and thoroughbred, but a 
many are of the heavy-crested V 
quez type. The carriages are of e 
date, and very curious. Among 
ii one in wliich Fhilip L (le Bel) 



WW, 



Li^emom of Spain, 




mA to have been poisoned, and in 
which his wife, Jeanne la Folle, still 
insisted on dragging him out, believing 
he was onlj asleep. 

More interesting to some of our 
party than horses and stables were the 
charitable institutions in Madrid, which 
are admirable and very numerous. It 
was on the 12th of November, 185G, 
Ibat the Mere Devos, afterward M^re 
Gen^rale of the order of St. Vincent 
de Paul, started with four or five of 
her sisters of charity to establish their 
first bouse in Madrid. They had many 
hardships and difficulties to encounter, 
bat loving perseverance conquered 
them all. The sisters now number be- 
tween forty and fifty, distributed in 
three houses in different parts of the 
dcy, with more than one thousand 
children in their schools and orphan- 
ages, the whole being under the su- 
perintendence of the Socur Gottofrey, 
the able and charming French ** pro- 
Tincial*' of Spain. The queen takes 
a lively interest in their success, and 
most of the ladies of her court are 
more or less affiliated to them. There 
Me branch houses of these French 
risters at Malaga, Granada, Barcelona, 
and other towns ; and they are now be- 
ginning to undertake district visiting, 
M well as the care of the sick and tlie 
education of children — a proceeding 
^hich they were obliged to adopt with 
caution, owing to the strong prejudice 
felt m Spain toward any religious or- 
ders being seen outside their " clausu- 
la?" and also toward their dress, the 
white comette, which, to eyes unaccus- 
tomed to anything but black veils, 
Speared outrageous and unsuitable. 
The Spanish sisters of charity, though 
affiliated to them, following the rule 
<>f Sl Vincent^ and acknowledging 
^'« T. H. Pere Etienne as their supe- 
J^or, still refuse to wear the coniette, 
*nd substitute a simple white cap and 
black veil. These Spanish sisters have 
^ charge of the magniticent Found- 
ing Hospital, which receives upward 
^ one thousand children ; of the hos- 
pital called Las Recogidas, for peui- 
^ts ; of the General Hospital, where 



the flick are admirably <»r^/|^^t^Pr^y' 
to which is attached a vring ,tnr pa ^^^ 
tients of an upper class, who pay a 
small sum weekly, and have all the 
advantages of the clever surgery and 
careful nursing of the hospital (an 
arrangement sadly needed in our Eng- 
lish hospitals) ; of the Ilospicio de St, 
Maria del Cdrmen, founded by private 
charity, for the old and incurables ; of 
the infant school, qr " sal le d'asile," 
where the children are fed as well as 
taught ; and of the Albergo dei Poveri, 
equivalent to what we should call a 
workhouse in England, but which we 
cannot desecrate by such a name when 
speaking of an establishment conducted 
on the highest and noblest rules of 
Christian chanty, and where the or- 
phans find not only loving care and ten- 
der watchfulness, but admimble indus- 
trial training, fitting them to fill wor- 
thily any employments to which their 
natural inclination may lead them. 
The Sacrc Cceur have a large estab- 
lishment for the education oF the upper 
classes at Chaumartin de la Rosa, a 
suburb of Madrid, about four miles 
from the town. It was founded by 
the Marquesa de Villa Nueva, a most 
saint-like person, whose house adjoins, 
and in fact forms part of the convent 
— her bedroom leading into a tribune 
overlooking the chapel and the blessed 
sacrament. The view from the large 
garden, with the mountains on the one 
hand, and the stone pine woods on the 
other, is y^ry pretty, and unlike any- 
thing else in the neighborhood of Mad- 
rid. The superior, a charming person, 
showed the ladies all over the house, 
which is large, commodious, and airy, 
and in which they have already upward 
of eighty pupib. They have a very 
pretty chapel, and in the parlor a very 
beautiful picture of St. Elizabeth, by 
a modern artist. 

One more " lion" was visited before 
leaving Madrid, and that was the arm- 
ory, wliich is indeed well worth a 
long and careful examination. The 
objects it contains are all of deep histor- 
ical interest There is a collar piece be- 
longing to Philip XL, with scenes from 



IM 



Tmpre^ 



of Sp. 



>mn. 



the battle of St. Quentin exquisitely 
carved i a hclraet takim from the un- 
fortunate Boabdil, the hist Moorish 
kinpj of Grannda j beautitul Moorish 
anns and Turkisli banners taken at the 
battle of Lepanto, in old Damascua 
inlaid work ; the swords of Boabdil, 
and of Ferdinand and Isabella; the 
armor of the Cid, of Christopher Co- 
lumbus, of Charles V,t of St. Ferdi- 
Bftnd, and of Philip IL ; the carriage 
of Charles V.^ looking like a large bas- 
sinet ; exquisite shields, rapiers, swords, 
and helmets ; ?omc very curious gold 
ornaments, votive crowns, and crosses 
of the seventh century ; and heaps of 
Other treasures too numeroua to be 
here detailed. But our travellers 
were fairly exhauflt€*d by their previous 
sight- seeing, and gladly reserved ihetr 
ejcjimination of the rest to a future 
day. At all times, a rttum to a place 
is more interesting than a first visit ; 
for in the latter one is oppn^ssed by 
the feehng of the quantity to be seen 
and the short time (here is to see it in, 
and so the inteuRe anxiety and fatigue 
destroy half one's enjoyment of the ob- 
jects themselves. That evening tliey 
were to leave the biting east wimla of 
>Iadrid for the more genial climate of 
sunny Malaga ; and so, having made 
sundry very necessary purchaser, in- 
cluding mantilhis and chocolate, and 
having eaten what turned out to be 
their hwt good dinner tor a very long 
time, they started off by an eight oV*loi-k 
train for Conlova, wliich was to be 
tlieir halting place tnidwny. On reacli* 
ing Alcaaar, about one o*clock in the 
morning, Ihey had to change trains, as 
the one in whioh they were branched 
off to Valcnciu ; and for two houra they 
were kept wailing for the Cordova 
train. Oh ! the misery of thoise way- 
mde stations in Spain I One long low 
room tilled with smokers and passen- 
gers of nvery class, etruggling for 
chocolate, served in dirty cups by un- 
civil waiters, with insufficient seats aEd 
scant courtesy : no wonder that the 
Spauinrds consider cjr w*aiting-rooms 
real pii laces* You have no altenmtive 
in the winter season but to endure this 



I 
\ 



foetid, stifling atmoapbere, and bd 

blinded with smoke, or else to freeia 
and shiver outside, where there are nd 
benches at all, and your only hoi>e is to 
get a comer of a wall against which 
you can lean and be sheltered from the 
bitter wind. The arrival of the up 
train brought, therefore, unmixed joy 
to our parly, who managed to secure a 
compartment to themselves witbtiut any 
emokers (a rare privilege in Spain), 
and thus got some sleep for a few 
hours. At six o'clock the train stop- 
fxeil, the railroad went no further ; bo 
the passengers turned out somewhat 
ruefully in the cold, and gxuted with 
dismay at the lumbering dirty dili- 
gences, looking as if they had come out 
of the Ark, which were drawn up, all M 
in a row, at the station door, with ten, ^ 
tw*elve, or fourteen mules bamciised to 
each, and by which they and their lug* 
gage were to he conveyed for the next 
eight hours. The station master was a 
Frencliman, and with great civility, 
during I lie lading of the diligences, 
gave up to the la<lies his own tiny bcsd- 
room, and some fresh water to vrash 
themselves a little, and make them- 
selves cxjmforlablc after their long 
night journey, for there was no pre- 
tence of a waiting room at this station. 
Reader, did you ever go in a Span- 
ish diligence ? It was the first expe- 
rience of most of our party of this means 
of locomotion, atid at first seemed 
Him ply impossible. The excessive 
lovvness of the carriages, the way in 
which the unhappy passengers are 
jammed in, either into the coiz/jt? in 
fronts or into the square box behind, 
unable to move or sit upright in either \ 
while the mules plunge and start off in 
every direction but the right one, their 
drivers every instant jumping down 
and running by I he side of the |>oor 
l)easti5, which they flog unmercifully^ 
voeifeniting in every key ; and that, 
not at fiist starting, but all the way, up 
hill and down dale, with an energy 
which is as inexhaustible as it is de- 
R[>airing, till either a pole cracks or a 
trace breaks, or some accident happen* 
to a wheel, and the whole liimbcrius 



I 



Impre$9i(m8 of S^n> 



171 



eoooero stops with a jerk and a lurch 
which threaten to roll everything and 
ereiybody into the gorge below. Each 
diligence is accompanied by a ^ ma- 
yoml," or conductor, who has cliarge 
of the whole equipage, and Lh a very 
important personage. This function- 
ary is generally gorgeously dressed, 
with embroidered jacket, scarlet sash 
nrand the waist, gaiters with silver 
buttons and hanging leather strips, and 
roand his head a gay-colored hand- 
kerchief and a round black felt hat 
with broad brim and feather, or else of 
the kind denominated ^ pork pie" in 
England ; he b here, there, and every- 
where during the journey, arranging 
the places of the passengers, the sta- 
tioDs for halts, and the like. Besides 
this dignitary, there is the " moto*' or 
driver, whose business is to be perpet- 
oally jumping down and flogging the 
kt-iff mules into a trot, which he did 
with such cruelty that our travellers 
often hoped he would himself get into 
tioable in jumping up again, which, 
DDfortanately, he was always too ex- 
pert to do. Every mule has its name, 
and answers to it They are hame's- 
ed two abreast, a small boy riding on 
the leaders ; and it is on his presence 
of mind and skill that the guidance and 
safety of the whole team depend* On 
this occasion, the '• mayoraP and " mo- 
to" leant with their backs against what 
was lefl of the windows of the coupe, 
which they instantly smashed, the cold 
wind rushed in, and the passengers 
were alternately splashed from head to 
foot with the mud cast up in their faces 
by the mules' heeb, or choked and 
blinded with dust For neither mis- 
fortune is there either redress or sym- 
pathy. The lower panels of the floor 
and doors have holes cut in them to 
let out the water and mud ; but the 
same agreeable arrangement, in win- 
ter, lets in a wind which threatens to 
freeze off your feet as you sit. A 
small boy, who, it is to be supposed, 
was learning his trade, held on by his 
eyelids to a ledge below, and was per- 
fetually assisting in screaming and 



hogging. A struggle at some kind of 
vain resistance, and then a sullen de- 
spair and a final making up one's 
mind that at^er all, it can't last for- 
ever, are the phases through which the 
unhappy travellers pass during these 
agreeable diligence journeys. It was 
some little time before our party could 
get sufficiently reconciled to their mis- 
ery to enjoy the scenery. But when 
they could look about them, they found 
themselves passing through a beautiful 
gorge, and up a zigzag road, like the 
lower spurs of an Alpine pass, over the 
Sierra Morena. Then began the de- 
scent during which some of the ladies 
held their breath, expecting to be 
dashed over the parapet at each sharp 
turn in the road ; the pace of the mules 
was never relaxed, and the unwieldy 
top-heavy mass oscillated over the 
precipice below in a decidedly unpleas- 
ant manner. Then they came into a 
fertile region of olives and aloes, and 
so on by divers villages and through 
roads which the late rains had made 
almost impassable, and in passing over 
which every bone in their bodies seem- 
ed dislocated in their springless vehicle, 
till, at two o'clock in the afternoon, 
they reached the station, where, to 
their intense relief, they again came 
upon a railroad. Hastily swallowing 
some doubtful chocolate, they establish- 
ed themselves once more comfortably 
in the railway carriage ; but after be- 
ing in the enjoyTneut of this luxury for 
half an hour, the train came, all of a 
sudden, to a stand-still ; and the doors 
being opened, they were politely told 
that they must walk, as a landslip had 
destroyed the line for some distance. 
Coming at last to a picturesque town 
with a fine bridge over the Guadal- 
quiver, they were allowed once more 
to take their seats in the carriages, and 
finally arrived at Cordova at eight 
o'clock at night, after twenty four hours 
of travelling, alternating from intense 
cold to intense heat, very tired indeed, 
horribly dusty and dirty, and without 
having had any church all day. 



to U OOMTOIITIO. 



172 Looking Down the Rood. 



fttm All the Year Boand. 



LOOKING DOWN THE ROAD. 



In the early spring-time 

My long watch be^an ; 
Through the daisitjd meadows 

Merry children ran ; 
Happy lovers wandered 

Through the forest deep, 
Seeking mossy comers 

Where the violets sleep. 
I in one small cliamber 

Patiently abode — 
At my garret window 

Looking down the road. 



Watching, watching, watching, 

For what came not back I 
Summer marked in flowers 

All her sunny track, 
Hid the dim blue distance 

With her robe of green. 
Bathed the nearer meadaws 

In a golden sheen. 
Full the fierce sure arrows 

Glanced and gleamed and glowed 
On my garret window 

Looking down the road. 



Watching, watching, watching. 

Oh ! the pain of hoi)e ! 
Autumn's shadows lengthened 

On the breezy slope ; 
Groups of tired reapers 

Led the loaded wains 
From the golden meadows. 

Through the dusky lanes ; 
Home-returning footsteps 

O'er the pathway strode — 
Not the one I looked for. 

Coming down the road. 



LooHnff Down the Road. 178 

Winter stripped the branches 

Of the roadside tree : 
But the frostv hours 

Brought no change for me — 
Save that I could better, 

Through the branches brown. 
See the tired traveUers 

Coming from the town. 
Pitiless December 

Rained and hailed and snowed. 
On mj garret window 

Lookincr down the road. 



At the hist I saw it 

(Not the form I sought), 
Something brighter, purer, 

Blessed mj sleeping thought 
'Twas a white-robed angel — 

At his steadfast eyes 
Paled the wild-fire brightness 

Of old memories. 
Nearer drew tl\(B vision, 

While with bated breath 
Some one seemed to whisper, 

The Deliverer, « Death." 
Then my dreaming spirit, 

Eased of half its load. 
Saw the white wings lessen 

Down the dusty road. 



(Jod has soothed my sorrow. 

He has purged my sin ; 
Earthly hopes have perished— 

Heavenly rest I win. 
Dull and dead endurance 

Is no portion here ; 
I am strong to labor, 

And my rest is near. 
Lifting my dull glances 

From the fields below, 
So the light of heaven 

Settles on my brow. 
O my God, I thank thee. 

Who that angel showed. 
From my garret window 

Lookinf^c down the road. 



174 



Fatker Ignatiui of &. JPtnd. 



FATHER IGNATIUS OF ST. PAUL,* 



HON. AXD REV. GEORGE SPENCER. 



Fresh from the perusal of this 
book, we would gladly convey to others 
the agreeable impression it has left on 
our imagination. It is an interesting 
and impartial biography, full of pleas- 
ant incidents, simply narrated ; with 
the view of throwing light upon the 
character of F. Ignatius, and not upon 
the personal views of his biographer. 
But we would rather dwell upon its 
value as the life of a saintly man, 
whose circumstances were so nearly 
akin to tliose of common Christians 
that no one can assert the impossibility 
of imitating his example. We have 
observed, in reading the lives of the 
saints, that one must himself be a saint 
to appreciate them aright Grenerally 
severed from us (to our shame be it 
spoken) by time, race, and national 
habits, we are startled by strange de- 
tails, and while wondering over indi- 
vidual idiosyncrasies we lose sight of 
the heroic purity of intention that hal- 
lowed almost every action of their ma- 
ture lives. 

In F. Ignatius we have a warm- 
hearted, frank, humorous Englishman, 
whose memory is fresh in the hearts 
of thousands now living. Though be- 
longing to one of tlie noblest families 
in England, his training was simple, 
and his position as rector in a country 
parish was not so dazzling as to set 
him above the sympathies of those who 
read his life. His natural virtues were 
weighed down by a love of approba- 
tion that has ruined many a soul be- 
fore now. He was accomplished, but 

• Life of F. Ignatius of St Paul, PaMionlst. By the 
Rer. F. Pius a Sp. Sancto, Pasalonlrt. 1 toL ISmo. 
DobUo, JameaDufly. 



not learned. Keen, sympathetic, and 
perceptive, but neither a philosopher 
nor a logician. In short, he was not 
set apart from the rest of humanity by 
any natural endowment ; and yet one 
lays down his biography with a sense 
of having made acquaintance with one 
of the remarkable men of this century. 
Why? We cannot but suppose that 
it was because ho placed every faculty 
under the guidance of God, who work- 
ed wonders with capacities by no 
means rare ; and from an unready ut- 
terance brought forth fruits of conver- 
sion that probably surprised no one so 
much as the preacher himself. 

Hon. George Spencer was the 
youngest child of John George, Earl 
Spencer, and Lavinia, daught«;r of Sir 
Charles Bingham, afterward Earl of 
Lucan. 

Earl Spencer was successively mem- 
ber of parliament, one of the lords of 
the treasury, and first lord of the 
admiralty, succeeding Lord Chatham 
in the last-named office in the year 
1794. It was while Earl Spencer was 
lord of the admiralty, in London, De- 
cember 21, 1799, that the subject of 
our narrative first saw the Ught. or 
what goes by the name of light, during 
a December in London. 

His first i*ecollections, oddly enouj^h, 
are of his six-year-old birthday, when 
his sister's governess, a Swiss lady, 
took him aside as for serious conversa- 
tion, and told him of the existence of 
God, and some other truths of religion. 
Possibly he had heard these things 
before, but the room at Althorp where 
the scene took place, and the tender 
solicitude of the Uidy*8 manner, were 



JFather Ignatiui of St. Paul. 



175 



ever after imprinted on his memory as 
if connected with a momentous occasion. 
At nine years old, with his favorite 
brother, Frederick, he was carried in a 
grand equipage to Eton, and placed un- 
der the charge of a private tutor, the 
BeT. Richard Grodley, who lived at the 
"Wharf," about half a mile from the 
college buildings. Mr. Grodley's rule 
was a severe but blessed one, and 
yoang Spencer owed four years of 
marvellous innocence to its restrictions. 
•* Egyptian bondage" he thought it, 
poor little fellow, that several times a 
day, summer and winter, he must run 
across the playgrounds to report him- 
self to the tutor. He lived between 
two fires : the wrath of elder boys who 
called upon him to fag for them as he 
nsbed through the cricket-ground, 
and the terror of Mr. Grodley's awful 
countenance if he and Frederick ar- 
rived a few minutes late. *^ As might 
be expected," he says, in his autobiog- 
raphy, '• the more we were required 
to observe rules and customs different 
irom others, the more did a certain 
class of big bullies in the school seem 
to count it their especial business to 
watcb over us, as though they might 
be our evil geniuses. A certain set of 
fiices, consequently, I looked upon 
with a kind of mysterious dread, and I 
was under a constant sense of being 
as though in an enemy's country, 
obliged to guard against dangers on all 
aides. Shrinking and skulking became 
my occupation beyond the ordinary lot 
of little schoolboys, and my natural 
disposition to be cowardly and spiritless 
was perhaps increased. I say per- 
haps, for other circumstances might 
have made me worse ; for what I was in 
the eyes of the masters of public opinion 
in the school I really was — a chicken- 
hearted creature, what in Eton lan- 
guage is called a sawney. It may b^ 
that had I been from the first in free 
intercourse among the boys, instead of 
bemg a good innocent one I might 
have been, what I suppose must be 
reckoned one of the worst varieties of 
public school characters, a mean, dis- 
hoDonble cme." 



The experiment of close contact with 
other boys was too soon to be tried. Mr, 
Godley's influence appeared to be dan- 
gerously evangelical " The Pilgrim's 
Progress" and " AUeine's Alarm" were 
recommended to Geoi^e by his tutor's 
sisters, and did not find favor at Al- 
thorp in the holidays. We next hear 

of him at the Rev. 's, performing 

most of the duties of a footman to one 
or two big boys, and enduring initiation 
in the iniquities of public school-life. 
Every one knows how valuable a prize 
to youthful tyrants is a child in whom 
innocence and moral cowardice are 
combined; and such a prize was 
George Spencer, blushing at immodest 
words, and ignorant of the nice distinc- 
tion between thieving and orchard rob- 
bing that exists in the minds of school- 
boys only. Evening after evening the 
little boys' rooms were invaded, their 
occupations broken up, and persecu- 
tion carried on against one or other of 
their set. For a little while Spencer 
used to find a little time of peace when, 
after such a tuimoil, he got into bed, 
said his prayers, and cried himself to 
sleep. But the atmosphere was anti- 
religious, and in the course of ten days 
he had given up all attempt to pray. 
A moment of bitter self reproach await- 
ed him. One day he was present 
when one of the rudest of his torment- 
ors was dressing himself. " To my 
surprise," he says, " he turned to me, 
and with his usual civility said some 
such words as * Now hold your jaw,* and 
then, down on his knees near the bed, 
and his face between his hands, said 
his prayers. I then saw for a moment 
to what I had fallen, when even this 
fellow had more religion than unhap- 
py I had retained, but I had no gi-ain 
of strength now left to rise. . . ." 



•* When I had ceased attempting to main- 
tain my pious feelings, the best consolatioa I 
had was in the company of a few boyn of a 
spirit congenial to what mine was now t>e- 
come. All the time that I remained at Eton 
I never learnt to take pleasure in the manly, 
active games for which it is so famous. It 
is not that I was without some natural talent 
for such thmgs. I have since bad my timo 



.176 



FaAer Ignatius of St. PauU 



of most ardent att&chment to cricket, to ten- 
nis, shooting, hunting, and all active exer- 
cises : but my spirit was bent down at Eton ; 
and among the boys who led the way in all 
manly pursuits, I was always shy and miser- 
able, which was partly a cause and partly an 
effect of my being looked down upon by them. 
Hy pleasure there was in being with a few 
boys like myself, without spirit for these 
things, retired apart from the siglit of others, 
amusing ourselves with making arbors and 
catching little fishes in the streams; and 
many were the hours I wasted in such child- 
ish things when I was grown far too old for 
them. 

" Oh I the happiness of a Catholic child, 
whose inmost soul is known to one whom 
God has charged with his salvation. Suppos- 
ing I had been a Catholic child in such a 
situation — ^if such a supposition be possible 
— the pious feelings with which God inspired 
mo would have been under the guidance of 
a tender spiritual father, who would have 
supplied exactly what I needed, when about 
to fall under the sense of unassisted weakness 
which I have described. He would have taught 
me to be innocent and firm in the midst of 
my trials, which would then have tended 
to exalt instead of oppressing my character. 
I would have kept my character hot only clear 
in the sight of God, but honorable among my 
fellows, who soon would have given up their 
persecution when they found me steadfast; 
and I might have brought with me in the path 
of peace and justice many whom I followed la 
the dark ways of sin. But it is in vain to 
calculate on what I might have been had I 
been then a Catholic. God be praised, my 
losses I may yet recover, and perhaps even 
reap advantaged from them." 

So much for the sad and puny child- 
hood of one who in after-life freed 
himself absolutely from the bondage 
of public opinion He who can truly 
say, " Tu solus Domine !*' has reach- 
ed the sublimest height of dignity and 
freedom. ' 

If George Spencer's early years 
gave small promise of moral heroism, 
still less would his youth lead one to 
look for great virtues in liim. His 
autobiography tells us that he yielded 
to the degrading temptations of stu- 
dent life at Cambridge, not from in- 
clination so mucli as because other 
men set him the example. Two years 
of misery he endured, too, from the* fear 
that a courteous and merited apology 
made by him to a gentleman whom he 
had unwittingly oficnded might have 



laid him open to the charge of cow- 
ardice. 

As a scholar he ranked high, and 
held, at the same time, a good place 
among athletes ; thus showing advance 
in mind and body, while his soul was 
still cramped by the fear of ridicule. 

Then comes the continental tour, 
made after a grand and uninteresting 
fashion ; courier, servants, maids, and 
family physician. George's journal 
is full of the sneers with which a well- 
bred English tourmt is wont to exor- 
cise the demon of popery. He is much 
amused at the street-preaching of a 
passionist father in Terracina ; little 
dreaming that one day he himself 
would perform the duties of a sveglia" 
rino, and with only p.artial success too. 

One admires constantly the good 
sense and high tone of Lord and Lady 
Spencer. Invaluable was the exam- 
ple they gave their children ; wonder- 
ful to an American reader, the sway 
they exercised over their grown-up 
sons. 

Soon afler returning to England, 
Mr. Spencer took orders and entered 
upon the life of a country clergyman. 
By fulfilling in person the arduous 
duties which are too often left to a 
curate, he gave evidence of true no- 
bility of character; but so deficient 
in judgment and in deference to su- 
periors w^as his general conduct, that 
the world wondered more at. his lack 
of common sense than at his courage. 
Viewed from the present time, the 
germs of sanctity are plainly vi.sible 
in these vague strugj^les after perfec- 
tion. He practised great mortifica- 
tions, Concealing them as far as was 
possible. He inveighed against tepid- 
ity wherever shown with an indopnnd- 
ence as vahant as it was unpleasant 
to the objects of his condemnation. 
.No very comfortable member of a 
diocese was the Hon. Mr. Spencer in 
those days. Bishop Bloomfieid, his 
former tutor, bore his vagaries with 
fatherly patience, and, looking through 
the n\Ut of Methodism that hung about 
his views, acutely detected the true 
difficulty, and recommended as a cure 



Father IjgnaUui of Su Paid. 



177 



The Poor Man^s Preservative against 
Popery, bj Blanco White. On one 
occasion when Dr. Bloomfield read 
prayers in his own church, St Bo- 
tolph's, Bishopsgate, Mr. Spencer, 
who was invited to preach, took the 
occasion to explain these evangelical 
Tiews of religion, intimating that the 
congregation were not in the habit of 
bearing the gospel fully and faithfully 
expounded. The bishop was wounded, 
bai he only said : " Greorge, how could 
jou preach such a sermon as that? 
In future I must look over your ser- 
mon before you go into the pulpit." 

Here is a scrap from his journal 
about the same time, 1824, or there- 
about : "The Bishop of Bristol 
preached in the morning for the 
Kbools a sermon worthy of Plato 
rather than St. Paul." And another 
day : ** Went with all speed to Cra- ' 
ven chapel, where I heard Irving, the 
Scotch minister, preach nearly two 
hours. I was greatly delighted with 
hia eloquence and stout Christian doc- 
trine, though his manner is most blam-, 
ably extravagant." And again : " I 

went with Mr. A and Miss B 

to hear ]Mrs. Fry perform, and was de- 
listed to hear her expounding to the 
prisoners in Newgate." 

Among evangelical believers, Mr. 
Spencer found an energy and a mis- 
sionary spirit which harmonized with 
his own zealous nature. In theologi- 
cal matters he was dissatisfied whitiier- 
soever he tamed. In 1822, soon after 
being made deacon, his early tenden- 
cies to high chnrch principles had re- 
ceived a blow from which they never 
recovered. He shall tell the circum- 
stances in his own simple words . 

* I was at the time living at Althorp, my 
fitther'a principal residence in the country, 
Krring as a curate to the parish to which it 
▼M attached, though the park itself is extra- 
l>»rocUiaL Among the visitors who resorted 
there was one of the most distinguished 
■choUrs of the day, to whom, as to many 
n»re of the Anglican Church, I owe a debt 
of gratitude for the interest which he took in 
me, and for the help I actually received from 
him in the course of inquiry, which has hap- 
pily termioated in the haven of the true 
VOL, T.— 12 



church. I should like to make a grateful and 
honorable mention of his name, but as this 
has been found fault with I forbear.* I was 
one day explaining to him with earnestness 
the line of argument which I was pursuing 
with dissenters, and my hopes from it ; I sup- 
pose 1 expected encouragement, such as I had 
received from many others. But he simply 
and candidly said : ' These would be very con- 
venient doctrines if we could make use of 
them, but they are available only for Roman 
Catholics ; they will not servo us.' I saw in 
a moment the truth of his remark, and bis 
character and position gave it additional 
weight. I did not answer him; but as a sol- 
dier who has received what he feels to be a 
mortal wound will suddenly stand still, and 
then quietly retire out of the melee^ and seek 
a quiet spot to die in, so I went away with my 
high chiirchism mortally wounded in the 
very prime of its vigor and youth, to die 
forever to the character of an Anglican high 
churchman. Why did not this open my 
eyes, you will say, to the truth of Catholici- 
ty ? I answer, simply because my early pwg- 
ttdices wore too strong. The unanswerable 
remark of my friend was like a reductio ad! 
ahaurdum of all high church ideas. If thev 
were true, the Catholic would be so ; whicn 
is absurd, as I remember Euclid would say,. 
* Therefore/ etc. The grand support of the- 
high church system, church authority, having 
been thus overthrown, it was an easy thought 
gradual work to get out of my mind all its 
minor details and accomplishments, one after 
another ; such as regard for holy places, for 
holy days, for consecrated persons, forecclo- 
Biaslical writers; finally, almost all definite 
dogmatic notions. It would seem that all 
was slipping away, when, coming to the con- 
viction of the truth of Catholicity, some yearn 
after, it was with extraordinary delight I found 
myself 'picking up again the shattered dis- 
persed pieces of the beautiful fabric, and. 
placing them now in better order on the right 
foundation, solid and firm, no longer exposed 
to such a catastrophe as had upset my card- 
oastle of Anglican churchroanship." 

, The divided state of his own parish 
occupied Mr. Spencer's thoughts, and 
he devoted himself to winning dissent- 
ers into the fold by other means than 
high church arguments. He tried to 
stretch open the gates of the establish- 
ment so as to admit all classes of relig- 
ionists to her communion. Another 
system seemed more likely to prove 
efficacious, namely, the beautiful ex- 
ample he set of devotion in his parish ; 
making great sacrifices for the poor,. 

• This distingalabadiMliolar was Dr. Bmaly. 



178 



Father Ignatiui of SL PauL 



and qualifying himself to perform the 
offices of a physician to the body as 
well as to the soul. 

But new difficulties were in store 
for him in matters of faith. The 
Athanasian creed begins to disturb 
him, not because of its doctrines, but 
because of the condemnatory clauses 
at the beginning and end. He is now 
rector of Brington, with excellent pros- 
pects of advancement. Is he not 
bound to resign his position, since he 
cannot agree in fiill with the Establish- 
ment ? •* No," says the Bishop of Pe- 
terborough ; " there is a difference be- 
tween an open attack upon the liturgy 
and thirty-nine articles, and the enter- 
taining of private doubts to be confided 
to a friend with the hope of having 
them removed. It would have been a 
sufficient cause for choosing another 
profession than that of the ministry ; 
but, being already in holy orders, it is 
not a sufficient reason for resignation." 
*♦ No," said Dr. Blomfield ; " it is one 
thing to doubt the truth of a doctrine, 
and another to believe it false. Be- 
sides, the Protestant Church does not 
pretend to pronounce a sentence of 
condemnation like the Church of Rome. 
These clauses are merely intended to 
assert the truth of certain dogmas very 
•emphatically." 

That this line of argument was not 
convincing it is easy to see. The re- 
sult was that Mr. Spencer informed his 
superiors that he should give up read- 
ing the Athanasian creed in his church. 
Then feeling certain that he was no 
longer in danger of promotion, he 
•threw himself with renewed ardor 
into the work of reconciling all sects 
1o each other. 

His family as a last resource bo- 
thought thera of marrying him to a 
lady who had charmed him in his col- 
lege days. No ; his conviction was that 
he ought not to marry. One pities the 
•disappointment of Lord and Lady Spt*n- 
cer. This son, whom they had placed 
in an admirable position in life, who had 
•every attraction of manner and person 
that could insure worldly success, swm- 
ed determined to thwart their efforts for 



his happmess, and to disappoint parent- 
al ambition. But tliey little imagined 
how far liis reckless unworldliness 
would finally carry him. 

On the 23d of November, 1827, 
when he returned from his parochial 
visitation, he found a letter purporting 
to come from a gentleman in Lille, 
who was ''grievously troublc-d about 
the arguments for popery." Ever de- 
sirous to strengthen the wavering, 
Rev. Mr. Spencer entered into a long 
correspondence, which resulted in a 
promise on his own part to follow his 
correspondent into the Catholic Church 
if he would acknowledge his true 
name and pause awhile Ixjfore joining 
the Catholics. He tells us : 

" I beard no more of him till after my con- 
version and arrival at Rome, when I discover- 
ed that my correspondent was a lady, who 
had herself been converted a short time before 
she wrote to me. I never heard her name 
before (Miss Dolling), nor am I aware that she 
had ever Been me ; but God moved her to de* 
sire and pray for my salvation, which she also 
undertook to bring about in the way I have 
related. I cannot pay that I entirely approve 
of the stratagem to which she had recourse, 
but her motive was good, and God gave suc- 
cess to her attempt, for it was this that first 
directed my attention particularly to inquire 
al)out the Catholic religion, though she lived 
not to know the accomplishment of her wish- 
es and prayers. She died at Pari^, a year be- 
fore my conversion, when about to take the 
veil as a nun of the Sacred Ilcart ; and I 
trust I have in her an intercessor in heaven, 
as she prayed for me so fervently on earth.** 

Not being restrained, as was Mr. 
Spencer, by a sense of personal grati- 
tude, we may be allowed to express 
entire disapproval of the stratagem of 
the ** IMaid of Lille." Like most other 
plots, it was quite unnecessary. Rev. 
Mr. Spencer would have listened with 
profound attention to any person who 
claimed to possess the truth, and it was 
offering him an indignity to trick him 
into attention, as foolish mothers decoy 
their childien to the dentist's. 

None the less, however, were Miss 
Boiling's arguments strong and con- 
vincing : " Tliat Scripture without 
tradition is quite insufficient for salva- 
tion. We cannot know anything about 



IbOer Ignatius of St. Paul 



in 



the Scriptures themselves, their com- 
positiony inspiration, interpretation, 
without tradition. Besides, the New 
Testament was not the text-book of the 
apostles. It is a collection of some 
things they were inspired to write for 
the edification of the first Christians 
and others who had not seen our Lord ; 
ind the epistles arc a number of let- 
ten from inspired men bound up to- 
gether in one yolume. The body of 
doctrine, with its bearings, symmetry, 
extent, and obligation, was delivered 
orally by the apostles, and the epistles 
must be consonant to that system as 
well as explanatory of portions of it. 
Only by the unbroken succession of 
pastors from the apostles to the present 
time can we have any safeguard as to 
what we shall believe, and how we are 
to believe. The apostles and their sue- 
eesBors were ^ to teach all nations,' and 
Christ promised them, and them alone, 
the onerring guide of the Holy Spirit/' 
She then assigns to tradition the of- 
fice of bearing testimony to what the 
doctrines of the church have been and 
are at present. The definitions of 
conndls are simple declarations that 
neb and such is the belief tlien, and 
from the begintaing of the Catholic 
Chorch. They state what is, not in- 
vent what is to be. Now, history or 
written tradition, as contradistinguish- 
ed from Scripture, testifies to every 
simple tenet of the Catholic Church — 
her creeds, liturgy, sacraments, juris- 
diction. It testifies unerringly, too, 
even from the objections of heretics, 
to the fact that this church has been 
always believed divine in her origin, 
di\ine in her teaching, infallible and 
unerring in her solemn pronounce- 
ments. This is fact, and who can 
gainsay it? 

Toward the end of the year 1829, 
Rev. Mr. Spencer made the acquaint- 
ance of Mr. Ambrose Lisle Phillips, 
who was then seventeen years old. 
A few weeks later he visited this new 
friend at Garendon Park, Loughbro', 
a visit the result of which is best given 
in his own words : 

"Oa Sunday, Ju. 24, 1S80, 1 preached in 



my charch, and in the evening took leave of 
my family for the week, intending to retun 
on the Saturday folloFing to my ordinary 
duties at home. But our Lord ordered better 
for me. During the week I spent on this 
visit, I passed many hours daily in conversa- 
tion with Phillips, and was satisfied beyond 
all my expectations with the answers he'gave 
to the different questions I proposed about 
the principal tenets and practices of the 
Catholics. During the week we were in com- 
pany with several other Protestants, and 
among them some distinguished clergymen of 
the Church of England, who occasionally 
joined in our discussions. I was struck with 
observing how the advantage always ap- 
peared on his side in the arguments which 
took place between them, notwithstanding 
their superior age and experience ; and I saw 
how weak was the cause in behalf of which 
I had hitherto been engaged ; I felt ashamed 
of arguing any longer against what I began to 
see clearly could not be fairly disproved. I 
now openly declared myself completely 
shaken, and, though I determined to take 
no decided step until I was entirely convinced, 
I determined to give myself no rest till I 
was satisfied, and had little doubt now of 
what the result would be. But yet I thought 
not how soon God would make the truth 
clear to me. I was to return home, as I have 
said, on Saturday. Phillips agreed to accom- 
pany me on the day previous to Leicester, 
wlicre we might have further conversation 
with Father Caestryck, the Catholic mission- 
ary established in that place. I imagined 
that I might take some weeks longer for con- 
sideration, but Mr. Caestryck*s conversation 
that afternoon overcame all my opposition. 
He explained to me, and made me sec, that 
the way to come at the knowledge of the true 
religion is not to contend, as men are disposed 
to do, about each individual point, but to 
submit implicitly to the authority of Christ, 
and of those to whom he has committed the 
charge of his flock. He set before me the 
undenitible but wonderful fact of the agree- 
ment of the Catholic Church all over the 
world, in one fuith, under one head; ho 
showed me the assertions of Protestants that 
the Catholic Church had altered her doctrines 
were not supported by evidence ; he pointed 
out the wonderful, unbroken chain of the 
Roman pontiffs ; ho observed to me how in all 
ages the church, under their guidance, had 
exercised an authority, indisputed by her 
children, of cutting off from her communion 
all who opposed her faith and disobeyed her 
dii«cipline. I saw that her assumption of this 
power was consistent with Christ's commission 
to his apostles to teach all men to the end of 
the world ; and his declaration that those 
who would not hear the pastors of his church 
rejected him. What right, then, thought I, 
had Luther and his companions to set them- 
selves against the united voice of the church ? 



180 



Fadter Ignatim of St. Pmd. 



I Mw thftt he rebelled ngnmst the Kuthoritj 
nf Ood when he set hint) self up <is an iiide> 
pondent guide. Ho wna bound to obey tlm 
CathoUo Church — bow thou ehotild I DOt be 
eK^uallj bound to return to It ? And need I 
fear that I should be led into error bj trtint' 
Eng to tho^ g\iideB to whom Christ himself 
thus directed me? Kot I thought this im- 
possible. Full of these impreajiionaf I le^ 
Mr. Cueatrjck^s house to go to my ion, whonce 
I was to return home next tnorniDg. Thll' 
lip« accompanied mc, and took thU la^t occa- 
sion to impress on me the awfiil importance 
of the decision which I was called upon to 
make. At length I answered : 

" * I am overcome. There is no doubt of 
the truth. One more Sunday I will preach 
to my congregation^ and tbcn put myself into 
ltr« i'oley'a hands, and conclude this hn»\* 
nesa,' 

" It may be thought with what joyful ar- 
dor he embraoed this declaralion, and warned 
010 to declare my sentimenb) luitlifuJIy in 
tiMsemylast dijicourfies, Tlie next miinjtc 
M mo to this reflection: Have I any right to 
stand in that pulpit, being once convinced 
that the church id heretical to which it be- 
longt f Am I safe in exposing myself t*i the 
danger which may attend one day's trnvel* 
Uogf while 1 turn my back on the church of 
Godf which now calis upon me to unite niy- 
§elf to her forever ? I said to Phillip?, * if 
this step is right for mo to take next week, it 
hi my duty to lake it now. My resolution 
is made ; to^morroV I will be received into 
the church.' We lost no time in despatcliing 
ft messenger to my father^ to inform him of 
this tinexpectcd event As I was furming my 
last resolution^ th^ thought of him came across 
tne ; will It not be ^id Umt I endanger his 
very life by so sudden and severe a shock ! 
The words of onr Lord rose before me iind 
answered all my doubts : * He that hateth nut 
tUther and mother, and brothers and sIbUtb, 
and houses and lands, and hij» own lilb too, 
cannot be my disciple.^ To the Lord^ then, I 
trusted for the mipport and comfort of my 
dear father under tlio trial whicli, in ohe- 
diL-ncc to hiH call^ I was about to indict upon 
him. I had no further anxiety to disturb 
me. God alone knows the peace and joy 
with which I laid me down tliat night to rest. 
The next day, at nine o'clock, the chm\*h re* 
Cvived me for her child." 

For from finding himself harshly 
received by bis fttmilj alter his con- 
version, Mr. Spencer*^ domc^lic rc- 
latioHB remained quite undidturbed. 
It was in the early days of conver- 
sions in England ; Tractarianiflm was 
in ltd very infancy, iind Earl Spencer 
Itad always nbown kindness to C^tho- 
UcB, as U» a vanquiblit»d eoeoty. 



When his boh returned from 
OS a priest in 1832 and took |>os84 
of his parish at West BromwicI 

of I he poorest in the diocese,! 
Spencer made ample prov ision 1^ 
fiupport. Jn 1834 thi* exctdlent % 
€ntui died, iiud with the leguey 1^ 
bim to Father Spencer several c\k 
es and mis^ionB were ef<tabli>ibi'd 
was a theory of Father Sf>eucer'^ 
tbo evanpebeal counsels could bel 
tised as well in the world ag m | 
liarions life. In order to can^ 
this experiment bo placed all hij 
sessions at the command of Ei^htl 
Dr. AValsb. bis bishop, who appd 
an tronome to supply his ncccii 
and ihose of his church, j 

That his conversion was not H 
ed to pass without sharp criticigtiii 
Protestants can be ea<^ity imaj 
He was pensive partly by ni| 
partly, perhaps, fronn the feeling 
Ills actions were inisunderatooci a 
old companions and friends, Al 
more attracttvc was the quaint ii 
that lighted up his conversation. 1 
day when speaking with a bi| 
priest with sad earnestness aboti) 
spiritnul destitution of the poor^j 
pie around him, who neither I 
God nor would listen lo thuadl 
were willing to teach them, a 
woman knocked al the &aeH&t? I 
and was ordered lo come in ; sm 
on her knees %Try revei-ently td 
Father Spencer*s blessing as 9oi 
she approached him. His com pi 
observed that this poor woniai 
minded him of the mother of tliel 
of Z<'bedee, who ciime to our Hal 
adorans, ' Yes/ replied Father | 
eer, with a very arch stuile, *iinj| 
only €uhranit but petens aliqut 

to: " j 

Though so harshly handled i 
times by Protestants, Mr. Speiic^ 
ercised a forbearance towai*d ihetii 
all converts would do well lo iiii 
RemtMubering his own honest j 
feions, he attributed sincerity 14 
ad h e re n ts of e vvty sect. ** Bom€l| 
smpfjosing ouc<.^ in h»s presentee tj 
wajA itnposBible for followeji of T 



>w ejiof J| 



Faiker Jgnatitu of Sl Paul 



181 



Soatbootc, and the like, not to be fully 
aware that thej were being deluded. 
Father Ignatius said it was not so, 
and related a peculiar case that he 
witne88ed himself. He happened to 
be passing through Birmingham, and 
had occasion to enter a shop there to or-, 
der something. The shopkeeper asked 
him if he bad heard of the great light 
tiiat had arisen in these modem times. 
He said no. ^ Well, then,' repeated the 
shopman, ^ here, sir, is something to en- 
figfaten 70U,' handing him a neatly got 
up pamphlet. He had not time to 
gbuKe at the title when his friend 
behind the counter ran on at a great 
rate in a speech something to the fol- 
kwiog eJBTect : That the four gospels 
were all figures and myths, that the 
epistles were only faint foreshadowings 
of the real sun of justice that was 
iK>w at length arisen. The Messias 
was come in the person of a Mr. Ward, 
and he would see the truth demonstrat- 
ed beyond the possibility of a doubt 
bjk)oking at the gospel he held in 
hk hand. While the shopman was 
expressing hopes of converting him, he 
took the opportunity of looking at the 
pamphlet, and found that all this new 
theory of religion was built upon a par- 
licolar way of printing the text : ' Glory 
k to God on highj and on earth peace 
to— WanPt men* On turning away in 
diBgoat from his fiiiitless remonstrances 
with this specimen of Ward^s men, he 
band some of Ward*sfffomen, also, in the 
Hune place, and overheard them ex- 
diiming: <0b, little England knows 
what a treasure they have in — ' — jail !* 
The pretended Messias happened to 
be in prison for felony at the time." 
He declared that these poor creatures 
were entirely sincere and earnest in 
die fiuth they had in this malefactor. 
This belief in the genuineness of 
all kinds of religious convictions, join- 
ed to his passionate love of country, 
led Father Spencer to engage in the 
great work of his life — the forming of 
in Association of Prayers for the Con- 
fenkm of England. Mr. Phillips join- 
ed with him heartily in the project, 
ltd itwas anew elem^t of joy in their 



beautiful friendship. From the year 
1838 to the day of his death. Father 
Spencer labored unceasingly for this 
end. Many persons grew sick of the 
very sound of the words, and did not 
hesitate to tell him so either; but 
through praise, blame, success, or 
ridicule he labored unceasingly,— 
and works now, we may be sure, in 
heaven this very day for the same . 
end. Who can doubt that such peti- 
tions will be granted 1 

After nine years of hardship, perse- 
cution, and loving labor as a parish 
priest. Father Spencer was called to 
Oscott College to take charge of the 
spiritual ai&irs of the students. 

By education he was well suited to 
hold so distinguishedii position. He was 
admirably versed in the French, Ital- 
ian, and Grerman languages ; a good 
classical and mathematical scholar of 
course (having been a ficst class Cam- 
bridge man), and well read both in Prot- 
estant and Catholic theology. His in- 
tercourse with the young men was 
very charming. He would make up 
a game at cricket, go heartily into all 
their youthful sports, and even give 
lessons to beginners. In spiritual mat- 
ters he had a very fascinating way of 
throwing a certain poetry into what is 
usually considered the prosaic part of 
priestly duties. Between these two 
moods there was a third, in which, with 
a kindly assumption of equality, as it 
were, he would take them into his in- 
terests as genially as he entered into 
theirs. 

In 1844 Father Spencer went abroad 
for his health, and accomplished much 
for the Association of Prayers. In the 
following year be returned to England, 
and entered at once into retreat un- 
der the direction of Father Thomas 
Clarke, S.J., in Hoddcr place. From 
this retreat he came forth with a fixed 
determination to join the order of the 
Passionists, lately established in Eng- 
land by his friend Padre Domenico. 
How happy the resuhs of this decision 
were the following pages will show. 

The Congregation of the Passion 
was founded by Blessed Paul of the 



182 



Father I^alim of & Pood, 



Cro^s about the middle of the last 
century, and approved bv Benedict 
Xi\% Clement XIV,, and Pius VI. 
U& object is to work for tbe sanctifica- 
tion of the eouU of the faithful ; to 
which end it uses, not only preacbing 
and the &acramentSf but the di^usion of 
devotion to the passion of Christ This 
work \A accomplished by means of mis- 
ftions, retreats^ and parish work in pas- 
. sionigt bouses. If necessary, the fa- 
thers take charge of a parish ; other- 
wise they work in tbeir own churches 
as missionersi. They leach only their 
own younger ro embers, and they goon 
foreign missiona when aentby tbe Holy 
Father or tbe Propaganda* 

**To lco«p the members of an order always 
fCftdy for tboir ouinioor work/' ms F» Vn\^j 
** there ure ccrlmn rules for their interior lifu 
whlcli may bu likened to tlie drill or panidc 
of M>l(liei3 in their quartern. Tlils dl»ci- 
l>Tiii« varica according to Uie spirit of each 
order, 

"TliG idea of a pawloniR^s work will lead 
09 to expect what hiB discipline must be. The 
npirit of a paaatonlst is a spirit of atone m en L 
He saja with St. Piiul : 4 rejoiee in mysuf* 
f^rfngs, and fill up ttiosc things that are want- 
ing of the sutTeriQgfl of Christ in my flesh for 
bb body, wUich la the church.* Co loss. 1.24. 
For \Xm etiuse the Interior Ufc of a passionist 
is rather austere. He has to rise lihorlly af- 
ter midiiigiiit from a bed of straw to elmunt 
matins mid lands, and ^pend Home time in 
meditatiou. He has two hours more medita- 
tion during the day, and a1iogt!theriibout five 
hours of choir work in the twenty four. Ue 
fastfl and abstains from flesh meut three! Limes 
III the we^k, all the year round rotmdj besidw 
Lent and Advent* He U cUd in a coarse block 
garnaent; wears sandals instead of aboes; 
and practices other acts of penance of minor 
importance. 

** This aeenna rather a hard life ; but an or- 
dinary constitrition does not find the tcost 
difiicuUy in complying with the Letter of the 
nile. It ts withal a happy, cheerful Uto ; 
for it seciiui the nature of penaucc ta make 
the heart of the penitent light and gladsome^ 
* rejoicing in auft'ering.* ** 

The fathers are bound by the^e 
rules only ^hen living in the houses 
of' their order. Outside ihey accora- 
modatc themsekea to drcumstiinces 
and tiike lite a*? they tind ii ; tiot very 
easy* ns weslmll see by the experien* 
oea of F. Ignatioa* The supenor hm^ 



moreover, the right to relax the rule 
for those who are ill or overworked. 

At forty-seven Hon. and Kcv, 
George Spencer entered upon ihia 
austere life. There was little to 
attract human nature to tbe order.J 
Four foreigners, living in a wretch 
ed bouse^ iriendless and nearly pen 
uiless, were the principal oecupanr^ i 
Aston Ilallf and even tbi.^ unenviabh 
position they bad reaehcd only &Ae 
four years of labor and trial. 

The noble novice submitted to more 
than ordinary testa of vocation* Rank« 
age, and education made bim eiipecia 
]y tbe object of distrust to F* Cunstaa 
tine, master of novices, who knew thi 
true kindness most turn the rough sit] 
oP discipline to a candidate for admii 
siou. 

" A day or two aAcr his arrival he was 
ordered to wash down an old dirtjr flight of 
stairs. He tucked up bis sleeres and U\\%i\ 
using \m bruj^h, tub, and nespsuds with as 
mnchjcest and good- will m if be had been a 
roaid'Of-all-work. Of course he was no greal 
adept at this sort of cmplajment, and probe* 
biy his want of skill drew down some shni 
rebukes from his overseer. Some tendei 
hi'arted religious never could forg«:t the a%\ 
of ihia venerable ecclepiastic, trj ing to acoite 
the crcvicea and crannies to the BatbfaciioQ 
of his new maater. He got through it wcU 
and took the cosrcctiona »o t^eautit^uily that 
m a ftiw diiyA be waj» voted to the habit.*' 

A little suffering there was for F# 
Ignatius (ns we must now call him) 
frtim homesickness nnd the difficuliy 
of adapting himself to the small itetii 
of novice discipline, Chilled feet, 
hard bed, and mengrc diet were w 
quite eAy lo bear. But his hardest 
trial was the consideration of his com* 
pan ion 8, who tned to spare him hu- 
miliations, and take upon themselves 
works tbnt seemed degrading for ooe 
of his standing, AustL^rities were soon 
forgotten, but dispensations were t 
afflictions to one whose wish with 
gard to life wa^ ceaseless labor, ai 
with regard to deatli ** to die ui 
and unknown in a ditch/' 

The story of b>s fifteen years of 
ligious life is beautifully told by h 
biographer. Otily under the restruiiH 
of a religious rule did bin giiU and 








FaAer JgnaUm of Su BxuL 



188 



Tirtoes receive their right development. 
It was like a second youth, a second 
training for life; undue impetuosity 
was restrained, zeal, generosity, chari- 
ty, tenderness, all found an object and 
a wise direction. Surely never was 
sanctity made more attractive than in 
the person of the noble and gentle F. 
Ignatius. Great was the rejoicing 
among postulants and novices when 
his arrival was announced at any one 
of the passionist houses. Anecdote, 
mirth, kind and sympathizing inter- 
course were in store for the recreation 
wherever he appeared, clad in his 
coarse attire, with a brace of rough 
drogjret bags slung over his broad 
shoulders. The journey had been 
made, they might be sure, in the third- 
dasa cars, "because there was no 
fourth class." The spirit of holy pov- 
erty had grown to be a sort of passion 
with him, only to bo surpassed by his 
real for the salvation of souls. He 
treated himself, and wished others to 
treat him, like a beggar ; thankful for 
any favor, but cheerfully submissive to 
reibsal. When he had a long journey 
before him, if any one ofi*ere<l him a 
*'Iiirin a cart or wagon, he gladly 
accepted it ; if not, he was quite con- 
tented. He seldom refused a meal 
when travelling, and would ask for 
something to eat at any house upon the 
road, if necessary. At home he gen- 
erally washed and mended his own 
cktbes, and when he was superior 
would allow no one to perform menial 
offices for him. In dress he dreaded 
overaicety, and would as gladly wear 
a cast-off tartan as anything else, if it 
did not tend to throw discredit upon 
his onler. For several years he wore 
an old mantle belonging to a religious 
who had died, and only left it off at 
the desire of the provincial. This was 
by no means his natural bent. Those 
who knew him as a young man say 
that he would hunt through the hosiers' 
shops in a dozen streets in London to 
find articles that could satisfy his fas- 
* tidious taste. But, to return to the 
pleasure which bis presence in a com- 
nninitf always gave : 



" His visits at home were like meteor flash- 
es, bright and beautiful, and always made ua 
regrcc that we could not enjoy his edifying 
company for a longer time. Those who are 
much away on the external duties of the or- 
der find the rule a little severe when they 
return ; to Father Ignaiius it seemed a small 
heaven of refreshing satisfaction, ills coming 
home was usually announced to the commun- 
ity a day or two before, and all were promis- 
ing themselves rare treats from his presence 
among them. It was cheering to see the por- 
ter run in beaming with joy as he announced 
the glad tidings, ' Father Ignatius is come !' 
The exuberance of his own dcligbt, as he greet- 
ed first one and then another of his compan- 
ions, added to our own joy. In fact the day 
Father Ignatius came home almost became a 
holiday by custom. Those days were ; and 
we feel inclined to tire our readers by expati- 
ating on them, as if writing brought them back. 

" Whenever he arrived at one of our hous- 
es, and had a day or two to stay, it was usual 
for the younger religious, such as novices and 
students, to go to him, one by one, for con- 
ference. He liked this very much, and would 
write to higher superiors for permission to 
. turn off at Broadway, for instance, ou his way 
to London, in order to make acquaintance 
with the young religious. His counsels bad 
often a lasting effect; many who were inclin- 
ed to leave the life they had chosen remained 
steadfast after a conference with him. He did 
not give commonplace solutions to difiicul- 
ties, but he had some peculiar phrase, some 
quaint axiom, some droll piece of i<pirituality 
to apply to every Httle trouble that came hi- 
fore him. He was specially happy in hia 
fund of anecdote, and could tell one, it was 
believed, on any subject that came before 
him. This extraordinary gift of conversation- 
al power made the conferences delightful. 
The novices, when they assembled for recrea- 
tion, and gave their opinions on F. Ignatius, 
whom many bad spoken to for the first time 
in their life, nearly all would conclude, * If 
ever there was a saint, he's one.* 

*' It was amusing to observe how they pre- 
pared themselves for formuig their opinion. 
They all heard of his being a great saint, and 
some fancied he would eat nothing at all for 
one day, and might attempt a little vegetables 
on the next. One novice, in particular, had 
made up his mind to this, and to bis great 
surprise he saw Father Ignatius eat an extra 
good breakfast; and when about to settle 
into a rash judgment, he saw the old man 
preparing to walk seven miles to a railway 
station on the strength of his meal. Another 
novice thought such a saint would never 
laugh or make any one else laugh ; to hia 
agreeable disappointment, he found that 
Father Ignatius brought more cheerfulness 
into the recreation than had been there for 
some time. We gathered around him, by a 
kind of instinct, and so eatertaining was he 



184 



Father Ignatitu of St. JPaul. 



that one felt it a mortification to be called 
away from the recreation room while Father 
Ignatius was in it He used to recount with 
peculiar grace and fascinating wit scenes he 
went through in his life. There is scarcely 
an anecdote in this book we have not heard 
him relate. He was most ingenuous. Ask 
him what question you pleased, he would an- 
swer it if he knew it. In relating an anecdote 
he often spoke in five or six different tones 
of voices ; he imitated the manner and action 
of those he knew to such perfection that 
laughter had to pass into admiration. He 
seldom laughed outright, and even if he did 
he would very soon stop. If he came across 
a number of Punch, he ran over some of the 
sketches at once and then he would be ob- 
served to stop, laugh, and lay it down at once 
as if to deny himself further enjoyment It 
is needless to say there was nothing rollicking 
or off-handed in his wit — never ; it was sub- 
dued, sweet, delicate, and lively. ... In fact, 
a recreation presided over by Father Ignatius 
was the most innocent and gladsome one 
oould imagine. 

'* In one tiling Father Ignatius did not go 
against anticipation, he was most exact in the 
<£servance of our rules. He would always 
be the first in for midnight office. Many a 
time the younger portion of the community 
used to make arrangements over ni}:ht to be 
in before hhn, but it was no use. Once, in- 
deed, a student arrived in choir before him, and 
Father Ignatius appeared so crestfallen at 
being beaten that the student would never 
be in before him again, and would delay on 
the way if he thought Father Ignatius had 
not yet passed. He seemed particularly hap- 
py when he could light the lamps or gas for 
matins. He was child-like in his obedience 
He would not transgress the most trifling reg- 
ulation. It was usual with him to say, * 1 
cannot understand those persons who say, 
Oh ! I am all right if I get to purgatory. We 
should be more generous with Almighty God. 
I don't intend to go to purgatory, and if I do 
I must know what for.' ' But, Father Ignatius.' 
a father would say, 'we fall into so many 
imperfections that it seems presumptuous to 
attempt to escape scot free.' 'Well,' he 
would reply, * nothing can send us to purgatory 
but a wilful, venial sin, and may the Lord 
prcser\'c us from such a thing as that; a 
religious ou<;ht to die before being guilty of 
the least wilful fault' " 

In the year 1850, Father Ignatius 
made the resolution of never being 
idle a moment, and carriiHi it out to 
the end of his life. Bergamo's Pen- 
sieri ed Afifetti he translated in railway 
stations while waiting for trains, be- 
fore and after dinner, and in intervals 
between confessions. Of letter- writing 



he made a kind of duty, and on one 
occasion he wrote seventy-eight in the 
course of two free days^ Not mere 
notes, either, were his letters, bnt epis- 
tles full of thought and sympathy for 
his correspondent. 

" His days were indeed full days, and he 
scarcely ever went to bed until he had shaken 
himself out of nodding asleep over his table 
three or four times. No one ever heard him 
say that he was tired and required rest ; rest 
he never had, except on his hard bed or in 
his quiet grave. If any man ever ate hia 
bread in the sweat of his brow, it was Father 
Ipatius of St Paul, the ever-toiling paa- 
sionist" 

Illness, unless it kept him in his bed, 
never interfered with the performance 
of his duties. When superior, he used 
his power to secure the hardest work 
for himself. During the time of his 
rectorship in Sutton, he would preach 
and sing mass af)cr hearing confessions 
all the morning; attend sick calls, 
preach in the evening at some distant 
parish, come home perhaps at eleven 
o'clock, say his .oflice, and be the first 
to come to matins at two o'clock. The 
Father Provincial found him so in- 
genious in eluding privileges that he 
placed him under obedience in matters 
of health to one of the priests of his 
community, whom he strictly obeyed 
ever after. 

Once a cramp or some accident had 
made him fall into a dtteh where he 
got drenched and covered with mud. 
On returning from the sick call which 
he was attending, he found a friend at 
the house, who sympathized with his 
especial interests. Down he sat for a 
good talk upon the conversion of Eng- 
land, and at the end of two hours was 
frightened off by one of the religious 
to change his clothes. 

When giving a letreat somewhere 
in midwinter, the shameful careless- 
ness of his entertainers allowed him 
to sleep in a room where there was 
neither bed nor fire, and where the 
snow drifted in under the door. In 
the morning it occurred to some one 
that perhafis Father Ignatius had oc- 
cupied this apartment ^'A person 



Fatker Ignatius of St. Paul. 



185 



ran down to see, aud there vraa the 
<^ saint amusing himself by gathering 
up the snow that came into his room, 
and making little balls of it for kitten 
to nm after. The kitten and himself 
seem to have become friends bj hav- 
ing slept together in his rug the night 
before, and both were disappointed bj 
the introsion of the wandering visitor." 
But though the good passionist was 
utterly forgetful of his " own rights," 
as the saving goes, he well knew how 
to administer a rebuke if justice de- 
manded it: 

*'' Once he was fiercely abused when beg- 
ging, and as the reTiler came to a full stop in 
his frovard speech, Father Ignatius quietly re- 
torted: * Well, as you have been so generous 
to me personally, perhaps you would be so 
kind as to give me something now for my com- 
munitj.' This had a remarkable effect. It 
procured hira a handsome offering then, as 
well as many others ewer since.'* 

On another occasion his knock was 
taswered bj a very superb footman. 
Father Ignatius gave his errand and re- 
HgTOQs name, with a request to see the 
lady or gentleman of the house. The 
servant returned in a moment with the 
information that the gentleman was 
out and the lady engaged and also 
onable to help him. ^* Perhaps she is 
not aware that I am the Honorable Mr. 
Spencer," said the mendicant. Mer- 
cury bowed courteously and retired. 
Id a minute or two came a rustling of 
silks and the sound of quick steps 
tripping down stairs. The lady en- 
tei>»i with blush and courtesy and 
i4>ology. She had not known that 
it was he, and there were so many 
impostors. ^ But what will you 
take, my dear sir?^ she exclaimed, 
ringing the bell, before he could ac- 
cept or decline the proposal. Father 
Ignatius said that he did not stand in 
need of anything to eat, and that he 
never took wine ; but that he was in 
need of money for a good purpose, and 
would be glad to accept anything that 
she could give him of that kind. The 
bdy instantly banded him a five-pound 
note, with many regrets that she could 
not make it more. He took the note, 
•od, UMuag it carefully away in his 



pocket, made his acknowledgments 
after this fashion: "Now, I am very 
sorry to have to tell you that the alms 
you have given me will do you very 
little good. If I had not been bom of 
a noble family, you would have turned 
me away with coldness and contempt. 
I take the money because it will be as 
useful to me as if it were given from a 
good motive ; but I would advise you 
for the future, if you have any regard 
for your soul to let the love of God, 
and not human respect, prompt your 
almsgiving.** Then taking his hat, he 
bade his amazed benefactress good 
morning, and left her to meditate upon 
purity of intention. 

Notwithstanding his fortitude and 
independence of spirit, we may gather 
from the following extract from his 
letters that begging cost him some ef- 
fort: 

** My present life is pleasant when money 
comes kindly ; but when I get refused or 
walk a long way and find every one out, 
it is a bit mortifying. That is best gain for 
me I suppose, though not what I am travel--, 
ling for . . I should not have had the time 
this morning to write to you had it not been 
for a disappointment in meeting a young 
man, who was to have been my begging 
guide for part of the day ; and so I hud to 
come home and stay until it is time to go 
and try my fortune iu the enormous market- 
house, where there are innumerable stalls 
with poultry, eggs, fruit, meat, etc., kept in 
great part by Irishmen and women, on whom 
I have to-day presently to go and dance at- 
tendance, as this is the great market-day. I 
feel when going out on a job like this, as a 
poor child going in a bathing machine to be 
dipped in the sea, frisnonnant ; but the Irish 
are so good-natured and generous that they 
generally make the work among them full of 
pleasure when once I am in it." 

These expeditions extended not only 
through Great Britain, but even to the 
Continent sometimes. As he was pass- 
ing through Cologne one day, he met 
his brother Frederick, then Earl Spen- 
cer. At first his lordship looked won- 
deringly at him, and then, recogniz- 
ing his features, exclaimed : ** Hilloa, 
George, what are you doing here?^ 
** Blagging," was the prompt reply, and 
then the two fell into a friendly chat 
about old times. 



186 



Father Ignatiui of St. PauL 



Strangely enougb, the only member 
of the Spencer family who ever treat- 
ed Father Ignatius with the least 
harshness was this favorite brother, 
who, on succecdiDg to the title, laid 
such conditions upon his visiting the 
family estate that priestly dignity for- 
bade his going home. *' Twelve years 
have I been an exile from Althorp," 
he said in 1857. But in that same 
year the earl relented and invited his 
brother to make him a visit. The 
letter joyfully accepting this tardy in- 
vitation was read by Lord Spencer 
upon his deathbed. This bereave- 
ment was a grievous blow to Father 
Ignatius. 

In 1862 he visited Althorp. The 
present earl carried out his fathers 
good resolutions to the utmost, and 
even restored a part of the annuity 
which had been diverted from Father 
Ignatius to other objects. Before 
leaving the community for this visit 
the religious saw hun looking for a 
lock for one of his bags, and asked 
* why he was so very particular all at 
once. " Why, don't you know," said 
he, " that the servant at the big house 
will open it, in order to put my shav- 
ing tackle, brush, and so forth, in their 
proper places ? and I should not like to 
have a general stare at my beads, san- 
dals, and habit." But fashions had 
changed at Althorp. When the com- 
pany who had been invited, especially 
in his honor, went to dress for dinner. 
Father Ignatius remarked to the count- 
ess that his full dress would perhaps, 
not be quite in place at the table. ** On 
the contrary," she answered, good-hu- 
moredly, ** all his old friends would be 
delighted to see a specimen of the fash- 
ions he had adopted since his old days 
of whist and repartee in the same hall." 
The volunteers were entertained by 
the earl during his uncle's visit. The 
passion ist appeared in full costume, 
and sat next Lord Spencer, whom 
nothing would satisfy but a speech 
from the old man's lips. A very pa- 
triotic speech it was too, and greeted 
by a cheer that gave pleasure to both 
uncle and nephew. 



And so one of the crosses of bis 
life was gently removed, leaving many 
others, however, to be endured. For 
a heart so tender, a conscience so sen- 
sitive, a temperament so vivid and ex- 
citable as his, the world had many 
trials. His simplicity was mistaken 
for egotism ; his zeal looked to many 
persons like unbridled impetuosity ; 
his broad sympathies again seemed 
like indifierentism, and even calumny 
dared to attack his spotless character. 

All this he bore very patiently, but 
the suffering was often acute. A deep 
abstraction of manner would come 
over him at such times, making him 
quite unconscious of his own actions 
and of the impression they made upon 
those around him. One day when he 
was going through the streets of Rome 
with a brother religious, they passed a 
fountain. "He went over and put his 
hand so far into one of the jets that 
he squirted the water over a number 
of poor persons who were basking in 
in the sun a few steps beneath him. 
They made a stir, and uttered a few 
oaths as the waterkept dashing down on 
them. The companion awoke Father 
Ignatius out of his reverie, and so un- 
conscious did he seem of the disturb- 
ance he had unwittingly created, that 
he passed on without alluding to it." 

But whoever might blame Father 
Ignatius for his projects and his pecu- 
liar pertinacity in carrying them into 
execution, one consoler never failed 
him. The Holy Father was ever 
ready to speak with him of the con* 
version of England, merely request- 
ing him to endeavor to interest persons 
to pray also for all those separated 
from the faith in all countri<^s. Ilia 
Holiness has granted an indulgence of 
three hundred days to any one who 
shall say a devout prayer for the con- 
version of England. The preaching 
of Father Ignatius was peculiar to 
himself; he could not be said to pos- 
sess the gifis of human eloquence in 
the highest degree, but there was 
something like inspiration in his most 
commonplace discourse. He put the 
point of his sermon dearly beiore his 



lather J^natim of St. Paul. 



187 



aadicnce, and he proved it most ad- 
mirablj. His acqaaintaDce with the 
Scriptures was sometbing marvellous ; 
not ooly could he quote texts in sup- 
port of doctrines, but he applied the 
facts of the sacred volume in such a 
happy way, with such a flood of new 
ideas, that one would imagine he lived 
in the midst of them, or had been told 
bj the sacred writei*8 what thoy were 
intended for. Besides this, he brought 
a fund of illustrations to carry con- 
viction through the mind. His illus- 
trations were taken from every phase 
of life and every kind of employment; 
persons listening to him always found 
the peculiar gist of his discourse car- 
ried into their very homestead ; nay, 
the objections they themselves were 
prepared to advance against it were 
answered before they could have been 
thought out To add to this, there 
was an earnestness in his manner that 
Blade you see his whole sou],as it were, 
bent upon your spiritual good. His 
holiness of life, which report pub- 
lished before him — and one look was 
enough to convince you of its being 
trae— compelled you to set a value on 
what he said far above the dicta of 
ordinary priests. 

His style was formed on the gospcL 
He loved the parables and the similes 
of our Lord, and rightly judged that 
the style of his divine Master was the 
most worthy of imitation. So far as 
the matter of his discourses was con- 
cerned, he was inimitable ; his man- 
ner was peculiar to himself, deeply 
earnest and touching. He abstained 
from the rousing, thundering style, and 
bis attempts that way to suit the taste 
and thus work upon the convictions of 
certain congregations, showed him that 
big forte did not lie there. The conse- 
qaence was, that when the words of 
what he jocosely termed a ** crack" 
preacher would die with the sound of 
bis own voice or the exclamations 
of the multitude, Father Ignatius*s 
words lived with their lives,iand help- 
ed them to bear trials that came thirty 
years after they had heard him. To- 
ward the end of his life he became 



rather tiresome to those who knew not 
his spirit ; but it was the tiresomeness 
of St. John the Evangelist. We are 
told that *^ the disciple whom Jesus 
loved" used to be carried in his old 
age before the people, and that his 
only sermon was *' My little children, 
love one another." He preached no 
more and no less, but kept perpetually 
repeating these few words. Father 
Ignatius, in like manner, was contin- 
ually repeating " the conversion of 
England. ' No matter what the sub?- 
ject of his sermon was he brought this 
in. He told us of^en that it became 
a second nature with him; that he 
eould not quit thinking or speaking of 
it even if he tried, and believed he 
could speak for ten days consecutively 
on the conversion of England without 
having to repeat an idea. 

^ He got on very well in the mis- 
sions : he took all the ditierent parts as 
they were assigned him ; but he was 
more successful in the lectures than in 
the great sermons of the evening. His 
confessional was always besieged with 
penitents, and he never spared him- 
self." 

His last mission was given in the 
beautiful little church of St, Patrick, 
Coatbridge (eight miles from Glasgow). 
Crowds came to hear the saintly old 
father plead for the convei-sion of Eng- 
land and the sanctification of Ireland. 
The first two days he heard confessiomi 
from six a.m. to eleven p.m., excepting 
the time needed for devotions and 
meals. On the third day he remained 
in the confessional until after midnight. 
When he came into the house, his host 
said : " I am afraid, Father Ignatius, 
you are overexerting yourself, and 
that you must feel tired and fatigued." 
*• No, no." he answered with a smile, 
" I am not fatigued. There is no use 
in saying I am tired, for, you know, I 
must be at the same work to-night in 
Leith." He was in the confessional 
again at six o'clock in the morning, 
said mass at seven ; breakfasted at half- 
past eight, and lert Coatbridge about 
nine o'clock. Father Keefe re- 
marked to him that he looked much 



188 



Father Ignatiui of Sl PaoiL 



better and yoaoger in secular dress 
than in his habit. This made him laugh 
heartily. ** When Father Thomas 
Doyle, ' he replied, ** saw me in secular 
dress, he said, * Father Ignatius, you 
look like a broken-down old gentle- 
man.' " And the frankness of the ob- 
servation seemed to amuse him im- 
mensely. 

The rest is easily told. He reached 
Carstairs Junction at half-past ten, and, 
lejiving his luggage with the station- 
master, walked toward Carstairs 
House, the residence of his friend and 
godson, Mr. Monteith. Half a mile 
from the entrance to the estate the 
long avenue is crossed at right angles 
by a second, whicli leads to the grand 
entrance of the house. Father Ignatius 
had just i)as8ed the *' rectangle," when 
he turned off into a by-path. Then 
seeing he had lost his way, he asked a 
child which was the right road. He 
never spoke to mortal again. On a 
little comer in the avenue, just within 
sight of the house, and about a hundred 
paces from the door, he fell suddenly 
and yielded up his spirit into the hands 
of his Creator. May we all die doing 
God's work, and as well prepared as 
Father Ignatius of St. Paul I " It was 
6od*s will that angels instead of men 
should surround his lonely bed of 
death." It was simply by an after- 
thought that he liad gone to Carstairs 
House to pass the time between the 
arrival and departure of two trains, 
and thus died at the threshold of an old 
friend's door, instead of in the station. 

Very tenderly did Mr. Monteith re- 
ceive the weary burden that the grand 
old missionary laid down at his gates. 
The remains lay in religious state at 
Carstairs House for the greater part 
of three days. Fathers can(je from 
various retreats to look once more 
upon his beloved face, never so noble 
as in its last repose ; and looked with 
silent wonder on all that now remained 
of one whom the world was not worthy 
of possessing longer. Every one, on 
hearing of his death, appeared to have 
lost a special friend ; no one could 
lament, for they felt that he was happy ; 
few could pray for him, because thej 



were more inclined to ask his interces- 
sion. The greatest respect and atten- 
tion were shown by the railway offi- 
cials all along the route, and special 
ordinances were made in deference to 
the respected burden that was carried. 

Lord Spencer's letter with regard to 
his uncle's death is so pleasing that 
we transcribe it entire. He was in 
Denmark, and could not reach England 
for the obsequies : 

Denmark, Oct 16th, 186i. 

Rev. Sir : I was much shocked to hear of 
the death of my excellent Uncle George. I 
received the sad intelligence last Sunday, and 
sabsequcntly received the letter which you 
had the goodness to write to me. My absence 
from England prevented my doing what I 
should have wished to have done, to have at- 
tended to the grave the remains of my uncle, 
if it had been so permitted by your order. 

I assure you that, much as I may have dif- 
fered from my uncle on points of doctrine, no 
one could have admired more than I did the 
beautiful simplicity, earnest religion, and faith 
of my uncle. For his God he renounced all 
the pleasures of Uie world ; his death, sad as 
it is to us, was, as his life, apart from the world, 
but with God. 

His family will respect his memory as much 
as I am sure you and the brethren of his or- 
der do. 

I should be much obliged to you if you let 
me know the particulars of the last days of his 
life, and also where be is buried, as I should 
like to place them among family records at 
Althorp. 

I venture to trouble you with these ques- 
tions, as I suppose you will be able to furnish 
them better than any one else. 
Yours faithfully, 

Spencer. 

Thus in the end did Father Ignatius, 
in the simple pursuance of his duties, 
pierce throuf^h the prejudices of caste 
and tradition, harder to penetrate in 
Enp^land than elsewhere. 

Mr. Monteith has erected a cross on 
the corner of the avenue where his 
saintly friend fell. It bears this in- 
scription : 

'* On tliis spot the lion, and Rev. George Spen- 
cer, in religion. Father Ignatius of St. Paul, 
Passionist, while in the midst of his labors 
for the salvation of sotils, and the 
reston^on of his countrymen to the 
unity of the faith, was suddenly 
cilicd by his heavenly Mas- 
ter to his eternal home. 
October 1st, 1864. 
RLP.- 



A UTaturalufs ffome. 



189 



From Chambers^ Journal. 

A NATURALISTS HOME. 



These is no place like England for 
a rich man to lire in exactly as he 
pleases. It is the appropriate exer- 
cising-ground for the hobbies of all 
mankind. You may join an Agape- 
mone, or yon may live alone in dirt 
and squalor, and call yourself a her- 
mit. The whim of the late Charles 
"Waterton, naturalist, was a very inno- 
cent one, namely, to make his home a 
city of refuge for all persecuted birds — 
a sanctuary inviolate from net and 
Boare and gun ; and he effected his 
humane purpose. An intimate asio- 
date and fervent admirer of his, one 
Dr. Richard Hobson, has given to the 
world* an accoant of this ornithologi- 
cal asylum ; and it is certainly very 
corioas. The name of the place was 
Walton Hall, near Wakefield ; and it 
seems to have been peculiarly well 
adapted for the purpose to which it 
was put It was situated on an island, 
approachable only by an iron foot- 
bridge, and having no other dwellings 
in its immediate neigliborhood. The 
lake in which it stood gave the means 
of harboring waterfowl of all kinds, 
while the " packing^ of carrion crows 
in the park exhibits a proof of the pro- 
tection afforded by even the mainland 
portion of the estate ; it was sufficiently 
extensive to allow of portions being 
devoted to absolute seclusion, for those 
birds which are naturally disposed to 
avoid the haunts of man. " Two thirds 
of the lake^ with its adjacent wood and 
pasture land, were kept free from all 
intrusion whatever for six successive 
months every year ; even visitors at 
the house, of whatever rank, being 
* warned off' those portions set apart 
for natural history purposes. Even 
the marsh occupied by the herons was 

* Charles Watertoo : his Home, Habits, and Han- 
^ork. ^ Elchard HotMoo, M.i). 



forbidden ground throughout the whole 
breeding- season, unless in case of ac- 
cident to a young heron by falling 
from its nest ; in which case aid was 
afforded with all the promptitude ex- 
hibited by the fire escape conductors 
for the safety of hunian life." 

The surroundings of the mansion 
itself were quaint and exceptional, ex- 
hibiting the eccentric character of their 
proprietor. Item, a magnificent sun- 
dial — constructed, however, by a com- 
mon mason in the neighborhood— com- 
posed of twenty equilateral triangles, 
so disposed as to form a similar num- 
ber of individual dials, ten of which, 
whenever the sun shone, and whatr 
ever its altitude, were faithful time- 
keepers. On these dials were engraved 
the names of cities in all parts of the 
globe, placed in accordance with their 
(liffercnt degrees of longitude, so that 
the solar time of each could be simul- 
taneously ascertained. Near this sun- 
dial was a subterraneous passage lead- 
ing to two boat-houses, entirely con- 
cealed under the island, furnished with 
arched roofs lined with zinc-plate, and 
arrangements for slinging the boats 
out of water when they required paint- 
ing or repair. Four sycamores, with 
roosting branches for peahens, and a 
fifth, whose decayed trunk was always 
occupied by jackdaws, screened the 
house from the north winds. Close to 
the cast-iron-bridge entrance was a 
ruin, on the top of whose gable, at the 
foot of a stone-cross, twenty-four feet 
above the lake, a wild duck built her 
nest, and hatched her young for years. 
A great yew-fence enclosed this ruin 
on one side, so that within its barrier 
birds might find a secure place for 
building their nests and incubation. 
For the special encouragement and 
protection of the starling and the jack- 



IDO 



A Naturaliil^s Homtm 



daw, tbere was erected within this 
fence a thirteen feet high slOTie-and- 
mortar built tower, pierced wilK about 
sixty rcsting-berths. To each bcrtli 
there was an aperture of about live 
inches Bqtinre* A few, nrar the fop, 
were Pel apart for Xhv jaekdaw and 
the white owl. The remaining num- 
ber were each supplied at the entrance 
with a pqyare loose stone, haying one 
of its inferior angles cut away, so that 
the starling ijouhJ enter, but the jack- 
daw and owl were excluded- The 
landlord of tliese convenient tcnementa 
only reserved to himself the privile^re 
of inspection, which he could always 
eftect by removing tbe loo.se stone. 

The lake had an ariilieial under- 
ground sluice, wliich issuing out at a 
little di&tance into sight, farni:ahed the 
means of cultivating a knowledge of the 
mysterious habits of the water-rat ; this 
Ftream ibcn passed tfimy^h one of the 
loveliest grottoes in England, Near this 
place were two phcasan tries, the central 
portion of each consisting of a ehnnp 
of }'cw trees, while tbe whole mass was 
Rurroundcd by an impenetrable holly 
fence ; the stable-yanl wiv^ not far off; 
and henc^ the squire luid infinite op- 
portunities of establishing tlie impor- 
tant fact, as he couaidered it, that the 
game-eook always claps his wings and 
erowfl, whereas the cock- pheasant al- 
wnya crows and claps his wings. Mr. 
Watei Ion's interest in raturai history 
was, however, by no means contined 
to the nnininl creation. He concerned 
himself greatly with the cuhure of 
lix-es (though by no means of land), 
and hailed any lusu^ naturm that oc- 
curred in bis grounds as other n»ea 
welniitied the birth of a son and heir. 
Wall on Hall ha<l al one time its own 
eorn*niill, and when that inconvenient 
necessity no longer existed, the mill- 
stone was laid hy in an oR-hard and 
forgotten. Tbe diameter of this cir- 
cular ftone measured five feet and a 
half, while its depth averaged seven 
inches throughout ; its central bole 
had a diameter of eleven inches. By 
mei'e aeeident, some bird or squirrel 
had dropped the fruit of the filbert 



tree tlm>ugh this hole on to the earthy 
and in 1812 the seedling was seen 
rising up ihrouj^b that unwonted cban- 
nel. As its trunk gradually grew 
through this aperture and increased, 
its power to mise fbe ponderous mass 
of efone waa speculated u|»on by many. 
Would the filbert tree die in the at- 
tempt? Would ii burst the milbtone ? 
Or would it lill it ? In the entl, the 
little filbert tree lifted the mi lb lone, 
and in 1863 wore it like a eiinoline 
about its trunk, and Mr, W*atert4jn 
used to ait upon it under the branching 
shade. This extraordinary erunbina- 
tion it was the great naturalist's humor 
to liken to John Bull and the national 
debt. 

h\ no tree-fancier*a groundi was 
there ever one tenth of the hollow 
ttunks uhich were (o be found at 
Walton Hall; the fact being that the 
owner encouraged and fg>^ten?d decay 
for the purposes of his binls* [tar*idisc. 
These ti*ees were proteeteti by ariifl- 
cial roofs in onler to keep their hol- 
lows dry, and fitted thus for tbe recep- 
tion of any feathered couple inclined to 
marry and settle. Holes were also 
pierced in the stems, to afford ingress 
and egress i and one really woukl 
scarcely be surprised if they bad been 
iurnished with bells for ** servants" and 
** visitors." In an ash tree trunk thus 
artificially prepared, and set apart for 
owls (the squire 8 favorite bird), an ox- 
eyed titmouse took the lib<-^rty of ne«l» 
ing* hatching, and maturing her young. 
Mr. W^aterton attached a door, bung 
on hinge:*, to exactly fil the opening in 
tlic trunk, having a bole in its interior 
pirtion for ihepassagt! of the tiimouse* 
The squire would daily visit his little 
tenant* and oi^ening tbe door delicately 
draw bis hand over the Ijaek of the 
aittitig biM, as though tu asaui*e it of 
bis protection. But unfortunately^ 
after the binl bad tlown, one ye^r, a 
squirrel took possession of this eligible 
tenement, and ahhough every vestige 
of the lining of its nest was carefully 
removed, no titmouse or any other 
bin! ever occupied it again. 

1q 3Iay, 1862, the squire poinlcdoul 



a 
I 

I 
I 



A Naturalists Home. 



191 



to the anthor no less than three birds' 
nests in one cavity — a jackdaw's with 
five e«i^ ; a bom-owrs with three young 
ones, close to which lay several dead 
mice and a half grown rat, as in a lar- 
der; and, eighteen inches above the 
owl's nest, a redstart's, containing six 
ef^ ! Our author deduces from this 
circumstance, that in an unreclaim- 
ed slate birds, although of different 
species, are not disposed to quarrel ; 
ind the fact that near this *• happy 
fiunily" a pair of water-hens hatched 
their eggs in a perfectly exposed nest, 
nnder the very eyes of two carrion 
crows who occupied the first floor of 
the same tree — an alder — without the 
least molestation, seems to confirm this 
Tiew. 

In this Garden of Eden, however, 
ill sorts of anomalous things seem to 
bve been done by birds. In a cleft 
Iwnch of a fir tree, twenty-four feet 
from the ground, a peahen built her 
nest, through which piece of ambition, 
«nce falling is much easier to learn 
than flying, she lost all her young 
ooes. In the branch of an oak, twelve 
feet from the ground, a wild-duck nest- 
ed], and brought down all her brood in 
safetj to their natural element. A 
pair of coots built their nest on the 
extreme end of a willow-branch closc- 
\j overhanging the water; but the 
weight of the materials, and especi- 
tllj of the birds themselves, depressed 
it 90 that their habitation rested on the 
very surface of the water, and its con- 
tents rose and fell with every ripple ; 
and, finally, another pair of coots, who 
bad built their bouse upon what they 
considered terra firma^ found them- 
ielves altogether adrift one stormy 
morning, and continued so, veering 
with the fickle breeze for many days, 
ontil at last the eggs were hatched, 
«nd their young family became inde- 
pendent, and could shifl for themselves. 
All these minutiae were carefully watch- 
ed by tlie squire. An excellent tcle- 
Kope enabled him to perceive from his 
drawing-room window the manoeuvres 
of both land and water fowls. " You 
eoQld carefiiUy Bcmtinize their form, 



their color, their plumage, the color of 
their legs, the precise form and hue 
of their mandibles, and not unfrequent- 
ly even the color of the iris of the eye : 
also their mode of walking, of swim- 
ming, and of resting. You could dis- 
tinctly ascertain the various kinds of 
food on which they lived and fed their 

young You could see the herons, 

the water-hens, the coots, the Egyptian 
and the Canada geese, the carrion 
crows, the ringdoves (occasionally on 
their nests), the wild-duck, teal, and 
widgeon." No less than eighty -nine 
descriptions of land-bird and thirty of 
water-fowl sojourned in the grounds 
or about the lake of Walton Hall. In 
winter, when the lake was frozen, it 
was literally a fact that the ice could 
sometimes not be discerned, it was so 
crowded by the thousands of water- 
fowl that huddled together upon it 
without sound or motion. 

Mr. Waterton, it may be easily im- 
agined, was himself no sportsman ; but 
it was his custom to supply his own 
table on a fast-day (he was a Roman 
Catholic) with fish shot by himself with 
a bow and arrow. Otherwise, he made 
war on no living creature, except the 
rat : the " Hanoverian" rat, as he des- 
ignated him with bitterness : and even 
him he preferred to exile rather than 
destroy. But having caught a fine 
specimen of the " Hanoverian" in a 
** harmless trap," he carefully smeared 
him over with tar, and let him depart. 
This astonished and highly scented ani- 
mal immediately scoured all the rat- 
passages, and thus impregnated them 
with the odor of all others most offen- 
sive to his brethren, who fled by hun- 
dreds in the night across the narrow 
portion of the lake, and wore no more 
seen. The squire was indeed a most 
tolerant and tender-hearted man. He 
built a shelter upon a certain part 
of the lake expressly for poor folks, 
who were permitted to fish whether 
for purposes of sale or for their own 
dinnei^s ; and notwithstanding that it 
was his custom to dress like a miser 
and a scarecrow, and to live like an 
ascetic — sleeping upon bare boards 



198 



A NaturolUti Home* 



with a hollowed piece of wood for a 
pillow, and fasting much longer than 
was good for him — lie was very chari- 
table and open-handed to others. 

It must be confessed, however, we 
gather from this volume tliat the great 
naturalist was, out of his profession, 
by no means a wise miin, and certain- 
ly not a witty one. lie loved jokes 
of a school boy sort, and indulged in 
saivasms more practical than theoret- 
ical. The two knockers of liis front- 
door were cast, from bell-metal, in the 
similitude of human faces, tlje one rep- 
resenting mirth, and the other misery. 
The former was immovably fixed to 
the door, and seemed to grin with de- 
light at your fruitless efforts to raise 
it; the latter appeared to suffer as?o- 
nies from the blows you inflicted on it. 
In the vestibule was a singularly con- 
ceived model of a nightmare, with a 
human face, grinning and show- 
ing the tusks of a wild boar, the 
hands of a man, Satanic horns, ele- 
phant's ears, bat's wings, one cloven 
foot, one eagle's talon, and with the 
tail of a serpent; beneath it was the 
following motto : 

** AnpldcPR prwcordlU 
PHvore Botnnvs Huferam."* 

It was his humor, more than once, 
when between seventy and eighty 
years of age, to welcome the author, 
when he came to dinner, by hiding on 
all-fours under the hall-table, and pre- 
tending to be a dog. He made use 
of his wonderful taxidermic talents to 
represent many individuals who took 
a leading part in the Reformation by 
loathsome objects from the animal and 
vegetable creation, and completed the 
artistic group whh a sprinkling of 
''composite" demons. He was seri- 
ously vextni at a stranger under his 
own roof, who had profanely designated 
his favorite (stuffed^ Bahia toad as 
** an ugly brute.' These and similar 
instances of bad taste we think Dr. 
Hobson might have left unrecorded 
with advantage. Still, there was 

* sitting nn the rwlon of the heart, I Uke away 
tieep by frar. 



much to like as well as to admire 
about the great naturalists He could 
show good taste as well as bad. No 
museum of natural history elsewhere 
could compare with the beauty and 
finish of the specimens, prepared by 
the squire's own hand with wonderful 
skill and patience, which adorned the 
inside of Walton Hall. "Not even 
living nature," says our author, " could 
surpass the representations there dis- 
played.** In attitude, you had life 
itself ; in pluma<!e, the lustrous beau- 
ty that death could not dim ; " in anat- 
omy, every local prominence, every 
depression, every curve, nay, the slight- 
est elevation or depression of eaoli 
feather." The great staircase glowed 
with tropic splendor. At the top of it 
was the veritable cayman mentioned 
in the Wanderings, on which the squire 
mounted in Essequibo, and a huge 
snake with which he contend(.»d in 
single combat. Doubts have b«'en 
thrown on both these feats, but Dr. 
Hobson relates instances of presence 
of mind and courage shown by the 
squire in his own presence quite as 
marvellous as these. Wishing to make 
experiment as to whether his Woorali 
poison, obtained in 1812 from the 
Macoushi Indians, was more effica- 
cious than the bite of the rattlesnake, 
he got an American showman to bring 
him twenty -four of these dangerous 
reptiles, and took them out of their 
cases, one by one, with his own hand, 
while the Yankee fled from the room 
in terror, accompanied by very many 
members of the faculty, who had as- 
sembled to witness the operation. In 
his old age, he alone could be found to 
enter the cage of the Borneo orang- 
outang at the Zoological Gardens, in 
order minutely to inspect the palm of 
its hand during life, and also the teeth. 
It was with difficulty he obtained per- 
mission to run this hazard, the keepers 
insisting upon it that the beast would 
" make very short work of hira." 
However, nothing daunted, the squire 
entered the palisaded enclosure. '•The 
me<»ting of these two celebrities was 
clearly a case of love at first sight, oa 



My T^CBTM in Sleep. 



198 



the strangers embraced most affection- 
ately, kissing one another many times, 
to the p^eat amusement of the specta- 
tors. The squire's investigations were 
freely permitted, and his fingers allow- 
ed to enter his jaws ; his apeship then 
claimed a similar privile;^, which was 
as courteously granted ; after which the 
orang-outang began an elaborate search 
of the squire's head." 

The strength and activity of Water- 
ton were equal to his physical courage, 
notwithstanding that he was wont to 
indulge in venesection to a dangerous 
extent, always performing that opera- 
tion himself, even to the subsequent 
bandaging. At eighty -one, the sup- 
^eness of his limbs was marvellous ; 



and at seventy-seven years of age our 
author was witness to his scratching 
the back part of his head with the 
toe of his right foot ! Death, however, 
claimed his rights at last in the squire's 
eighty-third year. 

Charles Waterton lies buried in a 
secluded part of his own beautiful do- 
main, at the foot of a little cross, with 
this inscription, written by himself : 

Orate 

Pro anim* Caroll Waterton, 

Viatoris : 

CiUus Jam fesfa 

Juxta hnnc crucem 

Hie aepelluntur ovsa. 

Even those iron limbs of his, it seems, 
grew weary at last. 



MY TEARS IN SLEEP. 

** And He said : Weep not ; the maid la not dead, but ileepeth." 

** Whence come these tears upon thy face r 
What sorrow craved these scalding drops of woe 
In peaceful sleep? 
Didst dream of pain or dire disgrace? 
Sob not so bitterly. I fain would know 
What made thee weep! " 



" Not for the woes which life may bring — 
The life, in sooth, that doth just now begin— 
These tears were shed. 
But memory hath a bitter sting, 
And dreaming bade me mourn the time of sin 
When I was dead." 



VOL. V. — IS 



104 



Robert; or, The ^Jbtenee of a Good MMer. 



Translated from the French. 



ROBERT; OR, THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER. 



CHAPTER X. 

*'0 Rome, mUtreis of the world, red with the 
hlowl of martyni, white with the Innocence ijf vlrplns, 
we salute and bless thee In all ages, and forever." 

The first real stopping-place Robert 
made under tlie cloudless sky of Italy 
wan at Milan, and its magnificent 
cathedral was the first place visited. 
This church, after St. Peter's at Rome, 
is the finest in Italy, and is built of 
pure white marble. Tliere are few 
Gothic etlifices so rich in ornament, 
or of so liglit and airy an appearance. 
His next visit was to one of the old 
Dominican convents, named Sainte 
Marie des Graces, where he saw ''The 
Last Supper" of Leonardo da Vinci, 
one of the great Italian paintc^rs and 
the protlgc of Fran9oi8 I. 

The ancient capital of Lombardy 
dot»8 not present a very agreeable ap- 
pearance, notwithstanding its numer- 
ous }>alaces, which is owing to the ar- 
rangement of the streets, which are so 
long and narrow that nothing shows 
its rt*al magnificence, not even the 
cathedral. The memory of Eugene 
Beauharnais is always dear here, 
when* as the delegate of Napoleon he 
exercised sovert^ign power, and Robert 
saw with pleasure that the glory and 
liencfits of the one and the wise con- 
duct of the other were not eflfaced from 
the hearts of the Milanese. From 
Milan he went to Parma, where he 
saw a numlK'r of choice i^iin tings by 
Correggio, Lanfranc, and Mazzola, and 
at the cathtHlral the magnificent fre*JCO 
of the Assumption ; at the church of 
Saint Sepulchre, the Madonna and 
Child. He alsv> visited the Famese 
gallen*, and the tomb of this family in 
the church of the Madonna Stect^sUa. 
From Parma he went to Genoa, sur- 



named the superb. This rich city is 
the rival of Venice, and is proud of her 
antiquities, and the power she has al- 
ways held on the seas. She has al- 
most entire the schools of Michael 
Angelo and Bernini, and has a pro- 
digious number of paintings and sculp- 
tures. Thus was Robert obliged at 
each step to stop and pay his tribute 
of admiration to what be saw. And 
Genoa has produced sol many distin- 
guished artists that for a long time 
science and art have flourished there 
and acquired a high degree of renown. 
Robert passed three months of study 
there, which was longer than he intend- 
ed, as he was burning with a desire to 
get to Rome, for it was there that he 
intended seriously to open his studies, 
but he could not resist the charm 
which held him in first one, then an- 
other place. From Gr^noa be sailed 
for Leghorn, and from there to Flor- 
ence, which all travellers unite in con- 
sidering one of the most beautiful of 
Italian cities. It is situated at the foot 
of the Apennines, and the number of 
its gardens and their beauty, it« pub- 
lic squares, ornamented with fountains 
and statues, the shores of the Arnc* 
with their charming quays, and the 
grandeur of the palaces, designed and 
embellished by Sanzio and Buonarroti, 
its smiling suburbs, and the brilliant 
titles of its citizens, combine to make 
it a most attractive place. Its largest 
gallery was commenced by Cardinal 
Leopold de Medicis, and is built in 
two |>arallel galleries, and at their end 
a third is placed, which stands on the 
right bank of the Aroo. Here are 
classed in perfect order the master 
works of modern art. If the name of 
^MiHlicis has odious remembrancer in 
France since the massacre of Sciik 



RoheH; cr^ The Jhfluence of a Good Mother. 



105 



Bartholomew, it is not so in Florence 
or any part of Italy ; on the contrary, 
it recalls there all that is most dazzling 
and generous in literature, art, and 
science. Talent always finds an asy- 
Imn and a welcome in Florence, and 
Bobert was favorably received by the 
persons to whom he had been recom- 
mended by his master, who, more for 
his genuine affection for him than for 
the honor of having such a pupil, had 
given him letters to men of high posi- 
tions. What could be a more power- 
ful gtimulant for him than the flattering 
eocouragement he received from pcr- 
90US of known taste and hearty appre- 
dation ? Believing that nothing that 
wc wish to accomplish is impossible, 
Robert, with increased passion for his 
art, studied the old mastei-s with de- 
tennined energy, though never daring 
to hope he could approach their per- 
fection. Mediocrity is always vain and 
boastfiil, while true merit is modest 
and mistrustful, and this was why 
Robert was ignorant of his wonderful 
tilent. He left Florence with many re- 
fjtts both as a man and an artist, but 
Rome was the crowning glory of Iiis 
ambition, and he must go on. In pass- 
ing through the gates of the sacred 
city he felt an emotion that it would 
be impossible to express; for tlie soul 
of the artist and the Christian were 
equally moved, and in his entliusiasm 
becri^ with Tasso: ^It is not to thy 
proud columns, thy arches of triumph, 
or tby baths, that I come to render 
boiDage ; it is to the blood of martyrs 
&bed for Christ on this consecrated 
ground !^ At last be was re^y in 
Rome, whose walls enclose so many 
Mattered leaves of the history of all 
nations, and the very name of which 
fills us with reverence. On the muti- 
lated fragments here and there, and on 
tbe wrecks of past greatness, the artist 
^plored the too short duration of all 
*wthly things, but the Christian read 
theru a salutary lesson which told of 
Jbe early end of worldly joys. In this 
pand old city he settled him^ielf and 
commenced to work, giving himself 
up with ardor to composition as the 



highest and truest art. In the begin- 
ning his ideas were not truly express- 
ed, but still his pictures were full of 
talent. He preferred working at home 
and did not often go to the academy, 
but was aided in his studies by the ad- 
vice of artists and connoisseurs. Af\er 
a few years he composed works of 
wonderful power, and his genius seem- 
ed to take every turn ; sometimes his 
conceptions were noble and subHme, 
then, again, delicate and tender, every 
'passion being rendered with fidelity. 
As he became conscious of his rapid 
progress, the more his desire to find 
bis father tormented him. It was not a 
sentiment of pride, still less of ven- 
gence, that made him wish it ; it was 
the need he felt of a heart that respond- 
ed to his own. It was the voice of na- 
ture crying unto him, ^' Thou hast a fa- 
ther ; he lives, and thou dost not know 
him ; search for him, and throw at his 
feet thy love and talent ; speak to him 
of thy mother ! See the task which is 
thine, now that thou art worthy of the 
name thou bearest." The young paint- 
er was admitted into many distinguish- 
ed houses, and learned of his father, 
but could obtain no information which 
would put him on his track ; yet he 
buoyed himself up with the uncer- 
tain hope that he might meet him in 
this city of repose and resignation. It 
is a place of sweet sojourn for those 
v/hosc fortunes are cast down, and n 
dear asylum for troubled souls, the 
end of the artist's pilgrimage as well 
as that of the invalid, the tourist, and 
the savant. There all misfortunes arc 
respected and all sufferings are consol- 
ed ; and it is possible that the Count de 
Verceuil had been overtaken by some 
of the sorrows from which no one in 
this world is exempt ; and surely he 
could not flatter himself that he would 
pass through life without the chastise- 
ment that falls on the heads of the 
guilty ! God's patience is long-suffer- 
ing, but sometimes his anger falls with 
a sudden blow on the hardened sinner, 
and makes him cry for pardon. The 
iraprcbsions made upon Robert in this 
city of majestic rums and antique 



IM 



Robert ; or^ The Inftuefwi of a Good Mother. 



moDumcnts, and where the arts speak 
go noble a langua^^e, could not be 
other tlmn extUed and religioya. Be- 
fore 80 nimiy wreck* the soul h pre- 
dmpfJsed \o pity all thingi* here below ; 
the jkrojcft^ we noiirbh nppear so ptier* 
ik», wr* conceive another frlory and 
adore Gofl and hb in>|K'ri."*hable p:lory. 
Faftb gives to man a moment of calm 
in every trial and opens to bim the 
doors of ft blissful eternity. These 
stones cry nlond to all, *' Pussinij avvay V* 
hut it in ill a condoling and solemn ac- 
cent, and brings down all our pity 
upon ihe worldlin«:s who have forjjot- 
t^n Je8us our divine Master* who said^ 
*' Heaven and earth may pass away, 
but my words will never patis away."* 
With the exactitnde with whieb he al- 
ways fulfilled his promises, be knew 
that I be time for his return to France 
was drawing near, and that there were 
two perpsuns there who counted with 
«iorrow tlie days wbieh were passed 
far from him. lie was not ifmorantof 
the fact that time liun*? heavily upon 
the^e potir ohl |>eople, and that it was 
difiieuit for them to sopport the long 
ibours. The i*eraembraoee of these 
frieoda followetl him everywhere ; 
they were near him in his excursions 
through Rome, at the Colo^^eum, at the 
Capitol ; day and nijrhi he found them 
in hi9 thonghts and his heart, and knew 
that they were impatient for his re- 
turn » and woo Id amply repay him for 
the rejrrets he would leave l^ehind ; 
and aa he wished to visit Veniee and 
remain there some time, be bade fare- 
well to the ancient city of the Senate 
of The Cspsarsj now tVie residence of I be 
Pop<' and llie seat of the church mili* 
tani, From there he goes to Venice, 
the queen of the Adriatic. From a 
distance, resting tranquilly on the sur- 
face of the sea, it resembles a numljer 
of vessels with countless ma^its, but 
on a nearer approach tlie charm h 
broken, an*! it stands boldly aliove the 
waves, revealing its wondertui beauty 
to Uie aa I on in her! eye of the traveller. 
Formed of more than sixty small isl- 
ands, Venice is in lersf versed with e»- 
Dala without number, Ibe largest of 



which is in the form of an S, and di- 
vides the city into two nearly equal 
parts. Everything in it has an orig- 
inal character, and silence reigns sn- 
preme over the city ; no vehicles and 
no pavements for them to rattle on* 
and the population, not being an indu.'*- 
trious or commercial people, have noth- 
ing to make a noise at. But the great 
charm to Robert wm iu the magnifi- 
cent palaces, nearly all of whieb were 
built by the great artists of Italy ; and 
the cluirehes, ricli in pictures, frescoes 
statues, and bas-reliefs, together with 
marble columns of mre workmanship* 
Before commencing his studies he vis- 
ited the principal buildings, the church 
of St. Mark, on the front of which are 
four bronze horses, attributed to the cel- 
ebrated sculptor Lysippus; then to 
the ancient palace of the doge, and 
to see the subterranean vaults, which 
are separated from the palace by the 
Bridge of Sighs, and then to the Arse- 
nal, which occu files an island almost a 
leagu e i n c ixc u m f erei ie*»* Tf i is edifice 
is a citadel surnmnded by high ram- 
parts, an J guanling its en 1 ranee are 
two colossal antique lions brought from 
Alliens and Corinth, After seeing 
the city Robert renewed bis favorite 
oecupalions, and, as in Florence and 
Rome, was inspired by the models in 
the Venetian galleries. Milan, Farma, 
Genoa, Florence, Rome, and Veniee 
he lia<l seen in tuiTi, and they had each 
opened to him their fre^isu res and their 
teachings. There was not a master 
the secret of whose genius he bad not 
sought to discover; (here was not 
one of his works he had not studied 
in its mirnitest details. Thus the 
object of his journey was attainedt 
and bis talent wa« ripened under Ibe 
generous sun of Itnly. He could now 
go home and consecrate the knowledge 
he had obtained to the glory of bis 
art. ** Only fourteen days," he said to 
himself, *^ before I set out for France," 
But the event of the year was coming 
on, the general confusion of which in- 
spires the goddess Folly, and makes 
her ring her btdls more noisily. It 
puts every one iu a complete tertigo. 



I 
I 



I 



Bohrtf or, 7%e Jkfluence of a Good Mother. 



197 



in which they think of nothing hut 
giddy pleasare and dancing and feast- 
ing. There is not a village which doea 
not take part in the rejoicings of the 
carniTal, and it was something so new 
to Robert, that he could not' return to 
Paris without seeing and taking part 
in it, an excusable curiosity in one of 
his age, and we will follow in the train 
of this festive season, which animates 
e?erything. 



CHAPTER XI. 

** What are misfortunet and despair ?** 

TowABD the end of the carnival 
license has no limit, and each one is 
ctgerly drinking the cup of pleasure 
and rushing thoughtlessly into all kinds 
of amusements. , Yet there is in this 
mhmge of ranks, manners, and cus- 
toms something so fantastic and ex- 
inordinary that Robert, unaccustomed 
to scenes of this kind, is perfectly con- 
foooded. He is dragged on by the 
popular current, which, in its course, 
made a thousand circuits, and carried 
him along, in spite of his wish to the 
contrary. He was, perhaps, the only 
person who was serious in the midst 
of all this nonsense — the only one who 
(Hd not exchange a phrase or ^w)rd 
with others — ^tho only one who did not 
reply to the provoking questions put 
him by the laughing crowd abandoned 
to the freest gayety. 

As night came on, exhausted with 
iatigue, he returns to his hotel, and, 
bearing cries not far from him, started 
in the direction from whence they 
came. The darkness was profound, 
and he could scarcely distinguish what 
passed him at any distance. But a 
few moments accustomed him to it, 
and, following the cries, he found a 
woman stru^ing to release herself 
hvm a man who was trying to drag 
her toward a gondola he had near. He 
sdTanced to defend her, when a fourth 
person appeared and struck the man 
mth a poniard. He staggered and fell, 
ntteriDg m horrible groan, and as Rob- 



ert went to his assistance, the man, and 
the woman he had avenged, disappear- 
ed, leaving him alone to help their 
victim. Seeing no one near, he car- 
ried the wounded man to the door of 
his hotel, and what was his surprise to 
find it was Gustave de Vemanges, the 
son of his loved benefactress. Al- 
though he had nothing but painful re- 
membrances of this younj* man, he 
was not the less sorrowfully affected 
in seeing the end to which his wicked- 
ness had brought him, nor less prodigal 
in his care of Gustave. The more he 
saw that his soul was exposed to peril, 
the more he desired to save his body, 
that both might at last be saved. But 
the days of the wicked are num- 
bered, and Grod strikes them down« 
Woe unto them then if they are un- 
prepared for their doom. Gustave 
sank rapidly, and the physician's art 
could not avail. Robert unceasingly 
prayed to God to give a few more days 
to this poor sinner, tliat he might be 
reconciled to his Judge before appear- 
ing in his presence. He wept with 
anguish when he found the shades of 
death were fast drawing round him. 
A deep-drawn sigh was heard in the 
room, and the unfortunate young man 
opened his eyes and looked round 
him. A second sigh, then a horrible 
groan, and thinking he was not recog- 
nized, he articulated in a feeble voice, 
" Who are you ? Where am I ?" 

" Be tranquil," replied Robert 
sweetly, " you are at the house of a 
friend. You have been wounded, and, 
not knowing where you lived, I brought 
you here. You must be perfectly calm 
and quiet, for your wound is danger- 
ous. If you have any messages to 
send your friends, I wi& faithfully ex- 
ecute them." 

"Yes," replied Gustave painfully, 
^ I feel that I am badly wounded, and 
will, perhaps, die, and so young too. 
I have no parents, but had a number 
of friends, who shared my pleasures 
and excited me to do foolish thin<i;s, 
but where are they now 1 Oh 1 it is 
frightful to die when one is rich and 
has so much pleasure to look forward 



198 



Robert ; on Th$ Injiuemm of a Good Mother. 



to. Must I give op all the^ tbings, 
my titles, my wealth, and all, to po — 
wbere? I, the rich Gustave de Ver- 
nanges, must I die at Ivventy-sevfiTi, 
g truck by the hand of u common 
man P' 

** You must not speak so,*" replied 
Robert, ** In God's band is the life 
you go much regret to pivc up» and, if 
he wills it, you will be &aved ; his 
power and goodnesa are ^ix^nt^ but you 
must submit yourself to his divine 
will, and repent in all i*iuL'erity of 
heart. You are not without »\n^ for 
wo arc all sinners ; but Jisk God's par- 
don for them, and you will then be 
tranquil, and peace of mind is neces- 
sary to Ijeidili of body." 

** For what mui^L I repent/* ^aid the 
troublt'd voice of the unhappy Gtiii- 
tave, ** What have I done? What 
are my faults ? They ajx> only what 
thousands of others have done, I 
have amused rayi^elf, and laughed at 
the sorrows of my vieiims* I gave 
them pold and rejoiced in their tears ; 
pyissing my years in feasts and folh'es, 
and never trying to dry the tears I 
cau^etL Oh ! ' he cried in deb ri urn, " I 
sec it now through the mj:*t8 of death. 
My mother! oh ! how I treated her ! The 
reil falls from my eyv» I Remorse I i-e- 
mor*He I 1 have ginned, and my mother 
that 4 did not love wills me now to 
repent* O God, my Go<L pardon me I" 
And in his fever and on his bed of !*ick- 
npi^s and |>ain he called upon liis 
mother, whom he had killed by his 
wickedness, and upon Go<h whom he 
had ft^nounced all hi a life, to save 
liim. 

The physician came in at this mo* 
mcnt, and, lookii:)g at him, shixik his 
head sadly, saying to Il4>bert that death 
was near, aud a priest had better be 
eenl for to prepare him for the last 
change. He soon arrived, but Gus* 
tave was in a violent delinom, and 
ronld not understand his saintly ex- 
hortations* 

'* Pray ilie Lord," said the man of 
God to Riibert, ^ pray that he will give 
this unfortunate young man enough 
conscioosness that he may confess and 



I 



receive absolatiovi ; and may his ex« 
amfde, my son, teach you to fly from 

the vain pleasures of this world and 
its impoi*e passions*** 

Koberi then told him of ilie nb1ig»- 
tfons lie was under to tlie mother of fl 
Gustave, and how well he bad known | 
her for two years, and bow he had 
since been separated from her son. 

*' And see/' n?{died the man of God, 
^ what would have been his end if God ,_ 
had not made you an instrument offl 
reconciliation between him and his ■ 
Makeiv lie led you near your enemy 
just at the moment when death struck m 
the hardened sinner, to make him re-B 
pent. The designs of the Almighty 
are impenetrable, but in their ejtecu- 
tion there is grace and panlon. Oh I let 
us pray, my son, ami G<k1 will give 
both faith and hoi>p, and will regenerate 
this jioor lieart, tortured by remorse/* 

The venerable priest and thi* yoimg 
painter passed sevcj-ul imurs in prayer, 
and the old man supplicated heaven 
with fervor for the conversion of one 
of his brothers to ChnsU 

Toward morning Gustave became 
conscious, and the pej^uasive and 
eloquent words of the priest muved 
the dying heaiii He comprehended 
his sins, the gn*atness of his faulty 
and wept bitterly for his errors, and 
repented for the fatal passions thai 
tempted bun to commit so many erime&. 
He confessed, with beart-broki»n re- 
pentance, the many griefs he had 
i*au«?ed his mother, and the name of 
Hobert was spoken with hers, and his 
regrets at the sorrows he had given 
him. But when he commenced tq 
avow all his fullies of debaiiehery and 
infamous seductions, vanquished by 
shame, and the tnghlful remeinbnuk*e 
of the hateful past, he cried out ; "^ O 
God, do not pardou me« I am loo 
guilty r 

** What do you say, my son ?" 9mi 
the priest ? ** You are guilty, it is true, 
but have confidence in God, and yiHi will 
be pardoned. He has struck you 
down, to dmw you more truly to him- 
self.'* 

Gustave listened attentivrlj, and 



Bobert; or, 7^ Lifluenee of a Good Mother. 



199 



was much moved at the goodoess of a 
God jnstlj irritated agaiost him, and 
he felt the deepest sorrow at having 
been for so long an offender against 
his word ; but his soul, full of the most 
bitter vices and most detestable wick- 
edness, is now baptized in the waters of 
repentance. The body dies, but the 
eoul lives; the Lord has ratified in 
heaven the absolution that his minis- 
ter pronounced on earth. Gustave's 
strength was fast failing, and he felt 
that be was dying. Tlie recognition 
between Robert and himself was touch- 
ing, and the priest wept with joy and 
rep^t, blessing the one who was to 
leave life, and also the one who re- 
mained, to practise on earth every 
Christian virtue. 

^ Do not let me die alone, kind fa- 
ther,'' said Gustave to the priest '* I 
have lived so badly that I have need 
of jour pious assistance to finish life 
more worthily.*' 

The end was almost come. The 
physician could not retract his fatal 
sentence, nor give any hope, for the 
wound was mortal. The blade of the 
poniard had penetrated near the heart, 
and it was a miracle that he had sur- 
rived so long. He heard his sentence 
prononnced with resignation, and ac- 
cepted death as a just expiation for 
bis sins, praying God to maJLe it such. 
He suffered some days longer, testify- 
ing by his patience and his pious pray- 
ers the sincerity of his repentance, 
expiring with sentiments of burning 
contrition and sorrow for his sins on 
his lips. Robert was grieved to lose 
him so soon after his conversion and his 
rKum to virtue ; and his sad and pre- 
mature end was a grave warning of 
the result of worldly passions and giv- 
ing way to vice, though Robert hardly 
needed such an example, his chaste 
and pure soul had always turned with 
horror and aversion from the licen- 
tioosness which heats the imagination 
and sullies its purity. Tet he was al- 
ways on his guard, for he knew the 
feebleness of human nature and the 
dangers to which it is exposed, and the 
more he avoided the corrupting vices 



of the world, the better could he resist 
them, for no one is so brave in danger 
but that he may perish ; and Gustavo's 
death convinced him that Christianity 
is the only basis on which we can 
build immortal happiness, to which we 
all look forward after terrestrial joys 
lose their power of satisfying the de- 
sire for happiness which agitates man 
from the cradle to the grave, and which 
makes him attach such glorious hopes 
to religion, the only vessel that is 
never wrecked and that takes us safe- 
ly to the eternal kingdom of perfect 
peace. 

After having rendered the last sad 
duties to the unfortunate Gustave, 
Robert left Venice, but with very dif- 
ferent feelings from those he promised 
himself. He traversed rapidly the 
Venetian Lombardy kingdom, then 
Piedmont, and, stopping some days at 
Turin, went on to Susa at the foot of 
Mont Cenis. There were two other 
travellers crossing this mountain at the 
same time, a man of about sixty years 
of age, and a young woman, either his 
wife or daughter. Their carriage fol- 
lowed them at some distance, but from 
either fear or curiosity they preferred 
going on foot or on a mule. Robert 
had bowed respectfully and exchanged 
a few polite salutations with them, but 
after that all effort to renew the con- 
versation had been in vain, and he had 
renounced the hope of making any 
further acquaintance with the stranger, 
whose face of manly and severe beauty, 
though expressive of much mental suf- 
fering, had not escaped the eye of the 
artist, habitually accustomed to read 
all the emotions on the face. His sad 
countenance moved Robert so much 
that he turned round several times, not 
simply from compassion, but from a 
sentiment of irresistible and strange 
interest. 

A mysterious and sympathetic in- 
fluence was felt by the two others, who 
had certainly never seen him before ; 
for the gentleman followed him with a 
pleasure for which he could not ac- 
count, and watched his light and easy 
step, urging his mule on to keep near 



200 



lioheri ; or^ The Influence of a Go<>i 3kih», 



him, when the aiiimal gives a sudden 
spring and tlipjwf* hi in into a deep 
ravine. 



CHAPTEB Xn. 



'* Gxieod to tlieo) the band of purdon : 
TUey hhve tinned, but Ucateii iorgitcw I" 

LAUXlLttXM. 



Ovn younjT hero, wishing lo have a 
view from tlie liighesi poijil of the 
moimlnin, wiia pushing on to rrjv»*h ihe 
s|K>t from where hethou«?lit it wonld be 
most extensive. When he had almost 
attained it, his foot slipped nnd for a 
moment he lost his balance, atid it was 
ibid appearance of danger tliat kept 
the other rravcUcr watcliing lunu and 
led to his faU. Bnt Robert was lijrht 
and active^ and raised bim^^elf by bold- 
ing on to the rugjied sides of the 
mountain and getting on a kind of 
plateau, when I be cries, first of ihe 
man, tben the lady, and then the g\)ide 
attracted his attenlioQ and made him 
tnrn quickly. Then at great risk he 
leaneil ?ilmo;^t blrf whole body over the 
ftide of tbe precipice, and saw that im- 
minent and terrible death menaced llie 
man for whom his heart had conceived 
so much affection. The lady and the 
guide were lioth afmid to descend, for 
there waa noticing to hold on to hut 
gorac loose stones projecting out of the 
earth. The gentleman^a position is 
both critical and i>criloiia, but llobert 
det*eends cautioueJy to his side and aa- 
gists him lo cKmb op ; and indeed it is 
almost a miracle that he is saved ; and 
witli a face nidiant with joy Kobert 
receives tbe thanki* of tbe lady and tbe 
traveller, who, remarking a medallion 
Robert always wore, and of which he 
had obtained glimpses in tbe vivacity 
of hii* movements, said to him, in a 
irembling voice ; ** Where did you get 
that njcdallion, speak quickly V And a^ 
if tbe reply he would receive was a 
sentence of liiii and death, he wailed in 
horrible anxiety, as if his soul wiis 
BU8|)ended on the lips of Robert. 
Though surprised at this question^ be 



was loo polite not to answer i^ithout 
hesitation when he saw the agitation 
of the stranger. " This portrait," said 
he^ " comes from my motlier ; it repre- 

Bcnls " ** Oh I panJon — the name 

of your mother t" eagerly internjpted 
Ihe^tran^er. ** Stephanie Dormcuil.*' 
** Btit wiiat was her other name?** 
Rolx^rt besilated a moment, then re- 
plied, ** She was called Madame de 
Verceuil.'' Al this answer a dazzling 
tire bullied m the eyes of the stranger, 
and he made such a quick, impiruous 
movement thai tbe cord wbich held 
the medallion was bi'oken,and it foil to 
tbe ground. Robert «tooped to pick it 
up, and beard these worda, which over- 
wdielraed bira with astonishment; **0 
my Gwl^ tbe remorse I have suffered 
for twenty-five years !" and fainted, but 
I he care of the lady and Robert soon 
bmught back consciousnes'^, and when 
he Ofiened his eyes he cauglit Robert 
ill bis arms, and cried. ** Ob ! thou art 
my sou* my own Robert! and 1 am 
tby faiher. Wilt thou panlon me, my 
soiif my dear chlkl, wilt thou pardon 
me'f' *'What! you are my father T 
cried the ar'Jst, dchriou^ with joy. ** If 
you are, 1 must press you to my heart. 
which has so long called for you and 
needed you. 1 curse you 
what? My saintly moiber did 
teach me tbis, but the contrary. O 
my Goil y lie said on bendcil knee, 
'* you have fulfilled my prayers, you 
have given me my father.'* It is in 
vain lliat we can find words to express 
this touching scene. Robert was fold- 
ed in bis father's arras, repeating in a 
tender voice, " My father, my father P* 
He covered him willi caresses and 
kisses, and called his name wah a jay 
so expressive, and a love so profound, 
tlml tbe count wept bitterly, and cried, 
raising his eyes to heaven^ •♦ O 
Stephanie, what noble veiigeance tbou 
hast given me T Then siazrng on his M>n, 
he was filled with priJe at seeing the 
child whom he had lost when an intiuit, 
and found when a young man of splen- 
did genius and glorious intellect He 
said to him, with some emba. rassjiem 
but with a lively interest, ** My san. 



?— for 
not 



I 







jeoifff; or, The Jkjhetiee of a Cfig>4Moth0t.-^^l{l^ 201 



wbere is thy mother ? What does she 
now?* 

^^Alas r said Robert, pointing to 
heaven, " she is there I She sees ut*, 
and her noble soul rejoices in our hap- 
pmess.** 

The count understood it, his head 
was cast down, overwhelmed by the 
bitterness of his remembrances and 
bis remorse. Robert had seized 
bis band and was pressing it aifec- 
tiooaiclj, when he took the young 
iroman and presented her to Robert, 
saying: " This is thy cousin, Julia de 
Moranges, who has been to me the best 
tnd most indulgent of nieces. I know 
TOQ will love each other. They shook 
binds with frank cordiality, but here 
botb filled with emotion at this strange 
meeting, and as this was not a favor- 
tbie place for more extended explana- 
tioDs, and the guides were already im- 
patient of so long a delay, they con- 
dnded to go on, and God knows the 
most tender sentiments filled Robert's 
mind. Fihal love had ever been his 
first and strongest sentiment, and it 
boned in his heart with a passionate 
energy that charmed the count, and 
made bim stop each moment to em- 
bface bis son, wbo had been the con- 
stant object of his regrets, for whom 
be had wept so much, and whose loss 
was the cause of the sorrow which had 
broQgfat on permatnre old age. 

ArriFiug at the top of this mountain, 
which is more than 2000 feet above 
the level of the sea, our travellers are 
on a plateau four leagues in circum- 
ference and covered with green pas- 
ture that charms the eyes, and in the 
middle of it was a large lake about 
thirty feet deep, filled with several 
varieties of fish. 

The count was a man of extensive 
tod varied infonnation, and it was a 
pleasore for Robert to bear him talk, 
io charming and attractive was his con- 
versation ; and questioned by his son, 
tbe coont related many things coucein- 
ing Mont Cenis. ** There is a cer- 
tain celebrity," said he, " attached to 
tbe mountain we are crossing. Some 
tothoTB pretend that Hannibal crossed 



here to enter Italy, and/it i^j^rlain 
that Augustus opened a' route, that 
was enlarged by Charlemagne. Thou 
hast before thee," added he, " the still 
more recent traces of the work that 
Napoleon commenced, and which is 
truly worthy of the great man who 
brought it thus far to perfection." It 
was not until they were descending the 
mountain that the count commenced 
to relate his life to his son, which we 
already know from his mother, but we 
canno* pass over in silence his poign- 
ant regrets at the loss of such saintly 
and sweet intercourse. When he look- 
ed at his son, left an orphan at twelve 
years of age, with no resources but 
his perseverance and ^ood conduct, 
and reflected that he had come out 
of obscurity and made friends and a 
name, he blessed the wife whom he 
had so cruelly injured and who had 
given him a son, the glory of his white 
hairs and the love of liis old age. But 
his remorse for his treatment of his 
wife was nothing to the fear that his 
son would refuse him his esteem and 
tenderness and would not consent to live 
with him. But these dread thoughts 
could not remain long in his mind; 
the respectful vnanner and caressing 
words of his son effaced them. The 
more he studied the character of Rob- 
ert the more he felt tlie need of his 
love and of pleasing him, and the 
stronger was his desire to win the 
heart on which he set so high a price. 
To obtain this he jrave him his entire 
confidence, and let him read his heart 
as he would an open book, and Rob- 
ert saw the remorse his guilty conduct 
toward his mother had caused him. It 
was a painful avowal to make bis son, 
but he had the courage ; and the next 
day, after Robert had related to bim 
the principal events of his life, he 
drew him to him, saying : 

*' I owe to thee, my child, a history 
of the years I have passed far fix)m 
thee and thy mother, but it is not that 
I wish to make a parade of my regrets 
and my sufferings, but simply to tell 
thee in what way God called me to him- 
self and to virtue." 



^ahert; or, 7%e Itiflumce of a Goad Mother, 



^ My father/' said Robert, « if the 

recilal gives you pain, if it recalk too 
vividly your fioiTowi*, do not tell me, 
I pmy you, for I would rather you 
.should chose n way all sadness ami 
smile yourself to life. I know I shall 
love you, and I want you to forfret 
what you have suffered* It ia not for 
me to judge you, and believe me,tliat, 
no matter what )'ou say, my rei^pect 
and love for you will always he tiic 
same/' 

The count took the hand of hiafton, 
but could not reply for some moments, 
then eommeneed thus : ** It' thy mother 
has not sfioken to thee of my cruelly 
and injustice toward heMmd, still more, 
if ehe has rather exculpated ihan ac- 
cused me to thee, 1 owe it to her mem- 
ory to avow thai I alone was the 
guilty one, and that febe wa* to me, to 
ihe last moment, a model of ^oiKlnebs, 
patieneeH, and gentleness. She was 
riffht to leave me, for I was then so 
blinded by my passions that the threat 
i^^liieh decidtxl her to go I wouM with- 
out doubt have executed, if jflie had 
not tiiken the desperate part which has 
turned &q happily to ihy advantage. I 
fiay it to my tihame, I was barbarous, 
wicked, and un^nitoful to thy mother^ 
and what ia more fn^rhtful is that: I 
was so with [iremeditation. Incapa- 
ble of eonlrolling my temper, and my 
pride wounded by the reproaches of 
ray family » and by the railleries of the 
younp foob I called m}' friends, 1 car- 
ried my ti*eatraent to blows and ineult^ 
to her who gave thee hirtli. I know I 
make Uiee s^hudder and dll ttiee wltli 
horror, but I have cruelly exjMatcd 
these moments of passion, for at heart 
1 loved thy mother, and, when I re* 
fleeted, I cursed my feebleiiesfi and 
sell-love. Tufortunately these mo- 
menta were of exhort duration, and the 
world and its attniclions acted in a 
fatal manner on my heart, iilied with 
the deplorable maxims of a eorrujtt, 
irreligious, frivolous, and mocking 
society. What, then, could stop me 
in the mad career which wnuld soon 
bring me to the abyss already yawn- 
ing under my feet? Nothing, for 




I hardly believed there wai ai 
and hail none of tlio faith whkli 1 
mother has plantetl in ihy heart. 
was as bhnd and iDsenaato ai 
drunken man, who knows 
where he is nor what he sa^'g. 
curb could be put to my pjissmn 
for I was hke the brute that olieys f 
instincts, only more miserable, as I 
the voice of conscience to enlighten me 
while he is deprived of the soul, which 
is the divine essence. See, then, what 
I was when thy mother took thee tar 
from me ; and I was in a perfect Ir 
|)ort of fury when on my return 
the house 1 Iciimed from liie servanft 
that thy mother had gone, takuig the 
with hen At first, rage was the ool; 
passion that possessed my souh and 
was perfectly inc^imprehensihle to ] 
that a being as gentle as ihy mother' 
had ever proved herself should Imvc 
the courage to take s^uch a stop ; but 
maternal love wm stronger than aU 
things else to her, and wlien I found 
thy empty cnidld, I wept and tore my 
hair in dei^pair. It was the first time 
I had really felt as if I was a father; 
for when I kissed thy frc^h young face, 
it wfis more from pride than froai pa* 
temal tendemess ; but when I knew 
thou wert gone forever, my heart was 
broken. I awoke at once, under the 
shock of this most agonizing, tortur- 
ing sorrow, and from that moment my 
life of expiation commenced. Bat I 
do not date my return to God (torn 
that day, for it was a long time befon 
my lips uttered a prayer. I suffer 
more than tongue can tell in the delir- 
ious life into which I was plunged, and 
which soon destroyed my heallh and 
lefl me with a sickness which was 
long and dangerous. In my hours of 
suffl'Hng and angnisb you were always 
present to my mind, and 1 knew no 
one to \^hom I could condde my 80i^_ 
row, and feared to die without seein^H 
you. Days succeeded each other, m^" 
til they bteame years ; my despair in- 
eiTa^ed and my loneliness was horri- 
ble* The sign of a reprobate was 
marked like the curse of Cain tif>a^H 
my bruwi and I wad conaumiDg myaol^l 



L^re^l 



Boberi; ar^ Tke Biftuence of a Good Mother. 



908 



in Qsekfts regrets, without baying re- 
eonree to the love and compassion of 
Grod, when a providential accident 
brongfat near me one of those angels 
of charity who consecrate their lives 
to the care of the sick and sorrowing. 
" A good sister of the order of St. 
YiDcent de Paul came one day to excite 
mj interest in favor of the poor, and 
her angelic face and her tender and 
perBaasive voice touched me deeply. 
I was strangely attracted to her, and 
coaM not help contrasting her nmnner 
with the means used by women of the 
world to obtain what they desire. It 
was with pleasure, I might even say 
joy, that I gave her my purse, and we 
became engaged in conversation. She 
bad read in my face the ravages of 
panion and the storms of tlie heart ; 
tnd, as all sorrows were familiar to her, 
ibe easily guessed those of my soul, 
iDd forced me by her winning manner 
to confess to her the cause of my suf- 
fcriDgs. Then when she knew all, she 
ipoke to me in a language so filled 
with faith and charity that my frozen 
Mol thawed under the warmth of her 
baraing words. The name of Grod 
wa« 80 eloquent in her pure mouth 
that before she left me I pronounced 
it with faith and confidence. From 
Ibis moment I prayed, and the saintly 
woman came several times to finish her 
work of grace. By her cares my 
body regained some strength, and my 
>oq1 felt all the hopes of a Christian, 
iU the salutary truths of our sublime 
religion. My repentance took the 
cbaracter of resignation, which gave 
Nme calmness and tranquillity to my 
dntobite days. I bade adieu to the 
worid, putting far from me its perfid- 
ioos and deceitful charms, which I had 
before so eagerly sought, and all the 
iUosions which had appeared seductive 
tnd worthy of my homage were dis- 
pelled. 1 ho veil had fallen from my 
eyes, and I loved now what I had 
bated. Thy mother appeared to me 
vith her virtues and her touching 
noiplicity and her charming candor 
tod parity, and, now that I was in a 
itite to appreciate her, I cookl behold 



her no more. At this time I lost my 
sister Helena, of whom thy mother 
has spoken to thee, and she lefl a 
daughter, thy cousin Julia. I took 
her to my home and heart, but still 
she did not console me for thy loss ; 
for, good and amiable as she was, she 
was not my son, and the lost happiness 
is what we always sigh for, and which 
can never be replaced. My niece 
married and soon became a widow, 
when she returned to me, and, finding 
all her efforts to diminish my sadness 
without effect, she proposed our travel- 
ling. We have been all over Europe, 
and everywhere I looked for you and 
enquired for you, for a secret voice 
said to me always, ' Go on ! go on I thou 
wilt find him.' I had already explored 
Italy from one end to the other, liad 
visited cold England, crossed the Grer- 
man States, been through Spain and 
Portugal, when the fiery inquietude 
which kept me always moving made 
me turn my steps a second time toward 
Italy. It was doubtless a presentiment, 
since it was on this earth, a thousand 
times blessed, that 1 found thee — that 
we met ! I feel that God has pardon- 
ed me, and my sorrows are at an end. 
Thou art the conciliating angel, the 
treasure and consolation and the last 
happiness of a penitent old man who 
has lost and suffered much. Oh ! may 
thy love be the sign of the forgiveness 
thy mother has sent me, and a bond 
of peace and felicity. But," said the 
count, in a suppliant tone, in terminating 
this long and painful confession, " thou 
wilt not leave me, Robert ? thou wilt live 
with me, my son ? It would be too cniel 
to deprive me of thy presence, and, 
after having found my earthly heaven, 
thou wilt not plunge me into the depths 
of hell ; for if I lose thy tenderness, I 
lose all.'* 

"My father," replied Robert, "I 
could not leave you. I am too happy 
to possess your love to deprive myself 
of so sweet a joy. God has reunited 
us, and we will never again separate !" 



MM 



EabeH ; or^ TTu bifiumct of a Good Mother, 



CHArrBR jun. 

** NothtiiK caa be deuw (o « man Ihia a fiither bo 

Some days after thia interview, 
liobert, tlie coanl, and Julia wei-e trav- 
elling toward rAuvergne. If the deiid 
could feel in their coid graves, certain- 
ly R«:>b«-*rt*ii mother would have felt a 
deep and lioly joy in gecin«r her son 
and her husband kneeling on her tomb. 
But their eyes were not on the ^ravc, 
but nibed toward heaven, and Kol>ert 
saw the same vis^ion whicli had appear 
ed to bira in his youib, and be cried 
out: ** I aec it! O my father, I see 
it I She blesses as."* 

The naaie of Domxeuil was effaced 
from I he modest 8h>m\ and Ihat of 
Countess de Verceuil substituted, to the 
great astonishment of the people of the 
enrrounding country. Then the count 
limited the little house whleli liad fall- 
en in ruins, and here ll(il»ert ealled up 
» thousand tender memories, and 
thanked God for the inanifei'tation of 
bis love in permitting him to lind liis 
father* But it was not tVirthe rank be 
would have ui the world, nor for the 
titled society would look upon vvilb jeul- 
OU8 ey ca, nor for this won d eH\ 1 1 e le v at ion 
of his talent, which daz/Jed and made 
him happy. It wa^ the power which 
God bad put into his hands, to enable 
him to do good lo olhei-s, and the know- 
ledge of the future of rejio^e and com- 
fort lie eouid ensure to the two objects 
of his eai'ly aff*eetron» good Ma«lanie 
Gaud in and the old s<»ldier of the 
guard. It was of theni thai be thouj^bt 
when be said, ** I am rich/* How be 
longed to Bee PariJ?, and to Im3 folded 
again to the hearts of bis friends, from 
whom he had so long been separated* 
His father^ seeing bis impatience, 
smiled at the projects he formed for 
them, but was none the less anxious 
to know them and tbank them for the 
care« they liad bes lowed on his son. At 
last they arrived, and when they rca^ii- 
cd the bouse a cruel thought eroe^ed 
liobert's mind, that the)' mivrht be '*no 
more,** His henrt heal, uud he scarce- 
ly dared to knock, but listened a mo- 



ment, and — ob! what happiness — tiro 

well-known voices fell upon his car. 
One said : *^ Six month? have paiised 
since hiij last letter, and no news of our 
dear child. What can have happen- 
ed bini ?" " You must have patience, 
good woman," said the other voice, 
** be can't always find opporl unities to 
write. I believe the r<*ason he does 
not write is, that he intends to come 
some day soon/* *• Ah 1 I know he is 
not sick, and it is the faith of Cyprien 
says it. The Lord is too just to make 
so good a boy ill.'* 

Com p I e t e ly reass uretl, Rol>ert knoek*^ 
ed and entered immetliately* Two 
erics came at the same time from U 
hearts I hat joy suffocated. Rt>ber 
ratted Madame Gaudin in bis arms | 
her too sudden •surprise bad OFer-1 
whelmed her with emotion, and Vj* 
prien cried, "It is you, it is you T^ 
wiping away a tear. ** I am happy,! 
now, Mister Ilobert, I knew you would] 
come back^but I have had a time con- 
soling this poor woman, who saw every* 
thing in blackness and des^pair.** 

Robert pre:*sed ihe faithful soldier 
to bis heart, then covered Madame 
(biudin with caresses, enquired far ^ 
her health, and wished to know if ei-fl 
tJier of them had suffered in any way^ 
since be left them. When the confu- 
sion of this sudden meeting had sub- 
sided a Utile, both CHprien and dame 
Gaudin p>erceived that Robert bud naj 
luggage. " Where are your effe< 
m}^ child ?" said the good womaiwl 
liobert smiled, and said lie had 
them at home. ** How at bom^P 
And do you not intend to rcniaiii 
with us, Toy dear Kobert ?" •' Yes, ol* 
course, but we will live in another 
house, and I will take you to yotir 
new home/' She opened Iier aettan* 
isbcd eyes, and fcdlowed Robert, whorfl 
descended the steps, and, calling a ciip-^ 
riage^ made his friends get tn, and di* 
rected tlie coachman to drive thein aU^^ 
to No. 110, rue Grenelle, Sjunt Gen^fl 
main. 

On the way Madame Gaudin tried 
to draw from biro his secret, but all al- 
tempts were Udelos&i for he took do- 



hid no^ 
rect^fl 
imaiwS 
1 leH^ 



Robert; or^ The Infiuenee of a Good Mother. 



i05 



figbt DOW in teasing her. Stopping in 
ftont of the hotel where his father was, 
he took the arm of his worthy bene- 
fiictress and conducted her to the sa- 
loon where the Count de Verceuil 
waited. '* Father," said he, as he enter- 
ed, " here is the excellent woman who 
has taken the place of a mother to me, 
ftnd who for my sake generously sacri- 
ficed all she had." '* Madam," said 
the count with amiable courtesy, *' ex- 
cuse me that I did not come for you 
myself, as it was my duty to do, but I 
wished to allow Robert the pleasure 
of surprismg you. You are at home 
here, madam, in the house of my son, 
and I hope you will always be his 
friend." ** Your son ?" she said, half stu- 
pefied. *' Who, then, is your son ? Ah! 
1 know," she cried with liyely anguish, 
a secret sentiment of jealousy coming 
ioto her heart ; ** it is Robert. God 
i^ jost, and has given him this recom- 
pense. What I have done for your 
MO, monsieur, any one else would have 
done in my place, for no one could 
haTe helped loving so good and gen- 
eroos a child. But I do not merit so 
mock kindness at your hands. I am 
only a poor creature, without either 
education or manners, so how can I 
Krewith you?" '* These things are 
of little value in my eyes, my dear 
oadam. What I honor in you, and 
*hat all honest and virtuous people 
would consider above everything else^ 
is the nobleness of your soul and the 
nrtues of which you have given so 
bright an example. You will give me 
great pain if you refuse an offer that 
comes from the heart, and that I make 
yon in my name and the name of my 
800. We will live and enjoy together 
the favors God has been pleased to 
bestow upon us. And you will be 
onre, my brave Cyprien," said the 
coont, taking the hand of the old sol- 
dier. *• I know you love my son, and 
this entitles you to my friendship. 
^iU you accept it ?" ** Oh ! yes ; with 
all my heart," replied Cyprien, looking 
affectionately at Robert, who was 
watching silently the interview be- 
tween his father and his friends. 



His father was kind and good, and 
often he blessed the day they met. 
Nothing can be dearer to a man's 
heart than a father he is proud of. 
Robert had experienced this feeling 
for his mother, whom he venerated 
almost as much as God. She was to 
him the type of every virtue. His 
misfortunes and affliction had entirely 
changed his father, and to the vain 
pleasures of the world had succeeded 
the practices of religion and the duties 
of the Christian. All the virtues he 
admired in his mother he found in the 
paternal heart, tried in the crucible of 
adversity. In a woi'd, the father was 
worthy of the son as the son was wor- 
thy of the father, and a sweet harmony 
reigned in this family, bound to each 
other by the tendcrest ties. All rank 
was effaced, and the noble count, the 
heir of a great name and an immense 
fortune, and the old woman and the 
old soldier lived with no other desire 
than to make each other happy. Rob- 
ert did not give up his profession, and 
his name is now illustrious in the world 
of art ! He married his cousin Julia 
de Moranges, and crowned with joy and 
happinesi the last days of his fath(>r,who 
now sleeps the sleep of the just. Thus 
ends our story. W^e have tried to trace 
the struggling life of Robert, and 
its glorious recompense. We have 
tried faithfully to reproduce his touch- 
ing virtues and the noble and beautiful 
sentiments that adorned his soul, and 
also to inspire our young readers with 
a desire to imitate him. We have tried 
to show the efficacious and all-power- 
ful help of religion in nourishing the 
teachings of a Christian mother, and 
that a good and persevering child can 
overcome all obstacles. Have we, 
then, succeeded and obtained your ap- 
probation ? If there are among you, 
my dear readers, some poor little or- 
phans like Robert, call down the bless- 
ings of your mother Ufion your heads, 
and, though she lives in heaven, she 
will watch over you with tender solici 
tude, and the God of the motherless 
will be your suni refuge and your final 
Saviour. Think not that you can live 



906 Cat^fiteor. 

without constant prayer to Grod^ the whatsoever you do, remember to do 

author of your beings and the giver of it for the honor and glory of God 

every good and perfect gift. Put your and the good of mankind; and tlien, 

whole trust and confidence in him and when you are called to leavo this 

his mercy, and, whether obscurity or life for that better world where all 

fame be yours, always remember that cares cease, you can welcome death, 

he knows best, and places you in which will open for you the gnte of 

whatever position best suits you. life, and exchange with joy the chang- 

Should he give you the transcend- ing bcenes of earth for the unfading 

ent gift of genius, you must strug- bliss of heaven I 
gle hard to obtain its rewards, and, 



CONFITEOE 



** ConfeM therefore your sins one to another.'^— St. Jamks t. 16. 
BT BICHARD 8TORBS WILLIS. 

When to Grod alone I make confession. 

Why, my shameful heart ! so light thy task ? 

While so deep the shame and the emotion 
When to man thou must thy guilt unmask ? 

Only here we find the true abasement : 
More than God we dread the eye of man I 

Hence the justice that, by heaven's ordaining. 
Human guilt a human eye should scan ! 

Ah ! how 0% by some great sin overmastered, 
Hearts in secret pray, but all in vain ! 

Not till human ear has heard the story 
Peace descends and Guilt can smile again ! 

Thus must sin requite both earth and heaven ; 

Since Against man the wrong as well as God ! 
Just amends are due the Heavenly Father — 

Due my brotlier of this earthly sod ! 

Ye who fain would find a peace that's vanished. 

Heaven demands no long, desponding search 1 
Seek the kind, attentive ear of Jesus, 

Seek his listening human ear — the Church I 



Mtdicanl UnivertitU*. 



Wt 



Prom The Contemporary Reriew. 

MEDLZEVAL UNIVERSITIES.* 



Uhiversities are not raentioned in 
mediaeval documents before the bedn- 
'ning of the thirteenth century. At 
that period, however, they stand before 
the eyes of the historian abready fully 
developed, and in the very prime of 
vigorous manhood, without offering 
aoy clue as to their birth and lineage, 
except such as they bear visibly im- 
printed in their very nature. This 
remark holds good only for the most 
ancient universities — Paris^ Oxford^ 
and Bologna — all the other institutions 
of the kind being easily traced to their 
ibondation, and recognized as copies of 
the ancient types. There are, indeed, 
docaments extant which refer the foun- 
dation of the three mentioned univer- 
«iles to a very respectable antiquity, 
and according to which Paris claims 
Charlemagne 3s its founder ; Oxford, 
Alfred the Great ; Bologna, the Em- 
peror Theodosius II. ; and Naples, the 
Emperor Augustus. But these docu- 
ments are each and all the fabrications 
c^ later times, which, agreeably to 
mediaeval disregard of critical investi- 
gation, could easily spring up and find 
credence, because they supplied by 
fiibles what could not be gained by 
historic evidence, the halo of remote 
antiquity. Setting, therefore, apart 
these spurious credentials, we prefer to 
trace the linea^ of our venerable in- 
•titutions as near as possible to their 
source by reading and interpreting the 
record they bear of themselves. 

Twice during the middle ages the 
charch saved literature from utter ruin : 
first when barbarous nations overflood- 
ed £un>pe in the great migration, and 
a second time during the confusion 



* Thi« article l« not written by a Catholic, which 
redbder «U1 eamilj see from some of its expres- 
' Wltii these exceptions the article is very In- 
.—KaCW. 



which arose upon the death of Char- 
lemagne. Science was indeed the 
enfant trouve, to take care of which 
there was no one in the wide world 
but the church alone. Under its fos- 
tering care literature and learning 
started on a new career in the asylums 
erected in the schools of abbeys, monas- 
teries, and convents — a career, how- 
ever, characterized by a peculiar timid- 
ity, which shrank from a critical anal- 
ysis of sacred and profane literature 
alike — abhorring the latter for its 
savor of heathenism, revering the 
former with too much awe to subject 
it to dissecting criticism. In this na^ 
rowness of space, this timidity of dC^ 
velopment, the youthful plant might 
have been stunted in its growth, but 
for the breath of life which the genius 
of human civilization imparted to its 
feeble otilshoot to rear it to the full 
vigor of manhood. This inspiration 
again proceeded from the church, which 
made the very marrow of her substance 
over to the school, that it might feed 
on it and wax strong, so as to become 
the bearer of mediaeval civilization, the 
leader of society in science and educa- 
tion. At a period when the church 
had given form to its doctrines by in- 
vesting them in a dogmatic garb, 
so as to remove them from beneath 
the ruder or careless touch of experi- 
menting heresy, faith was satisfied, and 
in its satisfaction felt secure from any 
perilous raid on its domain. Hence, 
it became less timid in facing the dis- 
sectiug-knife of the philosopher ; nay, 
on the contrary, it soon detected the 
new additional strength it might de- 
rive from the disquisitions of philo- 
sophical science; and thus it came to 
pass that the dogma of the church left 
the bosom of the mother that gave it 
birth, and placed itself under the guar- 



Mediofval UnivcnitUi, 



dmDsbip of the school. TliP result of 
this transmijrration is but ton evident. 
First ot iillj the interest of [jliilosopiiical 
inquiry was duly ro«iarded by obtain- 
ing by the Bitle of faith its share n\ the 
cultivation of the human mind, and, on 
the other huad, the do^ma or symbol 
of faith, which hitherto had evaded the 
grasp of human intellectt and therefore 
assumed the position of a power which* 
though not hocitile, was yet not friendly 
to the aspirations of the human mind, 
now turned its most intimate and faith- 
ful ally. The motto of this allianee 
between dogma and philosophy — the 
welh known '* Credo ut intelligam" — id 
the key-note of sclidastieism. Thua, 
tlicn, theology beeAnie the science of 
the schooh w hen the dogma was com- 
pletely contirmed and oatiiblidhed, and 
the school sutMeiently developed to re- 
ceive it within its precincts ; and this 
alliance, which produced a Christian 
uhilof^ophy in seholaaticism, was the 
pHncipal agent ali?o in bringing about 
a new phase of the medticval school in 
the Sttulium Gtnerale or Universiit/, 

From the carheat centuries it liad 
been a practice with the Chri!*tiun 
church in newly converted countries 
to erect schools by the ^ide of cathe- 
dfaU* Where our Lord liad his tern* 
pie* Bcienco had a cha[Md close by. 
Thcee cathedral eehoob became in 
the course of time less exchi&iTelj 
clerical, at the same rate as tfie chaj:- 
ters of cathedrak turned raore secular 
in tlieir- tendencies. In consequence 
of this metamorphosis the cathedral 
school attracted a large number of 
secular students, whih^ the monastic 
schools more properly limited them* 
selves to the cducxition of the clerical 
order. But for all that the cathedral 
school bore a decidedly clerical charac- 
ter. The bishop continued to be the 
bead of the schools in his diocese, and 
through his chancellor ( cnncellarUts) 
exercised over the stud<*nts the saroe 
authority as over all otliers that stood 
under episcopal jurisdiction. Vt-ry 
oikn we meet with several or many 
schools ronnected with difiereut church- 
m of one and the same diocese* la 



this case each school had its own ^ rec- 
tor/' but all of them weiv sulrject 
the flupem:*ion and jurisdiction of ll 
bishop, or his* representative the chai 
cellor. Though lliey followed thei 
literary and educational pursuits eacJ 
within its own walL^ and independent 
ly of the otheiTS, yet on certain oc 
siona they were reminded of their coi 
sanguinity of birth and iheir relatii 
ship to cite church, when on feati 
eidebralions, such as the feast of I 
patron saint of the diocese, rectoi 
teachers I and students of the differe 
schools rallied round the banner of th'*! 
diocesan, and apppui^d as one bod_ 
under their common head, the bishoj 
Thtis we see the cathedral schoo 
brought nearer to each other by two 
agencies of a uniting tendency — the 
jurisJiction of the bishop and their r 
lalion to the church That which ha 
^rown spontaneouisly out of the cir* 
cumstances of the time awaited only 
the "* liat^ of the mighty to accomplish 
it8 metamorphosis, and assum(?iia final 
shape in the Stadium Generate, The 
church required an able expositor 
her dogmas, a subtle dyfender of h 
canonical presumptions, and both sli 
found in the scliooL Popes then gran 
ed privileges and immunities lo I 
cathedml and monastic schooU of cei 
tain cities, and these schools, follow in! 
the impulse and tendencies of the agi 
united in corporations and became un 
fersities. Under the clrcura.'i lances 
must appear a vain attempt to sea 
for documentary evidence as to tl 
first foundation of the three and 
universitiea. We can only addui 
facts to show when and where such 
establishments are first mentioned, and 
yet we must not dmw the coneluRion 
that universities are contemporary wi 
those documents which firet bear ~ 
testimony to their existenee. For 
all know that in primitive ages, wh< 
new institutions are gradually bei 
developed, centuries may |mss befoi 
the new-born cliild of a new civilizatii 
is christened, and receives that nami 
which shall bear record of its exisieo' 
to future generaLioas. As far h^k. 



MedicBval Uhiversiiies, 



SM 



tbe de^enth centarj, we find at Paris 
sdiools connected with tbe churches of 
Nbin Damej St. Geneviive^ St. Victor^ 
uA Petit Pant, but it appears doubtful 
whether thej had been united in a Stu- 
Hum Generale before the end of the 
twelfth century. The first direct men- 
tion of a ** university'* at Paris is made 
in a document of the year 1209. Oxford 
maj,in point of antiquity, claim equal- 
ity at least with Paris ; and tbe as* 
nunption that Alfred the Great planted 
there, as elsewhere, educational estab- 
lishments is certainly not without some 
plausibility. Concerning the existence 
of monastic schools in that town pre- 
▼ioasly to the twelfth century, not a 
doubt can be entertained ; but to refer 
the foundation of Oxford University to 
tbe times of Alfred the Great is sim- 
pljan anachronism. Oxford, quite as 
DiDch as Paris, or rather more so, 
bean in the rudimentary elements of 
its constitution the unmistakable traces 
of its ori^n in the cathedral and mo- 
nastic schools. Bologna was one of the 
most ancient law schools in Italy. 
Roman law had never become quite 
extinct in that country ; and in the 
^reat struggles between spiritual and 
temporal power, ever and again re- 
newed since the eleventh century, it 
was ransacked with great eagerness 
for the purpose of propping up the 
daiins of either pope or emperor, as 
the case might be. The Italian law 
schools, therefore, enjoyed the patron- 
age of powers spiritual and temporal, 
which raised them to the summit of 
ikme and prosperity, and then again 
dragged them to the very verge of 
rain, by involving them in the strug- 
gles and consequent miseries of the 
two parties. The Emperor Frederick 
Barbarossa well understood how to ap- 
preciate the vantage-ground which pre- 
sented itself in the codices of the an- 
cieats for the support of imperial prc- 
ramptions, and consequently he ex- 
pressed his favor and good- will to 
the lawyers of Italy by confirming tbe 
ancient law school at Bologna — a con- 
finnation which was combined with 
exinu>rdioai7 privileges to professors 

TOLb Tw— 14 



and students sojourning in that town, 
or engaged on their journey there or 
back. Bologna may, therefore, be re- 
garded as a privileged school or uni- 
versity since the year 1158, without, 
however, being such in the lateor ac- 
ceptation of the term, that is, endowed 
with the four faculties. Concerning 
this distinction we shall have to ad- 
vance a few remarks hereafter. 

The term university (universitas), 
in its ancient signification, denotes 
simply a community, and may, there- 
fore, be applied to the commune of a 
city. Hence, the distinction will be 
evident between the expression " Uni- 
versitas Bolognce*^ and *' Universitas 
Stttdii Bonnensis** — the commune of 
Bologna, and the community of the 
university of Bologna. Tiie elder 
title of a university is Studium, a term 
applied to every higher school, and 
supplied with the epithet Generale 
either from the fact of divers faculties 
being taught, or students of all nations 
being admitted within its pale. The 
most distinctive trait of the Grenerale 
Studium is manifested in the social 
position it had gained as a corporate 
institution invested with certain rights 
and privileges, like all other guilds or 
corporations of the middle ages. The 
university was the privileged guild, 
the sole competent body from which 
every authority and license to teach 
science and literature emanated. The 
man upon whom it conferred its de- 
grees was, by the very fact of gaining 
such distinction, stamped as the scholar, 
competent to profess and teach the 
liberal arts. The graduate, however, 
gained his social position not by the 
act of promotion, but by the privileges 
which the governing heads of church 
and state had connected with that act. 
Hence, it was considered an indispen- 
sable condition that a newly erected 
university should be confirmed in its 
statutes and privileges by the pope, 
the representative of the whole com- 
munity of Christians. The universi- 
ties having gained a social position, 
their members were henceforth not 
merely scholars declared as such by a 



SIO 



MedicBvmi UnivwtUm. 



eompetent body of men, but they also 
denved social advantages which lay 
beyond the reach of those who stood 
outside the pale of the university. 

A short sketch of the universities 
erected in different European ^ coun- 
tries afler the pattern of the three par- 
ent establishments may suffice to give 
our readers an idea of the zeal and 
emulation displayed by popes and em- 
perors, princes and citizens, in the pro- 
motion of learning and civilization. 

In the year 1204 an unfortunate 
event befell Bologna. Several pro- 
fessors, with a great number of schol- 
ars, removed from that place to Vi' 
eenza^ where they opened their schools. 
This dismemberment of the university 
of Bologna must have had its cause in 
some — we do not learn exactly what 
— internal commotion. The secession 
was apparently of very little effect, for 
the university of Vicenza, to which it 
had given rise in 1204, ceased to exist 
in the year 1209, most probably in 
consequence of the professors and 
scholars returning to the alma of Bo- 
logna as soon as this could be oppor- 
tunely done. A more detailed account 
has been handed down to us concern- 
ing the secession of 1215, when Ro- 
fredo da Benevento, professor of civil 
law, emigrated from Bologna to Arez- 
zoy and erected his chair in the cathe- 
dral of that city. A crowd of scliolars 
followed the course of the great mas- 
ter. From letters written by Pope 
Honorius between 1216 and 1220, it 
would appear that the citizens of Bo- 
logna, in oixler to prevent the dismem- 
berment of their university, tried to 
impose upon the scholars an oath, by 
which tlicy were to pledge themselves 
never, in any way, to furtlier the re- 
moval of the Studium from Bologna, 
or to leave that school for the purpose 
of settling elsewhere. The students, 
however, refused to take this oath of 
allegianc*e, a refusal in which they 
were justified by the j)0|)e, who swl- 
vised tliem ratlier to leave the city 
than undertake any engagement preju- 
dicial to their liberties. Tiie result 
was the rise of the university of Arez- 



so, where, besides the ancient scbooli 
of law, we find in the year 1255 the 
faculties of arts and medicine. From 
a similar dissension between the citi- 
zens and scholars seems to have been 
caused the emigration to Padua, where 
the secessionist professors and scholars 
established a university which soon 
became the successful rival of Bolog- 
na. 

In the year 1222 the Emperor 
Frederick IL, from spite to the Bo- 
lognese, and a desire of promoting the 
interests of his newly erected univer- 
sity of Naples, commanded all the 
students and professors at Bologna 
who belonged as subjects to his Sicil- 
ian dominions to repair to Naples. 
The non-Sicilian members of the Al- 
ma Bonnensis he endeavored to allure 
by making them the most liberal piip- 
mises. At any other time this un- 
generous stratagem might havo re- 
sulted in the entire ruin of the univer- 
sity of Bologna; this city, however, 
being a member of the powerful Lom- 
bard League, could afford to laugh at 
Frederick's decrees of annihilation. 
As long as its founder and benefactor 
was alive, the university of Naples en- 
joyed a high degree of fame and ex- 
ctdlence among the studia of Italvyftur 
Frederick sparred neither expense nor 
labor in the propagation of scienoe 
and literature. 

Pope Innocent IV. erected the uni- 
versity of Rome about the year 1250t 
and conferred upon it all thoprivil^es 
enjoyed by other establishments of the 
kind. But the praise of having raised 
that university to its most flourishing 
condition, and endowed it with all 
the faculties, is due to Pope Boniface 

vur. 

Lombardy owed its literary fame 
to the noble Galcazzo Yisconti, who 
formed the design of erecting a uni- 
versity close to Milan which shoald 
provide for the increased wants in 
science and education among the po{>- 
ulation of that capital and the sur- 
rounding cities. The site chosen for 
the purpose was Pavia^ which had for 
a long lime been the resort of litarali 



MedujBval UniversUie*. 



m 



of every description who had been 
educated m the neighboring university 
of Bologna. The new university soon 
acquired great fame, oujoying the spe- 
cial patronage of the Emperor Charles 
IV. of Germany. 

The French universities were or- 
ganized after the model of Paris, but 
most of them had to be contented with 
one or several of the faculties, exclu- 
sive of theology, which was, and con- 
tiDued to be, a privileged science re- 
eenred to Paris and a few of the more 
ancient universities. Thus we see 
that OrleanSy where a flourishing 
lebool of law had existed since 1284, 
was provided in 1312 with the charters 
lud privileg&i of the Studium Gene- 
rale. Manh}elier University, accord- 
iof to some historians, was founded in 
1196 by Pope Urban V. ; but with 
certainty we can trace its famous 
jcbool of medicine only as far back 
at the year 1221. To this was add- 
ed the faculty of law in 1230, and 
Niodas lY. finally established, in 
1286^ the faculties of civil and canon 
Jaw, medicine and arts. Grenoble, 
JnJ&u, and a few others, though en- 
titled to claim the privileges of the 
Studium Generale, hardly ever ex- 
ceeded the limits of ordinary schools, 
whether in arts, law, or medicine. 

The system of centralization, which 
at tliat time had already gained the 
upper hand in the church and state of 
France, impressed its type on social 
and scientific life as well. Paris be- 
came the all-absorbing vortex which 
en^lfed every symptom of provincial 
independence; and the Alma Parisi- 
ensis developed in her bosom, as spon- 
taneous productions of her own body, 
the colleges which were founded on so 
grand a scale as to outweigh in impor- 
tance all the minor universities, each 
college forming, so to say, a '^ univer- 
sitas in universitatc." This observa- 
tion holds good for England and the 
Cn^lish universities. 

Turning our attention to Germany, 
wc find, in accordance with the social 
conditions of the country, the develop- 
ment of academic life taking a some- 



what intermediate course between the 
Italian universities on the one side, and 
Paris and Oxford on the other. 
Though emperors and territorial prin- 
ces vie with each other in the pro- 
motion of educational establishments, 
Germany nevertheless bears a close 
resemblance to Italy in so far as in 
both countries the opulent citizens are 
among the first to exert themselves in 
the propagation of science and the dif- 
fusion of knowledge. The university 
of Prague^ founded by the Emperor 
Charles IV. in 1318, was soon followed 
by that of Vienna, founded in 1365 by 
Albertus Contractus, duke of Austria, 
and HtideJherg, erected by Ru pert of the 
Palatinate, and confirmed by the [)ope 
in 1386. The university of Cologne 
owed its origin to the exertions made 
by the municipal council, who succeeded 
in gaining a charter from Pope Urban 
VI. in 1388. Erfurt also is mainly 
indebted to the zeal of the citizens and 
the town council for its erection, which 
took place in 1392. Leipzig was 
founded, in its rudiments at least, in 
1409 by the Elector Frederick I. of 
Saxony, but it started into the full 
vigor of academic life under the im- 
pulse imparted to it4)y the immigration 
of two thousand students, Catholic 
Germans, who, to escape Hussite per- 
secution, had departed in a body from 
the university of Prague. 

Spain, which we should expect to 
see forward in promoting institutions 
of learning, did not much avail herself 
of those fruits of science which had 
ripened to unequalled splendor under 
the Arabs in the eleventh century. 
Recalling, however, to mind the fearful 
struggles between the Christian and 
Arab population, struggles which for 
centuries shook that country to its very 
foundations, we can readily make al- 
lowance for the slow advance of learn- 
ing in this state of bellicose turmoil. 
Yet, in spite of these unfavorable con- 
ditions, the schools received no incon- 
siderable attention from the Christian 
rulers of the country. The ancient 
school of Oscny or Huesca, was revived ; 
Saragossa, which is said to have been 



212 



MtdioBwU OniveniiUi. 



founded in 990 by Roderico k S. -ffilia, 
began to thrive aj^in ; Valentia was 
founded by Alphonse of Leon, and 
Salamanca in 1239 by Ferdinand of 
Castile and Leon, both of which schools 
arrived at their greatest splendor and 
the position of universities at the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth century, as did 
also those of Vailadolid, Barcelona, 
Saragossa, and Alcaku 

In order to give a general survey of 
the progress of academic establishments 
in the different European countries, we 
subjoin a list of all mediaeval universi- 
ties, with the dates of foundation, which 
in doubtful cases are accompanied by 
a note of interrogation. The dates of 
the most ancient universities require 
no further remark after our previous 
ob6er\'ations : 

nOLAHD An> MOTLUrDu 

Oxfbrd 11— 

Otmbrldge 11— 

St. ADdrewt 1418 

Olugow 1451 

Aberdeen 14M 

Idinburgh IWO 

ITALT. 

Bologna 11— 

PUcensa 1248 

Piadaa 1*M 

Plaa 18W 

Vereelll 1«28 

Areue 18M 

Vlceott 1204 

Rome I«fi0(?) 

Naples 1W4 

Fermo l»l 

PerufU 1«0T 

P»rU 1861 

Stena 1320 

Parma 1412 

Turin 1405 

Florence 1»4S 

Verona 18J» 

Salerno 1250 (?) 

FaatCB. 

Pari! 11- 

Montpeller 1286 

Arifnon 1809 (?) 

Cahori 1882 

Ai\Joa 1348 

Lyons 1800 

flrenoble 1839 

Perplgnan 1840 

PolUers 1481 

Caen 1488 

Bordeaux 1112 

Nantes 144r* 

GBRMAXT. 

Prague ^ 184S 

Vienna % 1H65 

Ueldelberjr i:WJ 

Cologne 188S 

Krfurt 13W 

Lelptlg K . . Uryj 

Rostock 1419 

Grelfiwalde 14:>6 

Krelbun? 14^7^?) 

Trier (Treres) 1472 

Infoldsudi 1472 



Basle 1460 

Mayence 148t 

T&blngen 148t 

W&raburf 1400 

IPAB AVD POBTVOAL. 

Iluesea (T) 

Colmbra 197f 

IJsbon 1288 

ValenOa IttO 

Salamanca 1880 

Vailadolid 1940 

Barcelona 1600 

Sararossa 14T4 

Toledo 1490 

Alcala COS 

OTHm ooumnt. 

Louraln 14«5 

Buda 1460 

UpsaU \A7l 

Copenhagen 14T8 

Cracow 1804 

Entering upon the subject of the 
constitution or organization of the uni- 
versities, we need hardlj remind our 
readers that, in accordance with the 
nature of their origin and with the 
spirit of uniformitj which pervaded the 
middle ages, the constitation of the 
different universities was everywhere 
essentially the same. The university 
of the most ancient date was not an ex- 
clusive school or establishment existing 
only for the higher branches of erudi- 
tion, but it was a system of rarioiia 
schools, which chiefly aimed at the 
education of a competent body of teach- 
ers, a corporation of scientific men. 
This purpose could be, and indeed 
was, attained without splendidly en- 
dowed colleges or spacious lectnre- 
rooms. The university, in its first 
rudimentary appearance, is an ideiil 
rather than a reality. There are no 
traces of buildings exclusively appro- 
priated to academic parp36e8, but the 
first house or cottage or bam, if need 
were, was made subservient to scientific 
pursuits, whenever a licensed teacher 
or magister pleased to erect his throne 
there. Nor did the Studiam Generate 
confine itself to giving finishing touch- 
es of education, but it compiisod the 
whole sphere of development finom boy- 
hood to manhood, so that the boy 8ti|] 
" living under the rod" could boast of 
being a member of the university with 
the same right as the bearded scholar 
of thirty or forty years of age. The 
same academic privileges whicli were 
enjoyed by the magister or doctor ex- 



MeduBval Univernties, 



218 



tended to the lowest of the << famuli" 
that tixKl in the train of tlie academical 
etfrtige, A Corpus Academxcum^ with 
its Tarions degrees of membcrsbip, its 
distinction of nations and faculties, its 
peculiar orgranization and constitution 
—such are the characteristic traits of 
all the mediasval universities which we 
are about to examine. To the Corpus 
Academicum belonged the students 
(scholares), bachelors (baccalaurei), 
licentiates, masters (magistri), and doc- 
tore, with the governing heads, the 
proctors (procuratores), the deems (de- 
cani), and the rector and chancellor 
(cancellarias). To these were added 
officials and servants of various de- 
nominations, and finally the trades-peo- 
ple of 'the university, designated as 
stadewie citizens. Every student was 
obliged to present himself within a cer- 
tain time before the rector of the uni- 
Tenitv in order to have his name put 
down in the album of the university 
(matricnla), to be matriculated. Ho 
pledged his word by oath to submit to 
the kws and statutes of the university, 
and to the rector in all that is right and 
lawful (licttis et honestis), and to pro- 
mote the welfare of his university by 
every means in his power. At the 
same time he had to deposit a fee in 
the box (archa) of the academic com- 
manity, the amount of which was fixed 
according to the rank of the candidate, 
as it was not unusual for bishops, can- 
ons, abbots, noblemen, doctors, and 
other graduates to apply for member- 
ship in some universi^. Afler being 
matriculated and recc^ized as a mem- 
ber of the body, the student had to as- 
sume the academic di'ess, which char- 
acterised him as such to the world at 
large. The dress was identical with 
that of the deigy, and from this and 
other incidents every member of the 
school was termed dericus^ and all the 
members collectively clerus universi- 
iaiis^ whence clericus (clerc) came to 
designate a scholar, and laicus a lay- 
man and a dunce as well. The wear- 
ing of secular dress was strictly pro- 
hibited, and we can appreciate the 
henefit of this arrangement on consid- 



ering the exorbitant fashions which 
prevailed in those days, to the preju- 
dice of propriety and the ruin of pecu- 
niary means. To carry arms, chiefly 
a kind of long sword, was a matter al- 
lowed sometimes, more often connived 
at, but frequently prohibited at times 
of disturbances among the scholars 
Themselves, or during feuds with the 
citizens. Against visiting gamblings 
houses or other places of bad repute, 
passing the nights in taverns, engaging 
in dances or revels, or other diversions 
unseemly in a " clerc," we find repeat- 
ed and earnest injunctions in the stat- 
utes of the universities. Where schol- 
ars were living together in the same 
house under proper surveillance, they 
formed a community known as bursa. 
Bursa originally denoted the contribu- 
tion which each scholar had to pay to- 
ward the maintenance of the commu- 
nity, whence the term was applied to 
the community itself. The bursse had, 
like inns and public -houses, their prop- 
er devices and appellation:!, commonly 
derived from the name and character 
of the house-owner or hospes (host). 
Corresponding with the Continental 
bursas were the English hospitia and 
aulse, or halls, which, however, may be 
traced to higher antiquity than the 
former. It is not difficult to recognize 
in these institutes the germs of the la- 
ter colleges. At the head of the hos- 
pitium or bursa stood the conventor, 
who was commonly appointed by the 
rector, in some places elected by the 
members of the bursa, and who had to 
direct the course of study, guard the 
morals of the students, etc. If the 
hospes or host was a master or bache- 
lor, the functions of conventor natural- 
ly devolved upon him. The provisar 
took charge of the victuals, watched 
over the purchase and preparation of 
the same, and settled the pecuniary 
affairs with the hospes. Discipline in 
the bursas and halls was rigorous and 
severe, and it could not be otherwise 
at a time when the individual man 
was not restrained by a thousand for- 
malities and conventionalities, but al- 
lowed to develi^ freely his inherent 



ei4 



Mediaval (TniveniUet. 



foGtiltlcs and powers, oflen to such a 
degree m to prove prejudicial lo the 
peace of gocietj, unless Ihcy were 
curbed by tlie severe punishment 
which followed transpjredsion. We 
meet in the earliest times of the uni- 
versities with but very few fyslematic 
reguhitians aa far as internal discipline 
ta concen)e<l. This was n matter of 
practice, and lell rather lo be setthid' 
according to the requirements of each 
ease as it arose. Practice, a^j^uin, 
taught the pupil a lesson of ahBtenii* 
ousness and self denial which ruigbt 
go far to outdo in iU effect onr best 
text-bookK on moral philosophy. The 
oonviclorial houeea, a^ well as the nni- 
verfiity at Inr^^e, were poor, being 
without any funda but those which 
flowed from the contributions of the 
scholars and members of the univensl- 
ty, A life of toil and endumnce was 
that of the Bcholar. If he had a tire 
In the winter season to warm his hrohs, 
and juBt sufficient food to satisfy his 
geittrocioinic cravings f he found himself 
entitled to praise his stara. The h.'e- 
ture-rooms did not boast of anything 
like luxury in the outfitting, vSonie 
rough structure of the carpcnteyd 
making which rcprcscmcd the jmlpit 
was the only requisite piece of furni* 

• tore I chaii's were not wanted, as the 
pupils found sitting accommo<1iition on 
tlie iloor, which was strewn with straw 
or some other substance of nalurc'a 
own providing, and on which ardent 
disciples cowered down lo li.-ilen to the 
words of wisdom flowing front ihu li|»8 
of some celebrated master. When, ut 
a later period, the university of Paris 
went £0 far in fastidious innovations as 
to procure wooden stoob for the pupils 
to sit upon, the papal legiitea who had 
come on a visitation severely censui^d 
the authorities for their indiscretion in 
opening tlie university to the curi^nt 
of luxury^ which would not fail, they 
afllrmed, to have an enervating effect 
on the mind and body of the pupil ; 
and for a time the scholars had to de- 
•eend again fix>m I he stool to the l^uor. 
Elarly rising wa^ so general a hnhit in 

[those days as to make it almost super- 



fluous to tneutlon that the puptls bad 
gone through their morning worship 
and several lessons by the time t}ie 
more refined student of modem days 
accustomed to risc- 

The lowe&t of academical degree^ 
was ilmtoi* Bachelor (Biccalaurcua)** 
CJcrtain hislorical evidenceof the crca* 
tion of baclieVors at Paris appears in 
tho bull of Pope Gregory IX*, of the 
year 12S1, though tht^ degree must b$ 
of a remoter dale, for the pope alliidei 
to it not as a novel institution, but 
in terms which induce us to admit its 
previous c^xihtenee. When a scholar 
had attended the course of lectures 
prescribed by his faculty, and gone 
through a certain number of disputa- 
fious, he might present himself as a 
candidate for the bachelorship. Hav- 
ing passed his examination before tho 
doctors (miigifitri) of his faculty lo 
I heir i'atis fact ion, and taken the u-«ual 
oftlh of fidelity and obedience lo the 
university, he gained the actual pro* 
motion by the cliancellor. Ht^reupon 
he proceeded! with his friends and 
others whom he chose to invite, io a 
more or less brilliant eort^ge^ to the 
banquet which he provided in honor 
of the occasion* In the proce-ssion 
the staff or ftocptf^ (baculus, scoptrara, 
virga) of the university was carried in 
front of the new-made bachelor, as the 
emblem of his recently gained aca- 
demical dignity. The bachelors were 
still only a higher cla^s of students, 
nnd as such they ai*c frequently call- 
ed Archtscltolares, They, of course^ 
preceded the students in rank, wf»ro 
allowed to wear a gown of choicer 
matcrinh and the ciip called Qwzdr€^ 
tum^ while I he BtrrHiamf was reaerr* 
ed for the doctors. The bachelotrs 



I 



i !w f'tiliTUlnm!, Tlic nnclt'ij,i L-ijiii-iin of c irrxlng 



/' •n:iy in iaU-r lUiiCj wcfH csOf- 

wi I iLoufl, Viitpfttt, Rtii elberi, wlio 

give 111'/ UN, t f,.iii<t<.tlc Jerlr&tlutUf aucliu ^ 
{imtiliirliui), Ltit-fJtttrafi^r, rlc. 

t Qunrtrafu'm, thr i^y.i^fe ray ■ bimUum, ft^ 



« UMil ftar llw Ota 



Mediaeval Unitfirtitiis. 



21i 



cbsdj connected .with their respective 
ftcolties. and could not renounce this 
ooDuection, or even choose another 
place of residence, without special per- 
mission. Thej formed the transition 
from the students to the masters, as 
thej participated in the functions of 
both. They had to direct the private 
stodj and repetitions of the scholars, 
Slid work out the doctor*8 system, 
which the latter merely sketched in 
its principal theses and rudimentary 
oatlines. The haclielors,* in fact, rep- 
resented the hardest worked people 
of the body academic^ In later cen- 
turies they were actually ill treated 
by the doctors of Paris, who confined 
themselves to deliver one single lec- 
ture in the whole year, leaving all the 
reit of the work to their inferior fel- 
iow-groduates. Besides their share in 
teaching the students, they performed 
other important duties. They were 
the ioduslrious copyists of classical 
works, and while they thus toiled for 
the instruction of others in narrower 
or wider circles, they at the same time 
qaalifiei themselves for the attainment 
of higher degrees. Opportunities for 
the advancement of their own erudi- 
tion were given in the disputaiions. 
It was incumbent upon every doctor 
or master (magister) from time to time 
to bold and direct a public disputation, 
at which the doctors, bachelors, and 
ilodents were present. The doctors, 
dad in the furred doctor-gown (cappa, 
taphardum), and with the birreUuniy 
took their places on elevated chairs, 
which were arranged in a circle round 
the walls of the hall. The cross seats 
were occupied by the bachelors, behind 
whom mustered the plebeian students, 
in earlier times cowering on the fl^or, 
later on provided with the luxury of 
•eatm 

The presiding doctor, who directed 
the disputation « having entered the 
pulpit, chose from the text-book a 
certain passage and formed it into 
mn argument (qusestio), the develop- 
ment or exposition of which was call- 
ed determinatio. Now the task of the 
bechelorB commenced^ who, with re- 



spect to their functions, were called 
respondentes, and divided into defoU' 
denies and opponentes. They had 
their own pulpit, from which one or 
other individual of their class deliver- 
ed his argumentation pro or coUy and 
then awaited the response of his an- 
tagonist. When, however, the con- 
test required a rapid succession ol 
questions and answers, both occupied 
the same pulpit, facing each other in 
a contest which very often did not 
lack the stimulus of personal animosi- 
ty. When they became extravagant 
in their argumentation, strayed from 
the original question, or in the heat of 
the combat fell into excesses of lan- 
guage, it was the office of the presid- 
ing doctor to recall them to the point 
at issue, or, if need were, to impose 
silence. Sometimes, and perhaps not 
unfrequently, matters became so com- 
plicated as to leave a solution of the 
question more than doubtful, in which 
case the doctor, on his own authority, 
pronounced a decision, to which the 
contending parties bad to submit. Sim- 
ilarly to the practice prevalent in tour- 
naments, the disputations were wound 
up with a courtesy (rccommcndatio), 
a harangue in favor of the opponent. 
Students were not allowed to take part 
in the disputations directed by a doc- 
tor ; but they had their own combats 
of the kind, presided over by a bache- 
lor. 

While promotion to the bachelorship 
took place four times a year, the com- 
petition for the license could occur only 
once or twice, commonly at the open- 
ing of the new scholastic year. The 
scientific requirements differed in dif- 
ferent universities and faculties, and 
the course of promotion was not every- 
where the same in all its deti^ils, but 
the following outlines will, we hope, 
give a fair picture of the generality of 
cases. The day of competition for the 
license (licentia docendi) being agreed 
upon between the chancellor and the 
respective faculties, it was publicly an- 
nounced by placards at the entrance 
of churches and other conspicuous 
places, and several tunes pronounced 



216 



Medimval Unimrntiti, 



from the palpits of ihe clergy. On the 
appointed daj the candidates prcseDt- 
ed thenis-clves before Iheir re^p^ctive 
faculties, and on the morrow tliey were 
introduced to the chanci-4lor, to petition 
him that he would gracioysly accept 
them a3 candidates, and appoint the 
day of examination. Hereupon thny 
plcdjied them5elvea by oath to be 
obedient to the chancellor, to promote 
the welfare of the umvcrsity, to further 
peace and concord among ihe naliona 
and fMCultics, to dcliTer lectures at 
least during the first year of their 
licensf, to be faithful to the doctrines 
of the church, and to defend them 
a|i*aiui?t every hostile ag*TTession. Then 
X\w functions of the faculties began and 
ended with the examination of the can* 
didato, who, upon having passed gatis- 
faclorily, waa reconmiendcd to the 
chauceHor for the actual reception of 
(he license. Tims it becomes evident 
that the license was not the gift of thn 
faculty, but emanated from the chan- 
cellor as the I'epresenlalive of the hish- 
i>p, the church ; nay, more, in several 
Italian universities it was, in spitc of 
their dcmocnitic cliai-acler, customary 
for the bishop him=elf to preside at 
the examination for the license and 
Ihe promotion of the successful com- 
et itors, AVhen the chancellor wiih- 
beld his confirmation (as on several 
fiioiig of diflTereneea having arisen 
between him and the university it did 
happen )t the most brilliantly sustained 
examination failed to make a licentiate 
out of a bachelor* The examiiiation 
for the three higher faculties was held 
in the presence of all the doctors, any 
one of whom had a right to examine 
the candidate on the previously ap- 
pointed *Mhc3e8." In the theological 
faculty the questions were everywhere 
fixed by the episcopal representative, 
the chancellor, who even might inter* 
fere in the examinHtion itself. The 
same ri^ht could be claimed by him in 
the faculty of law. 

To pronounce judgment on tbe sci- 
entific qualifications of the candidate 
was the ta^sk of the whole faculty. On 
he appoiuted day tbo successful com* 



petitors appeared in the ehurcb In the 
presence of the chaneell»r, and, kneel- 
ing down befbi^ him {oh revermtiam 
Dei et sedts a postal icai)^ they received 
the license, ilie chancelior using the 
formula : ** By the autl*onty of God 
Almighty, the apostles Peterand Paul, 
and the AfK)stolic See, in whoso name 
I act, I grant you the license of teach- 
ing, lecturing, disputing, here and 
ever)' where ihroughout ihe worlds in 
the name," etc. (Ego, auctoritate Dei 
omnipotentis; et apostolorum Petri et 
Pauli, et apostolicae sedis, qua fungor 
in bac parte, do tibi llccntiam, legendi, 
regendi, disputandi, hie el ubiquc ter- 
rarum, in nomine Patris et Filii et 
Sptritus Sancti. Amen.) 

After the act was over there followed 
the payment of fees and the inevitable 
banquet. The arts faculty conferred 
with the license the degree of the raa- 
gisterium at the 8ame time. The li- 
cense enabled the candidate to teach 
in public at all the tmiver«itic8 of 
Western Europe. In the earlier oen- 
tuiies this prerogative of univcisal 
recognition of ihc license was not en* 
joyed by all the uuiversities. That of 
Paris was honored witli it as early as 
the year 1279 by Pop* Nicolas IIL; 
Oxford did not receive it until the year 
131D J while the university of Vienna 
enjoyed it erer since its foundation bj 
the bull of Pope Urban V. of the year 
1365. When the church had per- 
formed her functions by bestowing the 
license upon the candidate, he was not 
therewith a member of the faculty. 
For this purpose he lial to seek a p- 
proTal and reception from Ihe n?spect- 
ive faculty itself (|>etert^ licen tiara in- 
cipiendi in art i bus, in medicina, eta), 
wbich, in the regular course of events, 
was never withheld. There was in 
this proceeding a manifestation of cor- 
porate right and independence which 
I he fa cullies loved Id display on this 
occasion. Though hardly more than 
a formality, it tended to give expres- 
sion to their consciousness of beiog 
free eorponitions upon which no can- 
didaic could be intruded, though it were 
by the highest functionary of U»o uni- 



I 



I 

I 



A 



MedicBval Universities, 



217 



Tersitj. The bachelors, as we intimat- 
ed before, niaj be considered a higher 
d^ree of students, and the licentiateB, 
wc maj add, formed a lower degree of 
masters. Thej, therefore, sat in the 
same compartments with the masters, 
bat in the rear ; thej might, like the 
doctors, wear the cappa (gown), but 
not the hirrettum ; nor were thej al- 
lowed to deliver lectures on their own 
responsibility, but had to do so under 
the direction of a doctor. Licentiates, 
however, if reading bj appointment of 
a doctor, or in his stead, were con- 
sidered independent lecturers. To 
make the licentiate a doctor, nothing 
waa required but the act of promotion 
—a mere formality again, but of no 
^bt importance, for it was the final 
transaction which stamped the candi- 
date as a man of learning, the legiti- 
mate and competent teacher. 

The act of promotion was celebrated 
with the greatest possible splendor. 
The tolling of the church bells gave 
the signal fbr the procession to prepare. 
All the doctors, licentiates, bachelors, 
and students, having previously assem- 
bled in front of the candidate's house, 
Ihey, upon the second signal being 
given by the bells, moved in a pomp- 
ous cortege toward the church, where 
the sound of trumpets and timbrels re- 
ceived them upon their entrance. For 
the court, the judges, the magistrates, 
and the members of the different facul- 
ties^ separate accommodation was pro- 
vided, the populace filling the remain- 
iog space. The doctors of the respect- 
ire faculties having taken theu* seats, 
the chancellor opened the proceedings 
bj a brief allocution, in which he per- 
mitted the candidate to ascend the 
palpit (auctoritate canceUarii), The 
candidate delivered a speech (pulchram 
et decentem arengam) in honor of the 
&calty, and finally petitioned for the 
insignia of doctor. Upon this the pro- 
moter (one of the doctors of the 
faculty) ascended the pulpit and held 
an oration recommendatory of the can- 
didate, and then, following his invita- 
tion, all the doctors formed a circle 
aod received the doctorandus in their 



centre, where the promoter transmitted 
into his hands an open and a closed 
volume as the symbols of his scientific 
avocations, gave him the kiss of peace 
as the mark of friendship and frater- 
nity, and placed on his head the bir^ 
retium in manifestation of his new 
dignity. Immediately after these cere- 
monies the nevv doctor ascended the 
pulpit (now sua auctoritate) and de-^ 
livered a lecture on any theme fitting 
the occasion, thus availing himself at 
once of the acquired privilege. From 
this it would appear tliat the act of 
promotion belonged to the chancellor 
and faculty jointly, and not to the 
university as such, for its actual head, 
the rector, took no part whatever in 
the proceedings. The doctor alone 
had the right of wearing a gown orna- 
mented with silk and fur, and the 
hirrettum as indicative of his rank. 
In his social position he was considered 
of equal rank with noblemen, and 
therefore wore the golden ring and 
other attributes of the nobility, and in 
public manifestoes he always appears 
included in the aristocratic class of 
society. The titles of doctor and 
magister designated one and the same 
degree, and yet there was a shade of 
difference in their meaning, magister 
(master) being applied to scientific 
superiority or mastership, while doctor 
signified the person who, in conse- 
quence of this degree, exercised the 
functions of teacher or professor; 
hence, magister was the title of cour- 
tesy, doctor that of the professional 
man, a distinction which will become 
evident from phrases such as this: 
Magister Johannes, doctor in theologia, 
etc. Every doctor enjoyed the right, 
and during the first year of his license 
undertook the duty, of lecturing in 
that faculty which had promoted him. 
The officials and servants formed no 
inconsiderable appendage to the uni- 
versity. They are mentioned under 
the names of notarii, syndlci^ thesau- 
rarii, and the lower orders of beadles or 
famuli of various descriptions. More 
important, if not in position, yet in 
number, were the academic citiuns. 



218 



MecUcBvcU UttiverHiies. 



To these belonged tailors, shoemakers, 
laundresses, booksellers, stationers, and 
a host of different trades, iivhich liad to 
provide for the wants of university 
men exclusively, and formed a body 
distinct altogether from the city trades- 
men. All these servants of tlie uni- 
versity, the academic citizens and their 
servants, together with the servants of 
each individual belonging to the uni- 
versity . counted as members of tliis 
community. If we take into consider- 
ation that dignitaries of the church and 
of the state, and noblemen, visited the 
universities, accompanied by a numer- 
ous retinue of attendants and servants ; 
that even scholars of the ^'calthier 
middle classes were followed by two 
servants at least (and in this case call- 
ed " tenentes locum nobillum'' — gentle- 
men commoners ?), we can form an 
idea of the immense crowd of academic 
individuuls resident in the great uni- 
Tersities. As to the number of aca- 
demic members in different places, the 
opinions of modem historians are at 
variance, and in spite of their contro- 
versies the real facts of the case have 
not been ultimately elicited. Wood, 
in his histor)' of the university of Ox- 
ford, relates that in the year 1250 the 
number of members of that university 
amounted to 30,0001 This fabulous 
number scarcely ever found credence 
among modem historians until Huber, 
the German historian of the English 
universities, entered the lists as the 
champion of Wood's thirty thousand. 
Thougli, historically, he has no new 
light to throw upon the subject, he 
makes his deduction • in favor of the 
thirty thoui^nd plausible enough. Tak- 
ing into consideration the facts we 
have just advanced concerning the 
wide range of the term of academic 
mem hoi's, adducing, further, the circum- 
stance of Oxford having at that time 
attained the meridian of its glory by 
the immigi'atiun of Paris scliolars in 
1209, aiid the settlement of the mendi- 
cant friars there, he certainly urges on 
our minds the belief that the number 
of academic people must have been 
*nui<ingly great. But looking apart 



from the circumstance that Wood's as- 
sertion is not confirmed by direct docn- 
mentary evidence, that the average 
numbers mentioned before and after 
the year indicated turn in the scale 
between 3,000 and 5,000, we have 
scarcely any other measure by which 
to judge the above statement but the 
highest mark of numbers related of the 
other great universities. Allowing the 
most favorable circumstances* to have 
worked in unison toward assembling 
a large crowd at Oxford University, we 
yet believe no one will be likely to up- 
hold the assertion that Oxford Univer- 
sity was at that time, or at any time, 
more densely popukted than Paris or 
Bologna. In the year 1250, we know 
for a fact Germany was not in posses- 
sion of one single university, and yet 
the number of academic scholars in 
that country was not inconsiderable. 
From want of a Studium Generale in 
their own country, German scholars 
had to visit foreign universities, and 
the current is clearly distinguishable 
in two directions, one to Italy for the 
study of law, the other to Paris for 
arts and theology. Even admitting 
Oxford's fame for its dialectic and 
theological schools having been on an 
equality with that of Paris, we cannot 
conceive how, in its insular position, it 
could rival with the great continental 
universities which offered ready access 
to students from all parts of Europe. 
Now the greatest number ever men- 
tioned at the university of Paris is 
10,000, when in the year 1394 all the 
members of the university had to vote 
in the case of the papal schism, and 
even this number cannot be relied on, 
as, according to Gerson's admission, 
several members gave more than one 
vote, and others voted who had no 
right to be on the academic suffrage. 
Admitting, however, that the gross 
sum may be an approximately fair es- 
timate, we turn our attention to Bo- 
logna. This univei'sity undoubtedly 
contained all the advantages of celel^ 
rity, easy access, freedom of constita* 
tion, and whatever else may conduce 
to attract numerous visitors. Yet the 



MiOmval Univerntkf. 



Sl» 



holiest nnmber is 10,000, mentioDed 
IB tbd jear 1262. The universities of 
Sahmanca and Vienna, certainly not 
the least among academic establish- 
ments, even m the time of their great- 
est success and most flourishing condi- 
tion, could not boast of a number ex- 
ceeding 7,000. From these data it 
may become sufficiently evident what 
we have to believe of Oxford's thirty 
thousand, a nnmber which must stand 
OQ its own merits until it can be sup- 
ported and confirmed by direct historic 
tndence. It is true the Hne of demar- 
cation between trustworthy and fabu- 
Vnib accounts concerning numbers is 
very difficult to draw in medisval rec- 
ords, especially when they refer to 
ionitations which, exposed to the vicis- 
ntiiles of fortune, experienced a con- 
timitl influx and reflux of scholars, so 
tittt the famous Bologna, which num- 
bered 10,000 members in 1262, had 
iilkn to 500 in the year 1431, not to 
■ention the intermediate degrees in the 
icile of numbers. 

The whole body academic, numerous 
lod complicated though it was, did not 
reqoire any considerable amount of 
RgQiating and governing agents. By 
tbe simplicity of rule and govern- 
oeDt the middle ages characteristic- 
tUy differ from our own wonderful 
BEchineries which claim for every 
touch that is wanted the experienced 
laHids of hundreds of officials, and 
even then they are oftentimes served 
bidly enough. Self-government was 
the ruling idea in the middle ages, and 
consequently we see the universities 
directed in their complicated progress 
bj a number of officials comparatively 
■o small as to fill the modem observ- 
er with amasement. The university 
being divided into different bodies or 
corporations (the nations and faculties), 
it left the direction and management 
of these different institutions chiefly 
to themselves. At the head of the 
nations stood the proctors (procura- 
U>re«), and the faculties were governed 
hj their decns (decani). The range 
Off their official rights and duties will 
be Hhutrated later on. The president 



of the different nations and of the four 
faculties was the rector. He was elect- 
ed for the space of a year, or six 
months only, by the pi'octors or presi- 
dents of the nations, and in earlier 
times regularly out of the arts faculty ; 
at a later period, and in the younger 
universities, out of one of the nations 
and one of the faculties alternately. 
The rector was not to be a married 
man — at Vienna no monk cither; 
Prague required him to be a member 
of the clerical profession, imitating in 
this, as in almost everything else, the 
university of Paris, where even the 
professors were bound to celibacy 
(nullus uxoratus admittebatur ad re- 
gentiam). The rector was the head, 
the president (caput, principalc) of the 
whole university. Oxford and Prague 
alone, where the supreme power was 
invested in the chancellor, form in this 
respect an exception, but only so far as 
names are concerned, for the Oxford 
chancellor was eo ipso rector of the 
university. The rector's high dignity 
found expression in the title of Mag^ 
nificuSj which, in the middle ages, was 
allowed to none but princes imperial 
and royal, and a suitable dress distin- 
guished the highest official of the uni- 
versity whenever he appeared in pub- 
lic. It is surprising to loam what an 
important figure a university rector 
played on public occasions. At Paris, 
and later on at Vienna, the rector, 
when officiating in his avocation, pre- 
ceded in rank even the bishops. The 
rector of the university of Lou vain 
(Locwen) was allowed a life guard of 
his own ; and even Charles V., attending 
\m one occasion the convention of the 
university, took his place after the 
rector. At Leyden, the stadtholder, 
when appearing in the name of the 
states-general, allowed the precedence 
to the rector of the university ; and 
whenever the rector of Padua visited 
the republic of Venice he was received 
by the senate with the highest marks 
of honor. When at Vienna the court 
was prevented from attending at the 
procession on Corpus Christi, the rec- 
tor of the university took the place of 



m 



Medkevai UnivirHHet* 



the sovcrei^^n immedialolj bebind the 
ianctmimujn. From ihe exalted sta^ 
lion which a university rector occupied 
in society the fact is easily explained 
that digoi Lanes of the churt'h, nohle- 
raen of tlio highest rank» and even 
princed of blood royal, did not slight 
the rectorial purple of the universitjt 
The rector wore, like the deans, a 
black gown, but on festive occasions 
he was dressed in a long robe of scar- 
let velvet. He acted as t!ie president 
of the highest academic tribunal, and 
held hii* judicial fiessions, assisted by 
the proctors, and if he so pleased he 
might invite the deans as well. In 
cnminal cases occurring within the 
bounds of the university, he could in- 
flict any, trom tlie shghtest to the se- 
vercftl penalties of the law. Hence, a 
sword and a sceptre wore carried be- 
fore him when betra\'ersed the streets 
or appeared on public occasions. He 
convened tlje meetings of the univer- 
ksity corpora! ion St and conventions held 
under any other authority (even that 
of the chancellor) had no legal power 
in carrying resolutions. What we have 
I just stated concerning the rector holds 
(Eood for the chancellor of Oxford. 
When Paris and other universities 
contrived to free ihemsclvea from the 
influence of their diocesan, Oxford 
tiever loosened the close lies which 
[bound it to the church, and received 
[wilhout op]iosilion its governing head 
I from the hidhop. But it must be borne 
!n mind that the chancellor of the uni- 
versity had nothing whatever to do 
rith tlie church of Lincoln, wdiich had 
'its own cliancellor. Once appointed 
by the bisliop, Oxford's chancellor en-^ 
tered upon all the ftinctions, and the 
Eime independent position as the rec- 
Itor cl^ewhtTe. On the other hand, 
[iowcvcr, he represented the ehancel- 
' lor of the other continental universi- 
ties, who formed the connecting hnks 
between the university and the church* 
Duiiug the middle ages the functions 
of the continental chancellor were re- 
stricted to the few cases of promotion 
at which be acted as the repi*esentativc 
of the bishop, to give the saoction and 



uici 
io^H 



blessing of the church to pRseeeditigB 
w^hich were deemed as naturally be- 
longing to her proper sphere of puj>er- 
vision and authority. Having «> far 
flniahed our sketch of the different 
members of the Corpus AcademicDm, 
we may finally let them pass in review 
as they appeared at proeessiona and 
other public occasions, according to 
rank and precedence. At the head < 
the train we see, of course, the rectc 
followed by the dean, doctor* and \ 
centiatea of theolopy, with whom went 
in equal rank the sons of dukes and 
coy n is, and the higher nobility general* 
ly* These were succeeded by tlje dean, 
doctors and licentiates of the law fac- 
ulty, and the students belonging to 
the baronial order, and with the medi* H 
cnl fiiculty proceeded the students of^f 
the lower nobility. The fourth divi- " 
ston was formed by the dean and pro- 
fessors (magistri regentes) of the arta 
faculty and those bachelors of oiber 
faculties who were masters of arta» 
wliile the bachelors of arts followed, 
and the students closed the procc?-sion, 
they al*io being divided and following 
each other according to the eacoessioa , 
of the faculties just described, where, | 
ceteris paribus^ seniority gave the pre- 
ccdence« As in all institotionsof medi- ' 
ffival society tho division of ranks was 
strictly observed, and in case of need 
enforced in the most rigorous manner, 
a transgression in this respect being 
visited on any member with sevejT^ 
sometimes I he severest penalty ^ tbal 
is, expulsion from the university. 

All the diflTcrent degrees of individ* 
uals we have now examined were unit- 
ed in corporations, representing a unloQ 
either according to local divisions in 
ftohoftf, or arranged with respect to 
scientific pursuitf^ in faculties, Ccm- 
ceniing the nations of the universitiea» 
former writers intricated tliemselvea 
in great difficulties by recurring to 
hypotheses in which historical recurds 
did not bear thorn out. According to 
Bulneus and Huber the nations of the 
university represented the different 
trihes or nationalities wliich inhabited 
a country, and found a rallying pouit 



J 



IleJtcBval Untversities. 



221 



at the centre of science and education. 
Now, this asaertion is in open contrar 
diction to the character and nature of 
icademic nations, as maj become evi- 
dent from the following data which we 
have to advance. The nations of the 
English universities were, and always 
oontinned to be, those of the Borecdet 
or northgmen, and the AustrcUes or 
$ovtkemer$. Among the Boreales 
were indaded the Scotch, and with 
the Aostrales figured the Irish and 
Welsh. If it had lain in the plan of 
those institutions to preserve and foster 
the difference of national extraction 
and to develop it to the highest degree 
of contrast, how could this end be ob- 
tained by a corporation of men which 
ooDtiined in itself the contradictory 
ekoents of Celtic and Saxon deriva- 
tioD, elements then more sharply de- 
fined and opposed to each other than 
DOW ? Dbnecting our attention to Paris, 
we find at an earlier epoch there also 
only two distinct nations, the French 
and the English, the former compris- 
ing Soathem, and the latter Northern 
Europe. When these two nations 
were multiplied into four no regard 
whatever was paid to the different 
nationalities, for the divisions were 
the JSngiiihf French^ Piecardian^ and 
Norman, Why, we may ask, was 
the nation of the Normans to hold a 
•epanUe position from that of the Eng- 
lish, with whom they were one body 
from a political point of view, or from 
the French, whom they resembled close- 
]j enough in language and manners ? 
When at the University of Vienna the 
AuMtrian nation comprised the Ital* 
ians, and the Rhenish nation, besides 
Soathem Germans, the Burgundians, 
Frendi, and Spaniards, where is the 
principle of nationality preserved? 
Taining finally to the Italian univcr- 
riiies, we meet with hardly any other 
distinction but that of Cisalpine and 
JVan$alpine nations. How wide the 
difference between the nationalities of 
these academic nations must have been 
we may leave it with our readers to 
ooDdnde, when we state the fact that 
m the Tiansalpine nation we find 



Grcrmans, Scandinavians, French- 
men, Normans, Englishmen, and 
Spaniards. What then, will be the 
question naturally proposed, was the 
meaning, tendency, and character of 
academic nations ? The middle ages, 
in defining and separating the mem- 
bers of the university into nations, did 
not intend to sharpen the national con- 
trasts and differences, but, on the con- 
trary, to soften them down, perhaps to 
destroy them altogether. Not natu- 
ral extraction, but the geographical 
situation it was which proffered the 
criterion for such division. If it 
were otherwise, they would have ap- 
plied to these divisions not the term 
of Naiiones (that is, ubi natus), but 
that of Gentes. Its chief support our 
view will derive from the fact that in 
the middle ages the distinction of rank 
and avocations far outweighed that of 
nationalities in our acceptation of the 
term. Just as chivalrous knighthood 
represented, without respect to the 
different countries, an institution coa- 
lesced into one body or corporation, so 
likewise the school had its centres of 
unity, independent of nationalities. 
The chief criterion of nationalities, 
language, formed in the scholastic es- 
tablishments a centre of unity, Latin 
being the medium of conversation and 
literature, from the Baltic to the Adri- 
atic, and from Cracow to Lisbon. The 
division into nations consequently aim- 
ed at uniting the different tribes accf>rd- 
ing to the different quarters of the 
globe whence they had come. Every 
university was looked upon as a geo- 
graphical centre, and the different 
nationalities were grouped into na- 
tions, and designated by the names 
of those peoples which resided near- 
est to the central point, the university. 
It is true, the division recognized by 
the university did not object to second- 
ary combinations among students of 
the same nationality if they wished 
to enter into a league with their coun- 
trymen, so that the Germans, for in- 
stance, who belonged to the English 
nation at Paris, and to the Transal- 
pine nation of the Italian universities, 



MtduMwai (TniveriiiUs, 



art ii _T— a» HK3X a separate cor- 
^:. •? .3PW-: a i jrjrinrt. These 
— ^-* r=*^. -_ T**^ not recog- 
- .=— '3.7-i; rflaiion to the 
^ - T_- :a.-» c? cr.v»«c, each 
—^ -^ r>:nih3, the 
-r-. - '-^•.m-**- . The name 
:- ir- — -s.^- £ :heir oflficc, 
j:; : ' '-^--r^aiatives, the 
■ • :» -. -- r ..r.'f'-v^* of their re- 
• -. »*5* Vc jcIt graduates, 
. :^-> wj?; fL^ble to, the 
- r-- .V r--*: .TltfarniDg was 
■-'rr*. Ti^fre academic 
. >"-w -JM -olo guide in 
'■•t:«i -je whole uni- 
- •u'-"«?^i. eaoh nation 
^. --^ ^'i :he majority 
ic"- i" 'Jte four na- 
^ Ti:-;:i'ii? which con- 
— .: .-..-'^ .'H!:ribution.s of 
■ v-^ I- av exiomal rela- 
;.- ^i- ix! the like, 
^ -^.* eu -^'-x*.: in the con- 
■ .-.. r 1:5^ The proctor?, 
> -^ r head, formed 
■ »ii». -•si.iiciioii, and 
. .^ c ^c:or, who in 
-i^ vi'i-.tsr but the su- 
^,^^. 'iL aa- or. as it were, 

^ . •.> » .in. • I • ■.' have treat- 

.^.^*'^ ■tt.niT'^j^h formed 

^ . *i^ >* ii^'.si'm of the 

«»«M<«Mi r-.v -itJoiH^ndent 

^ .^ M* ■•,.T\'t'ore out- 

,^. • .•« iK'uhitM. As 

. ^ ..* »*■ t: bninolies 

^ '. ^ ^— •»'.•. into dis- 

g^ ^ •. . • in accord- 

.....'wr >^ rit of the 

, ^ /-^i^ •;* t'iioh re- 

,, .»i«*.-^i ;!t:o iiide- 

^ .» <*- v'^ iho form 

. -..in- ■■.*css. 1 he 

^ ^ ^^. w • ■-A'Tiii.ms or 

.»• ■ •• ■.*.-**'-^s. Jind 

^ .. ,^ -.^ ..vnisolvos, 

^ -U'-Mi: Siouhies 
^^ !.*<■' joonrly 
...•* ^iiv-wS^"., h:iv- 
^ . -.V T.-;viiimand 
,^ «»v«siic ?cho*)ls; 



but without entering any further npon 
probabilities and conjocturcs about 
their origin, we proceed at once to a 
characterization of the faculties at the 
time of their full dcvelupment, which is 
historically authenticated. In all uni- 
versities the faculties represented the 
«same quadripartite cychis of siienccs, 
that is, the Facultas Arthun^JurispruF' 
dent ice, Medieiua, and Theologies, It 
was not requisite for a Studium Gen- 
erule or university to comprif^e all the 
four faculties ; on the contrary, we find 
at the early e|)Och of academic life 
hardly any university which professed 
the four branches of knowledge. Paris 
and Oxford, for instance, were origin- 
ally con lined to arts and theolo;ry, to 
which the schools of medicine and law 
were added at a later penod, probably 
copied from the model schools of law 
and medicine in Italy. Turning to the 
peninsula of the A{»ennine3 wl* find 
there in the earlier times not a single 
university combining the theolo;»ica! 
with the other three faculties. Bolo^a 
did not gain the privilege of a theolojr- 
ical faculty before the year 13G2, 
when Po|.k; Innocent VI. decreed that 
in the law university the faculty of 
theology should be established, and 
theological degrees conferred by the 
siinie. Till then it had been customary 
for Italians to betake themselves to 
Paris, for the sake of obtaining pro- 
motion in tlieology. Of other Italian 
universiticj', Padua roc(Mved a theolog- 
ical faculty by Pope Urban V.. nix>n 
the intercession of Francesco da C'ar- 
rani, then Signor of Padua. Pisa, 
when obtaining the crmtirniation of 
Poi>e lii-n edict XII., wa-* allo.ved the 
*• studium sacrie pagina* ;'* but the riglit 
of pioniolion was a case altogether sepa- 
rately treated, and therefore expressly 
menti»Mi''d where it was ln'stowed, 
which, willi regard to Pisa, did not 
take jdaee. Ferrara also had a llieo- 
h>gieal srhool exclusive of the. right of 
promotion; but in the year loOl it 
siu-eii'ded in gaining the privilege of 
promotion in theology, which, by the 
cud of the fourteenth century, was 
more universally conceded. But even 



MedioBval UnivertiUes. 



388 



tben we find famous scbools, such as 
Piacenza, Pavia, Lucca, Naples, Pe- 
rugia, and even that of Rome itself, not 
participating in the said prerogative. 
The university of Montpellier (like 
most of the French schools, Paris ex- 
cepted) had no theological faculty ; 
•nd Vienna, confirmed by Pope Ur- 
bin in 1365, was not favored with a 
theological faculty previously to the 
year 1384. These exceptions were 
owing to various causes, partly of a 
local, partly of a higher and more im- 
portant nature. The interests of neigh- 
boring universities, for instance, might 
threaten a collision (as in the case of 
Prague and Vienna), or the pursuits 
of theological studies could be amply 
provided for by monastic and cathedral 
•diools. But the principal cause of 
this system appears to lie in quite a 
different circumstance. The method 
of scholastic sophisms had, in spite of 
the opposing movements of the popes, 
pined day by day more ground in the 
theological department, a fact which 
Bade a strict super\'i6ion, and there- 
fore a more limited scene for theolo- 
gical operations a real desideratum. 
The greatest caution was deemed ne- 
cessary, owing to the fact that even at 
F^, since the scholastic method had 
gained superiority, startling doctrines 
were advanced, divergent from the tra- 
ditional teaching of the church, and 
Bofiicient to cause apprehension. 

Admission to degrees depended first 
of all on the diligent attendance at 
lectures, which the candidate had to 
prove by testimonials, and secondly on 
a certain number of yeara which he 
had to devote to the special studies of 
his faculty. For the bachelorship of 
arts a suid}- of two, for the magisterium 
a study of three years was required. 
In the faculty of law the bachelor had, 
previously to his promotion, to go 
througii a course of three years, and 
after hcven years of study the license 
would be granted ; while the medical 
faculty imposed for the bachelorship 
two or tliree, for the license five or six 
years, diflforing in proportion to the 
candida!c*s previous studies in the 



faculty of arts. After six years of 
theological study the candidate could 
attain the bachelorship in theology, 
whereupon his faculty pointed out one 
or other chapter of Holy Scripture on 
which he had to lecture under the 
superintendence of a doctor. Having 
passed three years in these pursuits he 
might gain permission to read on 
"dogmatics" or doctrinal theology 
(libri sententiarii). Bachelors were, 
therefore, divided into haccalaurei bib- 
lici and haccalaurei sententiarii^ and 
both designated as cursores, A bache- 
lor who had begun the tliird book of 
the sentences became baccalaurens for- 
maiuSi and after three years' further 
practice, that is, after el€ve7i years of 
theological study, he presented himself 
for the license. The head of each faculty 
the dean (decanus), was elected by the 
graduates out of lus respective faculty, 
in somo cases for six, in others for 
twelve months. The community of the 
university was represented in three dif- 
ferent conventions : the consistory (con- 
sistorium), the congregation (congrega- 
tio univer3itatis),and the general as- 
sembly (plena concio). The first was 
originally the judicial tribunal, and 
though its functions became more varied 
at a later time, it continued to be the rep- 
resentative assembly of the academic 
nations. The congregation was a 
meeting of a more scientific, and, as it 
were, aristocratic character, including 
only the doctors and licentiates of the 
different faculties. It formed the 
court of appeal from the sentence of 
the respective faculties. The general 
assembly, comprising all the members 
of the university, was convened on but 
few occasions, and then only for the 
celebration of academic festivals, or for 
the publication of new statutes, or espe- 
cially in cases when contributions were 
to be levied from all the members of 
the university. On the last-mentioned 
occasion only had the students or un- 
dergraduates the right of voting; in 
every other instance they were restrict- 
ed to silence, or the more passive 
though uproarious mode of participa 
tion, by applauding or hissing the pro- 



SS€ 



Univenitifs, 



pmsih and dbcussions of their ciders 
ttiid betters. Here, ao^ain, we have to 
point out II cbaracleristic difference 
between ihe Cwroontane and Trans- 
inonUme umversities. While ihe 
whole constitulion of Ihc universities 
oil this side of the Alps, with tlieir 
laws, filatutea, eta. was dependent on 
the aristocmttc body of the ^radtiate?, 
the universities of Italj» and chiefly 
that of Bolo^ua^ display a thoroughly 
democratic character. At Bologna the 
students were the frentlemen who, out 
of their number, elected the rector?. 
The Italian rector was, in fact, identical 
with our proctor, though his functions 
extended over a wider rani^e. The 
firistocratic con^i^regalion of faculties ia 
almost totally unkuown tn Italian u Di- 
versities, where the nations preserved 
ibeir predominant ixisition all through 
the middle ages. The professors were 
hardly more than the officials of the 
fttudents, and in their service^ though 
111 the puy of the citizens. In the 
documents wo never rc^d of any legal 
transiiciion being performed by the 
faculties, but always by the rectors and 
ttie nations, or the rectore and the 
students* and even the pajial huUswith 
rciipect to the Italian universities freely 
uae the expression of a univenitaM 
ma^strorum ft scholanum* In ^hort^ 
the Italian universities were democ- 
racies, while the western, and chiefly 
the English universitiea present traits 
of a decidedly aristocnitie character. 

To complete the sketch of the organ- 
ization of mediasval universities we 
mti^i add a few remarks concerning 
their position in society, and the rela- 
tion in which they stood to civil and 
ecclesiastical authorities. The mem- 
bers of the body academic were sub- 
ject to three distinct tribunals : inter- 
nal discipline and jurisdiction belonged 
to Ihe functions of the rector and proc- 
tors; violations of the common law 
which were committed outside the 
pale of the university, and required 
the apprehension of the delinquent, lay 
within the pale of the bishop's juris- 
diction ; and all cases falling under the 
of airoeia were, for final deci- 



sion^ reserved to the law courts of llie 
crown. The bounds of ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction being rather va^ue and 
undefined, collisions between Iho 
siaslical and secular authorities woUi 
naturally arise. In order to provii 
for all emergencies the pope appoin 
ed con$ervatore$, individuals who 
no direct connection with the universi 
ty^ and could therefore the more effe< 
ualiy step forward as mediators ,wli 
they considered its immunities and HI 
erties endangered. The university of 
Oxford, for example^ was placed uacto 
the gutirdianship of the episcopal 
of London and Salisburv, and i 
*•* ward/* it would appear* contrived to 
get into BO many scrapes that tha 
charge of conservaton was rendci 
anything but a einteure. At one tim^ 
we find them in a controversy with the 
crown« at another in a deadly feud 
with the city magistrates, and again oc- 
casionally exchanging not very friend^ 
ly wishes with the bishop of Lincoln, thi 
diocesan of Oxford. Wlien Ihty foum 
their opponents refmctory,they appeal- 
ed to the pope, who at once despatch? 
ed a legate to the scene of action, wh 
in nine cases out of (en, the cuatro*^ 
veray was decided in favor of the uni 
versity, the darling child of ihe church* 
By the constitution of Pope GregorjTj 
IX., granted to Paris Univer?ity ii 
the year 1231, and soon extended t 
Oxford, the functions of the aeademio 
by the side of civil and ecclesiastic aa- 
thorities were more clearly and satis*, 
faclorily defined. Moat connpieuoi 
iu that constitution is a statute, 
cording to which the chancellor 
Paris as well as Ihe municipal au* 
thorities had to lake an oath to honor 
and maintain the privileges of the un 
versity. The relations l>etween ti 
academic authorities and the city 
istmtest or, to use an academic pi 
between gown and town, remained 
all lime^ in an unsatisfactory 
In Italy Ihe universities to a g\ 
tent owed I heir existence to the 
ality of opulent citizens, who 
Ihe institutions far loj highly to 
them by any infrlngcmeot or their prir 



1* 

i 





JfedicBval UniveniHes. 



ilqseiL Shoaldy bowever, the city of 
Bologna show difficulties in their path, 
tbe scholars, well aware of a friendly 
reception elsewhere, packed up their 
raluables, or pawned them in case of 
need, and emigrated to Padua. If 
the commune of Padua grew in 
any way obnoxious to the university, 
the rectors and students at once decid- 
ed on an excursion to Yercelli. The 
good drizens of Vercelli received them 
with open arms, and in the fulness of 
their joy assigned five hundred of the 
best houses in the town for the ac- 
oommodation of their guests, paid the 
professors decent salaries, and to make 
the gentlemen students comfortable to 
the utmost the city engaged two copy- 
iBtB to provide them with books at a 
trifling price fixed by the rectoiC If 
the Bolpgnese emigrants did not feel 
comfortable at Imola, there was its 
neighboring rival Siena, which allured 
the capricious sons of the Muses with 
prospects far too substantial to be slight- 
ed by the philosophical students. These 
/Eentlemen ha^'ing pawned their books, 
their *' omnia sua/* the city of Siena 
paid six thousand fiorins to recover 
them, defrayed the expenses of the 
academic migration, settled on each 
of the professors three hundred gold 
florins, and — to crown these acts of 
generosity — allowed the students gra- 
tuitous lodgings for eighteen months. 
However much an Italian student 
might have relished an occasional 
brawl in the streets, there was hardly 
an opportunity given him to gratify 
his pugilistic tendencies, while in this 
country the street fights between 
students and citizens otlen assumed 
the most fearful proportions. The 
more English citizens fostered a feel- 
ing of independence, derived from in- 
creased wealth and social progress, the 
lef s were they inclined to expose them- 
selves to the taunts, and their wives 
and daughters to the impudence, of 
some lascivious youth or other. The 
students, on the other hand, able with 
each successive campaign to point out 
a new privilege gained^ a new advan- 
tage won over their antagonists, would 
▼ou. v.— 15 



naturally find an occasional fight tend 
to the promotion of the interests of the 
body academic, besides gratifying their 
private taste for a match, which in 
those days, and in this country es- 
pecially, may well-nigh have attained 
the pitch of excellent performance. 
We do not think it necessary or d^ 
sirable to enter into the details of these 
riots between town and gown which 
are very minutely narrated in Huberts 
history of the English Universities. 
From the position which they had 
gained in England, it will easily be 
understood that the universities could 
not keep aloof from the great political 
contests of the times, so that as far 
back as King John's reign the politi- 
cal parties had their representatives at 
the academic schools, where the two 
nations of Aust rales and Boreales 
fought many a miniature battle, cer- 
tainly not always with a clear discern- 
ment as to the political principles which 
they pretended to uphold. 

It is very curious to observe the 
manner of self-defence which those 
gigantic establishments adopted when 
they were pressed by tlie supreme 
powers of church or state. In the 
first instance, they had recourse to 
suspension of lectures and all other 
public functions, a step sufficiently 
coercive on most occasions to force 
even the crown into compliance with 
their wishes. Should, however, this i 
remedy fail, they applied to still more 
impressive means, which consisted in 
dissolution of the university or its se- 
cession to another town. Even the 
most despotic monarch could not abide 
without apprehension the consequences 
of such a step, if resorted to by a pow- 
erful community such as Paris ancl 
Oxford, for it had received legal sanc- 
tion in the constitution granted by 
Gregory IX., and its results were 
far too important to be easily forecast 
or estimated. We have already allud- 
ed to the frequent migrations of Italian 
universities, and need, therefore, only 
point out the impulse imparted to Ox- 
ford by the immigration in 1209 of a 
host of secessionist students and pro- 



Midk»9iMi UnivernUeM. 



feesora from Paris, the unmistakable 
influence on the development of Cam- 
bridge exercised by secessionist schol- 
ars of Oxford, and the rise of the uni- 
versity of Leipzig upon the imoiigra- 
tion of several thousand German stii- 
dents who, with their pro fes sol's, seced- 
ed irom Prague, where Slavonic na* 
tjonality and Hussite doctrines had gain- 
ed the aj^cendencj over Germans artd 
Catholics. 

Tlie universities gradually eman- 
cipated themselves, rose hi^Jjer aud 
higher in tlie estimation of society^ 
and thus became the sole leaders and 
guides of puhhc opinion. Popes and 
emperors fcjrwarded their decrees to 
the most famous univei-sities in order 
to have them inserted in (he emles of 
conoti and civil law, discussed in the 
lectures of the jirofessor^, aud tlius com- 
mended to a favorable reception among 
the puhhc. As the highest authorities 
of chuH'h and state, so did individual 
tichului's appi^ciate the influence of 
Alma Mater. It was not uncommon 
■ifcr literary men to read tlnnr com- 
|>06ilions before ihe assemhled uni- 
versity, in order to receive its sanction 
and approval before publication* So 
did (jriraJdus, ibr example, recite his 
Topograpliy of Ireland in the conven- 
tion of the university of Oxford, and 
Rolaiidino his chronicle in the presence 
of the professors and scholars of Padua. 
W© cannot more filly conclude our 
dmarks on tbe social position of the 
Fmediaeval universities than by sliorily 
I narrating the occasion on which they 
[^splayed, for the last time in the 
■middle a^cs, the immense power of 
their social position. The university 
o*' Paris, as it b<_iioved the most ancieut 
and eminent theological sch<x>!, took 
the lead in the movements which were 
made in the case of the papal schism. 
Ever memorable will be the occasion 
when, on Epiphany, Kil>l, Geraon, the 
celebrated chancellor of the university 
of Paris, delivered his address on the 
subject before the king* the court, and 
a numerous and brilliant assembly. 
Owinyr to his exertions and the ci> 
Operation of the professors aud mem- 



I 
I 



bera of the university, certain proposali 
were agreed upon which tended to re- 
store peace and unity in the church. 
The king, for a time, was inclined to 
listen to these proposals, but being in* 
fluenced again by the party of Cle- 
ment VIX, he ordered the chancellor 
to prevent the university from takinji^ 
any iiirther step in the malttn All 
petitions directed to the king for a re- 
vocation of the sentence proving futile, 
the university proceeded to apply 
means of coercion. All lectures, ser- 
mons, and public functions whatsoever 
were suspended until it should hat© 
gained a redress of its grievances. 

In the year 1409 the Synod of Pisa 
was opened to take the long- desired 
ileps against the schism. The uni- 
versities were stnjngly represenletl by 
their delegates, not the least in im- 
portance among the venerable constit- 
uencies of the Occidental (1mn*h, the 
number of doctors falling little short 
of a thousand. Reformation of the 
church in its head and mem lie rs, and 
a revision of its discipline and hierar- 
chic organiisalion, were loudly pro- 
claimed by the representatives of the 
universities, foremost among all by 
Gerson, (he chancellor of Paris, the 
most brilliant star in Ihe splendid 
aiTay of venenible doctors and pre- 
lates of the church. 

Metl'ueval universities were trolj 
universal in their character, bein«^ 
united by one language, literature, and 
faith. With tlie sixteenth century na- 
tionalities were growing into over- 
whelming dimeniHions ; national liter- 
ature rose in deli ant rivalry and joined 
revived antiquity in marked hostility 
against the scions of scholasticism ; 
and, to give the final stroke, the unity 
of faith was crumbling piecemeal un* 
der the reforming spirit of the age. 
The ties which had bound medijeFaL 
universities to each other and to their fl 
common centre were sundered Som« ■ 
became defunct ; others led a precari- 
ous existence ; all had a hard and^ 
troublesome time of it — a fact touch^ 
ingly recorded in the annals of Vienna t 
"Ann. 1528: Propter ruinaiu uni- 



I 




I7i€ Lady of La Oaraye. 



W 



renitatjB nuUiu incorporatas est." 
This sad epitaph might have been 
written over the portals of more than 
ooeoniversitj and public school by the' 
middle of the sixteenth century. 



LITERATURK. 
**HlstorU UnireniUfcte Paris.*' 



Pari«t 



16tt. 
Wood, **HIstorU et AntiqnlUtes UnirenitatU 

Osoa.** Ox., 1668. 
Hanuml Coningil Opera (torn, r., " AntlqulUtljf 

QtU, *'Hiftoria de las UolTersldades, Golefrios. 
AadetnUs j demas Cuerpos Literarios de Eipa&a/^ 
etc. Madrid, 17S6. 
Hohcr, **IMe loglischen Cniyersit&ten." Cassel, 

1S». 
Bjer, "History of the Unlyersity and Colleges of 

Cwbridge.'' 
Djtr, '^The PriTilegee of the Unirersity of Cam- 

Wdie." 
Fabrudos, '' HIstoria Academla Plsanas.** 1 7^1. 
Tlaoviio Bliii, " Bf emorie Istoriche della Perugina 

CnirmltiL'' Pemg., 1$16. 
Ibnenoo OoUe, "Storta dello Studio di Padora'* 

Pll,18S8i 



Plttro Napoli-Slgnorelll, " Yicenda daUa Coltara neUt 

DueSldlie." NapoU, 1784. 
Jacobus Pacclolatus, "Fasti Gymnasli PaUrini.** 

PaUT.,1757. 
Seraflno Masettl, ** Memorle Storiche sopra I*Ual- 

YersiU di Bologna." Bolog., 1310. 
O. Orlglia. " Storia dello Studio di NapoiL** Nap., 

1758. 
P. M. Renazzi, "Storia deir Unirersiti di Roma."' 

Roma, 1804. 
J. BottilUrd, "Histoire de TAbbaye Royale de St. 

Germain dee Pres." Paris, 17:M. 
J. E. Bimbenet, " Illstolre de l*Univer8lt6 de Lois 

d*0ri6ans." Paris, 1880. 

F. Nftve, " Le College des Trois lAngues k I'UniTcr- 
slt^ de Ix>uvain." Bruxelles, 1856. 

Melneni, "Verfassung und Verwaltung Deatscher 

Unlversit&ten.*' OdtUngen, 1801. 
R. Kink, "Geschlchte der Kaiseriichen Unirersitit 

suWien." Wlcn, 1S51. 
WaUsskl, '* Conspectus ReipublicsD Llterarlss in 

Uungaria." Bad«, 180S. 
C. J. Hefele, "Der Cardinal Xlmenea." TQblngen, 

1851. 
J. P. Charpentier, " Hlstnlre de la Renaissance det- 

Lettres on Europe." Paris, 1848. 
a Volght, "Die Wlederbelebung des Classischea 

Alterthums." Berlin, 1859. 
J. B. Schwab, " Johannes Gerson," etc. W&rslrarg^ 

1858. 

G. Tlraboschl, "Storia delU Letteratora Itallana.**' 
Yeaesia, 1828. 



THE LADY OF LA GARAYE .♦ 



IVo hundred years ago there dwelt 
in the lordly castle of Dinan, in Brit- 
taoj, the chivalric Claud Marot, Count 
d6 la Garaye, and his gracious lady. 
1(8 fortress like walls and majestic bat- 
tlements reared themselves against the 
flky and frowned upon the woods and 
▼ales around as if with conscious dig- 
nity and power. Fair Dinan's town 
nestled in its protecting shadow as a 
gentle maid might seek security beside 
the burly form of some rough-appear- 
ing but tender-hearted giant. The 
porter kept its gates with a jealous yet 
a kindly eye, as should befit the keeper 

• The Lady of La Qaraye. By the Hon. Mrs. Noz^ 
lino, pp. llOi Mew-Tork : Ansoo D. F. Rao- 



of his master's home, which was aU 
once the sanctuary of his knightly 
honor and the hall of his knightly 
bounty. The gray-haired old sene- 
schal, with shoulders slightly stooped 
by aj?e and reverence, met the courtly 
guests, and bowed them welcome wit^ 
a paternal smile and bustling orders to- 
the underlings to prepare all needful 
things for their better cheer. The 
courtyard echoed to the baying of the 
hounds all eager for the chase, and 
men at arm* in. troublous times assemr 
bled here, mustered by the doughty 

" CapUitfis, then of warlike fame, 
Clanking and glittering as they came.** 

A retinue of well-fed servants and. 



J%0 Lady of La Oarayt. 



buxom maids prepared the goodly 
feast, and ordered well the halU aud 
chambers with their quaint and com- 
fortable furniture. Its noble master 
and mistress held swaj within their 
. castle with fitting grandeur of demean- 
or, albeit with that graciousness which 
marks the gentlefolk. Honored bj 
all the country round, rich in worldly 
goods, yet richer in virtue, happy in 
each other's love, the young count and 
his lady had but one thing to mourn, 
and that was that Grod had Icfl them 
childless. A cruel accident banished 
for ever all hope of any heir : and so 
they lived and died, yet leaving a name 
behind them *^ better than sons and 
daughters ;*' and on this our English 
poetess has weaved a poem of sur- 
passing beauty. We purpose to pre- 
sent some idea of it to our readers, 
merely saying by way of preface that 
if any one wiJl read it as it is, he may 
dispense himself the further perusal 
of this article, which cannot convey in 
partial extracts that charm which per- 
vades these flowing pages when undis- 
turbed by tlic rude comments of a 
Stranger. 

The poem opens with the prepara- 
tions for the chase, in wliich the lady 
is to take a part, and at once the noble 
pair are described to us : 

'•* Che«rfiil the host, whatever sport befallt, 
Cheei;ful and courteous, full of manly grace. 
His heart's frank wrlcoine written In hid face ; 
So eager, tlmt his pleasure never cloys, 
Bat glad to share whatever he enjoys ; 
Rich, liberal, gayly dressed, of noble nilcn ; 
Clear eyes — full, curving mouth — and brow serene ; 
Master of speech In many a foreign tongue, 
And famed for feats of arms, although so young ; 
Dexterous in fencing, skilled In horsemanships 
Ills voice and hand preferred to spur or whip ; 
Quick at a Jest and smiling repartee. 
With a sweet laugh that sounded frank and free, 
But huMing satire an accur^vd thing, 
A poisoned Javelin or n scrpent*s sting; 
Pitiful to the poor ; of courage high ; 
A soul that could nil tumn of fate defy ; 
Qentle to woman ; reverent to old age/' — 

We liastcn at once to add the second 
portrait^ painted with a delicacy of out- 
line and warmth of coloring which 
•display tlie touch of the master hand : 

** like a swe«.'t picture doth the lady stand. 
8tlll blushing as she bows; one tiny hand. 
Hid by a pearl -cm broldere<i gauntlet, holds 
Her whip, and her long robe s exuU^rant folds. 
The other hand Is bare, and from her eyes 
*" " I now and then the lun, or softly liet. 



With a caresainf touch, upon tlie neck 
Of the dear glossy steed she loves to deck 
With saddle-housings worked In golden thread. 
And golden bands upon his noble head. 
White is the litUe hand whose Uiper fingers 
Smooth his fine coat— and still the lady lingers. 
Leaning against his tide ; nor lifts her head. 
But gently turns as gathering footsteps tread ; 
Reminding you of doves with shlftinf. throats. 
Brooding \n sunshine by their sheltering cotes, 
lender her plumdd hat her wealth of curl? 
Falls down in golden links among her pearls. 
And the rich purple of her velvet vest 
Slims the young waUt and rounds the gracefal 
breast." 

The invited guests having all ar- 
rived, the merry party set off with 
cheers and laughter, little dreaming of 
the sad ending of so joyful a day. The 
game secured. Count Claud and his 
lady, returning together, meet with a 
roaring stream over which they must 
leap their horses : 

*• Across the water fall of peak^ stones — 
Across the water where it chafes and moans — 
Across the water at its widest part— 
Which wilt thou leap, lady of brave heart?" 

Now comes one of the finest pas- 
sages in the whole volume. Who can 
read it without finding at the last line 
that he has been holding his breath ? 

*' He rides— reins in— looks down the torrent*s course, 
Pats the sleek neck of his sure-footed horse — 
Stops- measures spaces with his eagle eye, 
Tries a new track, and yet returns to try. 
Sudden, while pausing at the very brink, 
The damp, leaf-covere<l ground appears to sink. 
And the keen instinct of the wise dumb brute 
Escapes the yielding earth, the slippery root ; 
With a wild effort as if Uking wing, 
The monstrous gap he clears with one safe spring ; 
Reaches — (and barely reaches)— past the roar 
Of the wild stream, the further lower shore — 
Scrambles — recovers — rears— and panting stands 
Safe *ncath his master's nerveless, trembling 
hands." 

But one word mars the power of these 
lines ; the word iofe in the line, 

" The monstrous gap he clears with one safe spring." 

The safety of the unexpected leap is 
told us just one instant too soon. There 
is an indescribable pleasure derived by 
tlie mind in being held in suA))ense 
in the contemplation of one passing 
tiirough imminent perils, and that sus- 
pense cannot be broken, though it were 
but for the short time that one takes to 
pass from one side of the page to tlie 
other, witiiout loss of power in the de- 
scription, and of interest to the reader. 
But the lady! will she attempt to 
follow ? Did she not mark his hair- 
breadth escape ? The confuaion of 



The Lady of La. Qarayt. 



tilOQghtin the mind of the couut caused 
bjbis own peril, the sadden, unlooked- 
for leap, the fear l^t his wife should 
try to follow ere he can turn to warn 
her of the danger, the dumb horror 
which frizes him as he sees her horse 
in the air leaping to his certain death; 
are told in a few rapid lines, and then 
follows the thrilling tableau : 

* Vonmrd they leaped I The j leaped—* ««lored 

fluh 
Of life and beauty. Hark I a sudden crash— 
Bieot iritb tliat dreadful sound, a man^s sliarp cry— 
Proo«—''nrath, the crumbling bank—the horse and 

bdy Ue V 

Like a madman he rushes to her relief, 
clambering " as some wild ape" from 
branch to hranch, trampling the lithe 
saplioirs under foot with giant tread. 
Hia love, his fear, his trembling excite- 
ment are told in one line : 

"Tbeitrength is la his heart of twenty lives." 

What a depth of meaning there is in 
that one sentence, and how happy the 
choice of words. Wheni in reading, 
we came upon the word heart where 
we expected to find " arm'' or " frame," 
or some similar term which would ex- 
press the increase of muscular and 
nervous power consequent upon strong 
mental emotion, we confess to having 
been startled by its originality, and we 
admire the line as it stands as a master 
stroke of true poetic genius. 

Claud is 80 shocked at finding his 
beautiful and passionately loved wife 
apparently dead that he is struck deaf 
and dumb with grief. The noise of the 
passing hunt, the baying of the hounds, 
the cheery calls of the huntsmen, and 
6hou(8 of the merry guests he neither 
bears nor heeds. It is some time ere 
be realizes the terrible accident. At 
last the thoughts ffhape themselves in 
his disordered brain, and, with one wild 
glaoce at her prostrate form, he catches 
her in his arms, and 

** Parts the masses of her golden hair, 
He lifts her, helplen!, witli a shuddering »ire, 
He loc^s Into her face with awe-struck eyes : 
8be dJea— the darUng of his soul --she dies !'* 

Then follows one of those passages 
marked by that deep pathos for which 
tills poem is so remarkable : 



** Ton might hare heard, through that thought's Unr- 

ftil shock. 
The beating of his heart, like some huge clock : 
And then the strong pulse falter and stand stUl 
When lifted from that fear with sudden thrill 
He bent to catch faint murmurs of his name. 
Which from those blanched Ups low and trembling 

came: 
* Claud !* she s^d : no more — 

But never yet, 
Through all the loving days since first they met. 
Leaped his heart's blood with such a yearning row 
That she was aU in all to him, as now." 

Some passing herdsmen came to their 
relief, and the bruised and corpse-like 
form of the lady is borne back to the 
castle on a rude litter of branches. It 
is impossible for us to refrain giving 
the strongly drawn contrast in the fol- 
lowing descnption : 

" The qtarry lights shine forth from tower and hall. 
Stream ttirough tlie gateway, gUmmer on the wiil, 
And the loud pleasant «tir of busy men 
In courtyard and in stables sounds again. 
And through the windows, as thai deatt^-bier paMM, 
Tliey see th>> shining of the ruby glassies 
Set at brief intervals for many a guest 
Pre)iared to share the laugh, the song, the Jest ; 
Prepared to drink, with many a courtly phrase. 
Their host and hostess—' Health to the Garayet 1* 
HeHlth to the slender, lithe, yet stalwart frame 
Of Clau.l Marot— count of that noble name ; 
Health to the lovely cuuutesH : health — to her I 
Scarce seems she n<no %cith faintest breath to 
stir.'* 

And thus the first part of this exqui- 
site poem ends. The second part is the 
'* Convaleacence" of the wounded lady. 
Her life returns, but she learns that 
she is an incurable invalid, that while 
life lasts she must remain maimed and 
sick, and, most cruel thought of all, 

" Never could she, at close of some long day 
Of pain that strove with hope, exulting lay 
A tiny new-born infant on her breast'* 

She draws her fate from the unwilling 
lips of the physician, in whose friendly 
eyes the tears are glimmering as he 
pronounces 

" The doom that sounds to her like funeral belli.** 

And now she hurriedly glances in her 
mind at all the dreaded consequences, 
among which arises the jealous fear 
lest she should lose the love of her be- 
loved Claud. His wife, indeed, but no 
longer bis companion ; only to have 
the hours his pity spared. Heart- 
broken and crushed, she murmurs 
against the holy will of God and prays 
for death. 
The poetess here iDtroduces a thought 



S30 



77ie Iiady of Xa Garage. 



which ghows her deep acquaiotaDce 
with the human heart. We shnrvk 
ft-um &ytuj>athy for our wounded jjride, 
and strive to smile when our hearts 
are aching: 

'^ W&n thine auch itnllc* ; u eveniof fanlight &lla 
On » deserted hoiue wboia empty walii 
No Ion|c<'p fcho to the cbiliir«n i play, 
Ur yoict' of ruined inmftte« f]«d rwhj ; 
Wljerc wintry irlnda bIodc, wllh Idic state. 
Move the doir •wiogtoK of It* ru«ly gale/* 

Her high-sou!ed husband grieves to 
Mee her droopinj^; under the jealous 
loss of her gtren^th and bf?aut)% and, 
ID bis undoubtiug love, unnble ta aus* 
pect that she fears to lose that love, 

" Wontlen everroort thut beauty 'i IciMt 

59 fodi ft Boal f bould m«iq to mr^ n crof «, 
otti e«ie evening In thiit ttiilel hu«li 
That lulU the falltuir duy, when nil ihcfntah 
Of various »ouiid» «eem hurled witii the Bui>, 
U« told bl| tbought. 

At wIoUt itreAinleti run, 
Freed by »onie tuddcu iLkv, and «wtfl make vay 
Inlo the DHtunil eb»mneU whwre tbey play, 
Bo leaped her youn;! heflft to hit U*n>ler toue. 
Bo aiiiftwcrlni; to bl» imrditli, ri'«nmed her oirn ; 
And all her doubt and all her grief coufest.*' 

The unbunlening of the sore, doubtmg 
heart and the tender, eomfortlng, lov- 
ing assurance of Claud is one of the 
choicest scenes in the poem. Never 
did youthful lover pour ioiih more im- 
passioned uttemrice^ than fell frum ibo 
lips of that true man and noble hus- 
ban<h lie lell« her Ibiit tier W-auty 
was but one of the ** hriglit riipjjles 
dancing to the sun'^ glancing upcjn the 
silver at ream of his happy life, and 
continuea the metaphor : 

" River of »ll my hope* tlimi werl and art; 
The currtfnl oif Iby being bear* my heart." 

And hist of all, when she, still in- 
crednlous of liij?! unsiwerving faith, 
BigliJ^ her pirliBh douhts and mcnans 
for death, he with full heart and fer- 
vent words repents hi.4 tale of love 
an<l makes profession of love's bolde^^t 
offering, tlie sacrifice of his life, if it 
were the will of Gixl, could she return 
again ** to walk in beauty as she did 
belbre ;** and then he whispers to her 
the tbought tiiat has arisen in hi^ soul 
to answer the ** wherefore*' of the dread- 
ful accident ; 

*• ft mav be Ood, who vmr nurcareleu tlfc^ 



(flliftoe at! wa Abongkl of In «nr youth *• brig' 
^ .. >.,■• n.^ coining Joy from day to day), 
I MUt all joy lo bid ua lesarn 

I ' t our borne ; and make «i tan 

i . ■.,. . i.'jhanied earth, vhere mueU Jib 
To higher aJint and a forgotten be«Tais.^^H 

It m no little comfort in this a 
fiensual worldlinesa and practical 
hef in the providence of God H 
the voice of Christian philosophy s 
ing yet clear above the grovellii 
terance§ of a too often degraded i 
The thirtl part of our poem coot 
and exemplifies ihis tbought* 
world is God's world ; we ar< 
people of his pasture, and the sIk 
his hand. Bereavement, pain, u\ 
Been and tmexplaincd sorrow bek 
life, and play their part in schoolii 
soul to higher aims. The heart 
learn to wait on God. " Peace 
come in that day which is known 
the Lord/* says the author of the 
talion of ChrisL We, too, can 
our own experience to the prooi 
know that a stronger hand a 
wiser heart has led and loved us. 
quote but one extract from this 
part ; it is the summary of the w 

** All that our wltdoro Icnotrt, orevereM), 
lilblt: that Ood haili ;^' : 
Andvhen bit Spirit 9>li 
The great word CoMri>iL 

To these sorrowing ones, h& 
beneath the cruel blow, and in 
ing over bli[]jhted hofics, God & 
friend; His friend, the minister o 
counsel and His comfort a holy i 
Let us transcribe hl« portrait ; 

»i f,...A... }A. »MrijjandelcK|aenily wife; 
^ " fervor of bit watchfiil eye* ; 

• nlty of eonalant pnyer 
(ar«b«ad, htg h umI hnmi ao4 1 



The thin mouth, thouglt not puMtunleai, yet 
M'lth the rveet enim that ipeaki an angel^t i 



\[,.. ,■>.. I. .. ....rvlce to bii Ood*a hebvct, 

i iig how to aarva ym beak 
^uDg : with iftanlwiod't 
1-. ....... ijmrency the pen#Jve ir*--'- 

Pa4c u'lt with ftlekneja, but trUh f^ 

The body tMked, tbe One mlDd i-^ 

WUh s<»meth1ng fhlnt and tmgWc 1 . 

Afl though ^twerc but a lamp io kftld • vouiL ' 

Wonls of holy counsel, lesjfioi 

humble sanctifying obedience, mi 
with mild rt^ proof, yet full of the 
est and friendliest sympathy, fall 
the lips of the good priest and c 
the unquiet spirit to rt:st. Suah ^ 




I%€ Zady of La. Oarayt. 



had doobcless fallen apon her ears be- 
fore, bal she had onlj been a hearer ; 
DOW Bbe was perforce a learner. How 
natoral her complaint : 

"What had I done to earn such fiOe ftrom Hearen ?" 

And how def^lj does the priest, 
wise in the counsels of God and 
in the sorrows of the human 
heart, catch up the text and bring 
its argument home to the questioner ! 
*• Wlit have the poor done ?" he 
asb in return, ^ what has the babe 
done that is just bom to die ? ... . what 
has the idiot done ? . . . . what have the 
hard-worked factory giris done ? ' 
(the verse says not factory girls, but 
implies it, a pretty little anachronism 
vhidi we blame not, for the lesson of 
the Lady of La Garaye was meant for 
our own times) . . . . ^ what have the 
ihuidered innocent done ? ' And then 
he tells her, in strong contrast to her 
own hixury and ease, of the number 
who sicken and die, forsaken, uncheer- 
ed by kind words, unaided by kind 
hands, wanting the commonest com- 
forts of health which become craving 
lecessities for the sick, and bids her 
know that 

**What we muit •nffer prores not what was done/* 

The lady listened, and in her heart 
arose the wish to help the sick, the 
tged, and the poor. God had chosen 
her to be one of his angels of mercy 
to (he suffering, and a minister of ben- 
edictioo to those that mourn. And, 
choosing her, he called her to the trial, 
tod led her, all unwilling yet, through 
the fire of affliction. How her wish 
vas accomplished and what fruit it 
bore is quickly told : 

** Wbert OQ«e the akifUng throng 
Of merrjr plajmatet met, with dance and song, 
Iioag rmra of dmpio beds the place proclaim 
A botpUal, in all things bat the name. 



In thai same castle where the larbh feait 
Lay spread that fatal night, for many a guest 
The sickly poor are fed I Beneath that porch 
Where Claud shed tears that seemed the lids !• 

scorch. 
Seeing her broken beauty carried by. 
Like a crushed flower that now has but to die, 
N The self-same Claud now stands and helps to guide 
Some ragged wretch to rest and warmth inside. 
But most to those, the hopeless ones, on whom, 
Karly or late, her own sad-spoken doom 
Uath been pronounced— the incurables— sb* 

spends 
Her lavish nity, and their couch attends. 
Uer home Ls made their home : her wealth their 

dole ; 
ller busy courtyard hears no more the roll 
Of gilded Yebicles, or pawing steeds, 
But feeble steps of those whose bitter needs 
Are tbelr sole passport. Through that gateway 

press 
All varying forms of sickness and distress. 
And many a poor worn face that hath not smiled 
For years ; and many a crippled child. 
Blesses the tall white portal where they stand, 
And the dear huly of the Uberal hand." 



Nothing, we think, could be added 
to increase the beauty of this picture. 
In noting the impressions made by the 
perusal of this charming poem one 
cannot help calling attention to its 
healthful, elevated tone, and the pu- 
rity of thought which perv^ades the 
whole. It is a .gem of poetic art 
which all lovers of the true and beau- 
tiful must admire. It were needless to 
say that even by our copious extracts 
we have not presented all that is 
worthy of comment. There are very 
few verses, indeed, in the poem which 
do not possess equal merit with those 
of our quotations. The deep pathos 
which reigns throughout as its flowing 
rhythm glides smoothly along, b like 
the murmuring of a brook through 
quiet woods on a sunny day, compel- 
ling the chance wanderer to stop and 
pass a dreamy hour away by its leafy 
banks. There is a singular air of 
peacefulness and repose pervading 
it that we think to be its peculiar 
charm, and we envy not the reader 
who can rise from its perusal without 
feeling that he has enjoyed a delight- 
ful feast for both mind and heart. 



S82 



Proceman in the Church of the Holy Sepukhrem 



PROCESSION IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRK 



A PILGRIMAGE to the placefl conse- 
crated by the events in the life oF our 
Lord is, of necessity, full of the deep- 
est interest. However familiar we 
may be at home with the narrative 
of all that Christ has done for us, that 
mighty work of love is invesu»d with 
new force and power when we kneel 
at the places where it was wrought — 
when we meditate on the incidents of 
our redemption on the spot where it 
was effected. The offices of the Pas- 
sion, in Jerusalem, have, therefore, a 
more striking character dian in other 
lands. The ritual observances of the 
Catholic Churcli, everywhere so touch- 
ing, have in the Holy City the addi- 
tional impressiveness of recalling to 
memory events in' the places where 
they occurred. 

Every day in the year there is a 
procession in the church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, which is one of almost start- 
ling solemnity. Those who have been 
privileged to take part in it can never 
forget the emotions it excited, and 
which are renewed daily as the func- 
tion proceeds. Although no language 
can adequately express these feelings, 
yet a description of the procession it- 
self, with a reference to the circum- 
stances in which it is made, may be of 
advantage, and aid, however imper- 
fectly, in the understanding of this 
most impressive devotion. The detail 
of a liturgical service involving many 
repetitions and sentences in Latin is 
necessarily somewhat dull ; yet it is 
Loped that the unusual character of 
the office about to be described will 
have sufficient attraction for the read- 
ers of The Catholic World to 
induce them to peruse these pages. 
Should the writer furnish other sketch- 
es of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 
they will probably be found of more 
general interest than this paper. 



Late in the aflenioon, compline 
being finished, the procession is form- 
ed in the chapel of the Franciscans. 
Each person is furnished with a light- 
ed taper, which ser\'es tlie double pur- 
pose of honoring the function and for 
reading the book of the hymns and 
prayers. The 6rst time any one is 
present a large wax candle is given 
liim, and this he is permitted to take 
away as a remembrance of the office ; 
on subsequent occasions the smaller 
one is used, which burns until the close 
of the service. The church being 
dark, it is difficult to read without this 
light, which also adds much to the im- 
pressiveness of the scene as the line 
of pilgrims stretches along. The num- 
ber of persons in the procession varies, 
being, of course, larger when many 
strangers are in Jerusalem, as is the 
case at Eastor. Some of the Catholics 
of the city, and occasionally the sisters 
of St. Joseph, are present, the priests 
and brothers of the convent being al- 
ways there ; thus the whole office has 
dignity and is reverently gone through. 

While on the way from one station 
to the next, a hymn is sung ; when the 
place is reached, incense is used ; the 
people all kneel; a versicle and re- 
sponsory are said, followed by a pray- 
er, concluding with Our Father and 
Bail Mary. Of course, the whole office 
is in Latin, and thus to ecclesiastics 
from every part of the world it has a 
familiar appearance. 

Beginning in the Latin chapel, in 
front of the altar of the blessed sac* 
ramcnt,' the function opens with the 
antiphon, sacrum convivium^tLnd the 
versicle, " Thou hast given them bread 
from heaven, having in itself aU sweet- 
ness.'* The prayer of the blessed 
sacrament, Deut qui nolnSj is said. In 
the same chapel, a few feet to the riglil 
of the high aliari is the station and al- 



Procession in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre* 



tirof the oolamn of the flagellation of 
Christ A recess in the wall contains 
a portion of the column behind a grat- 
kg of iron. In going to this, the 
hjmn TVophce a cruets mysticais sung ; 
the antiphon and prayer, ^ Pilate took 
JesDs and scourged him, and delivered 
him to them that he might be cruci- 
iiei I was scourged all the daj, and 
mj castigation was in the morning. 
I^k down, we beseech thee, O Lord, 
upon thy church which thou hast re- 
deemed with thy precious blood, that 
it, heing always enriched, may obtain 
eternal rewards : who livest and rcign- 
est forever and ever. Amen." 

With the hymn Jam crucem projyter 
kominem the procession goes to the 
prison of Christ, a dark place where, 
according to tradition, out Lord was 
detained some time. Antiphon and 
prajfir : ** I brought thee forth from 
the captivity of Egypt, Pharaoh being 
drowned in the Red sea, and thou 
last delivered mo to this dark prison. 
Tboo, Lord, hast broken my bonds ; 
todiee will I sacrifice the host of praise. 
Loosen, we beseech thee, O Lord, the 
chains of our sins, that, having been 
freed from the prison of this body, we 
inay behold the light of glory, through 
Christ our Lord. Amen." 

The hymn Ecce nunc Joseph mys- 
ticui is sung as the procession moves 
to the place of the division of the gar- 
mente of Christ. Antiphon, etc : " The 
soWiers, therefore, when they had cru- 
cified Jesus, took his vestments and 
made HERE four parts, to each soldier 
» part, and the tunic. They divided 
HEBE my vestments for themselves, and 
on my clothing they cast lots. O God, 
who, through thine otily-begotien Son, 
didat coufer the renfbdies of salvation 
OQ a fallen world, grant to us that, 
being freed* from vices and adorned 
with virtues, we may be presented in 
white clothing before the tribunal of 
thy majesty. Amen." 

The procession, chanting the hymn 

CruxfideUs inter omnes, now descends 

^ fl%ht of stone steps, passes through 

* » eiiapel of St. Helena, and down a 

1 flight to the place where was 



found the holy cross, the reward of the 
pious search of the mother of Con- 
stantine. Antiphoai etc. : ^' O blessed 
cross, which alone wast worthy to bear 
the Lord and King of heaven ! Al- 
leluia. This sign of the cross shall be 
in heaven when the Lord shall come 
to judgment. O Grod, who didst herb 
raise up a miracle of thy passion in 
the finding of the glorious cross of sal- 
vation, grant that by the price of this 
wood we may obtain the favor of 
eternal life. Amen." 

Returning now to the chapel of St. 
Helena, with the hymn, Jwrtem virili 
pectore laudemus omnes HelenaiUj the 
people kneel in the centre of this edi- 
fice, while the priest who leads the 
devotion goes to the chief altar, which 
is near the place where the saintly 
empress waited while the search for 
the holy cross was made below. This 
chapel belongs to the Armenians. The 
antiphon, etc., nre as follows : " He- 
lena, the mother of Constantine, came 
to Jerusalem tliat she might find the 
cross of the Lord. Alleluia ! Pray 
for us, O blessed Helena, that we may 
be made worthy of the promises of 
Christ. Mercifully hear the prayers 
of thy family, O Lord, that as it every- 
where rejoices in the fervid study of 
blessed Helena, who here joyfully 
found the wood of the holy cross so 
much desired, so, by her merits and 
prayers, it may be able always to re- 
joice in heavenly glory. Amen." 

The next station is that of the column 
of the crowning and mocking, in going 
to which the hymn Cooivs piorum exeat 
is sung. Antiphon, etc. : ** I gave thee 
a royal sceptre, and thou hast put on 
my head a crown of thorns. Plaiting 
a crown of thorns, they put it on his 
head. O God, who, in the humility of 
thy Son, hast lifled up the fallen world, 
mercifully grant that, casting away the 
crown of pride, we may obtain the un- 
fading crown of glory, through the 
same Jesus Christ ou r Lord. Amen." 

The procession now ascends" the 
fiight of steps leading to Calvary, go- 
ing first to the place of the crucifixion, 
properly so called, where our Lord 



Practuton m lA« Church of the Holt/ Sepulchre, 



was naileil (o the cro^s. The hymn 
VmUa EegU pradeunt is sud^ on the 
wmy from the place of mocking. The 
antipbon, etc : ** Thej took Jesus, and 
Jetl him forth, beariu^ hii cross : he 
went to the phice called Calvary, in 
ihe HebrevT Golgotha, where they cru- 
cified liim. H£R£ I hey pierced my 
haaida and my feet^ and they numbered 
•n my bones, O Lord Jesus Christ, 
son of the living Ciod, who, for the sal- 
vation of the world, at tlie ^ixth hour, 
didst ascend the gibbet of the cro.-^s on 
THIS Calvary, anU for the redemption 
of our sins ditlsL shed tliy precious 
blood, we humbly beseech I hoe that 
ai\er our death thou mayest grant to us 
joyfully to enter the gate of paradise : 
who livest and reignest for ever and 
even Amen." 

A few steps to the left of this place 
IS the spot where the cross was set up, 
and where the great High Priest ot^ 
fered the sacritice which taketh away 
the sin of the world. Going to this, 
the hytnn Lustris sej; qui jam peractii 
h sung, the second verse of which re- 
counts, word by word, some of the io- 
eUientA of the gospel narrative : 

** tifc icftum. M^ Rruado, 
SfiuU, olavlf laooe*. 
Mite corpui pcrfotstiir^ 

Term, potituj^ »*Hn, iniibda* 
^ Quo Uv&Dtur Qun3lii«r* 

The antiphon, etc.: **Now it was 
about ihe ^ixth hour, and darkness was 
over all the land even to the ninth 
hour ; and the sun was darkened, and 
iht* veil of ihe temple was rent in the 
midst ; and Jesus, crying with a loud 
voice, sjiid, * Far hen into thy hands I 
iDRIinend my spirit ;* and, saying these 
wor<i.^» he HKRK expired. We adore 
Uie4\ O Christ, and we bless thee be< 
Cttuso by thy hoiy cross ihou dldjst 
UIUIK nxleera the world/* Ttie prayer 
(m\d in a low voice) : •'^LcKjk down, 
int brnicch thee, O Lonh nixvn tliis 
i!v for which our Lord Jesus 
Jul not hesitate to he delivered 

I the liuudr* of the executioners and 

►^f****^ « > untlergo the torment of the 
* Uo witli thee llveth and reigu- 
^iO^ vivirU without end> Amen/' 



Chanting the hymn Pan^e lin 
glortosii^ the priest and poojde now 
scend to the stone of unction* wher 
the Redeemer was wrapp«^d iu fin 
linen afler he had been taken dowfl 
from the cross. This is midway 
tween Calvary and the sepuk*hre, aud 
on a level with the floor of iJie great 
church and ihe^ holy tomb. The nine 
verse* of the hyran admirably expreai 
the thoughts and leelings which crowtf 
the mind and heart, ilcdempiion 14 
accomplished, and through Chridt^i 
death we live. Auliphon, etc: *''Jq 
seph and Nieodemus look ihe body oil 
Jesu3, and heue bound it in linen wiiJiJ 
spices, as is the custom of the Jews lof 
bury. Thy name is as oil poured out|,| 
therefore have tlic young loved tho^J 
O Lord Jef^us Christ, who, condcscemUl 
ing to Ihe devotion of thy faithful la^ 
thy most holy body, didst permit it 
HERE to be anointed by them, that 
they might reverence thee tlie true 
(jotl. King* and Priest, grant that by 
ihe unctitju of thy gruce our hearia 
may be preserved from all infection of 
sin : who lives t and reigDCSt for erer 
and ever. Araea'* 

The joyful hymn Aurorti Itieis ru- 
iUat is sung as the procession moral 
00 to the mi >Ht glorious sepulchre where 
was laid fhe Hope of tho world, and 
whence he rose on Easter morn»tri*j 
umphant over death and the grave* [ 
Antiphon, etc. : ** The angel here sailj 
to the women, * Fear not; ye seekj 
Jesua of Nazareth crucified ; he hati 
risen, he is not here : behold the plaeol 
where tbey laid him. Alleluia/ Th<i 1 
Lor«l hath risen from this sepulchre, 
alleluia, who for us hung upon tho 
wood« alleluia. O God, whoi by iba 
triumphant resurrecliou of thy SaD| 
didst here bestow the remedy of sal- 
vation on the world, and, having con* 
quered death, hast unlock«'d for us the 
way of eternal hie, by thine assistance , 
further our earnest desires which \\\ 
hast put into our hearts ; through ih 
same Chrij^t our Lord. Amen." 

Tben, going to the place 
Jesus ap})eari?d to ^Xaiy Mi^dnlene i 
the habit of the gardener, the bye 



At nreeteore. 



driHui triumphum gloria is sung. 
iotiphoD, etc. : ^ Jesus, rising early on 
the momiDg of the first day of the 
week, appeared here to Mary Mag- 
dalene, out of whom he had cast seven 
deiDODS. ' Mary, touch me not, for I 
have not yet ascended to my Father.' 
We beseech thee, O Lord God, that 
we may be helped by the prayers of 
blessed Mary Magdalene, at whose en- 
treafy thou didst not only raise up her 
brother who had been four days dead, 
bni didst show thyself after thy resur- 
rection here as the living Lord : who 
livest and reignest for ever and ever. 
Amen." 

Lastly, going to the place where, 
according to tradition, Jesus appeared 
to his holy mother (this station being 
in the chapel of the Latins, in front of 
the altar of the blessed sacrament), 
the procession returns to the spot 
whence it started, sin^ng the hymn, 

** Jesam ChiiBtnm cmdfixum 
Ob peccatoram criinliiA, 
Unnc TidUti et flevisti, 
glorlosa Domijui,** etc 

the above is an outline of the pro- 



cession which is made every day in 
the church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
But to have a full understanding of 
its impresslveness, one must be in Je- 
rusalem, and take part in it. In other 
countries, when reading of the passion 
and death of our Lord, we are lefl 
to imagine the appearance of places 
which are thousands of miles away ; 
and this consciousness of distance will 
ever hinder that vivid realization of 
the incidents which may be had on the 
spot where they occurred. When the 
word Hic (here) is said by the offici- 
ating priest, all bow down and kiss the 
floor ; and it is enough to melt a heart 
of stone to be so close to these most 
sacred spots when the mention of what 
our Lord has here done and suffered 
for our sins is made. There is no at- 
tempt to work upon the imagination or 
excite the feelings. The singing and 
praying are in a natural but reverent 
tone. It is felt that the devout Chris- 
tian needs only to be here when the 
prayers are said, to have his heart 
subdued and filled with penitence and 
adoring gratitude and love. 



AT THREESCORE. 

There was but one in all the world, 

Fond heart, 
To whom thou gavest all, nor kept 
A part; 
And that was John. 
None e'er so gentle, nor so brave as he, 
None other's arm »o strong or sweet to me 
To lean upon. 

Twas down upon the ocean shore 

One day. 
The heart I once had some one took 
Away; 
And that was John. 
Strange moment I for it seemM th^n to me 
As if the rocks and sands and clouds and sea 
And all were gone. 



IM The Revenue of Comcienee. 

Yoa understand, I do not mean 

Quite all : 
Some one was there, so handsome, straight^ 
And tall ; 
And that was John : 
But he was all to me, and nothing there 
Nor aught in this wide world with him could bear 
Comparison. 

Long years have passed, and now my step 

Is slow. 
Though weak his arm, yet strong his heart, 
I know. 
To lean upon. 
Beside me, seated in his high-backed chair, 
T see a tall old man with silvered hair; 
And that is John. 

My day of life has always been 

Most bright. 
But now the^'shadows longer grow, 
And night 
Is coming on. 
I fear it not, for when my course is run, 
I look beyond the grave to meet with One 
More dear than Jolm. 



Translated from the Spanbh. 

THE REVENGE OF CONSCIENCE. 

TROCon one brief spring restores to earth the flowert 
Swept from her lap by aatamn's stormy hours, 
llack to man*s breast a lifetime will not win 
The heart's ease lost throucrh one frail moment's sin. 

White as a no.st of gulls, in the the bay, opens, its dock-yards of La 

cleft of a rock on the wild sea-shore, Carraca as hospitals to the vessels that 

gleams Cadiz from the concavity of return home, maltreated and bruised, 

iier walls. So audaciously is she seat- from their perilous expeditions, 

ed in the very midst of the billows tliat Poor wanderers, to whom the tem- 

thc land reaches out an arm to retain pests are ever repeating what the 

her. This slender arm of stone and blasts of the world unceasingly say to 

sand, wearing La Cortadura, a fortress mortals, "On, on!" When they 

constnicted during the glorious war reach their country, they lay hold of 

of independence, as a bracelet, sepa- her with their anchors, as childrea 

rates the violent waves of the ocean clasp the necks of their mothers 

from the tranquil waters of the harbor, their little hands, 

and conducts to the city of San Fer- Beyond the city of San P< 

nando, which, situated in the curve of the beautiful and worthy 



ITie Bevenge of Conscienee, 



287 



Oidis, with its splendid Callc Larga, 
and its bouses solid and shining as if 
boilt of massive silver, and beyond the 
bridge Zuazo, so ancient that its con- 
stnictioD is attributed to the Phoeni- 
cians, the road divides into twobranch- 
es, the one on the lefl continuing to 
follow the curve of the baj, and that on 
tiie right taking the dii'ection of Chic- 
lana. It enters this pleasant town 
tbroagh a grove of white poplars, 
which, settled like hoary patriarchs in 
the midst of green fields, seem by tlieir 
whisperings to be encouraging the 
weaker plants to strengthen themselves 
and stand like them against the heavy 
WQth-west winds. The town is large, 
and divided into two parts by the river 
Liro. 

From two neighboring heights it 
was orerlooked in former times by a 
Moorish tower on the one, and a 
Oiristian chapel on the other ; symbols 
of its past and present. Within a few 
jears the tower has disappeared and 
the chapel has become a ruin. 

There wm a temple and an altar, where 
Thf lonely beari might weep and lay ita care : 
1 ve]>t Once more I passed that way, 
And It was (alien to decay : 
Wbereat I wept again ! 

The chapel was under the invoca- 
tion of St. Anna. It was round and 
encircled by a colonnade, which com- 
manded the view, in all directions, of 
a magnificent landscape. 

At the foot of the isolated and aban- 
doned tower lay a cemetery. Mould- 
ering humanity creeping sympatheti- 
cally into the shadow of the decaying 
niin. This tower — ^this seal of stone 
opOD the archives of the place; this 
iBheritance of generations, which the 
district had guarded like the remains 
of a dead chief, embalmed by the 
ttoma of the flowers of the field ; this 
austere ruin, which had no longer any 
lelations except with the departed, who 
were taming to skeletons at its feet ; 
with the birds of night which hid them- 
selves ID its obscure recesses from the 
noise and light of day, and with the 
winds that came to moan sadly through 
ib breadiefl — this inoffensive tower 
andd not escape modern vandalism. 



Neither respect for the memories it 
evoked, nor reverence for the burial 
place it so appropriately guarded, nor 
the romantic in its aspect, nor the his- 
toric in its origin, could avail it They 
demolished it under the snge protest 
that it was *' ruinous." A ruin " ruin- 
ous !" A tower that bore the centuries 
as you wear days, " ruinous, ruinous I" 
1 hat petrified mass which would have 
outlasted all your constructions •of • 
wood and clay ! 

The chapel, also, closed and forsak- 
en, has become the prey of destruction, 
and its noble colonnade has fallen. 
Groves, convents, feudal castles, and 
palaces, the very iniins are disappear- 
ing, and they are not even building 
factories or planting orchards where 
they stood ; to clothe the noble matron 
Spain, at least with muslin and flow- 
ers, instead of the tissues and jewels 
of which they despoil her. What, tlien, 
will remain to us ? Pastures wherein 
to breed the ferocious beast, whose 
contests afford the refined and gentle 
diversion that enjoys, above all others, 
the favor of the people. My Grod! 
can it be that the natural ferocity and 
cruelty of man, like the atmosphere 
that discharges its electricity in thun- 
der, lightning, and tempest, must have 
vent and expression ? 

In the times when Cadiz was the 
Rothschild among cities, times in 
which, according to strangers of note 
and credibility, her merchants lived 
with the pomp and splendor of ambas- 
sadors of kings, the greater part of them 
had in Chiclana country houses, built 
and furnished with marvellous richness 
and taste. Tarnished vestigos still re- 
main of that elegant luxury to which 
the coming of Napoleon's Frenchmen 
gave the death-blow. 

In the present epoch, in which we 
often see fulfilled the saying, ** Ram- 
parts fall and dust heaps exalt them- 
selves," when old men recount the 
splendors of those days, new — we 
will not say young — men receive 
their stories as tales of the thousand 
and one nights, with incredulity and 
criticism alternating upon their lips. 



1%^ Revtn^e of ComcUnee^ 



In their opinion, gallantry^ generosityi 
ami niunifieenee afford material for an 
aj)|iendii to Don Quixote as fantastic 
vii1ue« which can onlj exi»t in over 
excitpd brain*. 

At the close of the Wt century, 
when the events which we are about 
to relate began to take place, Cliielana 
was at the xenith of her splendor. 
Cadiz shone with gold, and, like the 
sun, shed glory upon all her environs. 
Nowhere now do they throw away 
doubloons as they then did here, 
with the simple indifiTerencc of child* 
ren toi^sing soap-bnbbles into the air, 
and the lordliness of princes who 
neither count nor value what they 
spend in compliment to others. In 
thi» epiich orcuri'ed the incident which 
is told of the cclebruled Dnehess of 
Alba and the youth, wlio, Beeing twen- 
ty thousand dollar* upon her table, 
obeerved, in herhearintj, tJjal this sum* 
which to her was such a tiijle, would 
make a man b fortune. *' Would you 
like to have it ?'* aaked the duch»'4»s. 
The you til ud mi lied that he would. 
The Indy sent him the money and — 
closed her doors upon him. In these 
di'iys the contrary woulil have eucceed- 
ed* The money would not have been 
given^ nor would the doora have been 
dofted upon one who, by any means 
whatever, had acquired it. 

In one of the wide, cheerful atreets 
of the above-named town stood a house 
of more didtinnruished appeai*a,nre ihiin 
the others, though it consisted of but 
one story, which was somewhat elevat- 
ed fr(»m the j^i-ound and reached by a 
flight of marble steps. The door was 
of mahofrany, studded with great nails 
of sliiriin^ nietaL The front of the 
liouse was eurmounted by the nni\& 
of tlie family, carved in marble. No- 
bility and richer seek each other; in 
former times they were sisters, in these 
they are not even cousins. The house 
porch, the court, und all the apartments, 
even to the inferior offices, were paved 
with magnificent blocks of blue and 
white murble. Columns of jasper 
supported the four galleries which 
durroundcd the court, and in the areu, 



in the midst of flowering plants and 
alabaster statuee, a fountain flowe * 
unceasingly, ringing the Bamo put 
and infantile melo<ly to the bud In 
opened in hope, and to the flower fall 
ing in leiiflciis dc^spair. Between 
unin and column, embowered in gr 
and flowery tapestries of jessamine and I 
musk rose, hung the giUicd cages ofj 
bright-hued birds. A canvas nwninfl 
cut in points at the edges, and hour 
with red, shade<l the court and pre-j 
served iu refreshing coolness. Th 
walls of the parlor were of whiti 
stucco upon a blue ground ; the cbaif 
and sofa were made of ebony, witkl 
heavy silver ornaments and eoveriti^ 
of azure ^ros de Tonrs. The furni 
tu re was of slight and simple fonn and! 
in the Gi*eek style, which the Bi'volii*' 
tion had brought into favor, making it 
the order of the day, ivA it had alsa 
introduced the Phrygian cap, the names 
of Antenor, Anacharsts, Themiatocles, 
Aristides, ami other things less inoffen- 
ifive ihuu these, Uf>on the table, wbteti , 
was supported by tbor si might -flu ted 
legs, stood a clock, constructed of whit 
marble aJid bronxe* At that ii\ 
the tasle for the pastoral and idyllit 
in art liuil passed, dispossessed by th 
grave and classic allegories which wene' 
presently to l>e superseded by ihrt can- 
non, banners, and warlike tauix;! wi^athtf 
with which Napoleon would dbpel ill 
wide air the ardor and zeal of the 
Revolution, In ils turn the epoch ot' 
the Restoration, which put an end to 
the supremacy of the sword as tha 
sword had ferrainiited the rule of ibe 
deiaocracy, brought back mouarchieai 
ideas and religious sentimeota with 
the chiviilry, loyalty, and ancient faitk 
which were to intrt>duce the Romant 
in literature and the Gothic in arts as 
customs. Following closely open til 
came the taste for the fashions of 
limes called ** of Louis the Four 
tecnth** and "Louis the Fit\eentlu** 
For men are, like children, enthusia 
of tlie new, and ever trampling wit] 
contempt upon the idol of the m<3 
ment before, Shakespeare ha 
'* Frailty, thy name is wamaa T W« 



The Revenge of Conecience, 



tigbt he have added, ^ Fickleness, thj 



The clock formed a group, composed 
of an effigy of time, under the figure 
of an old man ; two nude young girls 
with arms interlaced, leaning upon the 
old man, and representing innocence 
and truth ; and two other figures, wrap- 
ped m dark veils, symbolizing sin and 
mjBtery flying from time, who, with 
imised finger, ap[)earcd to threaten 
tbem. The effigy of time was well 
and expressively executed ; and when 
the clear and sonorous voice of the 
hoar, counting its dead sisters, was add- 
ed to its expressive gesture, it seemed 
like the warning voice of an austere 
ptliiarch, and could not foil to afiect 
lum who, meditating upon the sense 
of the allegory, heard the measured 
echo of its strokes. On each side of 
tk dock was a bronze candlestick, in 
tfe form of a negro standing upon a 
■uble pedestal and adorned with 
Inien chains. The negro carried 
•pOQ his head and in his hands bas- 
kets of flowers. In the centres of the 
ilowerB the candles were set The 
ceiKng was painted to represent light, 
floating clouds of gray and white, 
throagh which was seen a nymph of 
the air, apparently holding in her 
liands the tasselled cords of azure silk 
which sustained an alabaster lamp, 
destined to filter a light as mild and 
soft as that of the moon, a light ex- 
tiwnely fiattering to female beHuty, 
aod therefore adopted for select re- 
unions. In the middle of the room, 
ipoo a mosaic stand, rested a great 
tjuss globe. In it swam fishes of 
those lovely colors which the water 
ftplays in emulation of the air that 
h« its gorgeous birds, and the earth 
tiat parades its charming fiowers. 
Bare they lived, silent and gentle, 
Hvexed by the circuit which bounded 
4eir action, like pretty idiots, seeing 
everything with their great eyes, and 
eomprehending nothing. The globe 
was aarmounted by a smaller one 
fflfed with flowers, of which there was 
abo a profusion arranged in jars in 
of the windows. The 



windows were hung with laceedged 
muslin curtains, like those now used, 
except that the muslin was Indian in- 
stead of English, and the lace thread, 
made by hand, instead of cotton woven. 
As it was summer time, only a dim 
light was allowed to penetrate the 
dmwn blinds. The atmosphere of the 
apartment was perfumed with flowers 
and pastilles of Lima. 

Upon the sofa reclined a woman of 
extraordinary beauty. One alabaster 
hand, hidden in a mass of auburn curls, 
supported her head upon the pillow of 
the sofa. A loose cambric dress, adorn- 
ed with Flanders lace, robed her youth- 
fill and |>erfect form. Through the lace 
of her robe just peeped the point of a 
little foot encased in a silken stocking 
and white satin slipper. At that time 
no other shoe was used by ladies of 
distinction upon any occasion, and 
luxury reached even to the wearing 
of lace slippers lined with colored 
satin. 

The apostles of the last foreign fash- 
ion, admirers of the buskin, regard 
with sovereign contempt this rich and 
elegant custom, which, in their eyes, is 
guilty of two mortal sins — that of being 
old-fashioned, and that of being Span- 
ish. The lady's left hand was adorn- 
ed with a splendid brilliant, and held a 
cambric handkerchief of Mexican em- 
broidery, with which, from time to time, 
she dried a tear that slid slowly down 
her pearly cheek. 

The reader thinks that he divines 
the cause of this solitary tear shed by 
a woman, young, beautiful, and sur- 
rounded by the evidences of a lux- 
urious and enviable position. He has 
decided that it must be the token of 
wounded afiection, and has guessed 
wrong. Respect for truth, even at the 
sacrifice of admiration for the heroine 
of our story, obliges us to confess that 
this tear was not of love, but of spite. 
Yes, that brilliant drop, falling from 
eyes as blue as the sky of evening, 
gliding between those long, dark lash- 
es, and across those delicately glowing 
cheeks, was the evidence of spite. 

But before we proceed it ia neoea- 



240 



2%e Revenge of Conscience. 



Bary to explain the cause of the ill- 
humor of our heroine. 



CHAPTER n. 

The young lady we have been de- 
Ecribing was called Ismena, and was 
the only child of Don lago O'Donnell, 
whose family, in common with many 
others, had emigrated from Jreland in 
the time of William of Orange. After 
the capitulation of Limerick, the troops, 
who belonged to the most noble fami- 
lies of Ireland, entered the service of 
France and Spain. Philip the First, 
as was to have been expected, wel- 
comed them, and they formed, in 1709, 
the regiments of Ibemia and Ultonia, 
and, later, a third called the Irlanda. 
These troops were commanded by 
James Stuart, duke of Ber>vick, na- 
tural son of James the Second 4)y 
Arabella Churchill, sister of the famous 
Duke of Marlborough. The Duke of 
Berwick gained the battle of Alroansa 
and took Barcelona by assault, and the 
king rewarded his great services with 
the dukedoms of Lii-ia and Jerica, 
and made him a grandee of Spain. 
This gallant general had two sons, the 
elder was naturalized in Spain and in- 
herited the titles of Berwick, Llria, 
and Jerica, to which he afterward 
united, by his marriage, that of the 
noble house of Alba, which had de- 
scended to a female. The second son 
established himself in France, where 
his descendants still exist and bear the 
title of dukes of FitzJames. 

The above-mentioned regiments are 
represented in our days by the de- 
scendants of the loyal men who com- 
posed them, for, as we have been in- 
formed, there are now ninety Irish 
suniames in the Spanish army, names 
which, for their traditional loyalty and 
bravery, and their hereditary nobility, 
honor those who bear them. 

Don lago O'Donnell marriei a 
Spanish lady, and his daughter, Is- 
mena, united in her person the beauty 
of both types. Her slight and grace- 



ful Andalusian form was clothed in tbe 
white rose-tinted skin of the daughten 
of misty Erin, to which the impassi- 
ble coldness of its possessor gave a 
transparent pearliness and purity that 
nothing ever disturbed. Her large ^ 
violet eyes beamed from beneath their 
dark lashes with the haughty and ex- 
pressive glance of the south. Her 
carriage, though somewhat lofty, was 
free and natural. Naturalness is, in- 
deed, but another name for that ** Span- 
ish grace" which has been so justly 
famed and eulogized. The irresistible 
attraction which is bom of it, and 
which, in former times, women shed 
around them as the flame sheds light 
and the flowers perfume, they owed to 
the men, who used to abhor whatever 
was put on, affected, or studied ; ana- 
thematizing it in a masculine way 
under the expressive epithet *'mo- 
nadas."* In naturalness there is truth, 
and without truth there is no perfec- 
tion ; in naturalness there is grace, 
and without grace there is no real 
elegance. Taste at present appears to 
lie in the opposite extreme^ as if the 
Florentines should dress their Venm 
di MedicU as a show figure. 

The spirit of Ismena was far less 
richly endowed than her person. She 
possessed the cold, calm temperament 
of her father united to the haughty and 
domineering disposition she liad in- 
herited from her mother, and these 
qualities were exaggerated in her bj 
the overbearing pride of the rich, beau- 
tiful, and spoiled child. Iler mind 
was ever occupied in framing for her- 
self a future as illustrious and brilliant 
as those which fortune-tellers prognos* 
ticate, and so she rejected all the loven 
who offered her their affections, not 
one of them appearing likely to realiie 
her dreams of greatness. But changes 
of fortune, like the transformationa in 
magic comedies, come unlooked far 
and suddenly. Ismena*s father lost 
his whole fortune within a few months ; 
thanks to the treachery of the English, 
who seized so many of our ships aod 
80 much treasure before making a foiw 



ITie Itevenge of Conscience. 



Ml 



declaration of war with Spain. 
The fatal war which brought upon us 
the fatal family compact I Don lago, 
who had just lost his wife, retired, 
ruined, to his country house in Chi- 
dana. But this retreat did not long 
remain to him, for the house was ad- 
Tertificd for sale by his creditors. The 
fint person who presented himself as 
a purchaser was the General Count of 
Aldra. Greneral Alcira had just re- 
turned from a long residence in 
America. Though lie counted but 
fifty-five years, he appeared much 
older in consequence of the destructive 
action of that climate, which, with its 
hoc miasms, impairs the European 
iven as it corrodes iron. Notwith- 
standing his age, the genenil had be- 
come the heir of a young nephew, from 
whose title the rule of succession cx- 
doded females. On his return he went 
to Seville, his native city, where he 
wi* received by his sister-in-law (who 
looked upon him as one come to de- 
prive her and her daughters of tlie 
riches and title they had possessed) 
with such bitterness and liostility that, 
although he was one of the most gc- 
nerous of men, he was justly indig- 
nant, and determined to leave Seville 
and establish himself in Cadiz, and he 
decided welL 

At that period, Seville, the staid, re- 
fi<rioas matron, with rosary in hand, 
still more the buckram stays and the 
high powdered promontory — that, 
without the hair, must have been a 
weight in itself — and the hoops with 
which a lady could pass with ease only 
through a very wide door. At lier 
austere entertainments she played Ba- 
ciga or Ombre with her canons, her 
JBdges, lier aldermenj and her cava- 
liers. She had no theatre, being with- 
held therefrom by a religious vow. 
She had for illumination only the pious 
lights that burned before her numerous 
pictures of saints. She had no pave- 
iBentA, DO Pcueo de Cristiana. 

Of course there were no steam- 
boats, those swifl news-bearera which 
baTe iinoe united in such close friend- 
aUp tlieae sister cities, the twin jewels 

VOL. T. — 16 



of Andalusia. Cadiz, even more beau- 
tiful than she is now, wore her drape- 
ry in the low-necked Greek fashion 
which we still see in portraits of the 
beauties of those days. Cadiz, the se- 
ductive siren of naked bosom and 
silver scales, bathed in a sea of water, 
a sea of pleasure, and a sea of richer. 
She knew well how to unite the art 
and cuhure of foreign elegance with 
the dignity, ease, and spontaneity of 
Spanish grace, and, though the fair 
Andalusian had adopted certain things 
and forms that were foreign, she was 
none the less essentially Spanish in 
her delicate taste and circumspection, 
and her attachment to her own nation- 
ality. 

For, strange to tell, in those days: 
the pompous and high-sounding as- 
sumption of the " Spanish'* which now . 
fills the unholy sheets of the public 
press, and resounds through all dis- 
courses like hollow and incessant 
thunders, was unknown. It did not 
blare in lyric compositions, nor was it 
made the instrument of a party for 
the promotion of such or such ideas,, 
nor was the bull Sefiorito* chosen 
with enthusiasm as its symbol. But. 
that which was Spanish was had with 
simplicity, as the brave man has his 
intrepidity without proclaiming it, and' 
as the fields have their flowers witliout. 
parading them. Spanish patriotism 
was not upon the lips, but in the blood, 
in the being ; it was the genius of the 
people ; and it became them so well, 
was so refined and generous, so gen- 
tle and chivalric, so in harmony with 
the gracious southern type, that it came 
to be the admiration and delight of 
strangers. But we have apostatized 
from il, do not understand it, hold it 
in slight esteem, and, unlike the ass that 
covered himself with the rich golden 
skin of the lion, we, more stupid than 
he, instead of smoothing and cultivating 
that which nature has bestowed upon 
us, wrap ourselves in one that is in- 
ferior to it. Then the most candid 
gaycty blended with an exquisite re- 

* The famouB buU Uiat, in 18SU, in Seyille, foocht 
and killed a large tiger. 



24% 



The Revenge of Coneeience. 



finement pervaded social intercourse. 
There were neitlier clubs nor casinos, 
only reunions, in which gallantry was 
governed by the code contained in 
these ancient verses of Suarez : 

** Toa are feared and worshipped ; 
f ou to be obeyed : 
We the humble worshippers. 
Of your frowns afraid. 
You the lovelv douquerors ; 
We your bondsmen true : 
Ladles dear and vanquishers. 
We are slaves to you. 
You the praised and honored ; 
fairest under sun : 
We the lowly servitors, 
By your smiles undone.'* 

The expression *^ to acquire a man- 
ner^' was not then in use, but the prac- 
tice of good manners was a matter of 
course and of instinct The officers 
of the marine, brave and gentlemanly 
as they are now, but richer and more 
gallant, constituted the chief ornament 
•of the society of Cadiz. They had 
formed themselves into a gay frater- 
nity, at the head of which were the 
officers of the man-of-war San Fran- 
cisco de Paula, and which, in playful 
allusion to the motto of tlie saint of 
this name — Caritos bonitos — styled 
itself *< La devota Ilermandad de las 
Caritos Bonitas"* (The devoted Bro- 
therhood of Beauty). In the theatre 
the national pieces of our own poets 
were played, and the farces of Don 
Ramon de la Cruz were enthusiastic- 
ally applauded : at the brilliant fairs 
of Chiclana the inhabitants of Cadiz 
and Puerto congregated like flocks of 
gorgeous birds ; and Cadiz retained, 
long years afler, charms sufficient to 
inspire the song of Byron, that dis- 
criminating apprcciator of the beauti- 
ful. 

The General Count of Alcira desir- 
ing to buy a country house, that of Don 
lago O^Donnell was proposed to him, 
and he went to look at it. The unfor- 
tunate proprietor threw it open to his 
inspection as soon as he presented him- 
self. The count was charmed with all 
that he paw in tlic elegant mansion we 
have Jilready described, and, above all, 
with the daughter of its master, whom 

* Carltas bonitas, Preitj faoea. 



they encountered writing in a retired 
cabinet that received light and fnir 
grance from the garden. She was 
dressed in deep mourning, and weep- 
ing bitterly while she answered letters 
from two of her friends who had just 
married— one an English lord, and 
the other a nobleman of Madrid. How 
bitterly those .letters caused Ismena to 
feel the contrast between the lot of her 
friends and that which compelled her, 
single and poor, to abandon even this 
house, the only thing that remained to 
her of the briUiant past. 

Her teal's moved and interested the 
good general to such an extent that, 
having bought the house, he begged 
the occupant to remain in it and admit 
him, the buyer, as a member of his 
family and the husband of his daugh- 
ter. It is hardly necessary to add that 
Don lago received this proposition as 
a message of felicity, and that his 
dauglitcr hailed it as a means of escap- 
ing- lower depths of the abyss into 
which fortune had hurled her. To 
paint the rage of the aunt's sister-in- 
law when she heard of the projected 
alliance would be a difficult task. 
She spread calumnies upon Ismena, 
ridiculed the marriage, and spit out 
her venom in bitter sarcasms, prophe- 
sying that the union of the ambitious 
beggar with the worn-out valetudina- 
rian would remain without issue ; in 
short, that Providence would mock 
their calculations, and cause the title, 
for lack of a male inheritor, to return 
to her own family. The excessive pride 
of Ismena, more than ever susceptible 
since her misfortune, was stung beyond 
endurance by those gibes and revilings. 
And she was still more chagrined 
when, after having been married two 
years without giving birth to a child, 
she seemed to see the prophecies of 
her enemy realized. It appeared that 
God would deny the blessing of child- 
ren to the wife who desired them not 
from the holy instinct of maternal Ioto, 
but to satisfy a base pride and a ooa- 
temptible covetousness ; not for tho 
blessed glory of seeing herself siirroinMl* 
ed by her oflbpring, bot firm Ibt 



2%e Revenge of Conscience. 



MS 



haughty and miserable desire of hami- 
UatiDg a rival — of triumphing over an 
enemj. It is at this time and under 
the influence of these feelings that we 
have introduced Ismena, Countess of 
Alcira, bathed in tears. And for this 
we say that these drops, so cold and 
bitter, were not tokens of wounded 
love, but of rage and spite. 



CHAPTER in. 

Th£ general had learned that the 
boose in Chiclana was for sale from 
his secretary, who was the son of Don 
Iaj!o*8 housekeeper. A few words 
wiU explain this. 

The general, when young, had for 
many years an orderly whom he loved 
well The Spanish orderly is the 
model domestic, the ideal servant. He 
is wanting in nothing, has always 
more than enough, and does whatever 
is asked of* him unquestioningly and 
with pleasure. If he were bidden, he 
woald, like St. Theresa, plant rotten 
onions through the same spirit of blind 
obedience. He has the heart of a 
child, the patience of a saint, and the 
attachment of that type of devoted af- 
fectioD, the dog. Like him he loves and 
cares for all that belongs to his master, 
and, most of all, for his children, if he 
has any. And to such a degree does 
he carry this devotion, that one of our 
celebrated generals has said that " an 
orderly makes • the very best of dry 
narses." He has no will of his own, 
does not know what laziness is, is 
homble and brave, grateful and oblig- 
ing. And in the household, where his 
coming may have occasioned the na- 
tural irritation and repulsion caused 
bjr whatever invades the domestic cir- 
cle, his departure is always sincerely 
felt. 

Before he left Spain the general, 
then a captain, had lived for a long 
time with his orderly in the greatest 
tendship, without the latter having 
^ the least grain of his respect for 
t Ml dnet When the general went to 



America, his orderly, to the great 
grief of both, left him, and returned to 
his native town of Chiclana to marry 
the bride who, with a constancy not 
unusual in Spain, had waited for him 
fifteen years. A few years later the 
orderly died leaving one child, a son, 
to the care of his disconsolate widow. 
The poor woman, accompanied by a 
little niece she had adopted, took ser- 
vice with Don lago O'Donnell. As 
for the boy, who was godson to the 
general, the latter sent for him, had 
him educated under his own care, and 
afterward made him his secretary. In 
this capacity he brought him back to 
Spain. Lazaro — ^so he was named — 
was one of those beings who are sealed 
by nature with the stamp of nobility, 
and who, aided by circumstances, be- 
come unconscious heroes by simply fol- 
lowing their natural instincts. 

Having learned from his mother that 
the house in which she lived was for 
sale, he had informed the general, who 
bought it, and with it his young and 
beautiful wife. 

A beautiful woman she was ; as fair 
and delicate as an alabaster nymph ; 
as cold, also, and as void of feeling ; a 
being who had never loved anything 
but herself; insipid and without sweet- 
ness ; a jessamine flower that had 
never felt the rays of the sun. 

Later in the afternoon, an attendant 
called Nora entered the room in which 
we found Ismena, to open the windows. 
Nora had been Ismena's nurse, and 
had never left her. She was a proud 
and cunning woman, and had done 
much to develop the perverse disposi* 
tions of the girl. 

** Always weeping," she said with a 
gesture of impatience at the sight of 
Ismena's tears. *• You will lose your 
good looks, and when your husband 
dies, all you have besides will be gone, 
youth, consideration, and wealth. You 
will then have no recourse but to turn 
pious and spend your days dressing up 
the holy images." 

** I know too well that I shall lose 
everything, that is why I weep," re- 
plied Ismena. 



344 



2%e Revenge of Consciendm 



'^And who says that your lot may 
not be different?^ answered Nora. *'It 
18 not your sister-in-law that has the 
disposition of your future ; you your- 
self can do more to make your fortune 
than she to unmake it. Hope is the 
last thing lost, but then one must not 
cross one's anns while they can be of 
use." 

• " Idle talk," returned Ismena. " You 
know that my hopes are as vain as my 
marriage is sterile." 

** It will amount to tlie same thing," 
said Nora, " whether you give birth to 
a son or adopt one." 

The lady fixed her great blue eyes 
upon the woman as she exclaimed, 
" The count would never Qpnsent I" 

'* He need not know it," replied 
Nora. 

** A fraud, a crime, a robbery ! Are 
you beside yourself?" 

** All that sounds very lofty, yet in 
reality you will only be doing some 
poor wretch an act of charity. Your 
nieces are well married ; your sister- 
in-law liai a rich jointure, and does 
not need the count's money. If they 
desire to have it, it is through ambi- 
tion, and that you may not enjoy 
it." 

" Never ! never !" said Ismena. 
^' Better to lose rank and position than 
become the slave of a secret which 
may bring us to dishonor. Never !" 
she repeated, shaking her head as if 
she wished to shake the fatal thought 
from her mind. 

^ I only shall know the secret, and 
I alone will be responsible. So it will 
be more secure in my breast than in 
your own." 

^ You will have to employ anpther 
person." 

^ Yes, but without confiding in him. 
I have already found the person. 
Your husband is about to embark for 
Havana. When he returns, he will 
find a son here." 

"Nora, Nora! there is no wicked- 
ness of which you are not capable T 

'* I am capable of anything that may 
result in benefit to you." 

" But to deceive a man like the 



count would be the most unpardonable 
of crimes !" 

" Ismena, I have often heard you 
sing: 

* Deceit, a falthfUI friend art tboa ; 
*TU truth that is oar bane. 
Pain without sickness she doth glre ; 
Thou, sickness without pain.* 

But today you appear to be more 
high flown than the poets themselves.'' 

" But the text alludes to love quar- 
rels." 

" It is very applicable to everything 
else in life. As if you had never 
known the case I have suggested to be 
put into practice ; and is it not a thou- 
sand times worse when combined with 
infidelity ?" 

At this moment the count entered. 

** Ismena, my child," he said, ap- 
proaching bis wife, "I have come to 
take you out, your friends are already 
waiting for you in the Canada. How 
is it that these lovely spring afternoons 
do not inspire you with a desire to go 
out and enjoy the free, balmy air ?" 

" I dislike to walk, and people worry 
me," answered Ismena, who had lost 
color at sight of her husband. 

" You look pale, my child," replied 
the count with tenderness, '• and for 
some time past you have seemed low- 
spirited. Are you not well ?" 

" There is nothing the matter with 
me," answered Ismena. 

" At most,'* said Nora, " your sick- 
ness is not one that requires the atten- 
tion of a doctor." And she gkinced at 
the count with a meaning smile. 

Irritation and shame sent the hot 
blood mounting to Ismena's face. 

"Nora,** she exclaimed, "are you 
crazy ? Be silent !" 

" I will be silent, sir count, for, as 
the saying is, ^ the more silent the com- 
ing the more welcome the comer.' " 

In the gcneraFs benevolent face 
glowed the light of a pure paternal 
hope. 

*^ Is this certain ?" he said, looking 
tenderly at his wife. 

** Sir," said Nora, " have you not 
noticed for some time past her 
of appetite and her general 



l%e Revenge of Conscience, 



245 



witboat apparent cause? She does 
nol believe it, and will not be convinc- 
ed, bat I who have more experience 
am sure." 

*^Nora, it is falser* exckumcd Is- 
mena, appalled. 

" Time will show," replied Nora, 
with perfect composure. 

" Time !" repeated Ismena indig- 
nantlj. 

At this moment they were interrupt- 
ed bj six deep measured strokes of the 
clock. 

** That fixes the time for the event," 
laid Nora, with an affected Jaugh ; " six 
months from now, it says." 



CHAPTER rV. 

Six months aAer these scenes the 
general, in an affectionate letter to his 
wife, announced his return from Ha- 
TSDa, whither he had been upon im- 
portant business. Ismena went to 
GmUz to meet him, accompanied by a 
nurse who carried in her arms the 
supposed heir. 

This child had been brought from 
tbe Incluso,* and the secret of the de- 
ception was known only to Ismena, 
to Nora, and to Ldzaro ; the latter 
being the person selected by Nora to 
obtain the infant from the asylum. 
How she had been able to persuade 
the good young man to bend himself 
to her wicked plot can be understood 
only when it is known that he believ- 
ed it to have been sanctioned and ar- 
nnged by his master. Ldzaro doubt- 
ed until Nora, who had foreseen his 
opposition, and was prepared to meet 
it, showed him the following passages 
in the last letter the general had writ- 
ten to his wife : 

"The nils which are to bear me from you, 
ttd, with you, from all the sweetness of my 
life, are already spread. Adieu, therefore : 
I hope on my return to find you with a child 
ia your arms, which will render our happiness 
«o^ite. 

^IMMMmbI iw Um i«MpttM& of aba&doiMd in- 



*' As I hare told you before, you may, in 
the affair of which we know, and in all others, 
trust L&zaro, in whom I place the most im- 
plicit confidence/' 

The letter ended with some tender 
expressions and the signature of the 
general. 

Nora, quick to perceive the use she 
could make of the above passages in 
proving to Ldzaro that the ^ afifair 
of which we know," which was in re- 
ality a matter relating to money, was 
the same she had in hand, had kept 
the letter. 

Ldzaro, therefore, with the deepest 
sorrow, but the most entire devotion 
to his benefactor, brought the innocent 
little one ; which thus passed from thic 
bosom of an abandoned woman into 
the hands of a traitoress. 

A little before the time at which we 
take up the thread of our story the 
babe had been reclaimed, and the ad- 
ministrator of the asylum had demand- 
ed it of Ldzaro. Nora could find no 
means of escape from the difficulty 
this demand occasioned them but to 
send Ldzaro out of the country. Is- 
mena also vehemently urged his de- 
parture, and the devoted victim con- 
sented to go, knowing that his absence, 
without apparent cause and without 
explanation, would break the heart of 
his mother and of his young cousin, to 
whom he was soon to have been mar- 
ried. 

He embarked secretly in a small 
coasting vessel bound for Gibraltar, 
which, being overtaken by a tempest 
off the perilous coast of Conil, was 
capsized, and all on board were lost. 

This catastrophe, of which she be- 
lieved herself to be the cause, over- 
came Ismena, and her suffering was 
augmented by a threatening presenti- 
ment that would allow her to fix her 
thoughts neither upon the past nor 
future without shuddering. The one 
reproached and the other appalled 
her. 

Alas for the wretch that between 
these two phantoms drags out a mis- 
erable existence ! Happy is he who, 
by keeping his conscience pure, pre- 



S^6 



77iif Jitvengi of Comclm%c$* 



^erveSf amid misfortunes and Borrows, 
his peace of soyl, the f^upreme good 
^vhich God has proiubed man in tbU 
exiled state. 



CHAPTER T. 

Fou many years the b^aniiful house 
at Chiclana remairit'd unoccupied, the 
countees obstinately iX'fusing to go 
there to enjoy the spring. Alas ! for 
her there was neillier eprinp: nor pleu- 
Bore, for, tbrouf^ii divine jiisricejhe re- 
t^ulu of Ler ciime, a erime committed 
in cold blood and wit I ion t a single 
excuse, weighed heavily upnii her 
As if the Most High bad wished, by 
the force of circumslaiicea^ to impress 
upon her hard and daring spirit that 
which the sentiments of humanity liad 
failed to communicate* 

And these circumstances were in- 
deed terrible, for ebe had liorne the 
count, auecessively, two sons, wluisc 
birth filled the heart of their mother 
with consternation. To increase her 
cluigrin>8he saw ibe oldest of the three 
boy» waji growing up beautiful, brave, 
and sincere, occupying the first place 
in her husband's heart. For not only 
did Ramon — so the boy was called — 
sympathize with the general, but the 
equitable old man, seeing the bo^tility 
with wliieh the countess regarded him, 
reiloubied his manifestations of inte^ 
rest and aflPection toward the victim of 
her ill temp^r^ and thus> by the force 
of a terrible retribution, God had 
l)i*ought remorse to that hard heart, and 
remor**e had driven her from the bouse 
jn which everything reminded her of 
bcr crime. 

Remorse! Thou that bindest the 
temples with a crown of thorns, and the 
heart with a girdle of iron prong* ; 
Uiou that makest the sleep so Jight 
and the vigil so*ljeavy ; thou that iii- 
terjjosest tiiyself to cloud the clear 
gknce that comes from the sou! to the 
eyes, and to embitter the pure smile 
(bat rises from the heart to the lips ; 
Ihou BO aiknt in face of the s^ductiFe 



fault, 8o lotid in tliy denimcitttioi] 
when it is paist, and tbei"c Is no reciil] 
ing it. Cruel and inexorable remor^o j 
by whom an thou sent ? Is it by th| 
bpirit of evil, that he may rejoice in hti 
work and drive guilty man to despair j 
or by God, to warn him, in onler tha 
he may yet expiate his faults? Fo 
through ibee two waya are opened it 
tlie soul — the way of death and tJiiJ 
way of i*e|>entance. Weak wilb ano 
lukewarm spirits fluctuate between ihel 
two, shrinking alike from the furn^i 
which would purify them, and tha bot^j 
tomlejs sea of anguish in whoi^e bittCE 
abysses the impenitent soul mu^t writhn 
eternally. 

These agonies to w^hich Ismena was j 
a prey, this remorse, this undying J 
worm, had goavYcd at her heart and| 
life like an incvirable cancer, and her 
torture^ augmented in proportion aj» 
she felt ber end apprc:>aching. Li a 
continual struggle with c^msciencc,. 
which cannot be comjxiunded with by 
hmnan reasons or worldl}' purposes^ 
because it is in itself a reason frota 
Gofl; every day more undecided 
whether to enter upon the course il 
indicated or to follow the path into 
which her pride had led her, Ismcuat 
fearful alike of tlie fiery furnace and 
of the d»"eadlnl abyss, was approaching 
death as a criminal approaches the 
scaflTold, wishing at the same time to 
lengthen thed*^Hlance and to shorten it. 
When lier end seemed near, the doo- 
tors insisted, as a last recourse, that 
she should try the air of the country, 
an<i the house at Chiclana was pn:- 
pared tor the reception ij\^ its proprie- 
tors. Tiie most exquisite neatnes* 
waa restored throughout. The awning 
once more covered ilie court, the btrdfr 
twiUered in their gilded cages, and 
the ptatits throve and bloomed^ thoiigb 
Maria no longer sang aa she watefotl 
them. 

Announced by the sotind of ltd beUSr 
the carriage slowly approached 
stoppcil at the door. But she who de- 
scended from it, and, supported by tbe 
general and a physician, i ' h<jr^ 

self wearily through the : , actal 



The Hevenge of Conscience. 



947 



like a corpse entering its sumptuous 
mausoleum, is only the wasted sliadow 
of the once brilliant Ismena. At 
tirentv-eight she had lost all the bright- 
ness of youth, her splendid eyes were 
dimmed and cast down, her golden 
locks had become gray, and her white 
and faded skin was like a shroud that 
covers a skeleton. A few years had 
sufficed to produce this change ; for, in- 
stead of the gentle and reluctant hand 
of time,' it had been wrought by (he 
destructive talon of suffering. The 
countess was borne to a sofa, upon 
which she lay for a long while so pros- 
trated that she appeared unconscious 
of all that surrounded her. But when 
left alone with Nora, she became fe- 
rerish and agitated, and called for 
Maria. Nora, foreseeing the violent 
shock the sight of this poor old woman, 
the unfortunate victim of her fatality, 
mast produce, would have put her off; 
hat the countess repeated the demand 
with so much exasperation that it was 
necessary to obey. When Maria came 
in, Ismena extended her arms, and, em- 
hracing her convulsively, laid her 
baroing head upon the bosom of the 
fiuthful friend who had witnessed her 
birth. But Maria was serene, for in 
tlial hosom beat a pure heart. Her 
eyes had lost their former expression 
of cheerful happiness, but still shone 
with the light of inward peace. 

^ Maria," exclaimed Ismena at last, 
"bow have you been able to bear your 
misfortune?*' 

" With the resignation which God 
gives when he is asked for it, my 
ladv." replied the good woman. 

*• blessed sorrows with which it is 
not incompatible T was the agonized 
aj of Ismena's heart. 

** I told you one day, my lady, that 
mj son filled me with pride ; and God 
has permitted that this son, my boast 
and my glory, should be defamed by 
all the appearances of a crime." 

" Appearances T said Nora. " Who 
says that ?" 

** Every one," answered Maria with 
gentle firmness, and, after a moments' 
ahe continued with the same 



serenity : ^' A profound mystery hides 
from my eyes, as from those of all 
others, the circumstances of his flight ; 
\>ut, if any one has foully caused it, 
may God forgive him, as I do I He 
and I know that my son was not— - 
could not be — a criminal ; this is 
enough for me ; I will be silent and 
submit." 

" And your motherly conviction does 
not deceive you !" exclaimed Ismena, 
falling back upon the pillows of the 
sofa. 

They carried her to her couch, at- 
tributing her exhaustion to the. excite- 
ment and fatigue of the journey. 

Her agitation having been gradually 
calmed by a narcotic, she was once 
more lefl in the care of the nurse. 

The general, with delicate fore- 
thought, had caused the flow of the 
fountain to be stopped, in order that 
the uncertain repose of his wife might 
not be disturbed by the murmur of its 
water. But the clock in the parlor 
struck twelve — twelve warning notes 
from the lips of time. As if the old 
man had counted with inflexible me- 
mory the twelve years she had sur- 
vived her crime; the twelve years 
passed in luxury and surrounded by an 
areola of respect and public consider- 
ation, since, in sacrificing conscience 
to pride, she had also sacrificed the 
life and fair fame of a noble and inno- 
cent man. 

Ismena awoke with a start and sat 
upright in her bed, her perplexed 
glances wandering in all directions, 
and a wild fever burning in her veins. 
A devouring inquietude possessed her ; 
the weight upon her breast sufibcated 
her. She sprang from the couch and 
rushed to the window ; for, like Mar- 
gret in the " Faust" of Goethe, she 
was sufibcating for air. Moonlight and 
silence reposed without in a tranquil 
embrace. So profound was the calm 
that it weighed upon the burdened soul 
of Ismena like the still but oppressive 
atmosphere which precedes the tem- 
pest. 

She leaned her burning forehead 
against the window bars. The court 



948 



The MtV€nff€ of Ccn$cient^, 



lay black beneath — black but pildetl ; 

L5«ii emblem of her lifi\ Then from a 
Btance there came to ht-r ears two 

^voicea, bleiided, like faith an<I hojie, in 
pmyer. Thev were the voirej? of 
fan a and Pied ad ref^hing the roi^ury. 

f^here was soniethin|T deejily solemn 
in the sweet monotony wifh which tfie 
words, without pussion, witliout vana- 
lion, without terrestrial modtilfitions, 

"j^se to heaven, as the smoke rlaes from 
the incense of the ultar, gently, without 
color, without *ra|>etuosity, as if drawn 
upwani by celestial attraction. Some- 
thing very impressive in those wordi*. 

IthouBandft of times repeated becau^^e 

I thousands of time.s felt, in tho.-^e peti- 

ItioDS which are a verbal tnidition from 
Jefius Christ and his ajw^tles ; words 
go perfect and complete in themselves!, 
that nit the pro^jresH and all the en- 

llightenment of the human mind have 

W^tnly endeavored lo improve them. 
At what wretched variance wa^ Is- 
mena's 8nnl witli the prave and tran- 
quil spirit of thr»se wortJjj ! She lon|3;ed 
to tmite in them, btU could not 1 

** O my God, !'^ s!ie cne^h withdraw- 
ing from the window, " I cannot pi*ay.'' 
But presently, drawn by the jiaeiTd 
and irn*&if*<lible attraction, she returni^l. 
She heuni Maria pronounce these 
words : ** For the repose of the soul of 
ray son Ldzaro,'* And then the prayer 
of the two pious women (continued 
wiihont other departun^ from the ac- 
customeil wcmls. 

•* Ah ! holy God !*' ejtclamied Is- 
mena, wringing her hands, ** my voice 
ifl not worthy to utvite with these pure 
tones which rise to thee un soiled by 
puilt and unchecked by remorse !" 
She prostmled hei-self with her face 
Id the floor, and remained until the last 
** amen*' bad mounted to heaven ; then, 
as Bho rose, shrinking from herself as 
tVom a spectrt% her eyes fell upon 

[Norn, who had fallen asleey> in a chair. 
Sheapproiu'hed, and, clutt^hing her wilb 
that right hand, once so beautiful, but 
now like the claw of a bird of prey» 
** You asleep r she cried* "Iniquity 
OdlfH^p while innocence watches and 
prays! Wake up, for your repose is 



more horrible than your crime ! Yon 
see her whom you rocked in her peace- 
ful cradle erUering^ — led by your iiH 
famous suggestions — into her coffin^ 
and you sleep while she is agonizing ! 
What do you see in the past ? An 
unpuni>^hed crime; and you sleep! 
What do you st?e in the pn»sent? A 
usurpation, a robbery, a crime commit- 
ted and continued fn>m d^iy to day in 
cold blowl ; and you sleep ! ^Vhat do 
you behold in the future ? The divine 
and universal justice of God ; hO sweet 
lo the upright, so terrible to the crim- 
inal ; and you sleep ! But this justice 
will yet cause to fall upon your head 
some of the weight which oppresses 
mine ! Bear, then, in addition to Grod*a 
condemnation, the curse of her you 
corrupted ! For I am the most guilty 
of wipmen, and, Nora, Nora, but for 
vou I should never have been wliat I 
am r 

Alanned by Nora's crrea, all tlio 
household hurried to the room to find 
the countess in a frightful and convuls- 
ed stale bonlering u|>on niadttes*. 
NoiTi^.loo, was confused and incoherenl, 
but this was altribuied lo her grief for 
the approaching death of her luUtreaa* 



I 



GHAPTfiit vr. 

DtmiNG tfte following day the sick 
woman reujained in a state of lernblc 
agitation, and at night the dcx'tors were 
obliged again to administer a powerful 
narcotic, which caused her to fall into 
a deep sleep. 

The count was occupied in arrang- 
ing some papers that were scattered 
M]:H>n an antique eljony escrftoire, or- 
namented in its various compartments 
wilh exquisite carved work and pain1> 
ings* In it Ismena kept her paper*. It 
had l>een opened that afternoon by her 
order to take out the writing tnaterijils 
she had demamled. 

• Ismena had learned English from 
her father, to whom that ton gut; waa 
perfecily familiar* and, as the hu^bwid 
replaced the papers, ht? fixed hia ejrea 



2%e Revenge of Conscience. 



^9 



aadlj upon a translation she had be- 
gun, grieved to think that she would 
never finish it. It was from " Hamlet," 
and his glance rested upon the last 
lines she bad written — ^the monologue 
of King Claudius in the third act. 
The writing was indistinct, as if traced 
by a trembling hand. The translation, 
in which one familiar with the original 
would have noted some voluntary omis- 
sions, ran as follows : 

'* My crime is already rank ; it calls 
to heaven. Upon it weighs the first 
curse that entered the world — ^Ihat of 
the fratricide ! My desire and my 
will impel me to pray, and yet I can- 
not, for the weight of my crime is 
greater than the force of my inten- 
tion, and, like a man in whom two 
powers contend, I vacillate between 
ceding to the pressure of my guilt or 
giving myself up to my good inten- 
tions. But for what is mercy, if not 
to descend upon the brow of the sin- 
ner? And has not prayer the double 
virtue of preventing a fall and of lifting 
tiie fallen by obtaining his pardon? 
Then will I lift my eyes to heaven. 
Bat what form of prayer is appropriate 
to my crime ? Can I ask and hope for 
forpveness? Is tiiere water enough 
in the gentle clouds to wash the blood 
from the hand of the fratricide ? Is 
there remission for him who continues 
in the enjoyment of the benefits of his 
an— his queen, his crown, his vain- 
glory ? Ail ! no, there cannot be ! The 
giWed hand of iniquity may sink jus- 
tice in the corrupted currents of the 
^orid, and the very price of guilt may 
boy the law of man. But there, on 
high, it is not so : there artifice obtains 
nothing and falsehood is of no avail : 
there, in the kingdom of truth, the deed 
vill stand naked, and the sinner will 
have to be hia own accuser. What, 
then, remains to us ? To try the virtue 
of repentance ? Ah ! yes, it can do all. 
But, alas ! if the sinner would repent 
«nd cannot? O wretched state! 
bosom black as death ! O soul, that in 
flying to free thyself entangled thyself 
HC more in the meshes of thy sin ! — 
ttgeki hasten to its aid ! — melt, heart 



of steel! — inflexible knees, be bent! 
Alas ! the words have flown, but wings 
are wanting to the heart ; and the 
words that reach heaven without the 
heart find no entrance there !" 

This imperfect translation, though it 
gave but a faint idea of the beautiful 
and elevated poetry of the writer, filled 
the general with admiration, for his 
was a mind accessible to all things 
beautiful and good. But when he 
glanced at his wife, who lay so pale 
upon her white bed, like a withered 
lily upon the snow, he reflected in all 
simplicity : " Why seek these pictures 
of crime and passion ? Why should 
the dove imitate the boding cry of the 
owl? Why should the gentle lamb 
try to repeat the roar of the wounded 
and bloody lion ?" 

Having put the papers in their place, 
he seated himself at the foot of his 
wife's bed, and lifted his heart to God 
in a fervent petition for the life of her 
he loved. 

The alcove in which Ismena lay 
opened into the parlor, and at this mo- 
ment, with the pertinacity of a recol- 
lection always repulsed yet for ever 
returning, the clock struck eleven. Its 
metallic strokes, vibrating and pausing 
in the silence, suggested the idea of 
justice knocking at a closed door — 
justice, against whom there is no door 
that can remain for ever closed ! 

These clear sounds startled Ismena, 
and she awoke with a smothered 
moan. 

The general, alarmed by her wild 
looks and confused words, approached, 
and, encircling her with his arms, said : 
" Compose yourself, Ismena, for you 
are better ; the healthy sleep you have 
had for several hours is restoring your 
strength." 

** Have I been asleep ?" she mur- 
mured. " Asleep on the brink of my 
sepulchre as if it offered me rest! 
Asleep when so little time remains to 
arrange my accounts in this world ! 
Sit down, sir, for so I will address you, 
and not as my husband. I am not 
worthy to be your wife. I do not 
wish to talk to you as to a companion, 



250 



The Revenge of Conscience. 



but as a judge whose ckmency I im- 
plore." 

The general, taking no notice of these 
strange words, which he attributed to 
delirium, endeavored to tranquillize his 
wile, telling her to put off the expla- 
nations she wished to make until she 
should be stronger; but Ismena per- 
sisted in being heard, and continued : 
'* I am about to die, and I leave all 
the good things of this world without 
sorrow ; all except one, that I still 
desire and would fain carry with me 
to the grave. You, who have been to 
me father, husband, and benefactor, do 
not deny what none but you can give ! 
For that which I implore, sir, is your 
Ibrgiveness/' 

The general, as he listened, beciime 
more and more confirmed in the belief 
that his wife was raving, and again 
begired her not to agitate herself us she 
was doing. But Ismena only implored 
him the more earnestly to listen with- 
out interrupting her. 

*'If a woman," she said, " who has 
expiated a crime by all that remorse 
can inflict of torture and ruin ; by the 
loss of health, of peace, and of life ; if 
this wretch, in her dying agony and 
despair, can inspire the least compas- 
sion, oh ! you who have been the most 
generous of men, you who have strewn 
my life with flowers, have one branch 
of olive for the hour of my death ! 
Hear, without repulsing me, without 
deserting me in my last moments, with- 
out making my last agony more in- 
toh^rable by your curse, a confession 
which will prove to you that my heart 
is not entirely perverted, since I have 
the courage to make it." 

A cold sweat stood upon the fore- 
head of the dying woman ; her stiff- 
ening fingers worked convulsively ; the 
words issued from her lips more in- 
terruptedly and fainter, like the last 
drops of blood from a mortal wound. 
Nevertheless, making one last heroic 
effort, she went on. 

'' I know that I am about to stab 
you to the h<>art, but by this means 
only can I die at peace with God. 
Here/' she continued, drawing a sealed 



paper from under her pillow, " is a de- 
claration made by me, for the purpose 
of preventing a dishonest usurpation, 
and signed by two reverend witnesses, 
which will prove to you that — Ramon 
— ^is not our son !" On hearing these 
words, the general sprang from his 
chair, but, overwhelmed with grief 
and astonishment, sank back again, 
exclaiming : 

** Ramon ! Ramon not my son I 
Whose, then, is he ?" 

" Only Grod knows, for his wretched 
parents abandoned him ; he is a found- 
ling." 

*-But with what motive?" The 
general paused a moment and then con- 
tinued with indignation ; ** I see the 
motive ! — ambition ! — pride ! Oh I 
what iniquity !" 

" Have pity on my misery !** im- 
plored Ismena, wringing her hands. 

** You are a base woman !" cried the 
general, with all the indignation of 
probity against dishonesty, and all the 
aversion of virtue to the thought of a 
crime. 

Ismena had never before heard the 
paternal voice of her husband assume 
the firm and terrible tone with which 
he now cast her treachery in her face, 
and she sank under it as if struck by 
lightning. His profound sorrow and 
stern condemnation seemed to open 
an abyss between him and her, and 
render it impossible for the lips which 
had pronounced that severe sentence 
ever to utter the panlon she craved 
more than life. Pardon ! most beau- 
tiful and perfect fruit of love, of which 
the value is so great that Uod's Son 
gave his blood to buy it, and which, 
therefore, his Father grants for a sin- 
gle tear, so great is his mercy ! Par- 
don, divine gift, that pride neither asks 
nor yields, but that humility both im- 
plores and concedes. Pardon , that, like 
an efficacious intercession, lifls the sin- 
ner to heaven. 

Had she perchance waited too long 
to ask it ? For one moment the tor- 
rent of angry blood had swept genei^ 
osity and sacred mercy from the heart 
of liim she had iujared ; and miisl she 



The Revenge of Conseienee, 



261 



die in that moment ? She sprang from 
the hed, and, falling upon her knees, 
laid her clenched hands against his 
breast, shrieking in a voice intercepted 
bj the death-rattle : 

," Pardon!" 

Her last thought, her last feeling, 
her last breath dissolved in tliat last 
\ronL It reached the heart of her 
husband. Bending forward, he caught 
her in his arms, and lifted — a corpse. 

And from the clock, as if time had 
waited for this moment to toll a volun- 
tary and pious passing bell, there issu- 
ed twelve slow and measured strokes. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A SECRET fault, drawing with it its 
terrible consequences, interlaced one 
with another, like a nest of venomous 
•erpents, had already cost the one who 
committed it her happiness and life, 
and the one who conceived it her rea- 
wn; for Nora, shocked into insanity 
bj the fearful curse and death of her 
mistress, was the inmate of a mad- 
hoaae. But its hideous trail continu- 
ed still, entangling and envenoming 
the hitherto tranquil life of the Grcn- 
end Count of Alcira. The good old 
mao never ceased to reproach himself 
fortbe cruel epithet indignation had forc- 
ed from his lips ; the only expression he 
bad ever uttered that could wound the 
poor worn heart that implored but one 
|iou5 word to permit it to cease its 
beatipg in peace. Instead of that 
Word, he had cast the cruel taunt un- 
der which it had burst in despair. He 
wept burning tears for not having con- 
ceded the pardon which could h ive 
beea but one instant wanting to his 
generous soul. And that instant had 
been her last. His forgiveness might 
have soothed her anguish, prolonged 
ber life, and sweetened her death ; and 
be had refused it This remembrance 
became in its turn a remorse, and poi- 
sooed his existence. 

The reaction he experienced, with 
Ui natural goodness of heart, had the 



effect to render almost excusable in 
his eyes a fault counterbalanced by so 
many shining qualities, and blotted out 
by such unparalleled remorse and by 
mortal sufferings ; for death, when ^it 
takes its prey, has the sweet preroga- 
tive of carrying with it under the earth 
the evil it has done, leaving the good 
behind for an epitaph. 

The general atoned for that one mo- 
ment in which he had forgotten to be a 
Christian by multiplied works of chari- 
ty, offered in sacrifice to obtain from 
heaven the pardon earth had denied 
the penitent, and by incessant offerings 
for the repose of her soul. Offerings 
which the Eternal would receive ; for 
the Creator has not lefl man a found- 
ling. He has acknowledged him as a 
son, has given him precepts, and pro- 
mised him, from the cross, a glorious 
inheritance. 

Every morning a mass was offered 
for the rest of her whose image dwelt 
in the heart of the old man whd knelt 
at the foot of the altar, uniting his fer- 
vent petitions with those of the priest 
that was sacrificing. 

The general's life was still more em- 
bittered by the painful secret which op- 
pressed and involved him and his sons 
with him, as the serpent in the group 
of the Laocoon makes both father and 
sons his prey. He could not break the 
arcanum without sacrificing the one to 
whom his kind heart clung with tender 
affection, without defaming the sacred 
ashes of the mother of his children. 
He, therefore, respecting the youth and 
innocence of his boys, kept the fatal 
secret, which, in truth, he had not the 
courage to reveal. The time, he argued 
within himself, when the veil must bo 
withdrawn from such a sad and cruel 
reality will come soon enough. Some- 
times he resolved to let it be buried 
with him. But what right had he, a 
man of such strict principles, to de- 
prive his heirs of their inheritance in 
favor of a stranger ? Could he make 
an alien the head of his noble house ? 
Allow a foundling to usurp the rights 
of its lawful representatives ? World- 
ly fathers would rather listen to the 



fm 



THe Revengi of ConKunce, 



opinion of the world than to the voice 
nf (H>nFicieiice* [jhicing social considera- 
tions above \is ducLsions* pen-^iimiin^ it 
that they aix? eonipdled tb<:*reto by cir- 
cumstances* But iH no one compound 
with conscicaee* lest she cea^c to be 
conacionce ; lest 8he become a eonniver 
instead of a sentinel, a weather coek 
instead of a foundation ; lest s\m lose 
the respect and confidence she is bound 
10 inspire. For elie should give her 
decisions ai the sirn sends forth his 
rays, with nothing to hinder them or 
turn Ihem from their din^ction. 

Tlie years sped on ward. The count 
grew infirm and saw his end approach* 
ing. Wishing to pass the last days of 
hi^ life in the society of lus children, 
and feeling thnt he ought to reveal the 
Beeret he had kept so long, he *ent for 
ihein to join him in Cfjiclana, where 
he wi&hed to die, in order to be buHeil 
beside hit* wife, thereby giving her, 
even after he was dead, a last public 
testimony of aftbclioii and reapect. 

The wor»l enlightermienl had not 
then been brought into use, nor had liie 
colleges been modernized. Yet the* 
did not prevent the tliree brothers from 
beitig such finii?hed and accomplished 
gentlemen that the sight of t lie in filled 
their fathers heart with pleasure and 
pride, 

llamon, the elde-it, caaie from the 
Bchool of artillery, wliere he had been 
the compaaion of Daoiz and Velarde. 
The second came from the academy of 
marine guards, the a(*ademy wiiich 
pnjduced the heroes of Trafa!g:ir, tliose 
Titans who conteniled with a powcrfid 
ariversary, with the treachery of an 
ally, and with the unchained fury of the 
element!*, and wlio were crushed, not 
vanquished^ by the tliree united. The 
youngest arrived from ihe university 
of Seville, in which, at that time, or 
a little before, the LLstas, Heinosjis, 
Bhiucos, Carvajales, Arjoaos, Rol- 
danes, and the worthy, wise, and ex- 
emplary Macstre, were Rmdeute. Fur 
though Spain has lacked railroad**, lio- 
tels, and rt^fined and sensual means of 
entertainment, she has never, in any 
epoch, lucked wise uien and heroes. 



QoljS 

I 



The general looked at the three m 
turn with an indefinable exprefiaioii of j 
tenderness ; but when his glance felT 
upon llamon, he lowered his eyes to 

hide the teai^ that filled them. 

His vivid pleasure at the sight of 
his children, mingled with th» anguish j 
of knowing that over the head of 
unconscious Ramon the sword of 
modes was auspended^ agitated the > 
man so much that he passed the night ' 
in feverish wakefulness, and his state 
on the fullowing morning was such that j 
liis doctors advised him to make liiti 
last preparations. The gtief of hit I 
(children, by whom he was ailorcd, was - 
heart rending* But the general was 
so well prepjired to leave the world 
and !i[>pear before the bar of God, that 
his last dis[>ositions, though $olemn| 
were short and serene. . 

Towartl night, feeling himself grow 
weaker every moment, he mude ar- 
rangements to be left alone with bis 
8oni^, who drew near his bei repress- 
ing their lears in order not to iiMict hira. 

lie looked long at them, and then 
said : ^* My children, I am al>oul to^H 
tell you a cruel secn^t, which will make^| 
one of you wretched. It has lain for 
many years burietl d^ep in my soul ; 
btit I am dying, and can be its reposi«, 
tory no longer. O my God ! my hear 
gives the lie to my lips ; and, never 
theless, one of you lA not ray son, ! 
the mother at whose grave you go to 
pray never bore you/* 

The grieved astonishment wl 
manifested itself in the counteuAnc 
of Ihe three youths, left thetn 
speechless, and overwhelmed. 

**Yoii know well," continued the 
father, alVer a pause, ^' that my interest 
and tenderness, in and toward you all 
have been the same, and that it r4iiir 
be known, even to yourselves, whirl 
of you has no right to bear my nan 
And vou, my ehiidixni, which one of 
you is it that does not feel for me 
afloetion of a son I" 

The simultaneoue' and cloqueut 
ply of the three waB to throw ili« 
selves, sufiff->cated by their ftobSf 1 
the arms of the good old man. 



(out; 
posi^^ 
jear^l 
?vcr^| 
andV 
^ to 

whic^ 

tancd^l 



Mercershurg Philosophy. 



2S»3 



"Alaal then," he proceeded, "if 
joor own hearts do not tell you, it is 
my cruel duty to declare it.*' 

The youths regarded each other for 
a momeot, and then, with one impulse 
embracing each other, exclaimed with 
ooe voice : 

" Father, we will not know it T 

The father raised his hands and eyes 
to heaven. " My God," he cried, " I 
thank thee! I die contented. My 
MOB, my sonB I may the satisfaction of 



having hidden for ever an unhappy 
secret, may the remembrance of having 
covered with a mantle of holy frater- 
nal love the misfortune of one of your- 
selves, make your lives as happy and 
tranquil as you have made my death." 
And laying his hands upon the 
heads of the three brothers, who had 
knelt at his be Jside, he said : " Let my 
last words be your recompense. My 
sons, I leave you my blessing T 



MERCERSBURG PHILOSOPHY. 



BY A PB0TE8TANT. 



[AiiUnskMi harlDg been made in Uie article on Dr. 
Bhoq, which appeared In our April nnraber, to " the 
tonu Reformed Presbyterians and Dr. Nevin," has 
alfed forth the following communication. We pub- 
BsbltM InteresUng to our readers, who will bear in 
aU ia its perusal that it is from a Protestant source, 
nA while making, therefore, an allowance for some 
«f lb itatemenU, will at the same time be not a little 
nrprised that one who sees so much Catholic truth 
AooU hU to identifr what he sees with the Catholic 
CkMcL-KaaW.] 

Fbom the mountain village of Mer- 
eenbuTg in Pennsylvania emanated a 
philosophy — theology we, who are its 
prophets and adherents, call it — which 
liis done much, and is destined to do 
Dtore, to unprotestantize Protestantism. 
Xor do we, who are Protestants, re- 
gret this. The longer we ponder our 
work the more are we convinced of its 
utility, and confirmed in our resolution 
to- pursue it. Well aware, as we are, 
that the Reformation has proved a 
Uore, except it be as a preparation 
^ a higher form of Christianity to 
^w Dearer the old landmarks, and 
ftee frcHn the democratic tendencies that 
have crept into the Protestant Church 
hxn the institutions of the state, or 
which, perhaps, more properly have 
BKHilded the institutions of the state 
thcnselreB as the natural outgrowth of 
k syitem taught by Luther and 
Od?iD| ve caoDot but rejoice that 



this is so. Our people have a natural 
desire to worship, instead of being 
compelled to give an intellectual assent 
to arguments on points of doctrine, and 
the teachers of the Mercersburg philoso- 
phy are determined to gratify them. 

We see clearly, what many others 
have failed to see, that New England 
Unitarianism, and after it infidelity, to 
which it leads, are not only the logical 
but the actual consequences of Protes- 
tantism. But we believe in historical 
development ; and as this is develop- 
ment in the wrong direction, we see 
nothing before us but to profit by the 
lesson and retrace our steps. We 
know that a cult which rejects the 
Christ and elevates the Jesus will soon 
degrade the Jesus too, and that, fol- 
lowing an attempt to attain to merely 
human excellence, will be a society 
distorted by the vices of vanity, ava- 
rice, and selfishness, and then a gradual 
obliteration of all the virtues. Men 
are beginning to see, dimly enough, 
that this age is a transition period in 
the world's history, when all our con- 
ceptions of truth, that is, Protestant 
conceptions of truth, are unsettled and 
passing through crucible, as it were, to 
come out in new and untried forms. 



354 



Mercersburg Philosophy. 



But thej do not understand the law of 
transition periods, and, while they ac- 
knowledge that the last great transition 
was the Reformation, they fail to per- 
ceive that the theories embraced at 
^hat time have failed. A certain feel- 
ing of disappointment at the work sec- 
tarianism has wrought sometimes op- 
presses them, but, instead of attempting 
to bridge over the chasm, they endeavor 
to tear away the broken arches which 
remain. 

Everybody can see that Protestant- 
ism had a grand start during the first 
thirty years of its existence. That 
Rome would soon give its last convul- 
sive gasp seemed patent to the eyes of 
all reformers; but now, aflter three 
hundred years of Protestant endeavor, 
a leading Protestant clergyman of New 
York is constrained to say that " Pro- 
testant Christendom betrays signs of 
weakness in every part " and to de- 
clare, and rejoice in the declaration, 
that " Modern life is not * Christian' in 
any intelligible sense. The industrial 
interest is openly averse to it both at 
home and abroad. Political life i:^, if 
possible, still more unchristian." But 
continues the same authority : " If in- 
dustry, politics, literature, art, have 
abandoned Christ, they have os fully 
and unreservedly embraced Jesus." 
Now this is either sheer nonsense or 
it is downright infidelity. About the 
premises there can be no doubt. It is 
but a small part of the so-called Chris- 
tian church that looks to Christ as the 
central fact of the system — the super- 
natural agency working through the 
church for the salvation of men. But 
the broad churchmen, when they have 
as fully and unreservedly embraced 
what they understand by Jesus as they 
now believe they have, will discover 
that the "touching devotion to the 
cause of humanity," about which they 
talk so eloquently, will develop itself 
into pure selfishness, and the rapacity 
of Wall street and the heartlessness of 
Madison square will extend their 
ramifications through every order of 
society. 

Seeing that ostentatious wealth is 



about to be at a premium, and anob- 
trusive piety at a discount, we, who 
believe in the Mercersburg philosophy, 
are endeavoring to interpose our hands 
to stay the sweeping tide. 

I hope I have now laid the grounds 
with the readers of The Catholic 
World for an enunciation of what we 
believe and teach. 

The cardinal principle of the system 
we inculcate is the incarnation, viewed 
not as a mere speculative fact, but as a 
real transaction of God in the world. 
Thus, our belief is peculiarly christolo- 
gical in its character, all things being 
looked at through the person of the 
crucified and risen Saviour. The 
church which he founded is an ob* 
ject of faith — a new creation in the 
natural world working through the 
body of Christ and mediating super- 
naturally between him and his people. 
Its ministers hold a divine commission 
from him by apostolical succession. 
Its sacraments are not mere signs, but 
seals of the gi-ace they represent Bap- 
tism is for the remission of sins. The 
Eucharist includes the mystical pre- 
sence of Christ by the power of the 
Holy Ghost ; that is, the real presence 
in a mystery. With these dogmas we 
started, contending that we had aU the 
attributes that were ascribed to the 
church in the beginning — unity, sanc- 
tity, catholicity, and apostolicity. 

It is now many years since the woiic 
was started — as many, mdeed, as were 
required for the Reformation in Eu- 
rope to reach the acme of its success. 
Since then a growing culture and en- 
larged views of doctrine and of wor- 
ship have seemed to require an en- 
largement of the range within which 
the movement was originally intended 
to be confined, and beyond which we 
did not conceive of its expansion. The 
time has been spent in educating the 
backward up to the starting-point, and 
in preparing a better form of worship 
for them when they are sufficiently ad- 
vanced to receive it. The movement 
commenced at Marshall College, •* Old 
Marshall," which started as a high 
school for boys and was sooo ami 



Mercertburg Philosophy. 



256 



andowed, thoogfa sparingly, as a col- 
lie, has since been merged with an- 
other with more money, but without 
the prestige, and, a]as I without the true 
spirit of the philosophy of the moun- 
ttin college. In the same village with 
this iostitation is the theological semi- 
nary of a church, respectable for num- 
bers and influence, though without 
ikshionable appointments or preten- 
sioDs to popular favor, which still re- 
tuns the true ring of the old metal. 
Some time after its foundation, it came 
to be presided over by a man of rare 
genius as a theological writer and 
ibinker, who was also president of the 
college. Profound in his conceptions 
of troth and logical in his reasoning, 
Repossessed an unbounded influence 
over those who came under his in- 
structions, and but few young men 
bare sat at the feet of this Gamaliel 
vidioat going away fully indoctrinated 
vithhis peculiar opinions, and zealous 
itandard-bearcrs in carrying forward 
the work which he had begun. 

Many prejudices had to be encoun- 
tered and overcome in carrying for- 
ward this work. Bigotry and preju- 
^ are barriers against which reason 
and religion strike in vain. Many 
who plaeed their hands to the plough 
toned back in the furrow. Opposi- 
tion niade the seed strike deeper root, 
and in the very slowness of the work 
'^ an earnest of its ultimate triumph. 
h. may take us nearer to Rome than 
we contemplate just now ; it may bring 
Borne nearer to us than she at present 
desires. Come what will of it, it is 
pfauu sailing to us, although we cannot 
660 land on either horizon. Nor do 
we see such cause for terror in the 
''horrors and superstitions of popery'* 
which many men believe constantly 
larks there. It seems to us that what 
men call Romanism may not be such 
a bad thing after all. We know it 
has done much good. A church that 
was a power in the days of the old 
Roman empire, and could not be over- 
whelmed by the tide of barbarism that 
OTcrtumed the power of the Caesars, 
bat could Unally roll back that tide 



of darkness, preserving Christianity 
through ages which have not left a 
vestige of the universal wreck behind, 
has certainly claims upon our pro- 
foundest gratitude and most reveren- 
tial awe. To us, it would seem strange, 
indeed, that the vehicle for the preser- 
vation of Christianity through ages 
when civilization was blotted out, and 
which did preserve not only its essence 
but its form, should be the mystical 
Babylon and the man of sin. 

Were this, indeed, so, we know in 
what desperate straits we would be 
placed. The form of the primitive 
church is generally flippantly declar- 
ed by Protestants to have been nearer 
the system of New England than old 
England ; and the Roman hierarchy is 
regarded as a long distance from either, 
which it certainly is. It is easy to 
assume that in the earlier ages of the 
church there was no papacy, no priest- 
hood, no liturgy, no belief in a super- 
natural virtue in baptism, nor of the 
real presence in the sacrament, and 
that everything was quite in accord- 
ance with modern ideas of private 
judgment, popular freedom, and com- 
mon sense ; but it is not so easy to 
prove it, nor indeed is it desirable 
even for Protestants that it should 
be proved. The Reformation has al- 
ways been understood to have been 
the historical product of the church it- 
self ; but if these assumptions were 
well founded, the church out of whose 
bosom the Reformation sprang would 
be no church at all, and the Reformation 
no reformation, but only a revolution. 
Thus, indeed, Christianity would be 
the theory of a philosopher, but not the 
life of a Christian. 

The work we have been doing is 
different from Puseyism even in its 
spirit The simplicity of Keble and 
the earnestness and power of Newman, 
in the days of their early zeal when 
these two wrought together, is nearer 
to what we intend if different froin 
what we have accomplished or may 
yet accomplish. We thank the Roman 
Catholic Church for its Christian year, 
its symbols of faith, its traditions of 



Mercerahurg Philoaoph^, 



batllc and of cooquesl, its early raar* 
tyrolojzry, and iu unceasing atid undy* 
iiig purpose. Nor do we conceal that 
tJicre are some things in the lioman 
i_'iithohc Cbuivh 10 whioh we object. 
Theae ai^ rather hisloncal detects 
than pr*isent impertection??, and wre 
fiee as mach in our own history to re- 
gret und to condemn, 

I WL'H remember ihe unpretending lit- 
tle church in which it was my privilege 
to woriihip in a country town of Peim* 
syhania. The Epidcopnlians had no 
foothold there, and the Pre»bytenan3 
consequently, combininoj togetlicr at 
once the imperiousne^a and the exclus- 
ivcnesa tor which they have ev er l>een 
distinguished, pretended to monopolize 
the fashion and tlie piety, the society 
and the religion, of the village. Th^y, 
of eourae, contemned ua, and opened 
wido Iheur doors for our di^orgimizers, 
who were crying out against innova- 
tion wht.»n we were seeking to make 
our church a place of worsliip, instead 
of a bazaar for ttie display of line clolli' 
iug and false curls. The Metho*li8t8, 
living only the false life of a sickly 
sentimentality, and the Lnthemns de- 
graded even from the doctrines and 
practices Luther taught in his fiery 
zeal, were absorbed in their childish 
schemes of marrying and giving in 
marriage, engaged in special efiTort^ 
at reform by revivaU and meetings of 
religious inquiry, and busied in raiding 
subscriptions for objects like Mra. Jel- 
laby'd mission &£ Borrioboola-Gha or 
Sundav school libraries which would 
not be sectarian, had little time to 
think of us after they I'cceived their 
quietus in rhe ** anxious bench'* con- 
Irovei^y of 1 84*3. There were, indeed, 
many solemn conclaves over our af- 
fairs by gossips who neiiher under- 
stood nor wislied to understand the 
work we were doing, and half in fear 
that we 6ht>ald be lost for too much 
revereuce for mother church, and half 
10 joj at the prospect of a few pn> 
a^yt^fSf everybody affected to commi- 
serate lis. But these, though otten 
working mischief among our ** weaker 
▼WBoUt" were not seriously opposcMi 



by us. Our purpose was steadily kept 
in view, notwithstanding. 

It was by preaching principally tb 
we hoped to accomplish our ta^ik, ani 
after the stubborn (allow of an unwork- 
ed field had been broken ♦ fa reci; 
gniduaUy to the forms ot' the churcli 
But the iLrrows, we felt, would be aa^ 
empty mockery withuut the teachinga 
that give them force. To ineulcut 
truth was then our first duty. Tbi 
was of[en done by the more earm 
and jutelligent of our clergy* by fot^ 
lowing up the reasons of the Chrrstiaa 
calendar and deriving lesson? from 
each. Incidentally was urged, witb 
more or less boldness according to the 
counifi^e and tem|x^r of the man whose 
duty it was to enfoj'ce them, doetrin' 
which for many years sounded stnuige^^ 
ly to Protestant ears. Among thetiei 
besides those already noticed in Uiis 
paper, I may instance, as an exauifila 
least expeeteiJ by Catholics to bo Oi 
anywiiere outside of mother chunc*h it- 
sclft the dogma of the Immaculate CotH 
ception. Starting with the proposition 
that that which is holy ciinnot l>e born 
of that which is unclean and sinful, \ 
have time and again heard this tbeme 
urged upon his people with force and 
fervor by an earnest and fervent pas*, 
lor, Not with equal boldness, perhap 
but with no less sincerity and f«*rvor] 
have I heard him urge the miiiistra* 
tions of the Virgin. Often in declaring 
these doctrines be would enforce ai 
proposition by putting it in the fo 
of a question, and one of these, [ bo*< 
lieve, I shall continue to hear ringiii, 
in my ears while the words of an 
renmin intelligible to me: Why shouUI 
we not reverence tbo mother of our 
Lord? 

These things may be news to Catho- 
lics, and may be newi ev«*n to iimny in 
whose ears they have been thundered 
for a quarter of a century. The latter^ 
hear without understanding, but 
words will be re-echoed in their bearii 
until they are not terms without meaiir 
ing. The Mercersburg philosophy is 
the antagonism in thought and in its 
social aspects of New Knglaad Iraoa* 



red 

:ter^ 

tbaH 

lao^l 




A Family Motto. 167 

scendentalism aod Pljmoatb Rock con- cumstances, ministers ought to concern 

ventionalisms, and receives no fayor, themselves in politics/' the body of 

and merits none, from a people among the people who compose the German 

whom Dr. Ho)mcs*s Elsie Venner is Reformed Church, and who look back 

an exponent of the life and practice to the Heidelberg Catechism as their 

of the present, as Cotton Mather's earliest enunciation of faith, and the 

Wonders of the Invisible World Mercersberg theology as their latest 

was of past generations. And Penn- development of truth, have never felt 

sjlvania, where this philosophy has its the need of political preaching. A 

gtronghuld, being unlike New England, simple motto includes all their aspira- 

of which Dr. Mather said, " Being a tions, their hopes, and their fears, their 

conntry whose interests are remark- preaching, their practice, and their 

ably inwrapped in ecclesiastical cir- eternal reward — Christ Crucified. 



A FAMILY MOTTO. 

A WELL proportioned ancient shield, 
And on the azure-tinted field 

The red crusader's cross : 
Words scarce could tell at what a loss 

The well-read scholar stood — 
In what an earnest, startled mood. 
Beneath the ancient, comely shield, 
And red cross on the azure field, 

This motto's thread 

He whispering read, 
** ForHter gerit crucemT 

A true crusader, staunch and bold, 
Was he, my good ancestor old, 

Who thus could boast his cross 
He bore unmindful of the loss : 

** Strong, strong his cross to bear," 
Comes down in characters most fair ; 
Comes down a glory unto me 
Through many a bloody century ; 

The good seed kept 

Though old faith slept, 
" ForHter gerit cmcemJ* 

Though old faith slept ! a deep blnsh came 
Across his cheek, a blush of shame : 

That bold crusader's cross, 
Borne in the very teeth of loss. 

No longer worn with pride ; 
His oonscience told him, laid aside 

VOL. V. — 17 



tS8 



J3b weni abaui Doing OooJL 



Uke some base supers! ition's sign : 

That cross which from high heaven will shinet 

When men shall hear, 

With joy or fear, 
** Fortiter gerit cnusemJ'^ 

Years passed ; his quickened eye had scanned 
The archives rich of many a land^ 

Tet still a purpose, named 
Not to himself, each spoil had claimed ; 

And day by day to hail 
On truth's horizon some new sail, 
Strange sweetness sent through all his veins, 
Till to his contrite breast he strains 

That cross severe. 

While angels hear, 
•* Fartiter gerit crucem.^ 



From The MonUi. 

«*HE WENT ABOUT DOING GOOD." 



The memory of the French endgrii 
in England must be almost extinct 
A few survivors may remiun among 
us, who can just remember the marquis 
with faded decorations who taught them 
French or drawing, or the venerable 
abbe who patted them on the head and 
whispered his blessing. But the hor- 
rors that led to the sudden appearance 
on our shores of several thousand 
French exiles, the burst of compassion 
and friendliness vrith which they were 
welcomed, the sustained respect which 
they continued to excite, the noble 
efforts successfully made^ 'under the 
crushing pressure of a fearfully ex- 
pensive war, to provide for their wants, 
and the recompense that came in the 
shape of prejudices cleared away and 
preparation for the reception of truth 
— ^these things are now matters of his- 
tory, and we have few traditions of 
them to supply the place of recollec- 
tion. They do not even enter much 
into our current literature. In our 
«wn younger days the oourteoas and 



dignified, although threadbare, 
nobleman, and even the snuffl 
shoe-buckles and silver hairs 
kind-hearted French priests, not 
quently figured in the moderate 
— very different from the presei 
dation-— of tales and works of 
which sufficed for the wants 
remote epoch. We know of n 
of note of the present day in wh 
is made of the character of an < 
except the Tale of Two Citiej 
that is hardly an exception, sii 
exiles there introduced are litth 
than pegs to the story. We 
gladly know more of the interco 
our grandfathers with these con 
for the taith, of the homage whic 
courage and cheerfulness extorti 
especially of the working of tha 
ence for good, which, indirectlj 
have had vast effects, and have 
greatly both to accelerate the n 
of the penal laws, and to bring 
that reaction toward the chu 
which we are now reaping the hi 



He went aho%U Doing Good. 



859 



and which, even directlj, was prob- 
ably the cause of very numerous con- 
versions. A memorandum found 
amon^ the papers of Abb^ Carron, 
with the title, *• A little memorandum 
most precious to my heart and to my 
faith," contained a list of fifty-five 
Protestants received by him into the 
church before the year 1803; and 
many more, whose names did not ap- 
pear in that list, were known to have 
been converted by his ministry. The 
wmple fact that, within twelve years 
after the public burning of Catholic 
chapels and the houses of Catholics in 
London, our parliament was voting 
money by acclamation to support sev- 
eral thousands of foreign priests who 
were in exile purely for their loyalty 
to the Catholic Church, is at first sight 
almost startling. The British lion 
must surely have worn rather a puz- 
zled expression of countenance when 
lie found himself bringing bread to 
popish priests of the most thoroughly 
popish kind, and respectfully licking 
|heir hands. While great admiration 
i« really due to the generosity of the 
Aoble animal on this occasion, it is 
perhaps only fair, as well as obvious, 
10 remark, that he probably somewhat 
I confounded the cause of the clergy, 
who suffered only for their faith, with 
Aat of the exiles in general, and was 
[ somewhat influenced by his hatred first 
i ^ the sons-culottes, and afterward of 
ftinaparte. The clergy, however, 
*Wu)ugh for the most part very strongly 
•'^ach^ to the French throne, were 
Qolte ready to work on under any 
^femment, and in whatever priva- 
^jons, and were driven into exile or 
^•^^eaiened with death solely for the 
jJJUne sort of offence as that of St. 
.Aomas of Canterbury, of Fisher and 
^ore ; that is, for then: repudiation 
^ the very principle which is the es- 
^titial basis of the so-called Church of 
•Coigland. 

An exceedingly interesting life,* 
^withstanding its somewhat super- 
Qiioiis diffuseness, has lately been pub- 



^«Tto 4» VkhU Owrai, Mr s 



1808. 



lished a't Paris of the venerable Abbe 
Carron, to whom the Catholics of 
London are indebted for the chapel 
and schools of the Somers-town Mis- 
^sion, and indirectly, through his suc- 
cessor Abbe Nerinckx, for the esta- 
blishment among us of the ** Faithful 
Companions of Jesus." We can hardly 
help envying the good religious who 
has sent forth this •huge volume of 
nearly 700 pages, the thorough room- 
iness in which he carries on his labor 
of love ; omitting no detail that in any 
way furthers his purpose, describing not • 
only the holy priest himself, but most 
of his relations and intimate friends, and 
freely inserting lettere and documents at 
full length. Some of these, such as let- 
ters of commendation from royal per- 
sonages, and other notabilities, and the 
ofiKcial answers, which show that the 
" Circumlocution Office" was a French 
quite as much as an English institu- 
tion, we could perhaps forego. But 
the letters of the abbe himself, nume- 
rous as they are, do not contain a line 
too many for our taste ; for every line 
exhales the fragrance of a love the 
strength of which, as a natural affec- 
tion, could seldom have been surpassed, 
and which, at the same time, although 
not so thoroughly predominated over 
by the supernatural as in the highest 
order of saints, is yet always under its 
infiuence, and ready to pass into it 
Few men have ever lived less in or 
for themselves. He lived for his 
mother, brother, and sisters, for his 
nephews and nieces and adopted child- 
ren, for his king and country, for his 
fellow-exiles, and, above all, for the 
poor, to whose special service he bound 
himself by repeated vows, which were 
gloriously fiilfilled. We cannot see in his 
most confidential letters or in his most 
private memoranda a trace of indul- 
gence in a single natural pleasure, ex- 
cept that of being loved. Although a 
very voluminous writer, he seems to 
have been absolutely free from literary 
vanity. He allowed the Abbo Gr^rard, 
the author of Valmont — to whom he 
submitted most of his productions — to 
go on criticising and correcting without 



Hfi went ahfmi Doing Good, 



mercy, and wMlwm^r^ suppress any- 
tiling at a warJ from Wtn. As be bad 
no vulneruble pulrit, so lo speak, but 
ill his affeclionsi. it was here, as is usual 
wiib \hoBQ whijiii Grod would Irain for 
givat tilings, that the shtirpest wounds* 
wcri* inffictctl. The early deatii of a 
younger sister born 8fK>n after binisclf, 
who had b^en his coufidante Jind asso- 
ciate in piety and, in all bia schemes of 
devotion a^id den oledness as a child ; 
Ibe death of hia mother, whom he would 
bare ido]i/.ed if he could have idolized 
ftnyliiing, but from whose death-bed he 
went back calmly to &\i all the evening 
io the confe'dsiooal ; the deaths of sev- 
eral otliers of those ne^i-est and dear- 
est to him, and the defeetion of a few ; 
the overthrow of liis gigantic and Hue- 
ceasful undertakings in beliulf of the 
poor of hi§ native town ; two deporta- 
tions and nearly half a life spent in 
banij^linierit from bis beloved Fmuoe ; 
banishment from Normandy and from 
borne even after his i*eiurn to F ranee; 
frequent cont4ict witli distress greater 
tlian even his wonderful ability to re. 
lieve ; and, perliai>s woi'st of all, his 
own share, however innocently, in the 
ruin of an intimate friend whom he 
bad encouraged to invest all bis pro- 
fK.*rly io his favorite undertaking of 
workshops at Rennet, and who died 
broken-hearted, leaving a widow and 
seven children destitute; these were 
the things that nuule bis tra^ of the 
cross, and moulded bis loving aud 
blee^ling heart to a greater likeness of 
the Crucified 

It was on the IGtli of Septemb<T, 
1792, that Abbe Carron, then in the 
thirty -third yejir of bis age, and tlie 
tenth of bis priesthood, landed in Jer- 
sey with 250 oUier priests, after a tem- 
pestuoufl passage of forty-eight hours 
from 8t IVIalo, in which ihey had nar- 
rowly escaped the fate to which those 
who forced ttiem to put to sea in a 
stomi liad apparently destined them. 
These were nearly the last of the ex- 
iles. The September massacres gave 
tiie crown of martyrdom to moF^i of the 
ckrgy faithful to their vows, who had 
9^ either bcca alarmed iuto Higlit or 



forcibly banished* The Abbe Oi 
and those who accompanied hmi, 
not, properly speaking, imigrts., bj 
poiics. Of the tmigris or fugl 
again, there were two classes : i| 
who, like most of the nobilitvp bai^ 
when their property was seizej 
their privileges taken away ; and { 
who, as was the case with most ^ 
clergy, bad remained at their po| 
they were exposed to indignide| 
outrages, and their lives endangj 
But nothing woidJ induce the , 
Carron and those who were influ« 
by his example to fly. The civil 
racier of the clergy had bet* n doj 
by the National Assembly on tho 
of July, 17yO, and unfortunate) 
eepted by Louis XVL on the 2^ 
Auguist, On the 4th of January, 1 
the oath which was iho test of ofl 
^or^hip had been demanded oi 
bishops, and almost unanimousb 
fused ; and soon aftt^rward begtm 
persecution of the priests and th 
ligious who followed their noblf 
ample. On the 1 1 lii of May the i 
cipality of Rennes endeavored to j 
the schismatical clergy in the i 
parishes of the town, and tbreii| 
summary proceedings against all 
had refused the oath for any all 
to discharge their ministry an/ ! 
The Abbe Carron, the chief cttrt 
the large parish of St. QeriDi 
which he had labored from the lii 
his ordination, was one of tbo^e l 
ally interdicted. At the same timi 
violent republicans of the lown,| 
although comparatively few — fci| 
mass of the inhabitants cond 
Catholic aud loyal— were prevj 
as elsewhere, over the more mod| 
had begun to threaten bis life, 
preached the last course of Leu! 
mons that were beard for many 
to come in his native town, all 
parties of armed men were Kdo* 
be in wait for him ; but after EasI 
order of the vicar geneml, he 
to the house of a brother a few 
out of the town. On bis way, 
the morning, be was met by forty 
ed men who had been acarchti 



Ih u>e9U about Doing Good. 



261 



Wm at the very house to which he was 
going, with the intention of murdering 
him, and whose violence hod so agi- 
tated hi^s brother, who was in weak 
health, that he died not long after ; but 
although they spoke to the abbe, they 
did not touch him. His life had been 
gtill more wonderfully preserved seve- 
ral years before, when three men — one 
of whom was enraged at the conver- 
tton by the abbe's preaching of a wo- 
man whom he had seduced — had laid 
a plot for his assassination, and had 
entrapped him, under pretence of his 
tervices being required for a wounded 
man, into a solitary house on the bank 
of the river. When he approached 
tk bed in which his pretended peni- 
tent had laid himself ready to strike 
the murderous blow, he exclaimed, 
'*Yoa have sent for mo too late: the 
unfortunate man is no more ;" and his 
companions found that the wretch had 
roddenly expired. Carron had not yet 
finuhed his work ; and, although in a 
hi Bigoally supernatural manner, the 
divine hand that had then fallen on his 
would-be murderer interposed again 
and again to protect him. From his 
retirement, where he had composed 
And published a vigorous and pathetic 
ranongtrance to those religious who 
*€M yielding to the storm and break- 
ing their vows, he returned to his pa- 
^ and did not intermit his work till 
Iw was seized and carried to prison, 
^ into forced exile in the August of 
fenext year. He continued to carry 
* and even to extend, in addition to his 
"Werdolal labors, the weaving, rope 
^ sail-making, and other manufac- 
topw that he had established for the 
^efit of the poor, and was actually 
giving employment and subsistence to 
^^00 artisans when he was arrested. 
^ the same time he had expended 
^WjOOO francs on the buildings where 
^ worts were carried on ; and when 
^J were taken possession of by the 
i^blicftiis. the stock in han^ was 
viiiu*datmore than 94,000 francs, and 
W}000 more were due to him for sails 
i^iplied to the navy from his establish- 
His sacoesB in this undertaking 



was probably the reason for which, al- 
though he was unflinching in his zeal, 
and resolutely refused to allow any 
constitutional priest to officiate in his 
church, his arrest was so long delayed. 
While inflexibly firm in matters of 
conscience, he was ready enough to ac- 
commodate himself in ever}'thing else 
to the new state of things, in order to 
carry on his work. He was willing to 
be known as citoyen Carron^ and to be 
tiUoycd to any extent. He obeyed the 
law which oniered all the insermenti$ 
to present themselves every day to the 
municipal authorities. He implored 
that, if they thought fit to imprison 
him, he might still be permitted to 
carry on his works of charity, and of- 
fered to visit them accompanied by an 
officer, and to live contentedly in con- 
finement. ** Although breathing infect- 
ed air,*' he said, " I may still manage 
to live a few years, and discharge the 
sacred obligation of reimbursing the 
friends who lent me money to do good 
with. Then I will make a present of 
my establishment to my country, and I 
shall die satisfied with having unde- 
ceived those who think that I had in 
view to enrich myself or my family." 

But the fatal blow, though delayed, 
was not very long in coming. On the 
10th of August a party of the national 
guard took him to the hotel de ville^ 
and thence to the Abbey of Su Melaine, 
which had been turned into a prison ; 
and on the 8th of September he and 
his fellow-prisoners were escorted to 
St. Malo to be shipped for Jersey. 
His bishop, his rector, and many of 
his clerical friends had ficd months be- 
fore ; but he hod kept to his resolution, 
more expressively, his biographer says, 
than grammatically worded, " Jamais 
je rCai voulu consentir a rrCcmigrery 
He was in bad health, and suffering 
besides from a violent toothache ; but 
neither of this, nor of his being made 
to share the single mattress of a pri- 
soner in a high fever^ nor of any of 
the brutal insults which he received 
in prison and on the journey to the 
coast, does he say a word in the let- 
ters which he managed to send to his 



202 



ih went abotU Doing Goad, 



sister iind nepbewg. He addressed 
them all by name^ longs to fold ihem 
lo his brcaat, hopes one day to see 
ihem a^ain, confiolea and advises them, 
jind studs the lilllc ones tho few sous 
that be happened to Lave in his pos- 
session. But hi;i thought 8 of his own 
suffenngs are only such as these : 

'* Believe me, 1 do notaufler the hutidn^tUh 
part of what I have deserved. An unfur- 
tun&tc sinner, a btise nnd too frequent Inms* 
gres^r, moh. as I know mjaelf to be, au^ht 
uoi to llitLik Aoytlung of such slight drops 
of biiterneu. My God, wbea we lovo you, 
bow yiveet, how consoling, how delicious it b 
to suffer fop you ; andhowmai^iiificently does 
tJie love wliicb we bear voii recompense ua 
for all th» miseries of life i Bo not, mj dear 
oliild^ tliiiik of your friend's impri^oDiiient, 
without reznembering at the same time that 
1 deserve to be at the bottom of the moat 
lomlhflome dun^eon^ and under a thousand 
ohaini, to bewail the fiins of mj youth.** 

Hia Irust message, when on the point 
of embarking, was to M, Paris, whom 
he had commissioned to watch oyer bis 
factories. 

" I hope that thii letter, in wbjcli I enclose 
mj heart, will find you in good health. Mine 
has bad some varia'tiona, but It in at present 
quite sound ; and I desire, if mj God pre- 
■erves me in it^ to consecrate it again one dny 
entirely to the service of mj dear fellow dti' 
sens ; for 1 shall always love them, and jihajl 
always si^h for the moment when, recovering 
from their unfounded prqudicefl, tln*y cease 
to close their heart to me, Speak of me now 
and then to the members of that dear colony 
whose prosperity formed the aweeiest enjoy- 
ment of my youth. Tell them that I shall 
always be their father and Iheir friend, and 
that I shall seek all my life for the means of 
Biaking Uiem happy. If I can gain any prac- 
tical knowledge of manufaeturea in England, 
I ahall make ha^te to apply it to tha improve- 
XDont of La Pilcthire/' 

He was never permitted to revisit 
his work at Ronnes ; but his indeftiti- 
gabte itetivity and burning zeal found 
a etill wider field, and adiieved stil! 
greater wonders in exile. 

It was no slight task that awaited 
him. The two hundred and fifty 
pennileis outcasts — of whom he was 
one^ — came to swell a crowd of more 
than tliree thousand priests and reli- 



gious, living in discomfort and il 
in the midst of a population fai 
bitterly opposed to the Cathoh 
gion tlian the people of Knglan 
in danger, from the want of oecu| 
and from the cessation of all oi 
practices of piety, of falling in I 
order. Only the year before, a Ci 
lady had tried to get permission t 
mass celebrated in private, ar 
good people of Jersey had threi 
to tlirt)\v any prie^st wlio vcntnroJ 
ehmle mass into a caldron of boili 
and when after some time she 
brave Irish priest to run the ris 
husband, who aerved his mu3S, 
naked eword to be ready for an i 
The Abbe Carron had not beei 
in the itjhind before nine ma^seii 
said every raoroLng in her parlo 
ter a short visit to London, w 
he went to consult with the Bis! 
Leon and the rector of his old 
at Rennes — not forgetting at tb© 
time hia promise to obtain infon 
that would he useful at La Pi 
— he settled liiraself tu his work 
8th of October. He opened a 
tory at once, in which he said 
every day, and preached on Su 
with some secrecy at first, but 
soon, as the dispositions of the | 
changed, without the necessity c 
precauiions. lie gave several a 
of spiritual exercises to the cler 
which their fervor was rekindl**d 
set on f*jot a large dispensary, in 
a priest, who had been a surgec 
fore his onlioation, made up at 
ministered remedies, and in wlii 
other priest dls[*ensed soup, wij 
nen, and other neeessai'ies. Tl 
collected a great quantity of book 
opened a library and reading^ 
where the clergy could come fror 
over-crowded kirrack-rooms to 
or pray in silence and in conifort 
provided another collection of 
to form a circulating librnry f 
emignint laitVi many of whon 
been hurried into exile without 
able to bring anything with then] 
Catholic books were, of c^iurse 
ttiinable at that time in Jer^j' 




Ha went about Doing Good, 



the June af^er his arrival he had two 
schools at work for their sons and 
daughters, and constituted himself 
master of the upper division of the 
boys' school, hut taught the catechism 
and explained the epistles and gospels 
to all the classes in each institution. 
These were the only Catholic places 
of instnjction in the whole island. lie 
was, besides, the common refuge for 
all the wants, spiritual and temporal, 
of the whole colony ; he was hard at 
work at the composition of some of 
the numerous volumes which he pub- 
lished to increase his resources of cha- 
rity ; and he continued, till war broke 
off the communication between Eng- 
land and France, to direct, as far as 
was possible, the factories of La Pi- 
ietiere. Yet, with all these xmdertak- 
ings on hand, he was living himself in 
a state of almost destitution. One 
room served bun for a second chapel, 
for confessional, class-room, reception- 
room, and bedchamber ; and having no 
£,ervant, he had to move and replace 
the tables and benches, and sweep and 
dust several times a day. And, with 
11.11 this multifarious work, he made it 
XK. role to read two chapters of Holy 
Scripture on his knees every day, to 
coake a visit every afternoon to the 
blessed sacrament, to make at least 
b^lf an hour*s mental prayer, and to 
x-<c?ad a chapter in the Imitation, an- 
ot:ker in the Spiritual Combat, and 
^^ least fifteen pages of a manual of 
^-faeology, however pressing his occu- 
Y^sations might be. He prescribed to 
^ imself in a rule of life, drawn up in 
^^^rsey, and found after his death, to 
^"ise at four, however late he might 
*^«ve retired to rest ; to say office after 
*^is meditation, and then to celebrate ; 
^o fast every day, never taking any- 
^liing before dinner, and only milk for 
^is collation, and on Fridays only 
^read; never to touch wine, and to 
^>)nfine himself to bread and vegeta- 
bles when he dined alone ; and in va- 
rious other ways to deprive himself of 
comfort, and to bring his standard of 
what was necessary far below that 
which is tuaal even with the pu>u8 



and charitable. The only expensive 
article that he retained was a watch, 
the alarum of which he found needful 
to wake him ; but he promised, as soon 
as he had thoroughly acquired the 
habit of waking before four o'clock, 
to give this also away to his **dear 
friends the poor ; who," he said, " shall 
have everything that I can deny my- 
self." His rule of life, which contains 
also devout aspirations for every dif- 
ferent act of the day, and for times of 
wakefulness at night, ends with this 
fervent petition : 

** incomprchcDsible and eternal treasure 
of my soul, the one adorable object of all the 
feelings, affections, and emotions of my heart, 
Jesus, my Jesus, my love and my all, oh I that 
I may love you, that I may live only to love 
you, and to cause you to be loved upon 
earth ! Grant me, Lord ! days well fiUod, 
a pure life, and a happy death, that may con- 
duct me to your bosom !'' 

That such a man should exercise 
great influence for good, and work 
wonders, we cease to be surprised. 
When his undertakings assumed soon 
afterward a still more extended range 
of responsibility in London, Bishop 
Douglas expressed to the Bishop of 
Leon his amazement and alarm, and 
was answered : " Reassure yourself, my 
lord; I have known Abbe Carron a 
long time, and I am accustomed to see 
him work miracles." Yet we should 
hardly, perhaps, be prepared for what 
he actually effected. When the re- 
publican forces under General Hoche 
were massed on the coast, apparently 
for an invasion of our territories, the 
English government resolved to for- 
tify Jersey, and deemed it expedient 
to transfer the exiles to London. A 
curious proposal had just been made 
by the military commander, that the 
clergy should take up arms; which 
was, however, courteously refused, and 
the refusal courteously accepted. In 
August, 1796, the abbo came to L<hi- 
don, charged with the task of finding 
accommodation and providing for the 
wants of the French colony from Jer- 
sey. Besides the herculean task of 
finding lodgings for most of them, he 



m 



His ioeni aiout Doing Good, 



at once hired two bouses in Tot ten- 
htttn-coort road and reopened hi» two 
ftcfiools, and soon after opened two 
, rooms for public cbapeLs, and esta- 
bliahed iignln Lis libniriej?. In less 
than three years he bad also under his 
cai"e a hospital for forty aged and 
to firm ecclesiaaties, and another for 
twenty-five female patients, an eccle- 
stadtical seminary containing twenty- 
five students in training for the priest- 
hood, and a Maison de Providenee, on 
the plan of the houses of the Sieters 
of Charity, provided with all neces- 
sary supplies for visiting and relieving 
the poon In 1709^ to bia two day- 
schools were added peimannaU — the 
one for eighty boys, and the other for 
sixty girls — all the expenses of wbieh, 
in excess of the twelve or eighteen 
gtthieas per head ^i-anted by the Bri- 
tish government, fell on the ahbt% Ilia 
way of retuminpr thanks was to pro- 
mine some additional work of charity. 
Thus, in an effufiion of gratitude for 
the opening of the hospice for old 
priegtB, lie bound himself to give a 
dinner to six poor old men every 28th 
of Oetober ; when tlie seminary was 
opened, be prr*tuiset) to give a dinner 
every 1st of December to twelve poor 
child rcn^ to wait on them himself, and 
to send them home with new riolhea 
and bread in their hands; and when 
the female hospital was opened, to give 
a marriage portion every 2r>th of Oc- 
tober to three virtuous young women. 
Wlien in peetdiarly great dil!ieu It leg, 
his plan, like that of many saints, was 
to give in alms any little money that 
remainedj in or^ler, as be said, ** to 
draw down dew from heaven ;'* and 
this never failed. Kicb Protestants 
called and left Imnk-notes, without 
giving him time to discover who they 
were, or sent anonymous donations. 
Two gentlemen in drab-colored attire 
astooished the pupils, trained to the 
most exquisite jioliteness, by coming 
in one day without removing their 
hats ; and one of ibem, who turned 
out to be that torment of our infancy i 
LintUey Murray, atler seeing the whole 
establish hmenty de[>osita4 XIO ni the 



abbe's hands, l^he leading CiU 
were, of course, profufie in their 
inga, and all ready to place I hem 
at his disposal. The hoarded jew 
the richer exiles meltefl into alu 
the poor. Actom n-ad plays ft 
benefit^ and the great (^utalani ^ 
concert for him. He bad been i 
raged at the outset by even more 
ing dispositions of Divide Provi< 
A rich Enslisbman, living at St. . 
in Jersey^ had entreated him to i 
his house and estate and becoK 
heir; but, as the offer involve 
condition of being nntumlisec 
abandoning France, his love fi 
country, that had userl him so ei 
prevented his listening to it. 
after his settlement in Londc 
found himself without rej^ource^ 
heavily in debf, Mr. Desprex, h 
mer rector, met him coming out < 
oratory in a state of great dej>r< 
and proposed a walk in the paH 
was early, and no on© was to l>e 
A man passed them at a rapid 
and, wiicn a little in advance of 
drew some packages out of his p 
one of which fell to the ground, 
abb 6 picked it up, and found a I 
of notes. He ran after the man, 
ing to him, but in vain, to stop, i 
hist overtook him. The other p 
to stop, ami deelart'd that the 
did not belong lo him, and that h 
in a great hurr)'. ** Where* dn 
come fnim, then ?" was the n 
question* ** From there, sir,* 
the fftr«uger, pointing upward* 
(kmoun ted, Mr. Des|»rez record 
the value of some score* of thoi 
of francs. The abbe used to sa; 
while in England, more than a i 
guineas had passetl tbr»3ugh hra I 
Yet he was inexorable in his i 
never receiving anything nf val 
himself. He refused whatevc 
clogged with the condition of ki 
it himself. 

In 1797, an amnesty for the 
wa8 voted, and for a week h 
hoping to return to France, ftB 
even closed his schools ; but i\n 
erament, who were belter aoq« 



d 



He went about Doing Good, 



265 



with the state of thiDgs, refused him a 
piusport, and the coup d'ttat of the 
4th of iSeptember revoked the am- 
nesty. In November, 1799, lie settled 
with all his establishments, except the 
seminary for priests, which was now 
not so much required, at Somers-town. 
They oocupied ten large houses, the 
pent of three being paid by the govern- 
ment, and that of the others by him- 
self. A French journal describes them 
» situated outside of London, in good 
air, and quite in the country. 

In 1801, he might have returned to 
France. The famous concordat was 
signed on the 15th of July, and made 
;Hiblic on the following Easter, the 
12th of April, 1802. The Bishop of 
Rennes, who yielded, although with 
rather too much of protest, to the invi- 
tation from the Holy See addressed to 
all the old bishops to resign their sees, 
in order to facilitate the working of the 
concordat, earnestly entreated that 
A.bbe Carron might be his successor ; 
and the First Consul desired himself to 
aecure him. But the articles fraudu- 
lently added by Napoleon, and against 
iprhich the pope, when he became aware 
of them, vehemently protested, made 
t^he abbo feel it to be impossible to 
^rork satisfactorily in France while 
they were in force. 

The schism of the Petite Eglise, or 

Slanchardism as it was called in Eng- 

land, was a terril^le blow to him. More 

^han half the bishops still in exile and 

xnaoy of the clergy — and among them 

liis dearest friends — ^held out against 

"•he Holy See. But his fidelity .never 

"havered, not even while the vicar- 

mpostolic of the London district was 

dieting timidly, and weakening the 

^ect of Dr. Alilner's more energetic 

measures. The organic articles were 

a sore puzzle and distress to him ; but 

he would never countenance a word 

of disrespect to the Holy See. In a 

svnod of bishops he was chosen by Dr. 

Milner for his theologian, but rejected 

on the ground of his being a foreigner. 

This firmness of his drew upon him 

ultimately a fierce persecution, and 

great attempts were made, but with 



only partial success, to alienate from 
him Louis XVIII. and the other mem- 
bers of the exiled dynasty, who had 
themselves remonstrated with the Holy 
See on the concordat. But no eccle- 
siastical dignity was ever offered him 
af\er the restoration. A storm of 
abusive pamphlets, anonymous let- 
ters, and slanderous reports of the 
worst kind fell for some time keenly 
upon him. Yet in his correspondence 
with his dear relations in Normandy, 
which was now resumed and carried 
on till war broke out again, there is 
no allusion to any of his trials, except 
that of his continual separation from 
them. He longs to see them ; he in- 
terests himself in all the details of their 
families, and gives them advice and en- 
couragement ; but he has no space for 
his own afflictions. The only thing 
that disputes with them for his love 
— ^for his love of God is supreme over 
all — is his love of the poor. " I love 
you," he cries ; *' yes, certainly, I love 
you with all my heart, and all the dear 
ones by whom you are surrounded ; 
but I love my poor still more ; they 
are my numerous and best-beloved 
family." 

In 1807, the popularity of the 
French clergy was so great, and had 
so increased the favorable feeling to- 
ward Catholics generally, that he 
thought it time to build a regular 
church. Hitherto he had officiated in 
the largest room of one of the schools. 
The impossibility of raising 4000/. for 
the purpose was soon surmounted by 
one to whom nothing was impossible 
that the glory of God seemed to re- 
quire. So the church in the Polygon 
soon i-ose, and was crowded at once on 
its being opened ; and he added to his 
other labors the task of giving sermons 
in English, which it cost him immense 
pains to elaborate and learn by heart. 
As his little flock of exiles, who were 
now making their way back to Fmnco 
diminished, his ministry both among 
the French settled in London and 
among the English increased. He 
made it a rule to visit all his sick— of 
whom he had a large number — at least 



Bis fctni about D<nng Good, 



once a week, and tho^c SfHouiily ill 
ercry day* He %islted one daily, and 
often twice a day, for six months to- 
gellier. J lis poorselioob were enlarg^cd 
and ailmiUed En^U^^h as well as Frencli 
Catholics, His rccoi'da of convorsiong 
b«<^anio more and more imnieroas ; and 
eaei» co^t him weekst and generally 
monthi«* of careful preliminary instruc- 
lion. He was constantly engaged in 
writing, and published twelve or thir- 
teeu different works in London. He 
waa carrying on also a eorrespondenee 
witli many Protestants and sceptics ; 
to whose difficnltiej? he was never 
weary of replying. Part of liis cor- 
respondence with one alone extended 
to twcnly-scven letters, nioatly of eight 
or ion pages each. How tie could 
multiply himself ^utBcientiy for all that 
be was doing ia one of those mysteries 
which we find in tlie lives of Riinl^ 
, alone. AVhcn the demands of the 
4miffre$ on his pni*se were less heavy, 
he began to dislrihnto soup and cimls 
lo the poor CaltioUcs of London; au 
express prohibition from government 
preventing him fi-oni extending this 
charily to Protestants. /or ^ear of con- 
rcnums. As the wnr went on, im- 
mense donations both of money and 
of all kinds of nect^sharies were made 
by him to the increasing crowdd of 
French prisoners. 

In April, 18 U, Louis XVHL, who 
had been nearly seven years in Eng- 
lrtnd» and under whose patronage the 
ahtH?'s penstonnais for the children of 
the imtyrh had acquired a sort of liile 
to bo deemed royal inetitntions, relum- 
ed to the throne^ vacant by the banish- 
ment of Napoleon to Klha ; and the 
abbo only waited for the royal cora- 
manJa respecting the young Fn^neh 
nobility under his care to terminate his 
twenty* two years of exile. On the 
14th of July he said mass for the last 
time at Homers town, and set off at 
five in the morning, lo escape any at- 
tempts of his flock lo prevent bis de* 
pjiTtun?. He left England, after all 
the hundreds of iboUbands of pounds 
that bad (Kissed thrt3ugh his bnuds. as 
poor «s be had come to it, and was be- 



holden to bis friends the Jemingliami 
for part of the expense of the jouroej* 
A solidly built chapel and two poor 
schools, containing a bnndred chiIdreD« 
with all necessary appliances, were his 
legacy to the CathoUca of England* 
What were his feelings toward those 
whom he was leaving, and thoae whom 
he was es^pecling to see again, how the 
sight of France affected him, and what 
were bis inlentions ibr the ttilure, we 
must leave him lo express. by extract- 
ing some portion of one of sevcrral let*- 
tera which he wrote OD landing : 

Calais, SuodaT, July 17, 1814. 
^* TTrsula, my dc&rly loved »ister, da.ught«rg 
and friend — I arriv ed here l^st Dight, afler % 
dilHcuU p&a:^a|r>j!. II ere 1 am, then, on Ui9 
prfcious soil lli&t gnve me birth. «... 
Ah ! Uiy dear ones, if I couM clasp you all im' 
my arms, my heart would be l<^4 bnibcKi, %em 
ifL anguish than it is ! Alas ! I hare JotI 
Somerb-lown, for mc a land of benedictloQ^ 
and tn my own country^ I look for Franco la 
vain. Iti iwentj-foiir liours, what have I not 
seen already ! This holy day of rent madf a 
working day ; not a shop that is not opea ; 
not a street-vender that is not crying bii 
warea. What a sight! How it picf«c« any 
heart that retains tho faith! . , All lb« 
difference between the twenty-two lut ycart 
and those that it may please the Lord to ad4, 
to mo will only be in the outward utt^'ratic* 
of ray feelings. I was silent, and J luved ; L 
shall apeak, tint I cannot lovcmore* Oh 1 wluit 
a pure and innoeent eiyoyracnt it will bo to 
hXcm your children and your gnindchUdfcn, 
and to chat together ahout the days of out 
youlh ! I so need some disiraelion, soroo 
nourishment lo my poor ficart. Hut do yon 
know the wiiy to procure it tin? most deliciotti 
nourishment? it is to o^i^ure mo that you wish' 
to live and breathe only for G.3d and for his 
love ; for this U the true life of man — to havo ft 
i^iuacr*^ awe and a child's love for the mosi 
tender and composiiionatc of fathers. If i| 
wore f^rantcd me to gain him some hearts be- 
fore dying, this would be a balm that would 
heal all my wounds. Ah, my child, if yoit 
knew what angelic souls I have \vh on thft 
soil of my second country 1 Excellent Chrta- 
tians, you are nol heard of on earth ; hui 
what a festival is In preparation for von in' 
heavan ! The love of God for ever I I^t ub 
talk of this love; let us act in f-v-.-^i.-^t* for 
the sake of it ; let us act onl v To 

live without loving Is to Im.^ > Lire 

without loving is to die. Ah ! liH ma live to 
love, and lot us de.^ire death in order to Iot* 
still more. Let us live to ^X lore for wha& 
if alone supremely lovable, our itear ' 




Be^weni abovt Doing Good. 



S67 



oar best of fiUhert. By hU side, and in his 
boflom, all pains lose their bitterness ; and how 
mudi of it do they not lose I He forgeta 
nothing that can embellish our crown ; and 
to aofler for so good a Hoster has its own 
special charm ; Buffering love is the best love. 
Adieu, my beloved child ; your father will 
always love you, as the old curate of St. Ger- 
main loved you, and — to end with that sweet 
title — as the Afisiiomr of Somert4ovon loved 

TOO." 

In November he was installed with 
the orphans, whom he had lefl ift Eng- 
land until he was ready for them, and 
tiie ladies who instructed them, in what 
was to be his home henceforth, with the 
exception of his second brief exile, until 
death, a bouse in the Impasse des Feu- 
iUantines in the Faubourg St. Jacques. 
Thirty of his pupils were paid for by 
the king, and others received at his 
own risk. On the 1st of the following 
March Napoleon landed from Elba, 
and at Lyons, on his way to Paris, 
ordered all returned exiles who had 
come back without his leave to quit 
Praoce within a fortnight, under pain 
of death. On the 4th. all unconscious 
of what had happened, the merry old 
lady who was at the head of the estab- 
lishment, and styled herself Religieuse 
wdigne du Monastere des Feuillan- 
4lnes^ was writing a letter, sparkling 
^ith fiin, to invite the abb^'*s nephew 
to come in June and keep with them 
the tripUx-majus feast of St. Guy. 
^Before the end of the month she and 
the abbe and most of the orphans were 
again in banishment in London, and a 
crowd of fugitives were looking to 
him again for help. An appeal to his 
^ generous friends, the citizens of Great 
Britain," brought in £500. 

At Kensington, whither he retired 
to avoid any appearance of interfe- 
rence at Somers-town, he gave shelter 
to a young man, who was aflerward 
too well known as the Abb4 de la 
Mennais. A great friendship sprang 
up between them ; and when the bat- 
tle of Waterloo allowed of his return, 
F^li, as he was familiarly called, clung 
to the Abb^ de Carron, whom uncer- 
tainties about his orphans detained in 
London, and accompanied him back 



to the Feuilkntines in December. 
" What a man I" he wrote to a com- 
mon friend of the abb^ whom he al- 
ways called his good father, " or ra- 
ther what a saint I I hope, by the help 
of his advice, to settle at last to some- 
thing. It is high time. Thirty-three 
years lost, and worse than lost J'* 
Happy would it have been for him if 
he had Ixicu guided by his venerable 
friend's counsels. The instincts of 
faith in the abbe made him suspect 
even the first volume of the Essai sur 
ITndiff^rcnce. When the second came 
out, he wrote a most affectionate and 
touching letter, appealing from his 
head to hia heart, and imploring him 
not to go on writing. But it was too 
late. 

We regret that we cannot linger 
longer over the last days of the abbe* 
The difficulties about his establishment 
at Rennes, which were not settled till 
just before his death, prevented the re- 
turn to his native place for which he 
had hoped, and he remained at Paris. 
We intended to confine ourselves 
mainly to his labors in* England ; and 
we have not space to dwell, as we 
could wish, on that wonderful institu- ' 
tion of the Feuillantines, where the 
pupils never met a mistress without 
an embrace; where the great treat, 
after some months of study, was a 
week of what our foolish would-bo 
governesses oflen call *' menial drud- 
gery," and the greatest treat of all was 
to wait at table on parties of poor peo« 
pie and play with their children ; where 
Mr. (aflerward Cardinal) Weld, whose 
daughter was married to Lord CliflTord 
in the chapel of the institution, and all 
the most pious priests in Paris, came 
for edification and recreation ; and 
whence relief flowed to all the des* 
titute in the city. The good old abb6 
died worn out with toil and austeritieSt 
the chief of which, such as the wearing 
of spiked belts and haircloths, were not 
known till afler his death, on the 15lh 
of March, 1821. His memory was 
fresh at Somers-town ; and at the re- 
quiem sung for him there the chapel 
was crowded with rich and poor, all 



268 



The Birdi' IVientL . 



dressed in mourning attire; and the 
Yoice of the bishop preaching was in- 
terrupted by sobs and cries of grief. 
The simple motto on his grave is 
Pmiransiit benefaciendo ; and to few 
oould the words be more truly ap- 



plied. " Needy, yet enriching many,** 
might be added as equally appropriate. 
The Catholics of England, as well as 
of France, have good reason to thank 
God for the life and labors of Abbo 
Carron. 



Translated from the French. 

THE BIRDS' FRIEND. 



For some years past, in the garden 
of the Tuileries, is seen, daily, a man 
of middle height, with a respectable 
roundness of figure, thick mustaches, 
and beard slightly gray and bushy, 
who, as soon as he appears in one of the 
walks bordering the terrace of the wa- 
ter, is surrounded by a numerous brood 
of pigeons. Hc tlurows them a morsel 
of bread or cakQ which he brings with 
him, and the birds are so familiar with 
him that, fur from flying away, they 
surround him, and dispute for his fa- 
vors and liberality. Some of them, 
even, his favorites, flying around his 
head, perch on his shoulders, his arm 
or hand, and dip their bills in his 
mouth for their accustomed nourish- 
ment, lie is the subject of admiration 
for young mothers, babies great and 
small, truant apprentices, and child 
nurses, generally. As soon as the bird 
man arrives, they precipitate themselves 
in his train. He advances majestical- 
ly, and with quite an imposing air, fol- 
lowed by his impromptu court, which 
holds back slightly, from respect, no 
doubt, and fear of frightening the birds. 
Idle people who come every day to 
lounge in the garden of the Tuileries 
take their daily walk or read the pa- 
pers, join the crowd of courtiers, and 
even Gui^nol himself, in presence of 
this redoubtable concourse, sees his re- 
presentations deserted, and the Petite 



Provence forsaken by the rheumatisms 
who come to seek a ray of sun on h\i 
benches. The friend of the birds 
walks with a sense of his own impor- 
tance, and enjoys greatly the astonish- 
ment and homage of the crowd. With 
his cane under his arm, his hat on his 
head, and as immovable as the der- 
vish on his minaret, or the little joist of 
the fable, he gravely accomplishes his 
daily office. The young mothers are 
astonished, the children open theur 
large eyes, and I saw one of the small- 
est ones, Master Guguste, so terribly 
frightened, because the birds were not 
afraid of him. that he hid himself behind 
his big brother Aymer, and took in the 
whole scene by stealth, in bo-peep 
style. Master Guguste will certainly 
ask his father, whom he has led by the 
hand toward the place where the friend 
of the birds dines his pets, how is it 
the pigeons fly around this man's head, 
and when he. Master Guguste, runs to- 
ward them, they always fly away ? The 
good little fellow forgets to add that 
be throws stones at them — his age liai 
no mercy — and that the pigeons have 
the bad taste to prefer cake. 

The birds' friend has become one of 
the sights of the Tuileries, and one of 
the pleasures of the Parisians. They 
come from the marshes to see him ; and 
the provincial who arranges bis pro- 
gramme for his visit to Paris 



^The Bir<U Friend. 



969 



forgets to write in his Dote-book : *< To 
go and see the wild beasts breakfast in 
the Grarden of Plants ; to go and see the 
hippopotamus bathe ; to go and see the 
pigeons eat in the garden of the Tui- 
ieries.'* Innocent people ask by what 
talisman this man of the Tuileries has 
succeeded in taming the pigeons. 

I think his method is a simple one, 
and that he has nothing in common 
with the charmers of India, nor even 
vith Madame Vandermersch, who has 
astonished the saloons of Paris by the 
singular empire she exercises over the 
featbered tribe. 

Then, the pigeons of the Tuileries, 
like all animsils not tormented and ac- 
customed to a crowd, are not easily 
frightened. If you have ever been to 
Venice, you have certainly seen the 
pigeons of the square of St. Mark. 
These pigeons, whose history is very 
carious, date their origin from the an- 
cient republic of Venice. At that 
time, it was the custom on Palm Sun- 
day to let fly from the top of the prin- 
cipal door of the church of St. Mark a 
large number ol' birds, with little rolls 
of paper so attached to theii- claws as 
to force them to fall into the hands of 
the crowd who filled the court, and 
^uted among themselves for this 
living prey. Some of these birds, hav- 
ing Baoceeded in ridding themselves of 
their fetters, and training the thread 
like the pigeon of La Fontaine, sought 
*o asylum on the roof of the church of 
St. Mark, and on that of the ducal 
Palace, not far from the celebrated 
l«*ds that Silvio Pellico has describ- 
ed in "My Prisons," and Lord Byron 
^ cursed in his immortal verses, 
^y multiplied rapidly, and became 
^favorites of the population to such 
^ degree that, to respect popular 
^fbion, the senate of Venice issued a 
decree, stating that the pigeons of the 
square of St. Mark had become the 
goests of the republic, and as such 
ihonld be respected and nourished at 
tiie cost of the state. While the re- 
pablie of Venice existed, a man em- 
ployed by the com administration of 
the city etme every morning to dis- 



tribute the rations of the pigeons on the 
place of St. Mark and the Piazza. 
Since the establishment of Austrian 
rule, the Venetians support their favor- 
ite birds by voluntary contributions. 
Accustomed to live in peace with man, 
the pigeons of the place of St. Mark 
have become exceedingly familiar. 
They never fly away at the approach of 
the promenaders, and I have seen them 
perched on the edge of the buckets of 
the water-carriers, to quench their 
thirst, and not even take flight when 
these women took their buckets by the 
handle. In truth, the whole secret of 
taming animals consists in not frighten- 
ing them by movements too sudden or 
by noise, never injuring them, and al- 
ways treating them well. 

If you have never seen the pigeons 
of the place of St. Mark at Venice, you 
have certainly seen the fishes of .the 
large pood at Fontainebleau come in 
bands to dispute the bread thrown to 
them ; the swans of the basins of the 
Tuileries swim toward the children 
who throw them crumbs of their cakes ; 
the small elephants of the Garden of 
Plants put forth their trunks gently 
to seize a piece of rye bread ; and more 
than one young girl has amused her- 
self during the winter in spreading the 
crumbs from her table on her balcony, 
to see flocks of sparrows tumble down 
and help themselves at the well-set 
table, doing honor to the banquet, with- 
out considering in the least the pretty 
blonde head and the laughing mouth 
assisting their repast. 

You see, it is always the same pro- 
cess. What frightens animals is noise, 
sudden movements, and especially bad 
treatment. 

When man makes friends of them, 
it is rarely they do not respond to his 
advances. You know the history of 
Androclcs and his lion, of Pellisson 
and his spider, and a hundred others 
of the same kind. I do not speak of 
domestic animals, the dog especially, 
our faithful companion. The Bible it- 
self, the book of books, in relating the ' 
return of the young Tobias conducted 
by the angel to his tather, has in honor 



270 



The Blrd£ Frlmd 



of Ctii8 fBithftil animal ibese cb arming 
Itnea : ** Then the dog, who had follow- 
, ed lUem all Ihe waj, ran before them, 
and| like a courier who might liave 
preceded them, he testirted his joy by 
the wagging of his taiL'* The grand 
poet of pagiinism, Homer, in his tuni^ 
has descril>ed ki the most touching 
and heartfelt verses, Ulysgen, on his 
return to Ithjica, unknown to Penelope, 
Telemachtis, and his retainers, but re- 
cognized by the dog, who died of joy at 
his fceL But passing by the dog who 
IS our friend, aavage animnU show 
themselves no le^ft sensible to man's 
goodnc!^*, and as 'we read the legends 
of monks of I lie Merovingian time, 
wlio lived hid in the deplhiS of forests, 
it seema that virtue can give man the 
same empii-e over animals which he 
had ill his first days of innocence. >f. 
de Montalembert, in his Moines d' Oc- 
cident, has recounted many h'gends of 
tliis nature* A huge hoar, pursued by 
hunters, tied for asylum to the cell of 
St, Basil, which he had eonslructed 
in the thickest part of the mountain 
forest of Bheims* Again, St, Lau- 
mcr» wandering in the tbre st of Perche, 
and chanting psalms, met a hind flying 
hetbre several wolves. To him, sbe 
was the symbol and image of the Christ- 
ian soul pursued by demons ; he wept 
for pity, and cried to the wolves : ** En* 
raged executioners, return to your 
dens, and leave t!us poor little beast ; 
the Lonl ari^st this prey from your 
bloodthirsty mouths." The wolves 
stupfied at hirt voice, and retraced iheir 
steps, '* Behold," said the saint to his 
com|mnion, ** how the devil, of all 
w*olve3 the most ferocious, seeks ever 
some one to strangle and devour in the 
church of C'hrist;* Meanwhile the 
hind followed him, and he passed near- 
ly two houi-s in caressing her before re- 
turning to his home. 

Hceitals of this nature are numerous. 
It was the lion of the Abbe Gerasime^ 
whose monastery was on the liorders 
of the Jordan, who, having loved the 
monk during his life, came to die on 
his tomb. The wolf of another soli- 
tary wailed at bis door for the remalna 



of his humble repast, and never r^iit 
without licking his hand. Irish 
gends tell us of stags of the foreslj 
coming to present their heads lo ill 
yoke to draw the plough. Ever 
where we find man's power over i 
malH established by sanctity. ** Cafll 
we be astonished,'* said Bede on ihvk 
subject, *• if be who faithfully and loy- 
ally obeys his Creator sees in his turn 
inierior creatures subject to his com- 
mand ?" 

Among the legendary recitab we 
find none more touching than th<jsc 
written of St. Francois d'Assis 
whose heart overflowed with tender*] 
ncss to animals, Wc read in a legend 
that this great saint, who had a beautU 
ful and harmonious voice, hearir 
evening the song of a nightingale^ 
templed to i-espond, so that he pa 
the night in chanting, alternately wil 
the bird, the praises of Ciod. Th« 
legend adds that Francois was ex- 
hausted the first, and praised the biri 
that had so completely vanquishedj 
him. 

Who has not read in the Franciacao 
Peers the miracle of Uie saint whi 
converted the ferocious wolf of Gub 
bio, and how he tamed the wild turtle 
doves, a present from a pious younj 
man, while saying to them : ** O tnyl 
simple and innocent doves I how will 
you ever be lamed? But I must savi 
you from death, and make you nest*,! 
tliat you may obey the command of I 
our Creator." And the tartle-dove«| 
by degrees less wild, commenced tode* J 
posit their eggs, like hens, covering J 
I hem before the brothers, and noa* 
rished by their hands. In conclusi* 
let us recall the exordium of a delight- 
ful sermon related in the Franciscan j 
Poets, and addressed by the saint to tk\ 
multitmlc of birds, attentive to hiij 
voice, a sermon related to Brotberl 
Jacques de Massa by Brother Mnasioil 
one of St. Francis's favorite disci« 
pies : ** My binls, you are extremeJjf 
obliged to God, our Creator, and al» 
ways and in every place you ought tC 
praise him, because be has given yo«| 
liberty lo fly everywhere, ba^ 



Tlme-Meatureru 



271 



jm with doable and triple vcstmentR, 
and has preserved jour species in the 
ark of Noah. Besides, you neither 
sow nor reap, and God cares for you ; 
gives jou streams and fountains to 
quench your thirst, mountains and 
nlleys for your refuge, and large trees 



in which to make your nests.** Bat 
we have rambled from the commcnce- 
pnent of our story. We began in the 
garden of the Tuileries, and end in an- 
other garden, a mystical one, where we 
gather flowers from St. Francis. 



From Ohambers*! JonriiaL 

TIME-MEASURERS. 



Thebe is, perhaps, no subject more 
bteresting to human nature than that 
of time. Like eternity, it concerns us 
an ; and, unlike it, exacts as well as 
demands our attention. True, as Sir 
Walter Scott writes, ^ it is but a sha- 
dowy name, a saccession of breathings 
neasared forth by night with the clank 
of a bell, by day with a shadow cross- 
ing along a dial stone ;" hut we cannot 
Bbut our eyes for very long to the fact 
oTHg passage. If in our youth we strive 
to kill it, so all the more in our age do 
we strive to lengthen its too brief hours 
oat Even the means by which to 
note its course have naturally engaged 
the minds of men in all ages ; they 
have been very diverse and ingenious, 
and a due record of them cannot fail 
to contain many curious particulars. 
Sach a work has been recently pub- 
fiihed in Mr. Wood's Curiosities of 
Clocks and Watches. Even the dili- 
gence of our author, however, does not 
seem to have discovered at what period 
the present method of beginninri^ the 
day at midnight came into use ; but it 
tf supposed to have been an ecclesias- 
tical invention. Among the early Ro- 
mans, the day was divided into twelve 
hours, from sunrise to sunset, the length 
of which, therefore, varied with the 
leasons. The Egyptians, Mexicans, 
and Persians reckoned the day to be- 
gin from sunrise, and divided it into 
foor intervals, determined by the rising 
wad fetting of the sun, and its two pas- 



sages over the meridian. Our own 
uniform hours of sixty minutes each 
could scarcely have come into use un- 
til something like the wheel-clock was 
invented : the ancient sun-dial repre- 
sented hours of a length varying with 
the seasons, and the clepsydra (or wa- 
ter-clock) was adjusted to furnish hours 
of fifty to seventy minutes each, to 
suit the changing lengths of day and 
night. Clocks, even so late as the 
reign of James I., were often called 
horologes ; and, up to the fourteenth 
century, the word clock was applied 
only to the bell which rang out the 
hours, or certain periods determined by 
the sun-dial or sand-glass. To this 
day, the bell of WelU cathedral is still 
called the horologe. 

The clepsydra is said to have been 
invented by the censor Scipio Nasica, 
595 B.C. The principle of these early 
time-measurers was a very simple one. 
^In those of the common kind, the 
water issued drop by drop through a 
small hole in the vessel tlmt contained 
it, and fell into a receiver, in which 
some light floating body marked the 
height of the water as it rose, and by 
these means the time that had elapsed. 
In a bas-relief of the date of the lower 
empire, figuring the Hippodrome in 
Constantinople, a clepsydra, in the 
shape of an oviform vase, appears. It 
is very simply mounted, being tra- 
versed by an axis, and turned with a 
crooked handle. By this contriyance, 



37S 



Jfci#-Ji^a 



the instantaneous mversion of the vase 
was secured, and tho contents, e^aping 
in a certain de6nite time, showed tho 
THinalK^r of minutes which were taken 
tip by each mtssm^ or courgo. Yitru 
viui^ tells U8 of thif construction of a 
clrps^ydra which, besides the hours, 
fold the iuoon*j3 age, the zodiacal sign 
for tlie month, and s eve ml other things ; 
in fact, it was a regular astronomical 
clock. His details now read some- 
what obscure and complicated ; bat 
the principle was that a Hout, as it 
moved upward by mean.'? of a vertical 
column fixed in it, drove difterent sets 
of cog- wheels, which impelled in their 
turn other sets, by means of which 
figures were made to move^ obelisks 
to, twirl ronnd, pebbles to ha discharg- 
ed, ti'um[K?ts to sound, arid many other 
trick:§ to be put into action. The ad- 
misi^ion-pipe for the writer waa made 
either of ^o\d or a perforated i^em^ in 
order that it might not wear away, or 
bo liable to ^et foul/* The floats some- 
timers commuuicated with whe<;Ls wliieh 
worked hands on dials, or supported 
human figures which pointed with 
hnnds to certain numbers ns the water 
rose t nnd in some in^nious water- 
elo<*ks the fluid flowed a5 tears from 
eyes of automata ; but all the^e cl*ip* 
i^ree had two gn^at defects: the one 
li*»ng that the flow varied with the 
density of the atmosphere; the other, 
that tiie water flowed quicker at last 
than at first. They were, however, 
put to one excellent use, which has, 
nnhappilVi fallen into decay : they 
wore set up in the law-courts to time 
counsel i ^* to prevent babbling, that 
such as spoke ought to be brief in their 
»pei*elies.** For this custom, the world 
was indebred to the Romans (esfjecia!- 
Jy Pompey), and from it Martial is 
supplied with a pleasant san'asm r per- 
ceiving a dull dee!aimer moistening his 
lips witli a glass of water, he sugjijests 
that it would be a relief to the audience 
as well as to himself if he would take 
his liquor from the clepsydra. 

With some mechanical addifions, the 
ancient clepsydras were made to do 
wonderful things besides stop|)ing lav* 



yere' tongues. Haroun-al-j 
(in 807), by two monks of JerUfiil 
to the Emperor Cliarlcniagoe a 
water-clock, the dial of which 
composed of twelve small doors r 
presenting the divisions of the hoora 
each door opened at the hour it wai 
tended to re|ire.4ent, and out of it ra 
the same number of little biiUs, whicbl 
fell one by one, at equal distances ofj 
time, on a brass dram. It mi^ht 
told by the eye what hour it was hf\ 
the number of doors lliat Were opeU|. 
and by the ear by the number of ballfl^ 
that felL When it was twelve oVdock,^ 
twelve horsemen m miniature isjiu 
forth at tlic same time, and, marchin, 
round the dial, shut all the doors 

Hour-glas*se8, called clcpsammia, i 
which Fand took the place of waterj^ 
were mollification a of the clcpsydnc* 
Candle-clocks were used as time* 
meai*ureni by some, and csfieciiiUy 
by our own Alfre<l the Great. *'Tq 
rightly divide his lime, he adopted 
the following t-imple expedient : hi 
procured as much wax a* weighedt' 
seventy-two penny wrightj*, which he. 
couniHiuded lo be made into six car 
dlffl, eiix'h twelve inche;* in lengthy' 
with the divisions of itiches disiinetl/ 
marked UfHjn it. These being light 
cd one lifter another regularly, burue^. 
four hours each, at tho rate of an iucli 
for every twenty minutes. Thus ihtf! 
six candles lasted twenty-four hours.' 
The tending of these candle^locks 
confided to one of his domestic chap* 
lahis, who constantly from time lo tinwij 
gave him notice of their wasting. Hul' 
when ih** winds blew, the air, rushia, 
in through the doors, windows, uqi 
crevices of his rude habitation, cau^! 
ed his candles to g»i tter, and, by fai»»] 
iiing the fliime, to burn faster. Th< 
ingenious kintj, in order to remedy lb 
serious inconvenience^ caused M>1 
fine white horn to be scraped so lluti 
as to be transparent, which he let into 
close frames of wood ; and in ibeae 
primitive lanthorns his wax-clisdU 
burned steadily in all weathers," 

The invention of wheel^locks is At* 
tribuied by some to Archimedcn 00 



M 




Time- Measurers, 



278 



ly as 200 b.c. ; bj others to Walling- 
ford so late as the beginning of the four- 
teenth century; but in the Book of 
Landaff) describing the life of St. 
Teilavus, who made a pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem at the end of the fifth cen- 
tury, it is stated that he returned to Bri- 
tain with three precious gifts, and 
among them ^ a bell greater in farae 
than in size, and in value than in 
beauty. It convicts the perjured, and 
cures the infirm ; and what seems still 
more wonderful is, that it did sound 
nery hour without being touched^ until 
it was prevented by the sin of man, 
vbo rashlj hxmdled it with polluted 
bands, and it ceased from so delight- 
ful an office." They looked their gift- 
dock in the mouth, and probably dis- 
tubed the works. 

St. Paul's had a clock of some sort 
at a very early period ; in the year 
1286, allowances to '* Bartholomo Oro- 
logiario" (the clock-keeper) being en- 
tered, in its accounts, of so much bread 
aod beer. Iron and steel were used 
for the wheels and frames until the 
eod of the sixteenth century, and bkck- 
fimiths were the chief clock-makers. 
Chaucer, who died in 1400, remarks 
of a punctual cock of his acquaint- 
ance: 

" full itkerer was his crowing fn his loge 
Than his a clock or &uy abbey orok^e ;" 

or: 

** Ai certain was his crowing In his roost 
Ai any clock or abbey orologe ;'* 

which might probably have been trutli- 
foUy said of many a less punctual bird ; 
for, to judge by the old parish account- 
books, these blacksmiths' clocks were 
Dot good goers, and were for ever be- 
ing rectified. That of Sl Alban's ab- 
bey, however, was an exception. It 
ras constructed at a great cost by 
Richard de Wallingford, son of a 
blacksmith in the town in question, 
bat afterward made abbot for his 
Jeamiog (1330), and his clock was 
** going" in Henry VILL's reign. It 
noted the oourse of the sun and moon, 
the rising and setting of the planets 
and fixed stars, and the ebb and fiow 
of the tide. When the good abbot felt 
TOL. V,— 18 



his end drawing nigh, his thoughts be- 
ing fixed on time as well as etemity, 
he left a book of directions for keeping 
this piece of mechanism in order. 

For ingenuity and complication, how- 
ever, all ancient clocks must hide their 
dials in the presence of that of Stras- 
burg cathedral " Before this clock 
stands a globe on the ground, showing 
the motions of the heavens, stars, and 
planets. Tiie heavens are carried 
about by the first mover in twenty-four 
hours. Satuni, by it proper motion, 
is carried about in thirty years ; Jupi- 
ter, in twelve ; Mars, in two ; the San, 
Mercury, and Venus, in one year ; and 
the Moon in one month. In the clock 
itself are two tables on the right and 
left hand, showing the eclipses of the 
sun and moon for the year 1573 to 
1624. The third table in the middle is 
divided into two parts. In the first part, 
the statues of Apollo and Diana show 
the course of the year and the day 
thereof, being carried about one year. 
The second part shows the year of our 
Lord, and the equinoctial days, the 
hours of each day, and the minutes of 
each hour, Eastcr-day, and all the other • 
feasts, and the dominical letter ; and 
the third part hath the geographical 
description of all Germany, and par- - 
ticularly of Strasburg, and the names 
of the inventor and the workmen. In . 
the middle frame of the clock is an 
astrolabe, showing the sign in which 
each planet is every day ; and there 
are statues of the seven planets upon 
a circular plate of iron ; so that every 
day the planet that rules the day comes 
forth, the rest being hid within the- 
frames, till they come out, of course, at 
their day, as the sun upon Sunday, 
and 80 for all the week. There is a 
terrestrial globe, which shows the 
quarter, the half hour, and the min- 
utes. There is a figure of a human 
skull, and statues of two boys, where- 
of one tuiTis the hour-glass when the 
clock has struck, and the other puts 
forth the rod in his hand at each stroke 
of the clock. Moreover, there are 
statues of spring, summer, autumn, 
and winter, and many observations of 



ir4 



T^me^feaiuren. 



the moon. In the upper part of the 
clock arc four old nieu's statues, which 
strike the qiiartore of the hour* The 
statue of dfiith corac^a out at eaeh 
quarter to strike, hut k driven back 
by the statue of Christ, with a gpenr 
in his htindi for three quarters ; but 
in the fourrh quarts? r death strikes the 
hour with tlic bone in his hand^ and 
then I he chimt's sound. On I he lop 
of the clock \s the image of a cock, 
which twice in a day crows aloud and 
claps his winp. Besides, this clock 
h decked with many rare pictures* and, 
ciug on the inside of the church, car- 
I another fmme to the outside of the 

"Walb, whereon the hotn*!^ of the auUt 
the courses of the moon, the length of 
the day, mid such other thin«r8 arp set 
out with much art" Bat perliaps the 
most j!jtrikh)g part oi' the histof}' of this 
famous Strasburg clock was that it was 
made, or, at all events, perfected, by a 
blind man. The artisan who contrived 
it lost his sijiht^ and Vfm superseded ; 
but since nobody else would carry oirt 
hi8 ideas, and ho refuse*! to communi- 
cate them, he was reinstated in his 
work, and actually carried out the 
affair, in all its intricate delicacy, to 

^ I he end. There are several other ex- 
amples of bhnd clockniJikers, and even 
watchmakers, "The HI 0:^1 rated Lon- 
don News of August 25, 1851, tells ns 
that there was then living at Holbeaeh, 
Xiticolushiro, a watchmaker named 

> Kippio, who was completely blind. 
I He was a first-rate hand at his btisi- 
} ness, and it was truly surprising to ob- 
I serve with what ease he could take to 
J pieces and place together again watch- 
f«a of the most delicate raeclianism. 
\ Some years previously, Ripptn was 

► robbed, and the property taken 
I from him consisted of watch-wheels, 
IN hair springs, and other t*iiy things be- 
J longing to the trade. The thief was 
l.tmced, and convicted at Spalding se^j- 

^ions, the blind man having sworn to 
his pn'jpcrly by feeling" 

Those who are accustomed only to 

I eight-day clocka will be astonished to 

learn that some ttme-pieces have been 

mndii to go for a hundred years ! The 



MarquiB of But'O had one at 1 
Park ; and '• in Sir John Moore' 
count of his * large sphere-going i 
work* (Mat hem, Compend.) we 
that it made a revolution of on 
seventeen thousand one hundred j 
by means of six wheels and five 
ions, for I he sun'*P»|>ogeura*" lu 
of ** it made," one should surely 
read *' it was made to make," sine 
oldest inhahitjint could scarrrly n 
to the fact having been fn ' 

1 859, atb:?r y e^irs of labor, J ^ 

of Wickham Market, compietcd a 
winding clock, which detenninec 
time with im failing accuracy, cotl 
ing a constant motion by itself, i 
requiring to he wound up, and 1 
capable of perpetuating its moven 
so long tus its component parti bI 
exist, 

Italy boasts of some curious n 
clockwork. Early in the last oen 
at the Palazzo di Colonna at B 
was a jKirtable clock, which wai w 
up only once a year, and showec 
hour of the day, the month, anc 
year; and the |>ope3 [wsse^se^ 
two centuries a horological vm 
which, passing through the hami 
King William L o^^ tlie Netherl 
was exhibited to our Royal Socie 
late a? 1848, This was prod 
solely by manual lab^ir, without 
other help than th^ bench of the ti 
and the file ; yet it shows the dm 
the month and all the Catholio f 
and holidays throughout the ] 
Seven heathen gods make theli 
peara nee, each on his proper week 
exactly in front, aud is relieved, 
twenty-four hours' duty, by the 3 
"In the centre of the second 
sion (the clock being a to we] 
three stories) is an image of the 
gin, holding lier son Jesus in her a 
two angels are seen placing cn 
and garlands on her head j and di 
the performance of the bells, iC 
angels appear making their obeii 
before the image of IMiiry and 
Saviour. Within the ecntro ol 
third division is a metal bell hac 
on a gdt plate of copi)er, on wh« 



d 



IKme-Meaturert- 



270 



represented the jadgment-day. Round 
this metal plate move four silver fig- 
ures, set in motion by mt^chanism, re- 
presenting the four states of social life. 
These images point out the quarters 
of the hoar by striking the bell ; the 
first quarter b represented by a youth, 
the second by a grave citizen, the third 
bj a Roman soldier, and the fourth by a 
priest. In the fourth division is like- 
wise a metal bell, on the sides of which 
are chambers ; on the left side is the 
representation of death, proclaiming 
the hoars of day and night by striking 
the bell ; above it is seen a Latin in- 
scription, from Romans, chapter vii. 
Terse 23. At the right side is the 
image of the Saviour, stepping for- 
ward, with (he globe in his hand, and 
above it the cross. This figure pro- 
ceeds every two minutes in a slow 
m&nner, and then, for a moment, hides 
itself from view ; above it is a Latin 
Terse from the prophet Hosea, chapter 
»li. These two figures are of massive 
silTer. Behind the bell is inscribed 
the name of the artist, and the date 
1589." Many ancient clocks upon the 
coQtinent exhibit processions of saints 
and various other religious automata ; 
hat the most singular of all, perhaps, 
i« one in the cathedral of St. John at 
LjoD. On the top of it stands a cock, 
that every three hours claps his wings 
and crows thrice. In a gallery under- 
neath, a door opens on one side, and 
oat comes the Virgin Mary ; and from 
a door on the other side the angel Ga- 
briel, who meets and salutes her. At 
the same time a door opens in the 
alcove part, out of which the form of 
a dove, representing the Holy Ghost, 
descends tfpon the Virgin's head. Af- 
ter this, these figures retire, and from 
a door in the middle comes forth the 
figare of a reverend father, lifting up 
his hand and ginn^ his benediction to 
the spectators. The days of the week 
are represented by seven figures, each 
of whicb takes its place in a niche on 
the morning of the day that it repre- 
MDtSy and continues there until mid- 
n^ht The greatest curiosity is an 
oral plate mariced with the minutes of 



an hour, which are exactly pointed out 
by a hand reaching the circumference, 
that insensibly dilates and contracts 
itself during the revolution. This 
curious machine, although not so per- 
fect now in all its movements as when 
it was originally constructed, has suf- 
fered but little injury during a long 
course of years, owing to the care and 
skill of those who were appointed to 
look after \U It appears from an in- 
scription on the clock itself that it was 
repaired and improved by one Mor- 
rison in 1661 ; but it was contrived 
long before that time by Nicholas Lipp, 
a native of Basle, who finished it in 
1598, when he was about thirty years 
of age. The oval minute motion was 
invented by M. Servier, and is of later 
date. There is a tradition that the 
ingenious artist, Lipp, had his eyes 
put out by order of the magistrates 
of Lyon, that he might not be able to 
make another clock like this; but so 
far from this being time, the justices 
of Lyon engaged him to take care of 
his own machine, at a handsome sa- 
lary. 

Ingenious, however, as are the quasi- 
religious automata above mentioned, 
how inferior are they in human interest 
when compared with the time-piece 
possessed by Mrs. Forester at Great 
Brickhill, Bucks, *' the identical clock 
which was at Whitehall at the time of 
the execution of Charles I., and by 
which the fatal moment was regulat- 
ed." At that period (the seventeenth 
century), there was a gi*eat taste for 
striking-clocks. " Several of them, 
made by Thomas Tompion, who in- 
vented many useful things in clock- 
work, not only struck the quarters on 
eight bells, but also the hour after each 
quarler. At twelve o'clock, forty-four 
blows were strjck, and one hundred 
and thirteen between twelve and one 
o'clock. Failures in the striking me- 
chanism of these clocks were attended 
with much annoyance to the owners of 
them, for they would go on striking 
without cessation until the weight or 
spring had gone down, and they were 
frequently contrived to go for a month. 



Time-MeoiUf^ri^ 



In IG9G, a ¥efy remarkable clock 

was inadc for " Le Grand Monarque," 
wliurn science as well as Uteratoi'e, 
it Beeraa, delighted to flatter* Louis 
wi*s therein represented upon his 
throne, f*iii"mtinded by the electors of 
the German Blates and the priucei* of 
Italy ^ viho mlvaneed to wan J htm doing 
bonioge, and retire<l chiming the quar- 
ters of the hour's with their caneB, 
The kings of Eurojje did llie same;, 
I -except that ibey struck the hourd in- 
etead of the quartern, The maker, 
'Bunleau, advertisiid his mtcuiiuri of 
itxhibiting this work of art in publle, 
.nod knowing the stubborn rc5r>;tance 
offered to his sovereign by Willi am 
ITL, he determined to make the 
EngliBh monarch's effijrv j^rtieularly 
pliant, so that when its turn came he 
ehonld show an e>!peciai humility. 
** W^ilham, thus comjielJed, bowed very 
low indeed ; l>nt, at the same moment* 
»mi^ part of the machiuery Hiiapix^d 
fi^under, and threw * Le Gniud Mo 
uarq^^' prostrate trom hiiii chair at the 
feel of the British king. The news 
of the accident t^prcad in every direc- 
tion as an omen; the kinj^was infk*rni- 
ed of it, anil poor Burdeau wna con- 
tined in the Biistille/' 

Clock-omens, it seerns, have not 
been confineci to the work of thia 
Unfortunate Fi\»iichuiaD. "A cor- 
ii^rtjiondent of Notes and Queries for 
UiUTb 23, 1801, ix-dales the following 
lfa<x»>ant of a curious omen or coinci- 
[ideiiee: *0n Wednesday night, or 
hmher ThuTdday morning, at three 
,0*€lock| the inhabitant!^ of the metro- 
polis were rousel by repeated BinDkes 
of the new f^at Iwsll at Westminster, 
and most persons supposed it Wiv^ for 
a dejtth in tiie royal family. There 
miglit have been about twenty felow 
gtwkes when it ceased. It proved, 
bowcA'er, to lie due to ^ome derangfe- 
ment of the clock, for at four and five 
o*clock| ten or twelve strokes were 
struck instead of the proper number. 
On mantioning thia in the morn i no; to 
& friend who is deep in London anti- 
f;i]itiea, he observed that there iti au 
Dpinioa in the city that anythmg the 



matter with St TaxiVs great beU 
omen of ill to tbe royal family ; 
he added: *' I hope the opinion will not 
extend to the Westminster belL" Tbif 
was at eleven on Friday morning. I 
sec by the Times this inorniog, that it 
was not till 1 a.m. the lamented Duch* 
e^s of Kent waj* considered in the least 
danger, and, as you are aware, she ex* 
pi red in less than twenty-four hour^. 
. , • , 1 am told the same notion ob- 
tains at Windiior.* " 

A century all^r Burdeau'i master* 
piece, a much more useful work, and 
one perhaps equally characteristic 
of the nationality of its maker, was 
executed for George III. by Alexan- 
der Gumming, of Kdinbuj*gh, whlcit 
registered the height of the barometer* 
^ This was effected by a circubr card, 
of aliout two feet in diameter, being 
made to turn once in a }T2ar. The 
card was divided by radii lines into 
three hundred and sixty -five divlsion.% 
the nifjuths and days being markeil 
njund the edg«.\ while the u.§ual ranp^e 
of the bammeter was indicated in 
inches and tenths by circular linea 
descriWd from the centre. A pencil, 
with a tine point pressed on the card 
by a spring, and held by an upright 
rod floating on the mercury, aocurate- 
ly marked the state of the banimetcr ; 
the card, being carried forwai*d by the 
clock, brought each tlay to the pencil. 
It was not even necessary to change 
tl»e card at the year s end, as a 'pencil 
with a differeul-K^iilored lead would 
niake a disLiaelton between two years* 
Tliis barometer-clock cost nearly tiro 
thousand pounds, and the maker vtm 
aUowed a salary of two hun^lred pounds 
per annum to keep it in repair.** 

Taking h^ave of thes*^ ingeaioua 
complications, we may say iuilce-d that 
in nothing has ** man sought out man^ 
inventions," or exhibited his diligence 
and patience, more than in the science 
of clock making. Earth, air, fire, and 
water have been pressed into hi« si5r» 
vice for hts purpose ; the Band or 
earth clock being worked like thn wa- 
ter clock; the aire lock • : in 

the pumping of a beUo^N lO^Q 



Time'Meafureri. 



W7 



of an organ, the gradual escape of the 
air regalating the descent of a weight, 
which carried round the wheels ; and 
the fire-clock being formed upon the 
principle of the smoke-jack, the 
** wheels being moved bj means of 
a lamp, which also gave light to the 
dial ; this clock was made to announce 
(be several hours bj placing at each 
a corresponding number of crackers, 
which were exploded at proper times.'* 
This very alarming time-piece was out- 
done bj a cannon-clock placed in 1832 
in the gardens of the Palais-Royal. 
^A burning-glass was fixed over the 
vent of a cannon, so that the sun*s 
rays at the moment of its passing the 
meridian were contracted by the glass 
on the priming, and the piece was 
fired ; the burning-glass being regu- 
lated for this purpose every month." 
At Greenwich Observatory there b a 
most ingenious wind-clock, which, how- 
ever, is not a time-measurer, but re- 
gisters for itself, with pencil and pa- 
per, the wayward action of the wind. 
** Each minute and each hour has its 
written record^ without human help or 
inspection. Once a day only, an assist- 
uit comes to put a new blank sheet in 
tlw place of that which has been co- 
vered by the moving pencils, and the 
latter is taken away to be bound up in 
a vohime. This book might with truth 
be lettered. The History of the Wind ; 
written by Itself: an .^Bolian Autobio- 
Snphy." 

The well-known and simple piece 
of mechanism called a cuckoo-clock 
bas been the cause of some spiritual 
miflcliief. An assortment of them was 
taken by certain missionaries to the 
Friendly Islands, the inhabitants of 
which resolutely refused to attribute 
them to science; they believed that 
each contained a spirit, which would 
detect a thief if anything were stolen 
from their English visitors. When a 
native was sick, a cuckoo-clock was al- 
ways sent for, as lieing ** great medi- 
ciDe." Unfortunately, however, one 
of the clocks got out of order, and since 
the nussiooaries did not understand 



how to set it right, they fell into con- 
tempt, and lost their usefulness. 

The two most curious examples of 
clock-work — apart from intricacy — to 
which ]^Ir. Wood has introduced us 
are the clock-lock and the clock-bed. 
The former, made by a locksmith of 
Frankfort in 1859, consisted of a strong • 
box without any keyhole a : all, and 
which even its owner could not open. 
Inside was a clock-work, the hand of 
which, when the box was open, the 
owner placed at the hour and minute 
when he again wanted to have access 
to the interior of the box. The works 
began to move as soon as the lid was 
shut, and time alone was the key. The 
clock-bed was the invention of a Bohe- 
mian in 1858. and was so constructed 
that a pressure upon it caused a soft 
and gentle air of Auber's to be played, 
which continued long enough to lull to 
sleep the most wakeful. At the head 
was a clock, the hand of which being 
placed at the hour that the slo^per 
wished to rise, when the time arrived 
the bed played a march of Spontoni's 
(spontaneously) with drums and cym- 
bals, enough to rouse the Seven Sleep- 
ers. 

The great time-piece of Westminster, 
which receives Greenwich time by 
electricity, exhibits no sensible error 
in less than a month. Mr. Airy's last 
report upon its rate was that the first 
blow of the hour may be relied on 
within less than one second a week; 
which is a seven times greater accu- 
racy than was required in the original 
conditions under which the clock was 
built. 

A proportionate part of Mr. Wood's 
interesting volume is devoted to the 
smaller subject of watches. The in- 
vention of the coiled spring as a mo* 
tive power instead of the weight used 
in clocks seems to have taken place in 
1477, at Nuremberg, where watches 
were first made, and called, from their 
oval shape, Nuremberg eggs. In 1530, 
we find Charles V., in his retirement i 
at the monastery of St. Yuste, amusini; 
himself with " portable clocks ;" reflect- 



•^ 



I^me-JiMuuren. 



•. • ioiisu I was to have 

. .-» ^j -jueii biood and trea- 

ut.^r KM :iiiiik alik(\ when I 

. Ti irtaL- i rVfw watches ket^p 

■ ■■ i M •»- . ■ Aiiii «p)od naturedly 

.•?^ * -. '.iitti ;k monk overthrow 

. ..i k, . -1 uivt? beon Uiboring for 

^.u- liic • uaktf these watches go 

i»T..:^.-. ti'i now vou have effected 

I .... !:^uuu.** This emperor pos- 

^>f..» lii viUiMi iluu w;i2i made "in 

,L ..f.1 V .."uiU'i of his rin<»/' so that 

. ui...ui!»cui>s of construction must 

u*'. «n. 1 1 11 j»idly attained. George 

It.. !o»w\vi\ luid a n*|>ealing watch 

*. >«..utii !o iiiiii ^bv Antold of Deve- 

»uv V jun, in the Strand) whose size 

..ii .01 "vvcil that of a silver two|)en- 

.. .u^A.*'. " b vvntainiHl one hundred 

,'... ^\^m\ JitR-txnii i>arts, but alto- 

.,...■.*. I ^^i-'i;IkxI not more than Hve 

*.- .1. »»ci;:;iKs, sovou j;mins and three- 

c»ii*i>. ■ . For this dehcate and 

X ^ti.-Mi- ^iHvinicn i>f his art, Aniohl 

\.». o ii.iiv^' lu'arly all the tools used 

.. ;n iu4;M;aviun\ This tiny watch 

....*.Jlx^l '.'.w tirst ruby cylinder ever 

„ ^.4 l!ic kin«» presented Arnold 

. .1 i\o !i»uKli\*tl piineas ; and when 

. \'.»iN'.\>i- o{ Uussia offered a thou- 

^. »i ;iii:uM<i for a similar one, the 

, ..^.i.ti.iivvr ivfused to make it lest he 

vK'M.u .Itj'ixviaie the value of his gift." 

v: V til 1 1 Pick liauder |>ossesses a 

^».i I iA-ii iliai Mongc*! to Mary 

^\.Kv,i o. SiVis ; this is of silver gilt, 

^. »i (itK'iiu\l with n'pn^sentations 

.^ .i.*.ii lv;v\ccii the palace and the 
vo.v%* '.«K' iiur^lcn of Kdcn, and the 
»..x.rivv»4»: the holy family at Beth- 

^ »v\ The works are as brains 

:. K K'^iiK* I ho hollow of which is till- 
^, %. « X iwr Ih'U ; the diul-platc be- 
^•^ M k »*ii- \\\H>n the roof of the 
♦,*v« » ^^ '^h r<*t'cn»nce to this ghast- 
* x«.V^*- ^'' ^^^***^* rt'lates that, in a 
JNv*«n«i .*..;♦ '*^«wv! of 1830, death en- 
^,^ ♦ » vv •»£»** W»''s shop, and shows 
i * Vs.-*«;i**."» ^* the master, saying : 
^v V \«.'**'' to which the latter 
^*.iv»x ■ ^^'^ uiHUicez hfjrn'bie- 
^^. V^*.i.* •.v*>*v»ns addicted to the 
.^*x^N ^ *A.^MiM«kkiug seem, indeed, 
.1^ kkv^ Xw ^ uiawuaUy familiar 



terms with the king of terrors ; and 
some have left epitaphs behind them 
of a very characteristic nature. In the 
churchyard of Lydford, in Devonshire, 
is to be read the following : 

*• llfre llw In a hoHsontal position, 
the (tutsMe ccue of 
George Koutleigh, watcbioiiker, 
whom abilities in that line weru an honor to his 
profe^Kion. 
InU.'i;rIty v:ii» the malnnpring^ and pruilencc the 

re'jtdator of nil the action* of hi^ life ; 
Humane, fEcnerous, and lib«r;il, hi* hand nerer 

»topft€d till he Itad relieve*! dl^tredd : 

80 nicely nifulated wn hU tnorentenU^ 

that he never tctni icronff^ 

exceiit when tet-ngoing 

by people who did not know hiii kfy: 

Gvcn then he was ua^fily imt riuht ai;:iin. 

lie hail the art ofdispoafng of his time 

■o well, 
Tliat \\\% hottrn ^'lided away In r,\\t 
continual round of phKisure and deil^sht. 
Till an unlucky iiu)mtnt imt a period to hi« 
exI.Htenoe. 
He di'parted this life November 14, ISiH, 
A;,'ed ft7, icouml up. 
In hojws of l»einar taken In A an (/by hi? yfnk'fr : 
Ami of \n:\n\i thomuphly vUnned, rr]t<ti»d, and 
Hct-agoing fur the worhl to come." 

Of course, watches could not be made to 
imitate the feats of the Strasburg clock ; 
but in the Academy of Sciences at St. 
Petersburg there is a watch which was 
made by a Russian peasant, named 
Kulubin, in the reign of CatJiarine IL, 
which is sufficiently wonderful. It is 
about the size of an egg, and contains 
a representation of the tomb of Christ, 
with the lioman sentinels. On press- 
ing a spring, the stone is i-olled from 
the tomb, the sentinels fall down, the 
angels appear, the holy women enter 
the sepulchre, and the same chant 
which is sung in the Greek Church on 
Easter eve is accurately performed. 

The most costly and elaborate watch 
ever produced by British workmen, up 
to 1^44, was made in that year by 
Hart & Son of Comhill, for the Sul- 
tan Alxiul Medschid ; the brilliancy of 
its colors and exquisitcness of its pen- 
cilling seem to have surpassed any- 
thing of the kind of foreign manufao 
ture. It struck the hours and quar- 
ters by itself, and repeated them with 
the minutes upon pressing a small 
gold slide ; and the sound, produced 
by wires instead of a bell, rcsenabled 
that of a powerful and harmonious 
cathedral clock. Its price was oue 
thousand two hundred guineas. 



Time-Msasurers, 



279 



The most accurately exact watch is 
probably Mr. Benson's Cbronoj^ph, 
used for timing the Derby. *' It con- 
sists of an ordinary quick train lever 
movement, on a scale sufficiently large 
to carry the hands for an eight-inch 
dial and with the addition of a long 
seconds-hand, which traverses the dial, 
instead of being, as usual, just above 
ihe figure VI. The peculiarity of the 
chronograph consists in this seconds- 
hand and the mechanism connected 
with it. The hand itself is double, or 
formed of two distinct hands, one lying 
over the other. The lower one, at its 
extreme end, is furnished with a small 
cap or reservoir, with a minute orifice 
attlie bottom. The corresponding ex- 
tremity of the upper hand is bent over 
so as to rest exactly over tliis puncture, 
and the reservoir having been filled 
with ink of a thickness between ordi- 
nary writing fluid and printer s ink, the 
chronojn^ph is ready for action. The 
operator, who holds tightly grasped in 
his hand a stout string connected with 
the mechanism peculiar to this instru- 
ment, keeps a steady lookout for the 
^ of the starter's flag. Simultane- 
ously, therefore, with the start of the 
race, the string he holds is pulled by 
him. and at the same moment the up- 
per hand dips down through the reser- 
voir in tlie lower, and leaves a little 
dot or speck of ink upon the dial. This 
i« repeated as the horses pass the win- 
oingpost, 80 that a lasting and indis- 
putable record is afforded by the dots 
00 the dial of the time — exact to the 
tenth of a second — which is occupied 
in running the race. As an example 
of the results of this instrument's ope- 
ntions, we may add that it timed the 
start and arrival of the Derby race in 
ISee as follows: Start, 3 hours 34 
min. sec. ; arrival, 3 hoars 36 min. 
^ sec. ; duration of race, 2 min. 49 
aec 

To give an idea of the extraordinary 
(firision of labor in this delicate science, 
it was stated in evidence before a com- 
mittee of the House of Commons, that 
there are one hundred and two distinct 
homches of the yt of watchmaking, 



and that the watch finisher, whose duty 
it is to put together the scattered parts, 
is the only one of the hundred and two 
persons who can work in any other 
department than his own. The hair- 
spring gives a very curious proof of the 
value that can be given to a small 
piece of steel by manual labor. Four 
thousand hair-springs scarcely weigh 
more than a single ounce, but often 
cost more than a thousand pounds* 
"The pendulum-spring of a watch, 
which governs the vibrations of the 
balance, costs, at the retail price, two- 
pence, and weighs three- twentieths of 
a grain ; while the retail price of a 
pound of the best iron, the raw mate- 
rial out of which fifty thousand such 
springs are made, is the same sum of 
two-pence." Mr. Bennett — whose ad- 
vocacy of female labor in the watch- 
trade has rendered him obnoxious to 
some persons — states that he found at 
Neufchatel, where the Swiss watches 
are chiefly made, twenty thousand wo- 
men employed upon the more delicate 
parts of the watch-movement. 

The last part of this very interest- 
ing volume is devoted to that perfec- 
tion of timekeepers, the chronometer, 
by which is found the longitude of a 
ship at sea. Twenty thousand pounds 
was offered by the British government 
for the invention of this instrument, 
which was awarded to John Harrison 
in 1765. His chronometer, in the first 
instance, was discredited on a voyage 
to Jamaica, smce it differed with the 
chart by a degree and a half, but it was 
eventually discovered that it was the 
chart that was wrong. Of how accu- 
rately chronometers are made, there 
are numberless instances ; here is one 
with which we must conclude. " Af- 
ter several months spent at sea,** 
writes Dr. Amott, " in a long pas- 
sage from South America to Asia, 
my pocket-chronometer, and others on 
board, announced one morning that a 
certain point of land was then bearing 
north from the ship, at a distance of 
fifty miles. In an hour afterward, 
when a mist had cleared awav, the 
looker-oat on the mast gave the joyooB 



280 



Catholic Doctrine and Natural Science. 



call of * Land ahead !' verifying the 
reports of the chronometers almost to 
one mile, afler a voyage of thousands 
of miles. It is allowable at such a 
moment, with the dangers and uncer- 
tainties of ancient navigation before 
the mind, to exult in contemplating 
what man has now achieved. Had 
the rate of the wonderful little instru- 
ment in all thai time quickened or 
slackened ever so slightly, its an- 
nouncement would have been useless, 
or even worse ; but in the night and in 
the day, in storm and in calm, in heat 
and in cold, its steady beat went on, 



keeping exact account of the rolling 
of the earth and stars ; and in the 
midst of the trackless waves, which re- 
tain no mark, it was always ready to 
tell its magic tale, indicating the very 
spot on the globe over which it had 
arrived." 

Among the relics of the Franklin 
expedition brought home from the arc- 
tic regions by M'Clintock was a pock- 
et-chronometer in excellent preserva- 
tion ; it had stopped at four o*clock. 
The owner probably had done with 
time ere that. 



Translated from Rerae G^ndrale, Bniraelf . 

CATHOLIC DOCTRINE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



M. d'Omalius d'Halloy, in a 
discourse recently delivered at a ge- 
neral annual meeting of the class of 
sciences of the Royal Academy of 
Belgium (December 16th, 1866), 
treated the question which has fre- 
quently and seriously occupied learn- 
ed minds. Director of an order which 
has for the past fifiy years been signal- 
ized by assiduous labors and patient 
researches, he has once again attested, 
with that superior authority which 
none can deny, that " the pretence is 
shameful, that our religious teachings 
are in opposition to the progress of 
natural science." We receive, with 
respect and attention, this frank decla- 
ration us the testimony of a noble mind 
surrounded with the double glory of 
science and faith. After the exordium, 
the speaker thus pursued his demon- 
stration : 

If we commence with .that which 
relates to the creation, we shall see, on 
the one side, those men who, not wish- 
ing to forsake the ideas which were 
formed in their early years, have pro- 
fited bj their inflaence in religious 



matters to condemn others who do not 
desire to follow their conclusions in re- 
gard to the phenomena of the natural 
development of the world ; meanwhile, 
on the otJier side, those men who, in- 
flated by their pride, or prompted by 
their desire to divest themselves of the 
restraint that religion imposes upon 
their passions, have profited all they 
could in whatever they found obscure 
or contradictory in the explanations of 
their adversaries to deny divine inspi- 
ration to the sacred books, and conse- 
quently to the fundamental principles 
of our religious belief. 

I am, on the contrary, led to believe 
that we can see nothing in the cosmo- 
gony of the book of GJenesis but the 
consecration of several grand princi- 
ples ; namely, the existence of an all- 
powerful God anterior to matter, and 
its creation by him. I acknowledge 
that our minds conceive with difficulty 
these two principles, but it is more 
difficult to conceive the existence of 
the universe and its admirable arrange* 
ment without the pre-existence of om* 
nipotent bemg ; one Against whom net- 



CathoHe Doctrine and Natural Science. 



281 



-tber science nor reason conid raise an 
olijection, or refuse to admit the exist- 
ence of its two component principles. 
When we say that God inspired our 
sacred books, we mean to convey that 
lie has caused certain men to under- 
stand the great truths which they con- 
tarn ; we do not wish to assert that he 
bas endowed these men with a complete 
vdentific knowledge. Besides, to com- 
prehend all that study has revealed to 
modem savansy they should speak or 
understand the rude language of the 
age in quesUon ; even at this period, 
though civilization and the art of print- 
ing have greatly increased the instruc- 
• tion of the masses, we find astronomers 
speaking of the rising and the setting 
(^the sun. 

We should not take the sacred wrti- 
ings for other than what tliey really 
are ; namely, as the medium through 
which we are to understand the great 
priociples which form the basis of our 
Rfigious belief; and not as treatises 
opon natural science. 

The long periods, the existence of 
which has been revealed by the study 
of the terrestrial globe, have also been 
placed in opposition to the recent pe- 
riod which we find named in the Bible 
as the epoch of the creation. But it is 
to be remarked, in the first place, that 
the term translated day has been er- 
looeously rendered ; the seven succes- 
siTe periods indicated in the Bible ns 
the limits of events were not confined 
to twenty-four hours ; and, in the second 
place, that the calculations derived 
from the age and genealogy of the 
patriarchs should not be regarded as 
iopemtive ; first, because we do not 
possess the positive value of the ex- 
pression translated as gear^ and, further, 
because it appears that a portion of 
the terms of the genealogical series 
has been lost in the lapse of time. 

The question of the deluge has also 
given rise to numerous contradictions ; 
bat it se<>ms to me that we can say, on 
the one side, that these contradictions 
topport themselves upon the suscepti- 
ble hypotheses of discussion, and, on 
Ibe ocher, npon the interpretations of 



modified nature which they will even- 
tually acknowledge!- It is thus that, 
while there exist in geology schools 
which deny the great cataclysms, there 
are others which admit them ; and we 
cannot deny that the theory which at- 
tributes the origin of our high moun- 
tains to swellings of the crust of the 
earth relatively recent, destroys the 
objections raised against the return of 
the waters upon' the materials forming 
the summits of our most elevated pla- 
teaux. Notwithstanding the objections 
which anthropologists make against the 
opinion that all mankind are descend- 
ed from Noah, which agrees with pure 
hypothesis, can we not say that the 
contrary opinion is founded upon but 
one interpretation of Genesis, which 
cannot be very exact ? Indeed, it ap- 
pears to me that the book, after the 
account of the creation, which should 
be applied to the entire universe, does, 
while it always teaches the power of 
God and the origin of things, assume 
an especial character; namely, it be- 
comes a history of a people whom God 
had chosen to serve him in a particu- 
lar manner. Thus the history of the 
Bible does not relate to any other peo- 
ple than the Hebrews, although these 
people had relations with the most 
powerful races on the earth ; the races 
that are willing to admit that the de- 
luge of which they speak submerged 
all the countries known to the He- 
brews, but not all the terrestrial globe. 
They object in this manner to see that 
the book of Genesis gives to the deluge 
the title of universal ; but is not this one 
of those expressions often employed 
to designate something understood? 
Do we not often say, All the world 
was united, all Europe is afraid, all 
the world listens ? Expressions of 
this kind arc very common in the florid 
style of the orientals ; and, without 
leaving the sacred books, do we not 
read of the Pentecost, that there were 
in the assembly who listened to the 
apostles " Jews of all the nations un- 
der heaven ;" and in the enumeration 
of the countries from which they came, 
^ Rome was the most distant ?" 



GcUhah'e Dt^fnm and NcUural Scimee, 



If I here recall the hypatlieses of 
ihe anthropology c»t' all mnn wlio did 
not actually desceud from Noah, I am 
far from saying that Lbey were not 
descended from one couple. I have 
hud, ovi the coiitfary, occasion to de- 
clare that, aeeordiag to my \^ew8, 
science, in ka present state, h power" 
leas to resolve the questioo whether tlie 
human mce is descended ti'oai oae or 
from several saurce^. However, I arn 
convinced that the differences vvliich 
actually present theaiaelves in the di- 
Tei'se hnmixn races have not manifest- 
ed themselves gince the delu;j:e of 
Nooh* 1 have said, lonpj since, that 
paleontolojry has led me to admit .that 
hereditary tnui^fl^rmutiona are much 
more iaiportant thiin the diflTerences 
which exii?t in ihe human race. At 
all times admitting; that man hm hard- 
ly suffered the tnmsfbniaations analo- 
gous to those deseribcil hithe paleonto- 
logical order» I am ii\r from c<iaclud- 
ing^ that he descends Irorn a beast. 
'Existint^ fjbservalions do not disprove 
the distinct cni'ation attributed by the 
Bible to man. The ofiiniou of some 
authors, that all living beings derive 
tlieir oriprin frf>m a monad, is a gratu- 
itous hypothesis, which cannot be sup- 
ported by faetj^. Quite tu the contniry, 
we learn, by paleontola;ry, that ali ihe 
great oi-ganic types existed in the 
8iluri»m period ; and, if the vertebnil 
type bad not yet been observed in the 
ajiterior deposits, this negative eireum- 
Btanee is considered of small iaipor- 
tance. For it is only a short lime since 
that the existence of organic remains in 
these deposits has been revealed ; tl^at 
these remains are very rare, and that 
even they differ but slightly from those 
of the Silurian soil Now, if the pre- 
sent state of observation leads us to 
admit that the Creator originally and 
distinctly formed the great types of 
organizatioi*, nothing authorizes us to 
deny that he ertated in a distinct man- 
ner the only being endowiKJ with the 
faculty of knowing and adoring him. 

On the other side, tve do not see 
why tlie special origin of man is de- 
nied, even if be should have changed 



bis form wiih time, as I suppose other 
living creatures may have done. Gc^ 
nesia lei Is ub truly that God create^ 
man in his own image ; but we cannot 
undei-stand this phrase to signify that 
he himself actuated a material form. 
God has taken the human form under 
certain circumstances to communicata 
with man, but no one maintains thai 
this' is the normal form of an essential- 
ly spiritual being. The Bible, tu 
speaking of the image of the Dcityp 
scarcely alludes to ihe material and de- 
composable part of rnan, but always la 
thesptrilual p^irt ; which, to be the iot- 
nqeo/ Gody should be endowed with im- 
laorlality. But this spiritual part, 
which we call the soul, may have been 
placed in a being who had a different 
form to that worn by man at the pre- 
sent time J one more appropriate to the 
sphere in which he livei Because 
God now permits the existcnc-c of men» 
who, by their brutislmess, assimilate lo 
the beasts, we sec no i^eason for iup* 
I)o3ing that the first men had forms 
unsuited to the development of the fa- 
culties which characterize the civilised 
wfjrld of lo day. 

Tliey have also denied particular i 
immortality to human souls in assimi« fl 
laling them to vital force, but thid \%^m 
one of those hyjiothcse:! unfounded 
upon any observation. 

r am convinced that the life, that ia 
to say, the vital force, or ihe union of 
forces which gives to matter the nllii^J 
butes chiwacteristic of organized b<>di<^t| 
can be assimilated, to a certain d<»gre 
to ihe forces which detenuine physic 
phenomena ; because the conditicm of J 
its effects are more restrained, uti 
only develop by continuation with! 
the botly with which it was originally* 
endowed, and is not a sufficient reason 
for concluding that it belongs to an en- 
tirely diffi^rent order of things. Wo 
see, in effect, that the order of forcea 
presents phenomena which becomes j 
successively less general ; it is thus] 
that attraction constantly acb} upon allf 
bodies, while thej-e exist circumstances 
where affinity acts upon certain bodies % 
and the mamfestatioQ of electriciiy is 



Caikolie Doctrine and Naturcd Science 



doe to conditions again less general. 
On the other side, we cannot conceive 
the movement of the stars without the 
first cause of impulsion, any more than 
we can conceive the hirth of a. living 
being without the intervention of a pre- 
existing cause ; we cannot give to these 
eoQoections anj consequence contrary 
to the dogma of the immortality of the 
foul. Nor can science decide whether 
physical phenomena are owing to 
Averse forces, or to a single force 
that manifests itself in various ways ; 
neither resolve the question whether 
Bfe is composed of an individual force 
or the union of many. It is certain 
thit vegetable life, a term which we 
cooader applicable to all living things, 
is something different from animal life, 
ft term applied to all sensible beings. 
It is contended no longer that man has 
attributes not possessed by beasts. 
Now we see nothing in physiology 
which opposes itself to these aptitudes 
being determined by a particular force 
ouned the soul, and that this force be 
odowed with immortality ; that is to 
say, the power of preserving eternally 
its individuality aher separation from 
the matter which it once animated. 

Although I am unfamiliar with 
physiological studies, I will add that 
tbtte considerations compel me to say 
that I have no right to apply the name 
of soul to that force which animates 
beasts ; not that I wish to rob certain 
animals of the faculties which they en- 
joy, but whatever may be the intelli- 
gence or social capacity with which 
these animals are endowed, they can- 
not pretend to perform the role that 
nan maintains upon earth. And nei- 
ther physiology nor the sacred writings 
lead us to believe that the force which 
tnioiates beasts should be endowed 



with immortality. I can only avow 
that the birth, the existence, and the 
death of an animal are but the mani- 
festation of a vital force determined by 
particular circumstances, as lightning 
and thunder ai*e but the manifestations 
of electricity. 

Again, according to my views, a re- 
ligious sense has hardly been given to 
the admission or the rejection of a hu- 
man kingdom, a question frequently 
agitated in these modern times. In 
fact, the division of natural bodies into 
three kingdoms, with their inferior sub- 
divisions, has only been made to faci- 
litate the knowledge of these beings, 
and to designate by name the different 
groups of which we would speak. We 
cannot deny that by the mineral, the 
animal, and the vegetable kingdoms 
we understand three divisions, which 
include all bodies on the terrestrial 
globe ; and that each one has common 
attributes which are not found in the 
two others ; it follows that, when we ad- 
mit a human kingdom, we have no term 
to designate the ckiss of beings possess- 
ing the attributes which distinguish man 
and the beasts from the two other king- 
doms. This consideration causes me 
to reject the human kingdom, without 
always classing man in the animal; 
the enlargement of the vertebra and 
the mammiferous class appear to me 
to oppose themselves in another order 
of ideas ; we must, therefore, believe 
that man is endowed with a soul en- 
joying attributes different from the 
force which animates beasts. 

In conclusion, I do not hesitate to 
say that there exists in my mind no 
real opposition between our religious 
belief and the demonstrations afforded 
by the present state of the natural 
sciences. 



MtMceUanff. 



mSCELLANY. 



Meteoric Stones, — M, Daubree records 
his observatioas on a preut shower of 
tnetooric stones which Fell on the 30th of 
May, m the territory of 8aint Mesmin, in 
the Department of the Aube. 5fr, Dau- 
bree gives the following account of tho 
phenomenon : The wenther being fine 
and dry, and only a few clouds in the 
sky, at about 4^4o in the morning a 
luminous mass wtL-i seen to cross the 
aky with great rapidity, and shedding a 
great light between Mesgrignyand Payns. 
A few seconds after this appearance, three 
-loud explosions, like tlie report of cannon, 
were heard at intervals of one or two sec- 
onds. Several minor explosions, like 
those of muskets followed the first, and 
succeeded one another like the discharge 
of skirmishers. After the detonations tk 
tongue of Hre darted toward the earth, 
and at the same lime a hissing noise was 
hoard like that of a squih, but mudi 
louder. This again was followed by a 
dull, hea.vy sound, which a perf^on com- 
pared to that of a shell striking the earth 
near him. After a long search ho per- 
ceived, at the distance of about two hun- 
dred feet from the place where he was 
wlR'n he heard the noise, a spot whore 
the ej*rih had been newly disturbed ; he 
exarnined the place, and saw a black 
stont? at the bottom of a hole nine inches 
d*?ep, which it seemed to have formed* 
This stone weighs nearly ten pounds. 
On the following day a gendarme named 
iVauionnot picked up another meteoric 
stone of the same nature, weighing near- 
ly seven pounds, at about two thousand 
feet distant from where it first fell. A 
third stone was found on the first of June 
by a man named Prosat, live to six thou- 
sand feet from the two spots above re- 
ferred to. This last meteorite weighed 
nearly four pounds and a half — Sckru4 

Fhiher Si^^f^hL — A new spectroscope 
has been constructed by Father Seech i, 
8- J., and seems to bo a very excellent 
instniment It absorbs a very small 
quantity of light, and is therefore admi- 
rably ailapted for stellar observations. 
The invent*>r has analysed with it the 
spectrum of the light emitted by the star 
Aiitar6s. It is of a red color ; the lumi- 



nous bands have been resolved 
bright lines, and the dark one 
checkered with light and dark iir 
there is no black foundation, — 17*a j 
er. 

The Rsat-a^ndiietihiUftf 
M. Gripon, who has been i .|» 

ments after Peclet's method, thinks 
has demonstrated that if the conductin 
power of silver be regarded as 100, tha 
of mercury is equal to 3*04. He place 
mercury, therefore, the lowest in thd 
scale of metals, as far as the conducti-J 
bilily of heat is concerned. It is Strang 
that* electric conductivity is quite differ 
ent, being represented by the flg 
1*80. — ScUiue Hetfieir. 

Ptn^tratym of Platinum and Iron 
hy Uf/drofjefi, — From time to lime 
have reported the discoveries of Trooai 
and Devilie in tins field of research 
These conclusions have recenlly been 
collected by the master of the mirit^ Mr^ 
Thomas Graham, in an admirable pafx 
published in the Proceedings of the lloyik 
Society, lie thinks that this wonderful! 
penetration is connected with a power f 
resident in thoaliovc-menLioned and c*!f- 
tain other metals to liquefy and absorb 
hydrogen, which latter is possibly \ 
condition of a metallic vapor. 
num in the form of wire or platsi 
low, red heat may take up and hold Zi ^ 
volumes of hydrogen, measured cold gl 
but it is by palladium that the propert| 
in que>stiou appears to bo pos^ej-scsi 
the highest decree. Palladium foil fron 
the hammered metal, condensed so mtjcfl 
as 648 times its rolume of hydrf>gon, at ' 
a temperature under 100** C The same 
metal had not the slightest absorbent 
power for either oxygen or mtr<^f«L 
The capacity of fused palladium (as also 
of fused platinum) is considerably re- 
duced, but foil or fused palladium, 
cinien of which Mr. Graham obi 
from Mr. G, Matthey, absorbed ^^' 
umes of the gas. Mr Graham thinka 
that a certain degree of porosity may 1 
admitted to exist in all these motals,- 
iScienc^ Heoicu*, 



bty re- 



ImproMmtntt in the Baronuter.' 



New Publications, 



285 



important improYcmenU have recently 
been effected in the Aneroid barometer 
by Messrs. Cook & Sons, the opticians. 
Although the Aneroid, under ordinary 
circumstances, has been shown by Mr. 
Glaisher and others to be very much 
more effective and satisfactory in its re- 
salts than could have been iioped, still, 
under conditions which bring rapid 
changes of pressure into play, the in- 
strument when it returns to the nominal 
pressure does not always indicate correct- 
ly. This results from the motion being 
communicated to the index axle by a 
chain, and this chain, from other con- 



siderations, is the weakest part of the 
instrument, and is the first acted upon 
by climatic influences, rust, etc. Mr. 
Cook has abolished this chain altogether, 
substituting for it an almost invisible 
driving-band of gold or platinum, and 
the result of this great improvement is 
that the Aneroid may now be looked 
upon as an almost perfect instrument 
for scientific research. Several such 
Aneroids, placed under the receiver of 
an air-pump, not only march absolutely 
together, but all return unfailinglj- to one 
and the same indication. — The Reader, 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



1 Fridebick the Great and his Court. 
An Historical Romance. By L. Milhl- 
bich. Translated from the German 
bj Krs. Chapman Coleman and her 
daughters. New York: Appleton & 
Ca 1867. 12mo, pp. 434. 
i Bulcc axd Sans-Souci ; or, Fred- 
mcK THE Great and his Friends. 
An Historical Romance. Author, 
tTNulatora, and publishers the same. 
Xew York. 1867. 12mo, pp. 891. 
8. Joseph IL and his Court. An His- 
torical Romance. By the same. 
IVanslatcd from the German by 
Adelaide de V. Chaudbron ; com- 
plete in one volume. New York : Ap- 
pleton k Ca 1867. 8vo, double col- 
unna, pp. 848. 

We know nothing of the writer of these 

vwka, save the works themselves, and 

^ them we know only in the transla- 

tioiis before us. The last-named volume 

Rids more like an original work in Eng- 

Sdi than the others. Mrs. Chapman 

Goleaiaa and her daughters appear not 

t» have learned the proper use of shall 

aod wiH, and make now and then the 

nne sort of blunder the Frenchman did 

vhen be fell into the river and ezclaim- 

•d: **! will be drowned, and nobody 

AaU help me out" The use of shall 

ind wiU is a little arbitrary in English. 

Shall in the first person simply foretells, 

in the second and third persons it com- 

' I ; witf in the first person promises 



or expresses a determination or resolu- 
tion, in the second and third persons it 
simply foretells. The same rule applies 
to should Sind would. The Scotch, Irish, 
and most foreigners are very apt to re- 
verse the rule, as do some New-Yorkers 
and most western writers and speakers. 
These works themselves are too his- 
torical for romances, and too romantic 
for histories. Unless one is exceedingly 
familiar with the real history of the times, 
one never knows whether ho is reading 
history or only romance. The historical 
predominates in them, and most people 
will read them as histories rather than 
romances, and thus imbibe many erro- 
neous views of real persons and events. 
The Empress Maria Theresa is praised 
enough and more than enough, so far as 
words go, both as a woman and as a 
sovereign, but she is, after all, represented 
very untruthfully as weak, sentimental, 
permitting her ministers to persuade her 
to adopt measures to which she is con- 
scientiously opposed, and really ruinous 
to the empire. She is arbitrary, despotic, 
and the slave of her confessor. The au- 
thor even repeats the silly story that 
Kaunitz persuaded her, in order to 
further his policy, to write an autograph 
letter to Madame Pompadour, the mistress 
of Louis XV., and to praise her for her 
virtue and modesty, a story invented, it 
is said, by Frederick the Great. The hete 
noir of the writer is the clergy, and alike 
whether Catholic or Protestant. The 



Niw Puhlkatwns. 



ftuthor sympathizes from frrst to last 
with Joseph 11. ; thinks the Josephine re- 
forms or pretended reforms very just, 
Tcry wiso in themBcIveSj but that the 
people were too ignorant and superstitious 
to appreciate them. From first to last 
humnnity takes precedence of God iind 
the stale of the church. The great di- 
vinity the author worships is the mutual 
loTo of man and woman, and the greateat 
evil that arthcts humanity, or at least 
princes and princesses, is that tliey can- 
not follow the inclinations of their own 
heart, but must sacrifice thc4r affections 
to the demands of state policy. 

Joseph U. is a great favorite with the 
author, but Fre<lenck the Great in her 
hero* lie is always great, noble, wise, 
juiit, with a most lovinj? heart, which he 
&Acrifit*es to the necessities of'state. No 
censure is breathed against his infamous 
conduct in in viiding and taking possession 
of Silesia, without even a color of 
right, and without even the formality of 
declaring war against Austria, and while 
Austria, unsuspicious of any invasion, m 
wholly unprepared to resist it, and em- 
barrassed by a disputed succession. Ho 
was successful, and in our time^ success 
is proof of right. Frederick was utterly 
without principle, without faith of any 
sort, a phihsophe^ corresponded with Vol- 
taire, invited him to his court, and even 
paid him a salary, and detested tlie cler- 
gy, and therefore was a fitting idol of our 
modern liberals and humanitarians, and 
worshippers of rORCV, like Carlyle. * 

Joseph the Second, we are inclined to 
believe, was sincere, and really wished to 
benefit the nation committed to his 
charge, and ho gave proof of it in revoking 
most of the changes he attempted, and 
dyln^ XH a Christian. He was vain and 
ambiiious, and was led astray by the 
philosophy of his times, and his unprin- 
cipled minister. Prince Kaunitx, a legacy 
from his mother. Ho, like all the phdos- 
ophers of the eighteenth century, un- 
derstood nothing of the laws of continuity, 
and supposed anything he decided to be 
for the good of his people, however con- 
trary to all their most deeply ciierished 
convictions and their most inveterate hab* 
its, could be forced upon them by power, 
and shotild be received with grateful 
hoarti^ Two things he appears to never 
have knoWTif that despotism cannot found 
liberty, and that power must^ if it would 
make people happy, suffer them to be 
happy in their own. There was, in the 
Btghti&euih century, with the Eurbpekn 



rulers and the upper ctofises much ra- 
ce re and active benevolence — a real And 
earnest desire to lighten the burdens of 
government and ameliorate the cofl 
of the people ; and no one can re-a 
volumeSj with sufficient knowle 
distinguish what in thcrn is history fn 
what is mere romnnce, without beittg [ 
suaded that real reibmis would hare 
gone much further, and European society 
would have been far in advance of what 
it now is, if the revoUition of 1780 had 
never been attempted. All that wiig 
tme in the so called principles of 1 789 mm 
favorably accepted by nearly all Europe 
statesmen and sovereigns who were 
boring peaceably and earnestly tq develg 
and apply it Tho statesmen and sore 
eigns, unhappily, had utterly false an 
mischievous views of the relation of th 
church to the state, and imagined thi 
the only way to reform society was 
begin by subjecting the spiritual lo th 
temporal t but they went in this directio 
not so far ns wont the old French revolu- 
tion. Indeed, the great lesson of history 
is that the attempt t* effect real so 
reforms by raising the people again 
legitimate authority, whether civd 
ecclesiastical, always turns out a failur 
Sonic good may be gained on one m^ 
but is sure to bo more than overbalanc 
by the evils effected on another flide. 

As purely literary work*, these hh 
torical romances possess a high d^-gree < 
merit, and prove that the writer has i 
powers of description and analyt^is, Thef 
read like the genuine histories, and fn 
them alooe it is impossible to say whe 
the real history ends and the ra 
begins, so completely is the vorr^imS 
maintatneil throu^^houU If, aj* 
lold, they are the productions of afema 
pen, as they bear indubitable 
denco of being, they are truly rema 
able productions. The character** i 
duced are ali, or nearly all, historic 
if not all or always faithfully repr 
they arc presented without any vi 
to the generally recei ved history of t 
courts described. There is a little 
much German sentimentality in thcni« 
fiiiUifuDy translated, to suit our ta.-^ii 
and more than we iK-lievo is usually I 
be found in imperial or royal courts ; and 
ttie liaisons of princes are treated vrUh 
too much lenity, if not downright appro* 
ball on. to have a good moral effect ; but 
they indicate a rare mastery of the sub- 
jects they treat, and intellectual 
of a very ' ^ ~ 




New Publications, 



S87 



III6MIS fiiultiess, and their spirit and tone 
are pasan rather than Christian ; but 
they who are familiar with the history of 
the two courts described, and are accus- 
tomed to master the works they read in- 
stead of being mastered by them, may 
read them even with profit 

LiCTURRS ON Christian Unity, delivered 
in St Ann's Church, Eighth Street, 
during the season of Advent, 186C, 
with an appendix on the condition of 
the Anglican Communion, and of 
the Eastern Churches. By the Rev. 
Thomas S. Preston, Pastor of St Ann's 
Church and Chancellor of the diocese. 
12mo, pp. 264. New- York: D. & 
J. Sadlier k Co. 

Father Preston's style is natural, ear- 
nest, and direct He is too anxious to 
impress truth on the minds of his read- 
en to load his pages with rhetorical 
ornaments ; too resolute in his opinions 
to hesitate at the most downright 
ind unmistakable expression of them. 
His ideas are clear, and therefore his style 
hi the two chief requisites of all good 
writing, clearness and simplicity. It has 
tlso the beauty which invariably radiates 
fitMn a devout heart Love of God, love 
of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, 
lore of the holy church and all her 
teichiogs and her ways, illuminate every 
chapter with the light of an unaffected 
piety. And like the majority of really 
deroot controversialists, ho writes with- 
out rancor or bitterness. "No true 
Catholic," he says, "can be intem- 
perate in speech, much less in heart. 
• . . . When we speak of the claims 
of our religion or announce our doc- 
trines and urge them upon men, it is 
not to advance our own opinions so much 
M to benefit mankind, and promote their 
best happiness, temporal and spiritual. 
We feel that the church answers the 
«very questions which are agitating their 
IoqIs; that it responds to the wants of 
lh«r spiritual being, now unsatisfied; 
that it IS the only and the divine barrier 
to infidelity so fast increasing among us. 
. . . It is in this spirit that these lectures 
are b<^n, with the earnest desire for 
troth, and a comprehensive charity for 
•U who differ from us." 

The first of the four lectures compris- 
ed in this volume proves from reason, 
Seripture, and the writings of the prin)i- 
Ihre fathers the necessity of unity among 
aD who profess the Christian faith. The 



second shows how impossible it is of 
attainment under the theory of Protes- 
tantism, which holds that everything 
concerning faith and salvation must be 
left to the private judgment of each in- 
dividual, and that no external authority 
has power to bind the conscience or com- 
pel the obedience of believing men. 
There can be no unity of belief unless 
there be an admitted standard of truth ; 
and under the Protestant theory such a 
standard cannot be found. There is no 
church which can be such an authority, 
for, according to the doctrines of all the 
reformed bodies, a church has no au- 
thority except that given to it by the 
members. As then the members are 
not infallible, the church cannot be. 
The Bible cannot be the authority ; for 
history shows that the Scriptures, sub- 
jected to private interpretation, have 
never been able to effect any agreement 
whatever ; and, moreover, it is practically 
impossible to prove either the authen- 
ticity or inspiration of the sacred books 
without falling back upon the authority 
of the church. The objections to set- 
ting up the consent of the majority or 
the opinions of antiquity as a standard 
of doctrine are likewise exposed with 
clearness, though very briefly. The third 
lecture is devoted to an examination of 
the claims of Protestantism to represent 
the Church of Christ, and a survey of 
the present condition and history of the 
principal reformed bodies. In lecture 
the fourth the claims of the Catholic 
Church upon the obedience of mankind 
are summarized with beautiful lucidity 
and eloquence. 

An appendix of 100 pages contains an 
interesting and valuable note on the 
position of the Anglican churches, and 
some welcome information respecting the 
church union movement, from which 
it is hardly necessary to say that Father 
Preston expects no good. Neither is he 
so sanguine of happy results from the 
ritualistic movement as a writer in a re- 
cent number of this magazine; but of 
these, as of all other matters, he speaks 
with his accustomed charity. A second 
part of the appendix gives an account 
of the present position of the Eastern 
churches. 

We regard this as the best work 
Father Preston has written, and we 
earnestly join in the hope he expresses in 
his modest preface, that it "may reach 
some minds who are seeking the truth, 
and lead them to the haven of rest" 



New Publications, 



Lectures on doctrines of the Catholic 
Church are a powerful means of conver- 
sion to the faith. Never were the pub- 
lic l>ctter disposed to inquire, and more 
ready to listen to the claims of the church, 
than at present, and, wherever lectures of 
this character liuve been given, their fruits 
have been found more abundant than was 
anticipated. 



The Life or St. Dominic and a SKETcn 
OP TUB J)oMiNicAN Okder. With an 
introduction by the most Rev. J. S. 
Alemany, D.I)., Archbishop of San 
Francisco. P. O^Shea, 27 Barclay 
street 

This is not a reprint of F. Lacordairo*s 
Life, but an original biography, accom- 
panied by a history of the Dominican 
order brought down to the present day. 
It is from the pen of an anonymous 
English author, and resembles the best 
works of the modern school of English 
Catholic writers in the care and elegance 
with which it has been prepared. No 
one could have introduced it more suita- 
bly to the American public than the 
illustrious Archbishop of San Francisco, 
who is himself one of the brightest orna- 
ments of the Dominican order in modern 
times. It is the history of a groat man 
and of a great order, given in a moderate 
compass and an attractive style, and, of 
course, well worth the perusal of every 
intelligent reader, whether Catholic or 
Protestant. 



The Journal of Maurice db Gu£rin. 
With an Essay by Matthew Arnold, 
and a Memoir by Saint-Beuve. Edited 
by.G. S. Trebutien. Translated by 
Eidward Thornton Fisher. 12 mo, pp. 
153. New York, Lcypoldt & Iloyt 
1807. 

Our readers, already so familiar with 
the character and WTitings of Eugenie de 
Guerin from the frequent notices they 
have received, especially of her Journal 
and Letters, will be glad to know that 
this journal of her so much loved brother 
Maurice lias been brought before the 
public. 

In perusing the charming journal and 
mournful letters of Eugenic our curiosity 
must needs be awakened to know more 
of her gifted brother, of whom those 
pages of love speak so constantly. We 



have only to say that in this volume that 
curiosity may be satisfied. Our reader.') 
will see depicted the efforts of a soul 
vainly striving to find God outside of 
God in the worship of nature, and at last 
returning, wearied and disappointed, like 
the prodigal son to his father^s home and 
embrace. Maurice de Guerin, who had 
fallen away into heartless and godless 
pantheism, died kissing the crucifix. 



"The CaUiolic Publication Society" 
announces an American edition of a book 
just published in London : "The Clergy 
and the Pulpit, in their relations to the 
People," translated from the French of 
M. TAbbc Mallois, chaplain to Napo- 
leon in. 

BOOKS KRCKIVKD. 

From Hon. W. IT. SiwARn, SccrcUry of State, Wuh* 
intrtnn, D. C. Dlplomiilic Corre»|>ondence, rclatlog 
to Foreifcn Affair* for 1»65. Porta I., 1 1., and III.; 
alHo Part IV., being an appendix to the othf'r three 
partH, cnntalnintr letters and docunientti vith refer- 
ence to tlie aMOMiuation of President Lincoln, and 
the attempted assatiidnaUun of Secretary Seward, 
with extracts from the press of Europe, and letter* 
from public communities, of condolence and sym- 
ji.ithy, inspired by these event*. 4 vols. Svo. 

From Krij.t k Pikt, Haltimore, Md. Devotion to Uie 
Holy (iuardian Aotcels, in the form of Coiisldero*' 
tions. Prayers, etc Translated fk-om tiie Italian of 
Rev. P. <le Mattel, S. J. 82mo. pp. «9. Price 50 cto. 

From P. 0*8iiBA, New York. Tlie Life of St. Dominta 
and a Sketch of ilie Dominican Order, with an intra* 
duction by Most Rev. J. S. Alemany, D.I). 1 vol. 
12mo. pp. 370. Price iLiiO.— Tlie (lentlv Sceptic; 
or, KMays and Conversations of a Country Jastloo 
on the Authenticity and TruUiflilnesx of the Old 
TcHUmcnt Records. Ry Rev. C. Walworth. New 
edition, revised. 1 Tol. Vimo. Price 91.50. 

From RuTTUiBiiiiU k Co., Newburg, New York. An 
Address in behalf of Universal tklucation with Re- 
ligious Toleration. By the Hon. J. MonelL Faraph- 
let. 

From Lawrbxck Kehoi, New York. Three Phaoei 
of Christian Love. By I^ady Herbert, of Lea. 1 
vol. 12mo. pp. »15l Price |1..V). 

From Dayton, Ohio, we liave received two pamphleto. 
namely : The Divinity of Christ, a sermon preochea 
in the Holy Trinity Church, Dayton, Ohio, at the 
conclusion of the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord 
Jesns Christ ; St. Antony : Alban Butler and Lool 
Oi>ssip of the Dayton Journal. By X. 

From I), k J. Badukb k Ca, New York. Lectnrce oa 
Christian Unity, delivered in St. Ann*s Chnrch, 
New York, during the season of Advent, 186S, with 
an Appendix on the condition of the AnglleaB 
Communion, etc. By Thomas S. Preston, PoMor oT 
St. Ann's Church. 1 vol. Vtmo. pp. 26k Priet 
Sl.ftA.— The Christian armed ogoinat the SedactloBl 
of the World, etc. Translated from the Italian to 
Father Ignatius Spencer. 1 voL ISmo. pp. 890, CO 
cts.— -Devotion to St. Joseph. By Rev. FMImt 
Joseph Anthony Patrignani, & J. lYansiatcd fron 
the French. 1 vol. 12mn. np. 8dO. Price 68 eta.— 
Fourth Annual Report of the Society for the Protee 
tton of the Destitute. 
From the author. Reconstruction of the Union, In a 
letter to Hon. E. D. Morgan, U. S. Senator fhM 
New York, from Judge Edmonds. New Tork lan^ 
rican News Co. 8vo. Pamphlet, pp. 89. 
From JuHX Aiuapur k Co., Baltimore. Manual of Um 
l.ives of the Popes, from St. Peier to Flog IZ. 
By John Charlee Earle, B.A. 1 toL ISna Plk 
882. Price $l./5. 



, ^.v^f'"«•^ 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOA ^K wiltiTAyJt^,, 1867. 

Tra&iUt«d from Le OoruMpondani 

LECTURES AND PUBLIC CONFERENCES AMONG THE 

ANCIENTS. 



NS tub $ole novum ; there is noth- 
ing absolatelj new under the sun. 
Aput from the sciences and their ap- 
I&atioD, our age differs less than we 
nppose from the ages that preceded it. 
Faoejlng onrselyes pure Frenchmen 
tf the nineteenth century, we discern 
ipoQ a nearer yiew numerous traits of 
KMemblance to the contemporaries of 
Pfioj and Plutarch. 

•Who will deliver us from Greek 
ittd Roman shackles?" cried the 
tuhor of Gastronomic, in a iit of 
Wiitj ill-humor. It is to be feared 
tfiat for many a bng year we are con- 
loaned to imitate the Latins and 
Alheoiana whom we love to slander 
^t«a while copying them. What mat- 
^ how unconsdously we borrow from 
than I Many things besides the game 
tint made the amusement of our in- 
^aey may be considered renovations 
fi Greek originals. Fashions, cus- 
Iqbb, pleasorea even, are ours, not by 
l^t of invention, but of inheritance ; 
aod what we take for new is some- 
merely the old refurbished. 
VOL. v.— 19 



If there be a novelty, for the mass 
of the people who do not pride them- 
selves on erudition, it is to be found in 
the lectures or conferences, to which 
the public is bidden every winter. 
Tested first successfully in Paris, 
through the enterprise of a few private 
individuals, they afterward, favored by 
the influence of higher powers, reach- 
ed the provinces — invaded them, I 
should have said, if the word had not 
an offensive signification, far from my 
thoughts. It is surprising to watch the 
rapid development of this custom, ex- 
hibited as it is in the fact that since the 
second year a thousand chatres have 
sprung up in various parts of France. 
Modest townships, no less than great 
cities, have their course of lectures, 
and one peruses with interest the list 
of lecturers,* some of whom are ac- 
customed by profession to communi- 
cating their ideas to an audience, while 
others essay for the first time the pub- 

* The eKairst hare been Utelj Interdicted to 
Prince Albert de Broglie and to MM. Saint Mare 
Glrardin, Cochin, Laboulaye, and Jules Simon. We 
cannot help, while reoordin« tble oetracUm, de^orisf 
lu effect upon rrcnoh Utaratore.— il^ qf mum 
MUor, 



290 



Lecturei and Public Conferences among the Andenti. 



He expression of their opinions. In tbe 
ranks of volunteer instructors (without 
mentioning professors, who are natur- 
ally called to assume such a position) 
lawyers elbow physicians, the Catholic 
priest finds himself next to the Pro- 
testant minister, and officers march 
abreast with men of letters. Nay 
more : women too are seen taking part 
in these manly exercises, anxious to 
prove good the equality of their sex 
with ours. 

*Tis undeniably an odd spectacle to 
unaccustomed eyes, and there is no 
lack of discussion and outcry upon the 
matter. But one need only read a few 
pages from the pen of ancient authors 
to discover that what startles us to-day 
as a thing without precedent, had pass- 
ed into a well known custom in the 
earliest ages of Christianity. It is 
into the subject of lectures and confer- 
ences among the ancients that I pro- 
pose to inquire, as a topic offering in- 
terest if not profit to those who like to 
compare antiquity with our own times. 

n. 

Nowadays, thanks to the printing- 
press, which multiplies thought and 
scatters it to the four winds of heaven, 
an author can enter into communica- 
tion with the public without going be- 
yond the threshold of bis study. But 
among the ancients, when every copy 
of a work was painfully executed by 
hand, who can estimate the pains, fa- 
tigue, and expense that went to build 
up an incomplete . publicity ? What 
wonder then that an historian like 
Herodotus introduced his book to pub- 
lic notice by reading it aloud to the 
crowds assembled for the Olympic 
games, or that the people paused to 
listen to him for days together ? The 
author entered without delay upon the 
enjoyment of bis glory — the public into 
possession of a masterpiece. Later, 
we learn that Prodicus, the sophist of 
Ceos, went from city to city, reciting 
his allegory of Hercules between Vir- 
tue and Pleasure, and engraving it 
apon the memoiy of all Qreeoe. 



Other similar instances might be 
cited, but merely as exceptions to tbe 
customs anterior to the Christian era ; 
nor was it in Greece but at Rome that 
public lecturing fir^t became a popular 
usage. 

In the reign of Augustus, when elo- 
quence had become pacifiee (or nar- 
row-minded, as the bitter spirits who 
pined for ancient laxity would have 
said), Asinius PoUio, having been 
transformed from a republican into a 
courtier without sacrificing his love of 
letters, bethought himself to replace 
the oratorical combats, for ever ban- 
ished from senate and forum, by estab- 
lishing a school of declamation, and as- 
semblies whither autliors should resort 
to read their works in public.* It was 
erecting a stage for the exhibition of 
wits who longed for notoriety, and the 
plan could not fail to succeed. Augus- 
tus, in harmony, on this oocasioD, with 
popular desire, lent a hearty consent 
to the innovation. Not only did he 
sit among the audience without giving 
evidence of weariness or ennnu but be 
took an active part in the literary ex- 
ercises, reading in peison, or letting 
Tiberius read for him, various compon- 
tions of his own.f 

Without doubting that Augustus 
really enjoyed these intellectual enter- 
tainments, I believe the encouragemeol 
of a harmless literature to have been 
in accordance with his policy. Every 
pursuit that could turn aside the Ro- 
mans from too importunate an interest 
in state affairs was favorably received. 
What time remained for meddling in 
public matters to any man occupied 
with polishing poetical phrases or 
rounding rhetorical periods? Tbe 
chair replaced the tribune advan- 
tageously. While bread and ciroos 
games satisfied the lower classes, di^ 
tractions and diversions of a nobler 
stamp were provided for more enligh^ 
ened minds. In both cases the con- 
duct of Augustus was actuated by tbt 
same motive. So well did public le^ 
tures second his designs that he mighl 



* SetMCA the Rhciorloiaii, Coatror. t. 
, Aagwtoi, tO^ W. 



t Sucloolui, Aagwtoi, I 



Leciurtt and Public Conferences among the Anciente. 



S»I 



prrliape have introduced the fashion if 
It bad not already existed. Under the 
circumstancea his countenance only 
was required to elevate what seemed 
like a modish caprice to the dignity 
and dnrability of an imperial institu- 
tion. Even the most suspicious and 
distrostful of this prince's successors 
forbore to disturi) an amusement so 
emducive to their own advantage. 
The least favorably inclined were 
eootented with depriving the asscm- 
Uies of their presence, and others 
esteemed it an honor to be counted 
among the most attentive listeners. 
Kero especially, imperial artist and 
netromaniac, seems to have honestly 
regarded these exercises as one of the 
f^ories of his reign. 

Every one who fancied himself a 
naa of talent (and illusions upon 
neh points are common to the literary 
iwld in all ages) was glad to win 
lenowo by exhibiting the fruits of mid- 
nght toiL With few exceptions, all 
lothors claimed the public ear : Lucan 
to recite his Pharsalia ; Silius Italicus, 
his Punic War; Statins, his Thebald, 
AduUeld, and Silvss ; Pliny, his Pane- 
gyric of Tngan.* I mention those 
tntbora only whose writings have re- 
Dtined to us ; but many others sought 
to charm a Roman audience. The 
lit would be long of lecturers whose 
munea, without their works, have 
come down to posterity; orators of 
vhom Pliny has introduced a large 
mnber to ua in enumerating his per* 
•OttU friends. Princes followed the 
VBtagioua example of Augustus. 
Clan£ii8 and Nero enjoyed the dis- 
^y of their acquirements ;t Domitian 
i^ed poems which lie certainly never 
vme; but what matter for that? he 
fted to give himself the airs of a poet, 
ind of a successful poet, we may be 
nrs. Nero^ at leas^ did not solicit 
tpplanse in borrowed plumes. In 
iboity DO verses were too bad to seek 
t hearing. A mania for reading and 
vriciDg raged abroad. Horace sati- 



>; LtMMi ; fUnj theTonnger, Ld ill. 7, 
f SMloaiM, OMdtat, 41 i Ncra, 10. 



rizes this madness, but after Horace's 
own sweet, graceful fashion. Juvenal 
exclaims with wrathful bitterness : 
" Am I for ever to be a listener? 
Shall I never retaliate, (I who have 
been) so often teased with the The> 
seld of husky Codrus ? One man re- 
cites his comedies with impunity, and 
another his elegies. Shall huge Tele- 
phus consume my day unpunished; 
or Orestes, full to the extremes! 
margin of the book, written even on 
the reversed pages, and not finished 
thenr* 

The time for retaliation came at last. 
A desire seized him during the reign of 
Adrian to bring forward the satires so 
long kept under lock and key, and to 
emulate those whom he had ridiculed. 
He bored no one, it is true, but none 
the less fatal were the results to him- 
self. Several passages, cordially re- 
ceived by the public, and invidiously 
interpreted among courtiers, seemed 
to contain hostile allusions to an im- 
perial favorite ; and the emperor, un- 
der pretext of appointing the poetie 
octogenarian to a military comn\and, 
sent the satirist to the extreme recess- 
es of Egypt to finish his days in hon- 
orable exile.t 

Tlie subjects of Roman lectures 
were exceedingly various ; sometimes 
serious and long-winded poems like 
those we have mentioned ; sometimes 
comedies; but oflener short poems, 
light and trifling, or sweet and tender, 
according to the poet's vein. On exr 
ceptional occasions, some eloquent 
voice, disdaining vulgar platitudes, 
aroused, with its noble accents, genuine 
Roman sentiments; as on that day, 
in the Augustan era, when Cornelius 
Severus deplored the death of Cicero 
and cursed his assassin in the glorious 
lines that have been preserved to us.^ 

Wc notice as a singular fact that a 
lecturer endowed with a fine voice, 
would sometimes content himsdf with 
reading passages from some ancient 
poet, Ennius, for example; and with 

•JuTenal,!. 1. 

t Suetoidas, Jarenal. 

^JJ^iy^S, To««Vr. ''•"•'^ «▼. «T; T. IT; ^ 

10, 81 ; Till. 8L 



M2 



LecturtB and IhUtUc Con/erencM among the AneUnts, 



success tooy if be read with taste.* But 
this was too low an aim to satisfy am- 
bition. Men desired fame and ap- 
plause for themselves, and cared little 
to offer any works but their own to the 
pablic. 

No style was banished from these 
Msemblies. One day an audience 
listened to dialogues, or to philosophi- 
cal and moral dissertations; on the 
next, some lawyer, already well known 
to fame through important law-suits, 
ckimed a hearing. The lawyer who 
had p:ained his client's cause before 
the tribunal, came to argue in behalf 
of his own intellect before the publicf 
earing more, perhaps, to win in the 
leoond suit than in the first. History, 
too, seems to have held an important 
place in lectures, nor did the speaker 
limit himself to events long since gone 
by. Rome within a few years had 
lo6t several distin^ished men, whose 
death Titinius Capito commemorated.} 
Strictly speaking, it might be consideiv 
ed a nineral oration, intended to con- 
lole friends and relatives without 
wounding any individual. But the 
intrepid lecturer ventured upon vol- 
canic soil, and portrayed the history 
of recent years with so great liberty 
of speech that, at the close of the first 
assembly, he was surrounded and urged 
to silence : why wound the feelings of 
auditors who blushed to hear of acts 
they had not blushed to commit ? § 

Probably he had reference to those 
informers who were expiating under 
Tngan the favor and prosperity they 
had enjoyed under Domltian. That 
they deserved scorn, there can be no 
doubt ; but is it always easy to pass 
just and impartial judgment upon con- 
temporaries ? Does not history run 
a chance of resembling one of those 
retrospective reviews, before which, 
after a change of rulers, the men of 
to-day lay complaints against the men 
of yesteniay ? 

.OccasionaUy the choice of subjects 
wa8 even more remarkable. The ora- 
tor Regulus, whom Pliny (usually so 

• Senrca the Rhetor, Suasor, I. 

t PUojr the roiuffer : Lett. U. 19 : rtt. IT. 

t nild., vUL, liTl IMd. Lettu.ir. 



full of good Will toward the sut^ects 
of his criticism) unceasingly pursued 
with scornful hatred, loses his only son. 
Not content with bestowing upon him 
magnificent obsequies, in which, lo 
str^e all eyes with the spectacle of 
pompous woe, he sacrifices, upon the 
funeral pile, the nightingales, parrots, 
dogs, and horses that the child had 
loved ; he would perpetuate his son's 
memory and spread abroad the proofs 
of his own grief. Portraits and images 
wrought in wax, or oopper, or marble, 
ivory, silver, or gold — the most varied 
works of painter or sculptor, suffice 
him not. It occurs to him that he 
himself is an artist — a word-artist, and 
now or never his powers should be 
utilized. His son's life and death 
would be an admirable text for a lec- 
ture. Quick to the work! Great 
griefs are mute, says Seneca, but Re- 
gulus thinks otherwise ; and in a few 
days he gives forth to a numerous as- 
sembly an address which cannot fail to 
do crtMlit to his literary talents and his 
paternal sentiments. The comedy (for 
what else can we call it?) met with 
success. So fine a piece was not com- 
posed to delight a single audience, and 
Regulus, being rich enough to pay the 
expenses of glory, addressed a sort of 
circular to the magistrates of every 
important town throughout Italy and 
the provinces, begging them to select 
their best declaimer and confide to him 
the reading of this precious work of 
art. The wish of Regulus was grati- 
fied.* 

Pliny's letter, giving these curious 
details, shows also that the fashion of 
recitations had spread beyond Rome, 
Testimony to the same effect abounds 
in ancient 'authors. Few cities were 
without public lectures. In imitation 
of Italy, the practice was adopted in 
Africa, Gaul, and Spain. Of Greece 
I do not speak, for Greece is par ex- 
ceUence the land of literary recreations, 
and we will go thither all in good time« 

m. 

It would appear from various texts 

• FU117 Um TMUigcr, Iv. %, T. 



Zieeiures and Public Conferences among ike Andente. 



898 



tbat Rome at least had certain seasons 
for lectures : the months of April and 
August, and sometimes of July, being 
especially selected, no doubt because 
affairs before the tribunals were then 
less frequent Authors took advantage 
of these periods of leisure to supplant 
the magistrates. But that each aspi- 
rant might have his turn, meeting suc- 
ceeded meeting. ^ Poets abound this 
year,'* writes Pliny; "we have had 
recitations almost every day this 
month.'' Innocent satisfaction of a 
mind enjoying the triumph of good 
taste and literature in these exhibitions, 
or otteniationes, as they were termed 
by severe judges ! Seneca advises his 
pupil Lucilius not to stoop to objects 
so paltry. One would suppose that 
the frequency of public lectures would 
have led to the erection of a public edi- 
fice— of an amphitheatre especially de- 
Toted to these exercises. We find, 
however, that such a thing was never 
thought of, and that each lecturer was 
expected to provide his platform as best 
De could. Poor poets, a never-foiling 
race, spoke in public squares or at the 
baths.* Petronius in his Satyricon 
depicts the old poet Eumolpus declaim- 
ing anywhere and everywhere, in the 
streets or under peristyles, spouting his 
verses to every comer, at the risk of 
being driven away by the wearied 
crowd, or of driving them away, a cir- 
cumstance not more flattering to a poet. 
Eumolpus is but a fictitious personoge, 
but he is no doubt drawn from life. 
Petronius describes what he has often 
witnessed ; and even if we could doubt 
this, Horace and Juvenal would bear 
witness to the fidelity of the portrait 

Even when the crowd was attentive, 
these meetings in the open air had 
their inconveniences. Apuleius was 
to speak in Carthage, and great was 
his reputation. The people crowded 
and pushed and hustled to get a front 
pUice. So far BO good, for what can be 
pleosanter than to see one's fellow 
creatures suffocated in one's honor? 
Apuleius began in his finest tone?, the 
lecture marched apace, the most strik- 
•BoiMt,art.LiT.nL 



ing point was reached, enthusiasm stood 
on tip-toe — ^when, alas for the vanity 
of human hopes I a pelting shower fell 
upon all this success, dampening elo- 
quence^ putting the excited audience to 
flight, and sending the orator home wet 
to the skin, with bis triumph changed 
to disaster.* 

Accidents of this nature rarely occur- 
red, at least to men of reputation like 
Apuleius, for oddref^ses were usually de- 
livered under cover in a hall. A suit^ 
able apartment was easily found by any 
one who could afford to hire one. 
Sometimes, too, a friend would kindly 
lend his house, as for instance Titinius 
Capito, who liked to render services of 
this kind. ^ His mansion,'' says Pliny, 
*' belongs to all those who have ad- 
dresses to deliver." A simple dining- 
room sufficed for the occasions when 
only a few persons were expected ; but 
these were exceptionaLf The place 
of meeting being selected, seats and 
benches were placed for the audience. 
A stage was erected for the lecturer, 
raised above tlie public, so that none 
of his gestures might be lost, and that 
he might judge correctly of the effect 
produced. The audience consisted of 
men only, it being contrary to received 
customs that a woman should appear 
in a lecture room. But an ingenious 
plan was devised by which literary Bo- 
man ladies could enjoy the entertain- 
ment. One part of the hall was some- 
times curtained off with draperies, and 
behind this shelter, a woman could lis- 
ten at her ease, without wounding con- 
ventional ideas, t 

The lecture was announced several 
days in advance, and ceremonious in- 
vitations were issued to friends and 
personages of distinction. This pre- 
caution proved useful in securing an 
audience, and fulfilled at the same time 
a duty of politeness, the neglect of 
which implied indifference to the cour- 
teous usages of the time. While 
slaves were carrying invitations 
through the dty, the host remained at 



* Apnleliii, riorlde*. 

fnudtaBTDULdeOr.d. 

I riioj tlM Taangw, L0ll«, TiU. lib SL 



<f<rfwf«# and FtiMk Confennmi amon^ Hke Aneimti. 



hom% and, in order to make liis voice 
clearer and more flexible, enveloped 
his throat in woolen cloths, and imbib- 
ed soothing bevemges. 

The gfpat day comes al lust* Tbe 
benches arc filled. The lecturer only 
is wanting. lie appears, and at sight 
of him a raurmur of satisfaction passed 
round the halL He take** the chair, 
often surrounded by his beat tiienda, 
who sit beside lura to eneouraj^e bim 
with their pre^enee and to enjoy his 
success. * In order to appear in full 
!u9tre^ he has arrayed himself in a new 
white toga, dressed his bair and beard 
carefully, and placed njx)n his finger 
a ring adorned with a precioos sfone. 
He unrolls a manuscript ; uttens a few 
modest plirases in ajKjlogj^ for hid te- 
merity, asking of course the indulgence 
of the audience, but soliciting their 
Justice also, since he seeks before all 
things an exact criticism, revealing the 
defects in bis work, that he may cor* 
rect them. This preamble being ivell 
received, he enters upon the discourse. 
In reading he tries to giv^e efiect to the 
words by a varied intonation of voice, 
by turns of his head and movement of 
his eyes. Soon faint cries of ** Excel- 
lent 1 perfect T arise in various parts 
of the hall to charm his ear; but he 
feigns not to hear them* He pausea, 
remarking, ** I am afraid all this bores 
you. Perhaps I ought to suppress a 
few passages, lest you should be 
wearied/' But the audience are too 
polite to admit that a short lecture 
would not displease them. *^Ohl no« 
no, skip nothing ; we do not wish to 
lose a woni.** He procee^ls* only to 
go through the same farce a little later. 
** I have already abused your patience ; 
it is time to i^top and release you from 
Uie remainder." " Read on, read on ! 
it is charming to hear you**' He reads 
to the end ; the admirfition grows, rises, 
bubbles over ! where will it end ? 
Thunders of applause follow, and the 
kcturer is inwardly overjoyed, but his 
tiiode.';ty never deserts liira. ** Enough 
friends, enough V he murmurs, ** This 
ji too much." Of course the transporta 
* MlBjr $ti« Y«uii|fri LtUent, tL i. 



are redoubled, and our lecturer rctnr 
home, believing himself a Viipl, 
Sal hist, or a Cicero. 

We have described here a sue 
fut lecture ; but not always, it must 
confessed^ did the hero of the occasic 
carry away with him impressions 
agreeable. Sometimes an author ] 
to renounce the pleasure of reading hii 
own composition, because of a weak< 
impleading voice, leaving the task 
delivery to a reader, near whom 
sat, accompanying the recitation wtti 
glance and gesture.* 

Then, too* there were a thous 
petty mishaps, im;io?sihle to foresefl 
or avoid, one of wbieh sufficed to spoil 
the occasion. Pasaierus Paulas, 
Roman knight, was addicted to thil 
composition of elegiac verses ; a 
family )>eculiarity, it would seem, aa 
he counted Propertius among his an- 
cestors. One day» among the nume- 
rous asReroblage of invited gue^its. sat 
Javolenus Friscus, a friend of the poet, 
though a little crazy. Faulus opened'! 
the recitation of his elegies with ou#| 
commencing: ^ Priscus, you ordc? f 
me — '* ""* 1 1 faith I I onlered nothing*'* J 
cried the crack-brained Javolenus, iunid| 
explosions of laughter from the aucLi« 
encc. Behold Passl^rus Paulus great>-| 
ly disconcerted! The absurdity af| 
Javolenus had tlirown a cloud ovef 
the entertainment, which proves, oIhI 
serves Pliny, that not only should n! 
lecturer be himself of sane mind^ bul] 
he should take care that his listeners 
he so too. 

Paulus grieved over the ill socoaiS 
of his lecture; not so Cl.iudius wbea 
an accident chanced to trouble thti 
course of his recitation. He Avas at] 
the first pages of the addres.^. when 
remarkably stout auditor cracked and 
brought to the ground a bench wili 
his weight The as-fembly 
with laughier. The good 
emperor wa.^ not m the leait aDno| 
ed; and, when silence was &I but 
established^ he broke it agaia 
again with peals of xnemmeDtp < 

• Plinj the Yeimf«r, I.«U«rs, vtlL I ; Ix, »L 



JLeeiurti and Public Con/ereneea among A0 Ancienti. 



tog tbe audience along with him, at the 
thought of the fat man's downfall 

But a graver difficulty presented it- 
self occasionally in the unwillingness 
of the public to partake of the feast of 
reason prepared for their enjoyment 
The frequency and length of tliese 
lectures, which would last sometimes 
through two or three meetings, had 
tired many people, who came no more, 
except under protest, saying with Ju- 
venal (iii. 9), ^ No desert but would 
be more endurable than Rome in lec- 
turing times." Pliny bemoans this fall- 
ing off. and sees therein a grievous 
sign for literature — decline and decay. 
" The guests,^ he stiys, " stand about 
pubUc places amusing themselves with 
frivolous talk. From time to time they 
send to ask if the lecturer h&s arrived, 
or if the preface is over, or the lecture 
far advanced* Then they go in, but 
slowly and with regret Nor do they 
remain to the close. One slips out 
adroitly; another stalks unceremoni- 
ously away with his head in the air. 
It is said that, in our fathers' time, 
Claudius, while walking through his 
palace one day, heard a great noise, 
and, on asking the cause, was told that 
Nonianus was reading one of his works. 
The prin(!e went immediately to join 
the assembly ; but to-day prayers and 
entreaties will not induce the most un- 
occupied man to come, or, if he does 
come, it is only to complain of having 
lost a day because he has not lost it"* 

To go away before the close was a 
mark of ill breeding, as Pliny demon- 
strates ; an infringement of that code 
of proprieties to which auditors were 
expected to adapt themselves. Atten- 
tion was, of course, required, but many 
other things were prescribed. The 
excellent Plutarch, who seems to 
have shared Pliny's weakness for this 
kind of exerdse, was at the pains to 
compose a treatise for his disciples 
upon the art of listening. '^ In a lis- 
tener," ho says, ''a supercilious air, 
a severe face, wanderiug eyes, a stoop- 
ing attitude, legs carelessly crossed, 
nay, more, a wink or nod, a word in a 

• FILdj tiM Too^v, Lttton, L is ; BL 1& 



neighl)or*8 ear, an affected smile, a sad 
and dreamy look, indecent yawns, and 
all other things of that nature, are re- 
prehensible defects to be scrupulously 
avoided."* 

Elsewhere he cites with approbtc 
tion the conduct of Rusticus Arnlenua : 
^^ One day when I was making a pub- 
lic address in Rome, Arulenus sat 
among the audience. In the middle 
of the conference, a soldier brought 
him a letter from the emperor. A 
profound silence prevailed in an in- 
stant, and I myself paused to give him 
time to read tbe despatches. This be 
declined to do, and only opened his 
letter when the address was ended and 
the audience had dispersed; conduct 
which won for him the admiration of 
every one." Of every one^ and especi- 
ally, I imagine, of Plutarch, who must 
have been flattered, indeed, to see that 
so grand a personage would not let hii 
attention wander even to state affairs. 

Plutarch at least exacts of his au- 
dience only what may be called good 
breeding. In this he agrees wiA 
Epictetns, who, while advising his dis- 
ciple not to attend the public readings 
of poets and orators (believing, in hii 
austere philosophy, that time might be 
better employed), recommends him, if 
he must go, to preserve decency and 
gravity, not indulging in boisterous and 
disorderly demonstrations, or wounding 
his host by giving evidence of weari- 
ness. But Pliny is not satisfied with 
this. In maintaining a religious atten- 
tion at the lecture, the listener had ful- 
filled only half his duties, the other 
half being applause. To leave with- 
out exhibiting lively satisfaction was 
simply significant of boorish ill breed* 
ing. We find Pliny in despair when 
one of his friends has not obtained the 
meed of praise he had a right to j^x- 
pect from the audience. ^^ For mj 
own part," he says, ^ I could not refuse 
my esteem and admiration to thoee 
who interest themselves in literaiy 
labors." Before the lecture, ^he pre- 
dicts in all sincerity the most startling 
success ; and at its close, pronounoei 

«HowtoLlilvi,il. 



Xecturti and Public Con/erenciis among Ae AncUntf, 



upon it in equally good faith a pomp- 
ous eulogium.* 

Sometimes tlie facile admiration* 
|K>nlera on gimpUcity, Sentiua Aftgu- 
rmus reads a poem, and the benevo- 
lent critic exelaima, ** In my judgment, 
there has been nothing better done for 
years ;** giving a gpecimen of the hnes, 
that the i-eader may pas» his own judg- 
ment. It is a little piece in which he» 
Pliny, 18 compared to Calvus and Ca- 
tullus, and ninkeJ, uf course, above 
both, without taking into consideration 
that he has the wisdom of a Caro into 
the bargain, *' What delicacy T cries 
Ihe tickled critic, "^ what nicety of ex- 

► preeaion I what vivacity T Of course, 
who would not see ebamis in a mad- 
rigal containing these pleaaant sentj- 

I ments about one's self? It would be 
fastidious indeed to fail in admiration 
of such a pz'oduetian* 

Sentius loudly proclaims the poetic 
lalent of Pliny; and Pliny reeipro- 
cates with the announcement that Sen- 
llus is one of those rare geniuBes who 

• do honor to lh<*ir age. It was an ex* 
djange of good ofliees — a mutual adu- 
lation in which the lecturer of to* day 
received back all that he had gen- 

' arously lavished about him yesterday. 
Tanily more than the love of letters 
found its meed in this interchange of 
Courtesies. 

We have already seen that on one 
tide the disdain of serious thinkers, 
and on the other public satiety, had 
ended by injuring the success of these 
exhibitions* Solitude reigned about 
the lecturer, but should he on that ac- 
count desert his post ? It wa? an ex- 
treme case not to be easily met, but 
liecessity is ingenious. New plane were 

j Invented for filling the hall. If an au- 
dience would not come, an audience 
jnust be hunted up— recruited at any 
^mU Clients and freedmeu were bor- 
fowe>d from pergonal friends to fill the 
l>enches. One orator gathered toge- 
Iber a troop of famished wretches and 
jgave them a plentitiil dinner. The 

Kests, having eaten and rejoiced, were 
dd with gastric gratitude, and vigor- 



oualy clapped the poems of theii 

phitryon. Tliis trade was carri 
every day, and those who bM 
admiration for a good dinner 
called by the expressive name o 
dicceni. Others bought apf 
cash down ; but at a low price, if 
were not particular as to quality 
tented, for mstance, with servants 
could liO imd for three denarti a 
At this ratp, persons of low < 
cou!d drive a lucrative busines 
hiring out their services* A 
simple method, however, than th 
paying listeners by the day, was 
ing use of debtors if one had 
for what debtor, with any sense of 
could help attending the lectures i 
creditors ? 

An audience collected thus dl 
t trouble themselves much abou 
tening, but no matter tor that if 
would Imt apphiud; and applaud 
did. and all tlie more vigorously ii 
portion to their inaUention, as ] 
telh» us, and we may well believe 
that the orchestra needed yrm a h 
to give the signal to his docile t 
at the fine points, and to reguhil 
degrees of enthusiasm. Applau8^ 
no mere trade ; it had risen to th< 
nity of a science. A skilful mai 
could provide every suitable cra( 
from a discreet and low- voiced a 
bation up to passionately tumuli 
enthusiasm* First came murrain 
pleasure, starts of gratilied sof 
and involnniury exclamations, fo 
ed by a silence no less flatt< 
Gradually the excitement gtjt be 
cootJvd, and manifested itself by st 
iog of feet ; by cries, nay* howls ; t 
the words of Pliny, ulnlaing iar^ 
persiint. Togas weri? shaken j bi 
es tn^mbled beneath the blow 
trampling feeL Persons who sat 
the lecturer, and could take such 
berty, ran to embrace him in tok« 
gratitude at the delight he bad a 
ed them. If perchance the Bpi 
was an emperor, respect did not 
them to kiss his sacred lips* but oi 
pour fortli expa^ssions of grati 
The joy would become 8o uni? 




Zeelurea and Public Conferences among the Aneiente. 



S97 



as we see in tbe case of Nero, that the 
senate decreed solemn thanksgiving to 
be offered to the gods ; and the verses 
of the prince, graven in golden letters 
on the walls of the capitol, to be dedi- 
cated to Jupiter, as the noblest offering 
earth could consecrate to heaven.* 

nr. 

We see by Pliny's lamentations that 
lectures in his day were not in vogue 
as tbey had been formerly. But it 
must be remembered that, even when 
lectures were at the height of popularity, 
tbey attracted only the cultivated class, 
so-called ; that is to say, the minority. 
The Roman people did not pride them- 
selves upon a marked taste for refin- 
ed intellectual pleasures, finding more 
fasctnation In spectacles and circus 
games. Statius, according to contem- 
porary accounts, appears to have been 
the poet most eagerly sought ; but nu- 
merous as was the audience that throng- 
ed to hear him, there is little doubt, 
that, if some famous gladiator had ap- 
peared in the arena, Statius would have 
stood a fair chance of addressing empty 
benches. While the seats of the small 
lecture-room filled slowly with hardly 
earned auditors, the amphitheatre steps 
were never vast enough to accommo- 
date the struggling multitude. 

Only in Greece do we find a nation 
truly sensitive to purely intellectual 
enjoyments. There the simple artisan 
understood and appreciated philoso- 
phers, poets, and orators. The art of 
eloquence never left him indifferent, and 
he would leave his trade to run to a 
discourse as to a feast With this dis- 
position, what seemed to the Romans a 
pastime for the few, was the chief in- 
terest of many members of Greek socie- 
ty. Fubhc speaking was but an acci- 
dent in the lives of Pliny and his 
friends, while to the clever men of 
Athens or Alexandria it became a pro- 
fession. Any one who believed him- 
self gifted with eloquence became a 
sophist or rhetor, and with a little tact 
and assurance could count upon that 

• PUn7tiMToinsfr.Utten,U. 10,14; Martial, 
IT7; 8aeloiflaa,N«o.lO. -» -^ • 



kind of success which is measured by 
a numerous audience. Some distinc- 
tion between these two classes of men, 
the sophist and the rhetor, should be 
made here. The former claimed to 
have succeeded the philosophers, with 
the right to teach the people, and to 
develop the commonplaces of politics, 
morals, and even of religion. They made 
themselves preachers to the populace, 
and sometimes to princes, as, for in- 
stance, when we find Dion Chrysostom 
holding forth concerning the duties of 
royalty in Trajan's palace. Rhetors, 
on the other hand, were professors of 
eloquence. Their avowed aim was to 
please, but, while less proud in preten- 
sions than the sophists, they were in 
reality equally presumptuous, assuming 
to teach art not only by explaining its 
rules, but also by offering in their own 
compositions finished models of rhetoric, 
in the genuine belief that they had gar- 
nered up the heritage of Demosthenes 
and Eschines. As all pretensions be- 
long together, the sophist oflen com- 
bined his duties with those of the rhetor; 
witness the Dion above mentioned. 

This race of public speakers lingered 
about the towns of Greece, and also of 
Asia Minor, Egypt, and Lybia. Then, 
finding these limits too narrow, they 
burst beyond them and invaded the 
Latin countries. 

About the time of the Antonines, that 
is tosay, when exhausted Roman genius 
seemed doomed to barrenness, there 
came a renaissance of Greek letters* 
Many Romans preferred Greek to 
Latin for writing, and not merely as a 
caprice or literary foppishness, loving 
to deck itself in public with the riches 
of a foreign language. Marcus Aure- 
lius conversed with himself in Greek 
in the memoirs where he makes his ex- 
amination of conscience. Why should 
we wonder that an audience should 
mast readily collect in Rome to listen 
to some elegant rhetorician from the 
East? 

The reputation to be gained from 
public speaking was too enviable to ad- 
mit of deUiy in its acquisition. AH 
persons did not even wait foit man^ ood 



Lictur€9 and Public Con/enucn among the AneimU* 



I 
I 



I 



betore claiming the attention ofihe pub- 
lit-. Far fi-om pleading youth aa an 
excuse, they glorird in it. Hcitdo- 
gencs of Tarsus mnde hia dihu at lit- 
(tK^iif as Marcus Auri'liug tells us in his 
tmveb, " lo me," eays Ilermogenes 
haugfitily, " jou see an orator who has 
bad no maj^teff an orator to whom 
jeAfB are still wanting,'' A sterile pre- 
cocity it proved to be* making him, ac- 
cording to bis enemies, an old man 
among youtba, and a youtb among old 
meiK 

Kmulatiori fired women aUo. Many, 
and umoti^ their nuinl>er young girb, 
undertook to speak iu public, andhpoke 
efiet'tively too, and with success. His- 
tory has lefl ua the names of several 
of these muses, as tlie Greeks some- 
times called ibcm* Tlie muses did not 
revcnl themsGlvcs too vi.sihly to their 
worshipfiei's* A large curiuiu veiled 
them irom the audience, le^t their 
bi'^uty should make too dazzling an 
impression. No lont^er as at Rome did 
dia|>eries shelter the woman from the 
public ; it was the public screened from 
fenVirjine attractions* 

In Italy we have Been that poets 
were among the most eager as f>i rants 
for recagnitlon ; but among the Greeks 
prose held public aitentiou almost ex- 
clusively, for a reason which we hope 
to make clear. The crowd rushed to 
hear sophists and rhetors Of histo- 
rians there is no call to speak. The 
name was claimed by some, but on 
weak pretensions* Tbey babbled of 
military art without understanding its 
first rulea, and of geography while 
transplanting towns and rivers fix)m 
one country to another. Tbey took 
dragons stamped upon the Parthian 
itandards tor veritable dragons, of 
monstrous dimensions, ftxstened to pikes 
and destined to be launclied upon the 
enemy, and to strangle and devour him. 
To give more credibility to these ac- 
counts, they assure us thaU perched up- 
OQ a tree, they themselves had seen the 
monsters and wMtnt^ssed the frightful 
carnage. Elsewhere we learn that a 
general sl-»w twenty seven Armenians 
hj uttering one cry, or (a statement 



no lesa remarkable) that, in a grand 
battle fought in Media, the Romans 
had only two dead and nine wounded^ 
w^hile the enemy lost (observe I he ex- 
actness of the calculation) 70,236 men.* 
And many more such tales indulged 
in by Greek liistorians, 

** Quidqufd Gnrcla mendftX 
Audisi In bUtorU,*' iJu9§tuU^) 

and detailed to credulous hearers. It 
is true that tbese authors of rare htf 
agination laid great stress upon &M 
language, if not upon veracity, striv- 
ing to gaiu distinction as polished 
writers. Lucian, however, who had 
beard dtem, believed as little iu their 
eloquence as in their truthfulness, and 
laughed unmercifully at rhetons di«- 
guised as historians. 

On another point the Greeks differ- 
ed from the Ilomane. With iht; ex- 
ception of the»e written rteitntions, 
they did not read their orations. While 
in Rome we find public lectures, in 
Greece we have couterences or oral 
exercises* The theme was no doubt 
contemplated in private, and tdeaa 
were brougitt forward which habit bad 
made familiar to the orator, but he 
spoke without manuscript gaining tn 
vivacity of delivery and gesture by this 
liberty of action. Pliny complains of 
the inconvenience of reading on ad- 
dress : ** Since neither hand nor eye is 
hi^^f on which a declaimer should 
especially rely, wliat wonder ihat the at- 
tention wanders?** The Greek threw 
off all fetters, and f![>oke at once to eye 
and ear ; unlike the leeturer who read 
his address, seated^ in a voice whot«e 
infiections were monotonous in com- 
parison to the modulations we arc now 
about to describe. Our actor, for the 
platform was in fact a stage to him, 
was wont to call violent gfsticulatioii 
to the aid of speech. He pac(^d up and 
down in agitation, smiting bis Uiigha, 
perspiring and panting* Again, if the 
subject demanded ealmoeia and tnyi* 
quillity, his actions grew melorlioug as 
a song to cbarm the audience, tbioir* 
ing into the sweet, harmonioua Ian* 

Of ib« Wigr to wrlU Ukuiry.** 



I 



I 

I 

1 





Xeehires and FMic Confereneet among th$ Andentt, 



899 



goage of Greece new suavity and un- 
kDown grace. When Adrian of Tyre 
spoke, it was like the warbling of a 
nightingale, and even those who were 
ignorant of Greek came to listen. 
Herodias Atticus had more variety of 
tone than flutes and lyres ; and, su- 
preme above all. Varus possessed a 
voice so flexible that one could have 
danced to it, as to the sound of musical 
instruments.* 

One can fancy with what facility the 
fervid Greek imagination lent itself to 
this enthusiasm. The state of religious 
belief contributed to bring spirits under 
the dominion of eloquence. The 
ancient faith was singularly weakened 
among pagan nations ; and the priests 
who offei-ed sacrifice to the deities of 
Olympus never dreamed of giving in- 
struction to the people whom they 
gathered together in the temples. 
Men feel the need of moral teaching, 
however faulty may be their practice. 
They thirst for it, and seek it, though 
perhaps not at its true source. If pure 
waters are denied them, they draw 
from troubled streams. Preaching, 
which had been neglected by the min- 
isters of paganism, was taken up by 
sophists. One had but to show himself 
abroad, manifesting a desire to speak, 
and straightway a circle gathered about 
him. To a renowned orator who wish- 
ed to be silent, the privilege of silence 
was denied ; speech was not his to re- 
fuse. As, for example, when Dion 
Cbrysostom came as a spectator to the 
Olympic games, hardly was he recog- 
nized before they forced him to address 
them ; when, taking for his theme the 
god they celebrated, he discoursed 
npon the attributes of Jupiter. 

Another peculiarity of the time was 
that an emperor even did not disdain 
to inculcate virtue in public, guided, we 
may boldly assert, by no impulse of 
vanity, but by a more generous motive 
than that of exhibiting his eloquence. 
Marcus Aurelius, for it is of him we 
are speaking, was gomg to war with 

• LacUn, Mailer of Rhetoric, 10,20; Plutarch, 
IIavtoU<teo,7; Phitortralaa, life of the Soph. It t. 
^ ; X. S. xxtIIL 



the Marcomanni. It was feared, and 
with too good cause, that he might die 
on this expedition, and he was implor- 
ed earnestly, and without flattery, to 
address the people, and leave to them, 
by way of farewell, the moral precept 
that had guided his own career. He 
consented, and for three days in suc- 
cession bis people learued, from the im- 
perial philosopher, duty as he himself 
understood and practised it. A curious 
and touching spectacle it must have 
been to see a sovereign regarding the 
instruction of his subjects as one of the 
functions of royalty. In unveiling his 
great soul, Marcus Aurelius revealed 
to his people the secret of an adminis- 
tration judged pre\iou8ly only by its 
beneficial cflects ; and left to his suc- 
cessors a model that was to find, alas I 
few imitators.* 



V. 



In all ages, even the most degraded, 
a few souls have found a source of 
happy inspiration in moral truth. 
Whether among such self-appointed 
guides in spiritual matters tltere were 
many really worthy of their mission, 
we may be permitted to doubt. The 
testimony of other pagans, as. for in- 
stance, Lucian (I do not spimk of 
Christians, whose veracity might be 
doubted), shows the conduct of these 
teachers of virtue to have been little 
in accordance with their language. 
Morality was in danger of being 
stricken with sterility under such til- 
lage, but the field remained fertile 
though ill cultivated. 

What can eloquence accomplish if 
the m^ter itself of eloquence be want* 
ing? All cannot be orators for the 
choosing, nor even all who are endow- 
ed by heaven with those precious gif^s 
that make an orator. There must 
be great interests to defend and great 
questions to debate. Place Demos- 
thenes or Mirabeau in a chair of rhe- 
toric, and what would they do with 
their genius? A time came when 
there was no call but for school ha- 

* VoloaUu G«UloaDoa» lift of Aridios Gaeilvi, 8. 



300 



Zteturet and Public Con/ertnen among Me AneUntt, 



h 



rangueft [ when j>rore55ors trained tlieir 
pupils in rentling and speaking upon 
luicknojed themes familiar to every 
class room. That such exerciBes may 
be useful for cliildreii of fifli'cn yeara 
of age, I will not deny ; but here we 
have masters of eloquence descanting 
upon these venerable sulijectfi, and 
impersonating Alexander or Themis- 
tocle^, Miltiades, Meuelaus, or Priam. 
Tncy were scholars whose scbooling 
was never ended. Gray heads be- 
tokened no emancipation from childish 
leading-strlrij^^, and deatli found them 
far removed from the maturity of maa- 
\y oratory • 

Would you know the subjects that 
attracted a delighted audietiee? A 
Lacedceminian urginpj the Greeks to 
destroy ti^ophies raised during the Pe- 
loponnesian war ; or a Scythian con- 
iuring bis countrymen to abandon the 
life of cities for a wandering exist- 
ence* One while we iiave Athenians 
wounded in Sicily praying for death 
at the bands of their companions ; 
again, Demosthenes justifying himself 
against Demades for receiving Per- 
sian gold; with a hundred such trite 
theracB, preserved to U3 by the com- 
plaisant biographers of the rhetors. 
It is lut lucky that they have not trans* 
mi t ted for our editlcatlon any of these 
marvellous harangues entire, but we 
know c^nough of them to be sure that 
the style tben in vogue was that s!>no 
rous Asiatic eloquence, pompous and 
csommonplaee in tone, conniai-ed by 
Diouysius of Halicamassus to a CDur- 
tesan entering an honest household to 
drive thence the mother of the family. 
Demosthenes is not to be recognized 
in the flowery declamatton put into his 
mouth in common with other great 
personages. Tfiere were usages of 
stylo and rhetorical receipts, adapted 
to all circuraatances, scnriceable for 
none* 

The glory of ancient Greece was 
another text on which rhetora loved to 
exercise their skill They consoled 
themselves for achieving no exploits 
l>y celebrating those of their ancestors i 
botiH&g of victories only when the 




day of victory wa« long gone by* 
One orator was pleasantly nicknamed 
^Marathon from his inability to pro- 
nounce any discourse without refer- 
ring to the warrioi-s killed at Mara- 
thon- Platea, Sulamis, and Mycale 
had become rhetoi^ical commonplaceit 
** Why/' asks Plutarch sadly, ** whj 
recall triumphs that serve only to in- 
spire us with useless pride ? We 
should propose only imitable exam* 
pies. Are we nor like children walk- 
ing about in their fatliers' shoes ?** 

The eulogiuni of a city, a god^ or 
some grand personage a0brded matter 
for ample development Socrates tells 
us that speech makes triHes imjioilant 
and great things trifling. This talsd 
definition of eloquence was received 
as a precept, as an axiom. Panegy* 
rists no longer confined their commen- 
dation to heroes aJid great men* but 
pleaded die cause of the tyrant Pha* 
laris or the cowardly Thersites. One 
vaunted the merits of long hair, ano* 
ther of bald heads. The praises were 
sung of panusites, parrots, gnats, and 
fleas. "i>i (cmti hhar,* said Virgil, 
when about to sing oflices ; but he could 
add, *^ at tenuis non gloria ;** for who 
can help admiritig the labors of these 
intelligent republicans? The rhetor 
promised himself nn less glory in cele- 
brating the almost invisible wonders 
of the flea. This kind of diseoiirsi! 
received a name which m** ' i*- 

lated "paradoxieal or uii Id 

eauges,** Yet, strange to &ay, clever 
men did not disapprove of such topics* 
Auhrs Gellius considers! them suited 
to awaken talent, to sharpen wit, and 
inure it to difficulties.* 

To bring eomeihing out of nothing 
is a success of which one may justly 
be proud But rhetors, like conquer^ 
ors, possessed an insatiable amhitioti. 
They w^ished to astonish the world with 
new feats of prowess, and pc^sibilitr 
has no limits for udveniurous and val- 
iant spirits. To speak without prepara- 
tion, sagely, long-windedly, without 

• Looiftn, PliaUH», Tli^ Onmt ; PIoo ChrTV^UNq. 
poMim i PJQlArcIi, Art of I.li»tciitDf . 1 » . Sjmlai, 
Fnl«e of Bftldaeu ; Aulai Ociaua, aiU. 1%, 



I 

I 
I 



• 



d 



Xeetures and Piiblic (Jonferenees among the Ancients* 



801 



error or hesitation, being the noblest 
triumph attainable bj man, improvisa- 
tion became the entm^aQ par excellence.* 
There stood the orator, erect and tran- 
quil, sure of himself and of bis powers, 
waiting until the audience should throw 
bim the text selected for his dissertation. 
The word given, he plunged into the dis- 
course ; words flowed in a self-supply- 
ing stream, pure and abundant ; and 
periods unrolled themselves with ad- 
mirable facility. No obstacle was in- 
superable ; the stream flowed on and 
on, straying perchance into side chan- 
nels here and there ; but the listener 
followed its wanderings contentedly, 
for the paths were flowery and came 
quickly to a termination. Phrases 
ready for all times, and served up on 
all occasions, with a facility that Imew 
neither pause nor obstruction -^ such 
was the supreme merit of the age. But 
if we may believe certain cavillers, it 
often sufficed to bring to the work au- 
dacity, to push on boldly, careless of 
ideas, prompt in the creation of new 
and odd expressions, regardless of sole- 
cisms, and anxious to avoid but one 
thing — silence.t To acquire this noble 
arty one needed little study. Ignorance 
was no longer an obstacle, for it gave 
greater intrepidity and audacity. 
** Would you have your son a good 
orator,'' says an epigram of the An- 
thology, *^do not let bim learn his let- 

ters-^t 

We feel far removed from the time 
when Demosthenes thought it no blot 
on his gbry that his orations smelt of 
the oil I Greece has ever loved words. 
Take away her eloquence, and she re- 
mains gossiping and loquacious. If I 
may be allowed the comparison, she is 
like the princess in the fairy story, 
dropping pearls from her lips. The 
true pearls being exhausted, only waxen 
pearls remained. 

And now, having proved an absence 
of apparent labor to be a condition of 
success in these exhibitionB, we can 
understand why poets did not resort 

* Plinj fpeaki admlrlagly of one Isaas, an ImproTl- 
•■tore. Bui U was an ezoepUon In Uome. Lett. 11. 8. 
t LocUn, Matter of BtMtorlc, 19. 
I AnUiotocJi ▼>- Ittk 



thither for the recitation of their works. 
Improvisations in verse had not then 
been invented, but the enthusiasm they 
would have excited one may easily 
fancy. 

Spoiled by public favor, these fluent 
geniuses could not fail to hold their 
own merits in high estimation. We 
will not take literally Lucian's asser- 
tion that they set themselves above 
Demosthenes : " Who was your orator 
of Pseania compared to mo ? Must I 
conquer all the ancients one by one ?" * 
But they frequently speak in magnifi- 
cent terms of their own talents, elated 
at the tricks of the tongue so thoroughly 
mastered. Praise them as one would, 
their self-prnise was louder still. The 
sophists hid their vanity more skilfully 
perhaps, affecting sober vestments and 
an air of austerity, but it was merely 
a stage trick suited to the character to 
be sustained. Sometimes, in order to 
produce a better effect on their hearers, 
they appeared clad in the skins of wild 
beasts, with hair and beard dishevelled, 
or wearing simply an old tunic and 
carrying a wallet and stafflf '^^'^ 
rhetor was more dainty in his toilette ; 
his garments were of a white stuff" woven 
with flowers, brought from the looms 
of Tarentum, and so fine in texture as 
to show the outlines of the form through 
its gauzy tissue. He wore Attic sandids 
like those of women, covered here and 
there, or a Sicyonian buskin decorated 
with white fringe. He did not disdain 
those exteraal signs of luxury that be- 
token rank; and went from town to 
town followed by numerous servants 
leadiag horses and packs of hounds. 
One in particukr drove a chariot 
with silvered reins, and, passing lin- 
geringly along the ranks of specta- 
tors on his way to the chair, allowed 
them to contemplate his gorgeous robe 
covered with diamonds.} 

Philostratus, the biographer and fer- 
vent admirer of the sophists, remarks 
concerning one among them (the only 
one to whom he accords the praise) 



* Laclan, Master of Rhetoric, 21. 

t Lucian, Peregrlnua, Euaaplu«, Prohaorefllas. 

X Pbllostratus, Life of the Sophists, I. xxt. 4; IX. z. 4. 



Jjeeiurii and Puhfle Vonfereneeg amon^ the Anetenh* 



that be was always modest, and never 
f poke boas tin gly of himself The va- 
nity of many of them was simply ludi- 
csroug. Philftcfrius, newly arrived m 
Athens* wiii^ indignant becaut^e a young 
mail had ventured to ask his name, 
and Bhaddcred at the idea of meeting 
an individual unacquainted with Phila 
grius. In an a,^serobly be let fall an 
©xpreasion that ^hot^^ked the ear of a 
^purisL " Who milhorizes the use of 
: that word ?" u^^ki-d the critic ** Phi- 
lagriu!«i/' was the liaui^hty answer. 
' Wordj^ sufficed that day to express his 
I Bentiment^, but it was not always po. 
I One day an auditor presumed to fall 
I aaleep, an act of irreverence soon do- 
teeted by the orator. He paused, 
I HtupeGeJ to pei-eeive that the audience 
were not all eai^a to hear him. Then, 
eager lo aveu;^^ the wound inflioted on 
literature in his person, he descended 
from the stage, approached the unhap- 
I py sleeper, and roused him with a vi- 
|gorou9 cuff. This severe but merited 
proof was not without a certain elo- 
f^uence j and we imagine that never 
I again was any one caught napping 
j durin«T the diacouries of the irajsdble 
I Phila;rrius.* 

A Phoenician rhetorician arrived in 

L Attica, '* With me,** lie explained to 

I his audience, " literature comes to you 

a second time from Phoenicia/' Pole- 

illion, the Carian, iipeaking for the first 

I'lime in Athens, opened ht^ address 

j Urns : ** Athenians, you are said to be 

[good judges. I shall ascertain the 

I truth of the report by your manner of 

[receiving my diacoorse." Forewarned 

[IS fori'anned* The audience were to 

I applaud Polemon under pain of ap- 

peiiring dull in Polemon's eyes. His 

Igeaiirs, acconling to hts own estimate^ 

j place<l him above the rank of king^loms, 

on a level with king^ and evt-n with 

[god^. And as a great man must die 

rafter a fashion of his own, he had him- 

ielf buried alive, in his old age^ lest 

years should impair Uis success. His 

weeping friends delayed to seal the 

6t*jne over the cavern. ** Close the 

t^mb" he called out from below — 

• FklMUiUua, Ufeaf 8oyk a vUL 1; »rtLa 



'* Close the totrdi. Let it not be ?aii 
thai the sun beheld Polemon silent.' 

VI. 

Did worshippers ro convinced of ' 
their own merit recognize and honor I 
the gifbi of others ? We shall fc^ee thaij 
they could mutually esteem and prai«o| 
each other. Herodius Attieua lia^j 
been declaiming at th«* Olympic games z 1 
** You are a second Demosthenes,*' he I 
was told. "I would nit her be a second ) 
Polemon," was the reply. An o«idde-f 
sire, and one that showed the bml taste 1 
of that day ; hut it expresjaed liomngel 
to a rival. Herodiiis in his turn saw^ 
his superiority rfcognined in tlie ex-1 
clamation of another rhetor ; *• We arei 
small change {mtnae monnaie) besiddl 
you. * ' t Bu I r hes e i n stances of m odesiy i 
are rare. They were usually indis- 
posed to yield th<? palm of eloquence* so ' 
generousiy. Jealous one of another, i 
they rt*garded all praise not personal | 
to themselves as so much stolen froml 
thi'm. Their self-esteem was equalletf] 
only by their disdain of all rivals. 
Lneian gives a recipe of a method of- 
ten employed to injure a rival *' Ridi*, 
cole every other orator. Has he talent F ] 
Affect to believe that WiOi sentiments'^ 
are not his own ; that he decks himself 
in borrowed spoils. Is he common- 
place? Think him odious. Comf. 
late to his exhibitions. It will makal 
yoti conspicuotia* Choose a momenlj 
of silence to utter a eulogium in singu-i 
lar kngua;»e, calculated to distn^ct an<t^ 
startle the audience. Your exaggeinit J 
ed praises will disgust them with the J 
object of your praise and make then 
stop their eai's. Almost invariablj 
smile scornfully, and never apf 
pleased with what is said.^'J 

Meantime the orator, seeing his suo^ 
cesi threatened, was wont lo meet thi 
skilful attack with a defence no le 
skilful He managed his resourcet- 
prndently, gathering about him Om 
voted friends to assist in the manoeaJ^ 

• PtdloatnUut, tifeof UfetSophUto, L SJif.t.fT; 1 
«. 4. 
tlbJ't. !.<»» IT; ItT. 8. 



Zi€chsM9 and Public Conferencen among tk€ AndenU. 



Tres. Under all circumstances he 
mast count up<m these faithfiil satel- 
lites. Marcus Aurelius was to attend 
the exercises of Aristides. *' Will you 
let me bring my disciples ?' asked the 
prudent rhetor. ** Certainly," said the 
emperor, *' if it is customary.'* "And 
will yon allow them to shout and ap- 
plaud with all their might P* added 
Arisddes ingenuously. "Oh! certain- 
ly," replied Marcus Aurelius, laugh- 
ing, " that depends entirely upon your- 
sebT." When the master spoke, the 
scholars must stamp enthusiastically. 
If he were about to fail, they must 
reach out a helping hand, and give 
him by applause the time to recover 
his self-possession. 

Happy he who could count among 
his admirers some high and puissant 
celebrity ; for who can fail to discern 
the grandeur of an oration stamped 
with the approbation of an imposing 
authority? When Heliodorus de- 
claimed, the emperor, holding him in 
great affection (who was that emperor, 
by the way 1 The historian does not 
tell us, but no matter !), regarded with 
an air of irritation any one disinclined 
to applaud the speaker. And the lag- 
gards took the hint, we may be sure, 
and adapted their impressions thence- 
forth to the emotions of royalty.* 

But when an orator had reached the 
highest rank in the city, it is not to be 
sapposed that his reign was free from 
rivahry. Combatants came from a 
distance to compete with him. Many 
lecturers, and by no means the least 
brilliant, have a taste for travelling, 
and would extend their reputation in 
any direction where there are ears to 
listen to them. Knights errant of the 
rhetorical art wandered from province 
to province, seeking adversaries and 
flinging challenges as they went. If 
victories heralded their approach, the 
crowd ran to greet them, and the 
most illustrious citizens met them at 
the city gates. 

Conceive the uneasiness and agita- 
tion of the unlucky sophist or rhetor 
thus disturbed in the possession of his 

• PhikMtntiis, Llli or Soph. Q. xxxU. 8. 



glory. He had labored long to attain 
the position of eminence, now threaten- 
ed by the approaching aspirant. O 
nothingness of glory I A single day 
might suffice to destroy the edifice ot' 
many years. What was to be done? 
To refuse the challenge was to declare 
himself vanquished. Bather death 
than such humiliation ! 

Death might follow a similar strug- 
gle. Niger, the famous declaimer, had 
swallowed a fishbone which stuck in 
his throat. There came a stranger 
to pronounce a public harangue, and 
Niger, fearing that his silence might 
be constrjcd into a desire to fly from 
the lists, declaimed in his turn, with 
the fishbone still in his throat. The 
efibrt caused an inflammation so vio- 
lent as to result in his death.* 

The time having arrived for the 
new speaker to be heard, he opened 
his address with a eulogium of the 
audience, as the exordium best calcu- 
lated to ensure success. "In this place 
one should bend the knec'^t cried one 
of these orators, as if struck with a re- 
ligious awe of the city where he was 
to speak. We have two declamations 
of Lucian's that give a good idea of 
the precautions peculiar to tlie trade. 
" The chosen of every city are before 
me, the flower of Macedonia. This 
assemblage consists not of an ignorant 
rabble, but of orators, historians, and 
sophists of the highest distinction.'' 
This satirical Lucian was not sparing 
of compliments to his Macedonian pub- 
lic ; what was left for the Athenians ? 
" I have long desired an audience such 
as this. What approbation could I 
look for af>er passing through your 
city without obtaining a hearing f* 
Then follows the panegyric of the city, 
endowed not only with especial mag- 
nificence, but with more men of power 
and talent than fell to the lot of any 
other city. He exalts their benevo- 
lence and affability, and likens Idmself 
to the Scythian Anacharsis, so fasci- 
nated with the charms of Athens as to 
be unable to tear himself away.t 

* Plutaroh, Pr«cepU of Hwlth, Ifll 
t Phllostratua. Ufe of Soph. II. t. 8. 
i Uerodotiu, S< Tbe Scyth, 10, 11. 



Xeciurei and Puhlk Confer 



I spoke just now of knights errant. 
Do you reintoiber in accounts of 
the tournament the iMsguiaed cavalier 
who unlers the lists and h recognized 
bj the weight of hLa blows? The 
champions of rhetoric wei-e Bometimea 
the heroes of simihir adventures* 

llippodroinus of Laria^a landed at 
Smjrnat and, folio wing the crowd, en- 
ered a hall where one Megistiaa had 
drawn together an audience* Hippo- 
droiBufi was in travelling gear. Ap- 
proaching Megistiaj^t he said : " Change 
clotlie^ wiih me. Lend me your man- 
tle for a moment,"' The other look- 
ed at him to see if he might be a 
matiiac ; but the exchange was made. 
" And now give me a subject of dc- 
ekunatiou,'* continued IIip|K>dromu9. 
They gave him one, which he treated 
ao Bkilfullv that Megistias exclaimed 
with surprise: **But who ai*c youT' 
" I am llipiKMli-omtia the Thessalian " 
In a tew moments the rope it of the 
iUugtriou8 rhetor s arrival had spread 
tlirough the town, and the whole popu- 
lation rushed to see and hear him.* 

Again tlie challenger would be some 
great celebrity, Anatolrus, prefect of 
the pnetorium^ and gifted with re- 
markable eloquence, announced his 
apeedy arrival at AlheuSt challenging 
all speecli-makera to an encounter, and 
proposing one of the mosit difficult 
questions capable of dis^cussion by 
trained intelligencea. Great agita- 
tion ensued, Anatolius was a formi- 
dable jiKlg(\ both by his science and 
by \m exalted position in the state. 
Kuiiapuft tella u-^ that Greece trembled 
more ou that occasion than at llie ap- 
proach of the Pei-sians. lie was Pro- 
hairesiuB, the great Frohaeresius, victor 
in every battle, to whom Ilome was to 
erect a 'statue bearing the inscrtptiou: 
limnr, qitcen of the warid, to Prnhmre- 
tiua^ king of eloquence. The Greeks 
decreed even a grander title to him. 
He was no mere mortal ; he was Mer* 
cury disguised in human form. One 
day when he bad finished epeaking« 
the people gathered round him and 
Idtaed his hands and feet» miy, licked 

• PliUoBtfrntoi, life or Ibc SoptkLiUt I. xslr, 4 



hiB breadti aa if he bad l>€on in vetj 
deed a god. And would you know 
by what manifestatioD of power he had 
deserved this idolatry ? After impro- 
vising a long discourse, be hod forth- 
w*ith I'cpeated it word for word, with-* 
out missing a single syllable. The 
prodigy could not be denied, for re- 
porters had been provided for the oc* 
casion, who had noted down every ejc- 
pression.* 

These transports on the part of 
the public, these passionate demou- 
sirutions, bordering sometimej* on de- 
lirium, are so foreign to our habits that 
we should ho inclined to suspect exag- 
geration in the recital of Eunapus, if 
many other authorities did not testify 
also to the ecstasies excited in the po- 
pulace by eloquence. Ilabiis of mmd 
are, perhaps, harder to eradicate than 
those of the soul, and Christianity suc- 
ceeded ill introducing austere ide^is in 
the gpiritual life without immediately 
curing this excessive love of eloquence. 
Applause was heard sometimes in 
churches, and St. John Chrysostom 
hod to impose silence more tlian once 
upon his h pare re, who clappeii hira, 
forgetful of the sanctity of the place in 
ihcir enthusiasm for the orator* 

We have seen ttie bright side of the 
subject, but every medal has two sides. 
Without speaking of the jealousies imd 
enmities inherent to the profession, 
can one be sure of being equal to one'^s 
self every day and all day ? You ap- 
pear before an imposing assembly ; alt 
eyes are fixed ujKjn you. Let emotion 
seize you, a little lafise of memory, a 
slight alksence of rntnd, and you are 
lost. The thought is enough to inti- 
midate the moat inti-epid rhetor. And 
it was a misfortune not without ex- 
ample. Herodlus Atticus, on one ocv 
Ciision, slopped short in the presence of 
the emperor, and thought for an instant 
of drowning hrmself in the Ister, A 
Bimilar aeeident happened to Henb* 
elides, who took the accident mora 
philoBopbically, and sought eonsolattoii 
for his disgrace in abusing improviii^ 



IjBctwu €md Public Conferences among th$ Ancients, 



805 



tion, aod composing a woHl in prawe 
of labor.* 

And who can count on the good na- 
ture of his audience ? Listeners have 
a certain malice of their own at times, 
as Philagrius once discovered to his 
cost. He had composed a discourse 
in Asia, and learned it by heart. On 
arriTtng in Athens, he presented him- 
self before the amateurs and burst forth 
into improvisation. By a wonderful 
coincidence, they had given him pre- 
cisely the subject which he had so 
carefully treated. Philagrius, sure of 
his ground, began boldly, and wander- 
ed on like one led by the moment's 
inspiration. He grew diffusive an 
pathetic ; but, strange to relate, as the 
discourse proceeded, the audience gave 
evidence of merriment, first by subdued 
tittering, finally by uproarious bursts 
of laughter. Philagrius paused in 
wrath and amazement To calm this 
excitement, his hearers produced a 
copy of the address which he had re- 
peated without altering a single word. 
Philagrius had been caught in a trap.f 

The abuse of this false eloquence 
could not fail in the end to produce 
disgust. Serious men began to ask 
themselves if these brilliant exercises 
were true oratorical art or merely a 
vain tissue of words. A few even of 
those who had yielded to the fascina- 
tion began to look pityingly on de- 
daimers. Lucian lavished satire up- 
on them, but the trade was still pros- 
perous in his day. Syncsius, coming 
later, spared them as little. From 
him we learn their misery as well as 
their presumption. We see that the 
palmy days of the profession had pass- 
ed away. 

**! will not wander from door to 
door, attracting the townspeople with 
the promise of a charming speech. O 
sad profession ! Speaking for the 

• Pb'I^fStntat, Life of Soph. 11. 1. 86 ; xxtL 8, 0. 

Here belongs an anecdote showing the pleasure 
taken by rhetors in Insulting each other. Heraclidei 
■est bis Panegyric of Labor (Ilovov tyicuuiov) 
to one PtolenueuB, an adept in ImproTisation. Ptole- 
nueos retomed It to him, after era»ing the first letter, 
•o that the title stood, ** Panegyric of an Ass." The 
biographer does not mention that HeracUdee found 
the epbrram io hlstaete. 
t iBtortratna, life oC the Soph, n. Till S. 
VOL. v.— 20 



crowd; attempting the impossible in 
trying to please so many different 
minds! The stage orator, no longer 
belonging to himself, is in truth a slave 
to the public, subject to the caprice of 
every individual. If an auditor begins 
to laugh, the sophist is lost. He dreads 
a morose visage; too close attention 
seems to him to imply criticisoi, a 
restless turning of the head to signify 
weariness. Ajid yet he surely merits 
indulgent masters who sacrifices sleep 
at night, spends his days in toil, con- 
suming himself, as it were, with hunger 
and fatigue, in order to compose a fine 
address. He comes before the disdain- 
ful crowd to charm their ears, conceal- 
ing his indisposition with an affectation 
of health. Having bathed the day be- 
fore, he presents himself to the public 
at the appointed time, blooming, dim- 
pling, displaying every grace. He turns 
to the audience, wreathed in smiles, 
joyous in appearance, but torn with 
secret pangs. He chews gum to make 
his voice clear and strong, for even the 
most serious sophist lays great stress 
upon a fine voice, and lavishes upon it 
much ill-concealed care. In the mid- 
dle of the oration, he pauses to ask for 
a beverage, previously prepared. A 
servant offers it, and he drinks, mois- 
tening his throat, the better to pro- 
nounce his melodious sentences. But 
the poor wretch cannot with all this 
gain the good will of his hearers. The 
audience await the final clause impa- 
tiently, that they may laugh iu liberty. 
They would gladly see him with out- 
stretched arm and parted lips, preserv- 
ing the attitude and silence of a statue : 
then, when worn out with weariness, 
they could escape."* 

But of all the perils that menaced 
their very existence, sophists and rheto- 
ricians bad most cause to dread the 
growing strength of Christianity. The 
new religion proposed to its disciples, 
as the aim of life, an object far more ele- 
vated than the pleasures of eloquence* 
It was no longer a question of noble 
words, but of noble actions. What 
were intellectual satisfactions in com- 

* aynealiia, IMon. 



306 



JOetittfe$ and PuhUe Confer€fices among Oie Anctentg, 



parison to the joys of cons ore nee ? The 
ChriBlian sought the eloquence that 
should teach him bis duties, and the 
80f*hi3t with uncertain and contradictor jr 
answers was no lonpjer an authority. 
He must appeal to the priest for pre- 
cepts of untliiiing, uuchanging wisdom. 
Let some solitary, in repuie for sanctity 
and for familiarity with the things of 
God, leave his desert for a moment 
to mingle among men, and the crowd 
niehed to o:reei him» St, John Chry- 
so;*tt>m proudly contrasta the entrance 
of a monk with that of a sophist. A 
few days more, and the revolution waa 
consummated. Sophists saw no one 
following them, while the troop of the 
faithful that is to say, the entire nation, 
pressed ujion the steps of the humble 
monk, A pi*eacher of the gospel, even 
if recommended only by soundneBS of 
doctrine and morality^ was sure of see- 
ing listeners sealed at the foot of the 
pulpit. But pre^ichers who think 
only of the triumph of the faith attain 
the true glory of omtory, (hat of 
arousing emotion. Not only may a 
j^txiut thought come from the heart, but 
the expression with which it is giTen 
forlh. Why listen to elegant but empty 
am[di6eation8 in schoob, when in a 
neighboring basitica one could enjoy a 
magnificent oration, whose brilliancy 
should rejnain untarnished through 
fifteen oentijrieft? No rhetor, but a 
young priest from Antioch, received 
from contcmponiry admirers m well as 
from posterity I he glorious name of 
Chrysostom — Golden Moulh. The 
church 19 fertile in orators as in mar- 
tyrs. Christianity did not smother 
eloquence. She assigned to it new 
destinies ; regenerating, or rather (for 
it existed no longer) resuscitating it. 

vn. 

And now we ask ourselves, what 
good and what evil these exercises 
have done? The mischief is not far to 
seek. It is exhibited in every page of 
;he present article. Invented by vani- 
ty, these literary and philosophical ex- 
bibilious had seldom any better object 



than the satis fact ton of vanity j beiioe 
fheir vitiility and duration, but alao 
their sterility. 

But does till 3 imply that they an 
swered no useful end ? By no meims. 
I do not beheve with Ovid, a great 
amateur of puhlic lectures, as it a[)pears 
(perhaps he used them hunj^elf )♦ that 
they excite poetic genius.* His coiK 
temporaries Horace and Virgil had oo 
need of the stimulant of public praiso 
in the composition of their master- 
pieces. Plby saw another advantage 
in lectures, as giving a writer the op- 
portunity to consult the public, and to 
invite criticisra witb the view of cor- 
rec ti n g de fe ct^.f B u t an a ud ience lUtxa 
convoked is no severe and judicious 
Aristarchus, overlooking no defect,J 
but forever crying '* Correct." It is 
there to appi-ove, and any lack of com* 
mendation i^ generally criticised by the 
author as a want of go-^d manners. Pli- 
ny's friends applauded him, and Pli- 
ny, with singular simplicity, confesfied 
himself charmed with their good taste.§ 
What is he thinking of when he speaks 
of the free judgmejit of auditor?, and 
yet complains of those who deny him 
applause ? In fact, ho says, w hether 
you are the inferior, equal, or superior 
of the lecturer, you have an interest in 
praising him whom you surpass or who 
equals or su rpui^ses you. Your supcrioTi 
because you merit no praise if ho de- 
serves none ; your equal or inferior, 
because tlje glory lavished upon him 
tends to raise your reputation. VV^iih 
this onvenicnt theory criticism losea 
its rights. We need not wonder that 
Lucan,! whose brilliant defecL^ are 
easily pardoned, allowed himself to 
be elated by the boisterous applauso 
ticcorded to his Fharsalia; or that, 
comparmg his age and dibids wiih 
those of Virgil, ho exclaimed 1 ** My 
friends, am I eo far behind the great ?^^ 
Seneca wisely decided that nothing ha«i 
injured literature so much as popular 
acclamations.** 

Far from tbinking, as Pliny doei. 



1 



• Pi>i»t, Ir. 1 



1 UoRioe, Fortio Art, iA&, 






tUtier*. T. BjviLlT 



1 r 



I Bucltiaiu,*^ l«u««ii. 




JDeeturea and Public Conferences among the Andente. 



807 



the mtem of lectures a finishing school, 
I beueve the author to be confirmed 
in his defects bj applause and adula- 
tion. But I agree with Pliny as to 
the efficiency of these assemblies in 
preserving and propagatincr a taste for 
intellectual thing^;. Mental labor, even 
when bestowed on trivial matters, is 
of use in fostering intelligence. Rhe- 
tors and sophists were generally infe- 
rior orators and philosophers, but they 
deserve our thanks for their fidelity to 
study and to the preservation of literary 
traditions. But for them the maturity 
of Christian eloquence might have been 
long delayed* We must remember 
that Basil, Gregory, Chrysostom, Au- 
gustine^ and Ambrose had passed 
throQgfa their schools before entering 
the chnrch. The disciples effaced 
their masters, while profiting by les- 
8(m8 received from them. 

Andy turning to a different view of 
the subject, it is no matter of indiffer- 
ence to continue beyond the usual pe- 
riod assigned to serious labors one's 
devotion to literature, so softening and 
humanizing in its influence on the 
heart. This especially applies to a 
nation, unprovided by religion or mo- 
rality with any remedy against evil 
instincts. To write little verses and 
polish periods is no great affair, I con- 
fess ; but it is better than wallowing 
in low and sometimes cruel sensuality, 
like the rabble. In point of religious 
and moral convictions, the Greeks had 
Isdlen to a level with the Romans. 
But one thing elevated them : an un- 
tiring love of poetry, eloquence, aijd 
philosophy. In default of the reality, 
they pursued its shadow. Lcion, so 
say thefar mythologista, embraced only 
the phantom of Juno. True ; but, while 
striving to win this phantom, he had 
not stooped to base and ignoble loves. 
The astute and polished Greek avoid- 
ed that barbarism which engulfed the 
coarse, unlettered Roman. 

We must not forget that Christian 
preaching has been served to a limited 
extent, but yet effectively, by habits 
introduced by sophists. The first 
comers freely explained their doc- 



trines in public places without exciting 
surprise. Every system received a 
hearing. Stoics, epicureans, and cynics 
all sought to win converts to their 
various theories. Beneath the man- 
tle of philosophy, the Christian could 
mingle with the crowd, and, while 
teaching a morality hitherto unknown, 
prepare the way for novel doctrines. 
When St. Paul arrived in Athens, 
that city where all men, strangers or citi- 
zens, were occupied only with hearing 
or uttering something new,* the multi- 
tude at first mistook the apostle for 
some wandering sophist, and lent him 
an attentive car so long as he did not 
openly shock their preconceived ideas. 
Peregrinus, whose life and death Lu- 
cian gives us, became a cynic atler 
having been a Christian, and continu- 
ed to address the people. Lucian does 
not clearly mark the change nor the 
distinction between the two systems 
of instruction, which seem to him 
equally strange. A similar confusion 
must have often arisen, not in the 
minds of Christians turned philoso- 
phers (there were fewer apostasies 
than conversions), but of philosophers 
who became Christians. 

Our study is ended. I had merely 
thought of writing a chapter on literary 
history, without seeking in the past 
an attack or a defence of the present. 
It is difficult to compare two periods 
justly. Our lectures and conferences 
differ in many respects from those in 
vogue among the ancients, but who 
can deny the various points of resem- 
blance ? If we wish, as every one in- 
deed must wish, to secure a durable 
and legitimate success to the system, 
we must remember it is not established 
merely for the recreation and diversion 
of the public, like the theatre or the 
concert-room, but also and above all 
for their instruction. It is a question 
of education. I would have the lec- 
ture, whether literary or scientific, given 
in an attractive style, not after the se- 
vere, didactic fashion of a cours d$ 
facidte ; but it should be distinctly 
• AcU of the Apottiea, zrll. £1. 



MB 



^eeturti and Public Conferences among the Ancients. 



A lectnre, so that the hearer maj carry 

awav wkh him Mine profitable ideas 

wiiL ibe memoiT of an agreeable hour. 

In mv hamUe 'opinion, it is only on 

dift^t' '«mditit"WB that the system of 

puitTic coEferences will obtain not 

men'ir a ptssing popularity, but free- 

oom cc the canr. J( this be true, are 

«K {.-• eDCv-vni^ aathors to read their 

«nno>ji<^ works, poems, dramas, 

Mfts. r.-cBaacc£^ or what not? In 

A*!« i*y* Jh^r^ a*^ ^^^^^ TO&ds to 

jgj^Cobrl and it is not by a single 

liMU'W that intellectual works are to 

V ,^;^]:<^iL Siill less must it be allow- 

^\\v e>rvn improbabilities should be 

«r6c«*^«LK>l> iliat an author, speculating 

« ^LT&i^x shield announce bis arrival 

,Mt *L:^^5l a thiy and hour : " To speak 

j;k\t: « hdU ? I have not the least idea, 

Hi«^ :to mailer ! I shall speak, and you 

Mijl have jtt'en and heard me." A 

;Miecv luatior of curiosity, making one 

(titik of tho tight rope. 

AiKHhtT danger is, that conferences 
tM^ Wvvme a sort of intellectual gym- 
iMb»tutu» i^ily good for the development 
*rf iupjUenesiJ and agility of mind. 
HUlk^rtiK in running over the lists of 
»tth^HvtH under discussion, we have met 
tKHto v^f the frivolous and insignificant 
l^^cuH'ai that rhetors revelled in hand- 
t^. The titles at least announce a 
^^TKHH parjKwe. We should be glad 
IVt atcriluilo tho merit of this to the 
wk^kuii of tho ohoosei*s, but the thought 
«a^^'^ldi iUelf that the administrative 
vHMiit\«l ntav deserve part of the praise. 
Il i« woU known that no one can de- 
fiy^r U\4ures without especial permis- 
$MMU and e8|RH;ial approval of the sub- 
j^H of his address. It is also well 
kiKmn that certain orators find it im- 



possible to obtain this permission. 
Whether this exercise of authority has 
inconveniences as well as advantages 
is a question we will not here investi- 
gate. But there is one among the 
conditions imposed on public lecturers 
that must suit every sensible person, 
the restrictions with regard to age. It 
is not difficult to find young persons 
who, mistaking temerity for talent, are 
eager for an opportunity to display 
their presumptuous ignorance. Can 
we even be quite certain that among 
those who have passed their twenty- 
fifth year there may not be some who 
would do well to preser\'e a discreet 
silence 1 '* Weigh carefully the bur- 
dens your shoulders are to bear," said 
Horace to the Romans of his day. 
The precept is old, but sound even now. 
Remember, all you who present your- 
selves for public speaking, that it is not 
merely an honor, but a responsibility 
also. Consult your strengtlu Neither 
diploma nor certificate of capacity 
is demanded of you. Do not, however, 
imagine that no quality is needed to fit 
you for this professorship (for the post 
is nothing less than a professorship) 
except unbounded self-confidence. The 
least we can ask is that those who 
would teach us should be well informed 
themselves. Grood sense, ever success- 
ful in the end, would do justice sooner 
or later to all such vain pretensions ; 
but meantime the oft-deluded public 
might have learned to avoid the recre- 
ation prepared for them. We earnest- 
ly desire the long life and prosperity 
of the system, and therefore trust that 
nd lecturers likely to injure it should be 
tolerated. Is our wish to be fulfilled ? 
The future must answer. 



Tirhetfden's Sight ffand. 



309 



ORIODIAU 

VERHEYDEN^S RIGHT HAND. 



Ip there were no music, I think 
there would have been no Verheyden. 
He was an obligato. 

The child of a violin-player and a 
singer, both professional, he had been 
bom into an atmosphere of sweet 
sounds. His baby eyelids had droop- 
ed in slumber to a flute-voice lullaby, 
or some ethereal strain from his fathei^s 
precious little Cremona. Every breeze 
that swept over the rippling Neckar or 
down the wooded mountain-sides, play- 
ing monrnfiilly through the wind-harp 
in the window, caught the child at his 
play, hushing him. As soon as he 
could reach them, his fingers sought 
the keys of the piano ; and from that 
thrilling moment when first a musical 
sound woke at his touch, Verheyden 
had found his occupation. It became 
his life. Every feeling found expres- 
Rion at the tips of his fingers, and his 
fiercest passions culminated in a dis- 
cord. 

It is said that a violin long played 
apon will show in the wood flutings 
worn by the " continual dropping" of 
musical sounds from the strings. So 
Verfaeyden seemed wrought upon by 
bis art He looked like a man who 
might have stepped from some wild 
German tale ; of Walpurgis, or other. 
He was called tall, being slight, and 
appeared to be made of nerves and as 
little as possible besides. His dark 
hair rose like the hair in Sir Godfrey 
Ejieller's portraits, and streamed back 
from his forehead as if blown. His 
thin face was alive with restless gray 
eyes — the eyes of a listener, not a 
seer — with fiery nostrils to the slightly 
aquiline nose, and with an unsteady 
mouth. He had frequent flitting mo- 
tions, apparently inconsequent, really 
timed to some tune in his mind. He 
was moody, absent, abrupt; he was 
too mudi in earnest about everything. 



He had little perception of wit or hu- 
mor, and he never laughed except with 
delight. He could be bold, yet he was 
simple and ingenuous as a child. An 
enthusiast, with room in his narrow, 
intense brain for but one idea at a 
time ; a man who would take life by 
the blade rather than the handle ; a 
man in cdto relievo. 

On the breath of some unaccount- 
able impulse, he would have said — ful- 
filling his destiny, say we — ^Verheyden 
came to the New World, wandered 
about a little, dazed and homesick, at 
length engaged to take the place of 
Laurie, the organist, who was about 
going to Europe for further instruction. 

He went into the church one after- 
noon with Laurie to try the organ. A 
sultry afternoon it was, the eve of the 
Assumption ; but inside the church all 
was coolness and silence and shadow, 
most home-like to the stranger of any 
place he had seen this side the ocean. 
While the organist played, he leaned 
from the choir and looked down into 
the nave. Laurie played with great 
sweetness and delicacy, and chose first 
one of those yearning things that touch, 
but do not rouse; and Verheyden 
leaned and listened, dreaming himself 
at home. 

Ah ! the green, cool Neckar fiowing 
downward to the Rhine ; all the rafts 
and all the barges, all the wet and 
mossy rock; the overlooking moun- 
tains dense with forests to their sum-« 
mits ; the gray outstanding castle 
crumbling lothly from its post; the 
red roofs of the houses, the churches 
fair and many ; all the quiet and the 
color of that home in fatherland. 

When the organist ceased playing, 
the dreamer felt as though he had been 
in motion and were suddenly stopped. 
He perceived that he was waving his 
hand, and became aware of a little 



310 



V$rheyden's Bight Hand. 



maiden dressed in white who had been 
going about placing flowers, and who, 
at the first sound of music, had sunk 
upon the altar-steps, and sat there lis- 
tening, her eyes upturned and fixed on 
the crucifix. 

** Who, then, is she ?" asked Ver- 
hejden, as Laurie trifled with the 
keys, holding the clew while he search- 
^ what next to play. 

Laurie glanced into the mirror be- 
fore hioL '' Oh ! she belongs in a frame 
on the wall, but sometimes steps out 
and wanders about the church. She 
sings at service. Call her up here if 
you can." 

Verheyden hastily took a seat at the 
oi^n, and, as the girl rose and pre- 
pared to leave the church, a smooth 
strain sprang like a lasso from under his 
fingers, and caught her. She went up- 
stairs, and, standing by the organist, 
sang Lambillot's Qaam DUecta, Her 
voice was not powerful, but a pure 
soprano, clear and sweet, making up in 
earnestness what it lacked in volume. 
She sang with exquisite finish, having 
taken the kernel of science and thrown 
away the husk. Musical ornamenta- 
tion was not with Alice Rothsay vo- 
cal gymnastics, but seemed to grow 
upon the melody as spontaneously as 
tendrils upon the vine. Verheyden 
laughed with delight when, at the cli- 
max of the song, she touched the sil- 
ver C in alt. 

What liad been a little maiden in 
the distance was a small young woman 
when near by. She was blonde ; her 
oval face had the lustrous paleness of 
a pearl ; she looked as she sang, pure, 
sweet, and earnest. One knowing the 
signs in faces would say that sharp 
tools must have wrought there to make 
the eyelids and the mouth so steady. 
Strangers called her cold; but those 
who had once seen her pale gray eyes 
grow luminous thought her fervid. 

Then began again Verheyden's life, 
growing richer every day. Musical cog- 
noscenti grew enthusiastic about him : 
he was a genius, they said, no one before 
had so well interpreted the old master- 
pieces of song. Laurie was charming ; 



but Verheyden was inspiring. The 
Scottish laddie was sweet and bright 
as one of his own dancing bums ; but 
the German brought reminiscences of 
torrents and avalanches, and lightnings 
tangled among the mountain-tops. 
Laurie saw music as in a glass darkly, 
and strove to tell them how she look- 
ed; but Verheyden grasped the god- 
dess with compelling fingers, and led 
her out before their eyes to dazzle 
them. His slight form below the tow- 
ering organ-pipes they compared to 
Samson between the pillars of the 
temple of Gaza. 

Verheyden was extremely happy in 
his art : pkiased, too, to feel the wreath 
of fame settling on his brow with 
tingling touches; and when that Au- 
gust day had slipped back three years, 
he was thirty years old. 

John Maynard, the machinist, drew 
into his mind various abortive notions 
conceived by men who had lived, or 
who were still in the sun — drew them 
in mistrustfully, and found them stray 
sparks of genius whose kindred dwelt 
with him. Uniting, they played pranks 
on the man ; they made his brain swell 
and snap as they pushed open the por- 
tals of unsuspected chambers; Uiey 
sailed through his dreams in the trains 
of vast shadows, whose shapes he pant- 
ed to catch as they eluded him in the 
labyrinths of sleep ; they grouped and 
they scattered, forming here and there 
a salient or receding angle, leaving 
voids to be filled; they got into his 
eyes till he forgot his friends and to 
brush his hat; they salted his coffee 
and sugared his beef; they took him on 
long rambles, where he would wake to 
find himself standing stock-still, staring 
at nothing ; they burned up questions 
and answers before they could reach 
his lips, and they dislocated his sen- 
tences. They wooed, and eluded, and 
tormented, and enraptured him, till, 
darting on them unawares, he caught a 
shadow and copied it out on paper. 
Finally, fused into one shape, it 
sprang from his brain, like Minerva 
from Jove's, armed cap-h-pU. The 



Verheydev^a Might Hand, 



311 



machinist's invention was clad in iron, 
and stood shining and winking in the 
unaccustomed sonshme for everybody 
to admire. 

Which finishes the story of John 
Maynard's only loye. 

Among the many visitors who flock- 
ed to see this wonderful invention 
came one day Verheyden, Alice Both- 
sayy and her cousin Bose. 

They stood and watched smoothly 
slipping cylinders that coquetted with a 
band of gold from every gazing win- 
dow, large wheels that turned delibe- 
lately on their dizzy centres, and little 
famibes of cogged wheels that made 
them feel cross-eyed — all the deceitful 
gentleness and guileful glitter of the 
creature. 

Alice Bothsay stretched a venture- 
some pink finger-tip toward a lazily 
rocking bar, then with a shiver, drew 
it bacL '< But I like to look at ma- 
chinery," she said ; ^ it is so self-pos- 
sessed. Besides, it is full of curves, 
which are amiable as well as graceful. 
Parallels are unsocial, and angles are 
disa^rreeabW 

^ Parallels are faithful if not fond," 
remarked the machinist, << and straight 
lines have an aim and arrive at places. 
They are the honest lines, the working 
lines, the strong lines. The reasoner's 
thoaght goes like an arrow, the dream- 
er^s like smoke on a heavy day. I 
would rather see a cat pounce upon a 
mouse than run round after her own tail." 

^But the spiral," she ventured. 

"Oh I that's tlie supernatural," said 
the machinist. 

** For my part," said Bose, ** I 
doo't see why the cat, after having 
caught her mouse, should not amuse 
herself by running roond after her own 
taiL It keeps her out of the cream." 

Miss Bothsay turned to look at Ver- 
heyden, who was examining another 
part of the machine. As she lookod, 
he stretched his right hand to point a 
qaestion, and stretched it too far. The 
cruel teeth caught it, there was a sharp 
breath that was not quite a cry. John 
Maynard sprang to stop the machine, 
and in a moment Verheyden drew back, 



wild-eyed, but silent, holding up a 
crushed and bleeding hand. 

" There is no pain," he said as May- 
nard knotted the handkerchief about 
his arm. But he staggered while speak- 
ing, and the next moment fell 

Miss Bothsay had news of him that 
evening. His hand had been ampu- 
tated, and he was wild. He wanted 
to tear the ligatures from his arm and 
bleed to death, had to be restrained 
and drugged into quiet Her messen- 
ger had left him in a morphia -sleep, 
pale as the dead, and with only the 
faintest breathing. 

Weeks passed, and the reports were 
scarcely more cheering. The patient 
had to be watched lest he should do 
himself harm ; and as he resented such 
watching with savage impatience, his 
attendant's place was no sinecure. 

Indeed, Verheyden writhed in his 
circumstances as upon burning fagots* 
Wrapped in his art as in an atmosphere, 
the wrench that tore his hand away left 
him breathless. Music, the glory and 
the sweetness of his life, floated back 
only just out of reach, tantalizing him 
with remembered and almost possible 
bliss. Melodies brushed his lips and 
left a sting; chords stretched broad, 
golden, electric, and, reaching to grasp 
them, he fell into darkness. His pas- 
sionate heart rose and swelled, and 
found no outlet, but beat and broke 
against an impossibility, like the sea 
on its rocks. Verheyden's occupation 
was gone. 

True, he could study phenomena. 
He was haunted by the ghost of a hand 
tliat he could clench but could not see, 
that sometimes itched at the finger- 
tips. It would seem that, tiie nerves, 
confounded at being cut short from 
their usual station, had not yet learned 
to send new messages, even sent the 
old ones blunderingly, ovenloing in 
their anxiety to do the best they could. 
He had sometimes to recollect that this 
troublesome hand was preserved in 
spirits in a glass jar set in Dr. Heme*s 
laboratory, on a shelf just behind his 
pet skeleton. 

Verheyden read treatises on nerves 



sn 



Vtrheydin^s Right ffand. 



till Ills own were no longer telegraphic 
lines uiitler eonlrol» but the wires of a 
rack to which he was bonnd* He 
Btndied spiritualism till in dim night- 
watches the veil before the unseen 
seemed to g^Ude back. He dived into 
mesmerism rill all the powers of his 
mind centi"ed in a wiU that glittered 

I hard and bright in his eyes, causing the 
timid to shrink and the pugilistic to 
make Jl^itiS. 

But through nil these noxious para- 
sites of the tree of knowledge which be 
rockle^ly gathered about him moaned 
ceaselessly his unfiirgnften bereave- 
ments Oi% if be for;;ot for a moment, 
it was like drawing the knife from a 
wound to drive it back agato« 

Having exhausted every other dta- 
traction, he started one day for a long 
walk in the country. He could not 
walk the city streets without meeting 

* at every step some piercing reminder 
af his Xms, It was Scylla and Charyb- 

I dis* His fancy had cauj^ht a spark 
fSrom ever)ihing beautiful in nature, 
and there was not an outline nor mo- 
tion, not a sound nor a tint, but found 
in him some echo* Stately, swaying 
tref-s in his path waved the grave 
tuoFcment of an Andante ; the shrill 
little bird that slid down on a sunbeam 
through the branches mimicked a twit- 
tering stmin of Rossini's ; a sigh of air 
that rose, and swelled, and sank again, 
echoed a phrase of Beethoven ; and an 

' lineeen rivulet played one of Chopin's 
murmuring soliloquies. 

Verheyden trod savagely on yielding 
rooss, and crackling twigs, and dry 

1 leaves of last year, and on the bluest 
of blue violets that bloomed bathed in 
the noon sunshine. He plimged into 
a by-path, and came to a brook that fled 
as though pureued. It stumbled dizzi- 
ly over shining pebbles, glided with 
suspended breath around grassy curves! ; 
it was all a-tremble with inextricably 
tangled sunshine and shadow; it gushed 
here and there into sweet complain inj^; 
it leaped with white feet down the 
rocks. Verheyden threw himself upon 
the bank beside it. He bad played 
such tlunccs, measures that made the 



dancers giddy, and sent the ladies « 
and laugh in sr to their seats. 

** Does he tliink we are dervishes] 
Do take me into the air/* 

Verheyden laughed ; and the fingenJ 
in Dr. Henie^a glass jar behind tfa< 
skeleton played a caprice as saucy] 
as Puck plunging with headlong po-i 
mersaults and alighting on fiptoe*] 
Then, with a groan, he n 

As he crouched theit\ tnng 

the water were deep enougii to drown 
him, he beard a low^voired singing i 
near by, and, taking a step preseutlyil 
be saw a picture among the pin»3 sha- 
dows. Alice Roth say, with a i*ed noiie ^ 
in her bosom, sat in the moss, and tho | 
green, thready grasaai, looking fair aa ] 
Titania, her small figure showing] 
smaller by the boles and brnncbea 
of the trees. She was bushing her- 
self silent and smiling, her lucent eyes 
intent on a hummingbird that wander* ' 
ed in the flickering shade and shine 
of the woo<ls. It foragrni for a mo- 
ment among the shrinking blo^-foms, 
the bold little robber I it snappf*d at a 
round bright drop dashed up by the 
fretted waters, and got a sip, half spmy, * 
half eunshine, that turne<l it elean tip- 
sy ; then it made a dart at the red 
rose in Alice Roihsay*s bosom, audi 
hung there^ a little blue buzz with aH 
long biU, The rose trembled over tb^j 
girls stippressed laughter, and thej 
winged mite flung itself pc-tnlantly] 
breast deep in tbe fragrant pctalsH 
Then it reeled awtty, scared at the ] 
bound her heart gave ; ior^ looking up J 
she saw Verheyden. It was the fir 
time they hiul met since his aci^ident. 

'* I dare not pity you," she said ;^ 
"the band of God shotvs too plainly,*^ 
But the moistened eyes, and the \it 
ste^idiness of her soft, loitering voic 
ooDtrudictcd the words she sjKjkc. 

He looked at her in a d/izcd, lo 
way, wondering who then might 
deserving of ptty. 

" We miss you at chtirch,** she 
on. ** We have a different or^antstj 
every Sunday, arvd I am not us<m1 ia 
their accompaniments. I broke dowit:'^ 
last Sunday. Mrs. Wikler pbye^l, aiid'j 



Verheydefi^B Right Hand, 



818 



at the wcipe that joa always played U- 
gaiOy she threw m half a dozen Imrs of 
explosives. The ' deprecationem' was 
fired ctf, every syllable of it, as from 
a mortar. I jumped as if Td been 
blown up. So few know how to ac- 
company. It will be better when 
Laorie comes. Bat we want to see 
yon at charch, Verheyden." 

His face lost its momentary gentle- 
ness. •* I don't go to church now,** he 
said ; ^ that is, to what we call church. 
Fve been invoking ' black spirits and 
white, bine spirits and gray' — all but 
the white. I've been calling back the 
soul of Mesmer. I could tell stories 
that would frighten you." 

^'Oh! no, you couldn't,** she said. 
^ * If armies in camp should stand to- 
gether against me, my heart shall not 
fear.' I might fear for you, though. 
I have reason to fear for you when 
yoa give thoaght to such delusions.** 

Yerfaeyden began defending himself 
with the impatience of one who knows 
his poeitien to be weak, going over that 
hft^eyed talk about progress and 
freedom of thoaght. 

*• Ah !" she sighed, *' there are heights 

and heights ; and Babel is not Pisgah.'* 

The fragment of woods in which 

'hey had been walking belonged to 

the estate of Monsieur Loon, at whose 

house Alice was visitmg ; and, as she 

^w the two approaching, madame 

herself came out to meet them. An 

Amiable, worldly woman, a patroness 

Of the arts, graceful, cordial, and full 

Oif charming little enthusiasms. Not 

'oast among her aesthetic devotions was 

that to the toilette, by the help of which 

^he managed to appear forty instead 

Of sixty. 

She stepped to meet Verheyden with 
both her hands extended, tears swim- 
ming in her fine dasky eyes. "My 
^ear friend !'* she said. " At last you 
v^eniember us. You are welcome. 
AVhere have you been all summer T 

" Summer !'* repeated Verheyden. 
** I haven't seen any summer."* 

And truly the three months had for 
him been beautiful in vain. He had 
not seen their glad, pelting showers. 



their dim, sofl rains, nor the glory of 
their sunshine, and their moonlights 
had been to him as spilt wine. 

He could not help being soothed by 
these friends. There was no obtru- 
sive sympathy, no condolence hard to 
answer to, no affected reserve concern- 
ing his affliction. He was free to 
speak of it or not^ as he should choose. 
They went on with some trifling em- 
ployment while they talked to him ; or, 
if silent, he felt their kindly, homelike 
presence. Then the large, cool house 
was refreshing after the dust and heat 
of the city. 

Silence was sweetest in that sultiy 
noon ; and, presently perceiving it, 
they did not speak. But the oaks out- 
side rustled like oaks of Dodona, and 
what had seemed silence grew to be 
fullest sound. There was a stir of 
plants uneasy with growing, multitu- 
dinous tiny voices of insects in the 
grasses, bee and bird and the murmur 
of waters, the wings of doves that half 
flew, half dropped, in pnrple flocks from 
the eaves, the fall of an over-ripe 
peach, the shrill cicala, the fond sigh- 
ing of the brooding air in whose bosom 
all these sounds nestled. 

Alice rose to lower the crimson cur- 
tain over an intrusive sunbeam, (ma- 
dame kept her crimson draperies up 
all summer, knowing that her com- 
plexion needed deep, warm lights,) 
and out of revenge the brightness pour- 
ed through the tissue, its gold changed 
to a rosy fire. Pausing in that light 
to listen, she stood aglow, her pale- 
brown hair, her clear eyes, her white 
dress. 

"It is a Guide T whispered Verhey- 
den, with a flash of light across his 
face. 

"No,** said madame; **it is the 
Charity for which Ruskin longed, float- 
ing all pink and beautiful down to 
earth, the clouds blushing as she pass- 
es." 

The sun went lingeringly down the 
west, a breeze fluttered up from the 
south, and they roused themselves to 
open the windows. 

A piano drew Verheydeji by all his 



Verh eyiefi^M R^hi Hand 



acliing lieartstrmp. He seated him- 
eelf before it and played the ba^e of 
lfio36iiii's Cujus Auimam, A3 he play- 
ed, a fair haiid stole to the keys at kis 
right and phiyed the Aria* 

** It kilJa tiie ! Alice^ it kills me I'* he 
moaned out, turning his haggard face 
toward her. 

" Verheydeo,*' she said, "do some- 
thing heroic : submit !" 

** To writhe on the rack is not to re* 
fiifit,'' he said bitterly. 

" But how sublime," she urged, '* if,, 
instead of writliing, one could, in ihe 
midc^t i>f fiaiu, wear a seiwe face, and 
rejoice in a serene heart/' 

*' It is easy for you to tjilk of seren- 
ity,'^ he said Impatietiily. ** You have 
all you want. You live in music as I 
lived in it. And wlmt an enehanted 
life we lived together 1 Do you remem- 
ber the first time 1 savr you ? Three 
years ago, it was, on the eve of the 
Assumption. You sat on the steps of 
the altar and listened while Laurie 
played* 1 told him you looked like a 
sopmno, and he said you were one, that 
you had a voice like a viohn. Do you 
remember how I cidled you up ?" 

" Yes,'* she said, smiUng at the re- 
.memhrnuce. "No one ever accora* 

liied like you. The voice went float- 
ing on your music like a sballop on the 
(H?ater* Your interludes were nothing 
aoro than spray or little wavelets, or 
rlike a half-hushed bubbling hiugluer 
underneath the bows/' 

** And you," ho said, ** you never 
learned : you sing of nature, and 'lis art 
that tries to reach you. Laurie al- 
ways said your roulades were as if you 
couldn^t help them ; that he had to look 
at the seore to be sure you didn't make 
them up as you went along. Come, 
now, let us try." 

In the act of turning eagerly to the 
piano, he recollected and stopped. 

She touched his arm with an earnest 
hand. *' Delight is dear/* she said ; 
** but never 80 dear as when we find it 
in dark places^ Let me speak to you 
of my&elf, Verheydcn, as 1 have never 
spoken to any one ebe. You think 
mj life baa been a tranquil one, but 



you mistake. None, or but few J 
ing, I have gone through tragedies I 
would delight a romance writer. What 
I read ia dull to what I have experi- 
enced. If I am cahn, it is because I 
have nothing left to suffer. At twent)^- 
five — you didn't think me so old be* 
cause 1 am small and blonde — at twenty 
five I have exhausted the pains of life, 
And, Verheyden, believe me, contnt 
dictory as it may Bound, the highest 
rapture that earth can give is distilled 
from its sliarpest pains. It is true, 
even here, that those who weep are 
blessed. When the strong man, Jesus, 
rends this ravenous natui^ of ours, af- 
ter some days we find sweetness. O 
Verheyden ! go to the Lord with your 
burden, and he will give you rest. Do 
not fill your soul with discord because 
youp hand can no more awaken bar* 
mony. That loftier harmony nothing 
can disturb without your consent* I3 
it not beautiful to think o^^ — the security 
of the soul ? Keraember, Verheyden, 
the lightnings may strike us, but our 
fiovils shall not ha smitten ; nnd they 
shall not be drowned though the waters 
cover us; the earth may burn, but 
our souls shall not be consumed ; and 
they shall not be crushed though the 
heavens fall ou u^* When I think of 
these things, 1 laugh at fear of anything 
save sin ; I inn lifted ; my body seems 
dissol\ ing like frost in fire. I caunofc 
comprehend the sadness of your face, 
I am glad ! I am glad T 

He looked at her as she stood there 
pale and shining, then stretched his 
liand, and, at a venture, touched the 
scarf she wore. It didn't scoreli him. 

Monsieur Leon cam»^ home at sun- 
set, and with him Auguste, the sou of 
the house. Monsieur wad one of his 
wife's enihuaiasma. " He is a misau* 
thropo," she would say delightedlj* m 
'* What a listless air! he cares for^ 
nothing. How mournful and hopebsfliM 
hid eyeal And though his hair Is^M 
white, he is but little over fifty. He 
is full of poetry and subluiiity Aod 
learning f but it is frozen in. His carlj M 
days were unfortunate — a poor gentle- 4 
man, you know — and all liis life till h« 



1 
I 

I 



I 



Verheyden*9 Right Hand. 



315 



was fortj was a straggle for bread. At 

forty he inherited his property. Then 

be thought to live, my poor Anguste I 

We went to Paris, which we had lefl 

as children. Ah ! welL But he had 

aspirations, and pressed on toward Italy. 

There was the Medean chaldron, he 

Bsld^ He was ill when we reached 

tbere, and saw nothing till one evenuig 

lie was convalescent, and I took him 

bv the hand and led him out on to our 

Is^dooDj. It was a May-moonlight in 

A/enice. The earth can do nothing 

saoore. He stood and looked till I 

"tt^lKMight he had lost his breath, then 

^^lasped his hands over his heart as 

^SJumgh he had a great pang, and cried 

^isat, ^O my lost youth!' He would 

look no more. He went in and sat 

^^pvith his face hidden in his hands. It 

"^^as too late. The next day we started 

•ai^uid came back. He looked at nothing 

^^kA we passed, but sat in the gondola or 

^:2;arriage with his face hidden. He said 

=K^ was like setting a feast before the 

^^^qwe of a man who had died of star- 

"^^ation. So romantic !'* sighs madame, 

Smoothing the lace ruffles from her lit- 

^^e hands. 

Presently, when evening deepened, 
— ^.ugnste put his head in at the win- 
^^w and called them out to see an 
^^dipse of Venus. 

They stood in the dewy dusk and 
^5agrance of the garden, and watched 
^lie star hover, moth-like, near and 
^^^earer to the moon, seeming to grow 
^-arger and more brilliant as it ap- 
^>n»ched extinction, shining in auda- 
^3ions beauty. Then it touched, trem- 
"^led, and disappeared. 

^ Served her right !*' cried Auguste, 
^IRiesh from the classics. 

" But, Alice, where is Verheydcn ?" 
^^isked madame. 

**He recollected Laurie's concert, 
^md would go. I tried to detain him, 
^Imt could not" 

Verheyden hurried into town to the 
concert-hall, though by no means cer- 
tain he might not be tempted to fling 
himself over the balcony. Avoiding 
acquaintances, he took a seat high up 
and apart, and looked down upon the 



audience. Such crowds had flocked 
to hear him in that lost life of his. 
Was it indeed lost, or did he dream ? 

Presently there was music. There 
came his fugues rolling in like over- 
lapping billows. How he had played 
them when his mood had been to 
plunge in such a surge, he solitary, 
everything else washed away like sea- 
weed! He would never breast that 
tide again ! Symphonies sailed over 
his head ; but he could no more reach 
to touch their pinions. There was 
one he had named St. Michaers, from 
a sharp brightness that swung through 
it, sword-like. How ho had wrestled 
with those angels ! 

Then Laurie, being loudly called, 
stood out, blushing before their praises. 

Bless the boy! Only that day, 
bursting into tears, he had clasped 
Verheyden around the neck, saying: 
"Dear friend, my success hurts me 
like failure wlien I think of you." 

To an encore he played "Comin' 
through the Rye," improvising varia- 
tions in which the lovely melody hover- 
ed like Undine in the fountain, half 
veiled in tliat spray of music : an arch, 
enchanting thing. 

As Laurie stood up again, his friend 
leaned over the balcony and looked 
down on the young, lifted brow. For 
one instant their eyes met ; then Ver- 
heyden started up and fled out into the 
night. 

Father Vuiton sat alone in his room 
meditating on a text which was gra- 
dually expanding, budding, and blos- 
soming into a sermon. He tried not 
to be vexed when some one knocked 
at his door at that late hour, and was 
just controlling his voice to give a 
charitable summons when the door 
opened, and Verheyden, or his ghost, 
came in, and, without a word of greet- 
ing, fell on his knees beside the priest, 
dropping his face to the arm of the 
chair. 

'* My poor friend," said the father, 
" have you not yet forgiven God for 
loving you better than you can under- 
stand r 



816 



VerJieyden^B Bight Hand, 



Yerheyden shivered, but said noth- 
ing. 

** Remember whose hands were pierc- 
ed, not one, but both, and his feet, and 
his side, lie never shrank." 

Verhey den's shaking hand held out 
a little vial *<I shall take this unless 
you prevent me," he said. " Help me 
if there is any help. I dare not be 
alone." 

Father Vinton unstopped the vial, 
and, taking deliberate |iim, flung it 
through the open window into the 
street. Then he laid his hand ten- 
derly upon the bowed head. "You 
shall not be alone," he said. ''Stay 
here to-night." 

Blessed arc all peace-makers ; but 
thrice blessed are those who make 
peace between the soul and God. 
Blessed are they in whose ears we 
breathe the tales else unspoken, 
whose hands lead us back from the 
brink of many a precipice where no 
one dreamed we stood, whose voices 
soothe the pains hidden to all besides, 
and inspire with hope hearts that were 
filled with despair. May such peace- 
makers be for ever blessed ! 

Verheyden's religion had been a 
recollection rather than a remem- 
brance, lie had made a point of 
going to confession and communion 
once a year ; and had one looked into 
his mind while he was preparing for 
these sacraments, something like the 
following might have been seen: 
"Well, what have I been doing this 
year? I haven't committed any sins. 
I've done nothing but play tunes. To 
be sure, I broke Smith's fiddle over his 
head for playing false and spoiling a 
chorus. Don't suppose that was just 
right; though I must say I think the 
chorus of more consequence than 
Smith's head. But I must have 
done something. Tm not a saint yet. 
Guess I'll say a prayer. 

'^ Oh ! I remember! — ; that was 
mean. 1 wouldn't believe I could do 
such a thing if I didn't know 1 had. 
I'll be hangt'd if 1 do it again. Then 
there's — , and — , and — . Well, con- 
fession does put a fellow out of con- 



ceit with himself. And there^s — ; a 
dishonest deed, I roust own. I don't 
wonder the Lord gets angry with as ; 
and how he does wait for us to come 
round I I'm gUid 1 didn't drop dead 
to-day. Fm thankful I didn't drop dead 
today! The Lord is good. What 
am I lounging on a seat for ? Why 
don't I go on my knees ? Then there's 
— . Fm sorry for that. I wish sOtne- 
body would give me a thrashuig for 
it. Fve been sorry for the same sin 
dozens of times, and accused myself 
of it, and promised not to commit it 
again. My resolutions are not worth 
much. Suppose 1 can't keep myself 
out of sin without the Lord's help. 
Fll ask for it." 

At the end, Verheyden, sobered and 
humbled, would present himself to the 
priest and make a clear and sincere 
confession. 

But now religion was to be no more 
an incident, but the business of his life. 
He was fortunate in his director, for 
Father Vinton was not only prudent, 
but sympathetic If, when he read 
lives of the saints, Verheyden longed 
for ecstasies which should thrill him as 
sensibly as music could, the father did 
not reprove his presumption, but said : 
"My son, such favors do not come 
when they are looked and asked for^ 
they are unexpected. Strive to ren- 
der yourself worthy of Grod's friend- 
ship, and forget the reward till he shall 
please to bestow it." If, kneeling be- 
fore the altar, his eyes fnll of tears, the 
intensity of his gaze defeating itself, 
Verheyden fancied that the cross be- 
fore him quivered with its burden, and 
that the au reeled head grew to be the 
head of a living, suffering man whose 
eyes turned pitifully on him — ^the fa- 
ther did not call his penitent crazy. 

'* Perhaps he grieves to. find you so 
unreconciled," he said. "When with 
a loving violence he tore the idol from 
your grasp in order to give you a work 
wherein the end would not be forgotten 
in the means, he expected your sub* 
mission. Perhaps he grieves to see 
that you reject all worf 

Verheydeu blushed painfully as be 



Verheyden's Right Hand. 



317 



extended his mutilated arm. '^ What 
can /do?" 

" Take charge of your singing-class 
iigain.'* 

For one instant he faced the priest 
with a sudden fierceness, the last spark 
of rebellion in him. Then his face 
ikded and drooped. 

« I will, sir." 

'"'Mjss Rothsay will play for you 
when you need her." 

** Yes, father." 

And Verheyden went back to the 
drud^ry of his profession, missing its 
deh'ghts, and did his duty faithfully if 
not cheerfully. There could have been 
no severer test. 

There was no more talk of visions 
and trances. But every morning a 
shadow of a man stole into the chapel, 
knelt near the door, and went out as 
quietly after the mass was over. Once 
a fortnight the same shadow came to 
Father Vinton's side and made a sin- 
cere but disheartening confession. 
The spring of the musician's spirit was 
broken. 

•* You are ill," the priest said to him 
one day. 

** No," answered Verheyden dream- 
ily. ** My heart troubles me a little. 
It beats too fast. There's nothing else 
the matter with me." 

He was told that he ought to consult 
a doctor. 

•*! thought I would," was the answer; 
«bot I forgot it What is in the 
church?" 

** Laurie with the choir practising a 
new mass. To-morrow is the Assump- 
tion, you know.** 

** Oh 1 ves. ril go in and listen 
awhile ; sball I ?" 

•^My poor boyP said the priest 
** Will it not give you more pain than 
pleasure ?" 

^No, father, it doesn't hurt me 
now." 

Groing into the choir, Verheyden took 
a seat apart and unseen. He leaned 
wearily, cbsed his eyes and listened, 
hearing the voices more than the in- 
strument, hearing one voice through 
alL When Alice Bothsay uplifted her 



pure voice and sang the Dona nobis 
vacem^ tears dropped slowly down his 
race ; but they were not tears of bitter- 
ness. 

Presently all but Alice left the 
church. As on that day, four years 
before, when he had first seen her, she 
had flowers for the altars. 

It was a delight for her to get into 
the church alone, as she now believed 
herself to be. If she were good, she 
knew not No matter : Grod is good. 
She felt as though she were among dear 
friends with nobody by to criticise. 
Her delight bubbled up almost over 
the verge of reverence. But perfect 
love casteth away fear ; and she loved. 
" Rosa Mystica, here are roses. Pray 
for me. And lilies for St Joseph, whom 
I often forget. He is so near you he 
is lost, like the morning-star in the 
morning. St. Paul, I bring you fine 
plumes, and cardinal flowers like living 
coals. But you look as though you 
would scorch them up with a push from 
the point of your pen, writing epistles 
toward the four winds. O Unseen 
One I what shall I offer you ? The 
earth is yours, and the fulness thereof. 
I cannot offer myself, for I am not mine 
to give. But if you love me, take me. 
O Sweetness !" 

Sunset flashed through the windows, 
and every saint caught an aureola. 
Then the day went out, bright and 
loth. When the sanctuary lamp be- 
gan to show its flame in the gathering 
twilight, Alice Rothsay ros^ with a 
happy heart and went home. 

Verheyden was happy, too ; he scarce 
knew why, perhaps because the hap- 
piness of another made his own seem 
possible. He groped his way down to 
the chapel, and found Father Vinton 
hearing confessions. 

"God is with him," thought the 
priest when Veiheyden had letl him. 
" He is like a child." 

The same childlike sweetness shone 
in the face raised the next morning for 
communion. 

Groing out of the chapel after his 
thanksgiving, Father Vinton saw his 
penitent still kneeling there. " I wished 



818 Maff: a Fancy. 

I had asked him to pray for me," beside. His pale face was lifted, as 

he said. '^I must see him when he though some oae above had spoken, 

comes out." and he had looked up to answer. 

He waited half an hour, watching, Father Vinton hesiuited, then went 

but no one appeared. The &ther nearer. A morning sunbeam came in 

would not for anything disturb so sa- through an eastern wmdow, stole in 

crcd a devotion ; but he felt like look- tender, tremulous gold over the musi- 

ing again. Groing back to the chapel, cian's hair and brow, and looked into 

he saw the lonely worshipper still in his eyes. So Magdalene might have 

place, but in a slightly changed atti- looked into the sepulchre. The father 

tude. He was leaning a little wearily bent and looked also, 

on the desk before him, and his shoul- Ah, Yerheyden ! Some One above 

dcr and head rested against a pillar hcul spoken, and he had answered. 



OBIGISAU 

MAY: A FANCY. 



I CANNOT sing to thee a song, O May I 

New-born of beauties never sung before. 

On all the tourneyed fields of poesy 

Bi-ight souls have broken lance to do thee honor. 

And yet (so hard it is for youth and life 

To deem to-day not brighter than the past) 

I cannot think they loved thee more than I, 

Those silent poets in their silent graves. 

I cannot think their sunshine was as golden, 

Their meads as green, their wilding flowers as rife 

With the low music of the laden bee, 

Their clouds as soft upon the summering sky, 

Their gales as wooing in the wakened forests — 

Their May as much of May as thou to us. 

Moreover, this I know : the tiny bark 

Of the frail nautilus may crest the ware 

That swelled to clasp the bosomed argosy. 

Or chafed the warrior-ship's embattled side. 

And so, beneath thy deep serenity 

Of sunlit blue, as, thrilled and filled with May, 

I lie on earth and gaze up into heaven, 

Sprite Fancy doth embody me a dream ; 

And I dare utter it, for I am bold 

On kindly Nature's mother breast to lay 

My head, and prattle of the love I bear her. 

As little, earnest children deck them dolls. 

And name them for the fair ones whom they love, 

I prank an image out, and call it — May. 

Thon shin'st, O May ! upon my visioned hours, 
A maiden in the prime of maidenhood, 



May: a Fancy. S19 

Poised on the summer boandarj of blooms, 
Disparting child and woman ; blent of each ; 
The chUd-smile pure upon the perfect lip, 
And girlhood in the wavy wealth of curls 
So lavish on the toying, amorous air, 
And deepening in the blue uplifted eyes, 
Like stainless heaven reflect from silent lakes, 
Hie mystic, dawning holiness of woman. 

She., o'er the cycled earth imperious. 

Throned on the morning candor of the clouds, 

Sits haloed with the worship of the sun. 

Chosen is she of all her sister months 

To be the bride of the imperial sun. 

Disdainful suitor, he did pass unwooed 

The paly elder beauties of the year, 

Nor in the hoyden March, nor sportive April, 

Nor majesty of June, his pleasure found : 

He toyed familiar, yet scarce lovmgly, 

With the swart, sparkling nymphs of summer tide, 

He schooled the autumn oreads in their tasks, 

And, smiling, passed, and left them all, to shower 

The splendid unrestraint of all his love. 

And choice, and tenderness on May, his own. 

This is the bridal season, and the earth, 
Fondest of mothers, and the ardent bridegroom 
Have ta'en all gems of earth, all rays of heaven, 
Have beggared all the universe for charms 
To deck the bride withaL She sits in beauty. 
Crowned with the rarest radiance of mom, 
Robed in the tissued blooms of all the world, 
Yet loveliest for her own proud modesty ; 
Her glorious eyes the fairest of her jewels, 
Her bridal blush her brightest ornament. 
Thus maidenly, thus queenly in the skies 
She waits against the coming of the bridegroom. 
He, o'er the orient wave now eminent, 
Through the concourslng rosy clouds of mom 
Strides like a monarch 'mid a courtier throng, 
Pushing soft adulation out of way ; 
Presses in grandeur up the noon-day height, 
Half haste, all statelmess and majesty. 

And over all the vastness of the world 

Goes forth the tale of bliss. The roseate clouds 

Blush down the tidings to the raptured sea, 

Till all his crested waves are musical 

With murmured joyfulness. The courier birds 

Thrill myriad melodies through all the woods, 

With this their joyous burden : " May is bride I** 

The hoary oaks, and all the ancient trees. 

On the high, rippling winds commune together, 

Saybg one to another : ^ May is bride 1" 



.5pc.ib« 



-V. . 



V. .: 



- ■ • -:'* I- ..ay^c ii zui i^saiialL^ dowers 
!. ^ -i .- -. •i.'t^s; f^'ii.i' '.Wiri:^ oat; 

.- • ^i:.;. i^iii ;ir lOiirr.liyc siine, 
. . . :- :. \c -sv ujfjr L:i::. aiaej.cs coiie, 

;:- -.i..' :■. ».mii vja.f j^i kk>k jiboui them, 

i:>L i.. \> . l:*z lV. :':J.r.cs^ bp: in sunshine. 

s .- .-i., ::»iv: kirsirtsi to arise, 

; ■.-- :^.-' « il\ itii l.Aj^j fields 

,.-:^: \ .« ;:K:r l>kxvn, and atmospheres 

- - *:>f * ik/; ;i.t ir boiaaiz^ lo ihe seat 

•. r I-.JL- s. vrrtijra. And the loving earth, 

^ ^ -J.:. i-:uct lUvXher of the Imppj May, 

ill *!-: r w.-i\ing continents of trees, 
:> =a-.rv:L:rv>iis gesture full of ecstasy ; 
,:;• r-xei Lind. and sea, and air, and sky, 
,\:orai hallelujahs : ** May is bride !" 



R. 



IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN. 



BY LADT HERBERT. 



.» I. VY \ AND MALAGA. 

V •. Abo^trvHLV. little old-fashion* 
u .:... % ill .4 - patio" full of orange- 
.-.^^ ^..^^.iiii; :o a public "sahi," ra- 
.^. V k AViu at I)amas<:iis, with 
^ . X ^.li v.:!!;*!!**, gladdentMl the 
^.•,^^ » .\i.- s*riiru\l travellers. Af- 
v» * Axvi i.uh.'> n'sl (and one ad- 
.•...:^v ii N\i.u L^ihat except mos- 
^M.:kx.>. •••*.. >v\l^ a^» genenilly free 
.vw* vXk •i.a.4>iuims), they started 
.x.». .V Kf'vw* biidly jiaved streets 
. ^ x; :v ot.-JvNl:-il. ' The exterior 
> :.N.v vxMKiu^, *s all vou see is abut- 
..X.X..V. ..^u •■iJi square towers sixty 
s^. • v'- .^^i'v'*^"'^ «*j'»<'h ^ thegate- 
*.. ^,v; ^.^t v-f* the arcLiepiscopal 
^"x*... ',^* ott j'**ssing through a 
J., ^xo^xi :vvr. \ou come into a 
\*^. i» ^-nMvhI KVttrt, in the centre 
. K ..vo > A i^icmwsque Moorish 
jw.-**.K s rxW irt' Ibe space being 
kMi«. ^^ .ma^u^M and palms, and 



on the north side an exquisite glralda. 
or tower, from whence there is a beau- 
tiful view over the whole town and 
neighborhood. All the entrances to 
the mosque (now the cithedral) from 
this court are closed, except the centre 
one. Entering by that, a whole forest 
of pillars bursts upon you, with horse- 
shoe arches interlacing one another, 
and forming altogether tlie most won- 
derful building in the world. Tlie 
Moors collected these pillars, of which 
there are upwards of a thousand, from 
the temples of Carthage, of Nismes, 
and of Rome, and adapted them to 
their mosque^ Some are of jasi>er, 
gome of verde-antique, some of por- 
phyry — ^no two are alike. The pillars 
have no plinths, and divide the mosqne 
into nineteen longitudinal and twenty- 
nine transverse aisles ; hence the im- 
mense variety and beauty of the in- 
tersection of the arches. This mosque 
was built in the eighth centnryi aod 



Impressions of Spain. 



821 



ranked m sanctity with the " Alaksa* 
of Jerasalem and the ** Caaba" of 
Mecca. 

A pilgrimage to it was, indeed, con- 
sidered equivalent to that of Mecca, 
and hence the Spanish proverb to ex- 
press distant wanderings, " Andar de 
zeca en Meca." The roof is of arbor- 
vitae, and is in perfect preservation. 
Two of the moresque chapels are ex- 
quisite in carving and richness of de- 
tail, one being that of the Caliphs, and 
the other the " Holy of Holies," where 
the Koran was kept. The beauty and 
delicacy of the moresqae work, with its 
gold enamel and lovely trefoiled pat- 
terns, its quaint lions and bright-color- 
ed " azulejos" (tiles), exceeds anything 
of the sort in Europe. The roof is in 
the form of a shell, and exquisitely 
wrought out of one single piece of 
marble. The mosaic boiler was sent 
1o Cordova by Bomanus H., from Con- 
stantinople. When the brother of the 
Ung of Morocco came there a year or 
"two ago, he went round this " Holy of 
holies" seven times on his knees, cry- 
ing bitterly all the time. The inscrip- 
tions in this mosque are in Cufic, and 
»iot in Arabic The whole carries one 
l^ack to Damascus and the East in a 
"^ay which makes it difficult to realize 
that one is still in Europe. The choir 
is a horrible modem " churriqueresque" 
innovation, stuck in the centre of the 
l)eautiful forest of Saracenic columns, 
many of which were destroyed to make 
^oom for it Even Charles V. pro- 
tested against the bad taste of the 
chapter when he saw it completed in 
1526, and exclaimed : ^ You have built 
a thing which one can see anywhere ; 
and to do so, you have destroyed what 
was unique in the world." The carv- 
mg of ihe choir is certainly fine, but 
the incongruity of the whole jars on 
one's taste too keenly for any kind of 
admiration. The only beautiful and 
solemn modernized portion of the build- 
ing is the chapel of the cardinal, with 
fine tombs and a deep recess for 
the Blessed Sacrament, with a magni- 
ficent silver tabernacle. From the ca- 
thedral, some of the party went to visit 

VOL, T^— SI 



the bishop, who received them very 
kindly, and sent his secretary to shoir 
them the treasures of the cathedral. 
The ** custodia,** of the fifteenth centu- 
ry, is in silver-gilt, with beautiful eme- 
ralds, and exquisitely carved ; it is the 
work of Arphe, the Benvenato Cellini 
of Spain. There are also some beau- 
tiful processional crosses, reliquaries, 
chalices, and pax, secreted at the time 
of Dupont's French invasion, and so 
saved from the universal plunder. 

Having spent the morning in the 
cathedral, our travellers wandered 
down to the fine Roman bridge, of 
sixteen arches, over the Guadalquiver, 
lookiufr upon some picturesque Moor- 
ish mills and orange gardens. To the 
left is a statue of St Raphael, the 
guardian angel of Cordova ; and close 
by is the Alcazar, now a ruin, former- 
ly the palace of Roderick, the last of 
the Goths, whose father was duke of 
Cordova. Nothing can be more me- 
lancholy than the neglected gardens, 
the broken fountains and statues, the 
empty fish-ponds, and grass-grown 
walks, despite the palms and orange- 
trees and luxuriant creeping rosea, 
which seemed to be striving to conceal 
the desolation around. The first palm 
ever planted in Cordova was by the 
Moorish king Abdurrahman, who 
brought it from his much-loved and 
always-regretted Damascus. 

After luncheon, having obtained spe- 
cial permission from the archbishop, 
our party started off in two carriages 
for the hermitages in the Sierra More* 
na, stopping first at a picturesque ruin- 
ed villa, called the ** Arrizafa,** once the- 
favorite residence of the Moorish king^ 
The gardens are beautiful; passion- 
fiowers and jessamine hung in festoona 
over all the broken walls, and the 
ground was carpeted with violets, nar- 
cissus, and other spring flowers. The 
view from the terrace is lovely, the 
town, when seen from a distance, be- 
ing very like Verona. Here the road 
bc^me so steep that the party had ta 
leave their carriages and walk the re- 
mainder of the way. The mountaiiK 
path reminded them of Mount Carme!,. 



Impr^mons of Spmn, 



with tbe same underwood orciatugtliloi; 
and white, ami heaps of flowering and 
ftromatic i^hrubs. Beautiful wild iris 
grew among the rocks, and half- way 
' up a rushing Btream tumbled over the 
* lioulder stones into a picturesque basin, 
I covered with maiden hair fern, which 
fMirved AA a resting-place for the tired 
I travellers. After a fatiguing cUmb of 
t two hours, they reached the postern 
' gate of tbe hermitage, into which, after 
8ome demur as to their sex, the ladiea, 
by 8p<?cial permission of the archbi- 
thop, were admitted. There are at 
present seventeen heimitSt all gentle- 
men, and many of high birth and large 
fortune, living each in a little separate 
cabin, with a patch of garden round it, 
»nd entirely alone. They never see 
^ one another but at mass and in choir, 
or speak but once a month. In their 
chapel they have a iK^utiful oil paint- 
ing of St. Paul, the first hermit^ whose 
rule they follow in all its primitive ae- 
verity. One of the cabins was vacant, 
and the party entered. It was com- 
fied of two tiny rooms: in the inner 
was a bed formed of three boards, 
with a sheepskin and a pillow of straw ; 
the rest of the furniture consisted of a 
i*cnicifix, a jug of watvr, a terrible dia- 
'Cipline with irun [miitti^, and Rodri- 
guez' erisay on *^ Chrifilian IVrfectiou,** 
p-ublished in 1600, at Valludolid, and 
evidently much read. This ceU was 

that of Count . a man of great 

wealth and high rank, and of a still 

wider reputation for ability and talent. 

He had lost his wife some years ago, 

I to whom 1h* was passionately attached ; 

f.ftad remaining in the world only till he 

lu&il settled his children, then took 

Qeave of it for ever, and resolved to 

spend the re&t of his days in penitence 

and prayer. Their habit is eom|K>scd 

jof a coarfle grey etiilf, with a leathern 

'.girdles drawers, and a shirt of serge. 

No linen is allowed, or stockings, and 

<tbey wear sandals on their feet. They 

ire not permitted to fjoasess anything, 

[vr to keep anything in their celLi but a 

[jglttjjiHl earthenware pot, a wooden 

I {ilate, a pitcher, a lamp, and instru- 

I (Bietits of ]>enanca and devotion* They 



keep a perpetual fauft n 
lentils, only on high days and ] 
being allowed fish* They are i 
lowed to write or receive letters, 
go into one another's cells, or to go oati 
of the enclosure, cjccept once a monthyl 
when they may walk in the mounL " 
round, which ihey generally do to 
er, reciting litanies. Seven houij 
each day must be given to pmyerJ 

they take the discipline twice a we 

How strange a life for one aocudtomedl 
to live in the world and in society ! I 
Yet there is no hick of candidatee lot 
each vacancy ; and the prior told our 
travellers that the number of vixartioos 
of late yeai*8 liad increaseth There is 
a fine old marble seat and cixsiss in the 
garden, erected by the late bisliop, 
from whence thei-o is a magnificent 
view over the whole country. The 
cold in winter is inteni^, and tliey are 
not allowed any fires, except what is 
absolutely necessary for the cooking of 
their miserable meah Taking leave 
of the prior in his little ^ parloir," and 
receiving a rosary from him made of 
the wood of the ** carouija** by the 
hermits themselves, the visitors re- 
traced their steps down the hill, feeling 
as if they had been sf sending the last 
couple of hours in another worhl ; and, 
rejoining their carriages at the vilhi, 
made the circuit of the city walla, 
which are jiurtly Moorish, built of lapta, 
and described by Julius Caesar. Then 

' T\it H'^v. PiV" WifT, thf ftirafnin PmH* 

ill one 'ifi ' " ' ': , ' ' 

ccUdsiii 

6puUA \ I 



n 

fl.. 

toQ(«utr 
rbmDAiii 
fbfMt Ait 




, ....,« to L 

-UimtlMI MMmlL I 



▼iilrc, «»l .... 
I'jutuUirtio chr< 



Impreisiom of Spain. 



ooe of the party went to see the Car- 
melite convent of St. Theresa ; not one 
of the saint's own foundation, but one 
boilt soon after her death. It contains 
twenty-four nuns, the cheeriest and 
merriest of women, proving how little 
external circumstances contribute to 
personal cheerfulness. 

The Grerman gentleman who had 
80 kindly served as escort to our 
travellers during their stay at Cordo- 
va dined with them in the evening, 
and gave them several very interesting 
details of the place and people. The 
next morning mass had been promised 
them at five, but it was six before 
the priest made his appearance in 
the fine old Jesuit church, now bereft 
of its pastors and frequent services ; 
and it was only thanks to the un- 
punctuality of the Spanish railways 
that the train which was to convey 
oar party to Malaga was reached in 
time. 

Passing through a very fine gorge 
of the Sierra Nevada, with magnifi- 
cent Alpine scenery, the train sudden- 
ly stopped : the guard came to the car- 
riages, and civilly suggested to the pas- 
sengers that the government could not 
answer for the safety of the tunnels, 
and, therefore, had provided carriages 
and mules to take them round ; or else, 
if they preferred it, that they might 
walk^ as there would be plenty of time. 
This sounded ludicrous enough to Eng- 
lish ears, but, after all, they diougbt 
it more prudent to comply than to run 
any risk, and accorduigly bundled out 
with their bags and manifold packages. 
On the recurrence of a similiar warn- 
ing, however, a little later, they voted 
that they would remain and take their 
chance ; and nothing disastrous occur- 
red. At the station they were met by 
Che kind and obliging English consul, 
who had ordered rooms for them at the 
hotel called the ^ Alameda," pleasant- 
ly situated on the promenade, and who 
bad done everything in his powei 
to insure their comfort The first 
days of their arrival were spent m 
settling themselves in their new quar- 
ters, whieh required a good deal of 



preliminary cleaning, and in seeing 
the so-called ^ lions'* of the place. 
These are soon visited. In truth, 
except for climate, Malaga is as dull 
and uninteresting a place as can be well 
imagined. There is a cathedral, ori- 
ginally a mosque, but now converted 
into an ugly Corinthian pile with two 
towers. Only one fine old Grothic door 
remains, with curious ^ azulejos." 
The rest, both inside and out, is 
modem, heavy, and in bad taste. 
The high altar, however, is by Alonso 
Cafio ; and there is some fine wood- 
carving of the sixteenth century in the 
choir and on the screen, commemorat- 
ing difierent scenes in the life of St^ 
Turibius, archbishop of Lima, whose 
apostolic labors among the Indians 
were crowned with such wonderful 
success. There are one or two good 
pictures and monuments, especiallj 
the recumbent figure of a bishop, in 
bronze, of the fifteenth century. In 
the sacristy is a valuable relic of St 
Sebastian, and some fine silver vases 
for the holy oils ; but everything else 
was plundered by the French. After- 
ward our travellers went, with an or- 
der from the governor, to see the cas- 
tle and Moorish fortress overlooking 
the town, built in 1279. Passing 
under a fine Moorish horse-shoe arch- 
ed gateway, they scrambled up to the 
keep, from whence there is a magnifi- 
cent view over sea and land. It is 
now used as a military prison, and 
about twenty-six men were confined 
there. The officers were extremely 
civil, and showed them everything. 
The men's barracks seemed clean and 
comfortable, and their rations good ; 
their arms and knapsacks were, how- 
ever, of the most old-fashioned kind. 
That day a detachment of troops were 
starting for Morocco, whose embarka- 
tion in the steamers below was eagerly 
watched by the garrison. 

But if Sialaga be dull in the way 
of sights, it is very pleasant from the 
kind and sociable character of its in- 
habitants. Nowhere will the stranger 
find more genuine kindness, hospitality, 
or courtesy. Their houses, their villas, 



824 



Imprttsion* of Spain, 



^ 




their horpes, their flowers, their tiroe, 
all are placed, not figuratively, but 
really^ **d vuestradisposicion,** Some 
of the vill;i3 in the neighhnrhood are 
lovely, especiiilly those of Miidjime 

de H — — , the Marquise L -, etn. 

Here one finds all kinds of tropical 
vegetation : the date palm, the han- 
ana, the plantain and India-rubber 
treea, sugar, cotton, and other oriental 
pixxlucts, all f^w hixuriantly ; while 
the beds are filled with masses of vio- 
lets, tulips, roaea, arums, scarlet hy- 
bibcus, and gerantuma ; and beauti- 
ful je^^samtne, scarlet passion-flowers, 
and other creepers, trail over every 
wall 

But the chief intereat to the winter 
resident at Malaga wil! be derived from 
It* charitable institution^?. The French 
slaters of charity of St. Vincent de 
Paul have the care of three large 
establishments here. One — an uiduii- 
tiial school for the children and orphaniii 
connected with a neighboring factory 
— is a raar\ el of beauty, order, and 
good management The girls are 
taught every kind of industrial work ; 
a Belgian lias Ix^en imported to give 
them instruetion in making Vah^nei- 
ennes hice, and their needlework is the 

ust beuutiftil to be seen out of Pana. 
y profit arising from th^^ir work is 

fid, and kept for iheir *' dot" when 
they marry or leave the establishment, 
Attaebed to this school is aha a little 
home for widows, iacurables, and sick, 
equally tended by the sistci's. This 
adminible institution is the offsprintr 
of iJidi vidua! charity and of a life 
wrecked — according to human par- 
knct^ — but which has taken bt'urt 
again for the sake of the widow and 
the orphan, the sorrowful and the suf- 
fcring. Her name h a houaehold word 
in Malaga to the sad and the miserable; 
and in order to carry out her magnifi- 
cent cliarilies (for she has alto an in- 
duslrial school forboya in the country), 
she has given up her luxurious home, 
and lives in a small lodging up three 
pair of stairs. She reminded one of 
St. Jerome's description of St. Melania, 
who, having lott her husboAd and tnro 



children in one day, casting tienelf tt 
the ftiot of the crosa, exclaimed : ** I 
see, my God I tliat thou requirest of 
me my whole heart and love^ which 
was too much fixed on my husband 
and children* With joy 1 resign all 
to Ihee*'* The sight of her wonderful 
cheerfulnesa and courage, after sorrows 
Bo unparalleled* mnat strengthen every 
one to follow in her steps, and strive 
to learn, in self abnegation, her secret 
of true happinesa. The Fretich sis- 
tera have likewise the charge of the 
great hospital of St. Juan de Dios, 
containing between 400 and 500 
patients, now about to be rcmo?ed 
to a new and more commodious build- 
ing ; and also of a large day and in- 
fant aehool near the river, with a 
** Balle d^asile," containing upward 
of 500 children, who are daily fed 
with soup and bread* They also visit 
the poor and sick in their homes, and 
everywhere their steps are hailed with 
thankfulness and joy. 

The " Little Sisters of the Poor'' 
have likewii^e established themaelvos 
in Malaga, and have a large house, 
eoDtainlng seventy old and incurable 
people, which is very well supplied by 
the richer inhabitants. The nuna of 
the " Assumption''* have lately started 
a " pension" for the daughters of the 
upper elafsses, which was immenselj 
w*anted (education being at a very loir 
ebb in S[>ain), and which has been 
most joyfully hailed by the Malagm 
ladies for their children. The supe- 
rior, a cb arming person, is an Knglisb- 
woman ; and the frequent benedietioii 
services in their beautiful little cha^H*! 
were a great boon to gome of our party. 
They paid a visit abo to the arcbbi^hop^ 
a kind and venerable old man, with the 
most benevolent smile and napect, and 
who is really looked upon as the father 
of his people. At a grand Te Deutn 
service, given in the church of S. Pie- 
tro dei Marfiri, one of the raoat inttir* 
eating churches in Kakga, as a thanks- 
giving for the preservation of the citjr 
from cholera, he officiated pontificalljr, 
which Ills great age generally prefefitoi 
and gave the ben^iction with mhre 



I 



I 




Impressumt of Spain. 



and crosier to the devout and kneeling 
multitude. 

There is a very touching " Via Cru- 
ds** service performed every Friday in 
Malaga, up to a chapel on the top of a 
high mountain overiooking the whole 
town and bay. The peasants chaunt 
the most plaintive and beautiful hymns, 
the words of which they "improviser** 
on the way, botli up and down. It be- 
gins at a very beautiful church and 
convent called Notre Dame des Vic- 
toires, now converted into a military 
hospital, nursed by the Spanish sisters 
of charity. The family of the Alcazars 
is buried in the crypt of this church, and 
beautiful palms grow in the convent 
garden. In the old refectory are some 
fine azulejos tiles and some good speci- 
m&^ of Raphael ware. 

As to diversions, Malaga offers but 
few resources. Those who like boat- 
ing may go out daily along the bcauti- 
fiil coast ; but the rides are few, the 
ground hard and dusty, and the " riv- 
iere k sec," like that at Nice, must be 
traversed before any mountain expedi- 
tions could be reached. There is a 
boll-ring, as in every Spanish town, 
and occasionally the additional excite- 
ment of elephants being used in the 
fights : but the bulls will rarely face 
tbem. 

AAer about a month, therefore, spent 
in this quiet little place, it was decid- 
ed to start for Granada, which prom- 
ised to afibrd greater interest and va- 
riety. 

GBANADA. 

Taking leave rather sorrowfully of 
their many kind friends, and of the sis- 
ters of charity who had been their con- 
stant companions during their stay in 
Malaga, our travellers started one 
stormy evening, and found themselves 
ooce more cooped up in one of those 
terrible diligences, and slowly ascend- 
ing the mountains at the back of the 
town. Their intention had been to go 
on horseback, riding by Yelez-Malaga 
and the baths of Alhama ; but the late 
heavy rains had converted the moun- 



tain streams into torrents, and some of 
the party who attempted it were oooft- 
pelled to return. After ascending for 
about three hours, leaving on their lelt 
the picturesque cemetery, with its fine 
cypresses, they came to a plateau 3000 
feet above the sea, from whence they 
had a magnificent view, the whole of 
Malaga and its bay being stretched out 
at their feet, the lights glistening in the 
town, and the moon, breaking through 
the clouds, shedding a soft light over 
the sea-line, which was covered with 
tiny fishing-vessels. Beautiful aloes 
and cacti starting out of the bold rocks 
on either side formed the foreground^ 
while a rapid river rushed and tumbled 
in the gorge below. But with this fine 
panoramic view the enjoyment of our 
travellers came to an end. When 
night came on, and they had reached 
the highest and loneliest part of the 
bleak sierra, it began to pour with rain 
and blow a regular gale; the heavy 
mud was dashed into their faces ; the 
icy cold wind whistled through the 
broken panes and under the floor of 
the carriage, and froze them to the 
bone. There was some difficulty about 
a relay of mules at the next stage, and 
so our party were left on an exposed 
part of the road without drivers or 
beasts for more than an hour. Alto- 
gether, it was impossible to conceive a 
more disagreeable journey ; and it was 
therefore with intense joy that they 
found themselves, after sixteen hours 
of imprisonment, at last released, and 
once more able to stretch their legs 
in the Alameda of Granada. Tin^ 
hungry, dirty, and cold, a fresh disap* 
pointment here awaited them. All the 
hotels were ftill (their letters ordering 
rooms had miscarried), and only (me 
tiny bedroom could be found in which 
they could take refuge, and scrape tho 
mud ofi* their clothes and hair. One 
of the party found her way to the cathe* 
dral ; the rest held a council of war, 
and finally determined to try their fate 
at the iew <^ Alhambra'' hotel outside 
the town, where an apartment was to 
be had, the cold and wet of the season 
having dcterre^ the usual visitors to 



Impnsiiom of Spain* 



ih\3 purely aiitnmer resideDce. They 
had every reason to congratulate them- 
selves on ibiB deciaion ; for though the 
cold was certainly great, the snow 
hanging still on all the hills around, 
and the house being unprovided with 
any kind of fire-places or stoves, si ill 
llie clounlinesa and comfort of the whole 
amply compensated for these draw- 
hfitcks, to say nothing of the immense 
advantage of being close to the Albam- 
bra, that great object of attraction to 
every traveller who Tisita Granada. 
The way up to it k very picturesque, 
but very steep. After leaving the 
wretched, narrow, ill-paved Btreets, 
which dislocate almost every bone in 
your body when attempted on wheels, 
and passing by the Saia de la Audieii- 
eia and other fine public buildings, you 
arrive at an arched gateway* which at 
once brings you into a kind of public 
ganlen, planted with fine EngliBh elms, 
and ahfimKling in walks and fountaine 
and 8eat.9, and iu which the paths and 
dm-es, in spite of their precipitous 
character, are carefully and beautifully 
kept by convict labor, under the super- 
intendence of a body of park -kt Opel's 
dressed iu full Andalusian costume. 
The hotel is placed on the very crest 
of the hill^ overlooking the magnificent 
range of snowy mountains to the righL 
To the lefl the first thing which strikes 
the eye is the Torre de .Justiciar Over 
the outer horse-shoe arch is carved an 
open hand, upon the meaning of which 
the learned ai-e divided ; some saying 
it IS an emblem of the power of God, 
others a talistnan against the Evil Eye. 
Over the inner arch is sculptured a 
kcy» whieh typified tfie power of tlie 
Pi-ophel over I lie galee of he^iven and 
he1L A double gate protects this en- 
trancCi which no dimkey may pass: in 
the receas is a very beautiful lillle pic- 
ture, framed and glazed, of the Virgin 
and Child Passing through this arch, 
you come to an open "" plaza," out of 
which rise two towers ; one has been 
bought by an Englishman, W^o has 
converted the lower part of it into 
hia private resideore. (Where shall 
We not find our ubiquitous country- 




men?)* The other i& called fhol 
Torre de la Vela, because* on thikj 
watch-tower hangs the bell whicbj 
gives warning to the Irrigators inl 
the vega below. The riew frocaJ 
heuce is the most enchanting thin^j 
possible, commanding the whole coun^j 
try. Below lies Granada with itil 
towers and sparkling rivers, the Darro] 
and the Xenil Beyond stretches the | 
beautiful rich **vega'* (or plain), Rtud* 
ded with villas and villages, and encij^ I 
cled by snowy mountains, with th^l 
Sierra of Alhama on one side, anji 
the Gorge of Loja on the othen| 
Descending the tower, and standinj^ 
again in the " plaza" below, you see^ 
opposite to you a large mined Doric 
palaee, a monument of the bad taste 
of CiiaricA V.^ who pulled down a 
large portion of the Moorish building 
to erect tins hideous edifice, whidi^l 
like most other things in Spain, rei.| 
mains unfinished. Pas.^ing through \ 
low door to the right, our traveller 
were perfectly dazzled at the beaut; 
which suddenly burst upon them, 
is impossible to conceive anything nior^l 
exquisite than the Alhanihra, of whicftj 
no drawings, no Crystal Palace mod*] 
els, not even Washington IrvSng^j 
poetical descriplious, give one ihefaiaM 
est idea. " J'essaie en vain de peoserl 
je ne peux que eentirP exclaimed lUt 
authoress of ** Les Lettres d'Espagne 
on entering ; but the predominant fe 
ing is one of regret for the Moor 
whose dynasty pnxluced such manrel 
of lieauty and of art* Entering 
the fish-|Mjnd '' patio,'* and visiting first ' 
the AVhi^pering Gallery, you \msB 
tlirougb the Hall of the Ambassadore, 
and the Court of Lions, out of wbidi 



• TM« nnrrpfrt't^ rrtrefmirr 



•f o, ill titf 

ugr wUh h^ 



pari o| 
fscvd i 
white 



nntfttn 



¥ c»nM.' on 

4Ui1 wcri'^ ii I'l t'v inr nufse, In ai 
rkt, tljMl tU« prt^vtit amutt of > 
wa» ft Lobduii irttdcflRiAii, who I 
oT«r <rr«rr you- ta ntcnd ttw siuEUiuf r- 



Impressions of Spain. 



827 



lead the Hall of tbe Abenoerrages^ 
and that of Justioe, with its two curious 
monuments and wonderfiil fretted i*oof, 
and then come to the gem of the whole, 
the private apartments of the Moorish 
kings^ with the recessed bedroom of 
the king and queen, the boudoir and 
loTelj latticed windows overlooking 
the beautiful little garden of Lindanga 
(the violets and orange-blossoms of 
which scented the whole air), and the 
exquisite baths below.* It is a thing 
to dream of, and exceeds every pre- 
vious expectation. Again and again 
did our travellers return, and always 
discovered some fresh beauties. The 
governor resides in a modernized* cor- 
ner of the building, not far from tbe 
mosque, which has suffered from the 
bad taste of the Christian spoilers. He 
IB not a good specimen of Spanish 
courtesy, as, in spite of letters of in- 
troduction from the highest quarters, 
it was with very great difficulty that 
oar party were admitted to see any- 
thing beyond the portions of the build- 
ing open to the general public. At 
last« however, he condescended to find 
the keys of the Tower of the Infantas, 
once the residence of the Moorish 
princesses whose tragical fate is so 
touchingly recorded by Washington 
Irving. It is a beautiful little cage, 
overlooking the ravine, with its fine 
aqueduct below, and rich in the deli- 
cate moresque carving of both ceilings 
and walls. Afterward, crossing a gar- 
den, they came to the gate by which 
Boabdil left his palace for the last time, 
and which was afterward, by his spe- 



* fSev hare deicrlbed this enchanting palace as 
well as tbe French lady already qaoted. She nyn, 
■p g^irt ng of the feelings It calls forth : " J'aimerals 
antant Hre broy^e dans la giieule de ces Jolls mon- 
■Irca qui ont des nes en nceud de oravate, appell» 
XAvie par la grAce de Mahomet, qne de te parlor de 
rAlhambra, tant eette description est difficile. Les 
nrarailles ne tont ooe golpures d^licates e( compU- 
qofea : les plus hardies stalactites ne peurent donner 
voe M^ des ooapoles. Le toat est one merveille, nn 
tcayafl d'abellles oq de fies. Les sculptares sont 
d*ane d^IIeatesse ravlssante, d*an goftt parfait, d*ane 
ifOfaeve qnl vons lUt songer k tout oe que les pontes 
d* f6es Tons dtolvalent Jadis k Theureux Age o4 
nmagtnation a des alles d*or. H^Ias I la mienne n*a 
phw d*iile, elie est de plomb. Les Arabes n'employ- 
•lent que quatre conleurs : le bleu, le rouge, le nolr 
•iror. Oette rlebeeoe, ces telntes vives, sont rislbles 
•noore partoot. Knfij^ mon amL ce n*est point nn 
palalsced: c*cst U rllle d*im enchantenr I** 



dal request, walled up. The tower at 
this comer was mined and destroyed 
by the French. Our party then de- 
scended to a little mosque lately pur- 
chased by Colonel , and beauti- 
fully restored. This completed the 
circuit of the Alhambra, which is 
girdled with walls and towers of that 
rich red-brown hue which stands oat 
so beautifully against the deep blue 
sky, but the greater portion of which 
was ruthlessly destroyed by Scbastiani, 
at the time of his occupation of Gra- 
nada. 

The restoration of this matchless 
palace has been undertaken by the 
present queen, who has put it in the 
hands of a first-rate artist named Con- 
treras; and this confidence has been 
well bestowed, for it is impossible to 
see work executed in a more perfect 
manner, so that it is very difficult to 
tell the old portions from the new. If 
he be spared to complete it, future 
generations will see the Alhambra re- 
stored very nearly to its pristine beau- 
ty. This gentleman makes exquisite 
models of diffident parts of the build- 
ing, done to a scale, which are the 
most perfect miniature fac-siiniles pos- 
sible of the diffi^rent portions of this 
beautiful palace, and a most agreeable 
memento of a visit to it. Our travel- 
lers purchased several, and only re- 
gretted they had not chosen some of 
the same size, as they would make 
charming panels for a cabinet or 
screen. 

In the afternoon, the party started 
to see the cathedral, escorted by the 
kind and good-natured dean, who 
engaged the venerable mother of 
the "Little Sisters of the Poor" to 
act as his interpreter, his Andalusian 
Spanish being utterly unintelligible to 
most of the party. The first feeling on 
entering is of unmixed disappointment 
It is a pagan Greco-Roman building, 
▼ery much what our London churchet 
are which were erected in the time of 
the Georges. But it has one redeem* 
ing point — the Capilla de los Reyes, 
containing the wonderitd monuments 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of 



Wft^mi of 



tn. 



fPhtlJp find Joan, The alabaster se* 

pulcliiX'S of I he former, W]*ought at 

Genoa hy PeraUii, are magnificent, 

I both ill design and exet^ulioa. l!?ubel- 

[ la*8 statue ia especially beautiful : 

» In qncnta formft 



The faces are both ponmits, and have 
a Bunple diprnlty vvhkh arrests the ai> 
lention of the most unobservanL A 
low door and a few steep steps below 
the monuments lead to their last rest- 
iDg-j jlnec. The Toyskl coiBns are of lead, 
' lapped over, rude and plain (oTily the 
letter F distinguishes thaiof the king), 
but they are genuine, and nn touched 
liinee the day when their bodies^ so 
] justly revered by the Spaniartb, were 
[ depoaitfd in this humble vault. Among 
be treafturea of this clutpL*! are liko^ 
shown the idenlieai royal stand- 
is u^L*d at tlie conquest of Granada ; 
[4hc king'8 sword ; ihc queen's own 
Bjissal ; their crosier and crown of sil- 
ver-gib ; the picture of the Virgio 
and C bild by St. Lukcj given lo Isa- 
Ibclla by Pope Innocent VIIL, and be- 
[ibre which mas,i is said every 2d of 
January, the anniversary of the taking 
of the city ; and the portrait of the 
iknifjht who, durui«* the siege, rode into 
^«Gratiada« and utExed a taper and an 
[*Ave Maria" on the very door of the 
] principal mosque. In the sacristy ie 
*« ** (.'onception," exquisitely car\'ed, 
by Alon^o Cano ; an ** Adoration of 
the Kings/' by Ilf^mlinjr, of Brus;ea ; 
t curious ring of Sixtus LL ; a chasu- 
liile embroidered by Queen Isabellas 
I come very valuable relics and reliqua- 
l Hci*, and a letter of St. Charles Bor- 
[toineo, which the goodnatured dean 
Jlowod oi^e of the party to copy. 
'esides these treasures, and tlie C'a- 

tnia de los Reyes, there is really noth- 
ig to look at in the cathedra^ bat one 
»r two good painted glass wiudowa, 
ome clustered columns, an<l a curious 
arch in the dome, which was made to 
bend downward. 
The following morning, after an 
riy service at tlic Capuchin convent 
of St, Antonio, one of the party start- 



ed on an expedition with the ?' 
the town, and winding up a l* 
and steep ravine, in the holes and \ 
ems of which gypsies live and con| 
gate, they came lo a piclurcsquo wood 
planted on the side of the moun- 
tain. Here they left their carriages, 
and scrambled up a zigxag path cut 
in the hill, with low steps or ** gradini/* 
till ihey reached a plateau, on which 
stands both convent and church. Tlie 
view from the terrace in front is the 
most magnificent which can be con- 
ceived. On one side are the snowy 
mouiilains of the Sierra Nevada^ with 
a nipid river tumbling into the gorge 
below, the valleys being lined on both 
sides with sione-pine woods, amid 
which little convents and villages are 
clustered. On the other is the town of 
Granada, willi its domes and towers; 
and sbiirply standing out on the rot:kti 
above the niins, a gainst the bright blue 
sky, an? the coflee-coloi'ed towers of 
the beautiful Alhambra. There is a 
Via Crucis up to this spot, the very 
crosses seeming to start «p out of the 
rocks, which are clothed with aloes 
and prickly pear; while in the centre 
of the terrace is a beautiful fountain 
and ci*08s, shaded by magnificent 
cypresses. The church is built over 
some cataeombs, where the bodies of 
St. Cecilia and eleven other mar- 
tyrs wore found, who suffered in the 
[iei-secution under Nero, The superior 
of this convent, now converted into a 
college^ is IXm Jose ^lartin, a very 
holy man, though quite young, and 
revered by the whole country as a 
sainU He is a wonderful preacher* 
and by his austere and penitential life 
works miracles in bringing souU to 
God. His manner is singularly gen- 
tle, simple, and Immble. He kiodlj 
came to escort the party through tho 
catacombs, and lo show them the relics. 
The sites of the different martyrtloms 
have been converted into small chafK*la 
or oratories : in one, where the victim 
perished by fire, his ashes still remain. 
Li tile leaden tablets mark the difi'erefit 
spots. Here also is the great wooden 
cross of St. John of the Cross, from Cbe 




Impreuions of Spain. 



aw 



foot of which he preached a sermon on 
the '^ Love of God" during his visit to 
Granada, which is said to have con- 
Terted upward of three thousand peo- 
ple. " I always come here to pray for 
a few minutes before preaching," said 
simplj Don Jose Martin, ^^ so that a 
portion of his spirit may rest upon me." 
After spending some time in this sane- 
toary, the party reluctantly retraced 
their steps, and returned to the town, 
where they ha^ promised to visit the 
great hospital of San Juan de Dies. 
It is a magnificent establishment, en- 
tirely under the care of the Spanish 
siflters of charity of St* Vincent de 
Pauly with a ^ patio" or quadrangle in 
the centre, and double cloisters round, 
into which the wards open : all round 
tbe cloisters are frescoes describing 
different scenes in the life of the saint 
The church is gorgeous in its decora- 
tions, and in a chapel above rests the 
body of San Juan, in a magnificent sil- 
ver shrine, with his clothes, his hat, 
the basket in which he used daily to go 
and collect food for his sick and dying 
poor, and other like personalities. 

This saint is immensely revered in 
Granada. He was the first founder of 
the order of Brothers of Charity, now 
spread all over Europe, beginning his 
great work, as all saints have done, in 
the humblest manner possible, by hir- 
rag a small house (now converted into 
a wayside oratory), in which he could 
place four or five poor people, nursing 
them himself night and day, and only 
going out to beg, sell, and chop wood, 
or do anything to obtain the necessary 
food and m^icines for them. The 
archbishop, touched with bis burning 
diarity, assisted him to build a lai^r 
hospiud. This house soon afler took 
fire, when San Juan carried out the 
sick one by one on his back, without 
receiving any hurt It is thus that he 
is represented in the Statue Gallery of 
Madrid. The people, infiamed by his 
loving zeal, and in admiration of his 
great wisdom, humility, and prudence, 
came forward as one man to help him 
to build the present hospital, which re- 
mains to this day as a monument of 



what may be done by one poor man of 
humble birth, if really move<l by the 
love of God. His death was caused 
by rescuing a man in danger of drown- 
ing from the sudden rising of the river, 
and then remainmg, wet and worn out 
as he was, while caring for the family. 
He died on his knees, repeating the 
" Miserere," amidst the tears of the 
whole city, to whom, by the special com- 
mand of the archbishop, he gave his dy- 
ing benediction. His favorite saying 
was : '^ Labor without intermission to 
do all the good works in your power 
while time is allowed you ;" and tliid sen- 
tence is engraved in Spanish on the 
door of the hospital 

The following day happened to be 
the anniversary of his death, or rather 
of his birthday in heaven, when a 
touching and beautiful ceremonial is 
observed. The archbishop and his 
clergy come to the hospital to give the 
holy communion to the sick in each 
ward. A procession is formed of the 
ecclesiastics and the sisters of charity, 
each bearing lighted tapers, and little 
altars are arranged at the end of each 
ward, beautifully decorated with real 
flowers, while everything in and about 
the hospital is fresh and clean for the 
occasion. A touching incident occurred 
in the male ward on that day, where 
one poor man lay in the last stage of 
disease. The eagerness of his look 
when the archbishop drew near his bed 
will never be forgotten by those who 
were kneeling there ; nor the way in 
which his face lighted up with joy when 
he received his Lord. The attendant 
sister bent forward to give him a cor- 
dial afterward : he shook his head, and 
turned his face away ; he would have 
nothing afler that. Before the last 
notes of the " Paiige Lingua" or the 
curling smoke of the incense had died 
out of the ward, all was over ; but the 
smile on the lips and the peace on the 
face spoke of the rest he had found. 
Afterward there was a magnificent 
service in the church, and a dinner to 
all the orphans in the sisters' schools. 

Another interesting expedition made 
by our travellers was to the Carthusian 



Impresmons t>f Spaim, 



convent outside the town. Sobastraoi 
desecmtcMi and pilla^red the wonderful 
treaaurcs it contained; bnt the rortoise* 
ehell and motber-of-pearl doors nnd 
presses remain, remindrtig one of those 
in the Armenian church at Jerusalem, 
at the shrine of St» James, There are 
also two fitatnes of St. Bruno, by 
Alonso CaSo ; wonderful for their life- 
like appearance and expre.ssioii, but 
still not equal to the incoinparnble one 
at Miraflorea. There are some beau- 
tiful alabaster and agate pillarfl still 
left in the chapel behind the hi;zh altar, 
whieh it is to be supposed were too 
heavy for the spoilers to carry oflf. In 
the cloisters are some curious fre^siooes 
of the mart;yrdom8 of the Carrbusians, 
at the time of the Protestant Reforma- 
tion, by Henry VIIL of England. The 
guide who accompanied r>«r travellers 
Bttid slvly to the only C'atholic of the 
party : " We had better not explain the 
subject of these. Lt*t them imagine 
they are some of the horrora of the In- 
quisilion — thrtt alwatfs taI:€S with En«f' 
Ml peop/eT' Another ]>ict«re wa.^ 
startling both in subject and coloring ; 
it was that of a dead doctor, mttclj 
venemted in life, who, on a funeral 
panegyric being prooomjccd ovi-r him, 
Slurtod from hi:* eoJiin, exclaiming 
that " h'a life had beea a lie, and that 
he was among the damned T The 
friar who showed our party over the 
now deserted convent was like Fray 
Gabriel in Fernan Caballen^'s novel 
of La Graviota. When the re^t of 
the Carthusians were turned out by the 
government, he would not go, ** 1 wtis 
brought here as a litlle child,'* he paid, 
** and knovv no one in the world ;" and 
so he sat himself down by the cross 
and Aobbed. They let him stay and 
keep the gaixJen and the churcli,bul his 
life is over. ** The blood does not run 
in his veins — it walks!" Like Fray 
Gabriel he will die kneeling before the 
Christ lo whom he daily prays* for 
those who have so cruelly wronged ar»d 
robbed him. The view from the ter- 
race in front of the church is beautitul, 
overlooking the rich and cultivated 
plain of Soto dc Homa, the property of 




the Duke of Wellington, with the 
mountain of Para[»anda above, tht 
hills of Elvira, and the pass of Moclin, 
which forms the bridle-road to Cordo- 
va. The ^nicns ako arc delightful ; 
no wonder the poor monks clung to 
their convent home ! 

In the afternoon our travellers walk- 
ed nji to the Generalife, a villa now 
belonging to the Fallanchii family, a 
branch of the great Genoa house, but 
formerly the palace qf the Sultana. 
FasBuig tbi*ough vineyards and fig- 
trees, they arrived at the gate of the 
fairy garden, with its long straight 
iKirders, fringed with myrtle, irrigated 
by tlie Darro, which id carried in a 
little canal between the flower*bed«, 
and with a beautiful ojHjn colonnade 
overlooking the Alhambm, whilcaleaa 
formal garden sent up a shower of 
sweet scents from the orange treeeand 
jessamine trellises below. Through 
this colonnade they passed into the 
living-rooms, exquisite in their Moorish 
carvings and decorations. In one of 
them there are a number of curious 
though somewhat aptK'r>^phal portraits, 
including one of Boabdil, and of an- 
other Moorish king of Oranwda, with 
bijii wife and daughler, who turned 
Christians, ami werebaplized at Santa 
Fe. In the outer i-ooiu are portraita 
of all the •* bluest blood" of GraoadiL. 
But the gardens form the grentesl 
charm. The ground was covered writk 
Neapolitan violetg and other spring 
flowers. Roses climbed over eTerjr 
wall; and tnagtiiHeeut cypresses, aod 
aloes in full flower, shaded the beds 
from the btiniing sun. The lai^ge^t of 
these cypresses^ called the SulUina, is 
twelve feet in cii\'umft*rene<% ami to 
this ti'ce the fatal legend of the fair 
Zoraya is attached. Behind tht*se 
cyprcf^ses is a flight of Italia n*]ookitig 
steps, leading lo auolher raised gardeop 
full of terraces and fountains. On the 
steep brow of the hill is an alcove, or 
summer-house, from whence the views 
over Granada and the Alhambra are 
quite encluinting, every arch being, as 
it were, the setting or frame of a new 
aod beautiful picture. Above this. 



I 




Impreisians of Spain. 



881 



agaiQ, is a Moorisli fortress, and a knoll 
called the Moor^s Ghair^firom whence 
the last Moorish king is said to have 
sadly contemplated the defeat of his 
troops by the better-disciplined armies 
of Fer&iand and Isabella grouped in 
the plains below. Scrambling still 
higher up, our travellers came to the 
rahis of a chapel, and to some curious 
caverns, with a peep into a wild gorge 
to the right leading into the very heart 
of this mountainous and little-visited 
region. Boabdil's sword, and other 
re&cs and pictures of the fifteenth cen- 
torj belonging to the Pallavicini fami- 
ly, are carefully preserved by their 
agent in theur house in the town, and 
had been courteously shown to our 
travellers when they called to obtain 
permission to visit the villa. Return- 
ing toward their hotel, they thought 
they would prolong their waU: by visit- 
ing the great cemetery, or ^ Campo 
Sluito,'* which is a little to the north of 
the Generalife. Long files of mourn- 
ers had been perpetually passing by 
their windows, the bier being carried 
on men's shoulders, and uncovered, as 
in the. East, so that the face of the 
dead was vbible. Each bier was fol- 
lowed by the confraternity to which he 
or she belonged, chanting hymns and 
litanies as they wound up the long 
steep hill from the town to the burial- 
ground. But all appearance of rever- 
ence, or even of decency, disappears at 
the spot itself, where the corpse is 
stripped, taken out of its temporary 
eoflin, and brutally cast into a pit, 
which is kept open till filled, and then, 
with (juicklime thrown in, closed up, 
and a fresh one opened to be treated 
in a similar manner. It is a disgrace 
to Catholic Spain that such scenes 
shonld be of diuly recurrence. 

Another villa worth visiting in the 
neighborhood of the Alhambra is that 
of Madame Calderon, where the oblig- 
ing French gardener took our travel- 
lers all over the gardens and terraces, 
the hot houses and aviaries, the artifi- 
cial streams and bridges, till they came 
to the great attraction of the place — 
a magnificent arbor-vitse, or hanging 



cypress, falsely called a cedar of Le- 
banon, which was planted by St John 
of the Cross, this site being originally 
occupied by a convent of St Theresa's. 
The house is thoroughly comfortable 
inside, with charming views over the 
'^vega," and altogether more like an 
English home than anything else in 
Spain. If any one wished to spend a 
delightful summer out of England, they 
could find no more agreeable retreat j 
perfect as to climate, and with the most 
enjoyable and beautiful expeditions to 
be made in every direction. It is worth 
remembering, as Madame Calderon, 
being now a widow, is anxious to let 
her residence, having another house In 
Madrid. There is a church close by, 
and a dairy attached to the garden, 
which is a rarity in Spain, and a pub- 
lic benefit to the visitors at the Alham- 
bra ; and the clever and notable French 
wife of the gardener makes delicious 
butter, and sells both that and the 
cream in her mistress's absence — ^lux- 
uries utterly unknown anywhere else 
in the Peninsula. 

Bad weather and heavy snow (for 
they had visited Granada too early in 
tlie year) prevented our travellers 
from accomplishing different expedi- 
tions which they had planned for the 
ascent of the Sierra Nevada, and visit- 
ing Alhama and Adea, and other inter- 
esting spots in the neighborhood. But 
they drove one day to the Alameda, 
where all Granada congregates in the 
evening, and from whence the view 
looking on the mountains is beautiful. 

Returning: by the Moorish gateway, 
called the Puerta de Monaymn, they 
came to an open space, in the centre 
of which is a statue of the Virgin. 
Here public executions used to take 
place, and here, in 1831, Mariana Pine- 
da, a lady of high birth and great beau- 
ty, was strangled. A simple cross 
marks the spot. Her crime was the 
finding in her house a flag, maliciously 
placed there by a man whose addresses 
she had rejected. 

From this "plaza** our travellers 
drove to the conflux of the rivers Darro 
and Xenil, which together form the 



m% 



Impre$shn$ of Spain. 



Jua<lalciulver ; and from thence pro* 
'W'dt^d hi a luosque, where a tjiblet re- 
cords ll)e fact of ita having been the 
plai^p where (he unfortunate king Boab- 
(lit gave the kejra of ihe town to the 
Chrisliau conquerors, Fei'dhiund and 
L*itbella, and then himself rode slowly 



and Badly away from his beautiful 
palace by a mountain still ealled the 
** Last Sigh of the Moor,** immortalized 
both in ver.^e and song. Tlie aceom* 
panying ballad, with its plaintive wail* 
ing sound, still echoes in the hearts and 
on tlie lips uf the people: 




Returning, they vi.sited the church 
of Tji8 Anguslias, where there is a won- 
derful but tawdrily dressed image of 
the Ble^aed Vii-gin^ who U tlie patron- 
CBA of the town. The French fi inters 
of charity have a larj^e orphanu*]je and 
day-sehrxd here, established originally 
hy Maihmie Caideron ; but the situa- 
tion* in (lie street called Recoffidas, is 
low and damp, and I heir chapel being 
almost umlei-grourid, and into which no 
sun can ever enter, seriously affects 
the health of the sisters. Hci'e, as 
e%'ery where, they are universally be* 
loved and re5i>ectcd, and the present 
superior is one eminently qualitied, by 
her loving gentleness and evenue^ss of 
temper, lo win the hearts of all around 
her. The dre»3is of the people of Grana- 
da is bingularly picturcf^qne: the women 
wear crape shawUofthe brightest colors, 
yellow, orange, or red, with flowers stuck 
jaunlily on one side of the head just 
above the ear ; the men have short veb 
vet jackets, waistcoats with K'autiful 
haoging silver buttons (whicfj have 
descended from father to i^oo, and are 



not to be bought except by chaooe), 
hats with large borders, turned op at 
the edge, red sashes round the* waist, 
and gaiters of untaimed leather, dain- 
tily embroidered, open at the knee« 
with hanging stj-ipa of leather and sil- 
ver buttons. Over the whole, in cold 
weather, is thrown the ** C4ipa," or large 
cloak, which often conceals the thread- 
bare garmrnts of a beggar, but which 
is worn with the air of ihe proudest 
Spanij^h * hidalgo/ This eveniujg, the 
la^t which our traveHer^ were to spend 
in Granada, they had a visit from the 
king and captain of the gypsies, a very 
remarkable man, between thirty and 
forty years of age. and a blacksmith bj 
trade. lie brought bis ^lirar, and 
played in the most marvellous and 
be^iutiful way possible ; first tenderly 
and softly ; then bursting into the wild- 
est exultation ; then again plaintive and 
wailing, ending with a strain of triumph 
and rejoicing and victory which coca- 
pleiely entranced hh hearers. It wa« 
like a beautiful poem or a love tale, told 
with a pathod indescribable. It waa a 






Vieior Cousin and his Pkilosophy. 



fitting last remembrance of a place so 
fall of poetry and of the past, with a 
tinge in it of that sorrowfiil dark thread 
which always seems woven into the 
tissae of earthly lives. Sorrowfully, 
the next morning, our travellers paid 
their last visit to the matchless Alham- 
bra,which had grown upon them at every 
turn. Then came the "good-by" to 
their good and faithful guide, Bensaken^ 
that name so well known to all Grana- 



da tourists ; and to the kind sisters of 
charity, whose white " comettes *' stood 
grouped round the fatal diligence 
which was to convey them back to 
Malaga. And so they bade adieu to 
this beautiful city, with many a hope 
of a return on some future day, and 
with a whole train of new thoughts 
and new pictures in their mind's eye, 
called forth by the wonders they had 
seea 



OBIGIMAL. 

VICTOR COUSIN AND HIS PHILOSOPHY. 



The papers some months since an* 
noonced the death at Paris of M. Vic- 
tor Cousin, the well-known eclectic 
philosopher and Orleanist statesman. 
The re^stablishment of the Imperial 
regime in France had deprived him of 
his political career, never much dis- 
tinguished; and whatever interest he 
may have continued to take in philo- 
sophy, he produced, as far as we are 
aware, no new philosophical work af- 
ter the revolution of July, 1830, ex- 
cept prefaces to new editions of his 
previous writings, or to other writers 
whose works he edited, and some 
"Rapports'* to the Academy, among 
which the most notable is that on the 
Qopublished works of Abelard, pre- 
ceded by a valuable introduction on 
the scholastic philosophy, which he 
afterward publiished in a separate vol- 
nme ander the title of La Philosophic 
SdK>lastique. 

M. Cousin was bom at Paris in 
1792, and was, the New American 
Cyclopedia says, the son of a clock- 
maker, a great admirer of Jean Jacques 
Roasseao, and he was, of course, 
lm)ught up without any religious faith 
or culture, as were no small portion of 
the youth of France bom during the 
BerohitiOD. Pierre Leroux malicious- 



ly accuses Cousin, after he had quar- 
relled with him, of having been, when 
they were fellow-students together, a 
great admirerof Z*-4mi c?w Peuple, the 
journal in which Marat gained his in- 
famous notoriety. His early destina- 
tion was literature, and he was always 
the litterateur rather than the philoso- 
pher ; but early falling under the in- 
fluence of M. Royer-Collard, a stanch 
disciple of the Scottish school, founded 
by Reid and closed by Sir William 
Hamilton, he directed his attention to 
the study of philosophy, became mas- 
terof conferences in the Normal School, 
and, while yet very young, professor of 
the history of philosophy in the Faculte 
des Lettresat Paris. His course for 
1818, and a part of his course for 1819 
and 1820, have been published fi-om 
notes taken by his pupils. Being too 
liberal to suit the government, he was 
suspended from his professorship in 
1824, but was restored in 1828, and 
continued his lectures up to the Revo- 
lution of 1830. Since then he has 
made no important contributions to 
philosophical science. 

The greater part of M. Cousin's 
philosophical works are left as frag- 
ments or as unfinished courses. His 
course of 1829-80 ends with the sen- 



834 



Victor Ccusin and his PhiloMOphy. 



sl^tt school, and tbe critical examinarlon 
of Lot'ke^a Esaay on tints Human Un- 
derstanding. His ininslatitin of Plato 
was completed indeed ; but lh(> argu- 
ments or io trod actions, exempt lo a few 
of tl^c Dialogues, an J the Life of Plato 
promised* have never appeareil. He 
seems to have exhausted his philoso- 
phical forces at an earlj day, and after 
publishing a ne>¥ and revised edit ion 
of hi:3 previous writings, to have de- 
voted himself chrefly to liter alnre, es- 
pecially to the literary history of the 
hrM half of the seventeenth century, 
and the biography of certain eminent 
ladie;^ that played a very distinguished 
|>art in the pohtical intrigoe.? and in- 
surreetions of tbe pcrio^l It is doubt- 
ful if any man living had so thoroujih 
and mintite a knowledge of the htern- 
ture, the religious controversies, the 
philosophy, the poUtics, and the bit»- 
graphy oF the period from the acces- 
sion of Louis XJIL to (lie end of the 
wars of the Fi'ondc. and I he triuinpli 
of IVfazarin over his en»^niies, as he 
poftsesaed. His Dnelie*>he de Longue- 
ville, Mivdame de Sablet Duchesse de 
C he V re n 8e , a nd Ma d ame tl e I lati t e fort , 
and his hislary of the conclui<iao of the 
wars of" the Fronde-, are, aa literary 
works, unrivalled, wrinen with rare 
wmplierty, purity, gra»:e, and delicjicy 
of expression and style, and havt! an 
easy natural eloquence and charm 
never surjmssed by any writer even in 
tbe Freneh Isingoage. He has res use i- 
tal<*d thnse great darner of the seven- 
teenth century, wiio live, love, sin, re- 
pent, nnd do penance in his piiges m 
Uiey did in real life* He seems, as a 
Piiri^ian lias said^ to have really fallen 
in love with tlioro,and to have regard- 
ed each of them as his mistress, whose 
honor he must defend at the risk of hia 
life. 

Tbe French, we believe, usually 
oount M* Vlllemain as the most per- 
fect mailer of their beautiful language ; 
but U> our taste he. was surpassed hy 
Cousin, if not in die delicacy of phinise, 
which only a Frencbman bom or bred 
, fsmi appreciate, in all the higher qual- 
Sl6*i» of style, as much us he wojs in 



depth and nchneiBS of feeling, ftiid 
variety and coraprchensivc-neat af 
thought. Cousin was by far the grcal- 
er man, endowed with the richer ge-' 
nius, and, as far as we can judge, 
equally polished and graceful as a 
writer. As a philosophical writer, for 
beauty, grace, elegance, and eloquence 
he baa had no equal since Plato ; and 
he wrote on philosophical subjects with 
ease and grace, charmed and interestr 
ed his readers in the dryesl and mo?t *j 
abstruse speculations of metaphysics. 
His rhetoric was captivating even if 
his philosophy was faulty. 

M. Cousin called his philosophical 
system eclecticism. He starts with 
the assumption that each philosophical 
sehojl hfis its special point of view, 
its special truth, which the others ne- 
gh*ct or unduly depress, and that the 
true philosopher weds liimself to no 
partirular school, but studies them all 
with impartiality, accepts wlmL each 
has that is positive, and rejects whal 
each has that b exclusive or negatiTe. 
He resolves all [jossiblc schools into 
four — Ist, The Sensist ; 2d, the Ideal- 
istic — subjectivistic ; 3d, the Sceptical ; 
4lh, the Mystic. Each of these four 
systems has its piirt of truth, and iu 
part of error, Tukc the truth of each, 
and exclude the error, and you baYc 
true philosophy, and the wholu of iL 
Truth is always something positive, 
affirmative; what then is the truth of 
scepticism, which is a system of pure 
negation, and not only affirms nothing, 
but denies that anything can be nfErji- 
ed? How^ moreover, can scepiicism, 
which is universal nescience, be called 
a system of philosophy ? Finallj^ if 
you know not the truth in its onity and 
integrity beforeliand, how are you, in 
studying those st veral systems, to de- 
tenninc which is the part of truth atid 
which the part of en^^r ? 

There is no doubt that all schoolfi, 
as all sects, have their part of tnitht 
as well as their part of ermr ; for the 
human mind cannot embrace pure on- 
mixed ^.Tror any more than the will can 
pure unmixed evil; but the eclectic 
method ic not the method of construci 



« 



Victor C<msin and hu FhUoaopny. 



885 



iDg true philosophy any more than it is 
the method of constructing true Chris- 
tian theology. The Catholic acknow- 
ledges willingly the truth which the 
seyeral sects hold ; but he does not de- 
rive it from them, nor arrive at it by 
studying their systems. He holds it 
independently of them ; and having it 
already in its unity and integrity, he is 
able, in studying them, to distinguish 
what they have that is true from the 
errors they mix up with it. It must 
be the same with the philosopher. M. 
Cousin was not unaware of this, and 
he finally asserted eclecticism rather as 
a method of historical verification, than 
as the real and original method of con- 
structing philosophy. The name was 
therefore unhappily chosen, and is now 
seldom heard. 

Eclecticism can never be a philoso- 
phy. All it can be is a method, and 
is, aa Cousin held, a method of verifi- 
cation rather than of construction. 
Cousin^s own method was not the 
eclectic, but avowedly the pdycholo- 
gical; that is, by careful observation 
and profound study of the phenomena 
of consciousness, to attain to a real 
ontological science, or science of the 
soul, of God, and nature. This method 
was severely criticised by Schelling 
and other German philosophers, and 
baa been objected to by ontologists 
generally, as giving not a real ontology, 
but only a generalization. Dr. Chan- 
ning called the God asserted by Cousin 
^a splendid generalization" — a very 
just criticism, but perhaps not for the 
precise reason the eloquent Unitarian 
preacher assigned. Cousin does not 
maintain, theoretically at least, that 
we can, by way of induction or deduc- 
tion from purely psychological facts, at- 
tain to a real ontological order. His 
real error was in the misapplica- 
tion of his method, which led him to 
deny what he calls necessary and ab- 
tfolure ideas, and terms the idea of the 
true, the idea of the beautiful, and the 
idea of the good, are being, and there- 
fore Gk)d, and to represent them as 
the word of God — the precise error 
which, Gioberti rightly or wrongly 



maintains, was committed by Rosmini. 
It must be admitted that Cousin is not 
on this point very clear, and that he 
often speaks of ontology as an induction 
from psychology, in which case the 
God he asserts would be, for the rea- 
son Channing supposes, only a gene- 
ralization. 

But we think it is possible to clear 
him from this charge, so far as his inten- 
tion went, and to defend the psycholo- 
gical method as he professed to apply 
it. He professed to attain to ontology 
from the phenomena of consciousness, 
or the facts revealed to consciousness ; 
but he labors long and hard, as does 
every psychologist who admits ontolo- 
gy at all, to show, by a careful analysis 
and classification of these phenome- 
na or facts, that there are among them 
some, at least, which are not derived 
from the soul itself, which do not 
depend on it, and do actually ex- 
tend beyond the region of psycholo- 
gy, and lead at once into the onto- 
logical order. In other words, he 
claims to find in his psychological 
observation and analysis i*eal ontolo- 
gical facts. It is from these, not from 
purely psychological phenomena, that 
he professes to rise to ontology. So 
understood, what is called the psy- 
chological method is strictly defensi- 
ble. Every philosopher does and 
must begin by the analysis of thought, 
that is, in the language of Cousin, the 
fact of consciousness, and there is no 
other way possible. That the ideal 
formula enters into every one of 
my thoughts is not a fact that I 
know without thought, and it can be 
determined only by analyzing the 
thought one thinks, that is, the fact of 
consciousness. The quarrel here be- 
tween the psychologists and the onto- 
logists is quite unnecessary. 

What is certain, and this is all the 
ontologist need assert, or, in fact, can 
assert, that ontology is neither an in- 
duction nor a deduction from psycholo- 
gical data. God is not, and cannot be, 
the generalization of our own souls. 
But it does not follow from this that 
we do not think that which is Grod, 



Vkiar CouMH an J hia 



%h<{ ichooU8iid the critical c^xamination 
of Lacke's Essay on the Hainan Un- 

ders Uitid rn g. H is trs nslul i on of Pia t o 
vfm compltttfd indeed ; bnt the urgu- 
menta or introducttona, except to ntew 
of ilie Dkiilogues, and the Life of Plata 
ptooii^edf have never appeared. He 
teema to Imfn ej^hauitfid hb pUtloscK 
phieal (ot^m at i&ii early day, and Hi\*-r 
publkhhig a new and n?TUedi<'i' 
of lit8 pnjvtoug writjiigs^ to ha\r ; 
Toted him&cir chrefly to lUcratare^ i"-- 
pecially to the literary history of tl. 
int half of the eeTenteeotli Cfi'; 
and the Liography of certain etiiin ' 
Iiidi(*f« that played a %^ery distitignhb#:tt 
part in the political mtrigufig un*l v> 
&nrn*f'tioas of ihv. pcriml 1 1 Is fl ■ ■ - 
ful if any man living had ^o thot. 
and tinnute a knowbdp^ of tha h 
ture, the religionji coairDrersies, ic 
philoHOpliyf Lhti poUtic^i^, and tht^ h^ • 
grapliy of the peflad fr*jtn the ;i 
don of Louia XXIL to tim ead ih 
wars of the Fii^ndc. and i[m iriu" 
of MaKariii over bia eu^iuit'*^, !i- 
poftseg^ed. lib Puebe^^ ih ' 
Tille, ftLidamo de Sublt^ Pim . 
C ho vrinii^ev and Madame de Ibiyi"). 
and his bbiory nf ibe couckatou nt 
wara of the Fronde, arts as II u 
varkfl, iinrivallt^d, wririen wiii* 
wmplicity, purity, gni'vs and th'i' 
of BSipre^jtion and ^tyU% mid hai ' 
eaf^y natural eloqntttict! and « h * 
iltjver !iurj*ri8Ki^d by any wntt.*r i-m- 
ib« French langaMg*-% Hi* hua n^' i 
tated (hose great dameii ai' ffi 
teuyth t!uniury, who 11 ve, los^ 
pent, and do [tenatic^ in hi- i 
tJiey did in real life. He ^^ « 
Paii^lan lias iaid, to have r< ^ i 
in h)ve with thempand to buv 
od each of them as bis tD)slr> 
bonor he must detl-nd at the 1 1 - 
lifr. 

The French, we beiicjve, it 
CMiunt M. Yillefoaia ns th*^ (i- 
ft^n tnji^terot' ibeir beautiful 1 >'■ 
but tt) our taate he wa* mr]y> 
C^iidin, if not lu the delteae)' ui |^l. 
which otdy a Freuehniaii bora or 
eat] appreciat<^; in all the higher ^ 
]ti«e of ityle^ lui mucb m his ^vj 



d. 

iIh 
»] 

\^ 



'usin and his Philosophy. 



387 




Ao 

ii our 
fOt he 

. Mngy 

cihjoct 

ten* IB 

uli 

is liS 

re the 

j» fk [I 'Inly 

.: k.v,*r of 

.i^Uiiin culls 

f I 18 irt 

»rd, be- 
ty *in(i llje 
; yt^X it Id 
he baae^ 
and Ilia 
By it be 
revelation* 
Ifcii3 opera- 
C^ason, aad 
(0f tliespon- 
In thii^ 
t& religions 
He plm^es 
ipiratioii and 
1 m the mnie 
m nil, in tba 
iiinonly 
■ 1, svheth- 
1^ 8ubjt3ctivei 
I lilt it i^ not 
irir^oua aciiv- 
-1! ur autlionLa- 
o nctivity. Dous 
ttie Araba that 
maniac are diviue 

p» Tiev&r to have 

real character 

cen intuition and 

}<? ri^flitlj inai^ti^i 

iiBonal, djvinc, infalli- 

he maintains, while 

ing of the imperfec- 

•aes of our own per- 



sonality, is individiuil, fallible, and 
without authority, save aa supported by 
intuition. All that we ever do or vslxx 
know is given us primarily in intuition, 
and what is so given constitutes the 
common sense, tlie common faith or be- 
lief of the race. There is less, but 
there can never be more, in reflection 
than in intuition. The difierence be- 
tween the two is the difference between 
seeing and heholdlag. I see what is be- 
fore me, but to behold it I look. I look 
that I may determine what it is I see. 
But it is clear from this ilhistration 
that the intuition is as much the act of 
the subject as is the reflection. The 
only difference between them is that 
asserted by Leibnitz between simple 
perception and apperception. In simple 
perception I ])erceive all the objects 
before me, without noting or distinguisli- 
ing them ; in apperception I note tliat 
it is I who perceive them, and distin- 
guish them both from myself and from 
one another. Th(^ intuition is a pos- 
terion, and is no synthetic judgment 
a priori J as Kaiu terms what must pre- 
cede experience in oixler to render ex- 
perience possible. 

Nor is it true to say that all our 
knowledge is given in the primitive in- 
tuition. What is given in the* primitive 
intuition is simply the ideal, self-evi- 
dent truths, as say some, first principles 
of all science, which are at the same 
time the (irst principles of all reality, 
and could not be the first ))rinciples of 
science if they were not tlie fii*st prin- 
ciples of reality, say others. Even 
tliey who assert that the ideal formula, 
JSns creat existenfiaSn is intuitive, never 
pretend that anything more tlum the 
ideal element of thought or ex{)«3rience 
is intuitive. The ideal formula is sim- 
ply the scientific reduction of the cat- 
egories of Aristotle and Kant to three, 
and their identification with reality ; 
that is, their reduction to being, exist- 
ence, and the creative act of being, 
which is the real nexus between them. 
These thi*ee categories must be given 
intuitively, or a priori, because without 
them the intelligence is not constituted, 
and no science, no experience, is possi- 



Victor Ccustn and his Philosophy, 



ble* Bui in them, while the principles 
of all science are ^ven, uo knowledge 
or apprehension of parlicular things is 
given. The intuition constitutes, we 
would pay create:?, the faculty of in- 
telligence, but all science ia acquired 
either by the exercise of that faculty 
or by divine revelation addressed to it 

Reduced to ita proper character as 
asserted by M* Couaiti, intuition is era- 
pirica!, and stands oppof*ed not to re- 
flection, but to diseureion, and i3 simply 
the itnmediale and direct perception of 
tlie object wilbout the intervention of 
any process, more or less elaborate, of 
reasoninpf. This i*, indeed, not an un- 
usual sense of the woi'd, perhaps its 
more comraon sense, but it is a scn?e 
that renders the diBtinction between in* 
tuition and reflection of no importance 
to M, Cousin, for it does not carry hira 
out of the sphere of the subject, or af* 
ford any bft.«^is for his onlological in- 
ductions. He has still the question as 
to the objectivity and reality of the 
ideal to solve, and no recognized means 
of solving if. His ontolopcal conclu- 
Bions, therefore, as a writer in The Chris- 
tian Examiner tcdd him as lon|? a^ifo 
as 1836, rest simply on the credibility « 
of ren^on or faitli in its trustworthiness, 
which can ncTCr be established, be- 
cause it is assumed tlmt to the opera- 
tion of reason no objective reality is 
nooeasary, since the objeetj if imperson- 
al, may for aught that appears be in- 
cluded in the subject. Notwithstanding 
his struggles and efforts of all sorts, 
we think, therefon?, that it niui^'t be con- 
ceded that Cousin remained in the 
spbcpc of psychology, and that the 
facta the study and analysis of con- 
sciousness gave him, have in his sys- 
tem no ontotogical value, for he fails 
to establish their real objectivity* His 
passage from psychology is a leap over 
a gulf by main strength, not a n^gular 
dialectic passage, which he professes to 
have found, or which he promises to 
provide, and which the true analysis of 
thought discloses. 

M. Cousin professes to have reduced 
tbe categories of Ktiut and Aristotle 

Liwo, substance and cause, or aub- 



Btanee and phenomenon. But, i 
in fact identifies cause with subali 
declaring substance to be subsiano 
only in so much as it is cause, and cans 
to be cause only in so much a§ it 
substance, he really reduces them 
the single category of substance^ whiel 
you may call indifferently »ubstance < 
cause. But though every substance i 
intrinsically and essentially a catii 
yet, as it may be something more tha 
cause, it is not necessary to insist ( 
this, and it may be admitted tha 
he recognizes two categories. Undo 
the head of substance he ranges 
that is substantial, or that pertain 
to real and necessary being, and unde 
the head of cause the phenomenal, 
the effects of the causative action 
substance. He says he onder^tandil 
by substance the universal and abso*! 
lute substance, the universal, neces- 
sary, and real being of the theologians^. 
and by phenomena not mere modes 
appearances of substance, but finib 
and relative substances, and calb then 
phenomena only in opposition to th 
one absolute substance. They ar 
created or produced by the caui*ativf 
action of substance. If this ba-^ an| 
real meaning, be should rccogni;^e thr 
categories, as in the ideal formula, £a 
creat exigtenttas^ that is, being, exisft 
ence, or creature, and the creative 
of being, the real nexus between sut 
stance or being and contingent exxsh 
enees, for it is that which places thea 
and binds them to the creivtor. In th 
ideal formula the categories ai>o 
reduced to three, which really includ 
them all and in their real relac5<i 
Whatever there is to be known must 1 
arranged under one or another of 
three terms of the formula, for wl 
ever is conceivuble must be being. 
creative act of being, or the pnnluet i 
that act, that is to say, existences* Th 
ideal formula is complete, for it asser 
in their h^gical relation the finit prill 
c I pies of all the know able (omne icihil 
and all the real (ornnr reale)^ and < 
all ifie knowable be(Aause of all the res 
for what is not real is not knowabI( 
M. Cousin^s reduction to substance i 



Vicior Cousin and his Philosophy, 



caase, or being and phenomena, besides 
being not accurately expressed, is un- 
scientific and defective. 

We do not think M. Cousin ever 
intended to deny the creative act of 
being, or the reality of existences, or 
what he calls phenomena, but he in- 
cludes the act in his conception of sub- 
stance. Grod is in his own intrinsic na- 
ture, he maintains, causative or crea- 
tive, and cannot, therefore, not cause or 
create. Hence, creation is necessary. 
Being causative in his essence, essen- 
tially a cause, and cause being a cause 
only inasmuch as it causes or is actu- 
ally a cause, Gk)d is, if we may so speak, 
forced to create, and to be continuous- 
ly creating, by the intrinsic and eter- 
oal necessity of his own being. This 
smacks a little of Hegellanism, which 
teaches that God perfects or fills out 
his own being, or realizes the possibili- 
ties of his own nature, in creating, and 
arriTes at self-consciousness first in 
man — a doctrine which our Boston 
trnnscendentalists embodied in their 
favorite aphorism, " In oi-der to be you 
most do" — as if without being it is pos- 
sible to do, as if imperfection could 
make itself perfection, or anything by 
itself alone could make itself more than 
itis! 

Bat the doctrine that substance is 
easentially cause, and must from in- 
trinsic necessity cause in the sense of 
crediting, is not tenable. We are aware 
that Leibnitz, a great name in philoso- 

gij, defines substance to be an active 
rce, a vis activa^ but we do not recol- 
lect that he anywhere pretends that its 
Activity necessarily extends beyond 
itself. €rod is vis aetivcL, if you will, 
in a sapereminent degree ; he is essen- 
tially active, and would be neither 
being nor substance if he were not; 
be is, as say Aristotle and the school- 
men, most pure act ; and hence the 
theologians discover in him a reason 
for the eternal generation of the Son, 
^jid the eternal procession of the Holy 
Ohoet, or why God is necessarily in- 
divisible Trinity ; but nothing in this 
implies that he must necessarily act 
Qd eadtroy or create. He acts eternally 



from the necessity of his own divine 
nature, but not necessarily out of the 
circle of his own infinite being, for he 
is complete in himself, the plenitude of 
Ijeing, and always and everywhere 
suffices for himself, and therefore for 
his own activity. Creation, or the pro- 
duction of effecis exterior to himself, 
is not necessary to the perfection of his 
activity, adds and can add nothing to 
him, as it does and can take nothing 
from him. Hence, though we cannot 
conceive of him without conceiving 
him as infinitely, etepally, and es- 
sentially active, we can conceive of 
him as absolute substance or being 
without conceiving him to be necessa- 
rily acting or creating ad extra, 

M. Cousin evidently confounds the 
interior act of the divme being with 
his exterior acts, or acts ad extra, or 
creative acts. God being most pure 
act, says the eclectic philosopher, he 
must be infinitely active, and if infin- 
itely active he must develop himself in 
creation ; therefore, creation is neces- 
sary, and God cannot but create. This 
denies while it asserts that God is in 
himself most pure act, and assumes 
that his nature has possibilities that can 
be realized only in external acts. It 
makes the creation necessary to the per- 
fection of his being, and assumes either 
that he is not in himself ens perfeO' 
tissimum, or most perfect being, or that 
the creation, the world, or universe, 
is itself God ; that is, the conception ol 
God as most perfect being includes 
both substance and cause, both being 
and phenomenon. Hence, with the con 
tradiction of which M. Cousin gives 
more than one example, and which no 
pantheistic philosopher does or can es- 
cape, in asserting creation to be neces- 
sary, he declares it to be impossible ; 
for the phenomena substantially con- 
sidcn^d are God himself, indistinguish- 
able from him, and necessary to com- 
plete our conception of him as abso- 
lute substance, or most perfect being. 

In the preface to the third edition of 
his Philosophical Fragments, M. Cou- 
sin says the expression, " Creation is 
necessary," is objectionable, as irrever- 



•i090ph^,' 



ent, and appearinfj to implj that God in 
ci*eaiing is not free, and he witlinglj?" 
oonsi^nts to retract it. But we cannot 
find that he doe^ retract it, and, if he 
retracts the expression, he nowhere 
retracts the thought He denies tliat 
he favors a system of falahsm, and la- 
bors hard to prove that though Grod 
cannot hut create, yet that in creating 
he is free. Grod, he says, must act ac- 
cording to his own essential nature, and 
cannot act cx)ntrarj to hia own wisdom 
and goodness j yet in acting he acta 
freely. There is a distinction he t ween 
liberty and free will Fi-ee will is 
liberty accompanied hy deliberation 
and strugglca between opposite mo* 
tivcfi and tendfmcics. In God there 
can be no hesiiancyi no dehberation, 
no Btruggle of choice between good 
and evil Yet is he none the less free 
for that. There are suhhme moments 
when the soul acta spontaneously, with 
terrible energy, without any deli- 
beration* Is the soul in these sublime 
moments deprived of liberty? The 
saint, when, by long struggles and se- 
vere liiscipUnc, he has overcome all his 
inlcnial enemies, and henceforth acts 
right spontaneously, without deUbe- 
niting — is he Iciis free than ho who is 
fitill in the agony of the slruggle, or 
are his acta less mcntorioua ? Is the 
liberty of God taken away by deny- 
ing that he is frve to act contrary to 
his nature? 

Whether the distinction here assert- 
ed between liberty and free will is ad- 
mbnible or not, or whether all that ia 
ttlkgcfd l>e true or much of it only er- 
ror, we puss over, as the discussion 
of the question of hberty would lead 
further than vtc can now go j but in all 
he says ho avoids the real question at 
issue, t'ertainlyt there can be no hesi- 
Umcy o!i the part of God, no interior 
struggle as to choice between good and 

'evil, no deliberation as to what he shall 
do or not do ; nothing that implies the 

(least possihlc imperfection can be in 
him. Certain, again, is it that God is 
not free to alter his o*vn nature, to 
change bis own attributes, or to act 
oontmry to them, to the eternal ea- 



senccs of things, or lo his own ei 
ideas. But that Is not the que 
The real question is, Is he free to i 
ate or not create at his own will 
pleasure ? Among the infinite numlx 
of contingents possible, and all aceor 
ing with hia own essential attribntos, i| 
he free to select such as he cho 
and at his own will and pleasure gif 
them existence ? This is the only que 
lion he had to answer, and this quea 
tion he studiously avoids, and fa 
therefore, to sliow that they are wroni 
who accuse him of asserting creatio 
as the necessary and not the free aQ 
of God* The charge of asserling uni^ 
versal fatalism and pantheism he ther 
fore fails to meeL He fails to vindi- 
cate the liberty of God, and then?fore,1 
though he asserts it, the liberty of 
man* All pantheism is fatalistic, and 
the doctrine of Spinoza is not more de*| 
cidcdly pantheistic than the sysie 
adopted and defended by Cousin. 

We ai'c far from believing that UJ 
Cousin thought himself a pantheist 
for we do not think he ever underj 
stood his own system. He was mor 
that} most men the dupe of worcb, and 
though not destitute of philosophic 
genius, philosophy was never hia naUi* 
ral vocation, any more than it was hlsj 
original destination. He was always, 1 
as we have said, the litlOrateur ratherl 
than the philosopher* Much allowuneel 
should also, no doubt, be made fur thai 
unsettled state of philosophy in Fr.uicel 
when he became, under Roy er- Coll ard,( 
master of confereoces in the Nor 
School of Paris, and the confused fltati 
of philosophical language that waai 
then in use. Thmughout his wholel 
ontology, he is misled by taking thai 
word substance insti'ad of em or boio^ 
He says that he understands by sub»| 
stance, when he asserts, as he does,! 
that there is only one substance, whal] 
the fathers and doctore of the church 
mean by the one supreme, nerr^Hnry^ ^ 
absolute, and eternal l>eing, thv 
Qui ittm, I am that I am, oi j 
the name under which God revealed | 
him^^elf to Moses. This is an improper j 
use of the word. No doubt btnng ia I 



Victor Cousin and his Philosophy. 



841 



sabstance, or substantial, but the two 
terms are not equivalents. Being has 
primary reference to that which is, 
as opposed to that which is not, or 
nothing; substance is something, and 
so far coincides with being, but some- 
thing in opposition to attribute, mode, 
or accident,or something capable of sup- 
porting attributes, modes, or accidents. 
Being is absolute in and of itself, and 
therefore strictly speaking one, and it 
is only in a loose sense that we speak 
of beings in the plural number, or call 
creatures beings. There is and can be 
but one only being, God, for he only 
can say, ^o sum Qui sum, and what- 
ever existences there may be distin- 
guished from him have their being not 
in themselves, but in him, according to 
what St Paul says, '* in him we live, 
and move, and have our being: in ipso 
tfivtmiUj et movemttr. et sumus'^ There 
Is m this view nothing pantheistic, for 
being is complete in itself and sufficient 
for itself. Consequently, there can be 
nothing distinguishable from being ex- 
cept placed by the free creative act of 
being, that is, creation or creatures. 
The creature is not being, but it holds 
from being by the creative act, and 
may be and is a substance, distinct 
from the divine substance. Being is 
one, substances may be manifold. 
Sence, in the ideal formula, the first 
term or category is en^, not suhstans 
or substantia. 

Cousin, misled by Descartes and 
SpiDOza, and only imperfectly acquaint- 
ed with the scholastic philosopliy, 
9%dopts the term substance instead of 
V»eing, and maintains sturdily, from first 
(o last, that there is and can be but one 
Substance. Whence it follows that all 
^ot in that one substance is unsubstan- 
tial and phenomena], without attri- 
Viutes, modes, or activity. Creatures 
t»ay have their being in God and yet 
Vfce substances and capable of acting 
^from theur own centre as second causes ; 
l>atx, if there is only one substance, they 
Cannot themselves be substances in any 
Bense at all, and can be only attributes, 
tuodes, or phenomena of the one only 
atibstance, or God. Grod alone is in 



himself their substance and reality, and 
their activity is really his activity. By 
taking for his first category substance 
instead of ens or being, M, Cousin 
found himself obliged virtually to deny 
the second. He says he calls the 
second category phenomena, only in 
opposition to the one universal sub- 
stance, that he holds them to relative 
or finite substances. This shows his 
honorable intentions, but it cannot 
avail him, for he says over and over 
again that there is and can be but one 
substance. Either substance is one 
and one only, he says formally, or it is 
nothing. The unity of substance is 
vital in his system, and unity of sub- 
stance is the essential principle, of 
pantheism. He liimself defines sub- 
stance as that which exists in itself 
and not in another. 

M. Cousm say pantheism is the 
divinization of nature, or nature taken 
in its totality as God. But this is 
sheer atheism or naturalism, not 
pantheism. The essence of panthe- 
ism is in the denial of substantial 
creation or the creation of substances. 
The pantheist can, in a certain man- 
ner, even admit creation, the creation 
of modes or phenomena, and there are 
few pantheists who do not assert as 
much. The test is as to the creation 
of substances, or existences that can 
support attributes, modes, or accidents 
of their own, instead of being simply 
attributes, modes, or accidents of the one 
substance, and thus capable of acting 
from their own centre as pi*oper second 
causes. He who denies the creation of 
such existences is a pantheist, and he 
who affirms it is a theist and no pan- 
theist, however he may err in other 
matters. Had M. Cousin understood 
this, he would have seen that he had 
not escaped the error of Spinoza. 
With only one substance, it is impossi- 
ble to assert the creation of substances. 
The substance of the soul and of the 
world, if there is only one substance, is 
God, and they are only phenomenal 
or mere appearances ; the only activity 
in the universe is that of God ; and 
what we call our acts are his acts. 



342 



Victor Comin and hU Phihiophy. 



Whatever id done, whether j^ood or 
evil, he does it> not only aa camn emi^ 
nem or cait$a causarvm, but as direct 
and 'nnmediiitc aclor. The moral con- 
sequeuces of such a docti^ine are easy to 
be seen^ and need not be dvs'elt upon. 

No doubt M. Cousin, when repellinjr 
the charge of pantheisDi preferred 
against him, on the ground of his main- 
taining that then* is only one substance, 
thought ho had said enough in saying 
that he used the word phenomena in 
the sense of finite or relative sub- 
stances; but if there is only one sub- 
fltance, how can there be any finite and 
relolivo sub.^tanres ? And he., also, 
should iinve eon^sidered that his use of 
the word phenomena was the worst 
word he could have chosen to convey 
^tbe idea of Bubstanee, however finite, 
for it stands /jppa^ed to substance. He 
Bftya le mot and hs 7ion-moi are in re- 
lation to substance phenomenuL Who 
li"0!n this could conclude them to be 
tlietUBclves Bubstances ? lie says he 
could not mainiain that they are modes 
er appearance^; of substtance only, be- 
' eause he maintains that they are forces, 
) causes. But it sometimes happens to 
t i^ philosopher to be in contradiction 
with himselfj and always to the pan- 
theit*t, because pantheism is supremely 
fophistical and selfconti-adictory. It 
admits of no clear, consistenti logical 
Statement, Besides, no man can always 
I be on his guard, and when his gystcin 
is (lihe^ the force of trnili and bis good 
I iCDse and just feeling will often get the 
I better of his system. II« has, indeed, 
said the soul (/<? mot) and the world 
{h non-inoi) are forcoj?, cause* ; hot he 
has aUo said, as Iiia system requires 
liim to say, that their substantial acti- 
vity is the activity ot the one only sub- 
atance, which is God. 

It were easy lo justify these criti 
eisms by any number of citations from 
I IL Cousin's several works, but it is not 
necessary, for we are attempting neither 
a formal exposition nor a formal refu- 
tation of his system ; we are merely 
[ |K>inting out some of his errors and 
* mistakes, for the benefit of young and 
Ijngenuous sUidentft of pliilosophy, who 



I 



need to be shown what it is necessai 
to shun on the points taken up. MosL 
if not all, of M. t^ousin's mistakes anq 
erroi*s arose from his having eons iderei 
the question of metho<l b^fonj he bai 
settled that of principles. He says i 
philosopher's whole philosophy is in hit 
method. Tell me what is such or sucb 
a philrjsopherV method, and I will tell 
you his philosophy. But tJiis is noi 
true, unless by methotl he moans both 
principles and method taken logetben 
Method is tlie application of priiiciptea, 
and presupposes them, and till they ara; 
determined it is impossible to detenntna 
i\i% methixl to be adopted or pursued. 
The liuman mind has a method given 
it in its very constitution, ajid vve can- 
not treat the question of raethoiJ hll we 
have ascertained the principles of that 
constitution. Principles are no* found 
or obtained by the exercise of our facul- 
ties, because without them the mind can 
neither operate nor even exist. Prin- 
ciples are and mtisl be given by the 
creator of the mind itself; To Ireal 
the question of method before we have 
ascertained what princi[»leB are thua 
given, is to proceed in the dark and to 
lose our way. 

Undoubtedly, every philosopher moat 
begin the construction of his pbUosophy 
by the analysis of thought, either aa 
presented him in consciousness or UA 
represented in language, or botli to- 
gether. This is a mental necessity. 
Since philosophy dealsonly with thought 
or what is presented in thought, its 6r^ 
step mttst be to ascertain what are tha 
elements of thought* So far as thw 
analysis is psychological, philo!*ophy 
begins in psychology; but whether 
wliat is called the psychological meibod 
is or is not to be adopted, wo cannot 
determrne till we have ascertained the 
elements, and ascertained whether they 
are all psychological or not. If on in- 
quiry it should turn out that in cvrry 
thought there is Ixjlh a psychological 
and an oniologic*al element given simal- 
laneously and In an indis!*oluble syntlie* 
813, it is manifest that the exclusively 
psychological method would lead only 
to enxkr. It »vouhi Ic^tve out tliu onto 



Vtetor Cousin and his Philosophy. 



848 



logical element, and be unable to pre- 
sent in its true character even the 
psychological ; for, if the psychological 
element in the real order and in thought 
exists only in relation with the ontolog- 
ical, it can be apprehended and treated 
in its true character only in that rela- 
tion. Whether such be the fact or not, 
how are we to determine till we know 
what are the principles alike of all the 
knowable and of all tiie real — that is, 
have determined the categories ? 

The error of the psychological method 
is not that it asserts the necessity of 
beginning our philosophizing with the 
analysis of thought, or what M. Cousin 
calls, not very properly, the fact of 
consciousness, but in proceeding to 
study the facts of the human soul, as 
if man were an isolated existence, and 
the only thing existing ; and after hav- 
ing observed and classified these facts, 
either stopping with them, as does Sir 
William Hamilton, or proceeding by 
way of induction, as most psychologists 
do, to the conclusion of ontological 
principles — an induction which both 
Sir William Hamilton and Schelling 
luive proved, in their criticisms of Cou- 
sin's method, is invalid, because no in- 
action is valid that concludes beyond 
the facts or particulars from which it 
is made. The facts being all psycho- 
Jogical, nothing not psycliologicai can 
l>e concluded from them. Cousin feels 
Yhe force of this criticism, but, without 
^^onceding that his method is wrong or 
defective, seeks to avoid it by alleging 
that among the facts of consciousness 
mre some which, though revealed by 
^xmscioosness or contained in thought, 
sre some which are not psychological, 
mnd hence psychology leads 6f itself 
not by way of induction, but directly, 
^to ontology. The answer is pertinent, 
^or if it be true that there is an ontolog- 
:ical element in every thought, the analy- 
sis of thought discloses it. But, hamper- 
ed and blinded by his method, Cousin 
"lails, as we have seen, to disengage a 
really ontological element, and in his 
blundering explanation of it deprives 
It of all r^ (»tological character. His 
God 18 anthropomorphoas, when not a 



generalization or a pure abstraction. 
What deceives the exclusive psycholo- 
gists, and makes them regard their in- 
ductions of ontology from psychological 
facts as valid, is the very important 
fact that there are no exclusively psy- 
chological facts; and in their psychology, 
though not recognized by them as such, 
and acconling to their metlmd ought not 
to be such, there are real ontological 
elements— elements which are not psy- 
chological, and without which there 
could be no psychological elements. 
These elements place us directly in re- 
lation with the ontological reality, and 
the mistake is in not seeing or recogniz- 
ing this fact, and in assuming that the 
ontological reality, instead of being giv- 
en, as it is, intuitively, is obtained by 
induction from the psychological. On- 
tology as an induction or a logical 
conclusion is sophistical and false ; as 
given intuitively in the first principles of 
thought, it is well founded and true. The 
mistake arises from having attempted 
to settle the question of method before 
having settled the question of principles. 
The simple fact is that the soul is not 
the only existence, nor an isolated ex- 
istence. It exists and operates only in 
relation with its creator and upholder, 
with the external world, and with other 
men or society, so that there are and 
can be no purely psychological facts. 
The soul severed from God, or the cre- 
ative act of God, cannot live, cannot 
exist, but drops into the nothing it was 
before it was created. Principles are 
given, not found or obtained by our own 
activity, for, as we have said, the 
mind cannot operate without principles. 
The principles, as most philosophers 
tell us, arc self-evident, or evidence 
themselves. If real principles, they 
are and must be alike the principles of 
being and of knowing, of science and 
reality. They must include in their 
real rehitions both the psychological 
and the ontological. As the psychologi- 
cal does not and cannot exist without 
the ontological, and, indeed, not without 
the creative act of the ontological^ 
science is possible only on condition 
that the ontological and the psychologi- 



M4 



Vieior Cousin and his Philosophy, 



cal, as to their ideal principles, are in- 
tuitively given, and given in their 
real synthesis, as it has been abundantly 
shown they are given in the ideal 
formula. The ontological and psycho- 
logical being given intuitively and 
simultaneously in their real relation, it 
follows necessarily that neither the ex- 
clusively psychological method nor the 
exclusively ontological method can be 
accepted, and that the method must be 
synthetic, because the principles them- 
selves are given in their real synthesis. 
Cleariy, then, the principles must deter- 
mine the method, not the method the 
principles. It is not true, then, to say 
that all one's philosophy is in one's 
method, but that it is all in one's prin- 
ciples. If M. Cousin had begun by 
ascertaining what are the principles of 
thought, necessarily asserted in every 
thought and without which no thought 
is possible, he could never have fallen 
into his pan theism, which every thought 
repudiates, and which cannot even be 
asserted without self contradiction, be- 
cause in every thought there is given 
as essential to the very existence of 
thought the express contradictory of 
pantheism of every form. 

M. Cousin professes to be able, from 
the method a philosopher follows in phi- 
losophizing, to foretell his philosophy ; 
but although we would speak with the 
greatest respect of our former master, 
from whom we received no little bene- 
fit, we must say that we have never 
met a man, equally learned and equally 
able, so singularly unhappy in explain- 
ing the systems of the various schools 
of philosophy of which he professes to 
give the history. We cannot now call 
to mind a single instance in which he 
has seized and presented the kernel 
of the philosophical system he has un- 
dertaken to explain. He makes the 
Thea?tetus of Plato an argument 
against the sensists, or the doctrine 
of the ongin of all our ideas in sen- 
sation — when one has but to read that 
Dialogue to perceive that what Plato 
is seeking to prove is that the know- 
ledge of the sensible, which is multiple, 
^'ariable, and evanescent, is no real 



science at all. Plato is not discussing 
at all the question of how we know, 
but what we must know in order to have 
real science. Cousin's exposition of 
what he calls the Alexandrian theodi- 
cy, or of neoplatonism, is, notwith- 
standing he had edited the works 
of Proclus, a marvel of misapprehen- 
sion alike of the Alexandrian doctrine 
and of Christian theology. He de- 
scribes with a sneer the scholastic 
philosophy as being merely ** a com- 
mentary on the Holy Scriptures and 
texts from the fathers." He edited the 
works of Descartes, but never under- 
stood more of that celebrated philoso- 
pher than enough to imbibe some of 
his worst errors. He has borrowed 
much, directly or indirectly, from 
Spinoza, but never comprehended his 
system of pantheism, as is evident 
from his judgment that Spinoza erred 
only in being too devout and too filled 
and penetrated with God I 

He misapprehends entirely Leib- 
nitz^s doctrine of substance, as we 
have already seen. His own system 
is in its psychological part borrowed 
chiefly from Kant, and in its ontologi- 
cal part from Hegel, neither of whom 
has he ever understood. He has the 
errors of these two distinguished Ger- 
mans without their truths or their logi- 
cal firmness. And perhaps there was 
no system of philosophy, of which he 
undertook to give an account, that he 
less understood than his own. He 
seems, at\er having learned something of 
the great mediasval philosophers in pre* 
paring his work, Philosophic Schqlas- 
tique, to have had some suspicions that 
he had talked very foolishly, and had 
been the dupe of his own youthful zeal 
and enthusiasm ; tor, though he after- 
ward published a new edition of his 
warks without any essential alteration, 
as we infer from the fact that they were 
placed at Rome on the Index, he pub- 
lished, as far as we are aware, no new 
philosophical work, and turned his at^ 
tention to other subjects. Even in his 
work on the Scholastics, as well as in 
his account of Jansenism in his woriL 
on Madame de Sabl^ we raooUeoi &# 



Vieiar Cousin and his Philosophy. 



845 



re-assertion of bis pantheism, nor even 
an unorthodox opinion. 

It was a great misfortune for M. 
Cousin as a philosopher that he knew 
so little of Catholic theology, and that 
what little he did know, apparently 
caught up at second-hand, only serv- 
ed to mislead him. We are far from 
building science on faith or found- 
ing philosophy on revelation, in the 
sense of the traditionalists ; yet we 
dare affirm that no man who has not 
studied profoundly the Gospel of St 
John, the Epistles of St. Paul, the 
great Greek and Latin fathers, and 
the mediaeval doctors of the church, is 
in a condition to write anything de- 
serving of serious consideration on 
philosophy. The great controversies 
that have been called forth from time to 
time on the doctrine of the Trinity, 
the Incarnation, the two natures and 
the two wills in the one person of our 
Lord, the Real Presence of our Lord's 
body, soul, and divinity in the Eu- 
charist, liberty and necessity, the re- 
lations of nature and grace, and of 
reason and faith, throw a brilliant 
light on philosophy far surpassing all 
the light to be derived from Gentile 
sources, or by the most careful 
analysis of the facts of our own con- 
sciousness. -The effort, on the one 
hand, to demolish, and on the other to 
sustain, Catholic dogma, has enlighten- 
ed the darkest and most hidden pas- 
sages of both psychology and ontology, 
and placed the Catholic theologian, 
really master of the history of his 
science, on a vantage ground which 
they who know it not are incapable 
of conceiving. Before him your Des- 
cartes, Spinozas, Kants, Fichtes, Schel- 
lings, Hegels, Cousins, dwindle to phi- 
losophical pigmies. 

The excellent M. Augustin Cochin 
thinks that M. Cousin rendered great 
service to the cause of religion by the 
sturdy warfare he carried in defence 
of spiritualism against the gross sens- 
ism and materialism of the eight- 
eenth century, and nobody can deny 
very considerable merit to his Critical 
Examination of Locke*B Essay on the 



Human Understanding. Dr. C. S. 
Henry translated it some years ago, 
in this country, and published it under 
the rather inappropriate title of Cou- 
sin's Psychology, and it has no doubt 
had much infuence in unseating 
Locke from the philosophical throne 
he formerly occupied. But the re- 
action against Locke and Condi Uac, 
as well as the philosophers of Auteuil, 
had commenced long before Cousin be- 
came master of conferences in L*Ecole 
Normale; and we much doubt if the 
subtile r and more refined rationalism 
he has favored is a less dangerous 
enemy to religion and society than the 
scnsism of Condillac, or the gross ma- 
terialism of Cabanis, Garat, and Des- 
tutt de Tracy. Under his influence 
infidelity in France has modified its 
form, but only, as it seems to me, to 
render itself more difficult of detection 
and refutation. Pantheism is a far 
more dangerous enemy than material- 
ism, for its refutation demands an or- 
der of thought and reasoning above 
the comprehension of the great mass 
of those who are not incapable of being 
misled by its sophistries. The refuta- 
tion of the pantheism of our days re- 
quires a mental culture and a philoso- 
phical capacity by no means common. 
Thousands could comprehend the refu- 
tation of Locke or Condillac, where 
there is hardly one who can understand 
the refutation of Hugel or Spinoza. 

Besides, we do not think Cousin can 
be said to have in all cases opposed 
the truth to sensism. His spiritualism 
is not more true than sensism itself. 
He pretends that we have immediate 
and direct apprehension of spiritual 
reality — ^that is, pure intellections. 
TVue, he says that we apprehend the 
noetic only on occasion of sensible af- 
fection, but on such occasion we do ap- 
prehend it pure and simple. This is 
as to the apprehension itself exagge- 
rated spiritualism, and would almost 
justify the fair pupil of Marjran^t Ful- 
ler in her exclamation, " Miss Ful- 
ler! I see right into the abyss of being." 
Man, not being a pure intelligence, but 
intelligence clothed with sensibility, haa 



S46 



Victor Cousin and his Fhilosophy. 



and can have no pure intellections. 
M. Cousin would have been more cor- 
rect if, instead of saying that the affec- 
tion of the sensibility is necessary as the 
occasion, he had said, we know the su- 
persensible indeed, but only as sensi- 
bly rcf)resented. 

In this sense we understand the pe- 
ripatetics when they say : " Nihil est in 
intellectu, quod non prius fuerit in 
sensu." The medium of this sensible 
representation of the intelligible or 
spiritual truth to the understanding is 
lan<riiage of some sort, which is its 
sensible sign. M. Cousin would have 
done well to have studied more care- 
fully on this subject the remarkable 
work of l)e Bonald, a work, though 
it has some errore, of an original ge- 
nius of the first order, and of a really 
profound thinker. Had ho done this, 
he might have seen that the reflective 
reason caimot operate without lan- 
guage, and understood something of 
the necessity of the infallible chuix;h 
to maintain the unity and integrity of 
language, whose corruption by philoso- 
phers invariably involves the loss of 
the unity and integrity of the idea. It 
might also have taught him that a 
philosophy worth anything cannot be 
spun by the philosopher out of his own 
consciousness as the spider spins her 
web out of her own bowels, and that 
without as much at least of primitive 
revelation or the primitive instruction 
given by God himself to the race, as 
IB embodi(Mi in language, no man can 
successtully cultivate philosophy. 

As minister of public instniction 
under Louis Philippe, M. Cousin la- 
bored hanl and with some success, we 
know not how much, to extend prima- 
ry schools in France ; but he in part 
neutralized his ser\*ices in this respect 
by his defence of the university mono- 
poly, his opposition to the freedom of 
eihioalion, his efforts to force his pan- 
thei>tic or at best rationalistic philoso-^ 
phy into the colleges of the univewi- 
ty, and his intense hatred and unre- 
lenting hostility to the Jesuits, who 
have tirst and last done so much for 
education and religioo ia France as 



well as elsewhere. Ordinarily a man 
of great candor, and of a most kindly 
disposition, his whole nature seemed to 
change the moment a Jesuit was in 
question. He was no friend to the 
Catholic religion, and after the writer 
of this became a Catholic, he forgot 
his French politeness, and refused to 
answer a single one of his letters. To 
him we were either dead or had become 
an enemy. He moreover never liked to 
have his views questioned. In politics 
he belonged to the Doctrinaire school, 
and supported the juste milieu. In 
the Revolution of 1848, and under the 
Republic, he opposed earnestly social- 
ism, and attempted to stay its progress 
by writing and publishing a series of 
philosophical tracts, as if philosophy 
could cure an evil which it had help- 
ed to create. When society is in dis- 
order, old institutions are falling, and 
civilization is rapidly lapsing into bar- 
barism, it is only religion, speaking 
from on high with the power of truth 
and the authority of Gkid, that can ar- 
rest thvi downward tendency. ** Reli- 
gion," said Lamennais in the first vol- 
ume of his Essay on Indifference in 
Matters of Religion, << is found at the 
cradle of nations ; philosophy at their 
tomb.** Woe to the nation that ex- 
clianges faith for philosophy ! its ruin 
is at hand, for it has lost the principle 
of life. After the coup ditat little 
was heard of Cousin either in the 
world of politics or philosophy, and 
his last years appear to have flowed 
away in the peaceful pursuits of liter- 
ature. 

Rumors from time to time reached 
us during the last dozen years that 
M. Cousin had become a Catholic, 
and for his sake we regret that they 
have remained unconfirmed. It ia 
reported, on good authority, that he 
regularly attended mass, and was ac* 
customed to say his morning and even* 
ing prayers before an image of Oar 
Lady; but it is agreed by his most 
intimate Catholic friends that he 
never made any formal prvifessioa 
of Catholic faith, and died witiioiit 
receiving or asking the 



PraiH9 of the Blessed Sacrament, 



847 



of the church. That in his later 
jears his mind tamed at times toward 
the church, that his feelings toward re- 
ligion were soflened, and that he felt the 
need of faith, is very probahle ; but we 
have seen no evidence that he ever 
avowed publicly or privately any es- 
sential change in his doctrine. He al- 
ways held that the Catholic faith is the 
form under which the people do and 
must receive the truth; but he held 
that the truth thus received does not 
transcend the natural order, and is 
transformed with the ^lite of the race 
into philosophy. 

We have found in his works no re- 
cognition of the supernatural order, or 
the admission of any other revelation 
than the inspiration of the impersonal 
reason. Providence for him was fate, 
and God was not free to interpose in 
a supernatural way for the redemption 
and salvation of men. Creation itself 
was necessary, and the universe only 
the evolution of his substance. There 
13 no evidence that we have seen that 
he ever attained to the conviction that 
creation is the free act of the creator, 
or felt even for a moment the deep joy 
of believing that God is free. Yet it 
is not ours to judge the man. We 
follow him to the mouth of the grave, 
wknd there leave him to the mercy as 
^ell as the justice of him whose very 
justice is love. 



We are not the biographer of Victor 
Cousin; we have only felt that we could 
- not let one so distinguished in life, who 
had many of the elements of a really 
great man, and whom the present 
writer once thought a great philoso- 
pher, pass away in total silence. Gre- 
nius has always the right to exact a cer- 
tain homage, and Victor Cousin had 
genius, though not, in our judgment^ 
the true philosophical genius. We 
have attempted no regular exposition 
or refutation of his philosophy; our 
only aim has been to call attention 
to his teachings on those points 
where he seemed to approach near- 
est the truth, and on which the young 
and ardent philosophical student most 
needs to be placed on his guard, to 
bring out and place in a clear light 
certain elements of philosophic truth 
which he failed to grasp. We place not 
philosophy above faith, but we do not 
believe it possible to construct it with- 
out faith ; we yet hold that it is neces- 
sary to every one who would under- 
stand the faith or defend it against 
those who impugn it If on any point 
what we have said on the occasion of 
the departure of the founder of French 
eclecticism shall serve to make the truth 
clearer to a single ingenuous and ear- 
nest inquirer, we shall thank Gk)d that 
he has permitted us to live not wholly 
in vain. 



PRAISES OP THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



. Imitated from Madame Siretchlne. 

O VAULT of heaven, clear and bright ! 
All spangled o'er with stars to-night, 
Canst say how many worlds of light 
Adorn thy glorious firmament? 

For here I long ray voice to raise 
To him who hath my heart always , 
And fain would know how oft to praise 
The sweet, All Holy Sacrament 



848 Praises of the Blessed Scierament, 

O shining sun I for every ray 
That from thee beamed since Eden's day, 
And shall, till this wdrld pass away, 
And all thy light and heat be spent : 



For each bright ray my voice Pd raise 
To him who hath my heart always, 
And sing a canticle of praise 
To this Most Holy Sacrament. 

trackless sea! could I but save 
And count each short-lived glist'ning wave ; 
Their sum would tell how oft I crave 
To praise the Blessed Sacrament. 



O fields ! for every grassy blade 
Of which thy beauteous robe is made. 
Let offerings sweet of praise be laid 
Before the Blessed Sacrament. 



O pleasant gardens ! could I know 
How many fiowers within you grow : 
So many flowers of praise Fd strew 
Before the Blessed Sacrament. 



O wide, wide world ! canst tell to me 
How many grains of dust in thee ? 
So many would my praises be 
To this Most Holy Sacrament. 

O earth ! thy praises have an end ; 
To seraphs I the task commend. 
Their tireless voices they must lend 
To pi*aise the Blessed Sacrament. 

Eternity ! duration long ! 
To thee alone it doth belong 
To measure when should cease the song 
That lauds the Blessed Sacrament ! 



Architecture of Birdt, 



849 



From Gbambera^s Joomal. 

ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 



If we desire to look upon something 
which the first inhabitants of oar planet 
saw exactly as it is to-day, we have 
only to stand before a bird's nest. 
Toor bird is no innovator: he laid 
down the plan of his dwelling at the 
creation of the world, and, while every- 
thing around him has been changing, 
assuming new forms, yielding to the 
influence of fashion, has remained con- 
tent with his primitive architecture ever 
since. He calculates the number, and 
considers the necessities of his family, 
and with unerring sagacity provides 
for them alL He imitates none of his 
neighbors, and his neighbors, in their 
turn, display no inclination to imitate 
him. There is in our rural districts a 
tradition of a farmer*s daughter, who, 
having observed her mother winnow at 
a certain barn-door, stuck to the same 
locality through life, without the slight- 
est reference to the quarter from 
whence the wind blew. So exactly 
is it with the bird. He cares for no- 
thing but his own ideas of comfort, con- 
venience, suitability — whetlier the ori- 
ginal type of his mansion necessitated 
its being built on tlie summit of a rock 
or a tree, under the eaves of a house, 
or in the thick foliage of a bush, in the 
crevice of a clifi^ or amid the rustling 
grass of a meadow. 

To study the habitations of birds is 
to traverse the whole extent of man's 
universal habitation, through every 
zone from the equator to the polar 
circle; from the tops of the highest 
ranges, amid unscalable crags and 
snows, to the sedgy margin of the 
eetu and the mossy banks of streams. 
Wherever the air is fanned by a 
wing — ^wherever eggs are deposited — 
wherever little bills are opened almost 
hourly for food — wherever the hen 
sits, and the male bird roves and toils 
to support her — wherever, from bough 



or twig, he pours music into the woods, 
to cheer his helpmate during her labor of 
love, there is poetry ; whether, as on the 
lofiy surface of Danger Island, or amid 
the flowery bogs of the Orinoco, the 
airy artisan works in solitude, or, on 
village roof and church spire, clings 
to the vicinity of man. Naturalists 
gravely inform us that birds are bi- 
peds like ourselves, which in some 
cases may be thought to account for 
their fondness for our society, a with 
the sparrow, the swallow, the red- 
breast, and the martin ; but, on the 
other hand, several members of this 
numerous family, though they boast of 
no more legs than we, make careful 
use of those they have to keep out of 
our way. Even among the swallow 
tribe, there is one remarkable branch 
which abjures the man-loving qualities 
of his congeners — we mean the sea- 
swallow of the Twelve Thousand Isl- 
ands, which in breeding-time mounts 
high into the air, takes a scrutinizing 
survey of the earth beneath, and, se- 
lecting for his quarters the least fre- 
quented, descends, skims into some 
lofty cave, and there builds his pro- 
creant cradle. In this way he. hopes 
to elude observation. Flattering him- 
self that his whereabouts will remain 
undiscovered, he darts away with his 
wife to their favorite element the ocean, 
where it breaks ui)on solitary shores, 
and, flying along its crested surges, 
gathers from amid the foam and spray 
the materials of its dwelling, the nature 
of which still remains unknown. What- 
ever it may be, it forms a delicate bas- 
sinet in which to deposit its eggs and 
rear its young. Less white than ala- 
baster, the nest of the sea- swallow is 
of a light color, and semi-transparent, 
odoriferous in smell, glutinous, and ra- 
ther sweet to the taste. Rows of these 
little bowls, which look like so many 



980 



Architecture of Birds. 



vt^«iwels of porcelain, run along the 
roi'kv walls of caverns, and are filled 
with eg>rs thickly bedropped with spots 
of ci»lcstiiil blue. To the people of the 
Flowery Land, these nests are a deli- 
i'ttcy, which, when of the best quality, 
aiv wcightd in the market against gold. 
AVbat» however, renders some nests bet- 
ter than others is uncertain ; it may bo 
that in parts of the ocean tlie ingre* 
dicut which imparts the most delicate 
tlavv>r to the substance is not to be 
found ; or else, on shore, the flowers 
that supply the perfume are too few,, 
so that the swallow is compelled to 
have recourse to blossoms of inferior 
sweetness. 

From the mouth of the swallow's 
cave, you may sometimes, from a long 
distance, discern another and very diS 
ferent specimen of ornithological build- 
ing. This is a mound, sometimes six- 
ty or seventy feet in length, almost as 
much in diameter, and about six feet 
high. This also is a nest, or rather a 
city of nests, for it is constructed so as 
to receive a whole republic of birds, 
who, as in a well-ordered state, have all 
their separate dwellings, with streets, 
highways, common chambers, breeding 
apartments, and so on. In some, there- 
fore, you find callow citizens, or fledg- 
ling", or eggs, or the grave parents of 
the state, discussing or meditating upon 
its common interests. Nothing can be 
more curious than a section of such a 
bird mound, with its various cells and 
compartments laid open to the view. 

From this cyclopean style of archi- 
tecture, the distance is prodigious to 
the house of the tailor-bird, which 
selects for its habitation the inside of a 
leaf, and with its bill and claws sews 
its house to it. It takes a filament of 
fine grass, and, steadying the leaf with 
one of its feet, uses its bill for a needle, 
or rafherfora borer ; then, having made 
a little bole, it introduces the grassy 
filament into the edge of the leaf, and 
afterward doing as much for the other 
edge, weaves between both a sort of 
herring-bone netting, strong enough to 
support its nest Within this net it 
immediately begins building until it 



has wrought a small sod purse, suffi 
ciently capacious to contain the female 
and her eggs. The habitation being 
completed, she enters tail foremost, 
leaving her little head and bill visible 
at the top of the purse, situated direct- 
ly under the leafs stem, and forthwith 
commences her maternal duties. Now 
begins the business of the male, which 
flies backward and forward in search 
of such delicacies as his lady loves ; 
and, having been successful, approach- 
es the leaf, and, with true martial ten- 
derness, puts them gently into the fe- 
male's mouth. He then seats himself 
upon a branch overhead, and, watching 
his helpmate as she swings to and fro 
in her airy couch, twitters or sings in- 
cessantly to keep up her spirits. 

Among us, the most accomplished 
bird-architect is the wren, which, in 
compliment to his building powers, is 
by our neighbors called the rottelet, or 
little king ; and certainly no king has 
a more comfortable dwelling. The 
most flexible grass roots, the finest 
grass, the softest moss, the most deli- 
cate down from its own breast, consti- 
tute the materials of this beautiful 
structure, which forms a perfect sphere 
of dark emerald green. This edifice 
has two doors, one at which the little 
king or queen enter?, the other through 
which it emerges when it desires to 
stretch its wings or plume its feathers. 
When at home, the point of the bill and 
the tip of the tail are visible at the op- 
posite entrances, while the vaulted roof 
protects it from raindrops, and assists 
in concentrating the heat by which the 
regal fledglings are hatched. The 
builder of St. Paul's, when projecting 
his magnificent dome, may have taken 
a hint from his ancestors the wrens. 
But, unwilling to accumulate all her 
gifts on one of her children, nature has 
left the roitelet quite without the [lOwer 
of charming Madame Wren by bis 
voice, a fact to which Shakespeare al- 
ludes where he says : 

" The nlf(btingiile, If she should sing bj day, 
When every f(«>ose if cRclcHpfr, would be thoo^t 
No belter musician than Uie wren.'* 

But this unmusical character does not 



Architecture of Birds, 



851 



belong to all the varieties of the wren, 
since there is one kind which may be 
regarded as a songster. "With respect 
to external appearance, there are few 
northern birds more favored than the 
golden- crested wren, the feathers of 
whose crest, as they glance and quiver, 
look like sprays of burnished gold in 
the sunbeams. The war recently de- 
clared against these little people is as 
absard as it is cruel Supposed to be 
the gardenei"^s enemies, they have been 
hunted down without pity or remorse ; 
whereas, instead of destroying the fruit, 
they only eat the insects which do real- 
ly destroy it, and should therefore be 
esteemed as little winged scavengers, 
irho clear away from gardens very 
mncb that is pernicious. If we under- 
stood our own interest, we should look 
upon our diminutive ally, not exceed- 
mg two drachms in weight, much as the 
Turks do upon the stork, which they 
peTerence for its filial piety. If con- 
tempt can dwell within breasts so small, 
the wren must surely feel it for the 
stone curlew, which, too ignorant or 
too lazy to build a nest at all, lays its 
eggs on the bare ground, where they 
are crushed by Hodge's foot or by the 
plough. 

The countiT people in France love 
the eong of the wren, which is most 
agreeable in the month of May, that 
being the breeding-season. In many 
French provinces, the rustics entertain 
so great a respect for the roitelet, that 
they not only abstain from injuring it, 
but will not so much as touch its nest, 
built sometimes against the sides of 
their houses or stables, though gene- 
itilljr a thick bush orfull-foliaged tree 
ia preferred. Like nearly all other 
birds, the wren takes a fancy to some 
liarlicular locality, where it will con- 
struct its habitation, in spite of dangers 
lUid difficulties. Its eggs, from ten to 
twelve in number, are about the size of 
peas, and when they are hatched it be- 
comes so fierce and pugnacious that it 
will attack large birds, and put them to 
ftght by the punctures of its sharp bill. 
It is the smallest of European birds, 
luid holds, therefore, with us the place 



which the humming-bird occupies in 
Asia and America. This diminutive 
creature, which is as ingenious as it is 
affectionate, forms its tiny nest with 
cotton or fine, silky filaments, which it 
twines and arranges so as to afford the 
softest conceivable couch for its eggs, 
which never exceed two in number, and 
resemble small white beads, dotted with 
bright yellow. The young, when they 
first emerge from the shell, are little 
larger than flies, and perfectly naked, 
though a fine down soon appears upon 
the skin, which gradually ripens into 
feathers so brilliant and dazzling in 
color as not to be exceeded by the 
rarest gems, or even by the tints of the 
rainbow. So great, in fact, is the beau • 
tj of these birds, that the ladies of the 
countries in which they abound suspend 
them instead of diamonds as drops to 
their "earings. 

Tiny as the humming-bird is, neither 
the eagle nor the condor exceeds it in 
love for its young. A French mission- 
ary, during his residence in Surinam, 
took a humming-bird's nest in which 
the young were just hatched, and placed 
it on the sill of an open window in a 
cage. The parents, as he conjectured, 
followed their young, and brought them 
food, the male and female by turns, 
which they introduced between the 
bars of the cage. At length, finding 
that no attempt was made to harm 
them, they grew fond of the place, and 
perching upon the top of the cage, or fly- 
ing about the room, rewarded the wor- 
thy priest by their music for the deli- 
cate fere he soon learned to provide for 
them. This was a sort of soft paste 
made of biscuit, Spanish wine, and 
sugar, and nearly transparent. Over 
this they passed their long tongues, and 
when they had satisfied their hunger, 
either fell asleep or burst forth into 
song. Familiarity, if it did not in their 
case breed contempt, at least banished 
all apprehension, for they alighted on 
the priest's head, or perched on his 
finger, where their long rainbow-like 
tails floated like little ribbons in the 
air. But all earthly pleasures have an 
end ; a rat ate up the humming-birds, 



852 



Architecture of Birds, 



nest and all, and left tlie poor mission- 
ary to seek for new companions. 

Down among the coral-reefs in the 
Southern Pacific you meet with other 
bird structures, which in their way de- 
serve equal attention. Here the sea- 
eagles build their nests, always, if pos- 
sible, in the same islet, and, if there be 
such a convenience, on the same tree. 
On a small wild fiat in the ocean, too 
confined to allure inhabitants, and ap- 
parently too arid for vegetation, there 
grew nevertheless one tree, on which 
a pair of fishing-eagles erected their 
dwelling. There these lords of the 
waves, contemplating their vast em- 
pire, sat aloft in their eyrie, male and 
female, looking at their eggs, and 
dreaming of the future. Our readers 
will remember the Raven's Oak, which 
the woodman, whose brow like a pent- 
house hung over his eyes, felled and 
floated down the course of the river. 
So it was with the tree of the fishing- 
eagles ; some savage applied his axe 
to the stem, and down it came, though, 
it is to be presumed, not while the 
joung eagles were in the nest, for the 
mother did not break her heart, neither 
did the father follow the timber with 
vindictive pertinacity. On the contra- 
ry, having consulted his helpmate, he 
took up his lodgings in a bush, and 
there provided as well as he could for 
the support and comfort of his heirs 
and successors. There might be tall 
trees at no great distance, there might 
also be islands larger and prettier ; but 
he was born on this sandy flat ; he 
therefore loved it, and stuck to it, and, 
had it not provided him with a bush, 
he would have built his nest on the 
sand. Such, over some creatures, is 
the power of locality. The higher the 
nature, the more extensive become the 
sympathies, so that to some it is enough 
if they can rest anywhere on this globe. 
They love the planet in general, but 
would like, if they could, to make a 
country excursion from it to Jupiter, 
Sinus, or Canopus, just by way of ex- 
ercising their wings. 

We have seen the humming-bird 
building in a little garden shrub, the 



taUor-bird in the folds of a leaf; but 
there is one of their family which se- 
lects a far more extraordinary situa- 
tion, in order to place its young beyond 
the reach of vermin. Selecting the 
tallest tree within the range of its ex- 
perience, it weaves for itself a sort of 
long pouch with a narrow neck, and 
suspends it to the point of a bare twig 
some sixty or seventy feet from the 
ground. There, in its pensile habita- 
tion, it lays its eggs, warms them into 
life, and when the callow brood begin 
to open their bills, feeds them flfty or 
sixty times in the day with such dain- 
ties as tlieir constitutions require. This 
bird is the Aplonis metallica, about the 
size of a starling, with plumage of a 
dark glossy green, interfused with pur- 
ple, which gives forth as it flies bright 
metallic reflections. The aplonis is 
gregai-ious, like man, since it loves to 
build its nest in the close neighborhood 
of other creatures of its own species, 
so that you may often behold fifty 
nests on the same tree, waving and 
balancing in the air. On the plain be- 
neath, the aplonis sees from its nest the 
long necked emu flying like the wind 
before the hunter, immense flights of 
white pigeons, or the shy and active 
bower-bird constructing its palace, four 
feet long by almost two feet in height, 
where it eats berries with its harem, 
brings up its offspring, and, darting 
hither and thither before the savage, 
seeks to allure him away from its home. 
All the shrubs, and vines, and low- 
thickets in the vicinity are haunted by 
perroquets no larger than sparrows, 
whose plumage, gorgeous as the bright- 
est flowers, may be said to light up the 
woods. 

The only European bird that builds 
a pensile nest is one of the family that 
we familiarly denominate tom-tits. 
This liliputian architect is as choice in 
his materials as he is skilful in the 
arrangement of them — his bases, bis 
arches, his metopes, and architmves 
consist of cobwebs, the finest mosses, 
the most silky grasses, which are wo- 
ven, and twisted, and matted together, 
so as to defy the drenching of the most 



Architecture of Birds. 



858 



pitiless storms, wbile within, his wife 
and L'ttle ones recline on beds of down 
as soft as the breast of a swan. Scarce- 
ly less genius is displayed by the mag- 
pie, which, having constructed its 
dwelling with extraordinary care, co- 
vers it with a sheath of thorns, which, 
bristling all round like quills upon the 
fretful porcupine, effectually defend it 
from the approach of insidious enemies. 
The portal to this airy palace is at a 
little distance scarcely visible ; but if 
you diligently observe, you will per- 
ceive the magpie dart swiftly between 
the thorns, and disappear beneath his 
formidable chevauxde-frise. To this 
stronghold he sometimes carries his 
strange thefls — his gold and silver 
coins, his spoons, his sugar-tongs, and 
any other bright article that strikes his 
fancy. Birds of the dove kind are 
proverbial for the slovenly style in 
which they provide for their families. 
Putting together a few sticks, which 
form a sort of rack to support their 
eggs, they think they have done 
enough for posterity, and forthwith lay 
without scruple upon this frail cradle. 
It may be fairly conjectured that they 
say to themselves : ^^ If man will eat 
my eggs, my young ones, and me, upon 
him be the charge of seeing that I have 
decent accommodation." In the same 
spirit act all the barn-door fowls, hard- 
ly taking the trouble to find a soil 
place for their eggs, but laying any- 
where, like the stone curlew. This 
reckless depravity of the maternal in- 
stinct has generally been attributed to 
the ostrich as well as to the domestic 
hen — ^but unjustly. She lays, it is 
true, her eggs in the sand, but not with- 
out knowing where she puts them, and 
not without visiting the same spot daily 
to lay a new egg, till, as the French 
say, she has finished her ponte. If the 
case were otherwise, how could we ac- 
count for finding all her eggs together ? 
Nature has informed her, that in those 
warm latitudes in which she shakes her 
feathers, it is quite unnecessary for her 
to squat upon her eggs, which the so- 
lar heat amply suffices to hatch ; in- 
deedy so scorching is the sand of the de- 
VOL. y.— 88 



sert, that if she did not lay her family 
hopes tolerably' deep, her eggs would 
be roasted instead of hatched. To the 
superficial observation of man, the sur- 
face of the desert looks all alike — 
smooth, undulating, or blown up into 
hillocks ; but the ostrich's practised eye 
is able to detect the minutest elevations 
in the arenaceous plain, so that she can 
go straight to the spot where her first 
egg has been left, to deposit a second 
and a third close to it. Indeed, the 
Arabs, who habitually traverse the 
waste, sometimes rival her in keenness 
of perception, and take forth her trea- 
sures, while in maternal confidence she 
is scouring hither and thither in search 
of food. 

To many others among the inferior 
animals, man deals forth his unthink- 
ing reproaches. To the cuckoo, for 
example, he objects to her habit of 
obtruding her egg or eggs into other 
people's premises, and leaving them 
there to be hatched by sparrow, wry- 
neck, or starling, as the case may be. 
But while bearing thus hard upon the 
cuckoo, he forgets the terrible curse, 
under which, like another Cain, she 
walks about the earth, urged forward 
by some resistless impulse, and con- 
demned to the eternal repetition of 
two analogous notes— cuckoo, cuckoo. 
What do those syllables mean ? The 
Abbo de Nemours, who devoted twen- 
ty years to the language of birds, or 
one of the original doctors of the Hel- 
lenic mythology, might perhaps have 
explained, but has not ; so we must "be 
content to regard as a mystery the 
secret of the cuckoo, which in some re- 
spects resembles those ames damnies^ 
which fiy for ever over the Black Sea, 
according to inconsiderate tradition, for 
if they never paused to build nests or 
lay eggs, it must have been all over 
with them long before this time. The 
cuckoo has some odd tricks which have 
seldom been noted; for instance, she 
seems to find out some small bird's 
nest, say, in a hole in the wall, too 
small by far for her to enter. In this 
case, she squats upon the ground, lays^ 
her egg, and then, with bUl or claws,. 



854 



7%e Father of Waters. 



takes it up, and polces^ it into the hole, 
after which she flics awaj, shrieking 
her awfully monotonous song. In a 
forest in France, we used day after 
day to watch this smoky-blue traveller, 
as, in the dawn of a summer's morning, 
she flew across the leafy glades, or 
down the glens, resting her weary feet 
for a moment on some giant bough, 
and then shooting away through the 
soft green light, repeating her strange 
and ominous cry. What is the origi- 
nal country of the cuckoo ? Has she 



any original country ? Or is she not 
one of those wretched cosmopolites who 
know no attachment to any hallowed 
spot, no love or knowledge of parents, 
having been brought up by strangers, 
who regarded her from her birth as an 
ugly changeling, thrust by some evil 
spirit into their nest? Surely the 
cuckoo is to be pitied, since she knows 
no home, has never seen a hearth, or 
experienced the soft care of fabricating 
a nest or hatching an egg. 



THE FATHER OF WATERS. 



Some one has said that rivers are the 
great moving highways of the world. In 
Uie earlier ages, when, from a restless 
and feverish impulse, whole nations 
became nomadic, their migrations were 
doubtless influenced by the rivers lying 
in their track. History tells of bar- 
t>aric people that wandered around the 
Euxine and along the banks of the 
lower Danube found their way to cen- 
tral Europe. 

Before the discovery of the Cape of 
Good Hoi>e, rivers, and especially the 
Rhine, played .a considerable part in 
that extensive commerce which found 
its way from India to the cities of the 
Hanseatic League. Weary caravans 
brought the spices, gems, and rich fab- 
rics of the East to the shore of the 
Mediterranean, whence they were car- 
ried westward mainly by Venetian tra- 
ders timidly skirting the coast in their 
frail barks, venturing up rivers or 
making long journeys wherever the 
prospect of traffic invited. The old 
castles on the Rhine were built by 
feudal robbers, who were wont to de- 
scend from their strongholds to plunder 
merchants travelling on this great 
thoroughfare of medioBval commerce. 



In time they were induced to forego 
the chances of occasional booty for the 
payment of a stipulated toll. Doubt- 
less the princely Hohenzollem could 
trace back their genealogy to the feudal 
high-toll barons of the Rhine, who fur- 
nished the original idea of the modem 
ZoUverein of Grerraany. La mer, c^est 
V empire^ and, after the great maritime 
discoveries had opened a new route to 
India, it, in good part, diverted that 
distant commerce from the rivers, which 
the ocean reaches like shining arms 
over the continents as if to grasp do- 
minion. As the elements of modem 
civilization became developed, societies 
crystallized, and the nationalities hith- 
erto disturbed by migrations and con- 
quests settled down where we now find 
them, rivers came gradually to serve 
their le^timate purpose of internal and 
international communication — a pur- 
pose resembling that which they ftilfil 
in the physical economy of the earth. 
They are the veins which bring back 
to the ocean, through innumerable 
brooks and rills, seeming to have their 
sources in the ground, yet having un- 
seen springs in the air, the moisture 
that the sun has already drawo up 



The Father of Waters. 



355 



from tiie seas in invisible buckets, and 
wafled away in shining clouds to be 
poured out in rain or dew upon the 
thirsty hiUs. 

Our own country, however, furnishes 
the best illustration of the importance 
and use of rivers. Its great physical 
features, of which the river system is 
perhaps the most striking, seem to make 
it a fit arena for those wonderful tri- 
omphs over the elements and the forces 
of nature which it is our privilege to 
enjoy. Their vastness would have 
intimidated races of men, weak and 
cowardly from long habits of servility, 
superstitious, torn with fierce passions 
and hatreds, and able to contend with 
the fatality of material things only on 
that diminutive scale afforded by the 
physical conformation of Europe. 

The traveller descending the lower 
Danube finds the ruins of old Boman 
towns, Trajan's way cut for a db^tance 
of thirty miles in the steep solid rock 
of the Carpathians for the passage of 
his Roman legions, and, below the Iron 
Gate, the piers of Trajan's bridge, 
erected by him for the same purpose 
nearly eighteen centuries ago. Hardly 
less remarkable are the memorials of 
the bloody wars between the Christians 
and the Turks, the places made memo- 
rable by the campaigns of Eugene and 
Suwan-ow and the Eastern war. But, 
excepting now and then a walled town, 
tliere are to be seen comparatively few 
habitations of men, and none of that 
active, sleepless life which lines the 
banks of our great rivers. 

There arc no richer plains in the 
world than those of the lower Danube. 
Why 18 it that the pent-up millions 
of Western Europe do not find their 
iraj thither, as in the time of Trajan 
irast mohitudes emigrated from slavery- 
impoverished Italy to that Eldorado 
of the Roman world ? The very facil- 
ity afforded by the river for hostile in- 
roads has driven or kept the inhabi- 
tants from its banks, and (o a great 
extent left them desolate wastes. The 
feverish restlessness which once made 
barbarous nations nomadic now seizes 
upoo the individual ; and a constant 



stream of immigration, oppressed by 
the despotisms of the Old World, bursts 
forth in the midst of us like a new foun- 
tain of Arethusa. 

And in our own country the aston- 
ishing fadlities of communication af- 
forded by the telegraph and long linos 
of railroads seem to detract somewhat 
from the importance of rivers. We 
can only appreciate their value when 
we think of them in connection with 
the toil requisite for subduing the wil- 
derness and laying under contribution 
the resources of our country. How 
earnestly and bravely our forefathers 
battled in this warfare, one generation 
taking up the task where it was left by 
another, so as to subdue the land and 
render possible such marveh as the 
Pacific railroad ! Whatever may be 
the social development of the human 
race hereafter, and however wonderful 
the applications of art and science to 
the uses of life, will not our own age 
be looked back upon as perhaps the 
grandest in its history ? To have lived 
in a period that saw the mysteries of 
Central Africa explained, the conti- 
nents united with telegraphic nerves, 
the oceans traversed with steamships 
and monitors, the seas clasped together 
with railways, and, as we hoj>e, the thin 
air made a navigable element, wiU be 
to have enjoyed the most startling tri- 
umphs of emotion of which the soul is 
capable. 

What first strikes the attention upon 
comparing the rivers of the New and 
the Old World is tlie diminutive size 
of the latter, especially of many in the 
most civilized portions of Europe, or 
rendered famous in classical times. 
The Nile, with its ancient mysteries, 
its dim historic memorials of one 
of the oldest civilizations, its stupen- 
dous monuments of human wisdom 
and of human folly over which the 
centuries have brooded in solemn 
silence, and its wonderful physical 
peculiarities, is, indeed, a magnificent 
river. Rt^aching from the Mediterra- 
nean to the central regions of Africa, 
and forming an intimate connection 
with its great lake and river system. 



;i5f> 



The Pather of Waters, 



it will doubilega accomplish for that 
portion of Africa wlml llie Mis^is^sippi 
has done, and h now doin*, in the ma- 
terial dev el oj mien t of the Uniied States 
— what the DaDube may also aecom- 
plisih til Eastern Eunipe, the Amazon 
in South America^ ntid the Hoang Ho 
iu Eni«tem Asia, when their expiriog 
.•strata of civilizations shall have been 
aroused by the rer^tless, agj^ssive 
spirit of modern limes* The Jor- 
di^n is only a mountain torrent* Tlie 
Tiber and tlie Po can be swum with 
a single arm. The Simois and Sca- 
mander, the sacred rivers of Troy, 
are, like the Rubicon, the merest 
brookst and would hardly dnVe a 
saw -mi 11. The Ce phis us can be leap- 
ed across, and the Ihssus scarcely suf- 
fices for a few Athenian washerwomen, 
sorry representatives of its nymphs and 
graces of old. 

The Mississippi river drains not far 
from a millioa and a quarter square 
miles of territory, equal ro about one 
third of the extent of Europe. From 
the source of the Missouri, on the east- 
ern slope of the Rocky Mountains, to 
the Balizef is, followiu;; the windings 
of the river, a di.^tance of four thou- 
sand five hundrrd miles, A circular 
line dmwn throu^rh the bead waters of 
the Mississippi and iL^ rliief trihuta-^ 
ries would not be less tlian six thou- 
sand miles in length. Wilh all of its 
confluents the Mississippi forms a 
great moving sinuous highway fully 
twenty-five thousand miles long, and 
tihnjtxhed by many thousand steam- 
Doals, They stretch out as if to em- 
bruce the beauty, to grasp tlie wealth, 
and gjilher, as into a lap* tlie protluets 
of the vast region between the two 
nKiiuilain chains of the continent ; the 
coal and oil of the Alleghaniea, the 
gold of the Rocky Mountains, the 
grain, luml^er, and lead of the North, 

|, and the cotton, sugar, and tropical fruits 
of the South, Equally well wQl they 
ser ve for the dij?lnbution of the Asiatic 
Commerce and travel w^hich will be 

f poured across the continent on the 
completioQ of the Pacific railroad. 
St. Loins may then become a great 



distributing centre, and lh« 
causes which have made L 
Paris, Vienna, and Pckin the 
mcrctnl capitals of their resf 
countries, may, in time, giv6 
favorerl and opulent city the 
niacy now enjoyed by the great 
of trade on the Atlantic coast, 
hardly Knfe to predict w^hat tn 
the social and material, much Ic 
intellectual possibilities of tlial 
period, when, gliding on " the pal 
edge," we may jostle Chines© 
darins en roitie for EurojM?, am 
ropean money kings on the 
the Golcondas of the East 

The lotus-eating tourist of^ 
floats dreamily along the riv6 
I ween quaint villages and gii 
palm-trees, past the pynimidSj 
the deserted sites of ancient citiei 
the stupendous ruins of Luxot 
Thebes, The monotony of the c 
is broken by gluomy hills of &un 
rock, and by the narrow strip oJ 
dure which fringes both banks c 
river. Should he pn&h his exploo 
further, he will come in contact 
the barbarous negro tribes of tl 
per Nile, and m.iy encounter troo 
giraffes and elephants^ • 

IIow different the objects thi 
tract the attention of the voyn| 
the Mis&iissip[>i 1 The eye is cha 
with the prospect of orange gi 
of vast fields of sngar-cano ol 
deepest green, and of cotton pi 
tions whose verdure and bloom a 
proper season are only equalk 
beauty by the snow-like whitenel 
the opened balls. The forestt 
Imng with long festoons of mosa 
ing them a sombre, funereal ai 
For between two and three hm 
miles, lK>th river banks, called c 
in Louisiana, are lined almost con 
ously with plantations, which, b 
the war, were in a high state of i 
vation and furnished homes of loj 
The region now teeming with 
active and varied Ufe, inspired b; 
adjacent city of New Orleans, is i 
romantic by the ailven lures of De 
and La Salle, and the wanderioj 



The Father of Watert. 



3&7 



ther of the AcatUans, known as Coffiaru 
by the LoQisianians, whose sufferings 
in the wilderness excited even the 
ocmipassion of hostile savages. Fur- 
ther up the river vast forests intervene, 
with here and there a straggling town 
or settlement on the hanks. The 
monotony is broken by the sight of 
enormous flat-boats and rafts floating 
lazily down the current; and an oc- 
casional column of black smoke rising 
high above the trees in the distance 
indicates the presence of a steamboat, 
bat, 60 crooked is the river, it is often 
impossible to say whether above or 
below. In consequence of the great 
bends, approaching boats are sometimes 
moTing in parallel lines in the same 
direction, or are absolutely diverging 
and mnning from each other. Now and 
then the huge steamboat stops to land, 
perhaps, a single passenger, or, at long 
intervals, at a wood-yard where some 
settler is laying the foundation of a 
futme fortune, the stump being usu- 
ally the first product of American 
industry. The rude, vigorous, un- 
tamed aspect of the region seems, to 
a certain degree, to be reflected in the 
characteristics of the passengers on 
board. Still further north the tra- 
veller begins first to feel the pulses 
of that wonderful life which is throb- 
bmg throughout the great West. 
Here are vast prairies waving with 
fields of grain, and dotted with mounds 
built perhaps before the pyramids of 
Egypt. Up the Missouri one will soon 
reach the great plains on which roam 
berds of bufi&loes and tribes of red men. 
About the head-waters of the Missis- 
sippi and its chief confluents is to be 
found some of the wildest mountain 
scenery on the continent. Where, upon 
tbe banks of a single river, are to be 
seen such varieties of climate, scenery, 
and animated life ? 

Very remarkable are the physical, 
it might almost be said paradoxical, 
characteristics of the Mississippi. Its 
average width below Natchez is not so 
great as from Natchez to Cairo. At 
Vicksbuig, the river rises and falls 
about forty feet ; at New Orleans not 



more than twelve feet. During the 
lowest stage of water, the largest ships 
experience but little diflicuhy in cross- 
ing the bar at the passes ; when the 
great floods have filled the banks 
above to overflowing, deep-draught ves- 
sels can hardly be got over the bar. 
Below the mouth of Red river streams 
run out of the Mississippi instead of 
into it. Much of the distance below 
Cairo the river runs, not in an ordinary 
channel between the hills, but on the 
crest of a ridge of its own formation. 
The source of the Mississippi is about 
two and a half miles nearer the centre 
of the earth than the mouth, thereby 
causing it to run actually uphill. 

The delta of the Mississippi, pro- 
perly, extends from the mouth of the 
Red river to the gulf, a distance of 
about three hundred miles, following 
the windings of the river. It has an 
area of about fourteen thousand square 
miles, and its numerous bayous form an 
admirable system of natural canals. 
To the delta really belongs the \ei\ 
bank of the river below Manshac, 
where the bayou Manshac formed an 
outlet from the Mississippi to lake 
Pontchartrain, until it was closed by 
General Jackson in the war of 1812, 
to prevent the British getting into the 
river above New Orleans. The bayou 
could not be reopened without jeopar- 
dizing the safety of the city. A crevasse 
some distance above New Orleans, 
a few years ago, inundated the back 
streets. Skiffs took the place of omni- 
buses, and when the waters subsided 
some of the residents were surprised to 
find alligators *• herbivorating" in their 
gardens. There is also a large par- 
tially alluvial tract west of the Atcha- 
falaya, which covers the wonderful salt 
mine of Petit Aunce Island, and out 
through which ooze the petroleum 
springs of Calcasieu, where the Cagians 
have long been in the habit of greasing 
tbe axles of their rude carts. 

Extending from the mouth of the 
Red river to a point above Cairo is 
the great alluvial plain of the Missis- 
sippi, varying from thirty to fifty miles 
in width, and containing a territory of 



Th9 Father of Walers, 



BlxvutsPTenteon thousand square mUes* 
The hluffs iTln^ttt fmm the east aide of 
the river in tnatij places, making room 
for rich bottom ]ands, and touch I he 
river ooly at one point on the west 
side, namdy, at Helena, Arkansas. 
Fr<:»m Vmro to the Balize is hy thii 
river ahno&t twelve hundred mihs^ 
while in a straij^ht line it is only five 
hundred. The frequent changes in the 
bed of the Mississippi, caused by ** cut- 
offs/* where it forces a channel through 
a narrow neck of land around which it 
has hhhcrto flowed in a wide circuit, 
have lLd\ numerous semicireular lake^ 
and famsfi rtrihe^^ whose tranquil 
waters abound with alligators and wild 
fowl 

The Mill of the delta is filled with 
wliote trees depoftited while it was in 
proce:?B of formation, A sudden change 
in the direction of the river sometimes 
unearths the tnuiks, standing erect and 
close together, a^ if they had jrrown 
where they are found. While boring 
AH artesian well in New Orleans, they 
Ciime upon a solid cypress log nearly 
five hundred feet below the surface. 
The Mississippi is said to be, geologi- 
cal!y» one of the oldest rivers on the 
^lobe. We happened to be with Pro- 
fessor Ilyrtl of Vienna a few years 
»go, when he received, aa a contrihu- 
tion to his uneqiralled museum of 
natural history, a eoufde of yanmW fish- 
es, now to be found only in the " father 
of waters/' They were clad in coats 
of mail, fitting them for existence in 
hiKlies of water dashed about by coii- 
fiietinMT tempesta and currents and con- 
vulsed by the upheavals of the earth. 
At the base of the obelisk of Heliopo- 
lis, erected by Sesostris four thousand 
years ago, one can see that, during that 
long interval of time, the valley of the 
Nile has lx:en rai&ed alxtut nine feet 
around the monument, A friend of 
mine, engaged in sinking a shaft in the 
alluvium over the salt mine of P*'tit 
Aunce Island, recently exhumed the 
skeleton of a mastodon, and the nule 
implements and traces of the habitation 
of a peo[)le that must have passed 
Away centuries ago. Skirting the del- 



sea- 

ield| 
'ieif 
ti a 

[aiflH 



taon the gulf shore are vastshelM 
consisting entirely of millions 
millions of cubic yardi of small sea- 
shells. The popular supers til ion ufx 
country ascribes their origin to the T 
dians, who came down to the const 
subsistence and defmsited the shell 
wheix; they are now found. But theif^ 
existence in such vast quantities, in a 
purely alluvial region, is one of the ca 
rious problems of geology- In view i 
these facts, what ages upon age/5 \s^ih{ 
mind carried back by the formation < 
the delta and the great alluvial plail 
of the Mississippi, to that faroiT tim^l 
when the place they now occupy was 
covered with a silent sea in which ^ 
fioundered the ichthyosauri of the pr^^fl 
Adaroic period ! ^^ 

The most remarkabh^ feature of the 
lower Mississippi, and that which givo»j 
origin to very many of the peculiaririe 
already mentioned, is the annual rid 
of its waters in consequence of the miB 
and melting of the snow above. Egyf 
owes Its fruitfulnesa in great part f€ 
the eediment yeiiriy deposited by tha 
Nile wherever it overflows the laudJ 
We saw fellahs scattering sec^ upoiil 
the fresh and scarcely uncovered oosep] 
almost in the shadow of the Gr 
Pyramid, and treading it in with oxen 
as mentioned by Heroilolus. The side 
canals are filled when the flooii is at 
its height^ and every possible means ti | 
employed to retard the feriiliy,ing wn 
ters for irrigation, as rain very rarely 
falls. Just below the head of the del 
ta an immense barrage^ or datn, ha 
been built across both the Damietta and'' 
Rosettn branches of the Nile, for tha 
}jurpose of keeping back the floodL 
When the Nilometer indicates that t ho 
river has risen to a certain height, thero^l 
is rejoicing throughout Egypt, a plenti^^| 
ful harvest being safely predicted fmin 
a lull river. 

It is directly the reverse along the 
Mississippi. The phinler de)>eadi up- 
on the ruins, not upon irrigation ; upon 
the accumulated alluvial riclmess of 
former ages, and not upon the anno^i 
deposit of the river. He doeg not ill 
vite an overflow, but hihors to prevW^ 



l%e Ihther of Waters. 



269 



it by every meaoB in his power. A 
low Btage of water, like that of 1864, 
is hailed as a providential blessing. 
The unprecedented floods of the present 
year have swept away millions of dol- 
lars' worth of property, and produced 
extreme misery. 

The lower Mississippi generaUy be- 
jrins to rise in November or early in 
December, and, with rare exceptions, 
attains the maximum volume in April 
or May. The yse is at first gradual, 
and usually comes from the tributaries 
below the Obio. As the season ad- 
vances, the rains and the melting of the 
winter snows enlarge the Tennessee, 
the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the up- 
per Mississippi, whose freshets, often 
amounting to devastating floods, and 
sometimes becoming vast inundations, 
are successively poured into the lower 
Mississippi Finally, and sometimes 
as late as June, the Missouri con- 
tributes the drainage of the great plains 
and of the eastern slope of the Rocky 
Mountains. Descending steamboats, 
which have overtaken and passed the 
rise, announce the coming of a great 
tidal wave bringing possible destruction 
with it. The boUures of the lower river 
are first covered, the banks are rapidly 
filled, and the torrent of foaming and 
torbid waters begins to rush down with 
accumulated velocity. Immense quanti- 
ties of driftwood are drawn into the swiHr 
est part of the current, in a continuous 
line that twists and writhes in the tortu- 
ous channel like a great black serpent, 
or is, day after day, whirled round in 
vast eddies, as at Port Hudson. Many 
a Federal soldier who has stood guai^ 
00 the banks of the Mississippi will re- 
member the great trees, with roots and 
branches high in the air, that floated 
down in grim processions, and in the 
gloom and darkness of the night seem- 
ed to glide past like spectral fleets. 
As the river rises, immense bodies of 
water escape from the natural channel 
and flow away into the swamps of Ar- 
kansas. Mississippi, and upper Louisi- 
ana. The low alluvial plain of the 
Mississippi becomes a vast reservoir. 
Without this, it would be impossible to 



control the flood below. The banks 
are entirely covered, and the voyager 
beholds an immense lake spread out be- 
fore him, whose waters rush through 
the forest with a subdued and angry 
roar, the wide open space between the 
trees alone indicating the course of the 
river. And now, Tvherever in this 
vast region civilization has' plan ted her 
foot, begins tliat conflict between man 
and the elements and the forces of na- 
ture, which in one form or another is 
as old as the human race. In Egypt 
it was typified in the never-ending con- 
test of Typhon and Osiris. Osiris re- 
presented the fertile land of Egypt, the 
product of the Nile ; Typhon, the en- 
croaching desert, as solitary and in- 
comprehensible as the ocean itself, the 
desert whose storms and waves of 
shifting sand, respecting only the places 
they cannot reach, have destroyed 
armies and caravans, depopulated im- 
mense regions, and turned the course 
of mighty rivers. The old civilization 
of Egypt, the giant Antaeus of mytho- 
logy, who could not be vanquished so 
long as his foot touched the solid, fer- 
tile earth, interposed enormous obsta- 
cles to the advances and inroads of the 
desert. Count de Persigny wrote a 
book during his political imprisonment 
to prove that the pyramids were built 
as barriers to protect the alluvial land 
of the Nile from the encroaching sand 
of the desert. 

To progress is, everywhere, to com- 
bat. The human race maintains a 
perpetual and tremendous strife with 
the fatality of material things, whether 
it be in the form of the stubborn ele- 
ments, the overwhelming forces of na- 
ture, or the subtle, inexorable laws 
that govern the material world. Bar- 
barism is a defeat, from cowardice of 
spirit ; civilization, a triumph over them. 
And nowhere else is the conflict more 
terrible than where it is attempted to 
control the floods that sweep down the 
valley of the Mississippi from the very 
heart of the continent. The forces of 
the winds and of the ocean are not so* 
irresistible. It is a hand-to-hand com- 
bat, in which to be vanquished is to be 



(■- 






T%e Father of Watfri, 



destroyed. The thousands of miles of 
lereea built on the banks of the Missis- 
^aippi and its great hayoui, at an ex- 
Lj)ense of many millioQ dollars, are the 
[means employed to arrest the watery 
element. In eome places they are be- 
^ tween firteen and eif^hteen feet high, 
, with a base of one hundred and twenty 
feet, A3 the threatening river rises 
against them, ibey are put in the best 
condition, and watclied with the utmost 
care, leetthe Utile crawfish, or accident, 
a storm, or eome malicious enL^my 
, Bbotdil make an opening which, ever 
so small at first, would rafiidly enlarge 
into a crevaBae* Sometimes the river 
bank caves in, carrying away the levee, 
,and permitting the water to rush in 
omnterniptedly. In the spring of 18G3 
the writer of this article r<Mle in a car- 
riage one evening around a point of 
land a few milej3 aljovo Baton Roage, 
winch, to the extent of several acres, 
[disappeared during the night. The 
^ following day the fields in the rear re- 
' icmbled a large lake. Shortly after 
[ the capture of Port Hudson, a portion 
I of tb«:; bank slid into tlio rivf^r with a 
Ebattery of guns. Uhe famous citadel 
L and many of the rebel earthworks on 
lliose historical blufls have since shared 
^ the same fate. 

Should the levee, from any cause, 
■ give way, QV^vy possible (effort is made 
to dose the breach. Planters from 
miles above and below hurry to the 
crevasse with all their available help. 
.Piles are driven into the ground close 
(together, and in two panillel rows a 
few feet apart, both above ajid below 
the opening, and in such a direction as 
^gradually to have the lines approach 
each other at no great distance in the 
l.tear of the crcvnsse. Between lliese 
k jX)ws of piles are thrown sacks of earth, 
Lllay, or anything that will airest the 
I rushing floml. Presently the narrow- 
king space between the dams can be 
L spanned with pieces of timber, and then 
^ the torrent is soon cheeked and the 
levee replaced. 

The State of Louisiana paid lost 
year thiiiy ihousand dollars for closing 
Ihe Boulignjcrevasse,a few miles below 



II t3 iroi 
d wP 



New Orleans. Crevasses above the 
owing to their greater magnitadej 
however, rarely closed. An effoH 
maile in 1865 to rebnild the great ( 
and RiDbioson levee, on the right 
of the river, a short distance li 
Part Hudson. This aHjvasae occi 
in 1863, and was of such enormoti 
teat that, through it, a river more 
a mile wide and several ft*et 
rushed out of the Mississippi, 
steamboat, several flf^tboats and l 
and vast quantities of dritVwood 
swept into the irresistible torrent \ 
quired over three hundred thousun 
bic yards of earth to replace the I1 
and an outlay of nearly one hundred 
fiAy thousand dollars. The tr«i 
dons flood of last April bruke;j 
the newly constructed wor" 
levee commissioners refused 
to close the crevasse for eighty thou 
dollars, and in a few days a great 
of the new levee was swept a 
Deep gulches were cut in the pi 
tioos where the disa^^ter occu 
The ditches were filled, ^andb 
formed in many places, and the n( 
cane fields covered with the dihf 
the Mississippi. There were iw 
three crevasses of nearly equal nw 
tude between Port Hudson and 
mouth of R<.'d river^ and upper Ii 
iana, Arkansas, and Mii^stssippi e< 
cd terribly from the overflow, en 
in great part by the breaking awl 
tlic newly built levees. The ei 
valley of Red river, whose bo! 
furnish perhaps the best cotton 1 
in the world, was inundated below 
ferson, Texas. Maiiy of the be«tt b 
ings in Shreveport and Alexai 
wei-G undermined. The plnnicw 
took themselves to the upper room 
tbeir houses, and tho cat lie cro^ 
together on the little knolb fuuml 
and there on the river bank. A i\ 
who came dow n during the iuundi 
stated that be saw at least tvif 
thousand animals thus perishing I 
banger, and being gradually 91 
away by the rising flood. At ooe 
thirteen parishes were said to 1 
great piiirt under water. Many mill 




2%0 Father of Waters. 



861 



worth of property was destroyed, and 
the unstinted charity of the Federal 
government to the sufferers, through 
Uie Freedmen's Bureau, was measured 
only hy cargoes of provisions sent to 
their relief. 

But the overflows of the Mississippi 
have this year heen still more disas- 
trous. Instead of pouring out succes- 
give floods, Bed river, the Arkansas, 
the Ohio and its great tributaries, and 
even the upper JkHssissippi have risen 
simultaneously and poured their mighty 
bundations into the lower river. The 
Mississippi was at one time fifly miles 
wide at Memphis, and the great allu- 
vial plain or basin became an inland 
8ea several hundred miles in length. 
There have for some time been but few 
places where landings could be made 
hetween Cairo and the mouth of Bed 
river. Days and even weeks must 
elapse after the river begins to recede 
at Cairo before it can be affected at 
New Orleans or even at Yicksburg, so 
enormous is the body of water that 
must find its way to the gulf. The 
bottom-lands of Mississippi, especially 
those of the Yazoo region, and of upper 
Louisiana, were nearly all under water 
before the delta people suffered from 
the inundation. But as the irresistible 
flood swept down toward the gulf, levee 
after levee gave way, and at present 
the tracts overflowed can be estimated 
only by parishes and counties, the 
plantations only by thousands, and the 
loss of property only by millions of 
dollars. There are nearly a dozen 
crevasses between the mouth of Bed 
river and New Orleans, not one of 
which it has been possible to stop. The 
crevasse at Grand Levee, Morganza, is 
a mile wide, and through it rushes a 
river twelve feet deep. To restrain 
the mighty flood would require immense 
levees through the entire delta, several 
feet higher than those already con- 
structed. 

The parish of Tensas, the flnest cot- 
Urn district of Louisiana, is almost en- 
tirely under water. The inundation 
extends far up the Cortableau and al- 
most to the rich prairies of Opelousas. 



The sugar plantations of Terrebonne 
and Lafourche are invaded by the 
flood, and the Opelousas railroad ren- 
dered useless. The rich lands of 
Grosse T^te, Fordoce, and the Ma- 
rangouin, for the first time in the me- 
mory of Creoles, are almost entirely 
inundated. Thousands of families have 
been driven from their homes. Cer- 
tain districts, overflowed for three suc- 
cessive years, begin to assume the ap- 
pearance of a wilderness. The gar- 
fish, the alligator, and wildfowl have, 
in fact, resumed possession of many 
of the choicest portions of the state. 
Should the waters not soon subside, 
the product of cotton on the bottom- 
lands of Louisiana and Mississippi 
will be very smalL April is the 
month for planting, and irom present 
appearances the floods will not begin 
to recede before the month of May. 

So great is the interest of the North- 
em States in the cotton and sugar pro- 
duced on the bottomlands of the Mis- 
sissippi, that evidently the general 
government ought to assume the re- 
sponsibility of rebuilding the levees on 
a scale that will insui*e protection. This 
policy would be at variance with the 
tntditions of the government as regards 
internal improvements. But neither 
the planters who have hitherto been 
assessed for nearly the entire outlay, 
nor the impoverished states, are now in 
a condition to do what is required. 

Of the two plans proposed for levee- 
ing the delta of the Mississippi, one 
consists in increasing the number of 
the bayous, or lateral outlets, and 
thereby diminishing the volume of 
water in the main channel ; the other, 
in closing up all the bayous, and, with 
levees of sufficient strength, retainuig 
the floods in the natural bed of the 
river. In some remarks made upon 
the subject by Mr. Banks in Congress, 
he expressed his preference for the 
former theory, and intimated his inten- 
tion, should the proper occasion occur, 
of advocating a large appropriation by 
the general government to put it in 
practical execution. The general 
government has, in fact, virtually 



862 



The Church and the Itoman Umpire. 



pledged itself to undertake the work 
as soon as the Southern States again 
come into the Union. 

Mr. Banks is well acquainted with 
the topography of Louisiana, and can 
estimate the enormous outlay required 
for leveeing the bayous Lafourche and 
Plaquemine, to say nothing of the 
Atchafalaya, and opening new outlets, 
upon each of which, however small, 
the work would have to be done as 
thoroughly and upon as vast a scale 
as upon the Mississippi itself. This 
theory is based upon the false as- 
sumption that, in case of a bayou or 
a crevasse, the depth of the river at 
any point below the outlet is diminish- 
ed exactly in proportion to the quantity 
of water taken by it from the main 
channel. Wlien the great crevasse, 
over a mile wide, occurred last spring 
above Baton Rouge, I could not see 
that the volume of water at Baton 
Rouge was much diminished thereby, 
but the curi*ent of the river was ma- 
terially lessened. When several large 
crevasses occur, of course, both the vol- 
ume and the current of the river below 
must be diminished. And the slower 
the current, the greater the deposit of 
sediment on the bed of the river, tfie 
effect of which is to litl up the whole 
body of water and increase the tenden- 



cy to overflow. The great des 
turn is to prevent the format! 
deposit, which can be done on 
maintaining a certain rapidity o 
rent. The more effective and sci 
plan would, therefore, seem to 
confine the floods to a single el 
by means of levees built sufficien 
back to prevent their destructi 
the caving in of the river bank 
strong enough for any emer] 
The work of leveeing would it 
concentrated, vast areas of now i; 
swamp-land would be made ava 
and the bayous could be used 
nals for internal communication, 
should it be forgotten that, as i 
gions bordering the tributaries 
Mississippi are settled and the i 
cleared up, the actual quantity o 
ter drained from them is from yi 
year diminished. The floods c 
upper Mississippi have already 
notably affected by this genera 
But disasters like those of the pi 
year, although exceptional, ca 
averted only by levees construct 
on a gigantic scale, and, as the ¥ 
ness of the great alluvial plain 
swamps now receive such vast q 
ties of water becomes settled liJ 
delta, the levees will have to Ix 
portionally enlarged. 



From The Dublin Review. 

THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE.^ 



When we opened the two last vol- 
umes of this noble work, we fancied 
that, after devoting a considerable de- 
gree of attention and study to the fruit- 
ful events of the decline and fall of 
the Roman empire, we had little to 
learn about its government, its institu- 

• VEglUe et rSmpfre remain au IVt Si^cU 
Par M. Albert de BrogUe, de TAcademle Prancaifle. 
TroUl^me partle— ValeaUnien et Thiodose. Purit : 



tions, manners, customs, and mo< 
thought. We had felt, indeed, a si 
interest in watching the slow bu 
development of Christianity, as ii 
bled down, one by one, every lam 
of aneient heathenism ; here f< 
back the ugly iceberg into its 
limits, there bringing forth a ne 
verdant vegetation to conceal the 
cning ruins of the past ; now e 



7!%0 Church and the Boman Brnpin. 



MS 



ing, within its virgin gold, Bome relic 
of primitive' wisdom, or again plant- 
ing its wooden cross among the wastes 
and forests of Grermania, as a beacon 
for a future world. And yet, after all, 
in these last volumes of Prince de 
Broglie we have found much to admire 
and much to remember. 

Are there many books of which we 
could say the same? Or, in other 
words, are there many that would so 
amply repay the trouble of perusing 
them? 

Whoever undertakes to read any 
work of serious importance, whatever 
its natare and subject, will do well to 
ask himself, when he comes to the con- 
clusion, How has the author fulfilled 
his promises ? How far has he carried 
oat his plan, how far justified his pre- 
tensions to impartiality, if we have to 
do with a historian ? The reader will 
not therefore be astonished that we 
should apply the same rule to the work 
now before us. When Prince Albert 
de Broglie started upon his now com- 
pleted undertaking, what was his main 
view and object he himself shall answer 
in the words he penned in 1852 : 



** The mild and intelligent influence of the 
church was never more striking than when she 
came forth for the first time on the stage of 
the world. ... In the days when Jesus 
Christ was born in an obscure town of Judsea, 
the empire was pacified, the Roman laws es- 
tablished on a sound basis, the Roman man- 
ners polished and refined unto corruption; 
the Roman empire had acquired its utmost 
derclopment bejond the pale of Christianitj, 
QQdcr the sliadow of a &Ue worship and of 
ftlse gods. Everything bore the stamp of 
idolatry. The civil and political laws, found- 
ed first of all by those patricians who were 
alike priests and lawyers, and then by tliose 
Gesars whose supreme pontificate was deem- 
ed their prime dignity, were in every direc- 
tion pervaded by polytheism. Arts, letters, 
private manners, all was heathen. Not a 
temple but acknowled«;ed the protection of a 
divinity — not a poem but embalmed its mem- 
ory — not a banquet but began witli a libation 
—not a home but kindled a fire sacred to the 
Lares. Being thus totally independent of 
Christianity, this civilization was foredoomed 
to become its enemy — a fate, indeed, to which 
it had not been found wanting. Roman so- 
ciety, giving up for once its usual habits of 
politiau toleration, had heaped upon Christ- 



ianity contempt and insults and persecutions 
without end. For three long centuries, Christ- 
ianity had grown up through ignominy and 
bloodshed. Wise men had scoffed at it, poli- 
ticians chastised it, the mob hooted it fierce- 
ly and savagely. The blood of the martyrs 
had defiled the basis of the finest edifices in 
Rome, whilst the smoke of the burning stake 
had blackened their crowning frontispieces. 

" So, when the progress of truth, support- 
ed by the revolutions of politics, had at last 
made the church triumphant with Constan- 
tine, what a favorable opportunity and how 
many excellent reasons had she for overthrow- 
ing all this profane and sacrilegious civilize* 
tion I If, on the very morrow of her triumph, 
the church had declared open war to Roman 
society, if she had fired its monuments, brok- 
en to pieces its statues, burnt its libraries, 
overthrown its laws — all this would have been 
but a lawful deed of reprisal. . . . Both 
means and motives were equally plentiful for 
this summary justice. Without any appeal 
to the ardor of new converts, the forests of 
Germany held within their wastes a reserve 
of wild auxiliaries, ever ready to undertaxe the 
task on their own account. The empire had 
already received its death-blow, through its 
own internal anarchy, and through the barba- 
rian invasions. The church stood in no need 
of dealing the fatal blow — she had but to let 
it fall. . . This, however, the prudent and 
tender mother of the human race did by no 
means do. She looked upon Roman civilisa- 
tion not as the cursed gift of an evil spirit, 
but as the motley product of human labor. 
As is the case with every creation of a fallen 
being, there must needs be found hidden be- 
hind the mists of error certain rays of light 
which were not to be extinguished, but, on 
the contrary, brought back within the ever- 
burning focus of eternal truth. Peacefully set- 
tling down in the midst of the imperial society, 
taking up her abode in Rome itself, whilst 
Constantino flew from the city, as if afraid of 
the old genius of the republic, the church, far 
from destroying anything, adopted all, cor- 
recting and reforming all by her own insen- 
sible influence, raising the victorious sign of 
the cross above every monument, and breath- 
ing the healthy warmth of Christian inspire* 
tion into every law. The fourth century of 
the Christian era is not only remarkable for 
the men of genius by whom it was illustrated. 
What is a constant subject of admiration, and 
what I should not be a.stonished to see some 
future historian investigate hereafter more 
deeply, is that slow labor of purification and 
absorption to which the ChrLitian religion 
subjected heathen civilization. It is this 
transformation of a whole society, notbyanj 
material conquest, but through the influence 
of a moral doctrine, which I shall attempt to 
bring forth in the following picture."* 

• V. L, Avertlssement, pp. L-v. 



8M 



I%€ Church and the JRoman Empire. 



Most certainly the whole work is but 
the grand demonstration of the above 
outline, but nowhere docs it come forth 
in such glowing characters as in the 
two last volumes. There is hardly a 
page in which you do not meet with 
this silent yet ever-rising tide of 
Christian ascendency, which ends in 
mastery over every relic of Roman 
civilization. In vain does the tempo- 
ral power struggle to maintain its own 
ground ; it is itself hurried on with the 
stream, and forced to give up the con- 
test in sheer despair. At the distance 
of sixteen centuries, we are often re- 
minded of what took place at the dawn 
of our own age ; and, could we but 
change names, we might almost ima- 
gine we have before us certain modem 
figures familiar to every reader. Let 
us take, for instance, Yalentinian L, 
who ascended the imperial throne in 
864 A.C., and chose for associate his 
brother Valens, as the ruler of the 
East Yalentinian was a sturdy sol- 
dier, an austere Christian, of no origi- 
nal p:enius, but yet endowed with such 
qualities as were not unequal to his dif- 
ficult task. 

" Of a cold disposition, indiDcd to enforce 
the laws and good order — no less severe to 
himself than to others— be was solnrr, iip- 
rightf and chaste. Though a good soMior 
and a good speaker, he had not the slightest 
pretension to wit, nor even to glory. Ue was 
a plfun matter-of-fact ruler, governing the em- 
pire just nshe would have done a legion, with 
a simplicity and a roughness of character ex- 
clusively military ; showing a hai^hncsA that 
bordered upon cruelty, when he deemed it 
necessary to the interests of the public ser- 
vice, and yet by no moans prompt to avenge 
his own personal injuries; a man, in fact, 
having but few wants and no taste for iM>mp 
or display, though rigorous beyond measure 
to replenish the coffers of the state, and to 
balance the receipts with the outlays of the 
treasury," (pp. 8, 9.) 

Yalentinian was in the height of 
manhood when ho was clothed with the 
imperial purf »le ; but if he felt no exul- 
tation, he evinced a keen jealousy for 
the maintenance of his newly acquir- 
ed |K)wcr, hardly allowing a mere sug- 
gestion as to its use and exercii^e. That 



jealousy and mistrust were extended 
even to the high influence of the church 
itself. The very first year of his reign 
offers numerous traces of that spirit of 
universal toleration which has become 
the idol of our modem reformers, yet 
which was so repugnant to the ideas 
and feelings of the old Roman world. 

Succeeding to Jovian, having wit- 
nessed the Tagaries of Julian, under 
whom he had even sufiered persecution, 
the new emperor indeed began by re- 
lieving his fellow-believers from their 
sundry disabilities, but at the same time 
he put every other form of religious be- 
lief on a footing of rigorous equality 
with Christianity. Thus, if he takes 
from the heathens the temples which 
the Apostate had bestowed upon them, 
these temples became state property, 
instead of being restored to the Christ- 
ians — Yalentinian so establishing, ob- 
serves Prince de Broglic, a sort of neu- 
tral power between the two contend- 
ing doctrines. Thus, again, the pub- 
lic schools are opened to all, the cleri- 
cal immunities and privileges are kept 
within narrow bounds, the heathen 
sacrifices arc scarcely prohibited; in 
fact, the most assiduous precautions 
were taken in order to prevent the 
very appearance of any subordination 
of the temporal government to sacer- 
dotal infiuence. This was, doubtless, 
a new feature in the sovereign, which 
took every one by surprise, though 
many considered it to show a sound 
policy and practictil wisdom. And yet, 
this very altitude of Yalentinian to- 
ward the church was but a proof of 
his real weakness, as the general inci- 
dents of his reign were destined to 
show in strong colors. Yalentinian'a 
immediate object was to establish the 
full and total independence of the secu- 
lar government. In reality, he render- 
ed still more evident in the eyes of the 
world its utter helplessness to guard 
and defend its most important privi- 
leges. Thenceforwanl. to stand aloof 
from the church on the plea of state 
policy was an utter im[>033ibility. On 
the contrary, an alliance with the 
church was a matter of positive ueoea- 



The Church and the Roman Empire. 



S65 



sitj, for no other power in the world 
could, like her, play the part of a most 
useftil and efficient auxiliary. Valen- 
tinian was to learn this at the outset of 
his reign. 

He had hardly arrived at Milan, the 
capital of the western empire, when he 
had to encounter the insuperable diffi- 
culties of his finely balanced system. 
A contest had arisen between the 
Arian bishop Auxentius and the great 
Hilary of Poitiers. The latter used 
his utmost endeavors to correct the 
evils attendant upon the persecution 
lately raised by the Emperor Constans ; 
but Hilary was by no means disposed 
to overlook the delinquencies of cour- 
tier prelates, who changed their belief 
according to the whim and will of every 
new sovereign. Such was Auxentius, 
who afler showing himself a zealous 
Arian, now displayed no less zeal in 
his recantations, which did not, how- 
ever, at all deceive his own fiock. The 
Milanese were steadfast in their oppo- 
sition to the ever-changing prelate, and 
Hilary no le?s stanchly encouraged 
them in their resistance. 

According to Valen tin ian's system, 
he should and would have remained 
neutral between the two antagonists. 
But such an amount of indifference 
was not in the habits of the Roman ad- 
nunistration. There was nothing so 
contrary to public order, said many an 
imperial adviser, as these conventicles 
of the flock against their pastor, above 
all when backed by the influence of a 
foreigner. Since Auxentius consented 
to sign the orthodox formula, and thus 
to do away with every vestige of past 
dissensions, why should others obsti- 
nately endeavor to perpetuate them ? 
This was a matter of police regulations,* 
not a question of belief. When people 
were all of the same opinion, why 
should not they meet together to pray 
in the same church ? 

We can almost imagine that we arc 
reading a memoir sent up by a French 
prefect to his minister, for the purpose 
of playing the umpire between some 
priest and his bishop. At any rate, 
Taleatinian found the advice bo coq- 



formable to his own ideas, that he unwit- 
tingly issued an edict prohibiting the 
Christians to attend at any ceremony 
of their worship, except in such places 
as were subjected to the bishop's juris- 
diction. Hilary immediately applied 
to the emperor himself, and soon show- 
e<l him his error, which was, however, 
followed by another step of a still grav- 
er character. He ordered that the 
question should be examined by a com- 
mittee of ten bishops and two secular 
magistrates. Auxentius, on being con- 
fronted with Hilary, made iiY^rj ad- 
mission that was required ; yet the lat- 
ter had scarcely turned his back when 
the equivocating prelate recanted once 
more his recantations, and maligned 
the Bishop of Poitiers to the emperor. 
His aspersions were but too successful, • 
for Hilary was denied a second audi- 
ence, and was commanded to leave the 
town immediately. 

The prelate obeyed as a subject, but 
as a bishop he had a right to speak, 
and he spoke with a freedom worthy 
of such a man. His letter, apparently 
addressed to the public, in reality was 
a bold protest against the emperor's in- 
terference in religions aflkirs. We 
doubt whether Constantine would have 
submitted to such language, which, 
however, is a landmark showing the 
progress of Christian ideas as to the re- 
lations of the spiritual and the tempo- 
ral power. But it was the last episco- 
pal act of the great pontiff, who died 
shortly after. 

It is not merely in this direction that 
we see Christianity gradually assert- 
ing its ascendency in the Roman world. 
Slowly, but surely, the patriciate was 
yielding to its influence. Accustomed, 
as we are, to consider the Soman aris- 
tocracy as totally effijte during the lat- 
ter period previous to the fall of the 
empire, we can hardly fancy to our- 
selves that its grandees were anything 
else but the degenerate posterity of the 
Cornel ii, the Anicii, and other illustri- 
ous gentes of ancient Rome. There 
were, indeed, so many links connecdng 
them with olden forms and idolatrous 
ordinances, that to couple them with 



Tk$ Church and the Monum^ .Empire, 



tm 



obliged to bind the very wounds he had 
inflicted — nay, to countermand the 
measures which he had adopted under 
the imperious claims of the public 
security. 

Among these laws or decrees tend- 
ing to soothe the pangs of a suffering 
nation, we must note several that bear 
evident traces of a Christian inspira- 
tion. Thus, close to a law binding the 
tenant to the land on which he is con- 
demned to live and die, we find another 
defending him against the excessive 
pretensions of the landowner. Else- 
where, if the authority of the judges is 
duly enforced, minute precautions are 
taken against their accidental or in- 
terested errors; they are ordered to 
enact their sentences m public, prohib- 
ited from holding property within the 
limits of their residence, and threatened 
with severe |ienalties if they should 
listen to the insinuations of informers. 
At the same time, physicians were ap- 
pointed to attend the poor in large towns 
at the expense of the treasury, and 
other measures of a similar character 
were carried, all betraying a benevo- 
lent disposition totally unknown to the 
heathen world. 

We must refer to the author's pages 
for many other instances of innovations 
in which we detect the increasing influ- 
ence of Christianity, and draw the read- 
er's notice to one of the most remarka- 
ble institutions of those times, out of 
which grow perhaps the ecclesiastical 
principalities of the feudal ages. As 
there was a constant stream of griev- 
ances and claims sent up from the 
provinces to the crown, Valentinian 
thought proper to appoint an official 
defender of their rights, defensor civi- 
iatis. 

"Sach was the title of a new office, which 
tppears for the first time in 365, filling an in- 
termediate sUtion between the niria^ or mu- 
nicipality, and the treasury. The duties of 
thio new agent were twofold, and well adapted 
to the high-pressure mechanism which held 
the curia responsible for the total amount of 
taxes due to the fiscus and allowed them at 
the same time to fall back on the small pro- 
prietors of the citj. On the defender in- 
eombs the dutj, as a representative of the 
corialea, of discuflUDg with the state the 



amount of the whole contingent ; and then, 
with the curiales themselres, the aliquot part 
of each rate-payer. Himself a stranger to the 
curia, he is obliged at once to protect and keep 
it within bounds ; to speak for it and against 
it ; to defend it, to lighten its burden, and to 
prevent it from throwing that burden on other 
people's shoulders. In fact, the defender was 
something like the popular tribune, whose 
veto is now directed, not against aristocratical 
influence, but against the tyranny of the admin- 
istration. In its decrepitude, the empire was 
returning, like many an old man, lo the habits 
and ways of its childhood," (p. 61, 9eq.) 

But the difficulty was to find a man 
of sufficient integrity, power, and influ- 
ence to hold this delicate position be- 
tween the crown and the nation. Iq 
the general downfall of public virtue, 
there was hardly a citizen or a land- 
owner capable of fulfilling such arduous 
duties. His magistracy was elective; 
but it was soon found out that the 
bishop alone had both virtue and power 
to withstand the fitful caprices of im- 
perial despotism, no less than the rag- 
ing passions of the barbarians. Did 
Valentinian dream of such a result 
when he instituted the defensores f 
Doubtless not : and this very fact throws 
a flood of light upon the real state of 
things at the period we have before our 
eyes. 

It is not merely in the West that we 
thus meet with the irresistible ascend- 
ency of Christianity, making its way 
both with and against temporal power; 
the same spectacle awaits us in a still 
more striking manner in the East. 
Every one is more or less familiar with 
the great struggle between Arianism 
and the illustrious Athanasius. That 
contest, however, bore more of a purely 
theological than of a political character, 
and we shall therefore pass on to scenes 
of a different nature, and perhaps less 
known to the general reader. The 
famous heresy, so like ProtestaDtism 
in its main features, was fast dwindling 
into a court intrigue, though fostered 
by the weak arm of a Valens. Under 
that degenerate prince the orthodox 
bishops were once more banished from 
their sees ; but the church had ah'eady 
overcome two recent persecutions, 
whilst the state had well nigh sao- 



388 



Thi Church ctftd l^i Roman Empire, 



<^iiml>cd to four successive revolutions, 
Evcr^ man could now see witb his own 
ejrfs where resided true influence and 
power, 90 that, even in a worldly view^ 
it was no longer safe to trust solely to 
the sovereign's whim and pleasure, 
Valena himself was destiued to exp6* 
rieriee, in his fatal downfall^ that he 
would have to deal alike with a true 
bishop anjl a true statesman in (he per- 
son of St. Ba^il, who ruled over the 
diocese of Ciesarea. 

The importance of Cfesarea, as the 
ecclesiastical metropolis of Asia Minor, 
was very considerable^ extending its 
juriBdiction over tlic independent ex- 
archate of Pontu3, and even beyond 
the limitB of the euipire, over Armeuia 
and certain parts of Persia, Valens 
wna desirous of placing at the head of 
this large see one of his Arian creatures ; 
b«t at the \^rj first rumor of such a 
licandal the whole population called for 
Basil, who had not yet been raised to 
tlie episcopal dignity. Shortly at^er, 
hfiwever, the old Bishop of Cil^sarea 
offered a ^liare of his power to the pop- 
ular candidate, who thus was brought 
forth to the foremost rank in the im- 
pending struggle between the church 
and the emi:»eron 

Valens, after many delays, at last 
aet out u[K)n \m progress through Asia 
Minor, He jimrneyed slowly, in order 
to make himself acquainted with the 
real feelings of the surrounding popu- 

[^lotion. To secure a favorable reeep- 

'lion, he sent before him his prefect 
Modcstns, who took good care that no 
bos tile figure should meet the eye of 
the sovereign. On entering any town, 
with a numerous retinue of eourtiera, 
tiie prefect immediately sent for tJic 
bishop, and questioned lura as to his 
dispositions in regard to the ernperor^s 

I views, If the answer proved sal is fac- 
tory, tJie prelate was Imided with honors 
•iid privileges; if, on the contrary, he 
adhered to the true faith, banishraent 
or even death was awarded against 
him. The whole of Btthynia and Ga- 
latia was thus traversed by the imperial 
corti'ge, which met everywhere that 

ittUeot iittttude on the port of the people 



80 often mistaken for a sincere feoliti 
of satisfaction. At last Modcatua en^ 
tered Cappadocia, on his way to the 
city inhabited, one might almost say 
governed^ by Basil. And here we 
must give way to our author's narra-j 
tive, for no words of ours c^juld supplj 
tlie interest of the following scene : 

"On hia Apriiral in town, tli« prefect 
Bent for the bbbop, Basil obeyed the iunt- 
mons ; whou lie cntored tlie prefect's 
iiuitiilaiui?(i an attitude of culm i»U(>e 
VI I lie h guve tiim, sa}'^ Gregory Xjsba, f<vr 
the uppfMiranc^ of a phyBiciiin visUiog a por' 
tieut than that of a delinquent bctorc hit 
j ud j^. Tbid finaneaa intimidrnted the prefi 
who hud recourse at first to mildness* * Tbi 
emperor is coming/ said he ; * pr&y bewai%^ 
for he h highly irritated ; and, for a 
scruple about a dogma, do not jeopardiztt 
wantonly the interests of your church : if, on 
the uoritrary, you show yourself fiubmis9i?e, 
Toti will r«el the eflectif of his goad-wilL* 
*Fiiy tttlcution yourieltV replied Basil, *lo 
the Cii't thnt you have no power over such 
men as seek for nothing el»c but the king* 
dom of God, uud pray do not talk to me at 
you would to children.* ' Well, but won't 
you do anything for the emperor V asked thfl 
prefect, '♦ Is it nothing in your eyes to se<i 
the emperor mingUug with your Buck and b<^ 
coming one of your a uditors ? This u what 
you ruuy gain by yielding a Utile, and by mic- 
rifieing one fingle word of the Hymboli* 
'Doubtless, it la a great thing to see an 
eraperor at church, for it i^ a great thing to 
Bare a eoul, not only the soul of an emperor^ 
but the soul of any man^ whatever It may he. 
And yet^ far from adding to or taking frook 
the eyinbol one eingle word, I would not even 
alter'ihe dispoaiiian of the letters that make 
up tlie syllables.* * What, will you forget 00 
far the respect you owe to the emperor S*^ 
claimed Hodeatus in n loud voice, and 
way to impatience * But in what I do 
ofliend him/ retorted liaail, * \a more 
can undertitand,* ' Why, you dotiH adopt 
h'u^ faith, when all around you eubniit 10 ' 
*But my own emperor wills It not; I osil 
never worship a creature^ having nmelf been 
created by God, and called to become one like 
unto him/* * Well* but we who eommnnd iti 
this plaee« what do you think of ui t Are 
we nothing m your eye« ? and would you not 
deem yourself happy to be oar e<iual, uid 
to be associated to our dignity V ' 1 oti may 
lord it over us, and I by no means dispute your 
eialted rank. To be yoiir equal la, doublie«,| 
a fine thing ; but I am already your eqi 
since you are, like myself, the cr«sai 
God, and since I am likewise tbe equal^ 
I deem an honor, of those whom joa 
*■ At least, don't you fear my pover f* ' 



I 
I 



ITie Church and the Soman Empire. 



9» 



otn you do to me?* *Whi^t?— why, inflict 
npon yoQ any degree of suffering I may com- 
mand.* * Pray 8peak out clearly and tell me 
what?* 'Confiscation, banishment, tortures 
—death itselfl* * None of those things can 
reach me ; a man who has nothing leaves 
nothing for confiscation; a man who is at- 
tached to no place, and looks upon himself 
ererywhere as a stranger, is beyond the 
reach of banishment What tortures can 
joa inflict upon this weak body, when 
the very first blow will do for it at once? 
Indeed, indeed,* added Basil, pointing to his 
chest, * you would do me a good service were 
jou to rid me of this miserable pair of bdlows. 
As for death, I should deem it a favor, as 
leading me to that (}od for whom I wish to 
live, and for whose cause I am already half 
dead.* * Nobody ever dared,* interrupted 
Modestos, ' to speak to me in this way.* * Be- 
cause yon never met a bishop.' Bewildered 
tnd angry, yet still afraid of carrying matters 
to the last extremities, Modestus put an end 
to the interview by giving the bishop one day 
for reflection. * To-morrow you will find me 
vhat I am to-day,* concluded Basil, *and I 
don*t wish that you should yourself change in 
regard to me.* 

** On the morrow, and on the following days, 
Valens was expected every hour. The bishop 
was besieged with parleys and entreaties of 
every description. There was not one noble 
personage who did not undertake to argue 
with the prelate. The head cook, Demos- 
thenes — ^an influential man, by the by — re- 
turned constantly to the attack. Modestus, 
on the other hand, feeling vexed at having no 
better result to bring before the emperor, and 
anxious to avoid any charge of weakness, 
made public preparations for an execution. 
Heralds, lictors, executioners — every judicial 
agent was summoned, ready at a signal to 
■eise upon the factious priest Having thus 
taken every precaution, the prefect, somewhat 
abashed, yet confident at least in his preven- 
tive measures, repaired to the prince. * Em- 
peror,* said he, * I have failed in my attempt ; 
this man is unmanageable ; threats, entreaties, 
kindness, are all unavailing with him. This is 
a matter of stem severity ; do but give the 
order, and it shall be fulfilled.* But this was 
exactly what Valcns was not inclined to do. 
Though no less incensed than bcwildere<], still 
be did not dare to shed such illustrious blood 
on the path he was about to enter. He re- 
prieved the execution, and penetrated into 
the city in a sort of wavering state of mind, 
just like a piece of iron, says Gregory Nyssa, 
dready melting in the fire ; but nevertheless 
■till remaining a bit of iron. 

'* He continued in this mood, irresolute as 
to his line of conduct, and without holding 
any communication with the bishop*s dwelling. 
A meeting, however, became unavoidable, for 
the festival of the Epiphany was approaching ; 
and, unless he chose to put himself outside of 

TOL. T.— 24 



the church, Yalens could not do otherwise 
than attend at divine service. On the momlnff 
of the feast, he therefore came to a determiu 
nation, and went to the temple with an escort 
of soldiers, himself doubting whether he would 
be received peacefully, or would have to force 
an entry through violence. Ho entered : the 
crowd was most numerous, and had just be- 
gun the choral psalms ; the chant was both 
harmonious and powerful, the whole servioe 
offering that appearance of majesty and order 
which Basil excelled in maintaining in his 
church. At the bottom of the nave stood 
Basil himself, facing the people, but motion- 
less like a pillar of the sanctuary, and with his 
eyes fixed upon the altar. There he remain- 
ed standing, just as the acts of the saints re- 
present him, his tall or rather towering statp 
ure showing off his spare and slender figure, 
while his aquiline features were strongly 
brought forth by his thin, emaciated cheeks ; 
a latent fire flashed from under his prominent 
forehead and his arched eyebrows, whilst now 
and then a somewhat disdainful smile parted 
on each side of his mouth his long white 
beard. All around him stood his clergy in an 
attitude of fear and respect At this impos- 
ing sight Yalens stopped, as if suddenly seized 
with a sort of bewilderment The service 
continued as though his presence had passed 
unperceived. At the offertory, he stepped 
forward to present the gift which he had pre- 
pared ; but no hand was held out to receive 
it; nobody came forward to meet him. A 
cloud passed before his eyes ; he staggered 
on his legs ; and, had not one of the attend- 
ants supported him, he would have fallen to 
the ground. Basil had pity on his anguish, 
and waved with his hand that the offering 
should be accepted. 

" The next day, the emperor having reco 
vered his composure, returned to the church, 
and, feeling bolder, resolved to speak to hb 
terrible antagonist The service being over, 
he passed behind the velum where the offi- 
ciating priest was wont to retire. Basil re- 
ceived him with kindness, in the presence of 
his faithful friend Gregory, who had hastened 
to his side. The interview was a long and 
peaceful one. Basil fully expUined to the 
monarch his reasons for not conforming to 
his wishes, and even entered into many theo- 
logical developments. By thus fluttering his 
vanity, and by appearing to set some value on 
his opinion, he kept him for several hours 
spellbound by his lucid and powerful elo- 
quence. This, by no means, satisfied many 
of the by-standers, who had already gone over 
to Arianism, and some of them endeavored to 
interfere. Among these was the unfortunate 
Demosthenes, who made an attempt at a theo- 
logical argument, but in the midst of bis de- 
monstration he unwittingly coined a most ri- 
diculous barbarism. * Strange,* exclaimed 
Basil, smiling, * here we have caught Demoa- 
thenea blundering in Greek I* The empe- 



7%e Church and ihe Moman Smplre* 



ror departed, somewliiit pacified, and bestow- 
ed iiptin Basil a puce of lun<i Tor » hospital 
mhkh he had founded,'* (pp. 9i-10:^) 

What a picture I what a Icusan for 
everjone! How it bring^s home to 
every mind tlie fact timt a new power 
had arisen, ^vhieh was more I ban a 
ftiatch for worldly riiliM-^* 1 Lough cloth- 
ed with oven imperial pnrj)le. In the 
presicnt instance, the lesson l>ecame 
atill more appnrent, when Valcns left 
Ciesarea without ha\inj2: daied to »lgn 
a decre** of banishment against Basil, 
and fully con d need thai a supernatu- 
ruJ a;iency interfered lo protect bira. 
In ihe West, observer Pruiee de Brog* 
lie, Valenliniiin codeavoiTd to main- 
tain a neutral position between the 
cbnrcli and heathenism ; but he found 
it impoHsible to keep hia ground, and 
bis own meaBtires turned a^insi hira^ 
In tlie Eafit, Valens aimed at govern- 
ing aji^ainst the churchy but was over- 
eoEoe by the sole ascendency of sane* 
tity oumblned with getuus. The lirae, 
in fad;, was come when the tempoi-aJ 
power proved to be utterly belplcRa to 
save a cmmWing utate of society from 
its otter downfall, and when the funda- 
mental principles on wlijch all society 
mugt e^er rest were to be recast and 
remodelled by more Bkilfiil hand.", 
lhou;rh even thmugh a dark, chaotic 
ptfriotl, to serve again in future days 
as the subsii-aium of modem Christen- 
dom* Geologi.^t8 plnngitig into the 
bowels of the earth tell us of primitive 
periods, and primitive creations, that 
afipaar to our wondering eyes as the 
fcrirrtmnei^ or foreshadows of our own 
world. We read something of the 
name kind in the facts and incidents of 
the fVmrtb century : the priestly power 
makes itself already felt in a Basil, or 
tn Angustin^ much as it was hereafter 
displayed in a Gregory I.^ or a Lan- 
fhinc, or an Ansel m, or even a Ililde- 
brand. Doubtless, Basil and An»brose 
wen? no Hildebninds, but they are of 
the same race and genu^ — tijere is a 
family likeness between tliem all, be- 
caui^e^ perhaps, the same spirit bums 
within them, whatever may be their 
out ward figure or robe. To coayej 



our meaning through another si mi 
You enter a gallery, containing t 
portraits of «orae eminent family, wh( 
deeds have \eh their imprint for 
on the country to which they belou; 
You take your stand at the tbunder 
the illustrious stock, and probably hL 
large, Of en, noble figure sinkM at on* 
inloyour memory, as if you l»nd Ixtoj 
you somr huge reUc of the fossil worl 
And then you go on, following, one b; 
one, each successive representative 
(he time- bono red generations. Tl 
ancesind likeness becomes almost vx* 
tinct, and you vainly endeavor lo n 
trace in the eflTeminate lineannids of 
courtier the eagle-eye and haugluy 
traits of his fon^fathers. But all of a 
sudden you arc riveted to the *ipot by 
the portrait of a youth, who seems to 
embody within himself cvary dislinc 
live mark of the whole race. Yoi 
would almost mistake him for a son 
the original founder, and yet he bean 
80 completely about him the peculiari- 
ties of his own lime that to place liim 
anywhere else would be committing a 
utter anachronism. Your mind is, as i 
wei-e, thrown off its balance, and yo 
hardly know how to account tor the d^ 
luston. Something of the same kind oc- 
curs when yoTi compare certain jirelatet 
of the middle age, or even of later titii« 
wnth the last bishops of the Romaal 
empire; and nowhere does this highljfj 
interesting fact come forth in strongeri 
relief than in the work before us. Hj 
would be easy to demonstniie the as 
sertion by other incidents belonging t 
the life of St» Basil ; we prefer givinj^ 
a still bett^T pixKif in St. Ambrose, the 
C4?lchrated bijshop of ISIilan. 

He wns the In^t Roman stat^manp' 
just as Theodosius might be termed 
the lAT^t Christian emperor. Ho b 
been brought up in the fiunilinrity 
Probus, one of the most eminent patri 
cians of llie great city. As lie hi 
self Ijclonged to a noble family, be I 
learned ut an early age all the tradS 
tions and arts of the Roman govfrn- 
roent, whiltjt the austerity nf his rel 
gious principled guanled him agatni 
&e allurcmeDts ot^ pleasure. Of 



to 

i 



!%€ Church and 0^ JRoman Mmpire, 



ten 



open, commanding exterior, a good 
speaker, well versed in literature, no 
less proficient in the laws of his coun- 
try, it seemed natural that with such 
eminent qualitications, backed with ex- 
cellent connections, he should attract 
the sovereign's notice. This actually 
took place, and he was appointed to 
the consular government of Milan. 
But the times were dangerous, for the 
unbending disposition of Valentinian 
had now become tyrannical. Probus 
was by no means blind to the peril in- 
curred by his youthful protege; and 
on taking leave of him the veteran 
politician simply said, ** Child, I have 
but one piece of ad\ice to give you. 
Behave, not like a governor, but like a 
bishop." The advice was characteris- 
tic ai^d pithy: Ambrose remembered 
it well. In the midst of the univer- 
sal confusion and terror caused by the 
emperor's ciuelty, Milan enjoyed the 
greatest order and tranquillity. No 
riots, no insurrections, no complaints ; 
the thing was in itself a wonder, more 
particularly, if we recollect the dissen- 
sions existing between the Arian bishop 
Auxentius, and the better part of his 
flock. In fact, a young governor set- 
ting an example of chastity, integrity, 
and humanity — showing himself affa- 
ble, just, or merciful according to the 
occasion — never sacrificing to his own 
ambition or private interests the time 
and property of otiiers ; such a man, 
says Prince de Broglie, was, in the 
ejes of the population, fit to grace the 
episcopal seat far better than the prssto- 
rium of the civil magistrate. 

The popular election of Ambrose to 
the episcopacy is too well known for 
us to relate once more a story that has 
been so oHen and so ably told. What 
we \^ ish particularly to bring forward 
is the secular character which is con- 
stantly enforced upon a bishop of those 
times, whether he wills it or not, from 
the very simple reason that he could 
do what no other could accomplish. 

Ambrose had scarcely been conse- 
crated — he had scarcely bestowed the 
whule of his large fortune upon the 
poor, he had scarcely given himself 



up to the absorbing duties of his new 
position, when he was called upon to 
guide the first steps of his own sovei^ 
eign, young Gratian, who had just 
succeeded to his father Valentinian, 
and raised Theodosius to the throne 
of the East. Both these princes were 
sincere Christians, but Theodosius had 
been brought up in the camp, had tast- 
ed the bitter cup of adversity, and add- 
ed to the qualities of a good soldier 
those of a cool judgment and a sound 
heart. Gratian, on the contrary, was 
a mere stripling, whose intentions were 
upright, but who had hardly any ex- 
perience in public afiairs. He thui 
was naturally disposed to lean on Am- 
brose, whose advice, both as a pastor 
and a statesman, might be so eminent- 
ly useful. That advice was not want* 
ing, and for some time the policy of 
the Western Empire was in reality 
the policy of Ambrose. We use the 
word advisedly, for no other could bet* 
ter answer to our meaning and to the 
real state of things. At the same time 
we beg the reader to remember that 
not for one minute does the bishop 
separate his strong, manly adherenoe 
to the gospel from his views as to the 
secular government ; both are, indeed; 
so blended, so utterly identified, that it 
becomes as impossible to distinguish 
them one from another, as it is to marls 
where the influence of onr bodily or- 
gans terminates, and where that of onr 
soul begins. The evils of the timee 
were too frequent, and too poignant, 
not to require the interference of Am- 
brose — not to make him hold, eyen as 
a bishop, a sort of civil magistracy, of 
which his flock would have been the 
very last to complain. Though he had 
not the slightest idea of using his sober 
but penetrating eloquence for anything 
like popular demonstrations, yet be 
was not the man to refuse the part of 
an intercessor, if a population, suffer^ 
ing from oppression, claimed his sup^ 
port ; or if the sovereign asked of him 
to strengthen his wavering counselsi 
he would readily hold out a helping 
hand. 
And here we may find, with onr an- 



^ra 



I^ (Thureh and Me Jioman Empire^ 



llior, manifest indtcations of that great 
Cliristian doctrine, the " de jtire'' alli- 
ance of cimrch and state. Ambrose 
bad been formed from childliood up- 
ward to a certain course of ideas, 
which led him naturally to assume a 
large share in tlie direction of public 
affairs. 

**Ho ociuld not apprebend the notion that 
the cmpii-e should liftve no oJfiL'ial forrn of 
worsliipf or mdier tbat it ehotild baTe tvro 
nMgiona together at one and the ^ame time. 
He waa shocked at the light of an incoherent 
oonfusioii of Christianity and heath eni^tn to 
be met with at every step throughout the 
West^ and nowhere more than at Home it- 
fclf. The churches and their rival templef)| 
both opened on the same daj^ by older of Uie 
Minate or emperor, for the aaiDo oflicial cere- 
mouiei; Jupiter and Mart, two glorified dt'- 
mond, associated with the one jeuhjus (iod^ 
as tlie protectors of tbe commouwealth ; in- 
TOked in the same language^ thnnketi for the 
ttune favors ; and thou the monumenta co 
fvred with profane ioscnpiions, the statue* 
of idoU towering over llie biUilHca.% or defying 
on the pubtie squares and at the corner of 
wrery street the ero»B triumphant ^ aJI this 
adulterous mixture of truth aud error, whieh 
the Chriation emperors had never dared to 
proecrihe completely, ieandalized the jeatoua 
purttv of his faith quite aa much aa hia tajste 
for aihnjni*trttUve regularity. As a prefect, 
lie wo^ld have gladly put an end to such con* 
ibakni. as being a pubao uuisauce ; aa a ti- 
ihoD, he felt Indignant against so poisonoua a 
profanation. The empire acknowledging but 
oat maater, and there being but one God in 
bearen, why should not these two unttiea bo 
linked together by an indUj*oUibIo union? 
Why should the state tolerate within its Umlts 
anything tieyond those two grand unities f 
On this central point Gralian and the bishop 
Cffreed even before they find Hcen each other. 
Ae aUianoe of the church and state, which 
the tltnoroua conscicQce of a Oratian Imd 
looked for, Am1jro«« was ready not only to 
recommend, but enforce as a duty," (vol. ii. p. 
18.) 

It would Imrdly be possible to point 
out in njor*5 positive terms the doc- 
trine which beC4ime the ^n^undwork 
of Chrislendom in after times, a doc- 
trine which a SL Gregory VIL and an 
Innocent IIL weie to carry to its ex- 
treme consequences. This was the 
germ, dostined to onfold itself slowly 
tuiderground, rnilil it should rise and 
develop its bnuiches in the feudal 
tiiDe8| serving as a stay and prop for 



an anarchical state of society. Bi 

let U3 not wander beyond our subj' 
Gratian and Ambrose were soon cli 
ly knit together in tiie greatest intimj 
cy, and ere long the influenee of l 
raiD^ter mind became apparent, 
tween :i78 and 381 Gi^tlan dwelt al- 
most constantly at Milan, issuing new' 
laws, which all bear the stamp of wi 
priestly impulse, which all are inspir 
ed by a man who could not forge* tin 
he likewise had held civil power. In 
every one of these enactments, justly 
observes our author, we perceive ce; 
tain dispositions tempering rigor 
clemency. Thus it is, for instancei* 
with rhuse privileged corporations 
the lioman empire, which were 
once a resource and a Bounce of ruio 
for its very existence by their extor- 
tionary tendencies ; thus, again, with 
a more equitable di&tnbutlon of the 
anuona, which is modified according 
to the dictates of charit}-. Else*' 
where measures are adopted against 
burglary or brigandage, but at lh6 
same time qualified by certain human< 
clauses, as to the mode of repres.^ion. 
In fac», the civil ruler shows himsel' 
less authoritative, less imperious^ less 
harsh and arbitrary in the display of 
his power ; and yet we meet with a 
greater firmness, never baulked by I 
dltemativcj} of weakness and helplesS' 
ness, 

In other directions these laws assatnt 
the form of what we might call publi 
manifestations of the imperial coi 
science* Let us supply a few instruc- 
tive instances. 

Milan, August 3, 579,— Generall 
law against iieretics. oxja*c8sly modi- 
fying the edict enacted at Sirmium ia 
the preceding year, at?d extending to 
sucli ftt^cta a* shall debase ^y ihetr sa- 
phUtr^ the notion of God. thu prohibi- 
tion of pro{iagandi8m« which had al- 
ready been laid upon those who cm 
nutlnl hoptUm by rmemnff i*/» (Doi 

Milan, April 24, 380.— Women of; 
low extraction, and condemned by thai! 
very fact to appear on the stage, ar# 
Greed from any such obligation as sooa 



I lift ^^ 



I%e Church and the Homan Bmipiirt, 



avs 



as they embrace Cbristianitj ; ** be- 
cause/' Bays the law, ** the better mode 
of living they have adopted liberates 
them from the bond of their natural 
condition : Melior vivendi usus vinculo 
fuUurcdis conditionis evaluitJ* 

May, 881. — The above law is re- 
stricted ; ^* for such women as abandon 
the purity of a Christian life shall not 
enjoy the above exemption." 

July 21st — Liberation of certain 
criminals, in honor of Easter. 

May 2, 382. — Penal measures are 
denounced against those apostates who 
shall preach apostasy. Whoever aban- 
dons the Christian lav to embrace 
idolatry, Judaism, or Manichasism, is 
declared incapable of making a will, 
one of the greatest penalties to which 
a Roman could be subjected. And 
all these measures were crowned by 
another, which made a deep impres- 
sioQ throughout the whole empire : the 
statue of Victory was definitively re- 
moved from the hall where the senate 
assembled at Rome for its delibera- 
tions. Thb was perhaps the greatest 
proof of the influence which Ambrose 
had over the imperial mind, and not 
one heathen, of high or low degree, 
mistook the hand that had dealt the 
blow. 

At any rate, Ambrose was not the 
man to deny if. Symmachus, one of 
the most illustrious patricians, who be* 
kmged to the heathen party, having 
sent up to the throne a petition, whose 
object was to obtain the restoration of 
the statue, Ambrose himself entered 
the lists in a counter petition, or ratlier 
manifesto, in which we see at once the 
bishop and the statesman. 

** Every man [says he] who acknowledges 
the Roman rule bears arms for the empcr- 
ora and princes ; yon are verily the militia of 
an all-powerful God, and of the most holy 
faith. For there is no security for man him- 
self if he does not worship the true God — the 
God of the Christians, who governs all things ; 
he alone is the true God, and demands that 
we should adore bira from the bottom of our 
souls. The gods of nations, say the Scrip- 
tures, are nothing else but devils. 

*' Now whosoever serves that God ought to 
*bear within him no disaimttlatioD, no reserrfl^ 



but devote his whde being to him. If ho 
does not entertain such feelings, he ought fit 
least to offer no external consent to idolatrous 
worship, or to a profane worship ; for no one 
can deceive God, to whom the secret of our 
hearts lies open. ... I am really astonished 
that any man should hope to see you restore 
the altars of the Gentiles, and give money 

from your coffers for profane sacrifices 

emperor I do not allow any man to deceive 
your youth. . . . And I likewise, I am for fol- 
lowing the experience of the wise, but God*8 
counsels must rule supreme over all others. 
If we had to do here with some military con- 
cern, you should consult and follow the opi- 
nion of the best approved generals. But fai 
religious matters you are bound to listen to 
God. Is the man who gives you this piece 
of advice a heathen ? Well, don't force him 
to believe what he won't believe ; but then let 
him allow you, emperor I the same freedom : 
let him not attempt to force upon the sever* 
cign an act of violence that he would not him- 
self endure at his hands. The very heathen 
does not like a man to belie his own creed ; 
every one ought to maintain the free and sin- 
ccre convictions of his own mind. Should 
those who hurry you on to such a deoisioo 
be but nominal Christians, pray, do not al- 
low yourself to be deluded by a name. 
Whoever advises yoii m this way sacriflcefl 
to the gods, whether he admits it or not . . ." 

Ambrose wound up bj requesting to 
obtain communication of the petition, 
with a view of answering it. ^' In a 
worldly suit," said he, ^^you would 
listen to both parties. This is a mat* 
ter of religion. I, the bishop, I come 
forth to defend her. • . If you re- 
fuse me, no bishop will submit peace- 
fully to such an iniquity ; you may still 
apply to the church, but you will not 
meet any more with priests, or at least 
with any who will not be ready to re- 
sist you." 

Thoroughly to appreciate the weight 
of this strong language, it must be re- 
membered that many a lukewarm 
Christian within the imperial council 
inclined to the restoration of the fi»- 
mous statua To refuse the request 
of Ambrose would, however, have been 
imprudent, and besides, Yalentiniaa 
the Younger revered and loved the 
venerable bishop, who had shown hua 
great kindness in trying circumstanceii 
Once in possession of the pagan mA> 
nifesto, the great prelate of the West 
dealt with it in a manner which sca^ 



174 



ZiU Church and the Roman JBmpir€» 



Icred to the four winds both its argu- 
ments and rhetorical flourishes. The 
whole composition is a masterpiece of 
•ound reason and gentlemanly satire, 
forming a thorough defence of Christ- 
ianity against idolatry. When it was 
read before the council, every waver- 
ing mind was struck dumb ;j|irith asto- 
nishment, whilst the youthful sovereign 
broke forth in the following impassion- 
ed words : " It's the voice of Daniel ; 
I will not undo what my brotlier did." 
Of course the cause of the goddess 
Viitory was lost for ever. 

But something was not and could 
not be lost — we mean the contest be- 
tween the church and idolatry, that 
survived even the final crash of the 
empire. Yet that crash, though im- 
minent, could not yet be foreseen by 
either party, still less perhaps by Am- 
brose himself, who was a true type of 
the old Roman. His constant object 
seems to have been to revive the pris- 
tine policy of his forefathers, by instill- 
ing new life into them, thanks to the 
ioblime doctrines of the new faith. So 
things went on just in the same way, 
Christianity impregnating more and 
more the habits, institutions, and laws 
of ancient society, but for purposes 
that were still the secret of Providence. 
In the mean time Gratian was murder- 
ed by the usurper Maximus, and Am- 
brose was once more called to negotiate 
with the murderer, and to defend the 
last relics of the Valentinian family. 
A short time yet runs on, and Tbeodo- 
sius remains sole ruler of the whole civi- 
lized world — a ruler according to the 
heart of the holy bishop of Milan. With 
an Ambrose and a Theodosius to prop 
the tottering edifice, what might not be 
expected ? And yet it was not to be. 
These two bright figures are but a 
transient gleam between two storms. 
Alaric was bom — nay, more, he had 
been a silent spectator in the glittering 
crowd of courtiers who attended at 
the coronation of Theodosius. How 
many wild dreams of invasion, and 
burning cities, and bloody battles were 
teeming at tliat very moment in the 
brain of that young barbarian 1 



Singular enough, the first occasion 
on which Ambrose and TheodoeiuB 
met, as it were, in public, gave 
rise to a contest. The emperor, irri- 
tated at the summary destruction of a 
Jewish S3magogue by one of the East^ 
ern prelates, had ordered it to be re- 
built at the expense of the prelate. 
The bishop -was absent from Milan 
when the order was given and sent ; 
on his return, he felt indignant that a 
Christian prelate should be bound to 
rebuild a temple dedicated to the ex- 
ecration of Jesus Christ It was in 
his eyes a sort of prevarication far 
more guilty than the violation of any 
civil law. He immediately wrote to 
the emperor in the strongest lanfjjuage ; 
and here again he sets forth that great 
Christian doctrine which was after- 
ward so fully developed and exempli- 
fied in the middle age. The whole 
incident is so striking that we shall 
give it in the words of Prince dc Bro- 
glie: 

"Ambrose begins by a sliort insinuative 
exordium : * Listen to mo, emperor ! aa 
you wish that God may Ibten to me when I 
am praying for you. If I am not worthy of 
being beard by you, how should I be worthy 
of transmitting your wishes and prayers f If 
it be not proper for an emperor to fear plain 
speaking, it is not likewise proper for a priest 
to dissemble his thoughts.* 

"He then enters fully and unreservedly 
into hia own doetrine : he maintains the un- 
lawfulness of any help given by Christians 
for the construction of an edifice destined to 
error ; and the fuiihful, but, above all, the 
bishops, have no more the right to do it than 
the emperor to impose it upon them. If the 
bishop yields to the imperial order, he be- 
comes guilty, and the emperor ret^ponsible 
before God for the bishop's weakness. *• So 
you must see/ pursues Ambrose, 'whither 
you are going. You ought to fear quite as 
much the bishop*s obedience as his resistance. 
If be is steadfast, fear to make a martyr of 
him; if he shows weakness, fear that you 
may bear the weight of his fall. And, in- 
deed, how will your order be fulfilled? 
Should the Christians refuse to acoomplish 
it, will you force them to it through vio- 
lence ? So you will be obliged to confide to 
the Count of the East your victorious stan- 
dards, your labarum ; nay, the very standard 
of Christ himself, with the mission of reetQi^ 
ing a temple, wherein Christ will be denied. 
Well, pray order that the labarum ahall bo 



I%e Church and ihe Roman Smpw$. 



ff6 



ouTied into the synagogue, and then see whe- 
ther aiiy one will obey you. . . . History 
tells us that idohitrous temples were erected 
In Rome with the spoils of the Cimbrians. 
In our days, the Jews may engrave on the 
frontis*pieceof their synagogue : Temple built 
with the spoiU of the Christians. Public or- 
der requires it, will you say ? So the appear- 
ance ol* outward order raust lord it over the 
interests of faith ! No ; authority must yield 
to piety.* 

*^ It would be impossible to assert in lan- 
guage of more rigorous cogency the supremacy 
of the religious law over cy(iry civil law. The 
church, in her matenial prudence, is far from 
having rati tied on these delicate points the 
tenets of Ambrose : as she never imposed upon 
the faithful the obligation of building temples 
to error, so has she not forbidden them to 
contribute to their material preservation when- 
ever equity, previous engagements, or the ne- 
cessity of njpairing wrongs requires it of them. 
It is, tlierefore, by no means astouishing that 
Theoilosius, arguing like a civil lawgiver, 
should have deemed these demands excessive, 
or even that he should have given way to an 
unusual fit of ill humor. He allowed the let- 
ter to remain unanswered. And yet it con- 
tained toward the end two lines which offer- 
ed matter for consideration. *Such is mv 
request,' said the prelate ; * I have done all 
in my power to present it with that respect 
which i* due to you : pray, do not force me to 
speak out in the church.' 

** Indeed, as soon as he returned to Milan, 
Ambrose availed himself of the very first op- 
portunity to spt ak out at church, and before 
Thetxlo^ius. Ue chose for his text the words 
of Jeremiah : * Take up thy walnut staff, and 
walk forth.' He boldly asserted that the 
staff mentioned by the prophet was the sacer- 
dotal rod, intended far less to be agreeable 
than useful to those whom it scourges. He 
t^en recalled several examples of the old law, 
such as Nathan and David, thus showing that 
in all times the ministers of God had never 
spared the truth to kings. The comparison 
was in itself clear enough, and Theodosius 
must have ielt somewhat uncomfortable at the 
▼ery first words ; but still he could hardly ex- 
pect that the orator should address him per- 
sonally. And yet such was the case, when 
Ambrose said by way of conclusion : * And 
now, () em{)eror ! after speaking of you, I 
must speak to you ; retlect that the more God 
has raised you up in glory, the more you ought 
to show deference to him who has given you 

all It is the mercy of Christ which 

lias made you what you are. So you must 
love Christ's body, or the church, you must 
wash her feet, kiss them, periume them, so 
that the whole dwelling of Christ shall be 
filled with your good odor ; in other words, 
you must honor the meanest of his di.scipK'8, 
and forgive them their faults, since the ro- 
peotftnce of one lungle Biouer giTep joy in 



heaven to all the prophets and apostles. Tlit 
eye cannot say to the hand, I do not want 
thee, thou art unnecessary. Every member 
of the body of Jesus Christ is necessary, and 
to every one of them you owe proteption.' 

** The bishop came down from the altar after 
uttering these words in a tone of severity, and 
in the midst of the general amazement, for all 
were aware that the emperor was accused, bat 
no one knew the motive of the reprimand. 
Theodosius, of course, could not for one in* 
Btant remain doubtful. Stopping the prelate 
as he passed by, * So you have made me the 
subject of your speech,' said he in an angrj 
tone. * I said what I deemed of use to yonr- 
Belf,' repUed Ambrose. *I see very well,* 
resumed the emperor, more moved than erer, 
*that you have been speaking of the syna- 
gogue. I admit that my orders were some- 
what harsh, but I have already mitigated them \ 
and then those monks yonder are so wrong- 
headed.'* Here a courtier tliought fit to 
inveigh agaifist the monks, but he was soon 
stopped by Ambrose, who, once more addrese- 
ing the emperor, *I am going to offer the 
sacrifice !' exclaimed he ; * allow me to offer 
it for you fearlessly : free me from the burden 
which weighs down my soul.' * Well, well,' 
replied Theodosius, as he sat down again, 

* the orders shall be modified, I promise you.* 
But such a vague promise, and made as it was 
in a sullen mood, was not deemed sufficients 

* Cancel the whole affair,' insisted Ambrose ; 

* for, if you allow one tittle of it to remain, 
your magistrates will take advantage of it to 
grind down the poor Christians.' The dia- 
logue proceeded in the midst of the whole 
assembly, and the situation became at last 
downright intolerable. The emperor gare 
way, and promised whatever was exacted. 
'Tou Bwear t<x it,' said Ambrose; 'I am 
about to offer the sacrifice on your word. 
Mind, on your word,' he repeated a second 
time. * Yes, on my word,' replied Theodo- 
sius, who wanted, at any cost, to put an end 
to such a scene. The holy sacrifice began; 
' and never,' said Ambrose the next day to 
his sister, " never did I feel so sensildy the 
real presence of God in prayer.' " (Vol. iL pp. 
247-254.) 

What a scene indeed I And how it 
brings out at once the rapid progreaa 
which Christian feeling had made of 
late throughout the empire. Better 
than the famous penance of Tbeodosiua 
in the cathedral of Milan, it shows ti& 
how strongly the slightest deviation 
from the general range of Christina 
opinion worked upon the people. For^ 
in fact, we do not detect here the slightr- 

* The Emperor^s expresiion la fcu' stronger ; Jfi^- 



tTB 



I%0 Chttreh and Hke Roman Emphe. 



est mark of disapprobation, far less of 
iodignation, among the audience. Any 
other feeling but astonishment is not 
once perceptible, and even that is caus- 
ed by ignorance of the case, not by any 
want of sympathy for Ambrose. His 
conduct seems to be taken for granted 
on the part of his flock, however ex- 
treme and out of phice it may appear 
to modem readers. We are justified 
in considering such cases as signs of 
the times ; ^(iy years before they could 
not have taken place, and we doubt 
whether Constantine would have allow- 
ed himself to be thus browbeaten in an 
open church; sixty years after — the 
world had fallen a prey to the barbari- 
ans, and it was all over with the Ro- 
man empire. • 

Another observation of no less im- 
portance is the fact that conduct like 
this on the part of Ambrose did not in 
the slightest degree deprive him of any 
influence with the emperor. Quite the 
contrary; as long as Theodosius re- 
mained m It'ily, there prevailed the 
greatest intimacy between these two 
illustrious personages. Ambrose natu- 
rally resumed the station of a conflden- 
tial adviser, to whom every political 
aflair is freely communicated. No 
doubt that his opinions might be follow- 
ed in a less servile manner than under 
Gratian, but the sovereign himself was 
a man of mature years, accustomed to ' 
all the arts of government, and thus a 
better appreciator of the bishop's lucid 
▼lews and truly Christian politics. On 
both sides there sprang up a sort of 
mutual understanding, closely bonler- 
ing on a footing of equality, as one 
might expect between two master 
minds. It is indeed probable that to 
Ambrose we owe the permanent estab- 
lishment of an Eastern and Western 
Empire, a division founded upon neces- 
sity, and well calculated to avert its 
imminent ruin. 

*' SI Pergama dextn 
Defendl poKseut, ctiam bac defensa fuUseDt** 

Nor was this all, for other measures 
reveal the same influence. Contrary 
.to what took place on such occasiom. 



the revolution which placed Theodosi 
us at the head of the whole empire cost 
no other blood but that spilt on the 
field ofbattle against the usurper Maxi- 
mus. There were no executions, no 
confiscations, no acts of vengeance ; for 
the first time. Christian mildness and 
charity had the day to tlieraselves. 
Such policy, good in all times, was ex- 
cellent at a time when hardly any 
monarch could reckon upon transmit- 
ting his imperial crown to his immedi- 
ate descendants. 

The reader may now, we trust, form 
a definite notion of what he may ex- 
pect to find in the church and the Ro^ 
man empire during the fourth century. 
It is a general review of whtit the 
church maintained, preserved, and ap- 
propriated to herself among the con- 
fused elements of which was made up 
ancient civilization. Among tliat huge 
mass of elements we have purposely 
selected the most striking, as ofll'ring 
the best instances of that constant 
though silent transformation which so- 
ciety itself was undergoing previous to 
the creation of feudal Christendom. 
That, in the six octavo volumes before 
us, there are numberless instances of 
the same kind, must be evident to 
every intelligent mind. As another 
inducement to study the book, we may 
add that the holy father has bestowed 
upon it the highest praise in a brief 
addressed to tlie author — the lH»st r^ 
ward, assuredly, which his truly Catho- 
lic mind could have wished. 

And now, lastly, for one most im- 
portant application of those historical 
facts which the Prince de Broglie has 
placed before the world. To those who 
arc familiar with the annals of the two 
centuries which preceded the utter 
downfall of the Roman empire, there 
is a striking resemblance, in a moral 
view, with what is going on in our own 
times. Wherever we cast our eyes, 
we find a motley assemblage of high- 
flown philosophical doctrines blended 
with the most degrading superstitions 
of polytheism ; or at Alexandria, the 
Neo-Platonic schools borrowing a few 
partial tenets of ChriBtianity, which it 



7%e Church and the Soman BmpWe. 



m 



mixes up with a sort of jugglert the- 
oigy. After listeDing to the apostles 
of this celebrated school, we had but 
to ci-oss the street to attend at one of 
those instructions or lectures — ^how 
shall we call tliem ? — in which the 
Christian teachers* priests, and bishops 
developed the sublime tenets of the re- 
demption. And again, a little further 
on, we might have stepped into the 
Serapeum, and there witnessed the im- 
moral mysteries of the Egyptian wor- 
ship. And so was it, more or less, 
over all the Roman world. 

Doubtless between our own times 
and those there are many differences, 
but bow many no less striking points 
of resemblance ? We meet with no im- 
moral mysteries in the public worship, 
bat how many cesspools of the same 
kind in the lower ranks of society — cess- 
pools emitting such loathsome exhala- 
tions as would have shocked more than 
one heathen philosopher ? There are 
no barbarians at our doors, ready to 
rush in through every gap and weak 
point of the body politic; but kings 
put forth their armies, in order to es- 
tablish the supremacy of might over 
right ; and their attempts are success- 
ful, and on the footsteps of their vic- 
torious legions an intoxicated multitude 
of admirers hurry on, shouting, " Hur- 
rah, hurrah ! ' 

And well may they shout ^^ Hur- 
rah P for they, in their wild ovations, 
do but foreshadow the advent of a still 
wilder democracy, animated by alt the 
insensate passions of self- worship. 
Sncb, indeed, is the form of idolatry 
^hich modem nations have assumed, 
in defiance of the living God, in defi- 
ance of a blessed Redeemer, in defiance 
of every dogma held sacred to man* 
bind. Such are the barbarians, hence- 
forward to be subdued, converted, bap- 
tized once more by Christianity, unless 
the world itself be condemned to rock 
^nd totter to and fro between anarchy 
«4iid despotism. Take it as you will — 
csonsider it as you please — run over 
England, or France, or Germany, or 
Ilaly, or the eastern wastes of Russia, 
— everywhere you will descry and hear 



the ground-swell of the huge human 
tides as if awaiting but the breath of 
the blast to foam, and surge, and lash 
itself into fury. Again, the forthcom- 
ing invasion is of a far more alarming 
character than that of the Grerman 
savages ; for, bom and nurtured in the 
bosom of Christianity itself, it has pro- 
fited by all Its lights, benefited by all 
the forces of modern science. Nay, 
more, q^t rising democracy is backed 
by a host of learned infidels, whose 
only aim and end is to annihilate reve- 
lation, so as to raise in its stead the 
adoration of man as God. Who will 
dare to deny that such a situation b 
fraught with imminent peril or refuse 
to repeat with an ancient, " Gorruptio 
optimi pessima" f 

And now as to our helps. An emi- 
nent French writer lately remarked in 
the Revue des Deux Mondes that, 
after all, in the present state of so- 
ciety there is nothing more alarming 
than in what has ever taken place 
since the very birthday of the new 
dispensation. Has it not ever been 
its fate to struggle against evil doc- 
trines, evil practices, and evil doers ? 
But, then, in all times it successively 
modified and tempered anew its wea- 
pons, according to the wants and exi- 
gencies of every age. This indeed is 
the very secret, in a human view of 
the subject; this is the secret of its 
ascendency over heathen corruption, 
feudal violence, monarchical despotism, 
or even revolutionary anarchy. Now, 
one of the most extraordinary features 
of the present age is that of thirsting 
af^er civil and political liberties, which 
seem destined to become the ground- 
work of every future state or govern- 
ment. Let us observe that this very 
feeling — ^however vitiated and disturb* 
ed it may be — is an offspring of the 
gospel, and, as such, worthy of our re- 
spect. So why should it be so difficult 
for Catholicism to bring about a con- 
ciliation between its sublime doctrines 
and the new cravings of civilized Eu- 
rope? 

** Is th« notion of liberty (asks M. Yitet) alien 



878 



The Church and thw Boman Empire. 



and unknown to Christianity ? Was it never 
enforced within its bosom ? Did the church 
never practise it ? On the contrary, did not 
liberty surround her cradle ? Was it not in 
the church that arose a whole system of elec- 
tions, debates, and control, which has become 
both the glory and rightful goal of our modem 
institutions t To malce peace with liberty, to 
live cheerfully in its company, to understand 
and bless its favors, is that the same thing 
M to absolve its errors ? Is that to concede 
one jot to misrule and anarchy ? ' No,' will 
reply some good people; *for God's sake, 
don't mix up religion with party qflestions. 
Dou*t drag her into such quarrels. The more 
she keeps aloof from the affairs of this world 
the more steadfast will be her empire.' 
GrantiMl ; and above we have insisted upon 
this truth ; b«it still, however disengaged from 
politics, from worldly interests however ab- 
sorbed in prayer and good works we may 
■appose religious people and the clergy, still 
how couM they live here below in an utter 
state of ignorance as to what was going on ? 
Were it but to attack the vices, the baseness, 
the disorders of our age, must they not know 
them, witness them, with their own eyes? 
We put tlic question to those pious souls 
who are scared at the very association of the 
two words — liberty and religion. Are we not 
delighted that eloquent voices should con- 
demn and brand in the holy pulpit the vaga- 
ries of our modern spirit, the revolutionary 
frenzy, and all those impious doctrines which 
are a scourge to society? Well, if religion 
is right in waging war against false liberty, 
why should not she be entitled to speak of 
sound liberty ? Why not encourage her to 
speak of it with kindness and sympathy, duly 
appreciating its generous tendencies, making 
It both Moved and fully understood ? Other- 
wise, what sort of Christianity is yours, and 
what do you believe to be its fate ? Are you 
not making of it a narrow, contracted doc- 
trine — a privilege of tiie few — the tardy and 
solitary consolation of old age or grief? If 
of Christianity you ask nothing more, if you 
are satisfied with allowing it to live on just 
enough to sliow that it is not dying, like one 
of those ruins protected by antiquarians, and 
never used, though objects of general reve- 
rence — why then you must separate it from 
the rising generations, from an overflowing 
democracy ; you must allow it to become iso- 
lateil and to grow old — to bury itself com- 
placently in the past, in contempt for the 
present, just like a scolding, querulous, mo- 
rose, unpopular old gentleman. But if bet- 
ter apprehending its true destiny, you wish 
Christianity to obtain a salutary influence 
not only over yourself and your friends, 
but over all mankind, let it penetrate into the 
hearts of all your bretliren, young and old, low 
and higii ; let it fire them with the spirit of 
justice and truth; let it transform them. 
Straighten their paths, purify them, regenerate 



them, by speaking their own language, by 
taking interest in their ideas, by yieldmg to 
their wishes, without either weakness or flat- 
tery, just as a kind father dr.iws around him 
all his children by making himself once more 
young among them, by consenting to their 
requests wliile he corrects their faults, guards 
them against the dangers of life, and teaches 
them the narrow, severe paths of wisdom and 
truth."* 

A leaning, then, toward the cause 
of civil and political freedom might 
probably become a powerful help to 
Catholics in tlio present and future 
crisis by which the world is now 
threatened. As M. Vitet very pro- 
perly remarks, they would not have to 
sacrifice one single principle ; and such 
an attitude on their part might pave the 
way for many a conversion. Yet such 
a help is evidently but a poor one afler 
all — a mere matter of expediency. It 
is from above and in herself that the 
church must look for her real helps. 
And here we are brought round at 
once to a strong resemblance between 
the actual state of society and that of 
the fourth century after Christ. The 
result of a most extraordinary progress 
in physical science has bent the minds 
of men toward sensual enjoyment and 
money making. " Put money in your 
purse'* seems now the motto of almost 
every living man, and in England 
more than in any country. But we 
may already see what are the effects 
of diis ruling passion, and how it gnaws 
at tlie very vitals of our social body. 
The only means of countenicting this 
fatal craving arc the same through 
which Christianity conquered the hea- 
then world. Evidently Catholicism 
alone commands those means, for it 
is hardly worth while to take into 
account that bastard, inconsistent 
system, ycleped Protestantism, which 
has arrived at its lowest period as a 
spiritual doctrine, and rather promotes 

♦ Revue dot Deux Monde*. Feb. 1 , 18f*7. Tlic aboT« 
article, written by M. Vit«fl, memiier of the French 
Academy, will certainly well reiwy the reA»ler'» |>eru- 
■al, and enllidilen him as to the situation of OnthoU* 
cism in France. It in indeed a«tonUhiii|{ th^t «acti a 
paper chould have been published by tli:it truly Infi> 
del periodical ; in fact, l^arlii reader:* are fully awan 
thai the editor consented with the greatest dilBoultJ 
to \U insertion. But then lie had of late lost ao i 
OiUhollo ■olMcribera. 



The Death of Napoleon. 



8W 



tban checks the materialistic tendencies 
of the day. So to set, as in olden 
times, bright example of asceticism, 
humility, charity, self-renouncement, 
strong faith, and a no less strong love 
of the poor — such are the chief wea- 
pons of the church in her warfare 
against her antagonists. Most for- 
tunately, she appears at present to 
put forth her best approved armory 
in this respect ; for never, whether 
among the clergy or laity, did there 
exist a more exalted ideal of Christian 
perfection, nor a stronger will to carry 
that ideal into execution. Half the 
work is done, and we have but to 
maintain our ground manfully in front 
of our common enemy to win the day. 
And yet the day may not be ours. 
Another world, another form of socie- 
ty may reap the harvest that we have 
sown. When St. Ambrose and Theo- 



dosius, like two brave swimmers, breast- 
ed the wave of corruption, quickly fol- 
lowed by the wave of invasion, they 
fondly imagined, perhaps, that they 
were securing once more the props 
of Homan society, or founding a 
thoroughly Christian empire. Am- 
brose above all, a true Roman of the 
old stock, could apprehend no other 
institutions, no other government but 
those which had borne the test of a 
thousand years. Though a saint and 
a statesman, he could not read the 
signs of the times; and if he could not, 
who could? The future was in the 
hands of God ; Ambrose labored and 
toiled for nations yet unborn, but which 
were already bursting the womb of 
tlieir mother Europe. Yea! and so 
may it be with the men of our own 
generation. 



From Uie Italian of MansonL 

THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON.* 



HAT 6, 1831. 

Hf/s gone : as void of motion lay, 

When the last breath bad winged its way, 
His stiffened corse— -of such a soul 
Bereft so struck from pole to pole. 
The astonished world astoumled hung, 
When in its ears his death knell rung : 

Silent in dumb reflective power 
It mused upon the final hour 
Of that great man — that man of fate, 
And knows not, if with equal weight 
A mortal foot shall ever press 
Its bloody dust with such success. 

Him shining on a gorgeous throne 
My muse beheld — nor struck one tone 
While fortune's wheel its circles flies. 
He falls, gets up — then prostrate lies ; 



* The translation of this poem from the lUlIan of Alexander Manzonl was made by the late Rer. ThomM 
MiUledy, Provincial Superior of ttie Jesuit* of Maryland. Manzonl Is a standard writer in Italy, and the od« 
** U Cinque di Moggio" ii a houaebold poam with the ItaUana. 



MO I%0 IkaA of Napoleon. 

While thoasand voices rend the air, 
Her voice amoogst them none can hear. 

Exempt from every servile praise. 
For outrage base she forms no lays ; 
But now, when such a beam had fled. 
She quickly rears her drooping head, 
And round his urn, with heaving sigh, 
She weaves a song that may not die. 

From Alpine heights to Egypt's shrine, 
From Mansanares to the Rhine, 
His thunderbolts unerring flew 
Close to his vivid lightning's hue, 
From Scylla to the Tanais roars, 
From Asia's bounds to Adria's shores. 

Was tliis true glory ? undefiled ? 
Posterity, just, uubeguiled. 
The arrluous sentence must proclaim, 
Whilst we before our Maker's name 
Must bow — who wished in him to shine 
An impress vast of hcuids divine. 

He felt the stormy, trepid joy 
Of great designs — without alloy ; 
Tlie anxious heart — ^its feverish pains — 
That eager bum — to seize the reins 
lliat guide to power^s airy height 
He grasped them, and with hardy might 
He gained the proud reward — whicli seemed 
To all a folly een t' have dreamed. 

All things he tried : bright glory's sweet 
Increased hy frightful dangers heat^ 
Fair victVy's smiles, and saddening flight. 
The sunny throne, and exile's night : 
Twice prostrate in the dust he lay, 
And twice he blazed in glor\fs day. 



His name was heard: submissive turned 
Two ages — that with fury b:im(^ — 
And, trembling, stood before his seat. 
In ex^iectation of their fate : 
He bade them hush with lordly frown, 
And as their umpire sat him down. 

He disappeared : his shortened days 
He closed, far from the busy gaze 
Of men — a mark for envy's dart, 
For purest piety of heart, 
For hate, that can no act approve, 
And for indomitable love. 

As o'er the shipwrecked sailoi^s head 
The wave rolls up, with terror dread. 



I%e Death of Napoleon. Stl 

That wave, from whose bleak top before 
He searched, in vain, for distant shore ; 
Soon that soul the sickening weight 
Of mem'nr felt, and brooding sat. 
How oft he undertook to paint 
Himself to future dajB — when faint 
Upon the eternal pages sunk 
His hand, and in himself he shrunk. 

How ofl, upon the silent close 
Of some dull, tedious days, he rose, 
And bending down his lightning ejes— 
His hand thrust in his bosom lies — 
He stood : and gloomj memory's roll 
Of days gone bj attacked his soul ! 
He thought upon the tented field, 
The sounding plain with bayonets steeled, 
The splendor of his marshalled brave, 
The chargers rolling in a wave, 
The throbbing breast, the quick command. 
And prompt obedience of his band. 

Perhaps with torturing cares opprest. 
His wearied spirit found no rest, 
And he despaired : but quick was given 
An aiding hand from piteous heaven. 
To lift him up— from this dark sphere. 
And place him in more genial air. 

And through hope's smiling, flow'ry way 
To guide him to the fields of day ; 
To those rewards that far transcend 
The hope that vast desires lend : 
Where gulfed in darkness sinks each ray 
Of glory that has passed away. 

O faith immortal ! beauteous ! kind ! 
Turn'd to triumphs o'er the mind! 
Write this one too — rejoice ! be glad ! 
For never yet a prouder head, 
Or one on loftier deeds intent, 
To Calv'ry's infamy has bent ! 

Off from his ashes do thou guard 
All malice black— each venomed word 
The God who overthrows — ^and when 
To pity moved — rears up again — 
Who scatters terror to the poles I 
The God who, when he wills, consoles ; 
That God has placed himself beside 
The desert couch— on which he died. 



Sketch of Phre Hyacinike. 



Tranilated ft'om Le Housquet&ire. 

SKETCH OF PJfeRE HYACINTHE. 



The discourses of Pere Ilyacinthe, 
in the church of Notre Dame, have 
been numerously attended, and the sa- 
cred eloquence of the orator has fur- 
nished subjects for the strangest criti- 
cisms that have appeared in what has 
been called, in the nineteenth century, 
the profane world. 

It is not my intention to give you a 
portrait of Pere Hyacinthe. It has 
already been drawn by a master hand. 
I wish merely to sketch the features, 
the figure, and the personalities of this 
great saver of souls. 

The preacher, who now attracts to 
Notre Dame the thinking minds of 
Paris, is in stature above the middle 
size ; his head is closely shaven, like 
all those of the order of barefooted Car- 
melites. It is well known that the dis- 
ciples of St. Teresa wear but a circlet 
of hair. It is their earthly crown. His 
form is too large for the size of bis 
head ; his face is monkish ; his fore- 
head recalls to mind that of St. Augus- 
tine ; his eyes have rather the expres- 
sion of seeking truth than of impart- 
ing it ; but the mouth opens freely 
to let fall the word of God upon his 
hearers ; the chin, without being aris- 
tocratic, is not wanting in a certain 
nobility that redeems his appearance, 
which at first sight is ordinary. 

On the whole, Pere Ilyacinthe car- 
ries one's thoughts back to those monks 
of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fif- 
teenth centuries, who, regardless of 
personal safety, fearlessly crossed the 
thresholds of palaces to make the dig- ' 
nitaries of earth listen to the teachings 
of charity, love, and of liberty. This 
pr(»acher has been accused of volun- 
tarily laying aside spiritual subjects to 
descend to the things of earth. This 
reproach is unjust. 

It is necessary to speak of what in- 
terests people the roost ; meet them at 



their own doors, live their lives, and 
suffer with them. Christ spoke in 
parables that the ignorant might un- 
derstand him better, and the poor 
flocked in crowds t j hear these admi- 
rable teachings which transformed the 
old world and regenerated humanity. 
For different times we must take dif- 
ferent means. In this age the man of 
God desires to enlighten both Scribes 
and Pharisees, and to warn noble la- 
dies of the seductive temptations of 
Bacl. What can be found objection- 
able in the earthly character of these 
teachings ? In spite of philosophical 
reasonings, we must fall back upon 
the old adage, ^ The end justifies the 
m cans." 

I do not wish to institute a compa- 
rison between Pere Ilyacinthe and the 
sacred orators who have preceded him, 
but I have heard two of his sennons in 
Notre Dame. Not being able to judge 
which was the best, I can only decide 
which pleased me the more. Pere 
Hyacinthe possesses in the highest de- 
gree the gift of awakening man to a 
proper estimate of himself. Elevate 
the creature, and he approaches the 
Creator. 

I have the honor of knowing a priest 
who exercises his holy ministry in the 
vicinity of our Lady of Loretto. He 
is the most amiable and benevolent 
man that I have ever had the good 
fortune to meet. 

He speaks to the humblest sinner 
as St. Charles Borromeo spoke to 
the thoughtless Milanese. He has 
words of consolation and charity for 
all classes of unfortunates. His door 
is open to them at all hours of the 
day or night. Thus has he labor- 
ed for several years, and God 
alone knows how many wandering 
sheep this minister of Christ has 
brought back to the fold, and hoir 



Sketch of Phre H^acinihe, 



manj erring hearts he has reconciled 
to Gfofl, to their families, and to socie- 
ty. Certainly there do not exist two 
kinds of morality, but the application 
of morality can and ought to vary ac- 
cording? to the situation in which they 
who arc in need of instruction are 
plac«'d. 

The church of Notre Dame is to 
my mind one of the churches in the 
world which most elevates the soul and 
brinj^s it nearer to Grod. I like the 
Grothic church ; it seems to me that 
prayers ascend more easily to heaven 
throujrh steeples whose spires are lost 
in the clouds. 

Tlie Greek Byzantine style is both 
rich and beautiful ; but I think it want- 
ing in majesty. My soul is more deep- 
ly impressed upon entering the portal 
of one of the cathedrals upon the Rhine 
than upon ascending the steps of the 
Vatican. 

The other day, upon listening to the 
touching eloquence of Pere Hyacinthe, 
I could not drive from my thoughts the 
sad remembrance of a sermon I heard 
several years ago in the same place 
from another celebrated preacher. I 
had then for a neighbor in the church 
of Notre Dame an abb6 whose me- 
moirs have formed the subject of one 
of my best works. The orator select- 
ed for his discourse the subject of devo- 
tion, " Thou shouldst love thy Grod with 
all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thy- 
self." All is contained in th<5se admi- 
rable words; the law and the pro- 
phets. 

S'lch were the first words of the 
preacher, who from this starting-point 
caused his hearers to traverse ages, 
tracing at length the great efforts of 
those noble hearts who devoted them- 
selves for the good of humanity. 

The subject was beautiful, and the 
orator was truly convincing, every 
heart beat in unison. 

I looked at my neighbor, he was in- 
spired. Before me was an apostle who 
asked no greater happiness than to 
suffer martyrdom for the glory of Grod 
and the good of his fellow-creatures. 

Subsequently I learned the precise 



details of the life of the priest, who 
called himself the Abbe Bernard. 

His history is so interesting that I 
cannot deny myself the pleasure of 
writing it a second time. The father 
of the abbe had accumulated great 
wealth in lending money with interest 
He was one of those practical men who 
shut up their hearts in their money 
chest 

Widowed in early life, he sent his 
only son to college, where he remained 
until he had attained the age of 
seventeen ; he then removed him to 
finish his studies by travelling for two 
years in England and eighteen months 
in Germany. 

In translating the works of Shake- 
speare and Grocthe, the young Bernard 
had acquired a knowledge of the two 
living languages that are now the keys 
of the commercial world. 

He then returned to Paris, with his 
thoughts more filled with poetry and 
philosophy than with a mind prepared 
for the sterile labors of an accountant 

His father, upon placing him in his 
counting-house, generously allowed him 
a salary of 2,000 francs. Forced into 
acquiescence, Bernard began the life 
of an accountant, in which he continued 
for several years. Unhappily, the 
young man fell in love with the daugh- 
ter of his father's cashier. She was a 
beautiful blonde, had every desirable 
quality, but possessed no greater for^ 
tune than modesty. Bernard's father, 
who had other views, dismissed the 
cashier from his employment and com- 
manded his son never to speak to him 
again upon the subject of that foolish 
union. The young man fell ill but his 
fiither remained inflexible, ** I would 
rather," said he, ** see him laid in his 
coffin than give him in marriage to an 
inferior. I have not worked like a' 
horse and economized for forty years 
for the bright eyes of Mademoiselle 
Marie Closet ; more than that, it is the 
extreme of folly ; the time has passed 
ages ago since any one died for love." 

The father was right, nature triumph- 
ed over the malady, and the young Ber» 
nard's health was soon restored. The 



i84 



Sketch of fkri Eyacintke. 



first day he went out during conva- 
lescence, he hastened to the father of his 
beloved, who declined seeing him, not 
wishing to give a pretext for calumny. 
Despairing on all sides, the young Ber- 
nard resolved to put an end to his ex- 
istence ; a frequent recourse for de- 
spairing lovers of twenty and twenty- 
five years I 

His mother, a holy woman, had be- 
fore her death inculcated in the spring- 
lime of his life religious precepts, of 
which he retained the faithful remem- 
brance. Strange caprice of the human 
heart! at the moment he determined 
to offend God the most, he felt unwill- 
ing to die before entering a church. 

Finding himself within two steps of 
the church of St. Vincent de Paul, he 
entered the temple. Lights burned be- 
fore the two altars. At his right, a mar- 
riage was being celebrated, and at the 
end of the chapel a funeral service was 
being performed. The bridal party 
was not numerous ; but the deceased 
must have occupied a high position in 
society, judging from the numbers who 
followed his remains to their last rest- 
ing-place. Bernard became absorbed 
in prayer. When he raised his eyes, 
he saw before him a young priest bless- 
ing the assemblage. An idea quick as 
lightning crossed the mind of the self- 
destroyer. It is noble, thought he, to 
console others, even when there is no 
hope of happiness for one's self. A 
week had not elapsed before Jean L^on 
Bernard entered a theolop^ical semi- 
nary. Two years after he received or- 
dination; he never saw his father 
again, but the banker settled upon him 
an annuity of three thousand francs. 
The young Levite was sent to a small 
Tillage to begin the exercise of his holy 
ministry. After celebrating his first 
mass, he found upon entering the sa- 
cristy a letter awaiting him sealed with 
black. His father had just died and 
left him an inheritance of over four 
millions. 

Remomber Christ himself has said, 
*• The poor and those who lead sinful 
lives are in great need of being encou- 
raged and consoled.** Bernard return- 



ed to Paris, the great centre of glory 
and the abode of every misery. 

When I first saw him at Notre 
Dame, the Abh6 Bernard had been ad- 
ministering his admirable charities in 
that capital for ten years. From the 
time he put on the soutane he lived the 
life of a saint, his days and nights 
were at the disposal of suffering hu- 
manity. He passed his time and con- 
secrated his life to healing the wounds 
of the soul and curing those of the 
body. He multiplied himself, as it 
were, to accomplish his hard task. He 
was seen everywhere, carrying words 
of peace to the dying, of hope to the 
occupants of prisons, and alms to the 
afflicted of all classes. 

Indefatig.'ible in well-doing, with 
charity for the faults of oth(Ts, this 
worthy disciple of Christ exercised se- 
verity only toward himself. 

Though scarcely forty years of a;jje, 
he appeared more than fifty; in the 
vigor of life he was bent like an old 
man. The worn features and the ca- 
daverous paleness of his countenance 
woald have given him a doomed look, 
had not his whole aspect been illumined 
by the divine halo of charity. 

I will reUite a few more particulars, 
in the brief space allotted me, of the 
life of this priest and the manner of 
his death. In order to fulfil a great 
mission of charity this abb^ set out 
for Rome. Arriving at l^Iarscilles, he 
learned that a change consequent upon 
the state of the tide would compel him 
to wait three days for a boat leaving 
for Civita Vecchia. 

Patience being a Christian virtue, the 
worthy priest submitted to the neces- 
sity without a murmur. Having no- 
thing better to do, he set out upon a 
tour of investigation through this inte- 
resting city, which, thanks to the con- 
quest of Algeria and the opening of the 
isthmus of Suez, should become at 
some future day the first maritime eity 
of the world. Pursuing his walk, he 
took a cross street dividing ilie port 
from the oldest quarter of Marsdilles. 
He had hardly sidvanccd thirty steps, 
when he found himself among a crowd 



Sketch of Fere Hyacintke. 



886 



assembled before a hoase of humble ap- 
pearance. A horrible sight burst upon 
his vision. A woman stood before the 
door uttering the most piercing shrieks. 
The priest asked, "What is the 
matter?" 

" What I Monsieur le Cur6 ! ' replied 
the porter at the gate. ^ Do you not 
understand that here lies another vie* 
tim to the terrible epidemic which is 
ravaging the city, and that this woman 
is shrieking for help for her husband 
who is dying?" Without waiting for 
the sentence to be finished, the Abbe 
Bernard made his way through the 
crowd and directed his steps toward 
the nnhappy woman. ^Take me to 
your husband," said he, extending his 
hand toward her. 

The woman regarded him earnestly, 
but, prevented from replying by choking 
sobs, she showed him the way to the 
third floor. Upon a rough bed a naked 
man was prostrated. Two of his com- 
rades were rubbing him with woollen 
doths. 

Finding himself in the presence of 
cholera the abbe reflected a second, 
then wrote some words upon a detached 
leaf of his note-book. << Here,^' said he 
to the elder of the two porters, ** is an 
order and five francs. Run quickly to 
the apothecary's ! I will take your place 
until you return." The priest took the 
doths and rubbed the poor unfortunate. 
Under his skilfully applied friction the 
sick man became ^m ; but upon seeing 
the costume of the priest he could hard- 
ly contain himself with terror. ** My 
Godr cried he, "must I die? Yes, 
they have brought me a confessor." 
The abb^ assured him he would be 
better. The messenger returned bring- 
ing the medicines. The priest remain- 

VOL. T. — 26 



ed three hours by his bedside, and 
when the doctor arrived he declared 
him out of danger. 

In the south, the people are sensa- 
tional and carry their feelings to great 
excess. We can hardly wonder, then, 
that in their enthusiasm the woman and 
porters carried the Abb6 Bernard out 
to the street in triumph. Unhappily, 
while enthusiastic, they are supersti- 
tious. The crowd immediately spread 
the report that the priest had power to 
cure the cholera. At the end of the 
street, a woman, upon seemg the abb^ 
threw herself upon her knees, exclaim- 
ing with sobs: '^ Father, my child is 
dying ; I have only him on earth ; in 
the name of the Holy Virgin save him." 
The indefatigable apostle of charity fol- 
lowed her to the poor little creature 
only five or six years of age, whom he 
found rolling in agony. God has not 
given to man the power of staying the 
angel of death when he turns from his 
path to strike the infant in its cradle. 
Prayers and science are often power- 
less. Notwithstanding, the child was 
saved. 

The worthy abb^ did not regain 
his hotel until a late hour, greatly over- 
come with fatigue. The next morning 
he did not leave his room. Toward 
noon, fearing he was ill, they visited 
him, and found him with closed eyes 
and a smile upon his lips. He was 
dead. The gCNod pastor bad given his 
life for his flock. 

Such was the man I had for a neigh- 
bor at one of the sermons of Pere La- 
cordaire. Such was the man whom 
memory recalled to my thoughts yes-' 
terday while listening to the last dis- 
course of Pere Hyacinthe. 



S86 



The lyo Zovert of Flavia Domitilla. 



OtlQIXAL. 

THE TWO LOVERS OF FLAVIA DOMITILLA 



BT CLONFEBT. 



OHAPTEB I. 

THE ESfFEROB'S FBA8T. 

It 18 now over seventeen liundred 
years since, late on an evening about 
the Ides of December, two men, with 
ilowin<; palliums drawn closely about 
them, met near the statue of Janus, in 
the street of the same name in Rome. 

•*Ho! well met, Sisinnius. Coming 
finom the baths, and, like myself, bound 
for the emperor's feast f 

*« No, Aurelian, IVe had a previous 
engagement to meet at my own house 
ft man who is a celebrity in the city 
for his charity and skill in healing 
medicines. When my wife, Theodora, 
was so very ill last season, the old 
Grecian slave that nursed her said that, 
if permitted, she would seek Clement — 
that is his name — ^and told us of some 
wonderful cures he had wrought in her 
native country by an application of oil. 
I gladly accepted the offer. Clement, a 
venerable old man, effected Theodora's 
recovery. Since then he has been a 
frequent and welcome visitor at my 
house. If not too late, drop in when 
returning from the emperor's, and you 
will hear anecdotes of strange scenes 
and travels in many lands. Clement 
spends the evening with us.** 

" This, then, is what prevented your 
acceptance of Domitian's invitation ?*' 

** Yes, and I assure you I look for- 
ward with more pleasuro to an even- 
ing's conversation with my friend 
Clement than I would to the imperial 
festivities, although I understand no 
expense has been spared to make them 
surpass anything before witnessed, 
even the magnificence of Nero." 

" Are you not afraid that your ab- 
sence from the senatorial party will be 



noticed ? Take care, lest, like the late 
Consul Clemens Domitilla, who scru- 
pulously avoided thos(! entertainments 
of the Saturnalia, you be suspected of 
a leaning toward the Jews. If so, 
your great popularity and worth would 
scarcely save you, as they did not save 
him, who was, moreover, cousin ger- 
man of the emperor." 

*J Not I, Sisinnius ! Afraid? Why, 
I am i-eady at any moment to sacrifice 
to the gods of my country and of my 
family, /to acknowledge as the only 
son of the supreme Jupiter a Jew, of 
whom we know nothing save that he 
was nailed on a cross by tlio procura- 
tor Pilate 1 Poor Clemens Dumitilla ! 
So unaffected, so earnest, so honorable ! 
May his manes enjoy elysium I It has 
been always a mystery to me how a 
man ofhis education, of his intelligence, 
of his high position and practical sense, 
could have been infected with this 
Chiistian leprosy. To deny tlie gods 
worshipped by his forefathers since the 
days of Romulus and Numa and to 
adore in their stead this crucified Jew, 
of whom we arc beginniri«r to hear so 
much of late — it is inexplicable." 

''It is part of the infatuation which 
clouds betimes the greatest intellects," 
said Aurelian ; and then, lowering his 
voice, he added : ^ Pardon me for in- 
troducing a subject which you must 
not mention to your wife Theodora, nor 
to my affianced, Flavia ?* 

"I have no secrets from ray wife, 
Aurelian, nor should you from your 
betrothed. No two men in Rome have 
more reason to trust a wife and an 
affianced than have you and I." 

" There was a time, Sisinnius, whea 
I thought as you. Would I had no 
cause to think otherwise now I Whal 
if Uiey too are infected, as you express 



The Two Lovers of Flavia DomitiUa, 



sar 



it, witb this Christian leprosy, which 
led to the doath of mj betrothed's uncle, 
Clemens Domitilla i" 

*• But you know," whispered Sisin- 
nius, " there was another motive for 
Clemens* execution — he was the most 
popular member of the imperial family. 
Domitian was jealous of his popularity 
and influence, as he is now jealous of 
this Jesus who is called King of the 
Jews, whose relatives be is seeking out 
ID every quarter." 

" Would not the same motive have 
force with regard to Clemens' niece — 
my betrothed, Flavia, if only a fair ex- 
cuse could be found for the destruction 
of one so young, so fair, and so inno- 
cent? Would not you and I be in- 
volved in the ruin, if she and Thealora 
had the misfortune of leaning to Christ- 
ianity ?" 

" By Jupiter, it is impossible,'* broke 
in Sisinnius. '' My wife is a model, a 
very Lucretia in devotion to her lord, 
and attention to her household duties. 
The slaves are cheerful and obedient ; 
the laborers set to work, stewarded and 
paid ; the clients met and satisfied with- 
out long interviews with me. How 
one so young and gentle can manage to 
get through so much business and make 
our home so peaceful and happy is a 
wonder to me ! I bless the gods for 
the treasure they have given me in 
her I When tired with the labors of 
office in the forum or in the senate, I 
am cheered by her welcoming smile 
tm my return home. It is impossible 
that one of her business habits, so 
vrapt up in her husband and in her 
lome, could have time or folly enough 
to trouble her head about this crucified 
WFew. Perhaps Flavia, who is rich, un- 
occupied, and, like all young people, 
it>maDtic. may be silly enough to lend 
mn ear to his sorcery. If so, the sooner 
^-ou make her a wife, and give her 
lousiness to attend to, the better.*' 

" Was not Clemens Domitilla a sen- 
sible man, Sisinnius, most attentive to 
the duties of his consular office, and 
least likely to be led astray by a mere 
idea?" 

** Undoubtedly he was considered a 



cool councillor, a practical commander, 
and the ablest statesman of our time.* 

" And yet he yielded himself up a 
captive to this new religion ; nay, yield- 
ed up his life sooner than admit that 
Jesus was not the true God. You are 
still incredulous ? I hope you may be 
right, and my suspicions unfounded, 
for both our sakes and the sakes of 
those we love like our own lives. But 
meet me at the third watch of the night 
of the 8th, before the Kalends of Jans- 
ary, and I will promise you the means 
of sifting this matter to the bottom." 

" Agreed. Don't forget to drop in 
at our place on your return from the 
emperor's banquet You will meet 
Clement ; and perhaps some oue else« 
whose name I will not tell you lest I 
might have to consider myself indebted 
for your visit to the attraction of its 
owner. ValeT 

Leaving Sisinnius to ponder over 
what he had heard, we will follow Aa> 
relikn, as he wends his way to the 
palace of Domitian at the foot of the 
Esquiline. Aurelian was a young no- 
ble of high rank and vast wealth. The 
waxen images in his'patemal atrium 
represented many who had sat on the 
curule chair ; and brought his family 
history, stamped with the badge of n6* 
bility, back beyond the days of the 
Fabii and Cincinnatus. His Etrurian 
estates alone brought him in a yearly 
revenue, which in modern times would 
be considered fabulous by those not 
aware of the immense wealth of even 
private Roman citizens under the re* 
public and the empire. His dress 
made known his rank to those who 
met him as he passed along the sti*eeta. 
The toga of whitest woollen cloth, the 
lotus clavuSf or broad purple stripe on 
his uncinctured outer tunic, and the 
golden '' C riveted on the upper lea- 
ther of his short boots, were worn only 
by senators. Many stood to admire 
his tall figure, stately bearing, and rich 
dress ; and some uttered wordi of 
praise. One remark fell upon his ears 
with ominous sound : 

"Truly a Roman in birth and in 
appearance, and well worthy to be the 



S88 



ateri of Ffavia IhmiHHa, 



mate of that beautiful creature, tlje 
uieccofthe late consul DonuliUa!" 

*' I saw tbe solitary raven fiap hk 
wings to-day on a tree in tbe vestibule 
of her palace." 

Aarelian passed on quickly as if bo 
had not heai*d theae words. But he 
waa influeneed like moc^t Romans by 
the superslirion which from the g-es- 
tures and flight of birds would tmce 
the adverse or prosperous courae of 
ftilurity. Once only did he paii^e, as 
a Greek clad in sable tunk carolled in 
broken Latin a ditty, the burden of 
which, as it may throw some light upon 
our story, we shall attempt to inade- 
quately render: 

•♦ Eke lovtpd liCT lurrt «• her lord lov«d her ; 
Bui him the wU) nol love Any more ; 
To-nlglit to the feaAt nhc^ irlU aoi ftlr, 
But shts'lJ tup with tijc CLrUtlAQ CAlJed Theodore. 
She will fup idLh thfr i 'n I tlim .-aliuil Tbitodore, 
An<V her lover Aurell i ' no more i 

AnuthtTf another bAs :4'^> 

A CiirisUan, ftCUriati^ H *4lore r 

" What now, slave ! Again taking 
liberties with noble names ! Do you 
want to publish me to the whole city, 
Zoilus ?" 

"* I admit it. Zoilus is my cogno- 
men, master. It was an ugly mislinp, 
fonsiderin*3: my pjetical turn, that made 
me namesake of tbe man who malign- 
ed Homer and got burned for his criti- 
ci«m. What a pity they did not "rive 
me the cog-noraen flomerus or Virgl- 
liiis. By the lyre of Orpheus I if they 
did, I would write an epos like the 
Iliad or the jEneid* of Avhich you, 
Aurelian, would be the hero, and Fla- 
via Domitilla the heroine. You would 
Bee into wliat hair-breadth *scai>es you 
would be brought to be rescued by the 
sharp end of my poetical stylus. The 
only thiiifr to be regretted now is that 
you wilt, likely enough, be brought into 
flcmpes and tind no escapes from them.** 

** Be silent, slave 1 I have no time 
for your jokes," exclaimed the noble- 
man in an excited tone. 

** All right, then " said the impertur- 
bable slave, " as you have no time to 
receive, I cannot have time to comrau- 
nicate news that does not concern me." 

^ Excuse my hasty temfjer, good 
Zoilus I I am going to the emperor^s 




feast, and I fear I am after the i 
ed hour. Take this,'- and he 
into the other's hand a silver denarjQ 
" it will help to buy a pallium 
cover your unkempt tunic. 
aljout Flavia?'* he said in lower 
more earnest tones. 

The silver piece had^worked its effect 
upon the skve^s manner, who replied; 
** She will not go to the inijicrial fe 
She dislikes the emperor, though 
is his adopted ciiild ; and naturally, 
account of her uncle's execution. MoJ 
over, she will not partake of m 
blessed in the name of Juinter, 
father of gods and men, nor of wine 
poured out in libation to Bacchus. I 
suspect she has lost hor attachment 
you, and is falling in love with one 
those Christians whom she is never doi 
admiring. Look to it, my noble m: 
ter ! For, fmm expressions she has I 
fall, my informant suspects she has 
ready been espoused to this admirer.^* 

'* And she engaged to me by t^ 
emperor himself?** 

** Even this, notwithstanding ; s 
has given herself over to this Cliristia 
whom she declares slie adores/* 

** Zoilus ! if you an? deceiving me, by 
tlia! oath held sacred in heaven and \ ~ 
hell, I swear — *' 

** Swear not, my lord, until you haf 
put me to the i)ruof. Have I not « 
gaged to meet you on the niglit of tJi 
8th of next kalends, to give you 
opportunity of judging on the teijtimon^ 
of your own eyesight ? Until then, far 
well !" And the shive bounded uwiti 
before Aurelian could say another wup 
and chanted as he went : 

»'ShfMl »ap wtth I Tbendor*^ 

Ao«l hrriovrr '>■ h » mort ; 

AnoOicr^ nnoUiLi _ r:— 

A ChrUlLmt, n Chrii*tii*ii, wUuui *I««'U mAor% 
Atiore, adore," «rU$. 

An Indian, thou;ih filled with bifte 
thoughts, paused to listen, and mutiert^ 
as he heard the receding strain, which 
was now being chanted hi do ggerel 
Greek ; '* Well, we Romans are i 
masters of the world ; but we shu 
be mastered by our slaves.** Ther 
was great reason for the reflection. Fa 
the slaves bad now grown so nuo 



The Two Lovers of Flavia DomitiUa, 



889 



in Rome that the Senate feared to pass 
a law appointing them a distinctive 
dress, lest they^should thereby come to 
the knowledge of their own strength. A 
law had been also proposed, though not 
passed in the legislative council, with 
the view of lessening their numbers by 
employing them in the public quarries 
and mines and other severe works, as 
the Jews had been long before employ- 
ed as hewers of wood and drawers of 
water in the Egyptian bondage. More- 
over, about this period writing and 
book-knowledge generally were, with 
very few exceptions, confined to the 
slaves in Rome. It was the sunset of 
the literature whose noon was lit up by 
luminaries such as Virgil, Horace, Cice- 
ro, and Sallust ; and the few stray rays 
which yet lingered behind were either 
confined to the slave population of the 
city or, glancing over the Alps and the 
Pyrenees, rested upon favored spots in 
the ultramontane provinces. 

As Aurelian thought over these and 
other matters he did not notice the 
places by which he passed, and soon 
found himself at the gate of the vesti- 
l)ule before the emperor's palace. He 
^ent through the massive bronze door 
into the atrium or halL Here he 
waited while the slave, whose office it 
was, went to announce his arrivaL His 
thoughts were diverted from the sub- 
jects which had engaged them to the 
magnificence of the scene around. The 
blue sky and brilliant stars above the 
compluvium, which was an open space 
through the roof of the atrium, were 
shut out and eclipsed by the many- 
colored lights attached to the marble 
pillars, white, black, and variegated, by 
which the slanting tiles of the root were 
supported. Underneath the impluvium^ 
which was an enclosed space correspond- 
ing and proportioned to the open one 
above, sent up interwoven ellipses of 
divers- colored waters through brazen 
tubes so arranged as to cast a rainbo;^- 
Kke halo over the whole place. Be- 
tween the rows of pillars thus lighted 
up, receding in lofty and majestic file 
our as the eye could reach, and through 
the fixueesy or corridors, formed by the 



chambers beyond them, there appeared 
the mellow glow of the lamps around 
the peristyle in the distance ; while the 
sound of rushing waters fell agreeably 
on the ear. Nearer to him around the 
walls of the atrium Aurelian observed 
that the niches, where were deposited 
the images of the Emperor's friends 
and ancestors, were draped in veils of 
black, as if in mourning for his cousin 
the late consul Domitilla, but in reality 
because the family history did not afibid 
many remarkable names beyond those 
of Vespasian and Titus. 

While Aurelian was thus engaged 
in examining the splendor of the im- 
perial residence, the slave who had 
gone to announce his arrival return- 
ed, and with him the '* distributor of 
seats" in the royal triclinium. Led 
by the latter, Aurelian entered the 
triclinium^ the Roman dining hall, 
which was decorated and lighted up 
in the same manner as the atrium. 
At the end of it, on an elevated plat- 
form of cedar wood, Domitian was 
seated on a throne of ivory inwrought 
and decorated with gold. The young 
noble made a low prostration on bend- 
ed knees until permitted by touch of 
the golden sceptre to arise. 

^^ Arise, Aurelian I'' said the emperor. 
^' To evidence our high consideration 
for you, we have delayed our guests 
ten strokes of the clepsydra. But be 
not distressed ; we shall hear your ex- 
planations at another time. Where** 
(these words were added in an under- 
tone) " have you left our fair cousin 
and child, Flavia? We expected 
her to accompany her accepted suitor 
and future husband." 

'^ My sovereign lord and master ! 
the most noble Flavia has been in- 
disposed for some time, and regrets 
she cannot be present at the festivities 
this evening. Her friend the noble 
Theodora, wife of the Senator Sisin- 
nius, has induced her, for change of 
air, to visit at their residence for some 
days, where she will have the advan- 
tage of meeting an old and experienced 
physician named Clement, who has 
travelled much in ibe East and there- 



7%e 7\to ZoviTM of Flavia Pomitilta, 



hy become acquainted with htTb© and 

drujra that have acquired for him the 

|ti?piite of a mastery over bodily dis- 

** Clement, Clement V* repeated ihe 

iitrnptiror, striving to r<_*co11ecl him.^rlf ; 

f^l have heard of him somewhere be* 
fore; but we shall talk of thf^so things 
at a moi'c fitting I hne ;" and he waved 
his sceptre to the steward of the ban- 
quet 

Scarcely had the aceptre tvaved when 
the eastern side of the immense ban- 
quet hall was opened by Kome unseen* 
agency, and an archway of vast propor- 
tions, withoiit rem or flaw, was formed, 
liirough wliich the loose -i-obed slaves 
if ere seen driving a brazen elephant, 
on whose hack waa placed the hui^o 
abacus on which thtr banquet wa3 
served. This abacus, of solid silver, 
had admirable contrivances for th(j 
preservation of the warmth and flavor 
of every dish ; and the whole repast 
'* from the egg to the apple/* includ- 
ing three courses, was served upnn it. 
The numl>:r and nature of the dishes 
became at a glance known to the 
guest?, for over each disli the silver 
or <2;oldco likeness of the liah, bird, or 
beast which supplied it was supported 
upon a very tbin wire, so colored as 
to be invisible in lamplijrlit. Hqtg 
was the brazen ima^e of the flamin- 
go; then* the golden pluniajje of tlie 
^inca hen* the famous A/m nvis of 
the Konjans, was outspix'ad without 
any visible support in air. At anoiht^r 
part the* star eyed tail of the peacock 
was extended fan dike, while a turtle 
and a sturgeon seemed to swim on 
cither side of it. Every bird, fish, 
and beast held in repute by the Ro- 
man gourmands was represented 
floating or flyin'T over this monster 
•erven The slaves, who pushed it 
cm golden rollers into the tricliniuro, 
danced as tli*%y advanced to the music 
of (he flute, the harp, and other instru- 
ments. At the sound of a gong, 
struck by the head steward, '* the dis- 
Iribnlor of seats" led the guests to the 
couches on which they were to recline. 
Having resigned their boots, urslippers, 



to the slaves appointed to receive tl 
they leaned back, supporting th^rnael 
on their leil elbows on the sotl couches 
covered with pifrple, embroiderfd with 
f^old, and bearing the imperial arms. 
Many of ihe females preferred to ait, 
and for them suitable sears were pro- 
vided. At another sound of the gong 
twenty slaves, in purple tunica and 
white aprons su^stained on black einc^ 
tures, moved into the hall, with motions 
of head and foot and hands to suit the 
music, and removed the covers under 
which were placed the materials for thi 
fea-st. The same movements took place 
be f 0113 and al^er each of the courscsa. 
As 80<5n iis the covers for the stcond 
coui-se were taken oflT, the sassort^ or 
cjirvei-s cut the solid dishes and served 
the vario(js meats according as the 
servants in waiting on the guest^s pre- 
sentefl the plates. To show the ex- 
linit of TL'tlned luxury to which the old 
Ramiins of the republic and empire 
carried things, it maybf» observed that 
the carvers so managed while rut ling 
the dbhps as to keep time with the 
kniv**s to the music. In fact, the art 
of carving was a profession in Ronie, 

The writer of this hurriedly sketch- 
ed talc may pause for a little here to 
assure the indulgent reader that he 
has made it a rule in the descripiiociay 
in the substantial facts of ihe narra- 
tive, and in the lives of the leading 
characters to make imagination whoUy 
llu! hanihiiatd of truth. He is sure 
that in the scenos he endeavors to 
j>aint he is using the colors supplied 
him by pagan and Christian writers 
of the timeji. lit* might |K>int spe- 
cially to Polybius, Lanipridius, ood 
Plutarch as vouchers for his aecuracj 
in describing a Runuin banquet in the 
last ages of ttie republic and the first 
of ihe empire^ 

\V hen the thii*d course was over, tlie 
elephant and abacus were rolled with 
the same accompanuneat of music and 
dance from the room. Then began Ihe 
symposium, or drinking -feast* Aa the 
repcJsitorium bearing the goblets and 
wines was introduced, the ceiling of 
the irlcliuium seemed suddeui/ a^ if 



I 



I 




The Two Lovers of JiTavta Domititta. 



Wl 



by magic to disappear, and an im- 
mense sfage with gorgeous scenery 
was lowered into the apartment. As it 
quietly and slowly descended, voices 
were heaixl singing as if from heaven: 

"Strike the tympan, beat the dram I 
Down from heaven we come. 
Jupiter iia«liltMi — It must he so- 
Down, down to earth below, 

To greet the God, Domitian I 

**DoTnltian is Jove upon earth we know, 
Jupiter wills it — it must be so — 
So, we'll In-at our shields and our trumpets blow, 
We'll launch the spear and weMl draw the bow, 
And we'll dance *mlil the flying missiles, O ! 

Before the Ood, Domitian t 

" WeMl play as wc play on Olympus' ^elght. 
Where Jupiter grasps the thunder's might 
And hurh to earth its lances bright. 
And '•heds from hU throne the broad daylight— 
W^eMl dance as we d;ince on Olympus* height. 

Before the God, Domitian 1" 

By the time these lines were ended 
the stage luid taken a stationary posi- 
tion about six feet from the ground, so 
that every guest from his bench or 
couch could have a lull view of the 
performance. The fii*8t thing that 
struck the eye was a group of figures, 
male and female, dressed in various 
styles to represent the immortals. 
Here was Apollo with his lyre and 
halo ; there was Diana in her huntress 
garb. Mercury, with his wand and 
winged sandals, was flying over the 
belmeted head of Minerva ; while Vul- 
can, with the red glow of the furnace 
on his face, was, with the assistance of 
the Cyclops' hammers, forging thunder- 
bolts for Jove. In another part the 
rustic Pan, with his goat-ears and 
oaten pipe, was playing, while the 
naiads and fauns in cloud-like Ionic 
tunics kept dancing as they fled from 
the pursuing satyrs. 

Suddenly the scenery is shifted and 
the stai^e is filled with narrow-pointed^ 
straight and double-edged swonis fixed 
perpendicularly with the blades up- 
ward ; while a number of persons in 
close-fitting garments dance alterl 
nately on their feet and hands, in the 
execution of which they somersault 
orer the sharp weapons. Again, they 
time with martial tread to the quick 
measure of the Pyrrhic dance, the ac- 
companiment to which was the rattle 
of the'u* flying spears on the brouxe 



shields they bore. The scene is again 
changed. The lamps are suddenly pat 
out ; and a vast chamber with vaulted 
roof, through which a subterranean 
damp oozes, is dimly seen by the light 
of a muffled lamp, which only helps to 
make ** the darkness visible."* Along 
the sides, which are draped in sabia 
cloth, are ranged a number of coffins 
equal to the number of guests, each 
of whom reads his own name in fierj 
letters shining out upon one or other 
of them from the surrounding gloom; 
while demons, with snake-like locks and 
flame like garments and black faces, 
ran in horrible frenzy about, shrieking 
out the names of the principal senators 
present. And a deep, sonorous voicst 
which seemed to rise out of the earthy 
pronounced the following : 

** Hail, monarch of monarchs ! whose tnlgh^ nraj 
The nations and tribes of the eartii obey. 
From the rising sun to the setUng daj 1 

** From the highest Alp to the Island cove. 
Thy power Is felt like tlie power of Jove 
When Olympus shalces at his frown above. 

** The Celtic shout does not pierce the sky, 
The Farthi>in arrows pause as tliey fly. 
When thy name is heard *mid the battle's ciy. 

** When heard from the height of Cancasian anov, 
The beard-like woo<l3 on its chin bend low, 
And the rirers cease down its cheeks to flow. 

"When breathed abroad o'er the ocean waves, 
The sea-monsters sink to the rocky caves, 
Where, continents under, they scoop their graTM. 

** When ottered by spirits among the cloads. 
They gather like flocks into frightened crowds, 
And bind up the tempest in sable shrouds. 

'* The word of thy mou*h U the simoom's breaUi, 
Thy sceptre's wave Is the scythe of death 
Which sweeps all life to the domes beneath. 

** Then how can aught mortal in earth or air, 
The might or the power of thy sceptre dare 
With the crown of a crncified Jew compiret 
Domitian, Domitian I Beware, beware !*' 

As the last verse was being chant- 
ed, the stage, the voice, and awfal 
chamber began slowly to ascend, until 
the last words seemed to fall from the 
sky! 

*< Domitian I Domitian ! ! Beware l 
beware ! !" 

A hushed terror pervaded the speo^ 
tators. The cruel character of Domi- 
tian was well known. History records 

* Tlllemont and other historians relate thii inb* 
•UDtialljr In iba saow wa/. 



302 



The 7\w Lover* of Fhvui DomitiUa. 



^ 



that he could spend whole days in kill- 
ing flies with a bodkin ; which gave oc- 
casion to the witty reply of Vibius 
Crbpus, who, bein^ mViH^ " Who is 
wilb the etaperor?" gald^ **Not as 
much m a %."' It is well known that 
he had at times ordered the exeeution 
of his rno^t intimate friends and ma^t 
favored officers ; nay, that he had left 
his banquet to witness the death-throes 
of those who had partaken it with him. 
Lately he had be<5ome more and more 
suspiciona of everyone and everything. 
He had conceived a great jealousy of 
the £Eimily and descendants oF David, 
one of whom he had heard was wor- 
shipped by his numerous family as 
Lord of lords and Kln|^ of kin^s. So 
much did this fear inilaence him that 
he sent out orders lo his civil and mil- 
itary officei'B in the East to have every 
descendant of David, every relative of 
the Redeemer, arrested and brought to 
Rome. In acconiance with this order 
two grandfsons of St. Jnde» who were» 
acconling to Jewish custom, called 
** brothers/* whereas they were in 
reality only cousins, of our Lord, 
were sent from Judea to Home, and 
examined by the emperor. Having 
questioned them about their family and 
aliout the empire of tfieir relative, who 
by his adherents was adore<i as GrOii, 
he hiid a^ide his feara of their rivalry 
for the throne and dismissed them 
ignominlously.* They had told him 
they were only poor pea.^ant<a living on 
the proceeds of a small farm near Je^ 
rusalem ; and in proof tbey raised 
their hands and showed liim the palms 
roughened and the nails dirty from toil 
But though he had kid a^ije his fears 
of these friends of our Lord, he did 
not ceaj^o to dread the increasing num 
ber of true believers. Therefore, as 
if to be on an equal elevation, he had 
some time before the date of the inci* 
deals of our tale issued an edict by 
which he commanded all ids subjects 
to addrei^ him as a god. and to offer 
divine worship to liia statue! Many 
citii^ii^ who gave evidence of their 



appreciating the absurdity of this edict 
had been put to death under his owa 
eyes. 

We may imagine^ lhen» the secret 
feelings of the guests after viewing 
the scene that had been presented on 
the sta^e. The pantomimic art, which 
in ancient Rome and Athens had rvacb* 
ed a height of perfection and ma;u'ni(i- 
cenoe now unknown, had apphed all 
its resources on the oc^^asion to suit 
the imperial mood. During ihe reci- 
tation of the verses descriptive of his 
power over animate and inanimate na» 
ture — whether in air* in earth, or in 
the sea — he held his head and sceptre 
erect as if with the conscious dignity 
of the godhead. But when the allu- 
sion to an opponent, to ** the crown of 
a crucified Jew," fell on his ears^ his 
brow lowered, hia face darkened and 
his eyes fiamefi His excitement was 
increased by observing the impulsive 
movements of many present, c«peciiiU 
ly of a young officer of the court who 
as the same alhiaion was Ijcing mail^ 
laid his, hand upon bis sword and ad- 
vanced a step to the staj^e, until drawn 
back by a lady of mild aspect and 
retiring demeanor. Tbe only pcrso 
else besides the emperor who noticed 
the motions of the young officer wx^ 
Aurelian, who had conceived a jeal- 
ousy ol* him for some kind a item ions 
paid to Flavia Domidlla. Thes** at- 
tentions were easily accounted for ; the 
oflicer, ns was customary with young 
noblemen of wealth, liad been out for 
some yejirii in the suite of the proeon- 
gul of Judea» a relative of Flavia. 
This circumstance led to an acquaint- 
anc-e lietween them. But it wa^ ob- 
served by every one except Aurclmn 
that the young man studiously endea- 
vored to avoid as much as politeness 
would allow the company of Flavia 
as well as of other Indies of the court* 
This was the ronre remarkable con- 
sidering her youth, her beauty, and her 
connection with the imperial family. 

The other guests were too engrossed 
with their fears to observe what had 
not escaped the jealovjs cyca of Domi- 
tian and Aurelian. After an intervil 



The Two Lovers of Flavia Domitilla. 



993 



of suspense, to enjoy the effects pro- 
duced by fear upon the guests, Domi- 
tian ordered them to continue the ban- 
quet — that the scene they had witness- 
ed was the work of the pantomimes. 
This allayed their anxiety ; but there 
was no zest remaining for enjoyment 
Each one saw his own likeness in his 
neighbor's pallid face long after the 
stage had vanished. As soon as the 
usual formulas were gone through, 
they quickly and quietly took leave 
at an earlier hour than usual on such 
occasions, and left the emperor seat- 
ed amid his magnificence. 

Aurelian, having with the other guests 
left the palace at so early an hour, was 
glad to have so much time for visiting 
the house of Sisinnius. He had not 
seen Flavia Domitilla for nearly a 
month. She had been unwell ; and, 
as often as he called, she sent word 
that she was not able to leave her 
room. He had called each day, and 
each day receiveil the same answer. 
He was all anxiety for her health ; 
for, her ways so artless, and yet so 
artful, had woven round his heart a 
network of loving thoughts and wishes 
for her welfare. Stie had been betroth- 
ed to him by the emperor, her cousin, 
guardian, and adopted father ; and had 
avowed her attachment for him, and 
proved it by the affectionate kindness 
of her manner. But latterly he thought 
she had begun to treat him with cool- 
ness and to avoid his society. Jealousy 
suggested that her previously avowed 
affection had been diverted into anoth- 
er channel, to a different object. Could 
it be that after all his efforts to secure 
her love, aft<T all her professions, she 
had withdrawn her affections and be- 
stowed them on that young officer? 
Such were the thoughts that held 
longest possession of Aurelian 's mind 
as he bent his steps toward the bouse 
of Sisinnius. 

As soon as he touched the knocker, 
which was a ring grasped in a lion's 
mouth, the hall door was opened by 
Nereus, one of Flavians most favored 
slaves. The little dog, the usual in- 
mate of the Roman atrium, bounded in 



familiar gambols about the purple band 
which bound the lower edge of his 
senatorial toga. 

" Down, Hykix T And he waved 
away the dog with the pallium he had 
just taken off to intrust to the servants 
until his departure. " 1 hope your 
mistress has recovered from her late 
indisposition ?" said he,'addressing Ne- 
reus, who, though humble and respect- 
ful in manner and language, seemed to 
have a dislike for Aurelian. 

** Not quite recovered, my noble lord. 
The confinement at home was increas- 
ing the depression of spirits, under 
which she has been suffering since her 
uncle's death." 

The door of an apartment off the 
atrium — not the triclinium, but a small 
dia'ta^ or parlor, where the family 
spent the winter evenings — opened and 
presented Sisinnius to view. 

" Welcome, Aurelian ! How so ear- 
ly from the feast ? I heard that Apol- 
lonius of Tyana himself was brought 
from Corinth to aid in the entertain- 
ment ; and I wonder to find you here 
before the sixth hour !" 
• " It is true, indeed, that Apollonius 
was in Rome some time ago. Either 
he or the infernal imps must have been 
there to-night I" 

" You were highly amused, then ?" 

" Amused I Domitian's amusements 
are not likely to suit all tastes." 

He laid aside his pallium and wide- 
leafed carpentum, and was arranging 
the folds of his toga, while Sisinnius 
in a whisper told him that Theodora, 
Flavia, and Clement were inside. Af- 
ter the usual salutations and courtesy 
he was introduced to the last named, 
whose venerable appearance impressed 
him deeply. The hand of time had 
polished the upper part of the stran- 
ger's head to a transparent whiteness 
through which the blue veins were visi- 
ble, and had scattei-ed the snows of 
some eighty years on the hairs, which, 
like a silver crown, encircled his neck 
and flowed down on his shoulders. 
His face was bronzed by long expo- 
sure to suns in many lands. But there 
was about it an indescribable sweet- 



Th4 Two Zovert of Flavia DomUiUa. 



ness, and a charity beamed in his 
piercing eje sure to win the atten- 
tion and good- will of alL He woi*e 
goat-skin sandals without stocking. 
The other parts of his dress, though 
indicative of citizenship and noble birth, 
were old and threadbare. The only 
ornament he wore was a plain gold 
ring, on which a cross was engraven, 

Aurelian recoguizcnl in Clement the 
person who, some weeks before, when 
a phyr^ician was sought to attend one 
of the human* victims in the capitol 
sacrificed to propitiate the god of 
war, presented himself and said : " I 
am not a physician by profession. But 
during a long life spent in foreign 
lands I have learned some secrets of 
the healing art. If permitted, I can 
relieve the pains of yonder victim." 
Leave was given ; for according to 
the augurs it would be a bad omen if 
the victim expired before the conclu- 
sion of the sacrificial rite. Clement 
spoke in language which Aurelian did 
not understand, and raised his hand 
over the head of the suflferer, who, see- 
ing it, brightened into smiles. He then 
took out a silver case from his side- 
pocket and rubbed its contents over 
parts of the wounded body ; and imme- 
diately, before all present, the wounds 
inflicted by the fire were healed, and the 
victim was strong as ever. Recog- 
nizing now in the guest of Slsinnius 
the vii^itor of the capitol, Aurelian re- 
joiced to make his acquaiiitimce. He 
rejoiced, too, on account of Flavia, 
whose health, dear to him as his own, 
would, no doubt, be soon restored by 
the skill of Clement. 

"Come, Aurelian," said Sisinnius, 
"help you i-self to some of those Calabrian 
pomegranates and to a cyathus of Faler- 
nian. You seem to want it sadly, for 
you look as pale as if you had seen the 
ghost of Nero. While you help your- 
self, t<»ll us how you fared at the empe- 
ror's. Did he by way of disport order 
any of those Jews or Christians to be 
executed i"" The Jews and Christians 



• Smithes Dictionary of Antiqalties. VUU Sacrifl- 
clam. 



were during the first centuries oonsid-' 
ered the same by the pagans. 

"^Nol But it might have come t» 
that had the entertainment been pro- 
longed !" And he related the incidents 
we Imve already laid before the reader. 
When he spoke of the effect produced 
on the emperor by the allusion to the 
** Crucified Jew," the eyes of Flavia 
and Theodora met. and turned to the 
face of Clement. The latter seemed 
for a time lost to the thought of all 
about him. Tears glistened in his eyes, 
which were sad and thoughtful, while 
his white head was bent and bis lips 
moved silently. Sisinnius was too 
wrapt in the description of the banquet, 
and Aurelian too much complimented 
by the silence in which they listened to 
him, to observe the old man. Other- 
wise, they, like the two women, would 
have easily construed the motion of his 
lips into the words : ^ Father, not my 
will, but thine, be done. But give wis- 
dom and strength to thy servant." 

"This bodes ill for the Christians," 
said Sisinnius when Aurelian had 
finished. 

" I would not wonder to find a worse 
edict than that of Nero posted on brazen 
tablets in the Campus Martiu3 in a 
few days. Domitian is under the 
impn^ssion that they in their private 
meetings are plotting against bis life 
and throne. He has already ordered 
one of the most iutunato and trusted 
friends of Jesus to be arrested at Epbe- 
sus and to be brought in chains to 
Bome," said Aurelian. 

At this announcement Clement, who 
had been a quiet listener, staited as if 
with sudden pain ; then as suddenly re- 
covering his composure, he asked : ** Is 
it possible they could think of dragging 
the good old man across the sea in this 
wintiy weather? The journey would 
kUl him." 

" It is not only possible, but it is a 
fact," said Aurelian. 

" You kuow this good old man, then P* 
asked Sisinnius. 

*' Know him I Yes, good right have 
I to know him. Theie is not a coun- 
try from the Pillars of Hercules or the 



Ihe Two Lovers of Flavia DomiUUa. 



Tin Islands of the Nbrth to the sunny 
steeps of Asia and sjrtes of Africa, in 
which I have not been and met with 
many friends. Mast of those I loved 
and labored with are gone'* — he wiped 
away a tear — **but of all that remain 
there is none more worthy, none more 
venerated, none more dear to my heart 
and to the heart of one far greater than 
I, than John of Ephesus. He is the 
last of a generation now almost passed 
away— -a generation of mighty work- 
ers — i^iants in their way — sent on earth 
to lay the foundations of an edifice, the 
stories of which are to be laid on age 
after age until they reach the sky. 
When he is gone, the last direct link 
between that generation and the present 
will be taken away. Already the work 
they commenced has fallen on frail and 
feeble shoulders." Here the speaker, 
who had forgotten his company in the 
warmth of his language, bent his head 
npon his breast, and again his lips mov- 
ed silently. All present looked on 
wonderingly: there was something in 
the old man's appearance to excite their 
admiration. 

Soon after, Clement rose to depart. 
Theodora and Sisinnius endeavored to 
induce him to remain. He had spent 
nights from time to time in their house, 
when the former had been sick ; but 
now he was not to be moved. 

" Young men !" he said as he rose, 
" we may or we may not meet again. 
No one can count on another day ; it 
is better to arrange to-night what the 
morrow might not dawn upon." Theo- 
dora and Flavia bent their eyes in- 
quiringly upon him : addressing them, 
he said : " To you I address the words 
often said to me by one I journeyed with 
for many years : ' Be always ready 
with lamps trimmed. The shadow of 
this world is passing away. The night 
b at hand ; but remember there is a 
bright and lasting dawn beyond it.' 
Allow au old man, whose pilgrimage in 
this world will not be long, to invoke 
his \»lc8sing upon you all." He raised 
bis outspread hands, and the ring with 
the ergraven cross shone out as he 
solemnly said, ^ M^y my blessing and 



the blessing of the * unknown God' de- 
scend upon you. May he soon gather 
you all into that glorious edifice he has 
sent his workmen to build on earth, 
and there manifest to you the cLdmira- 
hie light and beauty of his counte- 
nance !" While he spoke, Flavia and 
Theodora bent their beads, as if some 
unseen infiuence was descending upon 
them ; while Sisinnius and AureHan 
attributed the manner of Clement to an 
eccentricity not previously noticed. 

After Clement's departure, Aurelian 
approached Fkvia to express his 
anxiety about her health. She was 
agitated. He saw that her face did 
not wear the sunshine welcome and the 
loving smile with which it heretofore 
brightened at his approach. She 
seemed sad, yet not unhappy, but anx- 
ious to avoid his presence and his look. 
Could the insinuations of Zoilus be 
true ? Formerly when she went from 
home, or when she expected to meet 
him, she took trouble to heighten her 
great natural beauty of appearance and 
manner by artificial assistance. Her 
toilet table and attendants were models 
for the Roman ladies, who spent enor- 
mous sums on Asiatic cosmetics and 
Ionian female slaves to aid them in 
dressing. All seemed now changed 
with Flavia* Her dress was a mourn- 
ing one of brown cloth, such as the 
wives of Roman shopkeepers might 
wear, drawn modestly about her from 
chin to feet, without a single ornament 
Her hair was bound in no Persian 
headdress, as was then the fashion 
with high-born dames ; but was folded 
unpretendingly about her head, so as 
to conceal as much as possible the fair 
proportions of her full and polished 
forehead. Her dark eyes, usually so 
full of hearty affection, were not up- 
turned as of old to his. H". saw some- 
thing was out of joint. Could it be the 
eiiect of sickness ? If so, he would 
pour out all his fortune, melt down the 
silver and golden images of his ances- 
tors, at Clement's feet, and beseech him 
to cure her. Or could it be that she 
had transferred her affections ftt)m 
himself to the young officer lately re- 



896 



I%e Tioo Zovers of Flavia DomitiUcu 



turned from Judea? Such were the 
thoughts flitting through the mind of 
Aureh'an as he found himself alone 
with Flavia. Sisinnius had beckoned 
Theodora awaj. 

"Flavia!" he at length said, "in 
what have 1 offended? You appear 
distressed at my approach. Who can 
have a better riglit to that affection you 
always professed for me than I, who 
shall call you by a new endearing title 
on the next Elalends ?" 

" The next Kalends ! You cannot 
be in earnest, Aurelian T she said. 

'** Your guardian and adopted father, 
the emperor, has chosen that day for 
the fulfilment of the promise you have 
made me. It is a day to be for ever 
marked with Cretan chalk in my 
memory,'* he replied. 

" But it cannot be I It is impossi- 
ble!" 

" Why not ? How T he asked. 

" O Aurelian ! you are too noble, 
too generous, you have been always 
too kind to me to force me to fulfil a 
promise which can never bring me 
aught but misery !" 

** Misery ? Why, have you not al- 
ways professed the greatest confidence 
and love of me ? Have I done any- 
thing to lose them ? You admit I have 
not. How, then, can the fulfilment of 
your engagement make you misera- 
ble?' 

" I shall never," she answered, " for- 
get your kindness day after day to me, 
and I shall always love you as my bro- 
ther. But any other relationship there 
cannot be !" 

" I see it all plainly," he said. " You 
too have been infected by this new 



plague: you have withdrawn your 
affections to bestow them on another T* 
" And suppose I have," said Flavia, 
grasping at another mode of calming 
his excitement. " You are too high 
in rank, too proud to accept the hand 
of one who cannot bestow her heart 
with it r 

" By Hercules ! I know who this 
Christian enchanter is, and by the ho- 
nor of a Roman knight — ^ 

" Then, if you know him well, you 
cannot blame me- for bestowing my 
affections on him. He is so beautiful, 
so noble, so glorious beyond the sons 
of men. His teeth are whiter than 
milk, and the words of his mouth are 
like the drippings of the honeycomb. 
He is encompassed with perpetual 
youth, and crowned with a comeliness 
which shall never fade. All these en- 
during qualities he promises to con- 
fer on me if I will love and serve 
him!" 

"Love him then, infatuated girl I 
But serve him you never sliall, if the 
sword and fortune of Aurelian can pro- 
vent it I" 

** Aurelian, my brother! I will 
pray and ask him that you also may 
know him ; for, if you did, you could 
not help loving and serving him." 

" Do you wish to mock my misery," 
he bitterly asked, " now that you have 
blighted all on which my hopes of hap- 
piness rested ? But Flavia ! remem- 
ber I am not to be put off, if the power 
of Domitian can crush this Christian 
viper ! Remember your uncle's fate !** 
And turning he led the room. 

TO BE CONTINUED. 



2%e Libraries of the Middle Ages and their Contents. 897 



From The Dublin UnlTenity Magaiine. 

THE LIBRARIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND THEIR 
CONTENTS. 



FATHER HARDOUIN ON THE CLASSICS. 

The fourteenth century was doubt- 
lessly an era of great literary activity 
with regard to transcribing and filling 
libraries with copies of the Latin 
Scriptures, of theological works in gen- 
eral, and of the classics. The learned 
and eccentric Jesuit, Father John Har- 
douin, fixed on it for the composition of 
all the supposed classic treasures of 
antiquity #hich we possess, except the 
works of Cicero, Pliny's Natural His- 
tory, the Satires and Epistles of Hor- 
ace, the Georgics and nine Ecloguef) 
*of Virgil, the comedies of Plautus, the 
poems of Homer, and the history of 
Herodotus. All the rest were the brain- 
produce of the cloistered scholars of the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, 
especially the latter, as being distin- 
guished by the rage for collecting man- 
uscripts and forming libraries. Not 
only were these supposed fruits of the 
classic pagan tree the growth of the 
Christian intellect of that late time, but 
the works of St. Augustin and his dis- 
ciples were composed for them nine 
hundred years after their funerals.* 



* JohB Hardouin, the son of ft bookseller of Qalmper, 
Vftg born in 1 646. He entered at ftn early age into the 
Society of Jesus. Ue soon distinguished himself by 
acnte perception and a great memory, but still more 
by cherishing such paradoxes as the above. The 
JSneid, according to him, was the work of a BenedicUne 
of the thirteenth century, and was an allegorical de- 
■crlption of St. Peter's Journey to Rome ; and Ilorace*! 
Lalagt was a type of the Chrbtian religion. The an- 
tique medals were all modern InrenUons, each letter 
representing a word. ** Tou are quite right, father," 
said an antiquary to him one day. ** These lettera 
found on so many medals, Cov. Ob., and supposed to 
stand for * ConstantinopU Obsignatum,* (stamped 
Lsealed] at Constantinople,) are evidently intended to 
read, * Cusi Omnes Nummi OfficinA Benedictina *— «11 
moneys struck in Uie Benedictine Bfint." He was a 
most firm believer in all the dogmas of revealed rell- 

gon, but a thorough Pyrrhonist in human tradltlone. 
e classed Jansenius, Thomassin, Malebranche, Quea- 
nel, Amauld, Nicole, Pascal, Descartes, Le Grand, and 
Regis amone the atheists. They were Cartesians, 
merely another name for unbelievers. His learning 
was most extensive and his works numerous. •He 
died in Paris in 1729 at the ag^ of 88. 



There was in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries a literary warfare 
between the Classicists and Romancists 
as real as that which sprung up in Paris 
before the three days of July, but much 
less noisy. We find among the 145 
volumes bequeathed to the library of 
the church of Langres in 1365, by Jean 
de Saffres, about two dozen of romances 
whose titles deserve to be remembered* 
They were Renart, (Reynard the Fox,) 
Girart de Roussillon, Grarin la Lohe- 
rain, Aimeri de Narbonne, Raoul de 
Cambrai, Bueves de Barbastre, * Jean 
dit le Lanson, Parise la Duchesse, 
Merlin, Courberau d'Olifeme, Gibert 
dit Desree, les Sept Sages, les Macha- 
bees, Troie la Grant, (Troy the Great,) 
Floriraont, la Rose, Beaudoux, (Sweet 
Beauty or Beautifully Sweet,) Clyges, 
Perceval le Gallois, Basin ct Gom- 
baud, Amadas, (Amadis, qu.,) Galaad, 
Lancelot, Tristan, (Sir Tristrem.) 

THE CABE BESTOWED ON THE IJBRARIE8. 

We may be certain that St. Benedict 
had not such books as these in his mind 
when he composed the following prayer 
of blessing on the works to be copied 
by his monks, a prayer which has been 
preserved in the Abbey of Fleuri-sur- 
Loirc: 

"0 Lord, let the virtue of thy Holy Spirit 
descend on these books ; let it purify them, 
bless them, sanctify them. Sweetly enlighten 
the hearts of those who read them, and impart 
their true sense to them« Qrant us also to be 
faidiful to the precepts emanating from thy 
light, in accomplishing them by good works, 
accordmg to thy will'* 



* A cherished manual of oar youth was Wild Roaet or 
Cottage Tales, published bj Anne Lemolne in some 
court whoM name has escaped our memory. One of 
the stories was ** Babbastal, or the Magician of th« 
Forest of Bloody Ash !** Was Bu&V€9 de BarbMtre 
the original of that terrible and interesting narratlTe f 



898 



I%$ JUbrariet of (he Middle Ages and their Contents. 



The same respect for good bookie is 
found in all tlie abbeys of the Benedic- 
tines. The very high value the re- 
ligious communities set on rare works 
connected with their order, subjected 
the monks of the abbey of St. Denis to 
a cruel imposition in 1389. An im- 
postor, such as some who have practis- 
ed mighty deceptions in our times, a 
Bupple Greek named Paul Tagari, pass- 
ing himself off for the patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, obtained thirty thousand 
crowns ot'gold from the king of Cyprus, 
on imparting the royal unctiou to his 
majesty, and a magnificent reception 
from the pope at Avignon, as he held 
out strong assurances of the return of 
the Greek schism to the faith. He an- 
nounced to the simple monks of St. 
Denis the existence of some manu- 
scripts from the hand of the very pa- 
tron of their order, Saint Dionysius the 
Areopagite, who had heard the woi-ds 
of life fiom the lips of St. Paul himself, 
when he spoke to the news loving peo- 
ple of Athens on the hill of Mars. Two 
brothers set out on foot to Marseilles, 
and, deluded by the knave's representa- 
tions, journeyed on from that to Rome. 
The Greek had got their money, but 
they got nothing by their long journey 
but the labor and expenses of perform- 
ing it. and tlic chagrin of the disappoint- 
ment. 

The monks of Cluni were particular 
in the illustrating and the binding of 
their volumes. As a general rule the 
outsides of the volumes in the abbey 
libraries were not attractive. The 
Bemardine houses of Citeaux and 
Clairvaux affected the plainest style. 
We may here give an instance of the 
care taken of the precious volumes, by 
quoting the library rules of the canons 
regular: <»The armarius (literally, 
guardian of shelves or presses) should 
apply labels to the backs, catalogue the 
volumes, go over them twice or thrice in 
the year, see that they were not crowd- 
ed, and that every volume was in its 
place. In case of a loan he was to re- 
cord the borrower's address, the title of 
the volume, and the deposit received, 
which in all cases should be the regis- 



tered value of the book. When the 
book was highly prized, he was not to 
give it out without the express sanction 
of the prior or abbot. He had charge 
of the parchment, the ink, the pens, the 
bodkins, and the penknives, and he 
kept an eye on the intern and extern 
copyists. The writcirs of funeral billets 
and of business letters were also under 
his control. He provided his indoor 
copiers with a quiet apartment where 
no one had right of Ingi-ess but the ab- 
bot, the prior, or the sub-prior. He ex- 
amined the purity of the texts, tbe 
binding, the condition of the volumes. 
He kept the volumes in daily use, such 
as the Bibles, the accounts of the pas- 
sion, the lives of the saints, and the 
homilies in a place acces^le to all 
regulated the readings dViug meal 
times, and corrected faults committed 
in reading or clianting, and arningcd 
processions. Our Benedictine libra- 
rian had lib sinecure. 

THE mCU LinilARIBS OF THE BEGGHTO 
BUOTHERS. 

The Dominicans were no less care- 
ful of their literary treasures. In a 
general chapter of the order, held at 
Saragossa in 1309, it was forbidden to 
every prior, sub- prior, or officer com- 
missioned by them, to bestow, sell, 
lend, or pledge any book of which there 
was but one copy in the respective 
houses. Whoever was guilty of in- 
fraction was to be deprived of his fac- 
ulties (official to wit) for three yeare. 
The theological works should not be 
sold out of the order. Whoever dis- 
obeyed should, till the restitution of the 
property, fast on bread and water one 
day in every week. • A student was 
privileg<»d, in cases of urgent n«;cessity, 
to sell a book, the Bible and the great 
work of St. Thomas of Aquino except- 
ed. 

The English Richard de Bury be- 
fore mentioned found the Dominicans 
the most keen scented and zealous re- 
trie veis of rare treasures in bibli- 
ogyaphy. 

" VVhcD/* said he, " thej travcrso seas and 



2%e Ziibrariet of the Middle Ages and their Contents. 



899 



deserts, when they search the recesses of con- 
Tenths they never forget me. What beast of 
chase can escape these keen hunters ? What 
fish BO small can wriggle out of their nets ?" 

He goes on, mentioning how they 
despatch to him sermons lately preach- 
ed in Rome, discourses delivered at a 
Paris university, and adds : 

" We are now about visiting their convents 
and their books. Tiierc in a profound poverty 
we shall discover untold of treasures. We shall 
find in their baskets and their wallets, along 
with such crumbs as men fling to the dogs, 
the unleavened bread of proposition, the bread 
of angels, the granaries of Joseph filled with 
wheat, nil the riches of Egypt, all the sumptu- 
ous presents which the queen of Sbeba offer- 
ed to Solomon. Yes ! having come into the 
vineyard at the eleventh hour, the friars- 
preachers have secured the richest vintage." 
(Victor Ic Olerc.) 

These Begging Brothers, being a 
rich and numerous branch, secured the 
most valuable works everywhere. The 
Archbishop of Armagh having sent four 
theological students to complete their 
course at Oxford, they were obligeil to 
return as they went, the Mendicant 
friars having bought up all the books : 
80 that the poor Irishmen could neither 
borrow nor buy the Bible nor any theo- 
logical work. 

Divei-s presents were made from time 
to time to these lovers of books. In 
the end of a MS. of the Dominicans at 
Clermont, containing the pastoral of 
St. Gi-egory, and some tracts of St. 
Jerome and St. Isadore of Seville, is 
foui}d the following note: 

*'The Seigneur Peter d' Andre, citizen of 
Clermont, licentiate in both laws, (LL.D.,) at 
first bishop of Noyon, then of Clermont, and 
finally of Cainbrai, has given us tliis book and 
many others. Wherefore we bind ourselves 
to Celebrate his anniversary* in perpetuity. 
Tou who read in this book, pray to God for 
bun, for lie has done us great kindnesses, and 
we owe much to him, as well as to his family. 
Let him who simll wickedly efface these 
words be Anathema I So be it ! Dated on 
St. (ieoi-^nj's day, the 23d of the month of 
April, 1;JT7." 

The Franciscans possessed poor li- 
braries compared with those of the Do- 

* That Is, celebrate dlviut offioes for Um repose ol 



minicans. Indeed the accumulation of 
the profane writers seemed inconsistent 
cirith the spirit of the order. The fol- 
lowing story was put in currency cither 
to advance the views of the body or 
throw ridicule on their fear or neglect 
of classic literature. We incline to the 
first theory, and will give the outline of 
the little drama with as little irrever- 
ence as we can. 

There were two Friars Minors in a 
convent at Marseilles, one the ^i^ardian 
of the library, the other the reader, and 
both attentive students of the rare old 
pagan classics. On the same night the 
summons came to both, and a monk of 
their order, but living in a distant 
province, had a vision at the moment 
of their departure which terrified him 
not a little. He saw them passing 
to judgment, preceded by two mules 
heavily laden with books, and it ap- 
peared to him that their patron, St. 
Fi*ancis, was commissioned to examine 
into their lives, and pass sentence. The 
awe-struck monk then heard the fol- 
lowing questions and answers : **What 
use made you of these books ?" *' We 
read them." '' Did you act as they 
recommended?"' "By no means." 
" Then as it was through a principle 
of vanity and in contempt of your holy 
law of poverty you amassed so many 
volumes, and left neglected that which 
Gk)d ordained, you and your books 
shaUP . . • . 
The poor monk awoke terrified beyond 
expression, and was confirmed in his 
utter neglect of Homer, Virgil, and 
Horace, and in his predilection for the 
stndy of the Bible and the early fathers. 

THE BORBONNE. 

If the universities had heard the 
above narrative, it did not make much 
impression on them. They multiplied 
books — the university of Paris particu- 
larly ; but this last was unprovided 
with a suitable lodgment for them as 
well as for itself, and was obligetl to 
borrow accommodation for its ar^cm- 
blies from the establishment of the 
Mathurins, and for its sermons on 



400 I%e Librariei of the Middle Agee and their Contente. 



great oocasioDS, the pulpit of the Do- 
miaicans, comer of the Rue Saiut Jac- 
ques. It left to posterity only one 
library of importaoce, that of the Sor-. 
bonne.* 

Among the rare old collections of 
manuscripts, that of the Sorbonne de- 
serves honorable mention. In 1290 
it included 1017 volumes. About 
that time a heroic socius simply call- 
ing himself "John," seeing so many 
volumes never taken off the shelves 
nor opened, owing to the want of a 
catalogue, set to the work, and made 
out one to the best of his abilities, as- 
sorting the books into a few general 
classes. He arranged the works in 
each class by the authors* names, and 
after the title he copied a few words 
of the commencement — a very useful 
proceeding. GeneraUy the books in 
the convents were only lent to the 
brothers or other inmates of the house, 
or to some one of the order ; but in 
the Sorbonne library the volumes 
were freely lent to all applicants on 
depositing somewliat more than tlie 
value of the work in gold, silver, or 
some more valuable book, the rule 
being Extraneo siib juramento— to an 
extern — under oath, (to return the 
work.) 

We find the lending system in full 
vigor with most of the libraries either 
gratis or at a very trifling charge. Be- 
sides the catalogues, they possessed at 
the Sorbonne a registry for the lending 
department In this registry were not 
only marked the opening words of the 
first page, but also those of the third, 
sometimes those of the last leaf but 
one, in order that, if the borrower was 

* This much spoken of Institution was founded by 
Robert, a canon of Cambrai, born In the viUiige of 
Sorbon, in the Ardennes, in 1201. He was much en- 
deared to Louis IX. (St Louis) bj his learning and 
l^ety, and became his chaplain. He conceived the 
project of an insUtution in which clergymen support- 
ed by gorernment might gratuitously instruct poor 
ttudents in theology, and thus gire great assistance 
to the university. St. Louis warmly approving hla 
design, the institution was opened In 125i with sixteen 
poor scholars selected from England, Gaul, Normandy, 
and Picardy, the four nations so called. Your Ger- 
man scholars were afterward afllliated. Each can- 
didate for admission was obliged to maintain these 
pro}>osition8 against all opponents one day from Ave 
▲.M. to seven p.m. The InsUtution continued to main- 
tain its reputation for theological science down to the 
ikrst revolution. It was redstablisUed, mud slUl ezbU. 



rogue enough to return a volume di^ 
ferent from the one borrowed, he might 
be easily detected. It is a matter 
worth attention, the low prices set on 
books in common use by ordinary folk 
or by students. Tullius de Officiis^ de 
Senectute et de Amiciti4 was valued 
at decem sols — say five pence sterling. 
Allowing even for the high value of 
money at the time in relation to that 
of our day, the price seems out of all 
proportion with the materials of the 
book and the time bestowed on the 
writing. Baron Tauchnitz at this mo- 
ment would make the poorest student 
pay about half a florin for it, notwith- 
standing the aid of movable type and 
steam presses. 

Some of the works in this register 
were distinguished by the word cate- 
ncUus, (chained to its place,) others by 
deficit. Among books in this cate- 
gory were most of the Libri in Gal- 
ileo. These were called romances, 
whatever the subject Thus we find 
Komancium de Rosa, Bomancium 
quod incipit Miserere mei, (one of 
the Seven Penitential Psalms ;) Bo- 
mancium de decem pneceptis, sine 
rigmo, et dicitur Gallice, (romance of 
the Ten Commandments unrhy med and 
issued in the French language;) Le 
libre roiaus (roiaulx, royal) de Vices • 
et Virtus (sic) : Incipit Ce sent li X 
commandemens. 

From the year 1321 they began to 
bestow or s^ll numbers of the less im- 
portant works, for the library had out- 
grown the calculated proportions, and 
such things as the students' cahiers 
(copy books) and old sermons only 
took up valuable space. 

The learned Bishop of Durham be- 
queathed his valuable library to the uni- 
versity of Oxford in 1344; and actu< 
ated by the same good spirit, left di- 
rections that the books should be lent 
even as the works in the Sorbonne on 
receiving sufficient security. 

UNPRmaPLED BOOK BORROWERS, 

Many were the deplorable losses of 
valuable books incurred by lending 



I%e Ij^raries of the Middle Ages and their Contents, 



401 



but yet the practice was productive 
of too many and too great benefits to 
be discontinued. No one in our days, 
except a true bibliomaniac or the keep- 
er oi' a circulating library, can enter 
into the sore feelings of abbot or rec- 
tor of a university when the invaluable 
MS. was either lost or returned dam- 
aged. Such a heart-scald was inflict- 
ed on Peter called Monoculus, (one- 
eyed,) abbot of Clairvaux, when a book 
lent to a neighboring abbot was return- 
ed as wet as if it had been placed un- 
der a water-pipe. Observe the ras- 
cality of the messenger! He came 
by night, made a great bustle, turned 
off the attention of the unsuspicious 
librarian, got another volume instead, 
and departed at a very early hour to 
escape a perquisition. This was in 
1187. In the next century the Abbot 
ITiilip, with feelings soured by such 
ir. stances of want of principle, would 
not lend the tracts of St. Augustin, 
humbly and earnestly demanded. 
No; there they were — ^too large to 
be carried away. ** His dear brother 
was welcome to send an accredited 
writer to make a copy." 

Proprietors of valuable l)ooks be- 
came so chary from sad experience, 
that unless the messenger who came 
to borrow was provided with a good 
steed, lie would not be entrusted with 
the treasure. This supposes some 
distance to separate lender from bor- 
rower. 

Saint Lotiis and Charles the Wise 
were liberal in bestowing and lending. 
Borrowers, as has been their custom 
since the days of Job, were found fre- 
quently false in their vows, and after 
the rt'ign of poor Charles VI., dejieit 
was found in multiplied instances in 
the royal register after the names of 
works in request. So strong was the 
desire among lettered people to be the 
own»*r8 of valuable works that a cer- 
tain learned monk was not considered 
above the temptation of what some 
lawyers have termed conveyandng. 
In a life of St. Bernard it is related 
that one day at Clairvaux be thus ad- 
dressed three novices : " One of you 
VOL. V. — 26 



will make his escape this night : let 
the others watch and not allow him 
to take away anything.'' Two fell 
asleep, the spirit of evU sitting very 
heavy on their eyelids. The third, 
who staid awake, saw about daybreak 
two giants enter, and place under the 
nostrils of one of the sleepers a roast 
fowl encircled by a serpenL Roused 
by the deluding smell, he got up, ap- 
proached the library, forced open the 
door, and was about making off with 
some of the literary treasures. Being 
stopped by his fcUow -students, he at- 
tempted to scale the wall, but being 
prevented and still remaining impeni- 
tent, he lost his reason, and continued 
in that state till he died. 

In some of the old abbeys the place 
of the library is still to be found sui ~ 
in the thickness of the wall, as w< 
as the desks of wood or stone before 
it, fixed there for the behoof of the 
copyists. 

Fires aided the class of knavish bor- 
rowers in destroying the labors of the 
learned and their copiers. Twenty- 
two thousand volumes were reported 
as burned at Saint Vicent at Laoo. 
The entire books of Livy were lost, 
if some people are to be trusted, at 
the Benedictine abbey of Malmesbury, 
A savant said he saw the Treatises on 
the Republic, by Cicero, in a certain 
convent in 1517, and when he inquired 
some time after for it, the reply was, 
that they had been fiaio fnerepd^ 
(thievishly abstracted.) 

Besides strong locks and vigorouf 
anathemas, chains were used to secure 
some of the most valued volumes from 
pilfering fingers. Some suspected books 
were even fastened to their shelves with 
stout nails, as tradition relates to have 
happened to Roger Bacon's works at 
the hands of his unscientific brethren. 
Lord Litton's Friar Bungay being pro- 
bably the most active on the occasion.. 
Under the treatment of the nails the 
book could not be read. A relic of the 
old custom has remained till now in 

* Oardln*! de Mai was enabled to reaoae a i^ortloB 
of the work. A copy of hit edltioa was published la 
London In 18S8, with a fM-simUe of a page of ' 
p a llmp i M t c»hlb l t ing the ancknt and nwdem lati 



402 JHe Libraries of the Middle Ages and their Contents. 



8ome churches of Florence, where mia- 
Bals and rituals may be read under 
wire gratings, and even the leaves 
turned over. 

UNWOKTHY CUIIATORS. 

As a rule libraries in the possession 
of king3 and lords were not as care- 
A1U7 watched as those in convents. 
A remarkable exception to conventual 
care is recorded by Boccaccio when 
relating a visit to the Benedictines of 
Mount Oassino. He found the door 
of the library led open, and the books 
covered by a thick coat of dust, grass 
growing on the windows, the volumes 
imperfect, the margins clipped, and 
everything denoting the greatest neg- 
"" nee. On inquiring the cause of 

e injury to the volumes, he learned 
that they erased the writing from the 
vellum to write psalters (the Seven 
Penitential Psalms) for young people 
OD them, and clipped off the margius 
to receive short prayers. About the 
same time the French king's library 
was not better secured. It was near 
the falconry, and the new librarian 
Giles Malet, apprehensive that the 
* birds and other beasts" would take 
the liberty of coming in and injuring 
the volumes, the wire-worker got eigh- 
teen golden francs for applying wire 
screens to the windows. 

At the same convent of Mount 
Cassino, Mabillon saw the remains of 
a manuscript of the tenth century, con- 
verted to covers. Montfaucon was 
informed by the archbishop of Ro- 
sano that one of his predecessors 
being rather annoyed by a succession 
of curious scholars to inspect some 
Greek documents in his possession, hid 
them in the earth to get rid of the an- 
noyance.* 

♦ The first of these two eminent scholars was bom 
ia the (lioceDe of RUelms in 1632, and became a Bene- 
(Uctliif monk at SU Maur, same diocese, at the age of 
SI. lieing employed at Sjiint Denys to show the cu- 
riosities of the place, he fortunately broke a gla^s 
which lidd once belonged to Virgil ! He receive*! his 
eonge in conseqncnce. III.« next employment was on 
the ltvo4 (»r the Miutjt of the Itenedictlne order, the 
9|>lcileKlum. an«l when his brethren of 81. Maur were 
editinfc the works of the fathers he was entrusted 
with U\w^ of St. Bernard. Being sent by Colbert 
loto Uermauy to collect f«r the literary archlTes of 



Notwithstanding the care shown in 
influential quarters by heads of reli- 
gious houses, by kings, by universities, 
and even the threats of excommunica- 
tion issued against all pilferers or de* 
stroyers of good books, many instances 
of cruel neglect such as those quoted 
occurred. The curators of the Sainte 
Chapelle of Bourges felt so little inter- 
est in their literary property that the 
library was converted into a fowl-house, 
and valuable works were discovered 
there by sorrowful visitors, lying open 
on the desks, it being hard to say 
whether they were worse treated by the 
feathered or the unfeathered two-leg- 
ged animals. These negligences not- 
withstanding, the work of conserving 
and reproducing standard works in the 
classics, and others in the native tongue, 
went on vigorously, the brave laborers 
little aware of the mighty aid near at 
hand for lightening and abridging the 
labor of hands and pens, and even un- 
able to conceive the possibility of the 
results of a few mechanical appliances 
to the rapid and almost infinite mu^ 
tiplication of literary works, a single 
copy of ^^ich required such close ap- 
plication, and such a length of time for 
its production. 

If Saint Louis, when painfully in- 
creasing his library in the Sainte 
Chapelle, volume by volume, and at 
slow intervals, had been vouchsafed 
in one of his nightly visions the 
knowledge of the art and mystery of 
printing, and, while his whole being 
was filled with joy and admiration, 
suddenly awoke, and found all the 
steps of the process completely 
vanished from his memory, what an- 



France, be made mnny T.ilnable Acquis! tiotts. Tb« 
celebrated abbot of Ia Tnip])e, De Ranc^, harlnf con- 
tended that men in a rcIiKious htate should nut dis- 
tract their attention with literature, M:i)>illon was ap- 
pointed to answer him, a duty which he (>erfomied 
with great fffeot. but in a vtry mild niannrr.- Le 
Telliei prcsenteii hlra to Ixmif XIV., by whom he was 
graciou<)ly received. The lear(ie«l D\x Ctu^re being 
consulted by a stninRer on some abstrune pointst, •••nt 
him to Dom Mabillon. '* Yuu have iipplir<l to an Ig- 
norant pt-nion," Wild D. M. " («o to iny ma*t«-r In 
erudition, M. de Cange." "Why!" said the other, 
** it was he who directed me to you," This moilest 
and devout and learned man die<l i:i P.iris in I'd* at 
the aire of serenty-flve. Among his chief works b 
the history of the BenadlcUnc order, and a work 00 
diplomacy. 



The lAhraries of the Middle Ages and their Contents. 



408 



guish would have seized on him for a 
time, and with what disgust he would 
continue to witness the snail-like 
progress of a hook, word bj word, 
and line by line, till the writer 
reached the colo[)hon. However, 
the possibility of what we now look 
on as a commonplace privilege and 
convenience never disturbed the 
equanimity of the earnest laborers 
of the fourteenth century, and they 
IKJrformed their daily tasks with 
patient content, and frequently with 
enjoyment. 

I*AY LraRAniES and POrULAK FICTIONS. 

The Bibliotheque Royal dates its 
origin from a collection in the Sainte 
ChapoUe of Saint Louis's palace, made 
by the good king for his own special 
reading, as well as for that of his 
friends of good taste. Something 
was done by his successors, but the 
real history of the royal library be- 
gins with Charles Y., sumamed the 
'' Wise." 

Old house-k^ping accounts pre- 
served till the great fire on 27th Oc- 
tober, 1737, and then partially de- 
stroyed, have put it into the power of 
archaeologists to point out that par- 
ticular tower of the Louvre called the 
Library Tower. There were two 
floors wainscotted with bcHs dUr* 
lands — shillela oak, as we may sup- 
pose — vaulted with cypress wood, and 
all ornamented with bas-reliefs. The 
painted windows were furnished with 
brass wire and iron bars. There were 
lulrines, (choristers' desks.) pupitres 
toumants, (desks revolving on pivots,) 
and some of these were brought from 
the palace. Thirty small chandeliers 
and a silver lamp were lighted when 
evening came, and thus the students 
were enabled to study at night 

From some of tlie household ac- 
counts of Charles V. still in preserva- 
tion, we learn that this Irish oak, to 
the amount of four hundred and 
eighty pieces, was presented in 1364 
to the Wise King, to be used in the 
building of his castle, the donor being 
the seneschal of Hainault. The chief 



part of the volumes in the library of 
the Louvre were in the French tongue. 

Besides the pieces of native litera- 
ture already mentioned, we may here 
quote the following as the established 
favorites : 

Romances about Charlemagne 
AND HIS Peers : Berte, Roland et 
Olivier, Roncevaux, Merlin, Gaidon, 
le Voyage k Jerusalem, Ferabras, 
Grarin de Monglane, Dame Aye, 
Amis et Amile, Jordain de Blaives, 
Ogier le Danois, (Holger the Dane,) 
Beuve d'Aigremont, les Quartre Fils 
d' Aymon, Maugis, Aubri le Bourgoing, 
Gui de Nanteuil, Beuve de Planstone, 
Basin, Carlon, Anseis de Carthage, 
Guillaume au Court Nez. 

Tales of the Round Table: 
La Mort d'Artus, le Saint Graal, 
Gauvain, TAtre Perilleux, (Castle Per^ 
ilous,) Glorion de Bretagne, Giron le 
Courtois (Sh- Grawain, qii.) Meliadus, 
and those already mentioned. 

Poems and Romances: Cleo- 
medes, Blancandin, Gerart de Nevers, 
le Comte de Poitiers, Flore et Blanche- 
fleur, Gautier d'Aupais, Gui de War- 
wick, Meraugis, la Manckine, Robert 
le Diable. 

Poems on Classic Subjects: 
Troie, Eneas, Narcissus, la Prise de 
Thebes, (the Taking of Thebes,) le 
Siege d'Ath^nes, Ypomedon, Thesalus, 
Alexandre, Jules Cesar, Vespasien. 

Poems on Religious Tradi- 
tions: les Machab^es, la Passion, 
les Trois Maries, Barlaam et Josaphat, 
Lives of the Saints and Miracles. 

Poems on Modern Subjects: 
Godefroi de Bouillon, le Voeu du Paon, 
(the Vow of the Peacock,) Songs, Fa- ' 
bliaux, collections of stories, such as 
the Dolopathos, allegorical compoeir 
tions, as la Rose, le Renart, la Poire, 
I'Escoufle, instructive compositions 
like rimage du Monde, le Livre dc 
Charite, les Bcstiaires, les Lapidaires, 
books of hunting, etc. 

Many of these volumes were richly 
bound, and liberally paid for. The 
Duchess of Brabant, in 1369, paid to 
Maitre Jean six sheep for binding a 
French book. Li 1376, Godfrey Bloc 



404 



Th$ ZihrarUf of ^e Wddle Af^eg and their ContmtB, 



(suitable name !) charged his patron, 
llie Duke of BrabanU seven t»lieep and 
a hair for binding Meliadus, and in 
1383» twelve sheep for binding the 
Saint GranI, called in thn bill by its 
other lille, Jotnopb of Arimalhea. 

In the age of which we are treating 
Greek was little studied 0r known* 
The scholars were ignorant of the 
Greek hiatorianii, of the draraatic 
poet I?, even of Homer, of whom the 
poet Petrarch said, when his eyes 
fir&t rested on a copy, ** Your Homer 
h dumb to me, or rather I understand 
him not,^' Boceaecio, ivhen young, 
attempted to translate liim* Some 
Duniinieanfi atudied the language, but 
it was for the sake of their sermons, 
not to be able to peruf^c Homer, or 
even St, Chryeostom or St* Ba?iL The 
Greeks were schismatii.**, and every- 
thing coming from them wa^ liable 
to a moral quarandne. The works 
of Aristotle and some others were 
Bcresdihle in Latin tranf^lations. 

It is time to glance at the other 
iabjecits which, along with the elaa^iea 
and the romanees io the native tongue, 
occupied the minds of tlie scholars of 
the fourteenth century, and tilled the 
hooka they produced with such care 
and patience. 

Tins KDCCATIOKMi CUIUItrd OF THE TOtm- 
TKESmi CKXTCTRY. 

All the humanities of the day were 
included in the TftiviTiM and the Qi;ad- 
inviUM, the first comprising gram mar, 
rhetoric, and dialecrica, and the second, 
arithmetic, geometry, music, and ns- 
ironomy. This waA apparently a strait 
circle for human intelligence to move 
in at fTOedora,but the prime masters in 
the intellectual craft endeavored to en- 
large the various compartments to tlieir 
wiliest extent. Thus into rhetoric crept 
poetry, epistolary corres|)ondcnce,didac- 
tic^t and translation. With dialectics 
came in philosophy entire. " Aristotle 
and hiB numerous interpreters," among 
whom were many saints, authorised 
free discussions on ibe highest abstrae- 
tionft of thought, oo the natural science«i 




on physiology and the cnrativc art^on 
politics^ and even on common law. 
Thus, without going out of the Tririurat 
ge^ what a vast amount of facts were 
logged in, analyzed, and discusseii, to 
dialectics no subject was let drop till it 
was turned in every point of view, an* 
aJyzed, and established in true or fim* 
cied relation to every other thing. 

GBAliMAB. 

They were not at all scant — these 

earnest seekers — ^in grammatic manu- 
als. They had their " Large Donatus,** 
their *' Small Donatus," and the com- 
mentary on Donatiis by Reray of AuK- 
erre ; Priscian, entire and in abridg- 
ments ; Bede*s metres, and several 
modem works. Those not. conttnjt w^tth 
the mere enunciation of the old ruleg, 
would moralize theio something in thia 
style : 

♦'•^What is a prenomen?** • Afan 
is thy nomen, nmirr is thy prenoraen* 
So when you pray to God, make Qie 
only of thy prenomen, and say, *0 
Heavenly Father, I invoke not thy 
name aa man, but I implore tliy pardon 
as sinner/" 

Wonderful wore the applications of 
even such simple things as the foar 
(five) declensions. Ilia first declen* 
sion was from the obedience of Gocl to 
the suggestion of the deviU Eve made 
this declension. The second is from 
the obedience of God to the obedience 
to the woman. This declension was 
made by Adam. The thinl declension 
is from Paradise to tliis world ; the 
fourth frf»m this world to hell. 

Analogies of grammar and piety wew 
often of a sligiit and whimsical tissue. 
Some of them might be classed with 
modem conundrums, thns, ** Why is the 
preposition a theme of pleasure to the 
elect ? B ecause IHi prttpcni u ntur dam^ 
nandiiJ' ** Why does an interjection 
resemble the sufferings of the damned ? 
Because it is tlie expression of the soul 
by an unmeaning sound.'* 



• In Ofttoi Jnltiii Gtattr, CIllM ti iht , 
respoodltix Io oar Chrkllan oftOw, J^iwi If Ul* 
nr fiuDlly namir, Oe#fir th« ftdooiDen, d«riT«4 
•cmw p«rUcalsr 9r€a% or df«iui»lftUML 



« 




Tke lAbraries of the Middle Ages and their Oontent8» 



405 



Such was the tendency of the time 
for extracting moral conclusions, that 
Ovid's Metamorphoses served as an 
excellent text-book for the learned Do- 
minican Thomas Walleis, for the enun- 
ciation of a series of moral axioms 
which the Epicurean poet of Augustus's 
court never dreamed of for a moment. 
Philippe de Vitri, friend to Petrarch, 
made a Latin prose version of the book, 
and educed Christian dogmas from the 
least austere of the tales. 

The attention paid by our fourteenth 
century scholars to their Latin gram- 
mar, and their aptitude to convert it to 
as many uses as the Knave in the folk 
story did his pack of cards, ceases to 
excite much wonder when it is recol- 
lected that a practical grammar of the 
native language at the time was a com- 
plete desideratum. What a falling was 
that from the state of things when the 
Canterbury pilgrims may be supposed 
to have collected at the Tabard Inn in 
Southwark, and when the trouveres told 
and sung their lays. Every Chauce- 
rian will recall at once the sweet nun, 
Madame Englentyne : 

" That of hire smylynp was ful simple and coy ; 
Hire grettest ooth wjis but by Seint Loy ; 
Kntuned (the service) in hire nose fui semyly, 
And Frenpcb »he »\mk ful faire and fetysly. 
After the f^colc of Strattford atte Bowe, 
For Frensch of Paris was to hire unknowe." 

French must consequently have been 
taught with more or less attention to 
grammar rules long before the period 
with which this paper is occupied, and 
it is a case of comfort to archaeologists 
that a French grammar exists written 
by Grautier de Biblesworth in the thir- 
teenth century, for the instruction of 
English natives in that language, and 
principally for Lady Dionysia de Mon- 
chensi, of the county of Kent, wife to 
Count Hugh de Vere. The author in 
his preface modestly announced it as 
^' Le Tretys Ke (qui) Mounsire Gauter 
de Bibelesworth fist (fit) a ma Dame 
Dionysie de Mounchensy pur aprise de 
Language."* Master Biblesworth, if 
that was his name, mixed his grammat- 

* " The treatise which Monsieur Walter de Bibles- 
worth has composed for My Lady, Dionydk de Moun- 
chensy, to le«ro the language," etc. 



ical rules with educational precepts, be- 
ginning very properly at the birth of 
his pupil, and naming the different parts 
of the body, terms of agriculture, domes- 
tic economy, hunting, fishing, and gar- 
dening, and all conveyed in octosyl- 
labic verse, with the slightest possible 
pretension to poetry. 

That people with some pretensions 
to education took pride in speaking the 
** Frensch of Paris " with propriety long 
before the fourteenth century, is evinced 
by the boast of the Picard trouvere, 
Guemes, who recited his poem at the 
tomb of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 
in 1173: 

" Mes languages est buens car en France ftii nes."* 

Queues de Bethunes, a contemporary 
and authoress of several fine songs, ex- 
cused herself for using provincial words, 
for " she was of Artois,not of Pontoise." 
A century later, the poets mention the 
request in which professors of Fi-ench 
were among foreigners. They relate 
how " good Queen Bertha of the long 
feet spoke French like any lady of 
Paris" — more favored in this than 
Chaucer's good prioress. There was a 
humorous poem current among the peo- 
ple, in which Dom, Barharisme played 
a ludicrous part, and which would not 
have circulated among the laity if they 
had no notion of French grammar. 

Domestic troubles and other causes, 
for whose introduction we liave not 
space, had effected the destruction of 
grammatical treatises previous to 1400. 
About that date the translator of the 
psalter into the vulgar tongue thus be- 
wailed the general ignorance : 

** £t pour ecu que, nuiz ne tient en eon par- 
licr, ne riglc ccrtennei mesure, ne raison. Est 
langue romance si oorrompue qu' k poinne li 
uns entcnt Taultres, et k poinne puet on trpu- 
veir k jour d*ieu personne qui saiche escrire, 
anteir,( CAan/^,)ne prononcieir en une meiame 
semblant menieir, maid escript, ante, et pro- 
nonce, li uns en une guise, et li aultre en una 
aultre."t 

♦ " My language is good, for in France was I bom." 
Tlie reader will remark the lAtin instead of the modem 
French form for the rerb was. 

t And because no one observes in his speech either 
a certfdn rule, measure, or reason, the romance tongiM 
is so corrupted that scarcely one onderstaods another, 
and scarcely can a pwson be found to-day who know* 
how to writa, flag; and proooiuiGa In tb« mi 



406 I%€ XHraries of the Middle Ages and their Content^ 



The strong predilection of church- 
men and princes for the Latin tongue 
was one of the chief causes of the tardy 
amelioration of the French language 
and French grammar. In a council 
held in the palace in 1398, where the 
vulgar tongue was spoken, a learned 
occlesiastic, by name Pierre Plaoul, ex- 
cused his indifferent style of speaking 
by his want of familiarity with the 
tongue. Others spoke as bad or worse, 
but made no apology. It was as late as 
1345 tliat the government thought it 
advisable to put forth in the language 
of the people kws res|jecting the tan- 
ners, curriers, and makers of baldrics 
and siioes in Paris, as tliey were ignor- 
ant of Latin. 

The early composers of French gram- 
mars under the new order, in;?tead of 
studying the spirit of the language as it 
was tlien spoken by educated people, 
subjected it to the rules of the Latin 
tongue as given by Donatus and others. 
Much time was lost and much linguis- 
tic error propagated by this arrange- 
ment. As time went on, and that at- 
tention which had been entirely given 
to a foreign tongue began to be shared 
with the language of the country, some 
pliilologists took to study its construe- 
tion, and frame suitable rules for the 
government and concord of its chief 
parts ; and by degrees the orthography 
and tlie syntax of tlie language became 
subject to laws which fitted its cliaracter. 

RHETOIIIC. 

Under the name rhetoric, as already 
mentioned, were joined to eloquence 
historic recitals, letter writing, didac- 
tic teaching, translations, and poetry. 
Few treatises on the art have sur- 
vived. The Dominicans were fonder 
of practising than teaching it, and 
some who taught it correctly could 
not H'frain from allegorizing on it in 
the style already alluded to. Under 
Molenier's management, three kings, 
Barbarisme, Solecisme,* and Allebole, 

ner ; Imt they write, slnif, and pronouoce— one In one 
way, another In a (llffereDk way. 

* The Greek inhabitanUof Soli In CUida suffered 
** tiieir parts of ipeeeh" to bo affected for the worie 



make war on (hreo queens, Dicdoa, 
Oratron, and Sentence. They possess 
in common ten arrows — pleonasm, taD- 
tology, ellipse, ta[)ino6is, (obscority, 
qu.,) etc Allebole has thirteen daugh- 
ters, Barbarisme fourteen, and Sole- 
cisme twenty-two. and the number of 
grandchildren is not small If any 
reader desires to see how men of some 
talent can lose themselves in matters 
trifling and intricate at the same time, 
let him procure Molenier's treatise, or 
even that of the chronicler Chastel- 
lain, where he will find Dame Rhe- 
toric accompanied by science, gravi- 
ty, multiform riches, flowery memo- 
ry, noble nature, precious possession, 
laudable deduction, old acquisition, eta 
The professors of rhetoric in the 
middle ages had sundry classic writers 
to fall back on, such as Quintilian, 
Aristotle, Cicero, etc. They had also 
the aid of Priscian, Donatus, and 
Isadore of Seville. Among the earliest 
specimens of eloquence assuming the 
garb of the vulgar tongue was the 
eulofrium pronounced on the brave 
Bertrand du Guesclin by the bbhop 
of Auxerre, Ferric Cassinel, at the 
request of Charles VI. A poet of the 
century thus described its effects : 

*' I/es princes fondolent en larmes^ 
Des nioUqfne IVvcnque ninii5tniit ; 
Quar il dlsoit, ' Florea geut (i*armes 
Bertraiit qui tro.'itant vos atnolk 
On doit regreter led fes d'arniet 
Qu'il fist au tempi* quMi vi\'olt. 
hWnx ait pltie sur toates amed ; 
I>e la tienue quar bonne eiiuit.' *** 

Four men of that era distinguished 
themselves by eloquence at the bar, 
and in addressing assemblies in the 
tumultuous days of the (>oor demented 
king. Jean Faure and Gulllaume le 
Breul besides their speeches, left be- 
hind them valuable works on jurispru- 
dence ; and their learned con tempo - 



by intcrrourse with the neighboring l>arbariaoi. 8d 
the fd.<«ti<Ii(>U8 Athenians Ix^ati tu designate all lu- 
fructioiiii of grammar m ttottciitum. 
* " The prluces melted in ienn 

At tlie words which the bishop Rpoke ; 

For be said, * Weep, ye men of arms, 

IkTtratid, who 80 much loved you. 

We Rhould regret llio«e feat« of arma 

Which be iierfonned in the time he lired. 

Go<l ! have pity on all kouIi ; 

And on Ai«, for be was good.'** 



Tke IMrariet of the Middle Ages and their Oontenti, 



407 



raiy, Yves de Kaermarten, acquired 
such a good name that lie was pro- 
moted to the Calendar of Saints. We 
are unable to quote any other gentle- 
man of tlie bar whose sanctity attain- 
ed the heroic degree. Renault d'Acie 
and Jean des Mjircs ventured among 
the political tempests of the day, and 
perished in their patriotic efforts. 

Few instances of eloquence, an- 
cient or modem, could surpass that 
of Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, if 
we can trust the chroniclers. Having 
been released from prison, and brought 
to Paris, 29lh November, 1357, he as- 
cended a platform near the Pre aux- 
clercs (the Clerk's Meadow) in the 
morning, and kept a considerable por- 
tion of his ten thousand auditors either 
crying at, or deeply sympathizing with, 
his pretended wrongs, till the dinner 
hoar of the citizens had passed. He 
afterward scattered his poison among 
multitudes at the Greve and the 
Halles. His oration made to a depu- 
tation at St. Denis bears an annoying 
resemblance to some delivered not 
very long since in various American 
cities, by patriots of our own time : 

" Gentlemen and friends," said he, " no 
ill luek cun befall you wliicb I will not freely 
share. But I strongly counsel you, while 
you govern Paris, to provide youreelves well 
with gold and silver. Confide in me. Send 
me here freely all that you can put together. 
I shall give you a good account of it, and will 
have at your service numerous men at arms, 
many comrades who shall defend you from 
your enemies." 

The speeches of the wicked king 
were mostly prefaced by texts, but 
it is not rightly known whether this 
argumentum ad crumenam was so 
garnished. 

While some exhibited their elo- 
quence in defending or accusing pri- 
soners, and others spoke against king, 
or chiefs of obnoxious parties, some 
minstrels were still to be found chant- 
ing the old romances for ready money. 
In 1308^ the municipal authorities of 
Valenciennes are found allowing Co- 
lart de Maubeuge, " xii gros, in value 
vi sols ix deuiers, for playing on his in- 



strument, and singing gests of arms." 
The ancient romances of Charlemagnef 
of King Arthur, and of the wars of Troy, 
were still in possession of the popu- 
lar mind, but such poets as there were 
did not fail to seize on recent or pass* 
ing events, and do their best to immor- 
talize them, as well as perpetuate their 
own fame^ The raising of the walLi 
of New Ross, on the Barrow, was ce- 
lebrated by a poet of the day in two 
hundred and nineteen verses, in which 
the patriotism of the citizens, and the 
clergy, and the ladies, was sung, not 
forgetting the beauty of the women 
of all degrces, whose delicate handa 
did not disdam to bring materials to 
the masons. *^ Yet in no part of the 
earth, where the minstrel had been, 
did he ever see such beauty." 

" Ktque la fu pur reg&rder 
Meint bele dame, y put veer 
Ke unke en terre ou jai est^, 
Tantfl belles ne vi in fossd." 

The siege of Carlaverock by King 
Edward I., in 1300, where six hundred 
men defended the place against three 
thousand assailants, was sung by an 
eye-witness in octo-syllabic rhyme. 

The Vow of the Heron, commenc- 
ing the war between Edward IIL and 
Philippe de Valois, was not neglected 
by the rhymers. C^oUins, trouvere of 
John of Hainan It, Lord of Beaumont, 
in a poem of five hundred and sixty-six 
eight-syllable verses, lamented the fate 
of the brave old king of Bohemia, and 
bis ostrich plume, and the other victims 
of tlie battle of Creci, signalized by 
the minstrels of the era as in 

"L'anrallilJ.c.xI.vJ., 
Que no8 Belgnrun fiirent oeds 
Kn la baUlUe de Creel ; 
JhH Crls leur face mlerci 1"* 

The life and deeds of the Black 
Prince were commemorated by Chan- 
dos, the herald of Sir John Chandos, 
Constable of Aquitaine, in five thou- 
sand and forty-six verses, of the same 

* ** The year one thousand, three hundred, fortj, uA 
six. 
When our lords were slain 
In the batUe of Creel ; 
Jeiua Ohrlsl show them metCT t** 



408 I%$ £4hrarie$ of Ote Middk Apes and their Contend. 



measure as those others recorded We 
quote a few lines of the courteous com- 
mnnicatioDs between the captive king 
and the chivalric prince. 

" Ll rois Johan lul ad dit, 
* Beaux duuls cosdns pur Dleu merclt. 

Lal98«B ; 11 n*ai»artleQt a mol. 

Car luir la foi que jeo voua dol. 

Plus avex el jour d'hul d'honour 

Qu*onques n*eust prince a uu jour.' 

DoQt dlflt 11 prince^ * Sire douls, 

Dioux Tad fait et noD mio nous. 

81 1'en deTonit remerder, 

Et de bon coer vers lul prier, 

Qu'il nous ottrnier m Rioirc, 

Yx pardouner cetito rictoire,* ^' etc.* 

The single-minded and patriotic Du 
Guesclin was not forgotten by the 
poetic chroniclers. Jean Cuvelier, in 
1884, put his deeds in verse. 

Judicious historians have not dis- 
dained to avail themselves of these pro- 
ductions of the rhymers. They have 
extracted those passages from them 
which were despised by the matter-of- 
fact clironiclers, but which had an air 
of probability, and were calculated to 
add picturesque and interesting features 
to the narrative. 

It is highly probable that every 
ancient narrative poem which was not 
inspired by mere emulation of former 
poets had some foundation in fact. 
The mere invention of subjects, as well 
as their treatment, is a feature of com- 
paratively modem times. The per- 
sonages figured by Reynard, Bruin, 
hgrinij and die oUier animals of the 
great beast-epic of the middle ages, 
once lived and acted some way in the 
spirit of their four-footed substitutes. 

Toward the end of the century, the 
taste for the old rhymes, romances, and 
narratives began to veer round to more 
trivial and simple subjects, and to take 
more interest in the distinctions be- 
tween the different classes of the short- 
er pieces of poetry. Prosody had 

♦ " But King John to him naid, 
* Fair, sweet cousin, (Jod-a-inercy. 
Li't be ; it belongs to me not, 
For. by the faith which I owe thee, 
More honor t\\\* day you've won 
Than ever did prince in any one day (of fight) ' 
Then to him said the prince, ' Sweet sire, 
GimI hill achieved it, not we ourselves, 
So tu him we f*liould give tluinks. 
And with K<K>d heart thus pray to iilm. 



Tiiat he would give as his glory, 
And pardon UiU victory.' " 



been in process of cultivation tor some 
time, and now the attention of such 
dilettanti as filled courts and the cas- 
tles of the nobles was more strongly 
arrested upon foQi, accents, lengths, 
measures, and number of lines in each 
piece, than in the deed recorded or 
sentiments expressed. 

While Froissart was searcliing for 
material for his chronicle, in 1392, 
Eustache des Champs was instructing 
poetic students in the difference be- 
tween chansons, halades, virelais, and 
rondeaux. He was well entitled to do 
so, having himself composed 80 vire- 
lais, 171 rondeaux, 1,175 balades. 
These ballads he divided into Leon- 
ineSj Sonnantes^ equivoques, retrogrades^ 
etc., etc. ; but in the next ct^itury his 
merits were forgotten in presence of 
Henri de Croy, who subdivided his 
ballads into communes, balladantes, 
fatrisSes, and the rondeaux into simple, 
twin, and double. Then care should 
be taken not to mix the rhymes beaten, 
broken, re-linked, doubled tailed, etc., 
in form of amorous complaint. The 
combination denominated ricquerac, 
and that called hagnenaude we would 
explain but for the misfortune of being 
ignorant of their structure. The first, 
perhaps, was a disjointed affair, like 
some negro melody, the other, a per- 
petual hovering round the predominant 
idea, whatever it might be. 

That was the golden age of bouts 
rimes, logogripheSr enigmas, chrono- 
graphes, achrostiches, and fatrasies, 

i unmeaning combinations of words.) 
n Henri de Croy's great work, even 
the single fatnisips were distinguished 
from the double ones. The rei^n of 
these egregious morsels still lingers in 
some almanacs, people's penny period- 
icals, and even in the Paris Illustrated 
News, whtire the logogriph, consisting 
partly of letters and partly of pictured 
objects, keeps the subscribers in misery 
till next Saturday, when the solution 
appears. 

The taste of the public with regard 
to spectacles was not sup^irior to that 
of the readers of the time for such 
trifles as have been just mentioned. In 



2%e lAbraries of tke JUiddle Ages and their Contents, 



409 



1813, when the young princes, sons of 
Philip the Fair, received the order of 
kniglitiiood, a grand mystery was ex- 
hibited to the people of Paris, where 
the Infant Saviour was presented 
smiling on his mother and eating an 
apple, surrounded by the three £ngs 
of Cologne, (the Magi,) the twelve 
apostles saying their paternosters, the 
souls of the blessed in paradise singing 
hymns in unison with ninety angels, 
and the reprobate in heM^ howling for 
the entertainment of about a hundred 
demons. 

Of translations, which werecalso in- 
cluded under the head rhetoric, we 
have already spoken. As Latin was 
almost the only language from which 
the versions were made, the spirit of 
that language must have had consider- 
able influence on future compositions 
in the vulgar tongue. 

DIALBCTICS. 

In teaching and learning the dialec- 
tics, which embraced metaphysics, ju- 
risprudence, political economy, and 
even claimed physics for its jurisdic- 
tion, the object seemed rather a victory 
in a war of words and ideas than dis- 
coveries of new truths or the establish- 
ment of old ones. Hair-splitting and 
sophistry flourished in all the contests. 
So useless and even criminal seemed 
this amazing waste of time to quiet- 
minded and earnest people, that a le- 
gend was current in the twelfth century 
of a dead scholar appearing to a com- 
rade in a robe of hell all covered with 
sophisms. Another displayed himself 
wrapped round and oppressed with a 
heavy parchment all covered with 
closely written exercises in the dialec" 
tiqne. Both attributed their present 
sufferings to the sort of logic they had 
acquired in the Paris schools. 

Irish students were as redoubtable 
in these witty duels in the Sorbonne 
and in Salamanca as Irish colonels and 
generals of later times in the armies 
of France and Spain and Austria. Li 
metaphysics, the realists, with John 
Duns Scotus for leader, warred with the 



nominalists, using such arms as were 
supplied by substantial forms, quiddi- 
ties, hecceites, polycarpeites, and other 
such chimeras, the result being nothing 
but obscurity of the understanding 
from these clashings in the dark. Some- 
times the sharp-witted dialecticians in- 
truded rashly on the domains of theo- 
logy and morality, and were smartly 
pulled up, as in the case of the great 
interpreter of Aristotle, Nicolas d'Au- 
trecourt, in 1348, for this ingenious 
proposition : 

" A young man of good birth met with a 
sage who undertook to communicate the * uni- 
versal science* to him without delay, for a 
hundred crowns ; but the young man had no 
other means to procure the money tlian by 
stealing it. Was he justified in this thcfl? 
Certainly ; for we must do what is aj^rceable 
to God; but it was agreeable to God that 
this young man should get instruction, and he 
had no other means to get it than theft; 
eigo," etc. 

A sharp condemnation by the Theo- 
logical Faculty of Paris was all the 
honor awarded to Mr. Nicolas's plau- 
sible conclusion. 

In physics and natural history, our 
philosophers of the middle ages were 
more prone to depend on Aristotle and 
Pliny, and later dreamy sages, than to 
resort to careful observation. Theory, 
not induction, was their darling mode 
of enlarging the domain of human 
knowledge, and no fact fitted comfort- 
ably in its place without being moral- 
ized. Far a \A ay in the realms of Pres- 
ter John were to be found giants, pig- 
mies, men with one eye in front and 
three behind, female warriors, griffins, 
licoms, and alerions, animals well 
adapted to point a moral. 

The learned Pierre Bercheure, who 
translated Livy, informed his readers 
that the toad was mute in every 
country but France. Morod: The 
Frenchman, a babbler at home, is per- 
force mute when he goes abroad. The 
learned Bercheure either intended to 
hint that the Gfiul tO'j much neglected 
the study of foreign languages, or that, 
while vainglorious at home, he became 
meek and humble when he crossed the 
frontier. 



410 Tke Zibraries of the Middle Apes and their Contenti. 



Still proceeding in this moral strain, 
Dr. Bercheure asked, " Why, in the 
territory of Orange, was utterance by 
sound denied to all toads, one only ex- 
cepted?" No answer being received, 
he gave this explanation: The holy 
bishop, Florent, being much disturbed 
in his meditations by the disagreeable 
songs of the toads, ordered them to be 
silent. They obeyed on the moment, 
and the good bishop was so touched by 
their prompt attention to his command 
that he revoked his order. However, 
the stupid messenger who brought the 
news, instead of using the plural form 
of the verb— cawto/c — ^merely said can- 
ta, and thus only one of the community 
ever after could avail itself of the pri- 
vilege : nasty Mercury ! say we. These 
additions to Pliny could scarcely be 
called improvements in the science of 
natunil history. 

For a long time the healing art was 
nearly monopolized by the religious 
houses, but it was not so without an oc- 
casional scruple of conscience on the 
part of the ciiiefs in the various orders. 
They feared that tlieir art might too 
much engross the attention of the prac- 
titioners. To moderate their mere 
scientific ardor, the following legend 
was sent abroad among them : There 
was a skilful mediail man among the 
monks of Citeaux, whose time was so 
much taken up in provincial excursions 
that lie was not found in the convent 
unless at the great festivals. As he 
was employed on one of the feasts of 
the Blessed Virgin, singing in choir 
with the rest, be was favored with a 
vision of his heavenly patroness dis- 
tributins a spoonful of eHxir to every 
one of the singers, himself alone ex- 
cepted. He made a gesture of suppli- 
cation not to be treated to such an unen- 
viable distinction, but this reply reach- 
ed I lie recesses of his understanding 
without any action of the senses: 
** Pliysioian, thou hast no need for my 
elixir, for you do not deny to yourself 
any consolation." A radical change 
was wroujrbt in the man, and on the 
next solemnity he was favored as the 
rest. Such was the rapture into which 



he was thrown, that for the future hit 
healing excursions were as short and 
as few as possible. 

There was no college of physicians 
at Paris nor Montpellier in the b^in- 
ning of the twelfth century, but con- 
siderable progress was made in found- 
ing medical establishments during the 
next two hundred years. Some en- 
thusiastic pill-taker thus expanded in 
commendation of the faculty of Paris 
in 1323 : 

*' lu this city, where there is no want of 
consoIatWn or succor, the physiciand api>oint- 
ed to look after our health and the cure of 
our maladies, and whom the pa^ orders us 
to honor as being created by the M.ost High for 
our needs, are so numerous that, when thev 
pass through the streets to discharge their 
duty in their rich dresses and in their doc- 
toral caps, those who have need of them have 
little trouble to get an interview. Oh I how 
we should love these good physicians, who, 
in the practice of their profession, piiiloso- 
phically conform themselves to the rules of 
science and long experience !' 

We have seen a copy of the Medical 
Review, a brochure, in rhyme, issued 
in Dublin circa 1775, eulogizing by 
name the several physicians and sur- 
geons who practised in our city at that 
period. It was written throughout in 
the spirit of the above extract, and, but 
for the evident gootl faith of the writer, 
would be supremely ludicrous. 

All the old writers on the subject 
were not so complimentary to the fa- 
culty. Some of the members descr\'ed 
what they got if they were of the sect 
of the impudent Aniaud de Villencuve, 
some of whose counsels to his students 
took this shape : ^ You examine per- 
haps the. . . .of a patient without be- 
ing anything the wiser for it, but say, 
* There is an obMtiniction in the liver.' 
The patient may perhaps answer, 
' But, master, it is in my h^ad I feel 
the illness/ You answer without liesi- 
tation, ' It is from the liver it comes.' 
Always make use of the word obstruc 
tion. They don't know the meaning 
of it, and it's all for the best that they 
should not." 

But skilful or the reverse, the doo- 



The lAhrartes of the Middle Ages and their Contents, 



411 



tors of the fourteenth century found 
all their resources powerless to arrest 
the epidemic which about the middle 
of it swept across Europe. Its visita- 
tions were more appalling than those 
of cholera in our times. The physi- 
cians behaved as feeling and heroic 
men. and were swept off in thousands, 
while doing their duty by tlieir patients. 
There was no writer found to introduce 
a series of licentious stories as sequel 
to a harrowing account of the scourge. 
Among those who essayed to cure 
Charles VI. of his mental malady was 
Arnaud Guillem, who came in 1393 
from Languedoc to Paris, bringing 
with Iiim tlie volume Sraagorad, which 
" Adam had received by way of con- 
solation a century afler the death of 
Abel." There is some doubt about 
his being put to death for failure; 
but two Augustine monks suffered in 
1398, and four sorcerers in 1403, for 
the same liberty taken with sick ma- 
jesty. It is probable that the he^ds 
stuck on spikes over palace gates for 
similar failures in our Household 
Stories had some foundation in pre- 
historic times. In one of his lucid 
intervals the poor king directed that 
once in the year the dead body of a 
criminal should be delivered to (he 
Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier, a 
proof that he set more value on the 
study of the human subject than the 
virtue of charms or other superstitious 
processes. Among medical treatises 
of the fourteenth century, some disfi- 
gured by the dreams of the astrologer, 
the alchymist, and the sorcerer, that of 
Qui de Chauliai stands pre-eminent for 
scientific attainment 

ARmiMBTIC GBOMETRY, MUSIC, AND AS- 
TRONOMY. 

At first scholars were careful to 
avoid the title of mathematicians. 
Something magical and occult was 
attached to it, as in the old Roman 
times. Matliematician and felon were 
synonymous terms. Mere arithmetic 
was in better odor ; it was useful in 
concocting the ordinary tables set in 
the beginning of prayer-books, aod in- 



cluding the golden number, the epact, 
the dominical letter, etc* Calendars 
were carefully compiled all through 
the era in question. It has often 
puzzled us to know how calculations 
to any extent could be effected by the 
Xs and Ys and Is which denoted num- 
bers previous to the eleventh century. 
Wretched was the pupil's lot (if such 
an incident ever took place) required 
to perform an operation in long divi- 
sion, in multiplication by tens of thou- 
sands, or to extract the cube root of a 
large number. Great are our obliga- 
tions to the Arabians for the use of 
their system of notation. 

A household joke of the day throws 
light on the incapacity of the wives 
of small citizens to manage deep cal- 
culations. A few of the husbands 
drinking agree that he whose wife 
could not count up to four accurately 
should pay the reckoning. The cal- 
culation of Robin's wife was " One, 
two, three, seven, twelve, and four- 
teen." John's wife began at two. 
Tassin's wife tossed her head, and 
said she was not a baby, and would 
not count at all We cannot find out 
which of the husbands paid the scot 

Tlie geometry of the day chiefly 
confined itself to the measurement of 
land, but there were treatises on per- 
spective, and portions of the Latin Eu- 
clid extant 

Charles the Wise was not without 
charts and maps of the world. Many 
such existed, but, as may be supposed, 
tolerably incorrect The earth was 
supposed to consist of two hemispheres, 
glued, as it were, to each other, and the 
globe somehow maintained its place in 
the void like a suspended lamp. 

In 1366, King Charles V., in order 
to prevail on Pope Urban V. not to 
remove to Rome, urged that Marseilles 
was in the centre of the civilized world. 
This would be rendered still more 
sensible by cutting off Greece from 
the general map. "The schismatic 
Greeks cut themselves off from the 

♦ Thew name*, mysterious to toholar* of city and 
univeniiiy, were household words with the nuksten of 
Hedge BchouU aud their advanced pupihi half a cen- 
tury ago. 



412 7%€ Libraries of the JOiddle Apes and their Contents. 



spiritual world by their separation 
firom the church : let their land be re- 
moved from the material world." It 
does not appear that this ingenious 
proposition was put in practice. 

Of accounts of foreign parts there 
was no lack, and it must be said that 
the earlj books of travels and accounts 
of countries, if less strictly confined to 
facts than ours, were much more enter- 
taining. A copy of Marco Polo's tra- 
vels was presented in 1307 to Charles 
Count of Valois by John de Cepoy, 
son of the Venetian ambassador. 
John de Meun translated into French 
the Wonders of Ireland. They had 
also the Wonders of Engknd, India, 
the World, etc. 

Sev(*ral works were composed in the 
fourteenth century on the subject of 
music, but chiefly in Latin and with 
reference to the established canons of 
sacred melody. 

Astronomy had a hard strife with 
the impostor astrology', which had been 
so long in possession of the general in- 
tellecL However, some glimmerings 
of the true state of heavenly things 
had been gradually entering the minds 
of the astrologers themselves. The 
total eclipse of the moon on the night 
of the 15th of January, 1305, terrified 
the Parisians. It was mentioned as 
an EcKpsis LuncB horribUis. But an 
eclipse of the sun, 3l8t January, 1310, 
was predicted by the Faculty of- As- 
tronomy. Another in 1337 was treat- 
ed of by John of Genoa, who, in 1332, 
had composed his canon of eclipses. 
Comets gave considerable disturlmnce 
to the public mind during this century. 
They predicted the death of Louis X., 
and the destruction of France, the 
plague, and all varieties of deceit, lies, 
hatred, and insubordination, etc. How- 
ever, science was making a sure though 
slow progress, and toward the close of 
the century the Icanied were in pos- 
session of miny astronomical facts un- 
known at the beginning. The comets 
made their fearful visits at these dates — 
Manrh, 1315, July, 1337, April, 1338, 
1840, 1346. 13G0, 13G8, 1378. 

Several voyage* and land journeys 



were performed during this centaiyt 
and among the rest that by our own 
Su- John Mandeville, some of whose 
discoveries were inferior to those of 
the truth-loving Lemuel Gulliver 
alone. The Holy Land possessed 
strong attractions for devout and culti- 
vated souls. Of all these the most en- 
thusiastic was the Tuscan Dominican, 
Riccoldo di Monte da Croce. Having 
gained the valley of Josaphat, ho be- 
lieved himself at the end of the world, 
and thus gave vent to his burning 
thoughts : 

" We saw about the middle of the valley 
the tomb of the Blessed Virgin Hary, and, con- 
sidering it to be the place of the final Judg- 
ment, we paiised between the Mount of OliTes 
and Mount Cavalry, weef^g, and trembling 
with fear, as if the Supreme Judge was already 
above our heads. In this sentiment of awe 
we thought within ourselves, and we said to 
each other — * It is from above this hill that the 
most Just of Judges will pronounce his deci- 
sion. Ilere is the right hand, there is the left. 
We then selected, to the best of our judgment, 
our places on the right, and each sunk in the 
ground a stone to denote his own. I sunk 
mine, and I retain that spot for myself, and for 
all those who, after receiving from me the 
word of God, shall |)orsevcrc in faith, in chari- 
ty, and in the truth of the holy goi)p4^1, and 
we marked the stone in the presence of many 
of the faithful, who wept with us, and whom 
I call on as wiuiesses this day." 

We have come to the end of our sketch 
of the progress of intelligence during a 
brief portion of its course, namely, tliat 
portion immediately preceding the 
epoch of the invention of the printiug- 
press. The impediments in the way of 
scientific progress were great and nu- 
merous. Many weak spirits were dis- 
couraged, and did nothing ; others, some 
few of whom we have particularized, 
wrought like giants, and thus benefited 
themselves and their kind. Among 
these benefits we do not reckon in chief 
the conveniences and luxuries which 
distinguish our existence from that oi' 
the Samoycds or dog-ribbed Indians. 
The Mussulman, well to do, and spend- 
ing the eleven twelfths of his time in 
mere indolence and indulgence of the 
senses, would be better off discharging 
the duties of porter or ferryman. No» 



LavdaU Pueri Dominum. 413 

the chief advantages we derive from the and the healthy occupation of so many 

advance of human knowledge is the active and energetic minds, which, with- 

easier and swif\er communication be- out suitable work to do, would prey on 

tween the scattered members of the themselves, and become a curse to their 

great human family, the advance of possessors, 
cda cation among the working classes. 



OBionrAL. 

LAUDATE PUERI DOMINDM.» 

** I WILL wash my hands among the Innocent, and so wlU I compass thy altar, Lord ! ** 

Oct. 2d. Feast op the Holt Guardlaln Angels. Baftish. 

In snowy robe and spotless veil 

Stands the fair child at the altar rail 
*• Of Holy Church what askest thou ?" 
"The Faith," she murmured. Upon her brow 

The bright drops felL An angel smiled 

In the face of God, as he said : «' Thy ChUd l" 

Dec. 8th. Feast of the Immaculate Conception. First Communion. 

In snowy robe and spotless veil 

Kneels the fair child at the altar raO* 
*' Of Holy Church what cravest thou. 

On suppliant knee and with rev'rent brow?" 
** My Lord, my Hope, in whom I live." 
« Tis thy Child ! " said the angel " Master, give ! " 

• April 14th. Palm Sunday. Burial. 

In snowy robe and spotless veil 

Lies the fair child at the altar rail. 
<< Of Holy Church what askest thou, 

Palm-branch in hand, and with flower-crowned brow?" 
^ In robe baptismal yet undefiled, 

My Love I" Said the angel : " He waits thee, Child I " 

* Died at the Oonrent of the Visitation, Georgetown. D. C, on the 18th of April, a Toong gfarl tbir- 

toCD jean of ag«, who wai reoeired into the boeom of the Upljr Ohorch October 9d, 186A. 



4U 



ChrUtianity and Social Happiness. 



Translftied from PftrU TUnion. 

CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL HAPPINESS. 



It 13 the fate of illustrious men to 
reproduce the tendencies of the age in 
which they live — whether for good or 
eviL Thus, the study of characters, 
that the engraver of fame has impress- 
ed on the memory of humanity, leads 
frequently to a knowledge of the age 
to which they belonged, and from this 
knowledge much that is useful cau be 
elicited. 

A man has lived among us, whose 
noble character, generous aspirations, 
illusions even, or exaggerations, are 
reflected in his contemporaries. La- 
cordaire is France of the nineteenth 
century, and the thought that germi- 
nated in the soul of the celebrated Do- 
minican, and until his time awaited its 
development, borne down by the weight 
of intellectual ruin which the school of 
Voltaire liad amassed, this thought har- 
monizes so well with the genius of the 
day, and with its research, that it seems 
hnpossible not to recognize the ray of 
light destined to dissipate for ever the 
shadows of doubt and unbelief, which 
lead astmy and weaken the life of our 
generation. 

** I have attained to my catholic be- 
lief,'' writes Lacordaire, ** through my 
social beliefs, and to day nothing ap- 
pears plainer to me than such a conse- 
quence. Society is necessary, therefore 
the Christian religion is divine ;' for it 
is the means of leading society to per- 
fection by accepting man with all his 
weaknesses, and social order with its 
every condition." 

SucJi words cannot be too deeply 
considered ; and the truths that they 
express are in such close affinity with 
the tendencies of our time that it is 
easy and ' pi*ofitable to meditate upon. 
tluMU. We wish for the happiness of 
the ma'^scs, social prosjwrity, and the 
advancement of civilization ; therefore, 
we wish for Christianity. Humanity 



is called upon to peaceably develop its 
strength, while i-eleasing itself from the 
bonds of the monster called pauperism, 
with whom physical misery is only the 
clothing of moral. Therefore human- 
ity is called upon to germinate in a re- 
viving sun all Christian teachings. 

Do you wish for facts ? You are 
children of an age that acts only by ex- 
perience. "Well, then, light the torch 
of history, and, throwing its rays over 
the annals of the world, read the ob- 
servations spread before your eyes, and 
compare the actual state of an ancient 
and modem people. In instructing and 
bringing man to a sense of his great- 
ness and duty, who has raised and ele- 
vated social relations ? Who has broken 
the chains of pagan slavery ? Who 
has sown the seed of all intellectual 
and moral virtue in those vast regions 
that barbarian night had envelo|>ed? 
Who, then, has given servants to weak- 
ness, to suffering, to the disinherited by 
fortune, to all those that grief had touch- 
ed with an unpitying hand? Who 
has founded large schools, asylums of 
science and art; great centres from 
which have parted in radiating those 
who, by gigantic works, accomplished 
under the observation of astonished 
generations, have merited the appella- 
tion of the Cultivators of Europe ? Who 
has done all these things, if not the 
church, that is to say, Christianity 
teaching, directing, and moralizing hu- 
manity ? 

Christianity, then, not only elevates 
man to a moral grandeur unknown to 
pagan nations, but through its influence 
society exists in a material prosjHjrity 
to which Greece and Rome never at- 
tained. Profane history shows us a 
few privihrged ones, satiated, we may 
say, with riches, but beneath and around 
them, we see only a servile mass vege- 
tating in degrading misery. What a 



Christianity and Social Happiness, 



415 



difference, say we, with a modem 
wise economist, M. Perin, professor in 
the university of Louvain — what a 
difference in the riches of the sun be- 
tween the Roman empire in its hap- 
piest time and contemporary Europe ! 
What difference in products, in the 
multiplicity and rapidity of communi- 
cation, in tlie cheapness of transporta- 
tion, and in the extent of relations 
which to-day embrace the entire world I 

What a difference, again, in the 
financial resources of states, in their 
armies, in their material. What a dif- 
ference and what superiority on the side 
of modem nations, not only in that 
which constitutes their individual hap- 
piness, but in that which makes the 
material power of nations and their 
trae force. AVhat superiority espe- 
cially in the mass of wealth destined 
for the consumption of a people. Time, 
since the thirteeflth century, has rolled 
on in the full power of Christian civil- 
ization, and has evidenced a period of 
prosperity which has had no equal in 
history. These are the facts. But 
science does not stop at facts. Its mis- 
sion is to investigate by labor of which 
it only has the secret and the glorious 
trouble, the why as well as the end of 
things. 

Science is the knowledge of objects 
of observation studied by their causes : 
cognitio rerum per causas. We ask of 
it, therefore, the reason of the marvel- 
lous power we have just proved in 
Christianity ; and in order not to extend 
our investigations, we will content our- 
selves by seeking with it how material 
prosperity and the wealth of nations 
come from a religion which preaches 
the doctrine of renunciation. 

The i*eason of the prosperity of na- 
tions truly Christian is, it seems to us, 
evident. We find them practising gene- 
rally the virtues of which Christianity 
is the a|K)stlo and propagator. Econo- 
mists will tell, you without capital, that 
is to say, witliout expenditure with the 
view of reproduction, there can be no 
social riches. But is this expenditure 
com[)atible with vice, that never has 
enough to satisfy its brutal appetites ? 



Virtue, then, is the source of social 
ease, and in it only the remedy for 
pauperism. <' If you do not give a peo- 
ple virtue, the only serious guarantee 
of present expenditure and future cap- 
ital, you can never entirely defend it 
against an invasion of misery. In vain 
you may accumulate well-being and 
ease around the domestic hearth ; in 
vain make and increase capital from 
growing wealth, if you do not accumu- 
late a capital conservative of all other, 
that of virtue." We are happy to quote 
these beautiful words, only a few days 
since fallen from the pulpit of Notre 
Dame. 

Just now we pronounced the word 
renunciation. Well, it is necessary 
that all understand that Christian self- 
denial is a dispensing force„the results 
of which are incalculable. It elevates 
the poor man beyond discouragement, 
and preserves for him the energy with 
whicli he diminishes the privations of 
his family. To him it comes to destroy 
the individuality which absorbs the 
opulence of the rich. To him it leads 
the beneficent current of fortune, which 
flows from those who have toward 
those who have not. To him, at last, 
it brings riches in every way, since un- 
der its mild influence each one profits 
by its thousand sacrifices, although be 
individually may make none. Let us 
be permitted to borrow some lines from 
the beautiful book of M. P^rin, De la 
Richesse dans les Societ^s Chretiennes: 

** Follow the course of ages," said 
this wise economist, " and you will ever 
find Christianity accompUsh through 
the virtue of self-denial the work of 
each epoch, forcing humanity toward 
progress, and even saving it from the 
perils of success. Run through the 
society of to-day, and in every degree 
of civilization that a contemi)orary 
world presents us, in the same picture 
and at a single glance, and in the varied 
phases that pervade our different socie- 
ties, you will find Christianity propor- 
tion its action to circumstances; you 
will find it endeavoring to impress all 
countries and races with the salutiry 
impulse for progress by the power of 



«1« 



Christianify and Social Happiness. 



self-denial, while it is ever the same in 
principle, and ever infinitely varied in 
its applications and fertile in its effects.*' 

Self-denial ! Yes, it is this which gives 
Christian souls that holy love of work 
which is the productive element of 
social riches. To make a sacri6ce of 
one's repose to God, while hending un- 
der the yoke of painful labor, is the joy 
of the Scripture disciple. He wishes 
for such joy, he loves it, and it was to 
obtain it that the children of Saint Ben- 
edict have sown its seed in the unculti- 
vated deserts of the old Europe or un- 
der the murderous sun of Africa. 

At the time of its decay and corrup- 
tion Rome, it is said, was at the same 
time lazy and servile. But, even in the 
days of its grandeur, can we believe 
that labor showed itself to the eyes of 
the Roman people transfigured by that 
aureole which gives it incomparable 
beauty, so grand that one loves it with 
a love which might seem folly if it 
were not supreme wisdom? Such a 
sentiment can only be bom with the 
doctrine of renunciation and the thought 
of the Saviour. " To re-establish labor 
and the condition of the workman, it 
was necessary that Christ, making him- 
self a laborer, should wield with his 
own royal and divine hands, in the 
workshop of Nazareth, the axe and the 
tools of the carpenter." 

These words, which we borrow from 
a course of political economy, deUver- 
ed with so much eloquence to the Fa- 
ciilt6 de Droit de Caen, by M. Alex- 
andre Carel, finish by exemplifying 
how labor, and, by consequence, the 
wealth of society, owes so much to 
Christianity. 



The limits of an article do not per- 
mit us to develop further the ideas 
necessary to understand all its power 
and truth. We can only resume tliem 
in saying : 

To occupy one's self with social and 
political studies is to follow the impulse 
that our age impresses on intelligence. 
To find the condition necessary for the 
well-being of society, of which we form 
a part, would be from the point of view 
of contemporary aspirations one of the 
finest victories that the public mind 
could carry with it, one of the greatest 
satisfactions that the heart can obtain* 
Well ! may our eyes open at last Let 
us learn to see that, without neglecting 
secondary means, it is necessary, to at- 
tain the end desired, to christianize the 
people. 

Christianity with its virtues, its doc- 
trine of self-renunciation, its labor 
transfigured by freedom and love, be- 
hold the agent, and the only one capa- 
ble of producing the prosperity with 
which we would wish to endow nations. 
Let us understand these things, and we 
shall march with success to the conquest 
of social happiness. But we shall do 
better stilL Penetrating the harmoni- 
ous connection that unites effects to 
causes, we shall ask of it the secret of 
the superhuman power that escapes 
from it by submission to the Scripture ; 
and soon we can repeat again the 
conviction of Lacordaire : '^ Christian- 
ity is the means of leading society to 
its perfection, by accepting man with 
all his weaknesses, and social order 
with its even condition. Society is 
necessary ; therefore the Cliristian re- 
ligion is divine." 



VitibU l^mek. 



417 



From The Lamp. 

VISIBLE SPEECH. 



Mr. Alexander Melville Bell 
has recently broujjht under the notice 
of the Society of Arts his very re- 
markable system of Visible Speech 
or Universal Language, which is (says 
Chambers's Journal) intended to re- 
move an absurdity which vitiates all 
ordinary alpliabeta and languages. 
This absurdity is the utter want of 
^recment b<?tween the appearance of 
a letter or word and the sound which 
it is intended to convey ; between the 
visible form of the symbol and the 
sound and meaning of the thing sym- 
bolized ; between (for instance) the 
shape of the letter C and the value of 
that letter in the alphabets wliich con- 
tain it. This is an old difficulty — how 
old, we do not know ; but to under- 
stand the proposed remedy, it will be 
nec(»ssai-y to have a clear idea of the 
defect to which the remedy is to be ap- 
plied. 

Sjwkcm language may, for aught we 
know, have had its origin in an at- 
tempt to imitate, by the organs of the 
voice, ihe different sounds which ani- 
mate and inanimate nature presents. 
Man could thus recall to the minds 
of those jiround him those notions of 
absent obj(*cts and past actions with 
which the sounds are connected. The 
expression of abstract qualities by the 
same means w ould be a later object, 
and one more difficult of attainment. 
When the eye instead of the ear had to 
be ap[)ealcd to, or the signs rendered 
visible instead of audible, the system 
of hieroglyphics would at once suggest 
itself, by marking on a tablet or paper, 
a pi»'ce of ground or a smooth suHacc 
of sand, a rude picture of the object 
intond(»d. When we get beyond these 
pr<*liminary stages, however, the diffi- 
culty rapidly increases. There is no 
visible pictiii*o by which we could con- 
vey the meaning of such senlimenta 

VOL. T. — 27 



as are called in English virtue, justice, 
fear, and the like, except by so elabo- 
rate a composition as it would require 
an artist to produce ; nor could an au- 
dible symbol for each of these senti- 
ments bo framed. It would take a 
Max Miiller to trace how the present 
complication gradually arose. That 
there is a complication, any one may 
see in a moment. What is there in 
the sliape of the five letters forming 
the word tahle^ in these particular com- 
binations of curved and straight lines, 
to denote either the sound of the word 
or the movements of the mouth and 
other vocal organs which produce its 
utterance ? Nothing whatever. Any 
other combination of straight and 
curved lines might be made familiar by 
common use, and substituted for our 
plain English word, with as little at- 
tention to any analogy between the 
visible symbol and the sound of the 
thing symboliziKi. 

Numerous attempts have been made 
to devise some sort of alphabet in 
which the shapes of the letters should 
in some way be dependent on the move- 
ments of the vocal organs — not actual 
pictures of them, but analogies, more 
or less complete. Without going to 
earlier labors, we may adduce those 
of Professor Willis. Nearly forty 
years ago, he showed that the ordi- 
nary vowel sounds — a, c, i, o, u — are 
produced on regular acoustic princi- 
ples ; that ^* the different vowel sounds 
may be produced artificially, by throw- 
ing a current of air upon a reed in a. 
pipe ; and that, as the pipe is length- 
ened or shortened, the vowels are suc- 
cessively produced" — not in the order 
familiar to us, but in the order i, e, a, 
o, u, ( and with the continental soimds, 
i like ee^ e like ay^a like ahy u like oo,) 
Eighty or ninety years ago, Mr. Krat- 
zeostoin contrived an apparatus f<M: 



418 



Vitibh Speech. 



imitating the various vowel sounds. 
He adapted a vibrating reed to a set 
of pipes of peculiar forms. Soon af- 
terward, Mr. Kempelen succeeded in 
producing the vowel sounds bj adapt- 
ing a reed to the bottom of a funnel- 
shaped cavity, and placing his hand in 
various positions within the funnel He 
also contrived a hollow oval box, di- 
vided into two portions, so attached by 
a hinge as to resemble jaws ; by open- 
ing and closing the jaws, he produced 
various vowel sounds; and by using 
jaws of different shapes, he produced 
imperfect imitations of the consonant 
sounds /, m, and p. By constructing 
an imitative mouth of a bell-shaped 
piece of caoutchouc, imitative nostrils 
of two tin tubes, and imitative lungs in 
the form of a rectangular wind-chest, 
he produced with more or less com- 
pleteness the familiar sounds of n, d, 
g% h *^jy ^y U &nd r. By combining 
these he produced the words opera^ os- 
tronomy, etc^ and the sentences Vous 
ete$ mon ami — Je vous aime de tout 
mon cceur. By introducing various 
changes in some such apparatus as 
(his. Professor Willis has developed 
many remarkable facts concerning the 
mode in which wind passes through the 
vocal organs during oral speech. 

Tiie useful work would be, however, 
not to imitate vocal sounds by means 
of mechanism, but to write thorn so 
that they should give more information 
as to their mode of production than our 
present alphabet affonls. Such was 
the purport of the Phonetic system, 
which had a life of great activity from 
ten to twenty years ago, but which has 
since fallen into comparative obscurity. 
Mr. Ellis and tlie Messrs. Pitman pub- 
lished very numerous works, either 
pnnted in the phonetic language itself, 
or intended to develop its principles. 
Bible Histories, the New TesLiment, 
the Sermon on the Mount, Pilgrim's 
Progress, Paradise Lost, Macbeth, 
The Tempest — all were printed in the 
new form ; and there were nuiiieroua 
works under euch titles as Phonetic or 
Phonographic Alphabets, Almanacs, 
Journals, Miscellanies, Hymn-books, 



Note-books, Primers, Lesson-books, 
and the like. The intention was not 
so much to introduce new forms of let- 
ters, as new selections of existing let- 
ers to convey the proper sounds of 
words. There was an unfortunate 
publication, the Fonetik Nuz, which 
worked more harm than good to the 
system, seeing that it was made a butt 
for laughter and ridicule — more formi- 
dable to contend against than logical 
argument. 

Mr. Bell contemplates something 
more than this. He has been known 
in Edinburgh for twenty years in con- 
nection with numerous works relating 
to reading, spelling, articulation, or- 
thoepy, elocution, the language of the 
passions, the relations between letters 
and sounds, logograms for shorthand, 
and the like. As a writer and teacher 
on these subjects, he bad felt, with 
many other persons, how useful it 
would be if we could have a system 
of letters of universal application ; let- 
ters which, when learned in connection 
with any one language, could be vo(*al- 
ized with uniformity in every other. 
There are two obstacles to tlie attain- 
ment of this end : first, that the asso- 
ciation between the existing letters and 
sounds is merely arbitrary : and second, 
that international uniformity of asso- 
ciation is impracticable, because the 
sounds of different languages, and their 
mutual relations, have not hitherto 
been ascertained with exactitude or 
completeness. 

Mr. Bell, as he tells us, feeling that 
all attempted collations of existing al- 
phabets have failed to yield tlur ele- 
ments of a complete alphabet, tried in 
a new direction. Instead of going to 
languages to discover the elements of 
utterance, he went to the apparatus of 
speech itself, endeavoring to classify 
all the movements of tongue, teeth, 
lips, [)alate, etc., concerned m the pro- 
nunciation of vocal sounds. By this 
means, he hopiKi to obtain, from the 
physiological biisis of speech, an or- 
ganic sciile of sounds which should 
include all varieties, known and un- 
known. To transfer these sounds to 



Visible Speech. 



419 



paper, in the form of visible charac- 
ters, a new alphabet was necessary. 
To have adopted letters from the Ro- 
man, Greek, or other alphabets, con- 
structed on no common principle of 
symbolization, would have been to in- 
troduce- complexity and confusion, and 
to create a conflict between old and 
new associations. He therefore dis- 
carded old letters and alphabets of 
every kind. He set himself the task 
of inventing a new scheme of sym- 
bols, each of which should form a de- 
finite part of a complete design ; inso- 
much that, if the plan of the alphabet 
were communicated by diagrams, each 
letter would teach its own sound, by 
expressing to the reader's eye the ex- 
act position of the sound in the physio- 
lexical circuit Could this object be 
attained, not only would there be a 
universal alphabet ; there would be a 
scheme of letters representative of 
sounds, and not, like ordinary alpha- 
bets, associated with sounds only by 
arbitrary conventions. 

Mr. Bell believes that he has achiev- 
ed this result, and his expositions be- 
fore the Ethnological Society, the Col- 
lege of Preceptors, and the Society of 
Arts, have had for their object the 
presentation of various phases of the 
system. The fitness of the term visi- 
ble speech may, he urges, be shown by 
the analogy of an artist, who, wishing 
to depict a laughing face, draws the 
lines of the face as seen under the in- 
fluence of mirth ; he depicts, in fact, 
visible laughter. Every passion and 
sentiment, emotion and feeling, has 
this kind of facial writing ; and an idea 
of it might be expressed on paper by 
a picture of the muscular arrangements 
of the face, so that all persons seeing 
the symbols would have a common, 
knowledge of their meaning. In 
forming any sound, we adjust the 
parts of the mouth to certain definite 
attitudes ; and the sound is the neces- 
sary result of our putting the mouth 
in such a shape. If, then, we could 
represent the various positions of the 
mnuth, we should have in those sym- 
bols a representation of the sounds 



which cannot but result from putting 
the mouth in the positions symbolized. 
Now, Ml*. Bell claims to have applied 
this system of symbolization to every 
possible arrangement of the mouth : 
he claims that, whatever your lan- 
guage, and whetlier you speak a re- 
fined or a rustic dialect, he can show, 
in the forms of his new letters, the ex- 
act sounds you make use of. If this 
be so, a Chinaman may read English, 
or an Englishman Chinese, without 
any difficulty or uncertainty, af^er he 
has learned to form his mouth in ac- 
cordance with the directions given him 
by the letters. Nearly all the existing 
alphabets contain vestiges of a similar 
relation between letters and sounds — a 
relation which has nearly disappeared 
during the changes which alphabetic 
characters have gradually undergone. 
Mr. Bell gave the following anecdote 
illustrating this relation : ^ Shortly be* 
fore I left Edinburgh, in the early part 
of last year, an elderly lady called on 
me, accompanied by two young ladies, 
who were going out to India as mis- 
sionaries. The elderly lady had been 
for upward of twenty years engaged 
in mission work, and she spoke the 
language of the district like a native. 
Nevertheless, she could not teach the 
English girls to pronounce some 
of the peculiar sounds which she had 
acquired by habit They had been 
for some time under her instruction, 
but they could not catch the knack of 
certain characteristic elements. Hav- 
ing heard of ' Visible Speech,' the lady 
called to solicit my assistance. I know 
nothing of the language she pronounced 
before me. Some of the sounds I had 
never heard in linguistic combinations, 
though, of course, I am acquainted with 
them theoretically. I saw the young 
ladies for half an hour, but this proved 
long enough toj^ve them the power of 
pronouncing the difficult sounds which, 
while they did not know precisely 
what to do, they could not articulate. 
Strangely enough, since I came to re- 
side in London, I heard a clergyman 
and former missionary, s[>eaking of 
these very girls, remark on the great 



490 



Viiible Speech, 



raccess with which thcj pronounced 
the Canarese language before they 
left this country; and the speaker 
knew nothing of their previous diffi- 
calty, or how it had been overcome." 

The system analyzes all sounds ac- 
cording to the mode in which they are 
produced. The number of sounds 
discriminated in various languages 
amounts to several times the number 
of letters in the English alphabet ; and 
even in English, although there are 
only twenty six letters, there are at 
least forty different sounds. The 
Church Missionary Society employ 
nearly two hundred different letters 
or symbols in their several printed 
books ; and the list is even tlien im- 
perfect as regards many of the lan- 
guages. 

Mr. Bell finds thirty symbols suffi- 
dent to denote all the two hundred 
varieties of vowel and consonant 
toands. What kind of symbols they 
•re, we do not know, (for a reason pre- 
sently to be explained ;) but he states 
that, while each elementary sound has 
Its own single type to express it in 
printing, he requires only thirty actual 
types to express them as used in lan- 
guage. Each symbol has a name, 
which does not include the sound of 
the letter, but merely describes its 
form. The learner has thus at first 
only to recognize pictures. But the 
name of the symbol also exfiresses the 
•rrang(?ment of the mouth which pro- 
duces the sound ; so that, when the 
symbol is named, the organic forma- 
tion of its sound is named at the same 
time. In order that thirty symbols 
may denote two hundred sounds, Mr. 
Bell has adopted certain modes of 
class iticat ion. All vowels receive a 
common generic symbol, all conso- 
nants another ; vocality and whisper 
have their respective symbols ; so have 
inspiration, retention, and expulsion of 
breath ; so have the touching and the 
vibration of the several vocal organs ; 
sohave the lips, the palat«,the pharynx, 
tlie glottis, and the different parts of 
the tongue ; so has the breathing of 
aoands tlirough the nostrils, or through 



neariy closed teeth. There are (lurtf 
of these generic meanings altogether, 
and they are combined to make ap 
letters, every part of every lett^ hav- 
ing a meaning. The thirty symbols 
need not be represented mechanically 
by exactly thirty types ; they may hie 
embodied in a larger or smaller num- 
ber, according to taste or convenience ; 
such of the symbols as together repre- 
sent simple elements of speech being 
properly combined in single types. 
^ The highest possible advantages of 
the system,** we are told, " would be 
secured by extending the number of 
types to about sixty. At present, I 
and my sons — as yet the only experts 
in the use of visible speech — write the 
alphabet in a form that would be cast 
on between forty and fifty types, which 
is but little more than the number in 
an oi-dinary English fount, including 
diphthongs and ac(*ented letters. This 
number does not require to be ex- 
ceeded in order to print, with typo- 
graphic simplicity, the myriad dialects 
of all nations." 

Mr. Bell pointed out the prospec- 
tive usefulness of his system in tele- 
graphic communication. The sym- 
bols of speech may, in all their varie- 
ties, be transmitted by telegraphy 
through any country, without the ne- 
cessity for a kn iwledge of the lan- 
guage adopted on the f-art of the sig- 
naller. He would only have to discri- 
minate forms of letters ; he may be 
totally ignorant of the value of a sin- 
gle letter, and yet may convey the 
telegram so as to be intelligible to the 
person to whom it is virtually address- 
ed. It is known that the telegmms 
from India now reach Londtm in a 
sadly mutilated and unintelligible sta^e, 
owing to thuir passing through the 
hands of Turkish and Persian agents 
who do not know the English alpha- 
bet; an evil which, it is contended, 
would be removed by the adoption of 
tlie new system. 

The mode in which Mr. Bell illus- 
trated his method was curious and in- 
teresting. His son uttered a great 
variety of sounds — whispered coa- 



Visible Speech. 



421 



sonants, vocal consonants, vowels, diph- 
thongs, nasal vowels, interjections, in- 
articnlate sounds, animal sounds, me- 
chanical sounds — ^all of which are sus- 
ceptible of being represented in printed 
or written symbols. Tlien, the son 
being out of the room, several gen- 
tlemen came forward and repeated 
short sentences to Mr. Bell, some in 
Arabic, some in Persian, some in Ben- 
gali, some in Negro patois, some in 
Gaelic, some in Lowland Scotch, some 
in Norfolk dialect; Mr. Bell wrote 
down the sounds as ho heard them, 
without, except in one or two cases, 
knowing the purport of the words. 
The son was called in, and, looking 
attentively at the writing, repeated the 
sentences with an accuracy of sound 
and intonation which seemed to strike 
those who were best able to judge as 
being very remarkable. 

There is something a little tantahzing 
in the present state of the subject. We 
know that there is a system of symbols, 
but we do not know the symbols them- 
8(;lves. Mr. Bell states that, besides 
the membei*s of his own family, only 
three persons have been made ac- 
quainted with the symbols, and the 
details of their formation — namely, 
Sir David Brevvster, Professor de 
Morgan, and Mr. Kllis. lie has not 
intended, and does not intend, to se< 
cure his system to himself bj any kind 
of |)atent or copyriirht; and yet, if ho 
made it fully public at once, he would 
lose any legitimate hold over it to 
which he is rightly entitled. He has 
submitted his plan to certain govern- 
ment departments, but has found that 
it is " nobody's business*' to take up a 
subject which is not included in any 
deiinito sphen* of duty. He has next 
endeavored to interest scion tiiic socie- 
ties in the matter, so far as to induce 
tbem to urge the trial of his plan by 



the government. He says : " I am 
willing to surrender my private rights 
in the invention pro bono publico, on 
the simple condition that the costs of 
so introducing the system may be un- 
dertaken at the public charge." Teach- 
^ ers there must be, because " the publi- 
cation of the theory of the system and 
the scheme of symbols must necessarily 
be supplemented by oral teaching of 
the scales of sound, in oi*der that the 
invention may be applied with uni- 
formity." The reading of the paper 
gave rise to some discussion at the 
Society of Arts, not as to the value 
and merit of the system itself, but as 
to anything which the society can do 
in the matter. It is one rule of the 
society that no new invention shall be 
brought forward without a full exphnar 
tion of the modus operandi as well as 
of the leading principles ; and in this 
case, the objection lay that the inventor 
declined to make public, unless under 
some government agreement, the actual 
secret of his method. Mr. Bell replied 
that, if even he were to write a sen- 
tence in view of the audience, it would 
add very little to their real knowledge 
of the subject ; but he furthermore said 
he was ready to explain the details of 
the system to any committee whom the 
council of the society, or any other 
scientific body, may appoint. To ut 
it appears that neither Mr. Bell nor 
the society is open to blame in the 
matter. He has the right to name the 
conditions under which he will make 
his system public ; while they have 
the right to lay down rules for the 
governanco of their own proceedings. 
The results actually produced struck 
the auditors generally with surprise ; 
and there can be little doubt that the 
system will in some way or other, at 
all events, work itself into public no* 
ticc. 



422 



Comparative Mortality of Great Capitals, 



■'A-V/.;,,":,"""-'-^'- 

COMPARATIVE MORTALITY OF GREAT CAPITALS. 



Our recent alarm at the appearance 
and progress of tlie cholera in London 
may have dra\vn the attention of many 
who had before been accustomed to pass 
them by with indifference, to those co- 
lumns in the papers in which the reports 
of the Registrar- General on the state of 
the public health are from time to time 
recorded. But we are perhaps hardly 
yet snfBciently awake to the impor- 
tance and interest of the statistics there 
contained, any more than to the value 
of tlie short and, at first sight, rather 
UDiutcUigible tables which embody, day 
after day, the meteorological phenome- 
non collected in London from so many 
different points on our own coast and 
those of adjacent countries. These last 
statistics have an interest which does 
not yet belong to those which relate to 
the public health, in that they embrace 
reports from so many distinct places 
which can be compared together. We, 
of course, only publish our own sta- 
tistics of health, disease, births, and 
deaths ; and we have not yet seen our 
way to the information that might be 
gathered by a comparison of our own 
condition in these respects with that of 
others under similar circumstances. 
The interest and value of such a com- 
parison is obvious enough ; and some 
of the results which might be hoped 
from it, if it were systematically and 
scientifically made, may be guessed at 
by the perusal of a thin volume of less 
than two hundred pages, lately pub- 
lished in Paris by M. Vacher,* which 
at first sight may seem not to promise 
very much except to professional read- 
ers, but from which we shall take the 

♦ Ktttde Mfdicnh et SfafMique mr la Jforfah'te 
d PiirtH,d JjOndre«^ d Vunne <t d Xetc-York en 
ixVS. D'aprcs \v9 Documens oflicielfl, avec uue Carte 
Mctt'orolopiqueet Mortualr*. Par le Docteur L. 
Vnchcr. Paris : V. Savy, HsCO. 



liberty of drawing a few facts which 
certainly seem worthy of the attention 
of the more general public. 

Canning once said, in answer to 
some one who alleged " a well-known 
fact" against him, that there was bat 
one thing more fallacious than a fact, 
and that was a figure. We must all 
be ready to allow that the results wliich 
we see embodied so neatly in a set of 
figures in statistical tables are, afler 
all, but approaches to the truth ; and 
they are not put forward as anything 
more. Still, there is often a wonder- 
ful accuracy about the average results 
given by statistical inquiries ; and it 
is obvious that when the result of one 
calculation is confirmed by that of an- 
other independent of the former, or 
when one uniform result is given by a 
continued series of inquiries, or when 
there is a very decided preponderance 
on one side of a comparison, such as 
cannot be ac(*ounted for by chance, it 
would be absurd to refuse to assent to 
conclusions thus obtained. With this 
single preliminary remark, let us pro- 
ceed to some of the facts collected for 
us by M. Vacher. 

He begins by giving due credit to 
this country for having taken the lead 
in the publication of the kind of statis- 
tics with which ho has to deal. The 
reports of the Registrar-General are 
all that he can desire. New York and 
Vienna have followed, more or less 
fully, the example set in London. It 
has also been copied in St. Petersburg, 
as far as the registration of deaths is 
concerned ; and it is hoped that a week- 
ly publication of the results will soon 
be made in that city. Paris joined the 
movement at the end of 18G4 or the 
beginning of 1865. There is, how- 
ever, some difference of system. The 



Comparative Mortality of Great Capitals. 



428 



chief point is, that in England the me- 
dical man who attends a sick person re- 
ports I he cause of death ; in Paris there 
are certain official physicians, verifica- 
teurs des dkclsy and these, instead of 
the attending physician, assign the 
cause. The superiority of the English 
system seems to be acknowledged. M. 
Vacher s book is founded on the reports 
thus produced. 

His first business is, of coarse, to 
settle approximately the population of 
the four capitals with whose statistics 
he deals — a matter of considerable 
difficulty, even with all the results of 
the census before him. He calculates 
the number of the inhabitants of Paris 
in 1865 at 1,863,000 ; those of Lon- 
don were 3,028,600 ; those of Vienna, 
560,000; and tliose of New York, 
1,025,000, (in 1864.) At the present 
rate of increase, Paris will double its 
population in 32 years, London in 40, 
Vienna in 44, and New York in 13J. 
On the other hand, this increase is not 
to be set down to the excess of births 
over deaths, which in London, in 20 
years before 1861, was only 328,189 
— about a third of the actual increase, 
(35 per cent.) In a similar period, 
the births exceed the deaths in Paris 
by only 13 (and a fraction) per cent of 
the whole increase. Immigration has 
therefore the largest share in the in- 
crease of the population. A flow is 
continually setting in from the country 
to the town in the age in which we 
live, and it enriches the largest towns 
and the capitals es|)ecially. New York, 
receiving annually so many immigrants 
from Europe, is, of course, beyond the 
others in its gains from this source. 
Paris has undergone great vicissitudes 
as to the number of its inhabitants. 
In 1762, the population seems to have 
been about 600,000. It fell off im- 
mensely during the Revolution ; even 
in 1800 it was only 547,756. From 
1790 to 1810 the number of deaths ex- 
ceeded the number of births. Since 
that time the proportion has been re- 
versed, except in years of great epide- 
mics. 
Of the four capitals with which M. 



Vacher deals, Vienna, the smallest, had 
the largest proportion of deaths in 
1865. In Vienna the proportion was 
1 to 31 of the inhabitants ; in Paris, 
notwithstanding the ravages of the 
cholera in October — causing 6591 
deaths (nearly an eighth of the whole) 
— it was 1 to 36; in New York. 1 to 40; 
in London, 1 to 41. In Paris, Lon- 
don, and New York, the death rate has 
diminished in its proportion to the pop- 
ulation for some time past. In Paris, 
in the three decades of years from 1830 
to 1860, it fell successively from 1 to 81, 
to 1 to 34, and then to 1 to 38. There 
has been the same improvement in the 
other two cities. In New York, fifteen 
years ago, the rate of deaths was 1 to 
22 — ^nearly twice as high as at present. 
We do not see any statement in M. 
Vacher's pages as to the case of Vien- 
na. He attributes the improvement in 
Paris to some extent to the great pub- 
lic works and measures for securing 
the health of the population which have 
marked the second empire ; but much 
more, it would seem, to the better 
management of the hospitals. In Paris 
and Vienna a much larger proportion 
of the inhabitants die in hospitals than 
in New York and London ; and, as far 
as we are concerned, M. Vacher in- 
cludes workhouses and asylums of all 
kinds under the general name of hos- 
pitals. He finds, on comparing some 
scanty statistics of the last century with 
the facts of the present, that in old 
times the number of deaths in hospitals 
was far greater in proportion to the 
cases admitted than now ; and he thinks 
that, in Paris at least, this almost ex- 
plains the improvement in the death- 
rate. In New York the same improve- 
ment may have had many causes, but 
it is remarkably coincident as to time 
with the magnificent changes made, at 
an immense cost, in the water supply 
of that city. From some meteorologi- 
cal tables compiled with great care by 
M. Vacher, we gather the rather sur- 
prising result that the variations of 
temperature during the year, which 
have considerable influence on the* 
death-rate, are greatest at Vienna, 



484 



Comparative Mortality of Great Capitals. 



(nearly 27°,) next at New York, (25°.) 
much lower in Paris (17°,) and lowest 
of all in London, (15°.) 

One of the most interesting questions 
at the present time on this subject is 
that of tlie water supply. M. Vacher 
begins with a cordial tribute to thi? Ko- 
mans on this head. The magnificent 
aqueducts by which the city of Itome 
was supplied date from the time of the 
early re|>ublic, though the emperors in- 
crcjised their number. At an early 
point of their history, therefoi-e, the 
Bomans were wise and liberal enough 
to dispense with the waters of the Tiber 
for drinking. They carriiHi their sys- 
tem everywhere when they became 
the masters of the world ; in Fi-ance, 
in Spain, and in Italy many aqueducts 
can still be traced which were their 
work. We may be quite certain that 
if Britain were now a iioman province, 
the Tiiames water companies would 
never be allowed to supply water ex- 
cept for the streets, and grc»ut aqueducts 
would long since have brought us the 
pure water of Bala Lake or Winder- 
mere. Thanks to the popes, modem 
Bome though not so profusely supplied 
as in imperial times, is still very far 
in advance of all otiier cities in the 
world in this res|)ect,* >L Vacher 
reckons the water supply in ancient 
Bome as 1492 litres a day for each in- 
habitant ; in modern Rome it is 1040 ; 
in New York, 159 ; in Vienna. 134 ;t 
in Paris, according to the new system, 
109 ; in XiOndon, 132. But no city 

• M. Viicher attributes tlie salubritjr of Rnme— -for, 
■ConMdfrinjr iU iMMliitm, It viijoyt remnrk.ihh* sniii. 
brlty — to theubiinilAiiceaucl good quality of itst wnter. 
Laiido'i, who practiMMl there na a pliy^iciaii in the 
last ivntury, acoiniut« for thr longevity of it^t ii:hHhU 
Uuits In t>iu Niiue way. At all ercut^t, rein<irk4 M. 
VachiT, *• 11 i"»t liniMvy-tihlo de nVtre pan rr.-i]>|>c <le 
■Ce fait, (|uc lea hlxtorlenii ne mentltinnont ikis un m.*u1 
cxein]>lv (le p'^-'tv k Home, i-t qu^au inuyen iv^nf.t dam 
lea t» iiipH iiii><Utuh!« tfllo h c'lnHtatmnent cc1iap]ii> nux 
att**intos de la |H?atc et du cholera, qui out b6vI k 

{>lu.4i-'iir<4 npriiii*!* tn Italic." Hut Uouie La^ ccrtaln- 
jr bvt*n virited l»y the cholfni nmre than onw, and 
Ute rot of the Htateuient U surely contrary to hUtur/. 
t Till* *-tattMn<-nt Iji, however, an antiripatiiai. The 
flinnioipaHty of Vienna has undertaken M>me Immense 
worku in onler !<) improve the water supply, at a cost 
tf iri.tNhl.innl floriim. The works are not yet complet- 
ed : hut M. Vacher >:tves the quantity (»f wator for each 
lahahitaiit which they are «• x|)ecte<l to furnish. Hith- 
erto tin* city has l>«-cn •upplle*!, It wunhl neem, partly 
from tiie [>:knu)>e, |>artly hv well*. The new supply 
will be drawn from three different sources among the 
aelghboring mountalna. 



seems to hare its houses so well sup- 
plied as London ; in Home a great 
quantity of water is wasted, bein^ left 
to run away from the fountains, while 
the houses are not conveniently pro- 
vidtid with water. We stipfxise thai 
our old friend the house-cistern, njsainst 
which we have heard so many com* 
pkints lately, is not an &isential fea- 
ture in our system of house supply. 

I^L Vacher gives the following con- 
clusions as to the sanitary effect of good 
and abundant water. He tells as that 
inorganic substances contained in wa- 
ter are comparatively innocuous to the 
health of those who drink it ; cm the 
other hand, great injury is caused by 
the presence of oi-gsmic matter. Thi 
best wat(»r in Paris — that of the springs 
on the norths-contains nine times as 
much of calcareous salts as the water 
of the Seine ; but it is jusily preferred 
for drinking purposes. On the other 
hand, AL Vacher quotes the testimony 
of M. Bouchut« a professor at the Ecole 
de Mtdecine, for tlie fact that he noticed 
the frequency of epidemic diarrhioa 
during the summer months in the 
Quarlier de Sevres, and that it had 
been almost stopped in cases wliere 
the doctors had oixlered the water of 
the Seine to be no longer usihI, and 
had buhstiruted for it water from the 
artesian well of Grenelle. He adds 
his own experience at the Lycc e Na- 
poleon, which is supplied from the re- 
servoir of the Paiitlieon, which receives 
its water from the Seine and the aque- 
duct d'ArcueiL He had known as 
many as titlteen students at onee ill 
of diarrhoea, and the disease was stop- 
ped by the ^ alcoholization of all the 
water.'* As regjinls elioleni, the 
proof is even mon* striking tliaii that 
lately furnished in the case of London 
by the great and almost exclusive rava- 
ges of that disease in the eastern dia- 

• p. 1061 M. Vacher here cites the Indian cats 
quoted by Mr. Farre in hi* ClmhTa Ktport, The 
natives In lull.t drink twilled wa'er »« a iir»*\eiitiv« 
affatiiiit cholera ; and it liaN I'e* u fi>und that mil of » 
great numln'r In the family of a ^ill!:le jirniiik-tor la 
Calcutta, all of wh«>m took thin j»rfc:iMtion. not a rfn- 
rIc iMTjMin had l»een attac-ke*! twu ixx the wi)r>t tlmea 
of tho prevalence uf cholera. Hut Dr. K-a-^VIaci has 
disproved aft leaal the aolvenaUtj u( tliis fact. 



Comparative Mortality of Great Capitals. 



tricts. Mortality by cholera seems 
onlinarily, as M. Yaclier tells us, to 
follow the laws of general mortality, 
that is, it prevails mast in those dis- 
tricts wliich are ordinarily the most 
unheullliy. But the one element of 
good or bad water supply seems to be 
enonirlj to counterbalance the influence 
of the other causes which affect the 
comparative mortality of districts. 
For instance, difference of elevation 
is supposed to be one of these causes. 
Mr. Farre tells us that the mortality 
of a district is in inverse proportion to 
the elevation : that in nineteen high 
districts the proportion of deaths by 
cholera was as 83 to 10,000 ; in the 
same number of low districts, as 100 
to 10,000. This law. however, is not 
enough, nor is it free from exception. 
Sometimes places loftily situated are at- 
tacked and lower places are spared. 
The elevation of Montmartre is al- 
most e%pial to that of Belleville ; but 
Montmartre had last year 3*6 cholera 
cases to 1000, Belleville only I'l. 
Again, a rich quarter has ordinarily 
immenst^ advantages over a poor quar- 
ter. The mean mortality by cholera 
in the poorer arrondissements of Paris 
was aintost three times as great as tliat 
in the rich arrondissemenfs. The rea- 
son is obvious : the poor work hard, 
have insulHcient food, and are crowded 
together in discomfort and want ; the 
rich arc well ted, not overworked, well 
and healthily housed. Yet there was 
one arrondisseinent of Paris, and that 
one of the very poorest, which in the 
three fir^t visitations of cholera (1832, 
1849, 1854) had actually the lowest 
proport on of deaths by cholera of all 
these districts. In 1865, it had ban^ly 
more deaths than the very richest of 
all, that of the Opera, which headed 
the list on that occasion as the most 
lightly vi^itwl. This arrundissement 
was Belleville. Another cause of 
comparatively greater mortality is 
density of p( pulation ; but here again 
we are met by the fact that this for- 
tunate l>elloville is very densely popu- 
lated. The natun* of the soil is auotlier. 
M. Vacher mentions a number of de- 



partments in the centre of France 
which have never yet been attacked 
by cholera. They are those which 
consist of a huge granitic mass, like 
an island in the midst of the more re- 
cent formations around them. Never- 
theless, though this will explain much, 
and though Belleville has an advan* 
tage in this respect over many of the 
arrondissemenfs of Paris, still it has the 
same geological formation as Mont- 
martre, which had thn*e times as 
many deaths (in ])roportion) from 
cholera. In short, thcjre is no way 
lefl of accounting for its comparative 
exemption, except that which we have 
already mention<Hl, the sujierior oharae- 
ter of the water consumed by its in- 
habitants. The ariiument certainly 
seisms as complete as it can possibly 
be, and we know that it has been strong- 
ly confirmed by our own late ex[>eri- 
ence. Let us hope that no time may 
be lost in acting on the lesson which 
we have received. 

We pass over some interesting state- 
ments on the meteorologic^il phenome- 
na which were observed during the pre- 
valence of the cholera last year in 
Paris.* M. Vacher rather contra- 
dicts current opinion by some remarks 
he has made as to the relation of cho- 
lera to other diseases. Sydeniiam has 
remarked that when several epidemie 
diseases arc rife during the same sea- 
son, one of them usually absorbs to it- 
self, as it were, the bulk of the mortali- 
ty, diminishing the influence of the rest 
even below the onlinary level. Thus 
in the year of the great plague in Lon- 
don, just two centuries ago, the small- 
pox was fatal to only thirty-eight per- 
sons, its average being about eleven 
hundred. However, the genenil fact 



• M. V.icher here tolls a utorjr of lit* en.leavw to 
make some otonoMietrioiil o'tservntloiM In the Purif 
hoiipitAlii, which were pri>hll>lte<I by th<* DirfCteur (l« 
rAH:<iHt.'ince iiablique — an oflKerof whi»tn M. VncUer 
U conthiually conipluinin^ — on tlie gro'uiil that they 
wouhl frijchten tlie iKitientK. Ilr rcMvirks th;it un (>ti« 
occasion when travellinif iu the |K>nM{K'ttl tftnte;*. sunM 
gcndiinni'H foiniJ in his |io-*stn»slon a i>>yol;rorueterand 
an anen)i4l liaroineter, and tlumffht tliey were w<'ai»mt 
«f <IeHtnictioo. H.t woul«i liave l>erfii irreste*! hut for 
M MatUfiicd, thi'n Director of Polh-e. lie cnmpl:tliM 
bitterly of Ui« compnrative want of enli^hteunieiit Ul 
the " adinlnhtration" of hi:* own country. But no 
hoopltol voald have allowed hit exiierimeuts. 



Comparative Mortality of Cheat Capitals. 



is now questionecL In October last, 
though 4653 persons were carried off 
by cholera, the mortality by other dis- 
eases in Paris was greater than in 
any other month of the year. Yet 
October is usually one of the most 
healthy of all the months ; and the 
epidemic maladies which ordinarily 
rage during the autumn — typhoid fever, 
small-pox, diphtheria, croup, whooping- 
cough, erysipelas, and puerperal fever 
— were prevalent to an extraordinary 
degree. It is curious also that there 
was an unusual number of children 
bom dead. 

The most destructive of all ordinary 
complaints is undoubtedly consump- 
tion. At Vienna it actually causes 25 
per cent of the deaths, at Paris 16 per 
cent, at London nearly 12 per cent, at 
New York 14 per cent. It is more 
frequent in women than men ; it is twice 
as destructive in poor quarters as in 
rich quarters ; the age which suffers 
most from it is between 25 and 40. 
The difference between the sexes M. 
Vacher attributes to the more confined 
and retired life led by women. If ob- 
servations in Paris are to be taken as 
enough to furnish a general conclusion, 
it would appear that more consumptive 
patients die in the spring than in the 
autumn. Here again a common opinion 
is overthrown. The most destructive 
months are March, April, and May : 
the least destructive are September, 
October, and November. We believe 
that in this country the fewest consump- 
tive patients die in winter, and the most 
in summer. M. Vacher also attacks 
tlie notion that maritime climates are 
the best for consumptive cases. New 
York id situated on the sea, but it loses 
as many by consumption as London ; 
and in the maritime counties of Kent, 
Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, and De- 
vonshire, the deaths by consumption 
are as 1 in 7 of the wliole ; while in 
the Midland counties of Warwickshire, 
Buckinghamshire, "Worcestershire, and 
Oxfordshire, they are as 1 in 9. " Lcs 
phthisiques qu'on envoie k Nice et ii 
Cannes, ou m^me sur les bords du Nil, 
sur la foi d'un passage de Celse, y meu- 



rent comme oeux qui restent sous le cM 
natal. Ceux-la seuls en reviennent gae- 
ris, chez qui le mal n'^tait pas sans res- 
sources et qui auraient gu^ri partout ail- 
leurs," (p. 129. ) We must remember, 
however, that if such patients are sent 
to the seaside, and die there, they raise 
the death-rate there unfairly. M. 
Vacher insists that fbe guiding princi- 
ple in selecting a place for the residence 
of a consumptive patient should be the 
absence of great variations in the tem- 
perature rather than the actual number 
of deaths by the disease. Consump- 
tion, he says, is unknown in Iceland ; 
but that is not a reason for sending a 
consumptive patient to that island. As 
to New York, we have already quoted 
bis observation as to the variableness 
of the temperature there, notwithstand- 
ing its maritime position. 

Although we have already stated the 
results of a general comparison of the 
mortality in the four capitals — results 
very ihvorable to the salubrity of Lon- 
don — it may be interesting to our read- 
ers to learn the state of the case with 
regard to particular classes of disease. 
In most cases, of course, we have the 
list in actual numbers : our comparative 
immunity is only evident when the 
great excess of our population is con- 
sidered. In zymotic diseases we have 
little more than a majority of a thou- 
sand over Paris ; but then we must re- 
member that in the year of which M. 
Vacher speaks between 5000 and 6000 
persons in Paris died of cholera. This, 
therefore, would seem to be one of the 
classes of disease as to which we are 
really worst off As to constitutional 
diseases, consumption, cancer, scrofula^ 
gout, rheumatism, and others, Paris 
exceeds us in proportion ; and it is the 
same with diseases of the nervous sys- 
tem. From diseases of the heart we 
lose between two and three times as 
many as the Parisians ; this proportion, 
therefore, is greatly against us. On 
the other hand, in diseases of the diges- 
tive organs, Paris, notwithstanding its 
inferior population, exceeded London 
by a hundn^d deaths in tho last year. 
London, however, regains a sad pre- 



Comparative Mortality of Ghreat Capitals. 



4d7 



eminence when we come to diseases of 
the respiratory organs, asthma, bron- 
chitis, influenza, and the like : Paris 
losing between 7000 and 8000 a year 
against our 12,500. It is in the com- 
moner diseases that the worst features 
of London mortality in 1865 were found 
Typhoid was nearly three times as fatal 
last year in London as in Paris ; mea- 
sles four times as fatal ; scarlatina not 
far short of twenty times ; whooping- 
cough more than thirteen times. Aa 
the population of London is to that of 
Paris as five to three, it is clear to how 
great an extent the balance was against 
us. It was probably an accident. 
Tliese diseases prevail very generally 
for a time, and then retire : and we have 
lately been visited by a perioil of their 
prevalence. 

We have hitherto spoken only of 
diseases ; but M. Vacher's researches 
extend to the comparative frequency of 
deaths of other kinds. In suicides, 
New York has the best account to give, 
Paris the worst. To speak roughly, 
London has twice as many suicides as 
New York, Vienna twice as many as 
London, Paris more than twice as many 
as Vienna — in comparison, that is, with 
the total number of deaths of all kinds. 
The actual numbers stand thus : Paris 
716, London 207, Vienna 813, New 
York 36. For the last nine ye^rs there 
has been little chanj^e in tlie number in 
London ; in New York it has dimin- 
ished, in Paris it has increased, hav- 
ing more than doubled itself since 
1839. The two years, 1848 and 
1830, which were marked by revolu- 
tionary movements, were also marked 
by a diminution in the number of sui- 
cides. Tlie relative proportion of sui- 
cides increases with age ; that is, it is 
four times as frequent with people above 
70 as with people between 20 and 30. 
Paris has for a long lime been noted 
as a city in which there were more sui 
cidcs than any other. More than eighty 
years ago, Mercier noted this, and at- 
tributed it to the rage for speculation. 
Other writers have since attempted to 
find a reason for it in the prevalence 
of democratic ideas. We suppose that 



both democratic ideas and si^eculadon 
are not unknown in New York, yet that 
city (and indeed the State itself) is re- 
markably free from suicides, and a great 
number of those that occur arc said to 
be of Europeans. 

But if Paris bears the palm in self- 
slaughter, no city can vie with London 
in slaughter of another kind. Violent 
deaths are nearly three times as fre- 
quent in London as in Paris. As many 
as 2241 persons were slain in London 
last year ; as many, that is, as would 
be enough for the number of the killed 
in a sanguinary battle: 328 were 
burnt, 405 were suffocated, (this proba- 
bly includes children overlaid by their 
mothers,) 40 were poisoned, 767 dis- 
posed of by " fractures and contusions," 
232 were killed by carriage accidents ; 
leaving 469 to he laid to the account 
of other accidents. In the other three 
capitals the proportion of deaths by ac- 
cidents to the whole number of deaths 
ranges from under one per cent to un- 
der two per cent ; in London it is just 
three per cent. Finally, London had 
132 murders to give an account of in 
1865, Paris had 10, and New York 
only 5. 

We are sorry that the last fact which 
we glean from M. Vacher's interesting 
tables must be one rather disparaging 
to the great Transatlantic city which 
we have last named. Disparaging, 
that is, positively rather than compa- 
ratively ; and we fear that, if the statis- 
tics which we are now to quote do not 
reveal a terrible state of things in Lon- 
don also, it is because on this head our 
admirable system of registration has 
given M. Vacher no assistance at all. 
** Quant k la ville de Londres," he 
says, *' il m'a ^ik impossible d'arriver 
k connaitre le chiffre de ses mort^es, 
Le Bulletin des Naissances et des Morts 
ne donne d'ailleurs aucun renseigne- 
ment h ce sujet.*' He expresses bis 
opinion that, if the numbers were given, 
London would have quite as bad a tale 
to tell as Paris or New York. But 
the figures in these cities are sufficient- 
ly startling. In Paris the children 
** born dead" are to the whole number 



428 



MUcettany. 



of deaths as one to ten ; in New York 
as one to fifteen ; in Vienna they arc 
as one to twenty-three. Twenty years 
ago, the Pr^fet of the Seine addressed 
a eircular to the maires of Paris, in 
which he drew th.eir attention to the 
great niiinhi.'r of these children, and 
pointed out that it was natural to con- 
clude that their deaths were too often 
the i-esult ot* crime. In New York 
similar complaints have been made, 
and we are bignificantJy told that full 
reports cannot be obtained on the sub- 
ject. As to London, we find a large 
number of deaths, 1400 or 1500 a 
year, set down to ** premature birth and 
debility.' We fear it would be quite 
impossible to give an account of the 
number of births which are prevented 
—contrary to the laws of Gotl and man 
alike. We need hardly do more than 
allude to the frightful incrc^ase of infan- 
ticide, on which Dr. Lankcster has 
lately si>oken so strongly. Mr. Mum- 
ble's Es.^ay on the subject in Mr. Or- 
by Sliipley's volume contains some 
very startling statistics. There are as 
many as 12,000 women in London to 
whom this crime may be imputed. '*In 
other words," says Mr. Humble, ** one 
in every thirty women (I presume, be- 
tween fifteen and forty-five) is a mur- 



deress.'' We must hope that there if 
exaggeration about this ; but if it were 
one in every fhirty thousand, it would 
be bad enough — a state oF tilings call- 
ing down tlie judgments of heaven oa 
the land. 

The Anglican writer to whom we 
have just alluded speaks w ith some ap- 
parent p;ejudico against the most ob- 
vious remedy for infanticide — the es- 
tablishment of foundling hospitals, 
I>erfectly fr(»e. There may be some 
objections to these in>jtitutions, but we 
must confess that, in the face of the 
facts on which we are commenting, ibey 
seem to us rather like arguments 
against lifeboats because they may en- 
courage oversecurity in exiKJsure to 
the dangers of the sea. If Mr. Hum* 
ble will road, or read a;rain, Dr. Burke 
Ryan's Essay on Infanticide, which 
gained the Fothergillian prize modal 
some time ago, and in which the fact 
seems to be proved tfiat the crime is 
more common in England than any- 
where else, he will perhai>s see reason 
to conclude, from the French statistics 
there adduced, that foundling hospitals 
are more etfectual in preventing this 
abominable evil than anything else 
that has ever been devised. 



MISCELLANY. 



Kew Eltdrlc Machines. — At the con- 
versazione given by the president of the 
Royal Sucioty at Burlington House, Lon- 
don, the display of newly constructed 
astronomical, optical, and other philoso- 
phical in>trunients afforded a gratifying 
proof of improvements in the mode of 
oonstrnction, and of increased skill on 
the part of the constructors. The lai*ge 
spectroscopr, which is to l»c used in com- 
bination with Ii«>rd Rosse's monster tele- 
scope, was a triumph of workmanship 
and of i)hilosophical adaptation of means 
to ends \ and we may expect cru long to 



hear of important disrovcrics in spectro- 
scojiic phenomena. Mr. 0. W. Siemens 
and Profe.ssor Whoatstnne exhibited each 
one a remarkable electric maehine of his 
own invcnti(m, which demonstnited in 
a surprising way the convertibility of 
meehanical force into electri<ity. In 
these machines, a bar of soft iron, wrap- 
ped lenp;thwisc in copper wire, is made 
to rotate between two other bars of soft 
iron, which are fixcil. The rotating; bar 
is inoculated, so to speak, with a small 
touch of ma^etisni, and then being set 
spiiming y^ry rapidly, the small touch 



Miscellany. 



4a» 



IS generated into a Rtream of electricity, 
whi(!h passes off with n cnicklini^ noise, 
increasing or diminishing in proportion 
to the rotation. In a laboratory, such a 
machine would he highly serviceable, as 
it coidd be used to generate large quanti- 
ties of electricity very cheaply, and there 
is no doubt but that many otber ways 
of turning it to account will be discover- 
ed. Mr. Siemens has already discovered 
one most important way, nauiel}', the 
lighting-up of buoys and beacons at a 
distance from the shore, by sending a 
current of electricity to tliem through a 
submarine cai)le. That is the way in 
which he purposes to employ the electri- 
city generated by his machine: his meth- 
od has been approved by the Commis- 
sioners of Northern Light-houses, who 
intend to apply it to light the buoys and 
beacons that mark the most dangerous 
spots round the coast of Scotland But 
of all wonderful electric machine?*, the 
on© invented by Mr. H. Wilde of Man- 
chester is the most wonderful. A ma- 
chine which weighs about four and a half 
tons, including one ton of copper wire, 
and which requires an eight-horse steam- 
engine to keep iU armature in rotation, 
must necessarily produce tremendous 
effects. It gives off electric fire in tor- 
rents : the light produced is intense, and 
is quite as useful to photographers as 
sunlight, with the advantage over the 
sun, that it can be used on dark days 
and at night. This light, as we hear, is 
alread}' employed in manufacturing es- 
tablish m en t>*, and is to be introduced 
into light-hou<es. A French company, 
who have purchased the right to use it 
in France, will try it first in the light- 
house on Cape (jrisnez, whence, as is 
said, the light will radiate not only all 
across the Channel, but some distance 
into the southern counties of England. 
Besides the production of light, the new 
machine is applicable to important manu- 
facturing purp«»ses ; the size of the ma- 
chine being altered to suit special circum- 
stance-. A well-known firm at Birming- 
ham are about to use it, instead of a 
galvanic battery, for the deposition of 
copper on articles required to bo coated 
with that meUil. In this case, the elec- 
tricity of the machine is substituted for 
the acid and zinc of the battery, and 
will c<)st less. In another instance, the 
machine is to be used for the production 
of ozone in lai^ge quantities for employ- 
ment in bleaching operations. Professor 
Tyadall exhibited the sensitive flame, on 



which he had given a lecture at the Royal 
Institution : or, to be more exphcit, ho 
ma<le experiments to show the action of 
sound on flame. The results are re- 
markable. A tall flame, looking like an 
ordinary gas-flame, issuing from a circu- 
lar orifice in an iron nipple, behaves in 
an extraordinary way when, by increased 
pressure, it is raised to fourteen or six- 
teen inches in length. If a shrill whistle 
be blown in any part of the room, it 
suddenly drops down to about half the 
length, and rises again immediately on 
cessation of the sound. A blow of a 
hammer on a board produces a similar 
effect ; and still more so when the blow 
is on an anvil : the flume then jumpd 
with surprising briskncs.s, the reason 
being that the ring of the anvil combines 
those higher tones to which the flame is 
most sensitive. So tuning-forks, at the 
ordinary pitch, produce no effect; but 
if made to vibrate one thousand six hun- 
dred, or two thousand, or more times ia 
a second, the flame responds energeti- 
cally. In another experiment, a fiddle 
is i)layed in presence of a flame twenty 
inches in length — the low notes produce 
no effect; but when the highest string 
is sounded, *' the jet," to quote Profe.ssor 
Tyndall's own words, ** instantly squats 
down to a tumultuous bushy flame, 
eight inches long." And the same effect 
is produced by strokes on a bell at 
twenty yards' distance : at every stroke 
the flame drops instantaneously. This 
last experiment is a good illustration of 
the rapidity with which sound is pro- 
pagated through air, for there is no sensi- 
ble interval between the bell-stroke and 
the shortening of the flame. Another 
flame, nearly twenty inches long, is yet 
more sensitive, for the rustle of a silk 
dress, a step on the floor, creakin;< of 
boots, dropping of a small coin, all make 
it drop down suddenly to eight inches, 
or become violently agitated. At twenty 
yards' distance, the rattle of a bunch of 
keys in the hand shortens the flame, and 
it is affected even by the fall of a piece 
of paper, or the plashing of a raindrop. 
To the vowel U, it makes no response ; 
to 0, it shakes; E makes it flutter 
strongly ; and S breaks it up into a 
tumultuous mass. Many more instances 
might be given, but these will sulflce to 
show that surprising effects are prtiduced 
by sound. To tlie scientific inquirer 
they will be serviceable as fresh illustra- 
tions in the science of acoubtics. — Chanp' 
ben's Journal, 



480 



New PublieaHonB, 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



American Boys and Girls. Two Essays 
from the recently published volume, 
" American Leaves." By Samuel Os- 
good, Minister of the Church of the 
Messiah, New- York. Harpers. 1867. 

These essays were reprinted, the au- 
thor tells us, at the request of a lady, for 
general circulation, with the hope of do- 
ing some good to the rising generation, 
and those who have the charge of bring- 
ing them up. We hope they may do 
good, and they certainly will if they ex- 
ercise any practical influence at all upon 
either parents or young people. Their 
literary merit is undeniable. The topics 
they touch upon are, however, so pain- 
fully momentous that it is impossible to 
dwell with mere critical enjoyment upon 
their readable qualities as essays to bo 
amused with during a leisure hour. 
Their charm of style is only to be ap- 
preciated as a means of alluring atten- 
tion to the very grave and alarming truths 
which they contain. The author touches 
with a light and delicate hand upon a 
very sore and diseased spot in our social 
system, and hints, in a manner which is 
intelligible to the instructed without be- 
ing dangerous to the innocent, at evils 
which may well awaken the alarm of 
every one who is solicitous for the well- 
being of the family, the community, and 
the race. We are especially pleased with 
his very sound remarks upon the luxury, 
extravagance, and effeminacy which are 
exercising such a corrupting influence 
upon American society. We think, how- 
ever, the doctor is more successful in 
pointing out the evils which exist than in 
proposing a remedy for them. The sa- 
cramental doctrine of matrimony, the 
Catholic law maintaining its absolute in- 
dissolubility, the sacrament of penance, 
and the authority of a church which is a 
supreme judge and lawgiver, executed 
by a priesthood who are independent of 
the opinions, caprices, and trammels of 
worldly society, are alone sufficient to re- 
form the vitiated, or preserve the inte- 
grity of youth. It were as easy to catch 
the devil in a mouse-trap as to renovate 
society by any means which Unitarian 
Christianity has at its disposal. 

The author's very irrelevant digression 



upon the Catholic doctrine of celibaej 
adds one more to the numberless instAo- 
ces in which respectable writers criticise 
rashly without understanding their sub- 
ject, lie says, (p. 109,) " We know rery 
well that theorists of extreme classes, who 
have noted the decrease in the number of 
marriages in high life, are inclined to re- 
joice at it, and for opposite reasons : the 
one class because they think celibacy to 
be the higher condition." After several 
more passages, in which the language is 
very ambiguoUvS, and may easily be un- 
derstood as veiling a covert insinuation 
against the Catholic clergy and religious 
communities, the author concludes his 
remarks thus : " We believe that a true 
Christian wife has a purity that angels 
may not scorn and many a nun might 
covet, and that the man who keeps his 
marriage vows need not ask of any ghost- 
ly monk for lessons in manly virtue. The 
longer we live the more we reverence 
God's obvious law, and the less we ad* 
mire the devices of men who forbid mar- 
riage, and so undertake to be wiser than 
God." 

It is quite the reverse of truth that a 
Catholic moralist, whether " ghostly " or 
otherwise, approves of or recommends 
or rejoices in a general practice of celi- 
bacy among cither the wealthy or the 
poorer classes. The Catholic clergy re- 
commend and favor marriage for the ge- 
nerality of persons as by far the best and 
happiest state for them. The Catholic 
doctrine does not disparage the purity of 
Christian wives, or the virtue of married 
men who are faithful to their matrimo- 
nial obligations. The spectral gentleman, 
whose lessons the doctor politely declines 
in advance, would probably, if he had 
the chance to give one, pass over the 
evangelical counsels, and enlarge on the 
moral duty of representing things as they 
are. The Catholic Church does not ** for- 
bid marriage." She teaches that it is a 
sacrament The Greek Church has cor- 
rupted it by permitting divorce ; every 
Protestant Church has done the same ; the 
civil law has laid its barbarous hand upon 
it to drag it from the protecting power of 
the church. The Roman Church alone 
has first raised it to its proper elevation 
and indissolubility, and afterward defend- 



New Publications, 



481 



ed it by her uncompromising law from 
desecration. We advise the doctor to 
turn his attention more undividedly to the 
work of rehabilitating marriage in the 
rif;hts of which corrupt morals and legis- 
lation have deprived it, and not to distress 
himself with the fear lest the sacrament 
should be despised or neglected by Catho- 
lics. 



Sermon on toe Dignity and Value op 
Labor. By the Rev. Joseph Fransioli, 
Pastor of SL Peter's Church, Brook- 
lyn, L. I. 

This is a first-class popular sermon; 
plain, practical, and encouraging. That 
Christianity has redeemed the masses in 
elevating and dignifying manual labor is 
plain enough to the student of history. 
That which was a curse in Adam is 
turned into a blessing in Christ. It is 
equally true that when men forget the 
Christian aim of life and suffer them- 
selves to be guided, as too large a class 
of our modern society does, by heathen 
principles, labor becomes contemptible, 
poverty becomes a misfortune, and the 
wearing of patches and rags a crime. 
The preacher thus fitly characterizes la- 
bor : ** Work is of divine origin. It is 
not a human invention, or a system 
adopted by civil society for its wants in 
the different classes ; it is a divine insti- 
tution, an obligation imposed by God*s 
eternal wisdom upon all men without 
distinction whatsoever. It is a divine 
institution distributing labor in its va- 
rious branches among all men, not ere- 
anng, properly speaking, different classes. 
Work is leading men towards God, the 
centre of perfection. Work, then, en- 
nobles man, and the true dignity and 
worthiness of a man is to be measured 
by the proportion of his work." 

Again, he is justly severe upon the 
modern disiinction of *Mow" and "re- 
spectable" classes in this false sense. 
**The father who carries the shovel on 
his shoulders to dig the foundation of 
your buildings; the son who, early in 
the morning, is seen walking, tools in 
hand ; the washerwoman and the servant 
girl who clean your clothes and honestly 
and faithfully do the work of your houses, 
arc not low. They discharge a noble 
task which their families appreciate and 
which God will reward. Do you know 
who belong to the very lowest classes of 
men and Christians ? Those that specu- 



late on the lives of the poor laborers by 
building monstrous tenement houses, 
where bad ventilation, poor light, scarcity 
of water, and dilapidated rooms lead the 
over-crowded and over-taxed inmates to 
misery and a premature death. Those 
that sue for divorces in the courts, ride 
in carriages, and display themselves in 
public with more than one wife, more 
than one family, more than one God; 
trampling on human and divine law. 
Those that spend their nights in gam- 
bling, their days in hypocritical schemes, 
who never balance their expenses with 
their revenues, and consume double the 
amount of their salaries, and leave their 
bills unpaid or shamefully defraud their 
employers. These and many others of 
the same stamp, whose number is 
countless ; these swell the figures of the 
low classes.'* This is preaching which 
reasons ** of judgment and justice," and 
tells the truth without fear or favor. It 
is a refreshing sermon, and lacks in 
nothing but in having been too hastily 
printed, being full of typographical errors. 



Frithiof's Saga. From the Swedish of 
Esaias Tegn6r, Bishop of Wexio. By 
the Rev. William Lewery Blackley, 
M.A. First American edition, edited 
by Bayard Taylor: pp. 201, 12mo. 
New-York, Leypoldt & Holt 1867. 

Several translations of this beautiful 
poem have been made in English, each 
of which had its own peculiar merit An 
accurately literal translation of a foreign 
book possesses the value of presenting to 
us just what the author says ; but the 
manner of his speech, the true spirit 
which gives life and character to his 
work, must necessarily be wanting. Such 
was the translation of Tegn^r's poem, by 
Prof. George Stephens, published at Lon- 
don in 1839. Prof Longfellow was more 
successful in the poetic versions he gave 
in an article on the poet contributed by * 
him to the North American Review of 
July, 1887. That of Mr. Blacklejr before 
us is not only a faithful translation, but 
is also English poetry, preserving in its 
style enough of the wild Scandinavian 
spirit to mark its origin. As a specimen 
we subjoin the following extract from 
" Frithiof at Sea." The hero is com- 
pelled to make a dangerous voyage by 
two kings, Ilelge and Ilalfdan, whose sis- 
ter Ingeborg he is wooing contrary to 
their consent : 



4tt 



iVm PwbUeations, 



« Now, KiDir HelKe stood 

In fury on tbe rtnrnd. 
And In embittered m<XN| 
Adjured the storm-fiend's tend. 

"Gloomy 1^ the hearen growinjr, 

TJirouRh de^rt ^kle-* tlic thunders roar. 
In the deep the hillnirs brewing 

Cream witli fo»iii the surface o*er. 
Lightnings cleave the Monn-clnud, seeming 

BIood-re<I jrn««hei» In lt!« ««lde ; 
And all the sea-birds, wildly screaming, 

Fly the terrors of the tide. 

** Ptorm U comlnjr, comrades ; 
Its anpry wlnp* 1 hear 
Flapping in the di<(tance, 
Bnt fearle-s we may l»e. 
Bit tranquil In the prove, 
And fonrliy think on me, 
Ix)vely in thy Horrow, 
Beauteous Ingeborg. 

" Now two iitnrm-fiends came 

Against Kllida'f fide ; 

One tr:i« wind-cold Ifara, 

One was snowy Heyd. 

" Loose set they the tcmp«-»t'« pinions, 

Down diving in oci'an deep ; 
BlIlnwK, from unseen dominions, 

To the go<rs abode they sweep. 
All the power!« of frightful do»th, 

Aj«tride ui>on the mpld wave, 
Rl»e from the foaming depths beneath, 

The b'ttomless, unfathomed grave. 

*' Fairer wa« our journey 
Bene ah the shining moon. 
Over the mirrory orean. 
To R:ilder*s j«jicrcd grove. 
Warmer far tlian here 
Was lugeborg's lovinir heart ; 
Wli!ter tiian the nea-foam 
Heaved her gentle breast. 



•• Now ocean fierce batth^?: 

The wave-troughs de^jwr grow, 
Tlie whi:«tling cordage rattles. 
The planks creak loud below. 

• But though higher waves appearing 

Seem like Miount;iins to engage. 
Brave Klliiia, never fearing, 

M<)rk«« t*ie aturry «»<e,in'-» rage. 
Like a meteor, fla«hlnz hrightne^s. 

Diirts she forth with dauntless breast, 
Bouniling with a i-fK^huckN lightness 

Over trough and over crest. 

** Sweeter were the kisses 
Of Inireliorgln the grove, 
Thati here to ta"«te in tempest 
nigi)-s])rinkled. briny fnain. 
Better the royal daughter 
Of Ilt'le to euibrat-e, 
Th.in lu-re in anxious labor 
The tiller fast to hold. 

" Whirling cold and fast, 

Htiow-wreaths fill the sail ; 
Over deck and ma!<t 
Putters heavy hail. 

•* The rvry stern they see no more, 
go thick \* darkness !>pread, 
As gloom and tmrror hovers o>r 
The chauber of the dead. 



fitin, to link the sailor, dashae 
Implacalile each angry wave ; 

Gray, as If bestrewn with asihes. 
Yawns the endless, awful grave.** 

The Swedish language is full of melodj 
and of imitative harmoDy ; as the author 
himself calls it : 

'• T^angtiage of honor and conquest, how manly thy 

accf nt«, and n«ible I 
RlngVt like the smitten f^t^el, and mov^st like Uio 

march of the planets." 

It is, therefore, diflScult of translation, 
and one who would ntteiiipt it must not 
only be well versed in that language, but 
must also pos^^ess a more than ordinary 
knowledge of English. Mr. Blaclcley 
has, we think, accomplished hin task 
with no 8mall degree of success. 



MooRE^s Irish Melodies. With a Memoir 
of the poi't. lihistrated by I). Maclise, 
R. A., and William Riches. Columbus, 
Ohio : Riches & Moore, Engravers, 
Printers, and Publishers. 

The enterprising publishers of this 
work have certainly spared no pains in 
its profuse illustration, the engravings 
being of such a character as to occupy at 
least two thirds of the space in each page. 
The many admirers of the melodious 
verses of the great Irish poet will wel- 
come this new and elegant edition of 
them. 

A copy of the designs, if fumi.»<hed by 
the pencil of Maelise, should alone lie 
w(»rth the price of the book. It is sold 
only by subscription. 



Err.. CuMMiSKET, Philadelphia, an- 
nounces for im mediate publication the lirst 
series of his Juvenile Library, in twelve 
vols. The following arc the titles of 
the volumes (»f the first series : The tircat 
Tenahi-aka ; .Miss Touch-All ; The Young 
Rai<lers ; The Old Beggar; tieorgo, the 
Little Chimney Sweef> ; The Lost L'liild ; 
The Desert Island ; Hethlebem ; Pat, the 
Little Emigniut ; Idleness ; Negligence ; 
The Little Gardeners. These tales will 
form a collection of stories for chddren. 
The price of the set is to be $5.40 lie 
has also in press Barbarossa ; an Histor- 
ical Tale of the Twelfth Century, and The 
Vengeance of a Jew. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. v., NO. 28.^lVfe)>86f^ [ 'U'' 



'^'y. : 



V 



/•,. 



' 'r-'-'MllS. 



CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 



We do DOt hesitate to say that bat 
few Catholics in this country are aware 
of one of the most important events in 
the modern history of the church in 
Europe, the meeting of the Catholic 
conjntjsses. 

Inaugurated by a council of twenty- 
six bishops at Wurzburg, and a gene- 
ral convention of the clergy and laity 
at Mayence in 1848, the Catholic con- 
gresses became an accomplished fact, 
and since that time each succeeding 
year has recorded the meeting of one or 
more of these assemblies held in differ- 
ent cities of Belgium and Grermany. 

The renewal of Catholic life, the 
stren<2thcning of Catholic principles, 
and the steady and sure return of the 
people of those countries to the faith, 
is, in a great measure, due to the in- 
fluence which these reunions have ex- 
erted on the public mind. In the be- 
ginning they appear to have received 
their impetus chiefly from a desire to 
place the church, ho long enslaved in 
Grermany beneath the tyranny of Pro- 
testantism, trammelled by state inter- 
ference, and so desperately attacked 
by the wide-spread infidelity of the 
day, upon a free and independent foot- 
ing. 

Feeling themselv^^s strong enough to 

speak, they spoke and demanded the 

freedom of the church. An universal 

response was thus elicited, not only from 

VOL. v.— 28 



theclergy, who are the (H^inary numA* 
pieces in matters of the welfare of the 
church, but there started up at onoe 
zealous and devoted laymen, who were 
competent to take part in the discus* 
sion of qnesti6ns of interest to Catho- 
lic society. Expression stimuUted 
thought, and the influence of these con- 
ventions soon permeated every class 
of society, awakening in all minds a 
desire to contribute something to the 
general stock of information and ex- 
perience which these assemblies began 
to gather in, like so much latent force, 
wherewith to repel the attack of ad- 
versaries, and to advance the cause of 
truth and pure morality. 

It was truly a Catholic project, and 
which none but Catholics could at- 
tempt without weakening the cause 
they would undertake by a certain 
manifestation of discordant and irre* 
concilable principles and the conse* 
qucnt loss of power.' But Catholiot 
may unite for mutual edification and 
enlightenment, joined as they are as 
brethren in a common faith, whose 
principles and aims are alike in every 
country and with all people, and be 
sure of reaping thereby solid fmits, 
and of adding new triumphs for reli* 
gion. 

These general conventions in GJep. 
many culminated finally in the great 
Catholic congresses of Malines and 



484 



Catholic Convenes* 



Wttrzburg, the first of which opened 
at the former city in 1863. ""This 
congress," says a writer, ** exerted a 
magic influence ; the drowsy were 
aroused from their lethargy, and the 
faint-hearted were inspired with confi- 
dence: they saw tlieir strength and 
felt it. In that congress we see the 
beginning of a new epoch in the re- 
ligious history of Belgium." 

The great benefits arising from this 
movement were recognized and en- 
couraged from the start by the Holy 
Father, in honor of whose approval the 
different associations took the name of 
** Piusvereine,'' a name still retained 
by those held in Switzerland. The 
fint great congress of Malines was 
opened under the auspices of his emi- 
nence. Cardinal Sterckz, archbishop of 
that city, to which the Pope also sent 
ao autograph letter containing his au- 
t gait sanction and words of benedic- 
tion. 

Everywhere and by 'all classes the 
most lively interest was shown in the 
woriE, and men of merit flocked to take 
part in the deliberations, members of 
the clergy, secular and regular, the 
nobility, statesmen, philosophers, edi- 
tors, professors in every department of 
sdence, painters, sculptors, musicians, 
architects, builders, heads of pious and 
charitable societies ; each and all vy- 
ing with one another in bringing in the 
firiuts of their learning and experience, 
that their brethren in the faith might 
be benefited by them, and the Catholic 
cause be strengthened and advanced 
by the results of their united efforts. 
The sentiments with which they were 
inspired may be gathered from the fol- 
lowing extract of the reply sent by the 
congress of Malines to the Holy Fa- 
ther : ^* It is true the trials of our times 
are great and grievous, and if they be, 
they at least should make us Catholics 
understand the necessity of organizing 
witli more union and with greater ener- 
gy than ever, to assure the liberty of 
the church and of all the works which 
she inspires. If associations are fonn- 
•ed from one end of the world to the 
.other for aU the interests of life, and too 



often for the propagation of eril, we 
Catholics have the right, and are in 
duty bound, to associate ourselves to- 
gether for the interests of the good and 
the true. This sacred right we intend 
to exercise with that perseverance and 
self denial which become the disciples 
of Christw 

" On every hand the enemies of oar 
faith league together to shake the 
foundations of the church of God. 
We, devoted children of that church, 
will put together all our forces to de- 
fend it. We wish to strengthen the 
bonds of charity between us, fortify 
ourselves against the seductions of the 
age, enlighten and encourage one an- 
other — to seek, in fine, the means of 
comforting and consoling the little ones 
and the poor, whom our Lord Jesas 
Christ loved with such a tender love** 

The report of the assembly records 
that the reading of this was received 
with unanimous and prolonged acdar 
mations. 

That the members of these congress- 
es meant work in coming together is 
evident from the report of their pro- 
ceedings. We have before us two 
large octavo volumes of 400 pages 
each, closely printed, which contain the 
accounts of only the congress of Ma- 
lines, held in 1863. It gives the 
speeches, discussions, reports of com- 
mittees, etc., at length, and is a record 
of immense and patient labor, of deep 
scientific research, and of earnest and 
devoted effort Another volume of 
equal size is the published report of 
the department of religious music alone. 
In this as well as in other branches of 
art and science prizes have been offer- 
ed of a notable value for original pro- 
ductions. We observe in a late re- 
port of the congress of Malines of 1866, 
that the prize offered for a mass, com- 
posed according to the rules adopted by 
a former congress, brought in seventy- 
six original compositions, of which the 
musical critics (of whose severity there 
can be little doubt) reported twenty- 
one as of first class, and twenty-six of 
medium merit. The programme of 
the next congress in the same city, to 



CathoKe Congresses, 



435 



be opened next September, offers 
among others a prize of 1000 francs 
for the design of a church. We hope 
that, among the many of oar bishops 
and distinguished laymen who will visit 
Europe this summer, some will be able 
to find the time to be present at this 
great Catholic assembly, and examine 
its projects and working. 

The clergy have from the start 
seconded these congresses with all their 
influence, and a very large number of 
them are regular and active members. 
Discourses were pronounced before 
them by several distinguished prelates, 
among whom we remark the names of 
Cardinal Wiseman and Bishop Dupan- 
loup. Yet all the members meet upon 
a perfect equality. The title to mem- 
bership is that of merit alone, and the 
guarantee that one has something po- 
sitive to offer for the furtherance of the 
objects for which the congress is con- 
vened. No one appears as a general 
delegate of veto, or as a committee of 
one on objections ; but each one comes 
well posted up in the department iq 
which he is interested, well prepared 
with his documents, notes of experi- 
ence, authorities, etc., and hence their 
deliberations are based upon solid mat- 
ter and not upon visionary ideas or 
imaginary schemes. It is easy to see 
how these congresses have produced 
such practical results as the advanced 
state of Catholicity has shown in the 
last few years throughout Grermany 
and Belgium. Art in its relations to 
religion and the church has been so well 
encouraged that the congress of 1864 
saw over one hundred artists and ar- 
chaeologists assembled in council. All 
that contributes to the propriety and 
majesty of the divine service in church 
decoration and furniture received spe- 
cial attention, and numerous works 
have been published in consequence. 

Catholic journalism received such 
an impetus that Belgium, small as it is, 
now. boasts of fifty Catholic periodicals. 
In Europe they understand the im- 
portance of fostering and purifying this 
department of public instruction. A 
late German writer says: ^Journal- 



ism is an important profession, whoso 
members should be conscientious and 
honorable men. The journalist ad- 
dresses his language to an audience far 
more numerous than the professor's, 
and at present his influence is, so 
to say, unlimited; he reaches every 
part of educated society, and sways 
public opinion. He is called to be the 
standard-bearer of liberty and truth. 
He must, therefore, implant sound 
principles in the popular mind, and, 
standing above the reach of paltry pre- 
judice, unite in himself a high degree 
of intelKgcnce and true devotion to the 
eternal laws of the church. Without 
independence, dignity, and moral free- 
dom he cannot do justice to the task 
impos(3d on him by God. * Bnpavi' 
dum ferient ruitue* In England, 
America, and Belgium, the press 
wields a powerful influence ; it has be- 
come sovereign, and is necessary to the ^ 
nation's life. Science feels that, unless 
it is diffused, it is powerless, and that 
the school-room is too narrow a fleld." 
The foundation of a great Catholic 
university for Germany is now under 
consideration, and a large sum is al- 
ready subscribed toward it In this 
respect Belgium is far in advance of 
its more populous and powerful neigh- 
bor. By persistent and united effort 
the university of Louvam was esta-' 
blished, and it now numbers 800 more 
students than those of the three state 
universities put together. We cannot 
refrain from transcribing the following 
earnest words of the writer already 
quoted. Speaking of Germany, hie 
says: **We must found a new uni- 
versity, a purely Catholic and free in- 
stitution, untrammelled by state dicta- 
tion, and entirely under the direction 
of the church. To do this, the bishops, 
the nobles, and the clei^ must use 
their best endeavors ; but the profes- 
sors, too, must do their share, and not 
look on with cool indifference, as is the 
case with most of thenu . . • There 
is neither truce nor rest for us until 
we are noi only eqtioly but superior to 
our opponents in every branch of sci- 
ence.** 



•hi* • • 
f#» },' '.' '. 



K/ tl,' I 
li.. .'r- 

ifi |i i« : ii • 
lo-.-i./' •■ 

I »/ii;»M . •»! 
li.'i II i 

.,|. /i. .» ..' • 
ll.< . I* i« . • 
iiii'l' I I II. 'I li 

Willi lll«»H III! •• 
y, I I. .11 ••.<!. : 
ll.. . 1. 1.1. I. iimI 

. Ill III |iii • I' 

III h Mil ••III I If 
iillii I hii ill iIk til 



Catholic Congres^ei, 



437 



glorious work in which thcj are en- 
ga<^ecU and to wish that it waa in our 
own land and for the good of our own 
people that all this was done ? Is there 
one who glances at the titles we have 
given above of some of their labors, 
who does not see that we too need, 
even more than our brethren in Eu- 
rope, to have all these subjects relating 
to the advancement of religion, the in- 
struction of the people, and the com- 
fort of the poor brought under con- 
sideration, the best means of their ac^ 
complishment discussed, the knowledge 
and experience of our best Catholic 
men, both clergy and laity, brought 
under contribution, unity and organ- 
ization furthered, and, by combining our 
forces, strike a good blow for the glory 
of God and the good of our fellow- men } 
The laity think of nothing but of con- 
tributing their money when called upon 
to aid some good work, and our over- 
tasked clergy are lefl to devise, plan, 
superintend, and carry out every reli- 
gions 'project under heaven. 

Now, it cannot be denied that there 
are thousands of our laymen fully com- 
petent to CO operate with the clergy in 
every branch of religious science, art, 
and charity. If they would add their 
minds to their money, and put their 
own individual energies to the wheel, 
a power would at once be created in 
the church of the United States irre- 
sistible to its enemies, and a certain 
guarantee of the glory and triumph of 
our holy faith. 

The want of such a congress has al- 
ready been the subject of much serious 
reflection with many persons, whose 
position and duties oblige them to re- 
cognize the necessity of union and co- 
operation in carrying out the various 
good works in which they are engaged. 
If we are truly imbued with the spirit 
of our holy religion, we should not 
only be fiar from grudging the com- 
munication of our knowledge and ex- 
perience to our brethren, but should 
rather bum to impart it, to make it 
profitable to the church at large ; and 
we are convinced that in no other way 
ooold this be bo effinstually done as in 



a congress modelled upon those of 
Belgium and Germany. 

The form of their congress is pre- 
cisely that to which we are well accus- 
tomed here in organized assemblies. 
All projects are first referred to par- 
ticular committees and put in proper 
shape to be presented before the whole 
congress, where they are quickly dis- 
posed of according to their merits. 
The statutes or rules under which they 
meet are of such a character as to pro- 
duce perfect harmony in their discus- 
sions, and the subjects which are ad- 
mitted as proper for deliberation and 
deserving of encouragement are just 
such as the good of religion demands 
attention to and united action upon at 
our hands. 

Not a few of the first scientific men 
in the United States are Catholics. 
True science must necessarily be in 
harmony with the true religion. It has 
been the fashion of late to consider that 
they are in no way related to or de- 
pendent one upon the other. 

The doctrine of Luther, that reason 
must be left out of account in religion,' 
and that its judgments are not to be 
sought for nor relied upon in matters 
of faith, has resulted in turning scien- 
tific men out of the church. 

Men will reason, will claim and use 
their reason as they should, by divine 
right ; and if you divorce reason from 
religion, what wonder that they will ac- 
cept the decision and look upon science 
as a department of human knowledge 
and belief over which religion has no 
control? The Catholic Church has 
never professed this degrading doc- 
trine ; on the contrary, she has stoutly 
condemned all propositions implying it 
in any sense ; but still, Catholic men 
of science must associate with scientific 
infidels as scientific men; they must 
correspond, deliberate, examine, and 
discuss questions of vital importance 
with them, who make no hesitation in 
assuming premises and forming theo* 
ries the conclusions of which are con- 
tradictory to faith. We are not here 
accusing our brethren, or casting suspi- 
cion upon their orthodoxy. What wo 



4as 



CaihoUe Congrases, 



intend to imply is Bimply thk, Uiat for 
want of fraternal cooperation and mu- 
tual recofrnition and cncoarageinent tlie 
false principle we have alluded to 
above is gmduaily gaitimn: ascendency 
in (he popular as well as in the sfien- 
iJfic mini Had we a " Cutliolic Aca- 
demy" composed of the men who 
stand high m intellectual culture and 
scientific ret^earchT such an ^* academy'' 
us the European congre^se^ ai-e now 
~ itriving Co foand, we thou Id he able to 
preaent a bold froal in ibe arena of 
science, and compel atteniion to m true 
principles and to the fact of their con- 
Bonance with the teaching?* of faith. 
Thus a right arm of power would be 
given to the church from a source 
wliich DOW practicjilly ignores it* It 
hai been our pleasure to meet in dif- 
ferent cities of ttie Union with many 
men, devout Catholics*, whose names 
Would grace an academic roll of first 
chiA^ merit. ludeetl^ and we say it 
knowingly, in every profession — in 
philoiiophy, medicine, law, geology, as 
well ti& in the army and navy, Catho- 
lics rank with the foremost* What 
they need, and what the church needs 
on their account, we say again, h 
union, opportunity, and mutual ac- 
quaintance and support It is impos- 
sible to estimate what influence a body 
of such men would exert, or with what 
respect for our holy religion they 
would Inspire the American public, 

A^eittier must it be forgotten that 
the rimrcli alone pofisesses an univer- 
sal nnd eomplele system of Chysttan 
pliiloso[>hy. For the want of this, 
Pmfesianlism has in the main aban- 
d*>ned all attempts to reconcile the de- 
ductions of reason with the dogmas of 
revelation* Hence, its systems of 
dogmatic theologj^ are extremely jejune 
luid discordauL Let us bring this fact 
before the minds of the intellectual men 
of our age and country, and at once 
Protestantism as a nuisonable system 
of religion must fall below their con- 
tempu 

But the institution of a Catholic 
academy roust be consequent upon the 
foundatiou of a Cftthulic uaiversity. 



We have smne good schools, where » 

more scholarly knowledge of the cias- 
stcs ciiQ be acquired than in protii^^d- 
\y Protestant colleges, but they surpaM 
us in all other bmnches of scieacc and 
intellectual culture. And the reasoo 
is plain. Their professorial chairs are 
filled by men of superior attaiumentA, 
whose services are secured by good 
salaries. 

Their standard for gradual ion is, 
however, extremely low compared to 
that required by the European col- 
leges and universities- Indeed, most 
of our Protestant and Cathohc college 
es, too^ accord th<^ diploma to all tlieir 
students, irrespective of tlieir merits* 
We oui selves have been called upon. 
by a graduate of one of tlie ddesi 
and most respectable Protestant col^ 
k»ge3 in the country, to translate hk 
diploma into English, that the old folks 
at home might know what it meant* 
AVe need to raise our own colleges to 
a higher standartl than they now po^ 
sess, and to oflfer to our men of talent 
the means of completiug the imperfect 
education of an ordinary college counwx 
To do this we must have an university 
whose requirements for matriculation 
shall demand a rigid examination, in 
which the candidate must come off 
thoroughly successful ; whose chairs 
shall he filled with tirst -class profes- 
sors* and which shall fmssess an ample 
endowment for its purposes. 

I'his great work, wliicli is tlio hope 
of all the scholars in the country, cun 
only be carrie<i out by united effort on 
the part of the episcopate and the 
wealthy laity, and a congress would 
be a most fitting opportunity for bring- 
ing the matter to a definitive and prac- 
tical conclusion. Great men in coun- 
cil will do great things, and g€*nerou4 
souls will be stimulated to emulate ex- 
amples of heroic sacrifice. It is a woni 
lo the wise. 

Of all the departments of public in- 
struction, the press needs anmngsl us 
the inipi^vement, eneooragement, and 
sanction which a congrean la ealoiilated 
to give. Think of Belgiura^with only 
^,000,000 inhabitants, supporting over 



CaikoUe Congreues. 



489 



fifty Catholic periodicals, and posseBS- 
iDg numerous societies for the publica- 
tion of cheap religious books and pam- 
phlets! Our Catholic population of 
the United States is at least equal in 
number to that of the whole of Bel- 
gium. Yet with all our numbers and 
means we have not one dailj paper 
under Cathob'c supervision, a most 
important work, to the establishment 
of which one of the first efforts of a 
Catholic congress with us should be 
directed. Those who complain of our 
Catholic press, and make invidious 
comparisons between the literarj merit 
of our periodicals and our neighbors', 
should remember that editors are pro- 
fessional men, and not to be obtained 
for the wages of a day laborer ; and 
that a first-class periodical must have 
a first-class circulation. A congress 
of editors would tend to elevate the 
tone of the Catholic press, and its 
voice would stimulate all classes to 
greater efibrt in promoting a more 
generous difiusion of this kind of 
literature. An increased circulation 
would enable the conductors of our 
journals to pay for original contribu- 
tions, and engage the services of first- 
class writers ; an outlay which very 
few of them have now the means of 
making. 

That the Catholic Publication So- 
ciety, now successfully founded, needs 
the influence of a con(rress to extend 
its operations to the different cities and 
towns of the Union, is plain to be seen. 
There are hundreds of zealous persons 
of every condition of life who are wait- 
ing to be told what to do to advance its 
interests, who want to see some system 
of local organization proposed and 
sanctioned by some proper authority. 
Its friends wish to meet together, to 
know each other, and aAer due deli- 
beration to frame fitting resolutions 
for action, which u^wn their return to 
their respective homes they may carry 
into effect. 

This important project cannot be 
fully realized, and be fruitful, under 
God, in instructing and edifying thou- 
sands of souls unto sal^'fttioDy unless a 



public and general interest be excited 
in its success, and with the active co- 
operation of the great charitable asso- 
ciations and pious confraternities now 
established amongst us. 

There is also a pressing necessity for 
us to obtain fuller information, and 
come to a decision about the subject of 
church architecture, and all that re- 
lates to the exterior of divine worship. 
We are building cathedrals and church- 
es in every style, and on principles 
which are as various as there are fan- 
cies and theories in the brains of ar- 
chitects. Immense sums of money are 
needed and collected for this purpose, 
and it is of the greatest moment that 
they be wisely expended. 

The time has come when every 
church we erect should be an honor to 
us for its architectural beauty, its sub- 
stantial character, and adaptability to 
our needs, and when the generoos 
alms of the faithful should no longer 
be thrown away upon unsightly, badly 
planned, and worse built edifices, of 
which so many exist in our country, 
to the great discomfort of both priest 
and people, and monuments (happily 
not lasting ones) of the want of know- 
ledge and experience of those who con- 
structed them. 

It becomes us, therefore, to encou- 
rage our Catholic architects who un- 
derstand the meaning and use of a 
church. We cannot iook for Protes- 
tants to care much for the requirements 
of the ritual in their designs, or to ap- 
preciate the necessity of insisting upon 
what the church insists. Their chief 
aim is to please their patrons, and 
carry out whatever is proposed to 
them. Few of our Protestant archi- 
tects know any more about the proper 
interior disposition of a Catholic church 
than they do of a Moslem mosque. 

See, again, how much we suffer from 
the wretched altar furniture and sacer- 
dotal vestments imported for our use, 
and which our clergy are obliged to 
take and make a display in their sanc- 
tuaries of things belonging in style to 
every age of the church. How often 
have we not seen a priest clothed in 



440 



Catholic Congresaes, 



Boman Veslmcnts celebrating^ mass at 
a Gothic altar furnished with Bjzao- 
tine crucifix and candlesticks, and a 
miscellaneous job lot of tawdry French 
artificial flowers, while the sacred pre- 
cinct of the sanctuary would be fur- 
nished with carpet and chairs that 
smack of the drawing-room or the 
kitchen ? 

These evils existed and do exist in 
other countries besides our own, and 
we see that the congresses of Belgium 
have done a great deal to correct them 
by calling Catholic architects together 
in council, and offering prizes tor de- 
signs of perfect churches built and fur- 
nished according to the Ritual, the Ce- 
remoniale Episcoporum, the Missal, 
and the decrees of the Congregation of 
Rites. 

The music of our churches, what 
shall we say of it? Are our city 
churches to be turned into fashionable 
concert-rooms where hired Protestant, 
Jewish, and infidel artists are to sing 
their moreeaux de Fopera for our edi- 
fication ? Are our country churches 
never to witness a high mass cele- 
brated in them, and the people in those 
localities never to be convened for the 
Vesper service or comforted with the 
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament 
because there is no one to teach the 
children at least to sing a Tantum 
Eigo ] Are our organists always to 
be irresponsible musicians, guided by 
no rubrics, ignorant of fast days and 
festivals, outraging every sense of pro- 
priety, and banishing all sentiment of 
piety and devotion by their ad libitum 
roulades and fantasias of the most de- 
graded taste ? If we must pay others 
to sing the praise.<^ of Go<l i'or us, why 
not also engasre others to do our pray- 
ing likewise? Cannot we have, as 
other countries have, voluntary choirs ? 
Why cannot all the |)eople sing at 
proper times and seasons, and join in 
that part of worship which from its 
very nature is the best calculated to 
awaken the dee[)est emotions of the 
soul! 

The question of the feasibility of 
yoluntary choirs or of congregational 



singing is no longer wholly a donbclbl 
one. We know of several churches k 
the country that have always had vo- 
luntary choirs, and we were present 
during the past Lent at the services 
of one of our city churches where the 
whole congregation joined with fuQ 
voices in a popular Lenten servkse, 
and in the solemn recitation of the 
Way of the Cross, for which they were 
prepared at a single public reheajrsal in 
the church. 

The subject of church music, as we 
have already said, was one to which 
the Belgium congresses paid a great 
deal of attention. The March num- 
ber of the Revue G^nerale of Brussels 
gives a most interesting report, by Ca- 
non Devi-oye, of the proceedings of the 
jury to whom were referred the adju- 
dication of the prizes offered for an 
original popular mass, composed, as 
says the worthy canon, *' according 
to the rules laid down by the church, 
and enforced by our general assem- 
bly ;" and he observes in another place 
that they must " redouble their efforts 
to procure universal observation of the 
rules adopted by the congress, and 
which arc also the rules of the church 
and of common sense.** Let us hasten 
to imitate this example of zeal for the 
glory of God's house and for the de- 
cency and dignity of divine worship. 
If we have not many original com- 
posers, we have, at any rate, several 
good judges among our organists and 
directors of choirs. Their united opi- 
nion would have a powerful infinence 
in bringing about, what we do not fear 
to say is greatly needed, a thorough 
reformation in our church music. 

In works of charity we have done 
a great deal already — enough, it may 
be, to hide a multitude of sins ; but 
charity is never content with what it 
has done, nor will the objects ,of its 
care ever be wanting. ** The poor ye 
have always with you," said our Lord. 
Thpy take his place in our midst, 
and by their helplessnoss and suffer- 
ing soften our selfish hearts, and win 
from us those things in the inor- 
dinate love of which we are too apt 



4M4. 



^' .4/. ^'^ - '*'/ 



to forj^et our true dcsHny. Men may 
give themselvea up with too great ar- 
dor to the pursuit of science and devo- 
tion to art, but charity has no danger- 
ous limits which we may not overpass. 
What we do for the poor we do for 
Grod, and no one can do too much for 
hinu Yet charity needs wisdom, de- 
mands thought, and profits by good 
counsel. So chat we see men instinc- 
tively band themselves together in as- 
sociations, that the ignorant, the suffer- 
ing, the tempted, and the sinful may be 
more wisely aided, and more speedily 
comforted. The religious orders of 
charity have their own special rules 
and organization, and know how to do 
their work well. But there are many 
forms of suffering and of corporal and 
spiritual destitution which they cannot 
reac'h, or which their rule of life pre- 
vents them from attending to. Enter- 
prises that can embrace these needy 
cases for charity in their scope must, 
the re lore, be cx)nducted more or less 
entirely by the laity. To be truly ef- 
fective, these enterprises need rules and 
organization, as much as an order of 
Sisters of Charity or of Mercy ; and 
or^nization demands cooperation, deli- 
beration, and union. The glorious so- 
ciety of St. Vincent de Paul is one of 
these, and its works are manifest. 
Millions of God's beloved poor will 
rise up at the last day to praise these 
devoted children of the church and call 
them blessed. But they catmot do all 
that is to be done. There is great need, 
especially in our larger cities and towns, 
of patronages, protectorates, associa- 
tions of young apprentices and work- 
men, and what are called in Europe 
" Catholic Circles," and with us ** Young 
Men's Institutes," which enable our 
Catholic youth particularly to enjoy 
honest recreation and amusement in 
honest society, and at the same time 
improve their minds and refine their 
manners. Such institutes have been 
already founded among us by several 
zealous pastors with the most signal 
success. Our Sunday-schools also have 
been of late much improved by the es- 
tablishment of Sunday-School UnionSy 



Catholic Congresses, 

which might be> exU^S^jl 



diocese in the country. To give a 
proper impetus to all these works of 
charity, to make their character and 
working known, and encourage their 
establishment throughout the country, 
would be one of the principal subjects 
to come up for consideration before a 
congress. 

We have shown enough reasons, we 
think, why such an assembly should be 
convened. Many persons have the 
matter at heart ; and we have perused 
with great pleasure some communica- 
tions on the subject which show a 
thoughtful appreciation of its great im- 
portance. We trust that what we have 
written may help to encourage them 
and others to give expression to their 
sentiments, and thus prepare the pub- 
lic mind, so that the whole body of our 
clergy and intelligent laity may be 
. ready to take an active part in it as 
soon as the proper authorities shall 
summon them to meet. A good pro- 
posal has been made, which merits con- 
sideration : that the meeting of a con- 
gress be made coincident with the as- 
sembling of the Greneral Council of the 
Society of St Vincent de Paul, which 
now does so much of the work of a 
congress in the matter of charity, and 
which brings together so many men of 
the right stamp from all portions of 
our vast country. This would enable 
the congress to profit by the fruits of 
their experience and influence in a de- 
partment where none are more compe- 
tent than they to give advice and aid. 

Our holy religion is making such 
rapid advances that there is an urgent 
call upon every Catholic to bestir him- 
self, and do all that lies in his power to 
aid and support the clergy in their 
herculean efforts to feed and comfort 
the flock of Christ. Converts are pour- 
ing in from all quarters, out of all 
classes of society. Many of them have 
been earnest laborers in their way iq 
the cause of religion and of charity. 
Let them not find us idle, neither must 
we allow them to be idle. Their in- 
fluence with their Protestant brethren 
is great, and we should give them the 



Impremont of Spain. 



448 



IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN. 



BT LADT HERBERT. 



GIBRALTAB AND CADIZ. 

The journey from Granada was, if 
possible, more wearying than before, 
for the constant heavy rains had re- 
duced the roads to a perfect Slough of 
Despond, in which the wretched mules 
perpetually sank and fell, and were 
flogged up again iu a way which, to a 
nature fond of animals, is the most in- 
supportable of physical miseries. Is 
there a greater suffering than that of 
witnessing cruelty and wrong which 
you are powerless to redress ] It was 
not till nearly eleven o'clock the fol- 
lowing day that our travellers found 
themselves once more in their old quar- 
ters on the Ahimeda of Malaga. By 
the kindness of the superior of the hos- 
pital, the usual nine o'clock mass had 
been postponed till the arrival of the 
diligence : and very joyfully did one of 
the party afterwaids take her old place 
at the refectory of the commuoity, 
whose loving welcome made her forget 
that she was still in a strange land. 
The following three or four days were 
spent almost entirely in making pre- 
parations for their journey to Gibral- 
tar, via Ronda,that eagle's nest, perch- 
ed Qn two separate rocks, divided by a 
rapid torrent, but united by a pictu- 
resque bridge, which crowns the range 
of mountains forming the limits of the 
kingdom of Granada. The accounts 
of the mountain-path were not encou- 
raging; but to those who had ridden 
for four months through the Holy 
Land, no track, however rugged and 
precipitous, offered any terrors. But 
when the time came, to their intense dis- 
appointment, the road was found to be 
impassable on the Gibraltar side, owing 
to the tremendous torrents, which the 
heavy rains had» swollen to a most un- 
usual extent. Two officers had at- 



tempted to swim their horses over, but 
in BO doing one of them was drowned ; 
so that there seemed no alternative but 
to give up their pleasant riding expe- 
dition, and, with it, the sight of that 
gem of the whole country which had 
been one of their main objects in re- 
turning to Malaga. Comforting them- 
selves, however, by the hope of going 
there later from Seville, our travellers 
took berths in the steamer CadiSy 
bound for Gibraltar ; and after a beau- 
tiful parting benediction at the little 
convent of the Nuns of the Assump- 
tion, they took leave of their many 
kind friends, and, at six o'clock, (ac- 
companied by Madame de Q and 
her brother to the water's edge,) step- 
ped on board the boat which was to 
convey them to their steamer. Their 
captain, however, proved faithless .as 
to time ; and it was not till morning 
that the cargo was all on board and 
the vessel under weigh for their des- 
tination. After a tedious and rough 
passage of nineteen hours, they round- 
ed at last the Europa Point, and found 
themselves a few minutes later landing 
on the Water Port quay of the famous 
rock. Of all places in Spain, Gibral- 
tar is the least interesting, except from 
the British and national point of view. 
Its houses, its people, its streets, its 
language, all are ol' a detestably moa- 
grel character* 

The weather, too, during our trav- 
ellers' stay, was essentially British, in- 
cessant pouring rain and fog alternating 
with gales so tremendous that twenty 
vessels went ashore in one day. Noth- 
ing was to be seen from the windows 
of the Club-House Hotel but mist and 
spray, or heard but the boom of the 
distress gun from the wrecking ships, 
answered by the more cheering cannon 
of the port But there is a bngfat side 



444 



Impressiom of Spain, 



to every picture : and one of the bright 
Bides of Gibraltar is to be found in its 
kind and hospitable governor and his 
wife, who, nobly kying aside all indul- 
gence in the lifelong sorrow which 
fiirnily events have causj.'d, devote 
themselves morning, noon, and night 
to the welfare and enjoyment of every 
one around them. Their hospitality is 
natural to their duties and position; 
but the kind consideration which ever 
anticipates the wishes of their guests, 
whether residents or, as our travellers 
were, birds of passage, here to-day and 
gone to-morrow, springs from a rarer 
and a purer source. 

Another object of interest to some 
of our party was the charitable institu- 
tions of the place. The white "cor- 
nettes" of the Sisters of Charity are not 
seen as joi ; but the sisters of the " Bon 
Secours" have supplied their place in 
nursing the sick and tending all the 
serious cases of every class in the gar- 
rison. Their value only became fully 
known at the late fearful outbreak of 
cholera, 1o which two of them fell vic- 
tims: but they seemed rather encou- 
raged than deterred by this fact. They 
live in a house half-way up the hill on 
the way to Eiuropa Point,which contains 
a certain number of old and incurable 
people and a few orphan children. They 
visit also the sick poor in their homes, 
and in the Civil Hospital, which is divi- 
ded, drolly enough, not into surgical and 
medical wards, but according to the 
religion of the patients ! one half be- 
ing C/atholic, the other Protestant, and 
small wards being reserved likewise 
for Jews and Moors. It is admirably 
managed, the patients are supplied with 
every necessary and well cared for by 
the kind-hearted superintendent. Dr. 

G . The ** Dames de Loretie" have 

a convent towards the Europa Point, 
where they board and educate between 
twenty and thirty young ladies. They 
have also a large day-school in the 
town for both rich and poor, the latter 
being below and the former above. 
The children seem well taught, and the 
poorer ones were remarkable for great 
I and cleanliness. The excel- 



lent and charming Catholic bishop, Dr. 
Seandella, vicar apostolic of Gibral- 
tar, has built a college for boys on the 
ground adjoining his palace, above the 
couvent, from whence the view is glori- 
ous ; the gardens are very extensive. 
This college, which was immensely 
needed in Gibraltar, is rapidly filling 
with students, and is about to be affili- 
ated to the London University. In 
the garden above, a chapel is being 
built to receive the Virgin of*' Europa,** 
whose image, broken and despoiled by 
the English in 1704, was carried over 
to Algeciras, and there concealed in 
the hermitage ; but has now been given 
back by Dou Eugonio Romero to the 
bishop, to be placed in this new and 
beautiful little sanctuary overlooking 
the Straits, where it will soon be once 
more exposed to the veneration of the 
faithful. The bishop has lately built 
another little church below the convent, 
dedicated to St. Joseph, but which, 
from some defect in the materials, has 
been a very expensive undertaking. 

It was very pleasant to see the sim- 
ple, hearty, manly devotion of the large 
body of Catholic soldiers in the garri- 
son, among whom his influence has had 
the happiest effect in checking every 
kind of dissatisfaction and drunken- 
ness. His personal influence has 
doubtless been greatly enhanced by his 
conduct during the choleni, when he 
devoted himself, with his clergy, to the 
sick and dying, taking regular turns 
with them in the administration of tlio 
Last Sacraments, and only claiming as 
his privilege that of being the one al- 
ways called up in the night, so that the 
others might get some rest. He has 
two little rooms adjoining the church, 
where he remains during the day, and 
receives any one who neeils his fatherly 
care. 

The Protestant bishop of Gibraltar, 
a very kind and benevolent man, re- 
sides at Malta, and has a cathedral 
near the governor's house, lately beau- 
tified by convict labor, and said to be 
well attended. It is the only Protest- 
ant church in Spain. • 

Of the sights of Gibraltar it is need- 



Impresstom of ^^poin. 



446 



less to speak. Our trayellers, in spite 
of the weather, which rarelj conde- 
scendcd to smile upon them, visited 
almost everything: the North Fort, 
Spanish Lines, nud Catalan Bay, one 
day ; Europa Point, with the cool sum- 
mer residence of the governor, (sadly 
in need of government repair,) and St. 
Michael's Cave, on the next ; and last, 
not least, the galleries and heights. 
From the signal tower the view is un- 
rivalled ; and the aloes, prickly pear, 
and geranium, springing out of every 
cleft in the rock, up which the road is 
beautifully and skilfully engineered, 
add to the enjoyment of the ride. The 
gentlemen of the party hunted in the 
cork woods when the weather would 
allow of it ; and the only " lion" unseeo 
by them were the monkeys, who reso- 
lutely kept in their caves or on the 
African side of the water during their 
stay at Gibraltar, The garden of the 
governor's palace is very enjoyable, 
and contains one of those wonderful 
dragon-trees of which the bark is said 
to bleed when an incision is made. 
The white anims grow like a weed in 
this country, and form most beautiful 
bouquets when mixed with scarlet ge- 
ranium and edged by their large, bright, 
shining green leaves. 

The time of our travellers was, how- 
ever, limited, es|)ecially as they wished 
to spend the Holy Week in Seville. 
So, after a ten days' stay, reluctantly 
giving up the kind offer of the port 
admiral to take them across to Africa, 
and contenting themselves with buying 
a few Tetuan ])Ots from the Moors at 
Gibraltar, they took their passages on 
board the *' London*' steamer for Ca- 
diz. 

By permission of the governor, they 
were allowed to pass through the gates 
after gun-fire, and got to the mole ; but 
there, from some mistake, no boat 
could be found to take them off to their 
vessel, and they had the pleasure of 
seeing it steam away out of the harbor 
without tliem, although their passages 
had been paid for, and, as ihey thought, 
secured. In despair, shut out of the 
town, where a state of siege, for fear 



of a surprise, is always rigorously 
maintaincKi by the English garrison, 
they at last bribed a little boat to take 
them to a Spanish vessel, the ^ Alio- 
gri," likewise bound for Cadiz, and 
which was advertised to start an hour 
later. In getting on board of her, 
however, they found she was a wretch- 
ed tub, heavily laden with paraffine, 
among other combustibles, and with no 
accommodation whatever for passen- 
gers. There was, lio.wever, no alter- 
native but going in her or remaining 
all night tossing about the harbor in 
their cockle-shell of a boat ; so they 
made up their minds to the least of the 
two evils, and a few minutes later saw 
them steaming rapidly out of the har- 
bor toward Cadiz. The younger por- 
tion of the party found a cabin in which 
they could lie down : the elder lay on 
the cordage of the deck, and ))rayed 
for a cessation of the recent fearful 
storms, the captain having quietly in- 
formed them that in the event of its 
coming on to blow again he must throw 
all their luggage overboard as well as 
a good deal of his cargo, as he was al- 
ready too heavily laden to be safe. 
However, the night was calm, though 
very cold, and the following morning 
saw them safely rounding the forts of 
Cadiz, and staring at its long, low 
shores. But then a new alarm seizcil 
them. The quarantine officers came 
on board with a horrible yellow flag, 
and talked big about the cholera hav- 
ing reappeared at Alexandria, and the 
consequent impossibility of their being 
able to produce a clean bill of healtli. 
The prospect of spending a week in 
that miserable vessel, or in the still 
more dismal lazaretto on the shore, • 
was anything but agreeable to our 
travellers. However, on the assurance 
of the captain that the only vessel ar- 
rived from Egypt before they lefl 
Gibraltar had been instantly put into 
quarantine by the governor, they v\ ere 
at last allowed to land in peace, and 
found very comfortable rooms at fihm- 
co's hotel, on the promenade, their win- 
dows and balconies looking on the sea. 
In the absence of the bishop, who 



Impressions 0/ Spain, 



was gone to Tetuan, Canoii L 
khidlj offered his services to ahow them 
the curiosities of the town, and took 
them first to the Capncliiii convent, 
tow converted hilo a mud house, in tbe 
i church adjoining which are two vei*y 
I fine MuriJIos : one, ** St* Francis re- 
ceiving the Stigmata/' which, for spir- 
I huah'ty of expression, is really unnval- 
[ led ; the other, ** The Marriage oK St. 
Catherine,** which was his la^t work, 
I and ia unfinished* The <;reni painter 
j fell from the scaffolding in 1 682, ami 
I died very soon after, at Seville, in con- 
[•equence of the internal injuries he 
had received. From this convent they 
proceeded to the cathedral, which is 
iiglv enough, but where the organ and 
linging were admirahle. The stalls in 
JilUeelioir, which are beautifully carved, 
lirere stolen from the Cartucha at Se- 
[ ville. There JB a spacious crypt under 
the high altar, with a curious flat roof, 
[unsupported by any arches or columns, 
[but at present it is bare and empty. 
I Their guide tlien took theiii to see tbe 
workhouse, or ** Alln^rgo dei Poveri,'* 
Ian enormous building* wliich h even 
I more admimbly managed than the one 
I at Madrid. It contains upwards of a 
[thousand inmatcB. Tlie boys are all 
[taught different trades^ and the girls 
(every kind of induBtnal and oeiMlle 
] Work, The dormitorieB and wa^shing 
(armngemenis are excellent ; and all 
[the walls being lined, up to a certain 
f height, with the iiivanable blue and 
[white ^ azulejos,'* or glazed tiles, gives 
la clean, bright ap[>earance to the 
ole. The dress ot the children was 
Blriking to English eyes, accus- 
tomed to the hideous work houjje livery 
at home. On Sundays they have a 
pretty and varied eoittume for botli 
boys and girls, and their little tastes 
are con*«iden?d in every way* They 
have a large and handsome church, 
and also a chapel for the children's 
daily pmjers, which th*'y themaelvea 
keep nice and pretty, and ornament 
with Hoivers fmra their gar< lens. The 
whole thing h like a ** home*^ for these 
poor little orphans, and in painful eon- 
ttwot to the views which Protestant 



Etigland takes of c/iarlty m her work* 
houses, where poverty seems invaria* 
bly treated as a crime. The chrlJren 
are in a separate wing of the building 
— ^the girls above, the boys below. On 
the other side are the sick wards, and 
those for the old and incurable, where 
tbe same minute cane for their comtbrt 
and pleasure is observed in every ar- 
rangement. Nor is there that liomble 
prison atmosphere, and that locking of 
doors as one passes through earh wanl, 
which jars so painfully on one's heart 
in going through an English work* 
house. There are very few able bodied 
paupers ; and tho««c are employed in 
the work of the house and garden. 
There is a spacious ** patio," or court, 
with an open colonnade of marble 
columns, running round the quad raugle, 
the centre of which is filled with 
orange-trees and flowers. This beau- 
tiful palace was founded and endowed 
by the private benevolence of one man, 
who dedicated it to St. Helena, in 
memory of liIs mother, and placed in 
it the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent 
do Paul, who have the entire c^ire of 
the whole establishment. Tliere are 
fifteen sistei's, all Spautards, but affili* 
ated to tlie French ones, and with the 
porfnut of N, T. H. Pere Ktiennc in 
the place of honor in their *' parlour** 
and refectory. The superior is a moat 
remarkable woman, little and "contre' 
faiie/* but with a soul in her eyes 
which it ia impossible to tbrget. The 
institution is now in the hands of the 
government, who have wisely not at- 
tempted to make any alterations in tlie 
administration. There are upward of 
fifty of these Sisters of Cliarity in Ca- 
diz, they having the sole chai^re of tbe 
hospitals, schools, workhou-^es, etc; 
and the admirable cWanlinesa^ order^ 
and comfort in each which is the result, 
roust commend them to the intelligent 
approval of every visitor, even should 
he be unmoved by the evidence of that 
unpaid charity which, with ii^ soft 
finger-touch, stamps all their works 
with tbe very essence of divine love. 

The next day being Palm Suuday, 
our travellers went to service in the 



« 



< 



Impresnona of Spain, 



447 



rikthedral It was very fine, but ex« 
tremely fati^D^. There are no ch'airs 
or seats in Spanish charches. Every 
one kneels on the floor the whole time, 
not even rising for the Grospel or Creed. 
On one of the party attempting to stand 
up at the long Gospel of the Passion^ 
she was somewhat indignantly pulled 
down again by her neighbors. During 
the sermon, the Spanish women have 
a peculiar way of sitting on their heels 
— a process which they learn from child- 
hood, but which to strangers is an al- 
most intolerable penance. Here, as 
everywhere in Spain, the hideous fash- 
ion of bonnets or hats was nnknown, 
and the universal black mantilla, with 
its graceful folds and modest covering 
of the face, and the absence of all colors 
to distract attention in the house of Grod, 
made our English ladies sigh more 
eagerly than ever for a similar reverent 
and decent fashion to be adopted at 
liome. On returning for the vesper 
service in the afternoon, a beautiful, 
and, to them, novel, custom was observ- 
ed. At the singing of the ^Vexilla 
Regis," the canons, in long black robes, 
knelt prostrate in a semicircle before 
the Uigh altar, and were covered by a 
black Hag with a red cross. This they 
saw repeated daily during the Passion 
Week services at Seville. In the eve- 
ning there was a magnificent bene- 
diction and processional service round 
the cloisters of the church called ^ Delle 
Scalze." It was impossible to imagine 
anything more picturesque than the 
multitude kneeling in the open ^ patio,'* 
or court, shaded by orange-trees, and 
full of beautiful flowers, while round 
the arches swept the gorgeous proces- 
sion carrying the Host, the choir and 
people singing alternate verses of the 
^ Lauda Sion," the curling smoke of the 
incense reflecting prismatic colors in 
the bright sunshine, and the whole pro- 
cession finally disappearing in the som* 
bre, dark old church, of which the cen- 
tre doors had been thrown wide open 
to receive it. One longed only for 
Roberts's paint-brush to depict the 
scene. Returning to their hotel, our 
party found the Alameda gay with 



K' 



holiday folk, and full of the ladies 
whose beauty and charm have been 
the pride of Cadiz for so many gener- 
ations. Do not let our readers think 
it invidious if we venture on the opin- 
ion that their beautiful and becoming 
dress has a great deal to do with this, 
just as, in the East, every turbaned 
Turk or bumoused Arab would make 
a perfect picture. Dress your Orien- 
tal in one of Poole's best-fitting coats 
and trousers, and give him a chimney- 
it hat, and where would be his beauty ? 
the same way, it^ — ^which good taste 
forefend — the Spanish ladies come to 
imagine that a bonnet stuck on the 
back of the bead, and every color in 
the rainbow, is prettier than the flow- 
ing black robe and softly folded lace 
mantilla, shading modestly their bright 
dark eyes and hair, they will find^ to 
their cost, that their charm has vanished 
for ever. 

Nothing more remained to be seen 
or done in Cadiz but to purchase some 
of the beautiful mats which are its 
great industry, and which are made of 
a flat reed or " junco," growing in the 
neighborhood ; and these the kind and 
good-natured English consul undertook 
to forward to them, when ready, to 
England. 

SKVILLB. 

Armed with sundry letters of intro- 
duction sent them from Madrid, our 
travellers started by early train for 
Seville, the amiable Canon L hav- 
ing given them a five o'clock mass be- 
fore starting, in his interesting old cir- 
cular church dedicated to S. Filippo 
Neri, he being one of the Oratorians^ 
They passed by Xeres, famous for its 
sherry cellars, called ^ bodegas,^ sap- 
plying more wine to England than to all 
the rest of the world put together, and for 
its Carthusian convent, once remarka- 
ble for its Zurbaran pictures, the greater 
portion of which have now followed the 
sherry to the British Isles; then by 
Alcalk, noted for its delicious bread, 
with which it supplies the whole of 
Seville ; for its Moorish castle and beau- 
tiful river Aira, the waters of which. 



448 



Impreishm of Spam. 



after flowing round the walls of the lit- 
tle town, are carried by an aqueduct 
to Seville ; and so on and on, through 
orange and olive groves, and wheat 
plains, and vineyards, till the train 
brought them bj mid-day to the won- 
derful and beautiful city whicii had 
been the main object of their Spanish 
tour. 

The saying is strictly true : 

QuieD no ha riaio ScTilla, 
Mo ba visto maraTlUa. 

Scarcely had they set foot in their 
comfortable hotel, the ^ Fonda de Lon- 
dres," when an obliging aide-de-camp 
of the Spanish general came to tell 
them that, if they wanted to see the 
Alcazar, they must go with him at once, 
as the infanta, who had married tlie 
sister of the king's consort, was expect- 
ed with his wife to occupy the palace 
that evening, when it would naturally 
be closed to visitors. Dusty, dirty, and 
hot as they were, therefore, tliey at 
once sallied forth with their kind cice- 
rone and the English consul for this 
fairy palace of the Moors. Entering 
by the Plaza del Triunfo, under un 
arched gateway, where hangs, day and 
night, a lamp throwing its soft liorht on 
the beautiful little picture of the Vir«rin 
and Cliikl, they came into a long court, 
in the midst of wliieh are oraiij|;e-tree6 
and fountains, and this again led thcin 
by a side door into the inner court or 
" patio '' of the palace. 

Like tlie Alliambra, it is an exquisite 
succession of delicate columns, with 
beautifully carved capitals, walls, and 
balconies, which look ns if worked in 
Mechlin lace; charmingly cool '' patids," 
with marble floors and fountains; doors 
whose geometrical patlenis daiy the 
patience of the painter; horsc-shorj 
arches, with edges fringed like guipure ; 
fretted ceilings, the arabesques of 
which are painted in the most har- 
monious colors, and tipped with gold ; 
lattices ever}' one of which seems 
to tell of a romance of beauty and of 
love: such are these moresque crea- 
tions, unrivalled in modem art, and 
before which our most beautiful nine- 



teenth century palaces sink into ( 
and' commonplace buildings. They 
are the realization of the descriptioiM 
in the ''Arabian Nights," and the ex- 
quisite delicacy of the work is not its 
sole chann. The proportions of every 
room, of every staircase, of eveiy 
door and window, are perfect: nothing 
offends the eye by being too short or 
too wide. In point of sound, also, they, 
as well as the Romans, knew the secret 
which our modem builders have lost; 
and in harmony of color, no ^ azulejos" 
of the present day can approach the 
beauty and brilliancy of the Moorish 
tints. Nor are historical romances 
wanting to enhance the interest of this 
wonderful place. In the bed-chamber 
of the king, Pedro the Cruel, are paint- 
ed three dead heads, and thereon hangs 
a tale of savage justice. The king 
overheard three of his judges combin- 
ing to give a false judgment in a cer> 
tain case about which they bad been 
bribed, and then quarrel about their 
respective shares of their ill-gotten 
spoils. He suddenly appeared before 
them, and causing them to be instantly 
beheaded, placed their heads in tlie 
niches where now the paintings •per- 
petuate the remembrance of the pun- 
ishment. Less excusable was another 
tragedy enacted within these walls, in 
the assassination of the brother of the 
king, who had been invited as a guest, 
and came unsuspicious of treachery* 
A deep red stain of blood in the marble 
floor still marks the spot of the murder. 
AN'ell may Spain's mos( popular modern 
)X)et, the Duque de Rivas, in his beau- 
tiful poem, exclaim : 

" Ann en las losaa ae mlra 
I'ntitenaz munclia nscura; . . . 
M las eilatles la llinpian 1 . . . 
Sanirre ! Mngre ! Oh clelo^ ! coantoi, 
Sin hul>er qu« lo ct, la \utHn I **' 

The gardens adjoining the palace 
are quaintly beautiful, the borders 
edged with myrtle and box, cat low 
and thick, with terraces and foimtains, 
and kiosks, and, ^ surprises " of ^ jetl 

♦ " One still sees on the pavement a dark spot— 'ttt 
lap«e uf ap.-s Un* not effaced it ! lUood * Mood ! 
lleavvti : iiow iiiuoy truad it under foot without li 
ing It I " 



Impressiani of Spain* 



r and arched walls festooned 
beautiful lianginj^ creepers, and 
xe *' of oriental vegetation. On 
ide are the white marble baths, 
ind sombre, where the beautiftil 
i de PadiUa forgot the heat and 
of the Seville sun. It was the 
n of the courtiers in her day to 
the water in which the ladies had 
ti. Pedro the Cruel reproached 
f his knights for not complying 
this custom. " Sire," he replied, 
lould fear lest, having tasted the 
, I should covet the bird ! " 
e Alcazar formerly extended far 
d its present limits ; but the ruin- 
rers by the water-side are all that 
•emain to mark the course of the 
alls. 

r travellers could not resist one 
through the matchless cathedral 
;ir way home ; but reserved their 
isit to that and to the Giralda till 
llowing day. The kind R4»gente 
Audicncia and his wife, to whom 
lad brought letters of introduc- 
aime to them in the evening, and 
red various expeditions for the 
ig week, 
rly the next morning the Countess 

- de R came to fetch one of 

irty to the church of S. Felipe 
which, like all the churches of 
ratorians, is beautifully decorated, 
nost devout and revorent in its 
es. It is no easy matter to go on 
s in the streets of Seville. There 
ut two or three streets in which 
•iage can go at all, or attempt to 
and so to arrive at any given 
it is generally necessar}' to make 
rcuit of half the town. In addi- 
this, the so-called pavement, 
iir, pointed, and broken, shakes 
bone in one's body. To reach 
destination on this particular 
ng, our friends had to traverse 
iark"t plare, and make an im- 
i detour tlirongh various squares, 
igmeanwhilt^ by several very in- 
ing cliurc'lu^s ; but it was all so 
gain to the stranger, 
er mass, one ol the fathers, who 
English, kindly showed them the 
VOL. y — 29 



treasures of his chareh, and amongBt 
other things a beautiful silver-chased 
chapel behind the high altar, contain- 
ing some exquisite beniti^res, cmckflx- 
es, and relics. The wooden crucifixes 
of Spain, mostly carved by great men, 
such as Alonso Caiio or Montanes, 
are quite wondeiful in beauty and 
force of expression ; but they are very 
difiicult to obtain. They have a pret- 
ty custom in this church of offering two ■ 
turtle doves in a pure white basket 
when a child is devoted to the Blessed 
Virgin, which are left on the altar, as 
in the old days of the Purification, and . 
the white basket is aAerward laid up 
in the chapel. Afler breakfast the 
whole party arrived at the cathedral. 
How describe this wonderful building ! 
To say it is such and such a height, 
and such and such a width, that it has 
so many columns, and so many chapels, 
and so many doors, and so many win- 
dows. . . . Why, Murray has done 
that far better than any one else ! But 
to understand the cathedral at Seville, 
you must know it ; you must feel it ; 
you must live in it ; you must see it 
at the moment of the setting sun, 
when the light streams in golden show- 
ers through those wonderful painted 
glass windows, (those ehefs d^ceuvrt of 
Arnold of Flanders,) jewelling the 
curling smoke of the incense still 
hanging round the choir ; or else go 
there in the dim twilight, when the 
aisles seem to lengthen out into infinite 
space, and the only bright spot is from 
the ever-burning silver lamps which 
hang before the tabernacle. 

One of the party, certainly not given 
to admiration of either churches or 
Catholicity, exclaimed on leaving it : 
*^ It is a place where I could not help 
saying my prayers!" The good-na- 
tured Canon P showed them all * 
the treasures and pictures. They are 
too numerous to describe in detail; 
but some leave an indelible impres- 
sion. Among these is Mnrillo*s won- 
derful St. Antony, in the baptistery ; 
Alonso Caiio*s delicious little Virgin 
and Child, (called Niiestra Sefiora de 
Belcm;) MoraWs Dead Christ; a 



450 



Jmpressioni of Spain. 



Ytrj curious old Bysantine pictare of 
the Yirgin; and in the sacristy, the 
exqaisite portraits by Murillo of St. 
Leaoder, archbishop of Seville, the 
great reformer of the Spanish liturgy, 
whose bones rest in a silver coffin in the 
Capilla Real, and of St. Isadore, his 
brother, who succeeded him in the see, 
called the "Excellent Doctor," and 
whose body rests at Leon. Here also 
is a wondeiful "Descent from the 
Cross," by Campana, before which 
Murillo used to sit, and say ** he wait- 
ed till he was taken down ;" and here, 
by his own particular wish, the great 
painter is ouried. There is, besides, a 
fine portrait of St. Teresa ; and round 
the handsome chapter-room are a 
whole series of beautiful oval portraits 
by Murillo, and also one of his best 
" Conceptions." Amono: the treasures 
is the cross made from the gold which 
Christopher Columbus brought home 
from America, and presented to the 
king ; the keys of the town given up 
to Ferdinand by the Moorish king at 
the conquest of Seville ; two beautiful 
ostensorios of the fifteenth century, 
covered with precious stones and mag- 
nificent pearls ; beautiful Cinquecento 
reliquaries presented by different popes ; 
finely illuminated missals in admirable 
preservation; an exquisitely carved 
ivory crucifix ; wonderful vestments, 
heavy with embniidery and seed- 
pearls ; the ci-own of King Ferdinand ; 
and last, not least, a magnificent taber- 
nacle altar- front, angels and candle- 
sticks, all in solid silver, beautiful in 
workmanship and design, used for 
Corpus Christi, and other solemn 
feasts of the Blessed Sacrament. One 
asks one's self very often :>* How came 
all these treasures to escape the rapa- 
city of the French spoilers V* 

The Koyal Chapel contains the body 
of St. Ferdinand, the pious conqueror 
of Seville, which town, as well as ('or- 
dova, he rescued from the hands of the 
Moors, after it had been in their pos- 
session five hundred and twenty-four 
years. This pious king, son to Al- 
phoose, king of Leon, bore witness by 
his conduct to the truth of his words 



on going into battle : <' Thoa, O Loid I 
who searchest the hearts of raeoy koow- 
est that I desire but thy glory, aod not 
mine.*' To his saint-like mother. Be- 
rangcTa, he owed all the good and holy 
impressions of his life. He helped to 
build the cathedral of Toledo, of whkh 
he laid the first stone, and, in the midst 
of the splendors of the court, led a 
most ascetic and penitential life. Se- 
ville surrendered to him in 1249, after 
a siege of sixteen months, on which oc- 
casion the Moorish general exclaimed 
that " only a saint who, by his justice 
and piety, had won heaven over to his 
interest, could have taken so strong a 
city with so small an army.*' By the 
archbishop's permission, the body of 
the saint was exposed for our travel- 
lers. It is in a magnificent silver 
shrine ; and the features still retain a 
remarkable resemblance to his por- 
traits. His banner, crown, and sword 
were likewise shown to them, and the 
little ivory Virgin which he always 
fastened to the front of his saddle 
when going to battle. The cedar 
coffin still remains in which his body 
rested previous to its removal to this 
more gorgeous shrine. On the three 
days in the year when his body is ex- 
posed, the troops all attend the mass, 
and lower their arms and colors to the 
great Christian conqueror. A little 
staircase at the back of the tomb brings 
you down into a tiny crj'pt, where, ar- 
ranged on shelves, are the coffins of 
the beautiful Maria Padilla, of Pedro 
the Cruel, and of their two sons : lat- 
terly, those of the children of the Due 
and Duchesse de Montpensier have 
been added. Over the altar of the 
chapel above hangs a very curious 
wooden statue of the Virgin, given to 
St. Ferdinand by the good king Louis 
of France. King Ferdinand adorned 
her with a crown of emeralds and a 
stomacher of diamonds, bi'longing to 
liis mother, on condition that they 
should never be removed from the 
image. 

The organs arc among the wonders 
of this cathedral, with their thousands 
of pipes, placed horizontally, in a fan- 



Impressioni of Spain. 



451 



like shape. The ^retablo** at the 
back of the high altar is a marvel of 
wood-carving; and the hundreds of 
lamps which burn before the different 
shrines are all of pure and massive sil- 
ver. One is tempted to ask : ** Was it 
by men and women like ourselves that 
cathedrals such as this were planned 
and built and furnished ?" The chap- 
ter who undertook it are said to have 
deprived themselves even of the neces- 
saries of life to erect a basilica worthy 
of the name ; and in this spirit of 
voluntary poverty and self-abnegation 
was it begun and completed. Never 
was there a moment when money was 
BO plentiful in England as now, yet 
where will a cathedral be found built 
since the fifteenth century ? 

At the west end lies Fernando, son 
of the great Christopher Columbus, 
who himself died at Valladolid, and is 
said to rest in the Havana. The raot^ 
to on the tomb is simple but touch- 
ing: 

▲ OmUIU 7 4 Leon, munflo nuero dl6 Colon. 

Over this stone, during holy week, 
is placed the ^ monumento," an enor- 
mous tabernacle, more than 100 feet 
high, which is erected to contain the 
sacred host on Holy Thursday : when 
lighted up, with the magnificent silver 
custodia, massive silver candlesticks, 
and a profusion of flowers and candles, 
it forms a ^ sepulchre" unequalled In 
the world for beauty and splendor. 

Passing at last under the Moorish 
arch toward the north-east end of the 
cathedral, our travellers found them* 
selves in a beautiful cloistered " patio," 
full of orange-trees in full blossom, 
with a magnificent fountain in the 
lentre. In one comer is the old stone 
(mlpit from which St. Vincent Ferrer, 
St John of Avila, and other saints 
preached to the people : an inscription 
records the fact. Over the beautiful 
door which leads into the cathedral 
hang various curious emblems : a horn, 
a crocodile, a rod, and a bit, said to re- 
present plenty, prudence, justice, and 
temperance. To the left is the stair- 
case leading to the Columbine library. 



given by Fernando, and containing 
some very interesting mss. of Chris- 
topher Columbus. One book is full 
of quotations, in his own handwritings 
from the Psalms and the Prophets, 
proving the existence of the New 
World ; another is a plan of the globe 
and of the zodiac drawn out by him. 
There is also a universal history, with 
copious notes, in the same bold, clear, 
fine handwriting ; and a series of his 
letters to the king, written in Latin. 
Above the bookshelves are a succession 
of curious portraits, including those of 
Christopher Columbus and his son 
Fernando, which were given by Louis 
Philippe to the library ; of Velasquez ; 
of Cardinal Mendoza; of S. Fernan- 
do, by Murillo ; and of our own Car- 
dinal Wiseman, who, a native of Se- 
ville, is held in the greatest love and 
veneration here. A touching little ac- 
count of his life and death has lately 
been published in Seville by the talent- 
ed Spanish author, Don Leon Car- 
bonero y Sol, with the appropriate 
heading, *^ Sicut vita finis ita." Our 
party were also shown the sword of 
Femand Gronsalvcs, a fine two-edged 
blade, which did good service in rescu- 
ing Seville from the Moors. 

Redescending the stairs, our travel- 
lers mounted the beautiful Moorish 
tower of the Oiralda, built in the 
twelfth century by Abu Yusuf Yacub, 
who was also the constructor of the 
bridge of boats across the Ouadalqui- 
ver. This tower forms the great fea- 
ture in every view of Seville, and is 
matchless both from its rich yellow and . 
red-brown color, its sunken Moorish 
decorations, and the extreme beauty of 
its proportions. It was originally 250* 
feet high, and built as a minaret, from 
whence the muezzin summoned the 
faithful to prayers in the mosque hard; 
by ; but Ferdinand Biaz added an- 
other 100 feet, and, fortunately, in per- 
fect harmony with the original design. 
He. girdled it with a motto from Pro- 
veros xviii. : ^ Nomen Domini fortis* 
sima turris.** 

The ascent is very easy, being by 
ramps sloping gently upward. The 



452 



Impressions of Spain. 



Giralda is under the special patronage 
of 8S. Jufltina and Rufina, daughters 
of a potter in the town, who suffered 
martyrdom in 804 for refusing to sell 
their vessels for the use of the heathen 
sacrifices. Sta. Justina expired on the 
rack, while Sta. Rufina was strangled. 
The figure which crowns the tower is 
that of Faith, and is in bronze, and 
beautifully carved. 

The bells are very fine in tone ; but 
what repays one for the ascent is the 
view, not only over the whole town and 
neighborhood, but over the whole body 
of the huge cathedral, with its forest of 
pinnacles and its wonderfully construct- 
ed rotif, which looks massive enough 
to outlast the world. The delicate 
Gothic balustrades are the home of 
a multitude of hawks, (the Falco tinun- 
cuhtdes,) who career round and round 
the beautiful tower, and are looked 
upon almost as sacred birds. 

The thing which strikes one most in 
the look of the town from hence is the 
absence of streets. From their exces- 
sive narrowness, they are invisible at 
this great height, and the houses seem 
all massed together, without any means 
of egress or ingress. The view of the 
setting sun from this tower is a thing 
never to be forgotten ; nor the effect 
of it lit up at night, when it seems to 
hang like a brilliant chandelier from 
the dark blue vault above. 

Tired as our travellers were, they 
could not resist one short visit that af- 
ternoon to the Museum, and to that 
wonderful little room below, which 
contains a few pictures only, but those 
few unrivalled in the world. 

Here, indeed, one sees wiiat Murillo 
could do. The *» St. Thomas of Vil- 
lanueva," giving alms to the beggar, 
(called by the painter himself his own 
picture ;) the *' St. Francis" embracing 
the crucified Saviour; the "St. An- 
tony,*' with a lily in adoration before 
the infant Jesus ; the " Nativity ;" the 
** San Felix de Cantalicia,'' holding 
the infant Saviour in his arms, whT^h 
the blessed Virgin is coming down to 
receive ; the *• SS. Rufina and Jus- 
tina ;" and last, not least, the Vii^gin, 



which earned him the title of '^El 
Pintor de las Concepciones." Each 
and all are matchless in taste, in ex- 
pression, in feeling ; above all, in de- 
votion. It is impossible to meditate 
on any one of these mysteries in oar 
blessed Lord's life without the recol- 
lection of one of these pictures rising 
up instantly in one's mind, as the 
purest embodiment of the love, or 
the adoration, or the compunction, 
which such meditations aix: meant to 
call tbrth; they are in themselves a 
prayer. 

In the evening one of the party went 
with the regent to call on the vene- 
rable cardinal archbishop, whose fine 
palace is exactly opposite the east fi out 
of the cathedral. It was very sad to 
wind up that fine staircase, and see 
him in that noble room, groping his 
way, holding on by the wall, for hje is 
quite blind. It is hoped, however, that 
an operation for cataract, which is con- 
templated, may be successful. He was 
most kind, and gave the English stran- 
ger a place in the choir of the cathe- 
dral for the processional services of the 
holy week and Easter — a great fii- 
vor, generally only accorded to royal- 
ty, and of which the lady did not fail 
to take advantage. M. Leon Carbo- 
nero y Sol, the author and clever edi- 
tor of the " Crux," paid them a visit 
that evening. By his energy and per- 
severance this monthly periodical has 
been started at Seville, which is an 
event in this non-literary country ; and 
he has written several works, both bio- 
graphical and devotional, which de- 
serve a wider reputation than thej 
have yet obtained. 

The following day, being Wednes- 
day in holy week, the whole party re- 
turned to the cathedral, to see the im- 
pressive and beautiful ceremony of the 
Rending of the White Veil, and the 
^ RoclxS being rent," at the moment 
when that passas^e is chanted in the 
Gospel of the Fusion. The effect 
was very fine ; and all the more 
from the sombre light of the cathe- 
dral, every window in which was shad- 
ed by black curtains, and every picture 



Itapresaions of Spain. 



45S 



and image shrouded in black.* At 
vespers, the canons, as at Cadiz, knelt 
pn>strate before the altar, and were 
covered with a black red-cross flag. 
At four o'clock our travellers went to 
the Audiencia, where the regent and 
his kind wife had given them all seats 
to see the processions. How are these 
to be described? They are certainly 
appreciated by the people themselres ; 
but they are not suited to English taste, 
especially in the glare of a Seville sun : 
and unless representations of the ter- 
rible and awful events connected with 
our Lord's passion be depicted with 
the skill of a great artist, they become 
simply intensely painful. The thing 
which was touching and beautiful was 
the orderly an*angement of the proces- 
sions themselves, and the way in which 
men of the highest rank, of royal blood, 
and of the noblest orders, did not hesi- 
tate to walk for hours through the 
dusty, crowded, burning streets for 
three successive days, with the sole 
motive of doing honor to their Lord, 
whose badge they wore. 

The processioas invariably ended by 
passing through the cathedral and stop- 
ping for some minutes in the open space 
between the high altar and the choir. 
The effect of the briUiant mass of 
light thrown by thousands of wax ta- 
pers, as the great unwieldy catafalque 
was borne through the profound dark- 
ness of the long aisles, was beautiful 
in the extreme; and representations 
which looked gaudy in the sunshine 
were mellowed and soflened by the 
contrast with the night. The best 
were " The Sacred Infancy," the 
" Bearing of the Cross," and the 
"Descent from the Cross." In all, 
the figures were the size of life, and 
these three were beautifully and na- 
turally designed. Less pleasing to^ 
English eye&, in spite of their won- 
derful splendor, were those of the 
blessed Virgin, decked out in gor- 
geous velvet robes, embroidered . in 
gold, and covered with jewels, with 



♦ P»ber uys rery beanUfWly : " PsMlon-Ude rdl% 
tht tece of t]i« eraciOz, only uak U ma/ bt mora Ti- 
TidinoarharU." 



lace pocket-handkerchiefs in the hand, 
and all the paraphernalia of a fine lady 
of the nineteenth century I It is con- 
trary to our purer taste, which thinks 
of her as represented in one of Ra- 
phaeFs chaste and modest pictures, 
with the simple robe and headdress 
of her land and people ; or else in the 
glistening white marble, chosen by our 
late beloved cardinal as the fittest ma- 
terial for a representation of her in his 
" Ex Voto," and which speaks of the 
spotless purity of her holy life. Leav- 
ing the house of the regent, the party 
made their way with difficulty thit>ugh 
the dense crowd to the cathedral, 
where the Tenebras began, followed 
by the Miserere, beautifully and 
touchingly sung, without any organ 
accompaniments, at the high altar. It 
was as i^ the priests were pleading for 
their people's sins before the throne 
of God. The next day was spent al- 
together in these solemn holy Thurs- 
day services. Af^er early communion 
at the fine church of S. Maria Magda- 
lena, thronged, like all the rest, with 
devout worshippers, our party went to 
high mass at the cathedral, after which 
the blessed sacrament, according to 
custom, was carried to the gigantic 
" monumento." or sepulchre, before 
mentioned, erected at the west door 
of the cathedral, and dazzling with 
light. Then came the ^ Cena" in the 
archbishop's palace, at which his blind- 
ness prevented his officiating ; and 
then our travellers went round the 
town to visit the " sepulchres" in the 
different churches, one more beautiful 
than the other, and thronged with such 
kneeling crowds that going from one 
to the other was a matter of no small 
difficulty. The heat also increased 
the fatigue ; and here, as at Palermo, 
no carriages are allowed from holy 
Thursday till Easter day : every one 
must perform these pious pilgrimages 
on foot. At half past two, they went 
back to the cathedral for the washing 
of the feet. An eloquent sermon fol- 
lowed, and then began the Tenebne 
and the Miserere as before, with the 
entry of the proeesaioiiB between : the 



454 



ImprtuionB of Spam* 



wLole lasted till balf-past eleven at 
night. 

Good Friday was ns solemn as the 
same day is at Rome or at Jerusalem. 
The adoration of the cross in the cathe- 
dral was very fine : but women were 
not allowed to kiss it as in the Holy 
City. After that was over, some of 
the party, by the kind invitation of the 
Due and Duchesse de Montpensier, 
went to their private chapel, at St. 
Elmo, for the "Tre Ore d'Agonie," 
being from twelve to three o'clock, or 
the hours when our Saviour hung upon 
the cross. It was a most striking and 
Impressive service. The beautiful 
chapel was entirely hung with black, 
and pitch dark. On entering, it was 
impossible to sec one's way among the 
kneeling figures on the floor, all, of 
course, in deep mourning. .The sole 
light was very powerfully thrown on 
a most beautiful picture of the cruci- 
fixion, in which the figures were the 
size of life. The sermon, or ratiier 
meditation on the seveu words of our 
Lord on the crass, was prca(ihed by 
the superior of the oratory of S. Felippo 
Keri, a man of great eloquence arid 
personal hoh'ness. It would be impos- 
sible to exaggerate the beauty and 
pathos of two of these meditations ; the 
one on the charity of our blessed Lord, 
the other on his desolation. A long 
low sob burst from the hearts of his 
hearers at the conclusion of the latter. 
The wailing minor music between was 
equally beautiful and appropriate ; it 
was as the lament of the angels over 
the lost, in spite of the tremendous sa- 
crifice 1 At half-past three, the party 
returned to the cathedral, where the 
services lasted till nine in the evening, 
and then came home in the state of 
mind and feeling so wonderfully re- 
presented by De la Roche, in the last 
portion of his '* Good Friday" picture. 
Beautifully does Fabcr exclaim : " The 
hearts of the sauits, like sea-shells, 
murmur of the })as8ion evermore." 

The holy Saturday functions began 
9oon after five the next morning, and 
were as admirably conducted as all 
the rest. Immense praise was duo to 



the ^maestro de ecremonjasy" who 
had arranged services so varied and 
so complicated with such perfect or- 
der and precision : and the conduct 
of the black-veiled kneeling multitude 
throughout was equally adm^nri)le; 
one and all seemed absorbed by the 
devotions of the time and season. 

That evening, the Vigil of Easter 
was spent in the cathedral by some of 
our party in much the same manner 
as they had done on a preceding one 
in the Iloly City two years I ufora 
The night was lovely. The moon wss 
streaming through the cloisters on the 
orange-trees of the beautiful ** patio," 
across which the Giralda threw a deep 
sharp shadow, the silver light catching 
the tips of the ai*chcs, and shining 
with almost startling brightness on the 
'' Pieta" in the little wayside chapel 
at the south entrance of the court. 
All spoke of beauty, and of peace, 
and of rest, and of stillness, and of 
the majesty of God. Inside the church 
were groups of black or veiled figures, 
mostly women, (were not women the 
first at the sepulchre ?) kneeling be- 
fore the tabernacle, or by the litde 
lamps burning here and there in the 
side chapels. Each heart was pour- 
ing forth its secret burden of sorrow or 
of sin into the sacred heart which had 
been so hitcly pierced to receive it 
At two in the morning matins began, 
'^ Huec dies quam fecit Dominus ;''and 
after matins a magnificent Te Deum, 
pealed forth by those gigantic organs, 
and sung by the whole strengUi of the 
choir and by the whole body of voices 
of the crowd, which by that time had 
filled every available kneeling space 
in the vast cathedral. Then came 
a procession ; all the choristers in 
red cassocks, with white cottas and 
little gold diadems. High mass fol- 
lowed, and then low masses at all 
the side altars, with hundreds of com- 
municants, and the Russian salutation 
of " Christ is risen !" on every tongue. 
It was ^ a night to be remembered,** 
as indeed was all this holy week : and 
now people seemed too happy to speak; 
joy says short words and faw < 



ImpresMons of Spain. 



465 



Many have asked : '^ Is it equal to Je- 
rusalem or Rome ?" In point of ser- 
vices, *' Yes ;" in point of interest, 
*• No ;" for the presence of the Holy 
Father in the one place, and the vi- 
vidness of recollection which the actual 
scenes of our blessed Lord's passion 
inspires in the other, must ever make 
the holy and eternal cities things apart 
and sacred from all besides. But no- 
where else can " fonctions" be seen in 
such perfection or with such solemnity 
as at Sevillo. Everything is reverent- 
ly and well done, and nothing has 
changed in the ceremonial for the last 
three hundred years. 

A domestic sorrow had closed the 
palace of the Due and Duchesse de 
Montpensier as far as their receptions 
were concerned ; but they kindly gave 
our party pei-mission to see both house 
and gardens, which well deserve a 
visit. The palace itself reminded 
them a little of the Due d'Aumale's 
at Twickenham : not in point of ar- 
chitecture, but in its beautiful and in- 
teresting contents ; in its choice collec- 
tions of pictures, and books, and works 
of art, and in the general tone which 
pervaded the whole. There are two 
exquisite Murillos ; a "St. Joseph" 
and a ** Holy Family ;" a " Divino 
Morales ;' a " Pietk f some beautiful 
" Zurbarans ;" and some very clever 
and characteristic sketches by Goya. 
They have some curious historical 
portraits also, and some very pretty 
modern pictures. The rooms and pas- 
sages abound in beautiful cabinets, 
rare china, sets of armor, African trap- 
pings, and oriental costumes. In the 
snug low rooms looking on the garden, 
and reminding one of Sion or of Chis- 
wick, there are little fountains in the 
centre of each, combining oriental 
luxury and freshness with E^i^pean 
comfort The gardens are delicious. 
They contain a magnificent specimen 
of the " palma regis," and quantities 
of rare and beautiful shrubs ; also an 
aviary of curious and scarce birds. 
You wander for ever through groves 
of orange, and palms, and ak>es, and 
under trellises covered with luxu- 



riant creepers and clustering roses, 
with a feeling of something like envy 
at the climate, which seems to produce 
everything with comparatively little 
trouble or culture. To be sure there 
is *'' le re vers de la medaiilc," when the 
scorching July sun has burnt up all this 
lovely vegetation. But the spring in 
the garden of St. Elmo is a thing to 
dream about. 

From this enjoyable palace our par- 
ty went on to visit '' Pilate's House," 
so called because built by Don £n« 
rique de Ribera, of the exact propor- 
tions of the original, in oommemoni- 
tion of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem 
in 1519. It is now the property of the 
Duque de Medina Sidonia. Passing 
into a cool '* patio," you see a black 
cross, marking the first of the stations 
of a very famous Via Crucis, which 
begins here and ends at the Cruz del 
Campo outside the town. There is a 
pretty little chapel opening out of the 
"^ patio," ornamented with Alhambra 
work, as is all the rest of this lovely 
litle moresque palace. It is a tho- 
rough bit of Damascus, with ita won- 
derful arabesqued ceilings, and lace- 
like carvings on the walls and stair* 
cases, and cloistered ^patios," and 
marble floors and fountains. Be- 
hind is a little garden full of palms, 
orange-trees, and roses in full flow- 
er, and, at the time our travellers 
saw it, carpeted with Neapolitan vio- 
lets ; quaint low hedges, as in the Al- 
cazar gardens, divided the beds, and 
broken sculpture lay here and there. 

One of the great treasures of Seville 
had yet been unvisitcd by our party, 
and that was the Lonja, formerly the 
Exchange, a noble work of Herrera's. 
It stands between the cathedral and 
the Alcazar, and is built ui the shape 
of a great quadrangle, each side being 
about two hundred feet wide. As- 
cending the fine marble staurcase, they 
came to the long *'sala'' containuig 
the famous ^Indian Archives,*^ that 
is, all the letters and papers conceror 
ing the discovery of South America. 
There are thousands of MS. letters, 
beautifijlly arranged and docketed} 



456 



Impressions of Spain. 



and among them the aatographs of 
Fernando Cortes, Pizarro, Ma«:c11an, 
Americo Vespuzio, (who could not 
write his own name, and signed with 
a mark,) Fra Bartolomeo de las Cazas, 
and many others. There is also the 
original bull of the pope, granting the 
new South American discoverios to 
the Spaniards; and another, defining 
the rights between the Spaniards and 
the Portuguese in the matter of the 
conquered lands. The librarian, a 
very intelligent and good-natured per- 
sonage, also showed them a curious 
list, sent home and signed by Fernan- 
do Cortes, of the silks, painted cala- 
bashes, feathers, and cot^tumes pre- 
sented by him to the king; and a 
quantity of autograph letters of Charles 
Vm Ferdinand and Isabella, and of 
Philip IV. Fernando Cortes died at 
Castiileja, on December 3, 1547, and 
the following day his body was trans- 
ported to the family vault of the 
I>uque de Medina Sidonia, in the 
monastery of San Isidoro del Campo. 
The Due de Montpensier has pur- 
chased the house, and made a collec- 
tion of everything belonging to the 
great discoverer, including his books, 
his letters, various objects of natural 
history, and some very curious por- 
traits, not only of Cortes himself, but 
of Christopher Columbus, Pizarro, 
Magellan, the Marques del Vallc, (of 
the Sicilian family of Monteleone,) 
Bemal Diaz, Velasquez, of the his- 
torian of the conquest of I^I^xico, Don 
Antonio Solis, and many others. 
. In the aflemoon, the IVlarques de 

P called for our travellers to 

take them to the uuivorsity, and to in- 
troduce them to the rector and to the 
librarian, whose name was the well-de- 
served one of Don Jose Bueno, a most 
clever and agreeable man, whose pui-e 
Castilian accent made his Sfianish per- 
fectly intelligible to his English visit- 
ors. He very good-naturedly under- 
took to show them all the most inte- 
resting Mss. himself, together with 
some beautiful missals, rare first edi- 
tions of various classical works, and 
soma yery clever etchings of Groya*8 



of bnll-fights and ladies — the latter of 
doubtful propriety. In the cbarcb be- 
longing to the university are some fine 
pictures by Roelas and Alonso Cafto, 
some beautiful carvings by Monfan^ 
and several ver}- fine monuments. In 
the rector's own room is a magnificent 
^ St. Jerome," by Lucas Kranach, the 
finest work of that artist that exists. 
There arc 1,200 students in this uni- 
versity, which rivals that of Salamxm- 
ca in importance. 

Taking leave of the kind librarian, 

the Marques de P went on to 

show them a private collection of pic- 
tures beIon«ring to the Marques Ces- 
sera. Amidst a quantity of rubbish 
were a magnificent ** Crucifixion,'* by 
Alonso Cafio ; a Crucifix, ])ainted on 
wood, by Murillo, for an infirmary, and 
concealed by a Francis'*an during the 
French occupation in 1812; a Zurbo- 
ran, with his own signature in the 
comer; acd, above all, a "Christ 
bound with the ( rown of Thoms,*" by 
Murillo, which is the gem of the whole 
coflection, and perfectly beautiful both 
in coloring and expression. 

Coming home, they wont to see the 
house to which Murillo was taken af- 
ter his accident at Cadiz, and where 
he finally died; aUo the site of his 
original burial, before his body waa 
removed to the cathedral where it now 
rests. 

But one of the principal channs of 
our travellers' i-esidence in Seville has 
not yet b<*en mentioned ; and that was 
tlieir acquaintance, through the kind 
Bishop ot' Aiitinoe, with Feman Ca- 
ballero. She may be called the Lady 
Georgiana FuUerion of Spain, in the 
sense of refinement of tiisle and catho- 
licity of feeling. But her works are 
less what are commonly called novels 
tlmn pictures of homo life in Sfwin, 
like llans Andereen's** Improvisatore,* 
or TourgeneflTs •* Scenes de la Vie en 
Kussie.'' 

This charming lady, by birth a Ger- 
man on the father's side, and by mar- 
riage connected with all the ** bluest 
blood" in Spain, lives in upartmenta 
given her by the queen in the palace 



Impressions of Spain. 



467 



of the Alcazar. Great trials and sor. 
rows have not dimmed the fire of' her 
genius or extinguished one spark of 
the lovinjr charity which extends itself 
to all that suffer. Her tenderness to- 
ward animals, unfortunately a rare vir- 
tue in Spain, is one of her marked 
characteristics. She has lately been 
8 1 riving to establish a society in Seville 
for the prevention of cruelty to animals, 
after the model of the London one, and 
oOen told one of our party that she 
never left her home without praying 
tliat she miri^ht not see or hear any ill- 
usage to God's creatures. She is no 
longer young, but still preserves traces 
of a beauty which in former years 
made her the admiration of the court. 
Her playfulness and wit, always tem- 
pered by a kind thoughtfulness for tho 
feelings of others, and her agreeable- 
ness in conversation, seem only to have 
increased with lengthened experience 
of people and things. Nothing was 
pleasanter than to sit in tho comer of 
lier little drawing-room, or, still better, 
in her tiny study, and hear her pour 
out anecdote after anecdote of Spanish 
life and Spanish peculiarities, especial- 
ly among the poor. But if one wish- 
ed to excite her, one had but to touch 
on questions regarding her faith and 
tlie so-called *' progress" of her coun- 
try. Then all her Andalusian blood 
would be roused, and she would de- 
claim for hours in no measured terms 
against the spoliation of the monaste- 
ries, those centres of education and ci- 
vilization in the villages and outlying 
districts ; against the introduction of 
schools without religion, and colleges 
without faith ; and the propagation of 
infidel opinions through the current 
literature of the day. 

Previous acquaintance with the peo- 
ple had already made some of our 
travellers aware of the justice of 
many of her remarks. Catholicism 
in Spain is not merely the religion of 
the people; %t is their life. It is so 
mixed up with their common expres- 
sions and daily habits, that, at first, 
there seems to a stranger almost an 
irreverence in their ways. It is not 



till yon get thoroughly at home, both 
with them and their language, that you 
begin to perceive that holy familiarity, 
if one may so speak, with onr divine 
Lord and his Mother which impreg- 
nates their lives and colors all their 
actions. Theirs is a world of traditions, 
which familiarity from the cradle have 
turned into faith, and for that faith 
they are ready to die. Ask a Span- 
ish peasant why she plants rosemary 
in her garden. She will directly tell 
you that it was on a rosemary-bush 
that the blessed Virgin hung our Sa- 
yiours clothes out to dry as a baby. 
Why will a Spaniard never shoot a 
swallow ? Because it was a swallow 
that tried to pluck the thorns out of 
the crown of Christ as he hung on the 
cross. Why does the owl no longer 
sing? Bt'cause he was by when onr 
Saviour expired, and since then his 
only cry is " Crux I crux !" Why are 
dogs so often called Melampo in Spain ? 
Because it was the name of the dog of 
the shepherds who worshipped at the 
manger at Bethlehem. What is the 
origin of the red rose ? A drop of the 
Saviour's blood fell on the white roses 
growing at the foot of the cross — and 
so on, for ever I Call it folly, super- 
stition — what you will You will ne- 
ver eradicate it from the heart of the 
people, for it is as theur flesh and blood, 
and their whole habits of thought, 
manners, and customs run in the same 
groove. They have, like the Italians, 
a wonderful talent for *• improvising*' 
both stories and songs ; but the same 
beautiful thread of tender piety runs 
through the whole. 

One day. Feman Caballero told 
them, an old beggar was sitting on the 
steps of the Alcazar: two or three 
children, tired of play, came and sat 
by hun, and asked him, child-like, for 
'' a story." He answered as follows : 
*^ There was once a hermit, who lived 
in a cave near the sea. He was a very 
good and charitable man, and he heard 
that in a village on the mountain above 
there was a very bad fever, and that 
no one would go and nurse the people 
for fear of infectioD. So np he toiled. 



458 



JmpressionM of jS^am. 



day afler day, to tend the Bick, and look 
af\er thoir wants. At last he began 
to get tired, and to think it would be 
far better if he were to move his her- 
mitage up the hilly and save himself 
the daily toil As he walked up one 
day, turning this idea over in his mind, 
he heard some one behind him saying : 
* One, two, three.' He looked round, 
and saw no one. lie walked on, and 
Again heard : * Four, five, six, seven.' 
Turning short round this time, he bo- 
held one in white and gliiatening rai- 
ment, who gently spoke as follows : * I 
am your guardian angel and am count- 
ing the steps which you take for Chrisfs 
poor,* " 

The children understood the drift of 
it as well a.s. you or I, reader ! and this 
is a sample of their daily talk. Their 
reverence for age is also a striking and 
touching characteristic. The poorest 
beggar is addressed by them as '' tio" or 
" tia," answering to our ** daddy" or 
" granny ;" and should one pass their 
cottage as they are sitting down to their 
daily meal, they always rise and offer 
him a place, and ask him to say grace 
for them, '* echar la benedicion." 
They are, indeed, a most lovable 
race, and their very pride increases 
one's respect for them. Often in their 
travels did one of the party lose her 
way, either in going to some distant 
church in the early morning, or in 
visiting the sick ; and often was she 
obliged to have recourse to her bad 
Spanish to be put in the right road. 
An invariable courtesy, and generally 
an insistence on accompanying her 
home, was the result. But if any 
money or fee were offered for the 
service, the indignant refusal, or, still 
worse, the hurt look which the veriest 
child would put on at what it consider- 
ed the hcMght of insult and unkindness, 
very soon cured her of renewing the 
attempt. 

Another touching trait in their cha- 
racter is their intense reverence for the 
blessed sacrament. In the great cere- 
monies of the church, or when it is 
passing down the street to a sick per- 
son, the same veneration is shown. 



One day, one of the English ladies wni^ 
buying some photographs in a shop, 
and the tradesman was explaining Co 
her the different prices and sises of 
each, when, all of a sudden, he stop- 
ped short, exckiming : *' Sua Maesti^ 
viene 1" and leaving the astonished 
lady at the counter, rushed out of his 
shop-door. She, thinking it was the 
royahies. who were then at the Alca- 
zar, went out too to look, when, to her 
pleasure and surprise, she saw the 
shopman and all the rest of the workL 
gentle and simple, kneeling reverently 
in the mud before the messenger of 
the Great King, who was bearing the 
host to a dying man. On the day 
when it' is carried processionally to 
the hospitals, (one of which is the first 
Sunday after Easter,) every window 
and balcony is "^ parata," or hung with 
red, as in Italy at the passage of the 
Holy Father ; every one throws flow- 
ers and bouquets on the baldachino, and 
that to such an extent that the choir- 
boys are forced to carry great clothes- 
baskets to receive them: the people 
declare that the very horses kneel! 
The feast of Corpus Christ! was un- 
fortunately not witnessed by our tra- 
vellers. Calderon, in his Autos Sa- 
cramentales, speaking of it, says : 

" Que en el gnin dia de Dlo?, 
Quien no estd luco, no e* cuenlo ! " 

Hero is indeed ** a voice from the 
land of faith/' The choir on the occa- 
sion dance before the host n dance so 
solemn, so suggestive, and so peculiar, 
that no one who has witnessed it can 
speak of it without emotion. Femao 
Caballero talked much also of the great 
purity of morals among the peasant r)'. 
Infanticide, that curse of England, is 
absolutely unknown in Spain ; whether 
from the number of foundling IiospiLils, 
or from what other reasons, we leave 
it to the political economists to discover. 
A well-known Spanish writer describes 
the women as having ** Corazones de- 
lect os, minas de amores/' and being 
*^ puros y Santos modclos de esposas j 
de modres.'' (Exceptional hearts, mines 
of love, and being pure and holy modeb 



Jmprtuion8 of Spain. 



460 



769 and mothers.) They are also 
erfully cleanly, both in their houses 
their persona. There are never 
»ad smells in the streets or lodg- 
Fleas abound from the great 

but no other vermin is to be met 
either in the inns or beds, or in 
ig among the si^ poor, in all of 
I they form a marked contrast to 
talian peasantry, and, I fear we 
add, to the English ! 
leir courtesy toward one another 
) widely different from the ordina- 
jff, boorish intercourse of our own 
people ; and the very refusal to a 
T, ** Perdone, Usted, por Dios, her- 
! " * speaks of the same gentle con- 
ition for the feelings of their neigh- 
irhich characterizes the racp, and 
ates from that divine charity which 
3 not only on their lips, but in their 
3. One peculiarity in their con- 
tion has not yet been alluded to, 
bat is their passion for proverbs. 

cannot frame a sentence without 
md they are mostly such as illus- 
the kindly, trustful, pious nature 
1 people. " Haz lo hien^ y no mi- 
juienJ" (Do good, and don't look 
lom.) " Quien no es agradecido, 

Hen nacido'* (He who is not 
;ou8 is not well bom.) ^Cosa 
lida solo en la otra vida.^* (The 
»f all things is only seen in the 
J life.) And so on ad infinitum, 

description of Seville would be 
lete without mention of the *'pa- 
'0 important a feature in every 
lusian house ; and no words can 

forglre me, for the lo?e of God, broUier 1 " 



bo so good for the purpose as those of 
Feman Caballero, which we translate 
almost literally from her ^ Familia de 
Alvareda f* 

" The house was spacious and scru- 
pulously clean ; on each side of the 
door was a bench of stone. In the 
porch hung a little lamp before the 
image of oar Lord, in a niche over 
tlie entrance, according to the Catho- 
lic custom of placing all things un- 
der holy protection. In the middle 
was the * patio,' a necessity to the 
Andalusian ; and in the centre of this 
spacioos conrt, an enormous orange- 
tree raised its leafy head from its ro- 
bust and clean trunk. For an infinity 
of generations bad this beautiful tree 
been a source of delight to the family. 
The women made tonic concoctions 
of its leaves, the daughters adorned 
themselves with its flowers, the boys 
cooled their blood with its fruits, the 
birds made their home in its boughs. 
The rooms opened out of the ' patio,' 
and borrowed their light from thence. 
This * patio ' was the centre of all — 
the 'home,' the place of gathering 
when the day's work was over. The 
orange-tree loaded the aur with its 
heavy perfume, and the waters of the 
fountain fell in soft showers on the 
marble basin, frmged with the delicate 
maiden hair fiem ; and the father, lean- 
ing against the tree, smoked his ' cigar- 
ro de papel;' and the mother sat at 
her work ; while the little ones played 
at her feet, the eldest resting hb head 
on a big dog stretched at full length 
on the cool marble slabs. All was 
still, and peacefal, and beautiful." 



400 Sir Sd^h d$ Bkme-MimUr. 



From Once a Week. 

Sm RALPH DE BLANC-MINSTER. 

THE VOW. 

Hush ! 'tis a tale of the elder time, 
Caaght from an old barbaric rhyme, 
How the fierce Sir Ralph of the hau«;htj hand 
Harnessed him for our Saviour's land ! 



'<Time trieth troth T thus the lady said, 
'* And a warrior must rest in Bertha's bed ; 
Three years let the severing seas divide,' 
And strike thou for Christ and thy trusting bride l** 



So he buckled on the beamy blade, 

That Graspar of Spanish Leon made, 

Whose hilted cross is the awful sign : 

It must bum for the Lord and his tarnished shrine I 



THE ADIEU. 

^ Now a long farewell I tall Stratton tower, 
Dark Bude I thy fatal sea : 
And God thee speed, in hall and bower, 
My manor of Bien-aime I 



" Thou, too, farewell I my chosen bride. 
Thou rose of Bou-tor land : 
Though all on earth were false beside, 
I trust thy plighted hand. 



^ Dark seas may swell, and tempests lower, 
And sur^ng billows foam ; 
The cresset of thy bridal bower 
Shall guide the wanderer home 1 

On ! for the cross I in Jcsu's land, 

"When Syrian armies flee. 
One thought shall thrill my lifted hand, 

I strike for God and thee V* 



Sir Balph de Blano-JfiMier. 461 

THE BATTLE. 

Hark ! how the brattling trumpets blare I 
Lo ! the red banoers flaunt the air 1 
And see ! his jjood sword girded on, 
The stern Sir Ralph to the war is gone I 

Hurrali I for the Syrian dastards flee : 
Charp^e I charge ! ye western chivahy I 
Sweet is the Rtrife for God's renown, 
The Cross is up and the Crescent down I 

The weary warrior seeks his tent : 
For the good Sir Ralph is pale and spent ; 
Five wounds he reaped in the field of fame^ 
Five in his blessed Master's name. 

The solemn leech looks sad and grim, 
As lie binds and soothes each gory limb ; 
And the girded priest must chant and pray, 
Lest the soul unhouseled pass away. 

THE TBEACHERT. 

A sound of horsehoofs on the sand ! 

And ha ! a pa<re from Coniish land. 
" Tidings," he said, as he bent the knee ; 
*' Tidings, my lord, from Bien-aime. 

" The owl shrieked thrice from the warder's tower : 
The crown-r. se withered in her bower: 
Thy good gray foal, at evening fed. 
Lay in the suurise stark and dead !" 

^ Dark omens three !" the sick man cried ; 
** Say on the woe thy looks betide." 
" Master! at l)old Sir Rupert's call, 
Thy Lady Bertha fled die haU T 

THE SCROLL. 

" Bring me," he said, ** that scribe of fame, 
Symeon el Siddokah his name ; 
With parchment skin, and pep in hand, 
I would devise my Cornish land ! 

** Seven goodly manors, fair and wide, 
Stretch fn)m the sea to Tamar-side, 
And Bien-aimc, my hall and bower, 
Nestles beneath tall Stratton tower I 



408 Sir Balph d$ Blane-MlntUf. 

^ All these I render to mj Ood I 
By seal and signet, knife and sod : 
I give and grant to church and poor, 
In franc ahnoigQ for evermore I 



"Choose ye seven men among the just, 
And bid them hold mj lands in trust, 
On Michael's mom and Mary's day 
To deal the dole and watch and pray ! 



" Then bear me, coldly, o*er the deep, 
'Mid my own people I would sleep : 
Their hearts shall melt, their prayers will breathe, 
Where he who loved them rests beneath. 



*^ Mould me in stone, as here I lie, 
My face upturned to Syria's sky ; 
Carve ye this good sword at my side, 
And write the legend, < True and tried V 



^ Let mass be said, and requiem sung ; 
And that sweet chime I loved be rung : 
Those sounds along the northern wall 
Shall thrill me like a trumpet-call !** 



Thus said he — and at set of sun 
The bold crusader s race was nu. 
Seek ye his ruined hall and bower? 
Then stand beneath tall Stratton lower ! 



THE MORT-HAiy. 

Now the demon watched for the warrior's soul 
'Mid the din of war where blood-streams roll ; 
Ho had waited long on the dabbled sand 
Ere the priest had cleansed the gory hand. 

Then as he heard the stately dole 
Wherewith Sir Ralph had soothed his soul. 
The unclean spirit turned away 
With a baffled glare of grim dismay. 



But when he caught those words of trust, 
That sevenfold choice among the just, 
<« Ho I ho V cried the fiend, with a mock at heaven, 
** I have lost bofc erne — I ihall win the seven T 



Oaeitie^s Ripacif SehumoHe. 



468 



GUETrflFS PAPACY SCHISMATIC/ 



This volame purports to be the 
translation of a late French work en- 
titled, "The Papacy Schismatic; or, 
Rome in her Relations with the Eastern 
Church — La Papauti Schismatique ; 
OH Rome dans ses Rapports avec tEg^ 
Use OrientaleJ^ Whj the translator 
or efJitorhas changed the title we know 
not, unless it has been done to disguise 
the real character of the work, and in- 
duce Catholics to buy it under the im- 
prpssion that it is written by a learned 
divine of their own communion. 

Whether equal liberty has been 
taken with the text throughout we are 
unable to say, for we have not had the 
patience to compare the translation 
with the original, except in a very few 
instances; but there js in the whole 
fHit up of the English work a lack of 
lionesty and frank dealing. On the 
title-page we are promised an Intro- 
duction by the Protestant Episcopal 
Bishop of Western New York, but in 
the book itself we find only the " Edi- 
tor's Preface** of a few pages. Even 
this preface lacks frankness, and seems 
intended to deceive. " The author of 
this work," writes the editor, ** is not a 
Protestant. He is a French divine 
reared in the communion of Rome, 
and devoted to her cause in purpose 
of heart and life." This gives the im- 
pression that the author is still a mem- 
ber, and a devoted member, of the 
communion of Rome, which is not the 
case. ** But his great learning having 
le<l him to conclusions contrary to those 
of the Jesuits, he fell under the ban ;^* 
that is, we suppose, was interdicted. 
Thii? carries on the same deception, 
making believe that he was interdicted 

• Tlie Papacy : Its Historic Origin «Dd Primltlv« 
R^I:itlons wi:h tho Eastern Churches. By the Abb^ 
(«uotU>tf, D.I). Translated flrom tlie French, and pre- 
faced by au original biographical notice of the author, 
with an Introduction by A. Olereland Coxe, Bishop 
of Wifsiern New York. New York : Carleton. IMT, 
pp.8cf8. 



because he rejected some of the con- 
clusions of the Jesuits, while he re- 
mained substantially orthodox and 
obedient to the church, a thing which 
could not have happened, unless he 
had impugned the Catholic faith, the 
authority, or discipline of the church in 
communion with the apostolic See of 
Rome. 

We read on: "Proscribed by the 
papacy, ... he accepts at last the 
logical consequences of his position, 
. . • receiving the communion in 
both kinds at the hand of the Greekt 
in the church of the Russian Embassy 
at Paris." Why not have said simply: 
The author of this work was rear^ in 
the communion of Rome, but, falling 
under censure for opinions emitted in 
his writinprs, he left that communion, or 
was cut off from it, and has now been 
received into the Russian Church, or 
the communion of the non-united 
Greeks, and has written this book to 
proTe that the communion that has re- 
ceived him is not, and the one in which 
he was reared is, schismatic? That 
would have told the simple truth ; but 
we forget, the editor is a poet, and ao- 
customed to deal in fiction. 

The editor, who has a rare genioa 
for embellishing the truth, tells us that 
^the biographical notice prefixed to 
the work . • gives assnrance of the 
author's ability to treat the subject of 
the papacy with the most intimate 
knowledge of its practical character." 
It does no such tlimg, but, on the con- 
trary, proves that he never was devot- 
ed in purpose and life to the comma* 
nion of Rome, and that even irom his 
boyhood he assnmed an attitude of real 
though covert hostility to the pa^MUsy. 
His first work was a history ot the 
church in France, the plan of which 
was conceived and formed while be 
was in the seminaryi and that work is 



464 



Ouettie^s Papacy SchismaUc. 



hardly less unfavorable to the papacy 
than the one before us. Its spirit is 
anti- Roman, anti-papal, full of venom 
against the popes, and he appears to 
have carried on his war against the 
papacy under the guise of Gallicanism, 
till even his Galiican bishop could tole- 
rate him no longer, and forbade him to 
say mass. 

His biographer gives a fuller in- 
sight into his character, perhaps, than 
he uitended. **From a very early 
age,** he says, "his mind seems to have 
revolted against the wearisome routine" 
of instruction prescribed for semina- 
rians, " and, in it^ ardent desire for know- 
ledge and its rapid acquisition, worked 
out of the prescribed limits . . . and 
read and studied in secret." That is, 
in plain Englbh, he was impatient of 
direction in his studies, revolted against 
making the necessary preparation to 
read and study with advantag»i, re- 
iectcd the prescribed course of studies, 
and followed his own taste or incli- 
nation in broaching questions that he 
lacked the previous knowledge and 
mental and spiritual discipline to 
broach with safety. There are ques- 
tions in great variety and of great im- 
portance which it is very necessary to 
study, but only in their place, and af- 
ter that very routine of studies pre- 
scribed by the seminary has be(»n suc- 
cessfully })ursued. Most of the er- 
rors hito which men fall arise from the 
attempt to solve questions without the 
necessary preparatory knowledge and 
discipline. The studies and dii^cipline 
of the college and the seminary may 
seem to impatient and inexperienced 
youth weai isome and unnecessary, but 
they are prescribed by wisdom and ex- 
perience, and he who has never sub- 
mitted to them or had their advantai^c 
feels the want of them through his 
whole life, to whatever degree of 
eminence he may have risen without 
them. It i< a great loss to any one 
not to have borne the yoke in his youth. 

It is clear from M. Guettce's bio- 
graphy that he never studied the papal 
question jls a friend to the papacy, and 
therefore he is do better able to treat 



it than if he had been brought up in 
Anglicanism or in the bosom of the 
Greek schism. He is not a man who 
has once finnly believed in the prima- 
cy of the Holy See, and by his study 
and great learning found himself re- 
luctantly forced to reject it ; but is one 
who, having fallen under tlic papal oen- 
sure, tries to vindicate himself by prov- 
ing that the pope who condemned him 
has no jurisdiction, and never received 
from God any authority to judge him. 
He is no unsuspected witness, is no 
impartial judge, for he judges in bis 
own cause. His condemnation pre- 
ceded his change of communion. 

The editor speaks of the gn^at learn- 
ing of the author, and says ^ he writes 
with science and precision, and with 
the pen of a man of genius." It umj 
be so, but we have not discovered it. 
Ills book wo have found very dull, 
and it has required all the effort we 
are capable of to read it through. To 
our undei*standing it is lacking in both 
science and precision. It is a book 
of details which are attached to no 
principles, and its arguments rest 
wholly on loose and inaccurate state- 
ments or bold assumptions. A work 
more deficient in real logic, or more 
glaringly sophistical, it has seldom 
been our hard fortune to meet with. 
As for learning, we certainly are not 
learned ourselves, but the author has 
told us nothing that we did not know 
before, and nothing more than may be 
found in any one of our Catholic trea- 
ti&(?s on the authority of the see of 
Peter and the Koman poutiif. All 
his objections to the papacy worth 
noticing may be found with their an- 
swci-s in The Primacy of the Apos- 
tolic See Vindicated, by the lamented 
Francis Patrick Ken rick, late arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, a work of mo Jest 
pretensions, but of a real merit diHicalt 
to exaggerate. 

Though M. Guet tee's book is far 
from bewilileiing us by its learning 
or overwhelming us by its logic, we 
yet find it no easy matter to ot>:npress 
an adequate reply to it within any 
reasonable compass. It is not a scien- 



Gu€ttee*g Papacy SchismaHc. 



465 



tific work. The author lays down no 
principles which he labors to establish 
and develop, but dwells on details, de- 
tached statements, assertions, and cri- 
ticisms, which cannot be replied to se- 
parately without extending the reply 
some two or three times the length of 
the work itself, for an objection can be 
made in far fewer words than it takes 
to refute it. The author writes with- 
out method, and seems never to have 
dreamed of classifying his proofs, and 
arranging all he has to say under ap- 
propriate heads. Indeed, he has no 
principles, and he adduces no proofs ; 
he only comments on the proofs of the 
papacy urged by our theologians, and 
endeavors to prove that they do not 
mean w^hat we say they do, or that 
they may be understood in a different 
sense. Hence, taking these up one 
after another, he is constantly saying 
the same things over and over again, 
with most tiresome repetition, which 
require an equally tiresome repetition 
in reply. Had the author taken the 
time, if he had the ability, to reduce 
his objections to order, and to their 
real value, a few pages would have suf- 
ficed !)otli to state and to refute them. 
Aft it is, we can only do the best we can 
within the limited space at our com- 
mand. 

The author professes to write from 
the point of view of a non united Greek, 
who has little quarrel with Rome, save 
on the single question of the papacy. 
He concedes in some sense the prima- 
cy of Peter, and that the bishop of 
Rome is the first bishop of the church, 
nay, that by ecclesiastical right he has 
the primiicy of jurisdiction, though 
not universal jurisdiction ; but denies 
that the Roman pontiff has the sove- 
reignty of the universal church by rfi- 
vine right. He says his study of the 
subject ha:? brought him to these con- 
clusions: "1. The bishop of Rome 
did not for eight centuries po.-^sess the 
autliorlty of divine right that he has 
since sought to exercise ; 2. The pre- 
tension of the bishop of Rome to the 
sovereignty of divine right over the 
whole church was the real cause of the 

VOL. V. — 80 



division," or schism between the East 
and the West. (P. 81.) 

These very propositions in the ori- 
ginal, to say nothing of the translation, 
show great lack of precision in the 
writer. He would have better ex- 
pressed his own meaning if ho had 
said : The bishop of Rome did not for 
eight centuries hold by divine right 
the authority he has since claimed, and 
the pretension of the bishop of Rome 
to the sovereignty of the whole church 
by divine right has been the real cause 
of the schism. We shall soon object 
to this word iovereignty, but for the 
moment let it pass. 

These two propositions the author 
undertakes to prove, and he attempts 
to prove them by showing or asserting 
that the proofs which our theologians 
allege from the Holy Scriptures, the 
fathers, and the councils, do not prove 
the primacy claimed by the bishop of 
Rome. This, if done, would be to the 
purpose if the question turned on ad- 
mitting the claims of the Roman pon- 
tiff, but by no means when the question 
turns on rejecting these claims and 
ousting the pope from his possession. 
The author must po further. It is not 
enough to show that our evidences of 
title are insufficient ; he must disprove 
the title itself, either by proving that 
no such title ever issued, or that it 
vests in an adverse claimant This, 
as we shall see, he utterly fails to da 
He sets up, properly speaking, no ad* 
verse claimant, and fails to prove that 
no such title ever issued. 

It suffices us, in reply, to plead pos- 
session. The pope is, and long has 
been, in possession by the acknow- 
ledgment of both East and West, and 
it is for the author to show reasons 
why he should be ousted, and, if those 
reasons do not necessarily invalidate 
his possessions, the pope is not obliged 
to show his titles. All he need reply is, 
Olxm possideo 

That the pope is in possession of all 
he claims is evident not only from the 
fact that he has from the earliest times 
exercised the primacy of jurisdiction 
claimed for him, bat from the cooncil 



AM 



Chiettie'n Papacy Schismatic. 



of Florence held in 1439. « We de- 
fine," saj the fathers of the council, 
** that the holy af>osto]ic see and the 
Roman pontiff hold the primacy in all 
the world, and that the Roman pontiff 
16 the succcs8orof bledsed Peter, prince 
of the a|)03tle8 and true vicar of Christ, 
and head of the whole church, the fa- 
ther and teacher of all Christians, and 
that to him is given in blessed Peter, 
by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power 
to feed, direct, and govern the uni ver- 
nal church ; et ipsi B. Petro pascendl, 
regendin et giibernandi pJenam potesta- 
ttm trculUam esse*' 

This definition was made by the 
universal church, for it was subscribed 
by the bishops of both the East and the 
West, and among the bishops of the 
East that acx^epted it were the patriarchs 
of Constantinople and Alexandria, and 
the metropolitans of Russia, with those 
of Nicasa, Trebizond, Lacedamon, and 
Mytilene. We know very well that 
the noti-united Greeks reje<!t this coun- 
cil, although the Eastern Church was 
more fully represented in it than the 
Western Church was in that at Nictea, 
the first of Constantinople, Epiiesus, or 
Chalcedon ; but it is for the non united 
Greeks to prove that, in rejecting it and 
refusing obedience to its decrees, tliey 
are not schismatic At any rate, the 
council is sufficient to prove that the 
pO|)e is in possession by the judgment 
of both East and West, and to throw 
the burden of proof on those who deny 
the papal authority and assert that the 
papacy is schismatic. 

Before producing his proofs, the au- 
thor examines the Holy Scriptures to 
ascertain ^ whether the pit?tensions of 
the bishop of Rome tf» a universal sove- 
reignty of the church have, as is allegcMl, 
any ground in the wonl of GoJ/' (P. 
81.) The translation here is im'.xact; it 
should bo: *• Whether the pretensions, 
etc., to t^ie universal sovereignty of the 
cluiroli have, a.-^ is alleged, tJifJr fountla- 
tion in the word of God." The author 
hiniselt' would liave expressed himself 
betitT if h« had written ** the sovereign- 
ty of the universal church,*' instead of 
•* universal sovereignty of the church." 



But the author mistakes the real ques- 
tion he has to consider. The real ques- 
tion for him is not whether the primacy 
we assert for the Roman pontiff has 
its ground in the written word, bat 
whether anything in the written word 
denies or contradicts it. The primacy 
may exist as a fact, and yet no reconi 
of it be made in the Scriptures. The 
constitution of the church is older thas 
any portion of the New Testament, and 
it is very conceivable that, as the 
church must know her own constitution, 
it was not thought necessary to give as 
account of it in the written word. The 
church holds the written word, but 
does not hold from it or undf^r it, Imt 
from the direct and immediate appoint- 
ment of Jesus C/hrist himself, and is in* 
conceivable without her constitution. 

The author makes another mistake^ 
in using the word sovereignty instead 
o\' primacy, Roman theologians assert 
the primacy, but not, in the ecclesiasti* 
cal order, the sovereignty of tbe Ro- 
man pontiff. Sovereignty is a political, 
not an ecclesiastical term ; it is, more- * 
over, exclusive, and it is not pretended 
that there is no authority in the church 
by divine right but that of the Roman 
pontiff. It is not pretended that bish- 
ops are simply his vicars or deputies. 
In feudal ti'nrs there may have been 
writers who n*garded him as suzerain, 
but we know of none that held him to be 
sovereign. Ho is indeed by some writ- 
ers, chiefly French, called sovereign 
pontiff, but only in the sense of suprems 
{X)ntiff, Pontifex maxi.nus. or summus 
pontifex, to in<licate that he is the high- 
est but not the exclusive authority in 
the church. The cofincil of Florence, 
on which we plant ourselves, defines 
him to be primate, not sovereign, and 
ascribes t(» him plenary authority to 
feed, dir»;ct, and govern the whole 
church, but does not exi^lude other and 
subordinate pontiffs, who, though they 
receive their sees fi*om him, yet uiihin 
them govern by a divim^ riirlit no l.ss 
immediate than his. The real and only 
sovereign of the church, in the pro|>ol 
sense of the term, is Jesus Christ him- 
self. The pope is his vicar, and as 



OuetUeU Papacy Sehumatic, 



467 



much bound by his law as the humblest 
Christian. lie is not ab«ve the law, nor 
is he its source, but is its chief minis- 
ter and supreme judge, and his legisla- 
tive power is restricted to such rescripts, 
edicts, or canons as he judges necessary 
to its proper administration. The sov- 
ereign makes the law, and the differ- 
ence, therefore, between the power of 
the sovereign and that claimed for the 
Roman pontiff is very obvious and w^ry 
great. Could the author, then, prove 
Irom the written word that the pope or 
the Holy See is not the universal sove- 
reign of the church, he would prove 
nothing to his purpose. Yet this, as 
we shall see, is all he docs prove.' 

The author pretends, p. 32, that the 
pajial authority, sovereignty he means, 
is condemned by the word of God. 
The assertion, understanding the papal 
authority as defined by the council of 
Florence, is to his purpose, if he proves 
it. What, then, are his proofs ? The 
Roman theologians, that is, Catholic 
theologians, say the church is founded 
on Peter, and cite in proof the words 
of our Lord, St. Matt. xvi. 18 : "I 
say unto thee that thou art Peter, and 
upon this rock will I build my church, 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." But this does not prove 
t^t Peter is the rock on which the 
church is founded. The church is not 
founded on Peter, or, if on Peter, in 
no other sense than it is on him and 
the other apostles. The rock on which 
the church is built is Jesus Christ, who 
is the only foundation of the church. 
St. Paul says, 1 Cor. iii. 11 : "Other 
foundation can no man lay than that 
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ 
himself." 

Thai Jesus Christ is the sole foun- 
dation of the church in the primary 
and absolute sense, nobody denies or 
questions, and we tiave asserted it in 
asserting that he is the real and only 
sovereign of the church ; but this does 
not exclude Peter from being its foun- 
dation in a secondary and vicarial 
sense, the only sense asserted by the 
roost thorough-going papists, as is evi- 
dent from what St. Paul writes to the 



Ephesians, ii. 20, as cited by the 
author : ^^ You are built on the founda- 
tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
Christ being himself the chief corner- 
stone." The principal, primary, ab- 
solute foundation is Christ, but the 
prophets and apostles are also the 
foundation on which the church, the 
mystic temple, is built. The author 
says, same page: "The prophets and 
apostles form the first layers of this 
mystic edifice. The faithful are raised 
on these foundations^ and form the 
edifice itself ; finally, Jesus Christ is 
the principal stone, the comer-stone, 
which gives solidity to the monument." 
This is very true, and we maintain, 
as well as he, that there is '^ no other 
foundation*' in the primary sense, •* no 
other principal comer-stone than Jesus 
Christ;" but he himself asserts, as 
does St. Paul, other " foundation'' in a 
secondary sense. So, though our Lord 
is the principal or first foundation in 
the sense in which Grod is the first 
cause of all creatures and their acts, 
yet nothing hinders Peter from being 
a secondary foundation, as creatures 
may be and are what philosophers 
terms second causes. 

But in this secondary sense, " all the 
apostles are the foundation, and the 
church is no lAore founded on Peter 
than on the rest of the apostles.'' Not 
founded on Peter to the exclusion of 
the other apostles certainly, but not 
founded on Peter as the prince of the 
apostles, or chief of the apostolic col* 
lege, does not appear, and it is never 
pretended that Peter excludes the 
other apostles. Our Lord gave, indeed, 
to Peter alone the keys of the kingdom 
o^' heaven, thereby constituting him his 
steward or the chief of his househol J ; 
but he gave to all authority to teach 
all nations all things whatsoever he had 
commanded them, the same power of 
binding and loosing that he had given to 
Peter, and promised to be with them 
as well as with him all days to the con- 
summation of the world. There is in 
this nothing that excludes or denies 
the primacy claimed for Peter, or that 
implies that our Lord, as the author 



468 



Oyettie^g Papacy Schismatic, 



says, merely "gave to Peter an im- 
portant ministry in his church." 

The author labors to refute the argu- 
ment drawn in favor of the primacy of 
Peter from the command of our Lord 
to Peter to ** confirm his brethren," 
and the thrice repeated command to 
'* feed his sheep ;'* but as we are not 
now seeking to prove the primacy, but 
simply repelling the arguments adduc- 
ed against it, wc pass it over. He 
attem[)ts to consti-uct an argument 
against the primacy of Peter from the 
words of our Lord to his disciples, St. 
Matt, xxiii. 8 : ♦' Be ye not called Rab- 
bi ; for one is your Master, and all you 
are brethren. And call none your father 
on earth ; for one is your Father, who is 
in heaven. Neither be ye called mas- 
ters ; for one is your master, Christ. 
He that is greatest among you shall 
be your servant." *' Christ, therefore," 
p. 48, " forbade the apostles to take, in 
relation to one another, the titles of 
master, doctor, or even father, or pope, 
which is the same thing." Why, then, 
does the author take the title of Abbe, 
which means father, or sufier his edi- 
tor to give him the title of Doctor of 
Divinity? His non-united Greek 
friends also come in for his censure ; 
tor they call their simple priests papcu 
or popes, that is, fathers; nay, if he 
construes the words of our Loi^ strict- 
ly, he must deny all ecclesiastical 
authority, and, indeed, all human go- 
vernment, and even forbid the son to 
call his sire father. This would prove 
a little too much for him a.s well as for 
us. 

The key to the meaning of our Lord 
is not difficult to discover. He com- 
mands bis disciples not to call any one 
master, teacher, or father, that is, not 
to recognize as binding on them any 
authority that does not come from God, 
and to remember that they are all 
brethren, and must obey God rather 
than men. God alone is sovereign, 
and we are bound to obey him, and 
no one else ; for, in obeying our pre- 
lates whom the Holy Ghost has set 
over us, it is him and him only, that 
we obey. He commands his disciples to 



suffer no man to call them 
for their autherity to teach or goven 
comes not from them, but from their 
Master who is in heaven, and therefore 
they are not to lord it over their l»ietb- 
ren, but to govern only so as to serve 
them. '^ Let him that is greatest among 
you be your servanL" Power is not 
for him who governs, but for them who 
are governed,, and he is greatest who 
best serves his brethren* The pope, Id 
reference to the admonition of oor 
Lord, and from the humility with 
which all power given to men should 
be held and exercised, calls himself 
" servant of servants." Th« words so 
understood — and they may be so un- 
derstood — convey no prohibition of the 
authority claimed for the Roman pon- 
tiff as the vicar of Christ, and father 
and teacher of all Christians, by divine 
authority, not by his own personal 
right. 

Here is all the author adduces from 
the Scriptures, that amounts to any 
thing, to prove ** that the papal autho- 
rity" is " condemned by the word of 
Grod/' and nothing in aU this condemns 
it in the sense defined by the council of 
Florence, which is all we have to show. 

From the Scriptures the author pass- 
es to tradition, and first to ** the views 
of the papal authority taken by the 
fathers of the first three centuries." 
He does not deny that our Lord treat- 
ed Peter with groat personal consider- 
ation, and thinks Peter may be regard- 
ed in relation to the other apostles as 
primus infer pares, the first among 
equals, but without jurisdiction; and 
he says, p. 48, " We can affirm that 
no father of the church has seen in 
the primacy of Peter any title to ju- 
risdiction or absolute authority in the 
church." But the first father he finds 
who, as he pretends, absolutely denies 
the primacy Catholics claim for Peter, 
and consequently for his successor, is 
St. C'Vprian. who seems to us very po- 
sitively to affirm it. 

Tile author has a theory, which he 
pretends is supfwrted by St. Cyprian, 
and which explains all the fiicts in the 
early ages which have been suppoaed 



Guettee^s Papacy Schismatic. 



469 



by RoraaD theologians to be favorable 
to their doctrine of the papacy. He 
does not bring it out very clearly or 
systematically, and we can collect it 
only fi-om scattered assertions. He 
denies that Peter had any authority 
not shared equally by the other apos- 
tles ; or that the bishop of Rome had 
or has by divine right any pre-emi- 
nence above any other bishop ; or that 
the church of Rome has any author- 
ity not possessed equally by the other 
churches that had apostles for their 
founders. He concedes that Peter 
and Paul founded the church of Rome, 
but denies that St. Peter was ever its 
bishop or bishop of any other parti- 
cular see. How, then, explain the many 
passages of the fathers of the first 
three centuries, which undeniably as- 
sert Peter as " the prince of the apos- 
tles," *' the chief of the apostolic col- 
lege," the superiority and authority of 
** the see of Peter," " the chair of Pe- 
ter." and recognize the jurisdiction 
actually exercised in all parts of the 
church by the bishop of Rome ? No 
man can read the early fathers, and 
deny ihat the church of Rome was re- 
garded as the church that " presides," 
as St. Ignatius calls it, as the root and 
matrix, as St. Cyprian says, of the 
church, as holding the pre-eminence 
over all other churches, with whose 
bishop it was necessary that all others 
shouKl a;iree or be in communion. The 
author does not deny it ; but Peter 
meant " the faith of Peter," " the chair 
of Peler meant the entire episcopate," 
which was one and held by all the 
bishops in solldo^ and the pre-eminence 
aseribed to the church of Rome was in 
consequence of li<^r ex tenor importance 
as the see of the capital of the empire. 
This is the author's tlieory, and he pre- 
tends that he finds it in the Treatise on 
the Unity of the Church, by St. Cy- 
prian. 

^* In fact," he says, p. 79, ** he (St. 
Cyprian) positively denies the prima 
cy of St. Pefef himself; he makes the 
apostle merely the tyf)e of unity which 
resided in the at)OStolic college as a 
whole, and by succession in the whole 



episcopal body, which he calls the See 
of Peter." " After mentioning the pow- 
ers promised to St. Peter, St. Cyprian 
remarks that Jesus Christ promised 
them to him alone, though they were 
given to alL * In order to show forth 
unity,' he says, ^ the Lord has wished 
that unity might draw its origin from 
one only.' *The other apostles cer- 
tainly were just what Peter was, hav- 
ing the same honor and power as he.' 
' All are shepherds, and the flock nou- 
rished by all the apostles together is 
one, in order that the church of Christ 
may appear in its unity.' " 

But to this explanation of St. Cy- 
prian there is a slight objection ; for we 
are not able to see from this how the 
unity of the apostolic college or of the 
church of Christ is shown forth, mani- 
fested, or made to appear, that is, ren- 
dered visible, which is the sense of St. 
Cyprian, or how it can bo said to draw 
the origin of unity from one when it 
only draws its origin from many con- 
jointly. St. Cyprian says our Lord, '' ut 
unitatem manifestaret, unam cathedram 
constituit, unitatis ejusdem originem 
ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate dis- 
posuit ;" that is, that our Lord estab- 
lished by his authority one chair, made 
the origin of unity begin from one, that 
the unity of the body might be mani- 
fested or shown forth. St. Cyprian 
evidently teaches that the unity of the 
church derives, as the author holds, 
from the unity of the episcopate, and 
the unity of the episcopate from the 
unity of the apostolic coUege; but that 
the unity of the apostolic college or apos- 
tolate may be manifested, and hence 
the unity of the church be shown forth, 
or rendered visible, our I-iord made 
its origin befnn from one, that is, Peter. 
All ihe ajwstles, indeed, had what Peter 
had, that is, the apostolate, partook of 
the same gift, honor, and power; but 
the beginning proceeded from unity, 
and the |)rimacy was given to Peter, 
that the church of Christ and the chair, 
the apost<>late, by succession the epis- 
copal body, if you will, may be sho'iVo 
to be one. All are pastors, and the 
flock, which ifl fed by all the apostlea 



470 



Guettie^s Papacy Schismatic 



m unanimity, is shown to be one, that 
the unity of the church of Christ may 
be demonstrated. " Hoc eraut utique 
et caeteri apostoli quod fiiit Petrus, 
pari oonsortio prsediti et honoris et po- 
testatis, sed exordium ab unitate pro- 
fiscatur ; et primatus Petro datur, ut 
una Christi ecclesia et cathedra una 
monstretur. Et pastores sunt omnes, et 
grex unus ostenditur, qui ab apostolis 
omnbuB unaniroi consensione pascatur, 
ut ecclesia Christi, una monstretur."* 

St. Cyprian endeavors to show not 
simply that the church is one and the 
episcopate also one, but that our Lord 
has 80 arranjred it that the unity of each 
may be made to appear and both be 
seen to Ikj one. The unity of the 
apastles, of the pastors, or of the 
church, regarded as a collective body, 
is invisible. How, then, if it does not 
arise from one, or if it has no visible 
centre and beginning in the visible or- 
der, is it to be made to appear ? St. 
Cyprian evidently holds that the uni- 
ty of the apostolic body estublislies tlie 
unity of the episcopal body, since he 
liolds the bishops to be the successors 
of the apostles ; and the unity of the 
episcopal body establishes the unity of 
the flock, which in union with the 
bo<ly each pastor feeds, and therefore 
the unity of the entire church of Christ. 
But he just as evidently holds that the 
apostolic unity in order to exist must 
begin from a central point, or have its 
centre and souice whence it proceeds, 
and radiates, so to speak, through the 
whole apostolic bo<iy, making of the 
apostolate not an aggregation, but a 

• Opp. CyprianI, Mljrn»;'s K lltion. Do Uultiito Kc 
elesla", pp. 4U^-.'i.x). The words pnmnfUM /Vfro 
datur^ are Trantliig in Humc mnnuxcripts, tmd ;ire 
Ifjecled by H:iluze jin«l some other* ns un interpola- 
ilun. Hnd .\rchl)iyihnp KcnrUk dues not cite tlieiu In 
bU Primacy, when they wimld have Iweii nuich to 
hit piirpo^i". It iif thcMi(;ht lh:it tiiey wrre orljjimilly 
a iiiMrKinal iioti*, and have crept intu tlie \^xi thruu^rh 
tome ignorant C')pyl>t ; but it is just a-* easy to siip- 
I»o5C that tliey were <>niitt«-d fnun tb»* text bv ►omt' 
careless cupyist, and placed In the mar;:in l>y Wiiy 
of correction, and .ift*'rwmd re:*t'»red t«» tiitlr pn.'i»er 
place In the tt-xt. When j-everal yearn ajfo we ex- 
AMilned the question with what ability we po<t^e9S 
we came to the eonclu^lon that tliey are genuine, or, 
at Ifaft, that tliere is no sullicient reason for re,(iird- 
lu}( them as spurious. They express what is oIjvIous- 
ly the sen^e uf St. Cyprian, and reeni to us to l>e 
liece«aarj to carry on and complete )iis arfrnmenk 
M<''erUicle»», we have made none of our reiisooing 
' Hipdnil H Gaett^ rest on their Kenoinencsa. 



body really one, with its own central 
source of life and authority ; an organic 
and not simply an organized body, 
for an organized body haA no real 
unity. Hence, he makes the unity 
start and radiate from one, as it must 
if unity at all. This one, this central 
point, he holds, is, by the ordination of 
the Lord, Peter. Of this there can be 
no doubt. 

As we understand St. Cyprian, 
whose treatise on the Unity of the 
Church is, perhaps, the profoundest 
and most philosophical ever written on 
that subject, the church is an organism 
with Jesus Christ himself for its invisi- 
ble and ultimate centre and source of 
life. But as the church is to deal with 
the world and operate in time and 
space, it must be visible as well as in- 
visible. Then the invisible mast be 
visibly expressed or represented. Bat 
this ciinnot be done unless there is t 
visible expression or representation in 
the exterior organic body of this inte- 
rior and invisible centre and 8oui*ce of 
unity, life, and authority, which our 
Lord himself is. To establish this 
exterior or visible representation, our 
Lord institutes the apostolic college, 
and throus:h that the episcopal body, 
through whom the whole flock becomea 
in nni'oM with their pastors, whoui*e, in 
union with the apostles, one organic 
body ; but oiily on condition of the 
unity of the apostolic college wiiioh 
unity must start from one, from a vibi- 
ble cenlre and source of unity. Hence, 
our Lord chose Peter as the central 
point of union tor the apostolic college, 
and Peter s ohair, the ** una cathedra," 
as the visible eeiilre of union for the 
episcopal bcnly, and through them of 
the whole chinch, so that the whole 
church in the apostolate, in the epis- 
copate, and in the flc^'k is shown to 
be one, rejiresented with the unity and 
authority it has in Jesus C hrisl. 

The trouble here with the au:hor*s 
theory is, not that it makes Pet(»r the 
sign and type of the unity or authority 
of the apostolic college, and the chair 
of Peter the type and figure, as be 
say 8, of the unity and authority of 



Guettie^s Papacy Schismaiie, 



471 



the episcopate, but that it does not do 
BO ; for it recognizes no visible apos* 
tolic or episcopal unity, since it recog- 
nizes no visible centre or soarce from 
which it originates ; and hence neither 
the a}>ostolate nor the episcopate, savet 
as Jesus Christ, is a unity, but an aggre- 
gation, as we have said, a collection, 
or at least, a sort of round robin. By 
denying the primacy or centre and 
beginninjr of unity to Peter and Peter's 
chair individually, it denies what St. 
Cyprian maintains was instituted to 
manifest or show forth unity. It do- 
uies both the manifestation of unity 
and external unity itself, both of which 
are strenuously insisted on by St. Cy- 
prian, who, indeed, says expressly in 
his letter to St. Cornelius, the Roman 
pontiff, that "the Church of Rome," 
that is, •• the chair of Peter," is the 
centre whence saoerdotal unity arose. 

The author says, p. 67, that " St. 
Cyprian was right in CAlling the 
Church of Rome the chair of Peter, 
the principal church, whence sacer- 
dotal unity emanated. But for all 
that, did he pretend that the bishop 
enjoyed authority by divine right? 
He believed it so little that, in his 
De Unitate Ecclesi®, he understands 
by the chair of Peter the entire epis- 
copate, regards St. Peter as the equal 
of the other apostles, denies his prima- 
cy, and makes him the simple type 
of the unity of the apostolic college." 
The Church of Rome " was the source 
of sacerdotal unity in this sense, that 
Peter was the sign and type of the 
unity of the apostolic college." St. 
Cyprian makes St. Peter, p. 79, 
"merely the type of the unity that 
resided in the ai>ostolic college as a 
whole, and, by succession, in the cpis- 
co[jal body, which he calls '* the see 
of Peter. ' " The see of Peter, in St 
Cyprian's idea, is the authority of the 
apostolic bofly, and, by succession, of 
the <'piscopal body. All the bishops 
had the same honor and the same au- 
tliority in all that relates to their or- 
der, as all the apostles had the same 
honor and authority as Peter." (Pp, 
79, 80.) 



Peter, then, is the sign and type of 
apostolic and episcopal unity, and 
" the chair of Peter," or " the see of 
Peter," is the sign and type of apos- 
tolic authority. But supposing this to 
be so, and Peter to have been in no 
respect distinguished from the other 
apostles, or to have held no peculiar 
position in the apostolic body, how 
came he to be regarded as the sign 
and type of apostolic unity, and his 
chair as the sign and type of apostolic 
authority] There is a logic in lan- 
guage as well as in the human mind 
of which it is the expression, and (here 
is a reason for every syiubohcal locu- 
tion that gains currency. If the fa- 
thers and the church had not held Peter 
to be the prince of the apostles and his 
see the centre and source of apostolic 
authority, would they or could thej 
have made his see or chair the symbol 
of apostolic authority, or Peter him- 
self the symbol, " the sign and type," 
of apostolic unity ? Why the see of 
Peter rather than that of Andrew, 
James, or John ? or Peter mther than 
any other apostle ? The fact, then, that 
St. Peter and his see or chair were 
taken as symbolic, the sisrn and type, 
the one of apostolic unity, and the 
other of apostolic authority, is a very 
conclusive proof that the primacy was 
given to him and his see by our Lord, 
and by succession to the holy apostolic 
see and the Roman pontiff, as the &- 
ther^ of Florence define and Roman 
theologians hold. 

Again, how could Peter be a sign 
and type of apostolic unity or his see 
the sign and type of apostolic authori- 
ty. if he, Peter, bad no relation, and his 
see none, to that authority not held 
eqnally by all the apostles and their 
sees ? In the church of God there 
are and can be no shams, no make- 
believes, no false signs or types, no 
unrealities, no calling things which 
arc not as if they were. Signs which 
signify nothing are not signs, and types 
which reprcsent nothing are simply no 
types at all. The real apostolic unity 
aud authority arc internal, invisible 
in Jesus Christ himselfi who, m the 



^2 



GuetUe^s Papacy SchUmatic. 



primary and absolute sense, as wo 
have seen, is the rock on which the 
church is founded, the sole basis of 
its solidity and permanence, the sole 
ground of its existence and fountain 
of its life, unity, and authority. Peter 
and Peter's see, if the sign and type 
of this invisible unity, must represent 
it or show it forth in the visible order. 
But how can Peter represent that unity, 
unless he is in the visible order its real 
centre and source, in which it begins 
and from which it emanates ? Or how 
can the see or chair of Peter be the 
sign and type of the invisible aposto- 
lic authority, unless it really be its 
source and centre in the visible or- 
der ? The external can represent the 
internal, the visible the invisible, only 
in so far as it copies or imitates it. In 
calling Peter the sign and type of apos- 
tolic unity, the author then concedes 
that Peter represents our Lord, and 
that he is, as the council of Florence 
defines, " the true vicar of Christ ;" and 
in making Peter's see the sign and type 
of apostolic authority, he makes it the 
real centre in the visible order of that au- 
thority, and consequently concedes the 
very points which he rejects, and un- 
dertakes to prove from St. Cyprian 
are only the unfounded pretensions of 
the bishop of Rome. 

That the primacy here unwittingly 
conceded by the author is not that ab- 
solute and isolated sovereignty which 
the author accuses Catholic theolo- 
gians of asserting for Peter and for the 
bishop of Rome as his successor, we 
readily admit, but we have already 
shown that such a sovereignty is not 
claimed. The pope is not the sove- 
reign, but the vicar or chief minister 
of the sovereign. He governs the 
church in apostolic unity, not as isolat- 
ed from the episcopal body, but as its 
real head or supreme chief. His au- 
thority is said to be loquens ex cai/iedra^ 
speaking from the seat of apostolic 
and episco[)al unity and authority. 
He is the chief or supreme pastor, not 
the only pastor, nor pastor at all re- 
garded as separate from the church. 
He is the visible head of the church 



united by a living union with the body; 
for it is as necessary to the head 
to be in living union with the body, as 
it is to the body to be in living union 
with the head. Neither can live and 
^perform its functions without the other; 
but the directing, controlling, or gov- 
erning power is in the head. St. Am- 
brose says, *' Wiiere Peter is, there is 
the church ;*' but he does not say Peter 
is tl)e church, nor does the pope say, 
*• L'Eglise, c'est- moi," lam the church. 
Succeeding to Peter as chief of the 
apostolic college, he is the chief or 
head of the church. The author's 
theory makes the church in the visible 
order as a whole, acephalous, headless, 
and therefore brainless. 

Tiie author bases his assertion that 
St. Cyprian denies the primacy of 
Peter on the fact that he says, ** All 
the Other apostles had what he had,* 
the same honor and the same power.' 
This is with Mr. Guettoe a capital 
point. His doctrine, so far as doctrine 
he has, is that the church has no visi- 
ble chief; that all the apostles had 
equal honor and authority; that all 
bishops as successors of the apostles 
are equal ; that one bishop has by di- 
vine right no pre-eminence above 
another ; and that, if one is more influ- 
ential than another, he owes it to his 
personal character or to the external 
importance of his see. And this he 
contends is the doctrine of St. Cyprian. 
But, if he had understood St. Cyprian's 
argument, he would have never done 
that great saint sucli flagrant injustice. 
St. Cyprian's argument is, as is evi- 
dent irom the passage we have cited 
at length, that, although all the ai)03- 
tles received the same girt, the same 
honor, and the same povvor, yet, for 
the sake of manifesting unity, our Lord 
constituted one chair from which unity 
should begin, and gave the primacy to 
Peter, that the unity of the apostolic 
or episcopal body and of the whole 
church of Christ might be shown. The 
author himself contends that the apos- 
tolate, and by succession the episco- 
pate, is one and indivisible, and held by 
the apostles or bishops in solida. Then, 



Ghieitee's Papacy Schismatic, 



478 



if all the other apostles had the apos- 
tolate, they must have liad precisely 
what Peter had, and if the other 
bishops have the episcopate at all. they 
must have precisely what the Roman 
pontiff has, yet without having another 
apostolate or another episcopate than 
that which they all equally receive and 
hold in its invisible unity, or anything 
in addition thereto. He may, neverthe- 
less, be the head or chief of the epis- 
copal body and the centre in wiiich 
e[)iscopal unity and authority in the 
visible order originate, and from which 
they radiate through the body, and 
from the bishops to their respective 
flocks, and bind them and the whole 
church together in one, which, as we 
understand it, is the precise doctrine 
of St. Cyprian, and certainly is the 
doctrine of the Roman and Catholic 
Church. 

The author, even if a learned man, 
docs not apiiear to be much of a philo- 
sopher or much of a theologian. There 
are depths in St. Cy[>rian's philosophy 
and tlieology which he seems unable 
to sound, and heights which are cer- 
tainly above his flight. He is, we 
shoull judge, utterly unaware of the 
real constitution of the church, the pro- 
found sijrnificance of the gospel, the 
vast reach of the Christian system, its 
relation to the universal system of 
creation, or the reasons in the very 
nature of things there are for its exist- 
ence, and for the existence and con- 
stitution of the church. All the works 
of the Creator are strictly logical, and 
together form but one dialectic whole. 
are but the expression of one divine 
Thought. Nothing can appear more 
petty or worchless than the author's 
shallow cavils to a man who has a lit- 
tle real theological science. 

The author cites the controversy oh 
the baptism of heretics, in proof that 
St Cyprian denied the jurisdiction of 
the bishop of Rome, or his authority 
to govern as supreme pontiff the whole 
church, but unsuccessfully. St. Cy- 
prian found the custom established in 
Ciirthage, as it was also in certain 
churches in Asia, to rebaptizc persons 



who had been baptized by heretics, 
and he insisted on observing the cus- 
tom. He complained, thei-efore, of St. 
Stephen, the Roman pontiff, who wrote 
to him to conform to tlie ancient and 
general custom of the churclL Whether 
he conformed or not is uncx^rtain, but 
there is no evidence that he denied the 
authority of the Roman pontiff, and 
he 'certainly did not break communion 
with bim, though he may have regard- 
ed his exercise of his authority in that 
particular case as oppressive and ty- 
ranical. It would seem from the letter 
of St. Finnilianus to St. Cyprian, if 
genuine, of which there is some doubt, 
as there is of several letters ascribed to 
Cyprian, and from the address of St, 
Cyprian to the last council he held on 
the subject, which Mr. Guettee cites at 
some length, that the question was re- 
garded as one of discipline, or as com- 
ing within the category of those mat- 
ters on which diversity of usage in 
different churches and countries is al- 
lowable or can be tolerated, and on 
which uniformity has never been ex- 
acted. He insisted not that all the 
world should conform to tiie custom he 
obser\'ed, but defended, as our bishops 
would to day, what he believed to bo 
the customary rights of his church or 
province. That he was wrong wo 
know, for the universal church has 
sustained the Roman pontiff. 

We do not think the author has been 
very happy in placing St. Cyprian on 
the stand against the primacy of the 
holy apostolic see and the Roman 
pontiff. The saint is a much better 
witness for us than for hin). 

The author, unable to deny the pre- 
ponderating influence of the Roman 
l>ontiff and his see in the government 
of the church, and the imi)ortance 
e very v; he re attached to being in com- 
munion with the bishop of Rome, seeks 
10 evade the force of the fact by attrib- 
uting it not to the belief in the primacy 
of the Ciiurch of Rome,but to the superi- 
or importance of the city of Ro e as the 
capital of the empire, as if the Catholic 
Church were merely a Roman Church, 
and not founded for the whole woi'ld. 



474 



Ouettees Papacy Schitmatk, 



We, indeed liear something of this when 
Constantinople, the New Rome,becamu 
the rival of Old Rome, and its bishop, on 
account of the civil and political impor- 
tance of the city, set up to be ojcumen- 
ical bishop, and claimed the first place 
after the bishop of Rome; but wo hear 
nothing of it during the first three centu- 
ries, and the author adduces nothing to 
justify his assumption. All the fathers, 
alike in the East and the West, attrib- 
ute the primacy held by the Church of 
Rome not to the importance of the city 
of Rome in the empire, but to tlie fact 
that she is " the church that presides," 
is "the principal" or governing 
"church," 18 "the see of Peter," holds 
the chair of Peter, prince of the apos- 
tles." is " the root and matrix of the 
Catholic Church," and that Peter 
"lives" and "speaks" in its bishops. 
Now, whatever oar learned author may 
say, we think these great fathers, some 
of whom were only one remove from 
the apostles themselves, and nearly all 
of whom gained the crown of mar- 
tyrdom, knew the facts in the case as 
well as he knows them, and that theie 
is every probability that they meant 
what they said and wrote. 

" We see," says the author, p. 48, 
**tlmt as early as the third century the 
bishops of Rome, because St. Peter had 
been one of the founders of that see, 
claimed to exercise a certain authority 
over the rest of the church, giving them- 
selves sometimes the title of * bishop 
of bishops'; but we also see that 
the whole church protested against 
these ambitious pretensions, and held 
them of no account." That the bishop 
of Rome was accused by those whom the 
exercise of his authority offended of 
assuming the title of bishop of bishops, 
by way of a sneer, may be very true, 
but that he ever gave himself that title, 
there is, so far as we are aware, no 
trustworthy evidence. 

** The church protested against these 
ambitious pretensions." Where is that 
protest recorded? That bishops were 
then as now jealous of their real or 
supposed rights, and ever well disposed 
to resist any encroachment upon them, 



is by no means improbable ; and this, 
if the bishops generally held that th« 
Roman pontiff had no more authority 
by divine right over the church than 
any other bishop, must have made it 
exceeilingly difficult for him to grasp 
the primacy of jurisdiction over them. 
Their power to resist, in case they be- 
lieved they could resist with a good 
conscience, must have been, being, as 
they were in the fourth century, eigh- 
teen hundred to one, soroewliat greater 
than his to encroach. That the bishops 
or simple priests whom the Roman 
pontiff* admonished or censured protest- 
ed sometimes, not against his authority, 
but against what tliey regarded as its 
unjust, arbitrary, or tyrannical exercise, 
is no doubt true, and the same thing 
happens still, even with those who have 
no doubt of the papal authority ; bat 
that the whole church protested is not 
proven ; and in all the instances in 
which protests were offered on the part 
of individual bishops that came bi*fore 
an ecclesiastical council, the universal 
church uniformly sustained the Roman 
pontiff; When St. Victor excommuni- 
cated the Quartodecimans, some bishops 
remonstrated with him as being too 
severe, and others opposed his act, 
but the council of Nicaia sustained it. 
Even before that council, the author of 
the Philosophumena, whose work must 
have been composed in the early part 
of the thii'd century, treats the Quarto- 
decimans as heretics, uhhou;»h, except 
as to the time of keeping Easter, their 
faith was irreproachable. So on the 
question of the baptism of heretics, 
the whole church, instead of protesting 
against the decision of St. Stephen, ap- 
proved it. and follows it to this day. It 
will not do to say the whole church 
treated the acts of these popes " as of 
no account. * 

The writers of the letters attri- 
buted to St. Cyprian and Firmilia- 
nus are good evidence that the po{>e8 
claimed and exercised jurisdiction 
over the whole church in the con- 
troversy on the baptism of heretics, 
and TertuUian affords no mean proof 
of the same fact at a yet earlier date. 



Guetiee^s Papacy Schismatic, 



476 



In a work written after he had fallen 
into Rome of the heresies of the Mon- 
tanists, he writes, as cited by our au- 
thor, p. 78, *' I learn that a new edict 
has been given, a peremptorj edict. 
The sovereign pontiff, that is, the bishop 
of bishops, has said : ' I remit the sins 
of impurity and fornication.' O edict ! 
not less can be done than to ticket 
it — Good Work! But where shall 
such an edict be posted? Surely, I 
think, upon the doors of the houses of 
pr )stitution," This passage undoubt-« 
edly proves that Tertullian himself, 
fallen into heresy, did not relish the 
papal decision that condemned him, and 
perhaps that he was disposed to deny 
the authority of the Roman pontiff; 
but if it had been generally held that 
the Roman pontiff was no more in the 
church than any other bishop, and 
therefore that his decision could have 
no authority out of his diocese or pro- 
vince, would his decision have so deeply 
moved him, and called forth such an 
outburst of wrath? If the claim to 
the primacy of authority in the whole 
church, and therefore to jurisdiction 
over all bishops, was not generally re- 
cognized and held, what occasion was 
there for so much indignation ? What 
point would there have been in the 
sneer, or force in the irony, of calling 
him the sovereign pontiff, or the bishop 
of bishops ? Tertullian 's language, 
which was evidently intended to exag- 
gt»rate the authority claimed by the 
Roman pontiff, plainly enough implies 
that he was generally held to have au- 
thority to make decisions in doctrine 
and discipline for the whole church, 
and that a censure froni him was some- 
thing of far more importance than 
that from any olhar bishop or patri- 
arch. 

The author cites to the same effect 
as Tertullian the work published at 
Paris a few years ago under the name 
of Origin, entitle I Piiilosophumena, 
** justly atlrlbuteii,' he says, "to SL 
Ilypp-ilytus, Bishop of Ostia, or to the 
learned priest Caius. ' The authorship 
of the work is unkn;)wn, and no docu- 
ments have yet been discovered that 



enable the learned to determine with 
any degree of certainty by whom it was 
or could have been written. The work, 
however, bears internal evidence of 
having been written by some one be- 
longing to the East, and who lived 
during the pontificates of St. Victor, 
St Zephyrinus, St. Callistus, St. Ur- 
ban, and perhaps St. PontiaYi, bishops 
of Rome, that is to say, from 180 to 
235, certainly not later. The work, 
when published by M, Miller at Paris, 
in 1851, attracted the attention of Eng- 
lish and German Protestants by its 
gross charges against the two venerat- 
ed Roman pontiffs and martyrs, St. 
Zephyrinus and St. Callistus — charges 
which for the most part refute them- 
selves. But though Protestants have 
not been able to make much of it 
against the papacy, Catholics have 
found in it new and unexpected proofs 
of the authority extending over the 
church in all parts of the world, exer- 
cised by the popes of that early period. 
**In his invectives," says the Abb^ 
Cruice, ** the adversary of Callistus 
acknowledges his great power, and 
furnishes new and unexpected proofs 
of the supremacy of the holy see." 
The Abb^ Cruice, who, we thin'x, we 
have heard recently died Bishop of 
Marseilles, published at Paris, in 1851, 
an interesting History of the Church 
of Rome under the pontificates of St. 
Victor, St. Zephyrinus, and St. Callis- 
tus, in which he has incorporated these 
proofs with great judgment and effect. 
As we are not now considering the af- 
firmative proofs of the primacy of tlv9 
Holy Sae, but the arguments intended 
to prove the papacy schismatic, we can 
only refer the reader to this learned 
work and to the Philosophumena itself. 
We will only remark that the unknown 
author is far more bitter against the 
popes than his contemporary Tertul- 
lian, and leaves more unequivocal evi- 
dence to the extent of the papal po ver. 
No one can read the Philosophumena 
without perceiving in the complaints 
and incidental remarks of the author 
that the hierarchy at the end of the 
second centaiy was as regularly or- 



476 



GueUie*8 Papacy Schismatic. 



ganized as now, and precisely in the 
same manner, with the Roman pontiff 
at its summit. 

The author, p. 82, says TertuUian, 
who in several passages refers to the 
Church of Rome as a witness to the 
apostolic tradition, ''does not esteem 
her witness testimony superior to that 
of others." Perhaps so, for in the 
cases referred to Tertullian had no 
occasion to discriminate between one 
apostolic church and another. He is 
using against heretics the argument 
from prescription. Their doctrines are 
adverse to the apostolic tradition, and 
therefore false. If any one would 
know what is the apostolic tradition, he 
may learn it from any of the churches 
founded by apostles " where their sees 
still remain, where their epistles are 
still read, where their voice still re- 
sounds, and their face, as it were, is still 
seen. Is it Achaia that is near thee ? 
thou hast Corinth ; if thou art not far 
from Macedonia, thou hast the Philip- 
pians ; if thou canst go to Asia, thou 
hast Ephesus ; if thou dwellest near 
Italy, thou hast Rome, whose authority 
is near us," that is, near us in Africa. 
It b true Tertullian pronounces a eulo- 
gium on the Church of Rome that he 
does not on the others, but no great 
stress need be laid on that. Any one 
of the apostolic churches was sufficient 
for determining the apostolic tradition, 
and there was no reason why he shouLl 
mention the primacy of the see of Pe- 
ter if he held it, and it would have 
weakened his argument if he had ap- 
Pv'aled to that primacy, doubtless then 
as now rejected by heretics. 

But this leads us to a remark which it 
may be well to bear in mind. All the 
churches founded by the apostles were 
during the whole of the first three cen- 
turies in existence, and preserved the 
apostolic doctrine or tradition, and it 
could be learned froTi Alexandria, An- 
tioch, Jtjrusalem, Ephesus, etc., without 
the nece:<sity. at least on ordinary oc- 
casions, of reeurrins to the supreme . 
authority of Rome. The author quotes 
several of the fathers who call the sea 
of Antioch Peter's see ; he might have 



gone further, and shown that eadi of 
the four great patriarchal sees, Borne' 
Alexandria, Antioch, and JerusalemY 
were so-called, and because they were 
held to have been founded by Peter. 
This is the reason why they received 
the dignity and authority of patriarch- 
al churches. Peter was held to survive 
and govern in each one of theoi, but 
more especially in Rome, where he 
gave his life for his faith, and where 
stands his tomb. It is Peter who gov- 
erns one and indivisible in them all, and 
consequently, to get Peter's authority, 
it was not, except in the last resort, 
necessary to apply to his successor in 
the see of Rume. It is this fact, misap- 
prehended by the author, that has made 
him assert that the see of Peter, or the 
chair of Peter, means the universal 
episcopate which all the bishops, as St. 
Cyprian says, hold in solido. Every 
bishop in communion with Peter's see, 
no doubt, was regarded as soUdaire 
with the whole episcopal and apostolic 
body, as we have already explained; 
but we have not found the " see of 
Peter," or " chair of Peter'' applied to 
any particular churches, except those 
tradition asserted were founded by 
Peter, and only those sees had origin- 
ally patriarchal jurisdiction, and this 
fact is in itself n ) siipjlit proof that the 
primacy was held to be vested in Pe- 
ter as we have already explained, and 
the author has given us the oppor- 
tunity of proving from St. (Cyprian. 

This fact that Peter was held to go- 
vern in the four great patriarchal sees, 
though supremely only in the Church 
of Rome, explains why it is that in the 
early ages we find n )t more frequent 
instances of the exercise of jurisdiction 
beyond his own patriarchate of the 
West by the R'*raan pontiif. The 
bishops of these Petrine churches were 
not orisinally called patriarchs, but 
they exercised tlie patriarchal power 
long before receiving the na:n?. and 
probably from times imniediately sue.- 
cecding the apostles. So longa^ these 
patriarchs remained in eoarniinion 
with the bishop of Rome, their head 
and chief, most of the questions of dis- 



Guettee^s Papacy Schismatic, 



477 



cipline, and many of those of faith, could 
be, and were, settled by the patriarch, 
or local authority, without resort to the 
Roman pontiff. But when these sees 
fell off from unity into heresy or schism, 
Peter remained only in the Roman see, 
and all causes tliat had previously 
b(?en disposed of by the patriarchs of 
the East had to be carried at once to 
Rome, before the supreme court. 

Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch 
were the three chief cities of the em- 
pire, and the capitals the first of the 
empire itself, and the others of its two 
largest and most important prefectures- 
This fact may seem to favor the au- 
thor's theory that the ecclesiastical su- 
periority is derived from the civil su- 
periority ; but had this been so, Jeru- 
salem would hardly have been select- 
ed as the seat of the third patriarchate 
of the East. The geojpraphical position 
and civil and political importance of 
these cities may have influenced the 
apostle in selecting them to be the 
chief scats of the ecclesiastical govern- 
ment he under Christ was founding, 
but could not have been the ground of 
their superior ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
because tlie church was not organized 
as a national religion, or with a view 
to the Roman empire alone, and the 
apostles themselves carried the gospel 
beyond the farthest limits of that em- 
pire, into regions never penetrated by 
the Roman eagles. The church was 
catholic, and was to subsist in all ages 
and teach all nations, as well as all 
truth. Our Lord said, " My kingdom 
is not of this world ;" it does not hold 
from the kingdoms of this world, and 
is independent of them, both in its con- 
stitution and in its bowers. These 
remain always and everywhere the 
same, whatever the revolutions or the 
rise and fall of states and empire. The 
authority of the church is immediate- 
ly from GU)d ; her grandeur and glory 
are spiritual, and not derived from the 
greatness, grandeur, wealth, or power 
of earthly cities. St. Augustine makes 
the city of Rome the type of the city 
of the world, which he contrasts with 
the church or city of God. The idea 



that the rank or the authority of the 
bishop derived from the civil rank and 
importance of the city in which he held 
his see was a Constantinopolitan idea 
not heard of till the fitUi century, and, 
as we shall see in its place, one of the 
chief causes of the schism betweeca 
the East and the West. 

The author denies that St. Peter 
was ever, in the proper sense of the 
word, bishop of Rome, or of any par- 
ticular see. If he is right, how could 
the unity of the church have a visible 
starting-point or centre ? or how could 
it be said to begin from Peter or the 
chair of Peter, as his own witness, 
St. Cyprian, asserts ? If Peter had no 
particular see, established his see, or 
set up his chair, his cathedra, nowhere 
in particular, the whole argument of St 
Cyrian as to the origin and manifesta* 
tion of unity is baselesi>, and goes for 
nothing. Besides, it is contradicted 
by universal tradition. The testimony 
that Peter had his chair at Rome is 
ample, and leaves nothing to be dcy 
sired But this is not the point. It is 
for the author to prove that he was not 
bishop of Rome ; tor he has undertaken 
to prove the papacy is schismatic, and 
at every step he takes, the burden of 
proof is on him. Where are his proofs ? 

The author says St. Linus was 
bishop of Rome when Peter first ar- 
rived in that city. A church which 
has a bishop is already a church 
founded and constituted. Yet the au- 
thor allows and cites authorities that 
prove that Peter was the founder, or at 
least one of the founders, of the Roman 
Church ! That St. Linus was the first 
bishop of Rome after St. Peter there 
is no doubt ; that he was the first bibhop, 
or bishop of Rome, before the arrival 
of St. Peter in the city, there is no 
evidence, but any amount of testimony 
to the contrary. We say there is no 
evidence. The lists given by the fk- 
thers sometimes enumerate him as first 
and sometimes as second, as th<*y do or 
do not include the apostle ; but all make 
him the successor of St. Peter. The 
fathers, in giving the lists of other 
apostolic sees, are not uniform, and 



in 



OuftM^i Papacy Schismatic. 



lomedmes they indude and sometimes 
Ihey exelijtle the apo3tl*-\ and reckon 
only from his death, Eusebius say a, 
as cited by the author, p. 144, '* After 
tbc marly i^dom of Paul and Peter, 
Linus vvaa the first that received the 
episcopate at Rjme. ' TerttiUian, as 
also cited by the author, p. 1 4->» says 
rtbat *' Peter sat on the el i air of Rome ;" 
"but he contends that Tertulhun ^*does 
Tint mean that he was bishop, but that 
be tau;,'ht there," that Is. St. Peter was 
tt proft'ssor of theology at Rome ! 
This mio^bt do if Tenullian bad been 
trertlin)^ of the Sorbinoe, or of the 
French univei'i^ity, bat will not answer 
hero. In ecelesiaatical language, chair ^ 
cathedra, means simply the. seat of the 
bishap, and, fiiiuratively, the episcopal 
.anthority. To say Peter sat in the 
^chair or cathedra of Rome h saying 
^ aimply he was bishop of R'lme, The 
^presumption h^ that Tertulhan meant 
what he said, understood according to 
llie Uiittfjfea of the language he u?ed. 
Besides^ if chair may soraetiraea be 
used fi<^uratively for teaching, it is the 
^author 8 business to prove tliat it must 
mean so in ibis ]jnrticular case. This 
he doe$ not and cannot do. 

The author pretends that the tradi- 
tion whicli makejs Peter seven years 
biabop of Atitiuch and twenty-five 
years bishop of Rome is obvioualy 
.faUe: l«r any otjc can see by counting 
[that tliere was not lime enough for it 
Btweea the thxy of Pentecost and the 
f martyrdom o( Peter. We do not pre- 
tend to be very good at counting, but 
\ we count* siiven year^ bliahop of An- 
Llloch ami twenty -five yejir>^ bi.^hap of 
Rotne make in all thirty-two years* 
Tbc day of Pentecost, according to 
the usual reckoning, was in A.D. 3i}, 
and St» Peter sufllui'd martyrdom at 
Rome under Nero, A^D. 6G, or at the 
earliest Go. Ti Hem out says Ot)^ which 
^leaves thirty-three, at teast thirty two 
l years ; and we see no reai^on to sup 
Lpose that the organization of tlie chujvh 
'.at Jerusalem and committing it to the 
care of Jamci^, its first bighop, end the 
settin;: up of Ijis chair at Antioch, 
might not all bave been done before 



the close of the year of the 
iixion. But even an error iu tht 
chronology would not pi-ove that Pe- 
ter was not bishop of Rome, 

The pR^tence that it was incompati- 
ble with I he dignity of an apostle to 
he the bishtip of a particular see has 
nothing to sui^tain it. It is not ncce^- 
Bary to suppose Peter, by estnblishiui; 
his sec at Rome, WiX^ obliged to condor 
hid wliole attention and labor to that 
particular church, or that he reinainod 
constantly at Rome. Indeed^ it ti* 
very possible, and thought by innfiy 
fo be very prohahle, that he commit- 
ted the care of that c*mrch daring his 
iibsences to St. Liutts as his vicar, and 
there ai*e several autbriritir« to that 
effect. Some of them join St. An** 
cletas, Clelus, or, as the Greeks say. 
Anencbnus, and St. Clemenf, sucoe-*- 
aively bishops of Rome, with Sl Lin ui* 
in the government of the Rocnan 
Church under Peter during \m life* 
time ; but, however this may hiVc 
been, tradition h constant that Si, 
Linus was the immediate 6uci!es^>r 
of Peter, which at lea.^t implicj that 
Peter was regarded as having held the 
see as well as having assisted in found 
ing it ; for otherwise St, Linus could 
not have been regarded as his suoofs^ 
8or, and no reason could be assigned 
why he was called the successor of 
Peter rather than of Paul, who ftUt* 
assisted in founding it, and is honort*d 
even to-day by the Roman Chur^li as 
one of lis founders* 

We have taken up the author's tlie- 
ory point by point, and we find him 
utterly failing to establirih it in whole 
or in part. His allegations ai"© set 
forth with great confidence, but the 
authorities be cites do not sustain them, 
and are either not to bis pur|>o»e or, 
like St. Cyprian, point blank ag7iii]sl 
him- He Diay have demolislicd the 
man of straw which he himself had 
set Lip, but he leaves standing the pa- 
pacy as held by the Catholic Church 
and defined by ihe council of Flortmce. 
He has asserted in very strong terms 
the ignomuce, the chicanery, the sophis- 
try, and the ilishonesty of the Romaii 



Guettke^s Papacy Schismatic, 



479 



theologians, and leaves no doubt in the 
mindi of intelligent readers that he 
greatly excels them in the qualities 
and practices he ascribes to them ; but 
he adduces nothing beyond his own as- 
sertions and misrepresentations against 
their fairness and candor, and their 
intelligence and learn ino^. Ilis sneers 
at tliem are pointed only by his own 
ignorance or malice, and present him 
in a most unfavorable light His 
cant, so abundant against them, is very 
stale and simply disgusting. From 
first to last he proves that he lacks, 
we will not say the humility of the 
Christian, but the modesty and reserve 
of real learning and science, and that 
he is moved not by love of truth, but 
by a spirit of hatred and revenge. 

Here we might well close, for the 
author has refuted from St. Cyprian 
himself, by proving by his own witness 
the primacy of jurisdiction by divine 
right was possessed even in the third 
century, while he has left all the argu- 
ments and authorities adduced by the 
KonLan theologians from Scripture 
and tradition to prove affirmatively 
the papal authority by divine right, 
or by the positive appointment of 
Jesus Christ in their full force. But 
the reasons which induced us in the 
first place to begin the examination of 
the author's lucubrations induce us to 
go through with them. The work has 
been translated and pubKshed here 
under Protestant auspices, set up as 
an important work against the papal 
authority and the Church of Rome, 
" the root and matrix of the Catholic 



Church," as says St. Cyprian, and» 
were it left unnoticed or unreplied to, 
many people might take it to be really 
what it is represented to be, and con- 
clude that we 'cannot answer it because 
we have not done it. 

Besides, the controversy between 
large classes of Protestants and 
Catholics is narrowed down to two 
questions, the honor we render to 
Mary the mother of G^d, and the 
authority we attribute to the Holy 
See and the Roman pontiff. M. 
Guettee, having been reared in our 
commu nion and gone out from us be- 
cause he was not of us, and having in 
this work done his best to prove the 
papacy schismatic, and that its asser- 
tion has been the cause of the schism 
between the East and the West, affords 
us as good an occasion as we can expect 
to discuss the latter question, and to 
consider the arguments, facts, and au- 
thorities alleged in their defence by 
those who refuse their obedience to 
8t. Peter in his successor. The work 
is rambling, and made up of details 
most wearisome to read, and difficult 
to bring into a shape in which its real 
value can be brought to the test, but 
it is a fair specimen in spirit and ar- 
rangement of the works written against 
the Roman and Catholic Church, and 
contains in some form all that Bchis- 
matics allege first and last against her. 
We may as well make it our text-book 
for the discussion as any other. But 
we have already trespassed long enough 
on the patience of our readers for this 
month. 



480 



2%« Crucifix of Baden. 



Translated from the French. 

THE CRUCIFIX OF BADEN, 



A LEGEND OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 



"Will you follow me to Baden ? 
Not to that elegant and wild and 
whirling Baden of painted faces and 
flasiiy toilettes, where gentlemen of the 
turf display their horsemanship on the 
plain of Iffezheim ; where the majesty 
of old Germany elbows, in the Trink- 
balle, the princes of Bohemia; but 
to the fresh, dark, silent, almost un- 
known nooks of that Baden which 
God has made and which man has 
yet left untouched ; where the artist 
wandei-s for his picture, the poet for 
his inspiration, the dreamer for his 
vision, the Christian to murmur his 
prayer ; for it is to a burial-ground 
tliat I am about to lead ycu. But 
fear not on that account ; this burial- 
place of Badeo has comparatively but 
little of the mournful in its appear- 
ance ; it is truly, as its name de- 
clares, the Fried Hof—iho Court of 
Peace. Under that green turf, under 
those flower-clad hillocks, there lie bo- 
dies that suffer no more, but sleep in 
quiet ; their souls may suffer, indeed, 
and be in pain, but their souls are no 
longer there; and can repose alone 
be frightful? Look around, and, as 
far as the eye can reach, what beauty 
shines in the landscape, what a charm 
invests the distant meeting of earth 
and sky ! Look up to the gray blue 
heaven, pale and transparent, as is 
ever that sky which stretches over 
the valley of the Rhine ; to those pure 
white clouds floating like distant sails 
on a stormless sea; to those distant 
hills, with outlines softening as they 
recede : to the green woods that fringe 
their sides ; to those walls which time 
has breached ; those crumbling towers ; 
those ruined castles which seem to over- 
bang the plain of the dead — man's work, 
and the hands that created it, becom- 



ing dust together. These sights may, 
indeed, be melancholy, but they are 
peace-giving too ; for there in the midst 
hangs ChrJ8t bowing his weary head 
and stretching out bis bruised arms 
in yonder great crucifix of stone. 

In a churchyard, nothing is more 
frequent, nor, so to speak, more natu- 
ral, than to see a crucifix. It is there 
like the flag on the bastion, the mast 
on the vessel. Without it the place 
would be accursed and desolate, for hope 
would be wanting there. All knoir 
and acknowledge this, but, neverthe- 
less, few passers-by bestow a glance 
on the holy image. Some faithful 
ones may, when they sec it, make the 
sign of the cross ; others bend slightly 
before it ; well-bred people uncover ; 
free-thinkers, with proud look and 
step, with unbending knee and body 
en'ct, pass it by, they who would bow 
so low before the coronet of a prince 
or even the key of a chamberlain. 

And certainly indifferent, timid, and 
free-thinking ones come to the Fried 
Ilof of Baden ; but there^ few stop not 
and marvel, if by chance their eyes 
fall upon its crucifix. There is u[>on 
that rigid face — those features of stone 
— a look of life, of flesh and blood, 
which enchains you, moves the depths 
of your heart, speaks to you. To 
undorstand that gaze, it is not necessa- 
ry to be a Christian; alas! it is enough 
to be a man. Those lips, half parted 
in a sish, tremble in the stone ; those 
half-closed eyes seem really to weep ; 
agony sits upon every feature ; bitter- 
ness of soul has worn every one of those 
furrows, the arch of the brows has 
been contnicted, the pure lines of the 
profile broken, the calm of the fore- 
head destroyed by a sorrow, over- 
whelming, silent, inconsolable ; and 



77ie Crucifix of Baden. 



481 



you would have before you the iraa^^e 
of human misery the most complete, 
the deepest, the most horrible, if a ray 
from the Majesty on high did not c.ime 
to elevate and illumine tliat petrifac- 
tion of jrrief. 

When you have long studied those 
features and contemplated their agony, 
you involuntarily ask yourself: Where 
did the sculptor find so suffering a face, 
»o living an agony? wlience came 
his modiel? for you feel that thoso 
features once were the flesh of one 
to whom ordinary grief were as nothing. 
That look of life, that pain so real, 
came certahily frorii^a human heart 
that once beat beneath them, and in 
them painted its wounds, its tortures, 
and its agony. Tiiey were seen^ and 
not merely created in the artist's brain. 

Yes ; you are right. Those features 
are those of a suflering, repentant, and 
miserable man. If you approach the 
base of the crucifix, you will see gra- 
ven in the once soft stone, in long Goth- 
ic letters, and in the Suabian dialect of 
the fifteenth century, these short and 
simple words, which are the explana- 
tion and the ending of its story : 

'*MINA, OTHO. 

*• May God receive you and pardon 
roe. 

Nothing more ; no signature to the 
work, nor name added to the prayer. 
But young souls, simple hearts, poetic 
spirits, which still may be found at 
Baden, in spite of " si>ort " and *' the 
turf," will rt'late to you the birth of the 
work and the fate of the artist ; for, 
alas ! the story of the crucifix is abo 
the story of the sculptor. 



CnAPTER I. 

It was a [lopulous, busy, and bright 
cHy, Baden of old. as it flourished in 
the fifteenth century, in the days of 
the Margrave BtM-nard of Sla»Miberg. 
Less noisy than to day, it was more 
picturesque. Where great hotels, 
white villas, and regular edifices now 

TOU T.— 81 



rise, then only narrow crooked streets 
were seen ; where Gothic houses, those 
old German dwellings, of whicli a few 
still stand at Augsburg, at Ulm, and 
esfxecially at Nuremberg, reared their 
sculptured gables and |»ointed roofs, 
wherein were set windows looking like 
half opened eyes, while beams project- 
ed from the wall beneath and support- 
ed little balconies, and long, narrow 
windows with leaden sashes glistened 
in the glory of their little, thick, green- 
ish -hued and diamond-shaped panes. 

Nevertheless, those streets in which 
the sun-rays rarely penetrated, (caught 
as they were in their way by the pro- 
jecting fronts of the houses.) were one 
day of the beautiful month of May, 
1435, filled with people in holiday 
dress, bearing curious and smiling 
faces, with fluttermg pennons, shining 
armor, and broad banners. It was the 
day of the tournament, and the gossips 
gi-ouped themselves together to see pass 
the barons of the mountains and plains, 
and to relate to each other the high 
achievements of each doughty noble 
and the traditions of his family, while 
they awaited the return from the burg 
of the proud victors or bumbled van- 
• quished. 

But of the general joy, the cries that 
rang through the town, only a few 
faint and expiring echoes reached a 
lonely and distant street, where the 
houses, lower and more scattered, no 
longer stood close together, but began 
to grow scattered through the fields. 
One of these houses, the largest and 
ahnost the last, was distinguished from 
its neighbors by two peculiarities. The 
front of the first story, instead of being 
cut by those narrow leaden-sashed open- 
ings joined one to the other, through 
which the light of day might scarcely 
enter, offered to the gaze a huge win- 
dow with larger, neater, and more reg- 
ular panes than any around. Through 
the openings on th(^round floor a nar- 
row spiral staircase might be seen 
winding its polished steps and balus- 
trade of stone, carved like lace, beneath 
a roof of wood delicately cut in grace- 
ful flowers, branches, arabesques, and 



4S2 



I7k4 Crucifix of Baden. 



interlaced figares* Above all, in a lit- 
tle wooden niche, a little carved shrine, 
which surmounted the pointed gable, 
was the form of an angel with folded 
wings, chiselled in pure white marble. 
One might imagine that the heavenly 
messenger had stopped there to rest in 
the middle of some long journey ; that 
he gazed calmly down and protected 
with his frail hands the high gray house 
which he seemed to bless ; so that the 
gosftips, who all knew the dwelling and 
held its master in high esteem, called 
his abode The House of the Angel. 

And the good burgesses wondered 
not to see the white statue on that gray 
front, jior did they marvel at the gi*ace- 
ful scrolls and arabesques of the pretty 
staircase, and that huge dazzling win- 
dow, for they knew that the last served 
to light the studio of the sculptor Sc- 
bald Koerner, and that the two orna- 
ments of the house, the marble angel 
and the carved roof, were his work. 

Sebald Koerner was justly esteemed 
and even admired by the burgesses of 
Baden. It was not that he was very 
famous or very rich ; that he earned 
much money or made much noise in the 
world. But it was because he was 
honest, patient, true ; at once pious and 
dreamy, modest and intelligent. He 
lived only for his art, and scarcely par- 
took at all of the passions, the aims, 
the entrancements of the crowd. He 
did not place himself above it, but 
without it, and men hold in high re- 
spect those who from a calm retreat 
behold the torrent of human life rush 
by. As an artist, he had rivals, but 
no enemies; as a man, he had his 
failings, but no vices ; as a father, he 
bad a treasure, a fair-haired daughter, 
named Mina, who had seen the flowers 
of seventeen springs bloom. Sebald 
Koerner might call himself a happy 
man. 

But he was not only a happy man, 
be was a wise one, and what God had 
given him of strength, gcMiius, ciilm, 
and happiness he guanled carefully, 
lest he might lose it in the tumult of 
the life of men. Therefore the day of 
the tournament, which had so stirred 



the peaceful city of Baden with mmois 
of pleasure and joy, saw old Sebald 
shut himself up in his atelier. He bad 
worked since dawn, while the Bwords 
of others were clashing and shields 
and breastplates resounding, while 
plumes and banners flashed through 
the air, and horns and clarions awoke 
the echoes ; and he bad first prayed, 
for such was his custom, and he imagb- 
ed tliat prayer brightened his inspira- 
tions — men were so ignonint and bar- 
barous in those " dark ages " ! Then 
with a skilful and pious hand he wield- 
ed hammer and cfiisel through long 
hours well employed, and now, although 
the sun was sinking behind the moun- 
tains, he still worked, standing before 
his great stone bas-relief, only interrupt- 
ing himself from time to time to cast 
a glance full of parental love on his 
daughter Mina. 

U{)on Mina fell the last ray of the 
sun, which, after kissing the verdure 
of the mountain, shone through the 
panes and made her long silver-gray 
gown glitter like silver itself, and seem- 
ed to light a beam of dark light in the 
centre of each of her large black eyes. 
Those were splendid eyes, and rarely 
seen in one so fair, for Mina was a 
blonde, and the golden threads of her 
purse were not brighter than those of 
hor hair, but only less soft and close. 
Nothing could equal the perfect purity 
and grace of her forehead and cheeks, 
the whiteness of her skin, the delicacy 
of the lines of her face : she seemed a 
beauteous statue, to which God, in re- 
ward to its designer, had given life and 
motion, and a loving hciirt and golden 
hair. 

The bas-relief which the old sculptor 
was finishing seemed indeed as if long 
and diflicult labor had been spent upon 
it. It represented a religious subjcHSt, 
for any but religious suhjects were 
scarcely known, in those times when 
minds wore so simple, imagination so 
quiet, and intelligence so limited, ac- 
cording to our strong-minded ones of 
this age ; in those times when pilgrims 
marvelled at the beauty of a Child Jesus, 
or the chaste grace of a Virgin Mary ; 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



483 



when the Apollos, the Mioervas, the 
Vcnuses and Adonises, forgotten or un- 
known, were jet buried in the darkness 
of centuries and under the dust of 
ruins. 

What Sebald Koemer wished to 
represent was the dawn of the resur- 
rection daj. 

The cave of the sepulchre was there, 
rocky, vaulted, and low. At the en- 
trance knelt Peter, with wide-opened 
eyes and trembling lips, and Magdalene 
wept, stretching forth her arms. Yes, 
she wept, for the sepulchre was empty. 
The stone which closed the tomb mov- 
ed to one side, allowed the scattered 
bands which wrapped the sacred body 
and the abandoned winding-sheet to be 
seen, and the angel seemed to announce 
to the two faithful followers the glad 
and great tidings — the tidings of tri- 
umpii and of consolation— -J?0^urrex;< : 
non est hie: words graven on the 
banderole which hung from his hand. 

Old Sebald's angel was noble, radi- 
ant, and beautiful, as became a rnes* 
senger of heaven. The sculptor, with 
something of artistic caprice, had placed 
a golden star upon his forehead, and 
with the fond pride of a father had 
given to his face the features of his 
beautiful Mina, so that, when he smiled 
upon his angel, it seemed to him that 
he smiled upon his daughter, and, when 
he turned to his daugjiter, he became 
grave, and moved as if he looked upon 
a celestial visitant. 

*^ I am satisfied with thee, my daugh- 
ter," said he, after silently comparing 
for some moments the two faces. ^ I 
find nothing to change in thy pure 
brow, thy modest attitude, or thy soft 
gaze. All that I cannot copy is thy 
smile. And thy smile is sweet, my 
Mina, but it is too lively, too childish, 
too mocking ; it is earthly, and not, I 
am sure, the smile of the bright ones 
above." 

*^ Marvel not that it should be so, my 
father," replied Mina, while her eyes 
glistened : " Above, angels smile in ec- 
stasy, love, and piety, while I here can 
only bear the smile of youth and hope.'' 

^ Thou art right, my child ; I would 



not blame thee. Hope is natural to the 
young. Long years are before them ; 
they may expect to see their projects 
accomplished, their brightest dreams 
realized. Melancholy and weariness 
are the lot of old fathers, old dreamers, 
and old workers such as I." 

** And why, father," returned Mina 
gayly, ^ shouldst thou be sad ? Hast 
thou not an art which is better than a 
fortune? a name which is known 
throughout Baden as well as those of 
our oldest barons and bravest knights 1 
Thou art never idle ; thou lackest a 
companion never. Noble ladies and 
proud lords offer thee a respectful sa- 
lute as they pass the door of the Houso 
of the Angel ; and, when they are not 
here, thy little Mina remains; and 
thou thyself makest holy companions 
for thyself when carving some beauti- 
ful Virgin or sweet child-Jesus." 

^ 'Tis that which .often makes me 
tremble, my child. Hath my spirit 
enough of inspii'ation, are my hands 
pure enough to reproduce those holy 
features ? to give to stone, or marble, 
or wood the charm and msgesty of 
those divine fonos which from their 
golden halos call and smile on me ? to 
express the sweetness of the Christ- 
child, the tenderness of Christ the Me- 
diator, or the virginal motherhood of 
his holy mother ? No ; to inspiration 
must be added the heart of a Christian ; 
and if I have dared too much and but 
ill succeeded ; if to those sacred faces 
I have given too much of man's fall 
and misery, then am I guilty, and then 
have I failed in my aim — in more than 
my aim, for then my peace of con- 
science and repose of soul, too, are 
lost These, Mina, are the fears that 
weaken and the questions that disquiet 
me, and so often render my hand un- 
steady, and mark care upon my 
brow." 

**Thou art very wrang to be so 
troubled, my father," said Mina, lifting 
her head with a little air of triumph. 
" From Strasburg to Nurembuig, from 
Constance to Augsburg, all who have 
hearts and eyes and frequent the 
churches say there is ia this world no 



484 



!%€ Crucifix of Baden. 



man like thee to carve angels and 
saints." 

** Ay ; so saj men," replied Sebald, 
" but God hath not yet said it, he who 
eees and judges my works ; and from 
him must come my courage and my 
strnngtlK for I would destroy all the 
works of my hands if by them I knew 
that he was offended. Look, my child, 
this bas-relief is nearly completed, and 
until now I was satisfied with it, but a 
scruple comes and weighs heavily upon 
mv mind. This angel is verv beauti- 
ful, Mina, since he bears thy fac<s but 
have I not pi-esumed too much in giving 
him thy features? As one of the host 
of heaven he is perfect, so far as 
aught beneath Grod himself can be 
perfect. But thou art but a child of 
earth ; thou art good, thou art tender 
to thy old father; thou art his only 
treasure, and yet more beautiful than 
this angel, but ^It thou be always 
calm, pure, and radiant as he ?" 

"I will try, my father," answered 
Mina, with an air of half rebellious 
rci^nlution, mingled at the same time 
with deep tenderness. 

" Promise me, Mina, that thou wilt 
ever seek to be angelic and joyous, and 
in the midst of the world to live retir- 
ed from it, that the weaknesses and 
griefs of men may ever remain far 
from the»* and never afflict thee. I am 
old, anvl, when I shall rest in the tomb, 
thou wilt be the heiress of my name 
and the guardian of my memory. 
Then learned men, princes, ti*avellei*s, 
who may perchance have heard of my 
fame, may come. Thou wilt salute 
them at the threshold, and when the;/ 
ask tor old Sebald, thou, pohiting to 
my d<"serted studio and empty s<.*at, 
wilt reply, * Rfisurrexit: non est hie: 
11(1 hath succeeded; he hath finished 
liis years of toil and reposeth in his 
fatherland.' And I, my Saviour I" 
continued old Koomer, " I will then 
know whether I knew thee on earlh. 
Affer thou liast done this, my dau;rli- 
ter, di.-n.iss the travellers and bid the 
princes f irewell. Live in simplicity 
and retiiiMuent with a few old friends, 
my poor child, for thou host no mother, 



or with some faithful companion frhom 
thou mayest wed." 

** Father, father !'' cried the young 
girl, *• why speak of sorrow and death 
in the beautiful spring, when the son 
shines so brightly, and when thou art 
finishing the beautifiil angel to whom 
thou hast given such radiance and 
youth ? If thou couldst give him youth, 
my father, it is because thou yet pos- 
sessest youth and long wilt possess it. 
And thinkest thou that, if thou wert no 
longer on earth, many would give a 
thought to thy little Mina, who is young 
and ignorant, and who is not a lady ? 
No, those to whom strangers would 
come to speak of thy fame, whom, af- 
ter thy departure, they would seek, are 
sure to be thy pupils Johann Muller, 
Franz Steinbach, and even — and even 
— Sir 0th o of Arneck, who carves so 
bravely, and wears such glistening 
anns." 

*' As to the two first, thou art per- 
haps right, my daughter," said Koer- 
ner, who had again begun to work, 
and was lightly polishing the tunic of 
the angel with the edge of his chiseL 
** Franz hath ardor and Johann almost 
genius. But for the knight, Sir Otho, 
he amuses himself with sculpture as 
with training his hawks or with the 
wrestling of his varlets.'' 

** Art not t >o severe ?" asked Mina, 
lowering her eyes and puekering her 
rosy lips int > a little ])out. '' I thought 
the knight of Arneck had something 
of talent ; that thou thyself saidst so 
the day h<' modelled the great St. Mi- 
chael." 

" In good truth, he might have ta- 
lent, were he more pious, more hum- 
ble, and wcM-e he not a noble. Thinkest 
thou, Mina, that inspiration will come 
in the midst of the clamoi"s of a pas- 
sage-at arms, the charms of a concert 
of lutes, or of a circle of great ladles 
listening to the woi-ds of a handso'ue 
cavalier, or the hiys of a minnesinger ? 
No ; who wo*ild consecrate his labors 
to the honor of God and the saints 
must seek his inspiration, looking up- 
ward to heaven studying the moun- 
tains and the fields, or praying in the 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



48B 



churulies. Then let him rotiim and 
^ork and adore, lest the holy vision 
fly or the sweet fervor grow cold." 

** Nevertheless, my father, the Che- 
valier Otho, is very assiduous, and I 
Lave more than once heard thee mar- 
vel at his zeal." 

** Assuredly, he has been zealous. 
But can he really bear that zeal in his 
heart, wherein he bears the pride of 
his high lineage, the gallantry of a 
courteous knight, and all the cares of 
his seigneury ? No ; his ardor is but 
the flame of burning straw, which 
quickly dies. I cannot even under- 
stand why the knight of Ameck 
should take up the chisel — he who 
should content himself with the sword." 

" Ye.^, yes, father, he wields it mar- 
vellously 1" cried Mina, in a burst of 
enthusiasm. 

" And therefore should be content 
with it. But Sir Otho knows not 
what he wants. To day he practises 
a new thrust, and to-morrow he cuts 
stone or models a statue. See, he has 
not finished the fine armor of his arch- 
angel, and yet he could not keep from 
the tournament. And nevertheless, he 
promised to be here before erening." 

Mina did not reply to these last 
words, but threw a vague, sorrowful 
glance toward the sun, which yet shone, 
but was fast sinking. 

Sebald, yet touching up various 
parts of his bas-relief, did not turn his 
bead, and for some moments silence 
reigned in the atelier. 

Soon t!i6 fall of a light and vigorous 
step was heard on the little pointed 
black stones which formed the pave- 
ment of the street 

'• It is perhaps Sir Otho,** said Se- 
bald, and continued his work. 

"If it were he, he would como 
on horseback,'' replied Mina, whose 
cheeks, despite her, were covered with 
the blush of expectant happiness, and 
in a moment she had left her seat, 
opened a portion of the large window, 
and was leaning joyfully over the 
sculptured balcony. 

But she soon returned, looking sad. 

^ No, father, it is not he ; it is only 



Johann," said she, and she seemed to 
awake from a dream. 

"Then let him come up quickly," 
replied the old man, well pleased with 
the news, but still working on. 

A moment after he arose, as he 
heard the footfalls on the stair, and 
turned to greet the most beloved and 
studious of all his pupils. 



CHAPTER II. 

The new-comer was a young man 
of perhaps twenty-eight years, pale, 
delicate, and slightly stooped. His 
krge blue eyes, candid and intelligent, 
gave a chaim to his young though 
tho%htful face, whence light emotions 
seemed to be banished to give place 
to the workings of a vigorous mind. 
Johann, at first sight, did not seem 
handsome, but he became more and 
more interesting on acquaintance. The 
simpUcity of this look and costume— 
a dark gray doublet, leathern belt, and 
cap without either clasp or plume — 
certainly neither attracted nor retained 
the gaze. Johann saluted the beauti- 
tiful Mina, who returned his greeting 
with a look of playful anger, and then 
hastened to greet his master. 

" Well, Johann, what news ?" asked 
Sebald, advancing with outstretched 
hand. 

" That I have not come alone, mas- 
ter. Your business is done ; the prior 
of the monastery of Fremersberg is 
here. I have spoken in your name, 
and he binds you neither by designs 
nor advice. You will be at full liber- 
ty to execute according to your own 
will the sculpture of the chapeL Yon 
need only confer with him as to the 
time and conditions of the work. The 
prior wished much to visit your atelier 
and see your beautiful bas-relief, of 
which the fame has spread far and 
wide, but you know that he is old and 
infirm. The stair was too steep for 
him to mount, and I left him in the 
hall below, where he awaits you. * 

•* Very good; I go, my brave boy 



486 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



and thanks to thee. Hast been in the 
cit J, Johann ?" 

" Yes, master, I was carried away 
hy tbe crowd and could not avoid the 
tournament" 

'* Very well, then, amuse Mina with 
the story of all the fine things that thou 
hast seen. An old father and his 
statues are not very joyous company 
for a girl of seventeen." 

With these words Koerner loft the 
room, and Mina, who until now had 
remained silent and pouting, came for- 
ward with animated looks and flashing 
eyes: 

"Then you saw the tournament, 
Johann ?" 8hc began. 

** Yes, Demoiselle Mina." 

" Who were the victors ?" 

*' There were three, as there were 
three encounters. The Gaugrave Sieg- 
fried of Ehrenfels ; the old Count of 
Arcnheim ; and our acquaintance, our 
fellow of the studio, Otho of Arneck, 
who triumphed on foot and on horse, 
and received the finest of all the 
crowns." 

" Ah r exclaimed Mina, with a joy- 
ous sigh, while a sudden blush over- 
ispread her countenance. 

•*And," continued Johann, "it was 
tlie richest and most beautiful of the 
Indies of the Margravate who gave it 
him — the Countess Gertrude of Hors- 
heim, whose father possesses the en- 
tire valley of the Murg." 

** Ah !" exclaimed Mina again, but 
this time her sigh was one of anguish, 
and she grew pale. 

Johann Muller gazed on her a mo- 
ment in silence, then turned away aud 
walked a few pace^ with the air of one 
who meditates some resolution or pre- 
pares a discourse ; then he returned, 
and stood with downcast eyes before 
I he young girl 

" Demoiselle Mina," said he, " we 
have known each other since infancy. 
"Would you, for the sake of our old 
friendship, allow me to ask you one 
question, and then to offer you a single 
counsel ?" 

" I will reply to your question, if it 
be suitable for me to do 80, and I will 



list your counsel if it be good," replied 
the girl with a slight haughtiness in 
her manner. 

"You shall judge," said Johann. 
" Demoiselle, you take much interest 
in all that passes in the city." 

"I seek not to conceal it. I am 
young and full of life, and I love to 
gaze upon brilliant cavalcades, shin- 
ing breast- plates, floating plumes and 
broidc*red doublets ; I like to hear of 
the nuptials of such a baron, or tbe 
mourning of such a castellau. My 
father forbids it not, nor think I that 
you will blame it. Such tastes are fkr 
from marvellous at my age.'* 

'* Nor marvel I at them ; but if they 
are imprudent, demoiselle ?" asked Jo- 
hann with a look of affliction. 

" Imprudent I Why ?" returned Mi- 
na quickly, a flash gleaming from be* 
neatli her long kshes. 

*• Because — because," stammered Jo- 
hann, " to me it seemeth that the hap- 
piness of a young maiden like thee, 
beautiful, good, and vurtuoiis as thoa 
art, is better assured when it flourish- 
es beneath the shadow of her home. 
Baronesses and countesses may dis- 
play their great names and fine appa- 
rel at courts and tourneys ; but for thee, 
demoiselle, thy pride, thi/ rich apparel, 
and thy tnie dignity are thy sweet vir- 
tue in the first place, and, afler, the re- 
nown of thy father, and such gifts are 
but little prized by the great ones 
of the world. Tijou wilt better ciyoj 
them and l)et'er preserve them by not 
exposing them without thy dwelling." 

" And have I rot remained there?" 
cried Mina, almost in tears. ^ Go I 
ever to rejoicings unless my futher 
bears me company ? Was I ever seen, 
while he works here, to babble or even 
to smile without ?'' 

"'Tis not that I would charge," re- 
plied Johann, ^ All see thee ever 
here, tranquil, smiling, and pure, like 
yon bright marble cherubim, which 
hovers over thy house, and, even if he 
were not there, still might thy dwelling 
be called the Ilou.'^e of the Angtsl. But 
if thy thoughts wander abroad whilst 
thou remaineat here ; if thou dost al- 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



487 



ways desire ardently to see those re- 
joicings of which thou knowest naught, 
or tlmt world which thou scarcely 
knowest, thou wilt become unhappy, 
demoiselle, and it is that evil I wished 
— that thou must escape." 

" But why, my good Johann, disquiet 
thyself about my happiness i'' asked 
Mina in a kinder tone. 

" Why, Mina, why ? Because from 
childhood I have grown by thy side ; 
because for long years it seemed thou 
wert my sister ; because later I thought 
thee my friend ; because I would gladly 
bear the burden of thy soitows, and 
count thy hopes as mine own." 

** 1 thank thee, Johann ; thy heart is 
good and true," replied the girl, while 
her eye sought the distant mountsiin be- 
hind which the setting sun was soon to 
sink. 

'' Sayost thou so, Mina ? I know 
nothing of that ; I but feel that I have 
a heart that loves thee — that would re- 
gard no effort, recoil from no sacrifice 
that would bring to thee joy, glory, or 
happiness." 

*' Truly art thou generous, Johann," 
replied the girl, nodding her fair head. 
"But I need naujrht; I am tranquil 
and happy, and will probably never 
find occasion for the exercise of thy 
devotion." 

^ Ah ! if some day thou mayst find 
aught of consolation in my tenderness !" 
cried Joiiann, clasping his hands and 
fixing a timid glance full of emotion 
upon her. " Mina — I sometimes dreamt 
— pardon me — but thy father was 
always so affectionate to me, and thou 
hast ot\en been so kind — I sometimes 
dreamt that some day Sebald Koerner 
might C4ill mo son — that thou, Mina — 
thou mightcst give me a name dearer, 
tenderer, holier yet. But your looks 
tell me I have hoped in vain betbre 
your mouth has spoken — and yet, to 
thee would I have consecrated so much 
of devotion and love, if thou hadst be- 
come my wife ! " 

The maiden motioned with her hand 
and turned away with a sigh. 

** We would be neither rich nor pow- 
erful," continued Johann, '^ but never- 



theless I thought we might be happy. 
If thou shouldst desire fine apparel, 
Mina, I would have given thee them 
from the rewards of my toil ; if thou 
shouldst desire glory, I would have 
worked until thou wouldst bear my 
name with pride. For thee would I 
have strained my uttermost strength, 
what talent I may own, my youth — and 
of thee I would have asked only that 
thou shouldst remain joyous and beau- 
tiful, and shouldst love me a little. 
And how peacefully would thy old 
father live — how happily die, seeing 
thee happy and beloved, ay, adored ! 
Yes — adored, Mina ; I have said the 
word and will not unsay it." 

Uttering these last words, Johann 
lowered his eyes and bent his head be- 
fore her, as if to express by his mien 
the deep tenderness of his heart. She 
stretched forth her hand, moved by 
these simple declarations of a love 
almost hopeless, but yet so full of life. 

*'Dear Johann — faithful Johann," 
said she at length, *' thou art g^d and 
kind, but — speak no more thus. Thou 
hast said that in our childhood tliou 
lovedst me as a sister. Let me still be 
thy sister. I will never be thy wife. 
I will neither lie nor forswear myself. 
I would shelter myself behind the 
grating of the cloister of Lichtenthal or 
sleep in yonder cemetery rather than 
give thee my hand, because with it I 
should not give my heart, and thpu 
wouldst not see remorse and regret in 
the heart of thy wife. Johann 1 let us 
be friends, and, if thou lovest me, try to 
forget thy dream." 

'* I may never forget it," murmured 
the young sculptor. "My love is as 
old as I, Mina ; it forms part of my 
life. But if Grod, some day allows its 
flame to be quenched, it will be becaase 
he will light in its place a purer and 
loftier one, and God alone may console 
me, Mina, when I shall have lost — ^' 

At this instant the joyous notes of 
far off-trumpets broke the calm silence 
of the air. 

*' What sounds are those?** asked 
Mina, turning to the window. 

^ Probably the departure of the van. 



488 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



quishers of the tourney. AfVer the 
distribution of the crowns, they were 
iuTited to the burg, and are now sepa- 
rating^, doubtless to change their cos- 
tume for the ball of the evening. Per- 
haps, too, some of the barons may be 
returning to their castles, and, if so, 
their banners will soon appear at the 
end of tlie street."' 

•» I am very curious to see them pass," 
said Mina, and, leaving Johann alone 
in the atelier, she pushed a stool u[)on 
the balcony, and there, leaning upon the 
railing, her little head with its golden 
hair supported by her white hand, slie 
awaited the coming of the brilliant 
ccrttge. 



CnATTER ni. 

TowAKD evening, indeed, knights, 
bannerets, squires, and men-at-arms 
scatterefl themselves through the roads 
and the streets of the town. One of the 
most l^lliant, though least numerous 
parties were making their way toward 
where tiie town became confounded 
with the country. Two nobles rode 
in advance, helmet on head and lance 
in hand, attired in brilliant armor, over 
which were thrown {)Ourpoints of fine 
velvet. Behind, their squires bore 
their banners, one showing gilt battle- 
ments in a field gules, the armorial 
bearings of the barons of Ameck, the 
other the green ouk and argent fit'ld 
of the rich counts of Bro<»ck. 

'* My dear Olho," said the last nam 
ed, throwing upon his \oung compa- 
nion a glance of almost paternal afifec- 
tion, '* 1 am well satisfie<l with tht-e ; 
thy deeds shone bright in to-day*s 
joustings. Thy bmtliers-in-arms had 
begun to laugh at thee, and to say thou 
hadst luM^ome but an image-maker. But 
to-day showed that the noble remained 
in thee." 

" You are very kind, my lord count," 
replied the young knigiit. 

'' Not 80. in sooth ; I but look to thy 
interest, a.^ in duty bound. Although 
thy domains, my friend, be of limited 
extent, thou hast a name ancient 



enough, a brilliant fame, and a brave 
enough form to make it a pleasure for 
many a rich and proud demoiselle to 
give thee her hand and dowry, and 
to change name and title for those of 
the barons of Ameck." 

*• You flatter me. lord count." replied 
Otho, raising himself in his saddle 
and joyfully stroking his mustache. 
'' Ilath one of those fair ladies of whom 
you speak deigned to cast a glance 
upon me ?" 

*' More than one has done so, u 
well thou knowest." returned he of 
Broeck ; ''and even to-day the richest 
and most beautiful of tliem all, Grer- 
trude of Ilorsheim, spoke and smiled 
graciously as she placed the crown 
upon tliv brows." 

" Lady Gertrude," said Olho, ' hath 
truly a sweet voice and teeth of exceed- 
ing whiteness." 

** Moreover, she hath two castles in 
the valley of the Murg and a thriving 
villnge in the plain. Her father is a 
stout loi*d, who, I well know, will not 
object to tiiee for a son-in-law. I 
know, Otho, that Master Sebald 
Koerner has a pretty daughter, and 
th.it thou art souK^times charged 
with wishing to espouse her. But 
wouldst thou truly, in the lightness 
of thy heart, add to the battlements of 
thy shield the chisel of such a father- 
in-law ? They say that you make be- 
tween vou a complete company ofstone- 
cutters, and that thou art the mason 
and he the sculptor. I wish ihee well, 
my friend, and therefore do I scold 
and mock thee. 1 know that in thj 
heart's depth thou art as proud as thou 
art brave. So far thou art Sir Otho^ 
Baron Otho, and all noble ladies smile 
upon and salute thee. Wouldst be 
called Olho the citizen, Otho the image- 
maker, and have all Indies turn their 
backs upon thee or point thee out as 
some wonder ?" 

*' Truly, not so ; and never will I 
give them reason for so doing," re- 
plied the young knight, with a face 
scarlet with shame. 

** Then," said De Broeck, '• reply 
suitably to the invitation 1 am about 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



to offer tliee. In a fortnight I give 
a festival at my castle. There will 
be jousts in the great court, banquets 
in the great hall, balls and hunts, 
tilting for the ring, and shootin;r with 
the bow. The Countess Gertrude will 
be there, and thou canst enroll thyself 
among the number of her suitors. 
Stcgfried of Thunn will be there, 
too ; he bore the ring from thee late- 
ly, and thou hast thy revenge to take. 
All this, I hope, promises enough of 
pleasure, and is better than thy statues 
and images. So, Otho, thou wilt come ? 
I may count upon thee !'' 

" Assuredly, my lord count, it is an 
honor and happiness to obey you," 
replied the young knight, taking leave 
of his protector with a courteous in- 
clination. 

The two escorts separated, and Otho, 
dismissing his, took the direction of 
the house of the old sculptor. 

A few moments aHer, Mina and 
Johann saw him enter the atelier. 

" Here I am at last, my dear mas- 
ter," said he, pressing the old artist's 
hands with real affection. " Did you 
think I had forgotten you in the midst 
of tiltings and passages-at-anns ?*' 

'' There was certainly reason that 
you might," replied Sebald, smiling. 
** In the midst of thrusts of lance and 
crushing of helms, you could scarce 
think of kneading clay or cutting 
statues." 

** That may be, but a pupil can al- 
ways find time to give his dearest, his 
oldest friend and most excellent mas- 
ter pleasure. And what think yon, 
Master Koerner, I bring to-day ?" 

*• Firstly, a crown, if rumor speaks 
truth," answered the sculptor; ** se- 
condly, some broken casques and bat- 
tered harness. Those, I believe, are 
the gleanings of the tilt-yard.** 

'* Then, master, you are wrong. I 
bring something different from all these. 
Would you know what ? An order 
from the roarjjrave, written with his 
own hand and sealed with his own 
seal, for Master Sebald Koerner to 
begin, with no greater delay than a 
month at moat, the decoration of the 



chapel and the grand hall of his castle 
of Eberstein." 

** How ! The margrave choose me !" 
cried Sebald, his eyes lighting up with 
joy. 

^ And certes, my master, could he 
have made a better choice? After 
the tournament we met in his castle, 
and he there spoke of his castle of 
Eberstein and the embellishments be 
proposed, but he had not yet fixed his 
choice upon a sculptor. In short, I 
brought forward your name ; I prais- 
ed your St. Christopher; I recalled 
your Virgin Mary to his mind ; some 
other nobles seconded me, and — here 
is the order written upon parchment" 
" Thanks ! thanks 1 my true friend I 
my dear pupil !" cried the old master, 
pressing the young knight's hand. 
''Through your good offices some 
memories of me may remain in my 
country. The thick walls of the cas- 
tle of Eberstein will protect and pre- 
serve my statues, and they may per- 
haps be gazed on when time shall have 
crumbled into dust the saints I have 
carved for the pediments of the houses 
of the city, and the Christs I have rais- 
ed by the roadsides. And it is you, 
noble Otho, who have brought to me 
the brightest crown, the sweetest joy, 
a sculptor can wear or taste — the as- 
surance of the duration — mayhap the 
glory of his works !" 

" Dear master, why so much of com- 
pliment and gratitude ? Would I not 
do much more for the love of art and 
of you ?" 

And while he spoke, the knight's 
eyes sought those of Mina, smiling and 
blushing in a comer, and repeated io 
their silent language, "^ And for tlie love 
of thee, too, fair girl." 

** This day is a day of gladness for 
me," continued old Sebald. '* Johann 
conducted hither after vespers the 
prior of the Augustines, who hiith con- 
fided to me the decoration of his 
chapel." 

»• Pah ! a monastery of poor monks P 
exclaimed Otho, shrugging his shoul- 
ders slightly, and throwing a disdainful 
glance on the hamble Johann and his 



400 



I%e Crucifix of Baden. 



gray doublet. «=Not a very brilliant 
or lucrative undertaking, I should say. 
You will neither win a load of glory 
nor mountains of gold there, my dear 
master. But each brings what he 
finds and gives what he has/' said the 
young knight, withdrawing his gaze 
from Johann and turning on his heel. 

" I could find nothing better," said 
Johann in a tone of discouragement, 
"although I, too,. would work for the 
glory and fortune of my master." 

" And thy master accepts thy good 
intentions with joy, my son," answered 
old Sebald, taking his hand, ^' for he 
knows tiiat thoy come from a devoted 
soul and a sincere heart I have not 
only a noble art and a good daughter ; 
I have also two brave pupils, two 
true friends. God bo thanked, he 
hath made me a happy man !" 

Happy, O poor Sebald! Ay, if 
thou hndst no daughter. Alas ! why 
does Mina gize with such simple ad- 
miration upon the noble countenance 
and gilt spurs of the knight? Why 
does she hang enchanted upon the 
sweet accents of his voice ? 

As long as he came regularly to the 
studio, Mina was smiling and happy; 
but one day he cnme not, and ou the 
next she received a letter. 



CHAPTER IV. 

From the day Mina received that 
letter she lost her freshness and gayety. 

Then commenced a long and bitter 
series of nights without rejKwc and 
days without hope. She sometimes 
said sadly to herself that, as the sun 
shines not always clearly, as the sky 
is not for ever blue, so the smiles and 
joys of maidens are of short life ; and 
that, while timid women remain around 
the hearthstone, yoing and valiant 
knights must depart to the wars or on 
long journeys, like the great silver 
herons which pju»s a season on the 
borders of limpid waters, and then 
depart on outspread wing to return, 
when the gloomy winter baa passed, to 



find once more their nests in the long 
grass, and their clean bath among the 
budding reeds. She thought all thi«, 
and then reasoned a little and prayed 
much more; but she of^en trembled; 
she ever was in pain, and, becoming 
weak, she became unhappy. 

Her cheeks gretv pale; her brow 
clouded ; her eyes ceased to sparkle. 
She no longer took pleasure in seeini^ 
from her balcony the archers of the 
margrave pass, nor in confining with 
golden cords and tassels her shining 
hair or waving robe. Her sadness and 
languor at last attracted the attention 
of her father. He thought that hii 
frequent absences, the solitude of the 
house, alone caused his daughter's 
weariness and illness. Ceasing for a 
while his labor, he passed a few days 
with her, or brought her with him from 
time to time, hoping to wean her 
thouglits from their melancholy by the 
sight of the great ornamented halls 
and the beautiful park of the castle of 
Eberstein. 

But often, when he had led her to 
the great park and allowed her to 
wander theix;, going himself to finish 
a keystoni', to carve a capital, or deco- 
rate a moulding, he found her not on 
his return crowned with wild flowers, 
or culling odorous berries and wall 
gra|>es, or following with eager eye the 
bounding deer. No; almost always 
Mina sat by the margin of some soli* 
tary pond, plucking the leaves from a 
willow branch or pulling a wild rose 
to pieces. But her gaze bent not to 
the branch or to the flower. It wan- 
dered over the surface of the water, 
slowly and sadly, and ofttimes seemed 
to se(*k some invisible form in its 
depths, and then tunied tearful from 
the waves, as if sorrowing at not there- 
in piTceiving the object of its longings. 

The old sculptor womlered and grew 
sad, as a good father would, and then 
consoled himself with the reflectiun 
that often tender hearts were subject 
to passing griefs, and that it takes but 
little to trouble the gayety of the hap- 
piest maidens. But it was the wea* 
riness of idleness he feared most for 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



401 



Mina, and he made every effort to dis- 
tract her thoughts. 

" Listen, my child," said he one 
beautiful morning in July, when the 
earth smiled fresh and glittering in the 
dew — ^'' listen. It is too fine a day for 
me to wish to work in. In my old 
age I must have from time to time a 
little recreation — afresh air and sun- 
light ; if it please tbee, we will go to 
the city." 

** As thou wishest, father," replied 
Mina, rising with vacant eye and 
dreamy air. 

" And methinks a little walk and a 
few cheerful visits would do thee won^ 
drous good. It is long since I have 
seen Master Hans Barthing, the gold- 
smith, mine ancient neighbor and old 
friend, and his daughters Jeanne and 
Bertha will not he vexed to have thee 
their companion for a day. Let us 
start, then, my daughter. Ah ! here is 
Johann ! Well, let him come. Johann 
is an excellent yoath, and is always 
welcome with Master Barthing as with 
me. Johann, my son," continued the 
old sculptor, turning to the young 
man, *' it is useless to take up the 
chisel to-day. Thou shalt help me to 
buckle my mantle. We arc going to 
take a walk, and I invite thee to ac- 
company us." 

*•! will go willingly," replied Jo- 
hann, who rarely went out in Mina*s 
company, and who, poor boy, marked 
with a white mark those days when 
the pretty girl deigned him a triendly 
look or word. 

Soon the three visitors arrived at the 
house of Master Barthing, the jewel- 
ler, whose talent was well known and 
valued even beyond the frontiers of 
the margravate of Baden, and whose 
frank cordiality and joyous humor were 
justly prized by his friends and neigh- 
bors. 

" You here at last, Master Koemer !" 
cried the old goldsmith, rising from 
his leathern arm-chair and doffing his 
furred cap as soon as he perceived 
his visitors. " Come you to examine 
my treasures or to ask a diamond from 
my shop ? But, pshaw, my old Sebald, 



you need them not; you have other 
treasures and owe no man for them; 
and here," he continued, looking on 
Mina, '*is your most briUiant, your 
most precious diamond. Come, Jeanne! 
Bertha I here is a happy visit-*a charm- . 
ing friend." 

The two girls rushed forward and 
gave their ancient neighbor a thousand 
caresses and a thousand kisses. 

** How changed thou art, Mina I" 
exclaimed Jeanne suddenly. 

** Thou art wearied, I am sure,*' add- 
ed Bertha, *' in thy great lonely house. 
It cannot be very diverting to have 
ever around thee but marble and stone, 
and plaster and statues. Why dost 
come so seldom to visit us ? Together 
we can amuse each other ; we can re- 
count legends as we spin ; or Jeanne, 
wiio hath a good voice, can trill some 
love-lay of the minnesingers. And 
what wiU amuse thee perhaps more 
than aught else will be to see the beau- 
tiful and shining jewels in our father^s 
workshop. I knew well, my dear 
friend, that many fine things are to be 
seen in thy father's atelier, but there 
everything is white — for ever white, 
and that must be somewhat saddening. 
But a young girl is always rejoiced 
and gUid when she contemplates at her 
leisure rich diadems and rings, ena- 
melled flasks, and glittering necklaces." 

^ Courage, child ! courage. Bertha !" 
cried the goldsmith, laughing. ^ It is 
a dutiful daughter who to love of her 
father joins love of his trade. Well, 
if thou thinkest Mademoiselle Mina 
will take pleasure in seeing my ena- 
mels, my jewels, and my diamonds, as 
soon as our collation is finished thou 
shalt take her to my atelier. I have 
there something I think exceeding fine, 
in fact a veritable master-piece. But 
it becomes mo not to praise myself. 
You will see; you willjudge, and you 
will give me your opinion." 

Half an hour afler they entered the 
long and narrow gallery where the 
goldsmith showed Ibrth hia richest 
jewels, his most massive and skilfully 
chiseled pieces of silver, hia best 
finished and most precious works. 



402 



1%0 Crucifix of Baden. 



Brilliant lights seemed to sparkle and 
shine from all sides in this room of 
TTonders. Everywhere glittered gold, 
rubies, sapphires, while pearls lent 
their soft white light, and diamonds 
and opals their thousand colors. Great 
show-cases full of enamellings shone 
like the sun ; rings, reliquaires, clasps, 
laid out on tables, seemed to form a 
vast train of sparks whose fires min- 
gled in shining light, and chains and 
necklaces formed a hinder garlands of 
stars and variegated flame. 
' And while the two old men follow- 
ed, chatting, behind, the three young 
girls wandered with light step in ad- 
vance liither and thith«»r, trying on this 
necklace, toying with these rings, ad- 
miring that rcliquairc, tearing tlieir en- 
tranced eyes from those wildernesses 
of beautiful form.-*, of rays and colors. 
Between the two groups came Johann, 
the poor youth feeling no inclinarion to 
join one and not daring to approach the 
other ; lonely Johann, who admired 
alone, and from time to time sighed 

Suddenly Master Hans advanced 
before the girls, and, taking a key from 
the huge purse which hung at his belt, 
he unlocked a casket of cedar wood, 
and unrolled a carpet of emeralds on 
a field of glittering gold, before the 
eyes of the s[)ectators. 

** IIow beautiful ! how dazzling !" 
cried the maidens. 

** Whence came such splendid jew- 
els, such magnificent stomas ? ' asked 
Master Sebald. '*Onc would think 
the treasures of the Eastern magiciatis, 
of whom crusad«rs' legends tell, were 
spread before him." 

*' This," replied Master Ilnns. plung- 
ing his hand into the casket and draw- 
ing forth a chain set with emeralds, "' is 
the trea.sure of the house of Ilorsheim, 
to which I have added, by the ordiT of 
the pi-esent lonl, some of my rarest 
stones. The count U about to cele- 
brate the marriage of his daughter, 
and, besides her dowry of bi'auty and 
of castleii, he. wishes to give her a 
splendid one of jewels." 

*• Ah ! ihen beauteous Lady &T- 
Irude is to be maiTied at hist," said 



Mina, with a sigh of relief, for she 
had not yet forgotten how on the day 
of the tournament Johann bad told her 
that Otho had received the crown from 
the hands of the young countess. 

'^ Yes, Demoiselle Mina ; and the 
wedding, they say, takes place in a 
fortnight, and will be one of the most 
brilliant ever celebrated in the mar- 
gravate of Baden." 

'' But whom doth the countess mar- 
ry ?'* asked Johann, who, without 
knowing why, felt his heait beat paio- 
fully. 

'^ If rumor speaks sooth, a knight of 
but moderate fortune, but of goodly 
form, larsre heart, and name of re- 
nown. They say 'tis the Baron of 
Ameck ; but of this I a mnot sure, for 
I have never seen the count and lady 
together when they come the city.*' 

"What I Otho, my pupil ?" interrupt- 
ed Master Sebald. 

"And why not, old friend? If, as 
I think, it be he, thou wilt henceforth 
si'e him but rarely, for hereafter be 
will li:ive much else to do besides 
moulding clay or chiselling statues." 

'* Ah ! I fear me much the bravo 
kniglit is lost to sculpture," replied 
Sebald, smiling. 

But Johann smili^d not. He drew 
near Alina and followed her movements 
with looks of anguish, lie saw her 
cheek bhmch and a cloud come over 
her eyes, and, fearing lest she should 
faint, pushed a seat to her. 

But Mina refused it with a resMute 
gesture, and without trembling ap- 
proached the casket. 

*" Are vou sure that it is Otho of 
Ameek she marries ?'' asked she in a 
strange tone, gazing fixedly uymn Hans 
Bartliing. " In any event, the bride 
will be brave in this glistening chain. 
Ah I if it were I — if I were riclf and 
possessed ca-^tles, and were a count- 
ess—think you that 1 would not be 
beautiful with these green flasliings 
and diamonds in my hair and about 
my neck ?" 

Mina, s[>eaking thus with a bitter 
laugh and vacant stare, twine.d the 
chain around her neck and through 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



498 



her wavy tresses, and, in doing so, her 
little fingers moved so fast that none 
could see how they ti-embled. 

But suddenly her words ceased, her 
eyes closed, her hands fell by her side, 
and with a feeble cry she fell upon the 
chair. 

'• My daughter ! O my daughter I 
What aileth thee?" cried old Sebald, 
running to her. 

'* 'Tis naught ; a weakness ; nothing 
more " said the goldsmith. *• The heat 
of to-day was. indeed, enough to make 
a young girl faint. Quick, Bertha ! 
Jeanne I bring hither the Queen of 
Hungary's water and open the win- 
dows." 

*'*' It is doubtless the influence of the 
stones that hath made poor Mina ill," 
murmured one of the jeweller's daugh- 
ters, who seemed to stand terror-strick- 
en, ** Thou knowest, father, that the 
sapphire brings happy dreams, the 
opal misfortune on its possessor, and 
the beryl can cause fain tings. It is 
then, perhaps, the emeralds which cause 
Mina's illness. She is not accustomed 
to gaze upon them, and they glitter so 
— the shining stones !" 

^ Yes, it is certainly the jewels — 
and their light — and the heat,** stam- 
mered Johann, who, on his knees, was 
holding the fainting girl's hands with- 
in his own, and trying to restore their 
warmth. " But Demoiselle Mina re- 
covers not. Think you not, Master 
Sebald, that it would be well to take a 
litter and return to your dwelling V* 

"Assuredly," replied Master Koer- 
ner, surprised and anxious at his 
daughter's swoon. 



CHAPTER V. 

Ox the way home Mina opened her 
eye-', but she remained mute and 
moumfuL But when, after she had 
been placed on a lounge in the lower 
hall of' her dwelling, she saw that her 
father was about to direct Johann to 
hasten the arrival of a leech, she bent 



over to the old sculptor and retained 
him wirh a hand cold as ice. 

**' I would speak a word with Johann 
alone," she murmured. " Wilt thou 
permit me, my father ?" 

" Surely," replied the old man, fix- 
ing upon her a look of wonder, but 
hastening to leave the chamber. 

Then Mina feebly called Johann, 
and made him a sign to sit at her feet. 

^'Thou saidst one day, my good 
brother Johann,'* said she, '-that thou 
wouldst spare no effort, recoil from no 
risk to procure me joy or happiness." 

*' So said I ; so will I do " answered 
the poor youth, bending on her a look 
full of emotion. 

*• Then, Johann, thou canst preserve 
my greatest happiness, cause my great- 
est joy. I know that I cannot deceive 
thee; I noted thy gaze when Hans 
Barlliing spoke of the marriage of 
Otho and Gertrude. Know then, 
Johann, that the knight of Ameck is 
my true — ^my only love; and now I 
would know if he hath betrayed me. 
It is peace of heart I ne?d for my 
cure, Johann, and not the skill of the 
leech. Depart then, good Johann, and 
go to Uorsheim. There thou wilt 
easily learn who is the countess's be- 
trothed. And thou maycst even, with- 
out being perceived, see them pass by 
together, speaking low, walking hand 
inhand, believing the mselves alone. 
Thou wilt return and tell me all, Jo- 
hann, and I will gain strength to live 
until thy return; for it would be too 
bitter to die if Otho remaineth faithful. 
Thou wilt go — wilt thou not, my bro- 
ther — my only friend ?" 

Johann's only reply was a kiss im- 
printed on Mina's hand and a silent 
pressure of her taper fingers, while two 
great tears rolled from his eyes. Then 
he departed from the House of the 
Angel, and, after having called the 
physician, saddled his horse and left 
the town that very evening, following 
the Hne of the high hills which stretch- 
ed away toward the Rauhe Alps, at tho 
foot of which was the castle of Hors- 
heim. 

10 •■ OOXTIHUID. 



404 Forebodingi. 



FOREBODINGS. 

Pbettt Nan to Flora said, 

" Prithee, whj so gay ? *' 
Dark eyed Flora bent her head : 

*» He is gone away." 

" Strange I " quoth Nan. ** If 'twere my hearty 

None could be more sad. 
Ab5ience gives the keenest smart. 
Tell me, why art ghid?" 

Dark eyed Flora, with a sigh, 

'Gan to braid her hair, 
Whilst to Nan she made reply : 

** Hark I my sister dear. 

^ Chanced it on a summer mom, 
I/aughingly I chose 
The^e long tresses to adorn 
With a beauteous rose. 

''Of the flower he made request, 
I in wilfulness 
Did refuse, and as a jest 
Gave it a caress. 

'* But I did not long deny. 
Said I : Plucked for you, 
Take ; but care it tenderly, 
'Tis my rose-love true. 

^ Nameless was the pain and dread 
Filled my aching heart. 
Soon I saw my rose-love dead. 
Idly toni apart. 

"Thus he would my heart's love fling 
Coldly, idly by. 
Than to wear his wedding-ring, 
Rather would I die. 

" Ah ! the cruel, ugly smart ! 
Fear my love did slay. 
Pined I sadly in my heart 
Till he went away. 

"'Gainst the power of his voice 
All in vain I strove. 
Freed by absence, I rejoice, 
Now I dare to love P 



7%«. Minor Brethren. 



485 



Abridged fh>m The Dublin Unirenlty Magaslne. 



THE MINOR BRETHREN. 



[The ensuing portion of an article 
from which we have stricken out the 
remainder on account of its objection- 
able statements, although not strictlj 
in conformity with the Catholic view 
of the lives of the saints, furnishes a 
graphic sketch of the life of St, Francis, 
and an evidence of the approximation 
many Protestants are making toward 
a more candid and reasonable view of 
Catholic subjects. — Ed. C. W.] 

The towns of Italy were in advance 
of those of other countries ; many of 
them were beautifully built, and cele- 
brated for their wealthy and powerful 
citizens. Such a town was Assisi in 
Umbria, and such a citizen was Fietro 
Bernadone when his son Francisco was 
bom — Francisco Bernadone, afterward 
Pater Minorum, Pater Seraphicus, 
then St Francis, with a place among the 
saints in the hagiology of the church, 
now high up on stained-glass windows 
of thousands of churches, in illuminat- 
ed missals, imperishable in history, and 
honored by men of all subsequent 
times and creeds as a great reformer 
and bene factor to humanity, an ardent, 
enthusiastic Christian. We shall con- 
template the character and work of St. 
Francis as the ** salt" infused into the 
world at one of those periods of its 
corruption, and in order to do this we 
shall endeavor to delineate the man as 
clearly as we can from the acts of his 
life and the emanations of his mind ; 
then examine his great work, and its 
effect upon the church in general, and 
upon that of our own country in par- 
ticular. 

We shall endeavor to portray St. 
Francis, the founder of the Friars 
Minors, not according to the phantoms 
of imagination, or the caricatures of 
prejudice, but from the records of his 
life, and still more efficiently from his 
works and sayings. Fortunately the 



materials are ample. There is a life 
of St. Francis, written by Thomas of 
Celano, the probable author of the sub- 
lime mediseval hymn, the " Dies Irae," 
and, as he was a follower and an ind- 
mate friend of the saint, he writes with 
authority. At the command of Gre- 
gory IX., he committed to writmg his 
knowledge of the life of St. Francis, 
which work was called the " Legenda." 

A second life was written by John 
of Ceperano ; a third by an English- 
man, being a metrical version of that 
of Celano ; a fourth by three compa- 
nions of the saint, (a Tribus Sociis^ 
Leo, Angelus, and Ruffinus, compiled 
at the command of the minister-gene- 
ral of the order. Father Crescentius ; 
a Mh by the same Thomas of Celano, 
being a fuller sketch, at the request 
also of Crescentius ; anda sixth, written 
at the request of nearly the w^hole or- 
der by St Bonaventura, who, when a 
child, had seen the saint. 

All of these biographies are extant 
in the Acta Sanctorum, written in 
what Carlyle would term " monk or 
dog Latin, still readable to mankind."* 
His works are scanty, but such as they 
are, they bear the impress of the man's 
mind. It must be remembered that 
St. Francis made no pretensions to be- 
ing a scholar, a theologian, or an au- 
thor ; in fact, he was a little inclined to 
deprecate these things ; therefore, his 
literary remains are only a few letters, 
hymns, addresses, colloquies, predic- 
tions, and apothegms. 

His father, though an avaricious man, 
yet lived in the profuse style charac- 
teristic of the leading Italian merchants, 
and young Francisco was brought up 
accordingly, so that his youth, up to 
the age of twenty-five, was spent in 
vanity. During that time, he excelled 

* Put and PreteaW 



496 



The Minor Brethren. 



all his companions in gaj frivolity, and 
the vices common to a young man with 
a rich father, proad of his son. He 
was the admiration of all, and led many 
astray by his example. He dressed 
in 8ofl and flowing robes, spent his 
time in jesting, wanton conversation, 
and singing songs. Being rich, he was 
not avaricious, but prodigal ; not hav- 
ing to work for his fortune, he cheer- 
fully set about spending that of his 
father. 

An incident is recorded in the life 
by the three companions whi<;h is not 
mentioned by Thomas of Cclano nor 
Bonaventura * It is, that during a 
disturbance between the citizens of As- 
sisi and the people of Perugia, young 
Fnmcisco was captured, and, with 
others, phced in prison. Whilst there 
his manner was so different from the 
rest, they being sad and lie more gay 
than ever, that they asked him the rea- 
son. **What do you take me for?" 
said he. ** I shall yet bo adored all 
over the world.** He spent nearly a 
year in this durance, and, when peace 
was declared, returned to Assisi, and 
devoted his attention to tlic sale of his 
father's wares, until his conversion, 
which happened some years later. 
During the interval he fell ill, and be- 
gan to lament for the sin of his past 
lir«, and 1o make resolutions of amend- 
ment. 11^ recovered, and, with the 
recovery, t!ie penitence and the resolu- 
tions all vanishe<l. 

He pursued his former life until a 
circumstance happened which very 
nearly changed his whole career. A 
Certain nobleman of Asi^iisi was about 
to undertake a military expedition 
against Apulia, and young Francisco 
was immediately fired with the long- 
ing to becomf» a soldier, llu had a 
mysterious dream, which he mislnter- 
preteil into an <»ncounigement. After 
making all preparations, he set out 
atid reaciu'd as far as Spoh't », where 
he had another <lream which convinced 
him of his mistake, and sent him back 
to Assisi. From that time he began 

* It |4 Hi In lied to, howerer. In the Ufe of St. Co- 
lamb;* Ke itiiia. 



to reflect, and in the embairasament of 
his thoughts would retire into solitary 
places, and pray to Grod to guide him 
and du*ect him what to do. 

He spoke in enigmas, and told his 
friends that he should not go to Apolla, 
but would nmke his name famous at 
home. In reply, they demanded what 
were his plans ? was he going to take 
a wife? "I am" — said Francisoo*- 
'* I am going to take a more beautiful 
and noble wife than you have ever 
seen, who will excel in beauty and 
wisdom all women." 

He now took to fasting, prayer, and 
almsgiving. The mysterious work had 
commenced ; his whole nature cliang- 
ed; he isolated himself from all his 
companions, began to hear voices from 
hctiyen, to see visions, and to listen to 
calls from the Invisible. 

Whilst in this state, he was one day 
returning from a neighboring market, 
where he had sold some of bis father's 
goods, and passed by the church of St. 
Damian, which had fallen into ruins. 
A liglit flashed Ufon his mind. He 
had previously, when praying in the 
fields, heard a voice say to him, *• Fran- 
cis, go and repair my Jiouse,** and 
therefore, without a moment's hesita- 
tion, he entered the church, found the 
old priest, bowed before him, kissed 
his hands, implored him to accept the 
money which he was taking home, ami 
permit him to remain there. T!ie cau- 
tious priest allowed him to renuun, but 
refused to take his father's mouey, 
when Francisco, in a fit of indi^^nation, 
t!m»vv it aside contemptuously. 

By this time the father be;:an to be 
uneasy about the fate of his twcentric 
son and set out to make inquiries for 
him. Francisco then retired to a 
neighboring cavern. Ht'rc lie staid 
some time, but at last, resolving to 
bnive it out, h(* reruriied, wasted and 
wan, t.i Assisi. The people thought 
him mad, and pelted him through the 
stn^ets, when his father, heiiring a 
noisi*, went out, and, nu*ogniziiig his 
son, seized him. dragged him home, 
chastised him sevendy, shut him up in 
a dark place, and firmly bouud him. 



T%e Minor Brethnn. 



4sn 



that he miglit be safe till he returned 
from a journey he waa about to take. 

In the father's absence, however, the 
mother, aOer trying in vain to reason 
with him, let him go, and he immedi- 
ately returned to the church where he 
had been hiding. His father, upon 
his return, upbraided his wife for re- 
leasing his disobedient son, and re- 
solved upon bringing the matter tea 
settlement. 

To this end he went to the church, 
saw Francisco, and, finding him more 
obstinate than ever, decided upon let- 
ting him have his own way, but, with 
characteristic prudence, demanded the 
money from his son which he had re- 
ceived for his goods. This being re- 
stored, he was appeased, and then sug- 
gested that, as Francisco had devot^ 
himself to poverty, he would not re- 
quire any patrimony, and might re- 
lease his father from all claim upon 
him. To this Francisco willingly con- 
sented. A formal document was pre- 
pared, and the parties appeared before 
the bishop, when Francisco not only 
renounced his inheritance, but, taking 
off his clothes, threw them to his 
father, with these words : ** Up to now 
I have called thee my father on earth, 
but now I can securely say. My 
Father, who art in heaven." The bi- 
shop was so delighted that he embraced 
him, and gave him his cloak. 

Thus was Francisco divorced from 
the world, from father, mother, and 
kindred, and married to poverty, to 
whom from this time forth he devoted 
his life. An incident is recorded of 
bim here which was indicative of one 
portion of his great work. He was out 
alone on a certain day, when a wretch- 
ed leper crossed his path. Francisco 
instinctively shrunk from the sight, but, 
suddenly recollecting that his object 
was to subdue himself, he ran after the 
leper, seized his hand, and kissed it. 

From that time he resolved to 
adopt the care of the lepers as a pecu- 
liar portion of his work, and we find 
liim shortly afterward entering the 
leper hospital and devoting himself to 
their service^ washing theur sores 
VOL. v.— »2 



with his own hands, dressing them, 
and once even kissing them.* Then 
he returned once more to Assisi, the 
scene of his youthful revelry, and in 
the garb of a mendicant begged in the 
streets from those who once knew 
him in luxury, for money to rebuild 
the church of St Damian, as he felt 
the injunction to do so was still upon 
him. 

His enthusiasm told upon men's 
minds, and money flowed in rapidly, 
so that he not only rebuilt that church, 
but another also, St. Mary of Forzion- 
cula, which he then frequented, and 
to which he was ever afterward deep- 
ly attached. One day when attending 
mass in this church, and the gospel was 
read, the words, '' Take nothing for 
your journey, neither staves nor scrip, 
neither bread nor money, neither have 
two coats apiece,'' sank deep into his 
soul. He went out of the church, took 
off his shoes, laid aside his staff, threw 
away his wallet, contented himself with 
a small tunic and a rope for a girdle, 
struck out for the strict apostolic rule, 
and endeavored to persuade others to 
follow his example. 

The first instance of the mighty 
contagion of that example occurred 
in the conversion of one Bernard de 
Quintavalle, a man of wealth and re- 
pute, who came to Francisco, and 
offered himself and his all to him. 
The saint proposed that they should 
go to the church of St Nicholas and 
seek for guidance. They did so, and, 
when the mass was over, the priest 
opened the missal, after making the 
sign of the cross. The first response 
was, ^' If thou wilt be perfect, go and 
sell that thou hast, and give to the 
poor;" the second, "Take nothing 
for your journey ;" and the third, 
" If any man will come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up 
his cross, and follow me." "Let us 
obey the divine command," said 
Francis. Bernard immediately did 
so to the letter, and adopted the 
same dress as his master. 

* BoDkrentnra Mjri : " Educeb«t pUfwam potft- 
dincm tt Mnlem AbttergebAt.** 



Tk$ Minor Brethren. 



Thus was the foundation laid of 
that great order of Minor Brethren. 
It is possible that St. Francis, for we 
most call him now My his canonized 
name, had not dreamt of such a 
thing as founding an order; but con- 
verts increased; Peter of Catania 
and four others. Egidius Sabbatini. 
John de Capelhi, and Sylvester were 
then lidded, and they all retired io a 
hut in the plain of Rivo Torto. 

When they numbered eight, St. 
Francis gave them a solemn charge, 
and dismissed them by twos in dif- 
ferent directions to preach the gospel 
of peace and forgiveness. They met 
after a short time, and, as their numbers 
increased so rapidly, St. Francis drew 
ap his first rule, which differed very 
little from that of the Benedictines, 
save that it enjoined at the outset a 
solemn injunction, ingeniously evaded 
afterward, that they should have no 
property, but live in obedience and 
chastity. **Regula et vita istorum 
patrura htec est scilicet vivere in obe- 
dBentia ct in castitate et sine pruprio.'' 
Their clothing was to be of the yioor- 
est kind; for novices for one year, 
^'duas tunicas sine caputio et cingu- 
him et braccas et caparonem usque ad 
eingulum ;" foi those who were finally 
admitted, ^'unicam tunicam cum ca- 
putio et aliam sine caputio, in nccesse, 
fverit et eingulum et braccas." No 
brother should be called ''prior," 
but all should be termed Minor 
Brethren, '^ fratres minores," and the 
one should wash the other's feet. 

Humility was strictly enjoined. 
They were to live on charity ; to beg 
their bread if necessary, and not to be 
ashamed, but rather to remember tliat 
our Lord Jesus ( -hrist was not ashamed, 
was poor and a stranger, and lived on 
charity, both he and his disciples. They 
wen? stringently cautioned against wo- 
men, or, as St. Francis unsrallantly 
puts it, - A malo visa et frequentia 
mulierum.'^ Wherever tlicy went, 
rtwy were to remember that, and no 
one of them was to counsel women 
in secret. They were to travel on 
fbot ; not to have any beast, save from 



extreme mfirmity, or the most ^XfgtA 

necessity.* 

Having drawn up this rale, SL 
Francis, with two or three of his fol- 
lowers, went to Rome to procore the 
pope's sanction to the order. Tbef 
met the pope on a terrace of tlie La- 
teran Palace, and threw themselves 
at his feet He, annoyed at the inter- 
ruption, turned away indignantly from 
these men with bare, unwashed feet 
and coarse attire, and bid them be- 
gone. They retired to pray, whilst 
Innocent III. in the ni^t had a visioo 
which induced him to send the next 
morning for thoee strange men whom 
he had repulsed. He received thaoi 
graciously, approved of their rule, and 
they departed in joy to Assisi. Hb 
march back was a triamplu The peo- 
ple came out to meet him from the vil- 
higes, and many deserted their homes 
to join him or the spot The next 
step taken by St. Francis was to make 
a modificatkm in his rule: he foand 
many people were converted to his 
views, but from the ties of children 
and business occupations could not 
possibly follow him. 

To mc*et such wants, he instituted 
what was called an Order of Peni- 
tents, by which those who joined 
were compelled to pray, to fast, and 
to live according to certain rules, and 
wore beneath their ordinary gaii) 
the penitential girdle. This Order 
included both sexes, and people of all 
classes. One member of it was, how- 
ever, destined to greater things, the 
young and beautiiiil Clara, a daughter 
of the house of Ortolana. She had, 
fn>m chiklhood, been brought ap 
most religiously by her mother, and 
the weinl eloquence of St. Francis 
finished the task. 

An interview was arranged, and 
the saint suggested an elopement, 
whicli was successfully eflTectcd, and 
Chira was abducted by St Francis to 
the church of Poraioncula. ALuiy 
other young ladies soon followed, and 
it was then necessary to institute new 

^ Quod nullo modo ftpad le ncc apud alluin, Dte 
■llqoo modo bmtiui aUquam habeaut. 



The liinor Brelhren. 



4» 



rules for these fair converts. The 
chorch of St. Damian, which St 
Francis bad rebailt, was turned into 
a convent, with Clara (who was after- 
ward canonized as St. Clara) as its 
abbess. A letter is extant in the 
works of the saint, which runs as 
follows: ^Francis, to his very dear 
Sister Clara, and the Convent of the 
Sisters of St. Damian, health in 
Christ. Because by the inspiration 
of our Lord ye have made yourselves 
daughters and handmaidens of the 
Highest, of the most high King and 
heavenly Father, and have betrothed 
yourselves to the Holy Spirit to live 
according to the teaching of the 
goftpcl ; it is my will, and I promise 
that I and my brethren will have 
always for you the same diligent care 
and special solicitude as for ourselves. 
Farewell in the Lord." 

In the year 121 G, the first general 
oouncil of the new order was held in 
the Porzioncula, when Tuscany, Lom- 
burdy, Provence, Spain, and Germany 
were assigned to the principal fol- 
lowers of St. Francis as mission 
grounds. The saint himself took 
France as his own field of operations. 
At this point a meeting took place be- 
tween St Francis and one who stands 
in the church almost on an equal- 
ity with him, Dominic, the founder 
of the order of Friars Preachers. 

Tiiree years after the first, the 
second council was held, and a grand 
Bight it was — five thousand brethren 
encamped around the church. To 
this great body, infused with the spirit 
O^ one man, Ugolino was introduced, 
and made such a fiattering speech, 
and gave such glowing predictions of 
their ftiture power and glory, that St. 
Francis became alarmed, and quickly 
perceived that, if the protector were 
allowed to have free play, he would 
soon ruin his charge. lie therefore 
interfered, reiterat^ the severity of 
their rule which forbade all dreams of 
glory or power, told them they must 
always be the Minor Brethren, the 
poor of the work!, and after redistri- 
buting them amongst several coun- 



tries, broke up the assembly never 
more to venture on another gathering 
into one spot of such inflammable 
materials. Wh%p they were all dis- 
persed, their great founder went upon 
a holy mission to the army then under 
the walls of Damietta. He advised 
the Christians not to engage with the 
Saracens, and predicted their defeat 
if they did, but the army were too 
eager for plunder and bloodshed. 
They engaged, and six thousand 
slaughtered Christians fulfilled the 
prophecy. 

Then St Francis resolved apon 
taking a step which made his nama 
still more famous in history. Confin- 
ing his project to only one, who was 
to accompany him, Jlluminatus* bj 
name, St Francis, although a reward 
was set upon the head of every Chris- 
tian, wandered up to the lines of tbe 
enemy, was seized, and taken before 
the sultan. Strange to say, instead of 
ordering him to be executed, the sultan 
received him courteously, listened to 
his preaching patiently, and asked him 
to remain with him in his tent. St 
Francis replied, ^I will remain will- 
ingly with you, if you and your peo- 
ple will only become converted to 
Christ ; but if you doubt, order a fir^ 
to be kindled, and I will enter into it 
with your priests, and see who is right'' 
The sultan, who had perceived that 
one of the chief priests had vanished 
at these words, replied: ^'I do not 
think any of my priests would sub- 
mit to the torture for the sake of their 
religion." Then said St Francis : "^ If 
you will prombe for yourself and your 
people to adopt the Christian religion 
if I come out uninjured I will enter it 
alone.** The sultan, however, declined, 
and after vainly ofiering rich presents 
to St Francis, sent him back in safety 
to the Christian camp. 

Afler this memorable interview, St 
Francis returned, preaching in all the 
countries as he passed through. One 
day after his return, as he was praying 

• Tt fs •omeiimes lUted Uiat St. Francis wmtaloM, 
liut the Uv«« by St. UoDarentura, hj th« Tr«t %odL 
and by St. Thomas of Celaoo, all menUoD thU lUunT 



500 



7%f Minor Brethren. 



in the church c»f St. Mary, Porzioncula, 
ft vision of our Sariour appeared, and 
promised that, to all wlio should there- 
aAor confess their sins in that chnrch, 
plenary remission sliould be granted. 
St. Francis immediately went to the 
pope at Perugia, and procured the 
granting of the hidulgcnce, in conse- 
quence of which a ceremony is held 
to this day annually, in the church of 
St, 3fary of the Angels, when the 
peasantry assemble to confess their 
8ins and receive the promised indul- 
gence. 

Then comes the last great tradition 
of his life — ^the receiving the stigmata. 
It is recorded, and firmly attested by 
the great men who wrote his biogra- 
phy, that, on a certain morning, at the 
hour of the holy sacrifice, when St. 
Francis was praying on the side of 
Mount Avemia,«iesus Christ appeared 
to him under the form of a seraph cru- 
cified on tho cross, and when the vision 
had disappeared, St. Francis was mark- 
ed with the wounds of Christ in his 
hands, his feet, and his side. 

Various grave discussions arose 
amonsrst the faithful about the truth 
of this legend. Only nineteen years 
after its presumed occurrence a Domi- 
nican preacher had declared openly 
his disbelief of it, but then he was a 
Dominican. The Bishop of Olmutz, 
however, followed in th** wake, when 
Pope Gregory IX. (U;r«»liMo of old) 
wrote, reproaching them with their 
want of faith; and Alexander IV., 
who succeeded, declared he had seen 
with his own eyes the stigmata of St. 
Francis. 

Shortly after this incident, St. Fran- 
cis sickened, and, exhausted by long 
fastings and vigils, wasted gradually, 
until, as Bonaventura says, he was 
only skin and bone — *• quasi sola cutis 
06Hibus cohiereret." One day, during 
his illness, a companion said to him : 
'■ Brother, pray to God that he may 
have mercy upon thee, and not lay his 
hand so severely upon thee." St. 
Francis reproved him for such a 
BpAech, and, though he was very weak, 
threw himself on theground« and« kiss- 



ing the earth, said : *' I thank thee, 
Lortl God, for all my pains ; and I 
pray thee, if it be thy will, mnliipljr 
them a hundred-fold, because it will 
be most acceptable to me ; for the ful- 
filment of thy will in me will be ny 
supreme consolation." And his breth- 
ren noticed that, as his bodily pains in- 
creased, his joy was greater. He pre- 
dicted the day of his death, and bc^^ 
to be carried to his beloved Ponrioncnki 
that he might yield up his spirit at tfaat 
spot where he had first received divine 
grace. It was done, and he insisted 
upon being laid naked upon the bare 
ground, when he turned to bis eoo- 
panions and said: ''I have done my 
part ; what yours is, may Christ teaeh 
you." When his last hour was come, 
he had all the brethren on the spot 
called to him. addressed them kindly 
on preserving their vows of porertj, 
and upholding the faith of the Catholie 
Church ; he then laid his hands apon 
them, and pronounced his blessing npon 
aU present and absent "FarewdL" 
said he, *^ all my sons ; be strong in the 
fear of (rod, and remain in that always ; 
and since future temptation and tribo- 
lation are near, blessed are they who 
continue in the things they have begun. 
But I hasten to GU>d, to whose graee 
I commend you all.'* Then he called 
for a copy of the gospels, and asked 
them to read him that of St. John, be- 
ginning at the words, '^ Before the day 
of the passover," etc., when he sudden- 
ly broke out into the psalm : ^ Voce 
mea ad Dominum clamavi, voce met 
ad Dominum deprecatus sum,** eon- 
tinu(*d to tiie words, ^ Me expectant 
justi donee rctribuas mihi,** when, as 
they died away on his lips, the spirit 
of the great founder |)assed gently out 
of liirt poor emaciated body, and return- 
to its Maker. 

Thus diet! St. Francis, in the odor 
of sanctity; and perhaps we cannot 
more appropriately conclude this brief 
outlino of his life than by giving a 
translation of a sketch of his charao- 
ter and personal appearance, as writ- 
ten by one who knew him, Thomas of 
Celano, the author of the Dies Ine. 



The Minor Brethren. 



Ml 



It forms a graphic portrait of the man, 
ami maj serve as a fair specimen of 
hagiographj. In his life of the saint, he 
thus writes: ** Oh ! how beautifu], how 
splendid, how glorious did be appear 
in the innocence of his life, in the sim- 
plicitj of his words, in the purity of his 
heart, in his love of God, in brotherly 
charity, in fragrant obedience, in an- 
gelic aspect! Gentle in manners, 
placid in nature, affiible in conversa- 
tion, faithful in midertakings, of ad- 
mirable foresight in counsel, able in 
business, gracious to all, serene in mind, 
gentle in temper, sober in spirit, stable 
in contemplation, persevering in grace, 
and in all things the same; swiH; to 
indulge, to anger slow, fi-ee in intellect, 
in metuoiT bright, subtle in dissertation, 
circumspect in choice, simple in all 
things ; rigid toward himself, pious 
toward others, discreet to everybody ; 
a most eloquent man, of cheerful aspect, 
and benevolent countenance, free from 
idleness, void of insolence. He was 
o( the middle stature, rather inclined to 
shortness ; his head was of the medium 
size, and round, with an oblong and 
extended face, a small smooth fore- 
head, black and simple eyes, dark 
brown hair and straight eyebrows ; 
his nose was thin, well proportioned, 
and straight ; his ears erect and smalj, 
and his temples wore smooth ; his 
ton<rue was placable, though fiery and 
sharp ; his voice was vehement, though 
* sweet, clear and sonorous; his teeth 
well set, regular, and white ; his lips 
of moderate size ; his beard was black, 
and not very thick ; his neck thin ; his 
shoulders straight with small arms, 
thin hands, long fingers and nails ; he 
had thin legs, small feet, a delicate 
skin, and very little flesh. He wore 
a rou^ih vest, took very little sleep, 
and though he was most humble, he 
showed every courtesy to all men, 
con.orming himself to the manners of 
every one. As he was holy amongst 
the holy so amongst sinners he was 
as one of them."* 



* Tboraas de Celano la ViU StL FranclscI, Acta 
Sanct. 



Before we advance further, we must 
say a few words upon a subject well 
known to all who have investigated the 
originals of ecclesiastical history — the 
miracles attributed to the saints. Their 
biographies are spangled with miracles 
— ^that of St. Francis especially. The 
Acta Sanctorum is a compilation of 
some fifty or sixty folio volumes, con* 
taining sometimes five or six difierent 
lives of each saint, written by men in 
difierent ages and countries, ranging 
from the eighth to the fourteenth cen- 
tury. All these writers unite in one 
thing, the ascription of miraculous pow- 
ers to the saints. The question then 
arises, can this be wholly and entirely 
false? can it be utterly without one 
grain of truth in it? — a tissue of false- 
hoods — wilful, wanton falsehoods con- 
sistently written by men at vastly dif- 
fei*ent times, and in remotely distant 
countries ? We must premise at onoe 
that we are not for a moment going to 
defend the absolute truth of the won- 
ders attributed to the saints. Wo do 
not believe for an instant that their 
bodies were sometunes lifted fi-om the 
earth, and carried up into the sky, like 
St. Francis ; or that they walked dry- 
footed over the sea, as did St. Birim, 
when he left the corporalia behind 
him at Boulogne ; nor that commands 
and directions were given them direct 
from heaven, through the medium of 
crosses, images, or pictures; but we 
cannot help refiecting as to whether it 
is possible for such a systematic body 
of history to be handed duwn to poster* 
ity in one continuity of falsehood for 
some eight or nine centuries ; or whether 
we may come to the conclusion that it 
is a superstructure of exaggeration 
built up upon some basis of truth. It 
may help us, perhaps, at the outset, to 
notice what were the characters of the 
writers of these lives ; were they men 
likely to be deluded by fanaticism, or 
likely to lend themselves to the perpe- 
tration and perpetuation of wanton 
falsehood ? 

W we turn over the volumes of the 
Acta Sanctorum, we shall lind, on the 
contrary, some of the brightest names 



502 



ne Minor Brethren. 



in the annab of literatore, pietj, and 
philanthropy; some of the deepest 
scholars, the most acute reasoners, the 
most elaborate thinkers recorded in the 
annals of fame ; of men whose works 
have been and still are the ^iding 
lights of theological and philosophical 
investigation. There are Bridferth, 
Eadmer, Lanfranc, Anselm, William 
of Malmesbury, Thomas h Kern pis, 
Bona Ventura, and many others, all dis- 
tinguished for intellect and piety. Some 
of them, too, were honored by a per- 
sonal acquaintance with the subjects of 
their memoirs, as in the case of Brid- 
ferth, the contemporary of Dunstan, 
of Eudmer of Anselm, of Thomas of 
Celano and St. Francis. Can it be 
that these scholars, trained to philo- 
sophical investigation — these profound 
thinkers — these holy archbishops and 
bishops should connive together to de- 
lude posterity with a tissue of lies — of 
wanton lies, which might have been 
easily contradicted by contemj)orary 
writers, many of whom were bitter 
enemies both of the writers and their re- 
ligion ? Yet we find no such contradic- 
tion. 

We have plenty of contemporary 
history handed down tolerably perfect 
as regards incidents, dates, accurate 
reports of gro:it councils, de8cri[>tions 
of battles and SiOges, lives of statesmen, 
warriors, and scholars, with view.s of 
both sides, debated, refuted, or confirm- 
ed. And are we to believe that in this 
matter of the lives of the saints only 
have all contemporary writei-s, friends 
and foes, scholars, holy men, great ben- 
efactors of their age, conspired sucwss- 
fiilly together to hand down an enor- 
mous fabric of falsehood, and at the 
same time secure the silence of all con- 
temporary history? This is the great 
difficulty. 

A distinguished English writer, the 
elder DL^raeli, has endeavored to ac- 
count for these strange tales in the 
lives of the saints by suggestin>z they 
were written as exercises and religious 
theses, when each student filled up his 
outline with all the wonders he could 
invent to invest his subject with greater 



glory. That is a theoij aceepCed hf 
many who aro already pi^jndioed to- 
ward its acceptation ; but it is a frifo* 
lous theory, to which we object the ia- 
probability of these great men, wbon 
names are already mentioned, being 
set down, some of them in the matnriqr 
of their lives, to write religions exe^ 
cises of that nature. Is it not rather 
possible that there may be something 
in all this liistory which we can neither 
understand nor explain ? 

Let us examine for a moment into 
what we may venture to call the nara- 
ral history of miracles. We find dw 
Bible itself is an immense repertoire of 
miracles from Moses down to the apos- 
tles, and it contains no diatiuct an* 
nouncement of a withdrawal of that 
power from the church. It was con- 
firmed by Christ, who endowed hit 
apostles with the same power, and who 
said one or two things in his addresses 
to them which, we think, will throw 
some light upon this vexed question. 

It is quite certain that there have 
never been any miracles wrought in 
the world by anv who did not receive 
the power from God. We are not pre- 
pared to estimate what degree of ciiange 
was produced in the relations between 
man and God by the fall ; we are ccr- 
t2\in of this, that a gap was pUiced be- 
tween the two. so wide that Christ was 
sent to bridge it over ; that an apostasy 
ensued, and a disunion so complete that 
his death alone was able to provide ttte 
means of reunion and reconciliation. 
Then it follows that faith was the only 
possible mode to man of recovery of 
what was lost by man ; faith before the 
promise and faith after its fulfilment, 
and in the proportion of the strength 
of that faith, and the consequent change 
of life in the heart and nature of him 
who possessed it, was the reunion with 
God promised. But how does this bear 
on miracles ? In this way. Tunj to 
the Bible, and it will be seen that of 
every man who is reconled to have 
performed miracles, it is also recorded 
that he had this immovable faith, and 
that h s life was ordered accordingly. 
Faith prayer, and fasting have evec 



I%€ Minor Brtthren. 



9tt 



been the elements of the life necessary 
to miracles, and we are not prepared, 
nor are we able to estimate what would 
be the result of such a course of severe 
discipline as some of the saiots went 
through toward a recovery of that lost 
union with Grod. It is a sinpilar fiEu;t 
that, in the life of Christ, we find it was 
only after his fasting and prayer in the 
wilderness that he began to perform 
miracles, as though during tliat severe 
trial of temptation, fasting, and prayer 
the perfect union between himself and 
his Father had been sealed by the final 
gift of miraculous power. And thus 
was it that, when in aAer times his dis- 
ciples were unable to cast out the devils, 
and appealed to him for the reason of 
their inability, he replied, ^ This sort 
goeth not out but by fasting and prayer ;' 
and we are told elsewhere that the dis* 
ciples of Jesus did not fast. So that 
we find in the Bible there is a close 
connection between the active develop- 
ment of the spiritual, and the subjuga* 
tion of the corporeal life, and the work- 
ing of miracles. 

All the prophets led that life, they 
were given to prayer, fasting, and soli- 
tude. It was the peculiar life of Jesus ; 
he retired to the mountains, the deserts, 
and by-places for prayer, and he at- 
tributed the miraculous power to the 
results of this life.* Is it, then, possible 
for a man by strong faith, accompanied 
by fasting and prayer, in these later 
days to regain that close, mysterious 
communion with liis Maker which 
should give him a supernatural power ? 
We reply that we have not the means 
of answering the question, for the sim* 
pie reason that we never have an op- 
portunity of seeing it tried. Without 
wishing to insinuate anything invidious, 
have we any record in ecclesiastical or 
other history, of bishops, priests, or men 
of any class during the last 400 years 
spending whole nights in prayer, or 
consecutive days in fasting, such as we 
read, upon indisputable authority, was 
the practice in the olden times of the 

• In the life of St. FrancU we are told that "soU- 
teria locaquserebat,** *' una die dum sic leqoestratui 
oraret,** '* cum die quadam cgretaua ad iiHNlitandiim 
in agro,** ** dam p«r ■ jlvam it*r fteiini. ** 



prophets, and the later times of men 
who devoted their lives to the imitatioa 
of Christ ?* There are plenty of hiota 
scattered throughout the Bible and Tm- 
tament that there is a mysterious con- 
nection yet to be recovered between 
man and God, if men will only fulfil 
the required condition, and we repeat 
that it is not in our power to estimate 
the results of such a life as we have 
mentioned — a life of spiritual discipliof^ 
of development of the soul, and subjo- 
gation of the body — because we have 
no examples around us ; but we ask, 
if such life were pursued, what is there 
to prevent our believing that to soma 
extent the words of our Divine MastoTi 
who led that life himself, would yet be 
verified, and ^ this sort * would still ^ go 
out through fiisting and prayer ^'? Naj, 
further, we may add in illustration that 
the phenomena which are recorded as 
attending the careers of such men aa 
Whitefield, Wesley, and Irving have 
never yet been explained away by any 
scientific theory or law ; so that, in con- 
clusion, as we find in the Bible an em- 
phatic and reiterated record of miracu- 
lous power accorded to persons of a 
certain habit of life and thought, as our 
Lord, when on earth, attributed that 
power to the pursuing of that peculiar 
life — as in every instance where mira- 
cles are attributed to men, they are 
proved to have led such lives — it can- 
not be thought too much to suggest 
that, making great deductions and al- 
lowances for exaggeration, there may 
be some basis of truth underlying that 
fabric of historical and traditional re- 
cord of the lives of the saints. 

Many of those incidents described 
so mysteriously are capable of expla- 
nation. It is oflen recorded of these 
men that they saw visions and heard 
voices. For instance, it is said of St 
Francis that, on one .occasion, when 
he was long praying in a solitary 
place, the Lord appeared to him as if 



^ Onr Protestant fasts are a " l\teiu» a non /iMMnd0k** 
contiaUng of fish of various descripUooi, curiously 
prepared by the protean art of cookerj, with rery 
substantial adjuncts, and accompanied hj good 
wine. No miracles were ever wrought npoa thai 



604 



Tke Minor Brethren. 



on the cross, and so visible was this 
^atvoftevov to bim that ever afterward, 
wheD any thought of Christ's suffer- 
ings came into his mind, he could not 
help bnrstmg into tears; also, that 
one night the Lord appeared to him, 
and said, '^Franciscc, quis potest 
melius iacere tibi dominus aut scrvua?'' 
And again, on another occasion, 
**Franci8ce, vade et repara domum 
meam." Within the range of our own 
experience, who is there amongst us 
who has not had similar visions in 
the slumbers of the night, or hcnrd 
similar voices in the day ? Have wo 
not had sweet converse with dear 
departed friends, and heard voices 
that have long been silent? What 
bereaved mother has not often heard 
the cry of lier lost infant, or solitary 
widow seen the form of a lost hus- 
band in the phantasms of the night ? 
If such things happen to ordinary 
men, we submit that we are unable 
to estimate the result of the mode of 
life and the severity of spiritual 
training wiiich those men underwent, 
because it is foreign to our habits, 
and not within the range of our ex- 
perience. 

We now proceed to give a brief 
criticism upon tiie intellect of St. 
Francis. He has left very little be- 
hind him. Only a few sermons, 
hymns, letters, and sayings, from 
which wo can glean that he must 
have been an earnest preacher of the 
true i>opu1ar type, driving homo his 
truths by familiar illustrations, the 
type of that peculiar preaching which 
rendered his order so popular, and 
paved tlie way for their marvellous 
success. We subjoin a few extracts, 
which illustrate not only his style, 
but the design of liis order. In one 
of his epistles he says :* ** Let us not 
be wise and [)rudent according to the 
flesh, but sim[>le, humble, and poor; 
and let us hold our bodies in eon- 
tempt, because we are all miserable 
and putrid ; as the Lord says through 
the prophet, I am a worm and not 

• Ejp. IL Ad anlrenM GhrUti fldelM. 



a man. We shoald never desire to 
be above others, but subjected and 
submissive to every human creature, 
for the sake of God. And upon all 
who do so, and persevere onto the 
end, the holy spirit will rest, and 
make in them his tabernacle and his 
mansion, and they shall be schis of 
the heavenly Fattier, whose works 
they do, and shall be the brides, 
brothers, and mothers of our Lonl 
Jesus Christ. Brides are we, since 
faithful souls are joined to the Holy 
Spirit ; brothers are we of Jesiis 
Christ, when we do the will of his 
Father who is in heaven ; mothers 
are we, when we bear him in onr 
hearts and bodies through love, and 
bring him forth by the sacred opera- 
tion of our example, which ought to 
shine before others. Oli ! how glorious 
and great to have a Father in heaven ! 
Oh ! how holy to have a betrothal of 
the Spirit ! Oh I how sacre<], how de- 
lightful, well pleasing, peaceful, sweet, 
loving, desirable above all, is it to 
have a brother who has laid down 
his life for the sheep, and has pi'ayed 
his Father for us, saying, < F(^ther, 
keep through thine own name those 
whom thou hast given me. Father, 
all those whom thou hast given me 
in the world are thine, and thou hast 
given thrm to me, and the word 
which thou hast given me I have 
given them, and they have received 
it, and know well that 1 came from 
thee, and have believed that thou 
hast sent me. I pray for them : I 
sanctify myself, that they may be 
sanctified as we are. And I will, O 
Father 1 that where I am there they 
may be also, and see my glory in my 
kingdom.* "* 

A graphic picture of a death -bed 
scene follows soon after the above 
beautiful passage in the same epistle. 

" The body droops, death draws 
near, relatives and frientis come, and 
say, * Arrange thy house.' And be- 
hold, his wife and his sons, his relatives 
and friends, pretend to weep ; and he, 

^ We traDHlate from Uic LaUa of St. FraoeU, whleh 
!■ loiiiewliat dUlerwtt from our reraloa. 



I%€ Minor Brethren. 



605 



looking up, sees thorn weeping, and is 
moved, and snys, ray soul and my 
body, and all my goods, I place in your 
hands. Verily, that man is cursed 
who deposits his soul, his hody, and ail 
his ^ods in such hands; for, as the 
Lord says hy the prophet, cursed is 
that man who places his trust in man. 
And then they send for the priest, who 
isays to him, ^ Dost thou wish to re- 
ceive absolution from all thy sins i* he 
replies, * I do.' ' Wilt thou make re- 
stitution from thy substance for those 
things which thou hast obtained 
through fraud and deception?' He 
says, ' No.' * Why not V asks the 
priest. ^Because I hare divided all 
amongst my relations.' And then his 
speech begins to fail, and he dies mi- 
serably. But let all men know that 
wherever any man dies in sin, without 
making satisfaction, which he can, but 
will not make, such a demon seizes his 
soul, and drags it from the body with 
such agony that no one can conceive 
who has not experienced it. And all 
his money, power, and knowledge, 
which he thought he had, are taken 
from him ; and his relations and friends, 
to whom he has given his goods, take 
them, and divide them, and then say, 
Cursed bo his soul, who might have 
given us more, and did not ; who might 
have hoarded more, and did not. 
Worms destroy his body, demons his 
soul ; and thus he loses both soul and 
body for the sake of this brief life." 

Humility, deep and sincere, was the 
great characteristic of his life. He was 
in his own words, " Franciscus parvu- 
lus et vester servus in Domino ;" •* Ho- 
mo vilis et caducus ;" " minus servo- 
rum ;" '* indigna creatura Domini." Be- 
ing asked, one day, why he wore such 
scanty clothing in the depth of winter, 
he replied, ^ If we are clothed within 
with the flame of our heavenly country, 
we shall easily bear this external 
cold." One of the brethren asked him 
why he scarcely took anything to sua- 
tain nature. "Because," said Sl 
Francis, ^^ it is difficult to satisfy the 
necessity of the body without indulg- 
ing the longing of the senses.'* 



On an occasion a brother asked him 
if he might have a psalter. "When 
you have got a psalter," replied St 
Francis, " then you will want a brevi- 
ary ; and when you have got a brevi- 
ary, you will sit in your chair as great 
as a lord, and you will say to your bro- 
ther, * Friar, fetch me my breviary.' " 
There was a competition amongst the 
brethren as to who should bring in the 
greatest number of female devotees, 
when St. Francis checked their ardor 
by the caustic remark, *' I am afraid, 
my brethren, that when Grod forbade 
us wives the devil gave us sisters." 
Here we must take our farewell of the 
saint. Willingly would we devote 
more space to him ; but we have much 
yet to say about his work, especially aa 
it influenced the destinies of our own 
land. He was a great man, an enthu- 
siast in the highest sense of the word ; 
his character and career remind us 
forcibly of John the Baptist ; his food 
was locusts and wild honey, his rai- 
ment was scanty, he was a voice cry- 
ing in the wilderness of a wicked 
world, and his name will last for ever. 

But we advance to investigate the 
doings of the order in England. At 
the second general chapter held by 
St. Francis, at Porzioncula, in the 
year 1219, when the brethren were di- 
vided into parties and sent out on their 
missions, England was one of the flrst 
mission stations assigned. France was 
the first, then came England, chiefly, it 
is thought, through the influence of an 
Englishman, one William, who was a 
follower of St. Francis. The honor of 
leading this mission was assigned to 
Brother Angnello* de Pisa, who was 
made minister-general of the order in 
England. His authority was as fol- 
lows : " Ego Frater Franciscus de As- 
sisio minister general is prsecipio tibi 
Fratri Angnello de Pisa per obedien- 
tiam, ut vadas in Angliam et ibi facias 
officium ministeriatus. Vale. Anno 
1219. Franciscus de Assisio.**t 

They were also fortified with letters 



^ AnnnMu* ale, in ESodetton ma., and in Monti- 
menta KrancUcanti. 
t GoUactanea Anglo-Minoritica, p. & 



006 



I%€ Minor Brethren. 



xeoommendatorj from Pope Ilonorias, 
addressed to all << archbishops, bi- 
shops, abbots, priors, and other pre- 
lates of the church," enjoioiDg them to 
receive the bearers as Catholics and 
true believers, and to ^^ show them fa- 
vor and courtesy." The actual date 
of their landing in England is disput- 
ed. Eccleston in his HSS., '^ De Primo 
Adventu Minorum," gives the year 
1224, but the more probable date is 
1220, which is given by Wadding, the 
annalist of the order, and confirmed by 
Matthew Paris, who under the year 
1243 speaks of the Friara Minors, 
^ who began to build their first habita- 
tions in England scarcely twenty-four 
years ago.** As they had no money 
of their own, and lived upon what was 
given them, they were transported to 
England from France by the charity 
of some monks of Fecamp. They 
were nine in number, four clergymen 
and dxe laymen. The former were 
Angiiellus, a native of Pisa, Richard 
de Inge worth, Richard of Devonshire, 
and William Esseby. The laymen 
were Henry de Cernise, a native of 
Ltimbardy, Laurence de Belvaco, 
William de Florentia, Melioratus,aiid 
James Ultramontanus. They landed 
at Dover an J proceeded to Canterbury, 
where they were hospitably received 
and staid two days at the Priory of 
the Holy Trinity. Then four of them 
set out for London to present the apos- 
tolical letters to Henry III., who re- 
ceived them very kindly, which, as 
they did not want any money, he would 
be most likely to do. 

The other five were housed at Can- 
terbury at the Priests* Hospital, where 
they remained until a pUice could be 
procured for them ; such accommoda- 
tion was found in a small chamber be- 
neath the school-house, where they 
remained shut up all day, and at even- 
ing, when the scholars had gone h-jme, 
they entered the room, kindled a fire, 
and sat round it. The four monks 
who went to London were kindly re- 
ceived by the Dominicans, with whom 
they staid a fonnight, until one John 
Travers hired a house for them in 



Comhill, which they divided kto 
cells by stuffing the interBiioes with 
straw. 

The citizens, at the instigation of ooe 
Irwin, who afterward became a lay 
brother, removed them to the buteheiy 
or shambles of St. Nicholas, in the 
Ward of Farringdon-within. close to a 
pkce called Stinking-lane, where they 
built a convent for them. The foon- 
dations were laid at Christinas, 1220; 
and it was five years in course of buikl- 
ing. The different portions were bailt 
by different citizens. William Joyner 
built the choir, William Walleys' the 
nave, Alderman Porter the chapter- 
house, Bartholomew de Castello the re- 
fectory, Peter de Haliland the infir- 
mary, and Roger Bond the library; 
even in those days the citizens, when 
they did anything in the way of cliari- 
ty, did it royally. Two brethren, how- 
ever, were sent on to Oxford, where 
they were also kindly received by 
Dominican friars, according to Eccles- 
ton ; but a story is told in the annals 
of the order of the two brethren who 
were making their way toward Oxford, 
when they came to a sort of manor- 
house, about six mites from Oxford, 
which was a cell of Benedictine monks, 
belonging to the abbey of Abingdon. 

Being very hungry and tired, they 
knocked at the gate ; and the monks, 
from their strange dress and extraor- 
dinary appearance, taking them for 
masquerade rrt, admitted them, hoping 
for some diversion. But, when they 
found they were a new order of frian, 
tliey turned them out of doors; but 
one, moi*e gentle than the retit, went 
aAer them, bn>ught them buck^ and 
persuaded the {)orter to let them sleep 
in the hay-lof\. Both versions may be 
right, as the circumstance occurred out- 
side Oxford ; and Eccleston's accoaut 
commences with their advent in that 
city when they were received by the 
Dominicans, with whom thev remained 
for about eight days, until a rich citi- 
zen, Richard Mercer, let thorn a house 
in the parish of Su Ebbs. Then the 
two brethren go on to Northampron, 
where they were received into an hoe- 



I%e Minor JSr^thrtn. 



607 



pitaL They procured a house id the 
parish of St. Giles, over which they 
appointed one Peter Hispanus as guar- 
dian. 

Then they went to Camhridge, where 
the townspeople gave them an old syna- 
gogue, adjoining the common prison ; 
but afterward, ten marks being given 
them from the king's exchequer, they 
built a rough sort of oratory on a plot 
of ground in the city. After that an- 
other settlement was made in Lincoln, 
and gradually in many other ci^es ; 
so that in thirty-two years from their 
arrival they numbered 1242 breth- 
ren in forty-nine different settlements. 
Their first convert was one Solomon, 
of good birth and connections. 

W hen only a novice, he was appointed 
procurator of his house ; that is, he had 
to go out to beg for it. The first place 
he went to was the residence of a sis- 
ter, who gave him some bread, with 
the following remark : <^ Cursed be the 
hour when I ever saw thee T So strict 
was their poverty, that one of the 
brethren being ill, and they having 
no means to make a fire, got round 
him, clung to him, and warmed him 
with their bodies, ^' sicut porcis mos 
est"* 

They walked about barefooted 
through the snow, to the horror of 
the spectators. Brother Solomon in- 
jured his foot so severely that he was 
kid up for two years ; and whilst ill 
the Lord appeared to him, accompani- 
ed by the apostle Peter. And by way 
of contrast, we are told shortly atlter 
that the devil appeared to one Brother 
Gilbert de Vyz, when he was alone, 
and said to him, ^' Do you think to 
avoid me ? At least you shall have 
this," and threw at him a fistful of ver- 
min, and then vanished : et projedt 
super eum planum pugillum suum pe- 
' diculorum et evanuit,^' so states Master 
Ecf^iesron. 

The second convert was William of 
London ; then followed Jocius of Corn- 
hill, a clerk, who went to Spain, labor- 
ed, and died; Jolm, another clerk; 

^ Bccleston de Adrenta Mlnorum. 

f 



Philip, a priest, who,* being a good 
preacher, was sent to L:eland,and died 
there. Then came several magistrates, 
amongst whom were Walter de Borg, 
Richstrd Norman, Vincent of Coventry, 
AdamofOadbrd; but one of the great- 
est accessions was in the person of 
Adam Marsh, better know as Ads 
de Marisco, who was destined to found 
that distinguished school at Oxford 
which boasts such names as Scotus, 
Occam, Roger Bacon, and others. 
Adam was called Doctor Illastris. 
After him came John of Beading, ab- 
bot of OzeneySi and Richard Rufos, 
Then came some military men, Domi- 
nus R. Gobion, Giles de Merc, Thomas 
Hispanus, and Henry de WaJpole. 

As their numbers continued to in- 
crease, people built churches and con* 
vents for them in all parts of the coun- 
try. The master of the Priests' Hos- 
pital at Canterbury built them a cha- 
pel; Simon de Longeton, archdeacon 
of Canterbury, helped them ; so Henry 
de Sandwyg, and a certain noble lady, 
Inclusa de Bagioton, who cherished 
them in all things, as a mother her 
sons : '^ quae sicut mater filios sic fovit 
eos in omnibus." 

Angnellus now set out upon an in* 
spection of the different settlements, 
and, after pausing for a time at Lon- 
don, came on to Oxford, where, as 
things were promising and converts 
gradually coming in, he founded a com- 
munity, over which he placed William 
Esscby as guardian of the house, which 
Ingeworth and Devonshire had hired. 
Adam of Oxonia joined the companv, 
and then Alexander Hales, whom St. 
Francis, it is thought, admitted in the 
year 1219, as Hales passed through 
France on his way to England. Ai^- 
nellus then conceived the idea of hay- 
ing a school of friars at Oxford, and 
built one near their house. He then 
addressed himself to Doctor Robert 
Grostete, one of the most distinguished 
lecturers in the university, to beg him 
to instruct the brethren. Grostete oon- 
sented. and the school was soon throng- 
ed with ardent Franciscan converts, 
who listened with delight to the lee- 



508 



l%e Minor Brethren. 



tares of that man who, as bishop of 
Lincoln, was destined to such a glori- 
ous career. 

And now Ann^ellus was instant in 
encouraging the brctliren to attend the 
lectures, and make progress m the stu- 
dy of the Decretals and canon law ; and 
as he found them very diligent, he 
thought he would honor them with 
his presence at one of their meetings 
and see how they progressed ; but 
when he arrived there, he was horrified, 
to hear that the subject under discus- 
sion by these young monks was whether 
there was a God ! ! Utrum esset Deus / 
Frightened out of his propriety, the 
good man exclauncd : *' Alas ! alas ! 
simple brethren are penetrating the 
heavens, and the learned dispute whe- 
ther there may be a God !' * It was 
with great difficulty they calmed his 
agitation. He only submitted upon 
their promise that, if he sent to Home 
for a copy of the I)ecrctal8, they would 
avoid such mighty questions, and keep 
to them. 

The first Fnincisoan who taught in 
the school was William Eton, under 
the direction of Grostote, who was not 
a Franciscan : he was succe<»ded by 
Adam dc Mari'^ro, wlio is sometimes 
called the first of the onlor who tan<!ht ; 
he was, however, the first who taught 
alone, the others touching under the 
direction of Grosteto. Sixty -seven dis- 
tinguished men filled this chair, some 
of whose names have been immortal- 
ised. 

The influence of the study of Aris- 
totle was telling vitally upon the theo- 
logy of the schools. At tirst his writ- 
ings were studied through very imf)er- 
feet translations made from the Arabic, 
with Arabic commentaries — then a 
mixture of Neo Platonism was infus- 
ed, and the devotees of scholastic the- 
ology at Paris fell into sueli ernjrs that 
the study of his works was prohibite<l 
by the synod of that place in the year 
1209. Six years afterward this pro- 
hibition was renewed by the Papal 

♦ " llol luUiI, Iiel mihl, fratre:* Aimplirv^ c«p1<>« p<»n<f- 
tnmttft litorutl «li9|iuunt utniiu ait l>cu«." S%'e WimmI. 
ABtliL. Oxon, lib. L p. X. 



Legate ; but as men began to find that 
there was a great difference between 
the philosophy of Aristotle, filtered 
through Arabic commentators and An- 
bic transhitors, and Aristotle himself, 
a revival took place in favor of the 
Stagyrite, and Gregory IXm in 1231, 
by a bull modified the restriction. 
New translations were now made and 
purged from errors. 

A new era in scholasticism com- 
menced ; the two rival orders, the 
Dominicans and Franciscans, began 
to apply the Aristotelian method to 
theological questions ; Albertus Blag- 
nus and Thomas Aquinas* taking the 
lead in the former order, in opfK>sition 
to the teaching of Alexander llales.f 
the Franciscan, who lectured at Paris. 
BonaventuraJ endeavored to amalga- 
mate scholasticism with mysticism ; 
but at length appeared John Duns. 
ScolU!a,§ who lectunnl at Oxford, Paris, 
and Cologne, a Franciscan, and worthy 
opponent of the Dominican, Thomas 
Aquina'5. We must not omit another 
distinguished member of the Oxford 
school who flourished at the same time, 
Roger Bacon,|| |H>rhaps the most dis- 
tinguished man of the age. 

lie taught at Oxford, lie, how- 
ever, saw the ]>roininent errors of the 
disputation of the timers, and has left 
on record, in the pn»faee to his Opus 
Majus, the following criticism, which 
is worthy of attention : " There never 
was such an api)earance of wisdom, 
nor such activity in study in so many 
faculties, and so many region.s, as dur- 
ing the last foi-ty years ; for even the 
doctors are divided in every state, in 
every camp, and in every burgh, espe- 
cially through the two studious ordere, 
(Dominicans and Franciscans.) when 
neither, piM'haps, was there ever so 
much ijinorance and error. The mob 
of students languishes and stu|>eHes it- 
itself over things badly transhiterl ; it 
loses time and study ; appeaninccs only 
hold them, and they do not care what 
they know so much as what they seem 

• D<vtiir Aiii;'ncii4. f Doctor Irrrfrftr^Milii. 

X Doctor S.'ru|ihicii!i. j lUtcUT Subtillf. 
I Doctor MirBbilU. 



Tke Minor Brethren. 



6M 



to know before the insensate raulti- 
tude." 

Again, in lib. ii., he says : " If I 
had power over the books of Aristotle, 
I would have them all burnt, because 
it is onlv a loss of time to stodj in 
them, a cause of error and multiplica- 
tion of ignorance beyond what I am 
able to explain." We must give Roger 
Bacon the credit of speaking more par- 
ticularly of the wretched translations 
in use, though his view of Aristotelian 
philosophy was strangely confirmed 
centuries afterward by his still greater 
namesake. Lord Bacon, who said, after 
many years of devotion to Aristotelian- 
ism, that it was *'a philosophy only 
strong for disputations and conten- 
tions, but barren of the production of 
works for the benefit of the life of man." 
Thus were ranged under two scholas. 
tic standards the two great orders of 
mendicant friars, the Dominicans and 
the Franciscans ; the former being 
called Thomists, and the latter Scotists. 
A fierce doctrinal controversy then 
raged between them, the animosity of 
which was heightened by a jealousy 
which had always existed on the part 
of the Dominicans from the time when 
St. Francis rejected their founder's 
overtures to unite the two orders. 

In the year 1400 England maintain- 
ed and included sixty convents ; and 
at the time of the dissolution, the Fran- 
ciscans alone of the mendicant orders 
had ninety convents in England, be- 
sides vicarships, residences, and nun- 
neries. 

To a generation of men who had 
heard no preaching, or, if any, notl^ ng 
they could understand, the enthusi- 
astic discourses of these men were 
like refreshing showers on a parched 
soil ; for in the thirteenth century the 
sermon had fallen into such disuse 
that an obscure and insignificant 
preacher created a great sensation in 
Paris, although his preaching was 
rude and simple. Both doctors and 
disciples ran afVer him, one dragging 



the other, and saying, " Come and 
hear Fulco, the presbyter, he is an- 
other Paul."* The Franciscans dili- 
gently cultivated that talent, and from 
the general favor in which they were 
held by nearly all classes of the com- 
munity, especially by the common 
people, we may conclude that the 
style they adopted was essentially a 
popular and engaging style, in direct 
contradistinction to the scholastic 
discourses delivered at rare intervals 
from the pulpits of the churches. 
Then a Franciscan mingled amongst 
the poor ; he too was poor, one of the 
poorest, and the poor saw their condi- 
tion elevated to an apostolic sanctity ; 
his raiment was coarse like theirs ; his 
food also as coarse, for it was their food 
shared often with him at their own ta- 
bles ; they sat at his feet and listened 
to him, not in trembling servitude, as 
at the feet of one whom they had been 
taught to regard with superstitious awe, 
but as at the feet of a dear brother, one 
of themselves, who had hungered with 
them and sorrowed with them. 

Then the Franciscan preached 
everywhere — at the street comer, in 
the fields, on the hill-side; his port- 
able altar was set up, the sacrament 
administered to the people, and the 
gospel preached as in the old apos- 
tolic times, by the river-side, in the 
high roads and by-ways, under the 
bare heavens. No wonder that thej 
won the hearts of the degraded popu- 
lations of tf[ie countries in which they 
settled, that the poor ran to them and 
flocked round them, and that the good 
and great were soon drawn over to 
their side ; it was the revival of apos- 
tolic simpUcity, and as the excited 
crowds were swayed under their fer- 
vent eloquence, and myriads of tearful 
eyes were turned up to their gaze, it 
was like the miracle in the wilderness, 
die rock had been smitten, and the 
waters gushed forth. 

* VMe JmoU, ft Vltriaco mik OoddeDt. e. C 



510 



ns SouU of Animab. 



THE SOULS OF ANIMALS. 



A NUMBER of years apco, when the 
census enumerators were going tlirough 
Canada, they found an old lady in 
Quebec who, to the question what re- 
ligion she professed, replied that she 
believed in the transmigration of souls. 
To what (uirticular form of the doc- 
trine she clung ; whether she believed, 
with the sages of the Ganges, that the 
soul begins its life in the mineral or 
vegetable worM, and must pass through 
no fewer than eighty-eight progressive 
stages before il rises to human con- 
sciousness ; or, witli the priests of the 
Nile, that the spiritual part of a man 
has lived for three thousand years in 
the forms of lower animals before it 
gets a human body ; whether she wtis 
a Pythagorean, or a Neo-Platonist, or a 
Cabalist ; whether she refused animal 
food for fear of eating unwittin^j^ly the 
flesh of some deceased friend or rela- 
tive, and could not sec a roast chicken 
withoQt thinking of a cannibal ; these 
are curious questions which we fear 
will never be answered. Plato believ- 
ed in ten grades of migrations, each of 
a thousand years, in which souls were 
puritied and punished before their re- 
turn to an incoq>oreal existence with 
God ; and the more virtuously they liv- 
ed, the fewer grades they had to pass 
through. For a good, lioneKt philoso- 
pher, about three grades were thought 
sufficient. Porphyry taught that bodies 
themselves are punishments imposed 
upon souls for offences committed in a 
previous state of which we retain no 
consciousness. A gross, sensual, very 
material body indicated a very criminal 
career in the previous existence. A 
virtuous life led by degrees through the 
states of heroes, angol^, and archang(:ls ; 
and an archangel, if be behaved him- 
self, might hope to be absorbed, in the 
course of time, into the divine essence 
itself; wliilc for the wicked there was 



a similar but descending scale of trans- 
formations into devils of various de- 
grees of moral blackness. The Cabal- 
ists held that Grod created originally a 
certain number of Jewish souls, some 
of which are still on earth in human 
form, while there are always many 
others doing penance for their sios in 
the bodies of animals. So they were 
careful, we trust, in their treatment of 
dumb beasts, not knowing but any pig 
or jackass they encountered might be 
a Jew in disguise. A conscientious Ca- 
balist would not dare turn a dog out of 
doors, for fear he might be kicking his 
grandfather, and ought to shun fish, 
flesh, and fowl as religiously as he 
would object to dining off a blood rela- 
tion. The great Christian philosopher, 
Origen, himself believed* in the trans- 
migration of the souls of men into the 
borlies of the lower animals, and adopt- 
ed this doctrine as the readiest way of 
explaining why there are so many im- 
perfections in animated nature; the 
divine Creator purposely made animals 
imperfect, In^cause he meant that bo- 
dies bhould be the instruments of pun- 
ishment and expiation for sinful sools. 
Tlie Gnostics, and >lanichaeans, and 
some othtT herotical sects, had the same 
idea, and it was also a part of the doc- 
trine of the ancient British Druids, as 
it is at the present day of the Druses 
and other tribes of Asia, iis well as of 
some of the African nations. Fourier 
allowed the soul no fewer th:in eight 
hundred and ten lives, each of them 
a vt- raging a hundred years in duration, 
and it was to pass one third, or twenty- 
seven thousand of all these years, on 
our earth. When all the transmigra- 
tions had been accomplishetl, the soal 
was to lose its sefvarate existenci% and 
become confounded with the soul of 
the planet. But the French philoso- 
piuT did not stop here. The body of 



like Souli of Animals. 



511 



the planet was fo be in its turn destroy- 
ed, and its soul to transmigrate into a 
new earth, rising by successive stages 
to the highest degrees in the hierarchy 
of worlds. 

Which of these many systems of 
metempsychosis was the one embraced 
by the eccentric old lady of Quebec we 
have, as we said before, no means of 
deciding, nor perhaps, since she ap- 
pears to have founded no school of 
disciples, is the problem worth inves- 
tigation. We can imagine what a 
singular position the solitary adherent 
of that old pagan creed must have 
occupied in the society of the quaint 
French city ; how pious Catliolics must 
have stared at her with mingled awe 
and horror as a relic of the times of 
Pythagoras and Plato, or perchance as 
an Indian Buddhist some centuries old, 
whom Time in his flight had forgotten 
to gather into his garner, where all her 
kith and kin had been laid asleep for 
ages. It was certainly a very uncom- 
fortable belief, and, if it ever became 
genenfl, it would play the mischief with 
family relations. Just think of the 
possibility of a man's being his own 
grandmother or his own posthumous 
sonl It may have had its conve- 
niences, but, upon the whole, we are 
glad it has died out 

We once heard an accomplished 
theologian maintain that, however phi* 
losophically absurd that doctrine might 
be, and however inconsistent with the 
spirit of Catholic teaching, there was 
yet no dogmatic decision which forbade 
a man's holding it, if he chose to be 
such a fooL A man might be a good 
Catholic and still believe that one of 
Grod's ways of punishing sin was to 
imprison the offending soul after death 
in the body of a beast ; this might be 
a sort of purgatory. Perhaps he was 
right ; but so we might say there is no 
article of faith which forbids us to be- 
lieve that the moon is made of green 
cheese, that the earth is Hat instead of 
round, that the Rocky Mountains are 
five thousand miles high, or that King 
Arthur was the first President of the 
United States. There is a sort of 



transmigration, however, in which repn* 
table Catholic theologians are not alto- 
gether unwilling to believe ; and this 
brings us to the statement of a fact 
which, for all that it is admitted by the 
mass of authorities on such subjects, 
will, no doubt, sound paradoxical to a 
great many of our readers ; that is, 
that dumb beasts, if they have not bor- 
rowed the souls of human beings, have, 
at any rate, souls of their own. In oar 
loose way of talking about things, we 
are but too apt to speak of the soul as 
one of the distinguishing prer6gative8 
of man, and reason as another ; where- 
as the fact is that man shares both 
these in common with the brute kin^ 
dom. Every animal has a soul, though 
not an immortal soul ; and all the high- 
er animals — probably all animals — are 
gifted to a greater or less extent with 
reason. Deny souls to beasts, and you 
reduce them to a level with the vege- 
table creation, in which life and motion 
are merely the necessary operations of 
external laws which the plant has no 
power either to further or obstruct. 
Nor need we fear that, by admitting 
they have souls, we raise them too near 
an equality with ourselves. The di- 
vine gift of immortality, the power of 
knowing and loving Grod, the right to 
participate in his everlasting glory—- 
these are distinctions which must sepa- 
rate us by an immeasurable gulf from 
all inferior creatures. If beasts have 
no souls, it will puszle us to define the 
exact difference between a dead dog 
and a live one. 

But we hare wandered away (rom 
our speculations about metempsycho- 
sis, and are apparently in danger of 
forgetting the proposition which we set 
forth in the last paragraph, namely, 
that there is a certain kind of trans* 
migration of souls in which many goocl 
theologians seem very much inclined to 
believe. It is an open question whether 
the souls of animals pass from body to 
body; whether, for instance, when a 
dog dies, its soul is annihilated, or is 
iriinsferred to the body of another 
brute just that moment bom ; whether 
the souls of the lower orders of crea- 



512 



7%e SouU of Anifhoh, 



tures have only the brief life which ap- 
pears to be granted them, or whether 
their existence may not be prolonged 
to the end of this world. It certainly 
accords with what we know of the di- 
vine economy, in which everything has 
its permanent use and no created ob- 
ject seems ever to be destroyed, to sup- 
pose that,aAer a soul has performed 
its functions in the body of one beast, 
it may l)e designed by Almighty God 
to perform similar functions in the body 
of another. The plant which springs 
up, and blossoms, and withers, returns 
to Ufe in other forms ; a part of it is 
consumed as food and passes into the 
tissue of auimals; a part crumbles 
away into vegetable mould and is 
assimilated by the parent earth ; a part, 
dissolving into the constituents of the 
atmosphere, serves to nourish and in- 
crease other plants. The animal body 
itself, which decays and is changed to 
dust, is destined to live again in other 
' shapes. Modem science has discover- 
ed that not even a motion is lost. The 
blow of the hammer which is struck 
upon the anvil is perpetuated in one 
form or another through all time. The 
heat of the fire which blazes for an 
hour and is then extinct was not creat- 
ed at the moment the fire was kindled, 
and will not be lost when the fire goes 
out. The sum of all the forces which 
act in nature is constant, unchangeable. 
Ilcat. electricity, magnetism, chemical 
action, may be ex|>ended and apparent 
ly lost, but it is only to manif^-st them- 
selves in other ways. Nothing, in a 
word, seems to be destroyed, and, so 
far as our knowledge enables ns to 
judge, Grod has never annihilat(*d any 
material object which he has once 
created. And if matter is tlius pre- 
sen'cd through various changes, pro- 
Cesses of decay and processes of reno- 
vation, why should not spirit i e like- 
wise kept in existence? The soul 
of man, after it leaves this body, has 
still eternal functions to perform in an- 
other world, either of punishment or of 
reward. What objection is there, then, 
to believing that the incorporeal part 



of the bi*ute has permanent use in tlui 
world as long as the world endures? 

Perhaps when we have learned to 
look upon the brute soul as something 
rather more honorable than we hare 
been wont to regard it ; as something 
which it is quite possible (we won't say 
probable) God may have designed to 
last till the very end of time, and not 
as the creature of one short day. we 
may be prepared to recognize in its 
true dignity the brute^s power of rea- 
son, which seems naturally to follow 
from the possession of a soul. It is 
a common fallacy to distinguish the in- 
telligent faculty in man as reason, 
and in dumb animals as instinct. The 
truth is, reason and instinct are two 
things quite different in kind ; neither 
takes the place of the other, and each 
of them belongs both to man and to 
beast. Without aiming at strict philo- 
sophical accuracy, we may define rea- 
son as the faculty by which we weigh 
the relations of things, and fr^ly and 
deliberately choose what we deem eli- 
gible, and i*eject what we consider 
hurtful. Instinct is an innate force or 
impulse inciting us under certain cir- 
cumstances to act in a certain way. 
For example, if a man walking on a 
plank should feel it unexpectedly shift 
under his feet, he would catch at the 
nearest object, or endeavor to balance 
his body by stretching out his hands. 
These acts would be acts of instinct, 
done on the impulse of the moment, 
before rt»ason had time to consider 
whether they ought to be done or not. 
Max I^tUller has some excellent re- 
marks on this subject in his Lecturos 
on the Science of Language. In- 
stinct, he observes, is more prominent 
in brutes than in man ; but it exists in 
both, as much as intellect is shared by 
both. *' A child takes his mother's 
breast by ini*tinct ; the spider weaves 
its net bv instinct ; the bee builds her 
cell by instinct. No one would aseribc 
to the child a knowledge of physiology 
because it employs the exact muscles 
which are required for sucking; nor 



I%e Souh of Animals. 



51* 



shall we claim for the spider a kDow- 
led^i^e of mechanics, or for the bee an 
acquaintance with geometry, because 
we could not do what thcj do without 
a study of these sciences. But what 
if we tear a spider's web, and see the 
spider examininp^ the mischief that is 
done, and either giving up his work in 
despair, or endeavoring to mend it as 
well as may be ? Surely here we have 
the intjtinct of weaving controlled by 
observation, by comparison, by reflec* 
tion, by judgment." Brutes indeed 
have all the faculties whicli pertain to 
reasoning beings. They have sensa- 
tion, perception, will, memory, and in- 
tellect. They see, hear, taste, smell, 
and feel, just like ourselves. They 
experience sensations of pleasure and 
pain, a dog that is fondled or chastised 
behaving exactly as a child would be- 
have under the same circumstances. 
They are able to compare and distin- 
guish ; they show signs of shame and 
pride, of love and hatred. To admit 
all this, and deny that they have 
eouls and reason, is merely to du^pute 
about terms. 

An interesting little book has just 
been published in England on The 
lieasoning Power in Animals, by the 
Rev. John Selby Watson, and we pur- 
pose giving our readers a few illustra- 
tive anecdotes from this work, together 
with some instances that have fallen 
under our own observation, confirma- 
tory of the principles we have stated 
in the preceding pages. 

Seneca denied memory to beasts. 
When a horse, he says, for instance, 
has travelled along a road and is 
brought the same way again, he recog- 
nizes it ; but in the stable he remem- 
bers nothing of it. This, however, 
cannot be proved. Almost every one 
has seen a dog dreaming, and acting 
over in his dreams what he has done 
in his waking moments. If he thinks 
of (ivents and places in his sleep, why 
should he not think of them awake ? 
And if a dog can think of them, why 
cannot a horse ? The stories of the 
memory of elephants are numberless. 
One ol' these animals was being ezhi- 
VOL. v.^88 



bited some years ago in the west of 
England, when a practical joker among 
the spectators dealt out to him in 
small quantities some gingerbread nuts, 
and, after he had secured the elephant^ 
confidence, presented him with a large 
parcel weighing several pounds. The 
beast swallowed it at once, but, finding 
it too hot, roared with pain, and handed 
his bucket to the keeper, as if asking 
for water, and, as soon as he had 
quenched his thirsty hurled the bucket 
with great force at the joker's lioad* 
fortunately missing his aim. A year 
aflerward the elephant returned to the 
same place, and among the spectaton 
was the joker, again provided with 
sweet cakes and hot cakes. He gave 
the elephant two or three from the 
best packet, and then offered a hot one^ 
But no sooner had the animal proved 
the pungency of it than he seized the 
coat-tails of his tormentor, and whirl- 
ed him aloft in the air, until, the tails 
giving way, he fell prostrate to the 
ground, half dead with fright. The 
elephant then quietly inserted his 
trunk into the pocket containing the 
best nuts, and, with his foot on the 
coat-tails, leisurely despatched every 
one of them. When he had finished, 
he trampled the hot nuts to a mash, 
tore the coat-tails to tatters, and flung 
the rags at the discomfited joker. The 
old story of the elephant revenging 
himself by spirting dirty water over a 
tailor who tiad wounded him with a 
needle is too well known to be repeat- 
ed. A similar story is related in Cap- 
tain Shipp's Memoirs. The captain 
had given an elephant cayenne pepper 
with bread and butter, and six weeki 
afterward the animal remembered it 
and punished Captain Shipp bj 
drenching him with dirty water. 

Dogs have excellent memories, and 
every child is familiar with narrativoe 
of their recollecting murderers and 
leading to their detection. The cele- 
brated story of the dog of MontargiB, 
who killed the assassin of his master ; 
of the dog who pointed out to Pyrrhue, 
King of Epirus, two soldiers who had 
skin his master, as related by Flu- 



ftt4 



7%e Souls of Animals, 



tercb ; of the dog of Antiocli, comme- 
aiorated by St. Ambrose ; and of a dog 
who, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, 
in tbe thirteenth century, fought a pub- 
Mc combat with a suspected murderer, 
a sort of wager-of-battie, in fact, in 
which the dog proved his case, are ex- 
lunples of this memory. Benvenuto 
Cellini had a watch-dog that drove 
liway a burglar who tried one night to 
break into the house, and some time 
afterward recognized the thief in the 
street and seized him. A lady remov- 
ing from Poitoa to Paris left a spaniel 
behind her. Ten years afterward she 
sent some clothes packed by herself to 
the person who had charge of the dog. 
The little creature no sooner smelt 
Uieni than he gambolled round them 
and showed every mark of excessive 
joy. 

Tho horse has an excellent memory 
both for persons and places. He ne- 
rer forgets a road he has once travel- 
led. A horse accustomed to be em- 
ployed once a week on a journey with 
the newsman of a provincial paper 
always stopped at the houses of the 
aeveral customers, sixty or seventy in 
number. There were two persons on 
the route who took one paper between 
them, and each claimed the privilege 
of having it first on the alternate Sun- 
day. The horse soon became accns- 
tomeil to this reguhition ; and, though 
the parties lived two miles apart, lie 
»topi)e(l at the door of each in his re- 
gular turn. Here was certainly a very 
remarkable exercise of memory. A 
wonderful example of the a**e of the 
same faculty is seen in the facility with 
whicli animals that have been carried 
away from home find their way back. 
The writer had a Newfoundland slut 
which was sent away with one of her 
pups a considerable distance by rail- 
rojid, shut up in a box-car. A fort- 
night afterward Jet and her offspring 
were found nt their old home, foot- 
sore and half starved. How they had 
made their way back over roads which 
they could only have seen in occasional 
^mpses from the door of the car al- 
ways remained a mystery. But far 



more wonderful instances of camae 
memory than this are on record. A 
terrier that was taken from Arundel 
to London in a close cart, and tied up 
in the evening in a yard near Gros- 
venor square, was found at Arundel, 
sixty miles distant, the following af\er 
noon. A Scotch dog having been taken 
to Frankfort, and having there seen 
its master drowned in the Oder, after 
having made ineffectual efibrts to save 
him, found its way from Frankfort to 
Hamburg, from Hamburg to Hull, and 
from Hull to Edinburgh. Lord Lons- 
dale sent two hounds from Leicester- 
shire to Ireland, and at the end of three 
weeks they reappeared in Leicester- 
shire. A Mr. Edward Cook, having 
lived some time with his brother at 
Togsten in Northumberland, came to 
America, bringing with him a pointer 
dog, which, while shooting in the woods 
near Baltimore, he lost Some time 
afterward Mr. Crook's brother, who 
continued to reside at Togsten, was 
aroused one night by the barking of 
a dog, which, on being let in, proved 
to be the lost pointer. Ho remained 
there until his master came back from 
America. By what vessel he had 
made his way across the Atlantic was 
never ascertained. The persistency 
with which cats will return to places 
from which they have been sent away 
is well known. Lonl Brougham, in 
his Letters on Instinct, mentions one 
that was taken to the West Indies, and 
on the return of tho ship to London, 
found her way through the city to 
Brorapton, whence she had been taken. 
Mi's. Lee tells the following story in 
her Anecdotes of Animals : 



" When living at Four Paths, Clarendon, 
Jamaica, I wanted a cat, and had one given 
to me which was nearly fuU-gronn. It was 
brought frura Morgan's Valley esute, wtiere 
it wad bred, and had never beiui removed from 
that place before. The distance was five 
miles. It was put into a canvas bag, and 
carried by a man on horseback. Between 
tbe two places there are two river:*, one of 
them about eighty feet broad and two and 
a half deep, and over these rivers there are 
no bridges. The cat was shut up at Four 
Paths for some days, and when considered to 



1%€ Souls of Animah. 



515 



be recondled to her new dwelling she was 
allowed to go about the house. The day af- 
ter obtain log her liberty she was missing, and 
upon my next visiting the estate she was 
brought from, I was quite amazed to learn 
that the cat had come back again. Did she 
swim over the rivers at the fords where the 
horse came through with her, or did she as- 
oend the banks for a considerable distance 
in search of a more shallow place, and where 
the stream was less powerful ? At all events, 
she must have crossed the rivers in opposition 
to her natural habits/' 

A farmer living on the borders of 
the New Forest in Hampshire, bought 
a mare near Newport, in the Isle of 
Wight, and took it home with him, 
crossing to the main-land in a boat 
* During the night the animal escaped 
from the enclosure in which the farmer 
had fastened it, and made its way home 
again, swimming across the strait. The 
nearest distance from the Hampshire 
coast to the Isle of Wight is five miles. 
A cow which had been sent to grass 
at a pbice twenty-one miles from her 
owner s residence remained there con- 
tentedly all summer ; but, as soon as the 
grass began to fail, travelled home to 
her old pasturage. A cow was sepa- 
rated from her young calf and driven 
twelve miles to Smitlifield to be sold, 
bnt early the next morning she was 
found at home, having escaped from 
the market and made her way through 
all the intricacies of London. Dr. 
John Brown, in one of his inimitable 
dog-papers, gives an instance of a dog 
finding his way home from a distance, 
under circumstances which almost seem 
to justify his notion that the canine race, 
liave an idea of humor. A Scottish 
shepherd, lm\-ing sold his sheep at a 
market, was asked by the buyer to lend 
him his dog to take them home. ** * 3y 
a' manner o' means take Birkie, and 
when ye'r dune wi ' him just play so,' 
(making a movement with his arm,) 
'and he'll be hame in a jiffy.' Birkie 
was so clever, and useful, and gay, that 
the borrower coveted him ; and on get- 
ting to his farm shut him up, intending 
to keep him. Birkie escaped during 
the nij^ht, and took the entire hir-el 
(flock) buck to his own master ! Fan- 



cy him trotting across the moor with 
them, they as willing as he.'* 

There are some well-authenticated 
instances of animals finding their way 
home by roads they never travelled 
before which are difficult of explana- 
tion. In March, 1816, an ass, the 
property of Captain Dundas, R N., was 
shipped at Gibraltar on board the Ister 
frigate, bound for Malta. The vessel 
having grounded off Point de Gat, the 
animal was thrown overboard to give 
it a chance of swimming ashore — a poor 
one, for the land was some distance off 
and the sea running very high. A 
few days afterward, however, when the 
gates of Gibraltar were opened in the 
morning, the ass presented himself for 
admittance, and proceeded to a stable 
which he had formerlr occupied. He 
had not only swum ashore, but, without 
guide, compass, or travelling map, and 
witli no previous knowledge of the 
route, had travelled from Point de Grat 
to Gibraltar, a distance of more than 
two hundred miles, through a moun- 
tainous and intricate country intersect- 
ed by streams ; and he had done it in 
so short a time that he could hardly 
have made single false turn. What 
directed him on this wonderful journey 
it is impossible to conjecture, unless we 
suppose that he had the good sense to 
follow the line of the coast ; and that 
he should have known tliat such a 
course would lead him home certainly 
argues a very large share of the reason- 
ing faculty. In point of fact, however, 
there is a carious and incomprehensi- 
ble instinct for finding the way which 
belongs not only to the lower animals, 
but to man himself in the savage state. 
The migrations of birds afford familiar 
examples of it, swallows especially, re- 
turning year after year to build their 
nests in the same place. Two or three 
years ago six swallows were taken from 
their nests at Paris, and conveyed to 
Vienna, where a small roll of paper 
with a few words writte.i on it was 
affixed to the wing of each; and they 
were let go one morning at a quarter 
past seven. Two arrivinl at Paris a 
little before one ; one at a quarter past 



616 



7%e Sauls of AnimaU. 



two ; and one at four. The other two 
did not return at all, having perhaps 
met with some mishap. A falcon was 
taken from the Canaries to Andalusia 
and returned in sixteen hours, a dis- 
tance of six hundred miles. Salmon 
are supposed to return in all cases to 
the river where they were bred. Crabs 
may be carried two or three miles out 
to flca, and they will find their way 
back to their old haunts. Mr. Jesse, 
in his Gleanings in Natural History, 
relates an extraordinary story of a 
tortoise which was captuivd at the Is- 
land of Ascension in the South Atlan- 
tic and carried with several others to 
England. It had lost one fin, and 
was consequently named by the sailors 
the Lord Nelson. The voyaire was 
very long, and most of the turtles died, 
and as the Lord Nelson seemed sickly 
when they drew near port, the sailors, 
in order ** to give it a chance," threw 
it overboard in the English Channel, 
after it had been branded in the usual 
way, with certain letters and nunibers 
burnt upon its under shell with a hot 
iron. Wonderful to relate, the same 
turtle was taken at the Island of As- 
cension two years afterward, having 
found its way three thousand five 
hundred miles through the watery 
waste to that little speck in tlic midst 
o^ the ocean. The unerring certainty 
with which bees fly in a straight line 
to their hives is proverbial, and bee- 
hunters discover the nests by cat4»hing 
two of the insects, carrying them to 
aome distance apart, and letting them 
go. Each will at once take a straight 
line toward the nest, and by observing 
these lines and calculating \\ here they 
ought to intersect, the honey is found. 
This instinct is the more remarkable 
as bees are very near sighted, not being 
able, it is suppose^l, to see more ttian a 
yaiti before thorn. We have mentii)n- 
ed that savages have something of the 
same instinct, finding their way for 
long distances, not always by their 
acuteness of observation, but by an in- 
describable faculty which is Like nothing 
BO much as the instinct of birdo. Mr. 
Jesse tells a story of a traveller in 



Australia, who lost his way in tlie ia- 
terior, and was guided by one of the 
natives more than a hundred miles in 
a straight line to the place he wanted 
to reach. The savage, he was ossored, 
could have led him almost as well 
blindfold, for he travelled as aoco- 
rat(4y when the sun was obscored as 
when it was visible, and was not assist- 
ed by marks on the barks of trees, or 
any of the other familiar landmarics 
of the wilderness. Our own frontiers- 
men have the same faculty to a greater 
or lesser degree. We ourselves, on 
two occasions, afler a long day's hunt 
in the far West, in which we followed 
the game through so many twists and 
turns as to lose all idea of the points 
of the compass, were conducted by a 
trapper twelve or fifteen miles back to 
camp, on a perfectly dark night, across 
an utterly trackless prairie. There 
was neither tree, nor hill, nor foot- 
print to mark the way, but our course 
was as straight as the bee flies. The 
trapper could not expkiu how he did 
it : it was by a species of instinct. The 
Newfoundland slut Jet, mentioned on a 
preceding |)age,oncc found her way to 
the writers house, under circumstan- 
ces which indicated the exercistf of 
reason much more unmistakably than 
the instances just cited. The family 
were about moving from one house to 
another some two miles distant ; but as 
the new dwelling was not ready for 
occupation when the lease of ili« old 
one expired, the furnituro was stored 
in the neighborhood, and we all went 
away tor a few weeks, leaving Jet bo- 
hind. When we camo to take posses- 
sion of the new house, we found Jet 
there bcifore us, althougii nothing be- 
longing to us had yet been airricd to 
the pn'raises, and, uo far as we knew, 
she had never been there in our. com- 
pany. Another dog belongiu'jr lo us 
had been there, however, onee or twiie 
with one of tiie servants, and .Ji't |>er- 
ha|is had learned the secret tn»in hi:n. 
But it certainly showed gitMit me.ital 
acuteness in the animal that sh(> sijijuld 
not have folio »ved tlie furniture, k.M.v- 
ing ap|>arcntly that it was onl^ s:ovved 



ne Souls of Animah, 



517 



away for a time, but, by patting this and 
that togetlier, should have found out 
where her master meant to establish 
himself. 

Tlie power of putting this and that 
together is emphatically a reasoning 
faculty ; in other words, it is the power 
of tracing the relation between cause 
and effect. The literature of natural 
history abounds in examples of the 
possession of this faculty by animals, 
and so does tlie experience of every 
one who lias ever kept dogs or horses. 
Jet had it to an eminent degree. 
When she was about to bring forth a 
litter, she always tried to dig a cave 
for them under the steps of the front 
door. This, of course, was forbidden, 
but she was resolute, and many a time 
she had her cavern nearly finished be- 
fore she was detected. The bell-wire 
passed under the steps, so that in the 
course of her digging she was very apt 
to ring the bell, and it was some time 
before the servants found out whence 
the mysterious ringing originated ; but, 
when the secret was discovered. Jet 
was pulled out and punished. Punish- 
ment did not break her of the habit ; 
indeed, she was an incorrigibly obsti- 
nate dog, and never was broken of any 
trick she once set her mind upon ; but 
after that, whenever she heard the bell, 
she ran out of the hole and hid at the 
comer of the house until the coast was 
clear, when she would go back to work, 
taking more pains to avoid the wire. 
If her master was at home and sus- 
pected who rang the bell, he often 
answered the door himself, and looking 
toward the side of the house he was 
sure to see Jet peeping cautiously 
round the comer with such a mischie- 
vous and comical expression in her eyes 
that he rarely refrained from a hearty 
laugh ; whereupon the dog would pluck 
up heart, apd come forward, grinning 
and apologizing, as if to say, " I am 
very sorry I've given you so much 
trouble ; I didn't know it was wrong, 
and I won't do so again." She was a 
dreadful liar, (for dogs can lie with 
their eyes and faces, as well as men 
can lie with their tongues.) but it was 



all very funny. Her understanding 
the use of a dooivbell reminds us of a 
story told of an Italian greyhound at 
Bologna, which was accustomed every 
morning to visit a dog of its own spe- 
cies at a neighboring house. At fimt 
it used to wait in the street until the 
door was opened, but after a time it 
learned to use the knocker. Mr. Nas- 
sau Senior, in one of his articles in 
The Quarterly Review, gives an in- 
stance from his own knowledge of the 
way in which a terrier used to obtain 
admission to the common-room at Mer- 
ton Ck>llege, Oxford, whose sacred 
threshold, be it known, dogs are strict- 
ly forbidden to cross. ^ The animal's 
cunning," says Mr. Senior, ** would 
have done honor to an Old Bailey attoiv 
ney." We give the narrative in his 
own language: '^It happened odq. 
evening that a couple of terriers bad 
followed their masters to the door, and 
while they remained excluded, unhap- 
pily followed tlie habits rather of biped 
than of quadraped animals, and began 
to quarrel like a couple of Christians. 
The noise of the fight summoned their 
masters to separate them, and as it ap- 
peared that the hero of our tale had 
been much mauled by a superior ad- 
versary, the severe hienseancet of the 
place were for once relaxed, and he 
was allowed to enjoy during the rest 
of the night the softness of a monastic 
rug and the blaze of a monastic fire, 
luxuries which every initiated dog and 
man will duly appreciate. The next 
day, soon after the common-room party 
had been assembled, the sounds of the 
preceding evening were renewed with 
tenfold violence. There was such 
snapping and tearing, and snarling and 
howling, as could be accounted for only 
by a general engagement : 

'TbenoUe ftlarmed the fesUre hall. 
And started forth the fellows all.* 

But, instead of a battle royal, they 
found at the door their fomier guest, 
in solitude sitting on his rump, and act- 
ing a furious dog-fight, in the hope of 
again gaining admittance among the 
quieti ordines deorum. We have heard 



518 



The Souls of Animah, 



that he was rewarded with both the 
gremdea and the petites entries; but 
this does not rest on the same authori- 
ty as the rest of the narrative." 

Mr. Watson's book abounds with 
other instances of intelligence in ani- 
mals, which it is almost im|)Odsible to 
avoid attributing to the operation of 
reason. He gives an anecdote, for in- 
stance, of an elephant which, seeing an 
artillery-man fall from the tumbril of 
a gun, in such a situation that in a se- 
cond or two the wheel of the gun car- 
riage must have gone over him, in- 
stantly, without any warning from its 
keeper, lifted the wheel with its trunk 
and kept it suspended until the carriage 
had passed clear of the soldier. Here 
the elephant manifestly reasoned 
for himself. A still more remark- 
able manifestation of the reasoning 
faculty is recorded of an animal 
of the same sjiecies. An elephant in 
a menagerie was trained to pick up 
coins with liin trunk. On one occa- 
sion a sixpence was thrown down 
which fell a little beyond his reach 
(he was chained) and near the wall. 
After several vain attempts to pick it 
up, he stood motionless a few seconds, 
evidently considering how to act ; he 
then stretched his proboscis as far as 
he could in a straight line, a little dis- 
tance above the coin, and blew with 
great force against the wall. The 
blast of air, rebounding from the wall, 
caught up the sixpence and drove it 
toward him, as he evidently intended 
it should. Another elephant was once 
seen to blow a potato which was just 
beyond his reach against the wall, and 
catch it when it rebounded. Tlie in^nu- 
ity displayed in these cases is something 
akin to the use of tools which has l)een 
declared a characteristic of man alone. 
This, however, is a mistake. The club 
which the gorilla is known to wield 
with such terrible power, the palm- 
branches with whicli elephants brush 
away flies, the stones which monkeys 
and even birds have been 8e<>n to use 
either in breaking open shells or keep- 
ing them distended while they extract- 
ed the shell-fish — what are these but 



tools ? Foxes have been seen to set 
cods' heads as baits for crows, and 
pounce upon the birds when thej 
came to eat them. The ingenaity of 
rats in getting at toothsome mor«ek 
is well known; there are nuuiy in- 
stances of their using their tails to ex- 
tract oil from narrow-necked bottles — 
all these cases being equivalent to the 
use of tools. A Newfoundland dog 
at Torquay, wauting water, took a pail 
from the kitchen and carried it to the 
pump, where he sat down until one 
of the men-servants came out, to whom 
he made such significant gestures that 
the man pumped the pail full for him. 
The most remarkable part of the slorj 
is that, when the dog had finished, be 
carried back the pail to the place in the 
kitchen from which he had taken it. 
That was something all the same as a 
tool whicli the eagle of St Kilda, men- 
tioned by Macgillivray, used when, 
attacking two bnys who had robbed 
her nest, she dipped her pinions first 
in water and then in sand, to giyc 
greater force to the blows which she 
struck with them. A rat has been 
seen conducting a blind companion by 
means of a stick, each of the animate 
holding one end of it in his mouth. 
Cats have often been known to learn 
the use of a latch ; and a terrier pu|>, 
only two months old, belonging to the 
writer of this article, has so good an 
idea of the purpose of the same article 
that he manifests a desire to get out 
of the room by ineffectual jumps at the 
door-handle. A London pastry-cook 
had a number of ejrgs stolen fn)m a 
store room at the top of the house ; a 
watch being set for the thief, two rats 
were detected carrying an egg down- 
stairs. One of the rats, going down one 
step, would stand on his hind-legs with 
his fon; paws resting on the stair above, 
while th(i other rolled the e^^ toward 
him ; then, putting his fore-legs tightly 
round it, he lifted it down to the step 
on which lie was standing, and held it 
there till the other came down to take 
charge of it. Riits have been known 
to convey eggs ui>-stairs by a some- 
what similar process. 



1%« Sauls of Animali. 



5W 



A very clear example of reasoniog 
occurs in a story told of a water-hen, 
which, having ohsen'ed a pheasant feed 
out of a box which opened when the 
bird stood on a rail in front of it, 
went and stood in the same place as 
soon as the pheasant quitted it. Find- 
ing that its weight was not sufficient 
to raise the lid of the bbx, it kept jump- 
ing on the rail to give additional im- 
petus. This only succeeded partially ; 
so the clever bird went away and 
fetched another of its own species, and 
the weight of the two had the desired 
effect. An anecdote is told by Mrs. 
Lee of a magpie which is almost 
enough to persuade one that the crea- 
ture had the g\i\ of language. The 
bird used to watch about a neighboring 
toll-gate at times when he expected 
the toll-keeper's wife to be making 
pastry; and, if he observed her so 
employed, he would perch upon the 
gate and shout, '* Gate ahoy T when, 
of course, if her husband were absent, 
she would run out to open it ; the bird 
would then dart into the house and 
carry away a billful of her pie-crust, 
eating and chattering over it with the 
greatest glee. Surely no one will deny 
that in tiiis case the bird exercised the 
faculty of reason. 

Somewhat analogous to this case are 
the many stories related of animals ap- 
parently understanding what is said in 
their presence. In reality they proba- 
bly have no conception of the meaning 
of the words uttered, but their keenness 
of observation enables them to detect 
slight changes in the tone of voice and 
notice little things which escape our 
coarser vision ; and from trifling signs 
they draw reasonable conclusions. The 
writi^r had a cat which always knew 
when the servant was told to fetch food 
for her, though the experiment was 
often tried of giving the order in vari- 
ous tones of voice and without any 
look or sign that would be likely to at- 
tract pussy's attention. During our 
last war with England there was an 
old Newfoundland dog on board the 
British ship Leander, stationed at Hal- 
ifax. He had been attached to the 



ship several years, and the sailors one 
and all believed that he understood 
what was said. He was lying on the 
deck one day when the captain in passr 
ing remarked : " I shall be sorry to do 
it, but I must have Neptune shot, he ia 
getting so old and infirm." The dog 
immediately jumped overboard and 
swam to another ship, where being 
taken on board he remained till h^ 
died. Nothing could ever induce hiia 
to go near the Leander again, and if 
he happened to meet any of her boats 
or crew on shore, he made off as fast aa 
he coukL 

Animals certainly have the power 
of communicating thoughts to each 
other, as the following story proves; 
^At Horton, in Buckinghamshire, (a 
village where Milton passed some of 
his early days,) about the year 181^ 
a gentleman from London took pos- 
session of a house, the former tenant 
of which had moved to a farm about 
half a mile off The new inmate 
brought with him a large French 
poodle, to take the duty of watchmaa 
in the place of a fine Newfoundland 
dog which went away with his master; 
but a puppy of the same breed was 
left behind ; and he was incessantly 
persecuted by the poodle. As the 
puppy grew up, the persecution stil) 
continued. At length he was one d^y 
missing for some hours ; but he dkl not 
come back alone ; he returned with his 
old friend, the large house-dog, to whom 
he had made a communication ; and in 
an instant the two lell upon the unhap- 
py poodle and killed him before he 
could be rescued from their fury. In 
this case the injuries of the young dog 
must have been made known to his 
friend, a ph&n of revenge concerted, 
and the determination formed to carry 
the plan into effect with equal prompt- 
itude." Count Tilesius, a Bussiaa 
traveller, who wrote at the beginning 
of the present century, tells a wonder- 
ful anecdote of a dog of his which had 
been sadly worried by a larger and 
stronger animal. For some days it 
was observed that he saved half his 
food and laid it ap as a private stores 



l%e Souls of Animab, 



When he had aaiMmOlatdd a hirge sup- 
ply, he went out arul gathered around 
him several doga of ihe neighborhood, 
whom he brought to bis home and feast- 
td on his hoard* The Bingular specta- 
cle of a dog giving a supper-party ai- 
tpacted the count 9 altenrion, and he de- 
tcrmin*itl to wateb their proceeding?*. 
As Sixin as the feast was over» they 
went out in a bofljr, Oiarehed deltber- 
Utely through the street ji to the outskirts 
of the town, and there, under the lead* 
ership of their entertainer, fell upon n 
large dog and punished him severely. 
This incidejjt not only shovva that dogi 
can eoaimunieate their thoughts lo one 
^ Another^ and enn follow out a lixed [>lan 
of action, but it l*x)ks very much aa if 
they had what is generally 9upj>o«ed 
to he pi?ci»liar to man^ — namely, *ome 
idea of a bar;iain. They can be mag- 
nantrnons in their behavior toward their 
lbUow8, and the mea!«are<5 which larg«3 
I dogs occasionally adopt to gf*t rid of 
^ Ihe annoyance of little curs dispby a 
great deiil of judgment and good feel- 
tag. In Mr. You ail's book. On the 
I Dog, we have a story of a Newfound- 
kaid dog in the city of Cork which had 
[ fcoen greatly worried by a numlw^r of 
\ Hoisy curs- He took no notice of them 
Until one carried his presumption so 
i Ikr as to bite him in the leg, whereu))on 
^ ilhe large animal ran aAer the otfender, 
ght bitn by the back of the neck, 
1 carried liim to ilie quay* There, 
er holding him susiTended over the 
I tdge for a few moments, he drap[»od 
Ibim into the river, Bot he had no 
lourpio^e to indict more than a utild pun^ 
rfebment, for after the cur hail been well 
I ducked and frightened and was begin - 
fiing lo struggle for his life, the New- 
I feundtand dog phinged into ihe water 
And brought him safe to land. That 
ftuimal certainly showed good sense, a 
I p>od heart, and a lively appreciation 
Liof wtiat was just and proper. A very 
1 comical example of a dog's feeling of 
propriety is quotetl by Mr. Watson 
\vrom Jesse's Gleanings in Natural 
iKistory, •< A gentleman goin*» out 
f%hooting obtained the loan of a pointer 
from a friend, who told him that the 



dog would behave very well as 
be kilh>d bis birds ; bat that, if he im- 
queue ly missed, it would leave libsi Mii 
run hf^me. Unhappily the borrower 
was extremely unskilful. Binl niter 
bird was put up and iired at^ Uit 0fW 
off tin touched, till the poioter grew 
careless. As if willing, however, lo 
give his client tine chance moro, 
made a dead stop at a feni bush, wii 
hii nose pointed downward, hi* forrtbov' 
bent, and his tail straight uud steady. 
In this position he remained tma tiU 
the sportsman was cloae to Uioi, witji 
both barrels cot»ked; he fbon tooted 
steadily forward for a lew paeon, uul 
at hi<^i stood itill near a bunch of heatiK 
er, his tail expressing his anxiety by 
moving slowly Imckwurd and Tat' 
wanh At last out ipmug a line old 
blackcock. Bang, bang, went botb 
burrcls, but the biinl eftra[ied unhurt. 
Thif? was mor<* than ti»e dogomld bear; 
he turned boldly round, placed h«r» tail 
between his legs, gave one long, loud 
howl, liud set off homeward ns (uai u 
he could;' 

Perhajis, after olh one of tbr noii 
curious exhibitions of reason w 9if* 
forded by the eroM^a* which, in the 
northern parts of Scotland and in the 
Faroe Islands, bold extraordinary 
meetings every now and then, tkpptt- 
i^ntly for tlie purpose of judging and 
punishing evil-doers among their oom- 
uiunity. The sesdions are somctirofS 
prolonged two or three days; and as 
long as they last, flocks of crows cxmti^ 
nue tr> arrive in great numbers from 
all quarters of the heavens. In liie 
mean whrle^ some of the . are 

active iind noisy ; others ,- - .up* 

ing head* as grave a< j ;!-' -. When 
tlie gaiberitig iseom|»l«tr, ji very gen- 
eral iiuiae eiMiies — we are tempietl to 
call it laUdn^ — and then tlie whole 
body fall u)^>on one or two individuab 
and put them to de^ith. Justice tiius 
vindicated, the convention straight waj 
dis(>er»cs. Now, the crows show every 
np[Ktaraure of having been summoned 
to these councils ; indeed^ it is alrooai 
incKHiceivable that they should mcrt by 
chauoe ; but bow the su auuoud k given \ 



I 

1 
1 

I 



A 



T%s Gladiators' Song. 



621 



how tfaej know when all have arrived ; 
what are the offences they punish ; 
whether the criminals know the fate 
that awaits them, and are restrained 
by force from making their escape; 
and how the knowledge of the crime 
is dispersed amongst the Whole assem- 
bly — these are curious questions to 
which we fear no satisfactory answer 
will ever be given. The idea of hun- 
dreds of birds sitting in deliberation, 
like a court of justice, is indeed mar- 
velbus. We can only say that the 
narrative, as we have given it, seems to 
be well authenticated, and we leave our 
readers to draw their own conclusions. 

We think we have quoted anecdotes 
enough to prove that brutes have souls 
and reason ; or, if they have not, that 
they are much more wonderfully made 
than man, since they can perform with- 
ouf assistance from the reasoning facul- 



ty actions which in us require the ex- 
ercise of the highest intelligence. And 
although we do not go to the length of 
saying, with the Rabbi Manasseh of 
old, and Dr. John Brown, the author 
of Spare Hours, in our own day, that 
there is a next world for the brute 
creation ; and do not believe with an- 
other modem writer (the Rev. J. G. 
Wood) that divine justice absolutely 
requires that God should make amends 
to animals in the future life for the suf- 
ferings they endure in this — perhaps 
our readers will agree with us that we 
have shown it to be no ways impossi- 
ble that God may have designed the 
souls of dumb beasts to outlast in this 
world their perishable bodies ; that the 
intelligent part of the sagacioas dog 
may animate a long succession of Babs 
and Pontes ; and the spirit of the dead 
pet may return into bodily form to de- 
light new generations of mastel^ 



From The Month. 

THE GLADIATORS' SONG- 

Round about this grim arena, by the ghosts of thousands haunted, 
Beckoned by our slaughtered comrades, move we on with hearts undaunted- 

Ave^ C(Bsar Imperaior, morituri te salutant/ 
Dark the world and always darker, none to comfort, none to love us, 
Grisly hell beneath us yawning, deaf or dead the gods above us — 

Ave, (Jcesnr Imperator, morituri te salutant/ 
Life and flesh and soul and sinew, beating heart and thought upsoaring — 
Was the goblet of our being crowned but for this wild outpouring ? 

Ave, Casar Imperaior, morituri te salutant ! 
Voices come through dreary silence, still for righteous vengeance calling — 
So we chant our stem defiance — false relentless Rome is falling I 

Ave, CtBsar Imperator, morituri te saiutatit ! 
Countless years have tortured nations learned the ruth of Roman mercies — 
Ah I she falls in waste and carnage, 'mid the world's triumphant curses ! 

Ave, Gasar Lnperator, morituri te salutant! 
Gleams of vengeance, long delaying, scantly sate the spirit's yearning — 
Guessing, groping, craving, hoping, must we go without returning ? 

Ave, Ccesar Imperator, morituri te salutant I 
Onward to our slaughtered comrades, round the arena, shadow-haunted. 
On to endless night or morning pass we on with hearts undaunted I 

Avej CiEsar Imperaior, morituri te salutant 1 



LaktB of LorrmiiM. 



Prom Once a Week 

LAKES OF LORRAINE. 



On certain sultry and thundcrons 
days in the middle of July, 1866, was 
ceb'brated, with fetes and fireworks, 
illuminations by night, and brilliant 
shows by day, the first centenary of 
the union of the province of Lorraine 
to France. The scene was the city of 
Nancy, and splendor was added to the 
festival by the presence of the Empress 
Eugenic and the imperial prince, who 
lodged in the former palace of King 
Stanislaus of Poland, the last duke of 
Lorraine, and witnessed from its bal- 
cony the defiling of a long alle^iorical 
procession, representing in order the 
historical personages of the province, 
conspicuous among whom was the 
Maid of Orleans, personated by a youth 
of the town bearing in his hand a fac- 
simile of her consecrated banner. The 
romance of the mediaeval 8i>ectacle was 
a little marred by certain laughable 
incongruities which the critical eye 
might detect ; for instance, the arque- 
busiers of the sixteenth century were 
armed with percussion muskets ; and 
the portly nymphs representing France 
and Lorraine seemed in consequence 
of the heat to be in somewhat too melt- 
ing a mood for perfect dignity. The 
spectacle as a whole wits, however, 
very imposing, and went off with a 
success peculiarly French, the clean 
and handsome city being crowded with 
well-behaved strangers from all the 
neighborhood, in such vast numbers 
that, in spite of their good behavior and 
good temper, they were fain to fight 
for their places in the trains, and one 
party had to wait till two a.m. at the 
station, after being in time to get away 
by ten at night. In bearing patiently 
such inconveniences in the pursuit of 
pleasure, our neighbors of the other 
side of the channel most undeniably 
surpass us. It was pleasant as a con- 
trast to imss without let or hinderance 



the same station a few days lafer, Al- 
lowing the line which runs parallel to 
the course of the Moselle past Epinal 
to Remiremont, on a visit to the lakei 
which lie in the country between thtt 
town and the terminus of St. Die, 
which ends another branch of the Ei- 
ris and Strasburg railway. Between 
Nancy and Bpinal the stream of the 
Moscllo is met winding through fertile 
meadows in a broad valley with low 
elevations on each side; near £pinal 
the scenery becomes more picturesque ; 
there are more trees near the riTer, 
and the long level reaches are broken 
by occasional rapids with rocks about 
them. When Epinal is passed, the 
valley becomes narrower and prettier, 
shut in between two spurs of the Vos- 
ges, until the basin is reached, where 
Remiremont itself lies, and the waten 
of the Mosellote join those of the Mo- 
selle, each branch of the river from 
this point to the source having tlie 
character of a considerable mountain 
brook. The town of Remiremont it- 
self resembles Freiburg in the Breis- 
gau, minus its magnificent cathedral, in 
its size and general character, and 
especially in the abundance of fbmi- 
tains and runnels permeating the 
streets, which in their main portions 
are fronted with arcades like those of 
Bern or Bologna, a pleasant protcctioB 
against sun and shower, and duly ap- 
preciated in the tempestuous summer 
of 1866. 

The busy little town derives its 
euphonious name from one Saint Ro« 
mary. In the circle of mountains en- 
closing the town one of conical shape 
is remarked, called Mont Habend, froHi 
Castrwn Habendt\ a camp erected oo 
Its site by the Romans. 

In the seventh century this holy 
mountain was the chosen retreat of tivo 
anchorites, Ame and Romarj, who 



LaktB of Xiorraine. 



528 



founded there two monasteries, one for 
women, another for men, and were 
canonized after their deaths. The 
monasteries were destroyed bj the 
Huns in the tenth ccnturj, but the site 
of one was repeopled aj^ain by monks 
a century later, while the nuns, aban- 
d)nino: the mountain, fixed themselves 
in the valley. The convent of Remire- 
mont was governed during its long ex- 
istence by sixty-four abbesses, tlie last 
of whom, Louise Adelaide de Bourbon 
Conde, died in 1824. It was a foun- 
dation even more exclusive and aristo- 
cratic in its character than All Souls', 
Oxford. The abbesses were generally 
princesses, and royal honors were ac- 
corded them. When each abbess 
entered the town for the firet time, a 
great holiday was kept, and the mayor, 
instead of presenting the keys of the 
city, offered her the wine of the spot in 
a cup of gold, which she just touched 
with her lips before she passed within 
the walls to be enthroned with great 
state in the palatial apartments prepar- 
ed for her. One of the number of 
these religious princesses, Catherine de 
Lorraine, distinguished herself in 1G37 
by beating off from the walls of Re- 
mi remont the great Turenne, who was 
endeavoring to take the town from the 
Duke of Lorraine. 

The town is now famous chiefly for 
the production of some excellent cakes 
with the quaint name of ^quiches,^ 
probably only a corruption of the Ger- 
man Kuchlein. 

To the guests at the baths of Plom- 
bieres, the lake region which lies be- 
tween Remiremont and St. Die is bet- 
ter known than to the general world, 
as it lies out of the way of tourists' 
thoroughfares; but though it cannot 
quite compete in beauty with the Eng- 
lish or Scotch lakes, or Eillamey, it is 
well worth a visit to those who are not 
obliged to go a great distance to see it. 
Instead of going due east to the source 
of the Moselle and the pass over the 
main chain of the Vosges which leads 
to Wesserling, and thence by rail to 
Ba.se 1, the road to Gi'^rardmer turns to 
the left along a valley parallel to the 



line of the mountains, and flanked by 
lower hills, well wooded, oo its other 
side. The foregrounds have tlie usual 
broken and diversified character of a 
granitic country, and the height of the 
hills is sufficient to make the distant 
views in many parts highly pleasing. 
There is enough picturesque incident 
to beguile very pleasantly the eighteen 
miles or so which the diligence travers* 
es to Gerardmer. The name, derived 
from Gerard, a duke of Lorraine, has 
been given to a fine oblong sheet of 
clear water, about two miles long, and 
half a mile broads bounded for the 
greatest part of its circumstance by long 
slopes covered with meadows and white 
cottages at intervals, but on the east bj 
a pine forest and rocks, which give a 
more savage aspect to its further banks. 
From the Swiss villas built on its 
banks, the numerous pleasure-boats, 
and the general lively aspect, it brings 
to mind the lake of Zurich in minia- 
ture. At its further end is an im- 
mensely long village, also called G^ 
rardmer, the most distinguishing mark 
of which is an enormous wych elm of 
unknown antiquity, standing in the 
market place. 

In the summer, Gerardmer is full of 
visitors, who are well entertained at the 
Hdtel de la Foste and the H6tel dee 
Vosges at a moderate rate. The latter 
of these is conducted by an indefatiga* 
ble little landlady, who is fiill of civil- 
ities, assisted by a good-natured, gigan- 
tic husband, who seems to superintend 
the kitchen department, and generally 
was seen during our visit lounging 
somewhere about the entrance, conspi- 
cuous in white trousers and a shirt of 
violet flannel, trimmed with scarlet. 
7he wide road beyond Gerardmer 
branches to the right and lefL The 
left branch leads into a valley choked 
with a primaeval pine forest, in the 
depths of which roars the torrent of the 
Yologne. The trees are of immense 
size, and completely clad with pen- 
dants of moss and lichen, telling of a 
considerable elevation of site, and of 
such weird and grand forms as to make 
one wish that the art of forest culture 



524 



LaJctB of LorrainB. 



which f«n8 the trees at a premature 
age had never been introduced. In 
one spot, not far from the so-called 
** Basse des Ours," or Bear Bottom, 
where the huge granite-blocks that 
have fallen from the crest of a moun- 
tain have been huddled together, a na- 
tural ice-house has been formed in the 
interstices, called " La glaciere, ' and 
the fact of our finding no ice in it was 
accounted for by the summer not hav- 
ing been sufficiently hot to produce tlie 
necessary amount of evaporation. The 
road to the right parses over the tor- 
rent, by a bridge, and then divides 
again, its riglit branch leading over the 
mountains into the valley of Miinster 
in Alsace, and its left to St. Die. On 
the road to St. Die two pines are seen 
which have grown together like Sia- 
mese twins. 

Near the bridge is a cascade of sin- 
gular beauty, which, from a peculiarity 
it possesses in changing its entire as- 
pect as the spectator changes his 
ground, is called the Cascade des Fees, 
Not far from this cascade is a large 
slab of granite, and a fountain where 
Charlemagne is said to have dined 
when he passed out of Alsace over 
the Vosgcs into Lorraine, at a time 
when all the country was wild forest. 
A rough bridle- road to the right leaves 
the main road to the Schlucht pass and 
the valley of Miinster, and, making for 
a gap in the hill, soon discloses the 
beautiful piece of water called Longe- 
mer, or "The Long Lake," the Ulls- 
water, as G^rardmer is the Winder- 
mere of Lorraine. It runs in a long 
trough between beautifully wooded 
Bteejis for about two miles, with a 
slightly serpentine direction, prettily 
broken by spits of grassy land with a 
few low trees upon them. At the upper 
end is seen, altove woody heights, the 
bald summit of the Honeck, (Hohen- 
eck, '* The High Corner"',) an eminence 
about four thousand feet high. At the 
lower end, shaded by lofty trees, is a lit- 
tle chapel on a tongue of land, dedicated 
to St Bartholomew by an anchorite 
named Bilon, and near it a solitary 
villa belonging to a medical gentleman 



of the neighborfaoody who Bpends hii 
summer holidays in thig Arcadian i^ 
elusion, boating and fishing in the lake 
and the clear stream that nius oat of it 
By a path to the right, following the 
sinuosities of the hike, a rockj barrier 
is reached, down whose face tumbles, 
among rocks and trees, a lovely wate^ 
fall ; and when this is passed, anothei 
lake is disclosed, a round, low-lyiif 
basin, among dense woods and firown- 
ing escarpments, one of them called 
the Rock of the Devil, which bears tlie 
name of Retouniemer, or *'* The Lake 
of Return.^' A solitary dwelling, backed 
by fine beeches and other trees, standi 
on the brink, the cottage of the forest- 
er, where the wanderer to this end of 
the world finds hospitable entertain- 
ment. But notwithstanding the impas- 
sable look of the scenery round, a zig- 
zag path through the trees climbs the 
height bt*hind the house, and joins the 
rosid which leads to the Col de la 
Schlucht, where a beautiful view opens 
into Alsace, its most prominent objects 
being that long spur of the Vosgcs 
which terminates by Colmar, and on 
the other side a broken granite wall 
crowned by a peculiarly imposing ctp 
of rock, under which the road descend! 
to the green slopes about MUnster, 
which are variegated with acres of 
bleaching linen, the product of the 
weaving industry which pervades tlie 
whole country. On the Col itself is a 
spacious ch&let or hotel, with excellent 
accommo<lation and abundant fare, to 
which appetites whetted by the bracing 
mountain air are inclined to do full 
justice. From this {)oint, by walking 
up a long slope in a southerly direction, 
the top of the Floneck is reached, graz- 
ed over by herds of cattle tinkling with 
Alpine bolls, and commanding a sala- 
cious view over the valley of tlio Rhine 
to the distant Black Forest, with tre- 
mendous pitv.ipices in the foreground 
on the side of Alsace. Instead of re- 
turning from this point direct to Gre- 
ranlmer, I walked through a forest of 
apparent ly blasted horn-beam, aa gris- 
ly as the trees in Gustave Doro's draw- 
ingd, into a long valley, which led ia 



Cobimbui. 



58» 



coarse of time to a busy place called 
La Bresse, and thence, turning to the 
right, over a moderately high pass back 
to Gerardmer. 

Besides the three lakes already men* 
tioned, there is Blanchemer, or the 
" White Lake," in the valley of the 
Mosellote ; the Lac de Corbeaux, so- 
called from an overhanging cliff fre- 
quented by ravens ; the Lac de Lis- 
pach, rich in fish, divided by a ridge 
from Longemer, and the Lac de Mar- 
chet, on the flank of a mountain not far 
from Bresse. The so-called White, 
Black, and Green lakes belonging to 
Alsace are situated further to the 
north on that side of the Vosges chain 
which looks toward the Rhine. On 
one of the mounds of the Honeck moun- 



tain there is an abundant and perennial 
gpnng, called La Fontaine de la Du- 
cbesse, which perhaps possesses a high- 
er claim to be the source of the Moselle 
than the more trifling stream which de- 
scends by Bussang, though the latter 
pours its contribution in a more direct 
line. The sources of rivers, whether 
small or great, are generally coufro- 
vertible. Some consider the Inn, which 
rises in the Grisons, as having more 
claim to be the real Danube than the 
river which rises at Donaucschingen, 
and, between the rival claims of the 
Victoria Nyanza of Speke and the Al- 
bert Nyanza of Baker, the real head 
of mighty Nilus himself still remains 
an open question for geographers. 



COLUMBUS. 



THREE SCENES. 

'Tis midnight ; tlirougb the lozenge panes 

Flashes a southern storm ; 
And the lightning flings its livid stains 

O'er a bowed and wearied form. 
He stands, like a ship once staunch and stout 

By billows too long opprest ; 
And a fiercer storm than whirls without 

Tears through his heaving breast 
His hand is pressed on his aching brow, 

And veils his eyes' dark light, 
And a twinkling cresset's dim red glow, 
When the lightning pales, doth sadly flow 
O'er locks where munj a thread of snow 

Tells of time's troubled flight. 
He stands — a fading, a clouded star. 
Half-hid in the rack of heaven's war ; 
Or, like a vanquished warrior, one 
Whose heart is crushed, whose hopes are gone 

Af\er many a gallant fight. 

He turns and he paces the damp stone floor, 
And his glance seeks the damper wall, 



S89 Cohmhui. 

Where the charts, o^er which he had loved to pore^ 

Like arras rise and fall. 
There is his heart's most cherished store, 
There lie the fruits of his deepest lore, 
And his lips, as he views them o*er and o'er. 

His withered life recall : 

^ And was it all a dream ? 
Is this the bitter waking ? 
And is hope's heavenly beam 
For aye my soul forsaking ? 

I thought to see the cross unfurled 

Upon the hills of a far-off world ! 

To bear the faith of the Crucified 

Far o'er the wild Atlantic's tide ! 

To see adored the Christian's God 

Where Christian foot hath never trod 1 

Sure brighter dreams from heaven ne'er fett— 
And I wake in this cold, dim cell ! 

" And were they, too, but dreams — 

Those lands fur in the West, 
Where robed in sunset beams 

The Seven Cities rest ? 
Far, far beyond the blue Azores, 
I thought to press the ocean's shores ; 
The heaving, restless main to span. 
And give— and give — a world to man 1 
A new-bom world of vernal skies 
Fresh with the breath of paradise— 
A world that yet would place my name 
The foremost on the scroll of fame. 
And now I wake, poor, friendless, lone, 
'Mid these dripping walls of stone. 

^ And was it but a dream 
I left fair Italy? 
To chase the churchyard gleam 
Of false expectancy — 
That light which, like the swamp's pale glare, 
Lures but to darkness and despair? 
To crush the vii^ions youth built up ? 
Drink to its poisoned dn^ the cup 
Of hope deferttMi and trust misplaced ? 
To feel heart shrink and body waste ? 
And still like drowning wretch to cry, 
* One more effort and I die !' " 

II. 

The drear, chill gray of dawning day 

Dies in a golden glow, 
And merrily on the dancing sea 

The rippling sunbeami flow ; 



Cohmia$. 607 



AdcI thej glance and glint, in many a tint, 

Over minaret and tower, 
Where the lofty cross shows the Paynim's loss 

And tlie waYio. of Moslem power. 
And waving high in the brightening sky, 

Floating o'er town and sea, 
And gleaming bright in the morning light, 

Spain's flag flaunts haughtily. 

Who passes through the antique street 

Worshipped by all around ? 
Whom do the thousand voices greet 

That to the heavens resound ? 
Proud is the flash of his dark eye. 
Yet tempered with humility ; 
The softened radiance, high yet meek. 
That doth the Christian soul bespeak ; 
Proud is his heaving bosom's swell, 
And proud his seat in velvet selle ; 
His very courser paws the earth 
As conscious of its master's worth. 

And now his armM heel loud rings 

Through a high, carvdd hall. 
Where blazoned shields of queens and kings 

Hang fluttering on the wall. 
Around, the noblest of the land 
In deepest awe uncovered stand : 
Princes, whose proud sires had well 
Upheld the crbss with Charles Martel ; 
And knights, whose scutcheons flashed amid 
The fiercest fights where blazed the Cid ; 
Soldiers, who by their sovereign's side 
Hurled back in blood the seething tide 
Of Moslem war ; and churchmen sage, 
The men who smoothed that iron age. 
And all alone, 'mid that bright throng, 
Uis voice arises clear and strong. 
He stands before a throne ; even now 
His dark plume waves above his brow, 
As he, of all the courtier train, 
Rivalled the majesty of Spain. 
Fortune like this, what fate can mar ? 
He stands — a cloudless, risen star. 



ni. 

Once more 'tis the mid hour of night ; 

Once more the storm beats high ; 
But now it whirls its fearful might 

Along the cloud-fraught sky 
Which spans the drear Atlantic's waste, 

AU whitened with wild foam, 



08S Oo lu mi ui. 

That cleayes the air, as sea-birds liasto 
At even to their home. 

But even there, where nature's power 

Laughs puny man to scorn, 
Man lords it for his little hour 

O'er fellow-man forlorn. 
Within a vesseFs creaking sides 

A chained prisoner sits ; 
Drooped, weary, careless what betides 

His tired soul, ere it flits 
Far from a world where gratitude 
Yields ever to the selfish brood 
That gold and thirst for honor bring 
To breast of peasant and of king. 
What now avails the world he gave 
To thankless Spain ? It cannot save 
From slavish chains its whilom lord, 
Nor shield him from the hatred poured 
O'er his bowed head by those who late 
But formed the puppets of his state. 
Gone is his kindly mistress — laid 
To sleep among Spain's royal dead. 
Dead is her smile, her beaming gaze 
So full of hope when darkening days 
Hung o'er the crown she wore so well ; 
Yea. dead is queenly Isabel ! 
And where are now the crowds that hung 
Upon his steps when every tongue 
Shouted his praise ? The station high 
Above all Spain's plumed chivalry ? 
The high commands ? Away ! each thought 
With saddening memory so deep fraught ! 
Call not pale flashes from afar 
To mock with light a fallen star ! 
The past is dead, the future read, 
Ay ! see a broken, moss-gruwn stone, 
And on it view a kingly meed 
Of thanks to genius sliown — 

Ay! trace o'er that forgotten grave — 

"ANOTnER WORLD COLUUBCS GAVE 

To Castile axd L£on." 

Froxt-db-Bobuf. 



Tk« 2\bo Lo9*r$ of Flamtt DomitiUa. 



em 



THE TWO LOVERS OF FLAVIA DOMITILLA. 



BT CLONFERT. 



CHAPTER n. 
THE SLAVES* FEAST. 

The great Festival called Saturnalia 
was being celebrated in Rome when 
these events took place. The occar- 
rence of this feast enabled the Christf 
ians from many parts of the world to 
assemble in the cit j, and to celebrate 
under cover of it the feast of Christ- 
mas. History does not light us with 
certainty to the precise time at which 
this latter feast was instituted, but 
shows it in matured existence at a very 
early period. Tradition has surmised 
that it had its birth in the first century, 
and that it was celebrated in secret and 
in security under shadow of the pagan 
festivities of the Saturnalia, 

The Saturnalia^ in honor of Satumuty 
to whom the Latins traced the intro- 
duction into Italy of agriculture and 
the civilizing arts, fell toward the end 
of December. The agricultural labors 
of the year being then over, it became 
a kind of harvest-home with the rural 
population. Afler the Julian addition 
of two days to the month of December, 
it commenced on tlie 16th of the Ka- 
lends of January, that is, on the 17th 
December, and continued for three 
days. But the people generally anti- 
cipated the time and prolonged it to 
the end of the month, especially to the 
24th, when it became merged in another 
feast called Siffillaria^ on account of 
the earthenware figures then hawked 
about ns toys for children. 

During the feast the slaves were 
allowed great liberty of act and ^f 
speech. Throwing off their sombre 
garments of brown and black, which, 
together with their slippers, made up 
the servile dress, (vutU $9nnlit,) they 
VOL. V. — 34 



donned their masters' clothes, assumed 
like freedmen the pileus, or felten cap, 
considered the badge of freedom. Their 
allowance of bread and salt and oil waa 
increased and made palatable by tbe 
addition of wine. Their masters oftea 
waited on them at table, where thoc^ts 
were freely uttered in joke and song 
as well as in sober earnest without 
restraint or blame. The whole people 
made merry ; the toga was laid aside, 
and the loose-fitting garment iynihem 
put on with a high- peaked skull-cap 
without brim, (pileuf.) Wax-tapers 
were given as presents, particularly by 
slaves to their owners and by the 
clients to their patrons; with these 
lighted in their hands, they went along 
the streets shouting ^^lo Saturnalia f* 
Stores and courts were closed ; schoola 
kept holiday; war could not be pro- 
claimed ; evil-doers could not be pun- 
ished ; gambling, prevented by law at 
other times, was permitted. In private 
circles mock*kingB were chosen, who 
ruled the sports with right royal dig- 
nity. All these and greater privilegei 
were granted the slaves. 

Aurelian was in no mood for enjoy- 
ment since his interview with Flavia. 
Knowing that many strangers would 
be calling at his Roman palace, be 
avoided them by betaking himself to 
his suburban villa. There, too, he 
could with less fear of discovery keep 
bis engagements with Zoilus and Sisin- 
nius for the 8th of the Kalends of Jan- 
uary. He was nervously anxious to 
prove the truth of what tlio former bad 
told him. 

He retired, therefore, to the country. 
Thither he invited Sisinnius to meet 
him on the dav agreed on with Zoilus, . 
under plea of seeing his slaves cele* 
bratetbe feast in niral style. Sinnnhv 



5S0 



!%€ Two Loveri of Flavia DomiHlku 



found him in the TabUnyMj a room op- 
posite the hall door, where family re- 
cordft and arclii^es were kept. Seeing 
Anrelian. thin, pale, and dull, writing on 
a parchment roll, he asked : 

**Id it making your will you are? 
You remind me of tlie shade of Dido ! 
This comes of neglecting the gods and 
their feasts, and shutting yourself up 
among those woods and stone-walU 
like a vestal. If you staid in the city, 
and lighted your wax -taper, and sang 
your song to Saturn like a good jolly 
fellow, yon would be far more cheerful 
and comely!'* 

"Perhaps so. But the three des- 
tinies are not all and always kind. I 
have had my happy times ; it is fair 
my sad ones should come.** 

^ Pshaw, Aurelian ! Pour out a liba- 
tion to Bacchus and then empty off the 
goblet yourself, and you shall find the 
jolly god will stiffen up your drooping 
spirits ! 1 know the cause of all this — 
your interview with that wilful girl! 
Cheer up ! women are like the summer 
clouds, one time damp and dark, the 
next beaming witli the sunshine of love 
and beauty." 

** Very poetical, Sisinnius, but Flavia 
is not after the ordinary mould. To- 
night, however, will decide my doubts 
and hopes for ever. You remember 
our enuagement with Zoilus ?' 

" Yes, I am half sorry I made it. I 
cannot read that sLive. Ho seems to 
know every one and everything ; and 
one can scarcely dibtinguish between 
his jocose and his serious moods. Do 
you know where I met him as I came 
to tiie cross way of the Appian and 
Latin roads ? Talking to that Jewish 
beggar who sits morning, noon, and 
niglit asking |)ennios from the passers- 
by near the Kgerian fountain.*' 

** I allowed him into the city to ar 
range for our admission to the meeting- 
place of the Christians. lie certainly 
does know a great tleal, and must be a 
clever deceiver. Otlicrwise he could 
■not have crept into the secrets of those 
.mysterious, plotting Jewish sects with- 
•out being distrustefL However, in the 
iliresent instance he is serious and to be 



trusted ; for I have promised Lim and 
a female slave — a Jewess alao, who hai 
fascinated him — their liberty, in case 
he convinces me that Flavia has be- 
come a Christian. But, hush ! here he 
comes. Woll, Zoilas, you have rctom- 
ed sooner than I expected. What news 
from the city ?" 

'^Ilail, noble Sisinnins P' said the 
Greek, bowing. ** Well, master, the 
divine Domitian is in a fury ; the ex- 
hibition of games in the new amphi- 
theatre bus been a failure. lie had 
ordered, it is said, nearly ten thoasaod 
beasts and a proportionate number of 
gladiators, a number exceeding that 
with which his brother Titus had dedi- 
cated it. The pUy of Hercules and 
Omphale was to be enacted Ix^fore the 
people. A gladiator was under iraia- 
ing for many weeks to sustain the cha- 
racter of Hercules, and was to have 
been burned alive at the end in a skirt 
set on fire with vitriol and tar. Tha 
gladiator went through the preparatory 
training well, and seemed to enjoy the 
good things ordered him by the empe- 
ror with the view of making him fleshier 
and fatter for the burning. But, while 
being brought to the amphitheatre this 
morning, ho slipptHl his hea^i between 
the spokes of the curt-wlieol, and* with- 
out gratitude for the good things, or 
feeling for the disappointment of the 
imperial god, suffered his neck to be 
broken. This was really too bail of a 
mere shive !* So another had to be 
substituted ; what comfort or cause of 
laughter would there be in witnessing 
the burning of the corpse ? A live 
substitute was found, who most ungrar 
ciously refused to move either hand or 
foot in the love-making of Hercules and 
Orophulc. However, this could be 
borne in anticipation of the fiery end- 
ing; but, wouderful to relate, when 
the skirt was put on and the flames 
were lighted, he stood unsoorched in 
tlieir niitlst, calling on the Christian 
CJod. AVas not the emperor in a rage I 
The water was let into the arena and 
the crocodiles and other amphibioui 



The Two Zovers of Flavia DomiAUa. 



581 



monsters were swimming about, devour- 
\n^ each other; and the man was 
thrown in, but they would not touch 
him ! Floating on the surface of the 
water, with upturned face and clasped 
hands, he prayed the Christian Grod to 
have pity on Domitian. This so anger- 
ed the latter that, standing up from his 
scat above the arena, he cursed the 
Christian and the Christian's God, in 
the name of his own and of Jupiter's 
divinity. When, lo! as if Jupiter was 
provoked, a thunderbolt like a burning 
globe came flashing as if from highest 
heaven, and went hissing through the 
water in the arena, killing every living 
thing within it except the floating 
Christian ! The veil of the amphithe- 
atre, with the machinery by which it 
was sustained, was set on Are and torn 
away. The people rushed from their 
seats ; it is not known how many lives 
were lost. The emperor himself was 
terrified, and, running from his throne 
to his chariot, drove furiously to his 
palace, to find it also struck by the 
lightning.'** 

•* This will hasten the edict of per- 
secution against the Christians; and 
it is time," observed Aurelian. 

The villa stood on a farm of many 
hundred acres. A wooded hill, from 
wliich it was separated by a stream 
emptying into the Tiber, sheltered it 
from the wintry winds. The stream 
drained the land, which otherwise would 
have been a marsh, and thus prevented 
the unhealthy effluvia which unfitted 
many parts near tiie city for human 
residence. Its distance of some miles 
from the great southern road saved it 
I'rom many visitors, and thereby render- 
ed it a secure retreat for a mind seek- 
ing solitude. Attached to the villa, but 
at some hundred yards from it, were 
the dwelling-places of the outdoor 
slaves, in and around which they were 
now feasting. It consisted of two open 
courts,tan outer and an inner one. In 
the buildings around the former was 

« These fkoti are BubsUniUlly iroe. Tlllemont*t 
Lives of tiie Etnperors, and the UUtory of the Fl»- 
vUn Amphitheatre, or Colosseum, relate things ai 
wonderful of Domltlaa's relgo. 

t Oohortes, ohortes, cortet'^coiirta. 



the kitchen, an apartment large enough 
to contain the whole family employed 
on the farm. FamUy (familta) was 
the word used to designate the total 
number of slaves employed on an 
estate or in a household. Near the 
kitchen were the baths, the oil and 
wine-presses, the cellars, and in the 
upper stories the granaries, carefully 
protected from damp, heat, and insects. 
At the entrance-gate of this court were 
the apartments for the VtUieus, or chief 
steward, and for the Procurator of the 
family. In the inner court were the sta- 
bles, stalls, and sheds, {equUxa^ hubiUay 
and ovilia,) In the centre of each 
court was a large reservoir, into which 
the water from the stream was carried 
throuc^h terra-cotta pipes, or Roman- 
arched drains. The reservoir in the 
outer court was generally used for 
cleansing and soaking vegetables ; that 
in the inner was carefully supplied with 
fresh water for poultry and cattle. 
Around both courts were the chambers 
(ceUa) of the slaves, which fronted 
southward so as to catch the sun's 
light and heat. Near these chambers, 
but partly underground, was the prison 
for refractory or fugitive slaves; it 
was partially lighted by long and nar- 
row windows. 

Aurelian and Sisinnius strolled lei- 
surely from the villa, accompanied by 
Zoilus, and discussing the wonderful 
events he had relat^. When they 
reached the cou rts, they found the slaves 
engaged in different amusements. It 
was a bright, bracing day; the sun 
shone in a cloudless sky, whiL-h had 
been swept by the wind. There was 
nothing to remind them of December, 
save only the long, dry branches of the 
trees rustling and swaying on the hilW 
side, and the gusts sweeping at times 
in eddies round the courts as if they 
had lost their way. Some of the slaves 
were playing at quoits; others aft 
draughts (lairunnuli) in sheltered 
nooks. Some indulged in the usually 
forbidden game of dice, while younger 
ones took a boyish pleasure in rattling 
the cylindrical dice-boxes of bono or 
ivory, (JrUillus,) A group in the cen- 



7\s Two X^yen of Fiapiu IhmiHUa^ 



tml arvBa of the outer court played at 
odd and even, {par impar iuikre;) 
while another was garhen»d around 

^a slave with long-flowing pbitoaophie 
beard* who propose*! puz^leis on the 
obattig^ or cfilctilatin;;; trav. Many sat 
quK'tly ajiart ; otlicrs waJkcd moodily 
aboot* vvrappc^d in thongUlfl thai seemed 
tin<;ed withdjsappointuient and ^loom. 
But the fjrcat body of the family was 
til the kitcbeDf which re3S<3uuded with 

I fiinghig, music, and dancbif^. As ^oon 
i Aurelian and bin com|mnion8 bad en- 

I tered the la^t -named apartment^ a lit- 
tle sbtve with hunchback, wiry frame 

I bounded from a couch and seized the 
of his martter's toga, whieh was 
•g in walking style over the leA 
shoulder. 

The gudd wilt bo angry with the 
senator for wearing hia toga during the 

[ feaat* and for not waiting on Caipor as 
be did last year/* exclaimed the dwarf. 
** No, no, Caipor 1 Salurnus ha§ 
given me leave to retain the toga; 
because I am not well, and he feari 
I woiiM catch cold If I laid it aRide for a 
ligliter dress.** 

The face of Caipor darkene<i and 
tears brightened through hid eyelashes. 
^* Poor master h not well and sfiall 
die 1 Then what will Ciu^mr do ? 
Villtcus will whip him and put him 
in the /urea for ringing his helb ; or 
Ihey will 6cU him and be wilt never 
more scA' or love goo<I master or beau- 
tiful Flavin.*' 

Aiirclian assured him that there was 
DO danger of his own doaih, and that 
be mi^ht ring hi^ belk anil should not 
.be whipjxHl, The little fellow shook 
hm Phrygiau cap, and rung a tiny peul 
from the tiny bells attuehed aauiiid 
it^ The jingle cau»ed htm to laugh 
out with idiotic delight, 

** ViUictrs cannot whip Caipor for 
ilmkinjc his belU, h% ba I VillicuA 
whi|f{if.Mi Lncius to-day until the big 
drop^ of blood came from between the 
shoulders, and put him on the mill in 
the prison/' 

** Im|>ossible !'" said Sisianlus. ^* It i^ 
mot la -4 fat lo puoish or imprison dorin^ 

[tlw feasU'* 




^ I>uci us said so« But Villim s i 
Dot listen. Lucius is a bi^, strong I 
—why did be not kill Villicmr He 
did not cry or stir, but be kept 
on Jesus to help him ; but Jes 
not come. Master, who ia J^ 
a^ked the fool. 

Aurelian *s curiosity was j 
questioning the steward* !*e 
that Lucius, with m r slaf 

refused to join iu ii Soltir 

any of the go«ls, or to award 
to ihe emperor ; that it was 
to punish some one tor example's 
and that Lucius. oihcrwLso qui 
inafiTen^ive, was chosen as betag 
clpal among the recus^mts* 

** What is to com© next?** said . 
lian bitterly to Sisinnius. ^Oitrwli 
and daugbten^, and now 
slaves, are lured by ' ^' 
ducer! Like thi* | 
marshesif his tiitlni iir> 
erery comer ail 1 po i ., bo 

atmosphere of our social ^>\^tt^ia, ^Some- 
thing must b»? done to chei:k its dmidlj 
progress, A utrofifjer duse Llnui that 
administered by Nero is rv^uiiiile tu 

kill it.'* 

Caipor was cbnglnc iiflr*M-tiofyiie!jto 
his aiaster'6 side* . drawlof 

the toga by a sudden ,,- ,.^ u. looked ii^ 
into Aurclia?t*s face and said : 

•"^ Caipor waits upon the s«*oalor i 
the ye^kf round. \V ill not ibo mtt 
wait upon Caipor during the feslifml 1 

" Ceriaialy, I will be your slave i 
wait on you, my Caipor I Where 
your couch ?*' 

Goudiea wifl ^ for Ifa 

guests bad bc^ ' form 

a triclinium at o^nd end of the 
apartment. Leading AumliaD lie< 
of these seats, the hunchback fooK 1 
ed upon hia elbow in moat afi 
duiing attitude ; and, as Aurtdian 
ed the tnble lo his side and helped i 
to wine and fruity lc»f>ked aacmmi ibv 
room with mingled pride "f^* "t^vi^tro 
at being the oidy one sd 

Meantime Zcidus told T-r-imnus ihq 
history and character of Be\ eiml shirr 
There we a- abjut four buudnnl pr 
Our readers may gire ot i 




7%« Ihffo Lovers of JFtavia JOtmiHUa, 



538 



for exaggeration If we draw attention 
to the vast numbers, the varied origin, 
and occupations of slaves owned bj 
noble Romans in the age of Doroitian. 
Slavery arose from three causes, name- 
ly, from birth, from civil punishment, 
and captivity in war. The captives 
by war alone would swell the number 
enormously. In the reign of Augus- 
tus a freedman died leaving by will 
over four thousand slaves, af^er having 
lost other thousands in the civil wars. 
Historians say that many Romans had 
from ten to twenty thousand. Juvenal 
puts the test of a person^s fortune in the 
question,** Quot pcuc it servos V **How 
many slaves does he support ?*' Dur- 
ing the empire they filled every position, 
from the most menial to the most lite- 
rary. They were tillers and caretakers 
of the territories of the patricians in 
Italy, Sicily, and in the provinces be- 
yond the mountains and the seas. They 
were employed as bakers, barbers, 
cooks, stewards, and artisans; as tu- 
tors, clerks, amanuenses, readers, teach- 
ers, physicians, astronomers, rhetori- 
cians, poets, and philosophers. The 
literature and science of the Roman 
world, the " Orb is terrarumy^ found 
many a worthy representative in their 
ranks. Hence it has been well said 
that the martial prowess of Rome con- 
quered that of foreign nations, but that 
the civilization and learning of foreign- 
ers conquered or rather produced hers. 

We need not wonder, therefore to 
find hundreds of slaves in the house- 
hold of Aurclian. His family was 
among the oldest and noblest of the city. 
Counting those on his Italian and for^ 
eign estates, they numbered many thou- 
sands. In the assemblage which Sisin- 
nius was scanning, many nationali- 
ties had representatives — Phrygians, 
Cappadocians, Thracians, Britons, 
Greeks, and Jews. 

** Whence was Caipor purchased?** 
asked Sisinnius. 

*' The mother of Aurelian," answer- 
ed Zoilus, was driving in her four- 
wheeled chariot (rheda) through the 
streets of Rome. Her attention was 
drawn to a dwarfish figure, who, emerg- 



ing from the fomm of Augustus, fol- 
lowed the chariot-wheels, clapping his 
hands and crying out, ^Well done! 
little wheel. Run fast! Big wheel 
can^t catch you ; well done, little wheel !' 
He was in ecstasies on seeing the small- 
er wheels of the carriage, as it rolled 
quickly on, keep their position at the 
same distance from the larger. The 
slave-dealer from whom he had wan- 
dered came up and scourged him se- 
verely. He cried piteously and called 
on the lady for protection. Moved 
With pity, she made her husband buy 
him at a cost of ten thousand sestertia,* 
($50,000.) Since that time he has 
been the pet fool of the household 
(morio,) and was, according to custom, 
named Caipor (Cknipuer) after my 
noble master's father." 

^ What is the name of that female 
yonder 1 How beautiful is the sym- 
metry of her face and figure! But 
there is detertuined purpose in her lip 
and eye." 

'< that is Judith the Jewess/' said 
Zoilus, slightly confused. ^ She was 
bought like myself from among the 
slaves leflby the late Consul Domitilla. 
She was a little girl during the siege 
of Jerusalem ; and, having miraculously 
escaped was, like other girls of her age 
and beauty, brought to grace the tri- 
umphal return of the conqueror Titus* 
During the procession she was perched 
like a winged Iris on the same chariot 
with Venus and Apollo." 

•^And that other near her?" 
'^Isthedaughterof a Roman plebeian, 
and by birth a free woman. But, hav- 
ing secretly married a slave, she was 
on discovery reduced to his ievcL She 
bears her lot patiently, liowever, be- 
cause she cannot be separated by sale 
from her husband.*' 

^ I see two strongly built slaves sit* 
ting near each other. One of them 
wears his beard ; and the fair locks of 
the other are down to his shoulders* 
They seem to look contemptuously on 
the amusements." 
*<One of fhese is a Getulian, the 

* A moria, or fool, in the reign of Ntro cott $10^000 1 
— JWo. 



1184 



7\ffo 1m Iters of Flavta Domii^i* 



other a Brilod. Tliey were both chiefu 
mui wtirrionj in tbeir respective c^mn- 
Irie^* Yoa pe^rwsive ihe ojark {atigimi) 
Uumed into tbo fonniTd forHljcjud ? 
Wljen iirdit exposed in the slave-market, 
liavintf on \m neck the tablet (iUuItis) 
describing bis various qualliiee, a pby- 
^tieiaa wad bmu^ht, bcibiu wbom lie 
*Was to he i^trlpped and examine*]. Be* 
fore they had limt! to so treat him he 
•natebed up a staff, and, havinr; |>ro,<»- 
Irated slave deaJer and [ihysieian, with 
a sweep Ixmnded over the railing of 
the nivji and escaped among the build 
in*;^ of the uld forum. It cost the bves" 
of Ihree slave^hunters b^'Fore be waa 
captured, lie was branded as a dan- 
»gen>ns character and condemned to die 
«3 a gladiator. But AureUan succeed- 
ed in procuring him. Since he c;ime on 
ihia estate he has made no attempt at 
e«ca(>e« Being allowed a percentage 
(peculium) on bis work like many 
otbers employed by our inii^ten be ha* 
become industrious, and hopes after 
ftome years to be able to purchase hi-^ 
liberty by his savings. The Briton i^ 
Bimilarly situated. If tliey ^succeed 
in pKK'iiriiJg freedom, de|iend upon it, 
they will return to their native hills and 
I'ehgitt the torch of war.** 

^' Who is that old man with bald 
head and long while beard, to whom 
Aurehan is now speaking?" 

** That is Bathuii, the tutor and care- 
taker of Aurehan s youtbhood. lie 
wears the long bearJ and cloak of a 
philosopher by licence of the fcistrvaL 
He bates the emperor on account of 
bis hite edict of expukion against the 
philosophic tribe. He al^ profeftses 

CHnuiar and rbetodo* Next him is 
itooios, a diiotple of Hipftocrate^ 
Bb i« famoue for bts skill in bleeding 
and in amulets. lUa bored enr^ ^bovr 
hh Eastern origin, probab I I »ia. 

Yoa may find bim any ni ijre 

suartae gathering herbs ioi eiutiniiu 
There is scarcely a slave, or a tree on 
Ibe estate that has not a trianguhir 
Abracadabra, or some other amulet 
auspeaded ou bim or it, as a protection 
againttt disease and the evil genii/' 
Willie ZoiluB and SUinniui were 



thus converging. I hose in I he other parti 
of theaparlraent were not without their 
own topics and amusements* It was 
observable that I hey instinciivdy took 
their places according to their poailioo 
and rank in the fuuiily* Those bom 
in the householil, the vernee, >vcre more 
forvvard and talkative than the otberd ; 
they well deserved the elmi-acler given 
of them by the poet as the " verna pro- 

A Roman slave- family contained all 
the sooi'ces of social enjoy fnt^nt and 
happiness, such as was i ihr 

perdoud in their condition^ I' die 

owner and the superintendents wei*e 
not inclined to tyranny. Their raar- 
.rlage was not indtted sanctioned bj 
law ; but the coniuherniunt^ which per* 
mitted them to live as man and wife 
under the same roof, was respected in 
ita relations as much perhaps among 
the pagan as among Christian nations, 
among whom slavery fiourisbed** Ao 
enactment was passed by the senate 
that in sales and divisions of property 
husband and wife, parent and cldld, 
brother and sister* should not be iun* 
dered Roman jurists, no doubt, de- 
fined slavery \o bt* a ^* canstitnttojurii 
gentium, qud qut$ contra mUuram ctU 
teriti^ donvnis Muhjicitur^*' thus fitnctljr 
giving the master power to do much aa 
be liked wlih the slave; to sell, puniahf 
and put to death. In con:§eip]encc great 
cruelties were often inflicted. But gca- 
erally social intercourse and positive 
mijrality softened down their sever 
iiy. Positive legislation also camo to 
tlie aid of the slave. Under the Anto- 
nines, a man pulling his slave to death 
withoiit a ju^jtifyin^ cause was subject 
to a heavy penalty. If a slave wens 
treated t04> harshly* he might bring the 
ca.ic before the public tribunal and 
claim to be sold to another master. 
If a sickly or aged slave were exposed 
by the owner, he bcciime tree ; and, If 
put to death, the crime wns ijunnhrd aa 
umrd,*r. Chri.^^tianity, : »l 

proclaim slavery to be i . il^ 

made way fur etuoncipatigu. Tbc groat 



I 



The Two Zovirs of Fkma DomiHaa. 



585 



principles of charity were urged bj the 
first Christian writers and fathers of 
the church. Clement of Alexandria 
devoted much of his eloquence to this 
subject. Gradually this Christian spi- 
rit impregnated society, especially af- 
ter the triumph of the cross under Con- 
s tan tine. Slaves who became priests^ 
monks, nans, or were promoted to any 
clerical order, were made free by law. 
Owing to these circumstances, the num- 
ber of slaves became very much less- 
ened. Many Christian masters eman- 
cipated all they possessed ; others kept 
them until they were instructed and 
converted, and then gave them free- 
dom. Justinian particularly did much 
for the overthrow of slavery ; his le- 
gislation, inspired by the Catholic 
Church, would have wholly extinguish- 
ed it, but for the invasion of the north- 
em barbarians. These brought with 
them their slaves, who were mostly 
Sclavonians, (sclavi, or slaves^) and 
reduced many of the conquered to the 
same level The church was true to 
her policy of not suddenly tearing up 
any of the foundations of society when 
not essentially wrong ; but she never 
ceased to preach, ^ in season and out of 
season," the great principle of *' doing 
unto others as we would hare them do 
unto us." This is the mirror she has 
always held up before master and 
slave. Seeing their duties here re- 
flected, the evils of slavery, and finally 
the system itself, began to fade like 
snow under the softening infiuenee of 
the sun. The voice of the Catholic 
Church was the herald of freedom 
from the beginning. Wondrous chang- 
es were brought about without those 
calamities accompanying sadden tran- 
sitions. The echoes of her teaching 
have been taken up by rcligioos and 
political parties. But they have had 
the injustice of appropriating it as their 
own. and the ingratitude to forget that 
the Catholic Church was the mother at 
whose knees mankind learned the les- 
sons of Christian charity and liberty ! 
But we must return. 

During the conversation between 
Zoilus and SisinnluSi the jests and 



laaghter of the '< vems*' were heard 
above all other sounds. 

'•Observe Zoilus," said one, '♦he 
looks as sober and serious as Rhada^ 
manthus on the judgment-seat What 
is the matter with him ?" 

^ He is expecting to be a fi*eedman 
one of these days, and thinks it time to 
become a gentleman and quit his old 
habits and associates." 

•* Why, as to that matter, he is at 
free as the wind on the hill-side. He 
is in and out of the city as often as be 
likes. What induces master to giTA 
him so much freedom? There is 
something in it" 

^ See Murena, too I He expects in 
a few months to buy himself out with 
the profits of his peculium." 

'^That accounts for his being so 
great a miser. The barber told me 
that, after having his hair cut and nails 
pared the other day, Murena gathered 
the cuttings in order to make a deoa* 
rius on them I" 

This observation of the physician 
Tritonios caused laughter and was not 
unheard by Murena, who replied : 

*'0 doctor! that is a stale joke 
stolen from Plautus. Next time I will 
preserve the parings for your amulets, 
they may be as good for the toothache 
or the cx)lic as the hairs on the goat*s 
chin which you hung upon the arm of 
Marcus 1" 

" Take care, Murena !" said a third, 
*' you don't know how soon you may 
require Tritonios to assist you." 

" Yes, and share the fate of Pro- 
cax, who only saw the doctor in ii 
dream, and awoke no more, though 
he carried an amulet." 

The conversation was interrupted by 
the entrance of two slaves, a male and 
female, dressed in short and close gar- 
ments for the dance. They wore* lea- 
thern skull-caps for protection of the 
head in case of falling, becaur^e as 
they danced they flung themselves on 
their heads and alighted again upon 
their feet Another slave played ap- 
propriate airs on the flute. After en- 
gaging in this dance, in which, after 
Spartan style, the hands and head and 



The Two Lovers of Flavia JOomUUia. 



687 



<* No matter ; the metre and air are 
sweet and melancholy. I will have it 
translated into Latin hexameter by 
your countryman Josephus, one of 
these days, it' you like.'* 

'* Name him not, the arch -sycophant, 
who lives by flattering tyrants," whis- 
pered Judith with a fierce tone and 
glance, before which Zoilus blanched 
and trembled. 

" Fair Judith, be not angry ; I meant 
it only in joke." 

•^ Jokes at the expense of others' 
feelings deserve not the award of wit,'* 
said Ephrem, who, standing up, de- 
claimed the following with a vehement 
earnestness : 

ODE OF TDE EXILED JEW TO JEBUSALEIC. 



Thy hvart, JeruBalem I is desert and drear, 
Thy children no more In thy bonom appear ; 
In the land of the Gentiles they sigh aoil they moan, 
While thuu, dear mother 1 dost pine all alone. 



Thy turrets, and temple, and beautiAil gate — 
The ?cras that shone bright in the crown of thy state — 
Like the nrlc of the prophets, no longer remain, 
And the Philistine foxes thy beauty profane 1 



The gold harp of David awalcens no more 
Thy echoes where pontiff and people adore ; 
Thy iiilver-voiced trumpets are silent and dead, 
No smuke frum thy temple ascends overhead. 

IT. 

Like the weeds on the beach by the ocean-tide hurled, 
Thy daughters are cast on the shores of the worlil ; 
Thy eye's filled with weeping, thy hearths fllied with 

woe, 
And thy brow once so fair in the dtist it laid low I 



The dust of thy Icings in thy bosom remains 
Where the hoofs of the Gentiles insult thy sad plains. 
And their lamps sacrilegious Invade the deep glooms 
That wrap ihem to rest in thy Valley of Tombs 1 

TI. 

Jerusalem, mother ! we pray unto Him 
Who has filled up thy chalice of woe to the brim : 
'* A curse on the tyrants whose Impious hands 
Have teiaed thee, defiled thee, and bound thee In 
bands 1 



" send down, Jehovah I by night and by day, 
Thy h\\\ihi on apostate impostors, we pray : 
The ChrlRtlan deceivers, whose (Jod we nailed tki 
To Uie tree of tlie cross as a sail to the mast 1 



• The Jews cursed the Christians three times a 
day in thtfir synagogues, says Epiphanius in this 
direful fonn, " Send down thy curse, Qod 1 on the 

Christians." 



" Since the hour he was crucified outside thy gatt. 
His blood like a poison has mixed in thy fate 1 
May the Ood of thy Ikthers, the Oo4 of our race. 
From thy forehead, Jerusalem, wipe the disgrace I 

During the delivery of the first verses 
tears fiowed down the cheeks of Judith. 
During the last part fire seemed to 
flash from her eyes. 

After Ephrem others were induced 
to si||g or deliver pieces in the lan- 
guages of their respective countries. In 
the reign of Domitian, the Sarmatians, 
Dacians, Farthians, and the Grerman 
tribes beyond the Rhine had been com- 
pletely subdued. Agricola had broken 
on the Grampians the fierce hardihood 
of the tribes beyond the Tay and 
Tweed. The success of the Jewish 
war in the two preceding reigns had 
scattered that unfortunate race over the 
earth. We can thence understand how 
on a large estate like that of Aarelian 
so many nationalities met Leaving 
them to amuse themselves, we will fol- 
low Zoilus. 

He left the hall quietly, crossed the 
outer court and a paddock between it, 
and the villa, and entered through a 
low-arched door into the garden behind 
it. Between this garden and the villa 
was the peristyle, a rectangular area 
so named from having stone pillars 
around it. In its centre was a xystus 
with box and other shrubs, shaped like 
tigers, lions, and galleys. The deepen- 
ing shades of evening brought out their 
figures with weird-like indistinctness* 
Judith the Jewess stood between two 
pillars, and as she stood, tall, straight, 
and motionless, might have passed for 
the guardian goddess of the place. 

"I have been expecting you, Zoilus.** 

"You do not forget your promisOi 
then r 

*" No ! my part shall be fulfilled as 
soon as you have complied with the 
conditions.' 

"^ Judith ! these conditions are hard. 
I have my misgiving and fears about 
the part I have to play ** 

*^ Fears and misgivings?'* she re- 
peated. "These account for your 
changed manner this evening ?■* 

^ YeS) I have never known any oii# 



588 



On the Struggle far Hxielenee amonget Flante. 



to end well who interfered with the 
Christians." 

**Ha, ha!" she lau^^hed ironically. 
*•' You fear the uncircumcised dogs !" 

'^Not them ; but I fear their God." 

<< ITieir God I Is it the Galilean im- 
postor ?" 

** Moreover," he went on, not notic- 
ing her question, "^ I do not like to be- 
tray the niece of our former owner 
Domitiila the consul. She was always 
good and kind to me." 

"* Look here,*' said the Jewess, baring 
ber right arm, ^aee that scar, which 
after many years leaves a red seam be- 
hind. It was that ^rl, so good and 
kind, that drove her ivory hair-pin into 
the very bone, because I did not plat 
her hair to her liking. Was she not 
good and kind to me^ Zoilus {'' 

'' Slie was then young and thought- 
less, but she is now diflferent,'' he said. 

'* You see that tiger," she pointed to 
a shrub shaped like that animal, ^ does 
not the young cub betray the instincts 



of the full-grown beast? But she is 
different, you will perhaps say, since 
she became a Christian. As well 
might you expect the drugs of Locus- 
ta* to cure the leprosy. Hare yoa 
heard what takes place in the private 
meetings of those fully initiated] Ah! 
there she can indulge her liking for hu- 
man blood I" 

Zoilus was silent. Some struggle 
of feeling with principle was going on. 
Judith, observing him, exclaimed: 

'^ A lustrum of five long years has 
gone by since you asked me to become 
your wife. I told you I would never 
be a wife^ or have a husband, in slav- 
ery. It is in your power now to pro- 
cure freedom for both. Do so, and 
Judith will be yours to-morrow. Hesi- 
tate now, and she takes back for ever 
the promise and the pleilgo she made 
you 1" She left the peristyle before he 
had time to answer. 

TO BE COXTISUBa 



From The Popnlar Science Review. 

ON THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE AMONGST PLANTS. 



The quaint dictum, " Plants do not 
grow where they like best, but where 
other plants will let them/' which is 
creditjed to the late eminent horticul- 
turalist, Dean Herbert of Manchester, 
expresses a truth not yet half appreci- 
ated by botanists. It is a protest 
against the prevalent belief that cir- 
cumstances of climate and soil arc the 
omnipotent regulators of the distribu- 
tion of vegetables, and that all other 
eoosiderations are comparatively pow- 
eriess. The dean's crude axiom has 
lately found a philoi^ophical exposition 
and expnfssion in Mr. Darwin's more 
celebrated doctrine of the *" struggle 
for life, and preservation thereby t^' the 
fiiTorcd races," and if to it we add that 



great naturalist's more fruitful discov- 
ery of the necessity for insect and other 
foreign agencies in ensuring fertility, 
and hence perpetuating the species, we 
shall find that the powers of climate 
and soil are reduced to comparatively 
very narrow limits. Before proceed- 
ing to show what arc the causes that do 
materially limit the distribution of spe- 
cies, it may be well to inquire how far 
the hard-pressed soil and climate theory 
really helps us to a practical under- 
standing of one or two great questions 
that fall under our daily observation ; 
of these, the following are the most 
prominent 



♦ A 



In the time oC Nerow 



On th9 Struggle for Sxutenee amongat Plants^ 



M» 



That very similar soils and climates, 
in different geographical areas, are not 
inhabited naturally either by like spe- 
cies or like genera ; that very differ- 
ent soils and climates will produce al- 
most equally abundant crops of the 
same oultivated plants ; and that, in the 
same soil and climate, many hundreds, 
nay, thousands of species, from other 
very different soils and climates, may 
be grown and propagated for an in. 
definite number of successive genera- 
tions. 

Of the first of these statements, the 
examples embrace some of the best 
known facts in geographical botany; 
as, for example, that the flora of 
Europe differs wholly from that of tem- 
perate North America, South Africa, 
Australia, and temperate South Ame- 
rica, and all these from one another. 
And that neither soil nor climate is the 
cause of this difference is illustrated 
by the fact that thousands of acres in 
each of these countries are covered, 
year af>er year, by crops of the same 
plant, introduced from one to the other; 
and by annually increasing numbers 
of trees, shrubs, and herbs, that have 
either run wild or are successfully cul- 
tivated in each and all of them. Tlie 
third proposition follows from the two 
others, and of this the beat example 
is afforded by a good garden, where- 
in, on the same soil and under identi- 
cal conditions, we grow, side by side, 
plants from very various soils and cli- 
mates, and ripen their seeds too, pro- 
vided only that their fertilization is in- 
sured. The Cape geraniums, London 
pride, and Lysimachia nummularis in 
our London areas, the pendent Ameri- 
can cacti in the cottage windows of 
Southwalk and Lambeth, are even 
more striking examples of the compa- 
rative indifference of many plants to 
good or bad climate or soil ; and what 
can be more unlike their natural con- 
ditions than those to which ferns are 
exposed in those invaluable contri- 
vances. Ward's cases, in the heart of the 
city ? True, the conditions suit them 
well, and, with respect to humidity and 
equability of temperature, are natural 



to them ; but neither is the absolute 
temperature, nor the constitution, nor 
freshness of the air, the same as of the 
places the ferns are brought from ; nor 
is any systematic attempt made to suit 
the soil to the species cultivated ; for, 
as Mr. Ward himself well shows, the 
arctic saxifrage, the English rose, the 
tropical palm, and desert cactus live 
side by side in the same box, and un- 
der precisely similar circumstances, 
and, as it were, in defiance of their na- 
tal conditions. 

Let it not be supposed that we at all 
underrate such power as soil and cli- 
mate really possess. In some cases, 
as those of chalk, sand, bog, and saline 
and water plants, soil is very potent ; 
but the number of plants actually de- 
pendent on these or other peculiarities 
of the soil is much more limited than 
is supposed. O^honA-fide water-plants 
there are few amongst pluenogams. 
Sand plants, as a rule, grow equally 
well on stiffer soils, but are there turn- 
ed out by more sturdy competitors; 
and with regard to the calcareous soils, 
it is their warmth and dryness that fits 
them, to so great an extent, for many 
plants that are almost confined to them, 
or are absolutely peculiar to them. So» 
too, with regard to temperature, there 
are limits, as regards heat, cold, and 
humidity, that species will not over- 
step and live ; but, on the other hand* 
so much has been done by selection in 
procuring hardy races of tender plants, 
and so much may be done by regulat- 
ing the distribution of earth- tempera- 
ture, etc., that we already grow tropi- 
cal plants in the open air during a por- 
tion of the year, and eventually may 
do so for longer periods. 

Amongst the most striking examples 
of apparent indifference to natural con- 
ditions of soil and climate, I would 
especially adduce two. One is the 
SaHcomia Arahica^ a plant never found 
in its natural state, except in most sa« 
line situations, but which has flourished 
for years in the Succulent House at 
Kew, in a pot full of common soil, to 
which no salt has ever been added ; 
the other is the tea-plant, which luxn- 



«m 



wtfnCi ^MiOWpft JvUftvt* 



ritttea in the hot, bamrd TaUeys of Aa- 
Bttra, where the Ihfrraoraeter ranges 
b<'twe«:n 70® and 85**, and the atmoa- 
phere is bo perc^nn tally humid that 
watched are said to be destroyed after 
a few months of wear; and it is no lesa 
at home in north-western India, whero 
the summers are as hot and cloudlesa 
as tiny in the world, and thu winters 
very cohL I may add that ttje tea- 
plant haa survived the intense cold of 
this hi!!it January^ at Kew, on the same 
wall where many hardy and half-hardy 
plants liave been killed. 

It i«, further, a great mJi^take to sup- 
pose that the native vej^etation of a 
country Fuffr-rs little and very eitcef)* 
tionfilly by abnormal aea^aons. Tlie 
most conspicuoua instance of the con- 
miry tliat ever fell under my observa- 
tion was the destruction of the gigantic 
ifura tree (Ettcaltfpius) forests in the 
central districte of Tasmania, which, 
oeeurred, if I remember right, about 
the year 1837. In 1840, I rode over 
many pquare mtlea of eomitry, throu3:h 
stufiendous forests, in which every tii^e 
WMf to all appearanee, absolutely life- 
less. The district was totally unin* 
liubited, consisting of low mountain 
rtir);:c^, 2,000 feet above the sea, sepa- 
ifiiing raai*8by tract* intci-sperscd with 
broad fi-esh-water lakes. The trees, 
much like (be great gaunt elms in Ken* 
tfiiigton Gardens during winter, but 
much Inrger, w<*re in countless multi- 
tude*, 80 to 180 feet high, close «et, 
and ten to twenty feet iu girth ; their 
weird and gho»5ily aspect being height- 
ened by the fuel tif mo^t being char- 
red for a considerable distance up the 
trunk, the effeclH uf the native prac- 
tice of tirinj; the gra«a in gummer 
during the kan^druo Itunting reason ; 
and by the l>nrk above hanging from 
their trunks in streaming fittred^ that 
waved dismally in liie wind; for the 
f pecies was the stringylmrk gum, that 
sbcd^ its hiirk at\er this fashion. Ami 
not only had the gnm-treci^ ^uflen*d,but 
the hardier Leptoap^rmum (feu tree 
bush) and many utben were killed, 
f^ome to the grour»d aad tome altogatb- 
er ; 00 tiiat, iliQugb my journey w«8 in 



spring and t > r was dengfadU^ 

the aai>ect 01 ^cUtion waA dfiao^., 

late in the extreme. 

In such climates as our own, iimilar 
devastations are unknown, and, though 
we know that our island wa5 once cov- 
ered with other timber tlian now clothes 
it^ we have every reason to sup^ioao 
that the change was slow, aud the eflect 
either of a gradually altered diinate, 
or of the immigration of treei equjLU|' 
well or better suited to the condi ' 
of the soil an J elin)ate» but nliieh 
not previously luui ili 
contesting the groutiu Uog 

monarchs of the foreet, 

IVIaking every allowaoce, then, for 
the influence of soil and climate in 
cheeking the mnkiplication of individa- 
al% we have still two classes of facta 
to account for: thn one, thai plants 
which succeed &o well, when caltivatcil, 
that we are ns^^ured both &oil and cli- 
mate are favorable to their propaga* 
tion, nevertheless become iiatuediately 
or soon extinct when the cultivator's 
care is withdrawn ; tho other, that 
plants of one country* when introduced 
into another, even witli a very different 
soil and climjit**, will overrun it, destroy 
the native vi , :vnd prove them- 

selves bettei I wal circumstan- 

ces than the al^original plants of the 
country. In the first case, the reasons 
are very various, all ol them relating 
to the conditions of the plarU*^ ei- 
istence. Of ihette tho two most po- 
tent are, the abdcneo of fertllixiog 
agents, and the dei^trudioa of seeds and 
seeding plants. In the pr*^^"* -fate 
of our knowledge it is imj ^ ij 

which of these is most fatal m n.^ i ilcct 
In the case of our annual [danla or our 
cereals, which nerer run wild, it i* tli€ 
latter certanily ; foi they seed freely 
enough ; in the case of many perenni- 
als, shrubs, atid tree^ it mav l>e tho 
former, as with (he oommon elm and 
limen, \)'hich rarely or ncvtr set-d 10 
England, though the latter is »o nota- 
bly frequented by ii.ttccts d'lring itB 
dowerioft »eaMin • whiUt i i^e 

IS to b€ found in their rm ^ uita 
baiog amotlierod by others, of wiuch Uf 




On the Struggle for ExUtenee among$t Plants, 



Ml 



hare Dnmerous exam pies in our common 
pasture grasses, which are, perhaps, the 
most prejudicial in this respect. A 
most conspicuous example of this is 
afforded by the common maple, of 
which the seedlings come up early in 
spring by thousands in the neigh- 
borhood of the parent tree, in lawns 
and plantations, but scarcely ever sur- 
vive the smothering effects of the com- 
mon summer grasses as soon as these 
begin to shoot. 

When I visited the cedar grove on 
Mount Lebanon, in the autumn of 18G0, 
I foimd thousands of seedling plants, 
but every one of them dead; and so 
effectual is the annual slaughter of the 
yearlings in that grove, that, though 
the seeds are shed in millions, and in- 
numerable seedlings annually spring 
up, there is not a plant in the grove 
less than about sixty years old. It may 
hence have been sixty years since a 
cedar there survived the first year of 
its existence ; that is to say, lias strug« 
gled through its infancy, and reached 
the age even of childhood! 

On the other hand, when once the 
natural conditions of a country have 
been disturbed, the spread and multi- 
plication of immigrants is so rapid that 
it shortly becomes impossible to dis- 
cover the limits of the old, indigenous 
flora. Take tlio English flora, for ex- 
ample. If we contriist the cultivated 
counties with the uncultivated, the dif- 
ference of their vegetation is so great 
that I have oAen been compelled to 
doubt whether many of the most fami- 
liar so call<»d wild flowers of the culti- 
vated counties are indigenous at all; 
nay, more, I have been tempted to sus- 
pect that some of the more variable of 
them, as some species of chenopocUum 
and fumitory, may have originated 
since cultivation began. In the uncul- 
tivated counties the proportion of an-, 
nual phints is exce<*dingly small, where- 
as in the cultivated counties annuals 
are very numerous ; and the further we 
go from cultivation, roads, and made 
ground, the rarer they become, till at 
last, in the uninhabited islets of the 
west coast of ScotUind, and in its moun- 



tainous glens, annoals are extremely 
rare, and confined to the immediate 
vicinity of cottages. Let any one who 
doubts this contrast between the floras 
of cultivated and uncultivated regions 
compare the annuals in such florte as 
those of Suffolk or Essex, the North 
Riding or Cumberland, with thoso of 
the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Ar- 
ran. And it is not only that annuals 
abound in the cuhivated districts, but 
that so many are nearly confined to 
ground that is annually or frequently 
disturbed. The three commonest of 
all British plants, for example, are, per- 
haps, groundsel, shepherd*s purse, and 
I\}a annuel. I do not remember ever 
having seen any of these plants estab- 
lished where the soil was undisturbedi 
or where, if undisturbed, they had not 
been obviously brought by mnn or the 
lower animals ; and yet I have gather- 
ed one of these, the shepherd's purse, 
in various parts of Europe, in Syria, 
in the Himalayas, in Australia, New 
Zealand, and the Falkland Islands. 
Were England to be depopulated, 1 
believe that in a very few years these 
plants, and a large proportion of our 
common annual ^' wild flowers," would 
become exceedingly rare or extinct, 
such as the poppies, fumitories, tre- 
foils, fedias, various species of speed- 
well, anagallis, cerastiums, lithosper- 
mum, polygonum, mallow, euphorbia, 
thlaspi, senebiera, medicago, authe- 
mis, ccntaurea, linaria, lamium, etc^ 
etc 

It is usually said of some of the 
above-named plants that they prefer 
cultivated ground, nitrogr'nous soil, and 
BO forth ; and this is no doubt true, but 
that they will flourish where no such 
advantages attend them, a very little 
observation shows ; and that they do 
not continue to flourish elsewhere is 
due mainly to the fact that, being an- 
nuals, their room is taken as soon as 
they die, and the next year*s seedling 
has no chance of success in the strug- 
gle with perennials. 

For good instances of this rapid re- 
placement of annuals by perennials, 
the new railroad embankments shoukl 



On ifh ^Stmff^ f»r Mthtsnee rnnm^H PtanU, 



exaiMinefl. Whence the planffl 
peome from which spring up like magic 
the cutthigs many feet Mow the 
^luHace of the soil, Is a complete mys- 
tery, and reminds a a of the 8o*cnlled 
ppontaneoua generation of protozoa in 
tiewly mnde infusions or in distilled 
water* In the south of Scotland in 
1840-50, and many parts of the north 
of England, the tinst plant that made 
its ap])eanince was Eqm^etum arvensej 
which covered the new -formed bankg, 
for mile3 and miles» with the most love- 
ly green forest of miniature pines. Ifi 
the following year companitively few 
of these were to be seen, and coltsfbot, 
dandelions, and other bienniaU, espe- 
cially urabelltfenp, with a great num- 
ber of annuaU» presented themselves. 
For many successive years I had no 
opportunity of watching the struggle 
for life on these Imnks, bat when I last 
saw them they were clothed with pe- 
rennial gmsst^s, docks, plantains, and 
other perennial rooted plants. 

The dc:j«tnTction of native vegetations 
by introduced is a subject that has only 
Utely attracted much attention, hut it 
has already asisumed an aspect that has 
startled the roost careless observer. 
Some thirty years ago the fecundity 
of the horse and European cardoon in 
the Argenlint* provinces of South Ame- 
rica, so graph Ic^Uy deaciMbed by Sir Ed- 
mund Hcad.di-ew the attention of natur- 
alists to the fact (hat animals and plants 
did not necessarily thrive V>e-st where 
found in an indigenous condition ; atid 
the spread of the comm^m Dutch ciover, 
TrifoUtim reports, in North America, 
where it follows the footsteps of man 
through the pathh*)*s forests, has long 
ofFonled an equally remarkable in- 
Btance of vegi^table colonistation. Still 
moi-e recently in South Africa, Austra- 
lia, and Tasmania, the Scotch thistlct 
brier rose, xanthium. plantain, docks, 
etc., have all l>ccome noxious weeds ; 
and this leads mo to the last aiid most 
CuHous point to which I shall allude 
iti this article, namely, that the same 
' innuals and othrr wrols that are held 
*fO well in check by the indigenous pe- 
rennial plants of our country, when 



transplanted to others, show lh« 
superior to the perennial vegetariott'i 
the latter. Of this New Zealand fiir-j 
nishes the most cjonspicuoos example ;j 
it was first visited scarcely 
than 100 years ago, and it is not yeti 
fiOy since the missionaries first setiM 
in it, and scarce thirty since it rreeirwd 
its earliest colonisU. The islands ooti* 
tain about 1,000 species of flowertng 
plants, amongst which no fewer thMl 
180 European weeds have b«*en re- 
corded as intruding themselves and 
having become thoroughly naturalized ; 
and probably double that number will 
yet be found, as they have never been 
syslematicully collected ; but llie tn(mi 
curious part of (he history is thl^. lliat 
whereas of indigenous New Zealand 
plants scarcely any arc annuiiL, no leai 
than half the natundised European 
ones are annual. 

Of the effect of these introdoc<*d Eu- 
ropean plants in destroying tlie imtiv6 
vegetation, I have given examples m 
an article that appeared in the Natnml 
History Review, (January, 18B4^) froBl 
which I quote the following: 

In Au^tnilia and Now Zealand, tbe 
noisy train of English emijiration i# not 
more surely doing its work than the 
stealthy tide of English wcfds, whicb 
are creeping over the surface of rbe 
waste, cultivated, and vitpu soil, In 
annually incwasing numbers of genera, 
species, and individuals. Apropos of 
Ihia subject, a eorre^pondent, (W* T. 
Loeke Travers, Esq,, F.L,S.,) a moat 
active New Zealand botai.thf, writtDg 
from Canterbury, says ; " You wotdd 
be surprised at the rapid sprciid of Eo- 
ropean and other foreign plants in thia 
country. All along the siilcs of tbe 
main lines of road through th(^ plains^ 
a J^h/^onumj (arteufare,) called " eowr- 
grass,* grows most luxuriantly, tho 
roots sometimes two feet in depths and 
the plants spreading over an areafrtMB 
four to the feet in dfarmter Tbi 
dock (Rttnufjt oh i$^ 

put) is to be foui n^ 

extending into tbe valleys «if ttie moun- 
tain rivers until these became mere 
torrents. The aow>thistle is apread aU 



I 



Oa tie Struggle for Existence amonget Plctnts. 54S 



orer the country, p;rowiDg laxuriantlj 
nearly up to 6,000 feet. The water- 
cress increases in our still riven to 
such an extent as to threaten to choke 
them altogether ; in fact, in the Avon, 
a still, deep stream running through 
Christ Church, the annual cost of keep- 
ing the river free for boat navigation 
and for purposes of drainage exceeds 
£300. I have measured stems twelve 
feet long and three quarters of an inch 
in diameter. In some of the moun- 
tain districts, wliere the soil is loose, 
tluj white clover is completely displac* 
ing the native grasses, forming a close 
sward. Foreign trees are also very 
luxuriant in growth. The gum-trees 
of Australia, the poplars, and willows 
particularly grow most rapidly. In 
fact, the young native vegetation ap- 
pears to slu'ink from competition with 
these more vigorous intruders." 

Dr. Ilaast, F.L.S., the eminent ex- 
plorer and geologist, also writes to me 
as follows : 

^ The native (Maori) saying is, * As 
the white man's rat has driven away 
tlie native rat, as the European fly 
drives away our own, and the clover 
kills our fern, so will the Maoris dis- 
appear before the white man himself.' 
It is wondi'rful to behold the botanical 
and zoological changes which have 
taken place since first Captain Cook set 
foot in New Zealand. Some pigs, 
which he and other navigators left 
with the natives, have increased and 
run wild in such a way that it is im- 
possible to destroy them. There are 
large tracts of country where they 
reign supreme. The soil looks as if 
ploughed by their burrowing. Some 
Btationholders of one hundred thousand 
acres have Imd to make contracts for 
killing them at sixpence per tail, and as 
many as twenty-two thousand on a sin- 
gle run have been killed by adventurous 
parties without any diminution being 
discernible. Not only are they obnox- 
ious by occupying the ground which 
the sheep farmer needs for his flocks, 
but tiiey assiduously follow the ewes 
when lambing, and devour the poor 
lambs as soon as they make their ap- 



pearance. They do not exist on the 
western side of the Alps, and only on 
the lower grounds on the eastern side 
where snow seldom falls, so that the 
explorer has not the advantage of pro* 
fiting by their existence, where food is 
scarcest. The boars are sometimes 
very large, covered with long bkck 
bristles, and have enormous tusks, re- 
sembling closely the wild boar of the 
Ardennes, and they are equally savage 
and courageous. 

^ Another interesting fact is the ap- 
pearance of the Norwegian rat. It has 
thoroughly extirpated the native rat, 
and is to be found everywhere, even 
in the rery heart of the Alps, growing 
to a very hirge size. The European 
mouse follows it closely, and, what is 
more surprising, where it makes its a|>- 
pearance, it drives, in a great degree, 
the Norway rat away. Amongst other 
quadrupeds, cattle, dogs, and cats are 
found in a wild state, but not abun- 
dantly. 

"The European house-fly is another 
importation. When it arrives, it re- 
pels the blue-bottle of New Zealand, 
which seems to shun its company. But 
the spread of the European insect goes 
on very slowly, so that settlers, know- 
ing its utility, have carried it in boxes 
and bottles to their new inland sta- 
tions." 

But the most remarkable fact of all 
has been communicated to me since the 
above was printed, namely, that the 
little white clover and other herbs are 
actually strangling and killing outright 
the New Zealand flax, (Phormium <e- 
nax,) a plant of the coarsest, hardest, 
and toughest description, that forms 
huge matted patches of woody rhi- 
zomes, which send up tufts of sword- 
like leaves six to ten feet high, and 
inconceivably strong in texture and 
flbre. I know of no English plant to 
which the New Zealand flax can be 
likened so as to give any idea of its 
robust constitution and habit to those 
who do not know it ; in some respects 
the great matted tussocks of Carex 
paniculata approach it. It is difficult 
enough to imagine the possibility of 



844 Oh ihe Slntggh for Hxitienee amoug$t Plantn. 



wbite doYer invadioff our bogs, and 
Bmothering the tassoc^s of this carex, 
but this would be child's play in com- 
parison with the resistance the phor- 
mium would seem to offer. 

The causes of this prepotency of the 
European weeds are probably many 
and complicated; one very powerful 
one is the nature of the New Zealand 
climate, which favors the duration of 
life in individuals, and hence gives both 
perennials and annuals a lengthened 
growing season, and, in the cose of 
some, more than one seed crop in the 
year. This is seen in the tendency of 
mignonette and annual stocks to be- 
come biennial and even perennial, 
in the indigenous form of Cardamine 
hirmUa being perennial, and in the 
fact that many weeds that seed but 
once with us seed during a greater 
part of the year in New Zealand. An- 
other cause must be sought in the fact 
that more of their seeds escape the rav- 
ages or birds and insects in New Zea- 
limd than in England ; the granivorous 
birds and insects that follow cultivation 
not having been transported to the an- 
tipodes with the weeds, or, at least, not 
in proportionate numbers. 

Still the fact remains as yet nnnc- 
oounted for, that annual weeds, which, 
except for the interference of man, 
would with us have no chance in the 
struggle with perennials, in New Zea- 
land have spread in inconceivable quan- 
tities into tlie wildest glens long before 
either white men or even their cattle 
and flocks penetrate to their recesses. 
Sach is the testimony of Drs. ilaast 



and Hector, and Mr. Travers, the 
original explorers of large areas o< 
di£ferent parts of the almost nninhab* 
ited middle island, and who have sent 
to me, as native plants, from hitherto 
unvisited tracti, British weeds that 
were not found in the island by the 
careful botanists (Banks, Solander, 
Forster, and Spamnann) who accom- 
panied Captain Cook in his voyages ; 
and which were not found by the lar- 
lier missionaries, but which of Ia*e 
years have abounded on the lowlands 
near every settlement. 

This subject of the comparative great 
vis-vitsa of European plants, as com- 
pared with those of other countries, in- 
volves problems of the highest interest 
in botanical science, and the subject is 
as novel as it is interesting ; it is quite 
a virgin one, and requires the calmest 
and most unprejudiced judgment to 
treat it well. It cannot be doubted 
that the {wogrcss of civilisation in Eu- 
rope and Asia has, whilst it has led to 
the incessant harassing of the soil, led 
also to the abundant development of 
a class of plants, annual, biennial, und 
perennial, which increase more rapid- 
ly and obtain a greater development 
when transplanted to the Southeni 
hemisphere than th(*y have hitherto 
done in the Northern, and that, in this 
respect, they contrast strikingly with 
the behavior of plants of the Sou th- 
em hemisphere when tran«tplanted to 
the Northern ; and hitherto no con- 
siderations of climate, soil, or circum- 
stance have sutficed to explain this 
phenomenon. 



The Le^f of Za$t V^ar. 645 



THE LEAF OF LAST YEAR. 

I KNOW I am dry and decayed ; 

My skin is all yellow and sere ; 
I know I ought not to have staid 

To become an old leaf of last year. 

You are youthful, and merry, and green. 

I feel hke a stranger up here ; 
And can see you're ashamed to be seen 

By the side of a leaf of last year. 

My wrinkled and shrivelled up face 
Excites you to laugh and to sneer ; 

And the branch thinks that this is no place 
For an old-fashioned leaf of kwt year. 

I can tell, as you toss your proud heads, 
What you whisper in each other's ear : 
'* Old leaves should be gone to their beds, 
'Tis no time for a leaf of last year." 

You may flirt with the amorous winds ; 

With your joys I will not interfere : 
But Tm sad ; for my heart it reminds 

How they jilted a leaf of last year. 

Ay ! flutter and laugh with the breeze, 
You may think that its love is sincere, 

But I know what it said to the trees 
When I was a young leaf last year. 

^' Each one of these silly green leaves 
Is so flattered if I but come near. 
That she dances, and smiles, and believes 
I most surely will wed her this year. 

^ With sod kisses the hours I beguile ; 
And their prattling is pleasant to hear. 
When I tire, I depart with a smile 

And a promise to meet them next year.** 

Then it came to my side with a bow, 
Embraced me, and called me its * dear.' 

I was tbolish to trust it, and now 
It forgets its old love of last year* 

VOL. V. — 86 



MB TU A/mmee of ike CmAote Ckmftk 



AfL 



Avar the false samnKr btccxe Ueil: 
And mj fibres all qairered with ^ar. 

One by ooe mj males withered and <fiedy 
And left me alone till ihi« jcar. 

Soon aammn will come with i:s bkass. 

And voar beaatr wilL toa disappear. 
When yoa think on the jot$ thas are pas:, 

Youll remember the leaf of lass jear. 

This mom, wheo the =im roee, I wepc ; 

On mj cheek lingers jet a bright tear: 
Twad a dew-drop fell there whibt I slepc 

And was dreaming about the last year. 

Not long will I cumber the tree. 
For my hour of departure Is near ; 

And jour beautiful branch will be free 
Of its faded old leaf of last vear. 



THE INFLUENCE OP THE CATHOLIC CHCBCH UPON 
MODERN ART. 



As in many a sacred painting the 
divine persons arc seen descending 
upon earth, attended by angels wlio, with 
trumpets, unheard by men, announce 
the visitation ; so religion, revealed to 
prepare men fur the next world, f^'ita 
enthroned in this with all the arts, its 
ministers and 8cr\'ants. It is a glory 
of the Catholic Church that it has re- 
cognized to the utmost the spirituality 
of art. It has denied the dogma, of 
all dogmas the most absurd, that with 
the use of the highest powers of the 
imagination, and with delight in the 
beauty with which Go<l has clothed the 
world, his worship is incompatible. It 
has not made piety a thing ugly, repul- 
sive, barren ; a mere assent of the will 
to an abstraction. The child of the 
church, standing in a world where the 
rainbow bends above him, and sunset 
opens the burning gates of heaven, is 
not taught to believe the seven colors 
the seven sins, or, at least, but secular 
beauty, to be banished from the boose 



of worship ; with the voices of binU' 
and winds, and waters, ami the got Lie 
grandeur of forests around hira. he is 
not taught that music and architecture 
interfere with piety, or. if usi^l at all 
in worship, must be limited to their 
lowest and simplest form?. Of crctxls 
I do not need to speak ; but this much 
it is necessary to say in the strict limits 
of my subject, tliat the world owes to 
Catholicism so much of its music, and 
painting, and architecture, that, had 
the world been without the oliuroh. 
these arts, though of human ori;rin, and 
thougli highly developed before the 
Christian era, would in their modem 
forms probably be still in tlieir infancy. 
In sculpture, undoubtedly, the Greeks 
surpassed even Michael Angelo ; the 
statues of Phidias, though in ruins, 
are the wonder and despair of artists. 
The Roman empire built temples, roadsj 
aqueducts, the Colosseum, and, when it 
fell, the arts, even in these less imagi- 
native forms, seem to have fallen with 



77ie Influence of the Catholic Church upon Modern Art, 547 



it. For a long time there was no art 
worthy of the name in Europe. Apollo, 
blind and dumb, wandered without a 
home or a temple ; for, though in those 
centuries there must have been men 
bom to be composers, or painters, or 
sculptors, they w^ere bom too soon or 
too late. Athens had fallen ; Christian 
llome had not arisen to her destined 
greatness. So the world slumbered 
in darkness till the Catholic Church 
wrought the miracle by which the arts 
were raised fi*om their tombs and made 
her interpreters and ministers. This 
cannot be denied, that she gave the im- 
pulse to the revival of art, encouraged 
its development, inspired it with energy, 
and purpose, and faith, and so sent it 
forth to bless and transfigure the world. 
In every city in Europe she built a 
cathedral. In Rome, St. Peter's; in 
Paris, Notre Dame ; in Vienna, the 
Dom Kirche ; in Milan, La Duomo. 
No town was without its church, few 
of them without beauty, many monu- 
ments of the genius of their builders. 
B(*oause the Saviour was born in a 
:= table, it was not held an article of 
faith that he should be worshipped in 
a barn. The church believed that the 
temple should show that it was built 
net for the service of man, but of God. 
To adorn these majestic buildings she 
summoned the sister arts. Through 
the stained windows, 

** The panes 
Of andent churclies, pat^slonate 
With iuartyre<l tuUots, whom angels wait, 
With Virgin an«l with Crucitied," 

the light shone holier for that trans- 
figuration. There the painter told in 
language all could read the solemn 
story of the religion they believed. 
How in a manger tlie Christ was bora, 
and worshipped by the wise men whom 
the mysterious star had led from the 
Chaldean plains ; how the holy mother 
journeyed with Joseph into Egypt, 
bearing in her arms the babe who came 
into the world himself to bear the bur- 
den of its grief; how he taught the 
poor and healed the sick, raised La- 
zarus from the grave, and bade the 
Ma^i^dalene sin no more ; how he spake 



with God upon the mount, and was 
tempted by the fiend, betrayed by Ju- 
das, tried by Pilate, and crucified upon 
Calvary ; how at the foot of the cross 
the Marys wept all night; and how, 
when he was buried, angels rolled away 
the stone from the sepulchre, and apos- 
tles beheld bim ascend into the depths 
of heaven. Upon the sacred walls, 
which were to these pious worshippers 
as windows opening into the Holy 
Land, they saw miracles, transfigura- 
tions, ascensions, the agonies of mar- 
tyrs, the adorations of saints, and — n- 
sion of all visions fairest — ^the tender 
face of the Virgin bending in prophetic 
sadness above the infant Christ. But 
with other than silent teachers the 
church appealed to the soul. Music, 
whose miraculous voice utters all pas- 
sions, pains, delights, and truths, breath- 
ed her beautiful religion on the aur. 
She sang of what Raphael and Titian 
painted ; of the birth, and the death, 
and the resurrection ; of the prayers 
of penitence, the anguish of strife, the 
rapture of heaven, the torments of hell : 
and in her voice were heard sobs, and 
cries, and supplications, thunders of di- 
vine wrath, trumpets of doom and of 
redemption, and choruses upon cho- 
ruses of angels proclaiming the glory of 
God. In all the arts the church em- 
bodied Christianity ; as she converted 
souls, so she converted music and 
painting. By the twelfth century, nay, 
before that, all the art of Europe was. 
Catholic In Italy, Spain, Germany, 
wherever a school of art existed, 
however humble, its highest aspirations 
were through the Catholic Church. 
The ideality of art, as we may see in 
its remaining works, was then almost 
exclusively religious ; to be imagina- 
tive was to be pious. Centuries before 
the dawn of modem painting, in the 
silence and seclusion of cloisters, labo- 
rious monks, blowly perfecting their 
wonderful illuminated missals, were 
unawares preparing the advent of Cim- 
abue and Giotto. • The tradition that 
St. Luke was a painter was carefully 
cherished by his disciples, who may 
have found inspiration in the legend 



548 ne Infiuenee of the Catholic Church vpon Modern Art 



that he painted the portrait of the Sa- 
TioNP. Thus it IS probable, and other 
reasons inip:ht be cited, that modem art 
was not adopted by the oliurcb, but, 
bom within its monasteries, was che- 
rished till it grew too great for them 
alone, and then, as the child of the 
church, turned in natural faith and 
gratitude to the service of its parent. 

The church was the chief patron 
of the early painters ; it furnished not 
only their inspiration, but their occu- 
pation. There is little trace of the 
earlii'st Christian art ; but Plusebius, 
whose history was written in the reign 
of Constantine, mentions that images 
of^ Clirist weni then common. In the 
thinl century pictures had been gen- 
erally introduced in the churches of 
Palestine. But it was scarcely before 
the twelrth century that Catholic art 
gave promise of that splendor which 
in later days exaltetl it above all rival- 
ry. We find Cimabue famous al>out 
the year 12r)0, and a tier him Giotto, 
almoVt the father of Italian art, whose 
portrait of Dante, recently discovered, 
is acknowledged as the best likeness 
we possess of the author of the preat- 
est Christian poem, lie painteil the 
Last Supper of Christ, at Florence, 
and an idea of his inliaencc may be 
fornii'd from the fact that he had one 
hundred pupils, some of whom weiv 
afterward renowne«l. To catalogue 
the painters of this periotl would bo 
unnecessary, but their close sympathy 
with the church, an?l the cncouraije- 
ment they received from it, arv. nn- 
questioimble. In liK)^, Diici-io. an 
artist of Sienniv, was calle«l upon to 
paint an altar-piece, and in his con- 
tract pledged himself thus: "I will 
execute it acconling to my best abili- 
ty, and as the Lord shall gnmt m*^ 
skill" The picture when completed 
was carried in solemn ])r Mission to 
the church. When, in 1 l;5S, it was 
pro^>osed to build the Sienna Cathe- 
dral, it was ordain(^d that '* no one 
even suspectt^l of innnorality shall be 
eligible" to the ^>osition of its archi- 
tect. A more earnest. ex|)ression of 
the faith of the earlv arti>ts in the 



dignity of their work, and their reli- 
gious duty, is found in the rules adopt- 
ed by the painters of Sienna in 1335. 
They held that, " since we are teach- 
ers to ignorant men, and since in God 
every perfection is united, we will in 
our work earnestly ask the aid of the 
divine grace." This spirit of devo- 
tion gave a higher direction to genius 
that might without it have wasted 
itself in empty and unmeaning tiisks ; 
and, whatever the artist was bom to 
do, he found in the church his op|K)r- 
timity. To paint, in those days, for 
the best of those men, was to serve 
Goil ; to build, was to build his tem- 
ph's. The ])urpa<ic ennobled the 
work. Not merely with intellect 
Lorenzo (Ihiberti labon-d when be 
wrought the doors of the baptistery 
in the rear of tin? rathednil at Flo- 
rence — do<^rs of which Michael Angelo 
exclaimed in his enthusiam, '* Worthy 
to })e the gau.'s of pnnidise I " Casts 
of these wonderful ctirvings of scrip- 
tural subjects, an; exhibited in the 
AcadtMuy of the Fine Arts at Phihi- 
delphia. These artists were the worthy 
forcrumiers of greater men — of D^>- 
menichino, of Guido, of Titian, of Mu- 
rillo, of Correggio, and of liiiphael. lAt- 
onardo da Vinci, and Michael Angelo. 
The gii'alest works <»f ihe thn-e. latter 
were upon ( 'hristian themes, llie I^i>t 
Supper, pjiinted by Da Vinci, in 111)7, 
for t lie Dominican convent at ^lilan.is 
accepted as tlie crowning pnK)f of his 
genius. The staUie of Moses in St. 
Peter's, the L:ist Ju«lgnient, and the 
Dome ot' St, I'eier's are the master 
works of the mighty Angelo. Ka- 
phaeU who Ix'gan his iH^auiiful career 
by painting aliar-pieces, in tlic Trans- 
iignnttitm ivached its hijihest point, 
and questionings of the model who 
sat for his divine ma<lonnas is idh*, for 
not the lovelinesjs of the facp, but Ihe 
holiness of the spirit gives tiiem im- 
mortality, lint 1 need eite no other 
instances. The high«*st subjects of 
the Italian painters were found in 
their nrligioii, and the church was 
tlieir most generous patron. And not 
onlv was this dedication of art to 



Hke Influence of the CaUiolic Church upon Modern Art. 649 



gpiritaality of direct value to its in- 
tellectual progress, but indirectly it 
ennobled art that aimed merely to 
paint the things of earth and not the 
dreams of heaven. The less gained 
dignity from the sacred office of the 
greater, and art became more strong- 
ly rooted in that which was of the 
world, because of its aspiration to 
that which was celestial. 

The vast influence of religion upon 
art is signally exhibited in the history 
of English art. Neither painting nor 
architecture, it is true, had made much 
progress in England up to the seven- 
teenth century, as compared with their 
success on the continent ; for, when 
Italy was civilized, Great Britain was 
still rude, and in certain respects bar- 
barian. Yet the cathedrals which 
still exist in ruins, monuments of 
Grothic grandeur, were the expres- 
sions of a national art in close rela- 
tion with religioDv In England as in 
all other countries the Catholic Church 
gathere<l around her the arts. But 
with a religion which professed to sec 
in images nothing but idols, in paint- 
ings of Christ and the apostles and 
the prophets nothing but profanity 
and blasphemy, came desolation and 
destruction. The Roundhead was not 
satisfled with the downfall of a throne, 
with the death of one Stuart and the 
banishment of that royal line, nor with 
the proscription of the Catholic reli- 
gion. The men who followed Crom- 
well were iconoclasts, who destroyed 
Christian images to set up in their 
stead an idol of barbarian bigotry. 
They fired the churches, they shatter- 
ed the statues, they made war upon 
the pictures of madonnas and martyrs 
without remorse or fear. They had 
driven out the Cavaliers, they were 
resolved to drive out the saints ; and, 
OS they had banished the church, they 
were bent upon sending art to keep 
it company. They succeeded but too 
well. Puritan enmity to the employ- 
ment of painting in church decora- 
tion — the sweeping principle that ai't 
luid religion could not be united and 
had different aims — struck a blow at 



English art which almost ended it for 
three reigns. It did not, indeed, fully 
recover from the effect until near the 
close of the eighteenth century, when, 
as little more than portraiture^ it was 
re- established by Gainetborough and 
Sir Joshua Reynolds. To this day it 
is only in portraiture and in laud- 
scape that a great English school ex- 
ists. There are many fine Vandykes, 
and Lelys, and Reynolds in the gal- 
leries of England, and many land- 
scapes and marines by Gainsborough, 
Wilson, and Turner ; but where is the 
historical painter who can be com- 
pared with Turner? Haydon, who 
bitterly complained that historioal 
painting was not appreciated in Eng- 
land, and that those who by their 
wealth and position should have en- 
couraged it cared only for their own 
faces on canvas, might have found 
the cause of its decline in the absence 
of any religious inspiration in Eng- 
lish art. Ho admitted this tnith, un- 
consciously perhaps, when he chose 
for his own subjects of ^ high art " 
Christ in the Temple and Lazarus 
coming from the Tomb. In the land- 
scapes and marines of Turner there 
is imagination grander than Claude, 
or PoiLssin, or Salvator Rosa pos- 
sessed; in Wilkie unsurpassed char- 
acter is given to humble themes. But 
the English historical school is infi- 
nitely below English landscape and 
portraiture. The Boydell gallery, in 
which the best artists of the time were 
employed to illustrate Shakespeare, is 
an utter failure. Fusel i was fanciful 
and coarse ; and, though I know little 
of Blake's pictures, it is safe to pre- 
sume they were not equal to his 
strange and beautiful po.*try. D d be 
ever realize with the brush such 
verses i\^ 

" Tiger, Tiger, burning bright 
In the foredts of the nlglit " ? 

Reynolds failed when he sought to 
be imaginative, as the Death of Dido 
and the Deathbed of Cardinal Beau- 
fort are proof. The defeat of the re- 
peated efforts to establish an historical 



550 Thi Tnjlu4^ce of thi C^thoUe Church upon Motkrn Ati, 



school of art in England must nat be 
jucribed solely lo a ddiciencj of gemu« 
in the men or in the character of the 
nntion. Art ami religion were divoro 
©d. Men worshipped God in one way, 
and painted in unoilier. It is a Bi^i- 
ficiiTit Ikt't that the pre-Eapbaelit^^ 
isehool, however objectionablf* in aocae 
its^ipoots, owes its highest success to the 
relijiifrns element which iuispires iL 
Millais and Hunt proclaim that the 
rndcst art must be epiritunl and thus 
seek to atone for centuriea of infidelity 
to that «mth. 

Upon music the influence of the 
church lias probably b(*en even givater 
ihan n[iou painting, ecrlainly as great 
With no exaggeration, it may be gaid 
that to write the history of the com- 
posi^rs who have written for the churcli 
is ii} write the hifltory of modem m«- 
»k. What thm fact implies will be 
understood by those who know that in 
none other of the arts has the term 
modern such significance ; for, while 
ancient painting, sculpture, and archi- 
tccture were ba^^ed njion the same gen- 
eral laws which are now recognized as 
abMolutei the principles of music, like 
her own sweet sounds, have changed 
and passed away from age to age. 
There is a known difterence betwt^en 
what may be mlled ihc nkusical ear of 
this century and that of the sixteentli- 
Wbat was then felt to In? harmony, and 
embodied in the works of the great 
masters, is now discord. There was a 
lime when con&ecutive fiflLs were com- 
mon» a fact abno9t incredible to the 
musician of today. If «ucli changes 
have fM'curred withlu four or five hun- 
dred years, the gulf which divides an- 
cient and modern music must be deep 
and wide; and the latter, having liUle 
visible connection or known sympathy 
with the former, and originating in 
Christian £urope« must inevitably owe 
much of its clmracter to Catholic civili- 
zation. 

The oldest form of music known to 
us belongs to the church ; it is I he Ec 
clesiastieal Chant of St, Ambrose and 
St* Oregf>ry. The former, near the 
doBC of the fourth cejitury, endeavored 



to give a Exed form to church rat 
and we may judge of his sucetuts 
his Te Deum» Tlie words and the 
the music of this noble cantide arestili 
sung. Of the An^brosian chant, St. 
Augustine wrote; ** A?5 i\vi voices fiawed 
into mine eai^, truth was instilled inio 
my heart, and the aflTections of pieiy 
mer do wed in tears of joy/' It is said 
that St, Ambrose composed the Tc 
Deum upon the conversion of Su Au- 
gustine. Two centuries later Vo\m 
Gregory vastly improved the system 
of eacred music ; trom him we have 
the celebrated Gregorian chant, &ok*miit 
sev*^re, and puns and still hearfl in Lent 
and in the Holy Week, Such value did 
St. Gregory jilace upon music thai he 
estabhshed a school forsingcrs at Home, 
which fiourislied tilt the tenth centurj. 
After the Gregorian chant little reforma- 
tion in music was accomplished for cen- 
turies ; but the next step was also takes 
wiiliin the church when Guido, a Ueo- 
edictine monk, early in the ehnenib 
century, discovered the musical scale 
now used* IModern rhythm was in- 
vented by a French priest about the 
same time, and for many years music 
owed all its progress to i-eligious en- 
thusiasm. Thus, Odington, an English 
Benedictme monk, in 1240, wrote Dc 
Specula! ione Musicie, and John de 
Muris in the fourteenth century did 
much to establish fixed rules of harnio- 
ny. Counterpoint was slowly devel* 
oped; ihe canon and tlie fugue were 
introduce<l ; and the laws of nmaie 
were gradually established as the basii 
of the grander and more ideal genius 
of the strictly modern system, We 
need not follow the history of the art 
from that givat master Falesirina 
through the long succession (»f famoiw 
names destined to be remetnbered whin 
those of kings are half forgotten. 

From the first it ha^ been seeo ike 
church recogniK4.^1 the sacred effieea of 
music, and did not mert?ly permit, byt 
authorized and d'^velojieKi its uao^ Ji 
is true that at one time use IimI to 
abuse. In the sixteenth century com- 
posers for the church frequently tbi^t 
religion in «eict>ea, *' In tbi« kii^ of 



I 




2%e Influence of the Catholic Church upon Modem Art 551 



(K)mposition,'' says Alexander Cheron, 
*^ the meaning of the words was entire- 
ly overlooked, and its tendencies were 
only to the display of the genius of the 
composers or the powers of the sing- 
ers." The evil became so great that 
the Council of Trent even delibe- 
rated upon the suppression of music in 
religious service. Pope Marcellus U. 
bad, indeed, resolved to banish all 
music but the Gregorian chant, when 
Palestrina composed a mass which 
made that step unnecessary. It was 
a revolution. Solemnity, grandeur, 
and purity were the elements of the 
new style, from which mere bravuras 
and all levities were excluded. Thus 
the power which authorized the em- 
ployment of music had the influence 
to redeem it from degradation, till oow 
the sacred music we possess embodies 
the genius of three centuries, and will, 
perhaps, endure longer than the finest 
lyric dramas. That the religious prfr- 
poses of great masters have had vast 
influence upon the merely lyric compo* 
sition is not to be doubted. We can- 
not raise one form of art without rais* 
ing all. The author of Don Giovan- 
ni might not have achieved the fnll 
grandeur of that work had he not 
also composed his mar^'ellous masses. 
Of the influence of Catholic music 
upon such minds, an incident in Mo- 
zart's life is proof. In his youth 
he heard the famous Miserere sung 
in the Sistine chapel at Borne — that 
strange and solemn harmony, com- 
posed two hundred years ago by Gre- 
gorio Allegri, for the sublime ceremo- 
nial of the Passion week. Pontiff and 
cardinals, when the Miserere begins, 
kneel around the altar, the church is 
darkened, the voices swell in tenor, 
and die into silence. Mozart twice 
heard this wonderful work, and then 
reproduced it note for note, and sang 
it with the exact method and feeling 
of the Sistine choir. And it is said 
that the efibct of this Miserere upon 
him may be traced in all his other 
works. Haydn's piety is found in all 
of his music, chiefly in those masses 
which are known to all lovers of mu- 



sic. ^ In nomine Domini," ^' Soli Deo 
Gloria,** he invariably wrote at the be- 
ginning of his scores, and ^ Laus Deo" 
at their end. When composing, if his 
imagination failed, he repeated his ro- 
sary, and, before beginning his greater 
works, he prayed to God for inspira- 
tion to praise him worthily. Of the 
composers inspired by religion, the list 
is long ; longer, perhaps, that of those 
who unconsciously were influenced by 
it When Haydn was asked which of 
his works he considered the greatest, 
he replied. The Seven Words. It was 
written for the service called the ^* Fu- 
neral of the Bedeemer'^ at Madrid, in 
which the seven words uttered by the 
Saviour on the cross were uttered by 
the bishop, who explained each, and 
between each exposition Haydn's mu- 
sic in sympathy with the word was 
given. Upon his masses ho lavished 
his pains, and generally required twice 
the time for a mass that he needed for 
a symphony. 

Palestrina, Porpora, Clemen ti, Haydn, 
Mozart, Bossini, Beethoven, arc but 
a few of the illustrious masters whose 
sacred music was dedicated to the 
Catholic Church. HandeFs religious 
music was chiefly written for the Eng- 
lish, and is embodied, as well as that 
of Mendelssohn, in oratorio. But, for 
my part, I do not think the form of the 
oratorio as well fitted for sacred music 
as that of the mass* An oratorio 
is generally sung in a concert-room ; 
the words are frequently poor adap- 
tations of the language of the Scrip- 
tures; its auditors expect to be en- 
tertained. Therefore, though the mu- 
sic may be perfect in itself, as in the 
'' Total Eclipse'' or '' I know that my 
Bedeemer liveth** of Handel, it does 
not seem that the form is suited to ex- 
press the deepest emotions of worship. 
It is in the Catholic Church alone that 
music and religion are wedded. Who 
can translate into words the profound 
devotion mspired by the solemn mass 
in the cathedral service? Over the 
kneeling worshippers, the illuminated 
altar, the pictures of the crucifixion 
and the ascension, the intonadoo of 



552 The Injlutnce of the Caiholie Churek upon Modem ArL 



Oie priest, '* the dim religions light" 
shining through the stained windowrs, 
Mnsic breathes her roice. As the 
great organ swells, and the deep-toned 
choir utters the despair of the Miserere, 
the heavenlj beauty of the Agnus 
Dei, the exultation of the Gloria, the 
devotion of the Credo, etc., what soul is 
not bowed in sympathy with grief, raised 
with gratitude, or bathed in heavenly 
peace ? I know no music that has a 
more profound effect. It is a part of 
worship. It expresses something to 
which words the most eloquent are in- 
adequate. It is the glory of the Catho- 
lic Church, I repeat, that she has so 
freely recognized the spirituality of this 
act, and these who reject her creed are 
compelled to admit the propriety and 
supremacy of her ser\'ice. How cold 
are the musical exercises of other 
churches, how little they express of 
this intense and passionate devotion. 
I do not think God is served by the 
exclusion of his greatest gifts from the 
ceremonial of worship, and that point 
IS conceded by all sects which sing his 
praise. But, if any music is used, why 
not the best ? If a hymn, why not a 
mass ? If an organ, why not an or- 
chestra ? The objection that the Catho- 
lic Church would have its choirs com- 
posed of the best voices, its music writ- 
ten by the greatest composers, is too 
abeuni to be answered ; for, if the high- 
est art is unfit for the purposes of wor- 
ship, then by inevitable logic it must 
be shown that all art is unfit ; those 
who hold such objections should con- 
sistently agree with the Quakers, and 
banish the simplest hymn.* More than 
this, if music may be worthily used, 
why not painting r The value of ar- 
chitecture is universally admitted, ever 
since it was shown by the Catholic 
Church, and music is more or less ac* 



* The writer of ibii ArUd« is not » Catholic.- -Ed. 
0. W. 



oepted as if mode of adoration bj near 
ly all sects. Pictures, however, are 
admitted into Catholic churches alone. 
Is, then, the genius of Titian and Ra- 
phael less holy than that of Beethoven 
or Mozart? Is it right to sing the 
praise of God in his temple, wrong to 
paint the story of the Son of Grod upon 
the consecrated walls ? We need not 
answer such questions, which are only 
introduced to show how it is by tlie 
Catholic Church alone that the relig- 
ious influences of the arts have been 
first and fully understood, and by it 
alone that they have been made agen- 
cies of worship. 

Further examination of this impor- 
tant subject cannot now be made, for 
in these limits it can bo little more 
than suggested. If we generalise, we 
discover that all the great artists, in 
architecture, painting, and mnsic have 
found their highest employment in the 
church, and that its history includes 
their biographies. Of its present in- 
flnence it is unnecessary to speak, bat 
it is felt most in architecture, at least 
in this country; the noblest church 
edifice in Pliiladclphia, perhaps in any 
American city, is incomparably the 
new cathedral. From what has been 
said, the depth, and extent, and value 
of the influence of the church upon 
art may be inferred ; but no one can 
imagine the condition of our art had it 
been without the inspiration of religion. 
Majestic and venerable stands the 
Church of Rome ; upon her walls the 
arts have registered their victories ; for 
her the muses have forsaken the sum- 
mits of Parnassus ; to her the poet, 
painter, and musician have dedicat- 
ed their genius ; and, giving all they 
brought to her humbk^t and poorest 
worshipper, she has repaid the mas- 
ters with perpetual recognition and 
universal fam«. Far as her realm 
extends are known the glories of Ra- 
phael, and Angelo, and Mozart 



Adelaide Anne Proe^ttr. 



658 



ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER. 



Next lo imagination, gonius is, per- 
haps, the faculty of the human mind 
about which we hare had the moat 
instructivenesa and the least instruc- 
tion. Yet every one who knows any- 
thing of it at all knows the two great 
types of genius that appear in history — 
extremes between which lie all minds 
of mark. One is the familiar form 
that the word itself at once suggests — 
the regular fashion, as it were, of being 
exceptional. This is the erratic, fitful, 
uncontrolled, keen, brilliant, sensitive, 
sympathetic, eccentric character, who 
wears regardless collars, fights his pub- 
lisher on less than no provocation, eats 
opium if he chooses, and sometimes 
chooses—or, if not opium, some other 
stimulant — has whims and moods and 
irritabilities, and the biggest heart, and 
the best tongue, and the most heedless 
head, with the most brilliant oddities 
in it, wherever he goes — a totally lop- 
sided organism, where the soul cannot 
be kept from wearing its way through 
the body, and where a few faculties, 
pretematurally developed, domineer 
over a warped and stunted system, 
to the ultimate ruin of the whole man. 

The other kind, calm, clear, broad, 
poised, equable, powerful, seems exact- 
ly the opposite of the first type. The 
strength of the one is in balance, the 
force of the other in overbalance. Yet 
the difierence is only that the man 
of balance is symmetrically develop- 
ed; it is the difference between the 
autumn maturity of the full-grown fmit 
and the hectic ripeness, with the worm 
at the core, of the August windfall. 

Of these two types, the first is vastly 
the more frequent, the other the higher 
in history. The reason is simply this, 
that a moderate degree of uniform 
development gives neither more nor 
less than mediocrity, while dispropor- 
tionate preponderance of the intellect. 



even where all the faculties are below 
the average, will reproduce in minia- 
ture all the phenomena of the over- 
balanced kind of genius. Between 
Byron Don-Juanning it over his gin- 
and-water, and the brilliant Bohemian 
who dashes off the cleverest leader of 
the next day, fresh from the convivial 
influences of a roystering champagne 
supper, and the gentle youth who floods 
the rural poet's comer with heaven- 
scaling hankerings inspired by green 
tea, the difference is not in kind, but 
in degree. 

Men of this order are the ones who 
achieve fame and famine. Their blos- 
soms of promise are bright, their early 
graves are green on all the paths of 
human progress. History kindles at 
their high hopes and deeds, and blushes 
for the petty failings that suffice to 
drag them down. Literature, above 
all, is a very Golgotha, all the ghast- 
lier for its glory, of their self-conscious 
sensitiveness, their refined self-torture, 
their blasted lives and miserable deaths. 
Yet there is hardly one but has hb 
little day, longer or shorter, but with 
always some little sunshine andflowere 
of popular favor. Stimulated to their 
utmost by susceptibility to praise, they 
are the most brilliant and ikzarre in ef- 
fects, and the most blindly admired. Be- 
sides, their eccentricities are an adver- 
tisement in themselves, and very oflen 
first attract the attention which after- 
ward discovers the powers undemealih. 
The world, on the contrary, flnds notli- 
ing about the other sort of genius to 
display any peculiar capabilities — a sort 
of pleasant sel^completcness, it may 
be, but no salient pdnts and queer an- 
gles — and passes on, to gape at the 
man with half the brains and nothing 
to balance them. Byron woke up one 
morning and found himself famous: 
some one in Elizabeth^s reign mada a 



554 



AdeMie Atme Procter, 



lint (ifi it not ly Israeli who pre^^erres 
it?) of ihc lu'git writens of his day, 
whoreaii the thirteenth name is that of 
tlie successful Lfindon manager and 
decidedly good fellow, WiUiam Shak- 
speare. 

In htct, this latter type of genius is 
not only rare as oil welKpoiaed organ- 
isms are rarts butseeois to evade pub- 
lie appteelatian by some hidden inhe- 
rent law of its nature. It has often 
hnpj)ened with men of tbid order that 
not only their tamihcs — of course., it ia 
the excejjtioD, if a man*s family ever 
discover his powers till tlie rest of the 
world thundei-^ his fame into their ears 
-—but tbeir daily acquaintance, their 
roost intimate friends*, nay, tliemselves, 
never suspect their greatness. 

But, If such 8 man of genius is an 
event of hi^ ^^eneration, and, with all 
a man's opportuurliei* for appreciation, 
activity, acquaintance, and, above all, 
women and their ennobling: influence^ 
lo bring out his best energies, often 
dies undiscovered, what chance is 
thei-e for a woman of kindred abilities 
lo iilrt»j?ele into the light of recognition ? 
In lilerattire, men are the severest 
juilges of women possible, except, of 
coiiwe, (heir own sex. To the best of 
them the expresaion ** woman of ge 
niuf*' if the mythical relic of some 
lo6t tradition as old a& Sappho's day, 
and *" women's thougbi" a contradiction 
in terms. All tbeir experience leticlies 
fhem lo disbelieve in it utterly. The 
truth iSf most women think very ill in 
print. The cause Uea lei^s in their na- 
ture than in their second nature of ed* 
ucation. Their thought is beaut ifiit 
enough — beauty is their mental as their 
bodily characteristic-bul seldom strong, 
and then its strength i^ that of Liie 
tempered Toledo rntber than the tshear- 
ing Andrea Ferrara- It comes in 
April gleams fn»ra behind cloud after 
They lack eoncenlrarion, terse- 
sequence; in a word, training. 
This breed.s, with mainly correct 
thought, constant looec digressions, dif- 
ftjseness of expression, and dilution of 
ideas. (Hence that aadde&t tiling on 
the earth, wherein tvooieii wrileft 00 



abound, ihc unexcepii&nable poem*) It 
seems rb though women wrote as if 
conversing, forgetting how much of the 
cbarni b in tiiemselves and evaporates 
on the f>en. Every reader haj* r»o^ 
ticed bow the writings, and, alx^ve 
all, the poems, of really extraordinary 
women — women thai men of mtnd 
looked up to — ^are to us such monu* 
ments of apparent metlioc^rity tlial 
we wonder what they tbund to wor- 
ship. The most impartial critic's nose 
inclines involuntarily hearenwarJ the 
moment a woman cotues forward lo 
claim any intellectual place of bouur. 
And gcuiuB, the highest quality, man's 
special prerogative — horror of horrors I 
All n*ason says it cannot be : and niider* 
neath a subtle male esprit dm corpt too 
often adds that it shall not be- Of courae, 
the intruder canuot climb the height^ 
but to avoid accidentia and dijtappiiint* 
ment she is seldom sofienKi in try. Such 
are the ditliculties whieh beset the (lath 
of even the moat favered famalei 
rant. 

It ought not to surprise ns, then, 
Adelaide Anno Procter, even had ate 
been the most pushing and irrepreSH*' 
blu of blue-stockings, with cveiy van> 
tagc-ground of circumstance, was 110I 
appreciated as she deserved. Hut, in 
addition to the ori>;inal sin of bring m 
woman, several reasons peculiar to lier 
self concurred to render her nhal wc 
think she ha^ been, one of tlie moal 
underrated writers of her tlay. 

First, she was an Englishivoman. 
Hat! she not been, she might never 
have been anything; but once beini 
something, we do not think it was an 
utterly inestimable adviiiita{;e, For, 
as being English, ever)* one took for 
granted that she um§t l>e a Protectant, 
and ever}' one wa** disappointed and 
provoked to find her a Catholic. Now 
one of the circumstances i«hich miti* 
gate the glory of being English is thai 
there is very little ocAroiriaftc criiicisQi 
in England. As a wii^e and keen aft> 
alyst* complains, each of the review* 
has some set of theses nailett 10 lis 
doors, whose upholding is the ftnl 

• m^Mmm AmoM, ^a^yvla CHlklt^ 



I 




Adelaide Anne Procter, 



5£i5 



thing, to which all their criticism pro- 
per must stand subordinate. English 
bigotry, under nineteenth century 
forms, is to-day as patent, as under- 
stood, as calculable a mainspring and 
motive of public judgment as in Arch- 
bishop Laud's era. Miss Procters 
chance of any bigh praise was thus 
never very great. But appearing as 
she did on the scene of letters at a time 
when the Church of England was yet 
iu the full sanctimoniousness of righte- 
ous reaction against the dismembering 
logic of the Puseyites, any good there 
was in her was very safe from discovery 
by most of the critics. Had she been 
a self asserting sectarian, cramming 
bcr dogmas, as some of us did their 
abolitionism, down her readers* throats, 
she might have been bunted down to 
fame by the indignant zeal of the saint- 
ly star-chamberers of letters, who lead 
public opinion much as the foam leads 
the wave. Unfortunately for this 
opening. Miss Procter was a lady« 
and such self-assertion the most foreign 
of traits to her nature. Not loud 
enough for martyrdom, she was just 
firmly Catholic enough for misjudg- 
ment, or rather for denial of judgment. 
While the tribunals of criticism could 
not avoid taking notice of a book by 
Barry Cornwall's daughter, still, with 
all the little goo<l and ill the reviewers 
paid of her, they never did her the one 
essential service they could render, of 
putting her name where the reading 
public would see it and pass judgment 
on her. There is a way of praising 
that keeps off, and a way of blaming 
that attracts, the mass of readers. 

With the returning tide of ritualism, 
she has begun to be more appreciated, 
but it is only a beginning. We are 
so strongly inclined to think her poems 
at the outset of a new career in public 
favor, and we consider that so little jus- 
tice has been done her in the critical 
journals of this country, that we can- 
not help feeling toward them accord- 
ingly ; and so, in range of our attempted 
discussion of her merits, and copious- 
ness of citation, we have treated her in 
all respects precisely as a new author. 



For we believe sincerely that the 
clouds of circumstance and prejudice 
about Miss Procter s entrance into lit- 
erary life have obscured from us poet- 
ical powers not only of no common 
order, but of that calm, self-centred 
kind we have spoken of as rare enough 
in man, and the feminine counterpart 
of which is almost unknown in literary 
history. Her mind is not Shakespeare's, 
nor Coleridge's, nor Goethe's, but the 
resistless river and the fountain of the 
rocks may both be the overflow of the 
same sunless reservoir in the deep 
bosom of the mountains. And her 
poetry is indeed a fountain of the rocks ; 
pure, placid, deap of source, shaded yet 
sparkling, ^' making a quiet music all 
its own ;^' with no torrent nor show of 
force, yet musically passing all obsta- 
cles, and emerging, clear, bright, and 
beautiful, in the sunlight beyond. Most 
varied and versatile in her choice of 
subjects, she bring* to all a poetic in- 
sight, a freedom and fancy of expres- 
sion, a grasp of the topic, and, above all, 
a strange, noble earnestness, that alto- 
gether make up a style whose quiet 
charm we had rather easily illus- 
trate than elaborately fail in describ- 
ing. 

The key-note of all her writings ia 
thoughtfulness, and withal a peculiar 
kind of thoroughness of thought such 
as we have found in no other woman. 
Mrs. Browning (perhaps we ought to 
add the new Mrs. Augusta Webster, 
whose perceptive powers are the theme 
of the English reviews) is the only one 
who ever has analyzed nearly so- well, 
and she and all the others seem only in- 
cidentally, while Miss Procter is habitu- 
ally, analytical. Her entire superiority, 
indeed, is the consequence and corollary 
of this curious depth of mind. Bold in 
abstractions, tender in revealings of the 
heart, ingenious in incident and inven- 
tion, she is sure to have a well-defined 
thought at bottom, always suggestive, 
oflen philosophic, sometimes profound. 
The rare combination of entire feminity 
with this thinking habit is an originality 
in itself. Very novel and very charm- 
ing is the effect of seeing together with 



556 



Adekiide Anne Procter, 



this strong, clear, searching introspec- 
tion, all the woman's delicacy of touch. 
But the reader is tired of our gener- 
alities, and would mucli rather see for 
himself how well Miss Procter thinks. 
So we give him a tiair example in the 
poem called 

INCOMPLETENESa 

Nothing rentinp: in iU own conipletene»s 
Can have power or Iteaiity ; bat alone 

BecauNe it leadii an<{ tendii to farther gveetoeai, 
Fuller, higher, deeper than \U own. 

Spring^a real glory (hcelU not in the meaning^ 
Oracious thtntgh it be, of fur blue houf^ 

But is hidden in her ttmUr leaning 

To the Hummer^ $ richtr tctalth o/Jloicere. 

Dawn it fair because the mist* fade slo^lu 
Into day, which, floods the world with light; 

TieilighVs myntrry is so siceet and holy 
Just because it ends in starry night. 

ChlldhiXMrx snillei unconsicloua grace* borrow 
Vroni strife that in a far-oflT ^ture lies ; 

And angel glances {relied now by lifers sorrow) 
Draw our hearts to some beloved eyu. 

Life is only bright when it proceedeth 

Townrd a truer, deeper life above ; 
Human love Is sweetest when it Icadeth 

To a more divine and perfect love. 

Learn the mystery of progression duly : 
Do not call each glorious change decay; 

But know we only hold our treasures truly, 
When It seems as if they passed away. 

Nor dare to blame God^s gifts for incompleteness ; 

In that want their beauty lies ; they roll 
Toward some iiiflnlte depth of luvc and Bweetnesi, 

Bearing onward man's reluctant soul. 

This poem holds one of the great 
principles in Miss Procter's very noble 
theory of life — ^a theory abundantly de- 
veloped in her poems. Iler cardinal 
axioms would seem to be tliree : The 
great rule of life is progression; its 
great agent, sorrow ; its great fact and 
end, love. On these pillars she builds, 
and ^ Incompleteness' is one of the most 
direct statements of one part of her 
creed. Another fine poem, in thought 
a kind of companion- piece to this, in 
which we readily recognize the same 
underlying thought, is 

BEYOND. 

We mart not doubt, or fear, or dread that love for 
life is only given. 

And that the calm and sainted dead will meet estrang- 
ed and cold In heaven : 

Oh! love were poor and vain, Indeed, baied on to 
I and stern a creed. 



Vkve that this earth mast pais away with all the ftarry 

worids of light. 
With all the glory of the day, and calmer tendemeti 

of olght, 
•Ibr In that radiant home can thine alone the Inunor* 

MABd divine. 



Eartirs lower things— her pride, 

learning, wealth, and power, 
Slow growths that throngh long age* canw, or frails 

of some convulsive hour. 
Whose very memory must decay— heaven is too |Mire 

for such as they. 

They are complete; their work done. Bo let them 

sleep in endless rest. 
Love's life Is only here begun, nor Is, nor can be, fhlly 

blest; 
It has no room to spread its wings, amid thla crowj 

of meaner things. 

Just for the very shadow thrown upon Ita sweetness 

hero below, 
The cross thai it mast bear alone, and bloody b^rtlm 

of woe. 
Crowned and completed through ita pain, we knew 

that it sjiall rise again. 

So, if its flame burn pore and bright, here where oar 

air is dark and den«v, 
(And nothing In this world of night lives with a living 

so intense,) 
When it shall reach W* home at length, how bright 

Itf light 1 how strong Its strength I 

And while the vain weak loves of earth (fur snch base 

counterfeits abonnd) 
Shall perish with what gave tliem birth — their graves 

are green and ivv%\\ around— 
No funeral song sliall need to rise for the true love 

that never dies. 

If In my heart I now could fear that, risen a^gain, we 

should not know 
What was our life of life when here— the hearU we 

loveil so much below — 
I would arise this very day and east to pow a thing 

away. 

Bat love Is no such toollets clod ; living, perfected it 

shall rise. 
Transflgured in the light of God, and giving glory \» 

the tkles : 
And that which makes this life to sweet shall render 

heaven's Joy complete. 

As a poem, this latter is superior, 
becaui^e it applies beautifully to a beau- 
tiful subject the principle which the 
otlicr merely enunciates. And the 
style is not less remarkable than the 
ideas. Can anything be more clearly, 
calmly right than the thought, more 
easy, lucid, real than its utterance? 
And it is not the bald perspicuity, 
either, of mere logical disquisition, 
but full of suggestion and spirit ; and 
it does not flag ; es|)ccially in Beyond 
there is not a weak line nor lower 
thought. Now is not all this refresh- 
ing after the diffuse grace and dilute 
sweetness of female poetry in general ? 
It is to tlie run of it as a copse of May's 
arbutus to a meadow strewn with but- 
tercups. 

Apropos of this superiority, we find 
another poem which illustrates it even 
more strongly, because so very many 
women have fluttered about the tame 



Adelaide Anne JProcter. 



507 



thought. Every femme ineomprUe — 

and what poetess does not think she is 
one ? — is full of it ; why have none of 
them said it so broadly and well as this ? 



UNEXPRESSED. 

Dwells within the soul of every artl«t 
More than all his effort can expresa, 

An*l he knons the best remalni unuttered, 
sighing at what v>e call his sucoesi. 

Vuinly he may strive ; he dare not tell us 
All the sacred mysteries of the skies : 

Vainly he may strive ; ttic d^eiiest beauty 
Cannot be unveiled to mortal eyes. 

And the more devoutly that he listens, 
And the holier mcsnage that Is sent. 

Still the more his soul must struggle vainly, 
Bowed beneath a noble discontent. 

No great thinker ever lived and taught yon 
AH the wonder that his soul received \ 

No true painter ever set on canvas 
All the glorious vision he conceived. 

No musician ever held your spirit 

Charmed and t>ouud in his melodious chains, 
But be sure he heard, and strove to render 

Feeble echoed of celestial strains. 

No real poet ever wove In numbers 
All hisi dream, but the diviner i)art, 

lli<lden fnim all the world, spake to lilm only 
In the voiceless silence of his heart 

So with love ; for love and art united 
Are twin mysteries ; dlllcront, yet the same : 

Poi»r, ituleetl, woiill be the love of any 
Who could find its full and perfect name. 

Love may strive, but vain U the enileuvor 
All its boundless riches to unfold ; 

Still Iti* t«nderc3t, truest secret liutrers 
Ever in its deepest depths untold. 

Thinus of time have voices, speak and |)erish : 
Art and love speak, hut their words must be 

SlKhint;^ ^f illiraituble forest.-*. 
Waves of an unf.itbomable sea. 



The positive merit of this — passing 
the odious business of comparison — is, 
to our mind, the well-managed ampli- 
fication of the main tliought, and the 
swell both of sense and sound at the 
close, which we find a beauty of high 
onler. The last two lines especially 
seize the melo<lic principle of the me- 
tre, which, beyond almost any other, 
we knoss', calls for long musical words. 
Only " voiceless silence " strikes one 
as tautolojrical to the last degree. Miss 
Proctor very rarely makes outright 
mistakes, and she may have seen some 
subtle sense added by (he word " voice- 
loss '' that we cannot. All the silences 
we have ever known were strictly voice- 
less, and decidedly apt to terminate 
about the time any voice began. 



The next great topic with our poetr 
ess is tlie sweet uses of adversity. 
She is never weary of celebrating the 
beauty and benignity of sorrow. In 
fact, she appears to have a personal 
friendship for misfortune, as the great - 
elevating and purifying dispensation of 
earthly existence. Grief, disappoint- 
ment, death, are to her philosophy but 
natural incidents, to be expected and 
met without fear — processes tending to 
the higher result hereafter. But here 
is her whole thought, better set forth 
than we can say it : 

FRIEND SORROW. 

Do not cheat thy heart and tell her 

Grief will pass away, 
Ilope for fairer times in future 

And forget to-day. 
Tell her, 11^ you will, that sorroir 

Need not come In vain, 
Tell, her tluU the lesson taught her 

Far outweighs the pain. 

Cheat her not with the old comfbrt, 

"Soon she will forget:" 
Bitter truth, alas ! but matter 

]Uther for regret. 
Biil her not *' Seek other pleasure!, 

Turn to other thlnfr;* :" 
R.Uher nurse her c*av'ed sorrovr 

Till the cai>tive sings. 

Rather bid her go forth bravely 

And the stranger greet. 
Not as foes with sjwar and buckler, 

But as dear friends meet ; 
Bid her with a strong clasp hold her 

By her dusky wings, 
Listening for the murmured blessing 

Sorrow always brings. 

This is only one of a large number 
of poems full of varied exposition of 
these same views. Some are so in- 
genious and happy that we can hardly 
resist quoting them, werc it not that, if 
those were the only qualifications, we 
should have to cite the major part of 
her poems. In fact, this conception of 
sorrow as a hidden blessing is peca- 
liarly strong in all she has written. 
And yet, while recognizing in tribula- 
tion an elevating grace that wins it a 
welcome from her heart, she fully feels 
the sadness, the weariness, the poverty 
and pain of earthly lives. A strong 
instance of this is the '* Cradle Song 
of the Poor, ' with its singular, sad 
refrain : 

" Slepp, my darling, thou art weary, 
God U good, but life is dreary." 



558 



Adelaide Anne Procter. 



And the miseries of the poor have 
evoked the only bitter h'nes she ever 
wrote, which, coming, as they do, the 
very last in her book, seem almost like 
an after-addition — the stranoje strong 
lines called •' Homeless." There is a 
force in some of the lines that reminds 
us of Hood : 



It is cold, dark midnight, yet listen 

To that patter of tiny fe«t ! 
Is it one of your dofrs, fair lady, 

Who whined in the bleak, cold street 7 
Is it one of your tsilken spaniels 

Shut out in the snow and the sleet ? 

My dogs sleep warm in tlieir basket.^. 
Safe from the darkness* ami snow ; 

Ail the beasts in our Ctirit^tlan England 
Find pity wherever they go. 

(Thos»c are only the homeless chlhlren 
Who are wandering to and f^o.) 

Look out in the gusty darlcness : 

I hayc seen it again and agiiln. 
That shadow, that tlits so slowly 

Up and down post the window-pane : 
It is surely some criminal lurking 

Out there in the frozen rahi ! 

Nay, our criminals all are sheltered. 
They are pitied and taught and fed : 

That Ia only u fridter-wonian. 
Who has got ntither Uhm\ n(»r IkmI : 

And thfi Night cri^n, " Sin to hf tiring ;'* 
And the liirtr crics^ "An to be c/^«</." 

There is one other piece j>erhans even 
sadder than this when wc penetrate its 
fall, stem significance : 

THE REQUITAL. 

Loud roared the tempest, fast fell tlie sWt ; 
A little child-anjTtl ]va9se«I down tli.^ street 
With trailing pinions and weary feet. 

The moon was hiilden ; no stars were brlglit ; 
So she couhi not shelter in heuveti th-it night. 
For the angtltl' laddtrn are raya c\f Ihjht. 

She l>eat her win;:* at ea-:h wln(Jow-]»ane, 
And pleaded for shelter, btit uU in vain : 
** Listen,*' they paid, *' to the |>vltlng ruin ! ^* 

She sobbed, as the laughter and mirth grew higher, 
**Givo mo rent and shelter liej*l«ie yt>ur lire, 
And I will give you your heart's dtj^ire." 

Tlie dreamer sat watching \\U en.Wrs jrleam. 

While bis heart was fl'.»:»tliig d-»wn hoiH.'*s bri;jrht 

stream. 
So lie wove her wailing into hi* dream. 

The worker tolled on, for Ills time was brief; 
The moum-^T w.is nMr:*ln£r her own i«ale grh-f : 
They heard not tlie promise that brought relief. 

Bat ftcrcer the tempe-t rose than hefor<», 
Wlien the angel paused at a humble door 
And asked for :<hilter and help unee more. 

A weary woman, pale, worn, and thin, 
With the brand upon her of want and sin. 
Heard the chlldangel and took her in. 

Took her in gently, ami did her best 
Til dry her innionti ; and made her rest 
WUta leader pity upon bar breast. 



Wlien the eastera tnoming grew bright voA red. 

Up the tint sunbeam the angel fled. 

Having idsaed the woman, and left her^— dead. 

Human waifs forgotten by all their 
kind are a sorrowful picture enough, 
but this of a human heart so desolate, 
so blank, so seared, so far from all hope 
or joy in life, that even God its Crea- 
tor docs not deny its supreme wish to 
die, is inexpressibly dreary. This is 
worthy to stand beside Tennyson's 
" Manana in the Moated Grange." 

One touch worth noticinjr is the fic- 
tion by which the angel is detained on 
earth ; tliat '* the angels' ladders are 
i-ays of light.*' It stiikes us as one of 
the most ingenious we have ever met, 
and no less beautiful than happy. The 
wholt; structure of the narrative indeed, 
is admirable ; it is difficult to see how 
the parts could be fitted more nicely. 
This skill Miss Procter has in an un- 
common degree, and all her longer nar- 
mtive poems exemplify it. 

Of course, such thoughts on life as 
these last verses contain blend natu- 
rally with noble thoughts on death. 
Here, again, Miss Procter's |)revailing 
thoujihtl'ulness has developed her ideas 
into many beautiful applications, llie 
linos called *' The Angel of Death," 
wiii<"h so toiicliingiy close Charles 
Dickens's late sketch of her, the sweet, 
weary '• Tryst with Death, ' and many 
others, arc examples of tills. But 
among them all there is none which 
more truly einbodicri her conceptions, 
or which, at the same time, is more 
deeply instinct with the hopefulness 
which underlies all her graver utter- 
ances, tiian the admirable lines : 

OT'U DKAI). 

Nt»lhln? U our own ; we In 11 our tr^nsuri'S 
Ju:*t a llttlf tiniH vvv tJo-y are ll«d : 

One liy one life ri>'M u-* (•! *.mr trrn^urtrH : 
Nothini; i« our own txoifj-t mir tlv.nl. 

They arv oiir?. and hold Ih faith'ul kfjiinp, 

S,ife for ever, all tJiey lo-ik away. 
Crufl life can \u\vr t»tlr th^t -iHtpiiv.' ; 

Criifl time can never sil/o that pit v. 

Justice jKih's, truth f.i If*, htars f il! fii>.n liei\i n ; 

Uuiiian are the }:r«'Ht whoin wi- n-viTt- ; 
No true crown of honor can h*' z'W'u, 

Till wr placf it on a funcr.ii M- r. 

How the cliililrvii loavo \\t>, and n* tr.uta 
!.lnp:r of t"iat "milln.: ini:. I i..i:i>i ; 

Gout', for evvr fr<ine ; Mnd In tht Ir p'.n-o^ 
Weary men und an\i<>u» w< n.trn ^tand. 



Adelaide Anne Procter. 



5S9 



TH fPS hav€ $ome IUU4 on49^ •till oun ; 

7/t/y hare kept ths baby ernile^ tre knatc^ 
WhicJi tre kimtedon^ day, and h Id vdth Jhfctr*, 

On thtir d^ad toMte/aets, long ago, 

Wlicn our joy is lost— nnd life wlU take it— 
'I hen no memory of the pai«t remain*, 

Save with some stranfre, cruel stinfr, to make it 
Jtittemess beyond all present pains. 

Death, more fender-hearted, learetio torroto 
^ill the ra*iiant Mhadov:,f(md regret; 

We sliall find. In some far bright to-morrow 
J(iy that be has taken, living yet. 

Is love oun», and do we dream we know It 
Bound witli all our heart-strings all our own ? 

Any c'>M and cruel dawn may show it 
Shattered, desecrated, overthrown. 

Only the dead hearts fortiake ti« ne^er : 
Death's last kiss has been the mystio sign 

Oonnecrating lore our own for evett 
ih-oicning it eternal and divine, 

iSo when Fate would fain heUege our city. 
Dim our gold or make wtr flowers fall. 

Death, the angel, comes in love and pity 
And, to sate our treaiiures, claime them all. 

Her ideas regarding death are very 
lofty. They are equally removed from 
the timorous, painful harping on dis- 
solution that characterizes the under- 
done poetic organism, from the graphic 
grimness of Siiss Rossetti^s class of 
thinkers, who seem to take a ghastly 
delight in anatomizing the subject, and 
last from the passionate weak welcom- 
ing of the end — the coward courage 
which dares not live. In a word, Miss 
Procter was a Christian. 

In quitting her poems of thought, it 
will perhaps be well to pretermit our 
long course of praise, and speak of the 
faults of her writing, most of which are 
strongest in these very poems. In 
verbal correctness, she is far above the 
average ; for so voluminous a writer, 
singularly free from them. Still, by 
G. Washington-Moon-Iight, we can dis- 
cover certain errors, prmci pally of ac- 
cent or collocation. Some few appear 
in the verses we have cited. In ^ Be- 
yond," ** baptism" is made a trisylki- 
ble; though, standing where it does, 
an appeal might well be taken to the 
higlier equity of rythm against the 
arbitrary technicahty of the law of 
orthoepy. Also, we doubt if *' perfect- 
ed" be the best pronunciation to day. 
And in '* Ilomeless," in the expression, 



" Ts It one of your dogs, fair lady, 
Who whines in the bleak, oold street?" 



it might — with all respect for the in* 
telligence of the race at large, and, 
above all, for the prodigious latent ca- 
pabilities of all ladies' dogs — it might 
be seriously questioned whether the ca- 
nine personality is so marked as to ad- 
mit of the relative '* who." We feel 
quite sure that the original idea was to 
reserve this particular pronoun for sel- 
fish mankind, and we fear that the slow 
science of grammar is still fettered^ 
even as to the most marvellous of the 
dog kind, by the trammellmg traditions 
of comparative anatomy. 

Bnt such flaws as these are venial, 
occurring as they do at rare intervals, 
in a very hirge number of verses, writ- 
ten young, and crowded into the com- 
pass of a few years. Many of them 
were mere passing contributions to the 
periodical press of the day, and, taken 
as a whole, compare to advantage with 
the hasty emanations of almost any 
author. 

In metre Miss Procter achieves no 
high effects, and attempts none. With 
very fair taste in selection of metre, 
she is by no means an artist in rhythm, 
and appears to aim at little or nothiog 
beyond passable metrical correctness. 
She is carelessly harsh and incidental- 
ly melodious. Once or twice she tries 
some sort of irregular or lyric measure, 
and it appears rather to impede than 
aid her accustomed dear flow of 
thought 

In style she has two prominent 
though not great faults. One is her 
refinement She is so refined that it 
would, even had she reached the full 
promise of her life, have prevented 
her, in all probability, from ever being 
broadly popular. Her field is too high 
and narrow : she deals mainly with sen- 
iments and sympathies which interest 
only those who have not only sorrowed, 
but reflected. But this blame is praise 
in itself. The other is more of a real 
fault. Miss Procter tempts us to be- * 
lieve that the diffuseness which we have 
attributed chiefly to their education has 
some foundation in woman's nature it- 
self. Different as she is from the ordi- 
nary type, her womanhood vindicatet 



560 



Adelaide Anne ProcUr. 



itself, though still in a way of her own. 
The effect on her style is not what wo 
spoke of— dilution — but amplification. 
Sometimes she is led away by her fertil- 
ity of illustration to illustrate too much. 
She holds up the idea in too many 
lights, more than are needful to under- 
stand her. Tliere is a little of this 
even in '* Incompleteness," before cited, 
• but the illustrations arc so happy that 
the effect is not jKirceived ; it is seldom 
wo are troubled with too many good 
things in a poem. Very often, how- 
ever, this practice of ramifying thoughts 
into so many applications— one natural 
result of her tliorongh thinking — great- 
ly injures the whole, and almost al- 
ways, where there is much of this am- 
plification, it passes beyond the strict 
limits of the strongest effect. 

There are, furthermore, some few 
poems liable to cavil which seem to 
have been mere exercises or experi- 
ments, and call for other criticism than 
her finished performances. Othei-s 
suffer from their author's invetonilc 
habit of seizing on everyday subjects. 
Now and then she takes up one so trite 
that all the charm of her matnier can- 
not mend it. The result is like a peb- 
ble- set in filigree. 

The only grave artistic fault we 
ever found in her poems occurs in (he 
Legend of Proveii<;e, one of her b<*st 
narrative pieces, founde<l on the c?x- 
quisite Legend of tlio Virgiti Mary's 
assuming the ]»ei-sr.nality and filling 
the place of a nun who has ])roved false 
to her vows and fled her convent, lle- 
lientant at last,siie retunis, a worn-out 
beggar, to die where her n'ligion die<l, 
meets her semblance, recognizes it aa 
what she might have been, and implores 
Mary*s aid. 



And Mary •n*wiTi»il : " From thy bitter ]»a<t, 
Welftmie, my chlM ! Oh I ^rlromo lionirnt lust ! 
I fllltMl thy pl.ii*^: thr tllirbt in known touunff 
For all thy ilully •lufl'.»!« I liavc done ; 
QttthervtJ thy flowtr* und pniTetl, and vnnir, and iilvpt ; 
*^ *~t Ihuu uot knoir, pour child, Uiy pUce wu ktfi»t^'* 



This St likes us as a tremendous 
blunder. For tlie nun to know that 
her place was kept would knock the 



bottom out of the entire legend. Who 
wouldn't &in with his pardon drawn 
up in advance, and entire secrecy and 
perfect restoration awaiting the first 
active twinge of repentance ? We 
cannot imagine for an instant how Miss 
Procter could overlook this ; unless we 
have made some equally egregious er- 
ror in our understanding of the poem 
and its scope. 

We find, or fancy we find, in her 
writings, a shade of resemblance to the 
taste and tact of her father, '* Barry 
Cornwall" Perhaps it was because 
she feared her generic tendencies of 
style, that she has written few or no 
songs, and none at all like his sort. If 
her object was to avoid suspicious re- 
semblance, she has succeeded. The 
likeness is utterly intangible, and there 
is not a trace anywhere of an imita 
tion most natural to her relations with 
him, and which must have proved easy 
to talent like hers. 

Another noteworthy fact about her 
is also alluded to by Mr. Dickens. It 
is the total absence of humor, and the 
sober and shaded style of what she 
has written. lie takes occasion, wlule 
speaking of this prevailing sciiousness 
in one so young, expressly to bar the 
inference that she was of the melan- 
choly moonlit sort, and mentions her 
abundant wit, and keen sense of the 
ludicrous, and tlie joyous quality of her 
laugh. We do not think an observant 
rea<ler would misconceive lur, as her 
kind-hearted biographer apprehended. 
She lacks the distinctive element of 
morbidness. There is a soundness in 
her sadness, so to speak, tliat makes us 
feel it to be the shadow of a soul that 
knows the sunshine also. Moumftil 
I)eople of the true chronic moumful- 
ucss show it far more by taking dis- 
mal views of ordinary subjects than 
by dealing only in dismal things. But 
the fact itself suggests a curious ques- 
tion which our aphorists have not yet 
answered. How is it that some men 
naturally rollick in print, while others, 
not less humorous, write nothing but 
tho gravect stuff? What made Ilood*s 
pen merry on his deuth-bed, and took 



Adelaide Anme Froeier. 



561 



the wit 80 out of Sydney Smith's »er. 
mons ? These two classes are so mark- 
ed that one would think there must be 
a principle of some so4 dividing them. 
Yet no one has ever laid down this 
principle. We no more pretend to do 
this than the rest, but merely raise the 
question, leavino; it to some future cri- 
tic to disentangle us from a most Car- 
tesian dubitation. 

Thus far we have quoted mainly 
in illustration of Miss Procter's cha- 
racteristics. It must not be inferred, 
however, that there are not in her 
books excellences not specially arising 
out of her peculiar ideas of life. On 
the contrary, there are a number of 
pieces of that provoking class of good 
things which we might just as weU 
have written ourselves — only we didn't. 
Very few of our friends, though, would 
think of looking m an English author 
for the following strong, spirited pro- 
test, written in 18G1, when it was pro- 
posed to "strengthen the hands" of 
the mission for the conversion of Irish 
Catholics : 

AN APPEAL. 

Spnre her, cruel England t 

Thy sister lleth loir : 
Chained and oppressed she lleth ; 

Spare her that cruel blow. 
We aalc not for the freedom 

lleaven has vouchsured to thee, 
Nor bid thee »hare with Ireland 

The empire of the sea. 
Her children ask no shelter — 

Leave tliera the stormy sky ; 
They {u*k not for thy tiarveiita, 

For they know how to die ; 
Deny tiiem, if it please thee, 

A grave beneath the sod ; 
But we do cry, England, 

Leave them their faith In God I 

Take, if thou wilt, the eamlngt 

Of the poor |>eajiant'i toil ; 
Take all the Bcanty produce 

That grows on Irish soil, 
To pay the alien preachers 

Whom Ireland will not hear- 
To pav the scoffers at the creed 

Which Irish hearts hold dear : 
But leave them, cruel England, 

The gia their God has given ; 
Ijeavc them their ancient worship. 

Leave them their faith In hearcn. 



You come and offer learning— 

A miglity gift, 'tis true. 
Perchance the greatest blessing 

That now is known to you ; 
But not to see the wonders 

Sages of old beheld 
Can they peril a priceless treaaore. 

The faith their fathers held. 
VOL. V. — 36 



For in leamlDf and in eeienoe 

They may forget to pray : 
Qod tPiU not atkfor knoicUdff^ 

On the greaijudgttunt day. 

When, in thdr wretched cabins, 

Racked by the fever pain. 
And the wealc cries of their chtldraB 

Who ask for food In vain ; 
When, starving, naked, helpless, 

From the shed that keeps them wa 
Man has driven them forth to perish 

In a less cruel storm ; 
Then, then, we plead for mercy ; 

Then, sister, hear our cry ; 
For all we ask, O England, 

Is— leave them there to die ! 
Cursed is the food and raiment 

For which a soul is sold ; 
Tempt not another Judas 

To barter God for gold. 
Ton offer food and shelter 

If they their faith deny ; 
What do vou gain, Bngland I 

By such a shallow lie f 
We will not judge the tempted — 

May Qod blot out thehr shame- 
Be sees the misery round them. 

He knows man's feeble frame. 
His pity still may save them. 

In his strength they must trust 
Who calls us all hia children, 

Tet knows we are but dusi. 

Then leaTetliem the kind tending 

Which helped their childish years ; 
Leave them the gracious comfort 

Which dries their mourner's tears ; 
Leave them to that great mother 

In whose bosom they were bom, 
Leave them the holy mysteries 

That comfort the forlorn ; 
And, amid all their trials. 

Let the great gia abide. 
Which you, O prosperous England I 

Have dared to cast aside. 
Leave them the pitying angels. 

And Mary's aentle aid, 
For which earth's dearest treasoret 

Were not too dearly paid. 
Take back your bribes, then, England, 

Your gold is black and dim ; 
And if God Mnd* plague and/amins, 

Thty oandU and go (o him. 

This b by far the most unpolished 
and unequal thing Miss Procter has 
ever written, and full of faults of de- 
tail. But, spite of loose texture and 
repetition, and weak lines, and identi- 
cal rhymes, there is a strength in all 
the essential features, and a spirit 
everywhere, that contrast strongly 
with the patriotic effusions that we 
have had so much of these last few 
years. 

Another poem which haq. incident- 
ally attracted no little notice is Home- 
ward Bound, which anticipates the 
whole plot of Enoch Arden so com- 
pletely that some shallow people felt 
called upon to say a number of very 
foolish things about the coincidenoa 
when Enoeh Arden came out* The 



562 



Adelaide Anne IVoeier, 



chief differences are that the ship- 
wrecked hero is thrown on a desert 
island in the one and captared by 
Moors in the other. Enoch Arden 
also turns awaj from the agonizing 
picture of his forfeited home in silence, 
while Miss Procter's mariner reveals 
himself, kisses his wife once more cu if 
she were his, and departs, leaving the 
very awkward bigamy question wide 
open behind him, and in general evinc- 
ing a noble ignorance of the law of 
England. He also perpetrates the 
dramatic error of surviving in a state 
of marine vagrancy for a quarter of a 
x^ntury. But, though inferior to Ten- 
jiyson's, this poem has many excellent 
touches of pathos and nature, and must 
•ckim, equally with Enoch Arden, the 
full merit of its simplo yet most telling 
•conception. 

Apropos of resemblances, we are 
tempted to quote another of her best 
known poems, both for its real beauty 
and because it subtly reminds us of 
Longfellow, and we should be thank- 
ful if someone would only tell us why: 

THE STORM. 

Tlie tompett rages wild and high ; 
The wave* lift up their voice and cry 
fierce answers to the angry sky. 
Miserert Domiite 

Through the black night and driving rain, 
A ship is stnifrgling, all in vain, 
To live upon the stormy main. 

Mistrtre Do/nine, 

The thuntlers roar, the lightnings glare. 
Vain is it now to strive or dare ; 
A cry goes up of great deM>aIr, 

Mi»erere Vomins, 

The stormy voices of the main. 
The moaning wind and pelting rain 
Beat on the nurttery window-pane, 
Mherere Dornine. 

Warm curtained was the little lied, 
8oa pillowed was the lllUe head : 
" The storm will wake the child " they said. 
JfUertre Dornine. 

Cowering among his pillows white. 
He prays, his lilue eyes dim with f right, 
" Father, save tbo^e at sea to-ni^tit !*' 
Minrert lM>mlne. 

The morning shone all clear and gay 
On a ship at anchor in the bay. 
And on a little child at play. 

OloHa tibl Dotnim I 

Oat of many which commend them- 
selves, we select only one more, a lit- 
tle gem which we were surprised and 



pleased to find copied the other <Uy&i 
a little New York evening paper. We 
think it very suggestive and sweet 



▲ LOST CHORD 

Seated one day at the organ, 
I woa weary and lU at aase, 

And my fingers wandered Idly 
Over the noisy keys. 

I do not know what I was playing'. 
Or what I was dreaming then. 

But I struck one chord of muslo 
Like the sound of a great i 



It flooded the crimson t^ 



willeht 
Like the close of an angers paalm. 
And it lay on my fevered apirlt 
With a touch of infinite calm. 

It quieted pain and sorrow. 

Like love overcoming strife ; 
It seemed the harmonlons echo 

From our discordant life. 

It linked all perplexed roeaningi 

Into one perfect peace, 
And trembled away into silence 

As if it were loth to c 



I have sought, but I seek it rainly. 

That one lo»t chord divine. 
That came fh>m the soul of the organ. 
And entered into mine. 

It may be that I>eath*s bright angel 
'Wili speak in that chord again. 

It may be that only in heaven 
I shall hear that grand Amen. 



We have yet to speak of one great 
clement in these poems, their religion. 
With those who arc bom and bred in 
a church, their belief sits on them like 
their clothes — becomes a part of them- 
selves. With converts it id oftcner 
like a badge which they are proud to 
wear, and which some are fond of dis- 
playing. Miss Procter's was one of 
those rare natures in which religion 
seems to stain back, as it were, and color 
the very fountain-heads of all thought 
and impulse*, as they arc colored by the 
associations of childhood. In her, it was 
not like regalia for the processions of life 
or a reserve fund for emergencies, but 
thoroughly assimilated and vitalized; 
a living faith ; an actual, practical ele- 
ment in her daily doings, as present in 
her consciousness as her own individ- 
uality. Nor had she any of the com- 
bativeness of converts, whose xeal is 
apt sometimes to be aggressively meek 
and intolerantly lowly. Hei*s was a 
iaith full of the charity that judges not. 
Like all real feeling, it never obtrudes 



Adelaide Anne Procter. 



itself, and never shrinks from appear- 
ing in its proper place. Thus she has 
very few devotional and no sectanan 
pieces at all in her Legends and 
Lyrics, but once professedly entering 
on that line of thought, in her Chap* 
U*t of Verses, she is both Christian and 
Catholic throughout 

Yet among the few devotional pieces 
in the earlier series we find one of the 
best : 

THE PEACE OP GOD. 

We ask for peace, I/ord I 

Thy children auk thy peace ; 
Not what the world callt rett. 

That toll and care should cease ; 
That through bright sunny houn 

Calm life should fleet away. 
And tranquil night should fade 

In smiling day : 
It is not for such peace that we would prtj. 

We ask for peace, Lord 1 

Tet not to stand secure. 
Girt r^und with Iron pride, 

C«)ntented to endure : 
Crufihing the gentle strings 

That human hearts should know, 
Untoucheii by others* joy 

Or others* woe : 
Thou, dear Lord ! wilt never teach as so. 

We ask thy peace, Lord I 
Through storm, and fear, and strife, 

To light and guide us on 
Through a long, struggling life : 

While no success or gain 
Shall cheer the desperate flight, 

Or nerve what the world calls 
Our wasted might ; 

Tet pressing through the darkness to the light 

It Is thine own, Lord ! 

Who toll while others sleep ; 
Who MW with loving care 

What other hands shall reap : 
They lean on thee entranced 

In calm and perfect rest : 
Give as that peace, Lord ! 

Divine and blest, 
Thoa keepest for those hearts who love thee 
bebU 

Very like this in sentiment are seve- 
ral of her best pieces, "Per Pacem 
ad Lucem," " Ministering Angels," and 
' • Thankfulness." There arc a number 
nlfo addressed to the Virgin Mary, the 
best of which are too long for insertion. 
It is this which will restrict our quota- 
tions to one more piece, which breathes 
that lofty ardor that every struggling 
Christian has felt in his brighter hours 
of exaltation, and sighed to know that 
common moods cannot rise to it. 

OUB TITLES. 

Are ve not Nobles ? w« who trace 

Our pedigree so high 
That God ft>r oi and lor our race 

Created earth and Iky, 



And light and air and time and ipaea. 
To serve us and then dlef 

Are we not Princes? we who stand 

As heirs beside the throne. 
We who can call the promised land 

Our heritage, onr own ; 
And answer to no less command 

Than God*s, and his alone ? 

Are we not Kings ? both night and daj. 

From early until late. 
About oar bed, about onr way, 

A guard of angels wait ; 
And so we watch and work and pray 

In more than royal state. 



Are we not more? oar life shall be 

Immortal and divine. 
The nature Mary gave to thee. 

Dear Jesus, sUll is thine: 
Adoring In thy heart I see 

Such blood a« beats in mine. 

God ! that we can dare to Call 
And dare to say we most I 

God 1 that we can ever trail 
Such banners In the dust. 

Can let such starry honors pale 
And such a blaion rust ! 

Shall ve npon snch titles bring 
The taint of sin and shame ? 

Shall we, the children of the King, 
Who hold so grand a claim, 

Tarnish by any meaner thing 
The glory of our name? 



But, altliough just today, in the pre- 
sent undeveloped state of woman's in- 
tellect, Miss Procter may strike us 
most by her advance in thought beyond 
her sex, she has a far higher claim on 
us for the admiration due to true wo- 
manhood. Where do these poets school 
theu' souls, that they come forth full of 
the experience of threescore years and 
ten? We know that Miss Procter 
died in the prime and summer of her 
days, with most of the great epochs 
and experiences of a woman's life vet 
before her. It is not even said that 
she ever loved ; for the sake of him 
who should lose her, we hope it may 
be so. Yet her poems hold more ten- 
derness and truth, more of real love, its 
anxiety, faith, fulfilment, more of wo- 
man's inner life, than any ten of the 
sweet soft natures who have taken 
these things to be their sole province ; 
who fancy their inkstands are in their 
souls, and devote a lifetime of harm- 
less harpings to rhyming some flutter- 
ings of heart and more flutterings of 
nerves. Here, as everywhere, we 
meet with Miss Proctex^s nnfUllDg foroe 



GM 



Adeiaide Anne I¥o€imr. 



and clearness, and tremble at first to 
meet it. For of all agonizing things 

Si3 many a sensitive natare can testify) 
ere is none like the unconscious cru- 
elty of pure intellect when it comes 
to deal with the strange intuitions, the 
noble unreason, the holy follies of the 
heart But hand in liand with her in- 
born analysis comes such a woman- 
hood, so deep, so delicate, so full of 
sympathy and sweet counsel, as passes 
wonls. This union it in, as we said 
before, that stamps Miss Procter a poet. 
VTe men cannot half appreciate this ; 
the sisterhood of sex that her poems 
mudt establish with women who have 
loved and suffered is for some woman 
only to set forth. 

It is difficult to choose any one poem 
which stands pre-eminent in these quali 
ties. One which will show her insight 
into the seemingly contradictory im- 
pulses of a woman's breast is 

A WOJIAN'S QUESTION. 

Before I trust my fkt« to thee, 

Or place my hand in thine ; 
Before I let thy fatare f^ve 

Color and form to mine, 
Before I peril «11 for thee, 
Qoeition thy soul to-night for me. 

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel 

A shadow of repnet : 
Is there one link within the past 

That holds thy spirit yet? 
Or is thy faith as clear and f^«e 
As that which I can pledge to thoe? 

Does there within thy dimmest dreamt 

A possible future shine, 
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe 

ITntouched, unshared by mine i 
If so, at any pain or cost, 
Ohl tvU me before aU is lost. 

Look deeper still. If thou canst feel 

Within thy inmost soul 
That thou hast kept a portion hack, 

While I hare staked the whole, 
Let no false pity spare the blow, 
But in true mercy tell me so. 

If there within thy heart a need 

That mine cannot fulfil f 
One chord that any other h«nd 

Could better wake or still? 
Speak now-~lest at tome future day 
My whole life wither and decay. 

Uvet there irithin thy natare hid 

The demon-spirit Change, 
Sheddinf a passing glory still 

On all things new and strange? 
It may not be thy fault alone — 
Bot ahield my heart againat thy own. 

Cooldst tbon withdraw thy hand one day. 

And answer to my claim 
That ftUe, and that to day's mistake^ 

Mot tkMK-ha4 been to bkune r 



Some soothe their coasdenoe thoe; battbea 
Wilt surely warn and tare me now. 

Nay, answer noi—l dare not hear, 

The words would come too late ; 
Yet I would spare thee all remone, 

So comfbrt thee, my fkt»~ 
Whaterer on my heart may flUl, 
Bemember, I toould riak It all. 

The strength of this is in the render- 
ing of that eloquent instinct of lore 
which intuitively strikes the most re* 
sponsive chord. Here it hits on the 
strongest appeal a woman can make to 
a man — to save her against himself. 
And no one can deny the boldness and 
beauty of the closing turn of thought 

The following poem bears a strong 
resemblance to the last in tone and 
train of analysis, with an element of 
calm fruition instead of the utter devo- 
tion. The one is love's June of trust ; 
the other its September of fulfilment 

A BETBOSFECT. 

From this fair point of present bUas, 

Where we together stand. 
Let me look back once more, and trace 

That long and desert land 
Wherein till now was cast my lot. 
And I could live, and thou wert not. 



What had I then ? A hope that grew 
Each hour more tiright and dear, 

The flush upon the eastern skies 
That Htiowed the sun was near. 

Now night has fkded fkr away. 

My suu has risen, and it la day. 

A dim Idesl of tender grace 

III my soul reigned supreme ; 
Ton ntihltr Mini tot» sweet, 1 thought, 

Ti» live wive in a dre:tm ; 
Within thy heart to^Iay it lies. 
And looks on me from thy dear eyes. 

Some irentle spirit — love, I thought— 

Ituilt many a shrine of iiain ; 
TlioiiKh each TuNe UlA M\ lu dust, 

Thtf wnr»hl|) vA* not VJtln, 
But a faint radiant shadow, east 
Back from our luve upou tiie iKint. 

And grief, too, held her vigil there ; 

With unrelenting sway. 
Breaking my cloudy visions down, 

Tlirowing mv flowers away : 
I owe to her fond car<* alone 
That I may now be all thine own. 

Fair Joy was there : her fluttering wingi 

At time she strove to raise ; 
Watchlnr thnmxh long hhiI patient nights. 

Listening long eager days : 
I know now tliat her heart and mine 
Werv waiting, love, to welcome thine. 

Tims I can read thy name throughout. 

And, now her task N done, 
Can^Ace that even that faded past 

Wa* thln*r. beloved one. 
And so reJoloe my life may be 
All consecrated, dear, lo thee. 



Adelaide Antu I^rocter. 



865 



There could scarcelj be a traer sign 
of poetic power than the fidelity and 
finish of some of these heart-pictures. 
Out of many others we select two for 
contrast : one tracing the deep, dreary 
introspection of passive suffering ; the 
other following out the subtle, restless 
impulses of pain with pangs. The first 
we take from a longer poem, *' Philip 
and Mildred." 

Dawn of day saw Philip speeding on his road to the 
great city, 

Thinking how the stars gased downward Josi with 
Mildred's patient eyes. 

Dreams of work and fiune and honor straggling with 
a tender pity, 

Till the loving past receding saw the conquering fu- 
ture rise. 

Daybreak still fonnd Mildred watching, with the won- 
der of first sorrow. 

How the outward world unaltered shone the same this 
rery day, 

How unpitying and relenUess human life met this new 
morrow — 

Eartli, and sky, and man unheeding that her Joy had 
passed away. 

Then the round of weary duties, cold and formal, 

came to meet her. 
With the life within departed that had given them 

each a soul ; 
And her sick heart even slighted gentle words tliat 

came to greet her ; 
For grief spread iu shadowy pinions, like a blight, 

upon the whole. 

Jar ons chord ^ ths harp U silent ; mow one etons, 

the arch U thattertd; 
One *maU clarion<ry of earrow bids an armid 

hont awake. 
One dark cloud can hide the eunlight; loom ons 

string^ the nearle are eeattered ; 
Think one thought, a eoul may perieh ; eay ono 

wordf a heart may break. 

Life went on, the two lives running side by tide, the 

outward seeming. 
And the truer and diviner hidden In the heart and 

brain : 
Dreams grow holy put in acUon, work grows ftilr 

through starry dreaming : 
Bat where each flows on unmingling, both are firoii- 

less and in rain. 

We hardly know which to like the 
better, the description itself or the mo- 
ralizing. Very different, very far from 
moralizing, and yet even more to the 
life, is 

A COMFORTER. 

" Will she come to me, little EfBe, 
Will she come to ray arms to rest. 
Ami nextle her head on ray shoulder. 
While the sun goes down in the west ? 

" I and Effie will sit together 

All Hlone In this great arm-chair : 
Is it Ailly to mind It, darling. 
When life Is so hard to bear ? 

** No one comforts me like my Effle, 
Just, I think, that she does not try. 



Only looks wUh » wIttftU wonder 
Why grown peopU ahould ever cry ; 

** While the llttie soft arms cloee tighter 
Round my neck In their clinging hold : 
Well, I must not cry on your Imlr, dear, 
for my tears might Umish the gold. 

" I am tired of trying to read, dear ; 
It is worse to talk and seem gay ; 
There are some kinds of sorrow, Sffle, 
It la oseless to thrust away. 

** Ah ! advice may be wise, my darling, 
But one always knows it before ; 
And the reasoning down one*s sorrow 
Seems to make one suffer the more. 

** But my Effle won*t reason, will she ? 
Or endeavor to undersUnd : 
Only holds up her mouth to kiss me. 
As she strokee my hoe with her hand. 

" If you break your plaything yourself, dear, 
Don*t you cry for It all the same t 
I don*t think It Is such a comfort. 
One has only one's self to blame. 

*' People say things cannot be helped, dear. 
But then that It the reason why; 
for, if things could be helped or altered. 
One would never sit down to cry. 

" They say. too, that tears are quite nselesi 
To undo, amend, or restore : 
Wlien I think how useieay, my Effie, 
Then my tears only fkll the more. 

** All to-day I struggled against it, 

But that does not make sorrow cease ; 
And now, dear, it such a comfort 
To be able to cry in peace. 

" Though wise people would call that folly, 
And remonstrate with grave surprise. 
We won't mind what they say, my Effle ; 
We never professed to be wise. 

•* But my comforter knows a lesson 
Wiser, truer than all the rest. 
That to help and to heal a sorrow. 
Love and silence are always best. 

•' Well, who Is my comforter—tell me ! 
Effle smiles, but she will not speak. 
Or look up through the long, curled lashei 
That are shading her roey cheek. 

** Is she thinking of talking fishes. 
The blue-bird, or magical tree f 
Perhaps I am thinking, my darling, 
Of something that never can be. 

" Ton long, dooH yon, dear, for the genii, 
Who were slaves of lamps and of rings? 
And I— I am sometimes afraid, dear, 
1 want as impossible things. 

*^ Bat, hark t there is nurse calling Cffie I 
It is bedtime, so run away ; 
And I must go back, or the others 
Will be wondering why I stay. 

** So good-night to ray darling Eflle ; 

Keep happy, sweetheart, and grow wlie : 
There's one kNs for her golden tresses 
And two for her sleepy eyes." 

We do not know where to look for 
anything like this. It is so graphic, so 
simple, so true. We, at least, never 
realized 9L scene so vividly, so minutely, 
with all the details we would notice if 



666 



Adelaide Anne Procter, 



it actually happened, and not a touch 
bejond, unless perhaps afler reading 
Maud Mailer. The kind of force is 
in many respects the same, except that 
the woman-poet, as nsual, says what 
the man-poet suji^sts of the inner life 
underlying. But it is excellently said, 
Eo well that one mentally declines to 
apply the principles of aesthetics, which 
would dictate Whittier's method as the 
more thoroughly artistic* How well 
the whole logic, or iUogic, of that 
grand solace, a good cry, is given, and 
how natural and how sweet if one could 
only chance on an EfBo (hat would not 
tell nurse all about it, to have a little 
*' comforter'' that would only know the 
grief and never care for the causes ! 

We have only one more poem to 
quote — one which we consider in many 
respects Miss Procter's best. If feel- 
ing, delicacy, pathos, truth, make beau- 
ty and poetry, this alone ought to eu- 
title its author to distinction. Bare of 
^ all factitious ornament, carrying no 
overload of elegances, it goes straight 
to the heart of every mother, and 
strikes the deepest key-note in the 
organism of the world — motherhood. 
And it seems to us that, if all men to- 
day were to league against her mem- 
ory, this poem should win her an im- 
mortality in the hearts of womankind : 

LINKS wrrn nEAVEX. 

Our God Id heaven, from that holy place 
To each of ua an aoicel guide haa given ; 

But niothvn of dea«l children hara more grace. 
For they give angel* to their Uod and heaven. 

How can a mother*! heart feot cold or weary, 
Knowing her dearer coif eafe, happy, warm? 

How can the feel her road too dark ur dreary, 
Who knova her trea«ure aheltered from the storm? 

How can rhe ilnf Our hearts may 1>o unheeding, 
Our God forgot, our ludy aalnt* defied ; 

But can a mother hear her d««il child ph'adlug, 
And thrust ihoae Uttle angel hands aside ? 

Those little handu stretched down to draw her ever 
' Nearer to God by mother love : we all 
Are blind and weak, yet surely she can never, 
With such a stake in heaven, fail or fall. 

She knows that, when the mighty angels raiie 
Chorus in heaven, one little silver tone 

la bers forever ; that one little nraise. 
One Uttle happy voice, is all her own. 

We may not lee her sacred crown of honor, 
Bat all the angels Oittlnf to and fk« 



Pause smiling as they pass— they look upon her 
Aa mother of an angel whom t&ey koov : 

One whom they left nestled at Mary*i feet — 
The chlklren*s place in heaven— who eolUy dafi 

A little chant to please them, slow and sweet. 
Or, •mlllng, strokes their little folded wloga; 

Or gives them her white lilies or her beads 
To play with : yet. In spite of flower or aoDf; 

They often lift a wbtftil look that pleads 
And asks them why their mother sti^s so I<Mig. 

Then our dear Queen makes answer she wUl call 
Her very soon : meanwhile they are begaUed 

To wait and listen while she tells them all 
A story of her Jesus as a child. 

Ah ! saints In heaven may pray with earnest will 
And pity for their weak and erring brothers : 

Tet there ie prayer In heaven more tender stlll« 
The little children pleading for their mothers. 

In conclusion, we think the world 
will not know for a while yet how much 
it has lost in Adelaide Anne Procter. 
Her time to be missed will come when 
Catholic England will need to be iv- 
presented in the national literature. 
For those who will force it into recog- 
nition, there will of necessity be strong 
rather than fine intellects. Then the 
world will turn back to her pages, and 
wish she were but there to represent 
Catholicity in England ; then she will 
be carefully read, and, once this hap- 
pens, her place is assured. And yet, 
even then, we can never know her as 
she was ; for beyond almost any au- 
thor we recall, Miss Procter impresses 
us as being far superior to her works. 
She is the best of examples of her own 
doctrine of imperfect expression. The 
fulne.'^sand finenoss of her nature strike 
one from the beginning as being im- 
measurable by what she has written. 
There is something exalted and tender, 
rich and yet reserved, about the life 
which animates her poems, that inte- 
rests us uncommonly. And when wo 
come to read of her, what was her life 
and what its aims, and, above all, when 
wo see how she is mourned by those 
who held her dear here, we recognize 
her for one of those rare and beautiful 
hearts whom God loves too well to 
leave us long, and conclude, in layin;r 
down these broken n^flections of her 
spirit, that her noblest poem was her- 
self. 



The JMi$»oM>iKfy <if CkiiMm Mmniagt. 



567 



THE INDISSOLUBniTT OP CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 



HTTMBEB ONB. 



The frinrhttul corruption in the leg- 
islation and pracljoe respecting divorce 
which has spread so widely during the 
past few years in our country has at 
last aroused the attention of those who 
are interested in the preservation of 
the public morals. They are begin- 
ning to write on the subject, and are 
casting about for the means of protect- 
ing the endangered institution of mar- 
riage. We feel it to be our duty to ex- 
ercise what little influence we may pos- 
sess in the community at large, in the 
same direction. At present, we shall 
restrict our remarks to one single point, 
which is the theological question of the 
lawfulness of divorce a vinculo mairi- 
moniuiox the cause of adultery, under 
the law of ChrisL In order to make 
our intent and meaning plain, we shall 
begin by stating the proposition wo 
wish to maintain. The marriage of 
Christians^ validly ratified and consum- 
mated, is absolutely indbsoluble ; and 
therefore there can be no legal and val- 
id divorce of the parties to such a mar- 
riage a vinculo matrimonii. The best 
and ablest Protestant writers admit 
this with one exception, that is, of the 
innocent party in the case of a mar- 
riage which has been violated by adul- 
tery. We leave them, therefore, to de- 
fend the indissolubility of marriage in 
all other cases, and confine ourselves 
to tlie one case in which they permit 
divorce. 

The sole argument for the lawful- 
ness of divorce in this instance is de- 
rived from the following texts in St. 
Matthew's gospel. *' Whosoever shall 
put away his wife, excepting for the 
cause of fomicationj caoseth her to 
commit adultery." (v. 82.) " Whoso- 
ever shall put away his wife, except it 
he for fornication^ and shall marry an- 



other, committeth adultery." (xix. 9.) 
The Catholic interpretation of these 
passages is, that our Lord permits a 
final separation a mensd et tkoroy for 
one cause, and one only, which is the 
grievous crime mentioned in these texts. 
In accordance with this interpretation, 
we explain these passages by the fol- 
lowing paraphrase : " Whoever, for 
any lesser cause than the crime of 
adultery, separates himself finally from 
his wife, places both her and himself in 
the danger of sinning, and is guilty of 
creating a proximate occasion of adul- 
tery. If he separates himself from her 
on account of the grievous crime above 
mentioned, he is not responsible for her 
future crimes, nor is he guilty of plac- 
ing himself without just cause in a con- 
dition in which the observance of his 
marriage vows becomes more difficult. 
Nevertheless, if he marries another, he 
commits adultery." 

In order to sustain the truth of this 
interpretation, it is necessary to defend 
three propositions. First, That our 
Lord declared the bond of marriage 
indissoluble. Second. That he con- 
demned all ioi'disant marriages of per- 
sons who were divorced, as adulterous. 
Third. That he permitted a final di- 
vorce a mensd et thoro simply, for the 
cause of adultery, and for no other. 

The first pro{>osition is established 
by all the texts of the New Testament 
which speak on the subject We will 
first examine the text of St Matthew, 
which includes the passage that is in 
dispute : 

'< And the Pharisees came to him, 
tempting him, and saying : Is it lawful 
for a man to put away his wife for every 
cause ? And he answered and said to 
them : Have ye not read, that he who 
made man in the beginning, made them 



568 



ne iBdiMiolMiiiy of Ckri$iiam Mwrriage. 



male and female ? And he said : For 
this cause sliall a man leave father and 
mother, and 8hall cleave unto his wife : 
and they two shall be in one flesh. 
Wherefore they are no more two, but 
one flesh. What therefore God hath 
joined together ^ let not man put asunder. 
They say to him : why then did Moses 
command to fjive a bill of divorce, and 
to put away ? He saith to them : Mo- 
ses, because of the hardness of your 
hearts, permitted you to put away your 
wives : but from the beginning it was 
not so." 

It is evident from these words of our 
Lord that the reason for the marriage 
of one man with only one woman, and 
for the perpetuity of this union, is 
founded in the law of nature and the 
primitive revelation of God to the 
founders of the human race. Also, 
that our Lord intended to restore mar- 
riage to its primitive and perfect law, 
abrogating nil temporary dispensations 
in favor of |H>lygjimy and divorce. His 
commandment not to put asunder what 
Gro<l hath joined is universal, and es:ab- 
lishes the principle that marriage is not 
dissoluble by human law. In the gos- 
pel of St. Mark we are further infonn- 
ed that *' in the house again his disci- 
ples asked him concerning the same 
thing. And he said to them : Whoso- 
ever shall put away his wife, an«l mar- 
ry another, committeth adultery against 
her. And if the wife siinll put away 
her husband, and be married to anoth- 
er, she committeth nduhery." (x. 11.) 
St. Luke also relates the words of our 
Lord with the same explicitness: " Ev- 
ery one that putteth away his wife, and 
marrieth another, committeth adultery ; 
and he that marrieth her that is put 
away from her husliand, comnn'tt(;tli 
adultery.' (xvi. 18.) The same doc- 
trine is estnblishetl by St. Paul in the 
Epistle to the liom'ans : ** For the 
woman that holh a husband, whilst her 
husband livi^th, is bound to the law : 
but if her husband l)e dead, she is 
loneed from the law of her husband. 
Wherefore, whilst her hnsbnnd liveth, 
she shall be called an a<lulteress if she 
be with another man : but if her hus- 



band be dead, she is free from the law 
of her husband : so that she is not an 
adulteress if she be with another man." 
(vii. 2, 3.) This passage lays down 
clearly and without exception the law 
that the bond of marriage can ooly be 
dissolved by death. It is confirmed 
by other texts in the first epistle to 
the Corinthians : '< But to them that 
ore married, not I, but the Lord oom- 
mandeth, that the wife depart not from 
her husband : and if she depart, that 
she remain unmarried, or be reconciled 
to her husband. And let not the bus- 
band put away his wife." ** A woman 
is bound by the law as long as her 
husband liveth: but if her husband 
die, she is at liberty : let her marry to 
whom she will; only in the Lord." 
(vii. 10, 11, 89.) 

There can be no question between 
us and that class of strict Protestant 
moralists who allow of divorce only in 
one case, and of re- marriage even in 
that one case only by the innocent par- 
ty, that the jmssiigcs we have cited lay 
down in general terms the indissolu- 
bility of Christian marriage. The only 
point to be dirfcusaed, therefore, is, 
whether they are right or wrong in so 
interpreting our Lord's words as to 
permit re-marriai»e in tiiis one {larticu- 
larcaso. If it cannot l>e sliown that 
our I-K)rd distinctly and jKisitively re- 
leases the innocent party in this case 
from the vinculum matrimonii^ our pro- 
position stands firm that this vinculum 
is in all cases indissoluble except by 
death. 

In reganl to this point we remark, 
first, that obscure passages ought to be 
interpreted in conformity with those 
wliicii are clear, and not the reverse. 
The passages we have cited which pro- 
claim the indissolubility of the marri- 
age-bond are clear. Those which are 
cited in proof of the exception are ob- 
scure. It is not clear on the face of 
them how far the permission to dismiss 
tlie guilty wife extends, and the conclu- 
sion that this permission includes the 
permission to marry another woman ig 
a men» inference. The Catholic inter- 
pretation, that the permission extendi 



7%« IndissolubiHiy of Ckriatian Marriage. 



560 



DO further than a divorce a mensA et 
ihojro, harmonizes thcso passages with 
all others in the New Testament which 
speak on the subject, and is, therefore, 
in itself more probable. 

We remark, secondly, that the oppo- 
site interpretation is intrinsically im- 
probable, because it contravenes the 
evident scope and intention of our Lord's 
words, which were to abrogate the spe- 
cial dispensations of the Mosaic law, 
and introduce a stricter law in conform- 
ity with the original institution of mat- 
rimony. Our opponents explain the 
law as giving the wife an equal privi- 
lege of divorcing her husband with that 
conceded to the husband. But, ac- 
cording to the law of Moses, the woman 
could not divorce her husband for any 
cause whatever. If, now, our Lord 
gave her tliis privilege, he relaxed the 
Mosaic law in an important respect. 
This is highly improbable, seeing that 
it is only by inference that we can ap- 
ply the permission given the injured 
husband to dismiss his wife to the in- 
jured woman in similar circumstances. 
We admit fully that our Lord did in- 
tend to give woman an equal right in 
the premises with that which he con- 
ceded to man. But, if that right had 
been the one claimed by our opponents 
it is not to be supposed that he would 
have failed to express it in clear and 
distinct terms. We argue that, as his 
whole scope was to make the law of 
marriage stricter, and as the law of 
Moses gave women no right of divorce, 
our Lord did not concede to Christian 
women that right. Our opponents ad- 
mit that no more was conceded to men 
tlian to women, therefore no rigbt of 
divorce was conceded to men. 

We remark, thirdly, that the divorce 
permitted by our Lord cannot have 
been a divorce a vincvlo^ from the con- 
cession of our opponents, who admit 
that the guilty party is not released 
from it so as to be capable of contract- 
ing a second marriage. 

They admit that the guilty party 
commits adultery by attempting an- 
other marriage, and that the person 
marrying the one divorced commits 



adultery. Adultery is not possible 
where there is no vinculum matrimonii 
subsisting. But there can be no vin- 
culum except between two parties. It 
is absurd that a woman should be bound 
to keep faith with the man who has an- 
other lawful wife. Therefore, on the 
principles of our opponents, since the 
guilty party is still in the bonds of the 
first marriage, the innocent party is bo 
also. 

Let us now examine the passage it- 
self, which permits the dismissal of a 
guilty consort, to see if it can fairly be 
interpreted in accordance with the doc- 
trine we have endeavored to establish. 
Our opponents argue that the sense of 
the passage is as follows: "Whoso- 
ever shall put away his wife, and mar- 
ry another, commits adultery, unless 
the cause of his putting her away was 
adultery on her part." Therefore, they 
say, if she was put away for the crime 
above mentioned, he does not commit 
adultery, though he marries another. 
The mere verbal construction admits 
of tliis interpretation, but does not po- 
sitively require it It may fairly be 
understood to mean this : *' Whoso- 
ever shall put away his wife, except it 
be for fornication, commits adultery, 
and whosoever shall marry another 
commits adultery." That is, he who 
puts away his wife for any lesser cause, 
causes her to commit adultery, and ex- 
poses himself to the danger of commit- 
ting the same sin, on account of the 
facility given by the civil law to both 
parties to contract second marriages, 
and also because of the danger in 
which a woman is placed, when cast 
off by her husband, of giving herself 
up to a bad life through want and des- 
peration, especially in a state of socie- 
ty which is morally corrupt And, 
much more, the one who actually does 
contract a second marriage during the 
lifetime of the wife whom he has repu- 
diated commits adultery, by contract- 
ing an invalid marriage. Both acts are 
a violation of the marriage vows, the 
desertion of the wife, and the forma- 
tion of a second, unlawful uuiou with 
another ; and, therefore, both are dass- 



670 



XRsuUany. 



ed together, although it is only the 
latter which is strictly udJ techaicallj 
called adultery. 

Our opponents may justly say that 
the text does not require this interpre- 
tation, and that, if this really was the 
sense and meaning of our Lord, the 
apostle has expressed it in an elliptical 
and obscure manner. Very true. 
And if we had no other information 
than that which is furnished by 8t. 
Matthew, the real doctrine of our Lord 
would be doubtful. This is notldng 
strange or surprising. The sacred 
writers freqently speak in an obscure, 
inartificial, and elliptical manner, 
which obliges us to interpret their 
meaning from sources extraneous to the 
text There is no evidence that all 
the words used by our Lonl himself to 
explain his doctrine to the by -slanders 
in public, or to his disciples in private, 
have been recorded with verbal accu- 
racy or completeness. St. Matthew 
gave a brief summary of Christ's doc- 
trine in his own language, which was 
intelligible to his readers at the time, 
because they already knew the law 
which had been promulgated in the 
Christian church. We hope to show 
hereatler what this law was, from evi- 



dence furnished by the early Christian 
writers and by the uniform canonical 
practice of the church. Meanwhile, 
we think we have proved that the sa- 
cral scope of the language of the New 
Testament sustains the doctrine of the 
indissolubility of Christian marriage. 

Our second and third propositions 
have been established in the process 
of maintainmg the first, and flow from 
it obviously. It is evident that, where 
the vinnidum matrimonii subsists be- 
tween two persons, either of them who 
attempts marriage with a thii*d party 
violates the rights of the kwtul consort, 
and makes an invalid contract, what- 
ever the civil law may decide to tiio 
contrary. It is also evident that our 
Lord did permit a final dissolution of 
the connubium between married per- 
sons for one cause, and one only. If 
this dis.>«olutiou is not a divorce a vin- 
culo^ it must be a mensd cl thoro. We 
leave the subject here for the present, 
hoping to resume it again at a con- 
venient opportunity ; and we respect- 
fully recommend to our learned read- 
ers, who are desirous of invostigsuing it 
fully, the work of Perrone, De Mnlri- 
monio Christiana, 3 vols. Konie, 1858. 



MISCELLANY. 



The ^^ngnetic Polarity of Jiijhs.^ 
Mr. J. Spiller has lately made some very 
interesting observations respecting tho 
magnetic power assumed by rities. lie 
finds that all the long Enfield barrels of 
the arms in the possession of the volun- 
teers of his company exhibit magnetic 
polarity as the result of the violent and 
repeated concussions attending their dis- 
charge in a direction parallel to the mag- 
netic meridian. The Royal Arsenal 
range runs nearly north and south, and 
the rifles, when in use, are always pointed 
either due north or a few dcjp^ees to- 
ward the west^Q &ct, nearly m tho di- 



rection indicated by a compa-s-ni'etllt* — 
so that the ropeate<l slmoks ln-ought 
about by tho explosion of the iv)W(lor may, 
Mr. Spiller thinks, be considiTcd equiva- 
lent to so many hard blows from a ham- 
mer, which, as is well known, have a 
similar elfect Mr. Spiller jroes on to say 
that the magnetic character appears to 
be permanent, which would not l>o the case 
if the gun-barrels were of tho <orivst de- 
scription of malleable iron ; and the region 
of the breech is, in every iu-ilunce, im)s- 
sessed of north polarity, sim'c it stronirly 
attracts the south pole of tlie compass 
needle. These effocts should not be no- 



JliUeellany. 



sn 



iiccd at all, or only to an inferior degree, 
in arms ordinarily fired in directions east 
and west; and it is supposed that byre- 
versing the nsual practice, if it were pos- 
sible, and firing towards the south, the 
indications of polarity would be changed. 

Mont Oenis Railway, — In a paper 
read before the Institute of Civil Engi- 
neers, Capt H. W. Tyler has fully de- 
scribed the results of experiments with 
Mr. Fell's locomotive, which has been 
adopted for surmounting the steep gra- 
dients and sharp curves of the Mont 
Cenis route. On Mr. Fcirs system an 
intermediate or centre rail is adopted, 
against which horizontal wheels worked 
by the engine are pressed by springs, so 
as to yield any requisite amount of ad- 
hesion. The engine constructed for the 
Mont Cenis line is partly of steel ; its 
weight fully loaded does not exceed 17 
tons. There are two 15-inch cylinders 
working both the four coupled horizon- 
tal and the four coupled bearing wheels. 
The pressure on the additional horizon- 
tal wheels cnn be varied by the engine- 
driver at pleasure; during the experi- 
ments it amountod to from 2} to 8 tons 
on each wheel, or 10 tons altogether, but 
provision was made for increasing this 
pressure to 2-lr tons if necessary. Dur- 
ing the official trials, with a load of 24 
tons exclusive of the engine, on an ave- 
rage gradient of 1 in 13, with curves of 2 
to 4 chains radius, the speed of 6*65 miles 
to 7*46 miles per hour was attained in 
ascending. With a load of 16 tons the 
speed was 10 miles. 

Fossil Man in the Rhine Valley, — In 
the Lehm of the valley of the Rhine, 
near Colmar, there is a marly deposit 
composed of a mixture of clay, fine sand, 
and carbonate of lime. It forms part of 
the diluvial beds, and in it M. Faudol has 
found a number of human and other 
remains. These consisted of shells, bones 
of a huge stag, teeth of Elephas primi- 
ffcnuis, and a human frontal and right pa- 
rietal bono of a man of middle size. M. 
Faudel concludes that man was contem- 
poraneous with the mammoth fossil stag 
and bison. 

Tobaeeo Smoking Injur iom to the 
£ijes. — In a recent number (February 15) 
of the Bulletin de Therapeutique, M. 
Viardin describes two cases of serious 
eye atfection (amblyopia) resulting from 
the habit of smoking. M. Viardin at 



once, on learning the habits of the pa- 
tients, induced them to smoke a much 
smaller quantity of tobacco than usual, 
and the result was a complete restoration 
of vision in a few weeks from the date of 
their application. 

Intermittent Fevert produced hy Veg^ 
table Organieme, — Some time since, we 
called attention to Dr. Salisbury's ob- 
servations, tending to support the theory 
expressed above. More recently these 
ideas have been, in some measure, con- 
firmed by Professor Hannon, of the Uni- 
versity of Brussels. In 1843, says M. 
Hannon, ^^ I studied at the University of 
Liege; Professor Charles Morsen had 
created in mo such an enthusiasm in the 
study of the fresh-water algso that the 
windows and mantel-piece of my chamber 
were encumbered with plates filled with 
vaucheria, oscillatoria, and conferyo. 
My preceptor said to me: 'Take care at 
the period of their frtictification, for the 
spores of the algse give intermittent fever, 
I have had it every time I have studied 
them too closely.' As I cultivated my 
algaa in pure water, and not in the water 
of the marsh where I had gathered them, 
I did not attach any importance to his 
remark. I suffered for my carelessness % 
month later, at the period of their fruc- 
tification. I was taken with shivering ; 
my teeth chattered ; I had the fever, which 
lasted six weeks." 

Origin of Petroleum, — Although 
nearly all geologists are agreed as to the 
organic origin of petroleum, a great 
many are of opinion that the rock-oil is 
the result of a natural distillation of coal. 
Professor Hitchcock, however, no mean 
authority, comes to a different conclusion. 
Admitting, with all who have carefully 
studied the matter, that petroleum is or 
oi^ganic origin, ho says that, in his opin- 
ion, it comes from plants, and that it is 
not, as some have suggested, a flsh-oil or 
a substance al tered to adipocere. It does 
not appear to be the result of a natural 
distillation of coal, since its chemical oom« 
position is different from the oil manu- 
factured artificially from the cannels, con- 
taining neither nitro-benzole nor aniline. 
Moreover, petroleum occupied fissures 
in the silurian and devonian strata long 
before the trees of the coal period were 
growing in their native forests. The 
nearly universal association of brine with 
petroleum, and the faot of the slight sol- 
ubility of hydrocarbons in fresh, bat 



572 



MiiceUany. 



insolubility in salt water, excite the in- 
quiry whether the salt water of prime- 
val lagoons may not have prevented the 
escape of the vegetable gases beneath, and 
condensed them into liquids. 

Structure of the Liter. — Dr. Lionel 
Beale's opinion as to tlie structure of the 
vertebrate liver has been recently sub- 
stantiated by the researches of Ilerr 
llering. This histologist states that the 
liver is constructed like the other secreting 
glands. It is of the tubular type, with 
canals, anastomosing in every direction, 
and having a tendency to form a series 
of networks. Like other secretions, the 
bile travels along glandular canals sur- 
rounded by glandular cells. It is easy 
(ho says) to observe this arrangement 
in the livers of vertebrates. Five or more 
cells are disposed in simple layers 
around the circular and minute aperture 
of a hepatic utricle seen in transverse 
section. This arrangement loses itself 
insensibly in that variety of structure in 
which tlierc are no utricles properly so 
called. Occasionally may be seen four, 
three, or even only two cells, uniting to 
form a bili.iry canal. The Russian ana- 
tomist denies the existence of hepatic 
trabeculse of biliferous capillaries, and be- 
lieves that the biliary cells are persis- 
tent. He looks upon serpents* livers as 
the only organs for minute inquiries 
upon the subject 

The Comet (try Theory of Shoot ing^ 
Starn — to vhom doc8 it hehmrff — The 
Abbe Moigno, who has broad »ed this 
question, and who evidently feels strong- 
ly on the point, makes the following ob- 
servations in our contemporary, the Che- 
mical News, of March loth : *' In a quite 
recent note inserted on March 'id, in the 
International HuUetin of the hnperial Ob- 
servatory, and on the Hth inst. in the 
Bulletin of the Scientific Association of 
Franco, M. Lc Verrier resumes on the 
cometary theory of shootinj2;-stars, an<l 
persists in attributing the honor of it to 
himself, without condescending to n»en- 
tion the name of Schiaparelli, whose let- 
ters, however, have been published in a 
journal of great authority, the Meteoro- 
logical Bulletin of the College of Rome, 
issued under the superintendence of the 
Rev. P. Secchi, and were translulod by 
the writer before M. Le Verrier had pub- 
lished a single word of his re^leurohes. 
Wo are really frightened by this system 
of organixed cool-blooded iippropriation, 



and more so by these lines, the effect of 
which has been even more coolly calcit- 
lated: ^Sir John Uert^chel^ who^ aUng 
with hii a-yfif Alexander Hertehsl^ ku 
paid great attention to 9hooting-9Uu% 
gives hig complete Msent to the thcori' of 
the swarms of November.' Poor M. Schi- 
aparelli! Happily the Astronomische 
Nachrichten have collected the necessary 
papers, and he will soon be in a positioa 
of having his revenge." 

New Form of Telegraphy. — An inven- 
tion for the transmission of despatches by 
an automatic electro-chemical method has 
been devised by MM. Vavin and Fri- 
bourg. Its object is to utilize all the 
velocity of the current on telegraphic 
lines. The Abbe Moigno, who has called 
attention to it in England, gives the fol- 
lowing description of it : It consists in 
the distribution of the current tlirough as 
many small wires, very shoit and isolat- 
ed, as there are signals to be transmitted, 
all the while only employing one wire on 
the main line. Each of these small iso- 
lated wires camuiuni(*ates, on the one 
hand, with a metallic plate, of a pirticu- 
lar form, fixed in guttarpercha ; and, on 
the other, with a metiUic division of a 
disc, which is also formed of an insulating 
substance. A group of eleven of those 
small laminm form a sort of cipher, which 
will give all the letters of the alphabet by 
the suppression of certain portions of the 
fundamental form. *'Now,'* says the 
abbe, ** suppose rows of these coniiiound 
characters to be placed on a sheet of pre- 
pared paper of a metallic nature, the 
words of the telegram to he sent are writ- 
ten on them with isolatinir ink, leaving 
the other parts of the small * stereotyped* 
blocks untouched. The consequeni'o is 
that the current is intercepteii at every 
point touched by the ink, and a letter isi, 
imprinted on the prepan'd pnper at the 
other end of the line where the telegram 
is to be received." 

A Cheip and TufjenioHn [re Vii^hine, 
— M. Tonelli, siys the .Ahbc .Moigno, has 
just devi.sed an ice-making inarhine which 
bids fair to become very p(»pul:ir in this 
countr}', since it is (convenient cheap, and 
etKcient. The inventor calLs it the ** y/ar/zr 
rouidtite.*^ It is a simple fnetallic cylin- 
der mounted on a foot The salt of soda 
and the salt of anuui»nia are adiicit in two 
operations, the smaller cy limler, contain- 
ing the water to be frozen, is introduced 
into the interior, and the oriHce is close 



ITew PubUeaiiont, 



578 



bj an india-rubber disc, and then by a 
cover fastened with a catch ; the cylinder 
is then placed in a sac, or case of cloth, 
and it is made to roll on the table with 
a slight oscillatory moyement given by 
the hand. After a lapse of ten minutes, 
the water in the interior of the cylin- 
der becomes a beautiful cylinder of ice. 
Nothing is more simple, more economical, 
or more efficacious than the new *''• glch 
eier roulante^^^ which costs 10 fr., and 
gives us, moreover, what could not hi- 
therto be obtained with an apparatus 
containing freezing mixtures — the means 
of freezing a decanter of water or a bot- 
tle of champagne. The apparatus, in a 
case, packed for travelling, with 20 kilo- 
grammes of refrigerating materials and % 
measure, costs, at present, only 1^. — 
Popular Science Review, 

The "'Cylele ffihemica^'—The invalu- 
able work which Mr. Watson achieved 
for England is being imitated on the 



other side of the Irish Channel Messrs. 
Moore & More have issued a volume upon 
the subject of the dLstribution of Irish 
plants, and the facts it lays before the 
botanical public are both numerous and 
interesting. Taking the number of spe- 
cies for Britain proper at Mr. Watson's 
estimate of 1,425 species, the authors of 
the **Cybele Hibernica" claim for Ire^ 
land about 1,000 species. Of the 533 
plants of the British type, Ireland has 
all, or very nearly so. The Atlantic 
type is the only other one where she has 
decidedly more than half, forty-one spe- 
cies out of seventy. Of the boreal spe- 
cies, (Highland, Scottish, and intermediate 
types taken together,) although there is 
not a single one of the twelve provinces 
in which there is not a hill of upward 
of 2,000 feet in altitude, Ireland has 
only 106 species out of 288. Of the 458 
English and local species she has just 
over one half; and, finally, out of the 
127 Germanic species only 18. 



Original. 

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



HiSTORT or England, from the Fall of 
Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth. By 
James Anthony Fronde, M. A. Vols. 
VII., Vril., IX. andX. 12mo. New 
York : Charles Scribner & Co. 

The four volumes of this work which 
are now before us carry the history of 
the reign of Elizabeth from her accession 
to the death of Maitlandand Grange, and 
the consequent extinction of the Mary 
Stuart party in 1573. The wars and 
troubles in Ireland, the invasion of Ulster, 
the insurrections and death of Shan 
O'Neil, the quarrels of the Ormonds and 
the Desmonds ; the career of John Knox ; 
the reign of Mary Queen of Scots; the Eng- 
lish maritime adventures of the sixteenth 
century; and the St. Bartholomew mas- 
sacre, are some of the exciting topics 
which Mr. Froude touches with his bril- 
liant pen, and upon which he lavishes his 
wonderful powers of narration and his 
skill of dramatic arrangement. That our 
readers should be satisfied with the pic- 
tures he presents to them is not to be ex- 
pected. They must not look in his pages 



for candor or judicial calmness. They 
will find Mary Stuart painted here in 
darker and more horrible colors than in 
any other modern work ; John Knox 
lauded as '* the one supremely great 
man that Scotland possessed ;*' and the 
Huguenot massacre detailed with all the 
exaggerations and harrowing circum- 
stances which the partisan spirit of for- 
mer historians has spread about it Mr. 
Froude is too anxious to make an effec- 
tive story ever to be an honest historian. 
A picturesque grouping of events and 
persons has a temptation for his refined 
literary taste which often overcomes the 
cardinal principle of historical composi- 
tion, to tell the truth and the whole 
truth. The extravagant admiration of 
the Tudor dynasty with which he began 
to write has not cooled with the progress 
of his labors. The fealty which he held 
to Henry and Edward he has now trans- 
ferred unshaken to Elizabeth ; but there 
is this to be said for him, that Elizabeth, 
with all her many faults, (and now and 
again even Mr. Froude recognizes some 
of them,) possessed many really great 



New Publieatiom. 



575 



We will not quarrel over this point with 
Professor I)e Vore, for nothing is more 
difficult than a precisely accurate judg- 
ment concerning the relative merits of 
the principal modem languages. We 
have a mother tongue with which we 
have every reaspn to bo satisfied, and 
therefore lot us try to use it well, and 
presciTe it from corruption. On this 
head, wo have great reason to fear for 
the future, and therefore we give a hearty 
welcome to the learned professor's sug- 
gestion that an English Academy should 
be constituted, which shall decide all 
questions respecting the spelling, pro- 
nunciation, and right use of English words. 
1 1 is enough to say that this volume 
is from the Riverside press to guarantee 
its typographical excellence, and we hope 
this circumstance will counterbalance, in 
those minds disposed to be rigid in ex- 
cluding everything which has not the 
Boston stamp, the fact that the author 
hails from Virginia. 

Antoine de Bonxeval. a Tale of Paris in 
the days of St. Vincent de Paul, ^y 
Ilev. A\f H. Anderdon. Kelly & Piet, 
Baltimore. 

In this narrative are portrayed some of 
the most exciting scenes in French his- 
tory. It tolls of that period in which 
Richelieu, Mazarin, St Vincent de Paul, 
and Monsieur Olier figured so largely, 
and whose history is so suggestive to the 
thoughtful reader. The style is vigorous 
and the volume worthy of a place in a 
Sunday-school or parochial library. 

Etudes Philolooiques sur quelqurs 
Lanoues Sauvages db l'Amekique. 
ParN. 0., Ancien Missionnaire. Mont- 
real : Dawson Brothers, 55 Grande 
Rue St. Jacques. 1866. 

The Indian dialects of North America 
deserve a more attentive study than they 
have yet received. If the inquirer did no 
more than confine his researches to the 
languages spoken by the Algic tribes, (to 
use an epithet happily devised by School- 
craft to designate the native races found 
east of the Allcghanies,) the compensation 
would be fairly worth the work. Resolv- 
ed into two groups, the Algonquin and 
Iro<{Uois, these varieties of speech present 
contrasts so striking and analogies so rare 
as to forbid the theory of a derivation 
from a common stock. The words of 
these two families of tongues are not only 
wholly dissimilar, but are, for the most 



part, mutually unpronounceable. The 
Algonquin cannot articulate an / or an 
r; while the Iroquois, to whom these 
sounds are familiar, can make nothing 
of a 5 or an m. The two languages, with 
the doubtful exception of a corrupt dia- 
lect, and then in words evidently borrow- 
ed from the conqueror, agree in little else 
than an odd aversion to the letter 2, and, 
we may add perhaps, in a plentiful lack 
of adjectives and a most oppressive mul- 
tiplicity of verbs. 

It is in this last-mentioned field (the 
analysis of Algic verbs) that our author 
N. 0. has exerted his main strength, and 
has given the best proofs of his linguistic 
skill. The Algonquin verb to love, Hahih^ 
expatiates, in the course of twenty -two 
pages of this treatise, into two active and 
three passive voices, served by eight 
moods, three past tenses, two futures, 
and two first persons plural, with parti- 
ciples and gerunds to match ; and all sub- 
ject to fifteen accidents, corresponding to 
the various modifications of Semitic verbs. 
The Iroquois verb, though in quite an- 
other way, rejoices also in conjugations, 
moods, tenses, and numbers not unworthy 
of comparison with the Greek, subject 
to secondary forms more or less resem- 
bling the Semitic The Algonquin parti- 
ciple may assume a negative shape, and 
it is this nullifying syllable bi that main- 
ly distinguishes the two^ords which in 
that language signify Catholic and Pro- 
testant The Catholics arc tcipaiatikO' 
namatizodjik^ literally, ** they who make 
upon their own persons the sign of the 
wood of the dead body of Christ" ** Pro- 
testants" (having as usual failed to make 
themselves understood except as deniers 
of Catholicity, and who are nothing \fnot 
negative) are tcipaiatikonamatizosigoh^ 
"those who do not make upon them- 
selves the sign of the wood of the dead 
body of Christ" It is to be hoped that 
the theologians of the two professions 
have shorter and more convenient terms 
when they resort, as they have been 
known to do, to the refreshment of reci- 
procal objurgation. 

We regret that we cannot go into de- 
tails. The book is pleasantly written, 
lucidly arranged, and full of satisfactory 
evidence of a keen perception of philolo- 
gical distinctions. We cordially recom- 
mend it to those who are ambitious to 
gain an insight into the philosophy of the 
languages, before they also (we mean the 
languages) take their inevitable turn to 
be numbered with the dead. 



578 



Nn§ I\ihlusaiumi. 



ThsLitbrart Gharactbr or thi Bibul 
A Lecture delirered before the Wil- 
mington Institute. By H. Beecher 
Swoope, Attorney-at-law. 
The author deliyered and now publish- 
es this as '^A Lawyer^s tribute to the 
Bible," and it is surely a very graceful 
one. It shows a just appreciation of the 
literary excellences of the sacred volume, 
of the grandeur of its history, the depth 
of its philosophy, the sublimity of its 
poetry. Wc dislike, however, this con- 
sideration of the inspired volume merely 
as a literary production, without keeping 
in view its sacred character as the word 
of God. Containing as it does, the 
revelation of God*s infinite perfections, it 
must necessarily contain all that is most 
beautiful, profound, sublime. We agree 
with the author that, '♦ in order to brine 
out all the hidden beauties of the original 
Scriptures, we need a new translation 
brought fully up to the present standard 
of our language,** and that '*our present 
version of the Bible is sublime, grand, and 
beautiful, only because many of the ideas 
and conceptions are so essentially great 
and lofty that they necessarily appear 
magnificent in the most artless dress." 

Catholic Anecdotes ; or, The CATEcnissc 
IN Examples. Illustrating the Sacra- 
ments. By the Brothera of the Chris- 
tian Schools* Translated from the 
French by Mrs. J. Sadlier. New- 
York : D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 

This is the third and last part of this 
series of anecdotes. They are intended 
to assist those engaged in teaching tho 
Christian doctrine, by giving them ex- 
amples illustrative of the subject they 
may be teaching. They are arranged in 
the same order as the subject matter of 
the Catechism, and are well adapted for 
this purpose. 

Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs. 

2 vols. Sadliers. 

This great work, in two large quarto 
volumes of nearly 1000 pages each, is a 
translation from the French of the Cheva- 
lier Artaiid de Montor. The author is both 
a well-informed historian and an elegant 
writer. Although there are some faults 
in the translation, and some typographical 
errors, the value of the work is never: he- 
le.s8 very great, and it is a noble additicm 
to our Catholic literature. There is much 
beauty in the mechanical execution, and 
the illustrations are numerous. Many 



of the portraits and other HlostnUioni 
are excellent, though a few are quite in- 
different The preface is carelessly writ- 
ten, and has not the excellence which 
ought to characterize the introduction 
to such a great work. The hand of a 
finished scholar would have done great 
good in retouching the whole work, which 
is, notwithstanding its minor defects, on 
the whole a superb one and a credit to 
its publishers. 

CHRISTIANrrT AND ITS CONFLICTS, AnCICKT 

AND Modern. By £. £. Marcy, A.M. 
New-York : Appleton k Co. For sale 
by the Catholic Publication Society, 126 
Nassau street 

This work comes upon our table just 
as we are going to press. A rapid glance 
over its contents shows us that it presents 
a comprehensive view of the church and 
its work, contrasted with the vain and 
fruitless attempts made by her enemies 
to set up a rival system of Christianity. 
It is a work which will be widely read 
and excite no little interest, and deserves 
at our hands a more extended ofitical no- 
tice, which we propose to give it in our 
next issue. It is not an ordinary book 
of controversy, and we advise our reatlera 
in the mean time to get a copy and read 
it 

n. McGrath, Philadelphia, announces 
a new and illustrated volume of Poems, 
by E. A. S. 

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From D. 4 J. RtDLiKR k Co., New-York. Peter c»f the 

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Fnim the Arrnoa. Dhm und the SI»»\N ; a Komanc« 

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Rich:ird llfiitley, L->n«li>u. 
From Lktihmdt k 1I«»lt, NewYi'ik. Father* •nd 

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THE 



CATHOLIC WOKLD. 



\rOL. v., NO. 29.— AUGUST, 1867. 



GUETT^E'S PAPACY SCHISMATIC.^ 



M. GuETTiE, it will be remembered, 
undertakes to establish two propositions 
— ^first, " The bishop of Rome did not for 
eight centuries possess the authority of 
divine right which he has since sought 
to exercise ; and second, The pretension 
of the bisiiop of Rome to the sovereign- 
ty of divine right over the whole church 
was the real cause of the division," or 
schism between the East and the West. 
To the first proposition, we have replied, 
the bishop of Rome is in possession, 
and it is for the author to prove that 
he is not rightfully in possession. This 
he can do only by proving either, first, 
that no such title by divine right was 
ever issued ; or, second, that it vests in 
an adverse claimant. He sets up no 
adverse claimant, but attempts to make 
it appear that no such title as is claimed 
was ever issued. This he attempts to 
do by showing that the proofs of title 
usually reli»^d on by Catholic writers are 
negatived by the Holy Scriptures and 
the testimony of the fathers and coun- 
cils of the first eight centuries. We 
have seen that he has signally failed 
so far as the Holy Scriptures and the 
fathers of the firsfc three centuries are 
conc(*rneJ ; nay, that instead of proving 
his proposition, he has by his own wit- 

* See Thk Catholic Woru>, July, 1S67. 
VOL. V. — 37 



nesses refuted it, and proved that the 
title did issue, and did vest in St. Peter, 
and consequently now vests in the 
bishop of Rome as Peter's successor. 

This alone is enough for us, and 
renders any further discussion of the 
first proposition unnecessary. After 
the testimony of St. Cyprian, who is 
his own witness, the author really has 
nothing more to say. He has lost 
his case. But, ignorant of this, he pro- 
ceeds in the fourth division of his work 
to interrogate the fathers and couucila 
of the fourth and fifth centuries, but 
even less successfully, as we now pro- 
ceed to show. We only beg tlie reader 
to bear in mind that we are not adduc- 
ing our proofs of the papacy by divine 
right, but are simply examining the 
proofs the author adduces against it 
We do not put forth the strength of 
our cause, which is not necessary in 
the present argument; we are only 
showing the weakness of the case the 
author makes against us. 

The author attempts to deviso*an 
argument against the papal authority 
from the ^xth canon of the council of 
Nicasa. This canon, as he cites it, 
reads : " Let the ancient custom be pre- 
served (hat exists in Egypt, Lybia, and 
Pentapolis, that the bishop of Aleocan- 



578 



GuettWi Papacy JSchismadc. 



dria hare authority in all these (En- 
tries, since that has also passed into a 
eastern for the bishop of Rome. Let 
the churches at Antioch and in the 
other provinces preserve also their 
privileges." It must not be supposed 
that the author cites the canon with 
any degree of exactness, or faithfully 
renders it; but let that pass. From 
this canon two consequences, he con- 
tends, necessarily follow : first. That 
•* the council declared that the authori- 
ty of the bishop of Rome extended over 
a limited district, like that of the bishop 
of Alexandria; and second, That this 
authority was only based on usage,"* 
(p. 95.) 

But the authority of the bishop of 
Rome was not in question before the 
council, for that nobody disputed. ^ The 
object of the canon," the author him- 
self says, pp. 93, 94, *' was to defend 
the authority of the bishop of Alexan- 
dria against the partisans of Meletiua, 
bishop of Lycopolis, who refused to 
recognize it in episcopal ordinations ; 
.... therefore was merely to confirm 
the ancient customs respecting these 
ordinations, and, in general, the privi- 
leges consecrated by ancient usages. 
Now, according to an ancient custom 
Rome enjoyed certain prerogatives that 
no one contested. The council makes 
ase of this fact in order to confirm the 
dmilar prerogatives of Alexandria, 
Antioch, aud other churches." 

The question before the council, and 
>wbich it met by this canon, evidently was 
Moi the primacy of the see of Rame — 
.although it would seem from the form 
in which the papal legate, Paschaai- 
•nus, quoted it, without contradiction, 
in the council of Chalcedon, that 
the council of Nicola took care to re- 
. serve that primacy — ^but certain cus- 
tomary rights, privileges, and dignities 
which the bishops of Alexandria. An- 
tioch, and some other churches held in 
^eommon with the bishop of Rome. As 
the ancient custom was preserved in 
the Roman Church, the council says, 
-so let it be in Alexandria, Antioch, and 
other churches. The council refers to 
•the custom in Rome as a reason for 



confirming the similar custom which 
had obtained elsewhere, and which had 
been violated by Meletius of Lycopolis 
in Egypt, and by his partisans. 

To understand this, we must recol- 
lect that prior to the fall of the great 
patriarchates of Alexandria and the 
£ast, the administration of ecclesiasti- 
cal afiairs was less centralized than at 
present. Now nearly all, if not all. 
bishops depend immediately on the 
Holy See, but in the early ages they 
depended on it only mediately. The 
bishops of a province or of a patriarch- 
ate depended immediately on their ex- 
arch, metropolitan , or patriarch, and only 
mediately through him on the bishop 
of Rome. ITie appointm<»nt or clec 
tion of the patriarch, and of the exarch 
or metropolitan of a church independ- 
ent of any patriarch, as were the 
churches of Asia Minor, Fontus, and 
Thrace, needed the papal confirmation, 
but not their sufiragans, or the bishops 
subject to their immediate jurisdiction. 
The patriarch or metropolitan confirm- 
ed their election, ordained or deposed 
them by his own authority, subject of 
course to appeal to Rome. Lycopolis, 
by ancient custom or canons of the 
fathers depended on the bishop of 
Alexandria, who was its bishop's im- 
mediate superior. For some reason, 
Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, had been 
deposed by the bishop of Alexandria, 
and deprived of his functions ; but he 
refused to submit, ordained bishops by 
his own authority, contrary to the an- 
cient custom, and created a schism. It 
was to meet this ciise, and others liko 
it, that the council decreed the sixth 
canon. 

The authority conftrmod by that 
canon was the authority of patriarchs, 
as they were subsequently called, and 
of metropolitans by usage independent 
of any patriarchal jurisdiction, an;i 
therefore the authority of the b:.*»hop 
of Rome which it recojjnized as deriTci 
from usage, could have been only his 
authority as metropolitan of the Suburb- 
icarian churches, called the Roman 
territory, or as patriarch of the West. 
That this authority was limited, and 



Guettee*s Papacy SekUmaik. 



5?t 



dependent on ancient usage or cnstom, 
nobody disputes; but this is distinct 
from hid authority as supreme pontiff 
or governor of the whole church. There 
are instances enough on record of me- 
tropolitan churched, like Aquileia, and 
those of Illyrium and Bulgaria^ de- 
puting their immediate dependence on 
the bishop of Rome, that never dream- 
ed of calling in question his authority 
as supreme pontiff, or governor of the 
whole church. The schismatic Arme- 
nians do not deny and never have de- 
nied the supreme authority in the whole 
church of thebishop of Rome ; they only 
assert that the pope gave to their apos- 
tle, Gregory the Illuminator, and to bis 
succe.ssors, the independent government 
of the church in Armenia. St. Cyprian 
depended on the bishop of Rome, and 
acknowledged the papal authority, but 
i: is questionable if he depended on 
him as patriarch of the West. We 
suspect Oanhage was independent of 
patriarchal jurisdiction, and that St. 
Cyprian had no superior but the pope. 
However this may have been, the feet 
that churches did not depend immedi- 
ately on the bishop of Rome did not 
in any sense deny or impair his univer- 
sal authority as supreme pontiff. So 
the argument against the papacy from 
the sixth canon of the council of Nicsea, 
like the authors other arguments, 
proves nothing to his purpose. 

M. Guettoe, in his blind hatred of 
Rome, after having alleged the authori- 
ty of the council of Nicaea in his own 
favor, undertakes to prove that it was 
no council of the church at all, but 
merely a council of the empire. He 
labors hard to prove that it was con- 
voked by the Emperor Constantino by 
virtue of his imperial authority alone, 
that the emperor presided in its sessions, 
and confirmed and promulgated its acts. 
Does he not see that if it was so, the 
council had no ecclesiastical authority, 
and therefore that its acts have no 
bearing on the question before us ? If 
anything is certain, it is that the church, 
as a polity, is independent of the state, 
and that civil ruiera or magistrates, as 
such, have no authority in her govern- 



ment. Civil rulers have of^en usurped 
authority over the church and oppressed 
her : they did so at Constantinople, as 
Gregory III. complains ; they attempt- 
ed to do so all through the middle ages 
in the West, and they do so now to a 
most fearful extent in the Russian 
empire, as in all European Protestant 
states ; but the authority they exercise 
is usurped, and is repugnant to the 
very nature and constitution of the 
church. Our Lord said, ^ My king- 
dom is not of this workL" The Non- 
united Greeks as well as Catholics hold 
that there is and can be no oecumeni- 
cal council without the bishop of Rorne 
to convoke it, preside over it, and to 
confirm and promulgate its acts ; and 
hence they confess their inability to hold 
an oecumenical council, and therefore 
really acknowledge that they are not 
the Catholic Church in its integrity, 
though they claim to hold the orthodox 
faith. They admit the Roman Church 
is the primatial see, and that the preni 
dency of a general council belongs to 
the bishop of Rome by the ri^tht and 
dignity of his see. If he did not pre- 
side in the council of Nicsea in person 
or by his legates or repr(*senfa(ivc8« 
and approve formally or virtually its 
acts, it coul J not, by their own doctrine, 
have the authority of a general coun- 
ciL The confirmation and promulga- 
tion of its canons by the emperor miglit 
make them laws or edicts of the em- 
pire, but could no^t make them canons 
of the church. 

It would be no difficult matter to 
prove that the author is as much oat 
in his facts as in his inferences. The 
universal church has recognized the 
council of Nicasa as a legitimate couu 
cil, and there are ample authorities to 
prove that its convocation and indictiou 
were at the request or with the assent, 
of the Roman pontiff, that he presided 
over it by his legates, Osius, bishop of 
Cordova, and Vitus and Vincentius, 
two Roman presbyters ; that he virtu- 
ally, if not formally, confirmed and pub- 
lished its acts ; and that whatever (he 
emperor did was merely executory 5 
but the question is foreign to our pre- 



OueUce'M Papacy Schiimaiic. 



tent argiiTDent, and we have no space 
to indulge in extraneous or iiTclcvant 
discussions. If we were endt^avorinj^ 
to prove the papacy, we should adduce 
the proofs ; but our line of argument 
requires us only to refute the reasons 
the author alleges for asserting that the 
papacy is schismatic, i^ the council 
of Nicsea was simply an imperial coun- 
cil, we ha^e nothing to do with it ; if 
it was a true general council of the 
church, it makes nothing for the author, 
for the sixth canon, the only one relied 
on, has, as the author cites it, no refer- 
ence to the jurisdiction of the Holy 
Apostolic See of Rome. 

M. Guettee pretends tliat the third 
OADon of the second general council. 
the first of Constantinople, contains a 
denial of the papal authority by divine 
right. The canon, as he cites it, which 
is only the concluding part of it, says : 
** Let the bishop of Constantinople 
have the primacy of honor (priores 
honoris partes) after the bishop of 
Rome, because Constantinople is the 
new Rome,** Hence he concludes 
that as the primacy conferred on the 
bishop of Constantinople was only a 
primacy of honor, the bishop of Rome 
had only a primacy of honor ; and as 
the primacy of honor was conferred on 
the bishop of Constantinople because 
that city was the new Rome, so the 
primacy of the bishop of Rome was 
conferred bccauise he was the bishop of 
did Rome, or the capital of the empire. 
The n*asoning, which is Guetteean, if 
we may coin a word, is admirable, and 
we shall soon see what St. Loo the Great 
thinks of it. Rut the canon does not 
affect the authority, rank, or dignity 
of the bishop of I^^me ; it simply gives 
the bishop of Constantinople the pre- 
ceden^'C of the bishop of Alexandria, 
who had hitherto held the first rank 
after the bishop of Rome. It confer- 
red on him no {lOwer, and took nothing 
from the authority of any one else. 
It was simply a matter of politt'nesA. 
Besides, the canon remained without 
effect. 

From the second pr^neral council the 
Mthor ru8hea,pp. 9G, 97, to the fourth, 



the council of Clialcedon, held under 
the pontificate of St. Leo Magnus, io 
451, and lights upon the twenty -eighth 
canon of that council, which, as he 
gives it, reads : ^' In all things follow- 
ing the decrees of the holy fathers, 
and recognizing the canon just read 
(the thii^ of the second council) by 
the one hundred and fitly bishops well 
beloved of G^, we decree and estab- 
lish the same thing touching the most 
holy church of Constantinople, the new 
Rome. Most justly did riie fathers 
grant privileges to the see of ancient 
Rome, because she was the reigning 
(capital) city. Moved by the same 
motive the one hundred and fif\y bisli> 
ops well beloved of God grant equal 
privileges to the most holy see of the 
new Rome, thinking, very properly, that 
the city that has the honor to be the seat 
of the empire and the senate should 
enjoy in ecclesiastical things the same 
privileges as Rome, the ancient queen 
city, since the former, although of later 
origin, has been mised and honored as 
much as the former. In consequence 
of this decree the council subjected the 
dioceses of Pontus. Asia, (Asia Minor,) 
and Thrace to the jurisdiction of Con- 
stantinople." 

Of course the author cites the canon 
with his usual inexactness, and makoi; 
it ap(>ear even more illo;iical and ab- 
surd than it really was. The alleged 
canon professes to decree and esl-ib- 
litfh the same thing deci-ce I and estab- 
Hshf'd by the one hundred and fifty 
bishop who comi)osed the second 
council, in their third canon, which, 
as we have seen, was simply that th;.* 
bishop of Constantinopii* should have 
the primacy of honor after the bishop 
of Rome, that is the second rank in 
the church. The canon, therefore, 
docs not deprive the Roman pontiff 
of his rank, dignity, and authority as 
primate of the whole church, and thort*- 
ibre did not, as it could not, rai:«e the 
see of (.'Onstantinople to an equal rank 
and dignity with the si.»e of Rome. 
This was never pretended, and is noi 
pretended by the author himself. The 
council never could, without stultify- 



Queitie'f PuLpaey Sehimaik. 



Ml 



in^ itself, have intended anything of 
the sort, for it gave to the bishop of 
Rome the title of " universal bishop," 
and it says expressly : ** We consider 
the primacy of all and the chief honor, 
according to the canons, should be pre- 
served to the most beloved of God, 
the archbishop of Rome.'' * The Non- 
united Greeks and the author himself 
concede that the Church of Rome was 
and is the first church in rank and dig- 
nity. 

Whatever value, then, is to be attach- 
ed to this twenty eighth canon it did 
not and was not designed to aflTect in 
any respect the rank, dignity, or au- 
thority of the Roman pontiff. What 
was attempted by it was to erect the 
non-apostolic see of Constantinople 
or Byzantium into a patriarchal see, 
with jurisdiction over the metropoli- 
tans of Pontus, Asia Minor, Thrace, 
and such as should be ordained in bar- 
barous countries, that is, in countries 
lying beyond the limits of the empire, 
and to give its bishop the first rank af^er 
the patriarch of the West. It sought 
to reduce the bishop of Alexandria from 
the second to the third, and the bishop 
of Anticch from the third to the fourdi 
rank, but it did not touch the power or 
authority of either. It violated the rights 
and |)rivileges of the metropolitans of 
Pontus. Asia Minor, and Thrace, by 
subjecting them to a patriarchal juris- 
diction from which, by ancient usage, 
confirmed by the sixth canon of the 
council of Nica^a, they were exempt 

The author relies on this canon be- 
cause it asserts that the privileges of 
the see of Rome were granted by the 
fathers, and granted because Rome was 
the capital city of the empire. This 
sustains his position, that the import- 
ance the fathers attached to the see of 
Rome wa«^ not because it was the see 
of Peter, but because it was the see of 
the capital — a position we showed, in 
our previous article, to be untenable — 
and also that the authority exercised 
by the Roman pontiff over the whole 
church, which he cannot deny, was 
not by divine right, but by ecclesiasti- 

• Act xvl. col. Oil. Apud Kenrlck. 



cat right But even if this last wew 
so, since there is confessedly no act 
of the uniTersal church revoking the 
grant, the power would be legitimate, 
and the author and his friends the Noo- 
nnited Greeks would be bound byn 
law of the church to obey the Roman 
pontiff, and clearly schismatics in re- 
fusing to obey him. But we have seen 
from St. Cyprian, the authors own 
witness, that the primacy was confer- 
red by our Lord himself on the Roman 
pontiff as the successor of Peter to 
constitute him the visible centre and 
source of unity and authority. Besidee, 
a canon, beyond what it decrees or de- 
fines, is not authoritative, and it is law- 
ful to dispute the logic of a general 
council, and even the historical facto 
it alleges, at least so far as they can 
be separated from the definition or de- 
cree itself. The purpose of the canon 
of Chalcedon was not to define or de- 
cree that the privileges of the see of 
Rome were granted by the fathers, 
and because it was the see of the 
capital of the empire, but to elevate 
the see of C'onstantinople to the rank 
and authority of a patriarchal see, im- 
mediately after the sec of Rome, and 
simply assigns this as a reason for do- 
ing so ; and a very poor reason it was, 
too, at least in the judgment of St Leo 
the Great, as we shall soon see. 

But there is something more to be 
said in regard to this twenty -eighth 
canon of the council of Chalcedon. The 
council is generally accepted as the 
fourth general council, but only by vii^ 
tue of the papal confirmation, and only 
so far as the pope confirmed its acts. In 
many respects the council was a scan- 
dalous assembly, almost wholly coo* 
trolled by the emper.>r and the Byzan- 
tine lawyers or magistrates, who' have 
no authority in the church of €k)d. 
The part taken by the emperor and civil 
magistrates wholly vitiated it as a coun- 
cil of the church, and all the anthoritr 
its acts had or could have for the church 
wasderivc»d from their confirmation by 
St. Leo the Great But bad as the 
council was, the twenty-eighth canon 
never received its sanction. It was in- 



M2 



€hi€Ue$9 Papacff Schimna^e. 



trodaced by the eiTil magistrates, and 
when only one hundred and fifty bi- 
f hops, all orientals, out of the six hun- 
dred composing the council, were pre- 
sent, and no more subscribed it. It 
was resisted by the legates of the Ro- 
man pontiff and protested against ; the 
patriarchal churches of Alexandria and 
Antioch were unrepresented. Dies- 
cams, bishop of the former, was ex- 
chided for his crimes, and Macarius 
of Antioch had just been deposed by 
the emperor and council for heresy 
and expelled ; a large number of pre- 
lates had withdrawn, and only the rump 
of the council remained. It is idle to 
pretend that the canon in question was 
the act even of the council, far less of 
the universal church. 

Now, either Leo the Roman pontiff 
had authority to confirm the acts of 
the council of Chalcedon, and by his 
authority as supreme pastor of the 
church to heal their defects and make 
them binding on the universal church, 
or he had not. If ho had, the contro- 
versy is ended, for that is precisely 
what Mr. Guettee denies ; if he had 
not, as Mr. Guettee contends, then the 
acts of Chalcedon have in themselves 
no authority for the church, since 
through the tyranny of the emperor 
liarcian and the civil magistrates it 
was not a free council, and, though Ic • 
gaily convoked and presided over, was 
not capable of binding the church. The 
author may take which horn of the di- 
lemma he chooses, for the pope refus- 
ed to confirm the twenty-eighth canon, 
and declared it null and void from the 
beginning. 

The fathers of the council, or a por- 
tion of them, in the name of the coun- 
cil, addressed a letter to the Roman 
pontiff in which they recognize him as 
the constituted interpreter of the words 
and faith of Peter for all explain what 
they have done, the motives from which 
they have acted, and pray him ** to 
honor their judgment by his decrees'* 
—that is, confirm their acts. St. Leo 
confirmed those of their acts that per- 
tained to the definition of f&ith, but 
refosed to confirm the twenty-eighth 



canon, which he annulled and declarad 
void, as enacted without authority, and 
against the canons. 

Mr. Guettee says, pp. 97, 98, that 
the council did not ask the Roman pon- 
tiff to confirm tbe canon in question, 
** but by his own decrees to honor the 
judgment which had been rendered. 
If the confirmation of the bishop of 
Rome had been necessary, would the 
decree of Chalcedon have been a judg- 
ment, a promulgated decision, before 
that confirmation?" An authorita- 
tively *' promulgated decision" cer- 
tainly not ; but tbe author forgets that 
the canon had not been promulgated, 
and never became ^ a promulgated de- 
cision." As to its being a judgment, a 
final or complete judgment it was not, 
and the council, by calling it nostrum 
judicium^ do not pretend that it was. 
They present it to the Roman pontiff 
only as an inchoate judgment, to be 
completed by his confirmation. They 
tell tiie pope that his legates have pro- 
tested against it, probably because they 
wished to preserve to him its initiation, 
and that in adopting it they ^' had de- 
ferred to the emperor, to the senate, 
and the whole imperial city, thinking 
only to fmish the work wiiich his holi- 
ness, who always delights to diffuse 
his favors, had begun." The plain 
English of which is. We have enacted 
the canon out of deference to the civil 
authority and the wishes of the imperial 
city, subject to your approval. *• Ro- 
gamus igitur, honora et tuis sententiis 
nostrum judicium. We pray you, 
therefore, to honor our judgment by 
your decrees." • If this does not mean 
asking the pope to confirm their act or 
judgment, we know not what would so 
mean. It is certain that St. Leo lilm- 
self, who is one of the aiithor*s anti- 
papal authorities, so understood it, as is 
evident from his replies to the emperor, 
the empress, and Anatolius, Bishop 
of Constantinople, the assertion of M. 
Guettee to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. 

The Emperor Marcian wrote ex- 

•Opp.8. Leo, torn. LcoL96a-M3. Mlsoe't cdl. 

/lOD. 



Oueittes Papacy SchUmaiie. 



68S 



pressly to St. Leo, beggin|]^ him to 
confirm bj bis apostolic authoritj the 
acts of the council, and especially the 
twenty- eijibtb canon, because without 
his confirmation they would have no 
authority. The Empresti Pulcheria 
wrote hiui to the same effect, and fin- 
ally Anatolius did the same. To the 
emperor the Roman pontiff replied, and 
set forth the reasons why he could not 
confirm the canon in question. He 
makes short work with M. Guett6e'8 
doctrine, broached in the second coun- 
cil, and extended in the twenty-eighth 
canon of Chalcedon, that the rank and 
authority of the see derive from the 
rank, authority, or importance of the 
city in which it is established. He 
denies that the fact that Constantinople 
was the second capital of the empire, or 
the new Rome, was any reason for 
elevating its bishop to the patriarchal 
rank and authority. •' Let, as we de- 
sire, the city of Constantinople have 
its glory, and, protected by the right 
hand of God, may it long enjoy the 
reign of your clemency ; but different 
is the reason of secular things from 
the reason of divine things, and no 
edifice will be stable unless it is built 
on that rock (St. Matthew xvi. 18) 
which the Lord has laid for a founda- 
tion. Who covets what is not his due 
shall lose what is his own. Let it suf* 
fice tliis man, (Anatolius,) that by the 
aid of your piety and my assent and 
favor, he has obtained the episcopate 
of so great a city. Let him not dis- 
dain the imperial city because he can- 
not make it an apostolic see ; and let 
him by no means hope to enlarge his 
power at the expense of others." 

It is very clear from this that St. 
Leo did by no means concede that the 
bishop of Constantinople was entitled 
to be clothed with patriarchal power 
and take precedence of the patriarch 
t)f Alexandria, because he had his see 
in what had become the second capital 
of the empire. *• Alia ratio est rerum 
secularium, alia divinarum ; nee pr»- 
ter illam petram quam Dominus in 
fundamento posuit, stabilis eril nulla 
constructio f ' that is, only what is built 



on Peter, the rock, will stand, and in 
vain do you build on the greatness, 
splendor, and dignity of earthly cities.* 
If M. Guett^e had remembered this, 
he would never have turned from the 
chair of Peter, or allowed himself to 
be seduced by the nationalism of the 
Greek sophists, and the misguided 
ambition of the bishop of Constanti- 
nople. Aks! he left his father^s 
house, and, famished in the far countcj 
to which ho has wandered, he is forced 
to feed on husks with the swine he 
tends. What can that man think of 
the church of God who holds that the 
dignity and authority of its prelates 
have only a secular origin ? 

St. Leo unequivocally refuses, in 
his reply to the solicitations of the 
emperor, to confirm the twenty-eighth 
canon. *^ And why," asks the author, 
p. 98, '^ did he refuse his assent ? Be- 
cause the decree of Chalcedon took 
from the bishop of Alexandria the 
second rank, and the third from the 
bishop of Antioch, and was in so far 
forth contrary to the sixth canon oif 
NicoBa, and because the same decree 
prejudiced the rights of several pri- 
mates or metropolitans," that is, of 
Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace. Thb 
we think was reason enough, and 
proves that the Roman pontiff was 
not only the chief custodian of the 
faith, but also of the canons. '^ The bi- 
shop of Constantinople," says St. Leo^ 
as cited by the author, '^ in spite of the 
glory of his church, cannot make it 
apostolic ; he has no right to aggran- 
dize it at the expense of churches 
whose privileges, established by the 
canons of the holy fathers, and set- 
tled by the decrees of the venerable 
council of Nicaea, cannot be unsettled 
by perversity nor violated by innova- 
tion." St. Leo in the whole contro- 
versy appears as the defender of the 
canons against innovation, and of 
the catholicity of the church against 
Greek nationahsm. 

The author continues, same page, 
* In his letter to the Empress Pulche- 
ria, St. Leo declares that he has ' an- 

* Ibidem, ad ItfarcUnnm Aof utam, epitl. otr. 



SM 



OyetUff Papacy Schumatic. 



•nailed the decree of Chalcedon by the 
antboritj of St. Peter.' These words 
seem at first sight to mean that he 
claimed for himself a sovereijrn [su- 
preme] authority in the church in 
the name of St. Peter." Undoubted- 
ly, not only at first sight, but at every 
night. The Pope uses the strongest 
terms to be found in the Latin lan- 
guage, and terms which can be used 
only by one having the supreme au- 
thority, irritm and eassare. He re- 
fuses to ratify it, decbires it null, and 
says, *' per auctoritatem Beati Petri 
apostoli," he makes it void. lie could 
make no greater assumption of author- 
ity. " But, ' adds the author, upon a 
more careful and unbiassed examina- 
tion of his letter and other writings, 
** we are convinced that St. Leo only 
spoke as the bishop of an apostolic see, 
and that in this character he claimed 
the right, in the name of the apostles 
who founded his church, and of the 
Western countries which he represent- 
ed, to resist any attempt of the East- 
em Church to decide alone matters of 
general interest to the whole church," 
pp. 98, 99. If he is convinced, we are 
not. If such was St. Leo*s meaning, 
why did he not say so ? Why did he 
annul when he only meant that the 
canon was null, because decreed by 
Orientals alone; or why did he not 
assign that reason for annulling it, 
and not the reason that it was repug- 
nant to the canons of the holy fathers 
and the decrees of the Council of Ni- 
cjea? 

** The proof that he regarded matters 
in this li^rht," (p. 99,) *< is that be does 
not claim for himself any personal au- 
thority of divine origin, descended to 
him from St. Peter, but that, on the 
contrary, he presents himself as the 
defender of the canons, and looks upon 
ihe rights and reciprocal duties of the 
churches as having been established 
by the fathers and fixed by the coun- 
cil of Nicasa. lie does not pretend 
ihat his church has any exceptional 
rights, emanating from another source." 
This proof is inconclusive. St. IjCO 
had no occasion to claim personal au- 



thority for himself, for whaterer m 
thority he had was oflScial, not penoo. 
al, and inhered in him as the nc 
cessor of Peter in the apostolic see of 
Rome, and in this capacitj he most 
assuredly did cUiim to have an thority. 
when he declared to the Enopreis 
Pulcheria, as we have seen, that, ^ by 
authority of Peter, he annulled and 
made void and of none efifect," the 
decree of Chalcedon. What i he ao thor 
says he did not do, is precisely what he 
did do. He docs not annul and make 
void the decree by authority vested in 
him by the canons, or which he holds 
by ecclesiastical right, but *^ by the an- 
thority of Peter." He, moreover, was 
not defending the rights and preroga- 
tives of his own see, nor his authority 
as metropolitan, patriarch, or supreme 
pontifi; tor this was not called in 
question ; the council most fully re- 
cognizetl it, and in his letter de- 
fining the faith against Eutychejs, it 
professed to hear the voice of Peter. 
He was defending the canons, not for 
himself, nor for churches subjected to 
him as patriarch of the West, but for 
Alexandria, Antioch, and the metro- 
politans of Pontus, Asia Minor, and 
Thrace, which the twenty-eighth canon 
of Clialcedon sought to subject to the 
bishop of Constantinople ; and he there- 
fore had no occasion to dwell on the 
exceptional rights, or rights not de- 
rived from the canons, but from Grod 
through Peter, of the Roman Church. 
It sufficed him to exercise tliem, which 
he did do effectually. 

^* By ecclesiastical right he is the 
first bishop of the church," the author 
continues ; ** besides, he occupies the 
apostolic see of the West; in these 
characters he must interfere and pre- 
vent the ambition of one particular 
church from impairing rights that the 
canons have accorded to other bishops 
too feeble to resist." Wherefore must 
he do so? In these characters he 
might offer his advice, he might even 
refuse his assent to acts ho disapprov- 
ed; but he could not authoritatively 
interfere in any matters outside of his 
own |)articular diocx^se, or his own pa- 



Quetthe^f Papacy Schismatic 



triarchate, far less to annul and make 
void acts which did not concern him in 
either of these cliaractors. He had no 
right to interfere in the way he did, 
except as supreme pontiff and head of 
ihe whole church, and Roman theolo- 
pans have never claimed for the Ro- 
man pontiff greater power than St. Leo 
exercised in the case of the council of 
Chalcedon. 

** After reading all that St. Leo has 
written against the canon of the coun- 
cil of Chalcedon, it cannot be doubtful 
what he meant." We agree to that, 
nor is it doubtful what he did. He an- 
nulled and made void by authority of 
Peter an act of a general council, and 
null and void it remained. 

'* He does not claim for himself the 
autocracy which Roman theologians 
make the groundwork of the papal au- 
thoi-ity." Very likely not, for nobody 
claims it for the Roman pontiff, as we 
showed in our former article. He is 
the sui)remc pastor, not tlie autocrat, 
of Ihe church. "In his letter to the 
fathers of the council of Chalcedon he 
onit/ styles himself ' guardian of the 
Catholic faith and of the constitutions 
of the fathers,' and not chief and mas- 
ter of the church by divine right." 
Docs he deny that he is chief and mas- 
ter by divine right? Certainly not, 
and no one can read his letters without 
feeling that in every word and syllable 
he speaks as a superior, in the lan- 
guage and tone of supreme authority. 
His ri»ply to Anatoli us is such as could 
be written only by a superior not only 
in rank, but in authority, and while re- 
ph'te with the affection of a father, it 
is marked by the majestic severity of 
supreme power. 

The refusal of St, Leo to confirm 
the twenty-eighth canon gave rise to 
the report that he had refused to con- 
firm the acts of the council, and the 
Eutycliians, against whom its defini- 
tions of faith were directed, began to 
raise their heads and boldly assert 
that they were not condemned, that the 
definitions of the council against them 
counted for nothing, since the Roman 
pontiff had refused to confirm them, as 



he refused to confirm the doings of the 
Ephesian Latrocinium. The imperial 
court became alarmed, and the empe- 
ror wrote to St. Leo for an explicit 
statement of what he had done. St. 
Leo answers that he has confirmed all 
the decrees of Chalcedon defining the 
faith, but that he has not confirmed the 
decree erecting the church of Con- 
stantinople into a patriarchal church. 
This fact does not seem to favor the 
author's theory that the Roman pontiff 
was held to have only a primacy of 
honor, nor that St Leo did not claim 
universal jurisdiction. 

It will have been observed that the 
council of Chalcedon undertakes to 
support, very illogically indeed, the 
twenty-eighth canon on the authority 
of the third canon of the first council 
of Constantinople, which gave the 
bishop of Constantinople simply the 
primacy of honor after the bishop of 
Rome. But St. Leo, in the letter to the 
empress just cited, denies the authority 
of that canon, on the ground that it had 
never been communicated to Rome, 
and therefore could have no effect. 

We have dwelt at great length on 
the sixth canon of Nicaea, the third 
canon of Constantinople, and twenty- 
eighth of Chalcedon, because they are 
the author's three strongholds, and we 
have wished to show that they do not 
in the least aid him — do in no sense 
contradict the papal authority, but, as 
far as they go, tend to confirm it. The 
author claims St. Leo as a witness 
against the C atholic doctrine of the 
papal supremacy, and we have thought 
it well to show that he has in him about 
such a witness as he had in St. Cy- 
prian, or as he would have in our holy 
father, Pius IX., now gloriously reign- 
ing. Leo Magnus is our ideal of a pope, 
or visible head of the imiversal church, 
and we cannot suflSciently admire the 
hardihood or the stupidity that would 
claim him as a witness against the 
primacy he adorned, and the papal 
authority which he so gracefully and 
so majestically wielded, and with such 
grand effects for the church and the 
empire. No nobler man, no truer 



ftM 



■ry^jzi^ / .--XMiTi 



•.-.«fc/ V >*-..-- uu: Ti: I -rir- r :ij-.r^ 

'''•^ '''' •■'•■ *. •"■" '.»: -;:ii-T i";!. "-.'LT. ■:!.■• 
; "•• WTX.- • -.t...' * i • •'•■>- "r'-r !:;• r: 
ij» '>••■•- .^t. »:' i' ■_:- *►•• I.'. • 2i *ai*. 

. *■■'♦.•' .-.I- ', r: :, Kii**:'": \. *a»''. ■.»ai-.\ 

; ,. r»-, - »v^ -.:.'. 'a.".i r. Tr-i. ■«• ii> 
. ■ y *^-i •..»-•. .•-»»> 'j>"r::i^ v* > *"j_ 

v >■•■ -xr.;^^ ...' ■•rr." '-v •-'■' -'-r '"r?: 

ii. '/-»•-.■. \ \- .• V. V- Ts-' ■.•-.• Uii: 
■. ■'.• » 'v.^. r. \ *.',•: - •. '-■>■-- -J-. --. T 

V •. -y •,■<-: '.-^ r..: ^-'v*-.-*. vj"..*.. .:.•_'. 
•^ r *• 1 ■*• /-. ■. '/*' "^ ■,'-•■■_ " - ' r 

•/f n..'. vi* *-.-.• i.'-*--r: *.; ".T 

V. ••>.•'*. '-..•••_ »-^'. v.'-. >•' r. ■, 
; A > »: • • v^ . '.*^ f — , v- '..J-: £ ••." .- , • . > « ; 
^,* V/. -'. a/;--^/-.-; . A ex---. .-»• i --Vi.- - 
••'I vf '*'.'/?•:■; ',-..; :/v '.•:'-•£». \r'.'i i."-I 

•• S'. //•'/.'' •-.*: 4 i"'.'** '•'-<.■! -.i-i, - : i 
:•. [/ff /!"'.* ^'/;a.,ft*' rJ\..': *.'»^ *':.'.% «:.::-•:. 

'.' ': '/• lifts,*', ffff ysfti^h h: C-fjlm^d 'jrjy 

tin *■* ' l'wfjtf»r*d pfit/t^irj. u\\ ^\::i\i\y b^- 

i»\ ':j' '-oui,! ;; «/j' .\"i':ii;'i." T.'iai ;-': '.'lairn- 
«•'! o'llv }iri '•'/:!^-i;i-tI':;il jirlrfi-i'ry for 
l.i< ^«-«; lo fio* irii". f'»r lifr cijirn-fl :o 
fnri'jl \\tf i-'.iu*ni hfj a'i*h'friftf of I\*^r. 
Nor *\'u\ \if *i\t\ •/ 1 to it o:j1v U- -au-'r il 
ififf iri;r<r<l rli'- f.ix'ii <-:iii'#ri ol N!'-jiri. but 
U''':iiit>i: \li:uuUi\w*\n 'jinwti irinovaiiori 
ill rlif vifU*X\\MUi9U of ili«r r-linri'is. uiid 
i\\**-ui\tU*\ to t'oijnrj tli«* authority of 
Im>'Iio|m on a t«'m|Kjra] in-ti-o'J ol'a -jiirit- 
ual immI aii'i'-ioli'! \ii\A*. It proiiosi.-d 
lo ''Ijan;/!' i-iiliri'ly tli^r Ijiiah of I In* |*oii 
till ill aijllr^riiy, wliirii li;vl Ii'mIhtIo 
M-^Ji'iJ «i!i Vt'Wr^ii\\i\ to iriaki: it v*'M on 
iIm- i'iii|iiri\ TIm* I'liun'li ofC )oiiotaiitiiio- 
|il(' Wii>i not ail a|Hi<toliir Hc«?, uinl only 
llic Im'iIio|i of an u)Mislnlif! n':<; (!Oiil<l 
\n\ cloilifil Hiih |fa(rian')ial antlioiity. 
Tliii Hi'iMn-* lo 111* to III* tlii!(;rfj:il objtic- 
lion of St. Li'O. TlMrn?rori', In? writes 
tu till! riii|ii*nir, uh ulroiuly cii(.'d : *^ Let 




:..-rji :.: "n : •.r.trz. '.r.-zir Til* is 
ci-r:- :. -.I'.j i:< :.^ j^o*. vi •r-^-.-rai 
c.:-. ..- .: i'-: c: C >:>iAz:i= :^! -. Bax 
• -;:■:• rir :':. ^:,jr. :'/-lo^i ? S-iiijly :La: 
iii'zw « >: :.y. o'-us.:> ■::' :'.c c:.-.-:h a: 
ai^ — ^:.' -. -.."J l^:* v.. 7- plvi-sau: r. r» 
i> L .'; zirli:.? f.rj-l ILi:;.*iiiLs:s ^uo 
w:- \ a 4. i.rli.:'a::i::y w;:}i:i:i! ^^i-ro: — 
arj'l <-i:. i.ii"'* the uu:..or::y '.'i' -jvii'-ral 
c- * J rj •■ L* on ly oy t !*•? • -r ■^'- ..».* r* k- • .# sa :i 0- 
tio :t o: r 1. '.' u 41 1 \ *- r?.^! ch u ro ; ■ : I. a * . a* i b«r 
lwo«:a:i'jri- on whi'.-htho a'j:w'.«rb:i*e- h'« 
anti-[i;t;i:il ili^rorj' havt- :jcv»:-r received 
that <irjciion. they Lave no au:-i.>riiy. 
and n'rv'.-r have Lad any. Ilcnoe. ihe 
auihor'A theory, on any griuai tie 
cli'x*-L-J, has nor hi n^ in ih»* i*!*.irv-h to 
BUalain i:. Wi* shall, fhurctonv jia-is 
oviT wliat ln*atiihiri-s to provi: tiie jiari 
tak<Mi by thi; c'i\il auLhoriiy in the 
coan( iU, with the siim{Ki* remark that 
the ads of bevcral of thcni dcpLMid en* 
tinrly on th'.-ron fin nation of the Uoiuan 
|>on:iir and thi; ex-pos*. fucto >aiicliou 
of tin? church for their auihority 

M. Gui'ttec's proofs arii not s^fldoiD 
proolk of the contrary of what he al- 
l»<;ed. *' It u» undeniable fact/' he says. 



OueUie^i Papacy Schismatic* 



587 



p 118, '^ that the dogmatic letter ad- 
dressed by St. Leo to the fathers of 
the council was there examined, and 
approved for this reason : that it agreed 
with the doctrine of Celestine [his pre- 
decessor] and Cyril, confirmed by the 
council of Ephesus." That the letter 
was read in the council, and that the 
council adopted its definitions of faith, 
is true ; but that it was approved for 
the reason alleged does not appear 
from tlie proofs the author adduces. 
He continues, pp. 118, 119 : ** At the 
close of the reading, the bishops ex- 
claimed : ' Such is the faith of the 
fathers ; this is the faith of the apos- 
tles. W<». all believe thus. Anathe- 
ma to those who do not thus believe. 
P<»ter has spoken by Leo. Thus 
tau^rht the apostles. Leo teaches ac- 
cording to piety and truth, and thus has 
Cyril taught.' " Any one not bent on 
proving the papacy schismatic would 
feather from this that the bishops ap- 
proved of the letter because they re- 
cognized in it the doctrine of the apos- 
tles and the tradition of the fathers. 

The author imagines that he gets an 
argument against the papacy from St. 
• Leo's refusal to accept the title of 
imwersal bishop offered him by the 
council of Chalcedon, as we learn from 
Pope St. Gregory the Great. He also 
thinks the argument is strengthened by 
the fact that St. Gregory himself dis- 
claimed it ; and he therefore claims both 
of these great pontiffs and great saints as 
witnesses against the pretensions of the 
bishops of Rome. If they had believed 
in their jurisdiction by divine right over 
the whole church, would they have re- 
fused the title of universal bishop ? 

John the Faster, Bishop of Constan- 
tinople, on some occasion summoned 
a particular council, and signed its 
acts, which he transmitted to Pope Pc- 
lagius H. as universal patriarch, for 
which, as St. Gregory says, Pelagius, 
** in virtue of the authority of the apos- 
tle St. Peter, nullified the acts of the 
synod. ' Gregory succeeded Pelagius, 
and immediately on his accession to the 
pontificate wrote to the patriarchs of 
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, 



condemning the title, and warning tliein 
and the whole church of the danger it 
threatened ; and also he wrote to John 
the Faster himself, admonishing him 
of the impropriety of the title, not 
only as savoring of pride and vanity, 
but as involving a most serious error 
against faith, and beseeching him to lay 
it aside, lest he be obliged to cut him 
off from the communion of the church, 
and depose him from his bishopric. He 
does not at all disclaim his own authori- 
ty as supi*eme pastor and governor of 
the universal church, but quietly as- 
sumes it. Thus, he writes to the em« 
peror Maurice, as cited by the author : 
'^ All who know the gospel know that 
the care of the whole church was con- 
fided by our Lord himself to Peter, the 
first (St. Gregory says prince) of aU 
the apostles. Indeed, he said to him, 

* Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep»' 
Again he said to him : * Satan has de- 
sired to sifl thee as wheat ; but I have 
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; 
and when thou art converted, strengthen 
thy brethren.' It was also said to him: 

* Thou .art Peter, and upon this rock 
will I build my church, and the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it ; and 
I will give thee the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven, and whatsoever thou 
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in 
heaveu, and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth shall be loosed in 
heaven.' He thus received the keys 
of the celestial kingdom; the power 
to bind and loose was given him ; the 
care of all the church and the primacy 
[^principcUuM — principality, or primacy 
of jurisdiction] were committed to him, 
and yet he did not call himself univenal 
apostle. But that holy man John, 
(bishop of Constantinople,) my brother 
in the priesthood, [cosacerdos,") would 
fain assume the title o^ universal bishop! 
O temporal O mores ! " (Pp. 212, 213.) 

** It is certain," St. Gregory conti- 
nues, " that this title was offered to the 
Roman pontiff by the venerable coun- 
cil of Chalcedon, to honor Blessed Pe- 
ter, prince of the a[>ostles. But none 
of us has consented to use this parti- 
cular title, [title of singularity,] lest bj 



588 



ChtetUe^B Papacy Sc\i$made* 



conferring a special matter on one 
alone, all priests would be deprived 
of the honor which is their due. How, 
then, while we arc not ambitious of 
the glory of a title which has been 
offered iis, does another, to whom 
no one has offered it, have the pre- 
sumption to take it?" (Pp. 214, 215.) 
In his letter to Eulogius of Alex- 
andria and Anastatius of Antioch, 
St. Gregory is more explicit still, 
^Aa your holiness, whom I particu- 
larly venerate, well knows, this title 
of universal, was offered by the coun- 
cil of Chalcedon to the bishop [pon- 
tiff] of the apostolic see, which by 
Gods grace I serve. But none of 
my pr^ecessors would use this im- 
pious word, because in reality, if a 
patriarch be called universal, it takes 
from all others the title of patriarch." 
The author, after quoting a passage 
fro:n another letter to Eulogius, adds : 
•• Thus did Pope Gregory condemn even 
in the perr^on of the bishops of Rome 
the title of pope and universal." But 
in this he is mistaken, as his own quo- 
tation shows. Eulogius answers that 
he will not give the title of universal 
patriarch to the bishop of Constanti- 
nople, but that he gives that of universal 
pope to I lie Roman pontiff. *• No," says 
Si. Gregory, ** if your holiness calls 
me universal pope, you deny yourself 
what J should then be altogether." 
The author interpolates in his quota- 
tion the copulative and, which is not 
in St. Gregory's text. It is not to the 
title of pope that St. Gregory objects, 
whicli was and is applied to simple 
presbyters, but the talc imiversttlf 
which he will not permit to be ap- 
plied to any man, because it excludes 
others from all participation in the 
hierarchy, or even the priesthood. If 
you call a man a universal presbyter, 
you deny that any others are presby- 
ters ; if you cail any one universal 
bishop, you exclude all others from 
the episcopate ; if you call any one 
nniversal patriarch, you deny the pa- 
triarchate to all others ; and if you call 
the bishop of R^me universal pope, 
since as such he possesses the priest- 



hood, and both the apostalate and the 
episcopate in their plenitude, jpoq 
exclude all others from sharing the 
priesthood, the episcopate, or the apos* 
tolate, even the pope himself from the 
church, and deny the solidarity of 
apostles, bishops, and presbyters, as* 
serted, as we have seen, by Sl Cy- 
prian. 

Eulogius was priest, bishop, and 
patriarch, and as such was the brother 
of the Roman pontiff. This brother^ 
hood remained all the same, whether 
the Roman pontiff had or not supreme 
jurisdiction over the whole church. 
When Eulogius called St. Gregory, not, 
as the author says, pope and universal, 
but universal pope, he denied this bro- 
therhcKxi, and deprived himself of bis 
own priestly, episcopal, and apostolic 
character. Hence, St. Gre;;ory, after 
saying to him and other bishops, ^' J know 
wiiat i am, and what you are ; by your 
place or office, you arc my brothers, 
by your virtues, my fathers, ' he adds, in 
reference to the title of universal whicli 
Eulogius had given him, '* 1 beseech 
your holiness to do so no more in fu- 
ture, for you take from yourself what 
you give in excess to another. I do. 
not ask to increase in dignifies, but in 
virtues. I do not esteem that an hon- 
or by which my brethren are depriv- 
ed of theirs. For my honor is the hon- 
or of the universal church, my honor 
is the unshaken firmness of my breth- 
ren. Then a'.n I truly honored when 
to no one is denied the honor that is 
his due. For, if your holiness calls 
me universal pope, you deny that you 
are yourself what I should be confess- 
ed to be universally. Sed absit hoc. 
Reccdant verba qua; vanitalem inflant, 
et charitalem vulnei-ant. ** 

We may call the bi>hop of Rome 
pope of the universal church, but not 
universal pope, nor univei*?*al bishop, 
because he only possesses in its plen- 
itude what is possessed in a degree 
by every member of the hierarchy, 
and even now, as always, the |K)pe ad- 
dresses the bishops in communion with 

^ Ofip. S. Greforii Mazul. Hb. yilL epUt. xxs. 
MlgocS rilUoii, t.itn. ilL col. 90a. 



Oueitie'a Papacy Schismaik. 



589 



him as " Venerable Brethren." The 
argument against the claim of the bi- 
shop of Rome to jurisdiction in the 
universal church, which the author at- 
tempts to build on the refusal of the 
title of universal bishop by St. Leo, 
and that of universal pope, papa 
universalis, hj St. Gregory, is refuted 
by St. Gregory himself, as cited in the 
volume before us, pp. 212, 213. The 
holy pontiff and doctor, after asserting 
that our Lord had given to Peter the 
primacy of jurisdiction, and confided 
to liira the .care of the universal 
church, adds that Peter *'did not 
call himself universal apostle.'^ Pe- 
ter was not the only apostle, and the 
others could not be excluded from tlie 
apostleship. He was prince of the 
apostles, their chief, the centre of 
apostolic unity and authority, as St. 
Cyprian explains, and had the care and 
jurisdiction (principatus) of the uni- 
versal church, as Gregory asserts, but 
inclusive, not exclusive of the other 
apostles. Peter held in relation to 
the other apostles and the whole 
church all the supremacy claimed by 
Catholics for the bishop of Roffie. If, 
then, the refusal of tlie title of univer- 
sal apostle by Sr. Peter did not nega- 
tive his supreme authority, why should 
the refusal of the title of universal 
bishop or uiiivercjal pope by the bi- 
shops of Rome negative their supre- 
macy, or their primacy of jurisdiction 
in the whole church ? Peter held that 
primacy, and yet was not universal 
apostle, and why not, then, the bishop 
of Rome, without being universal bi- 
shop or universal pope? 

The author is unhappy in his wit- 
nesses, and they are all too decidedly 
lioman to testily otherwise than against 
him. lifi cites other eminent fathers 
of the fourth and fitlh centuries, but 
he raises no new questions, and makes 
no points in his favor not already met 
and disposed of; and we may, there- 
fore, pass over what he adduces, since, 
as we contiime to remind our readers, 
we are not adducing our proofs of the 
papal authority, but refuting his argu- 



ments or pretended arguments against 
it. 

In his fifth division, cb»[)ter, or sec- 
tion, the author examines '" the authori- 
ty of the bishop of Rome in the sixth, 
seventh, and eighth centuries." Wo 
have anticipated him in n^gard to St. 
Grcgory the Great, the most promi- 
nent papal figure in these centuries, 
and shown that this great pontiff and 
doctor, who justly ranks along with 
Sl Leo, offers no testimony in support 
of the author^s vain attempt to prove 
the papacy schismatic. We have read 
this section of his book with care, but 
we find that, while he shows very 
clearly that the Roman pontiff, to 
save the faith and the constitution 
and canons of the church fi*om the 
attacks of the heretics and schismatics 
of the East, was obliged to inter- 
vene with his supreme authority in 
the affairs of the Eastern churches 
more frequently than in earlier ages, 
he brings forward nothing different 
from what has already been refuted 
to prove that they did not possess the 
authority which they exercised by di- 
vine right. We may say, then, that the 
author has totally failed to establish 
his first conclusion, that '* the bishop 
of Rome did not for eight centuries 
]X)ssess the sovereignty of divine right 
which he has since sought to exer- 
cise." The facts he adduces prove 
that during those centuries the popes 
did exercise all the authority they 
have as supreme pontiffs since exer^ 
cised, and that they professed to exer- 
cise it by divine right, and without any 
con'radiction by the universal church. 
No doubt the author has adduced in- 
stances in which general councils have 
recognized it, and made it the basis of 
their action ; but this does not prove 
that the papal authority was conferred 
by the church, and was held only by 
ecclesiastical right. No doubt the civil 
authority on moi*e than one oceasion 
recognizL*d it and made it the law of 
the empire, but this does not prove 
that it was held as a gnmt of the em- 
peror, but the reverse rather. The au- 



090 



Ouitii$^9 Papacy Schismaiie. 



thor, then, has not refuted the argn- 
ment from possession, turned the pre- 
sumption against the papacy, or prov- 
ed that he and his friends the Non- 
united Greeks are not decidedly 
schismatics in resisting the council of 
Florence, in which both the £ast and 
West were represented and united. 

The author, having failed to establish 
his first conclusion, notwithstanding 
his misquotations, mistranslations, and 
misrepresentations of facts, which are 
numerous and barefaced enough to 
excite the envy of his editor, the 
Protestant Episcopal bishop of West- 
em New- York, cannot prove his second 
conclusion, namely: The pretension 
of the bishops of Rome to the sover- 
eignty of divine right over the whole 
church was the cause of the division. 
This depends on the first, and falls 
with it ; for it is necessary to deny the 
divine authority of the pope to govern 
the whole church before his assump- 
tion and exercise of that authority can 
be held to be a usurpation, and the 
cause of the divisions which result 
from resistance to it Resistance oth- 
erwise is illegal, unauthorized, and con- 
clusive evidence of schism, or, rather, 
is undeniably itself schism. The re- 
sistance on the part of the Eastern bish- 
ops and prelates to the Roman pontiff 
in the exercise of his legitimate au- 
thority was schism, as much so as an 
armed insurrection against the political 
sovereign is rebellion, and the rebels 
cannot allege that the sovereign in the 
exercise of his legitimate authority is 
the cause of their rebellion, and bold 
him responsible for it. 

The author, forgetting that the pope 
is in possession, and that throughout 
the presumption is in favor of his au- 
thority, argues as if the presumption 
was on the other side, and the onm 
probandi was on us. He, therefore, 
concludes that eveiy exercise of papal 
jurisdiction beyond the patriarchate 
of the West is a usurpation, and re- 
sistance to it justifiable, unless we are 
able to prove the contrary. We deny 
it, and maintain that it is for him to 
prove that jurisdiction is usurped, and 



not held by divine right The Unr* 
ing oar is in his hands. It is alwrnyi 
for those who resist authority to justi- 
fy their resistance. The author can 
justify his resistance to papal authori- 
ty only by producing some law of God 
or some canon of the universal chuirh 
that restricts the jurisdiction of the Ro- 
man pontiff to the Western patriarch- 
ate, and forbids him to exercise juris- 
diction over the whole church. A law 
or edict to that effect of the empire or 
canon of the Eastern churches alone, 
could it be produced, would not avail 
him ; it must be a decision of the uni* 
versal church, even according to his 
own doctrine. He alleges no sucli act 
or canon, and can allege none, tor all 
the acts or canons of the universal 
church bearing on the question, uu* 
happily for him, are the other way. 

The author adduces the third caooB 
of the second general council, and the 
twenty -eighth of the fourth, but these 
canons, having never been assented to 
by the West, are witliout the authority 
of the universal church. And. besides, 
they do not distinctly deny the supreme 
authoritjr of the bishop of Rome, and 
only profess to confer the first rank 
and authority after the Roman pon- 
tiff on the bishop of Constantinople. 
It is a strong presumption against the 
author that he does not even allege 
any law or canon of the universal 
church which the popes have violated, 
and his charge against them is that of 
presenting themselves as defenders of 
the canons against innovation, as in 
the refusal of St. Leo to accept the 
twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon. 

But the author, with his usual faci- 
lity, refutes himself, and shows that it 
was not the pretension of the bishofw 
of Rome, but the pretensions of the 
bishop of Constantinople and of the 
secular government that caused tlie 
division. We have seen that the third 
canon of the second general council, 
and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, 
which was annulled by St Leo, were 
in violation of the canons, but were 
prompted by the ambition of the bisb- 
o[> of Constantinople and the secular 



Oneitee^s Papacy HichitmaHe. 



691 



authority. " We can perceive/* says 
the author, p. 100. ^ in the struggles 
between the bishops of Rome and 
Constantinople, respecting? the twenty- 
eighth canon of* the council of Chalce- 
don, the origin of the dii^ensions which 
afterward led to an entire rupture." 
And why did these dissensions lead to 
an entire rupture ? Certainly because 
the same parties continued to maintain 
the same claims in relation to each 
other. The ground of the dissension 
remained always the same. The ques- 
tion, then, is, which party in the begin- 
ning was in the right, and which was in 
the wrong? "In principW says the 
author on the same page, *' St Leo was 
right ;" that is, right in defending the 
canons of the holy fathers and the de- 
crees of the venerable council of Niciea 
against their violation and subversion 
by the innovations of Constantinople 
and Chaloedon. St. Leo, the author 
himself says, presented himself as the 
defender of antiquity and the canons of 
Nica?a ; he must, then, have been right 
not only in principle, but in fact. The 
real cause of the division was not the 
pretension of the bishops of Rome to 
an authority which they did not pos- 
sess, but their refusal to assent to the 
violent and shameless usurpations of 
Constantinople. The attitude of the 
popes and the ground on which they 
resisted from first to last were dis- 
tinctly taken by St. Leo in his letter 
to the emperor, Marcian, already cit- 
(hI : " Privilegia ecclesiarum, sancto- 
rum Patrum canonibus instituta el ven- 
erabilis Nicjenae synodi fixa decretis, 
nulla possunt improbitate convelli, nul- 
la mutari novitate."* 

But St. Leo *• could not deny," says 
the author, '' that one general council 
had the same rights as another that 
had preceded it." But, even if so, none 
of the innovations proposed by the East 
and opposed by the bishops of Rome 
have ever had the authority of a gener- 
al council. There is and can be, even 
according to the author and his schis- 
matic Greek friends, no general coun- 
cil without the bishop of Rome ; and 

* A<] MarcUnum Aogustam, epUt. 105, edit. BUgnt. 



the canons on which the author relies 
were from the first resisted by the 
Roman pontiff, and, therefore, could not 
override or abrogate the decrees of the 
council of Nicica. 

The whole controversy originated in 
the attempt to raise the see of Con- 
stantinople, which was not an apostolic, 
a patriarchal or even a metropolitan 
see, to the rank and authority of the 
first see in the church after that of the 
see of Rome, contrary to the sixth 
canon of Nic^a, to the constitution of 
the church, to ancient usage, and to 
the prejudice o^ the bishops of Alex- 
andria and Antioch, and the metropo- 
litans of Pontus, Asia, (Minor.) and 
Thrace. On what ground does the 
author seek to defend this attempt, 
always resisted by the Roman pontilSPs 
and the whole West? Simply on the 
ground that the rank and authority of 
a see are derived from the splendcMr 
and importance of Ihe city in the em- 
pire. He assigns and pretends to as- 
sign no other ground. ** The Niccean 
council,*' he says, " in consecrating the 
usage by which the bishop of Rome 
was regarded as the first in honor in 
the church, had in view not so much 
the apostolic origin of his see as the 
splendor which he acquired from the 
importance of the city of Rome. . • . 
Why, then, should not the bishop of 
Constantinople have been received as 
second in rank, Constantinople having 
become the second capital of the em- 
pire; since the bishop of Rome was 
first in rank, only beciEiase of its posi- 
tion as the first capital ]" (Pp. 100, 
lOL) 

The argument is worthless, because 
its premises are false. In the first 
place, the question is one of authoritj 
as well as of rank. In the second 
place, the council of Nicsea did not 
consecrate the usage by which the 
primacy, v/hother of honor or j'lrisdic- 
tion, was ascribed to the bishop of 
Rome, but confirmed the usage by 
which the bishop of Alexandria, the 
bishop of Antioch, and other metropo- 
litans held a certain rank, and enjoyed 
certain privileges, and gave as their 



GueUee*8 Papacy Schismaik. 



reason (hat a like usa;^ or custom ob- 
tained with the bidhop of Rome. In 
the third place, the council savs not one 
word about the splendor acquired bj 
the Roman pontiff from the importance 
of the city oF Rome ; and we have prov- 
ed that, whatever his rank and authori- 
ty, he derived it from the tiict that his 
see was held to be the sec of Peter, and 
he the successor of Peter, the prince of 
the apostles. Finally, the author has 
no ground for his assertion, except the 
third canon of the second general 
council and the twenty eighth of the 
fourth, the latter authoritatively an- 
nulled and the former declared to be 
without effect by St, Leo, and neither 
ever receiving the sanction or as- 
sent of the universal church. The 
ground on which the bishop of Con- 
stantinople based his ambitious preten- 
sions, that of being bishop of the second 
capital of the empire, is wholly unten- 
able^ *• Alia ratio est rcruin secula- 
Hum, alia divinarum," says St. Leo. 
*• We laughed," says P<>po St. Gelasius 
OS cited by the author, p. 198, ''at 
what they (the Ejistern bishops) claim 
for Acacius (bishop of Constantinople) 
because he was bishop of the imperial 
city. . . . The power of the secular em- 
pire is one thing, the distribution of 
ecclesiastical digniiios is quite a differ- 
ent thing. However small a city may 
be, it does not diminish the givatness 
of the prince who dwells there ; but it 
is quite as true that the presence of 
the em|)eior do4'S not eliange tlie order 
of religion ; and such a city should 
rather profit by its julvar.taires to pre- 
serve the freedom of religion, by keep- 
ing peaceably within its proper limits." 
From firsi to last, one is struck, in 
reading the history of the controversy, 
not only with the superior enlinnos 
and dignity of the Roman |K)iitiffs. but 
with their profound wisdom and catho- 
lic sen:^e. They defend throiighout the 
catholicity of the church against Greek 
nationalism, and the independence of 
the kingdom of Christ on earth ag:iinst 
its subjection to the seeuhir empii'c, 
which was attcm|ited and tinally t^uc- 
ceeded at Constantinople, and is (he 



case in Russia, Great Britaiiiy and all 
modern schismaticaland heretical states 
and empires. The author sees and 
appreciates nothing of this ; he compre- 
hends nothing of the church as the 
mystic body of Christ, the continuous 
representation of the Incaroacion ; his 
ideas are external, political, unspiritaal, 
and, as far as appears from his book, 
pagan rather than Christian. The 
church he recognizes, as far as he re- 
cognizes any, is national, not catholic, 
and holds from the imperial authority, 
not from Christ, and has no complete- 
ness in itself. 

It was precisely in nationalism, io 
regarding the church as organized for 
the Roman empire, not for the whole 
world, and in recognizing the authoritj 
of the civil power in theological and ec- 
clesiastical matters, as the author him- 
self unwittingly tihows, that the Greek 
schism originated. The bishop of Con- 
stantinople, having in the hierarchy 
no apostolic, patriarchal, or metropoli- 
tan rank or authority beyond that 
which is held by every suffragan bi- 
shop, was obliged, in orde.r to dofend 
his ambitious a8|>irations to the second 
lank in the church, to give the hier- 
archy a secular origin, and to fail biu'k 
on the imj>erial authority to 8U[)port 
him. The idea was pagan, not Christ- 
ian, and was but too acceptable to the 
Byz^mtine Ciesars. In paizan Rome 
the emperor was at once iinpenitor juui 
pjntife.'cmiiximus, and held in his own 
person the supi*emc autliorily in boili 
civil and religious matters, lie pio- 
served the tradition of tiiis in Cltristiaii 
Rome, and continually struggled to be 
under Christianity what he haJ bee'i 
undt'r paganism. In the West the im- 
perial pnitensions were in the main 
successfully resisted, though not with 
out long and biitor struj:gles, which 
have not even yet completely endtd ; 
but in the Hast, owing to the anibiiion 
and frequent heivsy of tlur h;>hopof 
Constantinople, nirely fiiihful to the 
church after Con3ta»tino}>le became an 
im)K.'ri'il capital, and ihe great patri:i.*ch- 
ates of Alexandria, Antioch. and Jeru- 
salem, weakened by the Arian, Xos- 



GueUie^9 Papacy SehismaHc, 



50S 



torian, monophysilc, and monothelite 
heresies, and betrayed by the heretics, 
had fallen, through the pride, treach- 
ery, and imbecility of the Byzantine 
court, under the power of the Moham- 
inedansvthose bitter enemies of the cross, 
the emperor wa;* enabled to grasp the 
pontifieal power, to bring the adminis- 
tration of religion under his despotic 
control, to make and unmake, murder 
or exile bishops at his will or the ca- 
prices of the ladies of his court Hence 
the Greek schism. 

And this is what M. Guettee defends ; 
and because the Roman pontiffs did all 
in their power to resist such open pro- 
fanation and secularizing of the church, 
he has the impudence to contend that 
it was the usurpations of Rome that 
caused the schism, and he has found a 
Protestant Episcopal bishop inWestem 
New -York ignorant enough or shame- 
less enough to endorse him, and^o as- 
sure us that he is a Catholic in the trae 
sense of the word I 

Notwithstanding the author defends 
the usurpations of the imperial authori- 
ty and the ambitious pretensions of the 
courtly bishops of Constantinople, and 
nnaintains that all the general councils 
held in the East were convoked and pre- 
sided over by the emperors, he does not 
blush to object to the council of Florence 
on the ground that the reunion effected 
in that council was brought about by the 
ambition of a few Eastern prelates and 
the undue pressure of the emperor of 
Constantinople. If the intervention of 
the emperor did not in his judgment 
vitiate the third canon of the first coun- 
cil of Constantinople, or the twenty- 
eighth canon of Chalcedon, or the fifth 
or sixth general council, what right has 
he to pretend that a far less interven- 
tion on the emperor*s part vitiated the 
canons of the council of Florence ? On 
the principles he has defended through- 
out, the emperor may convoke, preside 
over a council, dictate and confirm its 
acts, without detriment to its authority 
as a general council. He is by his own 
principles, then, bound to accept the 
canons of Florence as the voice of the 



universal church, for they we're adopted 
by the East and West united, and are 
and have been constantly adhered to 
by the West and the Eastern churches 
proper, and resisted only by heretics 
and schismatics, who have no voice in 
the church. 

We need proceed no flirther. We 
have said enough to refute the author 
in principle, and are tired of him, as 
must be our readers. We said in the 
beginning that he had told us nothing 
in his book that we did not know be- 
fore ; but we are obliged to confess that 
the examination of authorities into 
which it has forced us has made us feel 
as we never felt before how truly the 
church is founded on Peter, brought 
home to us the deep debt of gratitude 
the world owes to the Roman pontifia, 
and enabled us to see more clearly than 
we ever had done the utter groundless- 
ness, the glaring iniquity, and the open 
paganism of the Greek schism. The 
author has made us, we ahnost fear, an 
ultra-papist, and certainly has strength- 
ened our attachment, already strong, to 
the Holy Apostolic See. He has served 
to us the office of the drunken Helotso 
to the Spartan youth. It is in relation 
to its purpose the weakest and absurd- 
est book we have ever read, and has 
not, so far as the author is concerned, 
a Christian thought from beginning to 
end. If this book fairly represents the 
Christian intelligence and sentiments of 
the Non-united Greeks, it is bard to see 
wherein they are to be preferred to the 
Turks, or why Christendom should seek 
their deliverance from the Mohamme- 
dan yoke. 

If M. Guett6e*8 readers will weigh 
well the arguments for the papacy he 
reproduces for the sake of refuting 
thorn, and his quotations from the 
fathers and the Roman pontifis for the 
sake of blunting their force, they will 
fhid that, in spite of misquotations, mis- 
translations, and misrepresentations, 
the book carries with it its own anti- 
dote. It can do real harm only to those 
who cannot weigh testimony, who never 
think, and are utterly unable to reason. 



VOL. V. — 88 



Impressions of Spain, 



696 



know how to pray. He neither un- 
derstands the office, nor the saci-amcnts, 
nor the ceremonies of the church.*' 
They therefore hid tliemselves in a 
side chapel, close to where he always 
knelt, and watched him when he came 
in. Devoutly kneeling, with his hands 
clasped, his eyes fastened on the tab- 
ernacle, he did nothing but repeat over 
and over again : ** Creo en Dios ; es- 
pero en Dios ; amo d Dios." One day 
he was missing: they went to his cell, 
and found him dead on the straw, with 
his hands joined and an expression of 
the same ineffiible peace and joy they 
had remarked on his face when in 
church. They buried him in this quiet 
cemetery, and the abbot caused these 
woixls to be graven on his cross. Soon, 
a lily was seen flowering by the grave, 
where no one had sown it; the grave 
was opened, and the root of the flow- 
er was found in the heart of the or- 
phan boy.* 

Another morning our party visited 
the Cartucha, the once magniflcent 
Carthusian convent, with its glorious 
ruined church and beautiful and ex- 
tensive orange-gardens. Now all is 
deserted. The only thing remaining 
of the church is a fine west wall and 
rose- window, with a chapel which the 
pn>prietor has preserved for the use of 
his workpeo,»le, and in the choir of 
which are some finely carved wooden 
stalls ; tlie rest have been removed to 
Cadiz, where they form the great or- 
nament of the cathedral. Here and 
there are some fine ^ azulejos," and a 
magnificently carved doorway, speak- 
ing of glories long since departed. This 
convent, once the very centre of all that 
was most cultivated and literar}* in 
Spain, a museum of painting, archi- 
tecture, and sculpture, is now convert- 
ed into a porcelain manufactory, where 
a good-natured Englishman has run up 
a tall chimney, and makes ugly cheap 
pots and pans to suit the taste and 
pockets of the Sevillians. O for this 
age of ** progress '' I It is fair to say 
that the proprietor, who kindly acc(Hn* 

* This Anecdote is from the Ilpa of Feman Cabal- 
Icro. 



panied the party over the building, and 
into the beautiful gardens, and to the 
ruined pagoda or summer house, la- 
mented ihat no encouragement was 
given by the Spanish nobles of the 
present day to any species of taste or 
beauty in design, and that his attempts 
to introduce a higher class of china, in 
imitation of Minton's, had met with 
decided failure; no one would buy 
anything so dear. They had imported 
English workmen and modellers in the 
first instance; but he said that the 
Spaniards were apt scholars, and had 
quickly learned the trade, so that his 
workmen are now almost exclusively 
from the country itself. The only 
pretty thing our travellers could find, 
and which was kindly presented to one 
of the party, was one of the cool pic- 
turesque-shaped bottles made, like the 
"goolehs" of Egypt, of porous clay, 
which maintains the coldness and fresh- 
ness of any liquid poured into it 

Among the many charming expedi- 
tions from Seville, is one to Castilleja, 
(the village before alluded to as the 
scene of the death of Fernan Cortes \ 
through the fertile plains and vin«i 
yards of Aljarafa. Here begins the 
region which the Romans call the gar- 
dens of Hercules. It produces one of 
the best and rarest wines in Spain : the 
plants having been originally brought 
from Flanders by a poor soldier named 
Pedtx» Ximenes, who discovered that 
the Rhine vines, when transplanted to 
the sunny climate of Andalusia, lose 
their acidity, and yield the luscious 
fruit which still bears his name. In 
the centre of this fertile plain stands a 
small house and garden, to which is 
attached one of those tales of crime, 
divine vengeance, and godlike forgive- 
ness, which are so characteristic of the 
people and country. About twenty 
years ago it was inhabited by a fami- 
ly consisting of a man named Juan 
Pedro Alfaro, with his wife and a son 
of nineteen or twenty. Their quiet 
and peaceable lives were spent in 
cultivating their vineyard and selling 
its produce in the neighboring town* 
They were good and respectable peo- 



Imprtsmonw of 



pie, lirinft in peace with their nei<:h- 
, bom, and perfectly contenttfd with 
[tUfiir ooeupation and position. One 
[ibiog only wiis felt as a grievance, A 
[hwyer, of the oliaractor of the ** At- 
torney Case " in our cliildhood'* story, 
had lately started an obnoxious new 
tax on every cargo of wiTie brought 
into Ihe city j and this tax, being both 
unjust and illegal, tfiey resolved to dis- 
pute. One day, therefore, when the 
good man atid \m son were driving 
their mules lo luarket with their fruity 
burden, they were stopped by the at- 
torney, who demanded the usual pay* 
ment. The younger man tirmly but 
I respectfiilly refuse^!, stating his rea- 
[eouB, The attorney tried first fair 
I woixh, and then foul, wiihout effi^ct, 
, upon whirb he vowed to be revenged. 
The aon, pointing to liia Alhacetan po- 
niard, on which was the inscriplion, ** I 
know how to defend ray nmster/* de- 
I fled his vengeance ; and so they parted. 
But never again was the poor wife 
fund mofher's heart gladdened by the 
[.sight of their rettiming faces. In vain 
ehe waited, hour after hour, that first 
[terrible evening. The mules return- 
ed, but ma^sterlesa. Then, beside her- 
self with fear, the poor woman ruihcd 
oiFto the town to make inquiries as lo 
ill e i r fate. No one k n e w a i\y tbi n g t » r - 
Iber than that they had been at Seville 
I the day beroi*e, had t»flld their wine for 
[ ft gtxtd price, and been seen, as usual, 
rctnrning eheerfully home. She then 
went to the Andiencia, or legal su- 
preme court of the city, where the 
01 agist rales, touched hy her tale, and 
ahinn<*d also at the di^nppoaranee of 
the men, who werr* known throughout 
j.tlje country for their high eliiiracter 
and respeclability, caused a rij;un>us 
[search lo l>e made in tlic whole noisb- 
j borhood ; but in vain. Xo trace of 
them could lie discovered. By de- 
grees, the excitement in the town on 
I tiie subject passed away, and the poor 
pindeieers were forgotten ; but in ibc 
IbciU-t of the Widowed mother there 
h could he no re^t and no )>eaee. Th^ 
uy story in which their fate \vm in- 
volved was so inexplicable tliat the 



hope of iheir return, liowever fkHt, 
would not die out ; and for twenty 
years she spent her life and her sub- 
stance in seeking for her lost ones* At 
last, reduced to utter misery, and worn 
out both in mind and body, she wtis 
forced to beg her daily bread of the 
charity of the pea<*ant3 : the " bolsa 
de Diod," as the prop I e f)oelicaIly call 
it, a **bo!:*a'' which, to do the Span* 
iurds justice, ia never empty. The 
little children would bring her egg* 
and pennies ; the lathers and hujtbands 
would give her u corner by the •* bra* 
aeiHj" in winter, or under the vine- 
covered trellis in summer; the wivei 
and mothers knew wliat had brought 
her to such misery, and bad ever an 
extra lojif or a dij^h of " garbanzos* 
set aside for the ^^ Aiadre Ana," as she 
was called by the villagers. She, hum- 
ble, praycrfuh hopeful, ever graltftul 
for the least kindness, and willing in 
any way lo oblige o;hers, at last fell 
dangerously ill The cnr^, who had 
been striving to calm and soothe that 
sorely tried soul, was one day leaving 
lier cottage, when bis attention was at- 
tracted by a crowd of people, with the 
mayor at their bead, who were Inirrjr- 
ing toward an olive wood near the vil- 
lage. He tUlowed. and, to his horroT, 
found that the caust* of the sensation 
was the diseovery of two human skcle 
ions under an obve-tree, the finger of 
one of which was f>ointing through lh<» 
earth to heaven, as if for vengeance. 
The mayor oniered the earth to bo re- 
moved : the surgeon examined the bo 
dies, and give it as his opinion that 
they must have been dead many years. 
But on examining the clothes, a paper 
was found which a waterproof ^kkuci*! 
had preserved tVom decay. The at- 
toniey, who was likewise present. 
seized it ; but no sooner hud his eyes 
lighted on the words than he fell book* 
ward in a swoon. ** What is the mat- 
ter? what has he read?*' exc1aliii«d 
the bystanders as with one voice. •• It 
is a certificate such as uae*l to he car- 
ried by our muleteers,"* exclairaetl the 
mayor, taking the paper from the hiw« 
yer^s hand ; and opening tC» he 




Impression* of Spain, 



697 



out loud the following words : '' Pass 
for Juan Pedro Alfaro,'* 

Here, then, was the unravelling of 
the terrible mystery : the men had 
e\ndcntly been murdered on their way 
home. The attorney recovered from 
his fainting fit, but fever followed, and 
in' his delirium he did nothing but ex- 
claim : " It is not I ! — my hands are 
free from blooJ. It is Juan Cano and 
Joseph Salas." These words, repeat- 
ed by the people, caused the arrest of 
the two men named, who no sooner 
found themselves in the hands of jus- 
tice than they confessed their crime, 
and described how, having been ex- 
cited to d3 so by the attorney, they 
had shot both Juan Alfaro and his 
son, from behind some olive-trees, on 
their way home from market, had rob- 
bed, and afterward buried them in the 
place where the bodies had been found. 
Sentence of death was passed u|K)n the 
murderers, while the attorney was con- 
demned to hard labor for life, and to 
witness, with a rope round his neck, 
the execution of his accomplices in the 
fatal deed. The poor *' Madre Ana" 
had hardly recovered from her severe 
illness when these terrible events tran- 
s;)ired. The indignation of the pea- 
santry, and their compassion for her, 
knew no bounds : they would have 
torn the attorney in pieces if they 
could. The widow hereelf, over- 
whelmed with grief at this confirma- 
tion of her worst fears, remained si- 
lent as the grave. At last, when those 
around her were breathing nothing but 
maledictions on the heads of the mur- 
derers, and counting the days to the 
one fixed for the execution of their 
sentence, she suddenly spoke, and ask- 
ed that the cure should be sent for. 
He at once obeyed the summons. She 
raised herself in the bed with some ef- 
fort, and then said : *• My father, is it 
not true that, if pardon be implored for 
a crime by the one most nearly related 
to the victims, the judges generally miti- 
p'lte the s(iveriry of tiie punishment ? ' 
11^ replied in the affirmative. *' Then 
to morrow," she replied, ^ I will go to 
Seville." ** God bless you I my daugh- 



ter," i*eplied the old priest, much mov- 
ed ; "the pardon you have so freely 
given in your heart will be more ac- 
ceptable to God than the deaths of 
these men." A murmur of surprise 
and admiration, and yet of hearty ap- 
proval, [lassed through the lips of the 
bystanders. The next day, mounted 
carefully by the peasants on their best 
mule, the poor widow arrived at the 
Audiencia. Her entrance caused a 
stir and an emotion in the whole court. 
Bent with age, and worn with sickness 
and misery, slie advanced in front of 
the judges, who, seeing her extreme 
weakness, instantly ordered a comfort- 
able chair to be brought for her. But 
the effort had been too much ; she 
could not speak. The judge, then 
addressing her, said: '^Senora, is it 
true that you are come to plead for 
the pardon of Juan Caiio and Joseph 
Salas, convicted of the assassination 
of your husband and son ? and also 
for the paidon of the lawyer, who, by 
his instigation, led them to commit the 
crime ?" She bowed her head in token 
of assent. A murmur of admiration 
and pity spread through the court ; 
and a relation of the lawyer's, who saw 
his family thus rescued from the last 
stage of degradation, eagerly bent for- 
ward, exclaiming : *• SefLoru, do not 
fear for your future. I swear that 
every want of yours shall henceforth 
be provided for." 

The momentary feebleness of the 
woman now passed away. She rose 
to her full height, and, casting on the 
speaker a look of mingled indignation 
and scorn, exclaimed : ^ You offer mc 
payment for my pardon ? I do not 
sell the blood of my son 1" 

No account of ** life in Seville *' 
would be complete without a bull-fight, 
" corrida de toros ;" and so one after- 
noon saw our travellers in a tolerably 
spacious loggia on the shady side of 
the circus, preparing, though with some 
qualms of conscience, to see, for the 
first time, this, the great national sport 
of Spain. The roof of the cathedral 
towered above the arena, and the sound 
of the bells just ringing for vespers 



506 



ImpressioAM of Spain. 



made at least odc of the partj regret 
the decision which had led her to so 
uncongenial a place. But it was too 
late to recede. No one could escape 
from the mass of human beings tight- 
ly wedged on every side, all eager for 
the fight Partly, perhaps, owing to 
the mouiiiing and consequent absence 
of the court, there were very few la- 
dies ; which, it is to be lioped, is also 
a sign that the *< corrida" has no longer 
such attractions for them. Pre- 
sently the trumpets sounded. One 
of the barriers which enclosed the 
arena was thrown open, and in came a 
procession of ^ toreros," " bandcrille- 
roe," and " chulos," all attired in gay 
and glittering costumes, chiefly blue 
and silver, the hair of each tied in a 
net, with a great bow behind, and with 
tight pink silk stockings and buckled 
shoes. With them came the ''pioa- 
dores,' dressed in yellow, with large 
broad-brimmed hats and iron-cased 
legs, riding the most miserable horses 
that could be seen, but which, being 
generally thoroughbred, arched their 
necks and endeavored, poor beasts ! to 
show what once they had been. They 
were blindfolded, without which they 
could not have been induced to face the 
bull The procession stopped opposite 
the president's box when the princi- 
pal *• torero" knelt and received in his 
hat the key of the bull's don, which 
was forthwith opened; and now the 
sport began. A magnificent brownish 
red animal dashed out into the centre 
of the arena, shaking his crest and 
looking round him as if to defy his ad- 
versaries, pawing the ground the while. 
The men were all watching him with 
intense eagerness. Suddenly the bull 
singled out one as his advei*sary, and 
made a dash at a '* banderillero'^ who 
was agitating a scarlet cloak to the lefu 
The man vaulted over the wooden 
fence into the pit. The bull, foiled, 
and knocking his horns against the 
wooden palings with a force which 
seemed as if it would bring the whole 
thing down, now rushed at a " picador'* 
to the right, from whose lance he re- 
ceived a wound in the shoulder. But 



the bull, lowering his head, drove bii 
horns right into the wretclied horse's 
entrails, and, with almost miraculous 
strength, gallo|)ed with both hone and 
rider on his neck round the whole 
arena, finally dropping both, when the 
** picadoi"" was saved by the **chaloii,'' 
but the burse was lefl to be still far- 
ther gored by the bull, and then to die 
in agony on the sand. This kind of 
thing was repeated with one afler the 
other, till the bull, exhausted and cov- 
ered with lance- wounds, paused as if 
to take breath. The " banderilleros'* 
chose this moment, and with great skill 
and address advanced in front of him, 
with their hands and arms rais*^, and 
threw forward arrows, ornamented with 
fringed paper, which they fixed into 
his neck. This again made him furi- 
ous, and, in eager pursuit of one of his 
enemies, the poor beast leapt 4>ut of 
the arena over the six-feet high Ijam- 
er into the very middle of the crowded 
pit. The *' sauvo qui pent" may be 
imagined ; but no one was hurt, and 
the din raised by the multitude seemed 
to have alarmed the bull, who trotted 
back quietly into the circus by a side- 
door which had bean opened for the 
purpose. Now came the exciting mo- 
ment. The judge gave the signal, and 
one of the most famous ** matadores," 
Cuchares by name, beautifully dn.*ssed 
in blue and silver, and armod with a 
fr'hort sharp sword, advanced to give 
the coup de grdce. This requires both 
immense skill and great agility ; and 
at this very monent, when our party 
weni wound up to the highest pitch uf 
interest and excitement, a similar scene 
had ended fatally for the ' matador'' 
at Cadiz. But Cuchares seemed to 
play with his danger; and though the 
bull, mad with nige, pursued him with 
the greatest fury, tearing his scarlet 
9c;irf into ribbons, and nearly throw- 
ing down the wooden screens placed at 
the sides of the arena as places of re- 
fuge for the men when too closely press- 
ed to escafK) in other ways, Ih» chose 
a favorable moment, and, leaping for- 
ward, dug his short sword right into 
the fatal siK>t above the shoulder. 



Impreiiion$ of SpcUn^ 



d99 



With scarcely a 8tru<2:gle, the nohle 
beast fell, first on his knees, and then 
rolled over dead. The people cheered 
vociferously, the trumpets sounded. 
Four mules, gayly caparisoned, were 
diiven furiously into the arena ; the 
huge carcass, fastened to them by 
i-opefj, was dragged out, together with 
those of such of the horses as death 
had mercifully released, and then the 
whole thing began over again. Twen- 
ty horses and six bulls were killed in 
two hours and a half, and the more 
horrible the disembowelled state of the 
animals, the greater seemed the de< 
light of the spectators. It is impossi- 
ble, without disgusting our readers, to 
give a truthful description of the horri- 
ble state of the horses. One, especial- 
ly, caused a sensation even among the 
** habitues'' of the ring. He belonged 
to one of the richest gentlemen in Se- 
ville, had been his favorite hack, and 
was as well known in the Prado as his 
master. Yet this gentleman had the 
brutality, when the poor beast s work 
was ended, to condemn him to this ter- 
rible fate 1 The gallant horse, disem- 
bowelled as he was, would not die : he 
survived one bull after the other, 
though his entrails were hanging in 
festoons on their horns, and finally, 
when the gates were opened to drag 
out the carcasses of the rest, he man- 
aged to crawl away also — and to drag 
himself where ? To the very door of 
his master's house, which he reached* 
and where he finally lay down and 
died. His instinct, unhappily wrong 
in this case, had evidently made him 
fancy that there, at any rate, he would 
have pity and relief from bis agony : 
tor the wounds inflicted by the horns 
of the bull are, it is said, horrible in 
their burning, smarting pain. Feman 
Caballero was with the wife of a fa- 
mous " matador," whose chest was 
transfixed by the bull at the moment 
when, thinking the beast's strength was 
spent, he had leant forward to deal the 
fatal stroke. He lingered for some 
hours, but in an agony which she said 
must have been seen to be believed. 
Generally speaking, however, such ac- 



cidents to the men are very rare. Car- 
lo Puerto, one of the ** pic^ores," waa 
killed last year by a very wary bull, 
who turned suddenly, and, catching him 
on his horns in the stomach, ran with 
him in tliat way three times round the 
arena ! — ^but that was the fault of the 
president, who had insisted on his at- 
tacking the bull in the centre of the 
ring, the ^* picadores*' always remain- 
ing close to the screen, so that their 
escape may be more easily managed. 
If the sport could be conducted, as it !» 
said to be in Salamanca and in Portu- 
gal, without injury to the horses, the 
intense interest caused by a combat 
where the skill, intelligence, and agili- 
ty of the man are pitted against the in- 
stinct, quickness, and force of the bull, 
would make it perhaps a legitimate as 
well as a most exciting amusement; 
but, as it is at present conducted, it is 
simply horrible, and inexcusably cruel 
and revolting. It is difficult to under- 
stand how any woman can go to it a 
second time. The effect on the peo- 
ple must be brutalizing ' to a frightful 
extent, and accounts in a great mea- 
sure for their utter absence of feeling 
for animals, especially horses and 
mules, which they ill use in a manner 
perfectly shocking to an Englishman, 
and apparently without the slightest 
sense of shame. But there is no indi- 
cation of this sport becoming less pop- 
ular in Spain. Combats with '< novil- 
los,'' or young bulls, whose horns are 
tipped to avoid accidents, are a com- 
mon amusement among the young 
aristocracy, who are said to bet fright 
fully on their respective favorites ; and 
thus the taste is fostered from their 
cradles. 



THE CHABrTABLB INSTFTUTIONS AND 
CONVENTS OF SBVILLB. 

A PEW days after the holy week, 
our travellers decided on visiting some 
of the far-famed charitable institutions 
of Seville ; and, taking the kind and 
benevolent Padre B as their in- 
terpreter, they went first to the 
Hospital del Sangre, or of the ** Five 



eoo 



Impressiona of Spain, 



Wounds," a magnificent building of 
tho sixteenth century, with a Doric 
facade 600 feet long, a beautiful por- 
tal, and a ** patio/' in the centre of 
which is the church, a tine building, 
built in the shape of a Latin cross, and 
containing one or two good Zurbarans. 
There are between 800 and 400 pa- 
tients; and in addition to the large 
wards, there are — what is so much 
needed in our great London hospitals, 
and which we have before alluded to at 
Madrid — a number of nicely-furnished 
little separate rooms for a higiier class 
of patients, who pay about two shil- 
lings a day, and have both the skill of 
the doctors and the tender care of the 
sisters of charity, instead of being ne- 
glected in their own homes. There 
was a poor priest in one of these 
apartments, in another a painter, 
and in a third a naval captain, a 
Swede, and so on. The hospital is 
abundantly supplied with everything 
ordered by the doctors, including wine, 
brandy, chickens, or the like ; and in 
this respect is a great contrast to that 
at Malaga, where tho patients literally 
die for want of the necessary extra 
diets and stimulants which the parsi- 
mony of the administration denies them. 
In each quadrangle is a nice ganlen, 
with seats and fountains, and full of 
sweet flowers, where the patients, when 
well enough, can sit out and enjoy the 
sunshine. There is not the slightest 
hospital smeJl in any one of the wards. 
The whole is under the administration 
of the S[>anish sistei-s of charity of St. 
Vincent de Paul ; and knowing that, 
no surprise was felt at the perfection 
of the ** lingerie," or the adminible ar- 
rangement and order of the hospital 
They have a touching custom when 
one of the patients is dying, and has 
received the viaticum, to place above 
his head a special cross, so that he 
may be left undisturlwd by casual 
visitors. The sisters have a little oni- 
tory upstairs, near the woman's ward, 
beautifully fitted up. An air of re- 
finement, of comfort, and of home per- 
vades the whole estiblishment. 
Close to thb hospital is the old tower 



where St. Hermengilde was put to 
death, on Easter eve, by order of his 
unnatural father, because he would 
not join the Arian heresy, or receive 
his paschal communion from the hands 
of an Arian bishop. This was in the 
sixth century ; and is not the same 
persecution, and for the same cause, 
going on in Poland in the nineteenth ?• 
The old Gothic tower still remains, and 
in it his close dungeon. A church has 
been built adjoining, but the actual 
prison remains intact. There are 
some good pictures in the church, 
especially a Madonna, by Murillo ; 
and a clever picture of St. Ignatius in 
his room, meditating on his conversion. 
There is also a fine statue of St. Her- 
mengilde himself, by Montan6s, over 
the high altar. The good old priest 
who had the care of this church lived 
in a little room adjoining, like a hermit 
in his c<»ll, entirely devoted to painting 
and to the ** culte" of his patron saint. 
St. Gregory the Great attributes to the 
merits of this martyr the conversion of 
his brother, afterward King Kicjiretl. 
the penitence of his father, and the 
christianizing of the whole kingdom 
of the Visigoths in Spain. 

From thence our travellers went on to 
the orphanage managed by the " Trini- 
tarian sisters." The house was built 
in the last century, by a charitable 
lady, who richly endowed it, and plac- 
ed 200 children there ; now, the go- 
vernment, without a shadow of right, 
has taken the whole of the funds of the 
institution, and allows them barely 
enough to purchase bread. The su- 
perior is in despair, and has scarcely 
heart to go on with the work. She 



• The manner In which, durinir thl* vory last Kap- 
ler, the poor PoliRh Catholics have been trwit'-d and 
forced to receive itchininalical coininunioiiH tl:ri»ugh 
a iiy!»ttin of treachery unparalleled In tho annaN of 
the church, U unfortuuaU'ly not luAit'lcntly knavn 
in En^cland, where alone public o|)lrili>n c-miM b« 
brought to »»ear on the initi}rator« of j«uch tyranny. 
The strife between Kui<!iia and Poland h.i< re t»ed to 
be anything but a religions Rtru;(f;Ic : Hus^ia is deter- 
mlne«l to quench Catholiclsra out of t'lf Imd. but 
the cry of hundrcttn of exiled pa^tor^ of the Uork U 
rl!«ln|r to heaven from the fore;*!'* ai^l nunes of 81be> 
rla; in the holy sacrlAc^ (o(rere<l In e.irthenvar« 
cup* on couimon »t«)ne.'*) they «llll plead f«»r their peo- 
ple before the throne of Uie frreat lut*«n^(»i»or. Aod 
tliat cry and Uiom prayers will be answered In Q>Mi*t 
own time and w^. 



Impresitions of Spain^ 



eoi 



has diminished the number of the child- 
ren, and hag been obliged to curtail 
their food, giving them neither milk 
nor meat except on great festivals. 
But for the intervention of the Due de 
Montpensier, and other charitable per- 
sons, the whole establishment must 
long since have been given up. There 
are twenty four sisters. The children 
work and embroider beautifully, and 
are trained to every kind of industrial 
occupation. From Kiis orphanage our 
party went to the Hospital for Women, 
managed by the sisters of the third or- 
der of St. Francis. It is one of the 
best hospitals in Seville. There are 
about 100 women, admirably kept and 
cared for, and a ward of old and in- 
curable patients besides. The superior, 
a most motherly, loving soul, to whom 
every one seemed much attached, took 
them over every part of the building. 
S)ie has a passion for cats, and beau- 
tiful * Angoras" were seen basking: in 
the sun in every window-sill. 

This hospital, like the orphanage, is 
a private foundation : but the govern- 
ment has given notice that they mean 
to appropriate its funds, and the poor 
sisters are in terror lest their supplies 
should cease for their sick. It is a 
positive satisfaction to think that the 
government which has dealt in this 
wholesale robbery of the widow and 
orphan is not a bit the better for it. 
One feels inclined to exclaim twenty 
times a day : " Thy money perish with 
thee!" 

But of all the charitable institutions 
of Seville, the finest is the Caridad, a 
magnificent hospital, or rather " asilo," 
for poor and incurable patients, nursed 
and tended by the Spanish sisters of 
St. Vincent de Paul. It was founded 
in the seventeenth century, by Don 
Miguel de Manara, a man eminent for 
his high birth and large fortune, and 
one of the knights of Calatrava, an or- 
der only given to people whose quar- 
terings showed nobility for several 
generations. He was in his youth 
the Don Juan of Seville, abandoning 
himself to every kind of luxury and 
excess, although many strange warn- 



ings were sent to him from time to 
time, to arrest him in his headlong, 
downward course. On one occasion 
especially, he had followed a young 
and apparently beautiful figure through 
the streets and into the cathedral, 
where, regardless of the sanctity of 
the place, he insisted on her listening 
to his addresses. What was his hor- 
ror, on turning round, in answer to 
his repeated solicitations, when the 
face behind the mask proved to be that 
of a skeleton ! So strongly was this 
circumstance impressed on his mind, 
that he caused it afterward to be 
painted by Valdes, and hung in the 
council-room of the hospital Another 
time, when returning from one of his 
nocturnal orgies, he lost his way, and, 
passing by the church of Santiago, saw, 
to his surprise, that (he doors were 
open, the church lit, and a number of 
priests were kneeling with lighted ta- 
pers round a bier in perfect silence. 
He went in and asked ** whose was 
the funeral ?" The answer of one 
after the other was : " Don Miguel de 
Mafiara." Thinking this a bad joke, 
he approached the coffin, and hastily 
lifted up the black pall which covered 
the features of the dead. To his hor- 
ror he recognized himself. This event 
produced a complete change in his life. 
He resolved to abandon his vicious 
courses, and marry, choosing the only 
daughter of a noble house, as much 
noted for her piety as for her beauty. 
But Grod had higher designs in store 
for him, and, after a few years spent in 
the enjoyment of the purest happiness, 
his young wife died suddenly. In the 
first violence of his grief, Don Miguel 
thought but of escaping from the worid 
altogether, and burying himself in a mo- 
nastery. But Grod willed it otherwise. 
There was at that time, on the right 
bank of the Guadalquivir, a little her- 
mitage dedicated to St. George, which 
was the resort of a confraternity of 
young men who had formed them- 
selves into brothers of charity, and 
devoted themselves to the cure of the 
sick and dying poor. Don Diego Mi- 
rafuentes was their " henuano mayor," 



ImpresHom of Spain. 



608 



lion of ducats were poured into the 
laps of the brothers ; but. as Mafiara 
added. *' the fii'st stone was laid by 
God himself in the » little oil ' of the 
])Oor begf^ar." • This church was fill- 
ed in 1680 with the chefs-d'oeuTre of 
Murillo and of Valdcs Leal : an auto- 
graph letter from the great religious 
painter is still shown in the Sala Capi- 
tular of the hospital, asking to be ad- 
mitted as a raoraber of the confrater- 
nity. " Our Saviour as a child ;" " St. 
John and the lamb ;*' ^' San Juan de 
Dios with an angel ;" the *' Miracle of 
the Loaves and Fishes ;*' but, above 
all *• Moses striking the Rock " called 
** La Sed," (so admirably is thirst re- 
presented in the multitudes crowding 
round the prophet in the wilderness,) 
were the magnificent ofibrings of the 
new " brother" toward tlie decoration 
of God*s house and the cause of cha- 
rity. Equally striking, but more pain- 
ful in their choice of subjects, are the 
productions ot* Valdcs, especially a 
*' Dead Bishop," awful in its contrast 
of gorgeous robes with the visible 
work of the worms beneath, and of 
which Murillo said ^' that he could not 
look at it without holding his nose." 
Other pictures by Murillo formerly 
decorated these walls ; but they were 
stolen by the French, and afterward 
sold to English collectors, the Duke 
of Sutherland and Mr. Tomline being 
among the purchasers. After the 
church, the most remarkable thing in 
the Caridad is the " patio," divided 
into two by a double marble colonnade. 
Here the poor patients sit out half the 
day, enjoying the sunshine and the 
flowers. On the wall is the following 
inscription, from the pen of Ma£lara 
himself, but which loses in the transla- 
tion : <* This house will last as long as 
God shall be feared in it, and Jesus 
Christ be served in the persons of his 
poor. Whoever enters here must 
leave at the door both avarice and 
pride." 



• How often, when buying chestnuts of one of the 
old women In the Plaza of the Caridad, did the recol- 
l«cUon of thl5 story come Into the mind of our travel- 
ler! 



The cloisters and passages are full 
of texts and pious thoughts, but all as- 
sociated with the two ideas ever pro- 
minent in the founder's mind — charity 
and death. Over what was his own 
cell is the following, in Spanish : 
'* What is it that we mean when we 
speak of death ? It is being free from 
the body of sin, and from the yoke of 
our passions: therefore, to live is a 
bitter death, and to die is a ^weel 
life." 

The wards ai*e charmingly large 
and airy, and lined with gay '< azule- 
jos." The kitchen is large and spa- 
cious, with a curious roof, supported 
by a single pillar in the middle. Over 
the president's chair, in the Sala Capi- 
tular, is the original portrait of Don 
Miguel Ma£uira, by his friend Valdes 
Leal, and, at the side, a cast taken of 
his face after death, presented to the 
confraternity by Vicentelo de Leca. 
Both have the same expression of dig- 
nity and austerity, mingled with ten- 
derness, especially about the mouth ; 
and the features have a strong resem- 
blance to those of the great Conde. 
He died on May 19th, 1679, amidst 
the tears of the whole city, being only 
fifty-three years of age : but a nature 
such as his could not last long. A 
very interesting collection of his let- 
ters is still shown in the hospital, and 
his life has been lately admirably 
translated into French by M. Antoine 
de Latour. 

The " Sacre Coeur" have establish- 
ed themselves lately in Seville, through 
the kindness of the Marquesa de 
V i and are about to open a la- 
dies' school — which is very much need- 
ed — on the site of a disused Francis- 
can convent. The archbishop has 
given them the large church a^oining 
the convent ; and it was almost com- 
ical to sec the three or tour charming 
sisters, who are beginning this most 
useful and charitable work, singing 
their benediction cdone in the vast 
chancel, until the building can be got 
ready for the reception of their pu- 
pils. 

Another convent visited by the la- 



ImpresHons of Spain, 



605 



They have no beds, only a hard mat- 
tress, stuffed with straw ; this, with an 
iron lamp, a pitcher of water, a cruci- 
fix, and a discipline, constitutes the only 
furniture of each cell, all of which are 
alike. One or two common prints were 
pasted on the walls, and over, the doors 
hung various little ejaculations : " Je- 
*iu, superabundo gaudio ; " '* O crux I 
ave, spes unica ! '* ** Doraine, quid me 
vis facere?" or else a little card in 
Spanish, like the following, which the 
English lady carried off with her as a 
memorial : 

Aplaca, m! Dios, ta Ira, 
Tu justicia y tu rigor. 
For los ruegos de Maria, 
Mi»erlcordla, SeAor! 
Sauto DiuA. SanW) fuerU:, Santo inmorUl, 
Liberanos, Senor, de todo nial. 

At the refectory, each sister has an 
earthenware plate and jug, with a 
wooden cover, an earthenware salt- 
cellar, and a wooden spoon. Opposite 
the place of the superior is a skull, the 
only distinction. They are allowed no 
linen except in sickness, and wear only 
a brown mantle and white serge sca- 
pular, with a black veil, which covers 
them from head to foot. They are 
rarely allowed to walk in the garden, 
or to go out in the corridor in the sun 
to warm themselves. Their house is 
like a cellar, cold and damp ; and they 
have no fires. Even at recreation they 
are not allowed to sit, except on the 
floor ; and silence is rigidly obser\'ed, 
except for two hours during the day. 
They have only ^ve hours' sleep, not 
going to bed till half-past eleven, on 
account of the office. At eleven, one 
of the novices seizes the wooden clap- 
per, (or crecella,) which she strikes 
three times, pronouncing the words : 
** Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, his 
Mother ; my sisters, let us go to ma- 
tins to glorify our Lord." Then they 
go to the choir, singing the Miserere. 
They are called again in tae same 
manner at half-past four by a sister 
who chaunts a verse in the Psalms. 
At night a sentence is pronounced 
aloud, to serve as meditation. It is 
generally this : 



Hy tliters, think of thifl : a little ■aflbrlng, and 
then an eternal recompense. 

They see absolutely no one, receiv- 
ing the holy communion through a 
slit in the wall. The English lady was 
the first person they had seen face to 
face, or with lifted veils, for twelve 
years. They play the organ of the 
chapel, which is a public one, though 
they themselves are entirely invisible ; 
and they are not even allowed to see 
the altar, which is concealed by a heavy 
black curtain drawn across the grating 
looking into the church. They have an 
image of their great foundress, the size 
of life, dressed in the habit of the order, 
and to her they go night and morning 
and salute her, as to a mother. Theii 
convent is rich in relics, beautiful pic- 
tures, and crucifixes, brought in by dif- 
ferent religious, especially the Duch- 
esse de Bega, who became a Carmel- 
ite about fifty years ago. But their 
chief treasure is an original picture of 
St. Theresa, for which she sat by com- 
mand of the archbishop, and which has 
lately been photographed for the Due 
de Montpensier. It is a very striking 
and beautiful face, but quite different 
from the conventional representations 
of the saint When it was finished, 
she looked at it, and exclaimed naive- 
ly : "^ I did not know I was grown so 
old or so ugly !" There is also in this 
sacristy a very beautiful Morales of 
the " Virgin and a Dead Christ," and 
a curious portrait of Padre Garcia, 
the saint's confessor. Up-stairs, in her 
own cell, they have her cloak and shoes, 
and the glass out of which she drank 
in her last illness. The stranger was 
courteously made to drink out of it 
also, and then to put on the saint^s 
cloak, in which she was told '^ to kneel 
and pray for her heart's desire, and it 
would be granted to h(jr." 

But the most interesting thing in the 
convent is the collection of HSS. They 
have the whole of the " Interior Man- 
sion," written in her own firm and beau- 
tiful handwriting, with scarcely an 
ei'asure ; besides quantities of her let- 
ters and answers from St. John of the 
Cross, from St. John of Avila, from 



IW^ 



Imffrnjva^%» «/ Sfmm, 



}fiir«. afi4 ?Ji«r •A-?.' '^''' 'i&'TyA r^ r*- 
•At-rU-^ 1 .11 thrift T*^*- ;.4T<- ':Li-*sM- 
IVy r"<|air* a -'ir.f ' -if ^>» rpr/>. 
or nUrtit ft Kun'JrH r^.*;:.<-: b:;: <-*^:r 
rifirnV'r i» f«il!. a,vi v^rvrfrrri! ''indidi!-:* 
an: now waif if:? :r.«?ir tarr. f/r a^Im:^ 
n i/m. 'Ill*: jr '. V" m r.-.': :i : L-i •? tak^ n w h at 
litllr pr'^fi'-rtv rh"* or*^*- hi'i and ?:ve» 
ihf'.ti at th'r ra?'- of a fi'^'r'a 't-aro rral-) 
a 'Iflv, »!'i fhjit, f^^K^r a- th«-:r ('■y:^ i*. 
llK?y nw; rif:r:n on th': virr.^'; of *'.an-a- 
tion. 

It wa-* with a f**rlinjr Jilno*t of w- 
\M ♦hat rh*? En;?li-h lady iVrnd h'*r- 
iM'lf rjn«r mon: in th*r pun-liine out-id#5 
fhi'M* ^dorjmy walh; v'-t fh'»*^ who 
livwl within rh^rm ^^^t-xtx^'A .^he'-rtul and 
happy, and ahhr to r»-aliwr in t!i«* fuih'St 
rh'ffrw'. ivilhont any «rxt«*njal aid. fhos>e 
fnynf«Tl''«iordivin*; hivi* and that li^nuty 
fif holini'HM whiirh, to our w«-ak*-r fairh, 
would *'t*i'n\ ini|>fi--ihlrf wh^fn d**priv#;d 
of all nijirht of our l»rd in liii< tabenia- 
v\v or ill hi-* ploriou.^ rT'ration*. We 
nn? M'lnplrd lo a»«k, why it i> that con- 
vrnlM of thirf natun* nn? .-r-i ri?rMj;rnant 
ti> Kn^lith la«4t« ? Kv^ry ono i« roady 
lo fippn'f'iatf; tliosff of !h»* •.i-'lcrs of 
chiirity. Tcoph^ tiilk of thfir gO'Kl 
c!i'«'d«, of \\\(\ hlosuiiijr thi-y an* in th« 
lioHpitaN, of till' advanlajfr."* of iiriiU'd 
work, i'tr. ctr. ; hut as for iIm* c-nrlosfd 
tmliTH, **T!ii*y wish tlioy w«*n^ all 
nholiHhcd/' "What Im the n;ooil of a 
not of women siuitiin^r tlifinsclvis up 
ntit 1 rlohiff uoth intf t ' ' I {fadi» r, tfo i 1 1 1'V 
•* do nothing;*' ? We will not spi»ak of 
lh«» noIkhiIh ; <if the <*veninnf classes for 
workinfC women ; of (he pivparations 
for flfHl roiiini'iiiions atid eonfmnations; 
of the retn>al!4 within their shelterinj^ 
whIIh for those of us who, v,eari<'<l with 
thin W(trld*i« toil an^l hurtle, wish to 

Imiito now and then and frJiiti hnuith 
or tin* daily lljjhl, and iak(» stmrk, as it 
wens 4»f our Mate 1h'!'oih' (m'm\. The.-'e 
anil other works like ih<>se, t'orin almost 
htvnrinhly a vi*ry ini|M)rtant portion of 
iho daily weiipalion of ihe cloistered 
tinlem. Uut we wiil dismiss iho 
thiHighlA of any external work, and 
cgiutf to tho highest and noblest part 



rftr>-ir T>-a.-i:«L W^ar » i :riar »» 

-&:t* »3c«nir^'* * • l% sat » :: t^**_ 
<7r*ra^i f:*T in"^ 'zsl H- Cy Srriprcrie- 
ha* «aT*d LxL-ri riiii*. aac <ir>er- i>l 
nan jfk* ? I* h roc iT^r-i lac-trreMrfy 
prsr-r? I* :: r--<hi.-2 so i». in thie 
wbiH an4 :jr:=«'/-i «■< thi* «r*xk-a<Lij 
I:*>. ihar b/.y ha-^-:« *'-'>cW evrr bi? 
lifted up tor c» t> ibe Greas In:*r:*i- 
«or? I« tbere- n-* r^wrjtioM ne^i-d 
for th* *:n». and toe :>ars. arj-i ;ar- i> 
«al:-i to the maesty of G ^Land to h'i 
sacramecti. and to bi? >l-.xfa«?r, irli!«:j 
ar«- ever goinz on in ;h:> oar naxir? 
erionrry ? Doe:? it Dvt t«:*nch :h-=- rurs: 
iniiif»:rvr.r amon^ a« to ib:nk «.•:* our 
^•:It-in«I'jl:r':n'^e beinj.as it wesv. aii^nt-I 
for hy th^ir •^lf-<ienbl?— our pamp»?r*il 
tL\t\MrAif-^ hv their fast* and vi^iU ? Ii 
i^ rroe that our present habits of lire 
and thou^rht l<*ad to an obvioas want 
of pym{«athy with such an existence. 
It has no public results on which we 
can look cfimplacenily. or which c:in 
be |>arade^l boH«t fully. Ever\-ihinj 
Mfems waste which is not visible ; an-i 
nil is di«app 'intmrnt which is not ob- 
vious success. It is su|»ematural prin- 
ciphr.-- i'Sf)eeially which are at a discount 
in nujilem days I Sundy the time will 
eonie when we phnll judge these thin<!4 
very differently ; when our eyes will be 
o|m*ikmI like tlie ey«*s of the prophi'i's 
Bervant ; and we shall see from what 
miseries, from what sorrows we and 
our country have hern preserved by 
livos like these, which save our Sodonri, 
and avert Oo<rs righteous angiT from 
liis ix^ople.* 

One moro curious establishment was 



• Tn II »!iniilc but t'>iirhln;r Fr^nrh Wopraphjr of a 
y«)niii; Eiitfil-'li la'fy who lately «IU'«l In the cinM'ent iif 
till- " I'liKr ei:irw " ut AiiiieTii, thf wrltir's h\v\ I* fir 
ninn- *ii':iutiriilly «rxprc»!*»Hl : " A fetl«r Iirtirt* de U nuit, 
I>eut I'-tri' <|iruiii> Ji-unc fille <lu ninude, iiiartyre (i>ar.-< 
ooliroini-') <le <f « I»'U i-t (Ic *i'i» ex^jrencru, rfiitrv ori«ff 
die, e|iul*vc «i\'-mntlon>t et de fattgu«^ Kn lonfri-anl 
lu iiiiir ilii moix^ti-re *-i en cnt<futliint le ^n tK- li 
chh-Sn' ((111 a|iiH'H,' l.-s r«.f'Iusi*«* voUmttlrev k la prlire 
I'lli" jif ftra a4lrr«*t'i' o«tte qiK'sllon : * A qiiol Mrveiit 
dime W* > «*llj;lptHi'« V Jv v«li» von* le dire : d t^jfUr. 
Ai'rd< oi't:*' nuit ile pl»l«lr que voun Yenr* d»» |i.i]i«er 
au thi'iltrc ou au IkiI, vjendra une autre nuU— null 
d'aiii;i>U<M>« M li" ».n|>r^mf doulrur. Vou« iMe* la eten- 
duf nur v.itrt- i*.»;ir1i.« de iiiort rn face dr lVteriilt« u6 
TOU1 :ill<:i iriitri-r iumiIc, et nana appul Peut-^tre taiu 
n'o«ox. ou vuuji ne im«uvi'X prlft; niaU quelqu'u:i a 
prle pi»ur vou^. «>| fauunt violence au del, a oblenu o* 
que v<iM« ii'ethv. pas di:;ne d'^^p«n•^. ViuUi d yiioi 



Impressions of Spain, 



607 



viaited by our party at Seville before 
their departure, and that was the cigar 
manufiictory, an enormous government 
establishment, occupying an immense 
yellow building, which looks like a 
palace, and employing 1,000 men and 
5,000 women. The rapidity with 
which cigars are turned out by those 
women's fingers is not the least aston- 
isliing part. The workers are almost 
all young, and some very beautiful 
They take off their gowns and their 
crinolines as soon as they come in, 
hanging them up in a long gallery, and 
take the flowers out of their hair and 
f)Ut tliem in water, so that they may be 
fresh when they come out ; and then 
work away in their petticoats with won- 
derf ul zeal and good humor the whole 
day long. The government makes 
90.000,000 reals a year from the profits 
of this establishment, though the dear- 
est cigar made costs but twopence ! 

And now the sad time came for our 
travellers to leave Seville. In fact, the 
exorbitant prices of everything at the 
hotel ma/Ie a longer stay impossible, 
though it was difficult to say wheU it 
was that they paid for : certainly not 
food ; for, excepting the chocolate and 
bread, which are invariably good 
throughout Spain, the dinners were un- 
eatable, the oil rancid, the eggs stale ; 
even ** el cocido," the popular dish, waa 
com{)osed of indescribable articles, and 
of kids which seemed to have died a 
natural death. One of the party, a 
Belgian, exclaimed when her first dish 
of this so-called meat was given her at 
Easter: '* Vraiment, je crois que nous 
autres nous n^avons pas tant perdu pen- 
dant le Cardme I '' An establishment 
has lately been started by an enterpris- 
ing peasant to sell milk fresh from the 
cow, a great luxury in Spain, where 
goat*s milk is the universal substitute ; 
and four very pretty Aldemeys are 
kept, stall-fed, in a nice little dairy, ** k 
TAnglaise," at one corner of the prin- 
cipal square, which is both clean and 
tempting to strangers. At every comer 



of the streets, water, in cool, porous 
jars, is offered to the passers by, mixed 
with a sugary substance looking like 
what is used by confectioners for 
" meringues," but which melts in the 
water and leaves no trace. This is 
the universal beverage of every class 
in Spain. 

There is little to tempt foreigners in 
the shops of Seville, and, with the ex- 
ception of photographs and fans, there 
is nothing to buy which has any par- 
ticuUr character or ** chique " about it. 
The fans are beautiful, and form, in 
fact, one of the staple trades of the 
place ; there is also a sweet kind of in- 
cense manufactured of fiowers, mixed 
with resinous gums, which resembles 
that made at Damascus. But the or- 
dinary contents of the shops look like 
the sweepings-out of all the ^ qnincail- 
lerie" of the Faubourg St. Denis. 

It was on a more lovely evening than 
usual that our travellers went, for the 
last time, to that glorious cathedral. 
The sorrow was even greater than what 
they had felt the year before in leaving 
St. Peter's: for Rome one lives in hopes 
of seeing again ; Seville, in all human 
probability, never 1 The services were 
over, but the usual proportion of yeiled 
figures knelt on the marble pavement, 
on which the light from those beautiful 
painted windows threw gorgeous colors. 
Never had that magnificent temple ap- 
peared more solemn or more worthy of 
its purpose ; one realized as one had 
never done before one's own littleness 
and Giod's ineffikble greatness, mercy, 
and love. Still they lingered, when 
the inexorable courier came to remind 
them that the train was on the point of 
starting, and with a last prayer, which 
was more like a sob, our trayellers left 
the sacred building. At the station all 
their kind Seville friends had assem- 
bled to bid them once more good-by, 
and to re-echo kind hopes of a speedy 
return ; and then the train started, and 
the last gleam of sunshine died out on 
the tower of the Giralda. 



H J>u»mo. 60B 

A Tision came apon me, and I mw 

The darkness melt, the shades opaqae dissolTe, 

And the dull, sombre midnight change 

To day bright Instre ! 

With soft and lambent flame the Aftj colamns gbwed 

From base to branching head. 

And with supernal light pierced the thid: denaeness 

Of the archM roof: 

And I saw the innomexable leaves, 

The sculptured garlandi of ikir bods ana flowers^- 

Strewn with such lavish hand o*er ail that broad pitHerra — 

With life-renewing tints endowed : 

The sacred vesseb on the altar ranged. 

The pious gifts of ages passed awar. 

And all the saintlj relics of that^hmy place 

Glittered with new effulgence I 

Mine unused eyes drank in amaaed the daialing seeney 

And now upon mine ears aroae the dang of mnsic^ 

And the sound of men rejoicing I 

From their hnge stanchions 'scaped the massy doorSy 

And through the mifiranchised portal paced 

A wondrous train I 

A thousand mailM knights, the Dnomo^s guards, 

Strode proudly in I 

As when in life they maidied, 00 came they now ; * 

No marble corslets still their lof^ hearts, 

Rich suits of Milan steel enclasp them round. 

Through the gold hehnets' bars theur daric ayes flash, 

Bright banners wave above them, and their haada 

Clasp as of old the trendbaot blade I 

A stately white-robed troop, the Doomo's priestSi 

The pageant swells. 

No rigid garb of stone impedes their solemn steps | 

Girt round with high, eccksial pomp^ 

The sacred aisles &ey paoe^ 

The jewelled crosiers grasp, the censers swing, 

And. as of yore, the ghid ^ Hosannas** raise I 

Again the dash of steel, the armU tread. 

The banners^ silken folda— 

And twice five hundred warriors 

Pass the gaping doors I "^^ 

Hark ! in the air, a choir angdic smgs : 



Wake, jubilant harps I peal, ye darions of silver t 
Swell, ye loud organs! for mighty's the theme I 
Bend lowly the knee, ye saints, knights, and martyrs, 
With ofierings of gold let the high altar gleam I 
Fill the gemmed censers with myrrh and with amber. 
Deck the rich shrines with a splendor ne*er seen. 
Raise high the song, the loud hymn of devotioii. 
Give homage to Maiy, our lady, our queen! 

VOL. v.— W 



AlO H Jhumo. 

Load glorias peal, and with feverberant Wtrnt, 

Throughout the illamiiied spaeey 

The silver trumpets clang ! 

Boffed is the casque, the mitred head bent low. 

The song subsides, and on that marvellous crowd 

An awful silence dwells I 

A Presence is among them*-** 

A Being gracious as resplendent. 

And the resuscitate host is filled with holj terror I 

She smiles benignly on the kneeling throng. 

And melts with heavenly look the still, deep fear I 

Again the hymn breaks forth, 

With heavenly, earthly voices jom, 

Monks, warriors, martyra swell the raptured strnk I 



Lo ! where she comes, all meek, yet all noble. 

The glory celestial encuxling her brows. 

Fall prostrate, ye thousands, all lowly adore her ; 

Bare your swords, valiant Imights, yet once make your Vows ; 

Chant paeans, ye priests ; let the liarmonies roll 

Till the gorgeous temple resounds to its veiL 

Through our midst she is moving, the chosen, the holj : 

Hail, Mary, Madonna, bkst Virgin, all hail ! 



The voices ceased, the edioes died away, 

The mighty pillars throbbed no more with flame ; 

The roof closed in, the pageant vanbhed, 

And the darkness swathed once more 

The sombre nave. 

Still on the air the organ's notes float sad and wailing, 

Still through the storiei windows streams the moon's soft ligfat. 

Still rest the things of earth $ 

The mute Colossi yet bear up 

The vaulted roof; 

The shrines still glimmer in the dim night air, * 

The mystic glories of my vision-^ 

Gonel Abthub MiiTTHisoH. 



Anurieu* Vumieiu* and CJuitlopher Oobimiut, 



611 



TmuUted from Reroe dei Questions Histoiiqoea. 

AIVIERICUS VESPUCIUS AND CHRISTOPHER COLXJMBUS. 

THB TRUS ORIOm OF THE NAME OF AMERICA. 



For three centuries, the worid has 
regarded it as an historical fact that 
Christopher Columbus, after enduring 
many wrongs at tlie hands of ungrate- 
ful Spain, had the unspeakable morti- 
fication of seeing a usurper, screened be- 
hind public injustice, wrest from him not 
only the honor of bestowing his name 
on the world he had discovered, but 
the reward of ^lory, and the supreme 
consolation of his last days. Fortu- 
nately this belief is erroneous. Nei- 
ther was Americus Vespucius a de- 
spoiler, nor was Columbus the victim 
of so poignant an affront. It is true 
that the great navigator became after 
death the subject of shameftil mis- 
apprehensions ; but his countrymen 
should bo held as free from the re- 
sponsibility of this injustice as Colum- 
bus was free from suspicion or presenti- 
ment of coming evil. The facts are 
fully explained by the illustrious Pros- 
sian savant, who has consecrated his 
glorious career in great part to the 
study of the New World • 

Americus or Albcric Vespucius, 
(Amerigo Vespucci,) bom at Florence, 
March 9th, 1451, of an important 
family, was educated by his uncle, 
Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Domini- 
can monk, and one of the honorable 
personages connected with the EenaiS" 
mnce. His fellow-student was Ren6 
de Vaudemont, who, later in life, after 
gloriously defending his duchy of Lor- 
raine against Charles the Bold, exer- 

* H. Alexander Von Hamboldt, CriUoal Examine* 
Uon of the IlUtory and Geography of the New World. 
Vols', ill. and Iv. are entirely deToted to an examlnatloii 
of this prohlein. We merely offer here an abstract of 
this work, which Is little known, and, while exceed* 
Ingly Interesting, demands a very attentive nerusaL 
flee also Washington Irving, History of Christophtr 
Columbus, voL iv. app. i^, Americui Vespadua. 



cised in peace a noble patronage of 
science and letters. . 

Americus, when about forty years of 
age, left Italy for Spain, and enter- 
ed the flourishing commercial house 
founded at Seville by his countrymen 
the Berardi. At this period a large 
number of Italians established them- 
selves in Spain, in Portugal, and even 
in England. Some became promoters 
of the commerce fed by Portuguese 
discoveries, (the Marchioni at Lisbon ;) 
others (Cndomosto, the Corte real!) 
traced out a route along the African 
coast or explored the icy barrier that 
guards the northwest passage ; while 
others again, (Christopher Columbus, 
John and Sebastian Cabot,) crossed 
the Atlantic ocean, bringing baek a 
wondrous discovery. This Wiis one 
of the glories of Italy, so rich in ail 
glory during the fifteenth century. 

At first a clerk, and in 1496 the 
general accountant of the Berardi, 
Americus Vespucius listened with pas- 
sionate interest to narrations uttered 
by the lips of Christopher Columbus 
himself. He studied astronomy and 
the sdence of navigation, and made 
four voyages ; the first two under proft 
tection of the Spanish flag, the last 
two under that of Portugal 

He naturally drew up an account 
of these expeditions. Like Columbus 
he related his foreign experiences to 
friends and pat1x>n8 ; first, in three sue- 
ocssive letters, describing his first three 
voyages, written to the Florentine, Lo- 
renzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici; 
and later, after his fourth expedition, 
in a single narrative, containing a r^ 
sum^ of all his travels, addressed si- 
multaneously, but not in the same fonoy 
to another countryman, tho gOD&lon* 
niere Piero Sodermi, and to m Dote 



612 



Americui VetpueiuB and Christopher ColumbuM* 



of Lorraine, Rene II. This last was 
similar in tenor to a narrative sent by 
him a short time before to Ferdinand 
the Catholic. 

These four Toyages, so soon made 
famous, are extracts, varied by Vespu- 
cius according to the corres[>ondents for 
whom they were destined. He drew 
them from a complete and detailed ac- 
count, written according " to the weak- 
ness of his puny talent,"* as his over- 
strained moilesty expresses it ; a work 
executed with assiduous care, " in or- 
der that coming generations might re- 
member him," but which he never pub- 
lishcd. It has not yet been brought 
to light 

It is, then, only by those of his print- 
ed letters that have come down to us — 
and they are not all preserved — that 
we know the dates and circumstances 
of his voyages. 

In the first voyage, which took place 
between May 20th. 1497, and October 
15th, 1499, be recognized the coasts of 
Surinam and of Paria, at the mouth 
of the Orinoco. In the second, dated 
from May Gth, 1499, to September 8th, 
loOO, he crossed tlie equator and saw 
Cape St. Augustine off Brazil ; and 
from there sailed north to Paria and 
Hispaniola. Tlie dates of these two 
expeditions contradict each other ; for, 
according to them, his second voyage 
•must have begun five months before 
'the first ended. Moreover, the date 
1497 for the beginning of the first voy- 
age is inadmissible. The registers of 
Hie Spanish administration (La Casa 
de Contratacion at Seville) prove 
that, from April, 1497, to May, 1498, 
Americus Yespucius was detained at 
Seville and San Lucar, occupied with 
preparations for the third voyage of 
Christopher Columbus.t 

For this reason the Florentine has 
been accused of fabricating this pre- 
tended voyage by disguising a few in- 
cidents drawn from the second ; and of 
having antedated his de|)arture from 

* "JoxtolngenloUmeltenalUitem.** Crlt. Kxam. 
ToL It. |». ITO, n. 1. 

t CrlU Exam. toI. iv. pp. 2fi7, 2fA Tlil« third 
TOjife took plaee flrom Mty 80th, 149:^, to November 



Spain, in order at one stroke to earn 
the credit of first touching terra firmA 
at Paria, and deprive Christopher Co- 
lumbus of that honon We shall dis- 
cuss this question later. 

It is a singular fact that, without at- 
tributing to himself any share io the 
command, and even while distinctly 
stating that he was there under orders 
" to aid in making discoveries,'** he 
does not name the chiefs under whose 
authority he was placed. 

But, in spite of this reticence, we 
gather from the deposition of Alonao 
de Ilojeda in the lawsuit brought 
against the crown by the son of Colum- 
bus in 1508, that Vespudus served oo 
the squadron of Hojeda.t A compa- 
rison between the narratives Icf^ by 
both leads to the conclusion that the 
first voyage of Americus^ so inaccu- 
rately dated, must be identified with 
that of Alonzaf But, instead of ac- 
companying the latter during the en- 
tire expedition, Yespucius, afler ex- 
ploring the coast of Paria with him, 
left him at Hispaniola at the end of 
five months. Then, luiving been ab- 
sent only from May 5th to October 
15lh, 1499, he must have returned ta 
Spain in time to embark in the Decem- 
ber of that year with the expedition of 
Vic<eijtc Yanez Pinzon.§ This expe- 
dition, which ended in September, 1500, 
agrees in a host of details with the se- 
cond voyage of Yespucius. I 

These enterprises aroused the atten- 
tion of the King of Portugal, Emma- 
nuel le Fortune, in whose service our 

* M. Von l{uinl>oIilt snppon^ him to hare been 
tho iwtrononuT of the expedition. Crlt. Exam. 
vol. Iv. \t, ISO, and f.illowlnfj. In ii«veral luftioce* 
the other morlnen failed to mention the name uf 
their captaiiiR. 

t He utiitcs timt on tTiU voyajfe (May ftHh, 14». to 
June, laoo) he took with him Juan de la Co»a^ pilot, 
MoriKo Veopuche, and other pilots. (Crlt uam. 
Yol. Iv. p. IhS.) 

i Crlt. Kxaau vol. Iv. pp. 105-300. 

i Crlt. Exam. vol. Iv. p. 20<>. 

1 Crlt. Exam. vol. I v. pp. 29S-S16 ; voL r. pp. 61-69. 
Sl'2-218. M. Von llumb<>l<it shows that the circum- 
stances of each of the two first voyaiifes of Ve«pa<riu« 
bear too distinctive a character to render admi«»ihle 
the Idea that ttiey were but one voyage, that is, the 
voyage which the Florentine Is accused of calling the 
second, while Its elements, divided by him with nsore 
or \e*B art, furnlnhed fitlladously the material for a 
flrst supposed roy»)n, hcarlntc the false date of 1497. 
The flr*t voyage w'a< confliied entirely In the ni>nh* 
em hemisphere, the second extended to loatliem re- 
gions. 



Amerieus Vetpudui a$ul Chriiiopher Oohtmhui. 



618 



traveller let himself be enrolled. He 
joined a squadron (May, 1501, to Sept 
1501) sent to reconnoitre the land of 
Santa Cruz, or Brazil, discovered April 
22d, 1500, by the Portuguese Ad- 
miral Alvarez Cabral, who, while oo 
his way to the Cape of Good Hope 
and the East-Indies, had been dragged 
westward by winds and currents. In 
this voyage Amerieus Vespucius passed 
the equator by a distance which he 
values at 52^. On this he boasts of 
having traversed one fourth of the 
world (40® lat. north of Lisbon to the 
equator 50^ lat south ; total 90% or the 
quarter of a meridian.) He gives a 
brilliant description of the inhabitants, 
of natural features in that region, 
and of southern constellations. The 
leader of this expedition is not known. 
One remarkable fact, the encounter at 
Cape Verd with the vessels of Alvarez 
Cabral, returning from Malabar to Lis- 
bon, and the details which Vespucius 
received from a member of that expe- 
dition concerning the admiral's adven- 
tures in the Indies, and transmitted to 
Pierfrancesco de' Medici,* prove the 
habitual veracity of the Florentine nav- 
igator, confirmed and attested in this 
instance by Portuguese documents.f 

The fourth voyage, (June, 1503, to 
June, 1504,) made probably under the 
direction of Gonzalo Coelho, had an 
object which Amerieus extols before- 
hand without clearly explaining it : "I 
shall do many things,** he writes to 
Medicis, ** for the glory of God, the 
good of my country, and the perpet- 
ual commemoration of my name." It 
appears that the king of Portugal 
wished to discover a passage to the 
Indies further south than Brazil ; and, 
if it be true that Vespucius had already 
penetrated to the fiftieth degree of 
southern latitude, he must have just 
mis:5ed giving his name to the straits, 
whoso discovery twenty years later 
immortalized Magellan. But results 
disappointed these cherished hopes and 
anticipations. The incapacity of the 



commander-in-chief, whose name the 
narrator conceals while roundly abus- 
ing his presumption and folly, rendered 
it disastrous. 

Emmanuel, occupied at that period 
with grand projects of conquest in 
Oriental India, abandoned all attempts 
directed to the West Vespucius on 
his side, disgusted with the barren ser- 
vice of Portugal, lent ear to King Fer- 
dinand's solicitations, and, with a facile 
change of patron not without precedent 
among his contemporaries, returned to 
Castile. We find him leaving Seville 
for Valladolid, where the court was 
assembled, bearing an introductton to 
Diego, son of Christopher Columbus, 
from the admiral himself. Columbus 
recommends him (February 5th, 1505) 
as a man ^ to whom fortune has been 
adverse, and who has not enjoyed the 
legitimate fruit of his labors." 

He received a commission to equip 
a squadron destined to seek a western 
route to the *' land of spices.^ But after 
two years of preparation, Ferdinand, 
wearied with dissensions with his son- 
in-law Philippe le Beau, abandoned 
the design. At all events, on the 2d 
of March, 1508, he appointed Ameri- 
eus Vespucius to be pilot-m-chief (ptVo- 
to mayor) at Seville, with a salary of 
fifty thousand maravedis, with these 
duties : first, to make sure that the pilots 
understood the use of astrolabe and 
quadrant ; second, to make out a table 
of positions, to bear the name ofPadron 
reaU and serve the sole purpose of 
fixing maritime routes ; third, to oblige 
pilots after each voyage to explain, in 
the presence of the officers of LaCa$a 
de Gontratacion and of the piloto ma- 
yor^ the exact position of toe newly 
discovered lands, and also any correc- 
tions in the bearings of coasts, in order 
that all necessary changes might be 
recorded in the Padrrni real.* 

It was while filling this eminent 
position that Amerieus Vespucius died 
at Seville, on the 22d of February, 
1512, aged sixty- one years, without 
having made another voyage. 



• Letter dated at Cape Verd, Jane 4th, 1601. 
t Crlt. Exam. toI. t. pp. 09-107 and 218-215. 



* Crit. Exam. toL t. ppi ICT, 16a 



AmericuB Vnpueiut and ChrUtopher Colun^ut. 



615 



But the decisive influenoe came from 
a remote corner of the Vosges. 

Rene IE., Doke of Lorraine, the old 
school companion of Vespucias, shared, 
as has been akeady said, the elcTated 
tastes natural to princes of the Renais- 
sance. He followed with attentive eye 
the explorations of navigators, and 
favored the progress of geographical 
science. 

Americus Vespacius addressed to 
him, as we know, from Lisbon, in 1504, 
an account or rather an abstract of his 
four vovages. 

There Uved in those days in Lor- 
raine, in the little town of Saint Die, a 
learned bookseller, a native of Fri- 
bourg-en-Brisgan, and an ancient stu- 
dent in the university of that town. 
Following a custom of the time, he had, 
by a Greek transformation, translated 
his name from Martin Waldsee Mul- 
ler to Martinus Hylacomylus.* He 
prepared an edition of PtolemsBus. 
The mathematician of Alexandria, the 
last exponent of geographical know- 
ledge and of cosmography among the 
ancients, had been successively the 
oracle of the immovable middle ages 
and of the invincible pioneers who 
opened the modem era. The world 
was never weary of making reprints 
of his writings, adding in a supplement 
what antiquity had not known of our 
globe, or as the saying went, of lands 
outside Ptolemasus, (regionet nostra 
PtolenuBum.) 

But before entering upon his great 
work, Hylacomylus published an in* 
troduction to the cosmography, and as 
an addition precious as it was novel, 
enriched it with the four voyages of 
Americus Yespucius, under this title 
*< Cosmographiaa introdactio cam qui 
busdam geometrise ac astronomin 
principiis ad earn rem necessariis. 
Insuper quatuor Americi Vespacii 
Bavigationes." He wrote anonymous- 



* Crtt. Exam. rol. Ir. pL 99 tnd followlnf. See 
the positive and Mgaclooi researches which led M. 
Von Humboldt to discover the true name of Ujla- 
comylus. The passage Is of great Interest, not only 
on accoont of the problem whose solution It presents, 
bat as showing with what persevering ardor the II- 
loftrlous author devoted bunMdf ta toe elucidation 
of the tratli. 



ly, revealing his name only with the 
second edition in 1509. 

From whom did he obtain these four 
voyages, never before printed? No 
doubt from the Duke of Lorraine. But 
he is silent upon that point, limiting 
himself to the information that they 
had been translated from Italian into 
French and from French into Latin. 

Here and there in the nine chapters 
that compose his work Hylaoomylos 
alludes to the discoveries of Ame* 
ricus Yespucius, extolling their ex- 
tent and their scientific importaooe. 
^ The torrid «one," he says, ** is habi- 
table and inhabited. The Golden 
Ghersonesus and Taprobane oontain 
many human beings, as well as a very 
considerable portion of the country en- 
tirely onknown until lately, when it 
was discovered by Americus Yespa* 
cius.*' 

Further on, in a more decided man- 
ner, after mentioning the seven cli- 
mates described by Ptolemasus, and 
named after several remarkable towns, 
mountains, or rivers of the northern 
hemisphere, Hylacomylus opposes to 
thtm six others recently recognized in 
the southern hemisphere. The names 
of the first five repeat those of the 
north in symmetrical opposition.* In 
the sixthf toward the antarctic region 
and the extremity of Africa, he places 
Zanzibar, discovered shortly before, 
the islands of Java Minor, (Sumatra,) 
Seula, (Ceylon,) with the fourth part 
of the world ; ^ and this quarter, since 
Americus discovered it, we may be al- 
lowed to call the land of Americas, or 
America." 

Finally, and it is here that this ob* 
scare author decides the question tor 
future ages, he enumerates the coun- 
tries comprised in Europe, Asia, and 
Africa. He reminds us that Europe 
and Asia are the names oi two queens, 
and continues : ^ Now these three por> 
tions have been explored to their nU 

* " Pari mode dioendnm ett de els qoss rant altrt 
leqalnoctlalein ad austram qix>niin sex contrarU 
Domlna habentla sunt lustrata : et dlei possunt anti- 
dU Meroea, antidU Alexaodriaa, aotidia Rhodon, 
antidia Rhomes, (sic,) antidia Boriaohtoer, (sie,) « 
grttca partieuU tntfqiUB oppodiiim Tel ooutn deao- 
Ut."— Ch. Til. 



ei6 



m»d CkriMtopkar Cohmima, 



tfiaixt8;aiidaiiodier. a fearth, lias 
been dSacorered bj Americos Yespo- 
dm, (as we shall ice kter.) Now I 
see DO gromids npoa whidi oppoddoo 
can be made to naming h America, or 
tbe land of Americas, after its diwo- 
Tcier« Americos, a man of sagadoos 
genios, since Europe and Asia owe 
their names to women." 

Two series of distichs precede and 
ammonce the four nayigations. We 
loeption them merel j for the character- 
istic enthusiasm that thej exhale in 
boDor of the fortunate mariner. He 
alone who sang the maritime adren- 
tores of the Trojan hero, sajs the poet 
in closing his verses, could worthilj 
odebrate this theme.* 

This, then, was the baptism of the 
oew-bom worid. It was in one of the 
humblest cities of Lorraine that an un- 
known bookseller bade Europe and 
Asia hold it with him over the font, 
inscribing it in the classic family bj a 
name thenceforth imperishable. 



m. 

This name became quickly famous 
in the Old Worid. Its birth in Lor- 
raine was an advantage in the begin- 
ning. This coontry was fortUDately 
placed for facilities of intercourse 
between France and Germany, very 
near the Rhine, along whose banks 
were crowded so many famous towns 
from Bale to Rotterdam, and close to 
Strasburg, that centre of powerful ra- 
diation. 

From the presses of Grieninger, or 
Gruninger, issued, in 1509, the second 
edition of the Cosmography, bearing 
this time the autlior's name affixed to 
the dedication. Piquant selections were 
made firom the four voyages of Ameri- 
cas, and many persons, allured by its 
saooess, falsely claimed the paternity 
of the book.t Long after the death 
of Hylacomylus his 'work was destin- 
ed to be reprinted at Venice in 1535 

' • The Mttioil part of the Cocmofrraphla Introdae- * Crit. Exam, rol Ir. pp. 140-142. liett^rn of ih« 

tfo it by rtaU«fhii, (Rlntmann,) a fHend of ih« editor. Benedictine Trlthemius, Auk. l^>. I ^^1. HutnbnUll 

t IblMoaylaB f in B Hi >f**« of ihii In a letter to Phi- shoirf that this letter b olU*n daUrd Incorrectly l&l<k 

I ^Lylj igtyi 1009. Trlthemliu aiaket Tespoclus a ^anlard. 



and io 1554. The sniErage of Baly 
served nola little the popnlarity of the 
naT^ator and the name of America. 

ETOTwhere an irresistible and imi- 
Tenal concurrence enhanced the re- 
nown of Americas YespocioSv as wave 
after wave bears its tribute to the ris- 
ing tide. From the time of the appear- 
ance of that first edition. (1507,) maps 
and globes were printed in Strasburg 
and sold at low prices, bearing indica- 
tion of the discoTcries of Americas 
Vespados. with his name.* 

In 1509, the same year when the 
second edition of Hylacomylus appear- 
ed, an anooymons opv$eulej another 
product of John Grienioger's actire 
press, called, ^ Globus mnndi dcdara- 
tio, sive descriptio mundi et totins orbis 
terramm,'* sanctions the proposition of 
the scholar of Saint-INe. This is the 
first geographical treatise in which the 
name of America takes nodisputed 
possession as the designation of the 
New World. The phraseology in which 
it is couched is fantastic, and, indepen* 
dently of its significance, merits a mc^ 
ment's attention. 

^' Doctors,** saith the cosmographer, 
'^compare our earth to the human 
frame as possessing all the parts con* 
tained in a body. First, the ficsh is 
the earth itself ; blood corresponds to 
water, bones to stones, veins to moun- 
tains. The head is the East, or Asia ; 
the feet are the West and America 
lately discovered. Africa is the right 
arm, and cur own continent of Europe 
the left." 

Science in her first essays was some- 
times satisfied with very naive pueri- 
lities, and young America was receiv- 
ed under strange auspices. But at 
that time, perhaps, this was an ad- 
yantage. The author of the Globus 
shows himself more rational while un- 
dertaking to demonstrate clearly, even 
to persons of small education, the ex- 
istence of antipodes whose feet are 
opposed ours; and the possibility of 
life in any portion of the globe, be- 



Amerieus Vetpueius and Chriitopher Colu$nbus. 



617 



canse tbe sun shines npon all parts 
of tbe earth — ^problems that distarbed 
many minds. 

Nevertheless, great as is his admira- 
tion for Americas Vespucius, and for 
** the fourth part of the worfd by him 
discovered, that island larger than Eu- 
rope whose shores develop westward 
with relation to Europe and Africa," 
the geographer of Strasburg does not 
inscribe tbe name of America on hia 
map. He is content with the appella- 
tion of the Nina World, • Pierre Apier, 
in 1520, was the first to enroll the name 
of America on a map of the world add- 
ed to an edition of Solinus.f 

Then comes the author who, adding 
practice to precept, should have antici- 
pated others — we mean Hylacomylus. 

His ambition, like that of every cob- 
mographer, was to re-edit the mathe- 
matician of Alexandria. The magni- 
ficent bounty of Ren^ II. fnmished the 
funds for the preparatory labors and 
provided for the engraving of maps. 
But death interrupted the work in 
1508 by snatching away its noble pa- 
tron.{ In the language of the editors, 
two ecclesiastical dignitaries of Stras- 
burg, it was aroused from its sleep 
among the rocks of the Vosges only 
after six years of neglect It was 
published at Strasburg in the year 
1513, under the superintendence of 
Philesius. The maps do not present 
the name of Americus, nor the body 
of the work that of Hylacomylus. 
But, following those belonging to the 
geograpliy proper of Ptolemaeus, there 
is a rich supplementary atlas, which 

* Newe Weltw The Indications on thli map of Uie 
Globus are in Oertnan. 

t Crlt. Exam. vol. Ir. p. 855 ; roL r. pp. 174. 188. 

t We find in a treatlM of 1511, composed of a tract 
chart of Europe by Hylacomylus, with a description 
of the same continent by his friend PbllesiuSf an In- 
ten^tln;; tribute to the memory of Ren^ XL Hyla- 
eomylos dedicates this map, of which lie Is Tery proud, 
to Duke Antony, Ren^^s son and successor. He ob- 
serves that the late dulce was ** the first among the 
first of princes to favor the liberal arts, full of the love 
of letters and of lettered men. We ourselves remem- 
ber the indulgent ear, the smiling countenance, and 
the good grace with which he received the general 
description of the globe, and other monuments of our 
literary latxirs oflTered by us to him.*' This book 
(Biblio. Magazine, No. 16169) Is entitled : Instnictlo 
manuductionem praestans in cartam itinerariam Btlar- 
tinl Ililacotnile, cum luculentiori Ipalus BnropOB enar> 
ratlone h KingmunnoPhilesiooonserlpta. StrasboiUY, 
imprimerie Urlenlnger, April, 1511. 



represents the geographical state of 
the world in the sixteenth century, 
and offers ns two very curious maps ; 
a map of the world, entitled '' Orbis 
typus universalis jnxta faydrogra- 
phonim traditionem,*' with the profile 
of the western mainland and seyeral 
islands of the Antilles and a special 
map of discoveries, Tabula Terre 
Nove, loaded with names that mount 
in a grand scale up to the fortieth de- 
gree of south latitude. This place 
is eminently suited to introduce the 
name of America,* but we seek it in 
vain. It was destined to appear in a 
posthumous work of the bookseller of 
Saint-Di6. 

In 1522, Lanrentius Phrisius, who 
must not be confounded with Philesius, 
published a new edition of Ptolemseus 
at John 6rieninger*s in Strasburg. 
Hylacomylus was dead ; but how could 
they do better than employ the maps 
prepared by him in his lifetime ? ^' That 
we may not seem,'' says Phrisius to the 
reader, ^ to arrogate to ourselves an- 
other's merit, know that these maps 
have been lately prepared by Martm 
Hylacomylus, dead in Christ, and re- 
duced to dimensions smaller than their 
first form. If they are good, to him 
then, and not to us, peace and place 
among the celestial hierarchy, in the 
bosom of him who separated the edi- 
fice of this world by spaces so marvel- 
lous. For the remainder that follows, 
know that it is our own work."t 

Now, upon this map of the world, 
which is the work of Hylacomylus, and, 
is entitled as in the Ptolemseus of 
1513, ** Orbis typus universalis juzta 
hydrographorum traditionem,'' is dis- 
played the name of America. And 

* On tbe contrary, we find this Inscription : H(m& 
Urra cum adfaeentibut inmUU inventa Ml pT 
Cblumbum Janttsnstm «d fncmdato Rtgit Oat- 
iellm. Elsewhere the preface of the supplement ooa* 
tains this singular phrase dpropo9 of the map of th* 
world : ** Charta autem marina quam hydrofraphlam 
vocant per admlralem quondam serenisslmum Portu* 
galim reaU Ftrdinandi cssteroa denlque lustralo- 
res verisslmls peragrationibas lustrata.*' (Folio, Im- 
perial lib., 0. 10.) How place Ferdinand on tbe Por« 
tuguese throne then occupied bv Emmanaelf Who 
is this admiral f Remark that the names of looalltj 
CD the second map are Spanish. This extraordinary 
confusion of names of kings will serve to exptala 
other errors In after ilmea. 

t Crit Exam. toL U, p. Ill 



618 



im€ricfi9 Ve9f>neiu$ ttnd ChrUU^phfr Cotumiu9, 



what a triurapbnnt commentary" upon 
it ia given in the preface wrilten by 
Thonias Auctiparius 1 ** Not leas wor- 
thy of panegyric arc those who, since 
be days of Ptolemaeus, have euccecd- 
^«tl by an incredible effort of genius in 
explorinrj new counlriea and isknds. 
And in the fiitit rank among^ them, 
and deserving an extraordinary fume, 
stands Americus Veepuclus, the iUus- 
trlou3 and eminent man who diseover- 
ed and explored and was tia^ first g:nest 
of the land of America, called today 
America, or the New World, or the 
fourth part of the world ; as well as of 
other new islands ai\jacent to it or ly- 
hv^ at no great distance." 

This enthuii^iasin waa not free from 
confusion. The tavofti on the borders 
of the Rhine I'eceived by repercussion 
the echoed reports of tliese wonderful 
Portuguet'e and Spanish discoveries, 
without disiingnishiii^ quite clearly 
ihe iianie and extent of each one. For 
instance, this Piolemieus of 1522 re- 
peats the map of 151*3, with the indi- 
cation that the coniim?nt in qnestion 
with its neighboring iailands was dis- 
covered by the Genoe^ie Columbus 
under orders of the King of Castile* 

The &amc iepend, under date of 
1497, adjoining the wonis America 
provincia, on Apian^s map, appears in 
ihe edition of Pomponius MeU, by 
Vudianns, (Joacquin de Watt,) IJiile, 
1522, Yet the first pa;5es in the book 
reprodnoe a letter from Vadianus to 
a friend, concern in i? the discovery of 
America by Vespucius, and the remark- 
able prodcieney in mathematics of this 
navigator The editor does not re- 
mark that the name of America upon 
the map is in contmdiction with ihal 
of Columbus in the legeodi or that 



• W« llAte r 

0f 

Uy 1 

'1 



bare. 
vvWIiiit 



fMiitry In t^' *i«ra 

MWO. Tfclt, I r |li« 

WliduM^ tJiotUtr form of Phrtilaj.) 



ntlMio. 



elsewhere he attacbea erroaaovtilj io 
the third voyage of Cdmiibtti, doriig 

which the great navigator toncM 
Paria, the pretended duCe (1497)^ 
the discovery of ^Vxneiicua %V«p«riiB.* 

This discrepancy WLmong Htvmiib 
geographers was not of long duntlMio. 

Simon Grynmus, author of a 
tion of voyasfes, (Orhis NovttSy 
March, lo32,) in which be inAerti 
four voyafres of Americna Vcepociai 
and only the (Hi'st of Columbus, dofll 
not hesitate in deciding tbejr rmpo 
tive importance I witnciss the foUoiriiy 
wonla in a little tJ-eatiso by SobttgdiD 
Munster, pUiced at the im^ ot cIm 
collection : '' There haa bemi di«eof%^ 
ed in our own day lo the Wfstcni 
ocean, by Auicricus VrApueitifl mi 
Chnsta[)her C^ilumbns, wkol one mtkj 
call a new world, and very eon'e^tfy 
the fourth fiart of the globe, so tkU 
our earth no longer consi&ts of tbiTi 
parts, but of four ; beciause tlie^e In* 
dian islands surpass Europe La tm, 
especially the one which (akt» iti 
name of America from Amerieiu, win 
discovei^d it/^ The Bfune Hunifeer 
writes in his Cosmography ; *• W 
shall 1 say of these gi-eai t*land% 
America, of Paria, Cuba, ' 
Yucatan f' And again, n 
jliving the southern part ut the 
World : ** Atlantic Island, called 
zil and America.** 

The collection of OryniBUs iraa im- 
printed in Paris about the mrmlb <»f 
November^ l^M^ and acTciul tiiiM# 
afterward. 

Apian and Phrisios, the sante who 
worked upon the Prolematus of 1522, 
say in their (Cosmography : ** America 
takes its name from Amerieus Vevfut- 
cius, who ditoovei^d it : othe^rs mil U 
BrasiL la it aconuneut or an isHmd ? 
We do not yet know." Of Culumbw 
not one wntri 

Tlieat? referene*.^« tn ' l>- 

lu inbus, evoked tf eon// Af 

exceptions of ever lessening trequeucy* 



I 



• Crit KxML ToL Ir. p. 144. Oslombtti i _ 
•nd tin iMTft ftrtto* ot th« <kti« of ilkt Oi1ii««ol Ma 
fluUttJ Jkmnim. lit. MM. Tba lUf4 romTlSI 
SoSlbi/ilah, im, to Motmbtr SM, uC ^^ 




Am$rieu8 Ve$pueiu$ and Christopher Columbus. 



dio 



The name of America in a few years 
had taken possession of maps and 
of Bciencc, and passed into a brilliant 
and resonant notoriety with the public 
The erudite, those who controlled the 
printing press, and those who, in the 
centre of Europe, formed opinions al- 
most uninfluenced by Spain, and whose 
admiration, more or less enlightened^ 
created fame, were fairly dazzled by 
Americus Vespucius. Columbus, af- 
ter being faintly discerned from time 
to time, at last disappeared, and was 
lost like a satellite in the nimbus of a 
principal star planet. No doubt be 
could lay claim to a few islands ; but 
he who, unveiling the vast expanse 
of SGUthcrn shores, had discovered a 
new world, was beyond dispute Ame- 
ricus Vespucius, the noble, the illus- 
trious traveller par ea»e/Ifewce— egro- 
giu3 et nobilissimus inventor, visitator 
et primus hospes. 



IV, 

But why this sUence respecting 
Christopher Columbos 1 Whence thi^ 
apparent conspiracy against a roan 
wiio in our own day rears himself like 
a giant above all those who navigated 
the route opened by his genius? 
%Vhere shall we seek the cause of the 
ingratitude no longer peculiar of Spain, 
but attributable to all Europe, that 
pains our hearts ? 

The truth must be told : be himself 
was one of its principal causes. 

The illustrious Genoese never court- 
ed publicity. The only papers print- 
ed during his life, concerning his dis- 
coveries, were his first voyage, taken 
from his letter of March 14th, 1493, 
to tlie treasurer Sanchez; and his 
fourth, an account of which he address- 
ed to the kings in a letter from Jamaica, 
(July 7th, 1503 ;)• the one in Latin at 
Rome, (1493,) the other at Venice, 

* First voyage from Angtwt 8d, 1492, to March 15, 
149$ : dldcorery of the Bahama IsUnds, and of Haytl. 
Fourth Toyafte from May 11th, 1503, to Norember 
7ih, 1504 ; dlicorery of the coast of the oontlnent 
ftt>m Honduras to Puerto de Mosqultoa, at the end 
of the Isthmus of Panama. First notion of ih« aad*- 
Unoe of another iw to Um wett» 



translated into Italian, (1505.) The 
title of Lettera rarissima by which this 
last docament is designated, shows 
plainly that it was not for general dis« 
tribution. Of the writings of Colum- 
bus these are all that were published 
np to the close of (he eighteentli cen* 
tury,* 

This great man thought it for his in* 
terest to keep the secret, if not of bis 
discoveries, at least of the route he had 
followed. As his treaty of Santa F6 
with Isabella and Ferdinand secured 
to him the government and a part of 
the fruits of the lands discovered by 
him, he had not cared to provoke or 
faciUtate competition. Indeed we 
have two letters from Isabella, (Sep- 
tember 5th, 1493, and August 16th, 
1494,) reproaching him for leaving the 
degrees of latitude blank, and a»ing 
for a complete chart of the inlands with 
their names and distances.f He be- 
came still less communicative al\er the 
crown of Castile violated its engage- 
ments with him, (1495,) and when his 
enemy Fonseca gave up his charts to 
the navigator Uojeda. Tliey had re- 
duced him, he said, to the position of a 
man who opens the door for others to 
pass through. Silence may, then, have 
seemed to him a means of defendmg 
his legitimate possessions, or, at least, 
of diminishing the force of attacks upon 
his just rights. 

Besides, thou^ his discovery anti« 
cipated by six years the arrival of the 
Portuguese in the East-Indies by the 
Cape of Good Hope, it was eclipsed by 
the brilliant voyages of Vasco de Grama 
and Alvares Cabral, followed as they 
were bv immediate results. What 
were Spaniards and Portugaese in 
search of ? The Indies, the eminre of 
Cathay, or of China, those regions de* 

{>icted by antiquity and by the travel* 
crs of the middle ages as gorged 



• Orlt Exam. toL U. p. 880; toL It. ^ TS and 
note. 

t Crlt. Exam. rol. III. p. S40i We hear of a chart 
glren at Rome, In 1506, by Bartholemcnr Colombiu, 
the admiral*s brother, to a canon of Si. John cH LM- 
eran, and giren by him to Alessandro Zosl, aathor 
of the collection of 160T. Ita fate is anknowB. Orll 
Exam. rol. It. p. 60, note. Thia doea not look lUbt 
pobUdty. 



C20 



f^^emVfS^imui and ChrUiophir ' 



with precious metals^ iivith pearls and 
diamondf, with spices and glitterint? 
tissues. Now, the Portuguese bad 
been waFled to the yf^ry source of these 
treasures. In the earliest years of the 
BiXteenih cenlury, their fleets returned 
laden with spoils from kingdoms of 
sonorou.s namesj rendered famous by 
the songs or by the ambition of the 
poets and conquerors of classic anti- 
quity. All this time the Spaniards, 
following the steps of Christopher Co- 
lumbus, were groping in the western 
seas among remote regions supposed 
by them to belong to extreme Ajiia, 
finding only sewage tribes where they 
had looked for imposing monarchies- 
They had picked up a few pearls, a 
little gold, and some Blares^ and bad 
returned to Europe* unablf^ to conceal 
from themselves the fact that their ri- 
vals of Lisbon owed more to Vasco de 
Gama than Castile to Christopher 
Coluinbus. 

If, then* in the eyes of historyi the 
gloi-y of the immortal Genoese lies in 
having e ought with a rt-iiectivo and 
discerning boldness, and discovered 
more than be sought, namely, an un- 
known workl independent of all other 
lands, at a time when the only aim in 
view was to open a western route to 
the ** land of spices/' in the beginning 
bis voyage looked like a half success- 
ful enterprise. Wa-^ the talk of dis- 
coveries, projjerly speaking I What 
were a small number of islands com- 
pared with that eouthem country coast- 
ed by Amencus to the fiftieth degree of 
south latitude without finding its ter- 
mination t 

The discovery of the Southern sea 
by Balboa at the Isthmus of Panama^ 
(15 IS,) the extraordinary conquests 
of Mexico and Peru, the adventures 
of a Cortex and of a Pizarro, chilled 

iet more the puhhc opiuiun toward 
im whose works, considered then so 
Etmble, had given the impetus to 
[these prodigious enterprises* 

A little while yet, and he waft coo- 

l.flidered a simpleton for believing that 

" bis navigation from east to west had 

brought him to Asia, and for having 



found what he did not seek* Mm 
Beller, in reprinting at An vers (1561) 
the Cosmography of Apian arni Fii- 
sins, adds a dcj^criptioo of the Indkt, 
drawn from the Cosmoginphy of 
Jerome Girava, of TarraguniL. The 
ktter, a propos of Cuba, explaaia 
under the name of Indies are eoorpr^ 
headed all the lands recently di^corer^ 
ed. *^ This name," he says, ** cocMt 
from the fact that the Genoese, Clim> 
topher Columbus, a distinguished «»• 
riuer and a poor cosmognipher,* haT» 
ing ohtntned in 1492 the favor and aid 
of Ferdiuand the Catholic and of Isa- 
bella to go in search of regions na^ 
then unseen and unknown, called theia 
the Indies* After making the disoov* 
err, he returned in the same y t^ar, say* 
ing that he had found the Indtei* 
Therefore have these lands retaitied 
the name*" 

Thus did Christopher Coliraibcis left 
ground so materially in the admiration 
of bis contemporaries that bis end was 
obscure and almost overlooked, Pt-ter 
Martyr of Anghiera, who is called his 
friend* but hanlly seems to have mcrii«i 
the title, for two months and a half 
saw hira uj>on the bed of pain to which 
the hhi great crisis nailed bim at Val- 
ladolid. lie does not 8p\ik of this 
illness in his letters, nor of his death, 
which took plfice May 20fh, 1506, a 
short lime after bis own depart ii rip, 
Ilts Ocemiic Decades mention it inci- 
dentally several years later.f 

Why wonder^ then, tliat the iMHtors 
of Vicenzo^s collection in 1507, and 
the transktor of this coUecifbo into 
Latin in 1508, inform us that at the 
moment they write the admiral and bis 
brother are living honorably in tb« 
splendid court of Castile? Grynietig 
hi 1532 speaks in the same terms in 
his Orbis Novus.^ So had fame aban- 
doned the life and the grave of Chris- 
topher Columbus. 



* Nunet^f ttt t]>»lffulf ■ 
prrltu*, n. 107. BUiaalti IIaobUm, lft««« 

i It W.I4 bttxmtmn Ui« yctft iMO iMi tft14 Ikii 
Pierre Mmriir ikomtkipn^m to fVMBtor th« gf<a| 



< 



;orltJ 



. TOi w. pp. w, lai 



Americus Vespueius and ChrtBtopher OolumbuM. 



en 



So far we have traced the principal 
features of the nautical career of Ame- 
ricus Yespucius. Still following the 
light of Humboldt's brilliant research- 
es, we have found in the bookstore 
of Saint- Die, the inventor of the name 
of America; we have shown how 
and at what period this appellation 
passed from the Production of the Ooi" 
niography on to maps and into public 
use; and how motives personal to 
Christopher Columbus, and the as* 
tounding exploits of Portuguese or 
Spanish conquerors, threw into the 
shade the services and genius of the 
most daring mariner the world has ever 
seen. 

We have shown that a strong cur- 
rent of public opinion, self formed in a 
certain sense, had developed, without 
leaving room to suppose or suspect any 
culpable participation in Americus Ves- 
pucius. Strictly speaking, this should 
absolve us from all obligation \o justify 
him further from the reproach of usur- 
pation. Yet it is our intention to con- 
clude with a review of that side of the 
question. 

To begin with, there exists no proof 
or presumption that he had any hand 
in the publication of his voyage. The 
work contains details such as be would 
certainly not have consigned to a writ- 
ing intended for the public ; as, for ex- 
ample, when speaking of the second 
voyage, he complains, in a letter to So- 
derini, tliat the Queen Isabella had 
taken from him a shell to which were 
found attached one hundred and thirty 
pearls. "After that," he continues: 
" I took good care how I showed her 
such precious things." 

Does not he himself tell us that he 
has in reserve the project of publishing 
a complete and extended narrative, the 
object of his assiduous cares, and the 
hope of his future glory ? So scrupu- 
lously, i: appears, he observed Horace's 
precept, (nonumque prematur in an- 
num,) that death surprised him while 
still hesitating to bring it to the light. 
Its destiny is unknown. 



Living and writing at Seville, in the 
very centre of the excitement of discov- 
eries, among a crowd of seafaring men 
who had seen, accompanied, or talked 
with Christopher Columbus, whom he 
survived only six years, how can we 
suppose that he could conceive the plan 
of attributing to himself an honor 
known by all to belong to the admiral 1 
And if he had dared to do so, how could 
he with impunity have attempted it be- 
fore such judges, without calling forth 
a cry of indignation that should resound 
to the furthest extremities of Europe ? 

It is said that he gave to his first 
voyage, which really dates from May 
20th, 1499, the fraudulent date of May 
20th, 1497, in order to rob Columbua 
of priority in the discovery of terra 
firma.* But in that case, would be noi 
have adjusted his dates more adroitly 1 
Would he have committed the gross 
blunder of assigning the end of this 
voyage to October 15th, 1499, mention- 
ing directly afterward that he began 
the second in May, 1499,t that is 
to say, five moaths before his return 
from the first? What answer could 
he have made to those who had the 
registers of La Casade Contratacion in 
hand,} and, armed with universal testi- 
mony, would have told him that, pend- 
ing the pretended duration of this first 
expedition, all Seville and Cadiz had 
seen him occupied with preparations 
for the third voyage of Columbus, who 
set sail May SOth, 1498. 

Moreover, these errors in dates were 
extremely common at the commence- 
ment of the sixteenth century. Educa- 
tion was incomplete. The means of 
verification were hard to obtain con- 
cerning expeditions that crossed each 
other in every sense. Thus, in the eigh- 
teen years following Yasco de Gama's 
expedition, the king of Portugal sent no 
less than 294 vessels to India and to 
the land of the Holy Cross, (Brazil) 
The fourteen expeditions that sailed 

* Remember that Columbus touched t«rra firmft ftt 
the delU of the Orinoco, August 1st, 149& 

t The edition of Hylacoinylus bears date 14S9, % 
printer's error. 

X These registers bear their testtmony ai th« prMeni 
day. We had occaaion to refer to (hem ia CM flni 
l»ar( of this artlde. 



Americus Vespuciua and Christopher Columbiu, 



628 



that, at the stage of ideas and of science 
existing in his day, be could not have 
conceived them. 

In using the expression New World, 
or the fourth part of the world, we at" 
tach to it the precise sense of the vast 
American continent. Our eyes in- 
stinctively behold that colossal dike, 
which, stretching, bo to speak, from 
pole to pole, restrains and divides the 
two oceans facing easterly toward 
Europe and Africa, and westerly to* 
ward Asia, but separated by enormous 
distances from all three. 

We must set aside this preconceiv- 
ed idea, and return in thought to the 
latter days of the fifteenth century. 

The ancients and the travellers of 
the middle ages prolonged Asia inde- 
finitely eastward; and when at last 
they set a term to that country by 
India, the Mangi and Cathay, (China.) 
they continued it again by sowing in 
bandfuls through the neighboring seas 
innumerable archipelagoes. It was 
while more especially acting upon the 
words of antiquity that Christopher 
Columbus braved the awful solitudes 
of the Atlantic, and, bearing directly 
westward, sought the Indies by another 
route than that used by the Portuguese. 
When the unknown iand, the prize of 
bis divination, rose from the bosom of 
the waters, the admiral never for an 
instant doubted that he was about to 
plant the standard of Castile upon an 
Asiatic island. He took Cuba for the 
very continent of Asia, the end and the- 
beginning of the Indies, " I have dis- 
coverod," wrote he to Pope Alexander 
VI. (February, 1502,) " 333 leagues 
of the terra ftma of Asia." On his 
third voyage, the spectacle of the im- 
mense flood of the Orinoco havmg sug- 
gested to him the very rational idea 
that such a river must bebng to a 
large country, he made of it the India 
of the Ganges. In this conviction he 
lived and died. 

In the same way Americus Vespu- 
cius, during his second voyage, coast- 
ing along the country destin^ to bear 
his name, fully believed himself to be 
in Asia. He tried to find Cape Catti- 



garaT in the great gulf of Ptolemeus ;* 
and followed for 400 leagues a shore 
which was, he said, the end of Asia, 
by the eastern side, and the commence- 
ment by the western side. *^ This ex- 
pedition has lasted thirteen months, 
during which we have run the great- 
est risks, and discovered an infinite 
stretch of the land of Asia as well as a 
number of islands.^'t In passing over 
to the Portuguese service afterward, 
it was with a hope of pursuing his in* 
yestigations, and of ^' finding the Island 
of Taprobana, (Ceylon,) situated be- 
tween the sea of the Indus and tha 
sea of the Granges." His fourth had 
for its object the Molucca Islands, the 
land of spices, and Malacca. 

The conviction of these two men de* 
cided general opinion, as is attested by 
the name of the Indies applied to the 
western lands. Both had passed away 
before Balboa's march to the great 
ocean (1513) and Magellan's voyage 
unsealed all eyes and dissipated the 
dreams of Ptolemsaus. 

Now, since it is an indisputable fact 
that Christopher Columbus and Ame- 
ricus Yespucius never had an intuition 
of their veritable discovery, and that 
for the rest of their Jives both of them 
firmly believed that they had reached 
the extreme end of the continent of 
Asia, how could the one have planned 
to frustrate the ether of the glory of 
having revealed a new world whose 
existence they neither of them suspect- 
ed ? How could Yespucius uudertake 
to slip surreptitiously into history, and 
impose a contraband name upon a 
continent that only seemed to him 
susceptible of bearing the name of 
Asia? Moreover, what personal ad- 
vantage could he hope to reap from 
fraudulently dating his arrival at Paria 
during his first expedition, 1497, when 
the discovery of Oriental Asia was 



* Sinus Magniu. Ptolenueos took the iQdl&n 
ocean for a s«a, bounded on the north by AsUt aad 
on the south bjr Africa, the latter continent widening' 
from west to east, to form the southern iMtnler of the 
Indian c 



t ** Discoprendo inflnltlasimatem da l*Aaia e grao 
copia d'isole.**— Grit. Exam. toL It. p. SM and note, 
et passim. 



Americui Vespucius and Christopher Columbus. 



pucby, who ia gomg to court, called thltber 
bj busiQcs3 concerning naTigation. He baa 
always Bhown a desire to please me ; and he 
is a Tcrj able man. Fortune has shown her- 
self adverse to him as to many others. His 
labors haTc not proTcd so profitable to him 
as should have naturally been the case. Uo 
is ^oiDg to court in my behalf, and with an 
ardent desire of effecting something useful to 
me, if occasion should offer. While in this 
place I cannot specify in what way ho can 
serve iis.not knowing how they stand affected 
toward him, but he is quite determined to do 
all in his power for my good. You will see 
for yourself how you can best employ him, 
for he will speak and set everything at work ; 
I want it to bo done secretly, tl^t nothing 
may be 8u«<pcctcd. I told him everything I 
could concerning our interests."* 

He wlio expressed himself thus con- 
cernJD;; Americus had known him not 
merely a day or two, but for long 
years. 

But let us admit that he was the 
dupe of a consummate hypocrite. The 
traitor was to be unmasked when death 
should relieve him of the obstacle who 
had been a source of such insupporta- 
ble impatience to him. Witnesses there 
were, however, to denounce him. Let 
us hear them : 

Sebastian Cabot, a worthy rival of 
the morit illustrious navigators of his 
day, had been summoned from Eng- 
land to S[>ain about the year 1512, to 
succeed Americus as corrector of geo- 
graphic tables. Three years later he 
took occasion to bear testimony to hia 
expertness in the determination of lati- 
tudes. 

Peler Martyr, whose hand falls will- 
ingly on all whom he suspects of in- 
trigue,, whether correctly or incorrect- 
ly, has only words of praise for Ves- 
pucius, a propos of his knowledge of 
nautical astronomy and of the art of 
navigation. 

Ramusio, who employed thirty-four 
years of his life (1523-1557) in pre- 
paring and publishing his great collec- 
tion of travels, end knew how to wi- 
ther with his indignation all who en- 
viously cavilled at Columbus,t speaks 

♦ Crit. Exam. vol. Ir. pp. 49, 80, and Washington 
Ir\lrii.', v«»l. iv, Ap|». So. y. 

t'Tlui.H' who iimintaineil that Columbus had stolen 
the knowletlge of the New World from a pilot who 

vou v.^0 



five times in terms of high esteem, 
'' of that high intelligence, of the ex- 
cellent Florentine endowed with such 
fair genius, %l signor Amerigo Vespa- 
cio." 

But a discordant voice arose. Mi- 
chel Scrvet, in re-editing the geography 
of Ptolemaeus at Lyons (1535, 1541,) 
says severe things of Americus, bat not 
without making mistakes. ^Colum- 
bus," he says, <^ discovered during a 
Dew voyage the continent and many 
more islands, of which the Spaniards 
are now completely masters. They 
then are totally misled who would call 
this continent America, since Americas 
never touched it until long after Co- 
lumbus, and since he went there not 
with the Spaniards, but with the Portu- 
guese, and to make trade.** 

Without pausing to notice detailsy 
we will confine ourselves to the mo- 
rality of Yespucius which the author 
does not attack. He only blames 
those who invented the name of Ame- 
rica.* 

To this accusation, such as it is, the 
History of India, by Gomara, (1551,) 
answered contemptuously : ** There are 
persons who enjoy bUickeningAlberico 
Yespucio*:! reputation, as may be seen 
by some editions of Ptolenueas in 
Lyons." 

Now, having seen the proofs drawn 
from those who have spoken, let us 
look at the counter-proofs of those 
who have not spoken — a testimony 
not without significance. 

Witness, for example, Oviedo, who 
systematically cries down Cliristopher 
Columbus. He is silent as to the sup- 
posed pretension of Yespucius to pri- 
ority in the discovery of the mainland. 
Is it to be supposed that, if the Fk>ren- 
tine liad actually chiimed this honor, 
Oviedo would not have taken him an- 
der his protection, and used his claim to 



dle<I In his honne. Oviedo echoed this calomnloas 
report. (History of the West-Indies. 1.'»85l) 

♦ M. Von Humboldt, vol. iv. p. 137. note, correola 
Servers inaccuracies. Vespucius made a voyage Air 
Spain with llojeda in 1499. It was aasaretlljr doC 
in the character of a merchant, but probably of an 
astronomer. A striking circumstaoca ! this edition 
of l&H.*^ contains after all the map Of lUS, beftring 
the name of Americas. 



Three Leavet from an Old Journal. 



ean 



Translated from the German. 

THREE LEAVES FROM AN OLD JOURNAL. 



Milan, May 4, 1811. 

I ARRIVED at Milan, at eight p.m., 
two days a^^o. I had never before seen 
the magnificent cathedral, and I had 
everything to set off the picture on 
whicli I came unexpectedly. The 
slender sickle of the new moon hung in 
the violet sky, crimsoned in the west 
with the lingering sunlight ; the street- 
lamps, just lighted, threw before me a 
line of red glow ; the bronze statue sur- 
mounting the lofty obelisk rose in the 
clear blue above; around it silence, 
with a tumult below of a crowd hurry- 
ing to the theatre. While I stood lost 
in admiration, I saw two men, dressed 
for travel like myself, emerge from the 
shadow of one of the pillars. Their 
voices as they approached told me who 
they were, though I had not seen them 
in five years. 

" Hermann I Adolph 1" I exclaimed ; 
and they greeted rac with joy. 

In a few moments we were seated at 
a table near the door of the nearest 
cafd, flasks of the Lombard cham- 
pagne, the foaming wine of Asti, be- 
fore us, each telling his adventures 
since our separation. From the same 
Fatherland, we had travelled far in dif- 
ferent directions. They had just come 
from the Tyrol ; from beholding the 
holy strife waged against the overbear- 
ing power of France by those brave 
sons of the mountains. We talked of 
those events, of those true-hearted pa- 
triots, and of our trust in justice human 
and divine. Adolph had visited the 
noble hero, Hofer, and read us a poem 
he had composed in his dwelling. I 
took a copy of the verses. 

We had little thought of our impru- 
dence in thus discoursing, as we talk- 
ed till midnight, when the people were 
returning from the theatre. With 



promises of another meeting, we then 
parted, and I went to my lodgings. Be- 
fore I had walked far, I heard heavy, 
jingling steps close behind me, and, 
turning, saw a French gendarme. I 
crossed toward a side street; he fol- 
lowed, and suddenly seized me by the 
arm. ^^ Monsieur, voire portefeuiUer 
he said ; and, when I gave it up, bade 
me follow him. 

He led me to a lofty old building, 
the large door of which was secured 
with heavy bolts. When it swung 
open, I saw French soldiers on guard. 
My captor spoke apart with an offi- 
cer, who presently gave me in charge 
to two soldiers. A turnkey, bear- 
ing a lamp, preceded us, and, going 
up-stairs, we entered a gloomy gallery. 
An iron -barred door was opened, and 
I was thiTjst into a narrow cell, venti- 
lated only by a small grated window, 
through which gleamed a ray of star- 
light. The gendarme then came in, 
searched me, and took away my papers, 
banding back my watch and purse. I 
was then asked if I wanted anything ; 
to which I replied with a bitter laugh ; 
and with a not uncourteous "^au revair^ 
the soldiers departed. 

I threw myself on the straw mattress, 
and ruminated in the darkness on my 
own imprudence and my probable fate. 
I was only twenty-one, and full of the 
hope of great deeds in my country's ser- 
vice. I had parents, sisters, and one 
dearer than all ; yet, for my love to 
them and to my native land, I should, 
no doubt, on the morrow be forced ta 
kneel and receive the fire of the soldiers. 
Thought was agony, but I could not 
help thinking. Suddenly the dead* 
silence of night was broken by a tone 
of melody so sbft, so exquisite, so melan- 
choly, that it penetrated my soul. It 
was no song ; it was simply a strain of 
melody — such as brought tears to my 



628 



Three Leavee from an Old Journal. 



eyes — such as was never heard before. 
Orpheus might have drawn it forth ! 
It was — ^yes, I was sure it was — 
the sound of a violin I 

Only a violin — and yet such mu- 
sic — in my cold despair, with the gal- 
leys or death before me — it raised mo 
to the summit of rapture ! With the 
profoundest feelings of solemnity, it 
blended all the joy of freedom 1 How 
it stole on the stillness of night, waited 
through the bars of my window ; clear, 
softly swelling, plaintive, imploring like 
a prayer of love — yielding like the 
timid bride — how did that wondrous 
harmony possess my soul! Various 
airs were apparently improvised ; some- 
times the tones glided like magic ; tiien 
rising into power, they melted into the 
most enchanting melody ; ever clear, as 
if the notes had been distinct {>earl'drop3. 
Then the rhapsodical strains passed, by 
a strange but charming transition, into 
deep and wonderful pathos. It was 
full of sadness sweet and tender, like a 
mourner's sigh ; now it rose into sil- 
very richness, now gradually faded 
away ; the melancholy plaint of an im- 
prisoned king I It filled me with calm- 
ness and trust in the midst of misfor- 
tunes. 

The music continued at intervals. I 
knew not whether to wonder most at 
the composition or the execution of the 
player. Then he passed into strange 
combinations, into bolder and wilder 
flights ; his music was full of lire ; he 
seemed under the influence of insi)ira- 
tion. Ho seemed to create difficulties 
only to triumph over them, and sur- 
passing harmony was in all. I had 
played the violin, (I have never at- 
tempted it since,) and could never have 
imagined the instrument capable of 
what I heard. When the music ceased, 
it lingered unforgotten in my soul. 

At daylight I heard the beating of a 
drum, and I climbed to my window to 
see what was going on. It overlooked 
the court, and I saw a comtiany of 
soldiers, with three prisoners standing 
iu front of them. The otliL'er gave a 
sign, and they marche<l away. Just 
then, my cell door was opened by the 



jailer, who, in replj to my qaestioDS, 
said : ** Those prisoners are to die in 
an hour. They are suspected of trea- 
son; of having favored the insurrec- 
tion among the Tyrolese,'' 

These words were my death-war- 
rant. I listened, shuddering, but with 
composure. The jailer then informei 
me that the prisoners were allowed to 
go into the court at that hour, and I 
could descend if I chose. I did so. I 
found myself in a crowd of rough men, 
collected out of Lombardy, as its scum, 
by the energy of the French govern- 
ment. At a distance from the others, 
leaning against a pillar, his ejes turn- 
ed towar^ the rising sun, I saw a 
young man about twenty-five, apparent- 
ly worn out with suffering. His form 
was emaciated, his face deadly pale; 
his eyes were sunken; his nose was 
aquiline ; his forehead broad and high ; 
and hb tangled mass of bktek hair, 
with a long beard, gave him a wild 
aspect But there was a touching in- 
terest in the sorrowful expression of 
his chiselled mouth and the lines of his 
blanched face. He noticed no one, and 
was quite unconscious of my long, ear- 
nest gaze. 

Suddenly he went up to the guanl 
who had charge of the cells, ami spoke 
to him earnestly iu Italian. I heanl 
his voice in moving accents of entreaty. 

" No, you cannot !'' replied the old 
man, sternly. " And if you are not 
quiet of nights, I will even cut your 
List string tor you." 

** It is the musician !'' I cried to my- 
self, fxxvi I hastened to speak to him. 
But my steps were clu*cked by hearing 
my own name pronounced behind me. 
The gendarme who had arrested me 
stood there, and sternly bade me fol- 
low hun. I dared not hesitate. We 
went out of tiie door, and I saw a car- 
riage in waiting. My conductor mo- 
tioned me to get in, and followed me. 
Atter a short drive the carriage stop- 
peJ before a handsome house. The 
French soldier alighted, hell tlu* door 
open tor me, and led mc up th(* sieps 
and into the house. We stoj;l in the 
haU some time ; at length a door open- 



Three Leaves from an Old Journal. 



020 



ed, and a voice cried, " Entrez r I went 
in alone. 

A gentleman in military dress stood 
in the room, and extended his hand to 
ine. I recognized bim at once. Four 
years before, in Berlin, Greneral K. 
had been brought wounded to the house 
of my father. Though a political 
enemy, he had received tender care 
and nursing till restored to strength. 

He grasped my hand cordially. 
" You have been imprudent, my young 
friend," he cried. "Had I not occu- 
pied this post, nothing could have sav- 
ed your life. You are now at liberty." 

"And Hermann — and Adolph," I 
questioned. 

** They are free also." 

I poured out thanks, which the gen- 
eral interrupted. "You must all be 
my guests to-day," he said. " To-mor- 
row I leave Milan with my troops, and 
you must depart, or your adventure 
might still have serious consequences. 
I have had your passports made out — 
to Grermany." 



II. 



Paris, April 13, 1814. 

A DISTINGUISHED musical amateur 
— an intimate friend, to whom I had 
told the story of my imprisoned violin- 
ist, and who thought it a romance 
highly colored by imagination — sent 
me a note to say that I was to be treat- 
ed to a violin concert, by way of cur- 
ing my enthusiasm. Lafont had promis- 
ed to give it ; my friend took him at 
his word. It was to come off that eve- 
ning, and Baillot, Kreuzer, and Rode 
were invited to take part in the music 

During the last four years I had 
heard the best violin players in the 
different cities where I had sojourned, 
but none even approached the unknown 
performer. Now, ray ideal was to be 
t<*stcd by hearing the four most cele- 
brated masters in the world I 

The saloon was brilliantly lighted, 
and filled with a crowd of the artistic 
and fashionable. The splendor was 
distasteful to me; I thought of the 



dungeon in Milan, and the melody 
that seemed wafted from heaven. 

After the overture, Lafont opened 
the concert. He displayed the most 
finished grace in andante as in al- 
legro; the most exquisite polish and 
silvery clearness of tone} but his 
playing — compared to my prisoner's — 
was like a delicate miniature beside a 
grand historical painting. 

Kreuzer played next. His tones 
were full and clear, and rose into rare 
boldness and strength ; many passages 
were brilliant as a string of dia- 
monds; but it was the brilliancy of 
polished metal or jewels, not the liv- 
ing beam that penetrates the soul. 

Next we heard Baillot. His per- 
formance glowed with a noble fire. He 
drew forth a foil, energetic harmony 
that thrilled me ; it was glorious ! He 
ruled tlie realm of sound like a mon- 
arch. But my prisoner ruled it like 
a god! 

Rode appeared last. His form was 
impressive in grace and dignity; his 
features were expressive and full of 
magnetic attraction. I started when 
he began to play ; for he stirred me- 
mory to its depths. He seemed to em- 
body the picture that had been floating 
before my fantasy. His music breath- 
ed the same fire and fervor, restrained 
by kindred power. At one moment, 
he rose to a height that seemed to equal 
the stranger's ; but he could not sus- 
tain it I felt the difference. In Rode it 
was a wonderful, a masterly effort — 
that which my prisoner accomplished 
with perfect ease. Hie chainless spirit 
would have soared upward and onward, 
seeking prouder heights, more fathom- 
less depths. He swept the empyrean till 
nearing the confines of purer worlds, 
and gave back to men in unrivalled 
melodies the music heard from other 
spheres. 

After the concert was over, my 

friend M introduced me to tlie 

celebrate<l artists, to whom I was bound 
to praise their admirable performances. 
I said nothing of my adventure in 
Milan ; but Lafont, who had hsard of 
it from M ^ questioned me, and 



2£ary*$ IHrge, 



681 



tutti of the last composition was end« 
ed ; the solo— apollacca — began. 

The tones struck deep in my 
heart. I had heard them before ; thej 
were unforgotten. But what a mira- 
cle ! Do two play — or three ? That 
I have never heard. No, I could not 
trust my ears. If I might but see the 
player ! but gain one look ! In vain ! 
the crowd surged against the open 
door, yet none could make way through 
the swaying mass. At least I coo d 
hear now — and I lost not one note. 

The music ceased, and a thunder- 
burst of apphiuse shook the building. 
I pressed forward again, striving to 
get a sight of the player ; but others, 
equally eager, pushed before me. I 
was again disappointed. With swell- 
ing heart I waited, impatient to hear 
him commence again. 

At last : " Now he plays on the G 



string,'* said some one near me. He 
began. I was not deceived. That 
was the very melody I heard in pri- 
son ! Thase were the self-same tones 
tliat once— calming, elevating, faith- in- 
spiring, as if sent direct from heaven — 
sent light into my gloomy soul ! 

With renewed efforts I forced my 
way into the halL I saw once more 
the pale, melancholy brow, the sunken 
eyes, the long, dark hair, the atten- 
uated cheeks, the enfeebled aspect of 
the whole person. It was he ! The 
mystery of eighteen years was at length 
solved. The stranger who had so 
charmed my soul, filling me with feel- 
ings unutterable— who had ceaseless- 
ly accompanied me since, like a veiled 
phantom — familiar, yet from which I 
could not tear the covering— stood be- 
fore me. I heard — I saw — ^PAGA- 
NINI! 



MARY'S DIRGE. 



BT CABOLUS. 



* Hanlbos date ] 



\ plenis.*^ 



O THOU, whoso awful mandate goes 
Throughout a wondering world of woes. 

Mysterious, still the same, 
In moments such as this, we feel. 
When grief is boundless, we must kneel 

And bless tht holy name. 

Ah, Mart I what avails thee now 
Thy radiant eyes, thy classic brow, 
And form of queenly mould ; 
The charms of polished culture^s art, 
Thy trustmg, noble woman's heart, 
Now pulseless, senseless, cold ? 

What now avails it to have stood, 
In mind's keen conquest of the good, 
Peerless among thy mates ? 



Q8S Mary's Dir^. 

Or that a widowed mother woand. 
Like NiOBB, her arms around 

Her last, whom death awaits ? 



Alas I when hearen such gifts bestows. 
It would, to earth-stained souls, discloso 

A gleam of its own light, 
But ere we learn how dear the prize, 
All fades before our longing eyes, 

Save sorrow, dr^uns, and night 

But where can friends so stricken find 
A solace for the anguished mind, 

Except in Him who sends 
The grief that clouds, the joj that cheers, 
The course of checkered, fleeting years, 

And whilst he smites befriends ? 



As now I stand beside thy form, 
So late in youth and beauty warm. 

And sad, hushed vigil keep. 
The eye would be as rayless grown. 
As tearless. Mart, as thine own, 

Could see — and could not weep. 

Behold that lovely ruined shrine, 

That marble waste where thought divine 

Still seems to sit enthroned ; 
Tliose pallid lips whose every woixl. 
Like sweet aeolian music bciml, 

A hymn to nature toned. 

In pity, strew the virgin flower, 
By virgin hands, in tender shower 

Upon her virgin breast ; 
There sleeps she, purity's picked rose — 
An angel snatched from earthly woes 

To calm, eternal rest 

Though death's resistless, ruthless might 
Sweeps beauty's loveliest forms from sight, 

The soul retains her love. 
And Mart's spirit, ever near 
The friends her young life cherished here, 

Will lead their thoughts above. 
FmsBURO, Jan. 21, 18C7. 



Sir I%om<u More. 



Abridged from the Dublin UolTerrity ' Magarine. 

SIR THOMAS MORE. 



Sir Thomas More did not account 
his own death an evil ; not only, in his 
last moments, did he mention the king 
with sweet loyalty, but he also display- 
ed a cheerfulness which has scandal- 
ized some writers. Holinshed, for in- 
stance, charges him with having been 
" a jester and scoffer at the houre of his 
death/' This mirthful disposition of 
More's has made his character an in- 
teresting subject of inquiry. But ir- 
reverence has nothing in common with 
that genial tendency which Southey has 
called pantagruelism, and the desira- 
bility of which he has advocated. For 
pantagruelism is not buffoonery, lev- 
ity, cynical insensibility ; neither does 
it consiest in mere play of wit, intellec- 
tual tumbling, and playful freaks of 
fancy. Jests are but its effects, the 
ripples, fitfully reflecting the sunlight 
on the surface, and showing that the 
underlying mass is a running stream 
and not a stagnant fen. Music and 
prayer are sisters ; cheerfulness is the 
music of life, and harmonizes human 
passions into rest ; it is most consist- 
ent with that holy creed, the apostle 
of which taught men to " rejoice ever- 
more ;" it is an ascensional force, a 
verbum,as the old mystics would have 
said, which carries the spirit upward, 
and turns human nature toward the 
bright side of things. He who was the 
teacher of its outwardly most grotes- 
que aspect has by implication defined 
pantagruelism as a "marvellous con- 
tempt and holding cheap of fortuitous 
things," (Introd. to Gargantua ;) its 
basis is a want of love for the things 
that are in the world ; its effect is, there- 
fore, a sweet smile at the contrast, per- 
petual in this earthly life, between as- 
pirations and realities. Hence Morels 
pleasantry, always harmless and free 
from sarcasm — sparks issuing from a 
healthy and beautiful spirit Panta- 



gruelism itself becomes linked, in 
some natures, to a gentle melancholy, 
the sadness of the soul exiled from its 
eternal birthplace ; in northern minds 
especially is this solemnity of reverio 
frequent ; More, to whom religion was 
a daily food, evinced this dreamy pen- 
siveness, side by side with his mirth, 
from his youth to his death. It also 
seemed as if, giflted with the sagacity 
of a Machiavel, but without crah, he 
had in the most prosperous moments 
of his life a power of intuition which 
could divine his fate, and thus cast a 
softening radiance over what to other 
men would have appeared a most daz- 
zling brightness of worldly success. 
Hence there is in the expression of his 
features a sort of anxiety mixed with 
cheerfulness ; the penetrative and hu- 
morous nose is like that of Erasmus ; 
but the bony, caustic traits of the hu- 
morist have otherwise an expression 
very different from the melancholy 
which tempers More's face, the open 
gray eyes, that seem anxiously antici- 
pating the future or contemplating re- 
ligious things, the lips that half project 
in that pouting way to be noticed on 
many Saxon types of countenances. 

When Henry YHL ascended the 
throne, More ventured to express, in 
a poem which attracted the royal fa* 
vor, a conceit which was at once a 
criticism of the past reign, a hope, and 
a foreboding for the future : 

" So after six and thirty thousand year 
All things shal be the same which once they were ; 
After the Qolden came the Silver ace : 
Then came the Brass, and Iron the liast stage. 
Tlie Golden age is revolv'd to your reign : 
I now conceive that Plato did not feign." 

From that time began the prosperity of 
More ; but bis previous life had been 
both happy in a domestic capacity, and 
remarkable in a literary point of view. 
He had already been an ascetic, a hus- 
band, and a poet. As Disraeli re- 



6S4 



Sir Thomas More, 



Tnarks> " More in his youth was a true 
poet ; but in his active life he soon de- 
serted these shadows of the imagina- 
tion." 

Whether in poetry or in prose, More 
was to fulfil Cardinal Morton's obser- 
vation, that *' The child here wailing 
at table, whomever shall live to see it, 
will prove a marvellous tnan." It was 
at the archbishop's that More won his 
first spurs in wit, devising pageants 
and allegories. But while his airy 
character early manifested itself, his 
early poems also reflect a vein of as- 
cetic thoughtfuloess ; as in the Ruful 
Lamentacion he wrote on the death of 
Queen Elizabeth, mother to King 
Henry VJIL: 

*' O .re ttiat put your trust and confluence 
In worldly joy and frayle iirosiH*rlte, 
That •<> ly ve hero an ye should nev«r hence, 
Remember death, and loke here up|>un me. 
Knsiaumide, I thhikethen; may no l)etterl»e. 
Yourself irott« well that in this rcalmc wus I 
Tour quene but late, and lo, now here I lye. 

" If worship myght have kept me, I had not gone ; 
If wyt myght have me savc'l, 1 noiled not fere ; 
If money myght have licipe, I lacked none. 
Hut, O good God, what vayleth all this gerc ? 
When doth is come, thy mighty messengere, 
Obey we ram«l — Uiere is no reme<ly. 
Me hath be summoned, and now here I ly. 

" Yet was I late promised otherwys*-, 
This yore to live in welth and di-llce. 
Lo, whereto cometh thy blamliKhj-ng promyse, 
O false afttrology and devynatrice, 
Of (Joddw secrets roakyng thyselfe so wyse. 
How true i« for this yere thy propliecy — 
The yere yet lasteth, and lo, uowe here I ly.** 

Rhenanus, Brixius, Erasmus, com- 
mended his early poeras ; he was ad- 
mitted among the brotherhood of those 
who cultivated lettered lore. This was 
a period of general renovation through- 
out Europe. For good or for evil, the 
torch of knowledge had been lighted. 
Vocabularies and lexiconr; had reach- 
ed a fearful multi[>lication in Grermaiiy 
and Italy towanl the close of the fif- 
teenth and beginning of the sixteenth 
century. Nuremberg, Spires, Basil, 
teemed with rudimentary treatises, dic- 
tionaries, and grammars; men were 
feeding on Latin and Greek, studying 
eight or ten hours at a stretch. Eng- 
land and Italy surpassed France in the 
literary movement; and Bud^ com- 
plained that, in his countrymen s esti- 
mation, philological stadies irero the 



hobbies of a few monomaniacs. Mofe 
began his contributions to the leamins 
of the age by translating Liuciao and 
Augustine's City of God. Erasmiu, 
in a letter to Hutten, described hia u 
a unique genius in England. But be 
gave his attention to religion no le« 
than to literature. " Erudition," Sti- 
pleton quaintly remarks, ** however vt- 
ried and extensive, is, without piety, 
like a golden ring in the nostrils ; there 
is nothing more absurd than (o set a 
precious jewel in a decaying piece of 
wood. Knowledge is ill suited to a 
corrupt breast.** To knowledge with- 
out goodness, Plato had denied the 
name of wisdom, and given the infe- 
rior deeignation of cleverness. Bat 
the youthful More was no less eager to 
attain piety than to become proficient 
in learning. He manifested these as- 
pirations according to the tenets of his 
creed ; he wore a hair-shirt, he slept 
on the bare fioor, his head nsting on 
a wooden block ; he restricted Iiis hoars 
of rest to four or dve at longest ; ac- 
quainted with watchings and fastings, 
he nevertheless made no ostentatious 
display of these and similar austericies 
—often, on tiie other hand, concealing 
them under as conventional an appear- 
ance as it was [)ossible to bear. 

Finding it useful to have some great 
man as an ideal, he translated Pico 
delia Mii-andola's life. At that time, 
Ck)lct, dean of St. Paul's, was pn»acli- 
ing in London ; More deriveil much 
comfort from his friendship, and com- 
pared himself to Eurydice following 
Orpheus, but in danger of falling back 
into the realms of darkness. In a let- 
ter to the dean he thus expatiates upon 
the annoyances of life in London: 
'* The roofs intercept a great |>ortioa 
of the light, and do not allow a tree 
view of the sky. The air is not bounded 
by the circle of the horizon, but by the 
housetops. Therefore I the nion? will- 
ingly bear with you for not ix^penting 
of your residence in the country, where 
you see good |>eople around you, void 
of the cunning of towns ; where, whi- 
thersoevfr you turn your eyes, the 
bland face of the earth delights you* 



Sir Thomai More, 



635 



Tlicrc you see nothing but the benig- 
nant gills of nature, 'and, as it were, 
the sacred vestiges of innocence." As 
for his literary study, Lilly and Ton- 
stall were his associates — Linacre and 
Grocinus his tutors. Now began that 
series of friendships which he was 
through life always willing to contract 
Avith educated men, such as Ci-ooke, 
or Croke, one of the greatest students 
of the sixteenth century, who wrangled 
at Leipzig, ** de dogmatibilifatibus" and 
other long things — schools then dis- 
put(;d on the weight of Hercules's club 
and the size of Diogenes's tub — who 
taught Greek to Ileniy VIIL, and 
succeeded Erasmus in the chair of 
Greek at Cambridge ; Lee, who wrote 
against Erasmus ; Fisher, who wrote 
sturdily against reformers; Dorpiut?, 
who was shocked at the new classical 
studies, hearing people swear **by 
Jove," and was desirous of limiting 
Grecian studies to the works of Chry- 
sostom and the Eastern fathers ; 
Goclenius, who professed for twenty 
years ; Cornelius Crocus, who wrote 
Latin with Terentian elegance, and 
became a Jesuit when fifty years old ; 
Grynoeus, who taught Greek, who, 
although a reformer, never insulted 
bis antagonists and discovered six 
books of Livy; Peter JEgidius, or 
Giles, whom Erasmus called a most 
agreeable host, and who wrote a Greek 
lexicon while Luther was bewailing 
his pins in a convent cell ; Paulus 
Jovius, who spent twenty-seven years 
in writing his Latin hbtory, was es- 
teemed by Leo. X. above Livy, and 
wanted a great lady to send hun some 
jam from Naples, because he was get- 
ting sick of new-laid eggs ; Vives, who 
was one of the literary triumvirs of 
the age, and who, at his lectures at 
Corpus Christi College, was often ap- 
plauded by Henry and Queen Cathe- 
rine. In the mean while he had, in a 
more practical sphere, taken the virile 
gown, before practising as a barrister, 
and at twenty eight years of age been 
elected to the office of perpetual 
** shyrevus" or sheriff. His business 
was to *< administer justice" for the 



subordinate sheriffs, **/?ro istis khy- 
rems" (Stapleton,) who were incom- 
petent in matters of law. While he 
was filling this office, a riot took place 
in the city. For several years past 
there had been a great increase of fo- 
reign workmen, to the great annoyance 
of the native working classes. A popu- 
lar preacher of the day. Dr. Bell, preach- 
ed a sermon, in which he urged the 
people to expel the foreign usurpers. 
Apprentices and artisans, therefore, 
agreed that on the first of May, after 
business, there should be a massacre 
of the foreigners. This trades' de- 
monstration, however, was bafiied 
through the foresight of More. He 
issued an edict, enjoining all well- 
disposed persons to stay within doors 
after nine o'clock on the first of May. 
On that day there was no disturbance. 
A few days after, however, several 
riotous crowds of working-men ga- 
thered in their thousands, rushed to 
Newgate, and set free some tiny mi- 
norities of swains who had been locked 
up for robbing, murdering, or other- 
wise annoying the foreigners. Hour by 
hour they mustered in hugcr strength ; 
angry shouts in homeliest Saxon rang 
through the air; the whirligig was get- 
ting louder and louder to one's ears. It 
seemed at one time rather hard to say 
how all this would end. More, being 
loved by the town mob, tried to speak 
to the crowd of small boys, big men, 
and roughs. Was it a Saturday night, 
that there should be such noise in the 
streets? Did the working-men for- 
get their duty ? They did ; and it was 
at last needful to send for the red coats, 
who, with queer-looking harquebuses, 
soon put the mob to flight. Thirteen 
ringleaders were arrested and con- 
demned to death ; one only, however, 
was executed, the others being saved 
through the intercession of three queens 
and the influence of More. 

In 1503 he was made a member of 
Parliament, and opposed a grant of 
money to Henry Vll. That monarch, 
who has been compared to Louis XI. 
of France, was not to be bearded in 
this manner, and More was obliged to 



Sir TViomas More, 



fly to the eontinenE Hot when Heniy 
VII L \^^iin his reign, More became 
the object of rovnl favor. His literary 
talent and jovial mood were qiialUii.-8 
too valuable not to be appreciated by 
the kinir, who wa* surrounding him* 
eelf with nil varieties of penlus. Like 
Garptntua, the young king was athirst 
of all that could adorn hk court ; More 
was thcrefoixj bound to the court by a 
golden chain. He was made a knight, 
and one of the privy council. In return 
for the royal favor be had to enliven 
the king with witty sayings, until this 
yoke became almost loo heavy for him. 
He had scarcely any time Icf^ for his 
home enjoyments and liij^ literary pur- 
fiuits. In self-defence he was at last 
driven to a kind of stratagem ; lie atFect- 
ed diiine^s, and tried as ranch m be 
possibly could lo become a bore. At 
laat he succeeded and was allowed more 
freedom and privacy. 

At that period he resided in Chelsea, 
theif a fashionable suburb. There Sir 
Tliomaa lived in a semi-patriarchal 
fashion. So strict was he m religiouj* 
obfrervances in bis family that his hous© 
has been compared to a kiml of convent 
or religious abode. Meekness, order, 
industry characterized the inmates. 
He set every one an example of gen- 
tleness and wisdom. lioper says that, 
during sixteen yeara spent w*ith Sir 
Thomas, he never saw the latter in a 
*^ fiimeJ' A young lady who had been 
brought up in the family used to behave 
badly for the sole purpose of being chid 
by More, wdiose gentle pity and gravity 
were delightful to observe. lo his 
second wife, Mrs. Alice Middleton, who 
bad an acrid and disagreeable t'nnper, 
be had an opfMirtunity for taming a 
shrew, and had performed tlmt feat 
%vith more credit to his skill and pa- 
tience than pleasantness lo himself* 
He used to give his wife and childrea 
plenty of sound ethical advicse : ** It la 
now no mastery (difficulty) for you 
children to go<5 to heaven,- " he would 
say, ^' for everybody givetli you good 
counsel and good examjUe* You *ee 
virtue rewarded and vice punished, so 
that jot] are carried up to beayea as 



it were by the cbinAr 
courage them to bear 
afflictions with patience, and lo 
the devil, whom be woald i?o!sp«jf li 
an ape — '* for as the ajje, not well looW 
to, will be busie and bold to do shitWi 
tnmcs, and contrarilj being ip^ 
and check t for tbera, will sudd^^olr kM^ 
back and adventure no furtht-r; icotk 
devil," etc* Thus at dinner iind m^ 
per did he entertain his fatoilr wtt 
high moral purpose ; ho allowed tbco^ 
for their recreation, to stng or lo pltr 
on**vioIe8," Somel" " t!^ 

thai he once cured hi- _ thu 

sweating sickness. I^AUa iiaynooi 
published at Florence a little I I'vtkeill* 
ed ** l\ Moro," in which rnn t 
given respecting the borae i .-. 

Thus be is represented ns enterUuikit^ 
six guests at dinuen AAer the mealtlie 
party as^^nd the mound in the gardaii 
and^ sitting on a greensward, they ^* 
mire the raeandcriDgs of the river, th« 
hills unduUidng on the horizon, the turf 
and flowers of the river Bidt^. Ilii 
estabEshment, in its simplicity, grwiflv 
contrasted with Wolsey's houscholX 
and its 6ve hundred dependents, choii- 
eellors, chapUins, doctors, umbers, ra- 
lets, and others. More, however, had 
a jester, the middle -agea custom pf 
keeping a ** fool" not yet leaving betai 
dtsconlinued* Henry VII L luid bii 
Somers, Wolsey his Path, and More 
his Patterson. 

Sir Thomns was desirous of apprt' 
priating his leisure to the production of 
some notable work, Alrejidy, white 
still unnoticed by Henry, he bad writ- 
ten a History of Kichanl HL, in whicti 
he gave the following portrait of tfaut 
king: 

^' Ml foturcd of Ummei, oroktt b»ck/d. bit 
IcfV shoulder much higher th«a hii right, b^rd* 
favoured afTUnge . , . he was roftli<ricpa% 
wrsithl'u), enrious, and from ftfare Urn bML 
erer fruwarde. . . . • Hee wtt doM au 
accrete, a deepo diftsimulflr, lowljre of ommio* 
&Aoce, arrogtunt of heart, outward}/ won* 
piaahle whure he inwiinlly ha(ed, n^t letilaf 
to kisse whomfi bee thmighte to kjll ; diiplf 
om and cruell, not for eriU well alwmy, bol 
after for ambitioD, and «illi«rfor ihm ftmiM 
or en croiie of hia estaltt. ftfliido and foo mn 
mucho what indilTereot, wticf© bis adratit*^ 



Sir Thomas More. 



d87 



grew ; he spared no man*8 deathc wliosc life 
withstoode his purpose. He slewc with his 
owne handes King Ilenry the Sixt, being 
prisoner in the Tower, as menne constantly 
Baye." 

Shakespeare no doubt borrowed from 
this sketch some of the traits with 
which he depicted the ambitious mon- 
arch. On the other liand, Horace 
Walpole, in his " Historic Doubts,*' 
will have it that this history was writ- 
ten '* from a most corrupted source." 

More now began to concentrate his 
energies for a work of more universal 
interest. He became more abstemious 
than ever in his food and sleep ; he 
snatched as many hours as possible 
from his official pursuits, in order to 
cultivate literature. The result of this 
labor was the famous '* Utopia," com-» 
posed in 1516. In a letter to Peter 
Giles or JEgidius, he describes the man- 
ner in which that work was written : 
•• After having been engaged in plead- 
ing or hearing causes, either as judge 
or arbiter, there is left me but scant 
opportunity for literature. I return 
home ; I must talk with my wife, amuse 
my children, confer of household affairs 
with my dependents. It is necessary 
to do all this unless you are to be a 
stranger in your own house. .... 
When therefore can 1 write? Neither 
have. I mentioned the time necessary 
for sleep or food." ... In fact 
he used at that time to rise at two 
o'clock in the morning, writing till 
seven. Under these difficulties he 
effected his purpose — he completed a 
work which won him a European 
reputation. 

Poets and philosophical dreamers 
react in their speculations against the 
barrenness or terror of reality ; and the 
more striking is this background, the 
more impressive is the effect of the 
whole. More's book had an appro- 
priate practical contrast in the political 
circu mstances of the time. There were 
rumors of great wars; the Moslem 
emperor was threatening Christendom. 
This fact, perhaps, not less than the 
intrinsic merit of the book, explains the 
brilliant success of the *' Utopia." 



Every educated man read it. Moms 
was greatly delighted, and candidly 
gave expression to his feelings. He 
was, he averred, naore pleased with 
Tunstall's appreciation than if he had 
received an Attic talent. Sometimes 
he fancied that bis Utopians were about 
to elect him their kuig for ever. In 
reality, he was highly praised by 
.^gidius, Jovius, Busleyden,'Paluda- 
nus, and others. The new republicy 
these friendly critics averred, trans- 
cended the polity of ancient Athens or 
Rome. A way had been shown toward 
the attainment of true happiness. The 
book was a masterpiece of erudition, 
philosophy, knowledge of the world. 
All this approbation was the more ac- 
ceptable to More, that he had been 
somewhat diffident concerning the re^ 
ception of his work. In a letter to 
Peter ^gidius, or Giles, of Antwerp, 
he liad indulged in that supercilious- 
ness toward the multitude which is the 
besetting temptation of solitary thiok- 
crs. He complained of the discordan- 
ces of criticism, the small qualification 
of many for the exercise of lettered ap- 
preciation : 

" The tastes of men are very diflferent ; some 
are of so morose a temper, so sour a disposi- 
tion, and make such absurd judgments of 
things, that men of cheerful and lively tem- 
pers, who indulge their genius, seem much 
more happy than those who waste their time 
and strength in order to publishing a book ; 
which, though of itself it might be useful or 
pleasant, yet instead of being well received, 
will be sure to be either laughed at or cen- 
sured. Many know nothing of learning, others 
despise it; a man that is accustomed to a 
coarse and harsh style thinks everything i« 
rough that is not barbarous. Our trifling pre- 
tenders to learning think all is slight that is 
not dressM up in words that are worn oat of 
U30 ; some love only old things, and many like 
noUiing but what is their own. Some are so 
sour that they can allow no jests, and others 
BO dull that they can endure nothing that is 
sharp ; while some are as much afraid of any- 
thing gay and lively, as a man with a mad dog 
is of water ; others are so light and unsettled, 
that their thoughts change as quick as they 
do their postures. Some, again, when they 
meet in taverns, take upon thorn, among their 
cups, to pass censures very freely on lul wri- 
ters, and with a supercilious liberty to con- 
demn everything they do not like; in which 



I 



(»3 



Sir Thomas More, 



they have an advantage, like that of a bald 
man, who can catch hold of another by the 
hair, while the other cannot return the hke 
upon him. They are safe, as it were, from 
gunshot, since there is nothing in them Folid 
enough to be taken hold of; others are so 
unthankful, that even when they are well 
pleased with a book, yet they think they owe 
nothing to the author." 

Although More did meet with some 
of these Ipjnorant or malevolent eritics, 
he must have been gratified at finding 
himself exalted into a modern Plato. 
Nor was the praise he received partial 
or exaggerated. He had expn»ssed the 
leading idea of the time. Casting a 
general glance over the poeial field, he 
had ai)plied the newly ariBen spirit of 
research and criticism to the survey of 
society. Judging the actual, he had 
also evolved ihc ideal, which the huma- 
nitarians of the age had more dimly 
viewtd. Being a man of genius, he 
had expressed a certain order of thought 
— concisely, but not the less compre- 
hensively — for all ages ; and modem 
Posit ivi'sts, Owenists, Fourierists, and 
many oth(.'r ists, mi^jht, from a study 
of the " Utopia," gather another illus- 
tration of the great truth that there is 
nothing new under the sun. 

The plan of the work is as follows : 
More supposes himself in Flanders, in 
the capacity of ambassador to Ciiarlcs 
the Yitthy and in tlie company of "Mhat 
incomparable man, Cuiiibert Tonstal, 
whom the king, with such imiversal 
applause, lately made master of the 
roles." At Antwerp, they become 
acqiminted with Peter Giles, or ^Kgi- 
dius, *' a man of prreat honor and of 
good rank in his town, though less than 
he deserves ;*' and tliey make another 
acquaintance in this wise : " One day, 
05 I was returning home from mass at 
St. Mary's, which is the chief cliurch, 
and the most frequented of any in -iVnt- 
werp, I saw him (Petrus ^Kgidius, or 
Giles) by accident, talking with a stran- 
ger, who seemed past the flower of his 
age ; bis face was tanneil, lie had a long 
beard, and his cloak was hanging care- 
lessly about him ; so that by his looks 
and habits I concluded be was a sea- 
man." This ancient mariner, howcTer, 



tnms out to have travelled as as ob- 
scr^-er and philosopher as well is i 
naval man ; his name is Raphael Hjdn 
loday. lie is a Portuguese, who bs 
travelled with Americus Vespocias. 
It is in conversauon with the «tr!ui«^r 
that More beconies acquainted virh 
the history and manners of the UtojH- 
ans. In the first part of the booL 
Itaphacl censures the politj of ordioan 
countries; he complains that "-moi: 
princes apply themselves more lo 
affairs of war than to the useful kh 
of peace ; they are gencrallv svt more 
on acquiring new kingdoms, right or 
wrong, than on governing welf those 
they possess.*' Such opinions had a 
peculiar pungency at a time when ^!*• 
lim was threatening to root out the 
Christian name from Europe. Raphael 
criticises those in power, and their coa- 
servative spirit ; he betrays an impla- 
cable hostility toward those who *covi'i 
themselves obstinately with this excuf« 
of reverence to past times f ' he had 
he said, met with them cliieflj in Eiiy 
land, where he happened to te whei 
the rebellion in the west was suppress- 
ed, *' with a great slaughter of the jK)or 
people that were engageil in it." Wliea 
re la tins: his sojourn in England, Ka- 
j»hacl al>o indulges in the eulogy of 
that reverend i)relate, Jolm Mori>n, 
Archbishop of Canterbury — in whose 
house More had been brnught up — "A 
man, Peter, (for Mr. More knows well 
what he N\as,) who was not less vene- 
rable f')r his wisdom and virtues, llian 
for the hijrh ehanicter he bore : he was 
of a middle statuns not broke with age; 
his l()(»ks begot reverence rather than 
fear ; his conversation was easy, hut 
serious and grave ; he sometimes took 
pleasure to try the force of those that 
came as suitors to him U[Hm business, 
by speakinir sharply though decently 
to them, and by that he discovertni their 
spirit and pres<'nce of mind, with which 
he was much delighted, when it did not 
grow up to impudence, as bearing a 
gri'at resemblance to his own temptT, 
and he looA(»d on such persons as the 
fittest men for affairs. lie spoke both 
gracefully and weightily; he was era- 



Sir Tkomai More. 



030 



incntlj skilled in the law ; had a vast 
UDderstanding, and a prodigious mcmO' 
ry; and those excellent talents with 
which nature had furnished him were 
improved by study and experience. 
When I was in England, the king de- 
pended much on his councils, and the 
government seemed to be chiefly sup- 
ported by him ; for from his youth he 
had been all along practised in affairs ; 
and, having passed through many tra- 
verses of fortune, he had with great 
cost acquired a vast stock of wisdom ; 
which is not soon lost, when it is pur- 
chased so dear." More's talent for 
keen observation and portraiture is also 
evinced in the delightful sketch of the 
lawyer whom Raphael observes at 
Archbishop jMorton's. This gentleman 
" took occasion to run out in a high 
commendation of the severe execution 
of justice upon thieves, who, as he said, 
were then hanged so fast that there 
were sometimes twenty on one gibbet ; 
and upon that he said he could not 
wonder enough how it came to pass 
that, since so few escaped, there were 
yet so many thieves left who were still 
robbing in all places." Raphael, who 
in that nineteenth century which takes 
upon itself to realize almost all the 
visions of dreamers, would have been 
a zealous advocate for the abolition of 
capital punishment, objects that *' this 
way of punishing thieves was neither 
just in itself, nor good for the public ; 
for as the severity was too great, so the 
remedy was not effectual ; simple thefl 
not being so great a crime tliat it ought 
to cost a man his life ; no punishment, 
how severe soever, being able to re- 
strain those from robbing who can find 
out no other way of livelihood. Not 
only you in England, but a great part 
of the world, imitate some ill masters 
that are readier to chastise their schol- 
ars than to teach them." Here is in- 
cluded the modern fiillacy about reform- 
ing criminals, which has been so much 
insisted on, as if that refoi-mation was 
so easy a task, as if so many probabil- 
ities were not against it, as if it was not 
better for poor criminals to be sent to 
a better world, than to be left open in 



this life to almost irresistible tempta- 
tions. However, that form of senti- 
ment called humanitarianism — which 
would spare the wicked and lost, while 
the honest and useful arc left to slow 
tortures, as in the case of merchant 
sailors — that humanitarianism is con- 
tinually displayed by this Raphael, in 
a completeness and energy beyond 
which no later speculations have at- 
tained. The lawyer maintains about 
the thieves that " there are many handi- 
cratls, and there is husbandry, by which 
they may make a shift to live, unless 
they have a greater mind to follow ill 
courses ;" and RaphaeFs rejoinder dis- 
closes a state of things which was not 
very well calculated to make the army 
popular: "That will not serve your 
turn, for many lose their limbs in civil 
or foreign wara, as lately in the Cor- 
nish rebellion, and some time ago in 
your wars with France, who, being thus 
mutilated in the service of their king 
and country, can no more follow their 
old trades, and are too old to learn new 
ones. He owns, however, that wars do 
not occur every day. The ibllowing 
opinion of his may be advantageously 
recommended to the careful study of 
enlightened and disinterested demo- 
crats, who, by the magical power of 
their thought, can amplify it, transmo- 
grify it, intensify it for the benefit of 
their country's flesh and blood : " There 
is a great number of noblemen among 
you, that are themselves as idle an 
drones; that subsist on other men's 
labors, on the labor of their tenants, 
whom, to raise their revenues, they pare 
to the quick/' Applying this to his the- 
ory of thieves, HythlodcDus says that 
these noblemen keep a great number 
of servants who, on their master's 
death, are turned out of doors and 
betake themselves to larceny. The 
lawyer, in nowise disconcerted, an- 
swers that these tatterdemalions, con- 
stitute a capital recruiting-ground for 
the army. Raphael retorts that a 
converse metamorphosis of cflicient 
soldiers into able robbers is liable to 
take place. He also inveighs against 
France for keeping up a ruinons millta- 



Sir ThomoM More, 



Tj establishment: *'But Ibia bad cus- 
tom, so common among you^ of keeping 
many servants, is not peculiar to this 
nation. In France there is yet a more 
pestiferous sort of people ; for the whole 
country is full of soldiers, still kept up 
in time of peace, If such a state of a 
nation can be called peace ; and these 
are kept in pay uiK)n the same account 
that you plead for those idle retainers 
about noblemen, this being a maxim of 
those pretended statesmen, that it is ne- 
cessary for the public safety to liave a 
good body of reteran soldiers ever in 
i-eadiness* They think raw men are 
not lu be depended ujion, and thej 
sometimes seek occasions for making 
war, that they may train up their 
aoldjei s in the art of cutting throats ; 
or, as SaJlust observed, for keeping 
their hands in use, that thi5y may not 
grow d»ilJ by too long an intermission. 
But France has learned to its cost how 
dangeroas it is to feed such l>ea3ts. The 
fate of the lioman;?, Carthaginians* and 
Syrians, and many other nations and 
cities, which were both overturned and 
quite ruined by those standing armies, 
should make others wiser,' And Hy- 
thloday in his cntlius^iasm add'* a stiug- 
injx taunt, the truth of which, however, 
subsequent agitations and rebellions 
have not confirmed : ** Every day's ex- 
perience shows that the mechanics in 
the towns or the clowns in the country 
are not afraid of tighting with those 
idle gentlemen." He further attributes 
the great number of thieves to the in- 
crease of pasture, '* by which your 
sheop, which are naturally mild and 
easily kept in order, may be said now 
to <levour men and unpeople not only 
vilbge*, but towns x* land was en- 
closed, tenants turned away, and 
Hytblodocus ptnntsout a cattle plague 
among the resuhs of this state of 
things, adding somewhat fiercely : 
**To us it might have setnned moi-o 
just Itad it fell on the owners them- 
elves,** lie does not fioem to per- 
eive that by this encio«iure the land 
is ^aved irom that exhaur;tion whieli 
must ultimately reduce Eui-ojie to a 
hurren state, and ibus annihlhite civil- 



ization ; but humacuCfti^AtiiMiiwisarar 
remarkable for excess of force^ghl. Pt i 
lawyer is about to rtsplj to • 
divided into fourfKiinla^ bat tbel 
aivhbishop interferes, and ^enidlitt 
of tlie trouble of answering i** ■afo> 
tunately, however, or perhapi bom i 
relish lor humor, he allowa RufhiftH 
indulge in a long speech ao iht itmm 
against putting thieve:^ to desth. Ufih 
\odaj recommends a punishmeot wla^ 
no sensible thief would prefer to dflA 
namely, that the criminal aboQid ti 
made to work all his life in 
or mines. But as tliti^ was the! 
Roman method, it is not pcfiwt 
euoiigh for the ingeniuiis RaphacL 
who would much prt?rer a schroe 
according to which tho thieves aub 
let loose in the daytiruoi c^o^i^sd m 
working for the public ; arnl. uIilMUisi 
liable to be whipped lor \i :^t 

debonair convicts punctual ., . „_.-4i^ 
prison every evening* and aiiaver to 
their names before being locked ap (or 
the nighL The reformer adds wmm^ 
what naively, ** the only danger ia be 
feared from them is their con^pifW^ 
against the governments" Xl»e aolbf- 
tunate lawyer, rather taken aliack at tiM 
idea of London being full of conTidl 
with cropped ears and a pectiliar droiat 
playing the part of comntiatfloiMUfM 
or otherwise making theinaelvea g»»* 
rally useful to Londoners, s>aja that b» 
fears this coutd not take place it&lboitl 
the wtiole nation Iming ejidatigened » 
the sensible airdinal avoids tlua slight 
cxaggemiion, and answers with quiet 
irony that it is not ea'i^y lo form a judg- 
ment with respect to the succcsa of thlf j 
scheme, since it is a metho-l »i^ .1 hn^ I 
never yet been tried. If 1 |iii. 

site scene, which evinces sn* ii m . nV 
genius, there is any trace of a 1 1 li 
element, this is mont hkely to b. .in 1 
in the cardinal's vei*diet^ who i- . r. 
fessedly the most b<' 1 1 reve- 
rend fiersonage, and lO with 
a real prototype. Tli ; 1 » r t^on 
to suppOMe that Moiij- u 1^ .i llvtb- 
loday ; of course, retlecLiug die 
thoughts of his age, he had eiiler* 
taincil similar ideas; but tfifioMi 



Sir Tkomiia More, 



041 



of petrifying them in his mind, he 
vaporized them, dramatized Ihem, as 
it were, in the character of Hythlo- 
day, contemplated their embodiment or 
type in an objective, extraniM)U8 form, 
and thus remained, as to his inner self, 
impartial and moderate. 

Now, however, the Pantagruelistic 
element tends to predominate, and 
More will expend some humor in sa- 
tirizing friars, those betes woiVf* of edu- 
cated men in the sixteenth century. A 
jester who is standing by gives it as 
his opinion that mendicants should be- 
come monks and nuns. A friar says 
that even that transformation would not 
pav(j the kingdom from beggars; the 
jester calls the friars vagabonds ; the 
triar falls into a passion and over- 
whelms the fool with epithets. Not- 
withstanding a scriptural reminder 
from the jester, " in patience possess 
ye your souls," the friar wrests the 
words of Scripture to the purposes of 
his anger. The caidinal courteously 
exhorts him to govern his passions; 
*' but," answers the friar, ''holy men 
have had a good zeal — as it is said ; 
the zeal of thine house hath eaten me 
up." *' You do this perhaps with a 
good intention," replies the ctirdinal ; 
*' but in my opinion, it were wiser in 
you, and perhaps better for you, not to 
engage in so ridiculous a contest with 
a Iboi." The friar retorts that '• tk)l- 
omon, the wisest of men, said to an- 
swer a fool according to his folly," and 
asserts that *' if the many mockers of 
Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt 
the effect of his zeal, what will become 
of one mocker of so many friars, 
among whom there are so many bald 
men ? We have likewise a bull, by 
which all that jeer at us are excom- 
municated." Seeing the matter is 
not likely soon to end, the archbishop 
sends the jester away and changes the 
subject. 

After criticising the policy by which 
Henry VIL extorted money from his 
subjects, Raphael Hythlodoeus, the ra- 
dical, freely avows his opinion, that ** as 
long as there is any property, and while 
money is the stondanl of all other 
VOL. v.— 41 



things, I cannot think that a nation can 
be governed either justly or happily; 
not justly, because the best things will 
fall to the share of the worst men ; nor 
happily, because all things will be di- 
vided among a few, (and even those are 
not in all respects happy,) the rest being 
left to be absolutely miserable." An 
Owenite of the nineteenth century 
could not express himself more plainly. 
Again, he asserts that " till projMirty is 
taken away, there can be no equitable 
or just distribution of things, nor can 
the world be happily governed ; for, as 
long as that is maintained, the greatest 
and the far best part of mankind will 
be still oppressed with a load of cares 
and anxieties. I confess that, without 
taking it quite away, those pre&sures 
that lie on a great part of mankind may 
be made lighter ; but they can never be 
quite removed." 

In the second book Raphael gives 
up criticising the established order of 
things, and describes the condition of 
Utopia. That island, once called 
Abraxa, lies on the other side of the 
Atlantic. In days of yore it was 
conquered and redeemed from a bar- 
barous condition by the great legis- 
tor Utopus. There are fifty-four 
cities in the island, and Amaurot is 
the metropolis. All these towns are 
as like one another, in outward con- 
formation, laws, and customs, as 
possibility will admit. Farm-houses 
fill up the rural part of the island. 
Agricultural business is carried on by 
means of a kind of transportation 
from the cities ; parties of inhabitants^ 
in iamihes of forty, are sent to rusti- 
cate for two years, after which lapse 
of time they return to town and 
others are sent out. There is in this 
manner a continual and well regukited 
supply and demand in agricultural 
labor; and the pursuits of tillage 
arc conducted so intelligently as to 
avoid that scarcity of com which 
would occasion unpleasant complica^ 
tions in so well-reguhited a country. 
Among these husj^ndmen's devices 
is a plan for the artificial hatching of 
eggs. So wonderfal a system of 



6^ 



Feticbiem provaiU tn Utopia thai 
'Mie that knows onu of llieir towns 
knows them all, ihey are so likt; one 
anolber, except wbere the Bttuation 
nmkes gome difference." Raphael 
describts Aroaurot, wher« he baa 
resifled for not le*3 than four yearii. 
** Their bnildinjjs aie good* and are so 
uniform that a who!e side of a alroet 
looka like one bouse. The strectfl ans 
twenty feet broad; there lie gardena 
behind all their hotipes, which are large 
but ineloi?ed with buildings^ that on 
all hands face the 8ti*«et, ^o ibat every 
houae has both a door to the street 
and a back dnor to (he i^iarden.*' The 
tnaj^istrate was* of old» called the 
sypljo«ji*an«, but is now desijijnated as 
the phiiarch ; and over every ten 
ayphogranta is a bibber functionary 
andently called the tranibore, and 
now the archphihnclu The sypho- 
grants elect the prince by ballot— 
''' they give their voices secretly so 
that it is not known for whom every 
4mQi givea his suffrage/* The prince 
ig elected for life, with, however, this 
reservution — "* unless he is removed 
upon suspicion of s^oine det^ign to en- 
slave the pc^ople/' The syp hog rants 
in ibeir council have it for their pecu- 
liar mission to prevent any conspira* 
tion beiog formed by the prince and 
Ihe iraDibore^ for the enslavement of 
the njilion. Mechanica in Utopia have 
their day's ivork limited to six hour!* ; 
the rest of the twenty-four hours being 
by them devoted lo hearing lectures if 
they are of a eitudioua tarn, or to read- 
ing, eating, sleeping, etc* Atler sup* 
per, tliey go in winter to music halb; 
in summer, to gardens j or they divert 
themselves with garner,"* not unlike our 
che^s^j' between *' virtues and vices," 
in which arc repre^*nted, in a manner 
combining instruction with amuse- 
ment* *• the methods by which vice 
either openly assault* or secretly un- 
dermines virtue ; and virtue nn the 
other hand resi.Ms it.*' There are no 
tATerns or ale*liouseSw TIte Utopians 
iron to gold or silver; tliey 
M their commonest Utensils of what 
toother DAtioos arts the precious metab ; 





of silver and <rold thej alsaoMlMcUi 

for slaves, adding to tbe hafmmji 
vict? by making tbeni wear | 
rings or coronete^ Pearla tbcy i 
the coast, and dianaonds oti the R)cbk 
The ambassadors of Ar'--'v >''^ wrjt 
therefore disappointed %^ . m^ 

to astonish tbe Utopians my u jihi^u^ 
display of gold orimDsexitft,'tlM*y wcn 
only derided by ihts ueilitiiriAii raor aij 
wearers of usele*^ itietaL 

As to knowlcdgi:', the Uioptars 
fortunate in liaving ull tbe 
the ancients without tbe 
bein^: acquainted with dead I 
for It seems that they iheniselvet i 
made *" the §ame disooverica ai 
Greeks, both in niusick, lo^ick, msbk* 
metick, and geometry/* Tlieir labit 
of mind, unlike thai of the Scotch,. Il 
rather outer than inner, ol»i*-» Jv*» thia 
subjective, im-lined to prji < no? 

ratlierlimn lomeiaphysic- >ay 

be unable to undereitand a nof 

man in the **uib8lract/* Idt^y are •» 
fluainted with asttt>nomy, but racbew 
divinalion by the ^tars. Toticbing llbs 
cauties of things, and ibe problemacf 
moral philo»ophy« there is by no mcciM 
a perfect a*;rcemeot among them : Umj 
have a tendency to ware} the* lia{y|»itKii * 
principle. Snt^h i^ th<'ir nvf-r^:tin !• 
war thatf ^^ ibe 

field, they itn qb 

tho head of the enemy's k i my 

of his ministers who nm .^j^n 

instrumental in bringi tlieotti- 

break of ht>stilitres. i ^iirera of 

More have been somewhat shocked ^ 
this practice, more utiUtarian thmiliofl* 
orable ; but tliere la no reason to sufH 
pose be would have n \ to such 

a course in a iijnitur i n* ; it is 

as an artist, and to comph ' : ■ un. > 
taiy developodsnt of the 1 i ] i ui r . i- 
racter, thai 1" i: > ■ "■ ^i im m,, ;r, <h.. 

utilitarian, |< i i ll ^i 

which cauld h*' j '1 war 

as an evil, dam^t. ,> ^ of 

the greatest number, would t»ui i.k 
at sacrificing a U'w princes in a ^ ih t 
way in order to secure Ibe advaauM 
of the many throngh the ruin of tSa 
few. Morels account of tba b^db ^ 



.m^L 



I 




Sir Thomas More. 



648 



teem in which the Utopians hold 
their priests, is, perhaps, more lyrical 
than consistent with the character of 
that ima<:^nary nation ; he makes them 
go so far in their reverence as to bring 
no sacerdotal criminals to account, the 
punishment of these offenders being 
"left to God and to their own con- 
sciences." It must be recollected, 
however, that they have but few 
priests, and those chosen with great 
caution. The Utopians have ritual- 
istic tendencies. ** They bum incense, 
and otiier sweet odors, and have a 
great number of wax lights during 
their worship ; not out of any imagin- 
ation that such oblations can add any- 
thing to the divine nature, which even 
prayers cannot do ; but as it is a harm* 
less and pure way of worshipping God, 
so they think those sweet savors and 
lights, together with some other cere- 
monies, by a secret and unaccountable 
yirtue elevate men's souls and inflame 
them with greater energy and cheer- 
fulness during the divine worship. ** 
The priests' vestments " are parti-co- 
lored ; and both the work and colors 
are wonderful. . . They say that, 
in the ordering and placing those 
plumes, some dark mysteries are re- 
presented, which pass down among 
their priests in a secret tradition con- 
cerning them ; and that they are as 
hieroglyphics, putting them in mind of 
the blessings that they liave received 
from God, and of their duties both to 
him and to their neighbors." Raphael 
concludes the book by saying that 
"there are many things in Utopia 
which I rather wish than hope to see 
followed in our governments ;** and this 
hint shows the dreamy nature of the 
scheme. The Utopia is, indeed, a 
mere philosophical romance, in which 
More sacrificed to the humanitarian 
tendencies of the age, but which left 
his deep and inner convictions un- 
shaken. His after life showed that 
he was free from any tendency to 
realize the Utopian idea ; and the 
more so, perhaps, because he had 
written the Utopia; for there is in 
the utterance of thooght a pecoliar 



virtue which dears the mind from 
the effects of a lingering and stagnat- 
ing condition of ideas. Like Plato*! 
Atlantis, the Utopia is an ingenioiu 
pkiy of fancy rather than a prodnctioii 
intended to convey serious truths un- 
der a veil ; it is alike removed from 
the earnest intensity of thought per- 
vading Cicero's Republic, and the 
semi- prophetic rapture of Bacon's 
New Atlantis. And in relation to 
our age, the Utopia serves to show 
that what enthusiasts have iipaghied, 
under the influence of the modem 
sceptical spirit, had been foreshadow- 
ed and included at the very dawn of 
that spirit, by the comprehensiveness 
of genius ; and that the class of sdiemes 
which are designated by the name of 
Sir T. More's production, are as far 
from their practical fulfilment now as 
they were three hundred or three thou- 
sand years ago. 

Like every successful author. More 
had his literary quarrels. The favor 
with which the Utopia had been re- 
ceived, excited the gall of a French 
man of letters, who had already 
broken a few lances with More. This 
Brixius, Brice, or Brie according to 
Rabelais, published a book called 
Anti-Morus. in which he carefnlly 
raked up every mistake in grammar 
and quantity to be found in MoreV 
early Latin poem. He punned on 
More's name, likening it to MOros, 
the Greek word for madman. Eras- 
mus wrote to this critic, charging him 
with being a very child compared 
with More. Sir Thomas speedily pre- 
pared an answer, but Erasmus ad- 
vised him to meet the attack with 
silent contempt There is nothing so 
galling to fools. More percei^'ed tha 
to be attacked by dunces is an advaa* 
tage rather than otherwise. 

It was about that period that Ox- 
ford was convulsed by the introduction 
of Grecian studies. The " Trojans,'* 
as they called themselves, evinced an 
implacable hostility toward the ^ new 
learning." Priam, Hector, PariSi 
waged war against Hellenic writings* 
Bat the tide of grammarsi aorists, ai>- 



Sir Uiomcu More. 



64S 



often condescending to the humorous 
anecdote, or " merrie tale." those am- 
ple controversial treatises in which 
was laid the broad foundation stone 
of English prose. Even for so dreamy 
andf;entlc a thinker, tiiere could be no 
avoiding the contests of the age. The 
times were too stirring for mere literary 
dilettanteism. As Le Bas has remark 
ed, '* Things which, for many a century, 
had been deemed by multitudes im- 
mutable as the laws of nature, were 
now found to contain within themselves 
the elements of a change. The su- 
premacy of the Roman pontiff, more 
especially, had till then been very 
generally regarded as a fundamental 
principle of revealed religion. Yet 
this was precisely the principle against 
which the first violence of the spirit 
now abroad was vehemently directed ; 
and, what was still more astounding, 
the assault against it was either direct- 
ed or assisted by men who had pledged 
themselves to its maintenance by the 
most solemn sanctions which religion 
can impose. All this cannot have hap- 
pened without a perilous convulsion 
of the public mind. It may be said, 
without the smallest exaggeration, that 
no disturbance in the order of the phy- 
sical world could have produced, in 
many a heart, much more confusion and 
dismay than that which was occasioned 
by this rupture of immemorial preju- 
dices and associations. The fountains 
of the great deep were breaking up be- 
fore their eyes, and the summits of an- 
cient institutions seemed in danger of 
disappearing beneath the deluge.*' (Le 
Bas's Life of Cranmer.) More answer- 
ed an attack which Luther had made on 
the king. In 1525, he wrote a very 
acrid letter against the Reformers, 
urging Erasmus to more decided ac- 
tion. But the humanharian had small 
anxiety for engaging in these disputes. 
More soon found abundant work for 
for himself. In 1524 or 1525, there 
was published an anonymous tract, en- 
titled the Supplycacion of Beggers, 
which was a virulent attack on the 
clergy. 
Erasmus had said that, under a re- 



ligious veil, the Reformation movement 
was the quarrel of those who had not 
against those who had. This, the opi- 
nion of most educated men in the six* 
teenth century, appeared to be confirm- 
ed by this tract, which urges a severe 
blow against the church, not on reli- 
gious grounds, but in behalf of the 
poor. In the Supplycacion the king 
is advised to take the wealth of tho 
monasteries and give it to the poor. 
In this singular production the long- 
winded sentences of the opening are 
the very whine of mendicants : 

" Mo9t lamentably complajneth thejre wo- 
full misery unto your highness, your poore, 
the wretched hidous monsters, ^on whom 
scarcely for horror any dare loke,) the foule 
unhappy sort of lepers, and other sore people^ 
nedy, impotent, blinde, lame, and sike, that 
live only by almesse, name Uiat theyre nom- 
bro is daily so sore increased that all the 
almesse of all the well-disposed people of this 
youre realme is not halfo ynough for to sus- 
teino theim, but that for Tory constreint they 
die for hunger. And this most pestilent mis- 
chief comen uppon youre saide poore by the 
reason that there is yn the tymes of youre 
noble predecessours passed craftily creypt 
^to this your realme another sort (not of 
impotent but) of strong puissant and counter- 
feit holy and idell beggers and vacabundet, 
which syns the tyme of theyre first entrc by 
all the craft and wilinesse of satan are nowe 
cncreased under your sight not onely into a 
groat uObre but also ynto a kingdome. These 
are (not the herdes, but the ravinous wolroi 
goini^ in herdes clothing devouring the flocke) 
the bisshoppes, abbottes, priours, deacons, 
archedeacones, suffraganes, prestes, monkes, 
chanons, freres, pardoners, and somners. . . 
. . The goodliest lordshippes, manera, landea, 
and teritories, are thcyrs. Besides this they 
ha^e tho tenth part of all the come, medowe, 
pasture, grasse, colts, calves, lambes, pigges, 
gese, and chickens." 

He calculates the salaries paid to 
the clergy as amounting to one hun- 
dred and thirty thousand angels. 
•'Whereof not foure hundreth yerea 
passed they had not one peny.'' He 
gives historical illustrations to show 
the desirableness of being freed from 
such tributes : *< The noblll king Ar- 
thur had never ben abill to liave earled 
his armie to the fote of the mountains 
to resist the coming downe of Lucioa 
the emperoure If such yerely ezaotioni 



646 



Sir ITiomai Mom. 



had ben taken of his people. The 
Grckes had never ben ablU to have 
80 long continued at the siege of Troie 
if they had had at home such an Idell 
sort of cormorantes to findc. Tlie nun- 
cicnt liomains had never bon abil to 
have put all the hole world under 
theyre obeisance if theyro people had 
byn thus yerely oppressed. The Turke 
nowo yn your tyme shulde never be 
ablU to get so mochc {zrouiide of Cris- 
tendome if he had yn his empire such 
a sort of locustes to devoure his sub- 
stance." As it proceeds, the tract be- 
comes more and more nervous and 
truculent. Irrituled by the utterance 
of this ** beprgars' proctour,** More in 
1529 replied in his Supply cacion of 
Soules. 

Tliis purports to be an appeal from 
the " holy souls in purgatory" to all 
good Christians. The Su{)i>licaci3n 
of Bcgirars is called **an unhappy 
boke." It is urged tliat •* lacke of be- 
lief in purgatory bringeth a man to 
hell." Ho refutes tlit *• beggars' proc- 
tour" by showing that Peter's pence 
was paid before the conquest, and ex- 
claims : ** Oh ! the grevousc sliipwrak 
of the comen weale ; he sayeth that in 
auncient time before the coming of the 
clei'gj'c there were but few pore peo- 
ple, and yet ihei did not begge, but 
there was gyven them ynough unask- 
ed, because at that time he saitli there 
was no clargy. . . . lu thys place we 
let ptis iiis threfold foly.*" lie says that 
this *'bc*ggar3' prootour'' should have 
concluded his ** supply t^cion*' in such 
terms as these : ** After ye the clergy 
IS thus destn)ied and cast out, then shall 
Lather's ghospel c^me in ; then shal 
Tyndal's testament be taken up ; then 
shal false heresies bee presiched; tiien 
shal the sacramentes be set at nauglit ; 
than slial fasting and pray our l)e ne- 
glected ; tlien glial holy saints bo bhis- 
phemed ; . • . then shal the scrvantes set 
Dnught by theyr maysters, and vnruly 
people reb(;ll against their rulers ; then 
wyll ryse vp ryflyng and robberj-, niur- 
tber and mischief, and playn insurrec- 
Gton ... all which mischief may yet 
be withstanden easilye, and with 



Grodde*8 grace so shal it, jf ye nfc 

no such bold bcgc^rs to seda« ja 
with sedycyouse billes." More ^ 
on the most substantial armor in tk 
Dialogue concerning Heresies, ind 
other polemical treatises. He maa- 
tains that the church cannot err ia ibe 
interpretations of Scripture; thai at 
cording to the teaching of early d(» 
tors it is lawful to venerato images and 
render homage to relics. Ue argues 
for the real presence, comparing it with 
St. Chrysoscom to one man's fiu» re 
fleeted in several mirrors ; all the bosia, 
although in different places, are but one 
body and divine oblation. He adduces 
as one of the reasons for wliicli Tvn* 
dal's Xew Testament was burned, thai 
in that version the words priests, church 
and charity, arc respectirely ren-Jei^ 
ed ''seoiours," " congregation,** aod 
**love." The word senior, he main- 
tains, would apply ^- Englishly** rather 
to aldermen of towns than to priests of 
the church. The word congmfnitioa 
can be applied equally to a company 
of Christians and a company of Turks— 
though the church is indeed a congrega- 
tion, yet every congregation is not ilie 
church. '* Lyke wysedom was there in 
the change of this word (charitie) into 
love. For though charitie be al way lovo, 
yet is not, ye wotc well, love al way cliar 
itie." He blames that " greate orclie 
heretike AVicklitJ'e'* for having taken it 
upon iiinisi^f to make a new tninsla;ii>D 
of the Scrii>turcs. *• AVhereas yo hole 
byhle wiw long before his dayes by 
vertuo'is an.l wel learned men translat- 
ed into ye English torig, and by good 
and goilly p<.M )])!({ with devocion and 
sobrenes wel and reverently red.' He 
sees no reason why Scripture should 
not be read in tlie vulgar tongue. Lu- 
ther's books, however, should be pro- 
scribe*!, ** because his heresies bv: so 
many and so alK>minable ;'' a '' ich and 
tikling uf vanire and \~ain glory has 
set hym lK»syde hys miude.'* He shows 
that ** it is a great token that the world 
is nere at an ende while we se people 
so farre fallen fro (vod, that they %AXi 
abide it to bo content with this pesti- 
lent frantike socte ;" that *' fayth may 



Sir Thomas Mort, 



647 



be without charitie, and so fervent that 
it may suffer a payneful death, and yet 
for fault of charitie not sufficient to 
salvacion." lie establishes that 
** princes be bounden to punish here- 
tykes." He charges heretics with be- 
ing wont to perpetrate '* outrages, and 
temporall harmes" — with " destroying 
Christens holy sacramentes, pulling 
down Christ's crosse, blaspheming bis 
blessed saints, destroying all devocion." 
He contrasts '' Saynt Cypryane, Saynt 
Chrisostome, Saynt Gregory, and al 
the vertuous and cunning doctours by 
rowe," with the doctors *• of this newe 
secte, frere Luther and his wyfe, frero 
Lambert and his wife, and frantike 
Tyndall." It must be remembered 
that the excesses and seditions brought 
forth by the Reformation in Germany 
were calculated to establish an associa- 
tion between the ideas of religious re- 
former and of rebel ; nor does the ex- 
perience of succeeding centuries go 
very far toward destroying this link. 
As a statesman, therefore, if on no 
other groimd, More was inclined to- 
ward the display of an uncompromising 
severity. Nor was he alone in this 
tendency. Both in England and on the 
conthient, heresy was a crime punish- 
able by law. At the same time, there 
is no reason for thinking that More 
carried his doctrines on that point into 
pmciice, as Fox, Burnet, and others 
have asserted. This theory is basod 
on a passage of Erasmus, which de- 
clares that while More was chancellor 
no one was put to death in England 
for adherence to the new doctrines. 
(Nisard.) In his apology, written af- 
ter his fall, More candidly exposes both 
his opinions and the facts of his ad- 
ministration. He vindicates himself 
from the ** lies neither fewe nor small" 
which certain ** blessed brethren" had 
industriously spread concerning him. 
**Dyvers of them have said that of 
euche as were in my house while I was 
chauncellour, I used to examine theym 
with tormentes, causynge them to bee 
bounden to a tree in my gardeine, and 
Ihere pituously beaten." *<0f very 
truth, albeit that for a greate robbery, 



or an heighnouii murder, or sacriledge 
in a church, I caused sometyme suche 
thjmges to be done by some officers of 
the nyirshalsie, with which orderynge 
of them by their well deserved paine, 
and without any great hurt that after- 
ward should sticke by them, I foundo 
out and repressed many such despe- 
rate wretclies as elles had not failed to 
have gone farther abrode, and to have 
done to many good folke a greate deale 
much more harmo." 

Only twice did he punish any here- 
tic in this manner — a boy and a luna- 
tic, whose case he thus relates : 

** Another was one whichc, after that he had 
fallen into that frantik heresies, fell scone af- 
ter into plaine, open fransy beside ; and al- 
beit that he had therefore bene put up hi 
Bedelcm, and afterward by beating and co- 
recion, gathered his remembrance to him, and 
begaune to come again to himself, being 
thereupon set at liberty, and walkinge aboute 
abrode, his olde fransles begaune to fall 
againc in his heade, and I was fro dyrers 
eood holy places advertised, that he used hi 
his wandering about to come into the churche, 
and there make many mad toies and trifles, 
to the trouble of the good people in the di- 
vine service, and specially would he be most 
busye at tlie time of most silence, while the 
priest was at the secretes of the masse, about 
the levacion . . . whereupon I, being adver- 
tised of these pageauntes, and being sent 
unto and required by very devout, religious 
folke, to take some other order with him, 
caused him as he came wanderinge by my 
doore, to be taken by the counstablea and 
bounden to a tree in the streete before the 
whole towne, and thcr they stripped him with 
roddes therefore till he wared weary, and 
somewhat longer ; and it appeared wel that 
his remembrance was goode enoughe, tart 
that it went about in graving till it was beat- 
en home; for he could than verie well re- 
hcrse his fautes himselfe, and ipeake and 
treate very well, and promise to doe after 
ward as well, and verylye, God be thanked, I 
heare none harme of him now ; and of al 
that ever came into my hand for hercsye, ai 
heipe me Qod, saving, as I said, ' the inre 
keping of them, and yet no so sure neither, but 
that George Constantino could stele away; 
els had never any of them aiiy stripe or stroke 
given them, so much as a fylyppe on the 
forehead." 

He also gives an amusing instanoe 
of the manner in which slanderous ac- 
cusations wore fabricated against him. 
Simon Fryth, aathor of the Supplica* 



048 



Sir Thomas More, 



I 

I 



I 



tian of Beprgare," dialed More with 
having »aid that " liis here&ye ehouldc 
cof^te him the beat blude in hia body/' 
More answera thai : 

*' Some truthe they tnigjbt Imppc to bcnre, 
whcrt?upon they myglite buvlde theyr \ye. 
For SQ WQ9 it that on a tTrao one cnme and 
ehuired mo that Frithe Uboured so soro that 
he tweiit Agaync» in atudlong and wrkini^ 
agitusc the blessed sacrament; and I was of 
trouOi vorie boavy to heare tbtt the younge 
fooly the felowc shouldo be^toiresuchelabocrr 
about eueho a dcvelyshe wc>ork<?. For If that 
Fryth < quoth I) swetc in Inliormg to quench 
th«t fiiith thnt al true GhriBt«D people biwe 
in Chpi«ito*8 t>le93cd body and bUitidi?, which 
atl Ciiriaten foike Tcryly, and all pood folko 
frtitfalf receive in the fa urine of bread, he 
shal labourti more ihiin in vayne ; for I am 
Rare thiit Fiith and at his felowes, with fit 
the fdendca that are of theyr afBoitu shnl 
netrher he able to quench and put out that 
faith, and over that if Frythe labour about the 
quenching thereof till be swcttc, I would 
some pood friend of bia «houldo ehowe hym 
that I feare mc sore thtLt Christc wyll kyndle 
a fvrc of fogottcs for hyra, and make !iyin 
tbcrio sweaie the bloud out of hiu bodyc 
here, and atrai^ht from hence send hjs aoulo 
for ever into the fyre of hell. No we in the?e 
wordea I nejtlier ment Dor nieane that I 
wotdJ it wcr so. For (?o hctp me God and 
none othorwyiw, but as I would be gUd to 
take more labour, lo»se, and bodefye payne 
ulio, then peradventure many a man would 
wenc 10 winno that yongc man to Christe 
and bys true faythe agaync^ and thereby u\ 
pre*erve and keepebym from the losiu and 
p^ryll ofBoule and body both/* 

And in another part of the SRme 
treatij^e he decliiros lliat '* as toucliing 
hfiretikoi^^ I hate that vice of tiieii-ij, 
'And not (heir pot^ona. and very thine 
would I that the oue were destroicd, 
a?id the toihcr saved . . . and if all 
the favour and pity that I have vscil 
amnn<;lbc!m tottieireaiuomk*ment wera 
knowen. it woulde I warmnt you well 
and phiine app^'re, whi^reof if it were 
roquy.^ile I could bring forth witneases 
more than men would vtcne/* In these 
earnest woriis* is reflected hi^ innocence 
of pertecution* Thcpc ajiologie^ for 
bis caiN?er as chancellor were written 
afler his fall 

In 1539, More tmd been mode lord 
high chauceUor of Encrhuid, Tlve new 
dietary had been sounded by the 
lung coiiceraing the matrimonial catifie. 



Although Sir Thomas excused hi 
from giving an o(jinion, on ibo 
that he wa^ no divitie^ be wascri 
ly expected uUimatcdr to r^ntmr m 
forwarding* the f** tht 

king's wi^^^hea. 11 .a^ 

did and unworldly i^ 
of self interest. He U < >ecii 

danrrerof his eltjvatiort, ami in hh ap&h 
mfz speech hud alluded to the sword gT 
Danjoeles. One evening Ihts had ooo* 
fided (o Ko}>er thai he wouhi gUi<ll? be 
tied up in a aack, and thrown into iha 
Tliaineat if only tliere couhi be pi^aoi 
on earth, unity in the chuixsU, asi4 A 
good termination of the dtVQroe c|«i«i* 
tion. At kat the decbive imiourt 
c^me, and Henry requested " '^ 
take the propoaed divorce itiio 
eration. The chancellor, falling mi 
kneea, lamented his inaJiJlity to i^en^ 
the king in this matter with a side 
geienee ; he had, he i^aid^ borne in 
the words uttered by hia raajOsT 
More's tirat enierinj^oftiee^ namely • 
to look unto God, and afler God unto 
the king. Henry, eonct^aling hi* y^x 
at ion, expFBsaed a hope that Moc9 
could serve him in other iii?^t:ini •-;. 

Then Cranraer broacbr i ta^ 

and the univer^itiea began iu..^-a , *uas 
and hold grave deliberations on the 
matrimonial cause. Kot only Oxford 
and Cnm bridge* but Parts, Aujao, 
Bruges, Orleana, Padua, Toulotijse^ 
aunimoned their doetora, regents, xad 
canons to weigh and consider the iin* 
portant qut^siiou. There w*as •* much 
turning and aearehing of bookes;*' di- 
vine lawt civil law, were carctully dis* 
cuaaod and examined " Tiiore wa* la 
the reulme much preching, one Itemed 
roan holding agaiosi another,'* (Holin> 
shed.) Foi^aoeiog the impendioj; 
harvest ok* deteriuinationa and arbitrm- 
ments^ More |>ere» ived that the king 
would umrry Anne Boleyn at any eoet. 
In May* 15^2, he tendered his reaisraa*^ 
tion, Henry accepted it in an alTabh; 
manner, and a weight i^oll from Mc^re s 
heart — ^for the nonce he gave hiinseir 
up to his harmless gaiety. Lady Mort 
lectured him stnertdy h)r nut havtitf 
taken care of his pecuniary Lut^resli 






.. * 



Sir Thomas More. 



640 



when in office, and for relinquishing 
place through a selfish love of ease, 
without thinking of the children. " Tilly 
vaily, what will you do, Mr. More ?** 
cried Lady Alice ; *' will you sit and 
make goslings in the ashes ? it is bet- 
ter to rule than to be ruled." More, 
quietly turning to his daughters, asked 
whether they did not see "that her 
nose standeth somewhat awry." 

With calm dignity he proceeded to 
reduce his establishment ; sent his jes- 
ter to the lord mayor ; and consulted 
with his children on the best means of 
avoiding the breaking up of the family. 
His income was little more than £100 
a year ; Lady More must have been 
hard up for pin money wherewith to 
buy gowns, coifs, and stomachers. He 
wrote to Erasmus that he bad at last 
obtained freedom from public business ; 
and he had his epitaph inscribed in the 
parish church of Chelsea. He was 
beginning to have a foreboding of ap- 
proaching danger; whether from the 
declining state of his health — he had 
been liable, through much writing, to 
an "ache" in his breast— or his ac- 
quaintance with the king's character. 
At the height of his friendship withHhe 
monarch, when congratulated by Ro- 
per on the marks of favor he was re- 
ceiving. More luwl mournfully answer- 
ed that if Henry, by beheading him, 
could get one castle more in Franco, he 
would not scruple to do so. During 
several nights, it is said, he had been 
sleepless under the influence of a 
strange, haunting anticipation ; be 
prayed for strength, his delicate frame 
being averse to bodily pain — or, as he 
said, *< his fiesh could not endure a 
fillip.'' 

In the mean while the king married 
Anne Boleyn ; Cheapside ran with 
claret. Sir Thomas received an order 
to attend the procession, with twenty 
pounds to buy a gown ; but he declin- 
ed to be present. The king's displea- 
sure began to arise. More was much 
esteemed, had Considerable influence, 
and his prolonged opposition was any- 
thing but agreeable to Henry. More's 
enemies began to cast about for a 



ground of accusation against hioL The 
adventure of the Maid of Kent furnish- 
ed them with an opportunity. Eliza- 
beth Barton was a girl of cataleptic 
temperament, who had visions and ut- 
tered prophecies. Unfortunately for 
Iierself and others, she meddled with 
politics and inveighed against the king. 
More complained to Cromwell that he 
had been accused of communicating 
with tlmt " nun of Canterbury ;" where- 
as he had written to her, " Good ma- 
dam, I will hear nothing of other men's 
matters ; and least of all of any matter 
of princes or of the realm." The poor 
" good madam" was executed at '♦ Ti- 
bume.'* More's name had been in- 
cluded in the act of attainder, and a 
royal commission was appointed to ex- 
amine him. It soon became apparent 
that the Maid of Kent's case had littlo 
to do with this prosecution of Sir T« 
More, and that the real question at is- 
sue was, that he should remember the 
king's former favors and give his cod- 
sent to that divorce which the hier- 
archy, parliament, and the universities 
had approved. More answered, meek- 
ly but firmly, that he liad hoped to hear 
no more of that matter. In the Maid 
of Kent afiair, his innocence was so 
evident that Henry was obliged to 
yield to the pressure of the commis- 
sioners, who besought him on their 
knees to dismiss More from the accu- 
sation. But More knew this was only 
a reprieve. The commissioners had 
assured tlie king that they would in 
time find another opportunity thai 
would serve the royal turn better. 
" Quoddiffertur non aufertur," answer- 
ed More, when his *' Megg" congratu- 
lated him on the bill being withdrawn. 
There had been no chance of getting 
a verdict against him. But a '^meet 
matter*' for his enemies to act upon was 
not long in supervening. The succes- 
sion to the crown for the issue of the 
new marriage, and the king's ecclesias- 
tical supremacy, became law. An oath 
of allegiance was required. Sir T. 
More and Bishop Fisher were reca* 
sants. More could not be brought to 
imply that the marriage with Catherine 



650 



Sir ThomoM More, 



had been illegal His innate nobleness 
road«5 him very little anxious as to the 
consequences of his opposition. The 
Duke of Norfolk gave him advice one 
day. '* By the moss, Mr. More, it is 
perilous striving with princes; there- 
fore I would vrhh you somewhat to in- 
cline to the king's pleasure, for, Mr. 
More, ^ indignatio princi pis mors est.*" 
We can imagine the sweet smile with 
which More answered. '* Is that all, 
my lord ? then in good faith the differ- 
ence between your grace and me is 
but this, that I shall die to-day and you 
to-morrovv." 

He was too brave and merry not to 
despise death; but, the day he was 
summ-mt^d to Lambeth, he was afraid 
to face his family on his departure. 
Whenever he went down ihe river, they 
used to accompany him to the boat 
and be dismissed with kisses ; but that 
morning lie did not allow them to fol- 
low him. With Roper he took boat to 
Lambeth. There the vicar of Croy- 
don, and many London clergy were 
sworn ; after which proceeding, the 
reverend the vicar, '• Either for glad- 
ness or dryness, or else that it might 
be seen * quod ille notus erat pontifici,* 
went to my lord's butteiy-bar and call- 
ed for drink, and drank ' valde famiii- 
ariter.'" (SirT.More's Lcitei-s.) San- 
cho is ever near Quixote. Without 
blaming thrise who took the oath, Moi'e 
maintained that his conscience would 
not be satisfied if he allowed himself to 
bo sworn. In vain did *^ my lord of 
Westminster" charge him to ** change** 
his conscience, because the great coun- 
cil of the realm had determined on ac- 
knowledging the points at issue. More 
said his opinion was backed by tiie gen- 
eral council of Christendom, ile and 
Roper were committed to the Tower, 
probably through the influence of 
Queen Anne, who was herself'* behed* 
ded ' a few years afterward. 

And now his greatness showed itself 
ID adversity, as it had before brighten- 
ed his prosperity. He had something 
worse than a vultiis %H9tanti$ tyranni 
to endure, namely, the expostulations 
of his wife. Having obtained leave to 



▼isit him, she gave him a loeton ii 
her positivistic philosophy: ^ I msml 
that you, who hitherto harebc/ntaka 
for a wise man, will now so plaj tk 
fool to lie here in this close, fiUhj |in- 
son, and be content thus to be shnt o 
among mice and mt«, when yoo mi^ 
be abroad at your liberty, and «Hk 
the favour and good-will both of the 
king and his council, if yon woild 
but do as all the bishops und best leva* 
ed of this realme have done ; and S6^ 
ing you have at Chelsea a right fair 
house, your library, your gallery, gir 
den, orchard, and all other necvssafia 
so handsome about you, where yoi 
might, in the company of me, you 
wife, your children, and household, be 
merry, I muse what a God*s name yoi 
mean here still thus fondly to tarry.'* 
His daughter Margiiret, ho *'ever, prov- 
ed a better comfort to him. She, loo, 
attempted to |>ersuade him to take th« 
oath ; he pkyfully compared her to 
Eve, thinking more of his body than 
his soul. She quoted all the instances 
of great doctors who had taken the 
oath. At last she said that, like Crcs- 
sida in Chaucer, she was at her wit'i 
end ; wliat could she say more but tluU 
his jester had said, *• Why does not he 
take the oath ? I have done so,*' and 
that she herself had taken it ? More 
than a year did he stay in that prii^oD. 
to the detriment of his health, lie was 
then trit^d and found guilty. Ou his 
return from the trial, when he landed 
at the Tower-wharf, his poor dau;;hter 
rushed from the crowd and kissed him 
frantically several times. One moro 
letter did he write to her with a coal. 
As he had once written, pecks of** cole' 
would not have sufficed to express all 
his love for her. lie expressed him- 
self much indebted to the kinc;, who 
was sending him out of this wretched 
world. He wanted to go on the scaf- 
fold in his best clothes, and sent the 
executioner a piece of gold. On the 
pklfonn he evinced that mixture of 
gayety and piety which was charao 
teristic of him. The structure being 
somewhat cranky, ** I pray bee me up 
safe/' he ftai«l, ** and for my coming 



The Two Lover$ of Flavia DomiHUa. 



051 



down, let me shift for myBeif." He 
then knelt down and said a psalm. 
Ho then addressed the executioner: 
** Tbou will do me this day a greater 
benefit than ever any mortal man can 
be able to give me. Pluck up tliy 
spirit, man, and be not afraid to do 
thy oflSce. My neck is very short ; 
take heed, therefore, that thou strike 
not awry, for saving thy honesty." 
Wiion about to lay his head on the 
block, lie craved time to remove his 
beard, ^ as that had never committed 
treason." " So, with great alacrity 
and spiritual joy, he received the fatal 
blow of the axe, which, no sooner had 
severed tiie head from the body, but 
his soul was carried by angels into ever- 
lasting glory." 

Margaret bought his head, enclosed 



it in a leaden box, and it was after- 
ward buried with her at CaDterbury. 
In the nineteenth century, the head 
was found, with the metal covering cor- 
roded away in front. (See Gentle- 
man's Magazine, 1837.) 

Dr. Lark, rector of Chelsea, and 
Mores friend, was so influenced bj 
More's death that he soon af\er denied 
the supremacy, and was executed. 
More's death made a deep impression 
on men's minds throughout Europe. 
When the report of the execution 
reached the king, he looked steadfast- 
ly on Anne, ami said, ^ Thou art the 
cause of this man's death," and soon 
after retired in sadness to his chamber. 
Scarcely, however, can readers of his- 
tory deplore a death which brought out 
the beauty of such a character. 



omionrix. 

THE TWO LOVERS OF FLAVIA DOMITILLA. 

BY CLONFERT. 



CHAPTER m. 
THE christian's FEAST. 

The large clepsydra in the atriuiii 
of the villa indicated the fourth watch 
of the night, an hour corresponding at 
the winter solstice to one o'clock in the 
morning, of the 8th of the Kalends, 
that is, the 2dth of December. The 
slaves had ended their merry-making 
nnd retired to rest when Aurelian and 
Sisinnius, led by Zoilus, took their way 
by a by-path over the fields toward 
the Latin road. The path crossed the 
stream and wooded hill near the villa. 

Standing on the further slope of the 
hill, they paused to view the city and 
the surrounding country. The dark- 
ness of the early night had been reliev- 



ed by the rays of the moon. Her 
white disc was painted on the sky be- 
tween the luminous edges of the thin 
clouds, which were driven by the wind, 
as if in review, before her face. On 
the earth beneath, moonlight, and sha- 
dow pursued each other over the woods 
and uplands. The palaces and mon- 
uments bordering the Latin and Ap- 
pian Ways showed at times as if they 
were roofed with silver. Now and 
again her beams, stretching down like 
white bars between the clouds, rested on 
the roofs, cupolas, and steeples of the 
distant city, which stretched in iUimi-* 
table magniflcence before them, flashed 
out, and the next moment faded like 
a mirage into indistinctness and 8ha« 
dow. The lights in the streets mod 
country villas . flickered feebly '* few 



7%e Two Lover$ of Flavia JhmiHUa^ 



058 



they had been cmaDcipated before his 
death, followed. Some of tliese bore 
the images of himself and of his an- 
ccslora ; others, the civil and military 
crowns he had won, which proved 
him to have been distin^ished as a 
citizen and a soldier. The remains 
rested on an ivory couch covered with 
drapery of purple and gold. Behind 
them were the children of the deceased, 
the sons in black mourning, with beads 
veiled ; the daughters in white, with 
heads bare, and hair dishevelled. The 
quick march of the procession, the rest- 
less flames of the torches, and the act- 
ing of the mimics seemed strangely out 
of place with the sad occasion, and mu- 
sic, with the dirge of the female mourn- 
ers and the silence or suppressed sobs 
of tiie children of the departed. It was 
another picture of life and death beside 
each other — a union so frequent with 
the ancients. 

•^ There goes the funeral of Senecio/' 
said Zoilus. 

" Herenius Senecio, the senator! 
"What, did he loo incur the imperial 
anger? ' asked Aurelian. 

** He wrote a life of the proconsul 
Priscus, at the request of tlie widow 
Faunia." 

•• Is it Priscus who was put to death 
for the poem in which he was sus- 
pected to have caricatured under ficti- 
tious names the emperor's divorce 
from liis wife ? ' 

** The very same." 

^ Senecio," said Sisinnius, " ought to 
have been taught by the fate of Rusticus, 
who was executed for having written 
the life of Thrasea at the request of 
Arria, Faunia's mother. But he was 
always outspoken and headstrong in 
defence of friendship and truth. Her- 
mogenes of Tarsus, who met a like 
fate for a like offence, was another ex- 
ample to warn him." 

** Well, well," said Aurelian, " I do 
not wonder that Tacitus prefers to 
drud<re as a civil officer in a distant 
province to remaining at Rome, al- 
though his great father-in-law Agri- 
cola^ the conqueror of Britain, needs 
him to cheer his sinking spirits; nor 



that Pliny keens himself so quiet and 
hidden/' 

*• It was reported that Pliny was to 
have delivered Senecio's funeral ora- 
tion," said Zoilus. 

^ Pliny in the affair of Bebius Masia 
showed himself a man of courage. But 
ho has too much sense, I think, to do 
such an unnecessary thing in the pre- 
sent state of the imperial temper," said 
Aurelian. 

** Yes, indeed, when we see the po- 
etess Sulpicia in danger of her head 
for her ode un the expulsion of the 
philosophers ; when booksellers are 
crucified ; and when only those escape 
who, like Joseph us, Juvenal, Martial, 
and Quinctilian, lay the unction of flat- 
tery uublushingly on, it were madness 
to attempt it. Alas 1" continued Sisin- 
nius, '* are we not returning to a worse 
barbarism than that of the iron age ? 
Philosophy, history, and poesy divine 
in exile, in prison, or in the tombs! 
Never was there an age that had more, 
purer, or nobler names to inscribe on 
the roll of fame ! And all at the whim 
of one man who calls himself a god, 
and who thinks he proves his divinity 
by having the road to the capitol crowd- 
ed with the flocks to be immolated to 
his statue ! " 

** It is the story of arbitrary authority 
invested in individuals from the mon- 
arch to the slave-owner, when its influ- 
ence 13 not directed by humanit}' or 
religion," said Aurelian. 

**Ay," interposed Zoilus, "and to 
the slave himself, who is by law al- 
lowed a vicarious ownership (cb- 
minium vaearium) over ofhers. The 
little tyrant who has not the ftilness 
of power is the worst ; he always strives 
to swell himself to the bull size, like the 
frog in the fable, and tramples on the 
feelings where he cannot tread out the 
lives of his victims, just as recklessly 
as the elephant in the arena tramples 
on the corns of the gladiators. One of 
these, whom I know well to my cost, 
compassed tlie death of Senecio, and is 
likely to bring red ruin to many others 
before he dies himself." 

^ Who is he P** asked Aarelian. 




21ie Two J^ooers of Fiavia IhrniiiUa. 



*• Arthus, who has crept up from low 
lift' to high favor with the pollers that 
be/' 

" ** Arthud ! * exclaimed Sisinaiua, " the 
poor wretch ! whose auspiciousiiesfl and 
uiibrKJled knpulgivenpss of tang'ueanJ 
pa85)on have left him wiihouta.snicere 
friend ill the profession, into which he 
has worked his upward war without any 
«Kluealion to tit him for \u He la onij 
a craze of one idcii ; everj one decretly 
Itttighs at his assumption of nuikf know- 
ing ht« origin ; at hit) assumption of 
professional knowledge, knowino: his 
Ba*otic ignorance ; and at hia a«t4unij>- 
tion of power, knowing Jiow ho acquir- 
ed it.'* 

**! can tell you, it ta tio latighin;^ 
matter for the poor blares, mo.^t of 
whom are his own countrymen, whoie 
Vi^vy blood he is coining mto stone for 
that Jabyrin thine temple of wiiich Do- 
mitian has permitred him to be the 

I Architect and buihhjr. A joke perpe- 
trated by Sf^necio in the life of i'risfma 
with regard to thin building is said to 

{ha?6 angered him. Sent^io comijaatl 

rlhe temple to the Cretan labyrinth, and 

[said the congregation would inquire a 

f thread to find iheir way nut/' 

♦♦There wa« anotlicr canine of Ar* 
tha3*s hatred of Seneclo. In early Ufo 
be projiosed for the hstni of Senecio** 

, couttin. The drsit moment she «aw him, 
she afterward declared ahe would as 
•oon marry one of the brick walb lie 
has since been buihbng; because hia 
heart, tilled only with facts, figures, and 
mon«y, aeemetl as ciild, fiard, and blood- 
lesii as the brick< and ftones Ihomaelveft. 
It is reported that site Hm aiaoe beeome 
a ChristiaD. Uafortiiaaiely this creature 
Anhus has somehow found access to 
Domitian*B ear, and maiiag«» with un- 
suspicious adroitness to have the lii^t 
ilory about tliose who dii(plo»J«e him. 

I liBSS cruel natures than I^ontiiinn'^s 
find it bard to rise aljove ^ 

that have onoa preoccupied 1 1 ^ j- 
Saentfl.'* 

•* Well, well, it is ft sad state of things. 
The Christians have^ I often imagine, 
been sent in punishment for our baring 
fallen away fnim the steru virtues of our 



1 



ancestors^ns the Itietut-clatidsnmscat hi 
the East But/* c<lntJlIut^l AurdsB^ 
'* the less we say in this Flylo the bedov 
if we do not wi'jh to join Seneeia to hil 
voyage oyer iho Stygian lake. Ereei 
here (he proTcrb mayapfilj: ^ Sihm 
habent mtres.^'* 

** Yes," said Si? innius, ** here w*^ ar« J 
at the beginning of the ancient tnmhf* 
amid the mighty dead whoso namM 
are the momingstars of our history S* 

They walked silently and p;t4f«^d the 
monument of lloratia. Of cut Aiamm^ 
it was, atlor more tbaii seven centtirie^ 
in good preservation : nay more, in tht 
nineteenth century, after twenty tefVB 
hundred years, it is oomparatirely ai^ 
touched by the handji v/C limm aai 
weather. She had been killed hr har 
victorious brother, the last of the thnit 



Horatr^f because she ^ 
trothed, one of* the Cu « 
in the contest of H- 
superiority. The si , 
Miitcdli, of the *ScipitM, 



aiid 



her !«• 

ibybifli 

Ubate 

of the 



noble families stood »ear the tr 
road not far from ll*e gate. 

Point! tig to these, Hisinnius s^ioke m 
if giving utterance lo a train of tbov^lil 
that had occu[»iod his mind : 

'* Where are they note — the gnsa^ 
the noble, the heroic; men, by wbeee 
martial deed si and unseltlsh patrio^iia 
the foundations of Homau graitneai 
were placed f^ Is this all thai rematm 
of them — -a hollow tomb rais^ as ill 
mockery over a little ash«^ if er^ to 
much of them nf^er five or siie hundred 
3'ears be left? Alas t Aureliati, doM 
not death make you »id to llunk oa 

i%r 

^ Yes ; and therefore I put it away, 
on the epicurean principle that it io* 
ereases the misery of the destltiy thiM 
inllicts it on us.*' 

^^ Yet our ancestors did not 
that view, and they have had 
forwihdom. They built their tomln ia 
public places to remind hviug gen cm* 
tioDS 0r tbi fleeting diaraoter of all 
things httOMui. Tlicy plaeed a i 
head over the inscri|>tioos ta aa| 
that death ts oalv the 
of another ofid a longer joumey. If 



The Two Lovers of Flavia DomiHUa. 



655 



the epicurean philosophy be true, they 
were deceived ; but, if they were right, 
we are wrong in turning our gaze away 
from death, win'cb, alas ! is a terrible 
reality ! Would it not be wiser to 
try and pierce the mystery of that 
horse's head, to draw aside the veil 
that shrouds that journey from our 

sight r 

*' Men like Plato, and Socrates, and 
Cicero, have endeavored to do so in 
every age, and have failed. The great 
doubt, whether there bo a hereafter 
or not. still puzzles the world. JIow 
can we hop6 to remove it when these 
giants fail? It is much better for our 
peace and happiness to follow the com- 
mon belief in elysium and in the gods, 
and to drown the thought of death in 
forget fulness, and to enjoy the pleasures 
of the present." 

*' It is a liard alternative, especially 
when the insecurity of the present is 
brought so strikingly before us by the 
posting away of men like Senecio and 
Priscus, and those of whom we were 
speaking. To believe in elysium and 
the gods is to rest our faith and hope 
on the creations of the poets. Enjoy- 
ment of the present does not bring 
happiness ; and, even if it did, when 
these pleasures are over, (and we don*t 
know how soon,) what is to follow? 
But yesterday Senecio, whose funeral 
we have witnessed, swayed the senate 
by his reason and eloquence. Does 
nothing of him remain now but the 
ashes gathered from the pyre ? Why 
have the generations gone before erect- 
ed those vast monuments, if all that is 
lel^ be the dust in the urn? Fitter 
let it be borne by the wind over the 
face of the earth, if no spirit remain to 
take an interest in its preservation! 
Are the souls of the mighty dead, who 
slumber in those tombs around, * noth- 
ing but a name'? Like the blast 
which bends the forest, and then, dis- 
persed in air, is felt and heard no 
more ? Oh ! my blood runs cold to 
think it ! 

•* And yet there is no certainty it is 
not so— no hope, after so many attempts, 
of now obtaining it Better, then, en- 



joy the present and leave the future to 
fate,'' said Aurelian. 

" No hope, no certainty !" repeated 
Sisinnius twice over, ** no hope, no cer- 
tainty ! And death approaching with 
his inevitable lance set ! It may be 
to-day, it may be to-morrow. Oh ! is 
it not a wretched destiny that keeps us 
thus in the dark? We come we know 
not whence, we go we know not whither. 
Like persons lowered into a deep pit, 
we see a little sky above, but our ga^e 
cannot penetrate on either side of us. 
Is there no delivery from this state of 
prison and anguish ? What wretched- 
ness is equal to that of the last sad mo- 
ment ? Who but the fool or madman, 
with such daily t^minders of earthly 
life's vanity and shortness, can be deaf 
to the approaching footfalls of death?** 

They had now arrived at the valley 
extending to the left, and watc*red bj 
the fountain of Egeria. Here it was 
that the nymph dictated the laws to 
Numa. The valley contained also a 
temple of the Camoonse, and a sacred 
grove. At a little distance was a large 
village. The poet Juvenal complains 
that in the reign of Domitian pomp- 
ous marble had displaced the grass of 
the vale and concealed the rock from 
which the water gurgled ; and that the 
fountain, the temple, and the wood 
were owned aud occupied by JewUh 
beggars: 

" Hoc sacrl fontls nomas, et delubra locantur 
JTudmis^ qiioram cophinoa fceniimqae lapellex. 
Omnli eniin populu mercedem pendere juMa est 
Arbor, d ejectLs meiKllcal bvItb Gamnonis." 

/uv. Sttt UL 

Juvenal and the pagans of his time 
frequently confounded the Christians 
with the Jews. But the acts of eariy 
martyrs, like those of St. Cecilia, clearly 
show that the Jews alluded to in these 
verses were Christians, perhaps con- 
verted from Judaism. The surmise 
of the Abbo Gueranger is most likely 
true, that, when the Emperor Claudius 
banished *^the Jews' from Rome on 
account of their dissensions, the Christ- 
iatis also were forced to leave the capi- 
tal for a short time ; but after their re- 
turn many of them settled in this place 
outside the wal]i,and ocoupied the vil- 



656 



I%$ 2\0o Zoven of Flavia Domitilla. 



lage called Vieui Gammncurum, where 
they seem to have rented the fountain 
as well as the temple and grove. Here 
they could dig vaults, open subterra- 
nean galleries wherein to bury their 
dead, and to hide themselves in times 
of persecution. What confirms this 
supposition is, that here within the 
bowels of the earth commence the som- 
bre galleries of the Christian cata- 
combs. The statesmen and soldiers 
of pagan Rome sleep the long sleep of 
ages above, in monuments rising to the 
face of heaven, with all the surround- 
ings of material greatness ; while the 
cliaropions and martyrs of tiie church 
repose in their lowly niches beneath, 
where a ray of sunlight never pene- 
trates. What a contrast is here sym- 
bolized, and how true ! The pride of 
the world raising itself like Lucifer to 
heaven, and the lowliness of the church 
bowing its head with Christian humi- 
lity, and submitting to be trampled in 
tlie earth ! As it was in the beginning, 
so it is, so it will be to the end. 

At this point of the road Zoilus 
paused to impress upon his companions 
the rules by which they were to be 
guided. They were to pretend to be 
converts to the faith. He had succeed- 
imI in convincing those who had guard 
of the avenues to the Christian meet- 
ing- phice that Aurclian and Sisinnius 
wouM make open profession of the new 
religion but for the dangers with which 
such a step would surround them and 
those dear to them ; that they wen; eager 
to be instructed privately as neophytes ; 
and that they askeil to be admitted to 
the Christmas celebration in order to 
witness the ceremony by which one so 
dear to them as Flavia Domirilla 
was about consecrating herself to Gad. 
They did not wish, however, that Fla- 
via or Theodora should be aware of 
their presence or of their conversion. 
Zoilus, who had been baptized by St. Po- 
lycarp at Smyrna, and who had made 
the Roman Christians believe that he 
was a xealouB member of the church, 
succeeded In convincing them of the 
truth of bis representations, and in ob- 
taining admiuioo for Aurelian and Si- 



sinnius to the feast. The visits of Cle- 
ment to the house of the latter, to<!e- 
ther with the conversion of Theodora 
and Fhivia, rendered these representa- 
tions plausible. 

Not far from the Egerinn valley is a 
semicircular underground chamber of 
large dimensions. It was the only one, 
to which at this early time the name of 
ccUa-tomh, (meaning a pkice near tk$ 
tombs^) or catacomb^ (meaning a deep 
and low place, or place of temporary 
rest,) was given. In after times the 
name has been applied to all the ceme- 
teries radiating from the Vatican and 
underlying the city and the country 
for many miles. Some authors ascribe 
this chamber to a pagan origin. How- 
ever this may be, it presents interiorly 
the appeamnce of a cliapel much more 
spacious than most of those which 
have been dug out of the Roman cam- 
pagna. Opening into it is a room 
which is said to have been occupied by 
many popes during the persecutions. 
In a comer of it there is a pontifical 
throne in marble. A circular bench, 
also of marble, still clings to its rained 
walls ; tlus is supposed to have been 
used by the priests and other minis- 
ters. In its centre is an ancient altar, 
at the base of which the orifice of a 
pit, or well, over which it was erected, 
is visible. Twelve arched tombs built 
into the walls form a cincture round 
it. In this well, according to an oW 
tradition preserved and believed by St. 
Gregory, the bodies of Saints Peter 
and Paul were hidden by the oriental 
Christians, who attempted to steal these 
precious relics fmra the Roman city, 
but were prevented by a thunder-storm. 
After having been transferred thence 
to the Vatican grotto, they were a se 
cond time, in the reign of Ileliogabalus, 
brought back for preservation, and for 
a time to the same place of conceal- 
ment. 

Here, on the occasion of which we 
write, we find the chiefs t)f the Chris- 
tian church assembled. The rumors 
and neiir approach of per:»ccution in- 
duced Pope Clement to select it for the 
celebration of the feast Here they 



2%€ Two Zoveri of ITopta DomitUia. 



657 



could better avoid suspicion : their com- 
ing and going would be easily mistaken 
by outsiders for the visits of those 
whom curiosity or affection drew to 
the pagan monuments. 

Many missionary churches in Asia, 
Africa, Gaul, and other countries had 
sent delegates, who were now convers- 
ing with Pope Clement in the room 
next the chapel. These delegates car- 
ried letters from the bishops and 
churches by whom they were delegated ; 
and, having set out long before the fes- 
tival and visited other churches on their 
way, they were able to give a faithful 
report of the progress and condition of 
the faith in the countries through 
which they journeyed. There was An- 
dronicus, a priest of Corinth, who 
brought tlie sad tidings of the apostle 
St. John*s arrest at Ephesus. 

" Have you heard," said the pope, 
**when he is likely to be in Rome?" 

** No ; but the galley in which he 
sailed left the port of Corinth two days 
before my departure. Owing to the 
crowds coming to the Saturnalia at 
Rome, it was thought she was delayed at 
Ostium until af^er the festivities, when 
he is to be brought before the emperor 
himself." 

" O my children ! let us pray that 
God may soften the tyrant's heart, and 
that this last golden link between our 
time and that of our divine Master may 
not be yet taken away by martyrdom." 
*'I have been told by one of the 
bi-ethren who was in Ephesus on the 
day of his arrest that the blessed John 
himself assured the faithful that he had 
much yet to do and suffer before bis 
hour would come." 

** Thanks and glory be to God for 
this glad tidings," fervently ejaculated 
Clement. *• We shall try, and, if pos- 
sible, have an interview with him." 

The churches of Antioch and of Al- 
exandria had also representatives in 
the meeting. The latter see, founded 
by St. Mark, who had been commis- 
sioned bv St. Peter for that purpose, 
was described as being in a most flou- 
rishing state. From Gaul had come 
the missionary priest Qaibinus, who 
vol.. V. 



had travelled through the Black Forest, 
and (bund many Christian communities 
among its fastnesses and along the 
Rhine and Rhone. He had delayed 
for a week at Marseilles, where he was 
entertained by Lazarus and Martha. 
Mary Magdalen he had not met ; but 
the fame of her penitential life in a 
solitude outside of that city had spread 
6ar and wide, and filled the whole dis- 
trict with a holy odor. From Mar- 
' seilles he had journeyed by the coast an- 
til he reached the Flaminian road. At 
the foot of the maritime Alps he had 
met many Christians practising the 
evangelical counsels in seclusion and 
peace. Thus the holy pope, through 
the delegates from the various churches, 
had full and detailed information as to 
tlie amdition, prospects, and number of 
the faithful in the different regions of 
Christendom. 

There was one visitor who more than 
others riveted the attention of all This 
was Nicodemus,* who had taken our 
Lord's body down from the cross. He 
arrived later than the others. When 
he entered, he knelt to receive Pope 
Clements blessing ; but the latter, em- 
bracing, kissed him on the cheek, and 
said: 

*^My father and friend! It is I 
who ought to receive yours. I have 
heard you were in the city for some 
days. Why not have come sooner to 
visit us ?" 

** Yes, holy father ;t I arrived in the 
city two days ago, and received from the 
kindness of some of my own nation, 
who a^er the fall of Sion came to re- 
side in Rome, that hospitality and treat- 
ment which the wearied traveller re- 
quires. The last persecution — for I 
was then here — taught us all a lesson 
not to create suspicion by visiting pre- 
maturely the locality in which the 
brethren meet or the presbyter re- 
sides. Hence, though I had learned 
the secret of where you intended cele- 
brating the feast, I deemed it well to 
delay my visit to the eve of it" 

• It la rery probable, mjt Ttllemont, that Nlood». 
mat visited Kume toirard tbe eud of the first ceatarj. 

t '*Papa taneUf" a usual mod« of addreiilBg 
Mfhopa in th« mtIj agM. 



m 



T%e Tufo Xoiw» o/ FhrVta JhmiiiUa* 



** Alwaya caulioup, Nicodemtia/' said 
Clemeot, alluding to the furtive night 
visit paid by Nicwlcmus to oiir divine 
Lord ; but he checked the Bmile that 
played od his face, as he saw the tears 
rolUncr down the old man's cheeks. 

" Pardon, pardoa, jay fnend and 
brother ! I did not mean to say aught 
painful/* 

"Nor have you. But I am over- 
come, in spite of myself, whenever I 
r«raerabor the eyes which beamed oat * 
upon me throufrh the darkness of that 
night, and the face so transcendently 
beautiftiL so tenderly compassionate, 
so profoundly sorrowful ! That face 
and look are impref^sed here*' — ^he laid 
his hand upon his heart — ** I always 
bear them about with me like precious 
rc!ic3» which supply ample matter for 
my meditations. In the brightness of 
the day those sorrowful eyes shine out, 
in the darkness of night that beauteous 
face is luminous ; in the desert and in 
the tbrum they alike are my compan- 
ions, as they shall be to the jrrave,** 

He was silent* I Its eyes and thoughts 
aeeraed turned inward ; the former as 
if riveted with dazzled^ loving gaze on 
Bome unseen object which wholly filled 
the latter. After some moments, dur- 
ing which those present looked on in 
wonder, he became conscious of their 
presence and slightly embarrassed. 

Clement, not seeming to notice tbc 
emharra££ment, said : 

**What changes have taken place 
Btaoe you and 1 became acquainted 
first ! Having debiyed beyond the 
midnight hour on Mount Calvary* I 
was brought by blessed Paul, with 
whom I was then Ira veiling, to your 
house. I regret that altered circum- 
stances and thickening clouds compel 
me to make a retuni of hospitahty in 
these poor quarters. All are welcome ; 
none more so than Nicoderaus. I know 
all are satisfied while we have Him for 
who^e love we resign all near us under 
the clouds,'* He pointed and bowed 
reverently toward the chapel, and then 
retired to pr&pare for the celebration 
of the sacred mysteries 

Meanwhile the li^^^ of alt were fixed 



with cariosity on Njcodenms. His i 
tenance was of the moi»t decided Jewtiii 
caste* His face bore the wrinkles of 
over a hundred years ; but his frmmc^ 
like the stui-dyoak whose surface wmf 
be serried by ages, did not preaemt ill 
appeanmce of decayed atreng:tb 
health. 

The visitors and gneata of 
entertained themselves with aneodolei 
of their respective missions ; of the di- 
ver's ways in which Providence haA 
enlightened them with the true fmilh t 
of the countries through which ih/tj 
had preached, the people they had i 
verted, the adventures they bad 
and the miracles by which Grod htd 
aided and rescued them, A history 
such us has never been, and ewmi»t 
now be written^ might be gslberod 
from these conveisadoos. A ^roit^ 
many, especially the youngv*r poi 
felt a wish to queaiion NieodefUi 
They desired to hear from blfl 
hps more of that beautiftil ftoe 
tho€e shining eyes that affealM Ui 
imagination so much. 1 ^ ^ bt 

referred to his nocturnal in wilb 

the Redeemer ; but they longed to 

** Pardon me, venerable fiither/' 
Andronicus, with more courage than 
the others, "we would like to heir 
from yourself the history of your fint 
interview with him* We do not mk 
through idle curiosity, but beoatui 
we love to hearerery little thing about 
him." 

'* That evening and night, my child- 
ren — you will excuse the liberty ooif 
so much older than yourseh-es takes 
thus addrpiising you^that evening ai 
night will never leave my memory* 
It was summer timtv I waa strol- 
ling to 'drink the evening air' ba» 
yond the Taffa gate. The ringing 
laughter and white garments of tlia 
young peo[ilf', as they visited thespriiM 
outside the walls, aided with ihc frno* 
ness and beauty of the atmosphere ami 
scenery in dispelling feeUnga €ii void 
and loneliness, which— 1 could not ao> 
oount for it — had been for ftomo monllM 
oreeping over me* I felt as if th«i« 



amines 

i Ui 
wiib 

'I 

than a 

1 




The Two Loveri of Flavia JDomUiBa. 



6fi0 



were nothing in life to satisfy my heart 
It was the liour for the evening sacri- 
fice ; I heard the trumpets of the Le- 
vites ringing out through the evening 
calm ; and I saw the column of sacrifi- 
cial smoke rising up from the temple, 
like a pillar of sand in the desert, 
through the clear air, until it was flat- 
tened by the far vault of heaven into 
fleecy clouds, which hung about its 
summit like the frescoes of a Corin- 
thian capital. I stood to admire the 
beauty of its height and rounded 
straightness, when I was struck by 
an unusual glow in the heavens. I 
saw distinctly formed in the sky a 
golden crown, which seemed upheld 
over the inner court of the temple by a 
chain of sparks, as if suspended from 
the column of smoke. I was drawn 
toward the place ; and after a quarter 
hour's hurried walk found myself at 
the avenue leading up to the temple. 
I was soon at the entrance, and, pass- 
inpr through the outer court, entered the 
op';n one of Sacrifice, over which the 
crown appeared to rest. The incense 
from the Levites' censers was ascend- 
ing in curb about the column of sacri- 
ficial smoke like a binding of white 
ribbon about a black column. The 
court and side galleries were crowded. 
I lost sight of the golden crown ; and 
bep;an to fancy it was some play of 
imagination working on the sunset co- 
lors. I sought a remote corner of the 
hall, and, feeling a peculiar influence 
over me, bowed profoundly in the 
depths of my own soul before the ma- 
jesty of Jehovah. Raising my eyes 
toward the smoking altar, I was seized 
with awe and terror in beholding the 
self-same crown resting over the head 
of a worahipper, who prayed in the 
shadow of a pillar. VVhen the cere- 
mony was over, I managed to get a 
glimpse of the face, which I recognized 
as that of Jesus of Nazareth. His 
eyes ovei^flowed with tears. I yearn- 
ed in my heart toward him by t^n al- 
most invincible impulse; but I was 
afraid of being seen speaking to one 
so humble and so suspected. I waited 
and watched him on his way home. I 



followed him in the dusk as he harried 
along a street, which I afterward saw 
him mark with footprints in his own 
blood. Turning suddenly at the cross 
formed by the road from the palace of 
Herod the Ascalonite and that now 
known as the * Dolorous Way,' he 
addressed me : 

** * What do you seek, Nicodemus ?* 

" I was startled by the sound of my 
own name, not dreaming that he knew 
it ; and I glanced hurriedly up and 
down the arms of the Crossway to see 
if any one were within ear-shot. 

^^ - Be not alarmed,' he said, in a 
voice which tell with velvet softness on 
mine ear. * If you wish anght of me, 
enter here.' And he led the way to an 
humble house on the street to Calvary. 
There were two men, one young, with a 
cheek of downy sofVness, and the other 
middle-aged, with beard of bristling 
gray and fiery eye, awaiting him. 

** * Rabbi !' they both exclaimed with 
glad surprise ; but they hesitated when 
they saw me. For, as I afterward 
learned, they both recognizexl me as 
a member of the Jewish council, and 
therefore set me down as an enemy of 
their Master. 

*" Peter,' he said, *John and you 
will retire to another room. This man 
wishes to speak to me alone.' 

** * But, Rabbi,' said Peter impulsive- 
ly, * do you know that he is one of — * 

**• Peter! /knew him before I saw 
him. Do as I direct.' And Peter with 
reluctance left the room. 

We were alone. Regarding me with 
a look which seemed to penetrate my 
whole being to the most hidden secrets 
and littleness of my soul, he again ask- 
ed: 

*' * What do you seek, Nicodemus I' 

*** Rabbi!' I ventured to say, sub- 
dued as I was by the mild radiance of 
those piercing eyes, ' we all know 
yo»! are from God, for no one can work 
the wonders you perform if Qod be 
not with him. I seek knowledge of the 
kingdom that is promised.' 

'' * Amen, amen !' he answered sol- 
emnly, ^ I say to you, no one can see 
that kingdom who is not bom anew of 



6G0 



The Two liovers of Flavia DomitiUa, 



wafer axid the Holy Spirit.'" Here 
Nicodemus related the converaation 
the substance of which is recorded in 
the third chapter of St. John's gospel. 

^ At parting," continued Nicodemus, 
** I told him that, if at any time I could 
be of service, I would be glad to render 
it. I shall never forget the answer: 
* My hour is not yet come. When it 
is, your charity shall uot be forgotten. 
It will be your office to clothe for the 
last time the nakedness of this temple ! ' 
He pointed to himself. I did not then 
know his meaning: but, when I saw 
bis bloodless body on hi^ blessed mo- 
ther's lap, and had the happy pnvilege 
of preparing it for burial, I remember- 
ed and understood his words.'^ 

** I have heard a varied account of 
our Lford's personal appearance," said 
Damian, one of the missionaries, an 
Irishman,* or, as the old annalists have 
it, a Scotus by birth. " My venerated 
master, Joseph of Arimathea. who had 
many opportunities of seeing him. said 
that he at one time wore on his sacred 
humanity all the charms of godlike 
beauty, and at another presented in 
appearance almost the opposite ex- 
treme?" 

** I remember distinctly the night I 
saw him in the court of the temple. 
I knelt beside him ; and in the glare 
of the many lights saw every line and 
undulatioQ-of tlie golden ringlets that 
floated down his neck and shouMci-s. 
They were not of one color. At the 
summit they glowed with more than 
star-like brilliancy, which faded into 
other dazzling hues reflected from each 
undulation to their extremities. They 
talk of the colors of the rainbow ; these 
were all exhausted in the surpassing 
loveliness of that noble head, above 
which the air-tbrmed crown rested like 
a glory. \Vhen I saw his fikce as he 
rose from his knees, though sad in its 
expression as fancy in its furthest flight 
could paint it, it beamed with a beauty 
such as lover's eye never invested the 

* Seotia, the aneUni name oT IirUmL In the 
rtign of DABlttan an Iritih prince wn* a fnv< at the 
covrk Jneeph of Ariw«th«>a U tald to have |>r«.ich«d 
the KOtpel In the RrlUith laWs. At this time Urit«ia 
VM flrti dUc o rared to be as Island. 



beloved with, such as I shall never see 
until I gaze on it again, as I hope, in 
that kingdom, where, after God's incrett- 
ed beauty, it increases the happinctf 
of the glorified to behold it. Once 
again I saw him. But, oh ! how chang- 
ed the human beauty of that face divine 
and those golden ringlets. They wert 
matted in uncombed confusion with 
dried and drying clots of blood ! The 
face was disfigured and ugly. I ooald 
scarcely imagine him the same person 
I had met in tlie court of the temple. 
These diflerent appearances under dif- 
ferent circumstances will no doubt ac- 
count for the varying descriptions of 
him given by those who saw him. '♦ 

During the recital the old man's 
cheeks were wet with tears and his 
voice often trembled. 

It was now after two o'clock, the 
hour appointed for the commencement 
of the celebration. 

St. Justin, in his first apology to the 
Antonines, describes the manner in 
which the Christians celebrated their 
Sundays and other feasts. They met 
before sunrise and sang a hymn in 
praisti of the Redeemer ; then lessons 
from the Old and New Testaments were 
read, with the addition of prayers for 
the wants of the faithful and the con- 
version of the unbelievers ; the presid- 
ing prei<byter, who is a bishop or a 
priest, addressed the congregation ; and 
finally, taking bread, blessed and brake 
it, saying, * This is my body ;* and in like 
manner lie blessed and consecrated the 
chalice, saying, ' This is the nip of my 
blood' The saint who was living at 
the period of which we write states the 
doctrine of the real presence and of the 
sacrifice as clearly as words can cx- 
pix»ss them. 

Clement, with his assistant deacon 
and subdeacons, sat in front of the altar. 
On the seats on each side were Nico- 
demus. Andronicus, Damianus, and tli.' 
other clergy and missionaries. Aure- 
lian and Sisinnius were astonished to 



* Tradition it dlrlde«I as in oar Lord** prni mal ap- 
pearance ; r<in« of the holj f»lher« d<r»crli>e h lu ■« 
a KiRH-luif n of lauily beauty ; otiter* say the oiutr^ry. 
We ha« c hnrrored fruin the letter of a Kuman oOcar 
thcnlaJadea. 



The Two Lovers of Flavia DamiHlla. 



661 



obAerve that their acquaintance and 
friend CIcinent was the chief in the 
('hristian assemblage; and that his 
principal minister, in fact, his attendant 
deacon, was Vitus, the young oflBcer of 
the imperial household, who had made 
himself so remarkable the night of the 
emperor's feast But their amaze- 
ment was doubly increased when, after 
the clergy had taken their seats, a pro- 
cession of females veiled in black 
emerged from a side-door and knelt 
before Clement, opposite the centre of 
the altar. In front were two matrons, 
and between them the slender figure of 
a younger female, whose head and 
shoulders were concealed by a white 
veil. Aurelian's breath came thick 
and fast; Sisinnius, too, was excited. 
But Zoilus by a significant pressure 
restrained any open manifestation of 
their feelings. 

The hymn chanted was composed 
specially by one of the brethren for 
the time and feast. It was as follows : 

CHRISTMAS HYMN. 

The flocks lay on the midnight plaias. 

Where Jacob tended his of old,* 
Where Darid woke his earliest strains 

And sang the Lion of Judah's fold, 

Gloria^ gloria, gloria in exceUit Deo i 

When suddenly the skies grew brijtht, 
And angel choirs in countless throng, 

Witti flashing wing«, lit up the night. 
And chant«d, as they pa9»e<l along, 

Gloria^ gloria^ gloria in exoelH$ / 

** Now glory be to God on high. 

And peace on earth to fallen man ;" 
With star-like clearness through the aky, 
*Twas thus the angel anthem ran, 

Gloria, gloria, gloria in eweMa / 

We saw them by the new star's light 

Aiiove the stable where He lay ; 
We watched them Uirough the livelonf night. 

And tiiroiigh the heavens we heird them say, 
Gloria, gloria, gloria in eaeceMa 1 

After the hymn bad been sung and 
the lessons from the sacred Scriptures 
had been read, the pope addressed the 
assembly in earnest words. He spoke 
of the mystery of the incarnation and 
the birth of the Redeemer, by which 
the promises made to the patriarchs 
and prophets were fulfilled. He said 



* The plains of Bethlehem, where Jacob had tended 
the flocks of his father-ln-Uw, aod David choM of hia 
fisther. 



that there were amongst them that 
night those who, during his earthly 
life, had conversed with the " Word 
made flesh." He pointed out Nico- 
demus, who had taken the lifeless body 
of the Master down from the cross, and 
who had the singular privilege of see- 
ing Christ arisen in his glorified hu- 
manity. " We, therefore," he conclud- 
ed, " have no reason to repine, for we 
know in whom we trust We may be 
poor in subjection, exposed to perseca- 
tion. The amphitheatre and the beasts, 
the prison, the rack, and other tortures 
may await us. But we are not like 
those who have no hope, no security 
of the unseen hereafter. We depend 
on that love which induced him to allow 
himself to be nailed in agony on the 
cross, and, what is more, to be yoked^ 
as it were, not only for time, but for 
eternity, to a body of flesh and blood 
like ours. That love is the guarantee 
that he will use his power to raise us 
up as he has promised, if it be our 
happy lot to ' confess him before men' 
by the shedding of our blood. And of 
his power how can we doubt ? lie 
who, when dead himself, yet was able 
to raise himself from the tomb up to a 
glorious and impassible existence, has 
power, now that he is seated in glory 
at the Father's right hand, to do the 
same for us. Let us not be sad, then, 
like those who have no hope. Let us 
gird ourselves for the contest before 
us." And he proceeded to strengthen 
his audience by showing how little the 
short sufferings of time were when ba- 
lanced by the weight of glory to follow 
tor ever. He then continued the cere- 
monies. As he approached the con- 
secration, Aurelian and Sisinnius^ do- 
spite the thoughts that engaged their 
minds, were struck by the rapt devo- 
tion and fervent prayers of tt^ crowd 
of worshippers in the body of the cham- 
b«^r. They themselves had taken their 
place behind so as not to be observed ; 
Zoilus had arranged this. Between 
them and the altar there was a large 
and mo: ley gathering : slaves, pte- 
beians, and some whose dress belong- 
ed to the rank of Roman knights; 



602 



ne Two Loven of Fkivia DomitUia. 



Jews. Greeks, and barbarians; men 
of different colors, races, and conntries 
bowed before the altar and were ani- 
mated by one spirit. Tliere was no 
distinction, save only that shown in the 
separation of the men from the women 
on the two sides of the chapeL The 
words of consecration, pronounced in 
a half-audible voice, fell ominously on 
the ears of Aurelian. ^ Hoc est corpus 
meumJ* Whose body ? he asked him- 
self. " Hie est calix saxguinis nwiV 
Whose blood was contained in that 
cup? Were not those vague rumors 
true about the murder of infants in those 
Christian meetings ? Alas I it was 
horrible to think that his own beloved 
Flavia had been entrapped and was 
now a sharer in those bloody orgies. 
But he would rescue her, or lose his 
fortune or his life in the effort Dif- 
ferent somewhat were the reflections 
of Sisinnius. The words of Clement 
had touched in his heart a chord whicli 
still vibrated with a longing to hear 
more. After all, had these men solv- 
ed ihe mystery of death and of the life 
beyond the grave ? 

Afler the full completion of the sac- 
rifiee by the communion of the cele- 
brant, Clement resumed his seat in 
front of the altar, with his face to the 
people. The golden plate which 
bound his temples flashed in the lamp- 
light, and I'eminded many of Moses afier 
bis descent from the mount, with the 
rays beaming from his forehead. The 
three females, who had knelt during 
the ceremonies, now stood before the 
pope. The two matrons were turned 
sideways toward the congregation as 
they lilted the veil from the head of the 
central figure. In one of these Sisin- 
nius recognized his own wife ; and in 
the other a member of the imperial 
household, Priscilla, who had so gently 
rastrained Vitus on the night of the 
emperor's feast from drawing the sword 
from his scabbard as the words fell 
from the stage : 

^'Domitianl DomitianI Beware I 
Beware!" 



Aurelian^s worst fears were confirm- 
ed as he saw, when the white veil was 
lifted, the beautiful features of Flavis 
Domitillal But Zoilus kept beside 
him. 

** My daughter!" said Clement, ad- 
dressing Flavia, ** have yuu duly and 
fully considered the step you propose 
taking?" 

**Yes, father!" she answered, in a 
low, tremulous voice. 

** But is there no other love to divide 
your heart from Him whom you projx>de 
espousing ? Have you not pledged }'oiir 
troth and allegiance to another l^' 

** I did, when my eyes were shut t> 
the eternal beauty of Him who has 
since revealed himself to me. If other 
love I have had, I now uproot it from 
my soul. I only ask to be permitted 
to devote myself to the service of Him 
whom my heart has too lately known, 
too lately loved. All other allegi.ancc* 
I hereby renounce." 

^ In the name, then, of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
I receive you as the spouse of him 
who has loved you from the beginning." 
He replaced the white veil upon her 
head ; and, receiving a ring from Vitus, 
who stood beside him opposite Flavia, 
placed it on her finger. Then he ad- 
ministered to. her the most holy sacra- 
ment. A smile played like a ray of 
sunshine over her countenance, which 
manifeated the deep and overflowing 
happiness that welled upward from 
her soul. 

Aurelian trembled like a reed as be 
heard her recall her promises to him- 
self. But she was not mistress of her 
actions, he reasoned. Had he not seen 
her druggcnl with that unholy flesh and 
blood which were given her? Vitu>, 
he thought, had so tar succeeded ; for 
was not he the only one present to 
whom she could be thus wedded.^ 
Zoilus watched his companions closely; 
and, when the assembly was dismissed, 
hurried them away by the private 
entrance. 



Under ike VioUii. 66S 



UNDER THE VIOLETS, 

Under the violets blue and sweet, 

Where low the willow droops and weeps 

Where children tread with timid feet 
When twilight o'er the forest creeps 
She sleeps — mj little darling sleeps. 



Breathe low and soft, O wind I breathe low 
Where so much loveliness is laid ; 

Pour out thy heart in strains of woe, 
O bird I that in the willow's shade 
Sing*st till the stars do pale and fade. 



It may be that to other eyes. 
As in the happy days of old. 

The sun doth every morning rise 

0*er mountain summits tipped with gold, 
And set where sapphire seas are rolled ; 



But I am so hedged round with woe, 
The glory I no more can see. 

O weary heart that throbbest so ! 
Thou hast but this one wish — to be 
A little dust beneath the tree. 



I would thou hadst thy wish to-day. 
And we were l3ring side by side 

With her who took our life away 
That heavy day whereon she died — 
O grave I I would thy gates were wide ! 



694 



An Lriik SainL 



FromTh* Lamp. 

AN IRISH SAINT.* 



It is consoling in these fi^looroy days 
to think of the time when Ireland was 
the Island of Saints, and gloried in the 
patronage of St Patrick, St. Bridget, 
and St. Columhkill. 

It is to a foreigner that we owe the 
biography of St, Columbkill — named 
•• Columba" from the Dove of Peace, 
and " kill," from the many cells or mo- 
nasteries that he founded. He was 
descended, says Montalembert, from 
one of those noble races in Ireland 
whose origin is lost in the night of 
ages — the Nialls or O'Donnells of Tir- 
connel, who were monarchs of Ireland 
from the sixth to the twelfth century. 
The child was instructed in religion by 
the priest who had baptized him, and 
the le^nds tell of angels who watched 
over him from hb birth ; and they say 
that he asked familiarly of his guardian 
angel if all the angels were as bright 
and young as himself. From the house 
of the priest he was sent to the monas- 
tery of St. Frinan at Clonaixl, where 
be studied and labored like the rest, 
and, though a prince, he ground the 
com they ate. One of his companions, 
afterward a saint, was angry at the 
influence which Columba naturally pos- 
sessed over the rest ; but an angel ap- 
peared to him, and showed him the 
natchet of his father, the carpenter, 
bidding him remember that he had only 
left his tools, but that Columba left a 
throne to enter the monastery. Clonard, 
says Montalembert, was vast as the 
monastic cities of theThebais, and 3000 
Irish students learnt there from the 
"* Master of SainU." Among the 
crowds who came to learn was an aged 
bard, who was a Christian. He asked 
St. Frinan to teach him, in return for 
his verse, the art of cultivating the soil 
Columba was a poet, and studied with 

• lloiitaleiLb«t*l Monlu of tbt W«t 



the bard. One day a joung girl, par- 
sued by a robber, was murdered at their 
feet, and Columba foretold bis death, 
and was renowned through the island 
as a saint. He was ordained a pnest 
in 546, and became, when scarcely 
twenty-five, the founder of monasteries, 
of which thirty-seven are reckoned in 
Ireland alone. The most ancient of 
these was in the forest of Durrow, or 
the Field of Oaks, where a cross and 
well yet bear the name of Columba. 
It stood in Clenmalire, now in King's 
county; and the noble monastery, as 
Bede calls it, became the mother of 
many others ; so that Dermach as well 
as Hy became nurseries for the hundred 
monasteries founded by Columba. It 
has been said that St. Patrick had 
kindled such a flame of devotion that 
the saints were not satisfied with mo- 
nastic life without retiring to the boli- 
tudo of the surrounding fon*$ts, and 
there, under the canopy of the vast 
oaks, which had for ages possessed the 
wilderness, they found a more silent 
and solemn cloister. Such had been 
the monastery of St. Bridget at Kit- 
dare, and such was Durrow ; and in the 
forest of Calgachus, in his native 
country, Columba built Derr}-, in a 
deep bay on the sea which separates 
Ireland from Scotland. There he 
dwelt, and he would not |)ermit one ol 
the oaks to be felled unless it was in- 
jured by age or storms, and then it was 
used as fuel for the stranger or the 
poor. Here he wrote |)oems. of which, 
says Montalembert, only the echo has 
reached us. The following verses 
might be written by his disciples, but 
they are in the most ancient Irish dia- 
lect, and perhaps convey the thoughts, if 
not the words, of Columba : 

** Had I all coantriet where the ScoUUh iritws 
Have made their dwelUnff, I wi>uld chooM a eaU 
In tuj ovD bcaateuoa Drrr/, which I low 
r^lto oabrokai peace and aaiioU^. 



An Irish Saint, 



695 



There, seated on each leaf of those old oaks, 
I see a whlte-wJiiged angel of the sky. 
O forents dear ! home and cell belored I 
O thou Kternul in the highest hearen ! 
From handii profane my monasteries shield, 
lly Derry and my Durrosr, Rapho sweet, 
Drumborne in forests prolitic. 8frords. and Kclls, 
Where sea-birds scream and flutter o'er the sea, 
Sweet Derry, when my boat rows near the shore, 
All Is rvpose and most delicious rest.'* 

There are traces of the saint in these 
beloved foundations : among the ruins 
of Swords are still seen the chapel of 
St Columba, and a round tower and 
holy well, but not the missal written by 
himself and given to the church. We 
have the rule he wrote for the monas- 
teries, but it is said to have been bor 
rowed from the oriental monasteries. 
lie founded Kellsin 550, and dedicated 
it to the Blessed Virgin. St. Columba's 
devotion was not confined to his own 
monasteries ; he loved that founded not 
long before by St. Eudacus in Arran, 
the Isle of Saints : 

** Arran, thou art like sunshine, and my heart 
Yeurnd on thee in thine Ocean of the West; 
To hear thy bells would Ih, * life of bliss ; 
And, if thy soil might be my lust alMide, 
I should not envy those who sleep secure 
Beside St. Peter and St l»au!. My light, 
My sunny Arran I all ray heart's dewire 
Lies in the Western Ocean and in thee ! ** 

There are eleven Irish and three 
Latin poems said to be written by St. 
ColumlMU and one of these is in praise 
of St. Bridget, who was living when 
he was bom. Columba was not only 
a poet himself, but the friend of the 
bardic order, who held from Druidic 
limes so high a rank in society, and 
who frequented monasteries as well as 
palaces. Columba received even the 
wandering bards of the highways into 
his monasteries, and especially in one 
which he founded in Loch Key, which 
was afterward the Cistercian House of 
Boyle. He employed them to write 
the annals of the monastery, and to sing 
to the harp before the community. He 
loved books as well as poetry ; and bis 
passion was transcribing manuscripts 
which he collected in his travels, and 
he is said to have made with his own 
hand three hundred copies of the gos* 
pels or psalter. One of these remains. 
It is a copy of St Jerome's translation 
of the tour evaogelists, and an inscrip- 



tion testifies that he wrote it in twelve 
days. He was once refused by an 
aged hermit the sight of his books, and 
the legend says that, in consequence of 
his anger, the books became illegible 
at the hermit's death. The anger of 
Columba about another manuscript led 
to more important consequences — his 
own conversion from a literary monk 
to an ascetic missionary. While he 
visited his old master, St. Frinan, be 
shut himself up by night in the church 
to make a secret copy of the psalter. 
His light was seen, and the abbot 
claimed possession of the copy. Co- 
lumba appealed to his kinsman, the 
supreme monarch Dermot, who was 
the friend of monks ; for, when an exile, 
be had found a refuge in the monastery 
of St. Kieran, the schoolfellow of Co- 
lumba, which they both had built in on 
islet of the Shannon, and which became 
Clonmacnoise. Dermot decided that 
the copy belonged to the abbot. Co- 
lumba was indignant The murder of 
a prince of Connaught, whom he had 
protected, increased his anger against 
Dermot, and he foretold his ruin. Ha 
own life was in danger, he fled toward 
Tirconnel, and the monks of Monaster- 
boys told him that his path was beset. 
Ho escaped alone, and pas.^ed through 
the mountains, singing as he went his 
song of confidence ; and, as tradition 
says, these verses will protect all who 
repeat them on their journeys : 



'* I am alone upon the mountain, my Qad t 
King of the sun ! direct my steps, and gUMrd 
My ftrarleM head among a thousand spean ; 
Safer than on an Islet in a lake 
I walk with thee ; my life Is thine to give 
Or to withhold, and none but thou canst add 
Or take an hoar tram Its appointed time. 
What are the guards ? they caunoi guard fr Jia 

death. 
I will forget my poor and peaceful cell, 
And cast myself on the world's charity ; 
For he who givt^ will be repaid, and he 
Who hoards will lose his trea^iure, Ood of life. 
Woe be to him who sins I The unseen world 
Will come whcfu all he sees has passed away. 
The Druids trust to oaks and songs of birds : 
My trutt is in the Ood who maile me man, 
And will not let roe ])erish in the nlghk 
llim only do 1 serve, the Son of God, 
The Son of Mary— lluly Trinity, 
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with him 
Is my inheritance ; my cell 
la with the monks of KelU and Uoly Moen.** 



Columba reached hia oomitryy and 



An Iriih SainL 



stirred op his clan, the Hy Nialls of the 
north, against Dermot, and the Hy 
Nialls of the south ; and with the aid of 
the king of Connaught, whose son had 
been slain, Dermot was defeated, and 
fled to Tara. The victory was attribut- 
ed to the prayers and fasts of Columba, 
and the manuscript wliich had caused 
this civil war became a national relic 
with the O'Donnells. It was a Latin 
psalter, and was enclosed in a portable 
altar, and carried by a priest into all 
these battles, and has been miraculously 
preserved to the present times. 

But in the midst of his triumphs, 
Columba himself was conquered. He 
felt the pangs of remorse, and suffered 
the repi-oaches of the religious. He 
was summoned to a synod at Tailtan, 
and condemned, when absent, for hay- 
ing shed Cliristian blood. But Colum- 
ba had always shared the contests of 
his clan, and, though a monk, was still 
a prince of the O'Donnells. He went 
to the synod which had condemned him 
unheard, to dispute their decision. 
When Columba entered, the abbot 
Brendan, founder of Berr, rose up and 
gave him the kiss of peace. All won- 
dered, but (he abbot said : ^^ If you had 
seen, as I did, the fiery column and the 
angels who preceded him, you would 
have done the same. Columba is des- 
tined by God to be the guide of a na- 
tion to heaven." Tlie exconmiunica- 
tion was reversed, and the sentence of 
Columba was, that he should convert as 
many heathens as he had caused Christ- 
ians to die in battle. Columba was 
safe, but not at rest ; he went from 
desert to desert, and from monastery 
to monastery, to seek some holy teacher 
of penance. One hermit reproached 
him as the cause of war. 

*• It was Diarmid," he replied. 

'^ You are a monk,'^ said the hermit, 
*■ and should be patient." 

"* But," said Columba, *^ it is hard for 
an injured man to repress his just 
anger." 

He went to Abban, founder of many 
monasteriefs one of which was called 
the Cell of Tears. This meek soldier 
of Christ had often parted warriors in 



battle and gone anarmed to meet a 
pagan brigand, whom he converted to 
be a Christian and a monk. Columba 
asked him to pray for those whose 
death he had caused, and Abbao tM 
him their souls were saved. He then 
sought St. Molaisse, who was renowned 
for his study of the liolj Scriptures, 
and whose monastery is jet traced m 
the isle of Inishmurray, on the coast 
of Sligo. The stem solitary renewed 
the sentence of the synod, and added 
that of exile for life from his too be- 
loved country. Columba obeyed, lln 
told his warlike kinsmen, the Nialls of 
Tirconnell, that an angel had bidden 
him go into exile, on account of those 
whom they had slain on his account. 
None of them opposed the sentence, and 
twelve disciples determined to follow 
him. One was Mochouna, prince of 
Ulster. Columba refused at first the 
voluntary sacrifice, but yielded at last ; 
and the devoted band left Ireland for 
ever. 

It was in 563 that Columba lefl 
Ireland. Some say that he had of- 
fended King Diarmid by the severity 
with which he reproved vice. This is 
not the reason given by Adamnan, 
who succeeded him in his monastery 
of Hy, and left a collection of records, 
written at the end of the seventh 
century, which reveals the intention 
of the heroic apostle ; and, as it con- 
tains facts related by competent wit- 
nesses, this precious relic of antiquity 
is more valuable than a well-arranged 
biography. It must have been from 
the traditions of his monastery that he 
describes the saint, who was by nature 
so warlike and impatient, as retaining 
a tender and passionate love for his 
country, and a sympathy with all his 
national habits, while he quitted Erin, 
in expiation of the crime to which that 
love had led him. Columba did more 
than this; he sacrificed his poetic 
tastes and learned pursuits to convert 
not only the half-Christian Dalirads, 
who had early lei\ £rin for ScotUwd, 
but more especially the heathen Picts 
of the North, the descendants of the 
bi*av6 oppooentB of Agricola under 



An Irinh Saint, 



M7 



Galgacus, who were not oF his own 
Milesian race. 

St. (,'olumbkill was forty-two when 
he left his country in a wicker coracle 
covered with leather, in which he 
trusted himself with his twelve dis- 
ciples, confiding solely in God, to 
brave the tempests and the enormous 
waves of the sea which parts the two 
countries, with only the light of faith 
and the strength of prayers to guide 
them through the rocks and whirlpools 
which beset the misty archipelago of 
isles lying below the mountains and 
deep bays, or fiords, of Lochaber. 
Adamnan describes his Irish tonsure, 
which showed an Eastern rather than 
a Roman teaching ; the top of his head 
shaven, and his hair hanging down his 
back ; his majestic countenance, whose 
pride was softened only by religion; 
his princely features, whose severity 
was mingled with a cast of irony ; and 
his voice, whose tone commanded while 
it penetrated the heart, so that it is 
considered to have been one of the 
most miraculous of his gifls. Thus he 
braved the future, trusting in the 
simplicity of charity for safety in a 
savage land and savage tribes, to 
whom he brought the knowledge of 
truth and morals and the hope of 
heaven. His fiery temper, and the 
courage that fitted him for a soldier, 
and the genius which marked him for 
a poet or an orator, were devoted to 
the conversion of hostile chiefs ; and 
the violence of his own feelings enabled 
him better to infiuence the people, 
while it was softened by the great 
sorrow of his life, the exile from his 
country. With a heart yearning for 
Erin and its noble clans, he reached 
the desolate island of Oronsay ; and, 
iiscending the highest part of the rock, 
he saw in the south the distant moun- 
tains of Dalreida. He rejected the 
consolation, and left the island for 
lona. Then, finding that he could not 
from its highest point see the country 
he had abandoned, he fixed there his 
place of exile, and a heap of stones yet 
marks the spot where he discovered 
that the sacrifice was complete, and 



it is still called the Farewell to Ire- 
land. 

The island of Hy is low though 
rocky, and not a tree nor bush can live 
there ; for not only do the winds sweep 
over it, but ihe very spray of the 
Atlantic moistens it with salt showers. 
It lies amid the islets on the coast of 
Morven, already celebrated by Ossi in ; 
Stafia and i!s basaltic columns are on 
the north, and Mull with its lofty 
mountains on the south. Barren is- 
lands lie on every side, separated by 
deep channels ; and so narrow are the 
bays which run up between the moun- 
tains of the mainland that the water 
becomes a lake and the land a penin- 
sula. Forests then clothed theur sides ; 
and the clouds, which almost always 
hang on their summits, fall and rise 
above the precipices and waterfalls of 
that lofty coast,- peopled by unrecorded 
emigrants from Erin, whence Ossian 
had gone to Tara, and Fingal had 
made war and peace with the kindred 
tribes of Inisfail. 

It was within sight of this repulsive 
field of labor, where his penance was 
to convert souls, that Columba and 
his missionaries founded a monastery 
destined to be the centre of religion 
and civilization to Europe. The first 
building was of twisted boughs inkced 
with ivy, and it was many years before 
they cut down oaks in the forest of 
Morven to make the wooden edifices 
in use till the twelfth century. Thus 
Columba prepared for the future, but 
he had not forgotten the past Ho 
felt the bitterness of exile, and wrote 
verses, in which he prefers " death in 
Erin to exile in Albania ;" and then, 
in a plaintive but resigned tone, he 
sings : 



* Alas ! DO more I float npon ttiy lakes 
Or dance upon the bllloirs of thy golfs. 
Sweet Erin ; nor with Gomgall at my side 
Hear the ftrange music of the wild swanks cry 1 
Alas tliat crime has exiled me, and blood- 
Blood vhed in battle— stains my guilty hand I 
My guilty foot may not with Cormac tread 
The cloisters of my Durrow, which I lore ; 
My guilty ears may never hear the wind 
Sound in its oalcs, nor hear tlie blackblrd*i •OBf, 
Nor cuckoo, and my eyes may never see 
The land so loved but for its hated kings. 
*Tl« sweet to dance along the white-topped WKtm^ 
And watch them break In foam on Erln*i itniid ; 



668 



An Iruth Saint 



And fhtt my bark woald fly If onoe Us prow 
To Erin turned and to my native oakn ; 
Bat the great ocean may not bear my bark 
Save to Albania, land of ravens dire. 
My foot is on the deck, my bleeding heart 
Aches as I think of Krln, and my eyes 
Turn ever thither ; but while life endures — 
80 runs my vow — theae eyes will never see 
The noble race of Krln ; and the tear 
Fills my dim eyes when looking o*er the sea 
Where Erin lies— loved Erin, where the birds 
Slug such sweet rauHic, and the ohant of clerks 
Makes melody like theirs. O happy land ! 
Thy youths are gentle, thine old men are wise, 
Thy princes noble, and thy dxughters fair. 
Young voyuger, my sorrows with ttiee bear 
To Comgall of * eteruHl life,' and take 
My blestsing and my prayer, a sevenfold part. 
To Krln ; to Albania all the rest. 
My heart is broken in my breast ; if death 
Should come, it is for too much love of Uaels.'* 

Time never effaced this passionate 
regret, and, as the leprend says, when 
he was aged, he foretold that a W(.*ariod 
bird would be cast on lona, and he 
bade his monks feed it till it could re- 
turn to Injiand. But these regrets 
strengthened instead of dissipating his 
missionary ardor ; and,'while his na- 
tural disposition was unchanged, he 
became the model of penitents and 
ascetics and the most energetic of ab- 
bots* He received strangers and con- 
verted sinnera. He established a rule 
for bis monks, and dwelt himself like 
a hermit, lying on the bare ground 
upon a bed of planks. There he 
prayed and fuated, and there he con- 
tinued to transcribe the sacred text, and 
to study the Holy Scriptures, so that 
three hundred copies of the gospel were 
written by his hand. Crowds of pilgrims 
visited him there, and many did pe- 
nance ; but one in particular received 
from him the same penance he was per- 
forming himself, an exile to the isle of 
Ttree and a banishment from the sight 
of ( olumba. 

St. Columba was among his kindred 
in Lochabiir. The Scots wi»re a Dalra- 
diao colony, allies of the O Neills ; and 
he was the kinsman of their king, 
Connall, and from him he obtained a 
grant of the island of lona, and he la- 
bored among these half- formed Christ- 
ians. Then, as if he would break 
even this last tie to Erin, he became 
the apostle of the Picts, by dc^scent 
Scythians, by habits savages and hea- 
thens. Uoconquei*ed by Roma s or 
ChristiauAi they dwelt iu giens, inac- 



cessible except by water, and deserved, 
like their ancestors, the description of 
Tacitus, as dwelling at the extremity 
of the earth and of liberty ; and to tbem 
he devoted the remaining thirty-four 
years of his life. He crossed the moan- 
tains which divide the Scots from tlie 
Picis. and reached the chain of lakes 
which extends from sea to Rf»a. He 
was the first to launch his frairilc boat 
upon Loch Ness, and he f>enetrated to 
the fortress of their king. Bnide, which 
occupied a rock north of Invemes?. 
The king closed the doors of his fort- 
ress ; but Columba made the si?n of the 
cross, the doors rolled back on the bolts, 
and Columba entered as a victor. The 
king trembled in the midst of his coun- 
cil, and rose to meet the missionary; 
he spoke to him with respect, and be- 
came his friend, though it is not said 
that he became a Christian. But the 
Druids were his enemies. They were 
not idolaters, but worshipped the hidden 
powei*3 of nature, the sun and jiiars. 
and believed the waters and springs 
had the powers which were attribute 
by the Druids of Graul and Britain to 
oaks and forests. Columba drank their 
sacnnl water in defiance, and they tried 
to hinder him when he went out of the 
casile to sini; vespers. He chanted 
the psalm *' Eructavitcor meum ;" and 
they were silenced. 

81. Columba preached and worked 
mimcles among the Picts, and, though 
he s{)oke by an interpreter, he made 
converts. One day on the bsinks of 
Loch Ness he cried : ** Let us make 
haste to meet the angels, who are come 
down from heaven and await us beside 
the death-bed of a Pict, who has kept 
the natural law, that we may baptize 
him before he dies.' He was then 
aged himself, but he outstripped his 
companions, and reached Glen Urqu- 
hart, where the old man expected him, 
heard him, was baptized, and died in 
peace. And once, preaching in Skye, 
he cried out, ** You will see arrive an 
aged chief, a Pict, who has kept faith- 
fully the natural law ; he will come here 
to bo baptized and to die ;' and so it 
was. 



An Irish SainL 



609 



He once healed a Druid by miracle ; 
but he attempted to arouse the powers 
of nature against the saint, and, as he 
foretold, a contrary wind opposed the 
departure of Columba. But he bade 
the sailors spread the sail against the 
wind, and sailed down the Loch Ness in 
safely. Nor did he end his labors till 
he had planted churches and monas- 
teries throughout these wild valleys 
and islands. 

In 574, Connall was succeeded by 
Aldan on the throne of the Scots, and 
be desired to be consecrated by the 
abbot of lona. Columba refused till 
he was commanded by an angel to per- 
form the sacred ceremony at lona — 
the first time it had been done in the 
West. 

Montalembert observes that among 
the Celts tl)e monastic was superior 
to the episcopal office, and therefore 
the abbot consecrated the first of the 
Scottish kings on a stone called the 
Stone of Destiny, which was ultimate- 
ly carried to Westminster Abbey by 
Edward I., and is now the pedestal of 
the English throne. The Dalriads in 
Scotland were subject to the Irish kings, 
and it was to free them from their tri- 
bute that Columba was sent to Erin, 
which he thought never to sec again. 
The new king went also, and they met 
the monarch and chiefs at Drumheath. 
Aed or Hugue II. was now reigning, 
and he it was who had given to his 
cousin Columba the site of Derry. 
Columba and St. Colman obtained 
the independence of Scotland; and 
afterward St. Columba attended an- 
other assembly, which was to decide 
the existence of the Bardic order. 
There were three kinds of bards : the 
Fileas, who sung of religion and war ; 
the Brchons, who versified the laws ; 
and the Sennachies, who preserved the 
history and genealogy of the ancient 
races, and decided on boundaries. 
These last frequented courts and even 
battle-fields, and their influence was 
now so much feared that the monarch 
proposed to abolish or to massacre the 
bards. They were, in truth, a Druidic 
order, but they became Christians, 



though they were independent of all 
but their own laws. Columba was a 
poet even to his old age, and he saved 
the bards from the anger of the king 
by proposing to regulate and diminish, 
instead of destroying, the order. His 
eloquence prevailed, and thenceforth 
the bards and monks were united in 
spirit. Fergall, their blind chief, sung 
to Columba his hymn of gratitude ; and 
Bait ban, one of his monks, admonish* 
ed his abbot for his self-complacence. 
This Baithan was declared by Frinao, 
his brother monk, to be superior to any 
one on this side of the Alps for the 
knowledge of the Scriptures and the 
sciences. ^ I do not compare him to 
Columba,** said he ; '^ for he is like the 
patriarchs and prophets and apostles ; 
he is a sago of sages, a king among 
kings, a hermit, a monk, and also a 
poor man among the poor." 

Columba made afterward several 
visits to his monasteries in Ireland, 
working miracles as he went ; as when 
he went from Durrow to Clonmacnoise, 
and healed a dumb boy, who became 
St. Eman. He was received there 
by the religious, who walked in pro- 
cession to meet him, chanting hymns. 
He had not only a jurisdiction over all 
his monasteries, but a preternatural 
knowledge of all that went on there ; 
and he once interrupted his labors at 
lona to pray with his monks for the 
safety of some workmen at Durrow, 
and for softening the heart of its abbot, 
who was too severe on his monks. 
Columba was by natun^ impetuous 
and vindictive, and was still an O Neill 
in party spirit. Often in the monastery 
of lona he would pray for victory to 
his clan in battle, or he would pray for 
the men of his race or the kinsmen of 
his mother; and once, when aged, bo 
bade them sound the bell of the mon- 
astery, (a little square bell, such as now 
hung round the necks of cattle,) and 
sound it quickly. The religious has- 
tened around him, and he bade them 
pray for Aidan, his Dalraid kinsmaa 
then in battle ; and they prayed till he 
said, '* Aidan has conquered." 

Adamnan tells us of his own sancti* 



870 



An Iriih Saint. 



t J. One day he retired alone to a dis- 
tant part of the island, and he was seen 
with his hands and eyes Med up to 
heaven, and surrounded by angels, 
and the place was named ^ The Mount 
of Angels." As he grew older, he in- 
creased his austerity. He plunged 
himself into frozen water ; and, seeing 
a poor woman gathering bitter herbs 
to eat, he forbade that any other food 
should be brought to him. He used 
to pray alone in the little isle of Himba, 
and his hut was lighted up by night 
from heayen, while he sang hymns in 
a tongue unknown to his hearers« 
Having been there three days and 
three nights without food, he came out 
rejoicing that he had discovered the 
mysterious sense of several passages 
of Scripture. He returned to die at 
lona, and was already surrounded by 
a halo of glory ; so that, when he pray- 
c*d in the church at night, the brightness 
blinded the beholders. 

One day in his cell his attendants saw 
him in heavenly joy, and then in deep 
sadness, and they asked the cause. 

'* It is thirty years," he said, " since 
I began my pilgrimage in Caledonia ; 
and I have long prayed that I might 
be released this year. I saw the an- 
gels come for me, and I rejoiced; but 
they stood still down yonder on that 
rock, as if they could not come near 
me ; for the prayers of many churches 
have prevailed, and I grieve that I 
must live four more years." 

At the time appointed he was drawn 
on a car by oxen to take leave of the 
monks who were working in the fields. 
Another day he blessed the granary of 
the monastery, and foretold his death. 
This was on Saturday, and he said it 
would be the Sabbath of his repose. 
As he returned he met the old horse 
which carried th** milk to the monastery, 
and the horse laid his head u[)on the 



shoulder of his master, as if to fake 
leave of him, and the saint caressed and 
blessed him. Then, looking down fhn 
a hill on the monastery and isle, be 
stretched out his hands to bless it, and 
prophesied its future sanctity. Then be 
entered his cell, and was transcribing the 
thirt}'-third psalm, where he came to 
the words, ** Those who seek the Lord 
shall want no good thing ;*' and he said, 
^ Here I must end ; Baithan will write 
the rest," He went into the chuidi 
for the vigil of Sunday, and, retnmiog, 
he sat down on his bed of stone, and 
sent a message to his monks, and ex- 
horted them to charity. After that be 
spoke no more. 

Hardly had the midnight bell rung 
for matins when he ran first to the 
church, and knelt before the altar. It 
was dark, and one monk followed him, 
and placed his venerable head apoo 
his knees. When the community came 
with lights, they found their abbot dy- 
ing. He received the last sacraments, 
and opened his eyes, and raised bis 
right hand in silence, to bless his monk*. 
His hand fell, and he expired. He 
lay calm, and with the gentle sweetness 
of a man asleep in a heavenly visioo. 
That very night two holy persons in 
Ireland beheld lona enveloped in light; 
and then miracles began to be dont 
while his body hiy in the little church 
of lona. 

In the ninth century, when pirates 
ravaged the coasts, the body of the 
saint was removed to Down, and laid 
between those of St. Patrick and Su 
Bridget The pirates were punished 
by sudden death. The Norman, Strong- 
bow, died of a wound after destroying 
the churches of Colamba and the saints, 
and De Lacy perished at Durrow while 
he built a castle against the monas- 
tery. 



Charles F. at the Convent of Tuste. Wl 



From Chambert*! Joarnal. 

CHARLES V. AT THE CONVENT OF YUSTE. 

Shade and sunshine play alternate on the convent's massy walls ; 

In the cloister^s dim seclusion soft the stealthy footstep ialls ; 

In the quiet garden-alleys underneath the citron's shade, 

Pace the monks with open missals, downcast eyes, and silent tread. 

Birds are 8ingin<!^, bees are humming, trees are whispering, while through all 

Steals the silver tinkling, tinkling of the distant fountain fall. 

Far away, the wild Sierras stretch their ridges dim and high, 

Carving weird and warlike phantoms in the blue and dazzling sky ; 

Rising still in savage grandeur, till they reach the bounding main ; 

Mute protectors of their country, bulwarks of chivalrous Spain. 

Who comes hither, slowly sauntering, pausing oh awhile to rest ; 

Arms across so calmly folded, head declining on his breast ? 

More than common spirit lurkcth in the bright and clear blue ^ye ; 

More than common toil and travail in the brows' deep furrows lie. 

Weight of years and weight of trouble somewhat bow the haughty fonDy 

But the haughty heart within it still is beating quick and warm ; 

Iron heart that knew no bending, when the storm was fierce and loud. 

Soared above the thunder's roaring, dared the lightning, braved the cloud* 

Stalwart heart that still was foremost in the serried ranks of war ; 

Triumphed o'er the Gallic legions, foiled the Moslem's scimitar. 

Hardy Grermans ; proud Burgundians ; trusty Flemings, true as steel ; 

Mountaineers of wild Galicia, cavaliers of Old Castile ; 

Half the empire of the Old World ; half the treasures of the New — 

Mexico's gold-fiowing rivers, silver mines of rich Peru ; 

Wheresoe'er the sun ariseth, throwing o'er the hills his beams ; 

Wheresoe'er his dying radiance lingers on the lakes and streams ; 

Far as human foot can wander, far as human eye can scan, 

Bowed the nations, poured the treasures, marched the legions for one man. 

Yet he standeth there serenely underneath the chestnut bough. 

And the gentle air of summer playeth lightly on his brow. 

Grone the sceptre of the monarch, gone the priceless pearl and gem ; 

Grone the purple robe of splendor, gone the regal diadem. 

March of armies, fall of kingdoms, fate of war he little heeds, 

Kneeling on the chapel pavement with his missal and his beads, 

Listening to the simple brethren, chanting loud their matin hymn, 

Or the holy Ave Mary, watled through the twilight dim. 

He hath conned life's sternest lessons he hath learned them long and well. 

And the deep experience knoweth which their silent teachings telL 

Not the wildest hold of empire can the mind's expansion fill ; 

Vain the grasp of worldly power, worldly riches vainer still. 

High o'er all that eartli can offer, heaven s allurements beckon on. 

And the crown that never fadeth by the victor shall be won. 



672 



I%$ Orwdjix of Baden. 



TrantUted trom the French. 

THE CRUCIFIX OF BADEN. 



A LEGEND OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Eight days passed since Johann's 
departure before the young man again 
stood at the sculptor's door. Alas I in 
that silent and gloomy house, the click 
of the hammer striking the stone, the 
cutting of the chisel on the marble, the 
cheerful voices of the pupils, and the 
pure voice of Mina, singing her love 
lay in the morning or canticle at eve, 
were no longer heard. The great win- 
dow of the atelier was opaque and 
black, and no spark of light appeared 
in the house save where the weak and 
pale light of a little lamp shone through 
the window of the young girl's room, at 
the top of the house, and seemingly 
shadowed by the angel's wings. 

Johann sprang from his horse, tap- 
ped lightly at the door, and, throwing 
aside his travelling cloak, hastened to 
question the old servant. 

'* Where is your young lady ?"* 

** Above in her room. Her malady 
hath much increased since last we saw 
you.** 

'' And Master Sebald V 

**I8 at her side. She speaks and 
weeps in her delirium, and the master 
desir(*sthat weshould not approach her.** 

"But I may enter," said Johann. 
*• Fear nothing, Martha, I will not dis- 
turb her — ^you well know that, when 
I departed, it was to bear a message 
for Demoiselle Mina.*' 

Martha allowed the young traveller 
to pass, and he ascended the stairs ra- 
pidly yet softly, and glided noiselessly 
into Mina's room, of which the door 
stood half open. 

Beneath the thick curtains of the 
bed, undfT a canopy of dark blue da- 
mask, the white form of the sculptor's 
daughter was dimly outlined, indistinct 
and floating like a shadow, and scarce- 



ly perceptible, save where the jeUov 
ray of the silver lamp lit up two spark- 
ling, ardent, agitated flames from be- 
neath her dark lashes. How dry and 
desolate, and even fe4irful, were those 
late sweet glances, now glittering with 
the fires of fever ! Tears would bring 
more gladness to her father's heart 
than that wild splendor. So thoagfat 
Johann as he softly entered aod hid be- 
hind a large arm-chair in his eagerness 
to (>scape those burning glances. 

By the side of the bed Master Se- 
bald sat gloomy and silent ia a high- 
backed ebony chair. Hb gricf-wom 
countenance and gray head rested bpoa 
a hand which seemed to Johann to have 
grown, even in the few days of his ab- 
sence, more yellow and thin. The 
other hand was stretched toward the 
bed, and held chisped that of Mina. 
The old man watched every movement, 
every look, every sigh of his daughter. 
A moan from time to time broke from 
her lips ; then she pushed back with 
her thin fingers the waves of gold- 
en hair which fell over her pale fore- 
head, and began to speak in shorti 
gasping tones : 

" Wilt thou pardon me, my father?'' 
said she. ^' Once thou liadst confidence 
in me and wert happy. Nothing was 
wanting to thee ; neither the grace of 
God nor the respect of man ; neither 
success nor genius. Ah ! my father, 
when I reflect that thou mightest al- 
ways have been so, hadst thou no 
daughter ! Why came I ever into this 
world, or why died I not in ray cradle ? 
Then thou wouldst have mourned me, 
but with diffitrent- tears — with sweet 
and tender tears — tears of hope 
and benediction ; thou wouldst have 
placed me in my little coffin, and, whea 
afterward thou wouldst think of me, 
thou wouMst cease to weep, saying : I 



The Crucifix of Baden, 



em 



fiin a happy father, whose family is ia 
heaven — there have my pious wife and 
angel babe flown.' " 

Here sobs interrupted her voice. A 
heart-broken sigh from the father re- 
plied. 

The sick girl for a moment was si- 
lent, breathing painfully, and wiping 
away with her hand the drops of sweat 
which stood upon her brow. Then 
with a still more mournful voice, she 
continued : 

** Instead of that I grew, I lived, and 
I loved in vain. Father 1 my tomb- 
stone must bear the thorns of grief — 
the black cross of penitence. It will 
be a sad sight— my last dwelling. 
Mockery will sound around it ; the 
passer-by will point it out scornfully, 
but, if thy malediction floats not over 
it, my father — if thou wilt there shed a 
tear on the green turf — '* 

''O my Mina! my only child, 
talk not of maledictions or tomb? — I 
love thecy I tremble for thee, I pardon 
thee — and thou wilt live and yet be 
happy. Who caji say that Otho has 
proved false '^ Who knows that old 
Hans is not mistaken ? Who knows 
that we may not see him once more, 
generous, true, and loving thee, my 
Mina?" 

" We will never see him more. He 
loves me no more, my father. If old 
Hans were mistaken — ^if the lady of 
Horshcim were not to wed Otho, Jo- 
hann would long ere this have return- 
ed. Thinkest thou the good youth 
would delay to bring me glad tidings ? 
No — h? is generous, devoted, and ten- 
der. Why could I not love him ? I 
have been very weak, alas I but fa- 
ther, rememberest thou not how tall 
and gracious was the count ! How 
handsome ho seemed with his red 
plume overhanging his black hair, and 
his flne form encased in his steel cuirass ! 
And his voice that went so straight to 
(he heart ! his simple grace 1 his gen- 
tle nobleness I Who would not have 
loved such a gentleman ? And thou, my 
father, didst thou not first love him ?" 

^^ Yes, I loved him, Mina ; and I 
would yet esteem him." 
VOL. v.— 48 



<< Contemn him not, father; and, 
above all, seek not to be avenged on 
him r cried the girl, in a fit of sudden 
terror. '' Should a proud cavalier like 
him espouse a poor maiden like me— 
one who is not even a lady? Thou 
hast genius and glory, my father ; but 
thou hast no escutcheon. I should have 
loved Johann; he had such respect for 
thee — such devotion for me ; he would 
have given thee a happy old age, and 
me a peaceful life ; h<i loved me and 
would have sacrificed himself for me — 
he, who could find heart to see me 
happy in another's arms. Oh ! when 
Johann returns, tell him that I was not 
ungrateful, and that, if heaven is open- 
ed to me, I will there pray for him. ' 

Again her words were interrupted 
by a stifled sob ; she turned, and her 
eyes fell upon the great arm chair. 
She cried out, with fixed gaze and 
trembling lijis : 

''Johann is here— and weeping! 
Why speaks he not V* 

Then old Sebald turned and saw the 
young man. 

**Come hither!" he cried. «Thoa 
hast been at Horsheim; what hast 
thou seen ? See how pale — how burn- 
ing — how pitifully sick she is. Speaks 
my son ; say that old Hans erred wbea 
he named the husband of the Countess 
Gertrude !" 

Johann, erect and pale, for a moment 
did not reply ; he made a few timid 
steps toward the old sculptor, and 
whispered as softly as he could : 

** O master ! why ask me now ? 
Why force me to tell my tidings in 
her presence ?" 

And seeing a gesture of Mina's, he 
ceased. As low as he had spoken, she 
had heard. She lifted* her eyes, 
clasped her hands, and made an effort 
to speak. 

'* Thou seest, father, that I wae 
right," she murmured. *' Thanks, 
Johann ; thou hast proved thy courage 
and thy goodness of heart, and I re- 
joice that I am yet able to bid thee fare- 
well. But one last question — answec, 
if thou lovest me. When will Otho'i 
marria<;e take placfj ?" 



€74 



a^# Crucifix of Baden. 



*♦ In ten clays," sobbed JohaniK 

** nais very soon " replied Mtoa, 
fihuddering^. " My heart will be scarce- 
ly cold, and a single green bud will not 
have appeared over my grave. But 
may the earth be green, and the ftky 
blue, and life sweet to him." 

Saying these words, she crossed her 
hands upon her breast, and, speaking 
no more, remained thus for long hours, 
without even casting a look upon the 
weeping Johatin or upon her heart- 
broken father. 

The pliysician soon came, and after 
him the priest. The flrs^t hml marvel- 
lous seereta to cui-e I he body ; tlie latter 
had pious eon&ohition and words of 
peace for the soul. But they sought 
in vain to cure the body or slrengtheu 
the soul of Mina. Kach day, each 
hour, each moment stole a spark of I he 
waning fire of life; her grief was loo 
great for so frnil a form to bear, and 
one evening at the tndof July, ten days 
Jifk*r Johaiin'8 return, she closed her 
eyes forever, holding her father^s hand 
in hers and the crucifix to her lips. 
Johann was at her feet and received 
her ia-it ItMik. She had near her in 
dying the Supreme Consoler of heaven 
and her only two friends on earth, and 
there was in her last moments a ten- 
derness which the heart of the youth 
never forgot. 



CHAFTEB Vlt* 

Two days after, when the body of 
Mina had been depo:^ited at siinsL't in 
the ccraelery at Baden, Sebnld and 
Johann, the master and pupil, found 
themselves alone in the atelier. Strangel 
It was Johunn, the younger, thai seem- 
ed the most aMietiHl, inoHit crushed. 
His eyes were swollen, hi^ cheeks pale, 
his step toUering, and his face covered 
with tears* Old Sebald seemed much 
tees changed ; a few furrows the more 
im his bnj\%%a few more whhe hairs on 
iu8 head, were the only visible tokens 
of bis grief. Hrs step was as firm, his 
bearing as proud va before; but a 



stran ge, steady glare^ p^trwlng and 
ing^ showing little trace of m 
tears, shone from bis eje«, 
thie^ look that the nia8fer Bxtsl 
pupil as they entered the ii-telict 
made Johann shudder before itt 
and threatening liglit. 

^^ Johann/' said the iDa0ier« ^tl b 
now my turn to a.^k tbe^* a qoeMiflB* 
Sawest thou Otho of ^Vmeclt wbeo tboi 
wert at the castle of tbe Coutitea* Ge^ 
trude?*' 

*' Ay, master,'' repliet] the young fiHB, 
with fiushcfl face. 

*• Spokest ihou with bllD ?* 

*• Ay, truly,** 

"^ DMat say to him tbal I prated Us 
presence, or, at least, ihsu be fibottklex* 
plain himself? That I was in deefMit 
sorrow, and Minn »iek ttnto dcalb^ 

" Yea, truly, my ma&lcr*" 

**And what response nmdn IwT* 

^* Thiit he, too, was grieved ; hm tbat 
his wonl was pMg<ed, aod tliat oiitii 
his marriage he might not imre ibt 
cai?ile of the countess, Tbe sofV. !»• 
membra nces of youth^ he addedi Btf 
not, among wise men, tbe pm^jeeli c€a 
riper age.** 

"Tis well, Johann, aad I t 
thee," replied the sculptor- •* I i 
know what 1 wishcii to know. Hind 
resolution is taken/' 

Then he rose from bia arm-cltiitf 
threw a gloomy glance around iW 
of the studio. 

** I return hiilier no morpf"* 
murmured. *' llt-re have I toiled th' 
years with upright heart ami pui« 
bands. Nothing that I have here 
plered haa been sullied or prufkned 
feared and served Go%l ; I h- 
loved man. I then had a ri 
purity to my virgins, the li^^ 
to my martyrs, tlie halo of i 
cherubims. But now all is hj«it 
renown, and child. Holy luuii 
cjinnot touch ye with bniiaed heart 
violent hands ; hating and cursing mi 
X may not mould the augovl fbniiol'lh« 
GolI of love. Therefore, tio nmrt* mill 
I apfiear in this retreat; if 
shall remain darkened, its d«> , ^ 
I will carry with me ooljr my 





The Crucifix of Baden. 



675 



my memories, and this,'' he cried, seiz- 
ing a sculptor's chisel with a short, pol- 
ished, and keen blade, upon which he 
gazed with his strange look, as he grip- 
ped it with feverish strength in bis 
band. 

*^ Speak not so. O my roaster ! clasp 
not that steel so tightly,'* cried Johann. 
^ That will bring thee little of consola- 
tion or hope. Look for solace for thy 
sorrows to this," he said, holding an 
ivory crucifix before his master's eyes. 
^ It was pressed to Mina's dying lips ; 
she hath bequeathed it to us. Recallest 
thou not, my master, her smile as she 
gazed upon it ? 'Twas because beneath 
the shadow of the cross even death 
seems sweet. There is the only refuge, 
and there will I find shelter. The 
vtoM hath had but little of joy (br me, 
and I but little of love for the world. 
The prior of the Augustines hath pro- 
mised me a cell, and I will be happy, 
there to pass my life, praying or workr 
log beneath the poor robe of a monk, 
and preserving the memory and crucifiz 
ofMina." 

•* It is well, my son," replied Koer- 
ner. ^To each one his own succor 
and light, his own strength and safety. 
If, thanks to the priest's purer cross, 
thou findest calm and resignation, may 
I not seek the encouragement and 
strength of my sculptor's chisel ? Who 
may say, that, without these walls, I 
am not destined to achieve some work 
that will immortalize my name and con- 
sole my heart ? Then, why not leave 
to a father's grief the hope of glory, of 
triumph, and — this little sculptor's tool?^ 
demanded the old man, with flushed 
face and sparkling eyes. 

^I wish thee triumph and glory, my 
master. But yet, if thou canst do so, 
remember, when thou art active, diligent, 
and famous, that thy old pupil Johann, 
who would not be an artist and became 
a monk, will never cease to bless thee 
and to think of thee in his prayers." 

So 8a3nng, the youth, weeping, kissed 
old Sebald's hand and left the dwelling, 
carrying with him the crucifix, his last 
and only treasure. TV hen he had de* 
parted, Sebald Koemer, too, left the 



stndio, after casting a last look on tho 
bas-reliefs, the balcony, the mouldings, 
and the statues. He double-locked 
the door and took away the key, and, 
issuing from his house, he walked for a 
long time through the fields. Arriving 
at length at the side of a deep pool near 
the foot of the hills, he bent over the 
tranquil waters and dropped the key 
therein. 

The water plashed and the wavoj 
hastened in increasing rings from the 
spot, and then became even more dear 
and peaceful than before — stilling them- 
selves ere the key had touched the bot« 
tom. Sebald then again stood erect, 
with his icy glance and strange smile, 
yet grasping the chisel in his hand, and 
then concealing it in his bosom as if it 
were a dagger. 



CHAPTER Tin. 

One morning the Baron Otho of 
Ameck and the young Countess Oer- 
trade, now his dear lady and noble wife, 
were partaking in their house in Baden 
of their morning collation of fruits, 
hydromel, and spiced cakes. How 
charming seemed their repast, since 
they enjoyed it together. The cakes 
were exquisite, the hydromel of the 
sweetest ; the cups were of gold, the 
cloth of fine brocade ; Gertrude beau- 
tiful and loving. What was needed to 
complete Otho's happiness ? 

When the young baroness had dajv 
ped her hands to o^er away the break- 
fast service, the servant who entered 
approached the knight, bearing on a 
silver plate a piece of parchment folded 
in the form of a letter. 

** What have we here ?" asked the 
noble lady. *^ Another invitation ? In- 
deed, Otho, they become wearisome. 
We are allowed no rest, although hap- 
piest together." 

^ It ia indeed an invitation, but not 
one for thee, my cherished one," re- 
plied Otho, when he had cast his eyes 
over the missive. 

^ In good sooth I And who is it who 



CTIJ 



The Crvcijix of Badm, 



dares so soon to attempt to separate 
iboe from thy wife?** 

•* An unfortunate inatJ, and as such 
ibou must forgive liim/* replied Otbo, 
gmilin^. 

" And what demands heT* 

" Thou shall hear, sweet one," 

And the knight, unfolding the sheet 
of parchment, read these words aloud 
to the ha rone S3 : 

'♦ An old friend — a once dear friend 
— prays the Baron of Arneek to fp'ant 
him a moment's converse for the jsake 
of their common affection and of Vm 
unhappy \oU The Baron Or bo is 
happy ; that is a reason why ho .should 
Keek to pay his debt of gratitude to 
tieavcn by aidin^^ the unfortunate. Let 
him, then, not refuse tlils |»rayer which 
a friend^s voice addresses to Inm. 

*' For many reasons^ which the writer 
will explain by wofd of mouth, the 
meeting should be in the buna)-n:rouDd 
of Baden ; for the old friend of the 
Baron of Anicck can no longer have 
the honor of reecivinj: him in lii^ bouse, 
hereafter forever closed and aceuraed. 
The Baron of Anieck is expected to- 
morrow monjing at six of the clock.** 

*^How simnge a letter I Mow stranpje 
ft meeting-place !'' cried Gertrude, 
turning pah*. ** Cans*t imagrQC, Otho, 
who hatb addressed it thee ?* 

** Some ban limbed friend. Thou 
knowe8ti Gertrude, that at tlie acces- 
sion of the present margrave many 
nobles of Baden \vere exiled, and among 
thetn were some old friends of my la- 
ther, and without doubt ii i& one of 
them who bath written (hit)*" 

** But — ^but, Otho— why shoukl he 
choose such a pUice of tryst ? A plaiM; 
BO solemn* so fearful ! where tliere are 
only the dead and tlieir tombs ?** 

^^Tis the time and place that should 
reassure tliee, my chen?hed one. One 
harboring designs of evil would ha%c 
appointed a tbret^t, ma v hap, or a 
hostel; bui never a buriaUpbce, wheit; 
no Christian man would do aught of 
wrong, and, my sweet wife, nor my 
lather nor 1 had ever friend amoQg 
infidels/' 

♦*Thou wilt go, then X* said Gertrude. 



" or a surety/' 

** Alone r 

*' Even so, foiv if It be a pra^M 
exile who seek^ me, oar Turkti Btifi 
not know of K\a preseoee.** 

*' But fearest thou do danger, OiW 
When tliou wert alaue^ tboiti ioi||iit 
hugh at pmdence ; bat uow, can«t tbra 
forget that I am here? that I Inveasd 
tremble for thee?'' 

** Fear tiot, my love. Even if Ail 
request should hide a - tiki I 

credit not— remember :. o^''^ 

of the cemetery would oai give ffr 
trance to a party of armed tbiai, vai 
that against one I have my M\\ to ifcr 
fend me atid this/^ Aaid htt, dmiac 
fix^m liid belt a pointed and kc>C8^s%ei 
dagger. *^ But imag^tne not Tain tcr> 
rorH, u\y Grertrude, He wiio hask 
written rne hath may bap for \mtgjtmn 
ta.^ted naught of tendemc-ss or joy, aol 
our hnppintHs should render us tlH 
more kind to the unfortunate.'* 

The young wife felt proudly moft^ 
at (hee^e noble words of her hoshsUNl, 
and the hap[\y pair bi^gjin their pnrpa* 
rations for ihe margrave's nic^tios. 
and s|[>oke no more of i\%^ stntnge i 
ing of the morrow. 

Olho, however, did not : 
and scaiveiy had he perrrriv" 
rosy tiniii of day when ho nr 
donned \\h t'^urpoint and elo.i! 
trude yet i^k'pt, and, after k 
wiff*!5 foivbead and tetKhiT 
her flaxen hair, he saUir 

Half an hfiur later &^^ 
burial ground ; but, nhht i 
rived before the hour i 
eaw that the unknown 
there. 

A beautiful August momii}^ spitod 
its freshne^^ anrl virginal aplr:ndorov<! 
the earth; turtle-<love« odcmkI in th 
tall y&Xf trees ; and - 
earh utiier amont; t: 
buihe:», lihoweivd the dew di- 
git I tcrcd uj^on the Icfivr? in 
diatncnidg over the j 
JitWd tlieir tittle whr 
crowui* above t!i^ gmas^gnv* i 
and tiie grim lombfttonea, onri 
bh^ck rroMK*^, nxmed to eattaiide iMr 



WA8 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



en 



sombre look and to dress tbemselves 
almost gayly in the growing sunlight. 

" If Grertrude were here, she would 
cease to tremble," murmured Otho, 
advancing. *'Who could fear in the 
midst of the melody yon tiny songsters 
pour forth, or surrounded by this 
light, this perfumed air, and walking 
in 60 verdant a sod IT 

There was, however, a dark stain 
amid all this splendor. In an angle 
at the foot of a lof^y ash stood a man 
whose tall form and black attire were 
sharply outlined in the surrounding 
brightness. 

** Yonder is my unknown," thought 
Otbo, and with a few rapid strides he 
approached him. 

The man stood motionless, his bead 
bowed upon his breast, bis eyes fixed 
upon an oblong space upon which the 
grass had not yet begun to grow. 

**Thou art doubtless he who hath 
called me hither,** said Otho. ** I am 
the Baron of Arneck." 

The stranger quickly raised his 
head and threw back the hood of his 
mantle, exhibiting to the young 
knight's gaze thin locks of snow- 
white hair, and a face on which sorrow 
had traced more furrows than age. 

*' Master Koemer!" cried Otho^ 
joyfully stretching forth his hand. 
•* But why so much mystery and solem- 
nity ? You needed but to call me to 
your side, dearest master, if grief or 
calamity threatened, and, whatever 
might have conspired to keep me back, 
I had obeyed the summons ; and, in- 
deed, I have heard that you were 
afflicted, but I hope that the Demoiselle 
Minj^ hath fully recovered from her 
illness.** 

" She is healed, indeed," replied old 
Sebald again, lowering his eyes to the 
bare spot of earth. 

"If I have not before presented 
myself at your house," continued Otho, 
who felt it necessary to offer some 
explanation, but who could not without 
blushing attempt it,* " it was because I 
felt it well to silence by mj absence 
the slanders of envious tongues, and, 
believe me| my masteri that such a re- 



solution cost me dear. For you, ex- 
cellent master, I hold deep respect and 
warm friendship, and I honor and 
admire your daughter, who to me is a 
model of beauty, of wisdom, and of 
modesty. Her praises are ever upon 
my lips, and sweet memories of her in 
my heart." 

"'Tis well — very well," murmured 
the old sculptor; <^ but be careful, Sir 
Knight, you are treading upon her 
grave!" 

And with trembling hand and fiiish- 
ing eyes, he pushed Otho, who un- 
wittingly had trod upon the turfless 
space, back, back, far from the grave. 

** Can this be true ?" cried the knight* 
turning pale. ** Mina dead 1 sleeping 
here I She so young, so beautifid, 
so tenderly loved ! And you called me 
not, master, to accompany her to the 
tomb to weep with you I " 

** You are very generous. Sir Knight ; 
but what I would demand of you is not 
your tears.*' » 

"Need you, then, friends or aid? 
You know, Master Koemer, that since 
I have known you I have been but too 
glad to place my influence, my relations 
at your service, and I would now glad- 
ly offer you the benefit of my fortune. 
Speak quickly, I pray you. Command 
of me what you need or desire.'* 

" I will first relate to you a tale of 
truth, and then demand vengeance of 
you," replied the old man, in calm tones 
but with glittering eyes. *' Sir Knight, 
you presented yourself at my dwelling 
with the fervor of an artist and the suIh 
mission of a pupil. You sought, you 
said, a nobler and holier goal than sue- 
cess at court or the triumphs of war; 
you wished with ardent heart and zeal- 
ous hand to produce the sacred images 
of our Saviour, his virgin Mother, and 
the saints. And I believed you. Sir 
Knight ; for to me art was more glori- 
ous, more fruitful, more divine than 
aught else on earth, because in art I 
found my mission, my recompense, my 
safety, and my lite. But you deceived 
me ; you, who pride yourself on your 
name of gentleman ; and, while feigning 
to study my art, yoa were killing my 



tro 



The Crucifix of BadefK 



daiigbler. Reply not; deny not my 
worcU,'* continueil Sebald, fixin);^ a 
lurid gaze upon Ollio, whose words died 
on Ilia lips* ** She loved you, and 
for your sake died. But be?ore con- 
deinrung you, jiislice ooramancls me to 
Lear you. You yourself have j ust said 
Mina was wise, beautitiil, and pure; 
that you lauded her virtues to the 
world ; why, then, did you uoi we«l her?" 

" Beeauifsc — because ^ — " stammered 
Olho, h lushing — '* because. Master Se- 
hfild, your daughter was not nohlc. 
You well know, my dear master, that 
the customs of the nobihly are sacred. 
Many a one of us is lorced to silence 
I he voice of his heart, lest, as they say, 
a stain ghould be ca&t on his escutcheoo. 
Why was Miaa a burj^ess's daugbt^-r 
a nd not a eo u n teas ? Bu t y on y ou rs el f 
uridersiaudt my old master, that I, 
whose anceilor3 were counted among 
the companions of Cbarlemajjoe— that 
I could not tjike for ray wife tfie daugh- 
ter of a sculptor, without title, without 
crest or qwarterinns/' 

Olho pronounced these words in a low 
voie^, w^tli dropping head and down- 
cast eyes* He dared not meet the gjanee 
of the sculptor, who remained a momeDt 
silent, and then spoke : 

*' Otbo of Arneck, you have crushed 
the father and slain tlie child. As you 
say, t!ie sculptor has neither title nor 
quarteringa, but he has an arm t\>r veti- 
\ Bce!" 

''7'''^ And springing furiously forward, 
more rapid than thought in his move- 
ment, the old man, his eyes gleam ing, 
but bis hand gnispingtinnly (lie flitter- 
ing ehrseL, tlung himself U(*on the ba- 
ron, and befoi'e the latter could draw 
the daggi?r from his glnlle, the steel 
disappeared in liie folds of his velvet 
doublet and buried itself in his breaj*i. 
The hand thai aimt^ it was firm, the 
blow was sure; the chisel as of old 
failed not to {lerform its master's wiU; 
and Otho of Anieek fell upon the bare 
gpiice of ground — fell, never more to 
rise, u|K>n I he very spot where Mina lay 
cold and d^ad, 

**TUou dogt well — thou art aveng)ed,'* 

lAped the fallen man^tixing hk glitdag 






eyes upcMi SebAld. ** f n lltr pbe© 
bad done likewise — ^buf — tn hrmurMt 
combat — tor I — I ani a kotght A&da^ 
ble. But I truly loved Bliutt-** 

His head dropped back, bis limb n^^ 
laxed, and he was silent. Tb 
red blood of youth and beallh tti^ 
from tbc wound and stained rbe 
earth. 

Sebald, with his arms folded npoe 
his breast, gazed upon bis work. 

** Let his bl*>od How t>n,'' tuB mar* 
mured at length; "let il mobtro turr 
cafBn, as it shoatd. Aiid nav I sbaQ 
deliver myself to justice, Mt rat 
geance a» a father and my tDASBlcm u 
a sculptor are fultJllctl/* 

He turntMl airay and tvalked iKli 
rapid bteps from the cemetery, 
his wca[x>u still filled in Uie 
body, 



CHAPTER ir. 

A FEW weeks aAcr the occu 
detailed in the last chapter, an a 
gmy day oftbe autumn of 1435, a 
of the burgesses of Biiden assembled 
the great hall cf justice to listen to IJ 
judgment to be pronounceil 
Master Koemer, the sculptor. ** \Vlio^* 
said Ihey, •' would have imagined 
months since that a man m 
and just to all, an artist so skti 
fervent a Christian, would be d 
to that seat of infamy ?*' They ivottfi 
as soon have expected to hear tti<* I 
judges condemn them themitielvetf (^ 
death and to see ihi*m selves led by (be 
grand-provost to the gibbet. Master 
Sehnld a criminal! Master Seball an 
assassin ! Alas for jjoor humanity, if 
that were all sixty years of virUic oouki 
bring forth ! 

Nevertheless, there he wai, Uin ailtit 
criminal — the white-haired murderer — 
standing erect before the magistrate* tii 
their robes of ermine and carnation^ lie* 
fore the ivory image of CI n* 
with its black velvet hack ^ 
hung abo\ v their seats. Ther^ U^ *(oudf 
while near him un a lable lay tbe 



The Crndfis of Baden. 



979 



witnesses against him : the velvet poor- 
point, si iff with blood; the fine linen 
tunic, now reddish brown in its hue; 
the murderous chisel, with its once 
gleaming blade dark and rusty and 
covered with a crust of clotted blood. 

Several witnesses were called : the 
servant who received from Master Se- 
bald the treacherous letter, which he 
delivered to Count Otho; the keeper 
of the burial-ground, who testified to 
having seen the accused enter the field 
of the dead on the morning of the twen- 
ty-second of August. But tears flowed 
fastest when the Countess Gertrude, 
the youthful widow of the baron, gave 
her deposition. While relating her 
mournful stor}', the noble lady swooned 
several times, and her beauty, her pla- 
cid face, and long, closed lashes, and 
waving flaxen hair, unfastened and 
rolling in masses over her black robe, 
80 moved the auditory that more than 
once the life of the assassin seemed in 
instant danger. 

But the depositions of witnesses were 
almost useless. The most striking evi- 
dence of his crime was the chisel lying 
there, still covered with the victim's 
blood. And when the president, after 
declaring to Master Sebald the crime 
of which he stood accused, asked, point- 
ing to the blood-stained weapon, *^ Dost 
thou recognize thy chisel?" the old 
sculptor replied: 

" Yes ; it is mine.'* 

" And thou seest that with it was 
the life of the Baron of Ameck taken. 
Canst thou say by whose hand he came 
to his death ?" 

" Yes — by mine," replied Master Se- 
bald unhesitatingly. 

'* So thou hast already declared in 
delivering thyself up to the hands of 
justice," said the president. ^ But 
that declaration, made in a moment of 
trouble and grief, was insufficient. It 
needed a public avowal to confirm it. 
But one question more: Thou hadst 
doubtless motives for the commission 
of so barbarous an act Y** 

** Assuredly," replied the sculptor. 
^ No man kills wantonly one who was 
for three years his pupil and his friend.** 



^ What cause, then, impelled thee V 

The prisoner remained silent for a 
moment, bowed his head still lower, 
clasped his hands tight together, and 
bit his lips till the blo^d trickled from 
them ; then he replied ; 

** No ; my motives were too holy. I 
will not tell them." 

*^ Reflect, accused," said the presi- 
dent. ^* It is because thy motives were 
grave that they should be revealed. 
Reflect ; and say why such a crime sul- 
lies thy once pure hands." 

" No," repeated Sebald, ** I am ready 
to die, but the history of my crime dies 
with me." 

Then a young man dressed in the 
habit of an Augustine novice, who had 
obtained the favor of remaining by the 
side of the accused, rose, and in a 
timid voice addressed the judges : 

^^ Although, my lords, I know not 
fully Master Sebald's motives, I may, 
perhaps, suspect them. There are 
moments in the lives of the wisest and 
of the most just when the heart may 
harden and the judgment err under the 
goad of some great grief. Remember, 
my lords, that Master Koerner has 
lost his only child, and you, who knew 
the daughter, can conceive the grief of 
the father." 

^ Johann ! be silent !" cried old Se- 
bald, rising, trembling and furious. 
'^ Let the dead sleep in their graves. 
Their agony is past, and mine needs no 
increase. I make no avowals — ^I de- 
sire no defence. The crime was mine— 
the vengeance was mine, and I seek but 
to die with my secret I" 

The old man fell back exhausted by 
this burst of indignation, and the young 
friar, covering his face with his hands, 
sank upon hb knees before his master 
upon the stone floor, while the president 
glanced around upon his colleagues, as 
if to read their judgment in their faces. 

^' Before such a resolution," said he, 
*' further questions were useless." 

Then he called upon the prisoner 
to stand erect and listen to his sentence, 
which the clerk proceeded to read. 

^ Master Sebald Koerner, sculptoi 
and bui^ss of the good city of Badeoi 



fW 



TTfce Cr^idjtx of Badtn^ 



liarinjjbeen convicted of having, on the 
mornin* of August t we titj* second last 
past, treacherously wounded and killed 
the noble Otho Riy ner, Baron of Arneck, 
ftnd etiquire to his highness the mar- 
gitive* b condemned to die by the 
halter.** 

** Accused, hast au<rht to say ?" (wkcd 
the pn^!*ident when the reading of the 
doom wfti^ ended. 

** Nothing/' replied Mnaler Sebald, 
bowing wiLlj folded arms before lUe 
judges. 

The pivsidenl cjivered his head with 
his black furred rob<*, and continued: 

** Master J the justKHj of man hath 

pmnoiinced thy doom, and will sm>n be 

satisfied* AVhh a common criminal 

our office would here end, and but a 

few words of exhortation to repentance 

would accompany him to thw cxecu- 

^•tioner. But^ criminal as tliou ai*t, we 

cannot forgt^t that for ^ixly years lliou 

wast our nei^riibor ^jj^ one frit^nd, and 

, that those hands now i-ed with murder 

lliAve carved many a pure and holy 

itDdge to strengthen and Bfl our eouU 

* towartt God, 

** How ci\i\M Ihou, whose works have 
80 long f^lorified our Lord, now refuse 
to repent ? lla«*t thou not rfad a 
thousand limes tfie command* " Thou 
shalt not kill ' ? Hast ni-'ver reflected 
Upon our Sa^^our*fl agony — \m wounded 
hands^ his lance pierced side» his crown 
fsX thorns, the blows his face received, 
his shatuHS, his f;riefs, avenged only 
by the word8» * Failier, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do ' 't Thou 
hast lhou;rht u[ion all this; thou hast 
even modelled with thy hands the bloody 
scenes of thy lit*deemer s life ; and yot 
ihuu couldst not learn to forgive — thou, 
who vvast but a man T* 

Here the president was for a mo- 
ment silent, overcome by hi a emotion^ 
and the old sculptor, as if shaken in his 
flcrce resolve and gloomy pride l»y tlie 
worth of his jndge» slowly lifkivt his 
hmd and cast a trouble*! look around. 
**In th** binerness of thy heart/' eon- 
turned the president, ** in the madness 
of thy wrath, all this thou didst for- 
grt i and yet lo recall it all to mind, thoa 



m^m 



ncededst but to Ufl ihioeefeiL Qm 
not on as. Master Sebald ; bmr llif 
glances higher, and see above os tm 
pallid face, the wounded fonii«lbo bslr 
eyes of him who loved more tluui thn^ 
who sufl:ered more than tUau, tu>d wk* 
only avenged himself u^xiii Itk tor- 
turers by saving Uiem from dcall^ 
albeit at the price af his own blmnelflA 
life, llarkon to mo, betrayed IHttiil 
that Man 'God hud, too, a frieoi tai 
wa* betrj^ved by the ki^s of tttat fHeadi 
listen, unhappy father] that Fftlliip 
was sold, ftcourged, cnicifitni by hii 
children. And if i7iis G<mI» reviM, 
dishonored, avenged not ItiotsdC wii 
it not to set man an exaiuplo of ias 
gireness ? Thou hast not vet expialil 
thy crime. Master Kocnier, jumI %\m 
hand of tha executione^r will sooa ds^ 
liver thee to a higher Jud^^e, Ckn^ 
will await thee at the jrihbct, ju«t and 
inflex:iblc. Gaze on Uitn t^rit iby death, 
[K>or sinner, with fairhund tore, fortllf 
Judge is also th) Saviour/' 

Ho speaking, the president unoavi^red 
his head and pointed sotomnty to the 
ivory crucifix. The eyes f>f * Mi&Mfr 
Koerner followetl the iipltficd 
and rested on the agonised llicv ol 
Christ, Then their tixed and ston/ 
ghire grew 8oA ; their dry and bumti^ 
lustre gi'ew moist ; his lins quivcreil | 
he claspt-d his hands, ami, after Miae 
momenls of tierce stru;;gling with liini. 
self, the old artist murmured itia lum- 
bling voioe : 

** Christ I God of iho wretcbetl^-Ood 
of fathers — alas ! sin(30 Minii^# lin fj i^ 
never have I turneil mioe ovt t9 
tbeo!" 

ilid head felt once morti iipcm hSi 
bresat and his voice wiis choki?tJ b a 
sob, while Joluinu at his side Tdled hk 
hands toward heaven in au ecstasy of 
joy and giatitude. 

There was a murmur and a oioliQa 
in the crowd ; then all wasaileooengiiQ 
as Uie voice of the pn^sidem aroM ooca 
more: 

" A ray of grwe© from oq higli liaih 
illumined thee ; let us pray that it may 
ouoduet thee ihruugh Iht* galea of die«yli 
to eiisrual light. X have a Utm woida 



y 



I 



The Crucifix of Baden. 



681 



more to address thee. The court, while 
punishing as it should the crime of the 
murderer, forgets not the merits of the 
artist. It therefore accords thee, to 
lessen the bitterness of thy last moments, 
the favor thou mayst most desire. Re- 
flect, Master Sebald, ere thou fixest thy 
choice. Any grace thou mayst demand 
shall be accorded, any save life." 

A murmur of astonishment and joy 
ran through the crowd, which was hush- 
ed only to hear the old sculptor's reply. 
]^Iaster Sebald remained long silent, 
but at length rose and spoke : 

" I would not ask life were I free to 
do so," he answered. " My life hath 
already been too long, and she whom I 
Jove awaits me beyond the grave. But 
you have spoken of expiation, my lord, 
and it seems to me that even here be- 
low my death would not afford a com- 
plete one. My life, ended at the gibbet, 
may satisfy the justice of man ; but what 
Bhall I do to appease the anger of my 
God ? Dare I appear before him with 
no penitential act to plead for my par- 
don ; no work of reparation wherein 
with sweat and tears I might have 
washed my bloo<l-8tained hands ? Re- 
pentance came while I gazed upon yon 
crucifix; in carving another, pardon 
might perhaps descend upon me from 
heaven. If the court will lor a few 
weeks prolong my life, as I now see 
Christ's image before me^ so will I pro- 
duce it in the stone I*' cried he with en- 
thusiasm. <* I ask not to quit my pri- 
son — to live in the midst of men. No ! 
let me be immured in a dungeon, let 
my door be sealed until I leave it to go 
to my death. Let but a ray of sunlight 
enter, that I may see to model the au- 
gust countenance of my Grod, while I 
remain there with the thoughts of eter- 
nity and the remembrance of my crime 
for my only companions." 
• ** Master Koemer," replied the judge, 
" thy request is that of a good Christian 
and a noble artist, and the court ac- 
cords it with joy, in the hope that the 
work of thy last days may bring thee 
pardon and salvation. Thou wilt be 
led back to thy dungeon, and, before 
its door closes upon thee, all thou mayst 



require for thy work will be brought 
thee." 

The judges arose and retired. Jo- 
hann, radiant with joy, and hid grief 
almost consoled, accompanied his old 
master to the prison, and then sought the 
stone, the clay — all that the sculptor 
could need. Even the fotal chisel, 
cleansed of its stains, was brought to 
him bright and shining, like the soul of 
the criminal which, stained by sin, would 
soon be cleansed by grief and labor. 

Then the old sculptor passed his 
hand over his seamed brow and hollow 
cheeks and called for a mirror. The 
door was then built up with stooe and 
mortar, and only an opening lai^ 
enough for his food to be passed through 
was lef^, and Master Sebald stood alone 
in the cell which he was only to leave 
to pass to the gibbet. 



CHA.PTEB X. 

SoLiTCDE was the cradle of creation ; 
solitude is the never-ceasing fountain 
wherein exhausted souls are refreshed. 
Not without an object did the prophets 
begin their mission in the desert. Who 
would leave after him an immortal 
name must retire from the haunts of 
men, and in solitude examine his soul 
ere he speaks to mankind from the ros- 
trum, or with the pen, the chisel, or the 
penciL When the busy hum of the 
world has faded away into silence, 
when he hears no voice but that of his 
heart within, and nature without, and 
God above, he will then feel the flame 
which brings immortality. The voice 
he hears will be that of truth ; the hand 
which stretches toward him that of jus- 
tice; and all the strength of the one 
and the charms of the other will glow 
in his work. 

Master Sebald's dungeon was the 
most real, the most complete of soli- 
tudes. Thick walls of gray granite^ 
upon which shone green and slimy tra- 
ces of the dampness that filled the air» 
formed a circle around him without an 
anglej a recess, an irregularity on whicb 



•8« 



T%i Crucifix of Badifi^ 



ihe weary eye miglit resU A plank and 

^ ^ truss of straw wt»re hia bed ; a block 

^ iif sloiie wiis h\B only seat ; there was 
no door, for such was old Sebald'g wish. 
Light alone — sweet lighl — wa.^ not de- 
li i«?rl the captive, but flowed abundant 
and golden ihrougli a large ojjening in 
the vaulted rn^jf. Bat by day only was 
the boon granted, and then it bore wilh 
It no sifrht of that world where men 
dwelt, no view of the sunlit waters, the 

I green lielcb, or the leathei^ed children 
of ihe air. Nothing of these eould he 
enjoy; not h in"; hut that flood uf day 
flowing from the open heaven u|M:m tho 
criminars brow, like the jnise of Eler* 
nal Lcve, ever open to hearts that 
yearn for it ; and ueverthele^ss. when 

, Master Sebald thu^ found himself im- 
aored in a living tomb, when nothing 

lof earth remiuned to Inm 8ave stone 

I wallis, hii5 niodi'lling clay, and his chisel, 
then inspinilion of a crreater power than 
it bad ever hemre ii'li till-d hi^ soul, 
and in that inspiration and in hi-* work 
he wotdd have found joyful eonipuu- 
ions ; he would have been hajipy, were 
it not that two dark and vengeful 

Lguej3t^ found lodgment in hiA hreasii 3or- 

• jTow and remorne. 

His remor»e was for bts crime, hU 
sorrow for his clVild. They wore 

rdee|>er the furrows in Im brow ; they 
made his hair whiter, his step more 
feeble and uncertain ; they sunk bis 
©yea deeper in their sockets. They 

(tortured him in \m weary watcliings ; 
they gave form to his dreams and brokt! 
and almost banished sUimlx r ; they 

_«tood before hira when be worki^d or 
prayed — his fomierhate and biw tbnner 
l>ve; bis victim avid bis cinM. The 

Fjgolden hair of bi^ Mina glittned in 
»ild waves befoix? bid eyes ; he saw the 

Imanly face of Oiho pale and cont meted 

[irith agony, wliile the gushing bh)od 
loured from his wound; he ciosied his 

l«ycB» but still their forma stood bt^fore 

|llin>f lx)th bLckoning to the threshold of 
bat world where eternity begins. 

The old master commenced bid work, 
ever Burrounde^l by these sad com* 
pan ions. Ever hearing the last mfit* 
murd of Otho, the last sigha of Mioai 



he carved the holy croas oad \3m 
mit of Calvary ; then the 6i 
scroll J then the sacred form. E' 
haunted by his vifliooA of the dead, 
knew better to give to the* divine C 
lied the writhing of livtii*^ asroov joi 
to the beginning rigidity of denti; 
remembered the last qui 
man strength and the m 
of the winding-sheet. It 
when be camt; to carve tl 
Chri.^t that imagination and mi 
ceaj^ed to furnish him a modeL Mijia% 
passionate grief and pioua i-r^l^natloa « 
the mingled humiliaiion, jvpcntaoo^ 
grief, and lage of the murdorf>d Olb» 
could give naught to be reprotiueed fa 
the countenance^ of a God. lie mail 
feCL'k Ids moflel elsewhere t and 31a^fct 
Sebald iiad not asked for bb tnlrrc»r 
vain. 

Standing erect before bin work, 
begun to chisel the face of Christ; ant 
lor the Hrst time since bi^^ priaon walk 
closed upon him he gazed UfKio hit 
own reflection. The long gaite apoa 
ht8 white head and bis grief* woim 
features sat is tied him. 

Uis own face was a book, a book 
of sorrows speaking tdosI elo4uenllj» 
wherein all bitterness, all tailiug^ jdt 
regrets, and all terrors, the di'eams of 
theartist^ tht^ humiliation of the maimer, 
the friend Ix'trayed, tlie suffering* of 
the father, the anguish of the conderoD- 
ed, iiad inscribed their memorici aod 
left their fiKit prints. The n^ony of 
Miij^ter Sebald was already lon^ aod 
biul been cruel and storn^y. Ali 1 liii 
remembrances of Qtho's trcacherv wctw 
its the wounds in the haiidj ami (red 
the brand uf dts honor Uf>on his brow 
was as the crown of thorns ; and the 
hist wound, the stab of the lance, wai 
the loss of Mitm. So, that afier bug 
contempltiting his own features, tUe old 
sculptor knelt humbly before tlic wovk 
he had begun. 

- Pardon, O Christ I" he said, ** if l 
a weak muriakau unworthy and sinful 
inani dares in carving thy iiacred linea* 
ments, tnicc mine* But I design it^t, 
O Ijord I to show thee bappy ajid ftdl 
of peace, or radiant and gloriuus* 1 



frSH 

^1 



ITie Crucifix of Baden. 



es8 



promised to present thee suffering, suf- 
fering even the death of the cross ;' I 
suffer that of the gibbet. A friend be- 
trayed thee; a friend betrayed me. 
Thou wast loaded with insult and igno- 
miny ; I too iiad good cause to blush 
before my judges. Thou weepest over 
the sins of men, thy children ; I over 
ray child^s grave. And as, O Lord ! 
thou wert man as well as God, I may 
not offend th'ee in copying the anguish, 
the griefs, the sufferings that have left 
their print upon my brow. All these 
thou knowest, O Lord I but remorse 
thou couldst not know. Tiiat will I 
keep to myself, and in its stead I will 
place radiance, hope, and splendor of 
divinity. Ay, hope ! for even on the 
cross didst thou hope and call upon thy 
Father I ' 

Here the old sculptor ceased, and 
bent before his work, while the shadows 
of despair darkened his brow. Then 
he cast a troubled look upon the statue, 
a look in which anguish mingled with 
prayer, confidence with terror. 

** And can I hope ?" he murmured. 
^Mina is in heaven. Shall I again 
see her ?* 

But no voice replied, and, sighing, he 
stood again erect. Then after a few 
moments of silent meditation he seized 
his chisel, and, making the sign of the 
cross, recommenced his work, and the 
stone seemed to breathe, to quiver, to 
palpitate as, one by one, the suffering 
lines came forth. Truly in Master 
Sebald's mirror were grief and unpity- 
ing and unending pain. 

And he worked in spite of the 
gnawings of hunger, the want of sleep, 
the cold of the winter. He had ever 
within him strength and fire — the 
strength of expiation, the fire of pe- 
nitence. But as he worked, his form 
became more stooped, and his eye less 
sure ; his blood fiowed feebler through 
his veins, and his breath grew more 
quick and gasping. But he needed 
but mind and hand, and his mind was 
clear, and his hand carved bravely 
still. And what cared he for the fail- 
ing of an exhausted body? If, day 
bj day, his face grew thinner, bis eyes 



cavernous, his lips tighter, was not his 
model for all that the more real ? Was 
it not a dying Christ he was carving? 

At last his work was done. When 
the last blow of the chisel had been 
given, when the stone had i*eceived the 
final touch, when Christ hung there 
wounded, quivering, breathing, sub- 
lime, Master Sebalid knelt before his 
work and bowed his forehead to the 
earth. The sculptor demanded his 
pay ; the criminal his pardon. He 
prayed fervently and long ; and when 
he rose, he knew that his child call- 
ed, and that the hour of his deliver- 
ance was nigh, and, walking to the nar- 
row opening which formed his only 
means of communication with men, 
he called aloud to his jailer: 

"^ My Christ is Bnished! My task 
is done I Unseal the door and lead 
me to the executioner." 

But it was not the executioner that 
came, but the judge ; and he, the firat 
to enter the dungeon, when he lifted his 
eyes, fell upon his knees with clasped 
hands; for what he saw seemed no 
image of stone, but a living Christ, suf- 
fering and dying before him. Struck 
with astonishment and admiration, he 
called his colleagues and sent for mon- 
seigneur the bishop, and his highness 
the margrave, that all might see the 
Christ of the condemned. The dun- 
geon of Master Sebald was too nar- 
row for the multitude of visitors who 
crowded before the holy image ; they 
talked of carrying it to one of the 
courts of the city, or to the Grand 
Place, that all the faitnfui might mourn 
and be edified by- so sacred a spectacle. 
But Master Sebald opposed this pro- 
ject and asked a further boon : 

*« Ah!' cried he, " if you think thib 
work of my liands merits aught bat 
favor, consecrate it to a holy remem- 
brance ; place it in the cemetery where 
my daughter reposes. Christ should 
be upon her tomb, to speak to her oV 
hope, and on the tomb of him— of — him 
too, to speak to him of forgiveness.** 

We may add that the sculptor^s re- 
quest was quickly granted, for in those 
happy days there were sherifi whc» 



Tlu IndlnoluhlUt^ of Chrhtiun Marria^€* 



believed, and judges of tender hearts. 
They were ver^' barkwani, and very 
far behind oiir cnlighfened age in those 
days, although gunpowder had just 
l>een invented. Besides, the coundJ- 
lors of the marfjrave held sacred thiugii 
in res[>ect, and did not regard ecmete- 
ries as mere chaniel-houseg. 

They carried, then, with great pomp. 
Master Sebald'a statue to the ceme- 
tery ; and, for the first time since his 
imprisonment begun, the old man saw 
the crowd of men, the preen leaves^ 
the tomb of his daughter, and tht; white 
clouds of heaven. 

He saw the blessing of the ci*08S ; 
ho saw Mina'fl tomb consecrated ; and 
then, taking his chisel^he graved upon 
the pedestal, as a last fai-ewell, the in- 
scription which^ as we have seen, yet 
remains, and asked the lime appointed 
for his execution. But murmurs aro^e 
in I he crowd which 8»Jon swelled to vio- 
lent clamors* Cuuld so repentant a roan* 
so old and true an artist^ be given over 
to the gibbet ! The people 8urroiindc?d 
the roagidtratci ; the magistrates turn- 
ed to the coutvciUors ; the councillora 



turned to the mai^mve ; and aAer a 
short dehbcration the president of the 
tribunal declared to Master Koemer 
that, in consideration of his genius, of 
his i*iety, and of his repenkuicOt bo 
should still live; pardon waa granted 
him. 

** Is life a boon ?" murmured the old 
artif^t, sadly bo win r; his head. ** But 1 
await the mercy of (lod. He is iiiQf« 
generous than man.** 

He had not long to wait, for two 
days a Her, in the gray, early morning, 
they found him cold and dead ui>on hk 
duu^hter'a grave, his head R-sting upon 
the base of the crucifii^ Uia hopes 
were realized ; God opened his pri«ai»* 
doors. 



Stich is the legend of the scut{ 
and his work — a legend which oflV 
simple and characliTislic picture ol'tlit ' 
ages of confiding fuilh» wlwn theChrift- 
ian placed his hopest the injured hts ren- 
geance. the criminal his repentance, 
and the artist his genius, at the fool of 
the croan. 



t\ 



*^. 



THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CURISTIAN MARIUAGE. 



NUimER TWO. 



It is evident that Jesus Christ intend- 
ed to legislate and did legislate in re- 
gard to marriage. The commandment 
which he gave, requiring the marriagQ 
contract to be respecteil as inviolable 
and indissoluble, is a law, has the force 
of a law, and is obligatory, not only 
upon ecclei)ia<^tical, but also upon civil 
legislators and judgc^s. There is no 
power upon earth, either in the church 
or in the stale^ which has power to 
abrogate or change it. AVe do not 
pretend that this law was promulgated 



to the Jewish people, or to pagan nir 
tions, directly and immediately. Our 
Lord legislated immediately only fio^ 
those who should become the subjects 
of his kingtiom by baptistiu For all 
oihers, Ijo legislated only mediately, 
by promulgating to alt mankind the 
precept to embrace his faith and be 
baptized into his church, and thus to 
bring ilicmselves under the entire eude 
o f C h ris t i a n law, Th e unbapt ijced are 
subject to the natural law only in re- 
gard to marriage, as ui orerytJbing 



A 



The 



else ; and their marriage is not a sa- 
crament, but a merely natural contract. 
What we maintain is, that the law- re- 
garding Christian marriage has been 
established by the sovereign authority 
of Jesus Christ for all the baptized, 
and that this law respects the very es- 
sence of marriage as a contract, invali- 
dating all pretended marriages which 
are not in accordance with it. All ec- 
clesiastical legislators are, therefore, 
bound to legislate in conformity with 
this law. They must treat all mar- 
riages sanctioned and ratified by the 
law of Christ as valid and binding, and 
all others as null and void. All Chris- 
tians must act in the same manner. 
And in Christian states, as all law- 
givers and judges are bound to act ac- 
cording to their conscience, and in con- 
formity with the divine law, and as the 
revealed law of Jesus Christ respecting 
marriages is the supreme rale of the 
Christian conscience, having the force 
of a divine law, they are bound to make 
it the rule of all their enactments and 
judgments. 

Some Protestant writera deny that 
our Lord intended to legislate respect- 
ing matrimony, and affirm that he 
merely laid down a rule of morality. 
Tills is, however, an iinmeanipg state- 
ment, lie -cpiild not give a moral pre- 
cept rcsj>^iBg matrimony without le- 
gislating. The essential morality of 
the questioil is determined by the law 
determining the conditions, motives, 
and obligations of the contract. Mo- 
rality consists in conformity to this law, 
immorality in violating it. Our Lonl 
could not, therefore, command any- 
thing as required by morality, or for- 
bid anything as immoral, in relation to 
the essentials of marriage, without re- 
enacting an already existing law, or 
promulgating a new law, defining the 
conditions by which a marriage is ren- 
dered a valid or an invalid contract. 

The very circumstances and terms 
of his utterance on the subject show 
that he did legiskte. Moses legislated 
on the subject, and permitted to men 
divorce in certain cases, with the privi- 
lege of remarriage to both parties. 



/ » -^ .fit ^- \ 

Inditsolubtlity of ^XHt&an Mmnagt\Jfe 6SS 



Our Lortt expMMiy revokes this per- 
mission, 80 far as his own disciples are 
concerned, and declares that, according 
to the Christian law, whoever divorces 
his wife and marries another, or who- 
ever marries a divorced party, must be 
held guilty of adultery. This is an act 
of legislation, for it is a law declaring 
null and void for the future certain 
marriages which, under the Mosaic 
law, were valid. Now, there is no civil 
law which can make a contract de- 
clared invalid by the divine law valid, 
binding, or lawful, or which can in- 
validate a contract made valid by the 
divine law. It is true that our Lord 
did not enact any civil law, properly 
so called, with civil penalties annexed 
to it, for the Jewish people, or for any 
Gentile nation. But he prescribed the 
standard according to which all legisla- 
toi'A in Christian states are bound to 
make their civil laws. 

The question now comes up, How are 
we to ascertain what the law of Jesus 
Christ is, and what is the law itself? 
We have discussed the last question 
in part, in our former number, in which 
we endeavored to show that the texts 
of Scripture in which we are informed 
concerning the precept given by Christ 
concerning marriage, properly under- 
stood, sustain the Catholic doctrine of 
the indissolubility of marriage. We 
have now to show how the Catholic 
doctrine and the law of tlie Catholic 
Church are established with an infal- 
lible certainty, and with a force abso- 
lutely obligatory on the conscieuce. 

It is evident enough that the notion 
of legislators and judges attempting to 
discuss and decide upon the true mean- 
ing of texts of Scripture is absurd. 
Such a proceeding would never lead 
to any uniformity of legislation if at- 
tempted, and it would never be attempt- 
ed in any community where principles 
of sound jurisprudence prevailed. Who, 
then, are to decide upon the meaning of 
these texts, if the ultimate appt^al is to 
them ? The Protestant clergy { They 
cannot agree among themselves. Even 
in the earliest and best days of Puri- 
tanism in New England, wheu a com- 



l%e Indiswhdnlihf of Chrigiian Marriage. 



paratively Btrict doctrine and legisla^ 
tion respecting marriage prevailed, 
there was a serious difference among 
the clergy respecting the lawful groands 
of divorce. Moreover, the Protestant 
clergy do not claim the right of inter- 
preting the Scripture. The laity have 
an equal right, and each individual has 
it for himself. Rationalists claim also 
the right of making reason the criterion 
of the truth of the doctrine of Scripture 
and the teachings of Jesus Christ. It 
is therefore plain that it is a futile 
proceeding to attempt to make the text 
of Scripture a standard of legislation 
or public sentiment in regard to mar- 
riage. The result which has actually 
been produced is an inevitable result, 
namely, that the prevalent opinion and 
sentiment in the community, based on 
their common sense, will regulate legis* 
lation in regard to marriage and di- 
vorce. Tliis common sense is not an 
enlightened and elevated common sense, 
proceeding from sound, rational, and 
moral principles. It is a low, irrational 
sense, derived from ])assion, self-in- 
tert»8t, expediency, and a perverted 
reason, which tends continually to de- 
generate more and more, and whose 
logical consequences may bi» 8iH»n deve- 
loping themselves every day under our 
own eyes. 

The' law establi^thed by Jesus Christ 
is not and cannot Ik* ba^nl u|K>n the 
texts of the sacred historians who in- 
form us of the fact that he did promul- 
gate such a law. These texts are not 
the law, and the enacting fbn»e does 
not proceed from them. Tln*y may Ih5 
dtecl in proof of the t'act that the Liw 
was made, and in pnwf t>t' what the law 
was, 1 he law itself was verbally pro- 
claimed by our Lord, and its force 
dates from and depends ujH>n that ver- 
bal enactment. The historical aiwunt 
given by the evangelists adiled nothing 
to it, and the comments of the n{H>stles 
upon it are mere allusions to it, or ex- 
bortations to keep it, which presup- 
pose its existenci*. It was a |mrt of 
the unwritten law of the chun*h hand- 
ed down by tradition, whose legitimate 
espositiors were the apostles and their 



successors. Our Lord must have in* 
stnicted the apostles fully on the sub- 
ject, and they must have transmitted 
full and explicit, instructiona on the 
same subject to the bishops and clergy 
to whom the government of the church 
was committed. As occasion required, 
the unwritten Christian common law 
was embodied in canons by episcopal 
councils, and thus became statute law. 
The true metliod of fixing decisively 
the real scope and contents of the divine 
legislation of our Lord is, therefore, to 
investigate the legislation of the church 
from the earliest times. 

The doctrine defined by the Council 
of Trent upon which the modem ca- 
nonical law of the Catholic Church is 
based, is too well known to need any 
statement. It is evident that this defi- 
nition was no innovation, but merely 
a solemn declaration of the doctrine 
universally received in the Catliolic 
Church, levelled against the innova- 
tions of Protestants. The mere fact 
that the indissolubility of marriage has 
been recognised in the Catholic Clmrch 
and enforced under the severest penal- 
ties, and that it has been also recog- 
nised and protected by the civil law of 
Eui-ope, until Protestantism brought in 
a disastrous change, is sufiicient to prove 
that the church n»ceived her law from 
Jesus Christ or the aiuistles. So se- 
vere a law, one ?o inconvenient to in- 
dividuals, one so contrarj' to the e-stab- 
lished legislation of both Jews and 
Gentiles, could never have been es- 
tablishetl and enforce<i by any other 
than a divine authority, and in the 
origin of the Christian community. If a 
milder law had ever pre^-ailed in the 
chun'h, an attempt to establish a strict- 
er one would have met a violent oppo- 
sition. History would record the strug- 
gle, the {Kiges of the fathers would bear 
witness to the difiV*rence of opinion 
and the mutual discussion of the ques- 
tion by the opi)Osing parties. Councils 
would have been called to dt*cide it, 
and. if any changi> had been generally 
enfon^ed in favor of a stricter law, ei- 
ther it would have been based on rea- 
sons supposed to ju:»tify or require the 



The Indissolubility of ChrUtian Marriage. 



687 



abrogation of an indulgence formerly 
granted, or, if not, the previous exist- 
ence of tfiis indulgence would have 
been denounced as a corruption, and 
these who maintained it would hdve 
been condemned. The quiet, undis- 
turbed continuity of the tradition and 
practice of the church from the ear- 
liest ages proves that no serious and 
widespread difference of doctrine ever 
arose, but that the modem Catiiolic 
doctrine of the indissolubility of mar- 
riage held undisputed sway from the 
beginning. The opponents of this doc- 
trine cannot pretend to establish any 
clear tradition in their own favor. They 
can only endeavor to obscure the evi- 
dence of the tradition sanctioning the 
Catholic doctrine. Nowithstanding 
their efforts, the chain of evidence 
from St. Augustine back to Origen, Jus- 
tin Martyr, and Hermas, including all 
tlie canons which still remain, and which 
were enacted by ecclesiastical councils, 
is unbroken and conclusive, as may be 
seen by consulting those Catholic 
authors who have written scientific 
treatises on the subject. The whole 
discussion is, however, of little prac- 
tical value, except as s<howing the ne- 
cessity of the intallibility of the church 
in defining doctrine and her supreme 
authority in judging moral questions, 
and as corroborating the proof that she 
possesses this infallible and supreme 
authority. The real question at issue 
is, whether marriage is a sacrament 
confided to the guardianship of the 
church, and regulated by a law of 
which the church is the supreme judge, 
or whether it is a natural contract un- 
der the control of the civil law. The 
Protestant world has taken the latter 
side of the alteraative. Consequently, 
the ease of marriage comes to this is- 
sue ; what civil laws respecting mar- 
riage and divorce are best calculated 
to promote happiness, morality, social 
and civil prosperity and well-being? 
Legislatures and courts must decide 
the question, while churches, clergy- 
men, moralists, writers, etc., can exer- 
cise no other influence than that of ar- 
gument and persuasion. These argu- 



ments must be drawn from reason and 
the natural law. They must bear upon 
the point that the strength and perpe- 
tuity of the marriage bond is useful 
and necessary for the preservation of 
society. The doctrine of Scripture and 
the authority of religion can only be 
brought in to increase the motives and 
sanctions of the natural law. 

It is useless to hope that the doctrine 
of the indissolubility of marriage will 
ever be adopted either in theory or 
practice as the result of reasoning 
on the principles of either the natural 
law or the moral code of Christianity, 
by those who reject the infallibility of 
the Catbolic Church. It is also useless 
to hope that the Protestant clergy and 
jurists will ever agree together as to 
the proper ground of di^rce, and the 
proper safeguards of marriage, much 
less that they will agree in adopting the x 
opinions of the most rigorous school 
among them, as sustained by their able 
and learned advocate, President Wool- 
sey, in The New-Englander. The only 
thing in the power of the Protestant 
clergy and their lay coadjutors is, to 
diminish and retard the destructive 
tendency of the fialse principle they have 
admitted into theology and legislation 
by their denial of the Catholic doctrine 
regarding marriage.- In this direction 
they may do something, and it is to be 
desired that they should exert them- 
selves to the utmost to do all they can* 
The clergy may exert a certain moral 
and religious influence by acting ac- 
cording to some fixed principles and 
laws in regard to performing the mar- 
riage ceremony and admitting or ex- 
cluding persons from communion. Also 
by preaching and writing on the obliga- 
tions of marriage, the blessings which 
flow from unions which are hallowed by 
perfect and lifelong fidelity to conjugal 
and parental duties, and the evils which 
are the consequence of infidelity and 
frequent separations. Jurists and states- 
men may reform the administration of 
law in the courts so as to decrease the 
facility of obtaining divorce, and secure 
to all parties a thorough protection of 
all t4ie rights guaranteed to them by the 



The IndisBolubility of Christian Marriage. 



civil law. Physicians and others may 
do good by pointing out the physical and 
social evils which flow from the viola- 
tion of those laws on which the multi- 
plication and licalthy development of 
the race depend. So far as individuals 
are induced to marry in accordance 
with the dictates of pure affection and 
enlightened prudence, to observe the 
moral laws of the married state, and 
to remain faithful to each other until 
death, and so far as divorces and re- 
marriages are rendered less numerous, 
so far good will be done, and the well- 
being of society promoted. We desire 
most heartily that the utmost possible 
success may attend these well-meant 
efforts. Nevertheless, we cannot flatter 
our Protestant friends with any ex- 
pression of our own conviction that 
this success will be anything more than 
placing a breakwater in the way of the 
current that is sweeping away the 
Christian institution of marriage. The 
principles and institutions which make 
society Christian, the traditions which 
connect it with the past and give it 
Christian and moral vitality, have been 
received and retained from the C'atho- 
lic Church. As these are gradually 
abandoned and lost, society j>ossesses 
no power to recover and restore them. 
Christian societies outside the chua*h, 
and states com {)os(hI of {H'rsons who are 
nominally Christian but out of (.'atholic 
communion, iMMir within them the prin- 
ciple of dissolution, without [H^sscssing 
any sufficient principle of rtHMi|H*ration. 
The Catholic Church alone jhisscsscs a 
divine law given by n^vclaliini wliich 
she is comiH'tcnt to explain and authiv 
riatd to entbnv, and which is a princi- 
ple of |H'r)H'tual liJc, ca|Kil»lc of iv>i>i- 
inp every tendcncx l\i di.-^ca**' iv.ul Jcath, 
and of n.»newingf \rr\ dcca\cd nai:o:;al 
constitution, n»sii»ring cvimx d^'J^ -.u r,i:c 
pci^plo, and cimiinuallx ivjvatii.j: ii;o 
work wrtnigh: in ihe ui>t lor!r;4;U!i <*( 
Christendom. Pi\»:c>iaiiiisni is a 'u- 
bercular de|H>sic in liic ^vntiv or ;;;c 
biviom o\* MV iety . lis luv :• >Na i % r s ;: * : 
is (Spiritual monil,in:clUs\n:iU:i/.d :\: ,%\ 
\}\ physical df%uA, As nx i;:c r,»>c o* a 
person smitten with iul«cxv::uv<;s thcrt 



may be for a long time many portkNU 
of the lungs uni^ected, much health 
and strength in the organs and limbs of 
the body, and an increase of cerebr;|l 
excitement and activity, althonirh the 
principle of death which will finallj 
stop all vital activity is slov.ly aud 
surely gaining upon the principle of 
life; so with those portions of Chris- 
tendom which are smitten with heresj. 
There is much health and vigor re- 
maining as the effect of the original 
state of sound, integral. Catholic Ufa, 
Many individuals remain essentiallj 
sound in their belief and upright io 
their pmctice. There is even a flush 
on the surface of society, a hectic bril- 
liancy in the eye of intellect, a fevered 
activity of thought and action, wliich 
is mistaken for genuine, healthful vigor 
and vitality. The boastful, shallow or- 
gans of public sentiment, whose real doc- 
trines are infidel, but who are forced 
to wear a little smear of popular reli- 
gion on their face, pretend, with an as- 
sunince equally sickening and ridicu- 
lous, to read lectures and give advice 
to the Vicar of Christ and the bisho{>5 
of the Catholic Church on great moral 
and social questions. Their changes 
are rung with tuonotonous and un- 
meaning repetition upon railroads 
telegraphs, steam, newspapers, heavy 
guns, and piojircss. The Catholic 
Chuivh is denounced as the great 
ol»>iacli' in the way of mo«lem wkmciv, 
because >iie ailheres to the steadfast, 
unchau'jin;: atlinnation of eternal prin- 
eiple> ot truili. law. and justice. Her 
complete s(K»lia:i .>n is unied a-* the grvat 
means ol hasieni: g the march of society 
iMwanl its gnal. It is vain to ex|Hct 
an ar;2inncni wliich has anv solidity, 
or c\c!i il;e preii-nce t>f an a:jswer 
wliich is gi':i\o ac.d si'ri»»us. lu tli* 
rasotiir.:;-. au I i-x(Htst illations of tha-^c 
ul;.» |vi:i: k*u\ liic deadly svniptouis 
\^:•\':l .1 ^'c^a v;ih\i beucalli tiiis hectic 
;;;. v;.\ aa-i Ir; rayed by this blU^ttul 
d< :^ca;■or. An ill hnd >nt^*r. an ua- 
nw :;:*/;;.; i-laii: uir, or a tVi^olvus liis- 
:0:;^ v»: y'.u :o: :c is all that c.ia Ik? ex- 
.v\:t\'.. Ncxirthiless, il.o>c who are 
A^.c .x> kiua.\. aud who have some real 



The Indissolubilii^ of Christian Marriage, 



68» 



solicitude for progross in truth, in sound 
morality, in Christian virtue, in solid 
well-being and happiness, on the part 
of society and their fellow-men, will 
not be able to shut their eyes to the 
evident symptoms which prove that 
a deadly disease, already far advanced, 
is feeding on the vitals of the social or- 
ganism. These symptoms have been 
pointed out by Protestant clergymen 
and medical writers, and we refer to 
their startling statements as evidence 
of the virulence and extent of the moral 
ulcer wliich is eating up the vitals of 
society and destroying the original, 
American population of the country. 
It is not the matter of a few divorces 
granted to married persons whose rights 
arc judicially proved to have been vio- 
lated in a flagrant manner, which is of 
such great importance. While the an- 
cient laws of the states were rigidly 
enforced, and the number of divorces 
granted was small, the community re- 
ceived no grievous injury. The great 
evil which is so alarming, and is working 
such deplorable effects, consists in the 
great number of diyorces granted, the 
facility with which they are obtained, 
and the flippant, shameless disregard of 
all judicial decorum by the courts of law. 
Behind all this is another evil, the vio- 
lation of the morality of the conjugal 
state. The authors of Protestantism 
have opened the door to all these dis- 
orders by their denial of the indisso- 
lubility and sacramental character of 
VOL. v.— 44 



matrimony, and their concession of the 
right to judge and decide upon the 
whole subject of the marriage contract 
to the civil power. The door which 
they have opened they cannot close 
There is no protection for the sacred- 
ness of marriage at all adequate to the 
necessities of the case, except in a doo- 
trine, a law, and a system of practical 
morality, promulgated and enforced by 
a church which has power over tbie 
conscience, and is acknowledged as 
possessing an authority delegfUed by 
Jesus Christ The utter weakness 
and helplessness of Protestantism, and 
the absolute necessity of a return to 
the Catholic Church in order to save 
society and civilization, has been mani- 
fested in New England and the United 
States in a more startling and sudden 
manner than could have been antici- 
pated twenty years ago by the most 
sagacious prophet of the future. We 
wait with interest and anxiety to see 
what will be done by those who believe 
that the secession of the sixteenth 
ceutury was really a reformation, and 
tliat the salvation of the human* race 
is to be looked for from the principles 
of Luther and Calvin. At present, 
these principles appear to be tending 
to the abrogation of the institution of 
marriage in the Christian sense of the 
word, and the introduction of a species 
of polygamy worse than that of Mor- 
monism. 



090 Mea Cu^. 



MEA CULPA. 

BT RICHABD 8TOBB8 WILU3. 



All through my fault, mj own most grievous fault I 
This the chagrin and inward smart of sin. 
Nor others^ blame can mj poor cause exalt — 
Naught but myself f accuse, without, within I 

And thus to my God heavy-hearted I cry, 

Msa eulpcu, mea maxima culpa ! 

And thus to the mother of Jesus I sigh, 

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! 

II. 

O Grod I the past, the wicked past forgive I 
The spectre-sins that haunt my soul dispel. 
Deeper than mirth, alas I they frowning live ; 
Beneath my smiles, in memory's caves they dwell ! 

And tlius to Saint Michael, archangel, I plead, 

Mea culpan mfta maxima culpa : 

And thus to Saint John with regret I concede, 

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa ! 

III. 

Ponder my love — a Saviour's voice would fall, 
When tempted sore, in youth's delirious hour. 
Ponder my love — O kind and gracious call ! 
And yet from life I plucked each poison-flower ! 

And thus to Saint Peter and Paul I exclaim, 

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa : 

And thus to all saints and you, brothers, proclaim, 

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa I 

IV. 

Ah I well, dear Lord, here in my guilt I bow. 
What else to do, where else to go, than home ? 
Joyless, distrcst, a contrite suppliant now, 
Heartsick of sin, homesick for thee, 1 come ! 

Ye saints and you, brothers, to Christ for roe pmy : 

Peccavi, mea maxima culpa I 

Alas ! my dear Jesus, 'tis all I can say, 

Mea eufyay mea maxima culpa! 



JSoluHoni of Some JPmriiian JProUema. 



OBI 



From The Dublin Unlrenlty Magasine. 

SOLUTIONS OF SOME PARISIAN PROBLEMS. 



CABS AND THEIR PATRON. 

The admirers of French novels have 
made acquaintance with some of the 
French representatives of our own car- 
boys and carmen in the French metropo- 
lis. They are aware that their cabs or 
cabriolets are called Fiacres^ and they 
are naturally desirous to know why 
they fthould be called by a name which 
by a little aspiration sounds unmistak- 
ably Irish. This tnflin<; question has 
set some archaeological antiquaries by 
the ears. The following appears to 
be the genuine solution : Sanval, au- 
thor of '* Recherches sur les Antiquity 
de Paris," (end of seventeenth century.) 
said that, about forty years previous, a 
certain Nicholas Sauvage, agent to the 
proprietor of the Amiens coaches, and 
owner of a large house in the Rue 
Saint Martin, the front of which was 
adorned with the enseigne of Saint 
Fiacre, kept from forty to fifty horses 
in his stables, and also cabs for the con- 
venience of the public at rather a dear 
figure. His establishment became so 
noted that all coaches for hire came to 
be called Fiaci*es. 

Menage, in his ^* Origines de la Lan- 
gue Fran9oise," 1G84, gave a like ac- 
count, but described the eflSgies of St. 
Fiacre as adorning the front of a house 
in Rue Saint Antoine. 

Both writers appear to have been in 
error. A satiric Mazarinade dating 
1 Go 2, and bearing for title the ** Royal 
Supper of Pontoise," etc., has the fol- 
lowing lines descriptive of the embar- 
rassment of the worshipful supper-eaters 
when they wished to return home at a 
late hour to Paris : 

" C'ctalt pour avoir det Carro8«s, 
Ou i*on att«lle Clievaux rosKN, 
Dont les cuirs tout rappetasse^, 
Viliiin«, crasseux, et mal passes, 
K«pr6seMtoleat le simulacre, 
De Tanolenoe Vnlture k Fiacre 
Qui fut le premier da nu&tier, 



Qui louolt carosse an Qnartier 

De MooBieor de Saint Tliomas & LouTre.** * 

Fiacre may have prospered in fail 
business, and unprincipled rivals have 
carried out his idea, and adopted the 
effigies of the saittt af>er whom the 
poor cabman was called. Thus San- 
val may have seen the pictured saint 
presiding over the useful articles (ori- 
ginally let out at three sous the drive) 
in Rue Saint Martin, and Menage may 
have seen a rival, Rue Samt Antoine. 
It is more likely that the plagiarisfts 
appropriated for their vehicles the 
name of the saint than that of the hum- 
ble individual, the inventor of the sys- 
tem. 

Saint Fiachra was of that noble band 
of Irish missionaries who spread them- 
selves over the Continent soon after 
the island was converted. St. Virgil 
became patron of Saltzburg, St. £al- 
lian of Franconia, St. Gall of Switzer- 
land, St. Oolumbanus of the Vosges 
and of Bobbio in Italy. St Fiachra 
was gladly welcomed by the bishop of 
Meaux in the seventh century, and d^ 
voted his services to the care of an 
hospital. The cabriolet drivers and (if 
we remember aright) the market gajw 
deners of Paris honor him as their 
patron. 

HYSTEBIE8 OF THE RUB D'ARBRB fBC. 

No visitor will fail to visit the church 
of St. Germain d'Auxerix»is, the parish 
church, as it may be called, of the in- 
mates of the Tuileries, and within a 
few stones' throw of that luxurious but 
not very comfortable residence. The 

* It (the embarrassment) was to provide cabe 
To which they yoke poor bacic hones. 
Whose leathers all shrunlceo, 
U'^ly, greaMy, and badly dressed, 
UeprescQt the ghost 
or the old cab belonging to Fitiore, 
Who was the first of the trade, 
That hired out carriages at the Quarter 
Of Mooalear St Thonuu of the Limrr«i 



M» 



Solutions of Some Amuui IVobltmo. 



poBsession of the most fiuelj furnisbed 
apartments will not give much pleasure 
to the dweller who is uncertain whe- 
ther he may not be ejected from them 
to-morrow. The triple portal of the 
church dates from the middle of the 
thirteenth century, and the low steeple 
from a much earlier period. Owing to 
the late demolitions, the exterior of the 
church can now be examined with more 
conTcnience and pleasure than of yore, 
and many a saunterer will be surprised 
to see, arranged along the friese of a 
lateral chapel projecting into the Rue 
d'Arbre Sec, various portions of a carp, 
separated from one another by rosei, 
(architectural, to wit,) here a head, 
there a body, and then (a rose inter- 
vening) a tail. As far as the informa- 
tion got from passers-by extends, he 
must remain in ignorance of the cause 
of the strange ornamentation, but he 
may learn it here at second-hand, our 
authority being the archaeologist M. 
Didron. An individual inhabitant of 
the ac^oining street (perhaps a fish- 
monger) had got penniftsion to add this 
chapel to the old edifice ; and to con- 
nect his name (Drongon^ a piece cut 
away) with the building, he devised 
this ingenious plan. 

Another pious and equally ingenious 
dweller in the same street, who dealt 
In poultry, did so well in btisiness that 
•he built a new house at the comer, 
and in front enacted a pious monument 
Her name being Anne, she got a sculp- 
tor to execute a group for her, namely, 
8t Anne, mother of the Blessed Vir- 
gin, teaching hor daughter to read. 
Having thus s*»cured her name from 
oblivion, she got her occupation tran8- 
mitted to after-times by having various 
fowl sculpturi'd in Ims relief on the 
plinth. Alas ! how are casual visitors 
to know, when admiring the group, that 
it was executed at the expense of Anne 
the poulterer of the street of the wiilier- 
ed tree ; ami wlw is aware of the cir- 
cumstance from which the street itself 
got its name in old times ? 

In days when pilgrimages were in 
fashion, a certain house of entertain- 
ment ia that street was mucli in favor 



with the really dcvpat, as well u 
the wanderers who had returned b 
life from the Holy Land. These had 
brought home intelligence of a woo- 
derful tree which had annually pro- 
duced leaves and fruit in the yidniir 
of Hebron, from the days of Adam to 
that on which our Lord was cmcified.* 
On that day it withered, and, according 
to the assertion of the pilgrioM, woaM 
remain sapless till the Holy City would 
be in the possession of a Christian 
power. Such a legend was calculated 
to make a deep impression on the ci»- 
tomers of the auberge, for which an 
open-air artist was soon called on to 
execute the effigies of the famous dry 
tree for a sign. Afterward the inn 
communicated its name to the street 

SLANG BANISHED' FROM THE STAGE. 

Some objectionable things, which, 
when they assume troublesome pro- 
portions, are extinguished by public 
opinion amongst ourselves, are stifled 
by the strong hand of power in France. 
In 1859, a warning was given to those 
theatres in Paris which were suspected 
of a leaning to Argot^ (slang,) tliat they 
should for the future accept no piece 
in which it prevailed. Sk> the poor 
gamins, who enjoy a play from the 
Paradis of the theatre, could no more 
relish the phraseology of their peculiar 
world and tlieir peculiar philosophy. 
The higher powers argued thus : 
" Argot is the ordinary communication 
between for^ts of all descriptions, whe- 
ther they plot against the [>eace and 
well-being of society, or bewail their 
misfortunes at the bagne ; ergo^ it is not 
a fit and proper dialect to be spoken be- 
fore gentlemen and ladies, honest citi- 
zens and their wives and children ; 
ergos it must not be spoken.** So the 
poor gamin of vicious propensities mast 
be content in bis hours of relaxation to 
learn the language of that half of the 
world to which he does not Ixdong. 

Yet many of his \iei words are not of 



* \«ir Hf )«r<«n l» an «ik of fnr««t dlfnnuicuif and of 
irifAt ap* . Imi the arwrn from which U apniag wat iwl 
plaotrd isM a(M aftrr Abrabam't Ubml 



Solutions of Some Parisian ProUems. 



eo8 



a low or disreputable origin. Such is 
the word Binette, nowhere heard now 
except among the folk who live by their 
wits, and jet presenting a noble and 
sublime image in the days of the Grand 
Monarque. in fact, no less an object 
than his flowing and majestic peruke. 
Binette of the Rue des Petits Champs 
(street of the little fields) was his ma- 
jesty's hair-dresser, and a great man 
would feel his dignity outraged if a 
hint was given that his wig was not 
confectioned by the great Binette. 
Now from Csesar to the wisp that stops 
a bung-hole, the descent is not greater 
than between the Binette (the wig, not 
the man) of the seventeenth and that 
of the nineteenth century. 

In thieves' Latin ardent represents 
a candle. The thief has accurately 
preserved the vocabulary of the Hotel 
RambouiUet, the Holland House of the 
seventeenth century. One of the Pre- 
eieuses of that temple of literary ele- 
gance, when directing the lackey to 
snuff the candle, would thus express 
herself: ^^ InutUe^ ostez le superflu de 
cet ardent /" ♦ 

The gamin is not great on the sub- 
ject of verbal roots : he uses the words, 
but does not trouble himself about the 
quarter from whence they come. He 
is not aware that his own name is the 
galopin (tavem-boy) of the middle 
ages. When he says that such or such 
article of dress, or food, or what you 
will, is chouette, (nice,) he is merely 
retaining the fot£^(doux) of the old 
French poetry. His friend is his 
copin^ the rompatgn (comrade) of old 
times ; the boy he despises is a capon^ 
the name applied to the Jews in the 
days of Philip the Fair. His rigolo 
eoines to him from the verb rigoler^ (to 
amuse one's self,) so often used in 
Maistre Pathelin^ our Village Law- 
yer, a farce of the fifteenth century. 
An umbrella is a riffiard with him, 
though he is little aware that it gets 

* Thii anecdote remindn ub of a tradition not for- 
irr>tt«n among the gypt of T.C.D. A very learnett 
fellow, diiroounting from hU steed lome time during 
the dark ages, wld to a little boy, •* Juvenile, clr- 
cumambulate the quadruped round the quadrangle, 
nad I shall recompense Uiee with a pecuniary re- 
uaneratlon.** 



that name from M[>n9. Riffiard^ the 
"Paul Pry" of the PetiU VUU of 
Picard. 

Edouard Foamier, in his Enigmes 
des Rues de Paris, relates this ch«« 
racteristic anecdote on the subject of 
slang. It is the antithesis of CCod- 
nell's victory over the fish- woman. 

'' A kdy of the Halles (ri:»h Market) had 
one day a war of words witli a fmtmieher, 
(market gardener,) and, ye godsl such 
words as they' were ! She told off oue by 
one her relentless rosary of abuse. A grave- 
looking man stood still, and attentively lis- 
tened to the explosion of the wonderful 
vocabulary. 

'' * Not 'bad, not bad,' said he from time to 
time. At last came the famous phrase, 
* You're no better than a melon/ and it 
served for finale to the torrent of invectives 
— for the bouquet to the fire-work of eoarM 
words. 

*' * Very well, indeed !* cried the grave 
man. * And why very well?' said L * Be- 
cause/ said ho, * this woman has just rendered 
homage to the literature which I profeiv.' 
*How?* *She has nearly spoken Greek. 
Yes, indeed, monrieur, the Unguage of Homer. 
She has just honored this bumpkin wiib the 
epithet* which Thersites, in the second book 
of the Iliad, line 236, applied to the Grecian 
king^ in council.* ** 

AN UNHEALTHY SUBURB. 

With any one's experience of the 
worst parts of the existing cities of 
Europe, it would be hard for him to 
reaUze the condition of the Quartier 
Montmartre in former days. The 
terrible description in Victor Hugo's 
romance gives only one small phase of 
it. All the results of extreme poverty, 
vice, negligence, and thorough laxi- 
ness united to make a scene of squalor 
and wretchedness without parallel. 
There was no thought of removing 
nuisances, and at this day a section of 
some heaps of the old strata presents 
as curious a variety of substances as 
were ever discovered by the great 
Abbeville explorer himself. Some 
future professor, descended from Mr. 
Chaillu's gorilla, finding various evi- 
dences of human workmanship so far 
below the ordinary platform of the hu- 

♦ The word used by Thenltes Is Il^Trovef, plural 
of YifTTuv^ soft or ripe, at applied to firalt, and 
flguratlrely to InactlTe ori ~ 



man faiBilyin ad. 2500, will set them 
down as a deposit of the year 10,000 
A.c» Many a police-raid was effect <Hi 
on the inhabitants of the Cbur dos 
Miracles, of the Rue Temps-Perdu, of 
that of tlie Vid*f Gouuet^ (pickoocket,) 
of the Bout da-Monde, of the Ville- 
Nouve ; many hundreds seized and 
sent to the Salpetriere (honse of cor- 
rection) or to La Nouvelle France, 
(Canadji,) and yet the wretched little 
dL'nfl in the filthy, ill-f>niellin^ lanes 
wouki nut fail to get new tenants* 
** Unfeeling nobles, bad gruvernmenl!" 
say wo. At la^t in the days of LouiB 
XIII. it was announced that any arti- 
Bon choosing to settle in (he quarter 
mi;: hi exercise his trade wiiliout let or 
hnuiraiiCP, or paying duty or incurring 
ex)>Qn8es incidental to the carrying on 
of trades in other portions of the city* 
Mukfr^ of articles of boupehold fuml* 
ture chiefiy availed themselves of the 
pnvih*ge ; a better class of inhabitants 
took podseiision, and the atmui^phere irn* 
proved. 

This (northern) quarter of the city 
luw been, from the earliest times^ in- 
eommoJed by the number of gt reams 
arising among the northern and east- 
ern hi Ik adjoining I he city, (Parij^ 
lying in a natunil bowldike cavity.) 
and cndeavonng to find their way un- 
der houses and streets to the Seine. 
Bfany efforts have lM*en made from 
time to time, to provide courses for 
these troublesome nvuli*L» in channels 
arched over or opi*n to the da> ; yi't ao 
late as J 855 some houses in the Fau- 
bourg Montnuirtre were III led to the 
l^round tliior by flabterranean inun- 
dations^ the inhabitanrs wnn<Ienng 
what could bring water into their 
kitehena and cellars, and they so ninch 
above the level of the Seine* At ilit* 
present limf, under thi* strong volition 
of the emperor^ an effeelive attempt 
is being made at the fjnnatioa of 
a hirgc subterranean river and its 
feeders, 

moaiNO A THRIVIIVO BCrStNBSS. 

Many rift ton to the exist ing exhi- 



bition, while c^ ^nd adiairfi^ 

the Place de < ' t and itJi fOP* 

roun dings, will scarcely di^eam «>f ih 
space between the Tuileriea, th^ Lon-l 
vre, and the Palais Royal la?iii|r| 
been once occupied by an hospital lor 
three hundred poor blind men* Tki* 
at present magniiicent quarter wiatt 
poor place in the days of St- L'j^jii, aad 
there were the straggling luibttiaiytii 
built* Dust-heaps and fihK of maoj 
kinds divStinguished the locality, and in 
this uninviting spot the three hundfcd 
blind endured life from the dayi ¥ 
good Saint Louis. 

At its first instituiion, the 
was a mere night reftige— ^a 
where the blind men were aureiif » 
house over their heads and n *ait of 
bed to sleep on af\er tbeir rriaUUriM 
all day through the stn^ets. TtMi oU . 
charities were seldom oomf>t«li 
themselves The pious ibiitidvni 
a certain portion of the good wotIl] 
leaving to the public an opportunity of ] 
completing it. Phifip the Fair 
a drees stamped with the flear 
and the )K>or blind man thus eq« 
was on a levtil with MfUe Ochi 
and so privileged, he ^^toie jor n>€ jmii 
(iff btairt,'^ (the whole day he ceased d<iI 
his braying.) a* an old writer coArseJy 
exprossod himself. 

Therr^ was a parallel to thi« io»titiip| 
tion in higher qimrters, even in liie 
ary region-*. In the College* nf N:ivi 
placed under the highest r 
pupils went in tlie moi i 
the sfreets, Ptrelching out the 
and crying, ** Bread, bread for the | 
seholai^s ot Madame de Navarre T 

The three hundred were well 
after, all things considered. They hal' 
a jxwr-box in every church of Franc 
They were privileged mH only Ui i 
at the doors, but even toexereiiiel 
quest in the cbtirch itself. A dii 
an>se from the cireufXislMica of i 
churches affording to the *^] _ 
Btnlesmeu" a better harvrAt ttMr 
others. All or most would natumUjr 
crowd to flei'ce the richest and 
charitable' congregations, and dine i 
fusion would ensue. But them mt 




Solutions of Some I^arisian ProbUms* 



605 



heads equal to the emergency. Once 
a year an auction was held ; a good 
church was set up, bedesmen bid for 
its possession ; it was knocked down 
to the best small batch of bidders, and 
the money tliey gave then, or as they 
made it, put into a common fund. The 
least well off or least speculative got 
the worst stands, but they received 
their share of the money arising from 
the auction. 

This exceptional state of things con- 
tinued till within the second halt' of 
last century, when the office of grand 
almoner became invested in the Car- 
dinal de Rohan. The wretched habita- 
tions of the three hundred, their poor 
church leflt to ruin, the du3t-heaps and 
pools of evil odor with which they 
were surrounded, so badly harmoniz- 
ed with the neighborhood of the Palais 
Royal, the Tuileries, and the Louvre, 
between which they lay, that it enter- 
ed the speculative mind of the cardinal 
that it would be a profitable business 
to remove the poor inmates to a more 
cleanly and comfortable domicile, and 
sell the large plot of land on which the 
straggling settlement reposed. A sol- 
vent company was found, the land dis- 
posed of for six milUons of livres, and 
the Hotel of the Black Musketeers, Rue 
de Charenton, was purchased for the 
blind men at somewhat less than half 
a million. This took place in 1779, 
and since then the churches and the 
streets have been relieved from the 
annoyance of the state beggars. They 
still occupy the Hotel Rue de Charen- 
ton, and the curious traveller now pas- 
sing down the magnificent Rue Riv(di, 
with palaces on either hand, can scarcely 
persuade himself that the space round 
him was, less than a century since, a 
dedalus of dirty lanes and ill-kept, squa- 
lid dwellings. 

THE MonouE juxjy rrs derivation. 



" Whoe'er was at Paris must needs 
know the Greve" was said and sung 
three half-centuries ago. Whoever 
was or was not at Paris must have 



heard of the Morgue, where the bodies 
of unknown persons who have met 
with sudden deaths were exposed foF 
some days, to be recognised by their 
friends. Perhaps he is not aware of 
the cause of applying to the temporary 
abode of the quiet dead a name imply- 
ing such a different idea. The dismal 
little building is now not to be found 
in its old locality, Quai du Marche 
Neuf, south side of the CM, 

In the great as well as the little 
Chatelet (prison) of past days there 
was a room called the little prison, 
where new-comers were brought ^ to sit 
for their portraits," that is, undergo a 
rigorous inspection as to their features 
by the lower officials of the place. 
Readers of Pickwick's incarceratioii 
will not require an elaborate descrip- 
tion of the process. Now, such a 
sharp and supercilious scrutiny of the 
countenance is expressed by the word 
Morgue. The humorist, D*Assoucy, 
has lefl a description of the inspection 
he underwent on such an occasion, and 
the terror into which he was thrown by 
a long sharp knife, wielded by a short, 
broad, and fat officer, but which was 
only designed to cut away the ribbons 
that secured his breeches, and the band 
of his hat, and thus remove all avail- 
able instruments of self destruction in 
the Grand Chatelet. 

When this apartment changed its 
destination, and became a place of ex- 
posure ibr the dead, it continued to re- 
tain its name ; and, on the destrucdon 
of the building, the title went to the 
sinister-looking edifice built for the 
same purpose. While the Chatelet 
remained, the sisters of the hospital 
convent of St. Catherine, comer of the 
streets of St. Denis and of the Lom- 
bards, bestowed the rites of sepulture 
on the poor remains not recognized. The 
other specialty of the good sisters was 
the relief of poor women in destitute 
circumstances. 

The easily led populace of Paris 
were long under the impression that 
a visit to the Morgue, and the conse- 
quent withdrawal of a corpse, would 
cost the friends a hundred and one 



SolutionM of Some Parisian Pfohtem^, 



crowns. So tlie bereaved famnies 
were acldom in a hurry with their 
visit. In vain did (he lieutenant of 
police in 1786 endeavor to undeceive 
them. 

In 1767, a gt^ntletnan, taking the 
packet boat fi-om Fontainebleau to 
PariB, quitted the conveyance rather 
hurriedly, leaving a ca^e behind him. 
After some little delay it waa opened* 
and much terrified were the assistants 
at finding wliai appeared the body of 
a young man who had been strangled. 
A commissary of police was called on, 
accompanied by a surgeon, A pro* 
e^' verbal wni* drawn up by theni» and 
the body sent to the Morgue to be idea- 
Itfied. Soon after, the negligent or 
guilty passenger arrived in t\ hurry at 
the office of the boat, and rt-^ked for the 
forgotten parcel. His request was fol- 
lowed by hia seizure and presentation 
before the worthy magistrate, who had 
io laudably done his duty. On being 
charged with the murder, he hurst into 
a fit of laughter, and covered the poor 
official with confusion by announcing 
that the earpsc of the strangled man 
was a mummy which he was just after 
britiging froai Egypt, and had forgot- 
ten to carry away with the real of his 
luggage. In order to get hia property 
out of the dead-house, he was obliged 
Io make applit*ation to the Ueuteuanlof 
police, and this circumstance sooa scat- 
tered the news far and near. A few 
nights afler, all Paris wa^i breaking its 
sides in the theatre laughing at an up- 
roarious farce by Saeontiei, displaying 
in the richest colors the wisdom and 
flkiU of the {xilice commissary attd the 
surgeon. R^^peatcd instances were 
made by thctjc gentlemen to the minis 
ter, M, de Sartines, to restmin the re- 
presentation* On the last time he ob- 
served t *♦ Toleration is a virtue which 
I love to practise lo the utmost liniiis 
allowablt% * The piece had a run of 
forty nights. 

JL KDtO AKD MntlfTKB WKU. liATCHKD. 

Among the many puxzles met in 
history and biography is the retain ng 



of his place by Louvoia, primo mintftpr 
to T^uis XrV. Every student of hm- 
tory is aware of the gre.it «i<*Jf-t^eeia 
which dwelt within the moniLrcfi ; anj 
it would be natural lo suppoiw that, li 
order to retain hiB favor, ofliiec?T or ni> 
n is ter should diligently eultiiTttte 
quiouHtJcsiii, and have no will ort 
but that uf his master. It was oof sd^ 
however, with this minister; and if if • 
historic fact that the king reaolved ob 
a great public undertaking on aeromit 
of a diflerence he had with his miiiii- 
ter in their guesses at the breadth \}i 
the window at which they were standi 
ing* Ixiuis sairl it wa^ such a brcaM^ 
Louvois guessed it wrts an itirh or fvo 
more or less, and insisted on the rxact* 
ness of hb eye-ealeulation #q ^ 
ently that the king called i\tr % \ 
lo A\^i.^\ih* the mattL^r, and rciolved on i 
transaction which ho knew would be 
distasteful to his optnionatiiro eonlia- 
dictor 

In Loutfl^ i^i^i nnd nnder iht ta- 
pe rin ten de nee of Lou vol H, wa* rakisd 
the noble pile f*f the Invnlides^-^ 
building which will be, or ought loir, 
at least, visited by ev«?ry oo«« vbo 
takes interest in the w^ll brh 
men who have suffered in th<9 1 
or for the glory of their 
Mansard, the architect, who Im 
on his name to French attics (J 
tarthsf) was much ineommtxle 
the impatience of the minsster^ 
self appn'ciation would be ooole 
with nothing less than rb«? earvSo^^ 
of hi« bonrg*^is wat of arras In tbt 
neighborhood of thr n*yn[ achieremcfU 
wherever it was set up. He gidflid 
only mort i lira t ion by tlte movement^ ai 
Louis had ttu^tn allcfliiccd The gnat 
man was enraged at thi.s in man ^ 
disrci^peet, and was obliged to ( 
him.^lf with a po&t humous n^retip!. 
He would Ik? buried at the InvnliikK i 
andf tliinjugh the cotapUiismnce of tlia 
cure, M. dc Mauray, it wa.n doncu Uli i 
body was laid in one of the vaults, bttit 
affccr all, was not allowed to remaio 
there. The king's paraaifcs gai^ lilm 
in formation I and tlie corpse was 1^ 
moved. 




1 



Playing loiih Hre. 



WT 



LoaToiB, fearing that somethin*^ of 
thrs kind would happen, was resolved 
to attach his memory to the Invalides 
by surer means. In one mansarde he 
got sculptured a barrel of powder in the 
act of explosion, signalizhig the war he 
had originated ; in another, a plume of 
ostrich feathers ; and, in two others, an 
owl and a bat, all emblematic of his 
high dignity, his wisdom, and wakeful- 
Des8« The masterpiece, howeyer, was 



a wolf, the upper part only 8eei\, sur- 
mounted by a tufl of palm-leaves, hold- 
ing the (Ell de .fiSon^/* between his fore- 
paws and looking intently into the 
court. Thus was a pun in marble ex- 
ecuted: {le) Loup voit (the wolf is 
looking) — Louvois, both having the 
same sound, and the great man's name 
inseparably connected with the Inva- 
lides. 



OKIGCCAU 

PLAYING WITH FIRE. 



There was a fine specimen in Bir- 
mingham, the other day, of a style of 
theological disputation which we hoped 
had gone out of vogue. A poor w retch 
named Murphy, a paid agent of tiie Lon- 
don Protestant Electoral Union, had 
been travelling for some months about 
the counties of Stafford and Warwick, 
circulating obscene tracts upon the con- 
fessional, ranting about priests and 
nuns, retailing all the absurd and 
wicked stories against the Catholic 
religion which have formed the stock 
in trade of a certain class of zealots 
and religious demagogues for the last 
three hundred years ; and very natu- 
rally his disgusting tirades had stirred 
up a dangerous sort of public feeling. 
The lower classes of the Protestants 
were taught to look upon the Catholics 
as savage, wilcl beasts, given up to all 
manner of immoral practices, enemies 
to all human happiness, thirsting for 
blood, rapine, and revolution, and wed- 
ded to the stake, the faggot, and the 
thumbscrew. The lower classes of 
the Catholics were com [Milled to bear 
the taunts and insults which were cer- 
tain to be provoked by this rage of po- 
pular prejudice, and moreover to listen 
to the grossest attacks upon what they 
held in most affectionate reverence. 
Of course, sensible Protestants, as well 
as educated Catholics, felt nothing but 



pity and contempt for the ravings of 
such a man as Murphy ; but unfor- 
tunately it is not educated and sensi- 
ble people who make all the trouble in 
the world, nor were they educated and 
sensible people who formed the bulk of 
Mr. Murphy's audiences. VV here ver he 
went, he made a popular disturbance. 
Blows and brickbats followed in his 
train like dust behind rolling wheels. 
The magistrates in one town confiscat- 
ed his books on account of their inde- 
cency. At last he came to Birming- 
ham. The mayor and council refus^ 
him the use of a public halL but his 
disciples built him an immense wooden 
tabernacle ; and there, while an angry 
crowd raged and threatened about the 
doors, he began a five weeks* course of 
lectures on the atrocities of popery. 
What an instructive contrast was then 
presented! In the streets Calholio 
priests were going about among the 
mob. begging and commanding them 
to dr jp their menacing hands and with- 
draw peaceably to their homes. In the 
tabernacle this fiery ranter was declar- 
ing that every Catholic priest was '* a 
murderer, a cannibal, a liar, and a 
pickpocket ;** that the papists were 
thirsiing for his blood, but durst not 
take it ; that they might pelt him witli 
stones, but God would put forth his 
arm and prevent his being hurt ; they 



Playing with Hn* 



might raise tbeir bludgeons against ' 
hitn, but God would ward olf the 
bJoivs. Need anybody ask what 
. WM the result of aU ihb ? A riot 
I'broke out aud n^ged for two days ; and, 
always hiippcna in riots, the ^eater 
||kart of the ditortJer and desiruotton was 
eaust'd not hy these who bi^gan the fray, 
bnt by pi-olesdional thieves and rowdies 
who i^eizcd the opportunily to pbmder, 
Now, of course, we have no desire 
^,10 a|>ologize for Uie yinvarrati table 
kiiode taken by the Birmiiigham Cath- 
Tolies to silenee ibit* itiiierafit preacher. 
'Riotlug is both a j^reat bluuder and a 
great erime. But who wa^ the more 
to blame ? Was it the putpit moun- 
tebauk who pelted bis audience with 
welbni^h iutolerable insults, or the un- 
etlueated laborers who resented them ? 
Our Loni telld us, when we are Miiit- 
[If'n upon one cheek* to turn the other; 
f but we all know ihat the custom of 
I lluman nature h to smite back. If 
[you first stir up the angr}' passions of 
I a ei-oad of excitable Irishmen, and then 
dance into the raidst of tbeui, and dare 
them to come on, it wilJ Oiit be surpng* 
: jng if yon dance oul apiin with a bloiKiy 
• no^e an f I a t or n coa t * If y o u s h a 1; e y ou r 
0,st at a man, and assure bim that he 
cannot hit you if he tries ever»o hard, 
it is very probable thai he will try ; aud 
' if you are bun. you will have yourwejf 
to blame. It is not safe to >;o near 
gun|.>owder with a lighted rimdle. All 
r England seems to have thought as we 
do about the Bii-mingham affair, and 
MMarphy ha^ beeu unanimoui^ly award- 
ed the responsibility for the outrage 
by the ministers in parliament, and 
l>y all the resfH^oluble newspapers, even 
by snch prejudiced journals as The 
Times, 

There have been many religious riots 
[in Grejit Britain and America, bnt the 
L et ory is n ea i ly a 1 w ay s th c sami% They 
liave had them in Birmingham before ; 
they have had ihem in Bellast and 
Dublin. Lonl George Gordon got up 
'_m famous one in London, and Gavazzi 
\ (he cause ol one in Montreal- The 
ive American movement in 1844 
gA%e ua two dreadful nota in Philadcl 



pbia, and, but for the firmi 
city of Bishop IIu<rlies, wtnM bsfV 
yoked another in New-york. In iJit 
train of Ibe Know-Notbiog excitirfnfai 
ten years later followed a lon^ iirrm] ^ 
of incendiary preachers, ftome of w 
were proved to have been expresflj 
hired to provoke disturbance ; and w" 
was the result? Churches were sackeiL 
torn down, burned, or blown up wiih 
gunpowder in ISIanchester and Do^ 
Chester, New -Hampshire, iu Batli« 
Maine, and in Newark, New-J 
A church in \Vi!liamsbur|j was 
saved from the flames by the op| 



CllJlt 

FHfay 

boiiifl 




a rri val of t ly* m il i tary . A s t tvv f - pi^odi' 
er in New-Vork named Parsons 
verv nearly the cause of a riot in Db» 
cember, 18r>3; but in tbiB instaace 
also Archbishop Hughes succeeded m 
keeping the Catholics quiet. Allom 
the country, in fact, rapine and inc^i* 
arism seemed rampant ; but The New- 
York Tribune justly observ«-d: "ll in 
w^orthy of n^mark that, whiks fire or 
six Catholic churche^i in this coitsitr^ 
have been de»tn»yed or ruined by aa 
excited populace, not a single Protet- 
tant church can be pointed out whidb 
Catholics have even thought oratliMk> 
ing/» 

No reasonable man will deny ifail 
the (ran tic sort of propagandi<;m which 
elirrcd up all these acts of violence doi** 
more harm to itja own cauee tlion to 
I hat of it 5 adversaries. No bofirst and 
rational Pn>testant wants la trust h«i 
defent"^ to a Murphy or a Parsons. ThP 
street mnters are dangerous allies and 
de^fpicable enemies. But the troabk 
is that atk^r the fools imvc made ibii 
distuibance them are always knavif» 
ready to keep it alive. No soanrr liad 
the excited Catholics begun lo throw 
stones at the Birmingham tabemaclo 
than the scou rings of the jaiU, the pes- 
lilcrous br<>oii of the slams and alleys« 
begun to pack the p»awnbrokcrs' mA 
jewellers shops* And ihrn down camo 
from London a member o! Hint 

— the notorious Mr. W'l uite 

incc'ssaut attacks upon pu|K't-y m Um 
House of Couimoiis are a stanoiu}; ttiol* 
ter of laughter i aud he and Morplij 



( 




Playing with Fire. 



609 



made speeches side bj side, one not 
much more sensible than the other. 
We shall, no doubt, see the Protestaot 
Electoral Union, of which both these 
gentlemen are pillars and ornaments, 
trying to make political capital out of 
the affair. So, too, in the United States : 
there has always been a political organ- 
ization at the back of the zealots who 
have stirred up religious riots, and there 
have always been politicians to scram- 
ble for the fruits of bigotry, if not to 
plant the seed 

Is there any reason why we may not 
have in New-York a repetition of the 
outrages of Birmingham or Pliiladel- 
phia ? Heaven be praised I we have 
not, 80 far as we know, a Protestant 
Electoral Union ; but we have Whalleys 
enough, and as for Murphies, the world 
is full of them. There is no need to 
build a tabernacle ; with us they speak 
through the press. A lie shouted from 
a platform is npt more dangerous than 
a lie sent flying over the country in the 
pages of a newspaper. If you want to 
produce a quick sensation with a good 
bouncing calumny, the best way per- 
haps is to speak it out by word of mouth; 
but for permanent effect commend us 
to print. There is an American journal 
which has been acting the part of a Mur- 
phy for a long time past, and has lately 
been ffying at popery with more rage 
than ever. In a recent number of Har- 
per s Weekly there was a horrible storv 
of the confessional in Rome, which 
might rival the wildest romances of Mrs. 
Radcliffe. It showed us a sinner get^ 
ting absolution before he could summon 
courage to confess his sins, and a young 
girl murdered by monks and buried 
under the church pavement ; " for in 
that wonderful but priest-ridden city," 
says the writer, ** the papal clergy act 
almost with impunity." And the other 
day, in the same paper, there was a pic- 
ture of a Roman confessional, a row of 
penitent,** kneeling before it, while a 
priest leaned over the door and absolv- 
ed them by tapping each one on the 
head with a rod. This wonderful de- 
vice, as our Catholic readers will at 
once perceive, was borrowed from the 



symbolical wand of office borne by the 
penitentiaries at the Roman court ; but 
Harper^s Weekly puts the whole sacra- 
ment into the tap of the wand. ** This,'* 
says the editor, ^' is a faithful represen- 
tation of the manner in which sins are ' 
forgiven in the confessionals of St. Pe- 
ter's at Rome.*' And then follows a 
long article, in the true Murphy vein, 
about confession, and indulgences, and 
purgatory, and many other points q\' 
Catholic doctrine. The pope, we are 
told, claims the power of damning souls 
to hell, and admitting whom he pleased 
into heaven. The holiness which he 
rewards is not Christian holiness ; the 
sins which he punishes with eternal fire 
are not the sins which Christ denounced. 
*^ Sincere penitence as a ground of for- 
giveness has been practically laid aside, 
and simple confession has taken its 
place." Indulgences are mere mer- 
chandise, and money will at any time 
buy a soul out of purgatory, just as 
^ the performance of certain arbitrary 
ceremonies which have no more con- 
nection with vital Christianity than had 
the rites of pagandom'' will open the 
gates of heaven. Then the writer, afler 
assuring us that the pope is afraid of 
America, passes on to the ridicule of re- 
lics, and of many pious practices, a: id 
winds up his article with a prediction 
that the Christian world will sooner or 
later be freed from all these mummeries 
and superstitions, and all mankind be 
sensible and enlightened Protestants. 

Now, to what does all this tend ? We 
dare say the writer of this tirade sup- 
posed he was teUing the truth, but what 
was his purpose in telling it ? Did he 
expect to make con veils by it ? When 
we seek to be reconciled with an ene- 
my, do we begin by insulting him ? Will 
it dispose an adversary to listen to your 
arguments with a favoring ear if you 
open the discussion by spitting in his 
face, and calling him a fool, and re- 
viling all that he holds in highest 
respect? Billingsgate is not gospeL 
When the Holy Ghost came down 
upon the apostles on the day of Pente- 
cost, those chosen preachers of divine 
tinith did not straightway begin to 



700 



Playing with Fin. 



blackguard the Jews. When St. Paal 
preached at Antioch. he did not call 
the pagnn pontiffs ''ragamuffins/' as 
Mr. Murphy called the Catholic der- 
jry, nor did he try to converf the Jews 
' by sayinj^.iof their high pricsl what the 
Birmingham Boanerg^-s eaid of the 
pope, that he was ** the greatest old 
rag and bone grubbf;r in the universe." 
And does the Journal of Civilization 
oxf)ect to convert Catholics by carica- 
turing the |K)p<% and telling scandal- 
ous stories about the church, and bur- 
lesquing her doctrines? As we said 
before, we feel bound lo presume that 
the writer believed all he said ; but it 
was so easy for him to know better. The 
doctrine which he ascribes to Catholics 
we so earnestly repudiate in nil our 
books, in all our pulpitt*, and in all our 
practical life, that we have a good right 
to complain indignantly, and to charge 
him with a careleHsness hardly more par- 
donable than dishonesty. 

We say this can^lessncss is a very 
grave offence, becuiisc such calumnies 
against religious bodies never have but 
one efiect— exasperation, and i>os»ibly 
riot. There is just the same material 
for a riot in New- York that there was 
in Birmingham. There are ignorant 
and hot headed men. l>oth Pnttestants 
and Catholics, who are re.idy i^nough to 
come to blows if you onct» cliarifo them 
full of religious ire, and then bring them 
in contact ; and there are thieves and 
street brigands enough in any large 
city to push on the work of destruction 
when once it has lK»en start eil. We 
know very well that a hundred such 



stories and pictares woald never mke 
a riot by themselves. We know veiy 
well that there are doC a half do«B 
Catholics in New- York who woald be 
wicked and silly enou^ lo resent such 
insults with violence. What we com- 
plain of is, that vi tope ration and o- 
lumny can hardly fail to create a 
dangerous antagonism of feeling 
which, at any unforeseen provoct- 
tion may ripen into bloodshed. Once 
teach opposing classes of the people 
to loathe each other, and how loog 
will the public peace be safe ? Let 
papers like Harpers Journal of Civil- 
ization (bless the mark !) keep un stir 
ring up the bad old bloocL reviving the 
dead old lies, reawakening dormant 
prejudices, and filling the two denomi- 
nations with mutual hatred, and the 
least little spark may suddenly kindle 
the whole hateful mass into a sweep- 
ing conflagration. Argue with ns. if 
you will, and we will meet you in the 
calm, gentle. Christian spirit witlmut 
which all eontroventy must be worse 
than usele^^s. Tell us that we are 
wrong, if you think so, and we wiU 
show you wherein we are right. Sore- 
ly a Christian minister can discoss 
mooted questions of theology without 
fiinging his Bible at his iidversary^s 
heH<l. Civilized gentlemen can talk 
over their diffi^rences without loading 
each other with vile epithets. There 
is only one way in which religious dis- 
putation cm be profitable or even 
tolerable ; let us come to that way at 
once ; but, above all no more lies ; no 
more playing with fli-e. 



ChrUOaniif and id ConJUcti, \ 

CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONFLICTS* 



The title of this work indicates that 
its scope is verj comprehensive, and 
that its execation involves a great deal 
of practical labor and research. The 
author says in his preface that he has 
aimed ** to display Christianity as it 
was established by Jesus, as it has been 
developed and perpetuated by the apos* 
ties and their successors, and to correct 
the erroneous impressions which so 
generally exist respectino; it, and also 
endeavored to exhibit a general out- 
line of the various conflicting elements 
which have been arrayed against the 
Christian system up to the present 
time." 

He has been as good as his word, 
for he has given us an instructive and 
able sketch of the heathen philosophers 
and religions, and of the corrupt social 
conditions which opposed themselves 
to the introduction of Christianity ; of 
the struggle for so many ages with the 
barbarism of Europe ; and, finally, in 
what we consider by far the most vivid 
and interesting portions of his work, 
he has laid bare the character, effects, 
and tendencies of what is called the 
Reformation, and the present condition 
of Christendom, religious, social, and 
political. 

To judge his work correctly, we 
must bear in mind that the author is 
a layman, the business of whose life 
has not been the study of theology. 
A man of liberal education, a physician, 
and of eminence in his profession, his at- 
tention has been drawn to the consider- 
ation of the grand problems of man's 
destiny ; he has studied and reflected 

• Christianity and lt« ConAlct«, Ancient and Mo- 
dmi. By E. E. Marcy, A.M. New-York ; D. Apple- 
Ion A Co., Broadiray. 1S07. Pp. 4S0. 



upon them, realized their importance, 
and given us the result* as he says, 
"for the sole purpose of vindicating 
truth and the religion of Christ. ** 

The testimony of an intelligent and 
cultivated la3rman on the subject of re- 
ligious truths has a peculiar value ; for, 
although it may not be so accurate and 
full in a theological sense, it often pre- 
sents the arguments in a more popuUir 
form, and with a personal conyictioo 
which impresses the minds of many 
with a peculiar force. The author 
evidently feels deeply on the subjects 
on which he writes. A citizen of the 
world, he feels a deep interest in both 
the temporal and spiritual well* being 
of his fellows. As he contemplates eith- 
er false principles or the evil conduct 
of individuals, the sentiment of indigna- 
tion rises within him, and he express- 
es himself frequently in animated and 
glowing language, and with a sort of 
passionate energy which will be con- 
sidered, no doubt, by those who do not 
sympathize with him, as a blemish. 
We wish he had toned down some of 
his expressions to avoid giving need- 
less offence, and that appearance of 
exaggeration which to the minds of 
some might cast suspicion upon the 
solid merit of his conclusions. We 
regret particularly his political allu- 
sions. Without entering at all into the 
merits .of party politics, we wish they 
had been kept out of this book alto- 
gether ; or, if the author must pay off 
one political party, we wish he had 
executed an equal and impartial jus- 
tice upon the other. There is enough 
of political selfishness, corruption, and 
bribery in either political party to ex- 
cite the indignation of eveiy honest 



iM 



Chrhtianitif and Us ConflieU> 



man. Bat we must not exact too 
much of a layman who has his stronej 
political views, and who consitlei-s it 
litnely and for the public good to f?ive 
them a derided expression. What 
woulrf be unbecoming in one in holy 
orders may be pcnnirted to a layman 
in the bu^y walkf^of life* We are not 
disposed to forgive t*o eaaily the way 
in which fie hjia spoken of Ne^' Enff. 
land. This feerlion of the eonnlry eon- 
talngall sorts of people and all ^orts of 
Ofunions, jrood, had, and indiiferent. 
There may he mot^ radicalism, more 
seefifielsm, and more fanaticism lu^va 

^ ibun el^Mvhert^. It h a qne:4ti*jri we 
think it idle to enter nfion. The ^arnc 
principles prevail and have pi'evailed 

\ in nther sections of the country. It is 
wrong to single out New Enj^Iand or 
its inhabitantt* to be held %i\\ to the 

1 scorn, ridicule, or hatred of the rest r>f 
the country. It is quite loo much the 
(iishton nowadays to dnso, and we can- 
not loo strongly re pm bate a pra«!tice 
which Bctf? one section of the country 
at variance with anothrr, perpetuates 
ill feeling and hatr«?d» a fid aggi-avales 

! the very mii^chief it aims to remove. 
But we all knciw that those who take 
warm intcivst in prditical quci^t ions are 
apt to have very decided opinions and 
to express them in a corre^^ponding 
manner, and we can well aff>rd to 
pass them by without uUowing our 
equanimity to be too mucli ruffled by 

rthem ; nod whatever may he the poU* 

I lical opinion of any man, or however 

I touch he may differ ivom our author, 

* he must, we think, give him ei*edtt for 
bia courag*^ and phiek in the fearle.sf 
matiner he come? out witJi them. 
fiut let us come to the solid merits of 

I the volume. Tlie author shows us, in 
the first chapter, the terrible corruption 

I of moral^^ and the falfte philosophy pre- 
vailing at the time of the intro<iuction 

tof Christianity, and the fearful struggle 

1 which it had with paganism. He de- 
duces thercfwm the necessity of mi- 

I racles and a prortfof their truth. Thia 
IB timely and judicious, when a ftill^v 
cHtieigm 18 etriving to overturn all the 
ideas of common sense on thijs dubjecl, 




and to destroy the hiBtorieal le 
of the truth of revelation. We 
this will be read and redected upon W 
tho^ who have confused idetfu on tlui 

subject. 

lie proceeds to g^ive us nn 
of the doctritics taught by i>ur 
Jesus Christ, and holds up in ptIm 
demand which he made on oar tin 
lied submii«v>iou and tis^jient to 
truths which he taught and all h\n\ 
cepts This is faith, and the fnunihuiu 
of religion and Falvalion. To btdieve ia 
Chrbt is to believe all that he lAU^bll 
and to do all he commanded. Aa 
are niore fully aware what in the mi 
meatnnef of the word " tliiih, ^ ire ^ 
unthjrstan I better the true chamctf rof j 
the Christian religion* We noticQ c/itDft J 
inat^curaeie^ of expression, and Mym> " 
tiuKs desire n mi>re (irofoaod in 
into the matter^ hut Bod embodii 
great deal of useful infor:n.'ttioa 
may thus Ix* brought within the 
of tnaoy who, if we nwiy judge 
the ignorance displayed in thor»\lij[ 
publications of the day, Imvc the i 
ermrieous ideas on the subjects 

He j^how* the ideniity of the rhui^ 
instituted by Christ and the CaJholiQ 
Ch«n'h» tracing the history ot lim 
church from its foundation up f.i iln* 
time of the lit^forrnntion, and d 
those doctrines which are he 14 ... .*- 
Caihohc Churt'll, though rejected by 1 
thoBC who have Bcparated trwm her.' 
The piciuri? he portmy** of ihe condition , 
of ihc world at the eomniencemenl of th<i ) 
Kefomiftlion ist mosX oppjrtnne* Pro- 1 
testanl writers have endea%*ored laj 
force tlie conviction on thr^ mi'ids oC ' 
their readerM that all or 
part of the progres^s of civ 
taken place since thai eveiii. Nii 
can be mori^ uiifrnt^. The atithnr p 
to us that a continual | 
been i n co u ra e for cen t u ri* - 
and steady a«lvanc4?menl ; and wbc^n 
we connect this with the account wltidi 
follows of thi* effpcti* of this great his- 
torical events in rt^moving the n^trainta 
which held man*s pride and selilnh ^iw- 
%\o%\% within boumb ; of tlic dli^GonL 
violence, and civil war which were lbt» 




Chriatinnity and its Conflicts, 



70S 



nn result everywhere ; we are 
with regret that the harmonious 
lopment of the physical and spiri- 
life of the nations, under the aus- 
of the church, was ever interfer- 
ith. It would have been a beau- 
sight to have seen Europe, a 
aon wealth of nations, bound to- 
;r by the tie of one religious faith 
the same principles of morality, 
itting their differences, without tiie 
isity of immense standing armies 
•uinous wars, to the mild arbitra- 
>f him whom they all acknowledg- 
> be the Vicar of Christ, and the 
iian of Christian justice and mo- 
We must ask ourselves, not 
e we are now, but what we would 
attained had our efforts been cora- 
I, rather than wasted in opposing 
mother. 

le church fulfilled her duty up to 
:ime, against the obstacles thrown 
;r way by the flood of barbarism 
li overflowed all Europe. She 
tianized and civilized the people, 
was constantly occupied in reform- 
ibuses ; and, if such existed at the 
of the Reformation, we must ac- 
'ledge that there was every dispo- 
I to reform them within the body 
B church herself, without the least 
of throwing off her legitimate au- 
ly. This book ought to clear up 
f misapprehensions only too com- 
in the public mind, 
e then have an account of the doc- 
9 of the reformers, drawn from 
own writings, followed by inter- 
g and graphic sketches of the per- 
I characteristics of Luther, Calvin, 
>thers. That of Luther is pecu- 
.' piquant, and is authenticated com- 
ly by copious extracts from his own 
ngs and those of his friends and 
nates. 

e hope the advocates of the Re- 
ation, for the honor of their cause, 
keep the first reformers as much 
>f sight as possible, and cease to 
)are them to St. Paul and the apos- 
Their doctrines are pretty well 
xled, and, when brought forward 
Btinct propositions, are reprobated 



by the universal sense of mankind. 
Unfortunately they still live in a covert 
and hidden way to work out their evil 
and bitter fruits, as the author fully 
shows in the subsequent parts of his 
work. 

Those who represent the reformers 
as saints, have a strange idea of sanctity 
or even common decency. Dr. Marcy, 
in view of their immoral eccentricities, 
adopts the most charitable construction 
possible in the case of Luther and some 
others. We will let him speak for him- 
self: 

^ From an amiable, chaste, temperate, 
and devout man, he (that is, Luther) 
became violent, ferocious, intemperate, 
licentious, blasphemous,aud sanguinary. 
From a firm, unwavering, and happy be- 
liever in the truths of the church, he be- 
came the victim of innumerable doubts, 
changes, perplexities, and fierce tor- 
ments. From a condition of mental 
tranquillity and intellectual equilibrium, 
he leaped into a state of maniacal ex- 
citement with a very great perversion 
of all his intellectual powers and facul- 
ties. As an innovator he habitually 
saw spectres, men with tails, horns, 
claws, features of animals, and was pur- 
sued and tormented by these morbid 
fantasies. A volume of these abnor- 
mal manifestations might be cited in 
support of our position, but we have 
presented a sufficient number to enable 
the impartial reader to form a just con- 
clusion of Luther's sanity or insanity." 
Afler this account of the reformers 
and their opinions, we have a striking 
account of the fruits of their doctrines 
in Europe and America up to this 
present time. It deserves to be read 
and reread. He calls attention to a 
fact of which we arc all too well cogni- 
zant, the miserable religious discussions 
introduced and ever on the increase 
since the Reformation. "Until the 
innovating revolution of the sixteenth 
century, the faith of Christendom had 
been a unit ; there were no divisions, no 
dissensions, no false teachers or false 
doctrines in the Christian household* 
Men, women, and children knew only 
one church, one faith, aod one form of 



TM 



ChH4tiamty and lU ConJlki$, 



worship, aad were contentetl and Imppy 
in their religioui* convictions. So uuiver- 
sal was (his unity, so thoroughly gi'oiiod- 
ed was tliia faith, and so general was 
the practical obseiranco of the dufies 
of religion, that sceptitfiism, the novelties 
of individualsjirreli^^ion, and immorality 
were txiinparatively rare* The Chris^t- 
ian clmi'cli had been made up of con- 
verts fiTjm numerous nalions and racen, 
and there had been a continual struggle 
for more than iiiieen centuries between 
the church on the one hand and theue 
elements of ignorance and evil on the 
other; the church liad finally triumph- 
ed, true Clui.stian civilizatiGn had fairly 
gained the as'^endency over barbarism, 
and a universal reign of Chrititian unity 
and concord waa rapi<lly dawning over 
the whole wjrld, when suddenly the 
innovations of Germany broke in upon 
(hid unity and harmoay, arrested the 
on w aril progress of Christianity, and 
deluged the world with distracting nov* 
elties, creeds, and sects/' Incessant 
wars and rapid deterioralion of raoraU 
complete the picture, the main outlines 
of which we can \erity from our own 
obsaervatioD. In thid connection I he 
author has, we are glad to see, taken up 
the favorite argument and grand trmnp 
card of the opponents of the Catholic 
church, which is thus expreti^ed : " Con- 
iHAftt the condilion of Protestant and 
C^ilholie countries, and gee hovv much 
Mif>erior in wealth, intelligence, and 
progres"? the former tire to the latter.** 
He shows that, when the facta are not 
cnrefnliy mani[uilated and prepared for 
the purjiose, there is no very great con* 
tnisl arter all He says; ** Macau lay 
hfts eontrasled the United States and 
Mexico; Italy and Scnthtnd; Spain 
and Holland; Prusi^ia and I re bind ; 
candor should Imve induced this emi- 
nent writer to have ma»ie more equal 
and ju3t comparisons as France and 
Kngknd, Belgium and Holland, Aus- 
tria and Frustfia, Mexico, Pern, and 
Brazil wiifi the Sandwich IsLaudn and 
other recently converted nation-*.'*" 

Making the compaiMHon, not merely 
in regard to wealth and outward show, 
but taking into account the statistics 



of crime, ho ahows tluU 
countries are far in advaaee of Mr 
ProUfstant rivak in virttia and oi^ 
rality. 

It ia perfectly Jistoiitabifii? ham tli 
current idea ia Froleatatil 
tends \o deify roaterialism, 

Worhlly prosperity mod M(HB» 
lation of w^'alth we uiiblaslilB(|)j pa 
forward as! the coucJui^ive test ii tie 
truth or fal«iiy of religious £iiilk Or 
Lurd said, ** Lay not up tor jonraekei 
treai^urcd upon eaiih, where motJi lal 
ruBt doth corrupt, but lay U|> treiMini 
in heaven f * but a host of clerical aal 
lay gentlemen and philo»oph<*n ilioil 
themselves hoarse with llie trfi 
" Your Catholica have not the iv^|pift 
of Christ, for you da not acvk aflif 
money half haixi eoougb. Ycm an i 
deal too sun]dein your way of liftngji 
you oui^ht to multiply yaur t^nrrinp 
and desireti more, and lire adaalioan 
artiticially than you do.** XiatfO to 
Leckvt one of th^* great modeni Kl^ 
quoted by l}i\ ^larcy : ^ An mcma» 
lation of capital is tlirrefi>re the Mi 
step of civilixation, and thi^ ninsmtt' 
latiou depends on the tn i laof 

wants, . , . • Hti. -arft 

sterile torpor that characieri««d tbOB0 
ages in which the ascetic priuciplt! loi 
been supreme, while tho clvl" 
which have attained the higheal 
fection have been those of 
Gixjece aud mo<iem Eurvipc, 
were most oppf)sed to iL" Xiiabi^l 
quoted in a work of Y^oumati« rt^s^Ur 
published^ gives us Uils queer defiai* 
lion: ''Man's superiority to tin: beafC 
depends ed^eniially In his faculty of 
diHCoverin*! inventions for the gnttiA* 
ration of hi^i wanL<9, and it ia tbe j 
of them among a people which 
braceii the canception of their *civil 
ization/ *' We feel much asbau 
our old-faslijoned ignorance, bat i 
we used to think man's superiority I 
the beast consisted essentially in Itu 
fios^essing an inmiortal soul. l}t,* 
\W Draper bunches out in tljc folkii 
in^ grandiloquent condemnation of ill 
*• Roman Church f ** How dttfenml I 
result had it abaadcmed Ili6 t^baolele 





Vhristianily and iti ConfiieU. 



705 



absurdities of patristicism"— >we sup* 
pose he means the teaching of tiie 
fathers of the church handed down to 
them from the apostles — " and become 
imbacd with the spirit of true philo* 
Bophy — had it lifted itself to a compre- 
hension of the awful magnificence of 
the heavens above and the glories of 
the earth beneath, had it appreciated 
the immeasurable vastness of the uni- 
verse, its infinite multitude of worlds, 
its inconceivable past duration." Poor 
ol<i church, why did you not abandon 
the consideration of the unseen world 
and the inconceivable duration of 
eternity, and confine your attention to 
astronomy and geology ? Why teach 
men that Grod takes an interest in them 
personally and holds them account- 
able, when he has created so many 
worlds and rocks to take up their at- 
tention? This is philosophy with a 
vengeance, the philosophy which is 
summed up by St. Paul in the short 
phrase, ^ Let us eat and drink, for to- 
morrow we shall die." 

Greece and Rome reached the acme 
of this material civilization before they 
felL England at present seems to 
occupy their place. Kay, in his social 
history of the English people, exposes 
the misery and vice of the great mass 
of the population, which, like the 
smothered fire of a volcano, may burst 
out and involve the land in a universal 
ruin and desolation. 

It is well for us to take warning in 
time, for, in the headlong race after 
money and material enjoyment, we are 
getting civilized to such a degree that 
we seem to be in danger of outrunning 
all the antiquated notions of honor and 
honesty. Our late upheaval of society, 
the unsettled state of things, the inse* 
curity of property, the enormous prices 
of labor and living, are beginning to 
make us realize that *^ all is not gold 
that glitters," and we feel confident 
that many a one will accept Dr. Mar- 
cy's fearless expose of false civiliza- 
tion with thankfulness, and draw the 
logical conclusions. 

In this connection is shown also the 
reason why our own country displays 
VOL. v.— 45 



so much greater advance in material 
prosperity than either Mexico or the 
countries of South America : a reason, 
we are truly sorry to say, substanti- 
ated by overwhelming testimony. It 
is this : The native population of our 
own country, though a simple, inno- 
cent, warm-hearted people, who re- 
ceived us with open arms, were hunted 
down and destroyed like wild beasts in 
New England, Virginia, and elsewhere* 
In Mexico and South America they 
still live and occupy the country. Here 
we have made a blank to be filled by 
a full-blown European civilization of 
the growth of centuries; there mil- 
lions of the original people have been 
reclaimed from barbarism, are living, 
incroasing in number, and steadily pn^ 
gressii^ toward tlie mark we have atr 
tained. Dr. Marcy tells truth in elo- 
quent but indignant forms when ha 
says : ''It is quite true that this Mex- 
ican Indian race is inferior by nature 
to the Angla Saxon or the Frank. It 
is quite true that the children of those 
who wero rude savages a few genera- 
tions ago have not the intelligence, or 
the energy, or the enterprise of the 
shrewd, money-loving Puritan. It is 
quite true that the souls of these sim- 
ple-minded chiklren of Montezuma are 
not wholly absorbed in the love of gain 
and of worldly pride and ambition; 
but, nevertheless, they Hve, and con 
look upon the consecrated graves ol 
their fathers back to the days of Cor^ 
tez ; they still livej and can worship in 
spirit and truth the Gk)d who created 
them and gave them their country; 
they still live, and can behold cities, 
towns, churches, schools, and culti<^ 
>'atcd fields, where their fathers only 
saw dense forests and savage wilder- 
nesses; they sHU live, and bless the 
church and the priests who have been 
their preservers and benefiactors." 

Our Lord Jesus Christ came to- 
preach the gospel to the poor, and it is 
the glory of the Catholic Churoh that 
her great heart has always beat warm- 
ly and tenderly for the souls and bodies 
of the poor and down- trodden races of 
mankind. Her history on this conti- 



706 



ChruHanihf and iU VonJUeU, 



nent is a history of a long line of tnie 
imitations of Jesus Christ, and of the 
peaceful triumphs of his cross. Wher- 
ever Protestantism prevailed, we have, 
as an unvaryinfir result, the speedy ex- 
termination by fire and sword of the abo- 
rigines. Even this is held up by some 
writers ns conclusive of the superior 
claims of Protestantism. Their argu- 
ment, divested of all ambiguity, would 
sound thus : " The red man was in the 
way of our development, we shot him 
and cleared the track. What is the 
use of making a fuss about shooting 
Indians or other inferior races ? It is a 
great deal better to do that than to try 
4o keep the poor devils to be a burden 
lo themselves and to us. We Protes- 
4ants understand better than you weak- 
minded and superstitious Catholics 
liow to deal with such matters, and 
Xhis proves that we, and not you, have 
the true Christianity." We speak thus 
-strongly because we feel strongly the 
.impudence with which such writers at- 
tribute to Christianity itself the gross- 
4»t violations of its very first princi- 
ples. 

Let us excuse our forefathers as 
much as we can, but, in the interest of 
the religion of Christ, let us not call 
.their crimes virtues. There was noth- 
ing in their religion powerful enough to 
enlighten their ignorance or to control 
their passions ; they had no church to 
lay down the stern, undeviating prin- 
Xiiples of morality, and no confessional 
to apply them to the individual con- 
science ; and, therefore, as soon as an 
Indian stole a horse or a cow, or plun- 
dered a hen-roost, his death and the 
-extermination of his tribe was a neces- 
sary and immediate consequence. And 
for the want of the same authoritative 
moral restraint, according to many Pro- 
testant writers who have taken the 
alarm, we are now on the high road to 
exterminate ourselves. 

The Rev. J. Todd, D.D., a Congre- 
gational divine, all honor to him for his 
conscientious candor, says, s|>eaking of 
the disparity in the natural increase of 
-our foreign and native-born population, 
and of the immoral causes of it : <^ There 



is nothing in Protcatantism that » 
courages or connives at it, bat there a 
a vast ignorance as to the guilt of tiie 
thing. But in the Catholic Church bo- 
man life is guarded at all stages by the 
confessional, by stem denouocemeo^ 
and by fearful excomnounications.'' 

The divine wisdooi of the Founder of 
the sacrament of confession is mosi 
signally vindicated in these few pithy 
words, which we leave to the reflectioa 
of the reader. 

In the concluding portions of hii 
work the author gives some most inter- 
esting statistics of the growth and pro- 
portions of infidelity and scepticism in 
our country, of the results of Catholic 
and Protestant missions among the 
heathens, and of the state of rcligioa 
throughout the world. These make 
his work more complete, nnd will be 
received gladly by many who have not 
had their attention called to these fiicti 
before. We think they add very much 
to the completeness of the work, and 
it was a hap()y idea of the author to 
put tliem in. Dr. JViarcy's book ought 
to do a great deal of good, and we do 
not doubt that it will. The number of 
unpalatable truths told in it, and the 
direct, incisive way in which tliey arc 
told, iiavc provoked and will provoke 
much unfavorable comment Every 
effort will be made to discredit it It 
will be called vituperative, false, and 
calumnious. Its truth — and Dr. Marcj 
has taken good care to back up all his 
assertions with the best of evidence— ii 
the best refutation of all such aocuca- 
tions. We find every day all sorts of 
false and calumnious statements, circu- 
lated without a particle of proof, in the 
books, the periodicals, and newspapers 
of the land, against the persons and the 
doctrines we bold most dear. It is of 
little use to reply, the lie is circulated 
and the reply is left unnoticed. Our 
opponents take all their representations 
of our doctrines nnd practices, at second 
hand, from the writings of our deadliest 
enemies, and never think it worth while 
to verify their statements by looking at 
the statements of our own councils and 
standard writers. This treatmeot is 



7%ermomet0rt. 



707 



absolutely unfair, and the most respect- 
able are blind to its meanness, where 
we are concerned ;* but let the Catholic 
writer tell the outspoken truth and back 
it up hj genuine testimony of their own 
writers and partisans, and the cry is at 
once raised of ^* calumnious, incendiary, 
malicious," etc etc It will be easier 
to raise a cry against this book than to 
answer its statements. When Marshall 
published his history of Christian Mis- 
sions, with its thousands of references 
to the most unsuspected Protestant wit- 
nesses, we looked for a reply which 
would be something more than merely 
throwing dust in the eyes of the public, 
bat wo have looked in vain up to this 



time ; its statements have never been 
answered. So we feel sure it will be 
with this book. It may be called hard 
names, but it will not be seriously an- 
swered. If it will be thoughtfully read« 
we shall feel content. It will then, at 
least, be answered, as we prefer to see 
all honest representations of the truth 
answered, by the removal of prejudice, 
the correction of many false ideas which 
prevail concerning our holy faith, and 
the consequent desire, which we praj 
may arise in not a few sincere minds, 
to examine more fully into its character 
and the grounds of its claims to be the 
true religion of Jesus Christ 



Vtom Cbombcn^i Jooroftl. 

THERMOMETERS. 



An ordinary thermometer consists, 
as everybody knows, of a glass tube, 
fixed to a scale. This tube contains a 
fine bore, and has a bulb blown at one 
extremity. Some liquid, generally 
mercury or alcohol, is introduced into 
the tube, the air is driven out, and the 
tube is scaled. The quantity of fluid, 
say mercury, admitted into the tube 
is so regulated that at common tem- 
peratures the bulb and a portion of the 
bore are filled. The remainder of the 
bore, which is empty, affords space for 
the mercury to rise. This arrange- 
ment renders very perceptible the al- 
terations in the volume of the mercury 
due to changes of temperature, a very 
slight increase or diminution of volume 
causing the mercury to rise or to fall 
appreciably in the fine bore. After 
sealing, the scale has to be acyustcd to 
the tube, and the instrument is com- 
plete. 

Thermometers of the most accurate 



make are called standard thermome- 
ters. In their manufacture, numeroua 
precautions are necessary from the 
very outset. Even in so simple a mat- 
ter as the choice of the tube of glass 
much care is requisite. The bore haa 
to be tested, in order to ensure that it 
is of uniform capacity throughout. It 
is found that tubes, as they come from 
the glasshouse, contain a bore wider 
at one extremity than the other. The 
bore is, in fact, a portion of a very 
elongated cone. In a hundredweight 
of tubes, not more than half a dozen or 
so can be picked out in which the bore 
is perfectly true. The bore is tested 
in a very ingenious though simple man- 
ner. A bulb is blown, and a very 
small quantity of mercury is admitted 
into the tube-— about as much as will 
fill an inch and a half of the bore. By 
alternately cooling and heating the 
bulb, this delicate thread of mercury 
is driven from one end of the tube to 



708 



Thermometert, 



the other, and during this process its 
length is carefully measured in all parts 
of the tube. Should the length of the 
mercury alter in various situations, it 
is evident that the capacity of the bore 
is not uniform throughout, and the tube 
must be rejected. In blowing the bulb, 
an elastic balL containing air, is used. 
The ordinary method of blowing glass 
bolba by means of the breath is found 
to cause the introduction of moisture 
Into the tube. 

The size of the bulb has next to be 
considered. A large bulb renders the 
instrument slow in its indications of 
change, owing to the quantity of mcc- 
cury that has to be acted on. On the 
other hand, if the bulb is too small, it 
will not contain sufficient mercury to 
register high tempcratui*es, unless the 
bore is exceedingly fine. 

The shape of the bulb is of import- 
ance. Spherical bulbs arc best adapt- 
ed to resist the varying pressure of the 
atmosphere ; while cylindrical bulbs ex- 
pose larger surfaces of mercury, and 
arc therefore preferred for more deli- 
cate instruments. Various plans have 
been suggested in order to obtain ther- 
mometers of extreme sensitiveness for 
delicate experiments. Some have been 
made with very small thin bulbs, to 
contain a very small quantity of mer- 
cury ; but in these the indicating column 
is generally so fiue, that it can only 
be read by the aid of a powerful lens. 
Instruments have been contrived with 
spiral or coiled tubular bulbs ; but the 
thickness of class required to keep these 
in shape nullifies the effect sought to 
be obtained — namely, instantaneous 
action. Messrs. Negretti & Zanibra, 
the well-known meteorological instru- 
ment-makers, have recently succeeded 
in constructing a thermometer ^hieh 
combines sensitiveness and quickness 
of action, and which presents a g(X)d 
visible column. The bulb of this th'»r- 
mometer is of a gridiron form. The 
reservoir is made of glass, so thin that 
it cannot bo blown ; it can only be 
formed by means of a spirit-lamp; yet 
its shape gives it such rigidity that its 
indicatioas are not affected by altering 



its position or by standing it on ill 
bulb. The reservoirs of the most dei- 
cate of these instruilkents contain aboil 
nine inches of ezcessivdj thin cyiia' 
drical glass, the outer dinmeler of 
which is not more than the twentielbrf 
an inch, and, owing to the large soito 
thus presented to the air, the indicadoM 
are positively instantaneous. Tlii 
form of thermometer was coostncltd 
expressly to meet the requirements d 
scientific balloon ascents, to enable tha 
observer to take thermometric readiojgi 
at precise elevations. It was conten- 
plated to procure a metallic themMOM* 
ter ; but, on the production of this per- 
feet instrument, the idea was abandos- 
ed. 

The shape and size of the bulb hav- 
ing been determined, the workman next 
proceeds to fill the tube. This is ef- 
fected by heating the bulb whife the 
open end of the tube is embedded ia 
mercury. Upon allowing the bulb to 
cool, the atmospheric pressure drives 
some mercAiry into the tube. The pro- 
cess is continued until sufficient mer- 
cury has entered. The mercury used 
in filling should be quite pure, aod 
should have been freed from moisture 
and air by recent boiling. It is again 
boiled in the tube after filling; and 
when the expulsion of air and moisture 
is deemtni complete, and while the me^ 
cury fills the tube, the artist dexterooslf 
removes it from the source of heat, and 
at the same moment clost^s it with the 
fiamc of a blow- pipe. It sometimei 
happens that in spite of every care a 
little nir still remains in the lube. Its 
presence is detected by inverting tbe 
lube, w hen, if the mercury falls to th« 
extremity (or nearly so) of the bore, 
some air is present, which, of couKe, 
must be n»movei. 

The thermometer, after being filled, 
has to be graduated. Common tliermo- 
meters are fixed to a scale on which 
the de^^rees arc marked ; but iIk^ gra- 
duutijn of standards is engrave. I on the 
stem itself, in order to insure the ;;rcatest 
possible accunxey. The first s:eps in 
gRV.limting are to ascertain tho exact 
freesing- point and the exact boiling. 



2%0rmometen4 



7W 



point, and to mark on the tube the heig^ht 
of the mercury at these points. The 
freezing-point can be determined with 
comparative ease. Melting ice has al- 
ways the same femperature in all places 
and under aU circumstances, provided 
only that (he water from which the ice 
b congealed is pure. The bulb and 
the lower portion of the tube are im- 
mersed in melting ice ; the mercury de- 
scends ; the point where it remains sta- 
tionary is the freezing-point, and is 
marked on the tube. 

The determination of the boiling- 
point is more difficult. The boiling-point 
varies with the pressure of the atmoa* 
phere. The normal boiling temperature 
of water is fixed at a barometric pres- 
sure of 29*922 inches of mercury bar- 
ing the temperature of melting ice, in 
the latitude of 45^ and at the level of 
the sea. Of course, these conditions 
rarely if ever co«exist ; and consequently 
the boiling-point has to be corrected for 
errors, and reduced for latitude. Tables 
of vapor tension, as they are called, 
computed from accurate experiments, 
are used for this purpose. . Begnault^s 
tables, the most recent, are considered 
the best. 

Ad approximate boiling-point is 
first obtained by actual experiment 
A copper boiler is used, which has at 
its top an open cylinder two or three 
inches in diameter, and of sufficient 
length to allow a thermometer to be 
introduced into it, without touching the 
water in the boiler. The cylinder ia 
surrounded by a second one, fixed to 
the top of the boiler, but not entering 
it, the two being about an inch apart. 
The outer cylinder is intended to pro- 
tect the inner one from contact with 
the cold external air. The thermo- 
meter to be graduated is placed in the 
inner cylinder, and held there by a 
thong of India-rubber. As the vapor 
of the boiling water rises from the 
boiler into the cylinder, it envelops the 
thermometer, and causes the mercury 
to ascend. As the mercury rises, the 
tube is gradually lowered, so as to 
keep the top of the mercury just yisible 
above the cylinder. When the mer- 



cury becomes statioaary, the position 
of the top of the column is marked oa 
the tube ; and the boiling-point, subject 
to corrections for errors, is obtained* 

The fineezing and boihng points baiag 
determined, the scale is applied bj 
dividing the length between the two 
points into a certain number of «qual 
deg^rees. This operation is performed 
by a machine called a di\iding-engine, 
which engraves degrees of any required 
width with extreme accuracy. 

The scale used in the United Elng- 
dom, in the British coloniea, and m 
North America, is that known aa Fab- 
renheitV Fahrenheit was a philotophi- 
cal instrument maker of Amsterdam. 
About the year 1724, he invented the 
scale with which his name is associated. 
The frceziog-point of his scale is 32 de- 
grees, the boiling-point 212 degreea, 
and the intermediate space is composed 
of 180 degrees. This peculiar division 
was thus derived. The lowest cdd 
observed in Iceland was tiie aero of 
Fahrenheit. When the thermomet^ 
stood at zero, it was calculated to con- 
tain a volume of mercury represented 
by the figures 11,124. When plunged 
into melting snow, the mercury expandr 
ed to a volume represented by 11,156; 
hence the intermediate space was divi- 
ded into thirty-two equal portions or 
degrees, and thirty-two was token as 
the freezing-point of water.* Simi- 
larly, at the boilmg-point, the quick- 
silver expanded to 11,836. Fahren- 
heit's scale is convenient in some re- 
spects. The meteorological observer 
is seldom troubled with negative signs, 
the divisions of the scale are numerous, 
and tenths of degrees give all the mi- 
nuteness usually requisite. 

In 1742, Celsius, a Swede, proposed 
zero for the freezing-point, and 100 de- 
grees for the boiling-point, all tempera- 
tures below freezing being distinguished 

^ Mr. Balfour 8t«irart bM lately conoloded a 
ierles of experiments at the Kew ObserTatory, hf 
which h« has accurately determined the trnmim» 
point of mercury. Tbe experiments, conducted wak 
great care, hare sfaoirn that the freealn(-poliil «f 
mercury, like that of water, Is coastaot, add thai tt 
denotes a temperature of --87*98 F. The freeslii|p> 
point of mercury will now be need aa a tfaifd potatb 
graduatiog tbermometen which are intended la t^ 
plater extreme temperalvei. 



710 



I%e 7\i8can Peasants and the Maremna, 



by the negative sign (— ). This scale 
18 known as the Centigrade. It is in 
nse in France, Sweden, and in the 
south of Europe; it has the advantage 
of decimal notation, with the disadvan- 
tage of the negative sign. 

Reaumur's scale is in use in 8[)ain, 
Switzerland, and Germany. It differs 
from the Centigrade in this, that the 
freezing and boiling points are sepa-> 
rated by 80 degrees instead of 100 de- 
grees. 

It would not be difficult to construct 
a soale which should combine all the 
advantages of Fahrenheit's and of the 
Centigrade. Freezing-point should be 
fixed at 100 degrees ; and boiling-point 
should be fixed at as many hundred di- 
visions or degrees above 100 degrees 
as might be agreed on by practical men 
as most convenient. The advantages 
of decimal notation would thus remain 
as in the Centigrade scale, and the wt- 
nus sign would be got rid of. 

And now, having applied the scale, 
and having exercised every precaution, 
can we congratulate ourselves on pos- 
sessing a perfect instrument? Dis- 
heartening as it may appear, the stand- 
ard instrument of to-day may not be 
accurate to-morrow. It is more than 
probable that the freezing point will 
become displaced. This curious phe- 
nomenon has never been satisfactorily 
explained. Messrs. Negretti&Zambra, 
in their treatise on Meteorological In- 
ttruments, (a work which abounds with 
information of a most interesting na- 



ture.) say, in reference todisplaeefiMil 
of the freezing point, that ^either tk 
prolonged effect of (he atmotp h crie 
pressure upon the thio giass of the bofti 
of thermometers, or toe gmdoal res- 
toration of the equilibriam of the parti- 
cles of the glass afVer having bees 
greatly disturbed by the opentioo of 
boiling the mercury, seems to be tk 
cause of the freezing-points of staodiH 
thermometers reading trom a few teotb 
to a degree higher in the coarse of some 
years." To obviate this small error, ii 
is the practice of the makers io questioo 
^ to place the tubes aside for about six 
months before fixing the freezing-point, 
in order to give time for the glass to 
regain its former state of aggregatioa 
The making of accurate thermometers 
is a task attended with many difilcnltiet. 
the principal one being the liability of 
the zero or freezing-point varying con- 
stantly ; so much so, that a thermometer 
that is perfectly correct to-day, if im- 
mersed in boiling-water, will be no 
longer accurate ; at least, it wiU take 
some time before it again settles into 
its normal state. Then, again, if a 
tliermometer is recently blown, filled, 
and graduated immediately, or, at least, 
before some months have elapsed, 
though every care may have been lakeD 
with the production of the instnimeot, 
it will require some correction ; so 
that the instrument, however carefblly 
made, should from time to time be 
plunged into finely-pounded ice, in or- 
der to verify the freezing-point* 



From The Month. 

THE TUSCAN PEASANTS AND THE MAREMNA, 



The Maremna is, in summer, the 
word that driues the sleep from many 
an Italian woman's pillow as she thinks 
of the perils that her hus»band. her 
brother, or her betrothed is encounter- 
ing as he reaps the fertile har\'est, and 
gains, at the n^k of his life, the wages 
that will enable him and his to live 



through the winter. '^ A me mi pare 
una Maremna amara" is the bordoa of 
the song with which many a child is 
rocked to sleep. And with reason. 
The Maremna is the Littorale or shores 
of the Tuscan Sea ; and there the coasts 
that bound the blue waters of the Medi- 
terranean are lined by tangled jongtoi 



Th/t Tuscan Peasants and ih$ Maremna. 



711 



and pestilential marshes, whence at 
each sunset arises the baleful fever, 
which, passing in scorn over the ruined 
cities that its pernicious breath has de- 
populated, creeps along like the sleuth- 
hound until it finds the hardy moun- 
taineer returning from his day of labor, 
and smites him with the wasting blight 
which saps his strength. Yet year 
aAer year do tho sons of Italy descend 
with unwearied energy to these vaUeys 
and deadly plains, to reap the crops 
that have grown uncared for but luxu- 
riantly, death and disease stalking be- 
hind them, and the fear of falling vic- 
tims to the power of the evil air urging 
them to increased exertions, in order 
that they may earlier return and share 
their scanty gains with their wives and 
children. They march gayly, too, often 
singing alternately in their rough mono- 
tone the songs they have composed 
themselves, cheerful in (he conscious- 
ness that they are fulfilling a duty ; and 
this although knowing that they have 
to fight a foo against whom neither 
courage nor energy nor strength can 
avail, but whose damp breath appears 
to draw the marrow from their bones 
and fill them wirh fever; sometimes 
sending them weak and emaciated, use- 
less as workmen, to their native homes ; 
sometimes in a few hours laying their 
bodies low, to lie, far from family and 
friends, in unconsecrated ground. 

When the Italian peasants speak of 
the Maremna, they mean that district 
of Italy which runs along the shores of 
the Mediterranean from Monte Nebo 
and the mountains south of Leghorn 
over the flat marshes of the Tuscan 
shores, and the desolate promontory of 
Monte Cervino, as far as the sunny 
shores of Sorento and Amalfi. To the 
south of the Tuscan frontier the (to 
English ears) more familiar name of 
Campagna is applied to the whole of 
that portion of the Marcmna which lies 
within the ancient Agro Romano ; still 
further to the south the word Maremna 
becomes identical with what are called 
the Pontine Marshes. The mountain- 
eers of Modena, Parma, and Tuscany 
call the country which they periodically 



visits whether south or north, Maremna: 
the inhabitants frequently give it a lootl 
name. Undefined as are its bounda- 
ries, and almost unknown to geography 
as is its name, its characteristics are 
much the same throughout; every- 
where we meet the same wide plainn, 
tangled jungles, ruined cities, wooded 
hills, eveivreourring swamps and mo- 
rasses; throuofhout the whole district 
the same terrible ague, the sama deso- 
lating fever, the fatal influence of the 
malaria, rage with destructive effect. 
Although oflcn characterized as a 
swamp or a marsh, yet the Maremna 
by no means consists of plains like the 
fens ; on the contrary, there are several 
high mountains, which run down even 
into the sea : the land near the coast is, 
however, in general flat 

Part of the Maremna is cnltivatedy 
and produces grain ; the greater portion, 
however, is kept for pasture. As soon 
as the herbage begins to fail on the 
mountains of Tuscany, the peasants 
drive their flocks down to the pastures 
of the Maremna. There they remain 
six or seven months. The women and 
children are left at home, and the men 
and boys during this time bear all the 
privations, hardships, and dangers. An 
Italian poet exclaims: ^ Alas, how often 
do they return home bowed down by 
fever ! how often do they never return I 
for, where they sought to earn the sus- 
tenance of their families, they meet with 
death." While some descend with their 
flocks and act as shepherds, the majority 
are there for the purpose of cutting 
wood, making charcoal and potash; 
their last work is to reap the hay and 
com, and then those who are leflt alive 
return. Part of their wages has al- 
ready been sent home ; the remainder 
they bring with them. 

Halfway between Leghorn and Pisa 
stands the old church of St. Pier 
d' Arena. It is very large, and built as 
nearly as possible to resemble the form 
of a ship. In old days the sea reached 
this point, and the name * Arena' points 
to the strand on which the church was 
built. Tradition states it was here St 
Peter landed on his visit to Italy, i 



712 



Th$ Tuscan I^eaMonU and Ae MaremnOm 



the church was built to commemorate 
the event. 

One October, now many yeare ago, 
after a visit to this church, I met a troop 
of shepherds and their Hocks on their 
march to the Maremna. The proces* 
sion must have covered half a mile of 
ground. Never yet have I looked on a 
troop of these sunburnt children of the 
south as they were wending their way 
to a land whence all would not return, 
without saluting them even as I would 
a forlorn hof)e advancin;^ to attack the 
breacli of a fortress. Soidioi-s of duty, 
^Morituros vos snluto.** And higher 
is the courage and deeper is the love 
that impels these brave men, singing as 
they go, to encounter the fever and 
thirst and pestilential air of ttie JVIarem- 
na, than that wliich animates many even 
of those soldiers who flglu for God and 
king and fatherland. 

Tears rose to the eyes of my com- 
panion as they passed. The flocks 
and herds marched first, all *' ruddled," 
that is, maHeed with red, to show to 
whom they belonged. The procession 
was headed by the bell-wethers, with 
their curved horns ; in close attendance 
upon them are tall, handsome, woolly- 
haired sheep-dogs, of a larger breed 
than ours, and with their necks detend- 
ed by a collar studded with nails, the 
projecting points of which often turn 
the scale in the case of an encounter 
with the wolves. Nur are tiiese the 
only robbers against which tht»se vigi- 
lant watchers defend the sheep: if a 
human beast of prey, in ^hapc of a 
thief, lies lurking in the ditches that 
border the road»ide, watching an op- 
portunity for seizing a Limb, they de- 
tect him and compel him to show him- 
self. At night, too, they march round 
the nets that enclose the little encamp- 
ment, and give the weary guardians 
time to sleep. Before they go to sleep, 
the peasants light a fire, and make 
cheeso and riootti, (a sort of IX'von- 
ihire cream,) with which they npay 
the owner of the soil for leave to en- 
camp on hiB grounds. As the milk is 
far more plentiful on their return in 
May, a spirit of natural, even-handed 



justice makes them ^nerallj contrive, 
both going and returning, to hah at tlie 
same stations. A necessary memlM 
of this company is the poet, or scribe, 
(fm'rano.) To him is entrusted the 
task of composing, or el^e writing down 
and con-ecting, the *• Respects'* which 
each Tuscan shepherd is bound to seid 
to his sweetheart. Collections of these 
rustic poems have, lately been made 
and published. They arc full of pathos 
and tenderness ; the heart of the yoong 
exile yearns not only for his damn^ 
(sweetheart,) but for the beauties of the 
country he has lefl behind him. Not 
his the harp to sing of festive banqiMti 
or goblets crowned with flowers; he 
loves the streams of fresh water, the 
flowering grass, the cultivated terraces, 
the pure air of his mountain borne. 
Nature herself, and sorrow, the nurs'? 
of beauty, have bn^athed on him a spirit 
of tnith and poetry as distinct from 
the sickly sentimentality and vice so 
of\en found in modem verse, as is the 
wild rider of the Arabian desert from 
the puny jockey who wins our handi- 
caps. Strange, indeed, it would be if 
these poems, written in danger, absence, 
and exile, pa-^sessed not a fragrance all 
their own — one, however, that seems 
to escape not only in the most literal 
translation, but even when, under a 
slightly diffi'rent form, tht-y appear ia 
the works of their more highly educat- 
ed countrymen. 

Inde|>endentiy of the troops tliat 
march almost |iatriarchally with their 
flocks and herds, like Abn\ham and 
Jacob, peasants often go down in pangs 
of five or six to look for work; some- 
times, though rarely, necessity comjiels 
them to take with them their wives, and, 
if grown up, their children. In this 
case they almost invariably travel in 
one of the long, narrow, covered cars 
of t he country. The men trudge along 
in grt)ups of five or six, with their best 
clothes in a bundle slung to a stick, 
and, if by any possible contriviuice it 
can Imj managed, with a gun upon their 
shoulder ; for game of all kind^ roe, 
deer, wild boars, porcupines, woodcock, 
and snipe abound. I once saw these 



The Tuscan PetuanU and the Maremna, 



718 



groups arriving, one after another, at 
a seaport town near the Gulf of Genoa, 
until they reached the number of 500 
or 600 : these all sailed in a steamer 
to Corsica, to till the rich ^px>und of 
that island. In a fortnight the steamer 
returned, and freighted itself with an 
equally large cargo of Liborera, Many 
go to Sardinia, a still more unhealthy 
island : their chief occupation there is 
mostly to fell the forests which have 
been bought by speculators. Some 
find work at the Grand Ducal Iron- 
works at Follonica, and at the mines 
in the interior of the island of Elba ; 
others help to till the Maremna, the 
soil of which is so fertile that, if it lies 
one year fallow, it requires but to have 
the seed thrown broadcast over it in 
order to yield every alternate year, 
and without further tillage, a most 
magnificent crop. Others help to clear 
away the forest and the thicket, and 
prepare the ground for future years, 
and thus aid in the great works for re- 
claiming this land of jungle and fever 
that have been now carried on for so 
many years ; others simply to make 
charcoal or potasli^ and to live by sell- 
ing game at the neighboring towns. 
To sing the songs of their native vil- 
lages is their chief pleasure. In the 
daytime one man will begin to sing at 
his work, and then another catches the 
refrain, and begins in turn. At night, 
too, round the fire, (which An said to 
scare away the fever,) they sing songs 
and tell their old stories, and repeat 
their legends of saints and miracles. 
Thus it happens that they return to 
their native villages, speaking the pure 
Tuscan language undefiled by the patois 
of Corsica or the miserable jargon of 
^the other islands. 

The fever often attacks them, and 
they have to return home with their 
work half done; often a father will have 
to send back his son, fearful that he 
may die on the road, but conscious that, 
though he seems hardly able to crawl, 
tlie lad's only chance of safety lies in 
his reaching the pure air of the moun- 
tains before it is too late. 

If all goes well, they arrive at home 



by the 24th of June, the feast of St 
John. As they near their native place, 
the more active and eager members of 
the different parties press on ; and as 
soon as they are descried from the vil- 
lage, a group is formed to meet them 
and welcome them back ; then, too, do 
the wives learn what their husbandu 
have earned and whether they have 
had a good year. 

We may fancy the inhabitants who 
have remained at home, assembling at 
the old tower that bars the entrance to 
the village, eagerly asking and hearing 
the news of the winter. "Old Giu- 
seppe" has had a good year ; Peppe da 
Cacciono has had a touch of the mar- 
emna, but he got better; Renzo of 
Cognocco's dead, died of "la pemi- 
ciosa." " Poor fellow ! Grod rest his 
soul r* is the reply. " He had a bad 
attack last year ; we never thought to 
see him again.** And then they will 
visit Renzo'S family and condole with 
them. 

Not only do they bring back news to 
their own, but to all the villages that 
they pass through* Before the eve of 
St. John yon may often, as the Abb6 
Tigri says, " meet a group of five or 
six, burnt nearly black with the sun, 
in their worst dress, and wearied out by 
the long journey. " Ben tornati^ wel- 
come back I" you cry. " Do you come 
from far? Poor fellows, how tired 
you seem !" " It is nothing now, sir,** 
they say, ^ for we are going home ; but 
it was a hard time this spring.'^ And, 
with that smile of singular brightness 
which no poverty or sufiering seems 
able to drive from their face, they pass 
by. 

The maremna is more accessible 
now than when we last visited and 
travelled through it. The works that 
were originated and so sedulously car- 
ried on by the former government have 
been continued by the present, and have 
fertilized and rendered comparatively 
healthy large portions of tlie country 
which were formerly desolate andpesti* 
lential : a railroad has been made, which 
familiarizes many a modem traveller 
with the country under its present as* 



714 



liiicellany. 



pects, but tempts bim to hurry by much 
that 18 interesting and would have re- 
warded a longer soj ou m. We may en- 
deavor in some future number to de- 
scribe the impression made upon us by 
this portion of Etruria, and to lead tho 
reader 

" By lordly Volaterra, 

Where scowls the far-famed hold 
Piled by the hands of giants 
i'oT god-like kings of old ; 



By tea-fflri Pi>fmlonla , 
Whose scntloela descry 

Sardinians snowy mountaln-topg 
Frin^Df Uie Mothera skj. 



* By the drear bank of Ufena. 

Where fliKhU of marsh-foirl play. 
And baflkloea He wallowing 

Thrciugh the hot summer d«y ; 
By the gigantic watch-towers. 

No work of earthly men. 
Whence Cora*s sentinels o'eciook 

The nerer-ending fen. 
To the Laurentlan Jangle, 

The wild-hog's reedy home.** 



MISCELLANY. 



Pagan Irish Sepulchral Pillar-Stones, 
— That standing stones were used during 
pagan times in Ireland as sepulchral mo- 
numents appears certain ; for we find in 
the description of the royal cemetery of 
Brugh-na-Boinno, as given in the Dinn- 
senchus contained in tho Book of Bally- 
mote, fol. 190, translated and published 
by tho late Dr. Petrio. in his treatise on 
the Round Towers of Ireland, the follow- 
ing : ** The pillar-atone of Buidi the son 
of Muiredh, where his head is interred." 
We also find quoted by tho same emi- 
nent antiquary, from the Leabhar-na-h- 
hide, an account of tho death of Fothadh 
in the battle of Ollarba, fought, accord- 
ing to the Four Masters, in a.d. 285, with 
a description of his grave, in which is re- 
corded, ** And there is a pillar-atone at 
his earn ; and an ogumis on tho end of 
the pillar-stone which is in the earth.*^ 
The earliest sepulchral monuments men- 
tioned in the Annals of the Four Masters 
aro carns^ (largo heaps of stones,) and 
fnun or tuvtms^ (mounds of earth, ) now 
more generally known by the name ** bar- 
row." However, that pillar-stones may 
even then have been in use appears pro- 
bable ; for in the opening parairrapn of 
those Annals there is, ** From Fintan is 
named Feart Fintain" (that is, Fintain*s 
grave) " over Loch Deirgdheirc." The 
place is still called by this name, and is 
situated on the northern slopes of the 
j^ramountains, overlooking Lough Derg, 



county Tippcrary. There w sl piUar-stsm 
at the grave, from which the hill is called 
Laghtea.— G. Uenrt Kikauast, in Atis- 

nceum. 

The Mbnhl* Model Farm in Ah^eria,— 
The Mois Agricole contains an interesting^ 
account of tho Trappist Model Farm at 
Chcragas, in Algeria. In 1843, Marshil 
Bugeaud granted the Trappists one thou- 
sand two hundred hectares of land, oa 
which, two years afterward, three hun- 
dred thousand francs were expended bv 
the order in buildings. The stock of 
animals on <he farm is now magnificent 
The Trappist cows each yield sixteen 
quarts of milk a day, in a country when 
tho native cows do not yield more than 
goats ; and the sheep and piffs are equally 
fine. A large quantity of honoy is also 
produced at Cheragas. There are in the 
establishment one hundred and eight 
monks, of whom twenty-two belong to 
the choir, and ten aro priests. Twenty lay 
workmen aro constantly emp1oye<i at the 
convent, and every poor or sick wayfarer 
is entitled to claim or receive aid or work 
there. "When the emperor visited the es- 
tablishment, he discovered, to his surprise 
that upward of a dozen of the monks had 
been soldiers of the imperial guard. They 
explained to him that, after the severe 
discipline and simple fare of the French 
army, the Trappist rule, ascetic as it is» 
did not appear harsh to them. 



New PtAlieatiotu. 



715 



osranrAL. 

NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Tde Monks of the West, from St. Bene- 
dict to^t. Bernard. By the Count de 
Montal ember t^ Member of the French 
Academy. Authorized translation. Vols. 
I., II., III. William Blackwood & Sons, 
Edinburgh and London, 1861, 1867. 
For sale by the Catholic Publication 
Society, 126 Nassau street, New York. 

These volumes bring down the his- 
tory of monasticism to the year 638. The 
third contains the history of monasticism 
in England, Ireland, and Scotland, em- 
bracrng a very full account of St. Columba 
and the institute of lona. It is very ap- 
propriately dedicated to the Earl of De- 
manira. The ill health of the author has 
delayed the completion of his great work. 
We understand, however, that two more 
volumes are published in France, and are 
now being translated into English. The 
writings of Montalembert belong to the 
highest class of French literature. The 
present work treats of a topic of the great- 
est importance and interest to all students 
and educated persons, but especially to 
all devout Catholics. English literature 
has resounded for three centuries with 
calumnies, denunciations, and senseless, 
ignorant ravings against monastic orders. 
Of late, we begin to hear a different story 
from the most enlightened portion of Pro- 
testant writers. These writers are, how- 
ever, careful to qualify what they say in 
praise of the nunneries of former times by a 
somewhat wearisome and monotonous re- 
iteration of the assurance that monastic 
institutions are worn out, obsolete, con- 
trary to progress, and unfit for the present 
age. It is time, therefore, for the Catho- 
lic voice to make itself heard on the subu 
ject. The illustrious and noble author is 
a believing and devout Catholic as well as 
a learned historian and a most eloquent 
writer. His work is well translated, and 
published in a style suitable to its choice 
excellence. It should find a place in the 
library of every clergyman, every religious 
house, seminary, and college, and on the 
table of every educated Catholic layman. 
We would recommend it also to our Pro- 
testant friends, were we not aware that 
moat of them are afraid or ashamed to buy 



a Catholic book. Those of them at least 
who pretend to agree with the church of 
the first six centuries ought not to be 
afraid of it, as it comes down no later than 
A.D. 633. 



The Trihitt — Control your Passioxs 
— Heroism in toe Sick-Roon — Is tus 
Sacrifice of the Mass of Human or 
of Divine Institution? — Why did 
God become Man ? Being Tracts 
Nos. 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24 of the 
Catholic Publication Society's Tracts. 
New York : The Catholic Publication 
Society, 126 Nassau street 

The Catholic Publication Society con- 
tinues to issue its useful and instructive 
tracts. We give above the titles of those 
last published. Our readers will find 
them to be in every respect equal to the 
former ones. Thev will also be pleased 
to learn that the Society hns obtained a 
House of Publication, established in a first- 
class locality. No. 126 Nassau street, New 
York, where all its publications can be 
had, together with all Catholic books and 
pamphlets published either in this coun- 
try or in England and Ireland. The So- 
ciety now everywhere meets with appro- 
val and encouragement. Rev. Father 
Hecker lately visited the cities of Pitts- 
burg, Cincinnati, Wheeling, and Harris- 
burg, at which places he lectured in fa- 
vor of the Society. The Rt. Rev. Bishops 
and Rev. clergy gave him the most cor- 
dial receptions, and very generous con- 
tributions were made for the object in 
Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Wheeling. 
Upon his return he lectured also at St 
Peter's church, Brooklyn, with the like 
success. Depots for the Society's publica- 
tions are now established at Mr. Quigley's 
in Pittsburg, and at Benziger Bros, in Cin- 
cinnati, at which all that is issued by 
the Society can be procured for the same 
price as they are sold in New- York. 

Father Hecker also intends visiting 
Europe this summer, to form relations 
with the publishing houses of Dublin, 
London, and Paris, and will accept the 
invitation proffered him to assist at the 



716 



New PublioationM. 



grcAt Catholic Congress which is to 
meet at Malines next September. 

Our readers are already aware, from 
the article on Catholic Con^iTesses in our 
last number, how much has be^n done by 
the Belgian Congresses for the diffusion 
of cheap Catholic literature. We trust 
Father Ilecker may be able to derive 
much useful information from what he 
will see and hear at Malines, and turn it 
to good account for the furtherance of 
our own efforts in the same direction. 
"We are much gratified to see that the 

Eroject of a Catholic Congress suggested 
y our article has been warmly applauded 
on all sides. Several of our journals, 
among which we notice the treeman$ 
Journal, the Botton Pilot, the Xew York 
Tabl€t,KTid iheCatholie Standard of Phil- 
adelphia, have noticeable editorial articles 
on the subject in its favor. It is import- 
ant, in case a congress should be convened 
in our own country, that some one should 
attend this one in Belgium, in order to ob- 
tain a knowledge of the plan and method 
of organizing and conducting these as- 
semblies. 



Tde First Age or Ciiristianitv and the 
Church. By John Ignatius Dollingcr, 
D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical ilis- 
tory in the University of Munich, etc. 
Translated by 11. N. Oxenham, M.A. 
Oxford. London: Allen & Co., 18iiO. 
2 vols. 12mo. New York: The Catho- 
lic Publication Society. 

These two volumes are worthy of the 
perusal of every scholar. They form 
the introductory portion of Dollinger's 
great work on Ecclesiastical History, 
now in course of preparation, and are 
replete with the results of his vast 
learning. At the same time, the reader 
of ordinary intelligence and education 
need not be afraid of them. They are 
not dry or pedantic^ but written in a stylo 
of natural simplicity and freshness which 
makes them attractive ar.d entertaining 
as well as instructive. The translation, 
by aa excellent scholar and good writer, 
is extremely well done, and the mechani- 
cal execution is in the best I^ndon style. 
Even the Dublin Review has condescend- 
ed to praise this work, and therefore 
those who might suspect that it contains 
any peculiar opinions of what is called 
the * Germanizing" school need not fear 
anything on that score. Dr. DoUinger 
is a 1011114, orthodox ditine, and sin- 



cerely loyal to the holy see. The Roman 
theologians have controverted some of hit 
opinions very strongly, but they bare 
never called in question his orthodoxy, 
and we have good reason to l>eh'eve tha; 
the Holy Father regards him with estecn 
and paternal affection as a true son of 
the church, who is doing her good service. 
The organs of that theological school is 
Germany which Dr. DoUinger is suppos- 
ed to sympathise with the least always 
speak of him in the most respectful terms, 
even when criticising some of his state- 
ments very unsparingly. Some of oar 
Catholic friends in England are not quite 
so charitable and moderate as the more 
thoroughly ripened theologians of Europe. 
They seem dispose<l to erect theologicti 
doctrines never defined or imposed by 
the authority of the holy see into s 
standard of orthodoxy, and to questiiw 
the thorough loyalty of those wlio do 
not fully agree with themselves. Odious 
terms, such as the nickname of ' mini- 
misers,* invented by that very dogmati- 
cal publication the Dublin Review, are 
applied to them, and, in general, a 
quarrelsome kind of domestic fMlemics 
seems getting quite the vogue among a 
portion of the Catholic writers of Eng- 
land. We agree with F. Perrone, the 
great Roman theologian, that Uiis is an 
evil much to be deprecated, and likely 
to <lo mischief. We do not sympathize 
with all that Dr. DoUinger has written, 
but wo feel bound to condemn the dis- 
paraging tone in which some of the writ- 
ers alluded to are wont to speak of him, 
and of others like him, who venture to 
make use of the liberty allowed by the 
church respecting questions not finally 
decided by authority. Happily, the pre- 
sent work is one about which there can be 
no difference of opinion. It is a thorough- 
ly learned, and at the same time a reada- 
ble and plain history of the iirst founda- 
tion of Christianity by Christ and his 
apostles; and we feel sure that it will 
contribute nmch to the editication of all 
who read it 



Poems. Bv Elixa Allen Starr. 12mo, pp. 
224. Philadelphia: II. McGrath. 

Miss Starr is already favorably known 
to the readers of Tub Catholic Wokld 
by various poetical contributions to our 
pages. She writes with remarkable 
grace and tenderness, with a rery beau- 
tiful simplicity of style, and a religioua 



N$w Publitatiom. 



717 



elevation of thought which ought to 
make her Tolume welcome in every good 
Christian family. The poetic impulse 
with her is neither a morbid yearning to 
sing imaginary woes, nor a mere fancy for 
the jingle of swoet words. Her ycrses 
express genuine and healthy feeling, and 
their tone is most melodious when her 
harp is strung to sacred themes. There 
is at times a mild tinge of melancholy in 
the book — a melancholy as of one who 
has suffered and struggled ; but through 
it all shines the radiance of religious hap- 
piness, as though it were not all imagi- 
nary which the author sings in the char- 
acter of •* The Sacristan " ; 



" Within thine altAr*s thade, 
Lord, I my nest have made, 

No more to roam : 
Thine own abidinj^-place 
Is mine for future space. 
My rest, my home. 



'* The earth, the air, the sea 
I^joice to serve with me, 

With me to wait ; 
For prostrate nature sight 
To see her Lord disguise 

Ills heavenly itatA." 

The little poem entitled '* Espoasab " 
is also full of real, unaffected piety : 

** Baste to thy nuptials iweet 

With glowing feet, 
Thy inmost chamber fklr, 

heart ! prepare. 
Therein, with Joy, to bring 

Thy spouse and king. 

** I see his coming light 
Disperse my night I 

radiant orb of day I 
Tbon may'st delay 

To quench thy feeble rays 
In heaven's own blase. 

*' Lo ! seraph tongnes of flame 

Announce that name 
Whose echoed sweetness clings 

Where'er It rings ; 
And thus informs with sound 

Kemotest bound. 

" happy ears I attend. 
And lowlier bend I 

1 feel Ills noiseless pace 
Through hcaven^s blue space ; 

The stars hut strew his floor. 
And thus adore. 



** Celestial presence deor I 

Thou Godhead near ! 
I yield my soul, my sense ; 

Omnipoteoce I 
B«liol<l, pre pMr<f<l, thy throne ; 

Oh ! claim thine own I" 

In a different strain, but very prettj« 
and delicate, is the following *'Song of 
Welcome": 



*' My lonely days grew lonelier. 
The shadows spread apace. 
When on me, like a morning sun. 

Arose tliy smiling face : 
Sad tears, sad tears, my joyful cheeks, 
Keep not of you a trace. 

** The summer skies which o'er me bend 
In beauty so benign 
Are not so blue as the happy eyes 

Now beaming into mine ! 
Heart's love, heart's love, what sun could 
cheer 
If thine shonld cease to shine P 



We commend Miss Starr's little vol- 
ume with all heartiness, and we rejoice 
that American Catholic literature has 
received so welcome an addition to its 
scanty poetical stores. We ought not to 
omit a word of compliment to the pub- 
lisher for the liberal manner in which he 
has brought it out The rich cream pa- 
per, the clear type, and the excellent bind- 
ing are signs of a now era in the Catholic 
book manufacture at which we a^ most 
rejoice. 



First Historical Transformation's op 
CnRiSTiAKiTY. From the French of 
Athanase Coquerel the Younger, by 
£. P. Evans, Ph.D. 12mo. Boston : 
W. V. Spencer, 1867. 

This is a very weak and flippant pro- 
duction from the pen of a French ra* 
tionalistic Protestant, who imagines that 
he is a philosopher of history. He pre- 
tends to show us various forms which 
pure Christianity has been made to as- 
sume by the different apostles, doctors, 
or sects who in turn took upon them- 
selves to be its expositors. Of course, 
as Monsieur Coquerel the Younger would 
think, they each and all made bad work 
of it, from St Peter down to the Ust 
publishing medium of spiritism. It is 
truly deplorable that the pure Christian- 
ity which Monsieur Coquerel the Younger 
now sees in all its simplicity should have 
had the misfortune to be thus Judaised, 
liellenized, Paulised, Peterized, Joanniz- 
ed, Romanized, and diversely iud by the 
Fathers of the church and heretics ; and 
may we not also add, Protestantized and 
Coquerelized? 

Let us see what is the Christianity of 
Jesus according to Monsieur Coquercl's 
gospel : ** In short, the whole instruc- 
tion of Jesus can be included in the 
following formula: the work to be ao- 
complished is the reign of God in all con- 
sciences; the universal motive through 
which thi| reign is to be established, the 



718 



New Ptihlieatloni* 



CRScntml fact of this reign^ is lore, of 
wKicU the twofold niamfcsUtion is par- 
don ond new or clenml life; and thcso 
two manifestations* presuppose two fucts, 
iwliosc certainty has no need of proof— 
vBin and immortality. Thu*i reducing all 
ChriKlianity to a single formula, it may 
bo said ttmt Jesus revealed to all hinncrs 
the eternal compassion of the God of 
holiness, their Father/* (P. 65.) This 
cant ahout paidon and the new life In 
the mouth of one who reject* the divinity 
of Jesus Christ, who is unwilling to irn* 
poBC the belief in hts mimcleji upon any 
Bincere Christian, (*iV,) and who thinks the 
doctrine of hell lA rank nonsense^ would 
heed explanation, did we not gather 
from a |ireviou9 sentence that Monsieur 
Cofjucrcl the Younger is as shallow a 
theologian as he is a philosopher. Speak- 
ing of our Lord, he sxiye i *' Ho has such 
an absolute certainty of the power of 
God, and of the cffjcAoy of the good and 
the true; such a full confidence in the 
perfectibility of guilty man; such a high 
CHteem for human njiiurc^ wkolh/ sinful 
as it w, that, in his eyes, the elevation, 
the healing, the salvation, the enfran- 
chisement of every soul that is willing to 
return to God and love him are not an 
object of the slightest doubt" (R tjt > 
Beside thii* we place one other <piota!ion, 
which we thint will suffice : *' Liberal 
Protestants are constantly asked where 
Uicy would fix the boundary which sepa* 
rates Christians from those who arc not 
Christians. 3i^h man has the ri^ht to 
solve this formidahh prabUm in fAi tiffht 
of h'i9 ^ntiH eomfU$\re P^ (P. 75.) And 
this man pretends tfi lecture the world 
for transforming Christianity to suit its 
own notions I >V^e would advise Mon- 
liieur Coipjcrcl the Younger to review his 
lo^'ic 



^OnmcAit AM> Social Essays, reprinted 
from the New York Nation. 12mo, pp- 
280. New York : Leypoldt k UolL 

It is A good deal to say of a newspaper 
Tiowadaysi that it is poi^Iblo to cotlecjb 
from its columns in the course of two 
ycar« a whole vol u rue of essays passably 
well worth preserving. And many of 
tlie cs&iiys in this neat little book are 
much better than pa«isable. Of counio 
one does not look for deep philosophy or 
Blrikingiy original thought in the ephe- 
meral (lapers da.shed otl' for a week's en- 
terUinment, and sent llyins OTer tho 



country on tho wings of the pcrioi 
press. It is enough if the subjt^ct be 
Irnctive, the argument mainly ju**!^ Uie 
style tluent, anil now and then »tri 
The essays from Th4 Nation gwK 
fullil these conditions, and aQord 
aj^recuble recreation for odd inl«rvaU 
leisure. The cold and almost cj-nicftl 
spirit of criticism, and the utter tack of 
enthusiasm and sympathy, which hato 
done so much to deprive Thi Xntion of 
that inHuence in public affairs to which 
its literary merit entitles it, appear in a 
more favomblo light in the pagc^ of a 
t»ook than in the columns of a periodical. 
Book-renders have time to appr«?ciata 
graces of htyle, and to roll sweet mori»«hc 
of thought and phrase under tli€Jr 
tongues ; but the journalist in Am< 
must deal with a different public, 
must serve them wiih coarser matei 
His weapon must be not tho scalpel or 
the lancet, but the axe and the bludgeon. 



Fathers and Sons. A Norcl. By Ifan 
Sergheicvitch TurgeneC Translated 
from the Husnian, with the aoprciTal 
of the author, by Kugcne Schuyler, 
Ph. 1>. 12mo, pp. 34^. New York ; 
Leypoldt & Holt 

Tho object of this novel is to contrmat 
the generation which is just passing 
away m Kus^ta with the gen era lion that 
is tiikitig its place— the old Inrd^ of | ht 
soil, still half-bewildered L; 
of civilization upon their str II 

and the young party of pr<V'' f'> 

catcd with the new ideas of nn i i Iji ition, 
tho new learning, the new huhits, and 
the new morality which iji fast breaking 
up the old Tartar feudalism. We C4in 
well believe the translator's assertion that 

a tempest was raised by the nr - • -^ of 

the book in Russia. The pot lit- 

tering to nei titer generation, u , , .,, . art 
BO hfcdike that it is impossible to doubl 
they are substantially accurate reproiiO- 
tations of both, Asa work of fiction, Plir 
thers and Sons is |>art)cu1arly intcrestinf 
to us. Artistically speaking, it is a very 
good novel lutieed, und it h moreover al- 
most the first glimpse we have had of the 
fictitious literature of a country toward 
which Americans are, whether rightly or 
wrongly, especially attracted, Tt gi ves ua 
a better view of daily life in Russia than 
any book of travel or observation with 
wliich we are ac<|ikainted^belter nut only 
because clearer, but also becauae it ii m 






I 



« 



^^ 



^ 



New Puhlicationi, 



710 



necessity perfectly undistorted. But the 
picture is painful enough. For roost of the 
characters in the story the author evident- 
ly has no love ; but even the best of them 
are singularly unaimable. And we close 
the volume with the reflection that, if 
there is no better life in Russia than the 
life he paints ; if the men and women 
whom he brings before us are fair types 
of the average culture and virtue of the 
empire; if the fathers have no intelli- 
gence, and the sons neither human affec- 
tion nor religion, the future of Russia 
must be far different from what modern 
writers are fond of predicting. The mo- 
rality of the story is bad, but its bad- 
ness is so transparent that it can hurt 
nobody. There is an offensive tinge of 
sensualism in it, too, and this is less ap- 
parent, and therefore more dangerous. 



Barbarossa : A Historical Novel of the 
Seventh Century. By Conrad Von Bo- 
landen. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 486. Phila- 
delphia: Eugene Cummiskey. 1867. 

The historical novel is a difficult one 
to write. To strictly follow the bare 
facts of history will make the work dull 
to most readers of light literature ; and 
to allow the imagination full play in 
working out its scenes and representing 
them as if they had been actual occur- 
rences will offend the student of history. 
The middle ages, however, are full of mat- 
ter for the historical novelist We have 
too few gleaners in this prolific field. We 
can remember only one attempt of the 
kind in the English language within the 
last decade of years. William Bernard 
McCabe, in his *' Bertha,'' has done good 
service toward making known, in a pop- 
ular manner, the designs of the Emperor 
Frederick to become universal emperor, 
or Pcnt\fex MaximuSy as he hoped to be 
one day called. 

The present work is a translation from 
the Qerman, and describes the political 
working^s of Frederick's ambition ; his 
conquests in Italy, and the capture of 
Rome ; his attempt to set up and instal 
in that city his tool, the an ti pope Pascal, 
in opposition to the lawful successor oif 
St Peter, Alexander III.; all these 
events are well told. The interest of 
the story is kept up by introducing two 
lovers — a knight, the follower of Frede- 
rick, and an Italian lady, who, of course, 
marry at the conclusion of the tale. 
The character of Frederick's prime min- 



ister, Dassel, is well portrayed, and shows 
that, with all the emperor's strength of 
mind, he was, after all, only the puppet of 
his wily minister. 

A little more elegance might have been 
obsci-ved by the translator, especially in 
the first part of the story, where care- 
lessness and incorrectness of expression 
occur several times. For instance, we 
are told in one sentence that ^* Suddenly 
Otho of Wittelsbach advanced hurried- 
ly," which sounds too much after the 
fashion of a Ledger story. Again, news 
is brought to Frederick of the surrender 
of Cinola to the Milanese, when the fol- 
lowing dialogue occurs: *^What is the 
strength of the Milanese?" ''About 
threehundred men." ** Have they burn- 
ed the castle ?" ** / am ignorant of that 
fact, tire.'' 

But these are, after all, but slight de- 
fects, and do not mar the beauty of the 
tale. We can heartily recommend the 
work to the readers of light literature, 
as both instructive and entertaining, two 
things which are not always combined io 
the historical novel. 



Appleton's Annual CrcLOPiEDiA for 1866. 

This volume is an improvement on the 
preceding one, in one respect at least, that 
is, in the summary which it gives of the 
progress of the physical sciences. It con- 
tains, as usual, a condensed history of the 
year, and is ornamented with fine, spirited 
engravings of three vety notorious public 
characters : the Ring of Prussia, Bismarck, 
and Girahaldi. It is well worthy of a 
place in every library, and is, in fact, almost 
indispensable as a book of reference. 



Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Sub- 
jects. By the late Frederick W. Faber, 
D.D., of the Oratory. Vol. IF. Lon- 
don : Richardson & Son. New Y(»rk : 
The Catholic Publication Society. 

With the character of Father Faber'a 
writings most of our readers are weU 
acquainted, and we have already given a 
special notice of them in a review of the 
first volume of this work. The present 
volume contains a large number of his 
hitherto unpublished writings, among 
which are sketches of discourses upon 
the notes of the church, treatises upon 
the sacrament, controversial lectures 
spiritual conferences, and various misl 



TOO 



N$w Publications. 



eellAneouB papers. They are of especial 
Talue to the younger tnembers of our 
cleiigy, to whom we commend them as 
famishing ample matter for sermons, 
instructions, and lectures. 



The Man with the Broken Ear. Trans- 
lated from the French of Edmond 
About, by Henry Holt. 12mo, pp. 
254 New York : Leypoldt & Holt 

The ingenuity and wit of tliis story 
cannot make amends for its grossness. 
The novels of M. About's previously ren- 
dered into English were enough to show 
that he cared nothing for the good opin- 
ion of Catholics, and in this grotesque 
tale he has equally shown his disregard 
for the tastes of refined people of every 
creed. Still, it is fair to say m his praise 
that the contrasts of character which form 
the chief feature of the book are admira- 
bly managed, and the dialogue sparkles 
with vivacity. Mr. Holt, who is both 
publisher and translator, has acquitted 
nimself in his double function with note- 
worthy credit 



CuMMisKRT^s Juvenile Librart: Flo- 
BiE*s Series. 12 vols. 16mo. Trans- 
lated from the French. £. Cummis- 
key, Publisher, 1037 Chestnut street, 
Philadelphia. 

This is a very interesting series of 
children's stories. They are well trans- 
lated and published in good style. 



Stories on the Commandments — Caro- 
line ; OR, Self Conquest— The Seven 
Corporal Works of Mercy and Ma- 
^ tie's Troubles. P. F. Cunningham, 
Philadelphia. 

Those three volumes are an addition to 
this publisher's well-selected list of tales 
for Uic young. Although they are pub- 
lished ill the same stylo as The Young 
Catholic Library, the stock and workman- 
ship is much inferior. 

Books for children's use should be pub- 
lished in a more durable form. 



BiAVTiRs OP Faith ; or, Power of Ma- 
ry's Patronage. Leaves from the 
Ave Maria. P. O'Shea, New York. 

The first part of this volume is taken 
up with short stories illustrative of the 
power of Mary's patronage. The second 
part contains the beautiful story of Co- 
bina, by Mrs. Anna IL Dorsey. Altoge- 
ther it forms a volume of very interesting 
matter. 



CoAiNA, the Rose of the Algonquins. 
By Mrs. Anna H. Dorsey. P. O'Shea, 
New York. 

Since writing the above, the story of 
Coaina comes on our table in another 
shape from the same publisher. This is 
a charming Indian tale. We cannot see 
the wisdom of using it to swell the bulk 
of the volume of selections mentioned 
above, after having issued it as a separate 
volume. If those who have facilities for 
publishing would give us translations or 
reprints of the many excellent books of 
this kind published in Franco, Qermany, 
and England, they would do us greater 
service. 



Manual or the Lives op the Popes, Era 
By J. C. Earle. Reprinted from the 
English Edition. Baltimore : Murphy 
&Co. 

This neatly printed little book is use- 
ful as a catalogue of the popes, and a 
record of some of the principal facts in 
their reigns. It has no critical value in 
regard to disputed or doubtful questions, 
and pretends to none. 

Boou BBCtirnx 

From P. 0*8hk*, New York. Tlie Selene* of Happl- 

n«ii»; or, Weniitmle* in Practice. By BlaiLime 

Bourdon. 1 vol. IGmo. Price, ft. 
From D. APPi.rroji k Co., New York. Appleton's 

Hand-Book of American TimTei. Bj L. Hall. 

1 Tol. 12mo, pp. JWS. 
From Lktpolot k Holt, New York. Co-operatlre 

Stores ; their illBtory, Organisation, and Manaste- 

ment. Based on the recent German work of t^ogene 

Ricliter. pp. 131. Price, SO cenU 
From P. O'Shb*, New York. Bona ImmacnlaU ; or. 

The Tower of Ivory, or the Iloase of Anna an I 

Joachim. By Mary JoscpUlne. 1 vol. 13mo, pp. 

25a lMce,|2. 



THE 



CATHOLIC m)RLD. 

VOL. v., NO. 29.— SEPTEMBER, 1867. 



*^ROME OB REASON."* 



Mr. Parkman understands and de- 
scribes Terj well the Indian charac- 
ter — a very simple character, and 
within tlie range of his comprehension. 
There is nothing deep or impenetrable 
in the Indian, and his ideas, habits, and 
customs are inyariable. He is a child 
in simplicity, bat he is cunning, fierce, 
treacherous, ferocious, more of a wild 
beast than a man — a true savage, no- 
thing more, nothing less. Mr. Park- 
man has lived with him, studied his 
character and ways, and may, as to 
him, be trusted as a competent and 
faithful guide, save when there is a 
question of superstition, in which the 
Indian abounds, or of religion, which 
be accepts with more docility and ease 
than many learned and scientific white 
men. 

Mr. Parkman may also be trusted for 
the purely material facts of the Jesuit 
missions among the Indians in the 
seventeenth century, and ho narrates 
them in a style of much artistic grace ' 
and beauty ; but of the motives which' 

* Tb« JeaniU In North America In th« Sereoteenth 
Ccntojry. Bj Vrancis Pftrkm»o. Boston: Little, Brown 
k Ca lb67. 8yo, pp. 4«8. 

The Professor at the Breakfiui-Table ; with the 
Story of Iris. Bj Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston : 
Tlcknor * rieldi. 18S6. limo, pp. 410. 

Rationalism nndCftthoUdsm. Inqairsr, Clnolnnatl, 
II«j86,1867. 

VOL. V. — 46 



governed the missionaries, of their fiiith 
and charity, as well- as of their whole • 
interior spiritual life, he understands ' 
less than did the •* untutored Indian.'' ^l 
His judgments, reflections, or specula^r- 
tions on the spiritual questions involved- 
are singularly crude, marked by a gross ' 
ignorance not at all creditable to a sonK^' 
of ** The Hub." He claims to be en- , 
lightened, to be a man of progress, and ' 
he has indeed advanced as far as Sad- 
duoceism, which believes in neither an- 
gel nor spirit; but the savage retains 
more of the elements of Christian faith 
than he appears to have attained to. He 
is struck, as every one must be, by the 
self-denial, the disinterestedness, the 
patient toil, the unwearying kindness, « 
superiority to danger or death, and 
heroic self-sacrifices and martyrdom of 
the missionaries ; but he sees' in them 
only the workings of a false faith, 
superstitious missions, and a fanatic 
seaL The Jesuit who left behind all the 
delights and riches of civilization, gave 
up all that men of the world hold most 
dear, braved all the dangers of the for» 
est, of the savage, performed fatiguing 
journeys, underwent the inclemencies 
of the climate and the seasons, suffered 
hunger and thirst, in want of all things, 
submitted to captivity, tortures, mutihi- 



7me or 



I'tions, and dcatlu was, in his judgtiicot« 
im poor, il^'lutled man ; Iji? fuitlj^ wliieh 
I bore him up or bore hira onward, was 
An illusion, and his char ty, which never 
failf d or p^rew cold, was only an honest 
but mbiaken zeal I Do men gather 
gmpes of thonjs or fij^i of thisrU^ ? 

It eannot be said that Mr. Farkman 
haao^'errated the marvellous* kbors and 
Bucrifioes of the Jesuits for the con ver- 
sion of the North American Indians ; 
I but he is mistaken in supposing that 
ibey stand out as anything lingular or 
e3Errat»rdinary in the general history of 
Catholic niisdiona. They did well ; they 
\ were brave, indefatijnible, self denying, 
' berotc, and cold must be the heart that 
cati read thetr story without emotion ; 
but iheir high qualities and virtues are 
due to their general ehanvcter as Ca- 
tholicf5» not to their special character 
aj Jesuits* No n- Catholic writer* are 
^cry apt lo consider that Jesuits are a 
peculiar sect, in some way distinguish- 
able from the Catholic Church, and 
that their merits belong to them not as 
Cadiohe priests and missionaries, but 
*s Je&utts* What Mr, Parkman ad- 
mires in ihera is really admirable ; but 
its glory is due to Catholic faith and 
churl ly, which the Jesuit hu?i in eonnaon 
witli all CathoUes, and he has toiled no 
harder, braved no moi'e dangers, iufier- 
ed no greater harilships, or a more 
cruel and horrid dcjith, or met thcrn 
with a spirit no more hei'oic than have 
other Catholic missioimries among here* 
tics and infidels, from the a (jostles down 
to I he last martyr in China, Anamn, or 
Ocean tea. It has been only by sueb 
suffering and such det^ls as Mr. Park- 
man narrates, that the world has been 
converted to the Christian faiih and 
retained in the Catholic Church. At aU 
times, since the descent of the Holy 
Gliost on the day of Pentecostthas the 
Cathohc Church nursetl in her bosom, 
and sent inlo the world to ptx^uch 
Christ and him crucitied, men not at 
all inferior in faith and lovt> in patient 
endurance, and heroic sell sacritiee to 
tbo Jesuit missionaries among the 
North American Indians. She has 
uevftr wanted laborers, coofesaoiB, mar- 



tyrs ; and a religion that never fal?8 fa ^ 
civaie and inspire them is d>u nvA 
cannot be, a false religion, a ^ 
a fanaticijjm. It is only in tht* ' 
Church you find or have ever toaTid ! 
them. Let her have the credit of thefii* 

The Professor at the Breakfast Table 
has been for some time before the I 
public, and every body has read it* iH \ 
author bus, we belie vr -■ * -fx reputa- 
tion in thetnedicjil i and cer- 
taiidy has attained to <iiHMnrnun as a 
poet and a>s a writer of prose fiction* 
He has wit and pathos, a lively to 
nnlion, and a keen sense of the ludic 
The snake jwrtion of his Elsie V>a 
is horrible, but scvemlof thechara 
in that rem arkaWc book are ndmirahly" 
drawn — ^are real New England eha* 
raciers, drawn as none but a New Eng- 
lander could draw them, ami p'^^rhaps, 
none but a New Englander can fully i 
appreciate. He is Uko many of the de- 
scL^ndants of the old Puritaus, who, I 
having lost all faith in the Calvini&o|| 
of their ancestors, still identify it wiibl 
Christianity, aud float in their feelings 1 
between the memory of tt iind a vagUM 
rationalism and sentirnentalism whiebl 
h gim(>ly no belief at all He wouUl 
like lo be a Christian, to feel that b«| 
has faith, something on which be cani 
rest his whole weight without fear of [ 
its giving way und<*r him, hut he knowi 
not where to look for it. [I<* finds mACi/J 
attract ions in the Catholic Chunrh* I 
thinking that she holds wlaU so( 
him in the faith of bis ancestor 
dares not lrui»t her. 

There is a large class of edueolc 
thinking, aud even serious mi mle 
Americans who turn awnv ft. 
chu reh and refuse to «Minsi 
not because she ditfen* fruui ;*», 
t ant ism in which they have lieen rear^lj^ 
but l^ecause she dues not, in her spirit 
and teaching, differ enough from Jt^ 
Those outside of the church, and wbo 
erfdit not the evan^lical eanl asair 
her, identify her te:u" 
ism, i^s:*ard Jansen 
class of Catholics, aiid Jaa»«^^ij^m 
a form of Calvinism, and Cal«iilinB i __ 
a system of (vure eiiperiiiitQmlkm,w1iile 



Home or Reason. 



728 



the active American mind cannot con- 
sent that nature should count in the 
religious life for nothing. It would, 
perhaps, relicTC them a little if they 
kneiv that not only the Jesuits con- 
demned Jansenism, but the church 
herself condemns it, and Jansenists are 
as much out of (he ]>ale of the church 
as are Calvinists or Lutherans them- 
selves. So-called orthodox Protestants 
were formerly in the habit of charging 
Catholics with rationalism and Pela- 
gianism, and even now accuse them of 
denying the doctrines of grace or sal- 
vation through the merits and grace 
of Jesus Chris t. Th is fact alone should 
suffice to teach such men as the Pro- 
fessor at the Breakfast-Table that the 
difference between Catholicity and Pu- 
ritanism is much greater than they sup- 
pose. 

The Professor, in defending himself 
against the change of want of respect 
for Puritanism, says, pp. 154-155 : " I 
don't mind the exclamation of any old 
stager who drinks Madeira worth from 
two tosix Bibles a bottle, and bums, ac- 
cording to his own premises, a dozen 
souls a year in segars, with which he 
muddles his brains. But as for the 
good and true and intelligent men we 
see all around us, laborious, self-deny- 
ing, hopeful, helpful — men who know 
that the active m'md of the age is tend- 
ing more and more to the two poles, 
Borne and Reason, the sovereign 
charch or the free soul, authority or 
personality, God in us or God in our 
masters, and that, though a man may 
by accident it€md half-way between 
these two points, he must look one way 
or the other — I don't believe they would 
take offence at anytlung I have report- 
ed." From the connection in which 
this is said, and the purpose for wliich 
it is said, it is dear that the Professor 
holds that the active mind of this cen- 
tury is tending either Homeward or 
Eeasonward, that the doctrines held 
by his Puritan ancestors and so-called 
orthodox Protestants can be sustained 
only by the authority of a sovereign 
church, and that we must accept such 
aathority, or give np all dogmatic be- 



lief, and allow the free, nnrestricted use 
of reason. 

The writer in the Cincinnati In- 
quirer seems to agree with him. A 
certain Protestant minister, an Angli- 
can, we presume, had said in a s<>rmon, 
that ^the church's greatest enemies 
are now Catholicism and rationalism." 
The writer, in commenting on this pro- 
position, says : ^ Catholicism is the theo- 
logy of authority ; rationalism, the theo- 
logy of reason ;" and " Protestantism is 
Catholicism with a dash of rational- 
ism, or rationalism with a dash of 
Catholicism." Both represent Catho- 
licity and reason as standing opposed 
each to the other, as two opposite poles, 
and each makes as does the age no ac* 
count of the viamedxa church receiv- 
ing the shots of both reason and au- 
thority, and discharging its doable bat- 
tery in return against each. 

Now, is it not time that thinking 
men, and authors who claim intelli- 
gence and mean to be just, should stop 
this contrasting of Rome or authority 
and reason? The cant has become 
threadbare, and men of reputation 
and taste should lay it aside as no 
longer fit for use. It does not by any 
means state the fact as it is, for there 
is not the least discrepancy between 
the church and reason, nor is there, in 
accepting and beh'eving the revealed 
word of God on the authority of the 
church proposing it, the least surren- 
der of reason or nature. The Catholic 
has all of reason that belongs to hu- 
man nature, and full opportunity to ex- 
ercise it ; and his soul is as free as the 
soul can be, and he is, in fact, the only 
man that has really a free souL If God 
is in his masters, he is also in him. He 
has no less internal light because he 
has external light, and no less internal 
freedom because he has external au- 
thority. The Professor is quite mis- 
taken in presenting the church and 
reason as two opposite poles. Nay, his 
illustration is not happy, for the two 
polejs ir we speak geographically, be- 
long to one and the same globe, and are 
equally essential to its form and com- 
pleteness, and, if we speak magneti- 



TM 



tOMi or 



cally. and mean positive and negative 
polc3, ihey are onlj the two modes in 
which one and the dame gubtjUmce or 
force opeitited, and certainly in Cath- 
olic faith both authority and reason are 
alike active, and mutually concur in 
pnxhicin^ one and Uie same result. 

It h only when we borrow our views 
of Cntholicity from I he iheology of the 
llefonDatioH, or BUppode that it is aub- 
alanlially the same^ that the authority 
of the chuR*h can be rejiaixled aa op- 
po^etl to reason or rcpu^rnnnt lo mitiiit?* 
lie who hue read the fathen» ha^ diij- 
covercd in them no ubdieaiion of rea- 
son or want of intellectual freedom | 
and he who is familiar wiiti ihe me- 
diae val diKJtOi-8 knows that no men (!an 
use reason moi^e (reely or push it fur- 
ther than they did. Melcliior Cano, a 
theologian of the sixteenth century, id 
liis Locis Tiieolo^icis, a work of great 
uuthority with Catholiesi, eniitoerates 
natural rea^^on as one of the common- 
places of theology, whence ar*iuraeni8 
may be drawn to pi-ove what is or 13 
not of faith* A schtTok of philosophen* 
have latterly sprung up among Cath- 
olics, called traditionalists, who would 
seem to deny i*eason and to found 
science on faith ; but they Itavu fulleii 
, under censure of the Holy See, and 
I required to rectignize that ruason 
edes faith, and thai faith eomes a^ 
the complement of sclenee, not Sks pre- 
ceding or superseding iL By far tlie 
larger part of the errors condemned in 
tbe syllabus of errors attached to the 
Encyclical of the Holy Father, dated 
«t Kome,8lh of Decembej% 18*54, are 
errorsi that tend to destroy reai^on and 
society* The ehureh hai alwaya I»een 
vigihuit in vindicating natural reason 
and the natural law. 

But the lieformation was a complete 
protest against reason and nature, and 
the asiiertion of extreme uml exclusive 
supernaturaliam. In Luther's estima* 
tion re»i3oii wojj a stupid ass. The re- 
funneti* all agreed in asserting the rc»- 
tal depravity of huumn nature, and in 
maintaining the complete moral inabi- 
lity of man. According to the reform* 
cd docirinea, man never acii?ely con- 



curs with grace, but in faith aodj 
fication is wholly impotent and , 
Man can think only evil, and the workj 
he does prior to regeneration, howcvef 
honest or benevolent, arc not simp!| 
imperfect, but positively sinn. Thi| 
was the reformed theology which tbc^j 
writer of this article liad in his boy*J 
hood find youth din^^ed into him till 
he well-nigli lost his reason. Tb< 
ehurclk bad never' tolerated nay sncbl 
theology, and ihey who place her andf 
reason in oppL.siijon are n-allv, win 
ther they know it or not 
witli the en-ors of I'rotestp 
she has never ceased, in the n 
lie, formal, nud solemn roannti, 
demu. There ai'c, no doubt, lai^ 1 
bers ineliided under ihc genenil namo^ 
of Protestants, who iniagiu«« thai the 
Refonnatiim wjis a great 1^^^ ... ^ ..,1 j^ 
behalf of i ntelUgence agai 1 ; ice, 

of rejksou against authority, m. niui free- 
donj against mcnml bondage, of miioo- 
al religion against bigotry and s»ij>er- 
stition ; but whoever has &tudic<l the 
history of that great movomeni knowi 
tbit it was nosueh thing — tlm furthest 
from it possible. It was a rctrograile 
movement, and designf*d in it^ vx»ry 
essence to arn*st the intellecfual and 
theoioirical progress of the race. Ita 
avowed purpose was the r-estomritjn of j 
primitive Christianity, which, whatever 
plausible terms might be adopt etUneant* 
and could mean otUy, to set the race liack 
some fifteen hundi*edyear8in lU march 
through theag***, andtoefivT'f • fVom 
Christendom all that Ch I*jc 

fifreen centuries had effce(<'d »ui ci\il-' 
ization. '1 he Protestant party, wai bj 
its own avowal, the party of the pasl* 
and^ if theie are Protestants who tim.\ 
striving to be the party of the futuM^ 
they succf*ed only by leaving ibeirPrcH 
t&»iantism behiuil^or by transforming , 
it. 

The church has always been on tbe 
side of freedom and prugr(*s8, and tbfr 
normal current of humanity h#w Howcd 
and never ceased to tlow from the fuwt 
of the cros^ down thruugh ler com- 
munion; and whatever life-giving water \ 
lias flowed into Frote«ta:it ctAteni^ tl ^ 



JRome or Reason. 



726 



has been fVonn the OTerflowings of that 
current, always fall Yoa who are 
outside of it, save in the application of 
tbe troths of science to the material arts, 
ba7e effected no progress. You have 
worked hard, have been oflen on the 
point of some grand discovery, but 
only on the point of making it, and are 
as far from the goal as you were when 
Lather burnt the papal bull, or suffer- 
ed the devil to convince him of the sin 
of saying private masses. You have 
always found your works afler a little 
while needing to be recast, and that your 
systems are giving way. You have 
been constantly doing and undoing, and 
never succeeding. Save in the physical 
sciences and some achievements in the 
material world, yoa are far below what 
yoa were when you started. Of course, 
you do not believe it, because you con- 
found change with progress, and you 
count getting rid of your patrimony in- 
creasing it. It is idle to tell you this, 
for you have already fallen so low that 
you place the material above the spiri- 
tual, and the knowledge of the uses of 
of steam above the knowledge and love 
God. 

Bbme or reason, Rome or liberty, 
is not the true formula of the ten- 
dencies of the ago ; nor is it Catholic- 
ism or rationalism, but Catholicity 
or naturalism. The extremes opposed 
to Catholicity are, on the one hand, 
exclusive supematuralism, or a super- 
naturalism that condemns and excludes 
the activity of nature, and, on the oth- 
er, exclusive naturalism, or a natural- 
ism that denies and excludes all com- 
munion between God and man, save 
through natural laws, or laws impress- 
ed on nature by its Creator, and held 
to bind both him and it. Your evan- 
gelicals are exclusive supematuralists, 
as were the great body of the Protes- 
tant reformers; Auguste Comte, J. 
Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Mr. 
Parkman. and the Professor are ex- 
clusive naturalists, who deny the reali- 
ty of all facts or phenomena not expli- 
cable by natural laws or natural causes. 
All the sciences, since Bacon, are con- 
stracted on naturalistic principles, and 



theology, philosophy, or metaphysics, 
which cannot be constructed without 
the recognition of the supernatural, 
are rejected by our iovans as vain 
speculations or idle theories without 
any basis in reality. They belong to 
the age of ignorance and superstition, 
and will never be recognized in an age 
of light and science. As the church 
clings to them, insists upon them, she 
is behind the age, and th«3y who adhere 
to her arc to be tolerated and pitied as 
we tolerate and pity idiots and the in- 
sane, unless, indeed, they are clothed 
with more or less power ; then, indeed, 
we must make war on them and exter- 
minate them. 

Few who have studied this age with 
any care will question the fidelity of 
this picture. The active living mind 
of this age unquestionably tends either 
to this exclusive naturalism or to the 
Catholic Church, which is the synthesis 
of the natural and the supernatural, of 
authority and freedom, reason and faith, 
science and revelation. Protestantism, 
which is exclusive supematuralism, it 
is becoming pretty well understood, 
cannot be sustained. It cannot be sus- 
tained by reason, for it rejects reason ; 
it cannot be sustained by authority, for 
in rejecting the church it has cast off 
all authority, but that of tbe state, which 
has no competency in spirituals. It 
has sup,)orted its dogmas, as far as it 
has supported them at all, on Catholic 
tradition, the validity of which it de- 
nies. This cannot last, for, where peo- 
ple are free to think and have the con-' 
rage to reason without let or hinderance 
from the state, they will not long con- 
sent to affirm and deny tradition in one 
and the same breath. They will ei- 
ther fall into the naturalistic ranks or 
be absorbed by the Catholic Church, 
and it is useless to trouble ourselves 
with them as Protestants. 

The naturalists or rationalists, by far 
the most numerous, and in most Pro- 
testant or non-Catholic states already 
the governing body, are repelled from 
the church by their supposition that all 
the substantial difference between her 
and Jansenists or Calvinists is, that ia 



Eomi or Reason, 



the one ca^e^upornaturali^m is (aught 
and explaineii by a Vi\m% autborkj, 
claiming a divine coinmisdloii, and in 
the olber it is not tauglit at all, but 
colW'ted by grammar and lexicon fram 
a book Baid to liiive been written by di< 
vine inspiration. The Catholic theory 
u tiie mort* lo;^ieal and more attractive 
of thf* two, but bolh ahke discard rf?:i- 
son, and irit^ist on the submission of the 
tindi*r»tandinj^ to an external aulhurity, 
and it matters liule whether the au- 
thority is that of tJie church or oF a book 
ivritten many asrca a^Ov In either cas^* 
the I'ailli i^ pro[>o!?ed on authority, which 
ai^'^unje^ to com maud the reason and 

10 dt*privo tfie j?o(d of her natural tree* 
dmn. I am forhiddi^n to think and luU 
low my own cotiviciion?*, and mu^t, on 
pain of everla&tin'^ perdition, believe 
what others bid me^ whether it aceoi-d^ 

I with my own reason or mit. Thia, we 
take it, 18 the view entertained by the 
worthy Protessor, and the writer of 
this nijiny years afr<:» preached it, and 
counted the Fnilessor himself among 
hi>J hearei'8, if not among bis disei|de^, 
Now, we need not, aOer the exnlana- 
tion we have given^ &ay that this view 
is idtogether wrong. The Prote«5tant 
a^iierts the supernatural in a Kcnse that 
exeluJes or enjiersedes nature, and, 
ihej-efore, natural i*eason; the Catho- 
lic ndopift as Ins maxim, Gratia sup^ 

I pofiit natttram^ and asserts llie super- 
natural as the eoraplemeut of the na- 
tural, or as healing, strengthening, and 
elevating it lo the plane of the su}R«rmi- 
turaf, or a destiny far superior to ahy 
p^Dssible natural beatitude. Thin Ls in 
the outs^et a very important difference, 
for, if grace supposes nature, ttie sn|>er- 
Datunil the natural, tbo authority on 

'iRfhich we are required to l>elieve the 
8n|iertmtural may aid, may strengthen, 

I or illumine natural reason, but cannot 
iujMirsede it or deprive it of any ol iiii 

I -fiatu ml act i \ ity and t'reedom. The su 
ernaluml adds to the natural, aceord- 
og to Catliolic tailh* but lakcji nothing 

rfl'ora it. The prejudice excited by 
^I'ote'ilantism against the supernatur- 

11 cannot bear against it as asserted by 
^Catholicity. 



But we would remlud our oftii 
tic friends that nature does not i 
tor itself. It is iiunossible by 
alone to explain the origin orexif 
of nalure. The ancients tried loj 
but I hey failed. Some attemptc 
do il by tlie fortuitous combination of I 
et em ally existing atoms, others iDftdai 
tlie univer.*e originate in fire, in water|| 
in air or earih, as aome inodern9 trjr] 
to develop it from a priuiitivo pfM*k i>f ^ 
gas, or suppose it origiually e 
a liquid or a gaseous state, v, 
has grown into its prciient form. But i 
whence the primitive rock or the gas? 
whence tfie tire, water, air, or ciirth?] 
whence the original germ? Natiir:d- 
ism has no answer. We have a natu- 1 
nil lendeuoy, alroug in pro(ioriiou ta j 
the strength and activity of our reauou, , 
to seelf tlie origin, the principle*, the | 
causes of things, but tUis leudeucy na* 
ture can not ^tisfy, because Qature hai | 
not her origin, principle, or cause iaj 
he Itself. For this reason Mr. He " 
JSpencer relegates origin and end* | 
ciples and wiuse?*, and \^ 
tains to them to the regj« uti* 

know able, and maintains that wo caa 
know only phenomenn, nrifl th'^reigrjj 
that science c-jm 
ing, collecting, an 

na, not in the explication of fdRnuia 
by reducing them lo their priucjpi< 
reft»rring tiiem to their cause or i 

We can know pbeuomeoa, but not < 
Roumena, is asserted by the rtstg^oiii^ 
doctrine among physicists, wlacb ifl as 
complete a denial of reason as cvi ba { 
found in any of the relorincrs. It 
reduces our intelligeocc lo a level with 
thai of the brutes tlu^ " fur wImU 

distinguishes our * <^^ from 

theirs is precinely reason llie 

faculty of attaining to , . or 

canscs^ — -tirst C4it»scs and thuii t'iiu^ci— 
both in the intellectual and tbr* tnooU 
oi\k'r« while tirules have intelligoDOi 
only of phenomena. Hence, phikiw^ 
phena, who detine things per fftmu 
et prr differentiam^ deline man a im» 
(ioual animaU or animal pim reuwaii. 
To our |)hysicif>td, like ibe Lyelk ind 
the iluxleys, or to ttUfili pbUosoplneni 



Borne or Reason. 



737 



as ^ir. Stuart Mill, who knows not 
whether he is Mr. Staart Mill or some- 
body else, whether he is something or 
nothing, this amounts to very little ; for 
they, the physicists, we mean, are spe- 
cially engaged in collecting facts to 
prove that man is only a developed 
chimpanzee or gorilla, and that the 
human intelligence differs only in de- 
gree from the bratish. But, then, what 
right have they to compkin that belief 
in the supernatural tends to degrade 
human nature, to deprive reason of its 
dignity, and man of his glory ? More- 
over, this restriction of our power of 
knowing to simple phenomena, never 
satisfies reason, which would know 
not only phenomena, but noumena, 
and not only noumena, but princi- 
ples, causes, the principle of principles 
and the cause of causes, the origin 
and end of all things, that is, Ckxl, 
and God as he is in himself. You can- 
not, except by brutalizing men to the 
last degree, suppress this interior crav- 
ing of reason to penetrate all mysteries, 
to explore all secrets, and to know all 
things, nor can you by reason alone 
appease it. Do you propose to sup- 
press nature, extinguish reason, and 
call it promoting science, vindicating 
the dignity of man 1 

Beason can never be made to be- 
lieve that all reality is confined to what 
Mr. Herbert Spencer calls the know- 
able, ancf we the intelligible. There is 
nothing of which reason is better or 
more firmly persuaded than that there 
ifl more reality than she herself knows 
or can know. Reason asserts her own 
limitations, and will never allow that 
she can know no more because there 
is nothing more to be known. The 
intelligible does not satisfy her, be- 
cause in the intelligible alone she can- 
not find the explication of the intelli- 
gible, or, in other words, she cannot 
andersiand the intelligible without the 
saperintelligible ; for, though she can- 
not without divine revelation grasp the 
superintelligible, she can know this 
much, that the superintelligible is, and 
that in it the intelligible has its root, its 
origin, cause, and explication. Here 



is a grave difficulty that every exclu- 
sive rationalist encounters, and whidi 
is and can be removed only by faith. 
Nature, reason; science alone never 
suffices for itself, as all our savans 
know, for where their knowledge ends 
they invent hypotheses. It is not that 
reason is a false or deceptive light, but 
that it is limited, and we have not the 
attribute of omniscience any more than 
we have that of omnipotence. 

So is it with our craving for beati- 
tude. W hether Grod could or could not 
have so constituted man, without chang- 
ing his nature as man, that he could rest 
in a natural beatitude, that is, in a finite 
good, we &hall not attempt to decide ; 
but this much we may safely assert, as 
the united testimony of the sages and 
moralists of all ages and nations, and 
confirmed by every one's own experi- 
ence, that nothing finite, and whatever 
is natural is finite, can satisfy man's in- 
nate desire for beatitude. **Man," 
sajs Dr. Channing, 'Hhirsts for an 
unbounded good." The sum of all ex- 
perience on the subject is given us by 
the wbe king of Israel, ^ Vanitca vani" 
icUum, et omnia vanitas — Vani ty of van- 
ities, all is vanity." The eye is not 
satisfied with seeing, the ear with hear- 
ing, nor the heart with knowing. We 
turn away with loathing from the finite 
good as soon as possessed, and which 
the moment before possession we felt 
would, if we had it, make us happy. 
The soul spurns it, and cries out from 
the depths of her agony for something 
that can fill up the void within her, and 
complete her happiness by completing 
her being. We need not multiply 
words, for the fact is old, and all the 
world knows it. Nature cannot satis- 
fy nature, and the soul looks, and must 
look beyond it, for her beatitude. So 
much is certain. 

Hence it is that men in all ages and 
nations have never been able to satisfy 
either their reason or their craving for 
happiness with nature alone, and have, 
in some form, recognized a supernatu- 
ral order, or a reality of some sort 
above and beyond nature, whence comes 
nature herself. Neither atheism, or 



Rome or Season, 



die resolution of God into natural laws 
or forces, nor pantheism, or the absorp- 
tion of natural laws or forces inta the 
Divine Being itself, has ever been able 
to sfttiisifY ihe man of a nml pbiloflophic 
or snenttfic genius^ beeause either is 
BDphii^h'cal and self-con trad ictory> El- 
ilier IB repugnant to the natural Jo^te 
of the human understanding: or the in- 
herent laws of thought. Even such 
naturalists ad A^^siz and our Dr. 
Draper find it necessary to recognize 
in BO me tense a Suprcme Being or 
God« although, for the most part, like 
fhe old E()ic«reans, they leave liim idle, 
with little or nothmgto do. But Go»l, 
if he exists at all, must be fiu[)ernatu- 
ral, and the author of nature. If God 
is supernatural and the creator of na* 
lure, he must have ei'cateti nature Ibr 
biniself, and then natnit* must liave ita 
origin and end in him* and therefore 
in the &>upematuraL Man, then, ha3 
neither his origin nor end in the natu- 
ral, and neither without the supernatu- 
ral is explicable or knowable ; without 
a knowledge of our origin and end, or 
an answer to the questions, whence 
came we? why are we, and how ? and 
Whitlier go we ? we can have no rule 
of life^ cannot determine the positive or 
Ihe relative value of any line of con- 
duct, and must com rail ourselves to 
the roei'cy of the winds and wavea of 
an unknown sea, without pilot, chart, 
rudder, or compass. 

Nor is even this enough* Not only 
is the natural inexplicable without Ihe 
supernatural, but even the intelligible, 
loo, is not intelligible without the su* 
perinteUigible,a8 wehave already said. 
We know things, indeed, not mei*e phe- 
nomena, but we do not know the es- 
siences of things, and yet we know that 
there is and can be nothing without it^ 
es8eiic6| and that the ground and root 

^cf Tvhat is intelligible in a thing is in 
its unknown and suj>erintelligible es- 
sence, bo in the universe throughout, 

, God. as ert^ator. as universal, eternal, 
necessary, immutable, and self-existent 
being is intelligible to ns. and the light 
by which all that is intelligible to us is 
mtcUigible i but we know tliat what is 



intelligible to us is not God 
sence, and that what in him is 
ble to us has its source, its reality^ mo 
to speak, in this very superinieUigibk 
essence. Hence it follows (hat to nsal 
science of anything we need lo kfiow 
the supernatural, and by fairb, or ao» 
aingical science, at leaiit, the superin- 
telligible. We cannot satistjr naliirQi 
without the science and possession of 
the essences or substances of thingt, 
and therefore not witliout fnilh, **for 
faith is the substiniee of things to be 
hoped for," the evidence of things not 
seen, Fide$€H re rum subtfattiia sptrm^ 
darum^ nrtjumentitm non ap 
a^'cording to St^ Paul, who, even 
who deny his inspiration, mu«t yet 
mit was the prufoundest philosopbv 
that ever wrote. We think be was sp 
l>ecause divinely inspired, but the 
that he was so noeompelf:nt jud^ 
dispute. St. Augustine owes his 
meuBO saperiority over Phito and Aris- 
totle chiefly to his assiduous study of 
theepbtlesof St. Paul, which throw so 
strong a light not only on the whole 
volume of Scripture, but on the i^hole 
order of creation, and the divine pur- 
pose in the creation and I lie rL*denipUon, 
regenemtiori, jusiitication, and j^lorifi- 
caiion of man through the inearnatioQ 
of the Woixl, and the qvo^^a and pas- 
sion of our Lonl Jesus Chri^^t. 

But as we can know even by faith 
the superintelligibie, fhe unkiuiwablo 
of Mr. Uerbert Sj>encer, whie.li even 
he dares not iisserl is unredl or iioii» 
existent, only by divine or sujternatii- 
ral revolaiion, it tbllows» I hat witbout 
such revelation, no scienco satisfac^ 
tory to natural rea^son herself is [lossi* 
ble. There is, then, and can bo ao 
antagonism between rtsvelaiion ami 
science, taith and reosou* or super* 
natural and natural* The two an 
but parts of one whole, each the 
complement of the other This dia- 
lectic relation of the two icniis asseri- 
ec| by Catholic th«^ology is denit-d by 
Proti»8tant theology either to the ejt- 
clusion of nature and reason, fir ta the 
exclusioti of both the supernatund aad 
iho superintelligibie^ aad beuce Hm 



I 



^M 



JSom$ or Bempn. 



7S9 



dnalisin which rends in twain the whole 
non-Catholic world, and presents reve- 
lation and science, reason and faith, au- 
thoritj and liberty, natural and super- 
natural, church and state, heaven and 
earth, time and eternity, God and man, 
as mutually hostile terms, forever irre- 
concilable. Thenon-Catholic world does 
not know or it forgets that the church 
presents the midd leterm that unites and 
reconciles them, and that the Catholic 
feels nothing of this interior straggle 
of two mutually destructive forces 
which rends (be hearts and souls of 
the wisest of non- Catholics, not be- 
caase he does not think or has abdica- 
ted reason, as the Professor imagines, 
bat precisely because he does think, 
and thinks according to the truth and 
reality of things. He has unquestion- 
ably his struggles between the flesh 
and the spirit, between virtue and vice, 
between temptations to sin and inspira- 
tions to holiness, but presents in his life 
none of those fearful internal tragedies 
so frequently enacted among serious and 
earnest non-Catholics, and which make 
up so large and so distressing a portion 
of the higher and more truthful portion 
of non-Catholic literature. Non-Catho- 
lic poetry, when not a song to Venus or 
Bacchus, is either a fanciful description 
of external nature, scenes, and events, or 
a low wail or a loud lament over the in- 
ternal tragedies caused by the struggle 
between taith and reas(m, belief and 
doubt, hope and despair, or vainly to 
penetrate the mysteries of life and 
death, God and the universe. Catholic 
poetry, Catholic literature through- 
oat, knows nothing of those tragedies, 
is peaceful and serene, and is therefore 
less interesting to th^se who are not 
Catholics. We have (we speak person- 
ally) had some experience of those in- 
terior struggles, and many a tragedy 
has been enacted in our own soul, but 
it is with difficulty we can recall them ; 
in the peace and serenity of Catholic 
faith and hope they have almost faded 
from the memory, and yet the period 
of our life since we became a Catholic 
has been with us the period of our 
freest and most active and energetic 



thought. If we have worn chains, we 
have not been conscious of them, and 
they certainly cannot have been \eTj 
heavy, or have eaten very deeply into 
the flesh. The reason of it is that we 
flnd in Catholic faith and theology the 
two elements which in the non-Catho- 
lic world are in perpetual war with 
each other, perfectly reconciled, and 
mutually harmonized. 

The peace the Catholic finds is not 
the sort of peace that was said to reign 
in Warsaw. The Professor is greatly 
mistaken if he supposes it is obtained 
by the suppression of reason, or that 
reason is forgotten in the engrossing 
nature or artistic peH'ection of the ex- 
ternal services of the church. The 
offices of the church are beantiftil, 
grand, and, if you will, imposing, bat 
they are all provocative of thought, 
meditation, reflection, for they all sym- 
bolize the greatest of all mysteries — 
God dying for the creature s sin, Grod 
become man, that man may become 
God. Take away this great mystery, 
and the offices of the church become 
meaningless, purposeless, powerless. 
Without faith in that mystery to 
which they all refer, and which they 
at every instant recall, they would be 
no more imposing than the pomp and 
music of a military review or a con- 
cert in Central Park. From first to 
last they challenge our faith, and, if 
there were any discrepancy between 
our faith and reason, they would in a 
thoughtful mind bring it up in distinct 
consciousness, instead of suppressmg or 
making us forget iL A Lord John 
Russell could call the sublime services 
of the church *' mummery," and such 
do the mass of Protestants regard 
them. To the profane all things are 
profane, and the offices of the church 
are really edifying only to those who 
believe the mystery of the Incarna- 
tion. Unbelievers who are not scof- 
fers may admire their poetry and 
the music which accompanies them, 
but would admire equal poetry and 
music in the theatre just as much, 
and perhaps even more. 

No ; the peace of the Catholic is a 



Ji^me or /inx^n. 



real peace. Neither fnith nor roafion, 
revelfttioft nor science, authority nor 
liberty ia suppressed ; hut all real an- 
iiigonwm between them is remove!, anj 
fhey are ?een and feh to be but con- 
gruous parts of one diahx'tic ivliolc, 
Pea4H? ffijs^ns because the mutually ho-»- 
tile pariii'ii are really reeon'-'lJed, and 
made one. The ProCeiisor, no iloubt^ 
i^tll ^ruite at our asaertion, and set it 
down to our simplicity or enrhusiaiim, 
but we have this advantage of him, that 
we know both gides* and tauj^ht or 
mi^ht have tfiuirht him more than thir* 
ty years dfio the philo»Ofdiy he brings 
out 3o mcily at the brcakfrt(*i table. 

Our nature wtis contitructt'd by the 
BUpontalunil tor the fiupernulnral, 
and it can no more live ila iiurmril life 
without a ^uperiiMtural me<1iimi tfian it 
could have sprung into existence with- 
out a oanse above and indepemient of 
itselC Hejjeneraiioo is, ttieieforp, as 
Ueeei^sary to enable it to attain ita des- 
tiny or beatitude as generation was to 
wsfier it into natural existence. Hence 

* it h I hat, when men cast oflT in their 
belief and aifeetions the supernatural, 
find live OM natural men alone, they 

( alnk even below their normal nature^ 
and lo<Jie even their nalural light and 
etfcnath, live only a life which the 
Scriptures call death, the death which 
Adam underwent in ^onstetiuence othia 
disobedience to the divine onler, Wht-^n 
men undertake by their simple naluml 
reason to construct a system of philo* 
aoplty^ they construct systems whicli 
natural reuf*on herself rejects, UeaMon 
disdain** her own work, and hence pure 
rationali^r.^ never construct anything 
that will stand, and they build up sys- 
tems only to be demolished by them- 
selves or successor* Of the systems 
in vojrue in our youth not one is now 
f tanding, and we have seen them iv* 
{placed by two or three new generations 
ofsysteui.< tliat have each in turn gone 
the way of all ihe earth; and, unless 
we spetHlily follow them, we may be 
called to write the epitaphs of those 
now revelling. in the heyday of their 
Young life. The thing is inevitable, 
because our natuix? was made to act in 



BTntheiTs with the stipematumk and k 
only partially itself when compelled to 

operate by itself alone. 

This fact that man's n 
mnnds the aup»ni«tural, 
own reason, though not uh\v tn know 
the 6upennt<dligibk\ or to i^ny what it 
is, yet assures him that there is a 
superintelligibte^ ^i^ him by natttre te 
receive the »ui>erna!aral revelation of 
thesuperinte11igible;forif "i^lv ).itiipKff 
an indestructible and dc^i it of 

his nature. His rea.^on - >; and 

hU nanjre crave<5 it, and wht»n receiT- 
ing it pdii^hes it as the hungry mat 
does wholesome and appropriate focxL 
As the naluni! and &uj 



the 

are l 

•mi 



intelligible and superini' 
not eontmdictory urmulualJy : 
or^JL^rs but pari"* of one com|M 
indi**!?oluble whole, only onlinaty 
dence is required to prove the 
revelation ; aufi as Go<l is infii 
true, truth itself, his won!, whi 
know that we have it, h araph* ai 
iiy, the highest potisible, and fhe 
all coneeivahle reas^ms. for believl 
revelation. So fu ith in a sufiem; 
revelation, in whatever is pr*»ved 
the word of God, is, so far from 
repugnant to reason or requiring an 
aMication of reason, the highest and 
freest act of reason jjossible. 

The Professor objects lobtdievingoa 
the authority of the church, but wo do 
not believe the revelation on tlie MK 
t hori ty of the church ; wo take on Imt 
authority only the tii' 'iv1a# 

revelation; the rev» 1 be* 

lieve on the verneity ot God, IJut, if 
we considered the church as n mere 
body, collection, or C'jin|i«ny of men, 
however wise, learned, or hont'tt we 
raiglit regard them, we should nut 
her authority sufficient for beli 
thnt what she pn^poses as the revel 
really is revelation, Everyman 
individually is falUhic, and no p 
number, union, or rombination of 
bles can make an infallible, and 
an infallible authority is comjiei 
declare what God has or has noi rt- 
vealeiL The church is more tbaa a 
collection, bo^ly, or company of &odlfi* 



« 




a 



Home or Heaton. 



781 



daals, as the haman race, what oar 
liberals call humanilj, is more than an 
aggregation of individuals. There is, 
indeed, no humanity without indivi- 
duals, but it is not itself individual, or de- 
pendent on individuals for its existence. 
The positivists, who would call no indi- 
vidual man divine, pretend that hu- 
manity is divme, and worship it as 
God. What the race is to individual 
men in the order of generation, that, 
in some sense, is the church to them in 
the order of regeneration. She lives 
not without them, but does not live by 
them. She is the regenerated race, and 
bears to Jesus Christ, the incarnate 
Word, who was with God and who is 
Grod, the relation, in the order of regen- 
eration, timt the human race bears to 
Adam, its natural progenitor, and there- 
fore she lives a divine and human life, 
which she receives not from her mem- 
bers, but imparts to them. JesusChrist is 
the progenitor of regenerated humanity, 
and this regenerated humanity is in the 
largest sense what we call the church, 
in which sense it includes all the faith- 
fah the laity as well as their pastors 
and teachers. 

Tiie church, again, is the body of 
our Lord, in which dwelleth the Uoly 
Ghost. Individuals are to her what 
the particles which the body assimi- 
lates are to the body. There is no 
body without them, yet they are not, 
individually or collectively, the body. 
The life of the body is not derived from 
them, for the body, by a vital process, 
assimilates them to itself, not they the 
body to themselves. The body, when 
suffering from a fever or when depriv- 
ed of food, assimilates them only feebly, 
and wastes away or grows thin, and, 
when dead, assimilates them not at all, 
which shows that the vital power which 
carries on the process of assimilation is 
in the body, not in the particles, a fact 
far better known to the Professor than 
to us, and a fact, too, which may help 
remove the difficulties sciolists ima- 
irine in the way of the resurrection of 
the body. 

The vital power or principle which 
gives life to the body and enables it to 



carry on the process of assimilation and 
elimination, the church teaches, is the 
soul, for she has defined that the soul 
is the form of the body, Anima est forma 
corporis. But this has nothing to do 
with our present purpose. The vital 
principle, the life of the church, is our 
Lord Jesus Christ himself. The Hdiy 
Ghost dwells in her as the soul in the 
body, animates her, guides and directs 
her, and therefore is she one, holy and 
Catholic, as he is one, holy and Catho- 
lic, infallible by his perpetual presence 
and assistance as he is infallible. The 
Word incarnate explicates his life in 
her as Adam explicates his life in the 
race. The infallibility is from the pre- 
sence and assistance of the Holy Ghost, 
and is in her very interior life. The 
Word is in her, a living Word, and the 
infallibility attaches to her, to this in- 
terior Word which she lives, but not to 
individuals as such in her communion. 
The pope regarded as a man, irrespec- 
tive of his office, is no more infallible 
than he is impeccable, or than is any 
Christian believer. 

But the church as a body has her 
organs, and as a visible body she has 
visible organs, through which she 
teaches the truth she has received and 
expresses the life she lives. These 
organs are the bishops or pastors in 
communion with their visible head, the 
successor in the See of Rome of Blessed 
Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. We 
call them organs of the church, inas- 
much as the faith and love, the truth 
and life, they express is her life, which 
in turn is the life of him who said, 
** Because I live ye shall live also,'' and, 
^ Behold, I am with you all days, even 
to the consummation of the world P 
and who expressly declares himself 
" the way, the truth, and the life.'* The 
infallibility of the church comes from 
the indwelling Word and the assistance 
of the Holy Ghost ; the infallibility of 
the organs comes from the infallibility 
of the church. 

Now, supposing the church to be 
what we represent her to be, we pre- 
sume even the Professor will acknow- 
ledge her to be fully competent to 



teach without error the rcvektion su- 
pematuraily made and committed to 
her, for the revelation cotntnittcd to her 
18 deposited externally with her bishops 
ftnd pastors, and inleninUy in her living 
and nnrailingr faith, in her very life and 
interior conseiousnesa. It is both a re- 
corded and a present liviii'r revelation, 
whieh she is living and explicaun°r in 
ht-'r euntiouous activity, the Word spoken 
from the beginning, and the Word s[)eali- 
ing now. *• Say not," says St. Paul, 
(Rom. X, 6-^0 ^*in thy heart: Who 
shall ai*cend into heaven? that ia, to 
bring ( !hrist down : or who shall descend 
into the deep ? I hat is, to hrin*^ up Christ 
again from the dead. But what s^aith 
the Seripture ? The word is near thee, 
even in thy mouth, and in thy heart : 
this 10 the wonl of faith, which wc 
preach.'* This was addrcftsed by St 
Fanl to Christian behevera, '* tt* all 
that are at liome, the beloved of God^ 
called to be sainta, ' and shows that the 
Christian not only hears the word in 
bid ears, but bajs it in bia mouth, in his 
heart, that is, hi his very life, and he 
lives and breathes it. It is the very 
fUt'mont of his soul, and he can have no 
higher certainty, not even in case of a 
maiht^mutical demonstrationt than he 
haa ihut his tkith is true, and that it i^ 
^^jlivingGod he believes. The Fro- 
lliBor^ then, in regard to the faithtui^ hat 
no gronnd for asserting as he does an 
antithesis between '^ Rome and reason, 
the BO ve reign church and the free soul, 
God in our masters and God in us;" 
for Rome is the highest reason, the 
sovereign clnifch is both external and 
internal, and God is both in us and in 
our teachers. Wc have not ordy the 
veracity of God as the ground of our 
faith, hut a divinely constituted and as- 
sisteil medium of bringing us to it, and 
sustaining it in us. 

The church undoubtedly teaches the 
faith or divine revelation which has 
be<?u committed to her through her 
piyitors and doctora. But the compe- 
lOlcy of these to leaeh follows from the 
fact that they can teach only in union 
with the church : that she authorises 
their teaching, and is ever present to 



correct them if they err, and that the]f| 
are even ejttemaUy commi-^ginncd 
our Lord himself to teach what he ha 
revealed A mere external comm^i 
sion, which we know historieally wi 
given to the apostles and theiri 
eessors, would not of itself give tl 
pacity to teach or ensure infaUfl 
in teaching ; but he who has all 
in heaven and in e^rth, who Is i 
well as man, and is himself *** the 
the trath, and the life,** a5flur**dly 
not, and could not wirhout l^lyiii 
essential and immutable nature, j 
a commission to teach and commal 
nations to hear and obey I hem as hin 
6e1f« without tnkiDg care that th«^| 
should have the ability to t(*aeb hk 
wonl and to teach it infallibly. Th 
he doi*6 thia is pledged in the vt'ry is 
and in the wui\ls of the eomml»<*i(^ ic»l 
self: '* All power h given to me in h«ii»l 
ven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, an 
teach all nationg ; baptizing (hem in thu 
name of the Father, and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost; teaching the 
to observe all things whatsoever i hatf 
commanded you ; and, beliold, lam i 
^u all days, even to the consumti 
of the world" (St^Matt xxviii. It 

This external commission is all 
need^ to be proved by external^ 
dence to the worM outside of the chll 
and there is no more intrinsic ditlio 
in proving it than there is in pix>ving 
the commission of George Washinji 
as general of the American nrmj 
the Revolution, of Lord Ragin' 
mander-in chief to the day f»t 
of the Britii^h forces employ m m me 
Crimean war, or any other histork»|tJ 
fact whatever. The unhrokan 
islence of the church founded by Um 
apostles from their day to ntir*, and^ 
the uniform testimony she hns univer<«^ 
sally and uninterruptedly bonic to tki 
fact, would suffice to prove it, even 1 
we no other proofs or evidence, 
church without citing her in hrr -tiprr 
natural character, an 
as an historical witn 
needed, for she is a staodinfi^ i 
of the fact. In her corporate e*(iMll^ 
shespans th<^ whole disiaooeorusiefrM 




Home or Beamm. 



7M 



postles, and at each iDterrening 
snt she has been a present wit- 
>f the fact, testifying to what was 
Dt before her. The church as a 
ration, without any appeal to her 
c character, has not been subject 
Y succession of time, has known 
3se of years, and is as present to- 
) the events of the apostolic times 
5 was when those events occurred, 
3 at any moment we choose their 
oaporary, and, as a contemporary 
$s to extraordinary facts, her testi- 
is as good for us as was that of the 
les themselves to their personal 
nporaries. Indeed, it is literally 
ruly the same, for her corporate 
nee from the time of the apostles 
's, or her historical identity, is nn- 
louabie. 

) are not now citing the continu- 
Kistence of the church for any- 
but the simple external fact of 
eternal commission given by our 
himself to his apostles. To that 
f hatever you think of her, she is 
ipetent witness, and, having con- 
y testified to it from that day to 
ler testimony is conclusive. As- 
then, the fact of the external com- 
m, to which we who are Catholics 
no external testimony, since we 
be highest of all possible testimo- 
the internal life of the church, 
3 rest follows of itself. What the 
h believes, and teaches through 
iai»tors and doctors, or what they 
ison with her and her faith teach 
5 revelation of God committed to 
} his revelation, and we believe it 
se we believe him. Then we be- 
she is what she professes to be, 
ving body of our Lord, who lives 
r and is her life, and through 
I the Holy Ghost carries on the 
of regeneration and glorification 
souls that do not resist him, but 
I assistance cooperate with him. 
w, where in all this, from the first 
3 last, find you any discrepancy 
en Rome and Reason, the sov- 
1 church and the free soul, 
en God in us and God in our 
rs? There is no discrepancy. 



There is more in it than natural reason 
by her own light knows, but nothing 
against reason, or which reason does 
not teel that she needs for own full and 
normal development There is in it 
more than there is in nature, because 
our destiny, our end, that is, our su- 
preme good, like our origin, lies in the 
supernatural order, not the natural, for 
our nature can be satisfied with no 
finite or created good, and it needs no 
argument to prove that the natural is 
not capable of itself of attaining to the 
supematuraL To assert the super- 
natural as the means of elevating na- 
ture to the plane of a supernatural des- 
tiny and of enabling it to reach it, as- 
suredly is not to discard or to depress 
nature. 

The difficulties which exclusive ra- 
tionalists and naturalists feel in the 
case grow out 6f their supposition that 
Rome teaches that the intelligible and 
superintelligible are identical with the 
natural and supernatural, and that the 
natural and supernatural are two sepa- 
rate worlds, each standing opposed to 
the other, or two contradictory plans 
or systems, with no real nexus or me- 
dium of reconciliation between them, 
that is, that Rome, saving her authority 
to teach and govern, teaches Protes- 
tantism. The intelligible and superin- 
telligible are distinguishable only in 
relation to our limited intelligence, but 
in the real order are identical, one and 
the same, and would be seen to be so by 
an intelligence capable of taking in all 
reality at one view. The natural and 
supernatural are distinguishable, but 
not separable, any more than is the 
effect from the cause. They are simply 
distinct parts of one complete system, 
or one dialectic whole, united as well 
as distinguished by the creative act of 
Grod. They are expressed, in the 
Christian or teleological order, by the 
terms generation and regeneration. 
Man is created by the supernatural, but 
the race is explicated in the order of 
generation by natural laws ; in the order 
of regeneration, by the election of grace. 
Generation is initial; regeneration is 
teleological, and completes generation. 



734 



tome or 



teamnm 



0r places man ou the plane of hia end. 
as generation places tl»6 individual on 
the plane of his nauiral existence, 

^ow,it is clear that wiihout genera* 
tion I he re can be no regeneration, aa 
withoul regeneration the end h not 
attaimiblo. The two terms express 
two pnxx^sses, or the two itineraries 
of CI eat ion — the procession of exist- 
ences from (lod m First Cati&e by 
way of creation and their explication 
by natural lawp, and the return of ex- 
islencffc by meang of supornaiural ^rrace 
to God, wittmut absorption in hira, as 
their (*tid or Final Caut^e. The natu- 
ral ordrr or gene ration, the order ex- 
pUcalfd by natural laws, proeecdfe from 
and is sustained by the supeniatuml, 
for (li "1 is fiypernaiynil, since lie id the 
ithor of nature ; the end, or the final 
liUBc, is superoaturaL since it is in God ; 
the medium of return, then» must be 
also sujiematuraLp since the natural is 
not and cannot be adequate to a super- 
natural end. Evidently, then, there 
is ami can be no oppoi*ition between 
the natural and eupernatnral but the 
opposition between the cause and eifect, 
the medium and the end, the part and 
the \vh(»lc* The supernatural is ne- 
cessary to originate, sustain, and com- 
plete the natural. Hence* tlte ditti- 
culties created or suggested by Pro- 
te?Uint theology have no place in re* 
lation to I he teachings of Home. Fro- 
tejilantism escapes an eternal war only 
by sup{>o^in<^ either the natural or the 
fiupernatural; Rome escapes it by re- 
conciling the two, or presenting in the 
rtal order ihe medium of their union. 

We may now diapofe of the qucotioa 
of niirauies and superoutural visions^ 
etc, which excite the disdain or con- 
tempt of ^Ir. Parkman and his clas» 
of thinkers or no-thinkers. Man rx* 
ists fbjm, by, and for the supemalu- 
i-al. Christianity is supenialural, 
and is the meilium, and the necessary 
medium, by which man attuius his end, 
or supreme good. It is teleolofrieal, and 
hence the whole Ideological life of man 
is supernatural. The supernatural is 
that wliich God does immediately by 
bimsctf ; the natufttl Is that which he 




does mediately throiiL^ of 

second causes or SQ-ca I wn» 

as generation, germination^ tfrowrhtetc^ 
which are in the secondii ry onler ex- 
pliaible by natural or created cau^e^ 
Now, as I he supernatural is the ori 
medium^ and end of man, and as CI 
tianity or the telcidogical onJer u 
dialectiaally — rf^ally unite>, as {j*mI and 
man are really united in the Incama* 
t ion— the natural and supernal oral, 
there is and can be no a priori diffiniltT 
or antecedent improbability tiiiu tiiKi 
in preparing the introduction 
of the Christian order, and in * . 
it on to the end for which hi* cnuU*-> it| 
should intervene more or le^as frciiuent* 
ly by his direct and immediate netion — 
action upon nature, if you will, hut 
without the agency of natural cau:»^ 
The whole Christian order, on it^ ditiae 
side, though included in the on{niiiil 
plan or decree of creation, is an iflfe^ 
vention of this sort. Grace U the di- 
n^ct action of God the Holy Ghuit ill 
ivgenerating the human soul, cdeTiil- 
ing it to the plane of its di^tinr^ aod 
enabling it to persevere to the cod. 
The part assigned to natural agcfits 
is ministerial only, or signs throoigb 
which grace is signified. The direct 
and immediate action uf God i^ iH»rtattl 
in the order of Christianity, and, Ihr-ne- 
fore, in no sense repuguaut to the or^ 
der of nature. 

What, then, is a miracle? It i^tiel 
a %']olation or suspeusiou of the Iaws 
of nature, but a siK-citic effect in 
visible order pmduct^ by the dli«cl| 
immediate action of God, for some 
pose connecte^i with the teleologiiail or- 
4ler of creation, or the order of regeoe- 
ration as distingubhed from the onkr 
of generation. Tliat he should tlo 60 
from time to time, as seems to him goodi 
is only in analogy with th« very 
he sustains for the pc*rf<*etion or 
p k' t ion of c r«?a t ion, Th e re a re, t i i ♦♦n , 
a priori objections to miracles. 1 luiacV 
pretence tJiat no testimony can prove 
a miracle, for it is more prulmblc that 
men will lie than it is that nature will 
go out of her course, is of no wctght^ 
because nattire does not work a iiiii»* 



( 



JRome or Reason. 



785 



de, nor does it in a miracle go out of 
its course. The miracle is worked 
bv Grod himself, and is in the telcolo- 
gical order of nature. Being wrough t 
in the visible order, a miracle is as pro- 
bable and &s provable as any other 
historical event. The only questions 
are, is the event not explicable bj na- 
tural causes ? and are the proofs suf- 
ficient to prove it as an historical fact? 
No more evidence is needed to prove 
it than is required to prove any histori- 
cal fact in the natural order itself. If 
a real miracle, it is as easily proven as 
a natural event. 

No doubt many things pass for 
miracles which are explicable by na- 
tural causes, and many visions are 
taken to be supernatural which have 
nothing supernatural about them. We 
du not hold ourselves bound by our 
Catholic faith to believe all the mar- 
vellous occurrences recorded in the lives 
of the saints, or treated as such in po- 
pular tradition, were really miracles, 
wrought by the direct and immediate 
action of the Almighty. We are bound 
to believe only according to the evidence 
in each particular case. Credulity is 
aa little the characteristic of Catholics 
as is scepticism itself. We are in re- 
lation to alleged particular miracles as 
tree to exercise our reason and judg- 
ment as we are in regard to any other 
class of alleged historical facts, and to 
sift and weigh the testimony in the case. 
That miracles are possible, are not 
improbable, hare never ceased in the 
church, and are daily wrought among 
the faithful, we fully believe ; but, when 
it comes to this or that particular fact 
or event alleged to be a miracle, we 
exercise to the full our critical judg- 
ment, and follow what seems to us the 
weight of evidence. The alleged ap* 
pearance of our Lady to the young 
shepherds of La Salette is possible and 
not improbable, but before we can be 
required to believe it we must have 
sufiicient evidence of the fact. 

Mr. Farkman in his quiet way smiles 
at the credulity of the good Jesuit fa- 
thers, who seem to believe the stories of 
Indian magic, witchcraft, or sorcery 



which they relate; but has he any 
evidence that there is no Satan, and 
that evil spirits are mere entia rxir 
tionisf Can be prove that magic, 
witchcraft, sorcery, diablerie^ in any 
or all its forms, is impossible or even 
improbable ? All the world from the 
earliest and in the most enlightened 
ages have believed in what the Grer- 
roans call the Night-side of Nature, and 
no man has any right to allege so uni- 
versal a belief is unfounded, except on 
very strong and convincing reasons. 
Has he such reasons? Can be dis- 
prove the whole series of facts record- 
ed ? Can he deny the facts alleged by 
our modem necromancers or spiritists, 
or prove not that some of them are, but 
that all of them, are explicable without 
the supposition of some superhuman 
agency ? Doubtless there is much il« 
lusion, delusion, cheatery, but is there 
not also much inexplicable without 
Satanic influence? Can he say that 
there is no Satan, that there are no 
fallen creatures superior to man in 
strength and intellect, who harass him, 
beset him, possess him, or that tempt 
him, and perform lying wonders well 
fitted to deceive him, and to draw him 
away from the worship of the true Grod, 
though, of course, unable to harm 
against the consent of his will ? Their 
deviltry is superhuman, but not by any 
means supernatural, and they who speak 
of it as supernatural entirely mistake 
its character. As in the case of mira- 
cles, while we concede the general 
principle, when we come to particular 
facts attributed to satanic agency, we 
use our critical judgment, and are, we 
confess, very slow to believe, and hard 
to be convinced. 

We think we Lave said enough to 
prove that it is time to leave off the 
cant about the despotism of Rome, and 
to desist from placing the church in 
contrast with the free soul. The two 
poles are rationalism and supernatural- 
ism ; Catholicity combines both in their 
real synthesis, a synthesis founded hi 
the creative act of Grod which really 
connects creator and creature in one 
harmonious whole. They who do not 



7iK 



Itom§ Of Iteaion, 



jierceive it are ig:nonmt of tbe teachinga 
of Rome, andam mere scioliata. T bey 
hiiTe taken only superficial views of 
both reason and religion, and have far 
tnore reason to deplore their lack of 
light thiiti to lH>a»t oi their intelligence. 
There is infinitely more in this old 
cborpli than isdreiimed ofiu their phi- 
Jos(»phy. 

Yut nobody pretends that the ctiurch 
teach c*< the details of science, and leaves 
nothing for the human intellect to ob- 
serve, to investigate, to arrangre, and 
cUssify. The church is Catholic, be- 
cause she ti'acliea to her doctrine, whe- 
ther known by natural reason or only 
by divincrL*v(?!alion,ihe universal idea I, 
or tiie Cut f 10 lie prineiples of all the real 
iindaH the knovvable; but she does not 
teach all the details of cosmology, Iiis- 
tory, chemistry, niechaincs {»eo^i-apljy, 
astronomy, geolo^^y, zoology, pji^siolo- 
gy, pathology, phiIolo)iy, or anthropo- 

, jojf}\ She teaches the ideal or general 
principh's ofall the sciences, and teaches 
thern infallibly, and thus gives the law 
to all scientific investigation, which sa- 
vans in their inductions and deductions 
Are not at Ubt*rty to transgress. Our 
|jhilo>aphers and stwnns are perfectly 
free to exfdore nature in all possible 
directions, bat they are not free to iii- 

iTVlit hypolliesea and theories not re- 

; OOQciUble wiJi the universal pinneiples 
she teacfies, or to oppose their conjee* 
tares to tlte principles she asserts, be 
cause all such eonjecUtres or theories 
are unsci«»ntific and falae. The ethno- 
logist is fn^e to invesiigate the charac- 
teristics of the different races and fa- 
milies of men, but not free to deny the 
unity of llje human race itself, or the 
descent ot' all men fmrn one and the 
aamo primitive pair, who must bavo 
been immedately created and iti- 
•tructed by God himself. But this 
b saying no more than that tht^ ma- 
Ibematician h not free to reject his 
axioms, or tiie geometrician his defi- 
tiitions ; and wc mav add that, if our 
acientiHc men would take rhf^ principles 
the chmvh teaches as their guide, they 
would find themselves much more sue- 

I oeuful in their observattoa and claa* 



nn- 
nm*| 



sification of natural phenomena, 
save themselves from the ri 
which they now incnr. 

It follows from this that (he scien 
are not absolutely indeiiendenl of thf] 
supervision of the ehurcluaml tiiats: 
goes not out of iier province when 
censures offiei ally theories^ by 
and conjectures which cont 
ideal truth committed to her 
They by conti*adif*tinj» h*»r f>r?! 
are proved to >> 
tiflc. But so 1m 
fine them>elves to lueis .. 
eiples, and do not run or :l; 
athwart the trulh^ they are }HTfcctIy 
free. TIjc elmrch interteres with them 
only when they imi>ugn by their c»pt?ctt' 
lations theunivei*sal j^rinciples i»rfl.Ifvfv 
The people^ ugn in, are l^rea to 
form of government which tfi 
best, and civil governments oi 
pursue the policy th<*y judge iJ 
and most pmdent, so long as f 
trnvene no principle or d" 
ral justice; andtheindivi 
choose the calling in life li 
to pursue it %vithout let j 
from the church, ^o hiog a^ ljt_ Violatei 
no divine precept or law of ^tM, 

There h no doubt f' tltit 

hens for the church cx*i^ ber 

auifrority i»or liberty. Liberty with- 
out authority is licensCf tuid om 
great an evil as authority witiioQt 
hbcrty, which is tyranny or dc«pCK 
tism. The scientific, if truly sden* 
tifie, study to kmw reality* the real 
and unmixed tnnh, which is alike 
independent of her and of thetn, and 
they can obtain it only by conformiii^ 
to the immutable prineiple« of (htngf* 
iiccording to whJeh God has creai^ 
and governs the universe. Thee 
approves and encourages free thi 
and free inquiry, but she *■ 
not permit her children, uu 
of free thought free inquirv, or of 
science, to subvert J he very prinrnplw 
on which all science, even thought it- 
self, depends, or to degrade htim.xn na- 
ture and abase the dignity of reJisoa 
by theories that deprive man of hb 
humanity and rank him with the bessli 





Home 9r Reason. 



i2n 



that perish. Snch liberty is repujjnan 
to the very essence of science, and can- 
not be entertained for a moment by any 
one who is anything more than a de- 
relopcd chimpanzee or gorilla. It is 
license, not liberty, and introduces only 
intellectual anarchy. 

There is, too, a moral order in the 
universe, and the good of the indivi- 
dual and society can be sefcured only 
by conformity to it. No man, no na- 
tion, no society, no government has or 
can have the right to do wrong. The 
rejection of the restraints of the great 
fiindamental principles of truth in 
science and the sciences, and of jus- 
tice in the individual and in society, is 
the greatest of evils, and it is therefore 
that the church has it for her office to 
unite in an indissoluble synthesis both 
liberty and authority. To make the 
(act that she unites authority with li- 
berty, and tempers each with the other, 
a ground of reproach against her is no 
proof of wisdom. She allows man all 
the liberty God gives him, and to ask 
for more is absurd. 

In teaching the great principles of 
truth in all orders, and in judging W 
their explication and application, the 
church is infallible, but she is not in- 
fallible in the details of science. She 
is infallible in teaching whatever our 
liord has commanded her, has reveal- 
ed to her, and is realizing in her life, but 
Dot necessarily in matters not included 
in the faith. Her infallibility does not 

VOL. V. — *7 



imply the scientific infallibility of all 
Catholics. It is no objection to her 
and no embarrassment to Catholics, 
that her children in the details of 
science have more or less erred. 
Others may be as well acquainted 
with these details as Catholics, and 
the scientific superiority of Catholics is 
in their knowledge of the great scien- 
tific principles, or what in science is 
ideal and catholic Others may know 
the facts of history as well, but none 
can so well know the ideas or princi- 
ples which goven^ the historical deve* 
lopment of the race, and the science or 
philosophy of history. The same may 
be said of all the other sciences. 

To fully develop and exhaust the 
great question we have touched upon 
in this article would require a volume, 
indeed many volumes. We have aimed 
rather at giving the principles and me- 
thod of their solution than at giving the 
solution itself. We have left much for 
the reader to do for himself by his own 
thought and study. It is as necessary 
that readers should think freely and 
wisely as that authors should, for mind 
can speak only to mind. But we trust 
that we have said enough to vindi- 
cate Rome from the charges preferred 
against her, and to prove that they who 
take pleasure in reviling her or her 
faithful children have little reason 
to boast of their intelligence or to 
claim to be the more advanced por- 
tion of the race 



IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN. 



BY LADT a£BB£RT. 



The jotimej to MaJrld wus uueyent* 
f ful. One more day w:u dpenl in Cjr- 
Idova ; once mare thay visited ttint glo- 
llious mosque ; one more day and night 
f iia» jipent in weariijome dilifl;onces and 
J stifling wayside stations, and then they 
Ifound themselves a;:ain estabhshcd in 
i their oM comfortable quarters at the 
« Puerta del Sol" 

1 1 waa a relief to think ilmt the 
t** lion?*'* of the place had been more or 
lle.ss visited, and that all they had to do 
f wua to return to ihe places of previous 
t lute red I, and thoi-otjgljly enjoy them* 
rThe cold diirinj^ iheir former visit'hiwl 
rpreiduded their making any expcditioua 
im I he neigh borhD«>d, which omission 
f tJiey now prepared to reetity. Spend- 
Mng the first few day a in eeeing their 
lUld frienda, and obtaining letters of in- 
l^lfoducttou from them« our travellers re- 
Tiolved that Iheir tiret excursion should 
[be to the Escurial. 

THE ESCtnUAI* AND tOUSI>0. 

A railroad im now open fix>m Madrid 
lb passes by the palace ; so at half* 
six, one morning, they took their 
^laccf* in the train» which 5oon carried 
"hem away from the cyhivated environs 
►f the city to a country which, for de- 
iion, wildnesa, and grandeur, re- 
_ _ Jea the scenery at Nicolosi in the 
ftseent of Etna. In the mitkt of thiii 
rugged maiis of iticks and scrubby oiik- 
tn*e3, ihe hirge gloomy Escurial riae>i 
up. under llie shadow, as it were, of the 
iiowy jagged peaks of the Sierra Gua* 
i*ama, which forms its background. 
ei% tsa picture of it, by Rubens, in 
i« gallery at Longfortl Castle, near 
lisbury, which gives the best j>osdib1e 
Idea of the complete isolation of the 
great building itself, and of the sarage 
character of the whole of the flurmund- 
ing country* 



Leaving the I ruin, our party wunt to 
preaent their letiera to die principal^ 

Padre G . who very kindly jiliq 

them everything most worth *eeiiJ 
the place. It is* a giganfic 
masonry, built by Philip IL asa I 
giving for the success of the 
Sr. Cjuenrin, afid in the shape of ii J 
iron, being dedic^ited to St. Lam 
on the day of whose martyHc 
vow was made. ** CVlui qui fai^ii 
si grand v«bu doit avoir cii 
pcurT' was the saying of tJie l)u| 
Bmganza ; and the gloomy* cold, j 
character of the whale pluoe it but f!i«* 
refleat of the king'fj ti^tinwinuHnL U^ 
employed the famuui? 
whose geniua was, *,.*^., ., ,» ,„.,-.» 
cramped by Ihe king's insistence oa tli« 
shape being maintained* Ii was dniUi* 
ed in 1584* 

The Jeronimltc monks have bc^^o 
scjitteredlo the wind:?, and theconvcnl 
has been turned into a college ; 
have about 2o0 students. Thr cJ 
is large and e^olemn, but bare and 
inviting, dt8umhmd sonibre« like i 
rest. The choir In up-^tairs» willi^ 
CHrved stalb, among which is tig 
Philip IL, who ahvM Ticdl 

the moiiki^. The pin- "''» i 

Lucu Giordano. The choir-book^l 
moj^ I ban 200 in number, in vii 
calf, and of gi$;antie size ; some of thm 
are beautifully illuminatecL At the 
back, in a small gallery^ with u window 
looking on tlie great piazza below» is 
the famous white marble Christ* th^ 
size of life, by Benvcnuto CellinL given 
to Philip IL by the Grand Duke uf I 
Florence. On certain days it is ei- i 
posed to the |>eopIe from the wiDdoir ; 
but wonderful as may be its anatomy* 
Ihe expression is both palnltil and oooi' 
monplaee. Beneath the ehorch it tlie 
famous crypt containing tlie bodifv of 
all the kings and queens of Spain sinet 




Impressions of Spain, 



789 



Charles V., arranged io niches round 
the octagonal chapel. Each niche con- 
tains a black marble sarcophagus ; the 
kings on the right, and the queens on 
the lefl. Here mass is always said on 
All Souls* Day, and on the anniver- 
saries of their deaths. The present 
queen came once, and looked at the 
empty urn waiting for her, but did not 
repeat the experiment. *' I have come 
once of my own freewill," she is sup- 
posed to have said, " but the next time 
I shall be brought here without it." It 
is a dismal resting-place ; the damp, 
cold, slippery stairs by which you de- 
scend into it from the church seem to 
chill one's very blood, and the profound 
darkness, only lit up here and there by 
the flicker of the guide's torch, with 
the reverberation caused by the closing 
of the heavy iron door, till the thoughts 
with visions of death, unchecred by 
hope, and of a prison rather than a 
grave. Ascending with a feeling of 
posidve relief to the church above. 
Padre G— — took them into the sa- 
cristy, which is a beautiful long, low 
room, with arabesque ceilings, and at 
the further end of which is a very fine 
picture by Coello. representing the apo- 
theosis of the " Forma," or miraculous 
wafer : the heads arc all portraits, and 
admirably executed. At the back is 
the little chapel or sanctuary where the 
•♦ Forma'* is kept and exhibited twice 
a year. Charles II. erected the gor- 
geous altar with the following inscrip- 
tion ; 



En m«^ opcrls mlraculnm intra miracalum mandi, 
ooeU miniculuxn coDKcratum. 



The legend states that at the battle of 
Grorcum, in 1525, the Zuinglian here 
tics scattered and trampled on the Sa- 
cred Host, whfch bled ; and being ga- 
thered up and carefully preserved by 
the faithful, was afterward given by 
Rudolph IL to Philip II., which event 
is represented in a bas-relief. In this 
sacristy are also some vestments of 
which the embroidery is the most ex- 
quisite thing possible ; the faces of the 
figures are like beautiful miniatures, so 



that it is difficult to believe they are 
done in needlework.* 

But the great treasures of this church 
are its relics, of which the quantity is 
enormous. They are arranged in gi- 
gantic cupboards or **^tagcres," stretch- 
ing from the floor to the ceiling, the 
doors of which are carefully concealed 
by the pictures which hang over them, 
above both the high altar and the two 
side altars at the east end. There are 
more than 7,000 relics, of which the 
most interesting are those of St. Lau- 
rence himself, (his skull, his winding- 
sheet, the iron bar:^ of his gridunon, etc,) 
the head of St. Ilermengilde, sent to 
the king from Seville, and the arm 
and head of St. Agatha. The reli- 
quaries are also very beautiful, some 
of them of very fine cinqnecento work. 
These are down-srairs. Up-stairs is a 
kind of secret chapel, where there are 
some things which were still more in- 
teresting to our travellers. Here are 
four MS. books of St. Theresa's, all 
written by her own hand ; her Life, 
written by command of her confessor, 
Padre Bdnez, with a voucher of its 
authenticity from him at the end ; her 
Path of Perfeaion; her Constitutions 
and Foundations ; also her inkstand and 
pen. Her handwriting is more like a 
man's than a woman^s, and is beauti- 
fully clear and firm. There is also a 
veil worked in a kind of crochet by 
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and sent by 
her to St. IMargaiet ; a beautiful illu- 
minated Greek missal, once belonging 
to St. Chrysostom ; a pot from Cana 
in Galilee ; a beautifully carved ivory 
diptych ; the body of one of the Holy 
Innocents, sent from Bethlehem ; some 
exquisite ivory and coral reliquaries, 
etc. From the church our party went 
up by a magnificent staircase to the 
library, which though despoiled, like 
everything else during the French in- 
vasion, still contains some invaluable 
books and Mss. There is an illumi- 
nated Apocalypse of the fourteenth 
century, most exquisitely painted on 

* In the Dominican convent of Stone, in Stafford- 
ihire, the same exquisite work la now being repro- 
duced ; which proves that the «rt la not, aa ia genar- 
aUy> supposed, extioct. 



7i9f 



Imprewons of Spain. 



both sides ; a very fine copy of the 
Koran ; many other beaatiful missals ; 
and in a room down-stairs, not gener- 
ally shown to travellers, are some 
thousands of manuscripts, among which 
are a wonderful illuminated copy of the 
Miracirs of the Virgin, in Portuguese 
and Gallego, of the eleventh century, 
most quaint and funny in design and 
execution ; also a very curious illumi- 
nated book of chess problems and other 
games, written by order of the king 
Alondo el Sabio. It is a library where 
one might spend days and days with 
ever-increasing pleasure, if it were not 
for the cold, which, to our travellers, 
fresh from the burning sim of Seville, 
seemed almost unendurable. The clois- 
ters, refectory, and kitchens are all on 
the most magnificent scale. In the 
wing set aside for the private apart- 
ments of the royal family, but which 
they now rarely occupy, the thing most 
worth looking at is the tapestr}', 
made in Madrid, at the Barbara fac- 
tory, (now closed,) from drawings by 
Teniers and Goya. They are quite 
like beautiful paintings, both in expres- 
sion and color, though some of the sub- 
jects and scenes are of questionable 
propriety. Thei-e is a suite of small 
rooms with beautiful inlaid doors and 
furniture ; a fewgXKl pictures, (among 
a gooJ deal of rubbish,) especially one 
of Bosich, knoAvn us that of The Dog 
and the Fly ; and a very interesting 
gallery or corridor, cjvered with fres- 
coes, representing the taking of Gra- 
naln on the one side and the battle of 
St. Quentin on the other, the victory 
of Le))anto occupying the s))aces at the 
two ends. ^ These frescoes arc very 
valunble, both as portraits and as re- 
presenting the costumes and arms of 
the period. They were said to be fiic- 
straile copies of original drawinsrs, done 
on clotlis on the actual spots. That of 
St. Quentin was S|)ecially interes:ing to 
one of the party, whose ancestor fought 
there, and in whose house in England 
(Wilton Abbey) is still shown the ar- 
mor of Ann C'onetible de Montmor- 
ency, of the Due de Montpensier, of 
Admiral Coligni, and of other French 



prisoners taken by him in that memor- 
able battle. Beyond this galI4ry is the 
little business-room or study of Philip 
IT., with his chair, his gouty stool, his 
writing-table, his well-worn letter book, 
and two old pictures, one of the Seven 
Deadly Sins, the other an etching (of 
1572) of the Virgin and Saints. Out 
of this tiny den is a kind of recess, 
with a window looking on the high altar 
in which he caused his couch to be laid 
when he was dying. The death-strug- 
gle was prolonged for fifty-threo days 
of almost continuous agony, during 
which time he went on holding in his 
hand the crucifix which Charles V. had 
when he expired, and which is still re- 
ligiously preserved. The gardens in 
front of this magni6cent pulaoc are 
very quaint and pretty, the beds being 
cut in a succession of terraces over- 
looking the plains below, and bonlered 
with low box hedges cut in prim shafie^ 
with straight gravel walks, beautiful 
fountains, and marble seats. But it is 
not difficult to understand why the poor 
queen prefers the sunny slo))e3 of La 
Granja, or even the dulness of the green 
avenues of Aranjues. to this gloomy 
pile, where the snow hardly ever melts 
in the cold shade of those inner courts, 
and where all the associations are of 
death in its most repulsive form. Above 
the Escurial, half-way up the mountain, 
is a rude scat of boulder ttones, from 
whence it is said Philip IL usod to 
watch the progress of the hu^e building. 
Ketuming to the railway station, our 
travellers walked down the hill and 
through a pleasantly-wooded avenue 
to a little *' maisonnette" of the Infanta, 
built for Charles IV. when heir-appar- 
ent, and containing some beautiful ivo- 
ries and Wedgwoo<ls. The gardens 
are pretty and bright, but the whole 
thin$i: is too small to be an\ thinsr but a 
child s toy. An accident on the line, 
somewhere near Avila, detainetl our 
party for six mortal hours at a wretch- 
ed little wayside station, of which the 
authorities flatly refused to put on a 
short special train, although there were 
a large number of passengt*rs. in ad- 
dition to oar travellers, waiting, like 



Impressions of Spain. 



741 



them, to return to Madrid. But the 
Spanish mind cannot take in the idea 
of any one beinjr in a hurry. " Ora !" 
" Maaana V (By and hy I To-mor- 
row !) are the despairing words which 
meet one at every turn in this country. 
In this instance, neither horses nor car- 
ria^s being procurable, by which the 
journey to Madrid (only twenty miles) 
could have been accomplished with 
perfect facility by road, our travellers 
had nothing lefl for it but to wait. 
Patience, and such sleep as could be 
got on a hard bench, were their only 
resource until one in the morning, when 
the night express fortunately came up, 
and, af er some demur, agreed to take 
them bock to Madrid. 

Too tired the following day to start 
early again for Toledo, as they had 
intended, our party took advantage of 
the kindness of the Englbh minister 
to see the queen's private library, 
which is in one of the wings of the 
large but uninteresting modem palace. 
The librarian good-naturedly showed 
them some of the rarest of his trea- 
sures : among them is a beautiful mis- 
sal, bound in shagreen, with lovely 
enamel clasps and exquisite illumina- 
tions, which had belonged to Queen 
Isabella of Castile; her arms, Arra- 
gon on one side and Castile on the 
other, were worked into the illumina- 
tions on the cover. There was a still 
older missal illuminated in 1315, in 
which is found the first mention of 
Si, Louis in the Kiilendar. Here also 
are some of the first books printed in 
type, and a very fine ms. Greek copy 
of Aristotle. 

Afterward, they came to a distant 

room, where Dr. found what he 

had long sought for in vain — a quanti- 
ty of the MS. letters of Gondonmr, 
roinister from Spain to our Ejng James 
I., giving an amusing and gossiping 
account of people and things in Eng- 
land at that time. In this library is 
also a very curious and interesting ms. 
life of Cardinal Wolsey. 

In the evening, one of our party 
paid a visit to the Papal Nuncio, Mon- 
signor B , a ycry kind, clever, and 



agreeable man, living in a quaint old 
house, with a snug library, in which 
hangs a pretty oil painting of Tyana, 
a picturesque country near Barcelona, 
of which he is archbishop. From him, 
and from the venerable Monsignor 
8 , bishop of Daulia, she obt lin- 
ed certain letters of introduction to pre- 
lates and convents, which were inval- 
uable in her future tour, and procured 
for her a kind and courteous welcome 
wherever she went. 

The following morning, after a five- 
o^clock mass in the beautiful little 
chapel of the sisters of charily, our 
travellers started for Toledo by rail, 
passing by the Aranjucz, the *' Sans- 
Souci " of the Spanish queen, where 
all the trees in Castile seem to be col- 
lected for her special benefit, and where 
the sight of the green avenues and foun- 
tains is a real i-efreshment after the 
barren and arid features of the rest of 
the country. 

Toledo is a most curious and beau- 
tiful old town, built on seven hills, like 
Rome. The approach to it is by a 
picturesque bridge over the Tagus, 
which rushes through a rent in the 
granite mountains like a vigorous 
Scotch salmon-river, and encircles the 
walls of the ancient city us with a gir- 
dle. Passing under a fine old Moorish 
horse-shoe arched gateway, a modem 
zigzag road leads up the steep incline 
to the * plaza," out of which diverge 
a multitude of narrow tortuous streets, 
like what in Edinburgh are called 
" wynds/' as painful to walk upon as 
the streets of Jerusalem. However, 
after a vain attempt to continue in the 
Noah's Ark of an omnibus which had 
brought them up the steep hill from 
the station, and which grazed the walls 
of the houses on each side from its 
width, our travellers were com))elled 
to brave the slippery stones and pro- 
ceed on foot. The little inn is as pri- 
mitive as all else in this quaint old town, 
where everything seems to have stood 
Blill for the last five centuries. Leaving 
their cloaks in the only available place 
dignified by the name of *^ Sala," and 
swallowing with difficulty some very 



npf^89f&n$ 



nasty eoif<^, fhey started off at once 
for rhe calbedral, wliicli ntaiuls in the 
lieail Oi the cify» Hurroundtd by con- 
vents and collegfr$, and with the arcliic- 
[H&cupal palaoe mn tlie rifrUt* It is a 
marvel of Got liic beauty and pcHei'tioiL 
Ori^finally a mosqin\ it was ixhuilt by 
Ferdinand, and converted by him into 
n Cbristinn cbureU, being tin i ft bed in 
1490. In no part of the world am 
any thing be seen more unique, more 
beautifuli <^r moi-e effective Than the 
winte marble i?creen, wiih it^ row of 
white angels with hnlf-tblded win^% 
goanlin^ the sanetum'y ot* the high 
aUar, and standinj; out sbar[>and clear 
Hj^ainst the ma'^rritieint dark back- 
ground formed by the arched naves 
aud matchleBts painted ^lag8» which, in 
depth and briUianey of' color and l>caMty 
of desi^, cxceedi* even that ot" Sc'vilie, 
** Shall yoy ever forget the blue eyes 
of those ro^e- windows at Toledo?" ex- 

dainicd, monilip after. Dr. to one 

of the p«rty^ who wn« dwellinir with 
him on the wonderful beauties of thia 
*matchlej:8 temple.* The choir is ei- 
qnisiiely carved, both above and be- 
low ; tlie stalls diride<l by red marble 
columns. Of the ^evenly bIuIIk, half 
are ear red by Viparny and half by 
BeiTuguete ; each figure nf each Barrit 
U a study in i I self. The hi^jh altar is 
a perfect marvel of workrniin^^hip, the 
**n?i'edos" or **retablo*' r»_*pre&euting 
the whole life and passion of our Lord. 
At the bade is the vvondt^rftd marbl*5 
** irasparente,** which Ford callii aii 
** alximi nation of the flevunteenlh ceu- 
lur\*," but which, when thesun shine^i 
throngh it, is a manel tor effect of 
color and deliency of workmantibip. 
The Mooriijh altar still reujains at 
H'hich Ferdinand and leiabella heard 

^ma.'^s after their eon<pie&t of the Saiu- 
bens ; and close to this altar is the spot 
|>ointed out by tnuJilion as the one 
%here the virgin ap|xnired to St. Ilde- 

i H>nfto and placed ihe chasuble on hia 
!^ It is veiled off, with this 

i !i on the pi liar above: 






litin^ the 



in the 



8a la] 



AtSorublmlM It* 1 

The fine bai 
iiiij'ticle wafl »N* iiM>i 
Fra;;nienti^ of S.n u • n;*: 
everywhere, e*f>eciaHy 
rapiiuhir, or chapler-Tnom, ol wt 
the doorway h an exqaisite ep 
o\* the finest Moorisih Wf^-"^ ■ ■ 
ceiling Ukewii^e. In ihi* 
are Ivro admirable portniii^ ur e . 
Ximeues and Cardinal Mendoza, imid j 
to have been taitt-n from lifv, Tlwj 
monuments in the *^ide chapifJs are vciyj 
fine* efipe«?ially oncj^ of St. lldfl'i 
who#5e body hud l>ei*n carried b| 
the Miwrs to Z ?id wai 

di!*et>verc<i by a I. and 

buck again ; of (^lijdiitnl Mecid 
the Confutable Alvaro de Luna ; 
several Spanish kings*. Here aba i 
the body of St, Le<»cadiu, murtymd ra 
the persecution under DiocleliiAn, na<l 
to whom three churches in Toledo arts 
dedicated. During the war-* with lite 
Moors, her body was removed to Italy, 
and thence to Moo<i { bnt waa brought 
back by Philip IL to her native 
and is now in an urn in the 
At the west end of the cjithf'drnt 
very curiouii chapel, where the Mi 
rabic ritnal is still mM. This af»| 
to be to the Spaoiatid** what the 
brosian i« to th* 
tablii^hed by Csi. 
sacristy !« a real li 
taiuing an exquisite : 
brought by Chr ubui 

eeni*ories, chalic j rel^ 

rie*, in gold and cmimel, and '* rristal ' 
de roclie,'* (nomc given by Loai« of 
France,) aurl the missal of St, Looia* 
of which the illuminaiiouii are aa Hfic! 
lis any in the V^alicatK The robe% 
mantles^, an<i ornamenis of the \lfi|t*<> 
are encrusted with ^w^arls and jeards. 
Cardinal Mendosa removed one 
of Ihe marble screen of the high 
to make room tor hi^ o^m moaitiiMSiic. 
Ill contra:4t lo this^ h another arcb* 
bi$hop^!t (omb, near the altar <if| 
miraciduus Virgin. ^I1i**t wn 
give him a fine earv !rrc% iinT 

were di^cui^ng it ii ^enct* a 

glioil Lime before hi* dtaaik Ue i»* 



Impressions of Spain^ 



74S 



fiisted on a simple slab, with the fol- 
lowing words : 

'* Hlc Jacet polvb, dnls, nullus/* 

Close to the benitiere at the south en- 
trance, is a little marble slab attached 
to the pillar, and on it a little soil 
leather cushion, which had excited the 
curiositj of one of our party on en- 
tering. On returning for vespers, she 
foand laid on it a fine little baby, beau- 
tifully dressed, with a medal round its 
neck, but quite dead ! One of the can- 
ons explained to her that when the 
parents were too poor to pay the ex- 
penses of their children*s funerals, they 
brought the little bodies in this way for 
interment by the chapter. The clois- 
ters to the north of the cathedral are 
Yery lofty and fine, and decorated with 
frescoes ; and the doors with their mag- 
nificent bronze bas-reliefs, in the style 
of the Florence baptistery, and glori- 
ously carved portals, are on a par with 
all the rest The «' Puerta del Per- 
don," and the ^ Puerta de los Leones,^' 
especially, are unique in their gorgeous 
details, and in the great beauty and life- 
like expression of the figures. 

The chapter library is in good order, 
and contains some very fine editions of 
Greek and Latin works : a Bible be- 
longing to St. Isidore ; the works of 
St. Gregory ; a fine illuminated Bible 
given by St Louis; a missal of 
Charles V. ; a &ie Talmud and Ko- 
ran; and some very interesting Msa. 
Id the ante-room are some good pic- 
tures. 

The palace of the archbishop is 
exactly opposite the west front of 
the catliedral. No one has played a 
more important part in the history of 
bis country of late years than the 
present Archbishop of Toledo. High 
in the favor and counsels of the queen, 
he at one time determined, for political 
reasons, to leave Spain and settle him- 
self in Italy, but was recalled by the 
voice of both queen and people, and re- 
mains, beloved and honored by all; 
and^ idthough upward of eighty years 
of age, and rather deaf, is still a per- 
fect lion of intellectual and physical 



strength. He received our travellers 
most kindly, and in a fatherly manner 
invited them to breakfast, and afWr- 
ward to be present at a private confir- 
mation in the little chapel of his pal- 
ace, at which ceremony they gladly as- 
sisted. He afterward sent his secre- 
tar}', a most clever and agreeable per- 
son, who spoke Italian with fluency, to 
show the ladies the convent of Sta. 
Teresa, situated in the lower part of 
the town. This convent was started, 
like all the rest of the saint's founda- 
tions, amidst discouragements and dif- 
culties of all kinds. The house which 
had been promised her before her ar- 
rival was refused through the in- 
trigues of a relative of the donor ; then 
the vicar-general withdrew his license ; 
and St Theresa began to fear that she 
woukl have to leave Toledo without 
accomplishing her object. Through 
the intervention of a poor man, how- 
ever, she at last heard of a tiny lodg- 
ing where she and her sisters could h^ 
received. It was a very humble place, 
and there was but one room in it which 
could be turned into a chapel ; but 
that was duly prepared for mass, and 
dedicated to St. Joseph. Poor and 
meagre as the sanctuary was, it struck 
a little child who was passing by, by 
its bright and cared-for appearance, 
and she exclaimed : <* Blessed be Grod I 
how beautiful and clean it looks l" St 
Theresa said directly to her sisters : 
'^ I account myself well repaid for all 
the troubles which have attended this 
foundation by that little angeFs one 
* Glory to God.' " 

Afterward, all difficulties were 
smoothed ; a larger house was buih ; 
and the poor Carmelites, from being de- 
spised and rejected by all, and in want 
of the commonest necessaries of life, 
were overwhelmed with supplies of all 
kinds, so that one of them, in sorrow, 
exclaimed to St. Theresa : *^ What are 
we to do, Mother ? for now it seems 
that we are no longer poor I" 

It was this very house which our 
travellers now visited, and a far cheer- 
ier and brighter one it is than that of 
Seville. It contains twenty-four sis- 



744 



ImpreBsions of Spain. 



ten: among their treasures are the 
1C8. copy of St. Theresa*8 Way of 
Perfection, corrected by the saint her- 
self, and with a sliort preface written 
in her own hand ; a quantity of her 
autograph letters ; a long letter from 
Sister Ann of St Bartholomew ; St. 
Theresa's seal, of which the ladies 
were given an impression ; the habit 
she had worn in the house, etc., etc. 
But the most curious thing was the 
picture, painted by desire of the saint, 
of the death of one of the community. 
We will tell the story in her own 
words : *' One of our sisters fell dan- 
gerously ill, and I went to pray for 
her before the Blessed Sacrament, be- 
seeching our Lord to give her a happy 
death. I then came back to her cell 
to btay with her, and on my entrance 
distinctly saw a figure like the repre- 
sentations of oar Lord, at the bed's 
head, with His arms outspread as if 
protecting her, and he said to me : ' Be 
assured that in like manner I will pro- 
tect all the nuns who shall die in these 
monasteries, so that they shall not fear 
any temptation at the hour of death/ 
A short time af^er, I spoke to her, 
when she said. to me : < Mother, what 
great things I am about to see T and 
with these words she expired, like an 
angeL*' St. Theresa had this subject 
represented in a fresco, which is still 
on the wall of the cell. Here also she 
completed the narrative of her life, 
now in the Escurial, by command of 
Padre Ibafies, and here is her breviary, 
with the words (which we will give in 
English) written by herself on the fly- 
leaf: 

*' Let nothing disturb thee ; 
Let nothing ainrlght thee; 
All pmmUi away ; 

tio<l only shiill iitay. 
Patience wtnt all. 
Who hath God needeth DoUilng , 
For God U hU AIL'' 

Leaving this interesting convent, our 
travellers proceeded to San Juan de los 
Reyes, so called because built by Fer- 
dinand and I^mbella, and dedicated to 
St. John. It was a magnificent Groth- 
ic building ; but the only thing in the 
church spared by the French are two 



exquisite " palcos" or balconies ©fe^ 
looking the high altar, in the finest 
Gothic carving, from whence Ferdinand 
and Isabella used to hear mass : their 
ciphers are beautifully wroaght in 
stone underneath. Outside this charch 
hang the chains which were taken off 
the Christian prisoners when tbey 
were released from the Moors. Adr 
joining is the convent, now diverted, 
and the palace of Cardinal Ximenes, 
of which the staircase and one long 
low room alone remain. But the gem 
of the whole are the cloisters. Never 
was anything half so beautiful or sode* 
licate as the Moorish tracery and ex- 
quisite patterns of grape-viiio, this- 
tle, and acanthus, carved round each 
quaint-shaped arch and window and 
door- way. Festoons of real passion 
flowers, in full bloom, hung over the 
arches from the ^^ patio" in the centra, 
in which a few fine cypresses and 
pomegranates were also growings the 
dark foliage standing out against the 
bright blue sky overhead, and beaati- 
fiiUy contrasting with the delicate white 
marble tracery of this exquisite double 
cloister. It is a place where an artist 
might revel for a month. 

Their guide then took them to sea 
the synagogues, now converted into 
Christian churches, but originally 
mosques. Exquisite Saracenic carv- 
ings i-emain on the walls and roofs, with 
fine old Moorish capitals to the pillan, 
of their favorite pine apple |)attem,and 
beautiful colored *» azulejos** (tiles) oo 
the ficK>r8 and seats. Several of the 
private lioui^es which they afterward 
visited at Toledo might literally have 
been taken up at Damascus and set 
down in this quaint old S|>ani£h town, 
so identical are they in design, in de- 
corations, and in general charader. 
The nails on the doors are specially 
quaint, mostly of the shape of big 
mushrooms, and the kmickers are also 
wonder fuL Could the fasliioo, once in 
vogue among ^ fast" men in England, 
of wrenching such articles from the 
doors, be introduced into Spain, n^hat 
art treasures one could get ! bat 
scarcely anything of the sort is to 



Impressions of Spain, 



745 



be boagbt In Toledo, After trying 
in vain to swallow some of the food 
prepared for them at the " fonda," in 
which it was hard to say whether gar* 
lie or raneid oil most predominated, oar 
travellers toiled again in the huming 
son np the steep hill leading to the Al- 
caxar, the ancient palace, now a ruin, 
but still ^^taining its fine old staircase 
and court-yard with very ancient Ro- 
man pillars. From hence there is a 
beautiful view of the town, of the Ta- 
gus flowing round it, and of the pic- 
turesque one-arched bridge which spans 
the river in the approach from Ma- 
drid, with the ruins of the older Roman 
bridge and forts below. The Tagus 
bere rushes down a rapid with a fine 
finU, looking like a salmon-leap, where 
there ought to be first-rate pools and 
beautiful fishing ; and then flows swift- 
ly and silently along through a grand 
gorge of rocks to the left. By the ri- 
Vcr-side was the Turkish water-wheel, 
or ** sakeeV worked by mules. The 
whole thing was thoroughly Eastern ; 
and the red, barren, arid look of the 
rodcs and of the whole surrounding 
country reminded one more of Syria 
than of anything European. Our tra- 
vellers were leaning over the parapet 
of the little terrace-garden, looking on 
Cbis glorious view, when a group of 
women who were sitting in the sun 
near the palace-gates called to their 
guide, and asked if the lady of the 
party were an Englishwoman, " as she 
walked so fast.^ The guide replied in 
the affirmative. One of them answer- 
ed, '-O I qu6 peccado! (what a pity!) 
I liked her face, and ^t ske is an inji- 
delJ" The guide indignantly pointed 
to a little crucifix which hung on a ro- 
sary by the lady's side, at which the 
speaker, springing from her sesit, im- 
pulsively kissed both the cross and the 
lady. This is only a specimen of the 
faith of these people, who cannot un- 
derstand anything Christian that is not 
Catholic, and confound all Protestants 
with Jews or Moors. 

Going down the hill, stopping only 
fi>ra few moments at a curiosity-shop — 
where, however, nothing really old could 



be obtained-^they came to the Church 
of La Cruz, built on the site of the 
martyrdom of St Leocadia. It is now 
turned into a military college ; but the 
magnificent Gothic portal and facade 
remain. The streets are as narrow 
and dirty in this part of the town as in 
the filthiest eastern city ; but at every 
turn there is a beautiful doorway, as at 
Cairo, through which you peep into a 
cool *' patio,'' with its usual fountain 
and orange-trees ; while a double clois- 
ter runs round the quadrangle, and 
generally a picturesque side staircase, 
with a beautifully carved balustrade, 
leading up to the cloisters above, with 
their delicate tracery and varied arch- 
es. The beauty of the towers and 
"campanile" is also very striking. 
They are generally thoroughly Roman 
in their character, being built of that 
narrow brick (or rather tile) so com- 
mon for the purpose in Italy, but with 
the horse-shoe arch : that of S. Roma- 
no is the most perfect. There is also 
a lovely little mosque, with a well in 
the court-yard near the entrance, which 
has now been converted into a church 
under the title of <«Sta. Cruz de la 
Lu2," with a wonderful intersection of 
horse-shoe arches, like a miniature of 
the cathedral at Cordova. Toledo 
certainly does not lack churches or 
convents ; but those who served and 
prayed in them, where are they ? The 
terrible want of instruction for the peo- 
ple, caused by the closing of all the 
male religious houses, which were the 
centre of all missionary work, is felt 
throughout Spain ; but nowhere more 
than in this grand old town, which is 
absolutely deaeL The chikiren are ne- 
glected, the poor without a friend, the 
widow and orphan are desolate, and all 
seek in vain for a helper or a guide. 

On the opposite side of the Tagus, 
and not far from the railway station, 
are the iniins of a curious old ch&teau, 
to which a legend is attached, so cha- 
racteristic of the tone of thought of the 
people that it is given verbatim here.* 
" The owner had been a bad and tyran- 

** TliU legeod has been tran<Iated by Fern;in Ca* 
balJero, in her Fleura des Champs. 



746 



fmpr6ssion9 of Spain, 



Qical mati^ Imrd and unjust to his |)eo* 
|||]e, deld^sh in his vicc;^ us in his [ilcii^ 

tilled; the only itileeminjr (>oinl about 
jltim was hh fircat love ijv liis wife, ^ 

tlQUd* gentle, loving wuinan, wbo spent 
er da)ii and nighl^ in deplurtng the 
|4>rgies ai U»*r husband* aud pmyiug h>r 
iCrod's morcy on his criniesj. One 
■winter's night, in the mhUi ofa tenible 
Ifeinpe&t, a knocking wm heai\l at ihe 
I ensile door, and presently a ^i^rvaot 
umc in and told his mi^lrcs^ (hat two 
llnouk^, half dead with cohl and hunger, 
ad drenched by the pi tiles* storm, bad 
|]Dit their way, and were be^sing for a 
night 'a Iwl^ing in the cattle. The 
poor lady did not know what to do, for 
her hubband hated I he monk§iantl swore 
tbat none should evererons his thrc^holdt 
'The count will know nothing alxiut 
it, my lady,* said the old eervant, who 
guessed die reason of her hesitiition ; 
*1 will conceal them somewhere in the 
81 able, and I hey will depai't at break of 
day/ The lady gave a joyful absent 
to liieservani\«pi'0(iofiaI.and the monks 
were admitted. Scarcely, however, 
had they entered, when the sountl of a 
huntsman^a liom* the tramping of hor&ee, 
and the barking of dtjgs, ainnounced the 
return of the nia^iter. The wport had 
been gooJ j and when he had changed 
his spoiled and dripping clolhei*, and 
Ibuud himself, with his pretty wife seal- 
ed opposite him, by a blazing fire, and 
With a well-covered table, hi^ goixi 
1 in I nor made him ahnost tender to- 
ward her. * What is the matter?* lie 
exclaimed, when he siiw her ^ad and 
downcast face. * Were you frightened 
at the storm ? yet you see I am i!orao 
home safe and sound/ She did not 
an/^wer, * Tell me what vexes yoa ; 
I insist upon it/ he continued; *and 
it shall not be my fault 1 do not brighleu 
that litile face I love &o wellT Thus 
enciJumged the hxniy rephed : 'lam 6ad« 
because, while we are enjoying every 
luxury and comfort here, others whom I 
know, even under this very roof, are per- 
tfthing uiih cold and hunger/ * But 
wi*o a re I hey ?' exclaimed the count, wi th 
^ome impatieucc. *Two poor uronka,* 
aoswered the lady bravclj, *' who caoie 



hS 



here for fthcher, and h«v ^ 
the stable wii bout focKl Of 
count frowned. * 31onks ! ll»4vc 
told you firty times I would nevrr 
tha^e idle pet$tilent fellow k iq my 
house ?* lie rang I ha bell. * For 
God*5 sake do not turn them tmt saeb 
a night m this T exclaimed ibecoiitil*:-*. 
' Duu^t be afraid, I will keep ti. 
replied her husband ; and so su^ .»^, ^. 
df^sired the tiervant to bring them dt^ 
rectly into the dining-room, Th^-^^ <"- 
pearcd; and the venerable, > 
appearance of th© elder of lu.- i^vfj 
priests checked tho rniUerj oa the {ip# 
ofthecouDt. He m:i ' ' lo| 

at his table ; bat tlie 
to bis mission, would nut tut nil bti 
spoken some of God a worrit to lui 
hot«t. After supjier, io 1 ■ 
and flurpn^e, the count c< 
monks himself to the rooms be bitdj 
pared for them, which were the 
the hou.^^e ; but they refused to sh>cp flQ 
anything but straw*. The oount then 
himself went and t etched a truss of hav, 
and laid it on the ^oor. Then &iidde.aijf 
breaking silence, he exclaimed : ^ Fft> 
tber, I would return ua a pr-'^^tvir^l *iid 
to my Father's hou^e ; but f il 

were impossible that he shuitiii Mngive 
siQs like mine/ * Were your sina li 
numberless a* ih ' ''- ^ tb« 
seashore/ repli<; tU- 

ful repenianoe, unougti lUe blo^jj of 
C*hrist» would wash them out. There- 
fore it is that the hfudened siniK^r wiU 
liave no excuse in the la«it day/ Seizod 
witli sudden com(mccfjon, the ooanl 
fell 00 his knees, uiid made a full am- 
fe»sioii of his whole life, Itin lean imV^ 
ing on the straw he had broufirhL A 
few hours later the miasioDaryt io a 
dream, saw him^clt*, a^ it weiv, cauriod 
before the tribunal of the Great Jod^ik 
In the scales of eternal justice a aial 
was to be weighed: it Wiis that of tiii 

oount. Satan, tr-""" ' i- -..» i^ 

the scales the con uit 

life; the good anjjoi'* vuma im-ir iivof$ 
in sorrow, and pity«&nd fthaaie* Tlw 
cai: ' guarditto ; ' ' Irit 

so ; idso watL lo) 

and dO i^ood, wlio Uriu^4 txiurs ta ouf 



I 



ilA 



d 



Impre$sion$ of Spain. 



U7 



eyes and repentance to our hearts, alms 
to our hands and prayers to our lips. 
He brought but a few bits of straw, 
wet with tears, and placed them in the 
opposite scale. Strange ! they weighed 
dawn all the rest. The soul was saved. 
The next morning, the monk, on wak- 
ing, found the castle in confusion and 
sorrow. Ho inquired the reason : its 
master had died in the night." 

ZAJUGOZA AND SEGOTIA. 

The following morning found our tra- 
vellers again in Madrid, and one of them 
accompanied the sisters of charity to a 
beautiful fete at San Juan do Alar9on, a 
convent of nuns. The rest of the day was 
spent in the museum ; and at half post 
eight in the evening they started again 
by train for Zaragozo, which they reach- 
ed at six in the morning. One of the 
great annoyances of Spanish traveling 
is, that the only good and quick trains 
go at night; and it is the same with the 
* diligences. In very hot weather it may 
be pleasant ; but in winter and in rain it 
is a very wretched proceeding to spend 
half your night in an uncomfortable car- 
riage, and the other half waiting, per- 
haps for hours, at some miserable way- 
side station. After breakfasting in 
a hotel where nothing was either eat- 
able or drinkable, our party started for 
the two cathedrals. The one called the 
* 8eu^ 18 a fine gloomy old Gothic 
building, with a magnificent ** retablo," 
in very fine carving, over the high al- 
tar, and what the peofJe call a ^ media 
namnja" (or half-orange) dome, which 
ia rather like the clerestory lantern of 
Burgos* In the sacristy was a beauti- 
ful ostensorium, with an emerald and 
peari cross, a magnificent silver taber> 
naele of cinqnecento work, another os- 
tensorium encrusted with diamonds, a 
nacre ^'nef,* and some fine heads of 
saints, in silver, with enamel collars. 
But at the sister cathedral, where is 
the famous Vtrgen del Pilar, the trea- 
Aury is quite priceless. The most ex- 
quisite reliquaries in pearls, precious 
iitoncs, and enamel ; magnificent neck- 



laces ; earrings with gigantic pearls ; 
coronets of diamonds ; lockets ; pic- 
tures set in precious stones; every- 
thing which is most valuable and beau- 
tiful, has been lavished on this shrine. 
In the outside sacristy is also an ex- 
quisite chalice, in gold and enamel, of 
the fifteenth century ; and a very fine 
picture, said to be«by Correorgio, of the 
£ccc Homo. The shrine of the Mira- 
culous Virgin is thronged with worship- 
pers, day and night ; but no woman is 
allowed to penetrate beyond the rail- 
ing, so that she is very imperfectly 
seen. It is a black figure, which is 
always the favorite way of represent- 
ing the Blessed Virgin in Spain : the 
pillar is of the purest alabaster. There 
is some fine ^azulejo*' work in the 
sacristy ; but the cathedral itself is 
ugly, and is being restored in a bad 
style. Our party left it rather with 
relief, and wandered down to the fine 
old bridge over the Ebro, which is here 
a broad and rapid stream, and amused 
themselves by watching the boats shoot- 
ing through the piers — an operation of 
some danger, owing to the rapidity of 
the current. There is a beautiful lean- 
ing tower of old Moorish and Boman 
brickwork, in a side street, but which 
you are not allowed to ascend without 
a special order from the prefect. The 
Lonja, or Exchange, is also well worth 
seeing, from its beautiful deep over- 
hanging roof. This is, in fuct, the 
characteristic of all tlie old houses in 
Zaragoza, which is a quaint old town 
formed of a succession of narrow tor- 
tuous streets, with curious old roofs, 
^ patios," columns, and staircases. Af- 
ter having some luncheon, which was 
more eatable than the breakfast, our 
travellers took a drive outside the 
town, and had a beautiful view of the 
lower spur of tlie Pyrenees on the 
one hand, and of the towers, bridges, 
and minarets of the city on the 
other. Then they went to the pub- 
lic gardens, laid out by Pignatelli, 
the maker of the canal, which are 
the resort of all tlie people on llgte- 
days : they were very gay, and full of 
beautiful fiowers. From thence they 



74S 



ImpreMtom of Spain. 



drove to llie castle, or ** Aljaferiar 
li'liere then* is ii very cunotid moi-esqiie 
fclmpel still exist ingt ibougli sadly in 
ruin?4. Above are the r«x>in3 oc^^upied 
by Fifrdiuatid and I^ab^Ua, and the 
ai^arlraent whore St. Ellzaboth oK Por- 
tugal wa^ 1j<3in, witli the fruit where 
eho was bajitized. The hall of the 
I amhjiti!iad<>rs is very handsome, with 
fi glorlout* mortsque roof, and a gal- 
lery round. The imstle is now lurne<l 
I into a barrack j but the officerg, who, 
i»*tth true Spanish court ejsy, tja<J ac- 
1 compunied the priest wIjo was stiowing 
Ihe room!* to our travellere, had never 
\ Seta ihem bffhre t/wntsfhri. How long 
I they had been quartered thei'e none of 
jour parly had thec^niti*»o to a^k I Btit 
lihis ig a »p**oimen of t!ie Tcry little in- 
|.terej<t whioh appears to be taken by 
I ihe Spaniards in the anliquiti*^!* or art 
[.Ircaijiurt'S of their ctiuntry. Not one of 
Itliem wnis ever to be seen in tlie nmteh- 
le*s gn 1 le ry of JMadr i il , Com i n g ho m e, 
•they visited San Pablo, a eurion:* and 
|l>«multrul subterranean church, iuto 
pvhieh you descend by a fliglit of siep*. 
J A 8t*rviee was going on, and an elo- 
[queut serroou, fio that it was ijajJOgBt- 
|b1e to Bee tlie pictures well; but thej' 
fcppeaivd to be above the average, 
[liUis church baa a glorioiu^ tower in 
old Ronian brickwork. The palac© 
J40f the Infanta has been converted into 
la school. It is the mo^t perfect s}>e^ 
I'cimen of the Renaii^sance style of Goth- 
l(ic ai-chi lecture, with beautiful arches, 
l^eoluinns, staircase, and fretted roof, 
vxhau.sted with their sight-seeing, our 
I tmv'/llor? went back to their inn ; agree- 
r ri<cd, however, at the vestiges 

u I beauty still left in Zaragoza, 

itmlKT llii.' frightful sieges and mucking to 
J which the city has twice been subject- 
i«d. 

In Ihe evening, the Qinon do Y , 

|tirho had been their kind cicei-one at Iho 
athedral in tiie absence of the bishop, 
Rmc to pay them a visit, and gave 
om a very interesting account of the 
opte, and a gi*eat deal of information 
ibotH the convents and retigiouf houses 
the place, especially ihal of the Ur- 
fiuliues, who bare a \eT]f large educa- 



tional establisbment in the town. He 
bat$ hitely written a very interesting 
account of the f' ' "fthb order. 

The return t wn«4 nn^f^a.^ i 

rily accoroplij^heti a;^uiti I ^ 

jaded and tired aa they 
lowing day, our parly had ni*t the o mur- 
age for any fresh exjiedition. Oao 
only fiftit wa* paid, which will ever 
remain in the memory of the lady who 
bad the privilege. It was to Moiiiujf* 
nor Claret, the confessor of the queen 
and Archbishop of Culnua mmi ns re- 
markable tor his great pergonal holi. 
ness and aBcetie life as for the ofijittt 
aecui«ation8 of wIdcU he U contintiaUy 
the object. On one occasion* these ua- 
favorable reports having reached hi< 
ears*, and being only aoxioua lo retire^ 
into the obscurity which bin hun 
make^ him love so well, lie »•>« 
Home to implore for a rt I- 
present post ; but tt wn§ ii] 

Returning through Friur. li 
ed to travel with e< ji nn j^ 
residents in Madrid, but unknown to ' 
him, as he was to them, who began toi 
Bpeak of all the eviln, real or iuia;>ina^ 
ry, which reigned in the Spani-h n .urt. 
the whole of whicli thej' n 
attributed to Moudignor L.,^, ., ,.,t 
much in tijn spirit of th« old bftDad 
against Sir Robert Peel : 
** WUo All«a ibc bulchrn' shop* wilb Ug kdiw llflr | 

He listened without a wortl, never ft^ 

templing either excuse or justiticarion. 

or l>etniying his idrntity. Stn. 

his salntdike manner iind a[ip 

and likewise very much chunmni 

bis conversation during their eoupl 

days' jounioy together, the »trnn_ 

begged» at partin^T' t'^ knnw tiN nil 

eitpresHJnganea 

ed acquainianc»- 

ihem hb card with a 8niiiel 

hope they will Ik* le^i.^ h.i^tv nnd 

charitable in their j for the 

furure. MonHiguor C room in 

Madrid ii a fair type of himself. Sim- 
ple even to severity in its fitiingit, with 
no furniture but lu» bof>ks, and &ome 
photographs of the queen and her chil- 
dren, it contains one only priceless olh 
ject, and thiU ii a waodea cmcifiXt rf 




THi. 



Impressions of Spdiom 




749 



ery finest Spanish workmanship, 
attracted at once the attention of 
jitor. ** Yos, it is very beautiful/* 
pL'ed, in answer to her words of 
action ; ^^ and I like it because it ex* 
iS so wonderfully victory over sitf' 
/. Crucifixes generally repre- 
mly the painful and human, not 
iamphant and Divine view of the 
nption. Here, He is truly Vic- 
er death and hell." 
itrary to the generally received 
be never meddles in politics, and 
ies himself entirely in devotional 
tcrary works. One of his books, 
lo recto y seguro para llcgar al Ci- 
ould rank with Thomas k Kem- 
imitation in suggestive and practi- 
votion. He keeps a perpetual fast ; 
hen compelled by his position to 
at the palace, still keeps to his 
•e fare of *• garbanzos," or the like, 
te a great gift of preaching ; and 
he accompanies the queen in any 
r royal progresses, is generally 
t each town when they arrive by 
3t petitions to preach, which he 
nstuntly, without rest or apparent 
ration, sometimes delivering four 
3 sermons in one day. In truth, 
always *• prepared," by a bidden 
l)erpetual prayer and realization 
Unseen. 

:er taking leave of him and the 
io, and of the many other kind 
la who had made their stay at 
id so pleasant, our travellers 
d at eight o'clock in the evening 
ilia Alba, where they were to take 
iligence for Segovia. The night 
lear and beautiful, and the scene- 
rough which they passed was 
than any they had seen in Spain, 
iwn they came almost suddenly 
is mo3t quaint and picturesque of 
standing on a rocky knoll more 
S,000 feet above the sea, eucir- 
by a rapid river, and with the 
magnificent aqueduct, built by 
ji to convoy the pure water of the 
Frio from the neighboring sierra 
e town. This aqueduct com- 
es with single arches, which rise 
r as the dip of the ground deep- 



ens, until tliey become do^kt^ The 
centre ones are 102 feet high, and the 
whole is built of massive blocks of 
granite, without cement or mortar. A 
succession of picturesque towers and 
ancient walls remain to mark the 
boundaries of the old Roman city. 

The diligence unceremonioQsly turn- 
ed our travellers out into the street at 
the bottom of the town, and left them 
to find their way as best they could to 
the little ** fonda^' in the square above. 
It was very clean and tidy, with the 
box-beds opening out of the sitting- 
rooms, which are universal in the old- 
fashioned inns of Spain, and always 
remind one of a Highland bothic. The 
daughter of the house showed off her 
white linen with great pride, and was 
rather affronted because two of the par- 
ty preferred going to church to trying 
her sheets, stoutly declaring that '* no 
one was yet awake, and no mass could 
yet be obtained." However, on leaving 
her, and gently pushing open one of 
the low side-doors of the cathedral close 
by, the ladies found that the five o'clock 
services had begun at most of the altars, 
with a very fair sprinkling of peasants 
at each. The circular triple apse at 
the east end of this cathedral, from the 
warm color of the stone, and the beau- 
ty of its flying buttresses and Gothic 
pinnacles, is deservedly reckoned one 
of the finest in Spain. The lower also 
is beautiful ; and the view from the 
cupola over the city, the fertile valleys 
beneath, and the snow-tipped mountains 
beyond, is quite unrivalled, llie in- 
terior has been a good deal spoiled by 
modem innovations, but still contains 
some glorious painted glass, a very 
fine " retablo'' by Juni of the ** Deposi- 
tion from the Cross,'' and some curious 
monuments, especially one of the In- 
fanta Don Pedro, son of Henry H., 
who was killed by being let fall from 
the window of the Alcazar by his nurse. 
The Gothic cloisters are also worth 
seeing. Atler service, as it was still 
very early, the two ladies wumlercd 
about this beautiful quaint old town, 
in which every house is a study for a 
painter, and found themsdvefl at last 



910 



Imprmhui of Spmtn: 



at the Alarneda, a public promenade 
on tlio mraimrta, shaded by line aca- 
ciaA, and the approach to which, on 
' fh*^ cothedral side, is through a beaa- 
' tiful Moorieb horse flboe arched gate- 
way. From thence some stone steps 
led ihem up to a most curious old Nor- 
ninii churehvwilh an open cloister run- 
ning round it» whli beautirul circulnr 
arch r 6 and dog -tool bed mouldins?^ ; op- 
posite is a kind of Hotel de Ville, with 
A fine gateway, cloieiered ** palio,^* and 
§taiix*iii*e carved "^ jour.*- In a nar- 
row fltreet, a little lower down, is the 
exquisite Gothic fayade of the Cnsa 
dc Se«^vin» and turnin»:j to the left is 
unolirer curious and b-'autifnl church, 
La Vei-a Cniz, built by the TempUii-^, 
and with a little chapel in it on the 
exact mode! of that of the Hnly Sepub 
chm at JeniHnlem* The zi^ag and 
billet dog-tooth moulding rt^und the 
windows and doorways are veiy fine, 
A little higher up is the Parral, a de- 
eeried convent, with a beautiful chureh» 
Hchly carved (H>rtal and choir, tine 
ujocKunenlrf, eloi!«tPrs, and p^artlenst : 
the laller had such a n^putatinii tliat 
they gnve riise to ihe sayings •• Las 
hue Has del Par rah parai«o tcrrenal** 
Faii*ly tired out vvith sij^ht-f^rein^ be- 
fore bi'eaklivstt the ladies climbed up 
a^in lo Ihe Plaza de la Constitucion, 
uhich wafl like the square of an old 
Germnn town, having endletisly varied 
and colored houses with lii;ih roofs; 
nnd were j^lad to find the re At of lh»? 
party awnkje at hu^t, and fc»jrtiirg round 
11 table with iJie invariably pfo<xl choco- 
late and white bread ot Ihe country. 
The meiil uvvr, one of the ladies start- 
ed ofi' with a little boy as her guide, 
to pn\*enl her lettew of introduction to 
thi» bishop* who livrd in a pielarei?quc 
old |>uhicf.* in the Plaza of San Este- 
bati, the fine church opposite, with its 
beautiful tower, Saxon arches, and open 
cloirtter^ beingj dedicated to that saint, 
lie received hi« visitor with great pood 
tmture. and insitantly counters>ijrned the 
KunzioV order for her to visit the Car- 
melite convent of Sta. Tert^sa, sending 
bis \icar-peneral to accompany her, 
Thi$ hovise is the original one pur* 



Tht 



dtased for ihe 5nini,iii 1571, by ^ 
Ana de Ximcnes, who vm the^ 
lady to receive the habit in Scc^arii.] 
It is dedicjited to St. Jo-'--^*^- "-* 
fir^t mn^ was said in it 
of the CrOiS. The ntms rnamnifn mc 

reformed rule in all iii auAteritr. They 

showed their visitor the s:i' ' ^ 

convened h i to an orator v 

room of SL John of the 

convent h in die valley b* 

side Ihe w^alk of the low n. 

body rest A — that body si ill uncor 

ed. of one of whom it hat been trah 

said, tliat he was a '* cherab in wi^doift j 

and a 8era(»h in love.*' Oo the doorol^j 

hiiJ cell 13 his favorite ftentenrr • 

Ihiti «l cnnviaitill pro Ts 1 

TbifS convent h n^h both in i«(' iri- 
ter» and in thof^e of St, Thrn'«a. Fieri J 
it was that the mini recc i 
of the deaih of h<*r fiiv >|| 

Laurence de Cej>edn, S 
ly at work during nvre.i 
appean'd to her: the 6?uinl, wit^ 
utterinj^ a word^ put down her wortj 
and hnsleneil lo the choir lo eomm*'ni|j 
the departed flpint to our Lonb Hhe j 
had no t*oofjer knelt before the blrvfed 1 
saeniment than an eatpresaion of intrn#ft J 
peace and joy en me over her faee, ' 
Her sifters asked h^r the rea«^u,| 
she tidd ihem thnt our I^ord hadi 

revealed to h«*r the assur •* 

brother was in heaven. 
death occurnd at the v* ry n 
when he hnd apj>eflred to her 
recn*aUon room. Over ihe door" 
her oniiory are the wordf*, ** Se^k I 
the cro?"!/* '* Desin* th«' miAI 

a little farther on, '' Let n i jfumj 

by works than by wonls,'* Af)rf| 
spending two or thri-e hotin« with i 
siiters, the Eofjli-^h Indy v 
reUiclanrly to U^ave then 
to her pnrly, who wt re waitm*» furl 

lo pn with fhcm f-i tbr Air trtr 

This pnlacr, 
rebuilt by Htu. , "^^l 

century. It w.i- 
dence of T- -^ ' 
thenc*^, on 

she rode am uiunr, ana ' 
Tvt69 of cuuntenanoe mor 



^ 



^^k 



Impregaiont of Spain. 



761 



majesty," as the old chronicle sayn, 
** won over the people to retnrn to their 
allegiance." Oar King Charles I. 
lodged here also, and is recorded to 
have sapped on certain ^ troutes of ex- 
traordinary greatness," doubtless from 
the beaatiful stream below. At the 
time of the French invasion the Alca- 
xar was turned into a military college, 
and these wretched students, in a freak 
of bo3rish folly, set fire to a portion of 
one of the rooms two years a^o. The 
fire spread ; and all that is now left ot' 
this matchless pahice is a ruined shell, 
the facade, the beautiful Moorish 
towers and battlements, one or two 
sculptured arabesque ceilings, and the 
portcullised gateway, each and all testi- 
fying to its former greatness and splen- 
dor. Its position, perched on a steep 
plateau forming the western extremity 
of the town« is quite magnificent, and 
the views from the windows are glori- 
oas. Oar travellers staid a long time 
sitting under the shade of the orange- 
trees in the battlemented court below, 
enjoying the glorious panorama at their 
feet,* and watching the setting sun as it 
lit ap the tips of the snowy sierra which 
fonns the background of this grand 
landscape; while the beautiful river 
Eresma flowed swiflly round the old 
walls, its banks occupied at that mo- 
ment by groups of washerwomen in 
their bright picturesque dresses, sing- 
ing in parts the national songs of their 
country. In the valley below were 
scattered homesteads and convents, and 
a group of cypresses marking the spot 
where, according to the legend, Maria 
del Salto alighted. This girl was a 
Jewess by birth, but secretly a Christ- 
ian ; and having thereby excited the 
anger and suspicions of her family, was 
accused by them of adultery, and con- 
demned, according to the barbarous 
practice of those times, to be thrown 
from the top of the Alcazar rock. By 
her faith she was miraculously preserv- 
ed from injury, and reached the ground 
in safetv ; a church was built on the 
spot, of which the '^retablo" tells the 
tale. 

Segovia is fiunoas for its flocks, and 



for the beauty of its wool : the water of 
the Eresraa is supposed to be admira- 
ble for washing and shearing. 

Our travellers now began to think of 
pursuing their journey to Avila ; but 
that was not so easy. The diligence 
which had brought them flatly refused 
to convey them back till the following 
night, except at a price so exorbitant 
tliat it was impossible to give it And 
here, as everywhere else in Spain, yoa 
have no redress. There are no car- 
riages whatever for hire, except in the 
two or three large capitals, like Madrid 
and Seville ; and even should carriages 
be found, there are no horses or mules 
to draw them— or, at any rate, none 
that they choose to -let out for the pur- 
pose. Such as they are, they are al- 
ways reserved for the diligence ; and 
if the latter should happen to be full, 
the unhappy passengers may wait for 
days at a wayside ^ posada" until their 
turn conies. Therefore, it is absolutely 
necessary in Spain to write and make 
the contract for places beforehand : and 
to be hard-hearted when the time comes, 
as it almost invariably happens that 
you leave behind certain luckless tta- 
vellers who have not adopted a similar 
precaution ; and the struggle for seats, 
and consequent overcrowding of the 
carriages, are renewed at every sta- 
tion. Making a virtue of necessity, 
our travellers at last made up their 
minds to another miserable diligence 
night out of bed — ^the fatigue of which 
must be felt to be thoroughly sympa- 
thized with— and spent the intervening 
hours of the evening in dining, and then 
going to a religious play, which they 
had seen advertised in the morning, 
and which was a very curious exhibi- 
tion of popuhir taste and reli^rious feel- 
ing. The little theatre was really very 
clean and tidy, and there was nothing 
approaching to irreverence in the re- 
presentations given. A similar scene 
hi a very different place recurred to 
the memory of one of the party, as hav- 
ing been witnessed by her in Paris, 
some years ago, when on a certain oc- 
casion she accompanied a somewhat 
stiff puritanical old lady to the opera. 



158 



Impresiiont of Spain. 



A ballet was given as an entr'acte, in 
which the Bcenery was taken from the 
book of Genesis, and Noah and his 
sons appeared just coming out of the 
Ark. This was too much Tor the good 
lady : ** If Noah either dances or sings," 
she exclaimed, '* I'll leave the house !" 
The poor Segovians, trained in a difiTe- 
rent school, saw nothing incongruous 
in the representation of the shepherds, 
and the wise men, and the cave of 
Bethlehem : and only one comical inci- 
dent occurred, when, on a diild in the 
pit setting up a squeal, there was a uni- 
versal cry of Where's Herod f At ten 
o'clock they left their play, with its 
quiet and respectable little audience, 
and once more found themselves tightly 
stowed in their diligence prison for the 
night. The moon, however, was bright 
and beautiful, and enabled them to see 
the royal hunting-box and woods, and 
the rest of the fine scenery through 
which they passed, so that the journey 
was far less intolerable than usual, as 
is often the case when a thing has Ixien 
much dreaded beforehand. At four 
o'clock in the morning they were turned 
out, shivering with cold, at a wayside 
station, where they were to take the 
train to Avila ; but wore then told, to 
their dismay, by a sleepy porter, that 
the six o*clock train had been taken off, 
and that there would be none till ten 
the next morning, so that all hopes of 
arriving at Avila in time for church 
(and this was Sunday) were at an end. 
The station had no waiting-room, only 
a kind of corridor with two hard benches. 
Establishing the children on these for 
the moment with plaids and shawls, one 
of the party went ofi^ to some cottages 
at a little distance off, and asked in one 
of them if there were no means of get- 
ting a bedroom and some chocolate ? 
A very civil woman got up and volun- 
teered both; so the tired ones of the 
Sai ty were able to lie down for a few 
ours' rest in two wonderfully clean 
little rooms, while their breakfast was 
preparing. The question now arose 
for the others : '* Was there no church 
anywhere near ?" It was answered by 
the people of the pUioe m the negative 



^' The iitation was new ; the cottages 
had been run up for the accomiiicda- 
tlon of the porters and people engaged 
on the line ; there was no village within 
a league or two." Determined, how- 
ever, not to be baffled, one of the party 
inquired of another man, who was 
sleepily driving his bullocks into a 
neighboring field, and he replied ^Mhat 
over the mountains to the left there 
was a village and a cure ; but that it 
was a long way off^ and that he only 
went on great '* festas.'* It was now 
quite light ; the lady was strong and 
well ; and so she determined to make 
the attempt to find the church. Fol- 
lowing the track pointed out to her by 
her informant, she came to a wild and 
beautiful mountain path, intersected by 
bright rushing streams, crosseil by step- 
ping stones, the ground perfectly car- 
peted with wild narcissus and other 
spring flowers. Here and thi^re she 
met a peasant tending his flocks of 
goats, and always the courteous greet- 
ing of '* Vaya Usted con Dios ! ' or 
** Dios guarde a Usted I ' as heartily 
given as returned. At last, on round- 
ing a comer of the mountain, she came 
on a IxMiuttful view, with the Kscurial 
in the distance to the left ; and to the 
right, embosomed, as it wer?, in a little 
nest among the hills, a picturesque vil- 
lage, with its church-tower and rushing 
stream and flowering fruit-trees, to- 
ward which the path evidently led. 
This sight gave her fresh courage ; for 
the night journey and long walk, under- 
taken fasting, had nearly spent her 
strength. Descending the hill rapidly, 
she reached the village green just as 
tlie clock was striking six, and lound a 
group of peasants, both men and wo- 
men, sitting on the steps of the pic- 
turesque stone cross in the centre, op- 
posite the church, waiting f(»r the cure 
to come out of his neat little house close 
by to say the first mass. Tiie arrival 
of the lady caused some astonishment ; 
but, with the inborn courtesy of the 
people, one after the other rose and 
came forward, not only to greet her, but 
to offer her chocolate and bread. She 
explained that she had come for oom- 



Beams, 



768 



nion, and would ^ into the church. 
B old whi(e- haired clerk ran into the 
ise to hasten the cur^, and soon a 
d and venerable old man made his 
learance, and asked her if she wished 
«e him first in the confessional He 
Id scarcely believe she had been in 
[ovia only the night before ! Find- 
that she was hurried to return and 
;h the train, he instantly gave her 
b mass and communion, and then 
t his housekeeper to invite her to 
akfast, as did one after the other of 
villagers. Escaping from their 
pitality with some difficulty, on the 
I of the shortness of the time and the 
^h of the way back, the English lady 
?pted a little loaf, for which nosortof 
ment would be heard of, and walked 
1 a light heart back to the station, 



feeling how close is the religious tie 
which binds Catholics together as one 
family, and how beautiful is the hearty, 
simple hospitality of the Spanish people 
when untainted by contact with mod- 
ern innovations and so-(Alled progress. 
There was no occasion when this natu- 
ral, high-bred courtesy was not shown 
during the four montlis that our travel- 
lers spent in this country ; and those 
who^ like the author of Over the Pyre- 
nees into Spain, find fault on every oc- 
casion with the manners of the people, 
must either have been ignorant of their 
language and customs, or, having no 
sympathy with their faith, have wound* 
ed their susceptibilities, and to a certain 
degree justified the rudeness of which 
they pretend to have been the vio- 
tims. 



OBIOfSTAI^ 

BEAMS. 

t ihoa the mote in thy brother^s eye, but the beam that ii in thine own eyt thoQ coniidereit not?** 
DISCIPLK. 

** How's this ! And hath my brother ne*er a beam 
That may be plucked from out his eye ? 
And are my brother's beams all motes, 
And none have beams but I ? " 

MASTER. 

** Wen so. For beams enough there be, I trow ; 
And who will claim them, if not thoul" 

DISCIPLB. 

** 'Tis well ! Ill claim mine own. 
(Methinks it has of late much larger grown.)" 

MASTER. 

^ Suffices \U if thou wilt claim but one. 
Then shall thy brother, in thy sight, have none. 
For beams do so prevent pride's selfish view 
That, if thy brother's beam did weigh a ton. 

It would appear the smallest mote to you." 
VOL. v^-48 



Jbrfy RUlng, 



EARLY RISING.* 
"DE NOCTE auBBExrr.'* 



Sleep was giren man to stzstnm life, 
to invigorate bis strenj^th, and to serve 
him n* the best ami mocit useful of me* 
dieines ; one single preseriptiQn perfect- 
ly accomplished eometimes sufficing for 
the Clin? of serious diseaat% or, at leasts 
ihe umelioration of violent pain. Sleep 
i« the salutary bath that renovates life, 
Ihe entire being growing younger under 
its influence ; it ia a aiation in the de* 
sert of this world j and often, after dull 
and wearving journeys^ one cxjraca to 
repos>e in this oasis prepared by divine 
Providence, enabled the next day to 
pursue the route with renewed courage 
and actinty. The time of sleep is Dot 
only useful to the body, but the soul; 
it cahns all agitation, spreads a balm 
over piercing grief, and hinders the 
precipitation of words and actions. 
Thus the ancients designated nifrht the 
good eoiiiisellor ; those even whom pas- 
sion or bodily infirmity keep awake are 
Buhservient lo her designs, and, in the 
calm which, through shade, she diffuses 
ever^'where, she i^cnUs man to better 
seniiments« If he is ChriBtian, she 
quickens within him the fibres of pitay- 
er ; a single aspiration toward heaven 
sufficing aomeiimes to crush the bad or 
dangerous germs of thought, and pre- 
pare for the morro^v a pure and un- 
cloudy sky. In other times, there was 
eo tnuch calmness and placidity in tlie 
sleep of" the just, said St. Ambrose, 
titai it was like an ecstasy in whicli^ 
while the body reponcd, the eoid, to 
speak 1I1U8, was separated Jroin its or* 
gans, and united itself fo Chrwt : Som- 
nui trftnqniliitaiem menti ttuv-heHHf 
placiditoicm animtB ut tanqu<im Sf>liiia 
nexu corporis se abievit^ et Christo ad' 
haretU,f 

• ThU Article It trmntUt«<l fh>fB lb« ConfeK&CM 
I>««Un«c« awe Fejiuiic« du IIoad«^ |mu Ugr. LmiU- 



Again, sle<?p is an ex 
er, because it recalls to n j j' 

death : the ancients named ii the bnv 
ther of death, and both arc sons ol, 
night* The daily arrival of si 
should make us say: **The other bn 
I her will emne soon, and this tim^J i 
will extend mystdf on my bed, nern 
more to rise. Kach visit of tii*« nig 
should be an inviiaiion to prepare 1 
for the last and solemn departure?." 

Sleep is, then, excellent in itself; I 
how greatly it may bo aliased ; und, I 
we do abuse it, il will prodace elfe<'t 
exactly contrary lo tho^ I have jw 
enumerated ; that is to say, it wij 
weaken the IkkIv, stupefy the idc 
and that, far frum refreshing and 
pairing life, it will prejmre fur it a ! 
of living sepulchre in which to I 

It is not sutlieicnt to determifl 
quantity of sleep, which should be wii 
ly regulated, without according or 1 
fusing too much to nature. Wc 
abo c^ik'uklu the quality of sleep. 

Now, according to gcneml obtem 
tion, the sleep from the real nigbl 1 
the real morning, that is to say, whtc^ j 
is taken in the interval of nine aodflvt I 
or six o'clock, is rite best, the most sa» I 
lutary, and the most favoroljlc to licftllh. 
I do not say that it i^ ahsohitrly neeoi- 
»ary to sleep all the time, I i 
cated: this is merely the spa 
ed to choose one's hours of >i 
us willingly admit all the 1 
necessitated by transitory r 
but, as a general thesis, it i^ 
retire early and rise carl 
ing* It is the licjit, the II 
time for the noctornal bath we caU 
sleep ; the boily better refreshes tt«clf, 
the repose is mure confonnabic to the 
laws of nature; therefor^- '^ ■* -<•>■'*» f* 
at once lighter and mon 
has not the heaviuoss H<i<Lix luuvau? 
an abnormal condition. Sleep, prtdoci^ 



■ 



Early Rising. 



765 



ed too much in the morning because it 
has been retarded at night, has serious 
inconveniences. It communicates to 
the general system a sickly languor 
which becomes the habitual condition 
of certain temperaments. Life with 
them is a sort of perpetual convale- 
scence, and never do they enjoy the 
most precious gift of nature, a state of 
health, truly and solidly established. 
See, on the contrary, these robust vil- 
lage girls ; at night at an early hour 
they demand of their beds the repose 
for their tired members; in the morning 
they rise with the crow of the cock. 
In winter, the fire is lighted at dawn of 
day on the domestic hearth ; the house- 
keeping is arranged, the order of the 
day disposed in advance, the breakfast 
of the laborers is ready to be served, 
and the sun has not yet appeared above 
the horizon. During the summer, 
these same children of the village ac- 
company the star of day in its matuti- 
nal march ; their chests dilate, and they 
strengthen themselves in breathing 
the fresh and perfumed air shed with 
the rays of sun, and they seem to 
breathe life and health. Later these 
same girls marry, and^ if they are not 
imprudent, they may for many years 
continue an existence made up of fruit- 
ful labor, and ornamented sometimes 
with all the charms and freshness of a 
vigorous old age ; for their regimen is 
an excellent medicine which gives them 
a commission of long life. 

But whence, on the contrary, comes 
that weakness of temperament so ob- 
servable in women of the world ? It 
may be deduced from various causes, 
but one of the principal is the mode of 
life too generally adotpted, especially in 
large cities. A part of the night is 
spent in $oir4e8, to finish only with 
longer maHniei ; a portion of the day 
is given to sleep, and from this results 
a general debility of constitution, fa- 
tigue of the nervous system, a numb- 
ness of the organs, and in all an habi- 
tual and continual prostration. There 
may be exceptional temperaments that 
resist these efi^ects ; but it is incontest- 
able, in the eyes of an impartial ob- 



server, that the loss of health, especial- 
ly among women, is due in great part 
to the life of excess I here mention. 
** Prolonged night watches,** said a 
learned roan, ^* necessarily bring on a 
fatigue which bears on the brain and 
on the digestive and respiratory organs. 
And fatigue of this nature, far from fa- 
voring sleep, renders it incomplete and 
painful From thence, in great mea- 
sure, comes this valetudinary state 
which we meet with so habitually 
among the women of our cities ; balls 
and soirees ruin their health . in ad- 
vance, and it is oflen on youth even, 
but still oftener in ripe and old age, that 
the foolish and miserable dissipations 
of the world leave their sad and fatal 
impress.'* 

You would, then, condemn soiries ? I 
pray you- to remark that, if there is 
something to condemn, it is not I who 
condemns them; these are facts ac- 
cording to nature and the temperament 
of the human body. Is it not true that 
the health of many women of the world 
is weakened ? No one can deny this. 
Is it not also true that one of the prin- 
cipal causes is the world*8 manner of 
organizing social relations? It is a 
fact of which science every day gives 
undeniable proofl I am far from con- 
demning soiries ; and perhaps you have 
not forgotten that, in our reunions, I 
applied myself some years ago to show 
you -how religion was the friend of 
honest pleasures and the demands of 
society ; on condition that they should 
be regulated by wisdom, and that the 
interests of both body and soul were 
&ithfully managed ; for so greatly does 
Christianity respect our bodies that we 
can sin in compromising one^s health 
by serious imprudences. Merry con- 
versations in the evening have all sorts 
of advantages. They divert the mind, 
refresh the body, bring hearts together, 
dissipate clouds, and bind more closely 
the ties of family and friendships. In 
a certain degree, pleasures are neces- 
sary to man. I speak of innocent plea- 
sures that virtue can admit, and those 

* Lecons de la Nature, nouyelle idiUon, iMir M. 
Desdoulta, 1. 3. 18S« conaldir. t. iU. p. 185. 



tM 



IT ho entertain some doubt in tbia re* 
a[>ect can consult the wri lings of the 
greatest theobgiand of the churcb, and 
esjiecuilly St. ThoranA. Thid ^reat 
doctor hai on ibis point a oleaniesD and 
piTiiaion, and at the same ttino ^ rea- 
son and wisdom^ at once full of reserve 
and condescension^ The rule he e«- 
tablLshcs ia to use all pleasure with 
tnoiieralion. areoixliiin; to time, place, 
Olid Miti circuni'^tttnce of thosjc with 
whom we live ; mitderali pro /<mm, ei 
tempore, H conrjruefUid eoru/n qaibu$ 
con (u'v iU ( ttrnprratm, )* ** Tl ii»to n re 
munv f>eopk%'* said F«-'nL'lon, ** who like 
to proan over everything, and weary 
tliemselves continually by cncouraptiiig 
a disgufll for all nitional aniu^ictnent. 
For me, I nvow I c?otjld not accornnio- 
datc nivfielf (o i*ucb rigidity. 1 like 
ftomctliinff more gimple; and I believe 
thai Go<] hinijieir likes it mm^Xx bt'tter. 
When divci'srou is innut*cijt in itselff 
and is entered into accordin<j: to ibe 
tulea of the* state wherein l*rovideuee 
\m& placed un, tlicn I believe all re- 
qutrt«d of \h ia to take \m\v\ in it, m io 
tiodV sight and with moderation. Man- 
ners more rigid and more rej»erved, lew 
ttUnplai.suttt anil les^s open, only «ierve 
to give a lalse idej* of piety to worldly 
people, who hic already i^uflficiently 
prejudiced against it, and who believe 
God \}A only served through a sombre 
and mortified lite."t 

We would Yfhh, then, that Christimn 
Bock'tiea would adopt tor their maxim 
lhci>e beautiful wonls of 8t Chrysos- 
lorn: ** Christians have the nense for 
detii^to pleasures, but decency should 
pix»8ide over ail.'' It is impo*6ible to 
nmke more reasnnuble conccH^ionA to 
bmuan nature, but m not relin^ion au- 
tborized, iherefure, to show herjiclf se- 
vere to all who exceed the bounds of 
wisdom, conformity, and viiiue, and 
even fiir jitl ^ho compromise ihe in- 
ter* Itb or fortune.^ Would it 
\KA ie, to return to our subject, 
to con*i>i)»e ia our reunions of ftinuly 
iuid society everything for the general 

* Set In pftrltenlar L'KtKl4)ati H t« 5afDin«. 
Pmi. £d, l>Q|iuiluii|v 




ul cireum 

oblij^ed to 

possible to nuLke ^oirf r 

derlnj^ them, iU the sniu- ■ -^^ 

aj^reeable and more freqoi 

miluUiry and less eum^"' 

health ? Thb is the pn • i 

to solve ; and is it not a >> ^ 

that here religion interp4' - i i 

you,Thiiik of tbr i « ► r i ' n - f 

you ain the sutm h; 

ing them f ^Boc iutipeccaiujn^'^ x^ 

St. Xhofuaa, This eieeM In tbe letiglk 

of soifies cornea to tis from p«g»iii^ai. 

In the time of Seneca thev ettif'Tl 

'ic tcnn*^ 
1 _ : toward ' 

are pcopio who rc% - 
and night. Thus, i 
stui and broken^own {\i 
ance ot such penjons, wb' 
dedicjited to the nis^ht ; 
thai of sick people, thr\ 
lan^Tuishing, carrying a • 
living body. And this r 
evil : their mind:* are ^ 
gbadowj^ apparently, ben i 
habitin;^ the eloud-i. I- 
to deplore an J 
ishes the Itght 
in darkne^M and e^huUe r' * 

Som'cftmet I am a^ked, If religi&i 
w e re ; i aI b) If t he smerilte t 

the v^ : awh if it ortb're^l a | 

of e\*ery nij^ht spent in t boll 

body and soul, whiit wt>ni : . 
apiinj^l it ? What anathemnav wh 
bitter re|iroach(*s I But th« 
speaks, and no one^ays ttnylbin;^; 
arc enclmnled, or, at l«njt. appear 
St. Krancifl de Sales has glveji on, 
this fiubjeel, MSJue refl(;:!ti'jnA wh- 
the delicate point of a pletuainl mati 
is touched with i^ujN 
should reproach n^ 
sent them to >ou : '' V^ 
gentlemen and ladies pn 
lugtn, but scvenil in 
pliiy — wnridlr people 
it iiruds gu . 
cerning tli* 

• £pl«L1tl. 



Earlff Hising. 



757 



to meditatioo, or rise a little earlier 
than usual to prepare for commanion, 
these same friends woald ran for the 
doctor to care us of jaundice or hypo- 
chondria. We may occupy thirty nights 
in dancing, no one complains ; but for 
the sugle watch of Christmas night 
every^e oonghs, and cries next Saj 
with the stomach-ache.'' 

The salutary regimen of retiring and 
rising early is very precious for the soul, 
and the duties oflife mueh better fiilfi lied. 
The soul is calmer at night, calm as 
everything that is regular and not troubl- 
ed and turned topsy-turvy by the thou- 
sand preoccupations of a too worldly life. 
In the evening, before going to sleep, 
we can fix our attention on ourselves, 
analyze the day, its thoughts, desires, 
and actions, praise, blame, or correct, 
and, as a skilful merchant, make an ao- 
oount of our losses and gains. Do not 
imagine such a practice is confined to 
narrow minds ; it is the usage of reason 
and sound philosophy, as are all other 
practices of an enlightened devotion. 
Pagans as well as Christians have 
given us a lesson on this subject. 
Listen to Pythagoras': •'Never allow 
sleep to close thine eyes before having 
examined every action of the day. In 
what have I failed? What have I 
done ? What duty have I forgotten ? 
Commence by the first of thy actions, 
ran over the others ; in fine, reproach 
thyself with what thou hast done ill, 
and rejoice in what thou hast done 
welL" '' What can be more beautiful/' 
said Seneca, ^ than this habit of in- 
quiring into a whole day ? W hat sleep 
succeeds to such a raview of one's ac- 
tions ! How calm, deep, and fte^ it is 
when the soul has received its share of 
praise or blame, and, submitting to its 
own control, its own censure, it secretly 
tries its own conduct I For me, I have 
taken this authority on myself, and 
every day I cite myself to appear be- 
fore the tribunal of my conscience. So 
soon as the light lias gone, I scan my 
day entirely, weigh anew my acts and 
my words, dissemble nothing, and omit 
nothing.*' ♦ Adopt this habit, fHY^TY^ 
•DaUGolere,1.8. c8<L 



thing in you will gam by it — reason 
and piety ; a sweet serenity will be 
diffused around your soul, and you 
will sleep in angelic peace somnuM Moni* 
taiis in homine.* You have sometimes 
seen children sleep. What calm ! 
What sweetness of expression 1 What 
kindness of feature I What living and 
silent rest 1 This will be the image of 
your sleep. 

But — and now we touch a delicate 
point— it is the result of life's organiza- 
tion that you ought to get up in the 
morning. I hear already a deep sigh 
of fear from your trembling oouch. 
First, then, let us understand the value 
of the words. Get up in the moraing. I 
do not exhort 3'ou to imitate a very de- 
licate lady, who said, during her sojoura 
at Vichy, ** I commence my day at four 
o'clock in the moraing, in order that 
my body may not take off too much 
from my 8oul."t I do not propose you 
this model, for I am very sure, if I 
opened a register, I should find very 
few members for the confraternity of 
Madame Swetchine. Let us leave, then, 
the value of the expression slightly un- 
decided. Gret up in the moraing ; let it 
only be the earliest hour possible, and 
this, perhaps may be too late. Once, 
however, tlie hour of your rising deter- 
mined, hold to it, with a firmness pro- 
portioned to the difficulty of the step, 
and let the unfortunate bed shut up 
again the magnetic fiuid whereby one is 
dniwn to it, I do not say in spite of 
one*s self, but with a sweetness of vio- 
lence which nails one to the post. I 
avow we are here in face of one of 
the most terrible of enemies, and this 
enemy the pillow. When we want to 
leave it in the moraing, it assumes the 
artificial langtianre of the siren, and 
caresses us with tender precaution. It 
seems to say : Why do vou leave me ? 
are you not belter here? what a sweet 
temperafure ! what inappreciable well- 
being ! don't you see it is too soon ? do 
you not feel your limbs too tired, and 
as yet enjoying a very incomplete re- 
pose \ Touch your forehead and you 

• Ecclns. xxxl. 

t Lettres de Madame Swetchine. t. U. p. lit 



758 



Early BUing, 



will tee you begin to have headache; 
a few quarters of an hour more will 
dissipate it; to-morrow joa will rise 
earlier ! Then it*s so cold out of bed : 
why brave the inclemency of the sea- 
sons? The day is long enough ; yon 
will have time enough tor everything ; 
in truth, do not be so severe with your- 
self." After such eloquent language 
the dear pillow extends its two arms to 
entangle you, and soon the -victory is 
consummated ; true, it was easy, none 
are so happy as the vanquished ; and 
behold you fallen again and buried for 
several hours more. 

I speak very seriously in telling you 
that one of the most difficult enemies to 
vanquish is this pillow of the morning ; 
and there is but one way to conquer 
it : it is a prompt and decisive blow, a 
military charge, a jump out of bed : 
charge the enemy by a vigorous sally, 
and the victory is yours. An old 
(?apuchm said that, after long years of a 
religious life, what cost him most was 
to rise at four o clock in the morning. 
It is true there is a sacrifice to make, a 
real sacrifice, inccmtesiable ; but hero 
life is full of sacrifices, and each one is 
followed by a sentiment of true happi- 
ness, and each victory gives to man an 
astonishing power. When I seen per- 
son who has the courage to get up in 
the morning, I have immediately a high 
opinion of his firmness of cliaracter, and 
I say to myself: This person, when oc- 
casion demands it, will know how to 
develop extraordinary energy ; each 
morning his nature is tempered again 
in the struggle against his pillow, and 
this combat is often more difficult, es- 
pecially on account of its continuity, 
than tlmt of the soldier on the field of 
battle. Besides, wait as long as you 
will, even if you sleep until mid-day, 
you will have to make a sacrifice on 
leaving your bed. Sometimes the moie 
you think of it, the sacrifice will be 
greater, and increased by the sad per- 
spective of the approaching effort ; so 
with one minute ol decision, prompt and 
generous, all is over, and the enjoyment 
of the active day has commenced. Long 
waiting in bed when one is awake 



makes serious detriment to Cheioal ; die 
whole being is softened. And plunged 
into a sort of reverie, more or less sen- 
sual, which may lead to the brink of 
certain abysses. Take care, the batte^ 
fly flutters on its golden winga, then 
goes to bum itself in the ligb^hiefa 
shines for it so treacherously ff mage 
of those aerial promenades where, hjr 
dint of approaching certain deceitfal 
lights, one ends by damaging the wiog« 
of the soul, or, at least, rubbing off the 
velvet nap of a pure conscience. ^ It is 
dangerous,** said St. Ambrose, ^ for tlie 
sun to come and trouble with its indis- 
creet rays the dreams of a lazy mind 
in its bed." * The Italian poet, speak- 
ing of morning, says : ^ At the hoor 
when one s mind is greatest stranger to 
the flesh, and less near terrestrial 
thoughts, then is it almost divine in its 
visions." f Each day, after a good 
night, we can renew our souls with the 
wonders of a beautiful spring morning; 
all is fresh in mind and body, ail in- 
terior faculties arc wanned; life ex- 
periences a sort of need of expansioo ; 
all thoughts, all desires seem to tremble 
with cheerfulness, as plants in a cclestiil 
garden. \f the sun of prayer arises 
on the horizon, all the germs of good 
awake, develop, and mount up in pnh 
portion as the divine heat becomes more 
intense. ^ The manna," said tlie pro- 
phet, '* disappearing at the dawn of day ; 
was to show us, my God, that we must 
anticipate the rising of the sun to re- 
ceive thy most precious benediction^.'*^ 
Tliere is something remarkable in oar 
Lives of the Saints ; morning prayer 14 
always specially mentioned: ^' My God," 
said the prophet '^ thou wilt favorablv 
hear my prayer in the morning.*' § •* I 
will present myself before thee in the 
morning, and will see thy glory."|l - Ii 
is in the morning tliat my prayer will 
surprise thee."T '• In the mornm;; 
thy mercy is shed on us abundantly. •• 
" Those who watch from the mora- 
ing," said Wisdom, *• will find me.''tt 
Our Lord himself is called ** splendid 

• Tn Pji. lis, p. 19. No. », t !L p. 1476. 
t Daote, l*uri(»t. c 9, r. 16-lV. 

♦ »*|.. xvl. i^. $ Ffc T. 4. I P». T. i 

t K xxxvU. ii. ^ P«. Isxxix. 11. n Pror. tilL 11 



Early Riting, 



759 



Btar, star of the morning :^ ^ Ego steUa 
splendida et maiuttnc^^* In these con- 
tinual repetitions I can only see a per- 
fectly fixed and stationary thought : the 
natural relation established by divine 
Providence, and which she loves to pre- 
Ber\'e in a supernatural world. The 
morning is' the hour when life recom- 
mences on earth ; the hour when every- 
thing is reborn, solitude favoring the 
firbt leap of life, which retakes its course 
where the dew is depostied, and gives 
fresh noarishmcnt to the plant. It is 
also the most delightful hour for the col- 
lection- of thought, for the effusion of the 
dew of souls. The sky is charged with 
rain that night has condensed ; the 
manna is everywhere, but it soon dis- 
appears ; and, whilst indolence loses its 
power of body and mind in the swad- 
dltng-clothes of sleep, the active soul 
has laid in its provision of celestial 
nourishment, has disposed its interior 
heaven for the entire day, has dissipat- 
ed in advance the shadows of the day, 
and established time's serenity until the 
next sleep. One of the most precious 
and the sweetest hours of life is the 
hour of morning prayer. I do not 
merely speak of vocal prayer ; I wish 
to Ray the prayer of union with God, 
the silence and the repose of the soul 
in God ; I wish to say this op^'uing of 
the mouth of the soul which aspires to 
divine milk, drinking in silence, light, 
and love, and hiding itself in the bosom 
of that mother par exceUenee we call 
Grod, and that so few Christians under- 
stand. Os meum aperui et attrazi 
spiriium.f If you only realized the 
gift of God we call the love of mom- 

in)?: Si sclres donum Dei IX 

There is a freshness in it, a suavity 
and an energy, which come directly 
from God. Have you never been on 
the mountains in summer, at tliree 
o'clock in the morning, when the first 
rays of the sun appear ? How limpid- 
ly they seem to come ! They have not 
passed through other breasts ; the purest 
essence of the planet of day is ours, 
and thus we seem to realize our union 



• Apoc. xxU. le. 
X Joan. iv. IQ. 



t Pa. cxtUL 181. 



with God while most men are asleep. 
On these divine mountains the soul 
has the first-fruits of celestial favors ; 
she is penetrated with light, love, and 
strength ; a gentle Intoxication for the 
day, which, far from weakening the 
soul, gives firmness to our thoughts 
and actions, and sheds a perfume of 
joy on all our works. Were there no 
other reasons for rising iti the morning, 
I would say to you. Disengage your- 
self from your pillow, the Lord comes 
to visit you with choice favors ; but the 
least delay will be proof of your indif- 
ference, and you will force him to go 
further to seek souls more worthy his 
benefits. There is no one who would 
refuse to rise early if each morning 
a messenger were to tell him, A prince 
is come among you and waits for you. 
Place your Grod in the place of your 
prince, and you will do well. If you 
wish to accomplish some great work 
in your life, get up in the morning. 
The morning hours are not so derang- 
ed, the calm of a sweet solitude sur 
rounds you, and you more readily ex- 
pedite your affairs. You can occupy 
yourself with business or the regula- 
tion of your household, wilh your read- 
ing, your intellectual work if you love 
study, and the result in some years of 
these extra hours will be incalculable. 
By rising two hours earlier each day, 
you will have gained at the end of forty 
years, twenty-nine thousand hours, that 
is more than seven years, and solely 
counting the twelve working hours of 
the day. To increase one's life seven 
years in forty is enormous, and what 
can be done during this continuous 
time is almost incredible. Clement of 
Alexandria said, ** Wrest from sleep 
all of our lives we can." 

Sleep is truly a thief who ravishes 
our greatest treasures ; a thief, too, we 
cannot entirely chase away, but we can 
run him off the ground and hinder his 
encroachments on our actual life. 
♦' We live but the half of our lives," 
said Pliny the elder ; ** the other 
half is consumed in a state similar to 
death, .... and still we do not count 
the mfancy which knows nothing, or 



7eo 



Early HUing. 



the old age of imbecility/' Then have 
the courage to take something each day 
from this brother of death, who thus 
divides our life in two, and for himself 
would reserve the better part ; let us 
give to nature what is necessary, but 
make no concession to indolence. 

The most favorable time to commit 
this robbery is during the first hours 
of the morning. ^ The quality of lime 
is different at this hour/' said Madame 
Swetchine. 

One hour of the morning is worth 
two at night, because the mind in its 
freshness is naturally more collected, its 
strength is not yet dispersed, and it is 
not exhausted by the fatigue of the 
day. The morning hours resemble, 
in the agility of the mind and the re- 
juvenated forces of the soul, the first 
hour of the courser just placed in the 
carriage. So the same author we love 
to cite advised early rising, cost what 
it might, ^ in order to resen'e some 
hours of the morning for entire soli- 
tude." ^ It is not only,'' said one of 
her friends, ** to consecrate to Grod the 
first hours of the day that she com- 
menced it so early, but to have also 
considerable time to give to study." 
She said to mo on that day, that the 
pleasure it gave her only increased 
with years. ^ I am come to this,*' she 
said, '^ when I approach my table to 
resume my labors, my heart beats with 
joy.'* She avowed, besides, that, de- 
prived of these her accustomed hours, 



all the rest of the day seemed pillaged. 
If you would not be pillaged, rijie in 
the morning ; then you can do as joa 
please, no one will come to disturb yea, 
you will consecrate the closest and best 
of your strength to the most serious and 
truest duties of your existence; and, 
when the hour of pillage comes, that 
is, the hour when you most cat your 
life in little pieces, to dispense it in a 
thousand, nothings more or lesa neces- 
sary, you will, at least, have secured 
its better and most precious part If 
you rise late, your life will be a per- 
petual pillage, and whoever pleases 
will tear it in shreds from you. 

Plato — if you will not consider pa- 
gan morality severe — ^Plato said aomt- 
where : ^ It is a shame for the mistress 
of a household to be awakened by her 
servants ; she should awaken them.*^ 
Such words may seem an exaggeration ; 
but, if such were here the case, would 
not everything go better in the interior 
of the family? Woman, as we have 
said with the holy Scripture, is the 
sun of her household ; but it shotdd be 
the sun which everywhere announces 
the awakening of nature. It mounts 
first on the horizon, and soon every- 
thing rises in the universe, plants, ani- 
mals, and men. The sun is never awak- 
ened by his satellitei? ; he himself gives 
the signal. Let the strong wonuui do 
the same. Sicut $ol oriens in aliiuimii 
Dei, sic mulieris bona species in <»ma- 
mcnliim domvs ejus,^ 



' Lettrw, t IL pk 4tt. 



• Let LoU, 1-7, p. SOS. 



tEccLzxTLO. 



The Wandering Jew. 



761 



0MQI5AL. 

THE WANDERING JEW.* 



ERE are certain popular fables 
I, in one shape or another, seem 
ve wandered all over the world, 

have planted themselves, and 
1, and developed progeny in the 
)re of nearly every nation. Of 
3se none has been more generally 
orite than the fiction of Time 
ig in his flight some solitary hu- 
)eing, before whose eyes the cen- 

unroll their mighty panorama ; 

and nations rise, flourish, and 

; changes pass over the face of 
s herself; seas dry up and^ rocks 
)le to dust; while for one man 
ige brings no decay and life seems 
ve no termination. The early 
tian legends are fall of such sto- 

Tbere are rumors of mysterious 
3ses, hidden for ages from the 
's eyes, not dead but sleeping, 
ire to come forth in the last days 
le, and bear testimony againt ^- 
st ; and one of these was conjec- 

to be the apof^tle St. John, of 

1 our Lord said to St. Peter, ** If 
that he tarry till I come, what is 

thee P* So there was a belief 
he beloved disciple still slept at 
sus, awaiting the summons, and 
LTth above his breast heaved as 
reathed. Joseph of Arimathea, 
ling to another beautiful legend, 
ewarded for the last tender offices 

1 he performed for the dead Christ 
rpetual life in the blessed city of 
s, where he drew divine nourish- 
from the holy grail, that pre- 
chalice which the Saviour used 

Last Supper, and which caught 
lood that trickled from his side 
the cross. The poetical legend 

seven sleepers of Ephesus, who 

ious Mjths of the Middle Ages. By S. Baring 
If. A.. London, Oxford, and Cambridge. Rtv* 
1866. 



fled from the persecution of Dt^ius to 
a cavern on Mount Celion, and slept 
there three hundred and sixty years, 
until God raised them up to confound 
a growing heresy against the immor- 
tality of the soul ; and the still more 
beautiful story of the monk of Hildes- 
heim, who, doubting how with God a 
thousand years could be as yesterday, 
listened to the melody of a bird in the 
greenwood during three minutes, and 
found that in those minutes three hun- 
dred years had flown away, are familiar 
to all our readers. Bat pagan litera- 
ture also abounds in stories of miracu- 
lously long slumbers. The beautiful 
shepherd Endymion was condemned 
by Jupiter to perpetual sleep in a cav- 
ern of Mount Latmus ; or, according 
to another form of the story, to a slum- 
ber of fifly years, at the end of which 
time he was to arise. The giant En- 
celadus was imprisoned under Mount 
Etna, and as otlen as he turned his 
weary body, the whole island of Sicily 
was shaken to its foundations. The 
epic poet Epimenides, while tending his 
sheep, retired one hot day into a cavern, 
and slept there fifly-seven years. This 
reminds one of the tale of Bip Van 
Winkle. The Emperor Frederic Bar- 
barossa, so an old German fable relates, 
is waiting with six of his knights in the 
heart of a mountam in Thuringia, for 
the time to release Germany firom 
bondage and raise it to the first place 
among nations. When his great red 
beard has wound itself thrice around 
the stone table at which he sits, he 
will awake and rush forth to do his ap- 
pointed work. So, too, it was believed 
that Charlemagne survived in some 
mountain recess, and would appear 
again at the fulfilment of the days of 
Antichrist to avenge the blood of the 
saints. The British King Arthur, the 



T«3 



Thi Wan 



PoHngticse Don Sebaelian, O^ier rhe 
Dane, and the llii*ce Tells of Switzer- 
land were expected by thesuj»er*lili<>u3 
peasantry to n^appear at 8onie distant 
day and become the deliverers of their 
country; and there are even some re- 
tnoie jiarts of France where a popular 
belief survives that ^Napoleon Bona- 
^ parte is still living, and will put him^^elf 
I eome day at the head of another vic- 
torious host Who of Us? is not familiar 
with that pretty fairy tale jof the sleep- 
ing beauty ? 

•* Ye*r *fl4'r year nntc her f*H, 
BUt l^ing on UvF coticL uLuoo, 
AcruM I he purpttf eov<ff kl 
TAe iual4e» V Jet^ttUck knJr lt«t crown. 



* Sii* fJ^-i^^rt : tier l>r««t^lnf* »f« nor Uetnl 

Tn piilrtrr r^mmNT? fnr N|mrt. 

ir^ 111 






[And who of lis in bi3 ch»MlM»iMl ]j;t^ 
' Hot read with a delight which rej»eated 
perusals could not satiate of" the.- com- 
[infij of the fairy prince, who wa-^ iat- 
fed, at'ler a hundred years, to wake 
[ that sleepinff palace into lile» and l)ear 
f away the happy prince<?s far across the 
jllilk^ ** in that new world which is the 
fold'*? 

** Antl o>r the hUl.t, and far Away 
tieyond ih«ir iitnioAt puriple rim, 
fie>u>iid Hit? ntghl, ftcro»« Ui« kta^. 
Ttiroujfb all the world ili« rolU»w«d blm/* 

These many stones are only the pro- 
j tean forms of one favorite |»o|Milar 
eouception ; the idea of one individiiMl 
stand in jr still, while the world sweeps 
by, and either blest or curst with a 
perpetual renewal of youth« or el^ 
a k^ akin;? out of a sleep of centuries to 
find creniion wearing a new face and 
new jijenerntions acting out the great 
drama othistoiy. The different modi* 
fications of the story seem to derive 
tlieir peculiar character IVoui the pecu- 
•liarities of the time and country in 
wliieh they ori'jjinate. The pagan ten- 
dency to personify all the phenomena 
of nature is exemplified in the myth oi' 
* £neeUdyi), under which were repre- 
glinted the throes of Mount Etna. 



The wilJ, warlike, and «einl^|; 
spirit of Germany, which peojdes i 
mouniain recesses with iny«iefkntt 
forms, and fa^tena a le^nd lo «cb 
frowning crag and almodt inacoeftible 
fastne!«8, finds apt expression in the If^ 
gend of the sleeping Barbaro^^a and 
bis mailed companions. And how 
beautituUy the piety of ihc monkish 
cbron]c!er!» lia^ endieilished thi* same 
iiction in tlie fubles of the seven &lee^ter.H 
and the monk of Hildesheini 1 lu tlii! i 
former of these two !<tories, however*] 
it is worthy of remark l^ 
fact has been blemjed wi 
The R'ven sleeper:^ am r> 
personages, and their i\n 
rolled in the list vi 
They were martyrs v, 
Decitjs caused to hv wuiittTi up 
in a ciive, where uumy peuer 
aHerward their lelics were fotindj 
thi» discovery of the relies has 
ampliOed into an actruil resu^itation^ 
of the living men* The narmtirc in i 
this s|>urioys form is given by JiuTibuj 
de Voragine in his Goldep Lrp*nd, i 
and was made the subject of n poem i 
by Goethe. Tiie German jioet iMi 
that ihej^ was a dog with the jef en 
Christians, and that immediately after 
their awakening, as soon as they had 
been uteen by the king and jieoplc ol' 
Ephesufii, they disappeared for ewr 
from the sight of man : 

"The ! ' 1 " ' 

w*i;.. 

The most remarkable of all iHe va- 
rieties of this fiettun is the legecul of 
the Wandering Jew, Like the - 1"-^ '^r 
St, Joha*^ sleep at Ephesus. i 

to lie based upon a false interpi. i.*i 

of Scripture, ** There arc some of 
them sianiling hcrc^'* siiid our Lord, 
»» who shall not tai»te death till they ««* 
the Son of Man coming in bis kingdom^ 
(St, Matt. xvi. 28.) And it was the 
old belief that this prophecy wiu beio^ 
bterally fultilled in the person ofa Jci 
who was wamlrring over the (ace of | 
the earlh, and would contioQ€ to 



der until the day of jadgment Tbt 



J 



27u Wandering Jew, 



76S 



9t mention of this mythical person 
I in Matthew Paris's Chronicle 
gluih History, wherein he records 
n 1228, a certain Archbishop of 
er Armenia visiled the abbey of 
3ans, on a pilgrimage to the shrines 
^saints in England ; and in the 
i of conversation he was asked 
l!her he had ever seen or heard 
ing of Joseph, a man of whom there 
fUch talk in the world, who, when 
iiord suffered, was present and 
to him, and who is still alive in 
ice of the Christian faith ; in re- 

which, a knight in his retinue, 
as his interpreter, replied, speak- 

French, ' My lord well knows 
nan, and a little before he took 
ay to the western countries the 
bseph ate at the table of my lord 
rchbishop of Armenia, and he has 
seen and conversed with him.' " 
rchbishop went on to relate that, 
Jesus had been delivered np to 
!ws and they were dragging him 
be crucified, ^ Cartaphilus, a por- 

the hall, in Pilate's service, as 
was going out of the door, impi* 
struck him on the ba^k with his 
and said in mockery, < Go quicker, 
, go quicker, why do you loiter ? 
Tesus, looking back on him with a 
) countenance, said to him, * I am 

and you shall wait till I return.' 
according as our Lord said, this 
philus is still awaiting his return. 
i time of our Lord's suffering he 
lirty years old, and when he at- 
the age of a hundred years he al- 
returns to the same age as he 
rhen our Lord suffered. After 
:'s death, when the Catholic faith 
1 ground, this Carlaphilus w^ 
;ed by Ananias, (who also bap- 
:he apostle Paul,) and was called 
h. He dwells in one or other di- 
s of Armenia, and in divers east- 
[>un tries, pas:»ing his time among 
ishops and oth»;r prelates of the 
3 ; he is a man of holy conversa- 
id religious ; a man offev/ words, 
ery circumspect in his behavior ; 
does not speak at all unless when 
oned by the bishops and religious ; 



and then he relates the events of olden 
times, and speaks of things which oc- 
curred at the suffering and resurrection 
of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the 
resurrection, namely, of those who rose 
with Christy and went into the holy 
city, and appeared unto men. He 
also tells of the creed of the apostles, 
and of their separation and preaching. 
And all this," added the archbishop, 
(though we should think the statement 
rather superfluous,) ^ be relates with- 
out emUing or levity of eonversationj as 
one who is well practised in sorrow 
and the fear of God, always looking 
forward with dread to the coming of 
Jesus Christ, lest at the last judgment 
he should find him in anger, whom, on 
his way to death, he had provoked to 
just vengeance." There is something 
not easy to explain in this story. Mat- 
thew Paris was an eye-witness of the 
events which he relates, so there can 
be little doubt that the Armenian pre- 
late or his interpreter did really tell 
some such wondrous tale as this to the 
monks of St. Albans. Was it a pure 
invention ? Or did the interpreter, by 
a familiar species of embellishment, re* 
present bis master as having seen the 
wandering Jew when he had only 
heard of him ? Or had the archbishop 
been deceived by some impostor who 
had taken advantage of the (K>pularity 
of the legend to palm himself off upon 
the credulous as its veritable hero? 
One thing at all events is clear from 
the narrative of the monk of St* Al- 
bans ; and that is, that the fable was by 
no means a new one in his time, though 
he is the earliest known writer who has 
handed it down to us. The Jew, ac- 
cording to this narrative, refused all 
gifts that were offered him, being con- ^ 
tent with a little food and scanty rai- 
ment; but with all his humble piety 
he seems to have cherished an odd 
sort of pride; for it is related that 
^ numbers came to him from different 
parts of the world, enjoWng his society 
and conversation, and to them, if ihey 
are men of authority^ he explains all 
doubts on the matters on which he b 
questioned." 



UnB JrtiTidiTtnff i/pttV, 



After the Armenian htul viaiK'd the 
jalirineof **St*T»m;w ile Kantorbii^'' 
I it) England and '' Moiisigour St, Jake," 
ri? hereby we suppose is meant Sanliago 
We Corapoatela in Spain, he went to Co- 
ilogac to see the heads of the three kinjia, 
land there h<^ is reported, in a rhyming 
Idironide by Phihp Mou^ikeg, atU-r- 
Vward Bishop of Tournay, as if^pealing 
I the 8tory he had lold at St. Albans, but 
[with wry slight difiTerences. 

There is no further mention oT the 

I Wandering Jew in literature for more 

Itlian two hundred and OHy years ; but, 

[in l-jOfn he turns up to some puq^ose 

iiu Bohemia, whei'e a poor weaver 

juaraed Kokot wa.s in great perplexity 

I, to find a treasure thai had been buried 

iVy his grt'at'grandfatlier sixty years 

Lie fore. The Jew had been present 

rwhon the treasure was hid away» and 

he now appeared opportunely to show 

[the heir when^ to find it He seemed 

1^1 this time to be about seventy years 

I of flfie. About the same time we hear 

of him in the East, where there was a 

I tradition that he appeared to the Ara- 

[bian eonqueror Fadhilab, and predict- 

led the signs which were to precede tlji* 

last judgment. But this raysteri.«ua 

Ivisitor, who is called Zerih Bar Elia, 

[eeetus tJii have been confounded in a 

[.curiou.s way with the prophet Elijali* 

jThe most eircumrflantial acc^junt of iha 

[Undying one was given about tiie mid* 

[die of the sixteenth century by Dp, 

tPiuil von Eitzen, afterward BIsliop of 

ScldesvvijT, who seems to hiive been 

thoroughly deceived by one of the many 

impostors who arose durin*: that ctni- 

tury and the next, claiming to have 

been survivors of the rabble who fol- 

lo'ved Jesus to Calvary. Dr. Von 

Eitzen V story is that, being in chMrch 

line S-jTiday in Hamburjr, in the year 

lo47, "ho observed a tall mati with 

his hair han^in^r over his shoulders, 

standing bartdbot during the sermon 

over agumst tfie pulpll, listening with 

^decpe^i attenitoii to the discourse, and 

rhenever the natne of Jesus was men* 

rioned bowing htm>vlf profoundly and 

humbly, with sighs and beating of the 

breast. He bad no other clothing in 



the bitter cold of the Winter, 1 
pair of hose which were in tat] 
his feet, and a coat with a girdle which 
reached to his feet; and iih gcncrml 
ap|>earanc^ was tliat of a man of fifty 
years." The learned doctor wa* so 
much struck by the man's looks tlmtaf* 
ter the sermon he made inquinr ' 
him. He found that he wuf a 
to every bfxly* Han v 
them of high dcgn>e ; 
htm in England, Scotlana, l iinjcc, itn 
St)ain, Denmark, Sweden. Poland, Hun- 
gary, Russia, Persia, and ot It- 
tries, and nob'jxiy knew* what i 
of him. So Dr* Von Eitren sougUi 
out and questioned him. ^ Theretl 
he n»plied modestly thai he was a Jev 
by birth, a native of Jerustilem, by 
name Abasuerus, by tmdo a «lioe- 
maker; he had been present at the 
crucitlxion of Christ, and had lived 
ever jiince, travelhng thnmgb varimu 
lands and e.ities, the which be 6iil)sliui> 
tiated by utrounts he pave; he n^hitcd 
also the circumstances of Christ's Irana- 
ference from Pilate to Hcnxi, and the 
final crucjtixion^ together with other 
details not recorded in the evangelists 
and historians ; he gavr aceount« vf tho 
changes of government in many coitn* 
trit*s, esf)ecittlly of iho East, ibrough 
several centuries, and moreover h«?d^ 
tailed the labors and donfhs of tbo holy 
apofriles of Christ in«» ijwl- 

ly.'" The stninger ii i»jui 

done his best wiUi oth♦•f^ to iinvt* i hriit 
put to death, and that, when senlrnc* 
had been prc>noun<!ed, he ran home and 
called his family log»i»!her that tbey 
miglit look nt the deceiver of Ihi? fioo* 
pie as he was carried to execatioiL 
When the Lonl was led by to Calvary, 
he wiis slfinding at the door of his shop 
with his futle ehild on hi^ arm* Sfn-tit 
with the weighl of the cross which he 
was carrying* Christ tried lo rtdi aUt» 
tk\ but Ahasnerus, for the sake of o^^ 
taining eredit among the other Je«f;. 
and aUo oat of zeal and nij ' lUt 

L<ird forwai*d and Imde •«• 

"Jesus, olx'V ing, looked at hltu and &iint, 
^ 1 sluill suird and sv&U but thou di«lt 
go till tfie last day.* At theii? wunk 



The Wandering Jew, 



765 



the man set down the child, and, un- 
able to remain where he was, he fol- 
lowed Christ, and saw how cruelly be 
was cmcified, bow he suffered, bow be 
died. As soon as this had taken place, 
it came upon him suddenly that he 
could no more return to Jerusalem, nor 
see again his wife and child, but must 
go forth into foreign lands, one after 
another, like a mournful pilgrim. Now, 
when, years after, he returned to Jeru- 
salem, be found it ruined and utterly 
razed, so that not one stone was lefl 
standing on another ; and he could not 

recogniase former localities 

Dr. Paul von Eitzen, along with the 
rector of the school of Hamburg, who 
was wqII read in history and a traveller, 
questioned him about events which had 
taken place in the East since the death 
of Christ, and he was able to give them 
much information on many ancient mat- 
ters ; so that it was impossible not to 
be convinced of the truth of his story, 
and to see that what seems impossible 
with men is, after all, possible with 
God." It does not seem to have re- 
quired Dr. Von Eltzen's investiga- 
tion to prove that what is impossible 
with man may be possible with Grod ; 
but how any amount of questioning 
could deraonstrdte the truth of the 
stranger s story we are at a loss to see. 
It apparently failed to strike the rev- 
erend doctor and his associate that the 
Jew could have learned the history of 
the East as easily as they learned it 
themselves; and even if he made a 
good many blunders in his narrative, 
it is by no means certain that his ques- 
tioners were wise enough to detect 
them. 

This impostor, for so we may safe- 
ly call him, observed the traditional 
silence, modesty, temperance, and pov- 
erty which the legend uniformly as- 
cribes to the Wandering Jew, never ac- 
cepting a larger alms than two skillings, 
(about nine cents,) which he immedi- 
ately gave to the poor ; never laughing ; 
gladly listening to pious discourse ; rev- 
erencing with sighs the utterance of 
the divine name ; and waxing very in- 
dignant whenever he heard any one 



swear, especially by Grod's death or 
pains. He spoke the language of 
whatever country he travelled in, and 
had no foreign accent ; so at least the 
account runs, but it does not appear 
how that fact was ascertained, nor is 
there mention of any competent lin- 
guist having examined his abilities in 
that line. He never staid long in one 
place. 

Twenty-eight years afterward, that 
is, in 1575, two legates sent from Schles- 
wig to the court of Spain declared on 
their return home that they had en- 
countered the same mysterious person 
in Madrid, and conversed with him. 
In appearance, manner of life, habits, 
and garb, he was just the same as he 
bad appeared in Hamburg. He spoke 
good Spanish. It is not said, however^ 
that these legates had themselves seen 
the man when Dr. Von Eitzen talk- 
ed with him twenty- eight years bef >re, 
and the probability is, that they only 
inferred from the description left of that 
strange traveller that the wanderer in 
Madrid was the same person. In 1599, 
he is reported at Vienna; in 1601, at 
Lubeck ; and about the same date at 
Revel in Livonia, and Cracow in Po- 
land. He was also seen in Moscow, 
and in January, 1608, we find record 
again of bis appearance at Lubeck. 
The next year he was in Paris. Ru- 
dolph Botorcus, who records his visit 
to that city in his history, apologizes 
for mentioning what may seem a mere 
old wives' fable, but says the story was 
so widely believed that he could not 
omit iL Bulenger, about the same 
date, also mentions the report of the 
Jew's arrival in Paris, but confesses 
that he neither saw him nor could hear 
anything authentic concerning him. 

The frequency of the reappearance 
of this mythical character in different 
parts of Europe during the seventeenth 
century seems lo indicate that the im- 
posture was a profitable one. He as- 
sumes different names and tells his 
story with sevenil variations. In one 
work he is called Buttadseun. Else- 
where he is known as Isaac Laquedcm. 
In some accounts it is said that he was 



Abide in JHfe, 



rvr 



now that it flourished,it underwent 
)nsiderab1e modifications, such as 
lar legends in general are subject 
When we first hear of it, it is al- 
Y wide spread and as completely 
loped as it was when it finally 
ped out of popular belief. And, 
ir readers can see from the narra- 

we have quoted, there never was 

plausible reason to believe that 
story was true. None of the tes- 
oy as to the Jew's appearances will 

the very slightest examination, 
er the stories are manifest fabri- 
ns, or the persons to whom they 

were merely ordinary vagabonds, 
agabond, however, could have es- 
)hed such pretensions unless there 
previously been some legend in 
e to suggest them and to induce 
le to accept them. Some have im- 
id that Ahasuerus is a type of the 
e Jewish race, which, since it re- 
\d the Redeemer, has been driven 

to wander over the face of the 



earth, yet is not to pass away until 
the end of time. This, however, can 
hardly be ; for Ahasuerus becomes a 
devout Christian, and, moreover, one 
of his principal characteristics is con- 
tempt of money. Others identity him 
with (he g}''psies, who are said to have 
been cursed in a similar way because 
they refused shelter to the Virgin and 
child during the fiight into Egypt; 
but this is only a local superstition 
which never obtained extensive ac- 
ceptation. The more probable ex- 
planation is, that some pious monk bor- 
rowed one of the old legends which we 
referred to at the beginning of this 
article, and adding to it a conception 
taken from the words of the Saviour, 
'* There are some of them standing 
here who shall not taste death till they 
see the Son of Man coming in his king- 
dom," constructed an allegory which 
was afterward accepted for literal truth 
in a not very critical age, and was kept 
alive by a succession of impostors. 



"ABIDE IN ME.»' 



" I am the vine, you the l>rMichei.** 

« I AM the Vine.** 
" Tis true, dear Lord, and yet the fruit, 
And cool, green leaves that cast the grateful shade, 
Are mine." 
^ Fie, silly branch ! Without a root 
Deep hidden in the lowly earth, 
Thy fruit or leaves would ne'er had birth. 
How quickly would thy coronal of leaves. 
Which now from men such flattery receives. 
Lose all its glory in their sight, and fade 

And die ; 
Thy fruit for tastelessness be spumed ; 
Thyself be cast into the fire and burned. 



768 



Fhe Invasions of Ireland by the DaneMm 



If I 

Who am, of all thoa hast the source. 
Did not with living sap the force 

Supply." 
" Lord ! pardon me my foolish pride : 
Too much in my own strength I do confide. 

Decree 
That henceforth I shall bare and barren be, 
If I give not all glory unto thee ; 

And chide 
My wayward spirit when it turns aside, 
And thinks to live and flourish, and yet not abide 

In thee." 



Abridged firom The Dublin Unlvenity Magasina. 

THE INVASIONS OF IRELAND BY THE DANES. 



A KNOWLEDGE of history is con- 
sidered an essential portion of the men- 
tal acqiiirements of every gentleman 
and lady, but it is for the most part a 
disagreeable, and, in many respects, a 
slightly immoral study, if we apply the 
same criterion to it which we do to its 
relative, romance. Moral lecturers on 
fiction instruct us that any novel or 
romance which centres its chief inte- 
rest in wicked men or women, and de- 
votes the greater portion of its pages 
to their proceedings, is aaimmoral, or, 
at least, an unedifying bodk. We need 
not waste pages or lines here in point- 
ing out what sort of designs or dc'cds 
enter into the tissue of historical nar- 
rative, but as (the above reasoning not- 
withstanding) history is. and will con- 
tinue to be, a popular and engrossing 
study, it is of importance that we be 
acquainteil with the true nature of past 
events. 

DESIDERATA FOR A GOOD IRISH HISTORY. 

With regard to our own country we 
have not in this case been well favored. 
Those histories which have appeared 
in print rest for their authority on hith- 



erto inedited mss.* many portions of 
which are of a legendary and roauuitie 
character. It is evident that it is only 
when all these ms. chronicles, that are 
worth the trouble and expense, are pub- 
lished and compared with each other 
and with foreign contemporary history, 
we can arrive with any certainty at the 
truth or probability of past events, the 
existence or otherwise of some semi- 
mythic heroes, or truthful chronologi- 
cal arrangement. 

For the coming history of Ireland we 
are thankful that preparations have 
been making. We have had Keatinz*s 
history badly translated for three* half- 
centuries. He compiled it in the sev- 
enteenth century from ms. documents, 
some of which are unhappily not now 
in existence. Dr. O'Connor was ena- 
bled, through the munificence of the 
Duke of Buckingham, to get into print, 
accompanied by a Latin translation the 
Annals of Tighemach, a monk of Clon- 
mucnois, in tlie eleventh century, and a 
portion of the Annals of Ulster, hot 
these books are nearly as inaccessible 
as the original Mss. The Annals of the 
Four Masters, (the O'Clerys of Don- 
egal Abbey, early part of the seven- 



jTke Invasions of Ireland by the Danes. 



193 



centurj,) ediled by the late Dr. 
jvan, have been issued in a 
jtjle by the firm of Hodges & 
For about a quarter of a cen- 
ir Archaeological and Celtic So- 

have been publishing, with 
tions. papers of great value, and 
, though at the eleventh hour, 
ment has lent a hand in bring- 
ore the public valuable materi- 
tbe future historian of Ireland* 
consist of a portion of the ancient 
ode : the Senchus Mhor, the 
cum Scotorum, edited by Mr. 
ssy, and the Wars of the Gael 
le Foreigners,* (with transla- 
dited by Rev. Dr. Todd. This, 
St, is only an earnest of what 
ment means to do. We hope 

in succession the Annals of 
nach, of Lough C4, of Ulster,t 
hers issued at the moderate 
.d opted. 

deeply read and zealous editor 
work just quoted below would 
to have been exercised on some 

others. We quote his own 



etiitor cannot but regret that this 
full of the feelings of clanship, . . 
should have been selected as the first 
1 of an Irish chronicle, presented to 
ic under the sanction of the Master of 
I. His own wish and recommendation 
[onor was, that the purely historical 
es, such as the Annals of Tighemach, 
als of Ulster, or the Annals of Loch 
lid have been first undertaken. The 

ITftr of the GaedhiU irlth the Oaill ; or The 
of Ireland bv the Dnne« aud other Nor^e- 
e Original Irish Text, edited with Transla- 
ntrtwluctlon by James Henthorn Todd, D.D., 
1.1. A., P.8.A., Senior Fellow T.C.D. Pub- 
the Authority of the Lords Oommlsslonert of 
sty's Treasury, un<ler the Direction of the 
the Rolls. London : Lonfimans k Co. 
uh O'llraoln, Abbot of Clonmacnols, died 
The Annals that bear his name are con- 
the fourteenth century. Tliey exhibit 
tsclentiousness on the part of tbe writer, 
r gives way to Bardic enthusiasm. The 
ef l)Ooks are the Annals of Inlsfallen, proba- 
1 by Maol Suthaln O'Carroll, secretary to 
ramha, the Annals of Boyle, the Annals 
, compiled by Cliarles Masulre, a learned 
Ic at the Isle of Shanat, in Lough Erne. 
k occurred in 149S. The Annals begin at 
and are continued to 1511. Tbe Annals 
Ce, compiled by Brian MacDermot, relate 
om the battle of Clontarf to 15'J0. The 
>f Connacht Include all that passed ft*om 
1562. The Annals of Clunmacnois were 
I firom the Gaelic Into English In 162T, by 
;ac Egan ; the original Is not extant. 

VOL. v.— 49 



two fontier compilations, it is tme, had been 
already printed*, although with bad transla* 
tions and wretchedly erroneous topography ; 
and a rule which at that time existed pro- 
hibited the Master of the RoHs from publish- 
ing any work which, even in part, had been 
printed before. This rule has since been ju- 
diciously rescinded, and it is hooed that his 
lordship will soon be induced to sanction a 
series of the chronicles of Ireland, especially 
the two just alluded to, which, it is not too 
much to say, are to the history of Ireland and 
of Scotland what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 
is to that of England. The Annals of Loch 
C6 ( pr. Kay) belong to a later period. They 
begin with the battle of Clontarf, and con- 
tinue the history, with some few gaps, to 
1690." 

Nothing can be more to the purpose 
or better worthy of attention than the 
sequel of this passage. ^ 

*' Until these and other sources of history 
are made accessible, it is yain to expect any 
sober or trustworthy history of Ireland. Tbe 
old romantic notions of a golden age, so at- 
tractive to some minds, must continue to pre- 
yail. . . . 

** The authors of onr popular histories were 
avowedly ignorant, with scarcely an excep- 
tion, of the ancient laogoage of Ireland — the 
language in which the real sources of Irish 
history are written. It was as if the authors 
of the hiBtory of Rome had been all ignorant 
of Latin, and the writers of our histories of 
Greece unable to read Greek. Even this 
would not, however, fully represent the real 
state of the case as regards Ireland. Livy and 
Tacitus, Herodotus and Thncydides, are print- 
ed books, and good transUtions of them ex- 
ist But the authorities of Irish history are 
still for tbe most part in manuscript, and nn- 
publisbed, uotransktedf <uid scattered in tbe 
public libraries in Dublin, Oxford, and Lon- 
don, as well as on the continent of Europe. 
Hence our popular histories leave us com* 
pletely in the dark, and often contain errone- 
ous information. Wherever tbe Irish names 
of places or persons are concerned they are at 
fault They are entirely silent on the gene- 
alogies, relationships, and laws of the clans 
and their chieftaina— 4t subject so essential 
to th6 right understanding of Irish history.*' 

The most popular of onr histories is 
that translated from the Irish of the 
learned Dr. Greoflfry Keating, by Der- 
mod O'Connor, and first published, 

* The Annalf of Ulster are glren only.to the year 
1181. The Dublin MB. extends to ld08. The Chronl- 
cum Scotorum ic not here mentioned, because H la 
already on the lUt of the Master of the Rolls, edited 
by Mr. W. M. Henaessy.—Aote by JU9, Dr. Todd. 



770 



The TnvMitm of Irtlimd by tkt IhntK 



W«?s»ramster, 1726. It waa but in- 
diffcreiulv done. Dr. ToOJ pi\ e«i a de- 
cided preference to I hat lately execut- 
ed by O'Mabony* and published in 
America. Dn Todd givei* hU read- 
er» the plejisant information that two 
peHbct copi<'3 of the originiil Irish, ex- 
ecuted by Jolni Torim O'Muleonry, a 
C-on temporary of Dr. Keatiri)r, flre pre- 
served in the library of Trinity College, 
DubliD. 

THE MBS.. OF OUR DA^UBS CnHONICLB. 

The narratire in the work under 
Botice enibmces two cenlunCE** endinj^ 
with the battle of Clontart; a.p. 1014. 
Of the two hundred pa«es devoted to 
the subject^ ll>e wars waged by jMahon 
of Thomond and liis younger brother* 
Brian Baiijmba,oceupy a hundn^d and 
fifty. The fact is aceounted tor by p^v- 
injr the authon^htp to Mac Liag, Brian's 
chief bard, or some other devoted filea 
or heaaaehie of hh lioij^e, who survived 
the great day at Clonlarf The learned 
editor funii!*ties ample accounts of tlie 
M59. u^ed in the work, and we pnjce^d 
to make use of them for the infornia' 
tion of our reader**. A very samll por- 
tion of il^ to wit, one leaf, folio size, 
eloaclj vvrilten on both sides in doable 
cohimng, h preserved in the B*jok of 
Leiuftter.* The contents of ihid leaf 
Hire given in the appendix. 

The second MS,, al.^o defective, is 
preserved fn the library of Trinity 
College. We copy Dr. Todd*s refer* 
*encG to it : 

** Thl» (?opy wiA foand aboni the ytJiir 1 840, 
iby th« Ute etQla«al scholftr, Mr* O' Curry, 
iMMiad up in one of the Senbri-' ^>r' 

iMirl^f in tUi? prj*Ai-»*ion of Ihc c* ti- 

qil«fy, Edward tiuyd. Ttiere L. ,. .i>..»*^ *:£• 
ci.'pt the iippf «runc« of the u<i., and IIA hAOd- 
viiiirig, 10 fix l» ftge,bui,jud^uf; fi-om these 
criteria* w«2 cannoi. be fur wi'uiig in »iippo«in:^ 
it to have been writieu about ibu uuddle of 
th« four teen th c««tarjr. It ia imperftM;! both 

Ap «f KUilAre, fur llutflt ^* ' f>*t maU- 

IjriH! '>f Htforjr VII L, na viurroeltk 

Itlta «otlecUoii of Karrui . . - . _ <V<?«, mud 

UlUiiiiMl aad Ui Ma Of al n. TH« dt-iii b of il* com p Ller 
la Itill la aattaed tn tiM Aji&aIs of tli« JTour Matterf, 
«laA« &.& tt40^ 



at the hf^nr' 

are ili*» ^■ 
from ft lo«a ^^i 



it tlic enii 
' uiug dtf 



The MS. in which titt- Talumlito fl^^ 
raent is pre«cnrc?d id nmrked H, % II 

**Thu third M9 U a p«p«r_09pf ( 

in tlitf Burguniliin libn 



r '.. 1... . ' ,:,,, -.., ..., ., ...^t:.- 

scribed in the joar 1635, lliis Afiptaff bf 
the following note at the end : 

** * Out of llic Book of Cue^tnuadit «» ^^M 
the poor frim-, Mk'hacd 0*CI*'rv wmt 
copy from i^icb thh wft< wri 
veiic nt thu fmra iti BaiUi i 

year, 
writtr I, 

vember of tijij year, l«35.' " 

The learned friar oopieid or intrcK 
duoe<i into \m history f»ta1ogiiQft mi 
poern-^ not to Ik* found in tb«i TlitMifiiPu 
and therfe are pn5sage.^ i 
to be fovmd in tlie Brua>- 
cbroniele aow printed is, ut v 
more eopious» a^ it eoti tains *- ^ 
to be tbmid in either 

It wfl!* not till some lime after ibi. 
discovery of the Dublin sts., by Mr,J 
O* Curry, as rei^oriUd, tbat the 
ence of the Bruascb copy 
known. Dr To«id prooceded 
city in Aupist, 1848, and 
the portion* not to be found in tl 
nt home. Afterward, as he oh»err«ij 

'' Through the influeDO* of th§ Mmi - 
CloreiidoD, tfaoii Lord Lieatmant of Inriattl^] 
he obtained from the Belgian ^rtmvrtti I 
loan of this and book; other ns*^ , antl tt» \^%9 
cnuiied a complete cofv 
Mr O^^orry, fur the i 
lego, Dubliu. Tbeae innHenpta uoTo 
cirefully oollat^ in fomiag M ted oC i 
prewni ediiioo.*' 

WHO WHOTK TDK CRSOKICLB ? 

The nntharship of the worV - *^t 
billed to Murierrarh Mac 
chief bard of King Brian, bu 
conclusion can be rotnc lo on thi« 1 
It isoertain, hnwerer,lbat it la 
ductjon of a zealoui 
that it was composed toon 



Th€ InvasioRB of Ireland by the Danes, 



m 



of Clontarf We copy the curi- 
rcamstance wbich proves to cer- 
that the original compiler was 
nporary with the conclading event 
narrative: 

is sUted in the account giTen of the 
of Clontarf, that the fall tide in Dub- 
J on the daj of the battle, 23d April, 
coincided with sunrue, and that the re- 
I tide at evening aided considerably 
defeat of the enemy, 
occurred to the editor, on considering 
ssagc, that a criterion might be derived 
\, to test the truth of the narrative, and 
date assigned by the Irish to the battle 
ntarf. He, therefore, proposed to the 
amuel Haughton, M.D., Fellow of Tri- 
>llege, and Professor of Geology in the 
■sity of Dublin, to solve for him this 
n : *• What was the hour of high-water 
shore of Glontarf in Dublin Bay on the 
pril, 1014 ?' The editor did not make 

to Dr. Haughton the object he had in 
1 this question, and the coincidence of 
nits obtained with the ancient narra- 

therefore the more valuable and curl- 



e result of Dr. Hanghton's cal- 

ons, communicated to the Royal 

Academy in May, 1861, was 



le tide along the Glontarf shore, when 
Mtmcted by embankments and walls, 
lot have differed many minutes, on the 
»ril, 1014, from 6 hours 80 minutes a.m , 
ening tide being full in at 5 hours 55 

SP.M. 

is proves that the author, if not hlm- 
I eye-witness, must have derived his 
ation from those who were. >Xone 
* as Dr. Haughton observe^ * could 
ivented the fact that the battle be^n 
iae, and that the tide was then full in.' 
iportanoe of the time of tide became 
t al the close of the day, when the re- 
tide prevented the escape of the Danes 
he ClonUrf shore to the north bank of 
fey." 

the chronicle the author makes 
inction between races of the in- 
s, namely, the dark -haired Danes 
le fair-haired Norwegians. The 
Lochlann (lake land) is applica- 
Norway with its numerous fiords, 
ich the ancient Irish writers ap- 
tlie name of lo^hs. The epithet 
ikaa (bluish green) was proba- 



bly applied to the plate armor worn 
by some of them. 



8TTLB AND SFIRn OF THE WORK. 

The following passage will furnish 
a fair specimen of the style of the 
chronicle, besides exhibiting the misery 
of a country divided into small king- 
doms when a ferocious band of foreign* 
ers chose to make a lodgment in it : 

** In a word, although there were an hun- 
dred hard-steeled iron heads on one neck, and 
an hundred sharp, ready, cool, never-resting, 
brazen tongues in each head, and an hundrra 
garrulous, loud, unceasing voices from each 
tongue, they could not recount, nor enume- 
rate, uor tell what all the Gacdhil suffered in 
common, both men and ^omen, laity and 
clergy, old and young, noble and ignoble, of 
hardship, and of injury, and oppression in 
every house from these valiant, foreign, purely 
pa^mn people. Even though great were this 
cruelty, and oppression, and tyranny — though 
numerous were the oft-victorious clans of the 
many-familied Erinn — though numerous their 
kings, and their royal chiefs, and their princes 
— though numerous their heroes, and cham- 
pions, and their brave soldiers, their chiefs of 
valor and renown, and deeds of arms — ^yet not 
one of them was able to give relief, or allevia- 
tion, or deliverance from that oppression and 
tyranny, from the numbers, and the multi- 
tudes, and the cruelty, and the wrath of the 
brutal, ferocious, furious, untamed, imphicable 
hordes by whom that oppression was inflicted, 
because of the excellence of their polished, 
ample, treble, heavy, trusty, glittering corse- 
lets, and their hard, strong, valiant swords, 
and their welUriveted long spears, and their 
ready, brilliant arms of valor besides, and be- 
cause of the greatness of their achievements 
and of their deeds, their bravery and their 
valor, their strength, and their venom, and 
their ferocity, and because of the excess of 
their thirst and their hunger for the brave, 
fruitful, nobly inhabited, full of cataracts, riv- 
ers, bays, pure, smooth-planed, sweet, grassy 
kndof Brinn.'' 

Little can the mere English reader, 
who may look on much of this as mero 
bombast, feel the charm which such 
substantives and epithets as the follow- 
ing had on the original hearers or read- 
ers of the work : '* Luu<each, lainndear- 
da, luefatmara, tredualach, trom, tre* 
bhraid, taitneroach," (Lcnicas, polished, 
ample, treble, etc) 



772 



17^ Invasions of Ireland by thi 



CAUSES OF THE IKYADERS' BX70CE88. 

The editor, alluding to the defeats 
suffered by the Irish forces on many 
occasions, finds no great difficulty in 
accounting for them, and this without 
the slightest reflection on their innate 
courage or skill in the use of their arms : 

" The whole body of the clan were sum- 
moned to decide upon the question of war or 
peace. Every petty chieftain of every minor 
tribe^ if not every individual clansman, had a 
voice not only in this primary question, but 
also, when the war was declared, in the ques- 
tions arising upon sul>sequent military opera- 
tions. . . The kings or chieflains were 
themselves chosen by the clan, although the 
choice was limited to those who possessed a 
sort of hereditiiry right, often complicated by 
a comparison of the personal merits of the 
rival claimants. 

" The army was a rope of sand. It consist- 
ed of a number of minor clans, each com- 
manded by its own petty chietYain, receiving 
no pay, and bound by no oath of allegiance to 
the king or chief commander. Each clan, no 
doubt, adhered with unshaken fidelity to its 
own immediate chieftain, but he on the small- 
est offence could dismiss his followers to their 
homes even at the very eve of a decisive bat- 
tle. . . These facts must be borne in mind 
if we would rightly understand the inherent 
weakness of warfare in ancient Ireland." 

Thus many of the fiiults we choose 
to impute to our ancestors and their 
supposed natural propensities should 
be rather imputed to tiie circumstances 
in which they were placed than to 
themselves. A tribe could not reckon 
upon a continuance of peace with neigh- 
bors or strangers for a single week. 
A chief enjoying the strength, and 
courage, and wisdom of manhood was 
essential to their well-being, almost to 
their existcMice. The heir-apparent of 
the chief for the time might be a child 
or an incompetent youth. In this case 
it was but sound j)olicy to elect during 
the chief's life his brother or other near 
relative to assume the command imme- 
diately on his decease. This was done, 
the election being restricted to the 
Duine Uasals (gentlemen) of the tribe. 
The scrutiny might be distinguished 
OQ occasions by tiie usual disagreea- 
bles of an election, but it prevented the 
inconveniences of an interregnum. 



THE DAK 

The mer 
benefited b 
their counti 
ting it into 
838, built a 
the Danes, 
851, returns 
their king, ( 
nized as suf 
eignerS' in i 
Dublin his ] 

There W8 
foreign inva 
but Ireland'; 
in the early 
Crowds of 
the brave K 
Black Knee 
could from 
attacked th( 
mashoguc i 
Hathfamhar 
much outni] 
the heroic 
princes perij 

The feroc 
fine their atl 
north ; they 
country, and 
cler describ* 
committed, 
he sometime 
alliteration : 

*'They rent 
reliquaries, an< 
her beautiful, ( 
veneration, n( 
monn,* nor pi 
tuary, for Goc 
furious, feroci 
people. In si] 
the grass of t 
be counted, it 
to enumerate, 
all without di 
. . Alaslmc 
and brilliant 
tears, and din 
the separation 
ter from motV 
and relatives i 
tribe." 

* Cborch land 



l%e Invasions of Ireland by the Danes, 



773 



One of the most terrible of these 
£Outhern descents was that made bj 
I mar son of Imar (Ivar) and his three 
sons — Dubhceann, and Cu-Allaidh, 
and Aralt, (Black Head, and Wild 
Dog, (Wolf,) and Harold. These 
worthies took possession of Limerick, 
and high and haughty were their pro- 
ceedings. 

" Sach was the oppressiveness of the tribute 
and rent of the foreigners at large and gene- 
rally, that there was a king from them over 
every territory, and a chief over every chief- 
tainry, and an abbot over every church, and 
a steward over every village, and a soldier in 
every house, so that none of the men of Erinn 
had power to give the milk of his cow, nor so 
much as the clutch of eggs of one hen, in suc- 
cor or in kindness to an aged man or to a 
friend, but was forced to preserve them for 
the foreign steward, or bailiff, or soldier. And 
though there were but one milk-giving cow in 
the house, she durst not be milked for an in- 
fant of one night, nor for a sick person, but 
must be kept for the steward, or bailiff, or 
soldier of the foreigners. And however long 
he might be from the house, his share or his 
supply durst not be lessened. And although 
there was in the house but one cow, it must 
be killed for the meal of one night, if the 
means of a supply could not be otherwise pro- 
cured. . . . And an ounce of silver Fin- 
druni was paid for every nose besides the royal 
tribbte every year. And he who had not the 
means of paying it, had himself to go into 
slavery for it." 

The alternative was the loss of the 
organ just mentioned. 

BRIAN'S EABLT 8TBUGOLBS. 

Bat we have got to the tenth cen- 
tUT}', and the two youthful brothers 
destined to give a disabling blow to 
Danish tyranny are learning the pro- 
fession of arms in their father's fortress 
in Thomond, ( Tuaith Muimhain, North 
Monster.) These were Mathgamhain* 
and Brian, sons of Gennedigh, (Ken- 
nedy,) chief of the tribe of Dal-Cais. 
The first naming of these princes in the 
chronicle brin^^s out an alliterative and 



patriotic glow on the pen of the enthu- 
siastic chronicler. 

"There were then governing and ruling 
this tribe two stout, able, valiant pillars, two 
fierce, lacerating, magnificent heroes; two 
gates of battle, two poles of combat, two 
spreading tret-s of shelcer, two spears of vic- 
tory and readiness, of hospitality and munifi- 
cence, of heart and strength, of friendship and 
liveliness, the most eminent of the west of 
Europe, namely, Mathgamain and Brian, the 
two sons of Cennedigh, son of Lorcan, son of 
Lachtna, son of Ck>rc,*' etc 

Their cousins, the Eoganacht, hav- 
ing the lion's share in the government 
of Leath Mogha, the following were 
the principal privileges of the Dalcas- 
sians : 

" It Is the prlrllef^e of the host of Lngaldb's race 
To lead the battallont of the hosts of Momhain, 
And afterward to be In the rere 
In coming from a hostile land. 

** It is not fealty that is required of them, 
Bui to preserre the freedom of CaiseU* 
It Is not rent, it Is not tribute, as hath beOQ h^rd ; 
It is not fostership nor fostersbip's fees. 



* However the people of the tenth century pro- 
noanced this word, modem scholars are content to 
sound it Mahoun. 

An old Munster king, OUllol Olulm, appointed In his 
will that the descendants of bis two sons, Eogan and 
Oormae Oaa, should sway the sceptre of the south in 
alternate succession. A very unwise proceeding, as 
fatore events proved. 



** And even when there Is not a king 
Out of you over Erinn of hosts, 
Only that you would not Infringe on right. 
No human power could prevail over you." 

Early in their lives the princes en- 
tered on a skirmishing warfare with the 
enemy; and when Mahon, weary of 
the resnltless struggle, entered on a 
truce with the enemy, Brian still conn 
tinned to harass them, and as his zeal- 
ous biographer says, when he could 
not injure them on any day, he did it 
next night, and every inactive night 
was followed by a destructive day. He 
and his followers lived in temporary 
huts, and continued to kill daily and 
nightlf their enemies •* by companies, 
by troops, by scores, by hundreds, and 
(in caise of a bad day or night) by qua- 
ternions." 

" Great were the hardship and the ruin, the 
bad food and bad bedding, which they inflict- 
ed on him in the wild huts of the desert, on 
the hard, knotty, wet roots of his native coun* 
try, whilst they killed his people, and his 
trusty officers, and his comrades ; sorrowful, 
wretched, unpiticd, weary, for historians say 

* The residence of the kings of the south assumed 
the UUe of Caisiol, {Ciat, tribute, ail, stone.) 



77t Tk€ InifQ^hns of Inland h^ the Danes, ^^^^^M 

\ that tho fuiwigDers cut off bid people, so that of the capUrot were eoltected cm ctic \a!k of 

hi» bad ut Ia^l but filteen foUowera.'* Siiingel. Every one of tUeui tjiat «u fit for 

, war wna killed, and every ooe IliU wwi flt fa; 

JUalion, finding hm brother m thie ^ tUre was enilnv^d,'* i 

I wretched state, appointed u meetitiiTf ^^^A 

I and a cofiference wiis beld, given in famtlt qtJARRfxa. ^^^^ 

I veme in the text, Mahon ^mith chJdmg 

I Brian for exposing the lives of his A remnant of th€ Danish Ibires mail}- 

I bmve foUower^} to eertani death ; Bnuo taineda position in Inis CValtra, (Sol- 

I delicately hinting that auch and stjcli fery Island.) under Ivan and six yfmri ^ 

[ of tlieir ancestors would not be 8a pa* later ihis chief induced the chiefs of tim ■ 

tient of ttie pivsenee of the (be in 0*Don4)van8 and O'Molloys to aid bia ■ 

Thomond tia he (Mahon) chose to be : to ilestroy the power of jVLihoa, now H 

the acknr iwled^jed kinj? of Muuatc*r, mi i 

f Tii.rwmri»reT»MiiotwiUiotttvi»itjf ; ^^^" *^ laite nis iiic* 1 iie^e pnncea 

Nut nuiuerou» b&At tliou come lo our bou«e; Were of thc Ko^i^nacht bnuich of lll*^ Wk 

.■ijw<,«.'.b.«.;a.i™..™cr.*.,u«b,." friendly dUp.m.d to li.e ,,rc«.Bi D.1- ^ 
iti tbni brifntb wLere fbieidt wvrt cleft. cas^ian monarvli. 1 here arc two dit* 
Fdubl«w7tU;j;^^^^^^^ *"^»-'"g "^irmtives of (he munier, iM , 
Bonie pocais interpolated, and a > 

*' Dar flghi «t the Frtyoi wm d»i «>a^ <^"ly ^^ *>« made at the truthful 

Wenf y of u were we i«. boiii tide* ; cession of incidcn is. The e<litnr i 

Our a^hi In the etinib«t wjw no weftk cofoliwt, , . , * w^""i j^ 

Thirty with Kiitu fea eentfi as probable a version of the rnrt* 
• . . • ag can be got at among the cuuAuba 

" Theie Jiw uwr ntlTeolarcj, m»« I of the Original acCOUntA. 
aoQ of CrDtie<H|rli, the rttlr-sklnued ! TLf„i _ tr ^ . i « 

Often ditlwc deliver ouraelvetwiih •«<•««, MHllOn Unturtunttteljr RCCepled in 

Fr.im|M*lMroi«lnwWcL*eJe*p^ invttation tO O'DtWOVao's llOQtt Bl 

Cenne4l|rb for weiJth would uot Imve U-^eu, -r, , . »« T "^'^"^ ** 

Nur would Lorc4in, the foiikrui, hKve iweu iirurec on the Hver MaTgiie, praoi^j 

lag between the two rival bmocbcttf 

The result of the conference was a Ihe descendants of i heir eoamioottneir 

i|;eneral gathering: of the native lighting ton Oilliol Oluim, 
wen to Cashel, and soon a j^eneral en* The Bishop of Cork being oetlri; In 

tgagement ttH>k place between them- the matter, and the Eoganacht chirfi J 

uelve.^ and the foreigners at Sulcoit, in having sworn neither to attempt Ui» % 

lirhich thetie laet guslained a terrible liit* nor blind hini» he seems to have 

rdefeat. The chronicler then relates been quite nn8Ujt[»icio05, We next 

r-trith miichzebt the rnarch to Limerick, tif»<i him met bj O MolUiy^s people in 

^\is destruction, and the treatment of a pa&s between KihaalloL-Jt ;ind Code, 

the conquei-ed : and about to be pnt to death. One of 

, , ^ , , , , , , . the accounts says that he h:irl tlit* tioofc 

L - Thej earned off their jewe ., and ibetr ^f ^^^^^ q , ' ^ g j ^ 

Hbesi properly, and their saddles beautirtil ^, Y / : ^ . * , \ 

Emd foreign/ tbclr goM and their silver, *"^ cathedral of Cork) o:. .... .,. .ift, 

Hbeir betudful woven cloth of all colors but that, as aoon aa he saw hk dcatli 

I and ot all kiade, their aatins* and eilken detennined on, he flung it the diitance 

I cloth, pleasing and variegatt< both scarlet of a bow-fihot away in order that it 

l»«ad ijrvca. and al sorta of doth, la Itke ^' • , „ * , , - i ... t * t^T ± 

[mmm^t. They carried away their aoft, i»'ght "ot be etaine*! wuh his blood. 

I tooihfid, bright, matcble^ girU, tUeir bloom- ^ <^lcnc W)tlie6t ot the bttMi deed de* 

I In-:, ftlik-clttd young woinen, aiid Uieir actiTe, nouuced this curse Ofl Use 0*Motkry» 

f iari5<J, and will formed bova. Tbe fort and (Maclmuadh) : 
I Ibe giitjd towi) they redue^xl to a doud uf 

I imoke, aud to red fij e afterward. Tba whole «• n i« Aeiih <ntigh> thai •too till iim^ m ^ ft«a 

• lb* tuHcr of am, 

* OiHgtoa (Gray Ita^lt) ae^r K1Uk1o«» ••«* «f Aoib- On »b« tMWlb «r ilu ma wMk |ka ^■nkttii»«r ^ 
JUw, {A(^, VeauiT) Ui« fl«uj Bifbe of tbt Daleaa- wind. 

altt cbitft. I1»<SMdibMl!aai40otiteaiBlatfeM«M«l. 



2^« Invations of Ireland Ay the Danet. 



775 



That for which ihoa hast done It tboa ihait not en- 
joy. 

Perpetual shall be Hs mbfortane ; thy posterity 
sliall pass ainay, 

Thj history shall be forgotten, thy tribe shall be In 
Imndage ; 

The calf of a pet cow shall overthrow thee at one 
meeting ; 

Thou sliait not conquer It, Aedhan shall slay thee.** 

*'The north of the sun with the 
harshness of the wind" implied the 
banal of the treacherous chief on the 
north side of a hill, where the sun's 
rays would not reach his grave. 

The denunciation of the bishop no- 
ticed the erics payable for the murder 
of the king, but so atrocious was the 
deed that Brian would not accept any 
recompense but the life of the culpriL 

We extract a portion of the elegy 
made by Mahon's blind bard on the 
melancholy occasion : 

** Load to-day the piercing wail of woo 
Throughout the land of Ul Toirdhelbhalf h, (Tor- 
Inch.) 
It shall be and it is a wall not without cause, 
Tor the loss of the hero Mathgamhain. 

" Mathgamhain, the gem of Magh Fall, 
Son of Cennedigh, son of Lorcan ; 
The western world was full of hU 
The fiery King of Boromha. 



** The Dal Cals of the hundred churchet remember 
How we overran Oaeth Glenn, 
When upon the illustrious Fergal's shield 
Mathgamhaln*s maal was cooked. 



** Although calres are not suflSered to go to the cows 
In lamentation for the noble Mathgamhain, 
There was Inflicted much evil In his day 
By those who are In Port Arda." 

The custom of the Grael in matters 
militant was to appoint the time and 
place for battles — however enraged 
one party might be with the other. 
Brian sent mortal defiance to Molloy, 
threatening to besiege him in his own 
dun if he did not attend the notice. 
Murchad, Brian's eldest son, and the 
Osgur of his day, defied the caitiff 
chief to single combat. So the chal- 
lenge was accepted and the battle took 
place, a large body of the Danes fight- 
ing under the banner of Maelmuadh. 
This chief was slain either by the hand 
of Murchad, or put to death in cold 
blood by Aedhan in a lonely hiit afler 
the fight. In this latter case he lost 
bis eyesight in the field of Bealach 
Leachta through the curse pronounced 



on him, and was subsequently killed in 
the hut as mentioned. 

A few lines of the poetical invita- 
tion to battle sent by Brian are worth 
quotation : 

" Go, Gogaran the intelligent! 
Unto Maelmuadh of the piercing blue eye, 
To the sons of Bran of enduring prosperity, 
And to the sons of the Ui Eachdach. 



* Say unto the son of Bran that he fkli not 
After a fbll fortnight f^om to-morrow. 
To come to Belach Lechta hither, 
With the full muster of his army and his followers. 



' Whenerer the son of Bran son of Chm shall offer 
The Cumhal (blood fine) of my brother unto myael^ 
I win not accept from him hostages or studs. 
But only himself In atonement for his gaih. 

* But If he do not come trota the South 
To Belach L«chta tl»e evergreen, 
Let him answer at his house 
The Dal Cais* and the son of Cennedlgli. 



" For him shall not be accepted fh>m them 
Gold, nor eilrer, nor land. 
Nor hostages, nor cattle, man : 
Tell them this, and go !** 

THB FIGHT AT DUmjLVIIf. 

There now remained no obstacle to 
the placing of the crown of I^eath 
Mogha,t the southern portion of the 
island, on the head of the brother and 
avenger of Mahon. He took hostages 
fit)m the chiefs of Desmond, {Deoi^ 
South, Muimhe, Munster,) allowed 
sundry Danish groups of people to 
occupy places of trade, and finally, in 
the year 998, came to a conferenoe 
with Malachy II., King of Lealh 
Cuinn or northern portion of Erioa 
We have no objection to Brian's trium- 
phant procession up the Shannon, but 
are not clear about the privilege as- 
sumed by his Dalcassians, of making 
hostile visitations to districts on each 
side as they went up-stream. However, 
Malachy had set them a bad example 
a short time before. 

The natives and Danes of Leinster 
getting up an insurrection soon after 
this treaty with Malachy, Brian pro* 
ceeded toward Dublin to bring them 
to their duty. They met him at Glean* 

• This name iroporta the ** Tribe or Family of Oaa.'' 
t The boundary line of these portions connected the 
tatys of Dublin andOalway. 



774 

that till- tonMj;uc4- ■ 
hehu<] :it 1:1."-; ' ■ 

and a contorni.. 
vi*rs(* in Thn !'■*• 
Briiiii tor ext* • 
bra VI* tnll<i\v«" 
deli(':iH-l.v l-i" ' 
oF iln'ii" ain'«-i' 
tieul i>r I In 
ThoJMund Jis ii' 

•rii% w.irli-' 
Nut iiijiiipr"«i- '■ 



III tli.-t 1-v 
r.irnii i tii ■ 
FrM tl.. ^■ 



" (hir I, 

\V,-.i: . 

(till : - 
Tl.i.-: 



(i - : 

«lf|.- 

Ki--. 
(■•'Ill 
N-i 

A- ' 

peiM ■ 
pau' 

di-l' 

its 
till' 



nil'; 
flu: 
mi'" 

un- 
til:! 





-. _--^-*Jtf 




_— .jrts^ 




^ - .w- 




; 3- 




« 




=- -am; 




- aio- 




^-^-^ t 




-. ^-«' ar 




^ Ir. 




^ -3»*ic 




. -.lie 




-.^ > tn 




rm- iwi 




~ ^ ^-i*i ^r 




^^,^ We 




^ . Dr. 




. .tHkwio- 




,^ utiATin, 




TKi -Jje 




^^^ j» Hull- 




„ ta-^w .ie- 




^ .. .wrre- 


- 


__ V . >-.:ular 


- ■ 


^^ .^ jet»n 




.^ :HDish 


■'^^ 


"^ .*. :in»uah 


:«' 


■ ^ ..,«Mifiu«n, 




. ^« -j^ivby 




, «>* .* "t'* 'tt 




.,„^^ M- '.UfO- 


~ 


-,. ..^^-*u*«* 


:•* 


-, ^ .- "*! ni*- 


" "^ 


_ *.«« 'j^fui 


- 




*"» . 


-"", ^w.'^ru ^^J 


~ 


^ , n. tirt of 


* 


.^ . 'J* i'.»*^*- 


■■*• 


■^ . >!.«*.••• iii* 


X 

<. 


^ * -'•f: 


^-rrrss 


1^ ^-- 




' *y 


l"^ ^ «<.•, ^ •■"«»*«« 


•r>. 








la bu 






,./' Irtland by the Danes. 



rbe Duiuth prince, by the side of a gra- 
nite po6t, farni»hc'J withan aiK'rtun? W: 
iwuoden BhnH.to convert it intoacrrip-. 
It is called Cntis'oe, ( Crots I'lcch^ war- 
nor*s cross,) and serves as a rubbing 
post for cattle. 

This was con«iJen.*d one of tbem>! 
important victories pained over the U- 
reigners, both fn>in ih«* number «*t rl.f 
slain and the spoils riK'overecl — " (it. 1 1. 
silver, bronze, (Jtundnrine.) pn-cioi:- 
stones« c:irbuncle gems, liufihlo Li)it> 
and beautitui goblets. Mueli also vi 
various vestun^s of all colors wa** foui «1 
there likewise;'' tor, in the words ot" 
the text, 

** NcTcr was there a fortress, or a ffti«lDi^>, 
or a mound, or a church, or a Mcnnl jilacv. i>r 
a sanctuary, when it wa» taken l»y thai i:i^i*I- 
iDg, furiouf:, loath^^mo crew, whicli «o- rn-: 
plundered. . . Neither was theio in ii'ijCf J- 
ment under ground in Erion, uor in the va- 
rious bolitudes beloiigir.g lo Fianak* <»r t<> fil* 
rios, anything that was not discoveri.il ^?t iln « 
foreign, wonderful Denniarkiaus tlimugh fi- 
ganism and idol worship.** 

The tables were now compli-telv 
tumeil on the foreignenn. Instead it' 
the slate of vassaUipc in which ih»y 
hnd held the natives, we now iind the 
following state of things : 

"There was not a winnowing phoet fwu 
Benn Edair (llowili) to Tech Ihjinnf it. \\\>i- 
cm Erimi that Iwd not a foreigner in >-.n'i.i.:c 
on it, nor was there a quern (hand inilh with- 
out a foreign woman, so that no w»n <»! a miI- 
dier or of an ollicer of the (taedliil lii'lfrnt-J 
to put his han«l to a flail or to .iny lnhnr o:i 
earth. Nor did a woman deipi to pi:t her 
hands to the grinding of a quern, or u* knea-l 
a cake, or to wash her clothes, but h:«d a f-v 
reijjn man or a foreign woman to work lur 
tliem." 

VNKI)IFTIX(J D0D?C8 AT KINCOUA. 

After a sojourn from Gn^at to Lit- 
tle Christinas (February 2d) in Dublin, 
Brian returned to Kincora, {Ctaun 
Coraidh. head of the weir.) Minn- 
time Sitric, son of Anlaf, the deft-at- 

• Itt^r* \» erUtfnce of the existence "f Itcf nl* o? 
l'«* ria';:iA In the early part of thi» ilon-ui:- ■ rr! ry. 

• //."..«< o^ lh'»n : thr livjilJty nf IIh* «liii.«rirW.f 
IX -j:-! M-a of Milrtiliw, in the s.mth-wv! .1 KrfrT. 
l\< •• • A* TiiKT-iKMl M a fairy chief aft* r 1 1» id cea—, 
I ; «".•* a* Ai-ug!.u« of the BnigL, Maluxla:^ Mac 
L.r, rU. 



The Invasions of Ireland by the Danes. 



Tn 



ed Danish prince, fled to the court 
.of Aedh, at Aileacb, (north east of 
Donegal,) and afterward to that of 
Achy, king of East Ulster, at Down- 
patrick, but neither king would afford 
him protection, such was the awe of 
Brian's power. So, like a brave and 
wise chief, he proceeded directly to the 
court of his conqueror, and request- 
ed peace and friendship. These were 
immediately granted, both from the 
inherent nobility of Brian's disposi- 
tion and his desire to have a friendly 
and devoted governor for the distant 
city of Ath Cliath. 

To strain the bonds that held his 
new aUy to him still tighter, he gave 
him hia daughter in marriage. This 
might be prudent or the reverse, but 
to take Si trie's mother Gormflailh 
(yAuaeyed noble lady) for his second 
wife showed little wisdom. This lady, 
iii;ster to Maelroordha, King of Leinster, 
had for her first hnsband Olaf Cuaitin, 
to w^hom she bore the Prince Sitric. 
Her next spouse was Malachy, King of 
Leath Cuinn, already more than once 
mentioned. After presenting him with 
a son. Prince Connor, she was repu- 
diated, and, very little to Brian's do- 
mestic comfort, he was selected for her 
third experiment in matrimony. After 
Bharing his royal bed and board for a 
season, she was repudiated the second 
time, and then probably went to add to 
the discomfort of the fortress of her son 
in Dublin, or her brother at Naas, or 
Dunlavin, or Dinn Righ, (Ballyknock- 
aziy near Leighlin Bridge.) 

** The Njal Saga calls her Kormlada, and 
describes her as the fairest of all women, and 
beat gifted in everything that was not in her 
own power, that is, in all physical and natural 
endowments, but she did all things ill over 
iHiich she had any power, that is, in her moral 
condnct"— iTum/ Njal^ il 823. 

We find at the period in question 
frequent marriage alliances between 
Irish and Danish families. In fact, 
when a foreign family or tribe had con- 
trived to secure a footing in the coun* 
try, and the first bitter dislike had 
blown over, the native chiefs began to 
look on them as they did each other. 



and in many cases a stronger feeling 
of friendship connected the foreign chief 
and his people to some neighboring 
native prince or flaith than prevailed 
among themselves. This was also the 
case afterward between natives and 
Anglo-Normans. Nothing could ex- 
ceed the strength of ties that bound 
the individuals of a tribe to each other 
and to their chief, and in most cases 
the chiefs to the provincial kings, but 
enthusiasm for the cause of the Ard- 
Righ or for the general weal of the 
island was an exceedingly scarce com- 
modity. The same indifferent spirit 
still exists. 

The great chiefs proceedings for 
some time after these occurrences seem 
to have been prompted as much by 
ambition at least as by a national spirit* 
Still he did not depart from the gener- 
ally observed rule among Gaelic kings 
and chiefs, that is, sending warning to 
those on whom they intended to make 
war, and appointing the time and place 
of battle. He gave Malachy plainly 
to understand that he should cede to 
him the dignity of Ard-Righ. The 
astonished sovereign claimed time to 
consult the princes of the North and 
his own chiefs, but neither from the 
Kinel Conaill* nor the Kincl Eoghain 
could he get due encouragement, and 
he was obliged to acknowledge the 
humiliating fact to the southern chief. 
Still the l^ter was not disposed to take 
the brave prince at a disadvantage, 
and gave him a twelvemonth to mature 
his plans. The interview took place 
in Brian's camp, Malachy being accom- 
panied by twelve score horsemen, and, 
when the agreement was made, the 
southern king proceeded homeward, 
first making a present of 240 horses 
to his future vassaL The Meath war- 
riors would not deign to conduct each 
a led horse back to the royal fort, and 
Malachy was unwilling to offend Brian 



* In the orldnal Is glren the poetical adjuration of 
GUla OoraKhaill 0*Slelbhln to Hugh, king of H7 Con- 
ftUl, to join Malachy in his opposition to Brian. This 
King of Munster is treated in it as the King of Saxon- 
land in aftertimes by a bard of the fifteenth or six- 
teenth century. For a wonder the Ulster king did 
not yield to the power of poesy on that occasion. 



TIS 



The Inpashni o/" . 



%d b^ (h§ Doint. 



I- by refiifiin^ them,* He tUerefore b<*g- 
g^ci^'Murtlmd to accept tbem in token 

'f d* im grx»4l-will, and tbe prince gra- 
ciously assented. Malachy was not in 
a better condition at the year** end, and 
fio the sovereignty of the island passed 
jfito Brian's bands without bloodshed. 

I rVV'e have not space to treat in detail 

l-liis atW msitaiions to the north, and 
1)18 circuit of the kingdom to receive 
l)o^tAge.<i and confirm his authority. 
When at Armagh, he jrratitied the 
^ecclesiastical fKSwerg thereby a donation 

I of twenty ounces of gold, and hy direct- 
Ing his 5i?cretarj% the Abbot O'CarroIi, 
to make ibis entry in their book in the 
•Latin language. The curious may 
etill read the original at page IC, BB, in 
the Book of Annagh, a collection lie- 
gun in the eighth century : 

" St. Pit trick, going up to htHTcn, commaiid- 
I 6d tbiiL »)1 thtj fruit of 1it9 labor, na veil of 
I t^iiptisnift tts of catises nnd of alma, should be 
[ iOArrii-d to the upoHtoHc city which is cdled 
1 Seoiice (in (Jftdic) Ardd Macha. So I hftTO 
I fautiU it ill I he l»ook eol lections of the Bcot*, 
I itlie Gav\,) I hav<* written, (ihX) thul \^, {\A 
[CuItub Perctini5(Jra^^--!?M/Au//i^BaJd for Ever) 
Via the tiight (under die eyes) of Brian, ctnpe' 
I tor of the ScotA; and what I hnvo writt4^>a h« 

I detcrminE>d for all tbe kinga of Mii«eria\ 
1 or MunAtcr.)'* 

COMPENfiATIOXR 

If there is extant a thorough b*?liever 
[In all the facts related by the bards, he 
Itad better refrain from questioning the 
1 editor on the subject of the beautiful 
Iftnd innocent maiden of the f^olJ ring 
md snov^-whitc wand. The chronicler 
[doming to this t>oint in the history thus 
MBXpregsed himBeW : 

" Jlft*r the baQiihment of the forelRnera out 
nf &11 Eiiun, nnd AfUr Erinn waa nMiiu'td to a 
State ol j)t3ae<», a lone woman came from Turach 
iu the Nurili tuCliodlina*^/^' ( 1. . j.^rm the 
south of Erinn, carrying a i 1 on * 

horst*-roiJ, and i»hc wn9 iieitli< aor in- 

sulted. Whcnnipou the poet ^lug ; 

I riucdt f>Aytn^ tribute to thHr tu- 
f| Mirn cifii from iUc grcil men, )u 



fCrUut* 



WA« lUe i\r«^A uf lh« UkUre i 



From Tor«4i t« iil««Mfkl ai«4h«a 
Atj4 carryliHT «1lh |i«r ft rfll|t •f f^ 
111 th« Uioc «r BHwi«f die brlf(H| pM* 
A li>ii« iruiQaD tiiikl« lb« drcuJt c€ t9\ 

It cannot be denied fha! Br 
a usurper with respect to 
btit how much better wa* ;. ; . 
pie of tbe whole land to be < 
undivido«l sway of on»' " = - r , 
ed, and energetic i^ 
peace, and opportunmrs 
the ordinary bn^ine^ of 1 
edf&nd imprDvin<; their < 
to be merely etidurinj; \\i 
day, not knowing the iniunvut 
should be ealle^l on to go an « mar 
ing ejcpedition or to defend their corn, ' 
their cattle, and their own \\\v% in 
a in a mud injj party. Vk 
of the peaceful exploits ul 
greatest of ouriuicieni prifi < 

** Bj him were erected aobie ctiuTrtK«i 
Erinn and their unotuariei. lit m^X |h 
fleers »nd iiiaslrr« to ti-» 
knowledge, luid to buy V 
snd the grent ocei&n, (x-r 
books in erery chureh, < 
uid ttirown into tho wat pin 

from the bep^inniiij(. Aon iUmm my 
tbe price of tmok;) to every ot%e ^\wt%^f 
who went on ihi<* niT-rioe. . 
were erected the chtirch of r 
Uloe,) and the church of Ini- 
lery UUnd») iiad tbe l»eU i*-* 
Gfeine,*etc, etc. Jlvbim w*t»' ^ 
and ctiuflcwayg eiu] " 
fftreDgtheaed the 
it4lAnf& . , . ui. . 
Hebuih tlao the for i 
kinge, .... u.i 
Borumha in like manuc^r. 11 
this wiiy pro9p<?rouftJv, i^euci ; 
quf'tfli, hospttable, juflt-judgin^ ; 
eratcnl, chaiitely, and with Ae\ 
law, and with -- ' - - njj^f thf i 
prowess and with reoowu i 

the hiity, ant . ; owierfUI, flmi, i 

for fifteen year* in thi? chief eovfrrrnfntv of 
Erinn, as GiUa Mududa (O'CasaSifj, AbM of 
Ardbreccstn) laid : 

* Brlin Ibe Swd* dtst Saobha of |h« 



yiflMa yean in ft&n protpcrty/ ** 



TirS OATttRmXO OF TBK E40ILfl& 

Toward the feativa! of St, PalfU 
in the ensuing spHng, tttt tbftt bad Tt. 

* Port of U)c 8uj>— ToMretiijr fai 
oi3«or tb^PanaAft ronad lovi 
pval Bot a itwet •! tL 




7%« Invasions of Ireland, by the Dants. 



7:9 



mahaed loyal to the reigning monarch 
were directing tlkur course to the plain 
before Dublin. Sitric, and his mother 
Gormflaith, and Maelmordha busied 
themselves collecting allies from all 
quarters. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, 
came to the ud of his conntiymen on 
the condition of getting the {urivilege 
of being Gormflaith's fourth husband, 
the second and third still living, and 
one being near eighty years of age. 
Brodar, about whose name and the 
locality of whose earldom there is 
some uncertainty, was also a postulant 
for her hand, and Sitric made no scru- 
ple of promising it, expecting, as may 
be supposed, that one of the wooers, 
aAer doing good service in the battle, 
might be very indifferent on the sub- 
ject at its close : 

** Brodtf, Aooording to the Njal Saga, had 
been a ChriBtian man and a maaa-deacon by 
consecration, but he had thrown off his faith, 
And become * Qod^s dastard * and worshipped 
heathen fiends; and he was of all men most 
akilled in sorcery. He had that coat of mail 
on which no st€«l would bite. He was both 
Ull and strong, and had such long locks that 
he tucked them under his belt His hair was 
blaok.'* 

This iBercelooking renegade com- 
manded the foreign Danes and auxi- 
liaries in the front of the battle, being 
fKopported by Earl Sigurd and other 
chiefs. A battalion of the Dublin 
Danes had their position in the rear 
of these, support^ by the chieftains 
of ships. Maelmordha and his chiefs 
occupied the rear, commanding the 
North-Leinster men and the forces of 
Hy Ceaosalach,* (Wicklow and Wex- 
ford.) 

Directly opposed to Brodar's front 
battalions were the tried men of North- 
Hnnster, the Dalcassians under the 
command of the invincible Murchadh. 
The battalion behind this front array 
consisted of other Munster troops com- 

* Th« flrtt chief who bore this name had killed a 
dmid, accompanying the sacrilegious deed with a 
flendlsh grin on his features. ** That vile expression 
OB year fcce,** said the dying man, ** shall give a 
name to your posterity while grass grows.** Veann 
^alach U literally dirfy head. Other great fftmniee 
have not escaped ntok-names. Cameron, Is crooked 
noee; Cromwell, crooked eye. (/7y Kintala Is 
Khiaeila*t eoantry.) 



manded by the Prince of the Water- 
ford Decies. The nobles of Conuacht, 
with their brave tribesmen, occupied 
the rear of the Irbh war force. 

The patriotic chronicler, having 
brought the combatants face to face on 
the field which was to be the crown of 
his work, felt all his poetic rage ari^e 
against the foreigners, whom he abuses 
as heartily as Goldsmith's bailiff did 
the French : 

" These were the chiefs, and outlaws, and 
Dannars of all the west of Europe, haying 
no reverence, veneration, respect, or mercj, 
for God or for man, for church or for sanc- 
tuary, at the head of cruel, villainous, fero- 
cious, plundering, hard-hearted, wonderAil 
Danmarkians, selling and hiring theraselves 
for gold, and silver, and other treasures as 
well. And there was not one villain or rob- 
ber of that two thousand, (the troops of Bra- 
dor and his brother Anlaf,) who had not 
polished, strong, triple-plated, glittering ar- 
mor of refined iron, or of cool uncorroding 
brass, encasing their sides and bodies from 
head to foot" 

In the description of the arms and 
armor of the combatants we suspect 
our authority of some inaccuracy. 
Avoiding tho forest of epithets bris- 
tling all over tho glowing description, 
we are told that the blue-green, hard- 
hearted pagans used crimsoned, mur- 
derous, poisoned arrows anointed and 
browned in the blood ot* dragons, and 
toads, and water-snakes, and otters, 
(the poor otter I he did not deser\'e 
this,) and scorpions. They had bar- 
barous quivers, ycUow-shining bows, 
green, sharp, rough, dark spears, po- 
Ushed, pliable, triple-plated corselets 
of refined iron and uncorroding brass. 
Their swords were heavy, hard-strU^- 
ing, strong, and powerful. 

To the Gkielic warriors he allows 
glittering, poisoned, * well - riveted 
spears, with beautiful handles of white 
hazel ; darts furnished with silken 
strings, to be cast overhand; long, 
glossy, white shirts ; comfortable (com- 
fort in battle !) long vests ; well ad- 
justed, many-colored tunics over these ; 



* Venomofte and poieonoue la the bardic lays 
were mere epithets applied to weapons from their 
aptitude to inflla mortal wouoda. 



im 



7%e Invojthns of Inland by thi J)nni9\ 



variegated, brazen enibo.s5et! slilebL*, 
W»tb bronze chains; crested, golden 
helms^ set with preeious etonee, on the 
heads of chiefs and prince* ; glaring, 
broad, well set Lochlann axes, to hew 
plate and mail. Every Bword had 
about thirl}* glorious qtialitles attached 
to it,* 

The inferiority of the Irish warriors 
in defensive arm? gave little concern 
to their bislorian. Armed or unarm- 
ed, they were a match fnr the world. 
(This under certain conditions ia our 
I own belief.) 

** Woe to those whr> atbicked them if thej 
could hiive afoitlcd athickingthem, fur it waa 
enrimintii*; a;;nm.^t ii glroam^ it was pummelling 
jm oak with f\^\^, it ^n^ a licsl^c ngain^t the 
awellhi*; of u f prints tide, it was a string upon 
I S&Dd or A suntjenm, it wui» the tist againi^t a 
iinbeam to uttoinpt to give them battle or 
|«eombat.'* 

run oAjr at cwjNTAiiif, 

The battle began with a single com* 

[twit, thf're being a previous challengi5 

I In the case* Plait, the fomgn warrior, 

['■came before hia hnea and 8houted, 

J •* Fura'^ {whre hf an attempt at Da- 

Itiiah) iJoiiiilf ;" '' Here, thou reptile T' 

liaid the Iri^h champiLJfi. The battle 

►'was sharp and .«hoit^ the (wo warriors 

I falling; iju the .«od at the sarae moment, 

their left hands clutching each other^'s 

hair, and their hearts tranafijted by 

their swonls, 

Ileaveti and earth are ransacked for 
sablime images to give an idea of the 
dread struggle that took place between 
the iron-covered and the defenceless 
warriutd on each side : 

^^T<i Tidtbing small (wc quote our teit) could 
be Ukeut^i tbe finn, stem, suiiden^ thunder 
motion, jiml the Btout, vaUntit, hnughtr^ bil- 
low loU of these people ou botli sides. I eould 
coniimie it ouly to the liouudless, variegated^ 
woitikMful firmument that has ciuit a hvavy, 
ep:irkhiig fehower of fljiniinf; stars over the 
gurfiu-o of the earth, op to the atarthng, fire- 
d^rihi^ roar of the clouds aud the hearenlv 
orbfl, confounded and oniabed bv alt the windk 
lu their eoutenUoa against eaeh other/^ 

** It li lomeirhAt straoire tliAt (he ctiroDtcler bui 
not *frvjr*lnl eir»n the Ivirtch (iJn? teot(i«rii J*«k ^Ui 
lit tr«)n or Ivrotitv w^le«) lo bta bcr^Jtin. ThiCM loHcaa 
ai-e rrvquemJjr iii«iittQa«a In tlM old Uj«* 



It was a terrible ^pectacte withool 
doubt — the diti and ^ang of sword and 
axe on shields and belms, tbe cries of 
the combatants, and tbe lurid fiathes 
from the polished surfactss of the ftrmif 
and the effect of all intensified br dyin^ 
groans, and I he slight of bodied writ'hiojl 
in agony as life waa abont to quit thfasL 
It is not so ea«iy to luiderstami, tnkiii^ 
distance into act^^nnt, bow the tioUoii- 
ing circumstance could occttr; 

^' It iraa attested by the foreij^ien and fof^J 
cign women who were w:' ' ' *■ ' ttMl-l 

tlemeota of Ath Cliiith, 

flashes of fire from the:., i., __ „.. t^a aH^ 
^ides.'' 

IVIalachy's forces remained luaclive 
doring the main jiart of tbe fight at 
least. Dr. Todd acqulls hira, however, 
of treachery to the national caiidc. W<i 
quote Bome paasages of a dc^riptioQ 
of the fight imputed to him : 

"There was a field and a ditch betw<^ 
and ttiem, and the ^iharp wind of tlie \ 
coming over them toward ua. And 
not a longer time than aeuw oouM be i 
that we continued lherL\ when not one \ 
of tlie two ho«st* eijuld recognise another. . , * 
Wo were covered, ua well our b«Mltia<piir &> 
ces,andoufdoihi«, with ihedropaofikvpirf 
bhKKt, c*irried hy the force of the ftharp, cuU 
wind whtvti passe*! over them to oa, , . . 
Our d^K*arri over our headi bad Liccom* chM^ 
ged and bound with long loeki of hur« wh}^ , 
the wind forced upon un when cut an 
welUaimed §word3 and gleamiuga\e«, i 
it WAS half occupation to u.^ to ende^v 
diaon tangle and eaat them oC" 

Were we a powerful, welVanned 
warrior standing by the side of VLa/A- 
seachlin (Malaeby) on that day, we 
would certainly have endeavortHl to 
find a better occupation for hi* liunda. 
Hear this bit of PcckjioISbm uttered 
by him : 

" Itisoneof the probi' ' th^ 

the valor of tho^e w ho ^t: aqg 

a^smult waa greater than nun who Uire dit 
sight of it withnut running dktracted t»cfor« 
the wind^ or fniatiug/' 

Conaing, Briaa's nephew, and Mael* 
mordba, fell that day hy each ofher^» 
swords. Tlie Connacht forces and the 
Danes of Dublin assailed ejich olbtr 




The Invasions of Ireland by the Danes. 



781 



60 furiously that only about a hundred 
of the Irish survived, while the Danes 
scarcely left a score. Murchadh's ex- 
ploits, could we trust the chronicler and 
Malachy, could be rivalled only by 
those of Achilles of old He went for- 
ward and backward through the ene- 
mies' ranks, mowing them down even 
as a person might level rows of upright 
weeds. He got his mortal wound at 
last from the knife of a Dane whom 
he had struck to the earth. He sur- 
vivedt however, till he had received the 
consolations of religion. 

About sunset the foreigners, not- 
withstanding their superiority in armor, 
were utterly defeated. Striving to es- 
cape by their ships, they were prevent- 
ed by the presence of the full tide, and 
those who flew toward the city were 
either intercepted by the same tide or 
by Maelseachluin^s* men. Dr. Todd 
inclines to this last theory. The heroic 
youth Tqrloch, son of Murchadh, pur- 
suing the fugitive Danes into the sea, 
met his death at a weir. 

The aged monarch, while engaged 
at his prayers for the blessing of 
Heaven on the arms of his people, was 
murdered just at the moment of victory 
by the chief Brodar, who in a few 
minutes afterward was torn to pieces 
by the infuriated soldiers crowding to 
the spot 

The power of the foreigners was cer- 
tainly crushed in this great and memo- 
rable combat, but disorder seized on 
the general weal of the island again. 
South-Munster renewed its contentions 
with North-Munster, and even its own 
chiefs with each other. Donnchad, 
Brian's remaining son, though a brave 
prince, had not the abilities of his father 
or elder brother. Malachy quietly re- 
sumed the sovereignty of the island, 
but found that the annoyances from 
turbulent petty kings and the still 
remaining foreigners were not at an 
end. 

We join our regret to that of the 
editor that one of the un romantic books 



* This name Implies the Tonsured, that Is, devoted 
dlsdple of Saint Sechnal, contemporary with St Pai- 
ridc, and patron of Dunuiaugliliir. 



of Annals — that of Tiemach, or Loch 
C^, or that of Ulster, has not inaugu- 
rated the publication of our ancient 
chronicles. Dr. Todd has done all that 
could be done by the most profound 
and enlightened scholar to disentangle 
the true from the false through the 
narrative by shi'evvd guesses, by sound 
judgment in weigliing the merits and 
probabilities of conflicting accounts, by 
comparing the romantic statements 
with those set forth in the genuine an- 
nals and the foreign authorities, whether 
Icelandic or Anglo-Saxon. Many 
events in our old archives, pronounced 
by shallow and supercilious critics to 
have had no foundation, are found to 
possess the stamp of truth by the cara 
taken by Dr. Todd and his fellow- 
archaeologists in comparing our own 
annals and those of the European na- 
tions with whom we had tbrmerly 
either friendly or hostile relations. 

Besides the anxious care bestowed 
on the comparison of the ditierent M93. 
and the translation, and the very useful 
commentary, the editor has furnished 
in the appendix the fragment (with 
translation) in the Book of Leinster, the 
Chronology and Genealogy of theKings 
of Ireland and of Munsier during the 
Danish period, Maelseachluin's account 
of the fight of Clontarf, in full from the 
Brussels ms., and the genealogy of the 
various Scandinavian chiefs who were 
mixed with our concerns for two cen- 
turies. The accounts given in detail 
of the fortunes of Sitrie and others of 
these chiefs are highly interesting: 
1 he present volume will be more gen- 
erally read than any of the mere chroni- 
cles, into whose composition entered 
more conscience and judgment — on 
account of the many poetic and roman- 
tic passages scattered through it. Let 
us hope that it is not the last on which 
the labors of the eminent scholar, its 
editor, will be employed, for we cannot 
conceive any literary task more ably 
and satisfactorily executed than the pro- 
duction of the Wars of the Gaedhil 
and the Gaill. 

The Fatal Sisters, translated by 
Gray from the Norse, refer to the day 



Invaithns of Ireland 6y the 



792 ^^^^^^F Invanhns of h 

Rt Clontarf. We quote three of I he 
vuraes : 



** Er» Um iiiddtf 11111 be fft 

Ptk«« mu«t jihlrer, JAVellQf «Inf« 

Bl»de ^rltli cbtterlng buoltler il)««^ 

Hftuberk cni»b, and belmel rlog. 



' Low Ibe daoDtlc*' ' 
Qored irilh nui 

Sooaft kttixt»l.. 






*' Long lilf iMt ihall Eiinti w«e]i>| 
Ne'er Ag^n hU llkenM* see ; 
Ixmir Imp fttrtlni t» •onrMw iteepi^ 
Stndiis of Iminwrtdtllty V* 

The apjiendix ad Jed by Dn Todd 
to the work is exceedingly intereHling 
aiid valuable, cojitaining araung olher 
matters a carefully arraiigi^d gciiealo- 
gieal liit of tbc Irish princes ftiid the 
foreign chiefs durinGr the Dankh wars, 
and iin ah^lnirt of the fortunes of sev- 
*^nil of thci^e kirigii^. The aecownJs of 
the hiUtie of Clontarf difle red so mufh 
ill form in the two MSd., that i^, the 
Dubhn and Brusj^ek copies* that^ in- 
stead of pointing out the various rt*ail- 
ing3 ill notes to the body of the «nuTa* 
tive, the editor has removed tbu aceoiint 
in the Brussels Mi§s,, purported to have 
been given by Miilaehy, to the end of 
the book. Passages are worth pre- 
ecrvatiuu as litenin' curiosities, 11 
Mahictiy felt any ill to Brian for wrest- 
ing \m iudepndent sovereignty from 
himahei-e m not a trt4ceof it discovera- 
ble in bis narrative. Thus he speaks 
of tlie Doble beirupparcnt, Murchadb, 
%\kO disdained lo wmr ereu a shield. 

XAX>ACXtT'fl ACCOUKT OF THIB BATTLE. 

^The rojtl wirrior bad with blm tiro 
' Bwordii, Uwi ii, a sirord in each hattd^ for be 
WM %\\^ liisi man In Ertnn who wia cqiimlt j ex- 
pert b tbc Uie of the right band and of ibe 
k'U. , . Ue would Dot retreat one foot ttefore 
tho i-ace ot alt maokind for anj reason in the 
world, eicept thb reason aloQei ilmt be could 
not help dying of liia wooods. He waj the 
last nijui in Erion who was a matob for a hun* 
dred. He W113 the last man who kilted a bun- 
dred lu oue day Ui £rinn. ilU .«tep was tlie 
lu^t titep whicti true valur took* SeTen like 
If urcliadb were equal to Mac Samhaln/ eta 



iftuHagnC 



tDHaou 



Then thewntcrindulifed ioa 
series in gcomeirical progress! 
bero being worth seven sach ri 
who precetled him, and the e 
all being IJccior of Troy. -"^ 
bard:!, school in astenj, and fi<di i 
who haveflounsbedsincr 
of Troy was heard of in 
fixed on Heetor a* the nvi 
of heroism, chivalric ta 
and tenderness; most oi th 
l>onie a cordial hatrt*d to the ^' 
lens. 1 1 11^ the feeling originate<l trtim 
the pseudo^work of Dares the Fbt^* 
gian priest having arrived in tiiif ciiati- 
tiy before lIoraer*d *^TaJe of Troy V^ 
vine"! The theory in the text woali 
make Ilcetor many times superior lo 
Hercub'S, the heroic terms in the si- 
venfold progression being MaTrhsA* 
3lac Stunhain, Lugha Lafrba, CVMdl 
Ceamach^ Lus^ha Lutnbfada^ (LBUlf 
Jland^) Ilcclor! AtW the list eoOMi 
this rather sturlHog asiertioQ : ** TImS.] 
were the degrees of champioiisliip 
the beginning of the world, and 
Hect'ir there was no iUustrioits 
piouaiiip." 

" Murchadh was the Hector ofErma | 
lor, 111 chtinipionsihtp^ iq geoeroeftj^ in 1 
cence. Mv: wfui the pleaaattt. intellii 
fabler, acouiuplUhed Samson of the Hs 
hti own nirei'r aiid ta hU lime. Hs 1 
second piiwerful Heivules, who destroyed ioi \ 
exterminated the serpenta atid mooMcn of j 
Ennn. . . Ho wan the gate of bsttle and tbs I 
ihelteriDg tree, the craaliing rie4g»4i>maiif sf | 
Uie coeniiefl of his tatberland so4 of bb isoi J 
during litfi career. 

*^ Wbea this very valiant, very great, 1 
cluunpion, and piuudtnng^ bmre. 
hero saw the cnoihiti^and llie repuW 1 
Datiors aod piratea gave to tbi> ]>al Ol 
operated upon him like death or a per 
biembh ; and he was teixed with boUii^ 
riblc angt^r, and hia bird of valor aod 1 
ploni»hip aros<\ and he tn.ti!e a brave, 1 ~ 
sudden ru-«h at a battalion of the plrs^ 
a %ioleni, iiupetuouB. furkiuB OJI thaa ae I 
being caught, or like a fierce, tearU^ I 
all-powerful liauea« deprived of her cubs^ i 
like the itiU of a deluging torrent^ Unt mm 
tena and suukshc^s everything the! reilsltllf 
and he made a hero'a breads asd s ttMif^S ^ 
field through the haitaliona ef i^ \ 
And the hiftoriani of the fomigiMHi f 
atUr hiiD that there felt &a j b j las rMi, 
aiid fifty by hi^ left Land la tlint onset. jUr 
did he administer 1 



1 

1 



A 




mi cf Inland h^ the Danes, 



783 







Jbr of 

Jvat the 

y I- tower, 

^ehig tKe 

• shorn oflf 



ftud flying 
irind, he ex- 

Pbreig^oers reap 

iheaf whtd* 

But in the eveD^ 

I endyro the sl^ht 

)s and allies Jlt;emg 

a herd of cowsii in 

weather^ or from 

s. And the}^ were 

'ly and li^^htly into the 

ftey were with great vio- 

, BO that they lay in heaps 

Itidred^ and tn battaliotia/^ 

hfe had not yet learned to 

ng sympathy with her hus- 

olitics ; andf if he had insisted 

|r presence in order ta be a epee- 

'of the defeat of her countrytneo, 

, sadly disappointed : 

"Then it wu tbat Brian'i dnufhter, the 
]f« of AmUtaihb's aon, said : * It appetra to 
in«,* said fltic^i ^ thai the forolgnera h^rta gftin- 
ed lh*lr inheritunou/ * * What is ihat, Ogirl T 
uid Anihlalbb^s son. ^ The forelgni^rs ara 
only goinj; into the sea as is hereditary to 
them.' * I know not whether it is on Uiem, 
Imt nerertheless they tarry not to be milked.* 
** Tbc sou of AmhUibh was angered with 
her, and he gave her a blow which knocked a 
tooth out of her head.** 

Marcadh's death after a fatiguing 
day o\' fight has been already related. 
While tiie fierce struggle was going 
on, thus was the brave and devout 
old monarch employed : 

'* When the combatants met, his cnshion 
was spread under him, and he opened his 
piMiUer, and he bc^an to recite his psalms 
und his prayers behmd the battle, and there 

* Sitrlc hmd uiied that exprenlon »t an early hoar 
«f the fight, wlien ha Imaglaed the Danea were gain- 
ing oo their enemy. 



M no one with him but Laldeen, his own 
horseboy. Brian said to his attendant, 

* Wat4:h thou the battle and the comba- 
tAtiti while I recite my psalms.* Brian then 
said Sfty psalms, fifty prayers, and fifly parsers, 
and be «sked the attendant how the battalions 
were ciri!umstanced. The attendant answer- 
ed, * I see them, and closely confounded are 
they, and each of them has come within grasp 
of ilio other. And not more loud to me would 
be the blows in Tomar's wood if seven batta- 
liftufl were cutting it down, than are the re- 
i!oundh3K blows on the heads, and bones, and 
skuiy of them.* Brian asked how was the 
bfinner of Murchadh. * It stands/ said the 
attendant, *and the banners of the Dal Cais 
round \i* . . His cushion was readjusted un- 
der Brian, and he said fifty psalms, fifty pray- 
en, and fifty paters, and he ukcd the attendant 
h^w the battalions were. The attendant said, 

* There lives not a man who could distinguish 
one of them from the other, for the greater 
P'lrt of the hosts on either side are fallen, and 
tViose that are alive are so covered — their 
head A, mid legs, and garments, and drops of 
crim^iiu blood — that the father could not le- 
Gogni2fi his own son there.' And again he 
a^ikeJ how was the banner of Murchadh. The 
attendant answered, Mt is far from Murchadh, 
and has gone through tbe hosts westward, and 
It is stooping and inclining. Brian said, * Erinn 
dcdinea on that account. Nevertheless so 
long h» the men of Erinn shall see that ban- 
ner^ Its valor and its courage shall be upon every 
man of them.* Brian*s cushion was readjust- 
ed, and he said fifty psalms, fifty prayers, and 
fifty patera, and the fighting continued during 
all that time. Brian then cried out to the at- 
tendant, how was the banner of Murchad, and 
how were the t>attalions. The attendant an- 
iwered, * It appears to me like as if Tomar's 
wood was being cut down, and set on fire, its 
underwood and its young trees, and as if the 
seven battalions had been unceasingly destroy- 
ing it for a month, and its immense trees and 
its great oaks left standing.* '* 



LATER EXFLOrrs OF SrTRIC OF THE 8ILKT 
BEABD. 

A year after the battle, Malachy 
assaulted Dublin, and burned all the 
buildings outside the fortress, within 
which Sitric lay secure. In 1018, 
Sitric blinded Bran or Braoin, his own 
first cousin, son of Maelmordha, thus 
incapacitating him to rule. The poor 
prince subsequently went abroad and 
died in a monastery at Cologne. This 
Bran wa'i ancestor of the Ua Brain 
or OBym of Wicklow. Next year 
he went on enlarging his bad ways by 



784 



Skoda. 



plonderiiig Kells, skjing manj peo- 
ple in the very chardi, aod carrying 
away spoils and prisoners. In 1021, 
his Danes and himself got a signal 
defeat at Deme Mogorog. (Delganj,) 
hy the son of Dunlaing, ^og of Lein- 
ster. In 1022, he was again defeated 
bj King Malachy in a land battle, 
and at sea by Niall, son of £ochaidb, 
{yr. Achy or UchyJ king of Hy 
c3onaill. In 1027, he made an nnsnc- 
oessful raid into Meath, and next year 
went on a pilgrimage to Rome. Two 
years later he attended the funeral of 
his mother Gtormflaith. His pilgrim- 
age had not quenched his thirst for 
forays, for in 1031 he plundered Ard- 
braccan, and carried off much cattle. 
Next year he was yictorious at the 



mooth of the Bo3me oyer the men of 
Meath, Louth, and Hooaghan. In 
1035, twenty-one years after the great 
fight, he abdicated in fayor of hif« 
nephew Eacbmarcach, (Rich in Hors- 
es,) and went abroad, (where is not 
said.) His death as well as that of 
his daughter Fineen, a nan, is record- 
ed in 1042, the last seven years of 
life haying probably been spent in re- 
ligious retirement. 

Irish historians and archseologists 
will find valuable assistance in the 
appendix, whenever they are occupied 
with the genealogies of the Irish or 
foreign kings and chiefs who flourished 
daring the two centuries preceding the 
day at Clontarf. 



Prom Th« Month. 

RHODA. 



▲ DEVONSHIRE ECLOGUE, 

'' I AM declined 
Into the rale of years ; yet that*s nol mxxch.^^— Othello. 

It was the deep midsummer ; the calm lake 

Lay shining in the sun ; the glittering ripples, 

That scarce bare record of the wind's light wings. 

Reached not the shore, where, shadowed by huge oak% 

The clear still water blended with the land 

In undistinguished union. All was still, 

Save where at httle diatance a bright spring 

Leapt out from a fem-coroneted rock. 

And ran with cheerful prattle itff short course 

(Making the silence deeper for its noise) 

To quiet slumber in the quiet lake. 

Down to the margin of the water, slow 
Pacing along the shadow-dappled grass 
Into the trees' green twilight, steadfastly 
The while his eyes bent down upon the ground, 
Sir Richard Conway came. No longer young ; 
A statesman of repute ; in council wise ; 
Of bitter speech, but not unkindly heart ; 
Of stately presence stilL He in his youth 



Hhoda. 785 

Had wooed and wedded a fair frirl ; so fair, 
So gentle, and so good that when she died 
His heart and love died too, and in her grave 
Lay down, and he came forth a stricken man. 

But this was long ago : his children grew ; 
He watched them, but they never saw his heart ; 
They dreamed not of the proud man's tenderness, 
But went into the highway of the world. 
And lefl him to his utter loneliness. 
Years passed : sometimes his solitary heart 
Sent out a cry of agony for love ; 
But no one heard— he sternly stifled it : 
Treading his path with dignity, he lived 
In pride and honor, and he lived alone. 

He prayed for love, and in his autumn days 
Love came upon him ; but in such a sort 
As, if a man had told him it would come, 
He would have laughed in scorn. But so it is ; 
God gives us our desire, and sends withal 
Sharp chastening as his wisdom sees most fit. 

Rhoda, the fairest of a sisterhood 
Wljo were all fair, lived hard by the great house, 
Near to the lake ; the daughter of a pair 
Not rich, yet blessed with slender competence. 
And sometimes in the park, or in the house, 
Whereto chance errands brought her, she would meet 
Sir Richard, who to such as her showed ever 
A gracious kindness, and would give to her 
A friendly greeting, sometimes with a word 
Of question of her needs or her desires, 
Followed by such slight interchange of talk 
As might befit such meetings — nothing more. 
Indeed he could not fail, as time wore on. 
To note that with each year she lovelier grew : 
A pale and delicate fairy, exquisite 
As some rare picture, with pathetic eyes 
Veiled underneath long lashes ; their shy glance 
St^emed to reveal a soul whose tender depths 
Were un profaned by any earthly thought. 
Nor was it seeming only : she was good ; 
And fenced her beauty with simplicity. 
Meek sense, and modest wisdom. 

This he saw— - 
He could not choose but see it ; and he felt. 
When she was near, as if some soothing strain 
Breathed round him ; and bis secret soul was swayed 
With unseen power, as sways the billowy com 
Swept by the warm caresses of the wind. 
He knew what this portended. All in vain 
The proud man struggled with his heart : he loved, 
VOL. v.— <K) 



780 Mhoda, 

And knew that he loyed, Rhoda ; f 
He strove to turn away from her fi 
He only gazed more tenderly : in i 
Strove to speak coldly when he me 
His deep voice trembled, as his hei 
And from his eyes looked out his y 
or all this conflict Rhoda saw but ] 
The less, belike, for conflict of her 
Mysterious longings kindled by his 
Shy pleasure in his presence ; cons 
(Half reverence, half compassion, 
Of this grave, courteous, noble. Ion 
Who looked so great, so sorrowful, 
Witli many a mute yet dearly spei 
Sued for her love with sad humilit; 
These things she never uttered to h 
And if her thoughts half spoke, un 
She put them by, and simply went i 
But he could fight no longer ; and I 
He waited by the water, for he kne 
Rhoda would pasa that way, and he 
. To tell her all his secret, and to lea 
His future from her lips, whether tl 
Hope or despair. 

He had not waited long 
When through the park, along the t 
Into the oaks^ soft shadows, Rhoda < 
So bright, so fresh, so beautiful, she 
To bring a golden light into the glo< 
Sir Richard trembled, and his breatl 
His pulse throbbed wildly, and his c 
Yet, mastered by Ids iron wiU, his v 
Came calmly forth to greet her : at 
Surprised to find him here, she stan 
Then murmuring something hurried 
He gently staid her, saying in tende 
^ One moment, Rhoda — one — could y 
She looked into his face with wonde 
Then bashfully withdrew them ; for 
At once his secret from his pleading 
And his dark eyes^ inefiable (enden 
^ 1 did not mean to startle you," he ss 
" Nay, do not tremble ; could you see 
The tempest there would make your 
Qh ! stay — forgive me — when the h( 
The tongue is slow — I love you ! I 
Are best for such confession. Can ^ 



But Rhoda could not answer. ] 

Except the gurgling of the silver 8( 

When thus in saddest accents he res 

'< Rhoda, you see in me a man sore sn 

Whoae youth and spring were burie 



JRhoda. 787 

One wbo has had no sammer in his heart. 
Whose antamn days are lonely, and who prayed 
(Till you relumed the sunshine of his life) 
For the swift-closing winter of the grave. 
Long have I kept my secret to myself — 
From no mean shame, my girl ; for well I know, 
Were you my wHe, mine were the gain, not yours ; 
But silver hairs blend ill with waving gold, 
Nor would I bring a blight upon your life. 
Why have I 8pd[:en ? 'Twas a selfish thought 
To share with yon the burden of my gloom, 
(yershadowing your young years^— an idle dream 
That one so old and desolate as I 
Could stir the heart of blessed yonthfulness. 
There — you have heard my secret. Pity mc : 
I know you will not mock me. So, farewell I 
€ro, Rboda, with my blessing on your head ! 
I to my loveless life return alone, 
Forlorn, but uncomplaining." 

He turned to go, 
But Rhoda, who had heard him to this word. 
Could now endure no more ; she caught his arm. 
She gazed at him with fond eyes full of tears. 
« Oh ! not alone I " she said — ^ we go together ; 
If a poor girl like me — ^" She said no more. 
But turned and hid her face upon his heart. 
He clasped her, looking thankfully to heaven. 
Then stooped and kissed her: ^ Rhoda, my own wife, 
Bear with me for my love T The trees stood still. 
Yielding no faintest whispering. They came forth 
Out of the solemn grove into the sun ; 
The soft blue sky had not one film of doud ; 
And as they walked in silence, they could hear 
Far off the happy stockdove's broodhag note. 

And so Sir Richard won his lovely wife. 
Once more the old house brightened ; stately rooms 
Rang with the unaccustomed sound of mirth : 
And still as years went on. Sir Richard wore 
Always an air of serious cheerfulness ; 
While baby voices gladdened all the place, 
And Rhoda's lovely face was never sad. 
Let the grim rock give forth a living stream, 
And still boon nature crowns its ruggedness 
With flowers and fairy grasses. 

Near the park 
Towers up a tract of granite ; the huge hills 
, Bear on their broad flanks right into the roists 
Vast sweeps of purple heatli and yellow furze. 
It is the home of rivers, and the haunt 
Of great cloud-armies, borne on ocean blasts 
Far-stretching squadrons, with colossal stride 



788 Rhoda. 

]Marching from peak to peak, or lying dovni 
Upon the granite beds that ci*own the heights. 
Yet for the dwellers Dear them these bleak moors 
Have some strange fascination ; and I own 
That, like a strong man's sweetness, to myself 
Pent in the smoky city, worn with toil, 
When the sun rends the veil, or flames unveiled 
Over those wide waste uplands, or when mists 
Fill the great vales like lakes, then break and roll 
Slow lingering up the hills as living things, 
Then do they stir and lifh the soul ; and then 
Their colors, and their rainbows, and their clouds, 
And their fierce winds, and desolate liberty, 
Seem endless beauty and untold delight. 

So was it with Sir Richard : from the park 
And from the cares of state he often went 
With Rhoda, to enjoy some happy hours 
There face to face with nature— far away 
From all the din and fume of human life. 
From paltry cares and interests, that corrupt 
Or keep the soul in chains. They may be seen 
On a great hill, on cloudless summer days. 
Or when the sun in autumn melts the clouds, 
Gazing on that magnificent region, spread 
In majesty below them : teeming plains 
And wood-clothed gorges of the hills in front ; 
Behind them sea-like ridges of barer, moor, 
Some in brown shade, some white with blazing light ; 
Above, enormous rocks piled up in play 
By giants ; all around, authentic relics 
Of those drear ages, when half-naked men 
Roamed these dim regions, waging doubtful war 
With wolves and bears ; and on the horizon^s verge 
The pale blue waste of ocean. There they sit, 
Sir Richard and his Rhoda, side by side — 
Their hearts aglow with love, their souls bowed down 
In thankful adoration, scarce recalled 
From musings deep and tender, by the shouts 
Of two fair children playing at their feet. 
October, 1866. Q. G 



Votfstant Attackt upon the Bible. 



?S» 



ORIOIXAL. 

PANT ATTACKS UPON THE BIBLE* 



) of wliicli we sub- 
bing on the surface 
favQr of the Bible, 
Df the moBL serious at- 
: k that has came an- 
and would he, for a 
[of the mo*l dangerous 
read. With a Catho- 
ients would have no force 
Ing ba«cd irptni tlif unphi- 
rinciplc of private judg- 
ealed truth. We should 
$ it as a whole, it is a verj 
)t to found a purely sub- 
on, which might call iti>Qlf 
with equal consistency as 
ailed Christian denomina- 
lay, and which would con- 
ore all dogmatic authority 
« of the Holy Scriptures 
ans of edification. 

see how a Protestant can 
onclusions drawn by the 
s he abandons his Protes- 
Catholic authority or for 
responsible individuality ; 
ithor has really been sin- 
ofessed desire (o reassure 
nind of his reluctant seep- 
re him with respect for the 
I revealed word of God, 
ut think he counts upon 

possessing very limited 
wers. Ills entire argu- 
lOut is based upon postu- 
re are sure no sceptic and 

Catholic is prepared to 
it is assumed both that 
ight to be, Christians as 
ourse, independent of au- 
aching, and that the in- 
the Bible is to be taken 

without extrinsic proof, 
at each individual is pos- 



im: Its Structure, Umltatlons, and 
dly Comiiiui)I(.-Htion to n Reluctant 
k : C. Scrlbiicr k (Jo. 1S67. 



sessed of a verifying faculty which en- 
ables him to appropriate of its contents 
just so much and in so far as God 
wishes it to be true to him. 

To assert that a man can be or has 
become a Christian without having been 
80 taught is simply absurd. That 
Christianity is, of all religious systems, 
the most perfectly conformable to the 
reason and spiritual needs of mankind, 
fulfilling, perfecting, and completing hu- 
man nature, is indisputable ; but a man 
is not bom a Christian any more than 
he is bom a Mohammedan or a Buddhist. 
What the author of this work seems 
contented to take as Christianity will be 
found broad enough to suit any one 
who has a fancy to dignify the mutilat- 
ed traditions to which he yet clings 
by that title ; but we think very few 
will consent to accept their own con- 
victions as sufficient proof of the divine 
trath of what they believe, or bow to 
the Holy Scriptures as the inspired 
word of God upon no other authority 
than a sense of its harmony in doctrine 
and morals with what they individually 
hold. The stream is not the cause 
of the fountain. That the stream of 
Christian trath, nay, that the stagnant 
puddles which are the result of an er- 
ratic overflow of its waters, are the 
cause of its fountain-head of credibility 
is what this unphilosophical writer takes 
for granted on every page of his book. 
Of course it is both foolish and arro- 
gant presumption in the church to 
claim infallibility, but the most reason- 
able thing in the world for each and 
every human being to claim this pre- 
rogative as a natural-bora character- 
istic. However, we do not wonder at 
this ; it is but the logical consequence, 
ridiculously absurd as is the conclusion, 
of the rejection of the pruiciple of di- 
vine authority. It is the conclusion 
forced upon its adherents by Protea- 



790 



Protestant Attacks upon the JBible. 



tantism, and shows its fraits in the 
present wide-spread scepticism and in- 
fidelity in the countries where it has 
been the dominant religion. Never 
did any system prepare more surely 
the weapon of its own destruction than 
that which promulgated to the world 
the principle of private judgment. The 
cry of revolt is raised in the Protestant 
camp, and alarming its teachers — Rome 
or Reason — ^by which is too plainly 
meant, ^' Either a divinely constituted 
authority, or the- divine authority of 
the iudividaal soul." A choice that 
leaves all the sects which have sprang 
from the Reformation out in the cold. 

Upon the unphiiosophical basis for 
Christian faith which we have noted 
above our author proceeds to establish 
the sufficient authenticity and inspira- 
tion of the Bible. We say, sufficient, 
because, as far as we are able to gather, 
he rates the entire credibility and value 
of the Scriptures as the revealed word 
of God to man according to the intel- 
lectual and spiritual assent of the indi- 
vidual, assuming, as he does, that every 
man possesses a "verifying faculty" 
and a "spiritual insight/' through 
which his own belief and the Scriptures 
confirm one another and make him 
wise unto salvation. 

He holds that the Bible is inspired 
only in what concerns doctrine and 
morals, but is forced to make his read- 
er the judge of what is doctrine and 
the censor of moratity, for his highest 
evidence either of inspiration or of the 
canon icity of the sacred books is, as 
he tells us on p. 136, " ihe interior 
witness of the Spirit to the truths em- 
bodied in the accepted books." And 
as he says on p. 85, *^ It is ^ the wise' 
only who * understand.* The pea-' 
sant is, in this respect, oflen far 
above the philosopher. Everything 
depends on the moral condition of the 
recipient." We think it sufficient to 
add his own damaging conclusion: 
'* That this way of looking at the matter 
makes the evidence for the trutli of the 
Bible mainly subjective cannot be dis- 
puted ; but nothing else in the present 
day appears to have much hold on men. 



It may, indeed, be seriooaly doubted 
whether it is now possible to bring for- 
ward any evidence, io favor of muiicies, 
for instance, which could reasonablj 
. be expected to satisfy an UDooncened 
spectator, and still less an opponem." 
(P. 86.) 

For himself, therefore, the author 
rejects all miracles which he thiob 
were needless and unworthy of the 
apparent end for which tbey were pe^ 
formed, and advises his reluctant scep- 
tic to follow his example. Moreover, 
as he does not find that his interior wit- 
ness convicts him of the truth of the 
Trinity or the divinity of Jesus Christ, 
or, as we suppose, from the tenor of hk 
language, anything else that is a iny^ 
tery, of course the Scripture does not 
teach these doctrines either. No mas 
can be blind to the inevitable conse- 
quence of such a principle. The Bi- 
ble could not have the slightest extrin- 
sic authority in cither doctrine or mo- 
rals, and is a proof that, without the 
divine authority, which both authenti- 
cates and interprets it, it is practically 
worthless in teaching the one or en- 
forcing the other. 

The followmg passage contains a 
most admirable refutation of the writer s 
own principle, which, however, he doe:s 
not appear to see : ^ Looked at m this 
way*' — as discerned by spiritual in- 
sight — ^' it is of no moment that either 
the uninstructed or the instructed man 
should be able to say regarding each 
separate passage of Scripture, thts is 
inspii'ed, this is not. How can be 
hideed ? The revelation is not a thing 
(qpart from daily life, but through its 
various relations : how, then, can anj 
man undertake to separate in each pa^ 
ticular the supernatural element from 
the natural which it irradiates and 
explains ? To regard anything of the 
kind as necessary either to confidence 
or edification is absurd ; as absurd, in 
fact, as it is to maintain that we ' re- 
quire an exercise of judgment upon 
the written document before we can 
allow men to believe in their King at^d 
Saviour.' Every one knows that thL« 
is not the fact; that in all time tb( 



Protestant Attacks upon the BihU% 



791 



multitude never have nor ever can en- 
ter upon any such inquiries ; that the 
masses must either heh'eve in Christ 
directly as an actual person related to 
them, and recognized hy them in their 
inmost souls, or they will not believe 
at all. They listen to the announce- 
ment that Christ is their Redeemer, 
and they believe the good news just in 
so far as it finds a response in their 
own spiritual necessities and conscious- 
ness. Into evidences about documents 
they cannot enter. " (Pp. 81, 82.) 

This is the most delightful instance 
of begging the question we have ever 
met with. Pray, who announces to the 
multitude, who cannot enter into evi- 
dence about documents nor even read 
them, that Christ is their Redeemer? 
and who has any right if;) announce 
that fact? Truly, ** whosoever shall call 
upon the ntune of the Lord shall be 
saved ;" but, *' how shall they call on 
him in whom they have not believed? 
Or bow shall they believe him of whom 
they have not heard ? And how shall 
they hear without a preacher ? And how 
shall they preach unless they be sent ?" 
That it 18 the end of preaching, and that 
saving faith is the belief of the " good 
news just in so far as it finds a response 
in one's own spiritual necessities and 
self-consciousness," is mere twaddle, 
since our spiritual needs however keen- 
ly appreciated, or self-consciousness, 
however exalted, can never supply the 
objective truths of faith or rise above 
their own capacity to the ability of 
verifying, without the aid of extrinsic 
aathority, the truths when proposed. 
Christianity, in so far as it is anything 
more than mere natural religion, is not 
of us, but to us. For if it were of us, 
what need is there of a revelation? 
That the good news that Christ is my 
Redeemer can be in any manner af- 
firmed to me by my own self-conscious- 
ness is impossible. It is an historical 
fact, it is true, that such a person as 
Christ lived, but it is not an historical 
fact, by any means, that he is my Re- 
deemer. That is a divine fact, which 
the most minute history of humanity 
never could demonstrate, for it is al- 



together out of the natural order, and 
wholly supernatural, and hence re- 
quiring a divine teaching authority 
both to promulgate it and enforce my 
belief. What this author, with many 
other modem writers of the same class, 
needs is a good course of philosophy 
as taught in our Catholic schools. It 
would save us a good deal of time and 
paper in exposing their illogical rea- 
sonings. 

We do not deny that the holy writ- 
ings find a response in the heart and 
mind of the Christian which no other 
book that was ever penned could awak- 
en. We know that it is full of strength 
and consolation, of instruction and right- 
eousness, and of help in the perfecting 
of his character; but this is the* case 
precisely because he is a Christian by 
virtue of the same authority which 
declares the inspiration of its contents. 
That authority for every one who can 
rationally call himself a Christian is 
the authority of the Catholic Church, 
From this there is no escape. All 
Protestants inasnmch as they are 
Christian are so in obedience to the 
voice of whatever Catholic tradition is 
yet left to influence them. It announces 
that Christianity is true and that the 
Bible is inspired. This tradition of 
theirs finds its sanction in the Catholic 
Church, and would be utterly worthless 
if she had no existence. 

Again, it is impossible to controvert 
the fact that the Bible, as a Christian 
revelation, depends for its authenticity 
and canonicity upon the sanction of the 
church. To say that it does not is to 
claim inspiration for every individual 
in order to decide upon what is and 
what is not inspired. If I reject the 
authority of the church, how shall I be 
content with the Bible as it is, as she 
has compiled it ? Perhaps I might dif- 
fer with her as to her decision about 
the non-inspiration of the rejected 
gospels and epistles; and if to my 
thinking some of the books which it 
now contains are not inspired* nay 
more, if I reject the whole of them as 
such, what power on earth is there to 
call me to account ? No wonder Lu- 



792 



Protestant Attacks upon the Bible, 



ther had the presumption to call the 
epistle of St. James an 'epistle of 
straw," or that Dr. Colenso has no re- 
spect for the Pentateuch. We are con- 
strained to helieve that the principles 
assumed hy this writer are far more 
pernicious, and would do more to un- 
dermine the traditional authority which 
the Bible has among Protestants and 
reluctant sceptics, than the weak and 
flippant ar^ments of the notorious 
apostle of the Zulus. 

We read the chapter on the Inter- 
pretation of Scripture with no little 
curiosity, knowing that this would pre- 
sent a test question to the authors sys- 
tem of inspiration. Suppose that two 
men, two Christians if you will, not 
only differed about the inspiration of a 
certain passage, but also about the in- 
terpretation of it. Can the conclusion 
of both, contradictory as they are, be 
ihe " witness of the Spirit" ? As we 
expected, this chapter is the weakest in 
the book. Let us give the author's ar- 
gument : ** But while divine revelation 
can have but one true meaning, noth- 
ing can bo more certain than that, being 
a message from the Heavenly Father 
to his erring and sinful creatures, it 
must have a power of adaptation to 
each and all of them in particular 
which, from the very nature of the 
case, forbids any exhaustive or au- 
thoritative interpretation of its con- 
tents." We confess we are not able to 
put this in plain English. Let us ana- 
lyze it, however, and see what proposi- 
tions it contains : 1st Any given in- 
spired revelation can have but one 
true meaning. 2d. This inspired re- 
velation is given as a message of truth 
to the human race by the God of tmth. 
3d, This inspired revelation is neces- 
sarily of such a character that it can be 
made to mean anything according to 
the power of discernment in the indi- 
vidual ; and hence, 4th. No one can 
even be sure which interpretation is 
the true one. If these absurd proposi- 
tions are not contained in the quotation 
we have given, we humbly acknow- 
ledge that we iiave learned the Eng- 
lish language in vain. We knew that 



the author roust break down oo this 
subject, and he has mo6t thorooghlj. 
How one can escape the necessity of ao 
authoritative power of interpretatiou of 
the Scripture it is impossible for us to 
divine. How can two contradictory in- 
terpretations be true ? How can any 
man in his senses belieye that the Spi- 
rit of God witnesses to two proposi- 
tions, one of which gives the lie to the 
other? But, deny an autlioritative 
power of interpretation to which all 
men must bow, how can I ever know 
that my interpretation is true and that 
my brother's is false ? To attempt a 
compromise, such as the author sug- 
gests, that each interpretation is true 
for each man, is too absurd to demand 
a moment's consideration. Truth is 
truth not because I see it, but as it is, 
whether I see it or not, and the man 
who rejects it when it is presented to 
his intelligence is either a knave or a 
fool. Two and two are four whether 
I agree to it or not, and no possible in- 
terpretation of the process of addition 
can change its truth ; nor is there any 
loophole except that of insanity which 
would ever allow me to be excused for 
asserting that the product of twice two 
was five and not tour. 

It is certainly amusing to see thU 
author refuting himself, as he fre- 
quently does. To confide the right in- 
terpretation of Scripture to an organ- 
ized authority is to vest the final 
decision as to what the book says in 
man. So he argues. Yet he tells us in 
the same breath that each individual 
man is his own lawful interpreter. 
Does the author think that we are 
simple enough to believe, with all the 
jarring, clashing sects which have 
sprung out of this individual interpre- 
tation of the Bible before our eyes — a 
principle, too, which furnishes the scep- 
tic with the means of wresting its words 
to his own destruction — that, if each 
man interpret it for himself, the final 
decision in each particular case is any 
less human than the unanimous deci- 
sion which a body, such as the Cath- 
olic Church is, gives without variation 
for nineteen centuries 1 This gra- 



Protestant Attacks upon the JBible. 



793 



taitous assumption about the *Mnte- 
nor witness of the Spirit" is cant, 
not argument ; for where does the in- 
dividual find any assurance that each 
and everj man will be so assisted? 
Experience proves directly the con- 
trary. But, says our author, all tbese 
quarrels about the truths taught by the 
Bible are not due to the Bible itself, 
but to the sectarian divisions of Christ- 
ianity, who each and all impose their 
own interpretation on their members. 
This will not do. As long as the 
principle of authoritative interpreta- 
tion was upheld, as it is alone in the 
Catholic Church, there was no quar- 
relling about the doctrines or morals 
inculcated by the Holy Scriptures. 
The interpretation was but one. It 
was only when the author's pet prin- 
ciple came into vogue, which was the 
apple of discord borne by the tree of 
the Reformation, that men began to 
quarrel and dbpute about what the 
Bible taught. The wily sceptic 
with the Bible placed in his hands, 
accompanied by a pious assurance 
that he will be guided in its in- 
terpretation by the interior witness 
of the Spirit, will only laugh in his 
sleeve at your simplicity. He will 
find in it just what pleases him, and 
who has the right to accuse him of not 
following the witness of the Spirit? 
Who finds insuperable difiiculties in 
the sacred record? Who has dis- 
covered, as they imagine, contradictory 
passages in it? Who come to the 
oonclusion that there is one God of 
the patriarchs, another God of the 
Jews, and a third of the Christian ? 
Not the Catholic Church or her doc- 
tors, but the Protestant sects with 
their Colensos, their Essayists and Re; 
viewers, and flippant commentators. 
The Catholic Church finds no difficul- 
ties or contradictions in the text of 
Scripture in any portion that relates 
to doctrine or morals. Her interpre- 
tation is uniform and harmonious from 
the first page of Genesis to the last 
words of the Apocalypse. Difficul- 
ties there are, but they are only his- 
torical and of mmor moment, which 



affect in no way the unit}* of the sa- 
cred writings as the revealed word 
of Grod. All attempts which have 
been made of late by Protestaiite to 
discredit the inspiration of the Bible 
on the ground that these historical dif- 
ficulties are of such a nature as to 
render the record untrustworthy, 
have signally failed. The most that 
has been proved, even by the 'most 
captious critics, is, that in the recital 
of certain events the text is obscure, 
and leaves many things untold and 
unexplained. 

The tone of the writer when speak- 
ing of the Catholic Church is, on the 
whole, pretty fair, but it seems impos- 
sible for a Protestant to write on reli- 
gious subjects without either committing 
some egregious blunder when we are 
concerned, or inserting some piece of 
calumny or of wilful misrepresenta- 
tion. We note an instance of this 
in the letter which forms an introduc- 
tion to the body of the work. Refer- 
ring to the hope expressed by the 
reluctant sceptic that *^one day we 
shall have forms of public devotion 
sufficiently esthetic to gratify the re- 
ligious sentiment, without involving 
dogmas that lead only to dispute," he 
adds : ^ You will perhaps be surpris- 
ed if I tell you that I think this very 
possible. But, believe me, it will only 
be when Christendom, so long apos- 
tate, has, in retribution for her abo- 
minations, became absolutely atheistic. 
That a tendency of this kind mani- 
fests itself, from time to time, in 
Rome, especially among the Jesuits, 
has been noticed by devout Catholics, 
and is regarded by them with grief 
and anxiety." (P. 45.) 

This is the style of lying (for what 
he says of the Jesuits is, we hardly 
need say, wholly untrue) that dis- 
graces the religious writings of our 
opponents almost without exception. 
What does it mean ? Simply this : 
*•! fear, my dear, reluctant sceptic, 
tJiat you are hungering after ritual- 
ism, which the Catholic Church pos- 
sesses in beautiful hannony with all 
her dogmas. But don't look that 



7»4 



Decimated. 



yrvLjn or examine her claims npon your 
mind or religious sentiment, for the 
Catholic Church herself is becoming 
atheistic, as is shown by the athe- 
istical tendencies of the J<fsuits in 
Rome, and {trnde — to make the lie 
more plausible I will say) this ten- 
dency has been noticed by derout 
Catholics, and is regarded by them 
with grief and anxiety.'* We can do 
nothing but cry shame upon such 
wretched and base subterfuges to with- 
draw the attention of sincere minds 
from an honest examination of the 
Catholic faith. 

We blush for their unscrupaloos 
and persistent system of misrepresen- 
tation, which quietly ignores alike our 
indignant denials and appeals to bo 
heard ; but we do not fear for the final 
result. All blows aimed at the Bock 
of Truth will only recoil with deadly 
force upon the aggressor. Her beauty 
will come out untarnished after every 



attempt at defilement; het jmrity 
and sanctity no defamation can 
long obscure; her divine tmth is 
proof against the machinations and 
deceit of the fitther of lies and his 
children. Not in vain has the inspir- 
ed prophet said of her: "^No wea- 
pon that is formed against thee shall 
prosper, and every tongue that resist- 
eth thee in judgment then shaft con- 
demn." She is the divinely appointed 
exponent of Gk)d's word to roan, 
whether written or not. ^^ He that 
heareth you, heareth me,'' and her ex- 
position has been uniform, harmonious, 
and consistent throughout; while the 
sects, left to their own fanciful inter- 
pretation of the only word which ther 
have acknowledged as authoritative, 
present a lamentable picture of dis- 
sension and disbelief — '•As children 
tossed to and fro. and carried about 
by every wind of doctrine." 



From the French of Aognstln Cheraller. 

DECIMATED. 



It was seven in the evening when 
we arose from the table, where the 
conversation had for an hour or more 
run on the civil war which had just de- 
solated Germany. General Bourde- 
laiDC, a tall, wiry specimen of the an- 
cien officier, whom no one would im- 
agine to be verging upon his eighty- 
fourth year, and who very probably 
will in the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eighty eight celebrate the 
eighty-second anniversary of his leav- 
ing the military school in 180G. invited 
us for coffee into the study where or- 
dinarily none but his most intimate 
friends are admitted ; for the general, 
although on the retired list since 1845, 
has not yet begun to seek the repose 
of inactivity, and I have seen in that 



study of his an entire series of strate- 
gical plans (aflerward published by the 
minister of war) of the principal bat- 
tles of Napoleon in Champagne against 
the allied forces. 

The study is large, although it seems 
small, so filled is every piece of furni- 
ture, shelf, and book with coins, arms, 
f)|ans, papers, portraits, busts, statuettes 
in marble and in bronze, books, globes, 
and drawing instruments, and all these 
not in absolute disorder, bat in an nj»- 
parent confusion which the general 
finds very convenient, inasmuch as 
everything is within reach. 

It was not the first time I bad been 
there. For the first time, however, on 
this particular evening, my eyes fell 
upon a plain boxwood frame hung on 



J)eeimaietL 



795 



the wall opposite the chimney-piece, in 
a recess formed by two large book* 
cases. A brilliant point in the centre, 
whicii reflected the liglit of the lamp, 
attracted my attention. It was the 
enamel of a cross of the Legion of 
Honor, to which was attached, under 
the ghiss, a large band of crape which 
stretched to the four comers of the 
frame. On the left of the frame, on the 
outside, hung a huge silver watch, and 
on the right the golden acorn of a sword- 
knot. 

The daughter of the general entered 
at this moment, followed by a servant 
bearing cofiee and all the accessories 
upon a tray. There were now five of 
us in the mom : the general, his daugh- 
ter and his son-in law, a government 
clerk, and myself. Each one began 
in silence to discuss the smoking coffcH} ; 
when the general, whose glance had 
unconsciously token the same direc* 
tion as mine, suddenly exclaimed: 

'* ^V^hat a horrible thing war is I I 
did not enter the service until the time 
had come when men no longer went 
forth to meet the enemy through patri- 
otism, but moved merely by the desire 
of winning rank or fortune, or by the 
love of glory and honor. I was present 
at some frightiul butcheries and routs 
still more frightful ; I have seen nearly 
all the miracles of the emperor's genius, 
and I bore my part in the reverses 
fickle fortune inflicted upon him. Well, 
ai\er all what did it amount to ? The 
fortune of war is one of the chances of 
the trade. You conquer or are con- 
quered, kill or are killed. The ranks 
dose up, and then — room for the bra- 
vest or most favored, the most skilful 
or the lucl^iest I But to be forced to 
fiyre upon your own men ; to be compel- 
led to decimate pitilessly your own 
brave companions ; to kill in coki blood 
excellent soldiers^ whose only crime 
was a single day's mutiny, but whose 
example might risk the discipline an^ 
safety of the entire army ; to kill, I 
say, men whom the very intoxication 
of victory led to believe that their fault 
would go unpunished ; men we sorely 
needed ; this, this is most fearful and 



saddest of all ; this it is that still makes 
my old heart bleed more than fiftf 
years after it happened ; and when my 
thoughts revert to it, even though con- 
science remain tranquil, something very 
like remorse pursues me." 

^ it seems, then, general," I said, 
^that yonder cross and crape recall 
cruel memories." 

He put down his cup without reply- 
ing, filled a small glass wiih cognac 
and swallowed it at one gulp. 

^' Have you finished the notes I wish- 
ed you to make from Jomini and Van- 
doncourt?" 

" Yes, mon gincral,^^ 

" Very good ; give them me. And 
now service for service. I will confide 
to you an episode in my military life 
of which you may make what use you 
think proper. I authorize you to do so." 

And Greneral Boui*delaine thereupon 
related what follows. 



II. 



My rank in the service dates from 
October, 1805. Jena and Austerlitz 
won me my epaulettes of sous4teuten- 
ant. In 1807 I made the Polish cam- 
paign, and in 1808 the Spanish. The 
following year I was recalled to Ger- 
many, and saw Ratisbon and Wa- 
gram. Napoleon after the battle lialt- 
ed in front of my regiment to learn the 
names of those who had distinguished 
themselves. 

"All did," cried the colonel ; *• but, 
if your majesty will permit me, I would 
especially recommend the Lieutenant 
Bourdelaine to your favor.'* 

The emperor looked at me. 

" You come from Saint-Cyr?" 

" Yes, sire." 

** How many campaigns ]" 

** Three." 

<< And still a lieutenant" 

*' I have had no chance to rise be- 
fore this." 

" Which do you prefer, the cross or 
promotion ?" 

*• Promotion, sire." 

My reply was not that of a courtier. 
But he loved the young men of his 



Decimated^ 



schook, and those, aboTe all, who, like 
me, bud. not awaited the end of their 
course beibre liecoming officers. 

** Ah I you prefer promotion.'* 

" Sire, I he J say that ihinjra are not 
poin;;^ well m Spain since your nmjesty 
left tliere. Send me tint her ; give me 
a company, atid I will win deulb or the 
cro*8," 

*• Very well/* 

I received ttie company I aoughtn, 
nol, however, in a French, but in an 
Itulian refrinient. I was onlered to 
Arragon in November, 1810, and made 
jijirt of the army commandt»d by Su- 
cker* My colonel, Sun-Folo, received 
me warmly. 

** You will find more than one of 
yonr countrymen in my regiment,** said 
he ; " and you had better luive ibem 
give an jiccount of your men. I warn 
you that they are very devik. You 
must be vij^ilant and tinn; just hut in- 
flexible ; if not, you will Had yourself 
exposed to strange Burpnsea, and I 
be put to tho necessity of puni&hing 
you," 

The colonel was no falge pro (diet. 
Those I(allan8 arc terrible soltlicrn. 
Iin,sh, n^seful principally for an a^i^ult 
or conp'de main., never flinchincf under 
tire, but, once out of it, qu/*rrelsome, in- 
tractable and given to piHaging, ourdi, 
1 confess, n)ore than once seemed to 
sack and destroy for the mere pleasure 
of doinf^ so. I can yet (^ee the comical 
tbongh moving i^ccne which took plac« 
in Burg->?, where my battalion, in 1808, 
boiled tlieir pots with all the mando- 
lines and guitai^ they could tind in tho 
city, notwithstanding the d^^npair of the 
inhabilanlfi, who ha^rened to bring ihcm 
coals and wood. But iho go up, ^ea- 
8oned with jokes and bursts of kugh- 
ter, seemed to them the bi*ller for it. 

Before I relurn to my story, a few 
twoi'dii on tlie situation of the sitmy of 
" rrjigon. 

General Suchet liad taken one after 
> ftn other the towns of M«H)uinenza ; on 
the southern con tines of the province 
of Iluesca ; Lareda, in Lower Catjilo- 
nia, to the northwest of Mequineiiza ; 
and Torfo?a, 6ou!h of Lerida, at the ex* 



tremity of the proviace of Tarra^o 
lie thus commanded part of the rivr-r* 
Ebro, the Segre, and the Cinca ; imd, 
moreover, the capture of lhr»ccitica lia^l 
enabled hitn to collect a complete fuirk 
of s iege a rt i 1 1 e r y a I T< » rt o< ji, Unfortun- 
ately, thecn u-ra hat- 

ing allowed] ,ini4i>dta 

Upper Catalon iiL, ou r r n* w **_ro 

compelled to fall back Girona, 

and the Spanish (General Catn|Riverdc 
beaten before Figuenu by BHniguAy 
dllilliers, had profiled by our mt5hftp» 
not only to rally his troops, but ali^o to 
annoy onr magazines and (%>mmnni(.'^ 
lioo!** Tiierefuixs ahhoiigli hn had rr* 
coived oi^lers from the emf»eror,Qrit tlie. \ 
10th of March, to invest Tiarnigoii% 
whose capture, compleiing oar cKx?up«* 
tioa of the princifiality of CatiUotlSm 
would have opened tho road to Val^si- 
tia to us. General Suchet did not yet 
dare attempt an enterprise of such im* 
port an ce. The task of keeping the tm) 
districts of Mora and Aleunix in pub- 
jeclion — the first in Lower Catalonia , to 
the north of Tortosa, and the second in 
Arragon to the northwest of Mequi- 
nenza, ainl in the province of Tenid — 
panilyzed his forces. His artillery, fuo» 
had been retarde«l. In short, instead 
of an efteclive force of over forty ihoii- 
sand men, which the junction of the ar- 
my of Arragon with tlia! of Catalonia 
should have tbnned, he had not mora 
than thirty battalions at his senriee. 

You are not a soldier, and yoa ilo 
not understand how even the lowtrtt 
officer rocks his hca-; Ua- 

bi lilies of some appi 11- 

tioUf nnd willi what fevi'rl- 
the men in the ranks awM 
of d*'partui^. Ileadcjuaritrs w«*tT r^ 
tablisht'd at Lareda, arji! miiur^uine* al- 
ixfady were placed at I ' tiUinrii, 

and Alcobiir, to the w wt^i of 

Tarragi>na ; btn it was n'|»oried I bar an 
English deet undci Admiral Adami 
wa^ prepfiring to re-provision the kuit* 
named city, and lo interrupt our com- 
munications by tnin<^porting to iHir 
rear the troops of Campiverdr ami 
Sarstield by the moitths of the FIbro. 
Our |)ark of »ie^e artillery rvfitjiijicti < 



Decimated. 



797 



motionless at Tortosa, and as yet Sa- 
chet had not begun to' move. 

I was at Mora, where ray battalion 
was to remain, if the jokers about camp 
were to bcbelieyed; an absurd rumor, 
for wherever a vigorous blow was to be 
struck the Italians never failed to come 
in for their share. I had formed a 
close friendship with Lieutenant Poli- 
doro, a reckless individual, but one of 
the best-hearted fellows in the service. 
He was from Milan, and had commenc- 
ed life as a choir-boy. A reverendis- 
simo, almost unknown to him, was in 
the habit of sending him from time to 
time fifty scudi by way of pocket-mo- 
ney. The day he received this little 
remittance was a gala-day for the whole 
battalion. Wine fiowed through the 
camp. Not a man was forgotten. The 
next day he was without a sou, but he 
had had his fun, and drunk many times 
to the health of Monsignor Capellini, 
as he called his friend. 

His father was unknown to him, and 
oHen would he cry, twirling his shako 
on his sword, when asked why he did 
not assume the .paternal cognomen : 

**Why should I recognize an old 
fellow who shows so little pride in 
having a grenadier of my height for 
asonT 

The gayety of Polidoro, the friend- 
Bhip of his comrades for him, the at- 
tachment of his men, whose enthusiasm 
waa excited by his bravery and liberal- 
ity, inspired me, at last, with the most 
unlimited confidence in him ; and, well 
satisfied with never having to inflict the 
slightest punishment, thanks to the ex- 
cellent reports he always brought me 
of the company, I placed matters of 
mere discipline entirely in his hands. 

Suddenly, one fine morning, at 
roll-call, not one of my men, with the 
exception of the Sous-Lieutenant Bro- 
eard-— a Frenchman like myself — ap- 
peared on the parade-prround. He, sad 
and crest-fallen, informed me that our 
company had filed away during the 
night toward Batea, to the north of 
Casserras, on the Arragon frontier. 
At the same time he handed me a 
letter addressed to me by Polidoro. 



Judge of my astonishment when I cast 
my eye upon its contents : 

** Captain : It is certainly an ill proceeding 
on my part to leave Mora, with your whole 
company, without first informing you of our 
intention. Life iu Mora is not very lively, 
and our men were growing shockingly tired 
of it. I am responsible for their health, and 
found myself forced to adopt violent measures 
to preserve it. We are going a league from 
here to Batea, where they say g<KHl wine 
abounds. It is even reported that there is a 
guerilla roving through the mountains, and 
that he has been joined by some disbanded 
soldiers of Sarsfield and Campoverde. What 
a chance for fun I We will thus be enabled 
to indulge in a little diversion while waitiug 
for the march on Tarragona. I do not ask 
you to put yourself at the head of our expedi- 
tion. I suppose, even, that, if you were order- 
ed to bring us back, your honor would only 
permit you to speak to us through the throats 
of muskets. Be good enough, however, to 
advise our brave colonel of our departure, and 
tell jiim that, whatever may happen, we are all 
devoted to him, for life and for death, and 
that each one of us (I was always remarkable 
for foresight) has ten rounds of cartridge at 
his service. If we are let alone, be assured 
that the entire company, including your hum- 
ble servant, will he en route fur Lareda at the 
first roll of the drum. 

" Your faithful friend, 
*'Thb Lixutexant Polidoro.*^ 

This letter filled me with consterna- 
tion. I felt that I had been guilty of 
weakness and negligence. I was not 
only puzzled ; I suspected perfidy, 
treason. I did not yet understand 
the singular forms which insubordina- 
tion oflen takes amon^r Italian troops. 
The Russian soldier is little more than 
a savage ; the Grerman, when he quar- 
rels with his officers in the field, be- 
comes gross and brutal ; the French- 
man puithes familiarity to insolence ; 
the Spaniard heroically disbands, plac- 
ing every reverse to the account of 
the ignorance or cowardice of his 
officers, and then sets about making 
head individually against the enemy 
in some defile of his mountains ; the 
Englishman shows himself, in war as 
in everything else, a close calculator, 
weighing the pros and cons long toge- 
ther, and, above all others, complains of 
the insufficiency or bad quality of his 
provisions, as witness the mutiny of 



the fioH in the rcigrn of Georj:^ III., 
whon it became neceseary to bang an 
Btlmiral, ami which was only auppresa- 
ed by the coolness of Pit r. But, when 
the Italian inutintci*, he does it with 
incredible nicctiegST i^ivd, unless he has 
Bome vengeance to execute, (which he 
will carry out with uneomuiou feroci- 
ty,) he remains an artiBt to the last. 
' ** Ctyrhhu !** cried I fo Brocnrd, 
** We are in a pretty box ; exposed, 
too, to the ridicule of our comrades. 
And I thought this Polidoro my 
friend r 

** And he is your friend, captain ; 
doubt it not,'* replied Brocard ; " only 
yoti have not yet formed a true idea of 
the audacious reckleesnei^s and impul- 
fljvenc^a of these Italians. Al! this 
would be but a pleasantry, without evil 
rcifultt*, if the necesdity of maintaining 
diFcipline at the outlet of a new (yiin- 
paign did not give the affair impor- 
tance ; and what makeg it worse is, that 
they say tlie coloacl since hia return an 
hour ago has been making prepanitions 
fo repel an at lack from Camjjoverde* 
Ho is furious against you, and wishes 
to have a private interview with yon." 

Shame and anger almost choked 
me* I was beside myself with rage, 
and, if at that moment a roan had but 
^iven me a look of ridicule, 1 would 
have run him through the body. 

" I come to receive your oixlera, co- 
lonel,'* «Rjd !♦ as I entered San-PoloV 
quarters, ** I confess that I deserve no 
considemtion. You told me wliat I 
bad to expect* Puai^h me. I ask of 
yoii but oTiefavor^ — that you would per- 
mit me to go alone to those mutineers 
and bring them ba<jk." 

** What I hear is then tme, sir,** re- 
plied San- Polo, whose appearance of 
concentrated anger bo<led me no good. 
Bat, having given me this thru8t, be 
added, softening a little: 

'* Listen to me, Bourdelaine* not- 
withstanding your fault in allowing 
Polidoro to gain such a hold upon 
the company, you ai^ nevertheless 
an officer whom I esteem both for 
head and heart, and I heard a very 
flattering account of you before you 



joined the regiment 1 iifft 
k*orry for _>^u* and that mgtie 
Polidoro has so bewitched the 
that atk^r all you are not so m 
sable.** 

" Thanks, my coloael.*' 

**But,*' continued San-Poli, "wt 
must lay aside such cons tde rat ionj ia 
camp. You bad the want of laet ^ 
perfer a grade, when the eoipen>r of- 
fered you witb his own hand the Ct«* 
of the Legion, That was in hi* ryn* n 
fault whicfi, be assured, he wilt on! 
soon tbrget, and I am sure that you 
would have received both if yoa bad 
chosen the cross,*' 

I liowed my head, but did not ri"p!y, 

"Your conduct afber ihn' ; 

wished to rise, should have h- 
proachable, so that your mistake* whick 
seemed to the emperor a piece of yoiuh- 
ful stupidity, might have changed its 
guise aud shone fortli us the g« neromf 
impulse of a soul honx to eommaod. 

*"■ I speak not now, cjiptain, as yrnir 
superior otficer, but as your fnrniL 
Speak privately to Lieutenant B 
Pn^ent yourself to these mutii 
aud let a bloody example recall 
to duty. I have full f>ower ^ 
ctaranwiniling general to aianag« 
Iialinns as I think proper. You will 
decimate your company,** 

1 started, horror-stricken. 

** You have your oniers, sir. Now, 
no delay or pity. Renietnhcr tbal 
prompt and vigii iiisn 

not only to ree-? ^ »ar repi 

but to replace upon fhtne men the ,_ 

of dfscipline, so rashly broken, l/oiler j 
our present regime little is said 
less written a])out army affairs, and tJie 
news of the iosuhordination of a 
ftil of Italians in an obscure corner of'l 
the peninsula will sr.ircely reach tlHi 
emperor's ears. 1 will see that it 
kept out of tlie bulletins, li ii 
small a matter for headciuarters 
troubled about, and in ten da?s 
be the same as if nothing or tlii 
ever happened* Well 1 you have 
me ; what more do you d^ir^ ?■* 
San -Polo, astonished at my imi 
and silence. 



Decimated. 



" Pardon, tnon colonel/** I replied, 
with many misgiTings. '* How can we 
decimate men of whom we haTe such 
immediate need heibre the enemy?" 
And *I showed him FoUdoro's letter. 

He read it through rapidly, and 
shrugged his shoulders ; hut, when he 
came to the part where the lieutenant, 
while protesting his own devotion and 
that of his men for their colonel, boast- 
ed nevertheless of his foresight in fur- 
nishing each man with ten rounds of 
ammunition, San-Polo cried out, a 
passing smile lighting up his face for a 
moment : 

•* Poor fellow ! it is a pity, for he 
has the stuff soldiers are made of in 
him. Unshrinking under fire, fisucinat- 
ing and raising the spirits of all around 
him by his good bumor, always ready, 
full of resources, yet ridiculing glory 
and fortune. Qod grant that this tridk 
do not cost him too dear. What is the 
effective force of the company ?** 

** Ninety-nine men in all, with the 
oflScets and drummer*" 

•* VeiT well; then it is reduced to 
ninety-six, since you and Brocard are 
not in the affair, and the drummer, who 
is but a boy, does not count. This 
letter will not modify my instructions. 
You wiU draw by lot four men and a 
corporal for the firing party, and one 
man to dig the gra^e ; ninety will re- 
main — ^nine to be shot ; it is enough. 
Ab to Polidoro, if his stars should favor 
him, you will put him under arrest for 
two weeks. IwiU attend to him here- 
after if necessary." 

I turned with a heavy heart to leave 
the tent. 

** Ah I one word more,** said the col- 
onel : ^ In case any chance should put 
yon on the track of the guerilla who 
has been seen between Casserras and 
Batea, drag out the execution to the 
greatest possible length, without, how- 
ever, letting it seem that you do so. 
I love those good-for-nothings after all, 
and would to God that a brush with 
the enemy may deliver them from their 
scrape, for they would fight as they 
always do, and we would have a good 
ezcase for indulgence. Be easy, even 



if you find yourself surrounded by the 
Spanianls, and open fire on them bold- 
ly, for I have taken my measures, and 
help will be at hand. Au revoir, cap- 
tain, and fortune favor you I" 

Brocard and I immediately set out 
for Batea. It was yet early morning, 
and the road was almost deserted. We 
could not perceive in the direction of 
Casserras a single trace that might re- 
mind us of the recent passage of a body 
of armed men. It seemed scarcely 
probable that the guerillas would dare 
return toward Batea, which was at fur- 
thest a league to the north-west. 

On the road I confided to my com- 
rade the cruel mission with which we 
were charged, and as I had never seen 
a military execution, and had never 
expected to see so horrible a one as 
this, the slaying of every tenth man in 
my own company, the conversation ran 
on the best m6de of conducting the 
business in which we wjere engaged so 
as to gain time, as the colonel had re- 
commended. 

" Oh I" said Brocard, " I was * deci- 
mated' myself once. It was in Portu- 
gal, under Junot, for a trick our batta- 
lion played the commandant — a lion 
under fire, but an ill-natured dog. We 
gave him a free bath in the Tagus. I 
was then only a corporal They com- 
menced by surrounding and disarming 
the mutineers ; then, if any officers were 
found in the number, their names were 
proclaimed aloud, or they were degra- 
ded. Then the ranks were broken, 
and we were aligned in single file, 
each man taking his place according 
to chance. A sei^eant, drawn by lot 
and blindfolded, then approached the 
line, and, starting from the first man 
he chanced to touch, without including 
him, counted off ten, twenty, thirty, un- 
til he reached the end of the line, when 
he continued in the other direction, 
commencing again with the man he first 
touched, and if that poor fellow hap- 
pened to be the tenth, or twentieth, or 
thirtieth, psit ! his doom was clear.'' 

"Great heavens!" thought I, *'how 
terribly cool he takes it T 

^ While the counting went on,'* con- 



800 



Decimated. 



tinued my imperturbable sous-officier^ 
^a roll of the drum accompanied each 
tenth man as he stepped out ; he was 
led to the edge of the trench dug for 
his grave ; a sufficient amount of lead 
lodged in his head or breast, and his 
affair was ended. You see that much 
time is not lost, and the business CTen 
becomes amusing sometimes ; for every 
man's pride is up, and he chats, jokes, 
laughs, appoints a rendezvous under 
ground a year, a month, or perhaps only 
a day off; and all the while the regi- 
mental band regales you with the mer- 
riest symphonies, the most alluring 
marches !*' 

^ You would not make a mockery of 
death!" cried I, interrupting him. 

" Mockery 1 " he returned. '' Diable ! 
we won't have much chance to do so 
here. We haven't yet even disai'med 
our friends, captain. San-Polo evi- 
dently honors us both with his partic« 
ular esteem, to send us two alone to 
decimate more than eighty jokers, each 
of whom carries ten rounds of amrou* 
nition to answer our polite proposition 
with." * 

** Nevertheless, the enterprise amus- 
es you a little, does it not ?" 

^* Humph ! whether a man leaves 
his skin here or elsewhere, what mat- 
ters it? although it is disagreeable 
to be sent out of the world by your 
old comrades, your friends at the 
bivouac, fellows whose elbows you 
are accustomed to feel in the ranks. 
But, after all, those fellows havcn*t 
treated us right; that is a consola- 
tion." 

** But the other proceeding the col- 
onel mentioned,^' said I — ^' the drawing 
— ^you have not explained that." 

''Ah I I can only teach you what I 
know myself; though I w:is some- 
thing more than a mere amateur scho- 
lar. I have heard that they some- 
times mix up the names in a helmet 
or shako, and shoot the man that 
owns every tenth name that comes 
out But, ma foil that way is shorter 
than the other, but, if it suits you bet- 
ter, you may use it. H st !' 

He stopped short in the middle of 



the road and brought the musket be 
had brought with him from Mora to 
his shoulder, as a bullet whistled by 
our ears, and a thread of white smoke 
rose from a ravine some little diitaoce 
off; a moment after, a tall, wild-look- 
ing man, enveloped in a long dotk, 
and wearing a oountryman^s shoes 
and a red woollen cap, sprang toward 
the mountain side, where in the twin- 
kling of an eye he disappeared. 

** Don't are P I cried, as Brocard 
was about to pull trigger ; ^ you will 
give those wretches the alarm. Wait 
until they attack us at Batea. That 
fellow will simplify our business, and 
the colonel will be delighted. For- 
ward — ^gallop! Remember the mis- 
sion we have to fulfil.*' 

Ten minutes later we were in Ba- 
tea. The company had stacked their 
arms about a hundred paces from the 
mountain, and had spread themselves 
through the village. The drummer 
alone, a boy of fifteen, stood guard 
over the arms, under the protection of 
some old grognardty who, cooler- blood 
ed than their comrades, walked k*i- 
surely about, smoking their pipes. 

I rode straight to the drummer, and, 
without dismounting, said : 

'' Beat the recall, Zanetto, I am in 
haste." 

The smokers at this order ap- 
proached us, and stared at us with au 
abashed air. The most insolent of 
them gave the military salute, through 
force of habit, apparently. But they 
seemed thoughtful, twisted their mus- 
taches without speaking, and continued 
to smoke. 

Zanetto, uneasy as the others, ro9e, 
hooked on his drum, and replied by a 
prolonged roll, which did not cease 
until the whole company stood behind 
their stacks. 

^^ What is all thia noise about ? 
Are you a fool, drummer?" cried 
Polidoro, coming up last of all, at a 
run, from the further end of the vil- 
lage, and carrying a bottle in one 
hand and a glass in the other. 

The sight of two horsemen redou- 
bled his speed, and when he reached 



Decim-aCed, 



801 



as, he could scarcely gasp, in his astoo- 
ishmeDt and want of breath : 

"You, Bourdclaine! You herel 
Glad to see you, caro mio. Welcome I 
TVe scarcely expected so agreeable a 
surprise. What can we do for you, 
captain ? Will you try a glass of 
rumT 

I spurred my horse toward Poll- 
doro, and, with a sudden blow break- 
ing the glass and bottle he held, said 
briefly and sternly : 

** Your sword, lieutenant T 

Polidoro turned pale, and, recoiling a 
couple of paces, said in a husky yoice : 

•*My sword! Was it to demand 
my sword that you came frofn Mora, 
you and your countryman Brocard?" 

" We come to decimate you. The 
colonel has ordered it." 

And I dismounted, placing myself 
in their power, to prove to the mu- 
tineers the fixedness of my resolve to 
carry out my orders or die in the at- 
tempt. 

The idea seemed, however, to ex- 
cite their mirth. 

" Decimate us T cried one. 

^ Beautiful T' laughed another. 

And cries of "Prodigious T "What 
a farce!' **Whom will he do it 
with ? ' *• He hasn't even a corporal's 
guard I" rang on every side. The 
men left the stacks of arms and began 
to gather npund us with menacing 
looks and gestures. Brocard threw 
himself among the most furious, but 
his words availed nothing to restrain 
them. The ^situation was becoming 
critical. 

Sudilcnly a thought struck me. I 
signed to Zanetto to beat his drum, so 
that its continued roll might drown 
their voices, and the more desperate 
be thus prtfvented from urging on those 
who hesitated. 

Anything which brings the habits 
of discipline to the minds of old sol- 
diers acts with wonderful power. Be- 
fore the roll of the drum ceased, every 
man had regained his place ; the tu- 
mult was ended and quiet reigned. 

•' We are come to decimate you," I 
continued, coldly and sternly as be- 
VOL. v.— «1 



fore, " and we are alone. Do you ask 
why? Because the colonel wishes 
the execution to be secret ; he would 
not have the company dishonored be- 
fore their comrades— dishonored for 
having turned their backs when all 
was ready to march upon the enemy." 

'' But we did not do so !" cried one 
of the men. 

'•Silence! The captain is right," 
replied several. 

'*Then Polidoro deceived us; he 
told us the captain would protect us," 
said a young soldier. 

Their tone had already changed. 
It was no longer hostile. 

" I !" cried Polidora « Did I ever 
say aught to make you doubt the cap- 
tain's honor?" 

** No ! no r' cried voice after voice. 
^* It is our fault. Lee us snflfer the 
penalty! Decimate us, captain!' 
cried several, ** and let us have it over 
as soon as may be. We are ready." 

" Lieutenant," I continued, advanc- 
ing to Polidoro, •*! demand your 
sword." 

He moved his hand to the buckle 
of his belt as if to take it ofl^, but the 
struggle was too great for his proud 
heart; his you tl Ail blood was in 
arms, and, carried away by passion, he 
shouted hoarsely : 

** Then come and take it !" 

And drawing it from its sheath, he- 
threw himself on guard. 

^* Bravo, lieutenant ! Let him come 
and take it!'* cried a voice at his side. 

**Who spoke then?" I asked, 
feigning ignorance of the man. 

" I ! ' cried an old soldier ; one of 
the grognards of the company. 

ti y^ry well, Matteo ; I will attend 
to you presently." 

There was no time for considera- 
tion ; I at once fell on guard myself. 
Polidoro awaited my attack with his 
blade low, after the manner of the 
Italians, but at my first lunge, break- 
ing down his parade before wo had 
even crossed swords, whether it was 
that remorse for his act prevented his 
exerting his usual skill or through 
unlucky mischance on his part, I dis- 



802 



3ecimaUtL 



armed hitn, catchiii^iM guard on the 
point of my sword and forcing hb 
weapon tVoin big liaod. 

*' Maieditto ! * he exclaimed angrily, 
btu^bitig^ with .^hame and ^vratb, and 
mm in;: lo Zanetto, who could not Tor- 
bear laughing at his nii^bap. with a 
l>low of his heavy bootjiii criiabed ibe 
drum to pioce8^ and» tearing off hi:* epao- 
lettca, mingled with the mnks, 

** LieukMiant, I have not degnidi^Nl 
you," I said softly. *• It is even possible 
thai, if chance favors you, I may re- 
store your I? word/* 

This indulgence shown to Poltdoro, 
whoso guilt waa aggravareti by an at- 
Ifick an his superior officer, made a 
greater impression tlian severity couhl. 
The fascination he ejcerci^&ed ov«r the 
men, their belief in him, his pnsti^e 
were considerably lessened. I fell that 
I was mastt^r of tbe li^ip. 

** As ibr you/* I said to Jlatteo^ '^aa 
a pani.^hment for your iusolence, you 
inuat dig ihe trench," 

"I, mv captain ?* 

*♦ You?' 

** Shoot me first, captain, I imploru 
you,** sobbed MatteOf pale with fihume 
and despair. 

He was one ot the oldest and best 
floldiersin the company ; his muniache 
almost white, and his face seamed with 
ftcars. He (liought himself degnided 
before his comrades, and did not see 
that my aim was to save him. 

^' Xot so/* I replied, '' Go find a 
.pickaxe and spade in the village — and 
quickly I'* 

** You are very hard on me, captain/* 

•* Obey : no mofQ word& T* 
All Ihis while the iotislietUenani 
Brocard, who guessed my purpose, was 
writing the uames of the company upon 
ilips of paper, which he threw into a 
shako. 

•* But that is not the way it is done/* 
crie<l PoUdoro, in a bantering tone. 
** Permit me to instruct you/' 

** Sihjnce in the ranks T* I cried. 

** But we will never get through at 
.this rate, captain.'' 

** I am not responsible to you, sir. 
It is the order of the colooeU Now, 



come hither," said I to tho dminmer, 
"and draw four names for the llriug 
party." 

*^ Am I not included, captain,^ re- 
turned Zanetio, drawing bimsrlf up 
proudly to his full height. 

'^ Boy^ you do not couat^*^ satd Bro 
card. 

*^ It seems to me that I countifd U^ 
fore the enemy,*' replied tht* Ik»v* 

" B** stilh child r cried PoBdoro^ 
"The drummer's duty ib to follow th« 
company/' 

" That is trne,*' said an ohl 
"Come, Zanetttn stick your band im 
the hag. but don*t draw ray name*.** 

But it was the ohl nian*s uamr th< 
he di'ew, 

'*Tlio grcnndier Samfderri V* 

** I iif'ver had any luck,*' ] 

Sarapierri, stumping luigril) 
gixiund. 

He took up his musket. 

** The grenadiers Nicolo, MoihIidI, 
Busjione !" continued Brocard- 

Alattco, while this was going o 
had returned from the viiluge, and w 
eitently digging a trench lo iKir iH 
about two hundred paces fn>m tJi 
Diounmin, where the earth w«iii «dfl 
and offered but little FL^sistaoce. 

** Ha! Matict>I there are niiitHy nf 
us " cried ( /r»r|M>nil Campana ; •• ome 
men to mount guai-d nndergrouod t^h 
day. hLikii it wide enough, mj M 
friend.*' 

** A corporal is wanted to co«i»fiiaiiil 
the tiring party/* said Brociird, ** amI 
I have mi. ted up all tlie naoies agalti 10 
the shako/' 

" Well, let it bo Campana,'' 1 
plied. 

•* Me^ man capikiinef IfMial la 
I done more than my comradui f VHtf 
choose me?*' 

" What have you done ? H»ve yoo 
not three clievrons ? Are you not the 
oldest eorparal I Y'ou stmuld bav^ firi , 
the example of subonlination* GoTj 

** So btj it, then/' said the corpofsl^ 
gloomily. ** Come — attentiuii, liri»jE 
parly !'*' 

He marched to the trench mi tho 
head of his four grenndsen. 






Decimated. 



808 



« Attention P cried I. « Draw the 
names ; the tenth — " 

'' Enough !" said Zanetto ; ** let him 
beware. The business is becoming less 
amusing, captain." 

He drew nine slips successively, 
which Brocard did not read, so that 
the suspense continued to the end. 
The tenth he held up. 

** The Sergejint Grasparini !" 

'*Good! This is the day of the 
grognardi^^ said Gasparini, making 
the military salute. '^Sfay I embrace 
Zanetto, mon capitaxne ?" 

•* Do as you will," I said ; ** I would 
ratlier be a hundred feet underground 
than here." 

" Thanks, captain. We all see how 
this business grieves you. Thanks !" 

He bent over the drummer, and the 
tears, spite of his proud endeavors to 
restrain them, dropped on his gray 
mustache. 

'•Here; take this for thy trouble, 
my boy,^' he said, giving tho drummer 
his silver watch. 

He dashed the tears from his eyes 
shamefacedly, and with a steady step 
marched to the edge of the trench. 

** Ready I" cried Corporal Campa- 
na. 

'* Aim ! Fire V* cried Grasparini. 

A flash and report followed, and the 
old sergeant fell dead on his face in the 
trench, where Matteo pushed him with 
his foot to the place where he was to 
pest. 

Zanetto continued, drawing horn ele- 
ven to nineteen. Brocard, still without 
reading them, tore them up one af^er 
another. Twenty reached, he took the 
slip, lifted it above his head, and sob- 
bed, rather than spoke, in his endea- 
vors to conceal his emotion : 

**The Sergeant-Major GambettaT 

It was the best instructed under- 
officer perhaps in the regiment ; calm, 
well knowing his duties, laborious — 
so useful, in fact, in the humble post he 
held that his superiors through pure 
selfishness had never proposed him for 
promotion. He was forty years of age 
at least, had received the cross as far 
back as 1805, and with the money of 



bis pension relieved many a little want 
of his comrades. 

^ Ah ! poor Gasparini !** he cried with 
a sort of mournful merriment ; ** if to- 
day is' the day of the old growlers, it is 
also the day of sergeant's. • What is the 
matter, mon capitcnne V said he as he 
passed me. ** You seem to be in trou- 
ble." 

He was not far wrong. I was in 
despair. My eyes were fixed upon 
the mountain as if they would pierce 
through it, and at every chai^ging sha- 
dow, every breath of wind which sigh- 
ed among the trees, my heart bounded 
painfully with the hope that the long 
wished for guerilla was about making 
his appearance on the heights. 

'' Adieu, Zanetto ! take my cross, I 
have no watch. Show yourself some 
day worthy to wear it. May it be long 
ere we meet again, captain. Grod guard 
your 

He crossed himself devoutly,, and 
walked to the trench, his hands in his 
pockets, bent one knee to the earth, 
and gave the word " Fire !" 

We heard a report ; Grambetta, his 
head shattered by the bullets, rolled 
like a lump of lead into the trench. 

" Will those beggarly Spaniards ne- 
ver appear ?" said I to Brocard aside. 
" I have had more than enough of this.** 

*• Hush !** replied Brocard. ** You 
do not know them yet as well as I, who 
have been in the peninsula since 1807. 
I have just discovered the whole band 
in the declivity yonder before us. They 
are climbing along above, so as to at- 
tack us in front and on both flanks at 
once. I have counted three hundred 
muskets and carbines. We will have 
hot enough work in a few minutes.'* 

'* Grod grant it ! Continue, but more 
slowly, so that we need not kill any 
more." 

Slowly, however, as he proceeded to 
tear up the names drawn, slowly as 
the drawing went on, number thirty at 
length came forth. He lifted it up to 
read the name, but remained for an in- 
stant silent. 

" Who ? who ?** resounded on all 
sides. 



804 



Decimated, 



*^ To the devil with it ! Let whom 
it concerns read it/' cried Brocard, 
flinging it upon the.groand« 

*' I will wager it is I," said Polidoro, 
springing forward to pick it up. ^^ Yes^ 
it is indeed. The Lieutenant Polidoro !" 

^' Did you not make a mistake, Za- 
netto ?" asked L ** I think it 13 only 
twenty-nine." 

** Yes, yes, captain, it is only twen- 
ty-nine," cried a soldier. " Don't, for 
heaven's sake, decimate an officx^r." 

" Cofpo di Bacco^ do you take me 
for a foolP* shouted Polidoro. **I 
counted them, and it is thirty. Come, 
come! Every one in his turn. No 
joking ! Your hand, Bourdelaine. You 
forjrive me?" 

He had scarcely spoken when a sig- 
nal shot was heard on the mountain, 
and following upon it two fierce blazes 
of fire crashed on our right and left 
and concealed our assailants in their 
thiol^ smoke. 

It was indeed the guerilla band the 
colonel had spoken of, which, augment- 
ed by some of Campoverde's men, 
whom the English had disembarked 
at the mouth of the Ebro, had filed 
toward the mountain, going fix>m 
Cacia, below Torlosa, as far as Cas- 
serras« intending fi*om that point to 
surprise us at Mora. Learning that 
a company was at Batea, they halted 
on their way in the hope of capturing 
us. 

At the crash of the discharge, Poli- 
doro sprang forward like a lion. The 
smell of battle seemed to intoxicate 
him. His eyes flashed fire, and his 
face glowed with ardor. His was a 
true warrior-soul. 

'• Captain,*' said he, " it is through 
my fault that the company is brought 
into this danger ; let it be mine to ex- 
tricate it. Give me twenty men. I 
know the country round, and this morn- 
ing I discovered a little by-patli open- 
ing on a level space, from which we can 
turn the enemy's right. You attack 
him in front; let Brocard see to his 
left, and in less than a quarter of an 
hour all that rabble will be cut to 
pieces or dispersed. I f I remai n ali ve, 



I will return and place myself at your 
disposal." 

*• If you return aKve," I replied, " the 
colonel will decide upon your case. 
San-Polo foresaw this attack and or- 
dered me not to push the execution 
further. Here is your sword, Polidoro, 
but be not rash ; the colonel will ooC 
deprive himself, for any whim, of an 
officer with such a future as yours be- 
fore him." 

'* I have no future, Bourdekiue,'* he 
returned gloomily. *^ I do not deceive 
myself with false hopes. Preferment 
is closed against me. I will die at least 
with honor, and bear with me the^ 
gret of my chief." 

Corporal Cnmpana had returned 
with his four grenadiers during this 
colloquy, and Matteo walked slowly in 
the rear. 

**Five men for the advance, and 
fifteen more for the lieutenani," I cried 
to Brocard. 

" All riglit, captain I You hoM (he 
centre and I the right, deployed as skir- 
mishers — is that it ?" asked Brocard. 

** Right !" 

*' And I r said Matteo, confounded 
as Polidoro, advancing at a run to the 
mountain, gained some distanci; up its 
declivity whhout being perceived by 
the enemy. *' Am I good for nothing, 
captain, but to bury my comrades ? ' 

*-Tiiou old graybeard! March at 
the head of the column," I replied, 
'♦ since instead of awaiting us in their 
stronghold those fools have been silly 
enough to come down to surround us. 
Thou seest 1 did not do ill to reserve 
you for a better chance.' 

'* Much obliged !" he returned. *• Then 
we are going to cool their hot blood, 
captain ?" 

The guerilla chief, not having i«r- 
ceived our movemeni.and there only be- 
ing fifty men at most before him, pn^ssed 
confidently forward, never doubting 
that he could easily compel us to lay 
down our arms. We waited until part 
of his men had reached the foot of the 
mountain, and then we fell upon them 
in a solid column, while Brocanl. his 
men deployed as skirmishers, attacked 



Decimated. 



805 



and drove back their left, dnd Polidoro, 
having gained hiB position, forced their 
right to retreat, shootiDg down all who 
had not rejoined the maiD bodj. Sud- 
denly I heard the drums beat the 
charge behind me. It was a company, 
led by San-Polo himself, which had 
taken the Batea road, and so cut off the 
advance-guard of the guerillas thrown 
forward toward Mora. 

The Spaniard is bi-ave, obstinate, and 
sober ; inured to privations and fatigues. 
He will fight long and well behind a 
rock or a wall, but in the open field he 
geperally lacks steadiness, and is easily 
discouraged if he meets an unforeseen 
resistance in an attack. He will dis- 
band to meet his fellows at some other 
point and plan some new surprise — the 
only species of warfare which he con- 
ducts well. This, indeed, is the result 
of that provincial spirit of independ- 
ence, of that character of individuality, 
which 83 deeply penetrates the masses 
and forms the distinguishing character- 
istic of the nation. 

The panic soon became general, and 
the village was filled with wounded 
and dead. 

Those who fled from the fire of one 
party of our men were received upon 
the bayonets of another, finding no 
outlet through which to make their 
escape; about a hundred of the gue- 
rillas, however, succeeding in forcing 
their way toward Casserras, scattering 
as they went, and giving us a few part- 
ing shots. All the rest were taken. 
San-Polo forced his way to us, pitilessly 
shooting down all who refused to yield. 
He soon joined us, and cast his eyes 
toward the open trench. 

** Aha!" he cried, darting a look of 
intelligence to me ; *♦ you are cautious, 
captain. You would not have the enemy 
know the number of your killed. How 
many ?*' asked he in a low tone. 

^ Two, mon colonel; the lot unfortu- 
nately fell upon Sergeants Gasparini 
and Gambetta." 

San-Polo could not restrain a gesture 
of vexation. 

" And Polidoro 1" 

^Mafoiy my colonel; he escaped 



well ; we were going to shoot him when 
the skirmish commenced. He is now 
upon the mountain, where I can vouch 
he gave us some famous help." 

" He is here," said Bixxjard, ** and in 
a sad condition. Here are his men bring- 
ing him upon their muskets." 

When he reached us, Polidoro raised 
his head, not without great pain, and 
lifting his still bantering glance to the 
face of San-Polo, who stood grave and 
motionless, he cried with an attempt at 
his old gayety : 

" Hit, colonel, hit ! I am sorry, mr 
colonel, that you can no longer break 
or even put me under arrest." 

" I will have chance enough to do 
both yet," i-eplied San-Polo, with an 
affected roughness which betrayed his 
anxiety to encourage the wounded 
soldier. 

** O colonel ! my account is closed 
this time," returned Polidoro. "Six 
bullets through the body, and two of 
them at least through ray lungs. "Tis 
enough for one, mon colonel,^ 

Then some long-banished remem- 
branccs seemed to return, and a sad 
smile played over his features. 

'• Sancta Maria, mater Dei*' he con- 
tinued, in a tone still tinged with a sort 
of sorrowful gayety, " era pro nobis pee* 
caioribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrte. 
Amen:' 

San- Polo threw himself from his 
horse, and pressed a fiask of brandy to 
the lips of the wounded lieutenant, hold- 
ing him up in his arms for a moment to 
help him to swallow a few drops. 

'* How kind you are to me !" mur- 
mured the dying man, in a scarcely 
audible voice ; ** you seem to think 
that, in spite of my follie?, I was not 
so bad an officer after all. Keep, I 
pray you, my colonel, my sword in re- 
membrance of me ; only unfasten the 
sword-knot and give it to Bourdelaine. 
Ah II wish you would give Zanetto 
fifteen franco for — the drum — I broke." 
A cough internipted him, and a 
bloody froth appeared upon his h'ps. 
His features were pinched with pain ; 
he gasped ; his eyes grew glassy, and, 
after a few slight convulsions, all that 



806 



Decimated, 



remained of Polidoro fell back in the 
coloners arms. 

San-Polo took the lieutenant's sword, 
pulled the knot off, and hastily handed 
it to me ; then springing into the sad« 
die he rode off at full gallop, without 
speaking a word or even turning his 
head. 

^ Quick, Brocard ! Mount and ac- 
company the colonel," I said. ^ You 
know how dangerous those guerillas 
are even in a rout. I shall not need 
jou until we return to Mora." 

ni. 

"And now that I have ended," said 
the general after a pause, ^' let us talk, 
if jou please, about the* rain and the 
weather. It is strange," he continued, 
pressing his hand to his brow^^<how 
all these memories return, at the time 
when, thank God, our days of joy and 
tronble are nearly past" 

" Yours ?" the goTcrnment clerk has- 
tened to reply. " You are good for 
twenty years yet." 

There are some honest people who 
always speak thus to old men. 

*• Grood I very good !" growled the 
general, bending over the table to pour 
out another wine-glass of cognac. '^ In 
twenty years I will be no more thought 
of than if I had never lived. To the 
devil with wars and those who make 
them." 

While his daughter and son-inlaw 



were lifting their vmces in protect 
against such an idea, I dirn^r^ctly ta.>k 
up the lamp, and approached the frame 
to examine it more closely. 

" These, very probably," I said, half 
to myself, ** are the watch of the grena- 
dier Gasparini, the cross of the ser- 
geant-major Gambetta, and sword-koot 
of Lieutenant Polidoro." 

*'Yes, yes," replied the general, with- 
out looking toward them ; ^ I bought 
the watch and the cross from the drum- 
mer Zanctto. Poor child ! The first 
bullet sent him to his account in the as- 
sault on Fort Olivo, the 29tli of May, 
before Tarragona. For goodaess" sake, 
let it alone." 

I saw that my curiosity made hun 
impatient, so I returned the lamp and 
took up my hat to retire. 

" You are leaving us very soon, my 
friend," said the general. 

" You know, general, that I must be 
home by half-past nine." 

" Right. Duty before alL I hope 
you don't intend to put all I have said 
upon paper." 

'' You have authorized me to do so, 
general." 

'^ So be it, then ; but upon one con- 
dition." 

"Name it." 

** That you will add nothing of your 
own to it, as most of you men of letters 
do ; and that you wUl not pervert my 
words." 

** I will try not to do so." 



Scenes from a Afieeionary Journey in South America. 807 



From The Month. 

SCENES FROM A MISSIONARY JOURNEY IN SOUTH 
. AMERICA. 



I. LISBON, ST. VINCENT, PBBNAKBUCO, 
BAUIA. 

TowAUD evening of the 12th of 
March we doubled Cape Finistcrre, 
the north-western extremity of Spain, 
and saw in the misty offing a very 
large four masted iron screw steamer, 
bomeward bound, and said to be from 
Australia. We bad "but once seen the 
Spanish coast looming through the fog 
several leagues off; but at sunriHC on 
the 14th we forgot all the miseries of 
the previous four days, as the sea was 
quite smooth, the weather admirable, 
and a scene of unequalled beauty un- 
rolled itself before our eager gaze. 
TVe were entering the Tagus: on our 
left, at the rivePs mouth, stood the 
castle of St. Julian, apparently not a 
very ancient or remarkable structure. 
We bad passed in tlie night, also on 
the left, the far-famed woodcrowned 
hills and picturesque glens of Cintra, 
so beautifully sung by Lord Byron in 
Childe Harold. Further on jutted 
into the stream the yellow-walled old 
Moorish fortalice of Belem, so often 
depicted, and so worthy of it Its 
inany lights and shadows, as the sun- 
light plays on its richly sculptured 
front, give it a strangely quaint and 
old-world appearance. Its garrison, a 
mere company or so, appeared to en- 
joy a sinecure ; for I beheld a single 
sentinel lazily pacing up and down a 
narrow landing-place. Others were 
fishing with a rod and line, and a few 
more washing in the stream their seem- 
ingly unique shirts, for they wore no 
other clothing that I could sec, save a 
pair of white canvas trowsers. This 
scene I saw repeated a few weeks later 
in the Brazilian island of Sancta 
Cathariua, where a squad of black sol- 
diers were washing their shirts and 
trowsers in the waters of a small moun- 



tain stream. From the castle of Belem 
the view eastward up the river is one 
of the most beautiful that can be imag- 
ined, and seems at first fully to justify 
the pride of the Portuguese lines : 

** Quern dAo tern viito LiiboA, 
NAj tem vUto coasa boa." 

That is, he has not seen a beautiful 
sight who has not seen Lisbon. The 
river, considerably narrowed at its ex- 
treme mouth, widens here very much, 
and displays on its broad surface a for- 
est of masts. On the lefl band the 
city rises from the water^s edge up an 
amphitheatre of seven hills, house upon 
house, church upon church, filling up 
an irregular semicircle of considerable 
extent, and having for a fraye the 
surrounding green heights, whose ten- 
der spring verdure, here and there en- 
livened by the blooming Judas-tree,* 
agreeably contrasts with the dazzling 
whiteness of most of the edifices. To 
the westward of the city sits the im- 
posing mass of the modem and yet 
unfinished royal palace of Ajuda ; and 
beneath it, near the waterside, an old 
convent and church, whose gray 
weather-beaten walls seem to bid de- 
fiance to the mushroom structure 
above. This palace of Ajuda will 
probably never be finished. The finan- 
ces of that puny kingdom are not, 
I imagine, in the most prosperous con- 
dition ; and it would appear that mod- 
em royalty is as little at ease in resi- 
dences fashioned upon the grandeur 
and magnificence of ancient days, as 
a beggar would be if he suddenly be- 
came the owner and tenant of a noble- 
man^s seat 

On the southem side of the Tagus 

* A tree with pendulous bunches of pink flowsn. 
It is probably so called from its blooming about Pat* 
•ion-tide. Some say that it was on a tree of thii fp*- 
des that Judas hanged hlmsdf. 



808 



Scenes from a Mtuionary Journejf in South America. 



arc to be seen scattered here and there 
pleasantly enough among the green 
hills various white- walled qulntas^ or 
country farm-houses and villas. There 
is also, facing Lisbon, a small town of 
three or four thousand inhabitants. A 
little lower down toward the sea, on 
the same side, is the new Lazaretto, or 
building for quarantine — a certainly 
not very inviting abode, all white and 
yellow, without a particle of verdure 
or a square inch of shade about it* 
The harbor or bay, four or five miles 
wide, contains ships of almost every 
nation ; but chiefly British, for Por- 
tugal is now little better than a colo- 
ny or dependency of England. The 
Magdalena had no sooner cast anchor 
than two of the respected clergy of 
the English college — the college dos 
Jnglesinhosy (of the dear English,) as 
the people call them— came on beard 
to welcome me. I accompanied them 
ashore, and visited the college, situated 
on one of the highest spots of the city. 
On my way through the custom-house 
I saw A piece of impertinence com- 
mitted by one of the underlings in the 
absence of his principal, which too well 
indicated the little respect which is 
now paid to the holy see in that once 
80 Catholic kingdom. A secretary of 
the Brazilian nunciature, on his way 
to Rio, had landed with a small bag 
containing despatches sent by Cardinal 
Antonelli to the- nuncio at Lisbon. 
Ambassadors' papers are privileged 
everywhere; nevertheless, in spite of 
the secretary's remonstrances and 
mine, the said underling broke open 
one of the sealed packets, and would 
doubtless have procc^ed further ha<l 
not Padre Pedro, of the English col- 
lege, at that moment arrivcrd, and 
tlireatened the insolent douanier with 
the loss of his place. I don't know if 
the nuncio took any notice of the 
affiiir; but where could such a pro- 
ceeding have taken place save in Lis- 
bon, or perhaps in Florence ? 

Facing the harbor, in the Pra^a do 
Commercio, is a handsome bronze 
statue of one of the former kings of 
Portugal, whose proud and command- 



ing attitude half recalled the timei 
when Portugal was mistress of the 
seas, and her adventurous navigators 
pioneered the way through onluiown 
oceans to discoveries of stupendoui 
magnitude. 

The Eoglish fathers, the Revs. » 

showed me more than ordinary polite- 
ness: one of them accompanied me 
to present sundry letters of intro- 
duction I had brought with me to 
some notable personages of the capital 
I was very cordially received every- 
where, and could have wished that 
all the Portuguese resembled these 
worthy representatives of former na- 
tional greatness. « The Marqueza de 

F ', among others, appeared to me 

the model of a hidalgo's wife, fuU of 
grace and dignity, yet of amenity and 
practical good sense. I was particu- 
larly struck with her fervid piety, wor- 
thy of bettfMT times. At the house of 

the Marquess de L , brother to the 

Portuguese minbter in London, I met 
the newly consecrated Bishop of Opor- 
to, who, to an ardent xeal and piety, 
joined the precious experience of thirty 
years' apostolate in China as a I..az- 
arist missionary. He has since made 
his voice heard to some purpose in the 
upper house of the Lisbon pailiament, 
strenuously resisting and combating the 
autichristian measures of the Louid 
ministty. 

Some of the churches, of course, I 
visited, as far at least as the shortness 
of time allowed. They bore for the . 
most part traces of the magnificence 
and gorgeous piety of other days ; but 
were generally ill kept, and but too 
empty of worshippers. The chapter 
mass was being chanted when I en- 
tered the Primatial dmrch ; there were 
very few people assisting; near the 
door stood some poor women with dead 
babes laid on benches ; they did not 
seem to be noticed by any one. 

If the exterior aspect of Lisbon is 
truly magnificent, a nearer view of 
that capital takes away all illusion. I 
aAerward found this to be the case 
also with many of the Brazilian cities. 
Nature has done wondera for most of 



Scenes from a Mieeionary Journe^^^^outh America* 




800 



towns, but man seems to have 
it his especial pnrpose to sully 
sfigure everj'thing. If we ex- 
)me really very fine buildings and 
historic monuments, all in Lis- 
squalid, neglected, and ruinous, 
of the streets, rebuilt so lately as 

years ago, after the great earth - 
, are narrow, tortuous, ill-paved, 
lore than ordinarily dirty and 

The same may be said of the 
s, even of palaces of great noble- 
in which, in spite of imposing 
^ctural splendor, and traces of 

• sumptuousness, the olfactory 
s frequently annoyed by indes^ri- 
odors of stables or worse things, 
.ry commissions would assuredly 
cen mad if at work in that city 
y time. The noisy bustle of a 
capital always gives, more or 
n appearance of energetic life to 
wellers ; but afler London, Paris, 
n Madrid, Lisbon appears dead, 
he torpid metropolis of a dege- 

people. 

the 21st at sunrise we cast an- 
n the fine bay of SL Vincent, 
' the Cape de Verde Islands, 
coaling station for steamers. It 
)lcanic rock of frightiul sterility, 
>8sesses a wide, deep, and secure 

• of considerable resort for ships 
iting on the African coast Every- 
is brought thither from the neigh- 

• island of Sant' Antonio — water, 
;s, bananas, yams, sugar-canes, 
Iher productions— for the place 
absolutely nothing, save a little 
sh water in a couple of wells, 
e inhabitants are a few score of 
)g- looking negroes, a few lean 
owls, and goats. I saw, soaring 
imong the mountains, a kind of 
e with a large yellow beak, but 
ired where that bird and its pos- 
allows would find anything to eat, 

it came across from the neigh- 
: islands. For there is no sign 
eer of vegetation or of wild ani- 
fe on this spot, where it is said 
to rain. The soil is reddish, and 
ually calcined by the intolerable 
ess of an almost equatorial sun. 



He ought Bot to compMirvf heat in 
Europe who has once viuicd St Vin- 
cent One of my voyaging compa- 
nions, the secretary of nunciature at 
Rio, the Rev. Monsignore ■, who 
had come directly from Rome, was 
sighing and groaning under the op« 
pression of that fiery dime. The good 
man had, by some mischance, left his 
baggage behind, and had no other 
clothing to wear but a long black coat 
of a coarse and thick texture that 
would have done him fair service 
amidst the snows of Canada — but 
here in St. Vincent I He must have 
had a vi\'id anticipation of purgatory, 
I am sure ; his distress was very co- 
mical, and he could not relieve it by 
lighter clothing until we reached Ba- 
hia. Far more at their ease were the 
dozen or two of little blacks, perfectly 
naked, who played on the smooth sandy 
shore, jumping and tumbling in and out 
of the waves, just like our own children 
in the new-mown hay at home in the 
summer-time. 

There may be at St Vincent four 
or five score of so-caUed houses of most 
wretched appearance, a set of stone* 
built barracks tenanted by a company 
or so of Portuguese soldiers, and a 
small foit on a hillock, overlooking 
and commanding the bay. Three or 
four sickly-looking palm-trees, brought 
from Portugal, endeavor to grow in 
front of the govern ntent- house. A 
small church has recently been built, 
and is served by a black priest, who 
managed to raise the funds for its erec- 
tion by begging on board every ship 
which came into the harbor. To the 
right on encering the harbor is a moun- 
tain of somewhat fantastic form. Ame- 
rican imagination has found in its out- 
line some resemblance to Washington's 
profile, and it has in consequence been 
called ** Washington's Head." Right 
in the middle of the entrance of tho 
bay, and darkly outlined against the 
frowning cliffs of Sant' Antonio, is a 
tall conical rock of remarkable appear- 
ance. It is a capital landmark, being 
seen seaward at a very great dis- 
tance. When we entered the harbor, 



mo 



Seenef from a jnaswrntry Jimm^f 



Ifnerios. 



we found at anchor, among other ves- 
sels, a large Federal steam*frigate, 
which had been there four months 
watching the arrival of the faraoua 
Alabama. Within the spacious bay 
disported two whales, mother and cub, 
which were pursued for several hours, 
but in Tain, by the native ilshermen. 

We most gUidly bode farewell to tlie 
desolate isle of St. Vincent, and fairly 
Bailed away lor the New World, yet 
distant from n^ six or seven hundred 
leagues, Tiie heat now befi^n to be 
territic, especially at night in tin? nar- 
row cabins ; but it was moderatt^d roost 
days by a gentle breeze, which made 
lolling on deck in the eveuin*:js truly 
Uixurious* About a day*s sail from 
St. Vincent I first noticed fihoala of 
fiying-fish, though I birlieve they are 
to be found In a much moi-e northerly 
latitude, and In another voyage I e^aw 
some off the isle of Palma. They 
rise from the sea, chiefly in the early 
morning and when the surface is tresh- 
ly rippled, in flocks of ten to sixty or 
more, and fly close to the surface, often 
tipping the erest of the wavelets, and 
skim alonfT with great velocity for tlie 
tipace of five or six hundred yard?, 
when they plunge again into the det-p, 
raisin^r a speck of foam* These small 
fish, which are sard to be of excellent 
flavor, are about the siz3 of herrin>f8, 
and of silvery-gray color. I on^.Mi or 
twice saw some much larger and almost 
white on the coast of Binizil* l^tween 
B;ihia and Ilio de Janeiro. They are 
»uid to be con^stantly pursued by the 
b<3nita, a krge fish of the dolphin 8j>e- 
cies, whose hungry maw ihey try to es- 
cape by rising out of the water. But 
although their flight is exceedingly ra- 
pid, their relenile«s enemy cuts its way 
through the subjacent waves with equal 
swiftness, and is ready for the tiny vic- 
tims as they drop exhausted into the 
sea* There appear to be prodigious 
numbers of them all over the oceAn ; 
and nearer the coast of Africa the jj-ea 
is some times covered for miles and 
miles with their spawn lying on the 
smooth surface like the duck- weed of 
our ponda. lo thia Jatitude, and fur 



many days* I al^o notkn^d swiu 
along in the smooth trrm^parenti 
the gay-looking dorado, a hirge 
vividly reflecting the suo'a ray* fn 
its scaly back, all over greeu and go] 
Sharks I was anxious lo Me, bctt uaotf^ 
appeared throughout ilie voyu;^; 
seared away, i should ir?^-- 
noise and turmoil of ih 

We had fallen into ib«f ip^ino< 
trade- winds, which blew stead ity 
the north^iHt, wiifling r 
the middk Atlantic; we 
reaching Pernambuco, 1 v. 
ed to meet with so i'\^w sh; 
wav, yet we niu^t lia\ 
high road of a sreat muli 
outward or home^vai\l bnuud. 
apparent sciircity of ships gavi 
vivid idea of the immensity of the i 
on ^*hose jnuhl ess surface so maoj 
wander, lost like imjx*rct*ptibl*» sfiects 
of dust on the plain. In ihts pf%v 
solitude^ Hie on board ship is mriootO' 
nous enough, atid by its weari^tn«*i»rdf 
almost justifies the snarling suriog of 
Dr. Johnson ; ** Sir, I won hi niih<-f be 
in jail than on boairj of a ahip, where 
you have the confii ^f a ttriMUi 

together with the eh i iigilrt>«rii- 

ed." Want ofspttee.LWiuM I' 
vessels, the impossibility of 
one's self to serious ooco[ < 
or to prayer. ft»r want oi , 
and al^o on account of tlie 
the ship, which gn*atly fai 
hea^l — all this n\akes one »i_ 
end of the voyage, and find 
terest in the m<»6t trltlii' 
-^he passing of a distant ,. 
of a bird, and so fortli. Ir is 
in the evenings— and th-^ 
ones in the ti"opics--iha: 
heavy, unless one be huiunu «.» */ui*'f 
into all the frivolous and noii^j* Aiuiwe- 
ments set on foot to bt^gude irettriiifi«» 
The passengera dance, pli&y jckom^ 
improvise concerts, and Hr eat 

and drink enonnouslvt n -f ii.ll 

day long. How wi i 
voyages must hnve 
many monlhs, ^ 
years ! It is i 
Captain Cook'd ifoyiijsQt iIhU 



A 



Scene$ from a Missionary Journey in South America. 811 



rew once lost their wits for joj on 
^ the land they bad not beheld 
igbteen months. 

few degrees before we crossed the 
the sky became overcast with 
Y dark clouds, which French sailors 
^h pot du noir^ and our English 
^the doldrums;^' the barometer 
d to mdicate any atmospheric 
;es. It was on the 26tli, in the 
ng, we passed the equator, and for 

than forty hours we had violent 
Is and occasional tremendous 
pourings, which made us all un- 
)rtable ; for staying on deck was 
f the question, and the heat below 
very oppressive. Flocks of a 
3S of large wild goose, which came 
\ round the ship, announced the 
raity of the land ; and on the 28th 
*d dusk we passed off the rocky 
HCturesque island of Fernando de 
Sba. It was at too great a dis- 

to distinguish anything, but it is 

contain features of great natural 
y. This island is now used as a 
of transportation for the convicts 
•azil. These were formerly de- 

1 in the southern island of Sancta 
irina; but that spot afforded the 
lers too many facilities of escape, 

so near the mainland, and within 
reach of the foreign state of the 
a Oriental. I could collect but 
re notions concerning the number 
:he lot of the unhappy convicts, 
y all blacks, who have only ex- 
jed one kind of slavery and labor 
lother. In most cases, when the 

committed has not been of the 
heinous nature, the convict afler 
r or two's confinement is drafl- 
(to the army or navy. I have 
I officers of both services bitterly 
lain of this system. The island 
ronba is mountainous, and difficult 
!es8. 

last, on Sunday, March the 29th, 
irise, we touched the New World, 
be Magdalena cast anchor in Per- 
uco roads, about three miles from 
nd, for the harbor, whose entrance 
row besides, is inaccessible to ships 
rge tonnage. The fishermen of 



this place boldly navigate in those 
roads, and sometimes many leagues 
into the offing, on strange -looking 
and perilous rafts made of a few 
crossed bamboo-sticks, somewhat re- 
sembling the catamarans used at Ma- 
dras. It is inconceivable bow those 
daring sailors are not devoured by the 
sharks off those flimsy machines, which 
the least wave upsets. It does not 
much concern them when this happens, 
for they all swim like fishes, and the 
tiny crafl is soon put to rights again. 
There is, however, a tradition in the 
port that once upon a time a man was 
snatched off his dancing catamaran by 
a monstrous shark, which devoured 
him before the eyes of his affrighted 
companions. Fernambuco is a place 
of great trade, the third city in the 
Brazils for population and the impor- 
tance of its productions : it is one of 
'the great sugar-markets of the world. 
It possesses some good churches and 
public buildings, and a school of law, 
the first in the empire, where Pomba- 
list and Jansenistic traditions have ob- 
tained much less adhesion than at Sao 
Paolo or Bahia. A thesis was main- 
tained there v^th great appkiuse a short 
time ago, which astonished all the law- 
yers of Brazil, namely, that the pope 
needed not a general council to decide 
infallibly any doctrine of faith; his 
ipse dixit was sufficient; and all true 
Catholics ought at once to bow interi- 
orly and exteriorly to it as to the word 
of Christ himself. This was probably 
the first time this had been so boldly 
proclaimed in South America since 
the banishment of the Society of 
Jesus. 

The town is cut up by a number of 
lagoons, crossed over by bridges like at 
Venice; and its first aspect from the 
sea reminds one very much of Ham- 
burg. There is, of course, the differ- 
ence of a glowing sky and large tropi- 
cal vegetation. The land lies low, and 
the presumption is that it must be un- 
healthy; but it is not so, I believe, 
owing to the regular sea-breezes, which 
greatly cool the air and dissipate the 
vapors. The heat cannot but bo in- 



9n09 from <t Jftjiiofiary 



mty 



tense at times on a 8|X)t only si* or 
seven degrees soulh of ibe line. 

It is not always easy to land at Per 
nambaco, for the entrance of the harbor 
rloes not give more than fifteen or six- 
teen feet of water in the beat tides ; and 
there liea across it, and for huntbeds 
uf miles up and down and parallel with 
the coast, a dangerous low coral-reef, 
against which the mitrhty Atlantic 
waves dash with fury. This reef, which 
in many places barely rises above the 
surface, would prove an excellent de- 
fence ocjainst invasion ; but it was not 
a ppart'Dtly thought sufficient in former 
times, for tliere stands on the beach to 
the north of the town a square bastion- 
ed fort, built by the Dutch under Mau- 
rice of Nassau when th^^y occupied the 
country at the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century. To the north of tbis 
again, on a bold rocky hill, is situated 
the ancient city of Olinda, so called 
fromtbe exelamations of the first Por^ 
tuguese discoverers when tins enchant- 
ing land broke upon their sight : ** O 
littda terra ! lindos outelros T — ** O 
beautiful country, charming hills !* It 
was formerly a bishup^s see and the 
capital of the country* It contains sev- 
eral churches and conventi?, as well at 
old residences of governors and mag- 
nates, of a rather massive and impos* 
ing arcbitccture. The surrounding 
country is one vast forest of palm, 
cocoa-nut. and other trees of the torrid 
«one* There are many flourishing 
sugar and coffee plantatiouB, sur- 
rounded by nopal and banana groveSt 
and a multitude of superb creepers, 
amidst whose luxuriant growth and 
glowing flowers rise the white- walled 
housea of the owners. As wa rode 
mlong, we purchased some pine-apples 
and mangoes of immense size and ex- 
qm*Rile flavor. When we n?tumed on 
boat'd, nunjbers of Pernambuco boat- 
men surrounded the ship with loads of 
oranges and bananas for sale* as well 
as tame parrots and monkeys; but 
none of them, with the fear of the shmrki 
before their eyes, would imitate the 
blacka, whom we had seen at St« Vin< 
oetu diving into the sea, nine or t«n 



re «ci 




fathom deep, to picl 
money which the 
throw in, to witness Lbtyur 
poweT of swimming. 

From Pernambuco to Bahia wc hai! 
thirty-six hours' y»aa>%age, Wc wi^n 
not nearer the land thnn ten or twe 
lea^rues, the Royal Mail Compaot 
bidding their commaoderB ot sit 
bug the coast any closer. On Ih 
of March, about noon, we met 1 1 
steamer La Nayarrt*, of ihe 
Messageries Company, on its way i« 
Bordeaux. It was cnimmetl Itill olj 
piassengcrs, among whom I saw s**vcr 
Sisters of St. Vincent dc Paul. Th«sm\ 
venernble relij^ioua women eervi* vari»J 
ous hospitals in the linixils — at Unh^ 
Ri'j de Jnneirf3, and other places Thf 
are everywhere, I need not sar. worthfl 
of their holy founder and of th ir cwn* ' 
try. They have not ese: I irtr, 

in this New World the i i - and 

persecutions whicli they have had lo «?a- 
dare iu some parts of K<>i^'f>*' ^^'^l no* 
tably in Portupil and 1' Al- 

mos't the Ursi H'"'i* -- ' --^ 

contained un in 
them J but they >wmhii .• 
selves prefer contumel' 
assimihitinpr them m»r 
tbctr Divine LonVthe ^1 

At a very early L 
doublt3d the point wl 
rij^ht of the harbor « : T. i 
ship flred a gun to unii'^nh^ 
va L No d e*c H pt ion ai n cot i ' 
idea of tlie beauiy of thi^ ^ 
ba?^ — Bah ia de i odos os S 
••All Saints' Bay.'* ( - 
water*s edge with a glowing : 
tic ve«j:etation, the bills whieh i 
the roadsktead are dutted with fW^^ttT- 

looking villfli*, ther*^*^''* » ^ •*^' '^m 

men^hants. It wa.^ 

of what is here cu.-.u «i.iil-i| 

I aaw everywhere a sujierabutid 

flowers, esj»ecially of roses. Trfe§ 

stranpe foi-ms. fruit* yet iiK»re 

a teeminfr population, two thirtU of 

which at leiiat was composetl of n<*2:ro«s, 

the odd crieii and barbarouM bowlilk^ 

of these blacks as they hawkf^ii thiif 

wares or carried, to the number of ten 







dft&. 



A 



Scenes from a Missionary Journey in South America, 



818 



or twelre together, huge burdens swung 
CO the middle of long poles — every- 
thing was of a sort to interest a stran« 
ger. Carriages there were none, or 
very few at least ; for the citj, being 
built on the steep slope of an abrupt 
cliff, has no level surface anywhere in 
its streets, most of which resemble very 
much the queer uphill lanes leading 
to Fourviores in the city of Lyons. The 
intense heat of the atmosphere made 
me give up the design I had entertain- 
ed of visiting the town entirely on foot. 
I hired a kind of bath-chair, of which 
there are long stands about, and two 
stout negroes conveyed me successively 
to the various churches and the public 
garden of the city. These chairs are 
very ingeniously contrived to exclude 
the sun and admit the air, as well as to 
preserve absolute privacy within them. 
They swing on a long pole fore and aft, 
which the blacks carry on their shoul* 
der; but this pole is shaped like an 
elongated S, to secure the sitter^s equi- 
librium, which would be unpleasantly 
disturbed by the see-saw tread of the 
bearers. Nothwithstanding the little 
exercise I took, an abundant perspira- 
tion ran from every pore. It was 
therefore with exquisite pleasure that 
I came to a house where for a few vin- 
terns (a few pence) I could exchange 
my stewing state for the coolness of a 
shower-bath. 1 had previously been 
told to use (he necessary precaution — 
that is, to rub a small quantity of caix- 
aga, or rum, over my body betbre coming 
in contact with the water. 

The trade of Bahia appears consi- 
derable, and is entirely carried on in 
the lower town, which stretches along 
the water-side on the north for more 
than a leajrue, nearly to the western- 
most point of the outer bay, crowned 
by a celebrated sanctuary dedicated to 
Nossa Sefihora do BomFim — Our 
Lady of the Happy Death. On the 
eastern promontory of the harbor, on 
the summit of a bold hill looking upon 
the Atlantic, is the oldest reli<rious 
building, perhaps, in all South Ame- 
rica. It is the now ruinous church 
built by an Indian princess, the first 



of her race who embraced the faith of 
Christ. The beach below was often 
hallowed by the footsteps of the ven- 
erable Father Anchieta, the apostle of 
Brazil, who would bare his breast to 
the sea-breeze to cool the ardor which 
consumed him for the salvation of souls, 
and write with a stick on the sand of 
the shore the beautiful Latin verses 
he daily composed in honor of the 
Blessed Mother of God. The blacks 
still cross themselves at the mention of 
Padre Ancliieta's name, and the coun- 
try still abounds with traces and mon- 
uments of his zeal and wonderful sane- 
tity. The numerous churches of Ba- 
hia are generally very richly decorat- 
ed, but not cleanly kept I saw some 
large black rats running across the 
altar of one of them, most profusely 
adorned with gilt carving. It was a 
church dedicated to St Benedict the 
Moor, a negro saint from Africa, a 
monk of the Franciscan order, who 
lived and died in Sicily, and it is ex- 
clusively used by the blacks. A ne- 
gro priest was loitering about its pre- 
cincts, and when I told him of the 
boldness of the aforesaid rats, '*We 
cannot help it, Sefior Padre-mestre," 
he answered ; ^ their numbers are so 
great we cannot destroy them." The 
churches have no seats ; the men stand 
round by the side walls, and the wo- 
men sqtiat down on the middle wooden 
floor. Sometimes, and when the floor 
is of stone, the ladies are accompani- 
ed to church by a female slave car- 
rying a small square carpet, which she 
lays down for her mistress to sit upon. 
I saw a^iain here in the cathedral what 
I had already seen in Lisbon : on a 
wooden bench near the holy-water ves- 
sel close to the door lay several dead 
babies, shrouded up with the exception 
of the face, and covered with fresh 
flowers. The mothers were waiting 
hard by until a priest should come to 
recite the funeral prayers. I had at 
first mistaken these little corpses for 
waxen exvotos. Thus adorned, death 
had nothing sad or repulsive about it, 
especially when I thought that these 
were the remains of little angels — an- 



su 



Sayin^M of the Fathers of ih§ JknrL 



Jinhos tbey call them in Brazil — who 
bad flown lo heaven with the purity of 
their baptismal innoceijce* 

The Dcg:roes of Bahia are numeroufl« 
and the finest in the Brazil?. I ad- 
mire llieir robust frames* and the seem* 
ing indifl*erenc»2 wilh which they t*ar- 
ried ahnost Titanic kmds IwueHth such 
a burning sun* The landing-place is 
a perfi^et Babel ; thes^e bhickft are so 
loquacious, and they, moreover, seem 
to think it adds* to their iraporlance to 
fihoiit iiA loud as their it>ugh, powerful 
throats will let Itiera. I have never 
heard a negro B))eak to anolher in a 
qu J e r , s ubd ued w ay. A V by s 1 1 ould t h ey, 
indeed? They never altain the *ober 
aeriiie of ruunhood ; they are a mere 
Bet of* noisy, overgrown children* We 
had had as a tLrllow*[>assenger by the 
Mugdalena^ as far as Bahia, a Mr, 

B -• a litrlpj old Scotchman, long 

settled in the province of Mina^geraes, 
who took no small pride in exhihitiog 
a snow-white heard idmost a yard in 
length, and a plentiful crop of hair of 
the same venerable hue. A sprightly 
Enpflish youth, who \\m one of the first 
to land, spread the report amonfj the 
blatJcs that we had on board the fa- 
mous " Wandering Jew/* Our ship 
was soon surroundeti by a multitude 
of boats crammed full of woollv heads. 



and, when the IticklcM 

landed, he was, to his didaiay*Gseurfrf^ 

everywhere by a long proceiMon «f 

shDuting and sere^uning blac]ti<s^ Wt 

thought be paid rather dear tot lii 

eceentricity. 

The market^ which was nrar tl* 
hiuding-plaee, was abundnniSv *ar^ 
plied with eatables of ©vrrj- 
poultry, kids. Umbo, sneksng-f i 
alive, and bleating; squeakinsc, 
iog their best; a great variety ^ .. 
and fruits ; onmges of huji^* size, rjiIle^J 
there seieitas ; water-fiielaos, wilii ibe 
red, cool pidp; mango^9*bfuiaiiait|jftaak 
a sort of birge pumpkins wluch grot 
on tall trees, goiavuf, and many mint 
species whose mostly Indijin imjom 
I cannot reeoUecl, Wilh the excre- 
tion of orangt*8, limes, and j i 
which are &uperexcellent. 
of Bm^eil do not at first plea- 1 
pean palaio. Those of Eui — 
ing« i suff{i06e, to careful an^ 
cultivation — attain a luon <i i 
flavor, if they do not equal the lnii;» 
of America in size and cnlor. Ti- 
same may he suid of the fiov^ ' 
with greater size and mji^j 
color and form, lack, for tlte 

the exquisite perfume wliieh .^ u^ 

blest flowers exhale. 



SAYINGS OF THE FATHERS OF THE DESEBT 




Some brolhera came lo Abbot An- 
tony, and said ; " We whh to hear a 
maxim from you by which we may 
save ourselve:^/' 

The father said: **You hear tlio 
Scripture^) that is enough for you.** 

** But we wish to hear something 
from you, fatlier/* 

'* You hear," replied Abbot Antony, 
« Our Lord saying : * If any man strike 
you on tlie lefl ebeek, turn even ihe 
other to him**** 

Said they, " We are not able to do 
this.** 

^If you are not able to turn the other 



cheek, at least bear the ooe bbw pi 
tienlly," 

*' We cannot do ibat^ mid ther* 

^' If you are not slrtmg tno^i fcr 
that, then do not ifi»li lo strike iMii 
than you an* struck.'* 

•^ Oh I" said they, •* we casaciC rf« 
do that. ' 

Then the father said to hit Myriee: 
** Get ready fome pap for ibe«e bfoCli' 
ers, for they ai-e r^ry weak * Th<% 
turning to them, he said : "* If roa aie 
not able lo do even this miieK mhm 
oin I do for you ? All thai joia wbI 
16 prayer." 




The Two Lovers of Flavia DomUUla. 



815 



THE TWO LOVERS OF FLAVIA DOMITILLA. 



BT GLONFERT. 



CHAFTES IV. 

t 
THE FEAST OF BLOOD. 

About the year ninetj-two of the 
Christian era, Domitian visited the 
theatre of the Dacian war. Not dar- 
ing to show himself to tlie rebel arm j, 
he plundered the towns and cities which 
were left unprotected. Fire and furj 
surrounded his inarch ; and desolation 
left its smoking trail behind him. Car- 
rying with him the wealth of the pillag- 
ed villages, he returned to Rome. The 
tact and bravery of Julian, who direct- 
ed the war against the Dacians,.in a 
few months brought that warlike race 
to terms. Officially informed of their 
surrender, Domitian, who had never 
appeared on the battlefield, decreed 
himself a triumph such as in by-gone 
ages were awaited only to the conque- 
rors of great nations. He pompously 
ordered the temple of Janus to be 
closed for the tbiixl time, wo believe, in 
his reign. Its gates were left open in 
time of war. Its closing was a sign 
that universal peace prevailed over the 
vast area of the Roman empire. 

The temple of Janus was closed. 
But the peace its silent sanctuary' re- 
presented was like the calm of the sea 
before being lashed into fury by the 
flapping wuigs of the tempest The 
surface of the social system, undisturb- 
ed by the rebellion of warring tribes 
or by the clash of arms, was outwardly 
quiet and even. But the quiet and the 
evenness were those of the stagnant 
oc€an described by the poet as being 
overkead covered with smiling ripples 
and silver sunshine, but underneath 
filled with filth and corruption and the 
nameless things bred thereof. Taking 
the point oS view chosen by a great 



saint, we may well exclaim : " What a 
spectacle presented itself to the eye of 
the all-seeing Creator as he gazed 
downward over that vast empire I What 
corruption of truth and justice, of moral- 
ity and religion filled society and cor- 
roded its vitals in all its parts I Rotten 
and rotting systems of philosophy and 
the monstrous principles and practices 
bom thereof swarmed and spread on 
every side. It was only natural that 
the whole corrupted mass would swell 
and boil with fury as the little yeast of 
Christian truth destined to impregnate 
and cure it was being infused. 

The temple of Janus was closed. 
But the man who directed the desti- 
nies of the empire was ill at ease. The 
legions in Gaul and Asia were clamor- 
ing for increased pay. He had already, 
in order to secure their fidelity, raised 
it from three to four aurei, (about 
$5.25.) The gigantic and sliapeless 
temples and other structures he erected, 
together with the enormous outlay on 
public games and festivals, were a con- 
tinual drain on the treasury. To pro- 
cure money he had appointed officials 
of his own choosing to superintend, in- 
crease,and collect the taxes in the provin- 
ces and in the city of Rome ; creatures 
like Arthus, who ground the people with 
iron heel until they bruised out the last 
cent from their pockets. Arthus was 
one of the principal of these taz-im- 
posers and tax-gatherers in the city: 
ambitious of rising higher and higher 
in the imperial favor, and of out-dis- 
tancing his fellow-financiers in the 
neighboring districts, he spent all his 
time and attention which were not en- 
gaged in building up and pulling down 
parts of the labyrinthine temple, of 
which we have in the last chapter spo- 
ken, in devising plans for raising money. 



816 



I%6 Two Lovers <{f Flavia DomitiUa. 



After bath and diDner he was to be 
seen each day for hours with his hand 
upon his head concocting schemes as 
to the best «nd most expeditions way 
of putting his hand in the pockets of 
the poor, plundered plebeians. The 
client who came to propitiate the great 
nxan by a money-offer was received 
with courteous words and slippery 
smiles. But if it were a wretched wife 
pleading for a husband and family, 
whose last obolus was given already, 
she w*a3 received with insult and turned, 
if not kicked, from the door, carrying 
with her the fear of the unrelenting 
tyrant hanging like midnight upon her 
soul! 

The Jews in these as in our own times 
had more than an ordinary repute for, 
and possessed more than an ordinary 
share of, the money-bags. Arthus had 
suggested a tax to be levied on them 
for the right of residence in Rome. 
This proved a mine of supply during 
many years for the emperor. Another 
suggestion of Arthus had been an 
edict of persecution against the Chris- 
tians, which would at once enable the 
cunning oi&cial to seize on and confis- 
cate all their property. The exhausted 
condition of the treasury, to/elher with 
what we are about relating, combined 
in bringing forth the edict. 

At an early hour of the day, in the 
rooming of which we have soen Aure- 
lian at the Christian mf'eting, he sought 
the ira[KTial pnhice. lie had not chang- 
ed his drt'ss of the day before, and he 
betrayed by his hurried step and rest- 
less eye the deep excitement of his 
feelings. 

Wlien admitted into the emperor's 
prc!ience, he dt»scribe<l what he had wit- 
nessed in the catacombs. The number 
and the rank in society of those pre- 
sent at the Christian assemblage were 
paint«Hl in colors heightened by his 
imagination and fears. The words of 
consecmtion which he had heard were 
instancinl as undeniable proof of the 
truth of the rumors circulate*! about 
the niuixh»r of infants and participa- 
tion of human blood and fiC?«h by the 
Christians. The marriage of Flavia 



and Vitus, as Aurelian believed, wu 
depicted, as well as the )«art which 
Theodore, PrisciUa, and Clement took 
in solemnizing it The emperor seem- 
ed wholly overwhelmed. By nature 
and habit of a very nenrous tempera- 
ment, he was overcome with vague ter- 
rors on discovering hunself surrounded 
in his very palace and family by trai- 
tors. Vitus and Priscilla! the two 
most trusted inmatel of his householi 
the most punctual in the discharge of 
their duties, and the most faithful, as lie 
thought, to his own person ! l*hey to 
be infected with this Christian poisoo, 
and principal sharers in these bloodj 
orgies I Afler them it was easy to be- 
live that many more of his servants 
and friends were followers and sup- 
porters of Christ. Perhaps at that 
very moment the plots planned in 
those sacred meetings were at work 
against his life and crown ! Miglit it 
not be a clever manoeuvre to have thus 
entrapped and drugged Flavia in order 
that, through her popubrity and that of 
her uncle, the Roman people would will- 
ingly see the sceptre wrested from his 
hand and placed in that of the ChrL«t- 
ian whom she would espouse ? Such 
were the reflections of Domitian in 
Ibtcning to Aurelian 's narrativi*. His 
full, red face grew fuller and n*dder; 
his eyebrows lowered and divw the 
small eyes deeper under; and his 
voico, always Imsky and rough, sound- 
ed more huskily and roughly as it tell 
in short syllables on the ear : 

•' By the gods — who guard the Ro- 
man capitol and state — Aurelian — we 
must bum out this nest of insects — 
crawling in the earth — and seeking to 
sting us in cur very palace — ^ He 
paused for breath, which came and went 
in asthmatic style, between groups of 
three or four wonls. Striking a gong, 
be ordered one of the courtiers t» send 
fbr Arthus. But that obsequious func- 
tionary was already in attendance at 
the palace and soon a(>pearod. With 
a peculiar, twitching motion of the 
hands, and feet, and head, and with 
dress swaying in unison with the 
nervous motion of his body, Artbu 



7%e Two Z/Overs of Flavia Domitilia, 



817 



•ached and knelt before Doml- 

Lrtbns !" said the latter, ^ before 
esper hour — ^let the edict alrea- 
afted against the Christians — be 
1 in the plain of Mars — and let 
s of it be sent to the Asiatic, Gal- 
id African cities !*' Then address- 
Lurelian, " We shall ourselves — 
a guard for the ladies — Theodora 
Flavia — ^as well as for Clement 
he others — ^you mentioned, and 
them with Vitus and Priscilla — 
ined and punished in our own 
nee." 

the eveninj' of the 25th of De- 
er, the tablets on which the 
was graven were placed in the 
)iu8 Martins. Then there arose 
gh the city sounds of commotion 
roe, such as might arise if it were 
^ed by a hostile army, or if the 
§ were once again calling for the 
rider of its keys. There was a 
ing to and fro of citizens in fear 
fury, of soldiers and civic offi- 
of informers, accusers, and ac- 
, many of whom were before 
dragged from their peaceful 
bs and families to the public 
lals. Many Christians were 
put to death. Through the 
less, as it fell like a pall on 
jcene of excitement and suffer- 
he yelling of the mob was heard 
any miles as th'*y surged through 
reets and assailed the houses of 
ispectcd. The thirst for plunder 
or blood, the awful rumors afloat, 
•elieved, of the Christian assem- 
and the thousand petty mo- 
of jealousy, envy, and hatred 
hich wicked men are often in- 
3ed against their honest, virtuous 
bors, gave energy to the infuriate 
MIS of the populace. Through- 
fie night and the* following days 
did not rest from their unhal- 
I work. Women and children 
?11 as men were seized and ear- 
before the prefect or into the 
l)er of tortures, where the brute- 
l shouted and cheered as they saw 
lartyrs writhing on the rack or on 
vov. V. — 62 



the gridiron ! However, in these crowds 
were many of the faithful, who watch- 
ed the death^scene, treasured each word 
that passed between the judge and the 
condemned, and carried away either a 
sponge soaked in, or a vial filled with, 
their blood, or some other relics. These 
trustworthy witnesses wrote down the 
history of the martyrdom on parch- 
ment-rolls, which they gave to the 
secretaries appointed to revise and 
take care of them. Thus the fir^t 
Christian Acts of Martyrs were com- 
piled and preserved. 

As soon as the edict was posted, 
troops on horseback and in vehicles 
were seen hastening through the streets 
and gates, and directing their courses 
along the Appian, Flaminian,and other 
roads leadmg to the north, south, east, 
and west. They carried copies of the 
edict for the magistrates of the cities on 
their routes, to be set up in the forums 
and market-places. Some travelledx 
without stopping, save only for rest or 
refreshment at the military stattonesj 
or halting-places along the roads at in- 
tervals of twenty or thirty miles. The 
pagif or outlying smaller villai^es built 
about central forts or places of defence, 
were seldom visited by these couriers ; 
because the pagani, or inhabitants of 
these country villages, were the last to 
embrace Christianity, and compara- 
tively few of them had been at this 
early period converted. Quickly and 
steadily did these messengers of perse- 
cution speed on, until the seaports or 
the mountains were reached. Count- 
ing the places at which they nested for 
the night, from ancient itineraries of 
the great highways north and south 
and west, we may compute that in ten 
days the edict was promulgated at 
Marseilles, in fifteen at Corinth, in 
nineteen in Algiers, and in twenty-four 
in Ephesus and the remote cities of 
Asia Minor. Quickly and steadily 
these messengers of woe sped from 
Rome to the four quarters of the em- 
pire ; and, as they passed, confusion, 
agony, and bloodshed were left behind 
them. Like a stone dropped into cahn 
waters, the bloody edict fell upon the 



818 



I%e Ihoo levers of Flavia DomiHUa. 



empire in an interval of peace. The 
circle of consternation and persecution, 
like the commotion caused by the stone 
falling into the tranquil waters, became 
wider and wider as the imperial cou- 
riers travelled on, until it surged to the 
far boundaries of the empire. But, 
although the servants of the temporal 
sovereign were thus fleet and active, 
the messengers of the Lord of hosts 
were not slow or iille. Ignotus, the 
Jewish beggar of the Appian Way, 
was the first to bring word to Pope 
Clement and the missionaries assem- 
bled in the catacombs. The pope had 
already made his arrangements; the 
city had been divided into fourteen dis- 
tricts corresponding with its partition 
under the first emperors ; and priests, 
deacons, laymen, and even women were 
appointed to watch over the several 
parts, to find admission, if possible, to 
the imprisoned confessors and admin- 
ister the sacraments and other conso- 
lations of religion, to note down care- 
fully what took place at their trials and 
at their execution, and to obtain their 
bodies, and, if not, whatever relics they 
could, in order to their decent preserva- 
tion in the subterranean vaults. Oth- 
ers, priocipally those who were lame 
or otherwise maimed, or could easily 
assume the role of mendicants, were 
appointed to act as messengers between 
the city and the catacombs. The more 
zealous who sighed for martyrdom 
were restrained and ord^ed to pre- 
pare the niches for the bodies of the 
martyred. The anxieties of the holy 
pope and missionaries were not for the 
presentation of their own lives, but for 
the perseverance of the faithful and the 
conversion of the unbelievers. Prayere 
for this double purpose were appoint- 
ed to be constantly offered in the col- 
lects of th6 mass and at other times. 
Oh ! how those unselfish, heroic men 
yearned for the time when the cross 
of Jesus would be emblazoned on the 
capitol as a sign that the countless 
nations and tribes subject to the Roman 
sway bowed their stubborn necks to 
the mild yoke it symbolized. Health, 
wealth, life were nothing in their es- 



teem compared with this glorioos re- 
sult Clement, in his care of Bcmf, 
did not forget the other churches. To 
the priest Andronicus, who was setting 
out for his post at Ephesus, he entmet- 
ed a letter to the people of Conoth 
with regard to practices and schisms, 
which, despite the efforts and letter.^ 
of St. Paul, still cropped up amongst 
them. Ignotus, the beggannan of 
the Appian and I^iatin Crossway, had 
meantime turned his face toward Ostift, 
and long before the moon had cross- 
ed the meridian he had warned manj 
Christian communities to prepare for 
the combat The messengers of Domi- 
tian rested for the night ; but Ignotus 
never stopped day or night until he 
reached the mines outside Ostia, where 
many Christians were employed. Be- 
fore the official announcement of the 
persecution reached the sea, the docb 
and vessels were watched by anxious 
believers, clad in many ^ises of con- 
cealment. Many availed themselves 
of the earliest crafl to cross to Illyri- 
cum, Macedonia, Greece, and Asia 
Minor. In the same way the Chris- 
tian dwellers beyond the Alps and 
Pyrenees had due warning before the 
edict arrived. One herald, like Igno- 
tus, was in every place through which 
he passed, a centre from which other 
messengers, like radii, branched out. 
Thus zeal and charity gave wings to 
the humble followers of Christ, with 
which the wealth and power of im- 
perial Rome were not able to arm its 
servants. Thus, too, Christendom was 
prepared, as well as it could be, before 
the vultures pounced upon its entrails. 
That preparation consisted to a great 
extent in secreting the rolls of the sa- 
cred Scriptures and the consecrated 
vessels, so that the persecutors might 
not seize on or desecrate them. 

Af>er leaving the Christian assem- 
blage, Sisinnius with his two compa- 
nions returned to Aurelian*s villa, and 
retired to take a few hours' rest When 
he awoke, he was told that Aurelian 
had driven to Rome. Returning ak>ne, 
he mused, as he passed through the 
fields between the Latin and Appian 



The Two Lovers of Flavia DomitiUa. 



819 



roads, on the events of the previous 
evening, and determined to say nothing, 
until be saw how things went on, to his 
wife or Flavia about what he had 
witnessed. He found both in the 
family parlor. There was nothing in 
their appearance to betray their vigils 
of the night before, no sign of weari- 
ness or excitement Flavia wore on her 
head the white veil, and on her finger 
the rin^, with which Clement bad in- 
vested her. A spirit of peace, joy, and 
happiness indescribable beamed, like a 
light through a hanp, through her face 
and whole being. Theodora seemed 
also happy. As the husband opened 
the door of the room, he saw her on her 
knees, and heard his own name men- 
tioned in earnest tones by her as she 
supplicated God for his conversion and 
salvation. Standing for a moment in 
the half open door-way, he gazed with 
a feeling of veneration on his young 
wife and her companion, as the rays of 
the sun slanting through a window 
fell upon their earnest faces and sur- 
rounded their kneeling figures with a 
balmy radiance. Silently and instinc- 
tively he joined them in spirit, asking for 
full light to know and believe the truth. 

Neither Sisinnius nor the inmates 
of his house had heard anything about 
the persecution until twilight, when 
they were visited by a troop of the im- 
perial guard, led by Arthus. With his 
usual hurried gait and style, that func- 
tionary explained how he had been 
commissioned by the emperor to escort 
•Theodora and Flavia to Domitian's 
palace. Sisinnius expressed bis sur- 
prise that it was deemed fitting or ne- 
cessary to send a guard for noble ladies, 
when an invitation or a message would 
have sufficed. 

^^ Excuse me, noble Sisinnius, if I 
arouse your fears or pain yuur feelings. 
You are not aware, perhaps, that an 
edict against the Christians has been 
this afternoon promulgated from the 
capital and on the plain of Mars. The 
two noble dames have been accused of 
belonging to the Christian conspiracy, 
and having been present early this 
morning at their secret meeting 1" 



This was said by Arthus in a tone 
of malicious indolence, which Sisinnius 
at another time would have subdued 
with contempt. But the tidings fell 
like a lightning-stroke upon him, par- 
alyzed his self possession, and filled 
him with vague fears for his wife and 
her young friend. 

" Please to rest," he said to Arthus, 
*• for a few minutes in the atrium while 
the ladies get ready to accompany you." 
Then re-enteinng the parlor,he cautious- 
ly broke to them the news. But it had 
no efiect on them as it had on htm. 
They glanced smilingly at each other, 
and exclaimed, ** Thanks to Grod," and 
announced their readiness to depart. 
Sisinnius urged Flavia to change her 
dress ; but she declined. 

"But this dress/' he urged, "will 
witness against you and be your con- 
demnation." 

*^ Then I shall retain it. It is my 
bridal dress : is it fitting for the bride 
to leave it aside when going to meet 
her spouse?" 

Addi^essing himself to Theodora, he 
found her of the same mind as Flavia. 

" Alas ! my poor wife T he exclaim- 
ed, embracing her, ** you too are resolv- 
ed to die I Our lives have hitherto 
flowed along purely and musically as 
two streams which unite their currents 
and go laughing through the summer 
meadows. But we have reached the 
edge of a precipice, and may be sepa- 
rated forever by death. I know the tiger- 
nature of bomitian. But I must gird 
myself to propitiate him. Oh ! tell me 
that you will renounce this Christian 
sect ! otherwise I have little hope." 

^ You know not, dear Sisinnius, what 
you ask. Death shall not separate 
those who share in the future resur- 
rection to a glorious immortality. 
Would you wish your wife to lose her 
hopes thereof in order to avoid a little 
temporal punishment? O my husband! 
I should die happily if I knew that you, 
too, had acknowledged the one true 
God and the Saviour of mankind who 
died to save us from sin and shame. 
I shall pray with my last breath, with 
my blood, that God may reveal himself 



820 



The TvDo Loverz of Fhvia DcmiHUa. 



to you. Then we would be again 
united in Ihe world bejond the grave, 
never, never to be separated! For 
there is One above " — she looked and 
pointed upward, and Sisinnius ima- 
gined that there was something more 
than mortal about her — " there is One 
above who shall hereafter command 
the elements and force them to deliver 
up the portions of these mortal bodies 
that will have passed into their pos- 
session. Fire and water, earth and 
air, shall obey his order ; and the ashes 
from the uin and the mould in the coffin, 
and the gaseous vapors in which our 
burned or corrupting flesh may evapo- 
rate will be restored ; the bones shall 
stand up joint over joint in the tombs, 
and the flesh and nerves and sinews 
shall reclothe them, and the souls shall 
enter the arisen tenements of our bodies, 
and ascend like Jesus, triumphant, aflcr 
having despised the sting of temporal 
death and achieved victory over the 
grave, to e^joy the unending, ineffable 
bliss prepared for those especially who 
by their blood confess him before men. 
Dear Sisinnius, if you be true to your 
own nature, if you do not stubbornly 
prevent the light from sinking into your 
mind and heart, I feel a presentiment 
that you shall know him, and shall then 
appreciate the littleness of earthly suf- 
ferings and death when endured for his 
love ! Gladly do I proceed to resign 
the life of my body in order to secure 
that of my soul, particularly when it is 
given for him who for me, and for you, 
too, my husband, permitted himself to 
be nailed on a cross. With my very 
blood I shall beseech him to show you 
how great joy there is in suffering for 
his name, his person, and his cause. 
Dearest Lord Jesus!" she fervently 
prayed, sinking on her knees, *' grant 
your uu worthy servant this grace, and 
strengthen us in the hour of trial and 
combat to win the martyrs^ fadeless 
palm !" 

Sisinnius was affected to tears as he 
saw such proof of sincere devotion to 
himself, and at the same time to the 
religion of Christ. He thought that 
it could not be the religion it was de- 



scribed to be, when it could thus win 
and fill with happiness spirits so pure, 
80 high, so unconscious of wickednew 
as those of Theodora and Flavia Domi- 
tilla. 

Arthus was impatient. Impatient 
also was the Emperor Domitian. He 
was waiting in a large chamber of 
his palace, wliere, on an ivory altar, 
edged with gold, were placed two sta- 
tues, one of Jupiter and the other d 
himself. A smoking censer swung in 
front of the altar, sustained on silver 
chains attached by a pulley to the ceil- 
ing. Soldiers with drawn swords stood 
in files along the dides of the room, 
while nearer to the altar were stal- 
wart men, naked to the waist, and hold- 
ing instruments of torture in their haod:». 
These were Domitian's fhvorite gla 
diators, to utter a word against aor 
of whom was certain death. RiKjnii 
their arms the veins and musclss swell- 
ed like twisted cords. The emperor 
was seated on a rich throne, the steps 
of which he at intervals descended and 
nervously paced the room. Terror sat 
on many faces as they saw his sunken 
eyes and knit brows. Terror, too. was 
in his own heart as he conjured up 
before his imaginat'on the wide spread 
and the hidden nature of the Christian 
conspiracy against his ttirone. Such 
he assumed it to be. Hence he had 
now surrounded himself with the gla- 
diators, to whose fidelity and prowess 
he entrusted his safety agaiust the da<;- 
ger or the poisoned cup. Aurellan 
had been commissioned to lead a body 
of soldiers to the Appian AVay. and to 
arrest Pope Clement and those with 
him. But he had retunied without 
finding any trace of them, to the great 
cliagrin of himself and the emperor. 
Those present heard the latter grind- 
ing his teeth like small wheels in ma- 
chinery, and muttering broken curses 
with livid lips. 

When Sisinnius and his party ar- 
rived, they were confronted by Xxixa 
and Pris^illa. 

*• Fkivia Domitilla and Vitus,*' said 
the emperor, ^' stand forth ! Is it true, 
Vitus, that, despite our known will, you 



The. Two Lovers of Flavia DomUiHa, 



821 



have espoused our ward and cousin in 
the Christian assembly? Can it be 
that you, so favored, so honored bj us, 
have become a traitor to our throne 
and person V 

•^My sovereign lord!" said Vitus, 
stepping boldly into the centre of the 
hall and making obeisance to the em- 
peror, ** I am not a traitor. On the 
contrary, I am bound by every motive 
of loyalty and religion to serve you in 
all things lawfuL I appeal to your 
own experience of me in the past, if I 
have not hitherto acted as became a 
Roman and an officer of the household. 
Neither, most exalted emperor, is it 
tnie that the Lady Flavia and I have 
plighted troth. My troth and faith are 
plighted to one higher and more beau- 
tiful than she is ; to one who can never 
know speck, or stain, or wrinkle, who 
has been washed to a spotless white- 
ness in the blood of the Lamb l** As 
he said this he turned t6ward Flavia, 
as if deprecating a seeming want of 
courtesy. 

At this moment, Aurelian, excited 
and travel-stained, entered, aoaompa- 
nied by the troop of the guard he had 
led to arrest Pope Clement. The only 
prisoners he brought back were Da- 
mian, the missionary from Britain, and 
Lucius, one of his own slaves. He had 
met these two wandering among the 
tombs, but got no trace of others. 

Domitian, motioning Aurelian to a 
place near Vitus and Flavia, asked the 
latter : 

^^Is this true, Flavia Domitilla, 
which Vitus says V 

** It is. my lord !" she answered, in 
a low, ti*emulous voice. 

" What say est thou, Senator Aure- 
lian ? I trust you have not, through 
jealousy, led us to oflPer indignity to 
gentle ladies of rank ! If so, by our 
crown, the hijrh favor in which you 
have stood shall not save you from due 
atonement.*' 

Aurelian was confused and con- 
founded by this address, the cause of 
which he did not well comprehend. 
One circumstance, however, worked in 



his favor: Plavia's white veil. The 
emperor, remarking it, asked : 

** What mean these flowing robes of 
white ? They seem more a festive cos- 
tume than an evening dress.'* 

She answered not. But Aurelian, 
having recovered his presence of mind, 
said: 

*' Was I not right, O mighty poten- 
tate ? This is the bridal garment she 
wore last night when she was married 
to Vitus, after being drugged with a 
cup of human blood! See ! the influ- 
ence of that drug is upon her yet." 

** Answer me, Flavia Domitilla, 
truly. Have you been in the secret 
meeting of the Christians last night ?" 

" I have," she replied, with firm voice 
and unflinching eye. 

'* Have you withdrawn the faith you 
gave Aurelian by our desire, and be- 
stowed it on another ?" 

" I have." 

** To whom ? to Vitus ?" 

'*No! but to One more beautiful, 
more lovable, more glorious than Vitus, 
or than any earthly being; to One wl^e 
wisdom outdistances the accumulated 
lore of sages and philosophers ; to 
One whose years are not counted d|y 
the sands on the ocean's shores, by the 
grass blades clothing the earth, or the 
water-drops in the encircling seas ; yet 
whose youth is greener, fresher, softer, 
and more lovely than the eye of man 
has rested on or the fancy of poet has 
pictured ; to One whose sceptre rules 
the nations of the earth and all things 
therein, the islands of the deep and 
all things thereon, whose messen- 
gers guide the stars in their courses, 
whose beauty and majesty are faintly 
mirrored in the universe, and whose 
love for me is so great that he left all 
these aside and became a servant in 
order that he might suffer and die for 
me, and thus free me from the clutches 
of a tyrant! Yes. O emperor! I have 
plighterl ray faith, and hope, and love, 
my body and my soul, my present and 
my future, to my God and my Redeem- 
er, Jesus Christ ! He is my glorious 
spouse, and I am his accepted bride. 



822 



The Two Lovers of Flavia Domltilla. 



Behold the garments in which I have 
been betrothed to him T As she spoke 
her face became animated, her voice 
grew strong and eloquent, her eye flash- 
ed with courage, her whole bearing gave 
proof of a soul raised by the excite- 
ment of unusual happiness to heroic 
daring. She stood before the cruel 
tyrant, with hand uplifted to heaven, 
and the white Ionic veil waving round 
her face like a shifting glory ; and 
might, in the eyes of the heathen sol- 
diers, have passed for the goddess 
Juno, as described by Virgil, or for 
Iris freshly descended from Olympus. 
But Domitian was not moved by her 
youth, her eloquence, or her beauty, 
but bounded from his throne as if stung 
by a serpent when he heard her thus 
mention the Saviour's name. 

"What! In my presence — to my 
face — declaring yourself the bride of 
my worst enemy. By the manes of 
Vespasian and Titus ! If you do not 
offer sacrifice to Jupiter and to my 
divinity, and renounce all connection 
with this Crucified Jew, your head, with 
all its attractions, shall not long re- 
main upon those rounded shoulders !" 
He waved his sceptre and directed 
the soldiers to bring her toward the 
altar. But she would not raise her 
hand toward the incense. 

"Never! never!** she exclaimed, 
*' by word or act, shall I deny the Lord 
of lords, the God of gods, and ac- 
knowledge by the supremo worship of 
sacrifice a demon that has usurped Ids 
place, or a creature to be a god be- 
cause he sits on an earthly throne. 
You may force my hand, but you can- 
not force my will !'' 

Domitian was frantic : *' Away with 
her ! away with her ! Her family have 
always crossed my path. Let not her 
head,** he turned to the gladiators, " re- 
main an instant on her body, that her 
tongue may no lunger insult me !" 

A smile rippled over the face of the 
virgin confessor. 

** See! she smiles, she mocks me! Off 
with it ! off with it ! Craven cowards I 
do you hesitate before a mere woman ? 
Give me that executioner's sword and I 



shall make short work of it By hea- 
vens ! she is smilin<ic still and calUng on 
Jesus. Where is he now, God of gods, 
as you name him ? Why does be not 
come forward at his beloved's bidding 
to resist the power and stay the arm of 
Domitian ?" 

Aurelian interposed nervously : 

" Most powerful monarch and irre* . 
sistible deity! she is smiling in joy 
under the infatuating belief tbat« when 
her head is severed from her body, she 
phall be out of your power, freed wholly 
from my claims upon her, and received 
into the kingdom which Jesus promises 
to all who die for him. Do not allow 
him to triumph over you, do not graiifj 
her desire of martyrdom ; but entrust 
her to me, that I may make her my 
own ; and then both you and I shall 
have triumphed over those who have 
driven her into this madness.*' 

" Be it so ! Ha, ha ! I believe vou 
have taken the right view. See the 
tears glisten in her eyes, and her joy is 
changed to sadness. But take her 
hence, never to enter my presence, lest 
her wopds excite me to gratify her in- 
sane longings. Who are those that 
druprged her?" 

*• Behold them !" said Aurelian, point- 
ing to Vitus, Priscilla, Theodora, and 
Damian. " There were others too, 
who took a leading part in the ct^remo- 
ny, but we have not been yet able to 
arrest them." 

'*• Vitus ! come forward and offer 
sacrifice to the gods !** 

"I cannot, O mighty emperor! Be- 
cause there is but one God to whom 
the honor of sacrifice may be paid, and 
that is Jesus Christ, true God and true 
Man." 

" Are you, my ladies,*' the emperor 
turned to Priscilla and Theodora, - of 
a like disposition?" 

"Yes," was the low but firm answer. 

" Executioners, advance and do your 
duty by these recusants !" 

Sisinnius fell upon his knees before 
the emperor and pleaded hard for his 
wife's life, pleaded his own long ser- 
vices and fidelity to the imperial family, 
pleaded her youth and ianocence. 



Th€ Waited Vigil 823 

Domitian at length relaxed. for the execution of PriscUla and Vitus, 

'^ I shall spare her life as I have Damian and Lucius,(3trangers in whom 

spared that of Flaria Domitilla, until no one seemed interested;) and the 

such time as will show whether she command was obeyed, 
will return to a better sense or not ; As Domitian saw the heads severed 

but both must be under the surveil* from the shoulders, he gloated over 

lance of a guard, whom I shall appoint, the scene with the savage cruelty pecu- 

As to those others," he said pointing liar to him. Theodora and Flavia 

to Priscilla and Damian, ^ the traitors covered their faces and prayed for the 

of my household, I shall make an ex- victory of the martyrs, managing to 

ample of them." He gave orders in a saturate pieces of cloth in the blood. 
voice which was not to be disobeyed 



THE WASTED VIGIL. 

Alas ! what dire mischance is wrought ? 
A Friend was here who gently sought 
An entrance to my humble cot, 
Whilst I — ^0 sorrow ! — heeded not. 
In meekest gube he came and went, 
And I, on trifles vain intent, 
The joyful greeting still forbore 
While he was knocking at my door. 

For me he left a regal throne, 

And came in silence, and alone ; 

No shining guard his steps attend : ^ 

earth I hadst ever such a friend ? 
And yet I did not rise to meet 
Those wearied, patient, wounded feet, 
Nor did I shield that kingly head 

On which the chill night-dews were shed. 

Oh I did I wake, or did I sleep. 
That midnight vigil not to keep ? 

1 knew, and yet I heeded not ; 
Methought I heard, and then forgot 
That he had warned of swift surprise. 
And only termed the watchers •* wise." 

Dear Bridegroom of my soul ! return ! 
Bereft of every joy, I mourn : 
Ketum ! my house, at last, is swept, 
And where thy feet have stood, I wept. 
Beloved Guest ! I call — I wait ; 
Hope whispers, " It is not too late." 
Be then that hope no more deferred. 
Speak to my soul the pardoning word. 
Then will I list in rapture sweet, 
And dwell for ever at thy feet ! Maris. 

Bbaveb, Pa. 



834 



Old ParU. 



From Cb«nbert*t JoaroBl. 

OLD PARIS. 



As with men, so with cities. When- 
ever one of the latter becomes famous, 
and the eyes of the world are fixed 
upon it, we desire to know more of it 
than what is presented on the surface. 
A thousand little details, trifling, per- 
haps, in themselves, share in the in- 
terest attaching to the whole to which 
tbej belong. And as the most inte- 
resting biographies of great men are 
those which not merely make us ac- 
quainted with the prominent features 
of their lives — with the great exploits 
which thej achieved — but also follow 
them into their solitude or home-life, 
so the most attractive chronicles of 
states and cities are those which enter 
into the seemingly unimportant minu- 
tiae, neglected by the general historian 
and the compiler of the guide-book. 

Lutetia {civita$) Parisiorum is first 
mentioned in Csesar^s Commentaries. 
Lutetia has had various derivations 
assigned to it, but most probably it is 
the Latinized form of Loutouhezi^ the 
Celtic for " a city in the midst of wa- 
ters,^' it having been built on an island 
in the Seine. In the fourth century it 
received the name of the people whose 
chief city it was. During the middle 
ages it was supposed that Francus, a 
son of Hector, founded Paris, and also 
Troyes in Champagne, giving to the 
former the name of his uncle. In all 
likelihood, it comes from the Celtic 
par or bar^ a frontier. 

Christianity, accordinjr to Gregory 
of Tours, was first preached to the 
Parisians by St. Dionysius, or Denis, 
in the year 250; and the first synod 
held in Paris took place in 360, which 
seems to prove that the Christian mis- 
sionaries had already made numerous 
converts there. Paganism, however, 
was not wholly uprooted until the epis- 
copate of St. Marcellus, who died in 
436, and who, according to a legend, 



is said to have hurled into the Seine t 
frightful dragon which desolated tbe 
city, and which, perhaps, was the em- 
blem of heathenism. 

Julian the Apostate had a gresi 
liking for Paris, and spent five winters 
there. He praises its inhabitants for 
their intelligence and good conduct, 
and the surrounding vinejards for 
their excellent produce. An edifice, 
improperly called tlie Thennea de Jo- 
lien, still exists in the Rue de la Harpe, 
which perpetuates his memory, and 
possibly served as his residence. Id 
his time, the Mootagne Ste. Genevieve 
was a sort of Campus Martius; tbe 
gardens of the Luxembourg were oc- 
cupied by a Roman camp, and Romao 
yillas lined both sides of the Seine. 

The Merovingians made Paris their 
capital, and Qovis constantly resided 
there. His sons, while dividing his 
states, judged the possession of Paris 
of so great importance that they shared 
it among themselves, and agreed that 
none of them should enter it without 
the consent of the others. Under 
this dynasty, several of the Parisian 
churches were founded. Childebert 
built the church of St. Vincent, af- 
terward St Grermain des Pres, the 
vaulting of each window in which wat» 
supported by costly pillai^ of marble. 
Paintings decorated with gold, cover- 
ed the ceiling and the walls. The 
roof, composed of plates of gilded 
bronze, when struck by the rays of tbe 
sun, dazzled the eyes of beholders 
with its brilliancy. 

Undei Louis VI. and Louis VIL 
Paris became celebrated for its schools. 
The best known were the Cathedral 
School, the school of St Grermain dt's 
Pres, and that of Sie. GreneTieve. At 
the first mentioned,Guillaume de Cham- 
peaux taught theology, and counted 
among his pu^jils the well-known Abo- 



Old Fdrii. 



it the end of the eleventh and be- 
ig of the twelfth century. In 
Abelard opened on the Montagne 
«nevi^ve his famous school,which 
eclipsed all the others, and at 
. no less than ten thousand scho- 
ttended. 

ilip Augustus, judging that Paris 
lot sufficiently protected by its 
caused a tower to be built out- 
liem, on the site of a Louveteriey 
olf-hunting establishment, from 

it nnieived the name of the 
•e. It served at once for a royal 
nee, a fortress, and a state-prison, 
ras completed, according to the 
al plan, in 1204. It was under 
tonarch that the streets of Paris 
first paved. One day, while 
ng at a window of his palace in 
y, the mud or filth in the street, 
3 by some vehicles which were 
g, exhaled an unbearable stench, 

invaded the royal nostrils. It 
len that Philip conceived the pro- 
P paving the streets. The work 
one at the expense of the town, 
.vement consisting of rough flag- 
, about three feet and a half 
5, and six inches in thickness, 
vas in this reign, in 1182, that 
jate of the holy see consecrated 
.thedral of Notre Dame, begun 
^3 by Maurice de Sully, Bishop 
•is. This immense edifice, how- 
was not finished till the reign of 
js VII. in the fifteenth century. 
)riginal fiooring of Philip Au- 

was lately found at eight or 
eet below the surface ; and the 
n steps which in his time, it is 
jd to the entrance have disap- 
I. It was under Philip that the 
ipality of Paris received its first 
pments, and assumed a regular 

Besides the provost, who, as 
of the king, presided over the 
of justice, there was the syndic, 
ited by the community of mer- 
, whose duty it was to protect the 
Tcial interests of the town. He 
fterward called the provost of 
erchants, and was assisted by 
kr, who formed his council. Un- 



der Philip, this officer acquired many 
new rigjits. The police, the streets, 
the care of public edifices, the admin- 
istration of the lands belonging to the 
town, passed horn the provost of Paris 
to this functionary. 

Philip was also the patron of learn- 
ing. He instituted schools in the Rue 
du Foaarrc. Fouarre^ or/oare, from 
which is derived the existing /ourra^a, 
(forage,) is an old French word signi- 
fying straw. The scholars in those 
simple ages sat upon bundles of straw 
during the lectures, and as this custom 
naturally resulted in the frequent ap- 
pearance of that material in the neigh- 
borhood of the schools, the street re- 
ceived its title from it. During the 
middle ages, no traffic was permitted in 
this street, in order to obviate any dis- 
turbance to the students. 

Philip the Fair founded the parlia- 
ment of Paris. It held its sessions in 
the king^s palace, (Palais de Justice,) 
which, in the middle of the fifteenth 
century, was entirely abandoned to it. 
In this palace was the vast hall which 
served for receiving the homage of 
vassals, giving audience to ambassa- 
dors, public festivities, and other occa- 
sions of national interest, at one of the 
extremities of which was an enormous 
marble table, round which sovereigns 
alone were permitted to sit ; and upon 
which, at certain times of the year, the 
society o?cleres de la basoehe (lawyers' 
clerks) gave dramatic entertainments 
of a farcical character. 

In the fourteenth century, as now, 
Paris was celebrated as the seat of 
fashion in dress, though those dazzling 
maffcuins de nouveatUes which we now 
admire there did not then exist. Wear- 
ing apparel, as well as other mer- 
chandise, was generally sold by criers 
in the streets. ''They do not cease 
to bray from morning till night," writes 
Guillaume de Villeneuve. Venders 
of all classes swelled the discordant 
concert. To cry goods for sale was 
the daily special occupation ; among 
others, of the three hundred blind men 
supportetl by the king, St. Louis. 
These unfortunates, it seems, were in 



826 



Old Paris. 



the habit of performing their duties 
Without guidance, and the consequence 
was that they frequently came in col- 
lision, and gave each other severe con- 
tusions. 

The first stone of the famous Bas- 
tille was laid by the provost of Paris, 
in the reign of Charles V., 1369. That 
formidable edifice was built for the 
purpose of protecting the king, who 
had seen his authority braved by the 
Parisians while residing in his palace 
in the city, which on that account he 
quitted. He frequently dwelt in the 
Louvre, of which the Bastille was a 
pendant, and of which M. Vitet gives 
the following picturesque description as 
it was in the fourteenth century : ** The 
king caused to be raised outside the 
moats a number of buildings, useful and 
ornamental, of a middling height, form- 
ing what were then called basses cours, 
and united to the chilteau by gardens of 
considerable extent. One cannot ima- 
gine all the various objects that were 
heaped together in these dependencies 
and gardens. Besides lodgings for the 
officers of the crown, there were a me- 
nagerie of lions and panthers, bird- 
rooms, aviaries for the king's parrats, 
fish-ponds, basins, labyrinths, tunnels, 
trellises, leafy pavilions — the favorite 
decoration of gardens in the middle 
ages. These parterres, cut in sym- 
metrical compartments, and thrown in 
the midst of buildings varying in form 
and elevation; that chaos of towers 
and turrets — the former rising heavily 
from the moats, the latter as if sus- 
pended from the walls ; that i>ell-mell 
of pointed roofs, here covered with 
lead, tiiere with varnished tiles, some 
crested with heavy vanes, some with 
tufts of various colors — all this has no 
resemblance to a modern palace ; but 
that disorder, these contrasts, which 
seem to us only barbarously pictu- 
i*esque, appealed quite differently to 
the imagination in those days, and were 
not without their grandeur and majes- 
ty. These were the bright days of the 
feudal Louvre, when it was living, peo- 
pled, and well cared for.'' 

The space of ground which, until 



lately, formed the March^ des Lroo- 
eents, was, in the middle ages the 
principal cemetery of Paris. It wm 
surrounded by a sort of vaulted gal- 
lery, which was reserved for the corpaei 
of distinguished persona and for dreu- 
makers^ shops. Here, in the year 
1424, the English, who were then mas- 
ters of Paris, gave a grand fete of 
rejoicing for the battle of VerneolL 
and indulged in a frightful ^ dance of 
the dead'' over the level tombstooeap 
In the midiUe of the cemetery rose ao 
obelisk, surmounted by a lamp, which 
alone feebly illumined at night the field 
of the dead, and animated its solitude. 
But at sunrise all was cliangefl— daj- 
light brought back with it noise, lux- 
ury, and pleasuiie. 

Victor Hugo, in the chapter, of liii 
romance, Notre Dame de Paris, eo* 
titled Paris a vol doiseau^ (book iiL 
chapter ii^) gives a vivid descriptioa 
of the town as it was io the tifieenth 
century. Paris, according to him, waa 
at that time divided into three distinct 
parts — the city, tiie university, and 
the town. The city, occupying the in- 
land, was the oldest and smallest, and 
was the mother of the other two. *'It 
stood between these," he says, '* like 
a little, old woman between two tall, 
handsome daughters." The univer- 
sity was on the left bank of the Seine, 
stretching between points which at 
present correspond with the Hailed 
aux Vins and La Monnaie. The town, 
the largest of the three divisions, was 
on the right side of the river. Kach 
of the divisions formed a town, depend- 
ing for its completeness upon the others. 
The city had churches ; the town, 
palaces ; the university, colleges. 

In 1539, Francis I., liaving given 
permission to the Emperor Charles V. 
to traverse France, entertained the 
idea of receiving him at the Lonvi«, 
which underwent, on that account, a 
general restoration, according to the 
style of the renaissance ; but as sooa 
as the emperor departed, Francis, per- 
ceiving that the new works were mere- 
ly of a temporary character, resolved 
to build a new palaoe od the latue site 



Old Paris. 



837 



s former one, and confided its 
yn to Pierre Lescot. The build- 
egun in 1541, was continued till 
ath of Henry XL It is the finest 
n of the Louvre ; the south-west 
When Catherine de Medicis 
into power, she dismissed Lescot, 
ed an Italian architect, and caus- 
t wing to be built which advances 
i the river. 

1564, tired of the Louvre, Ca- 
e bought a piece oF ground called 
albanilre, covered with pottery- 
, the Tuileries Saint Honor S, and 
enced the palace which received 
me from the fabrics which had 
ied its site. For six years, the 
edifice steadily progressed; but 
rinc, having learned from her 
3ger, Ruggieri, that it was her 
» die under the ruins of a house 
St. Grermain, suddenly gave up 
>rks of the Tuileries, because it 
the parish of St. Germain TAu- 
s, and built the Hdtel de Sois- 
)n the site of the present corn- 
it 

5 famous Pont-Neuf was begun 
78, Henry HI. laying the first 

e Place Royale was completed 
12. Here Cardinal Richelieu 
afterward built a palace, which 
lied the Palais Cardinal, but 
, in a spirit of regal munificence, 
»ented to his king, Louis XHI. 
^forth it became the Palais Roy- 
numerous hotels of the noblesse 
^ up in the same quarter, and 
them first appeared there the 
ouses for hijoiUerie and other 
goods, for which the Palais Roy- 
X present so celebrated. A wri- 
that time severely blames the 
ants of these shops for permitting 
wives to flirt with customers — 
1 induce them to buy a fashion- 
ollar, a child's purse, a drachm 
of perfume for the perruques 
loy's wooden sword." Speaking 
rruques, we must not omit to 
on that they reached their full 
>pment at the time of Louis Qua- 
Their most celebrated maker 



was a M. Binet, from whom they some- 
times were called binettes. They 
weighed several pounds, sometimes 
cost a thousand crowns, and rose five 
or six inches above the brow. The 
word bineUs still exists in the hinguage 
of the Paris gamin^ designating a per- 
son with a droll countenance. 

The last insurrection at Paris be- 
fore the revolution was that called the 
Fronde^ (sling.) This revolt received 
its name in a singular manner. In the 
moat of the town, near Saint Roch, the 
little boys of the quarter used to fight 
with slings. When the constable ap- 
peared, they all took to their heels. 
In the disputes of the parliament, a 
young counsellor, Bauchaumont* ob- 
served the modesty and docility of the 
members in the presence of the king, 
and their turbulence in his absence. 
** They are quiet just now," said he, 
'• but, when he is gone, they will sling 
{onfronderd) with a will." The word 
remained. The Fronde soon gained 
the whole town, which eagerly took 
the side of the insurgents, as the first 
cause of the troubles was a new tax on 
houses built outside the walls. After- 
ward, when the rebellion was quelled, 
the Parisians paid dearly for their share 
in it. Their privileges were abolished, 
a royal garrison took the place of their 
civic guards, and magistrates depend- 
ent on the crown, that of the municipal 
authorities. 

Deprived of its independence, it be- 
came the sole glory of Paris to be the 
stage on which the splendors of the 
court of Louis XIV. were revealed. 
In 1662, that king gave an idea of 
what bis reign would cost by the fa- 
mous feu du carrousel, which has le^ 
its name to the vast place between the 
Louvre and the Tuileries. It cost 
1,200,000 francs. Gold and silver were 
employed in so great profusion on the 
trappings of the horses, that the ma- 
terial of which they were made could 
not be distinguished from the embroi- 
dery with which it was covered. The 
king and the princes shone with the 
prodigious quantity of diamonds with 
which their arms and the harness of 



The Churches of Ireland — Ancient and Modem. 



their horses were corered Aboat the 
same time the Tuileries and the Loa- 
vre were completed, and a garden was 
designed for the former by Le Notre. 
The former garden of the Tuileries, 
like other ancient French gardens, 
comprised a strange medley; among 
other objects, it contained a pretty little 
abode, beside the quay, and mysteri- 
ously concealed by a thick grove, which 
Louis XII I. had given to his valet^de- 
chambrcy Renard, who had furnished it 
with rare and costly articles, and had 
made it a secret rendezvous for young 
seigneurs, and the scene of luxurious 
petite soupers. 

It was in 1669 that Soliman Aga, 
the Turkish ambassador at the French 
court, introduced the use of coffee into 
Paris. The first cafe was opened at 
the foire St. Germain, which was then 
one of the most frequented and fash- 
ionable places of resort in the town, 
and the suppression of which, toward 
the end of the eighteenth century, went 



fke to destroy the industry and com- 
merce of the left bank of the river, to 
the profit of the right An Annenian 
named Pascal afterward established t 
cafe, which was much in rogue, caDed 
the Manouri, upon the Qnai de FEcole; 
and, in 1689, a Sidlian, Prooopio, open- 
ed the Cafe Proeope in the pment 
Rue de TAncienne ComMie, wfaidi 
was for long the favorite place of re- 
union for the savane and heaux-eeprilt 
of the period. 

But the cafe reminds us that we are 
leaving Paris in old times for the 
Paris of the present, and that we are 
close upon that blood-written page, 
the revolution, which divides the chron- 
icles of the former from those of the 
latter. These notes must not be 
brought to a conclusion without tbe 
acknowledgment that from M. Malte- 
Brun's laborious compilation,La Fnuioe 
Illustr6e, they derive whatever arch- 
aeological interest they possess. 



OMOIMAL. 

THE CHURCHES OF IRELAND— ANCIENT AND MODERN. 



Students of Irii^h topography are 
sometimes at a loss to account for so 
many names of places in that island 
bearing the prefix '• Kil." The ex- 
planation of this seeming want of in- 
ventive nomenclature is that the word 
Kil is an abbreviation or corruption of 
the veniacular Ciliy a church ; thus, 
Kilkenny means the church of St. 
Can ice, or Kenny ; Kilmore, the great 
church, more meaning, in the Irish, 
great or large ; Kildare, church of the 
oak, from daire, oak. In the early 
a^ies of Christianity the church or ab- 
bey was to the j)eople of Ireland what 
the feudal castle or walled town was 
to the inhabitants of the continent of 
Euroi)e, at once a rallying point in 
case of danger, and a common centre 



where learning, trade, and the mechani- 
cal arts found teachers and patrons. 

The Irish, before and long after 
their conversion, were essentially an 
agricultural people, caring little for 
large towns ; and, though insular, seem 
to have neglected foreign commerce, 
except such as flowed from their peri- 
odical incursions in Britain and Gaul, 
or which necessarily arose out of their 
emigration from the north of Ireland 
to Scotland. Hence we find that, 
while most of the inland cities and 
towns bear the name of some favorite 
saint or church, the seaports generally 
owe their origin and name to the 
Danes and Anglo-Normans. 

The first Catholic churches erected 
in Ireland, of which we have any mo- 



n$ Churches of Ireland — Ancient and Modem, 



&29 



iccount, were three in number, 
the present counties of Wick- 
l Wexford, bj Palladius, a.d. 
t seems that this roissiooary 
m the Wexford coast in that 
wmpanied by four priests, but, 
met with opposition from the 
and persecution from the local 
e returned the following year 
kin, leaving, however, behind 
le converts under the care of 
lis assistants. We are told by 
dists that, before his departure, 
sited m the church of Cellfine, 
ilics of Sts. Peter and Paul 
IT saints, the sacred books, and 

writing-tablets, all of which 
•eserved with great veneration 
y years afterward, 
he great church planter in Irc- 
3 Patrick, the son of Potitus, 
imcnced his task of a nation's 
on, with all the advantages of a 
I knowledge of the people and 
nguage, a matured judgment, 
1 learning, piety chastened by 
id long-suffering, and an un- 
able faith. His first convert 
nding, in 432, was a chief 
[)icho, who in proof of his sin- 
luilt, at his own expense, a 
near Lecale, in Down, which 
id Sabhall Padruic, (Patrick's 

Thence ihe saint proceeded 
, in Meath, where, as it is well 
he appeared before the mon- 
3gaire, and, though his preach- 
e no impression on the heart 
Item pagan, he baptized many 
>nii(ls, poets, and courtiers. By 
rick's direction two churches 
ilt in the neighborhood, one at 
ndrah, and the other at Drum- 
near the present town of Dro- 

Having thus stormed the ene- 
adel, he advanced coniidently 
re tlie outworks. He passed 
d tl) rough Connaught to the 
ence returning to Ulster, he 
)me time in Down, Antrim, 
[h, and other northern counties ; 
visited the different parts of 
•, and finally entered the pop- 
ovince of Munster, then a sep- 



arate kingdom, and planted the stand- 
ard of the cross in the royal city of 
Cashel. He remained about seven 
years in Munster, when, his mission 
having been successfully completed, he 
retraced his steps to his favorite place 
in Down, in 452. Three years after- 
ward he founded the metropolitan 
see of Armagh, erected a cathedral 
on land given him for that purpose by 
Daire, and thus laid the foundation of 
the primacy of Ireland, and the city 
of that name. '* Suitable edifices 
were annexed to the cathedral for the 
accommodation of the clergy, and ad- 
jacent to it were several religious re- 
treats, in which members of both sexes, 
forsaking the world, made a sacrifice 
of all to the Great Author of their 
existence."* 

The extraordinary success of this 
great missionary is without a parallel 
in the histoiy of the church. In the 
course of twenty years a whole people, 
rulers and princes, men and women, 
were won over to Christianity, with- 
out the shedding of a drop of human 
blood, or even any serious opposition. 
Sees were founded in all parts of the 
isknd, churches and monasteries built, 
bishops consecrated and priests ordain- 
ed, and, in fact, the moral and social 
condition of the entire population rev- 
olutionized. Nor was this a triumph 
over weak-minded or stolid barbarians, 
for we find that from his neophytes 
St. Patrick chose his bishops and 
priests almost exclusively — inc'i 
whose genius and ability became in 
the service of the church second only 
to his own. It might also be supposed 
that impressions so suddenly produced 
would be transitory, did we not know 
how irradicably fixed in the Irish 
heart is the faith he taught and the 
doctrine he expounded* 

The sees of Ardagh, Clogber, £m- 
ly, and Elphin were founded during 
the life-time of St. Patrick, and fit\een 
others of lesser note before the close 
of the century. The cathedral of 
Kildare, second only in extent and 

« looleatortlciil HUtorj of Ireland, Brenan. 



S30 



Thi fJhurehn t>f Ireland^ Ancient and Motirrn* 



magnifieeiico to thnt oJ* Armagh, yvm 
buflt ftboLJt ihe year 490. and lK*bnged 
jointly to tlto diocesan and tlio nunnery 
of St. Brijrid, It is described as hav- 
injr been divided by a partition beyond 
the ganctnary ; tbo bishop and clergy 
entering the chureh by a dcmr on the 
north, and ihe abbet^* and her cnrn- 
nviinity l>y a doc»r on the south side. 
In all the sees thus toiinded, cat be - 
drals^ chut^'hes, moniisterieft, schools, 
and nunneine:* were ereetf?d» History 
records ihe btiilding of twentyone 
nionastf rie^ and t^ehook of great celeb- 
rity in the fifrli century* bei^ides many 
others oF minor rtpiitaticn. The 
8choejl(* of Emly at one time conlained 
aix hnn.lreil scholars; those oP Loulh 
are said to have educated one bundrcil 
bishn|)^ and three hunilred priestB, 
while the great institution of Mungn^t 
contain<*d wiiliiu its walls six church- 
es, and. besides its scholans, fifteen 
hundred religious, equally divided into 
learned preachers, psalmists, and per- 
sons devoted to contemjdation and 
works of charity. At this time, also» 
St. Brigid founded several nunneries, 
the mo.^t celebrated of which was that 
of Ivililare, 

The following century saw seventeen 
more sees founded and ctithednils built, 
inciutling those of Dromore, Ossory^ 
Tuam, Cloiifert, and Down ; while, to 
meet the growing detuand for Christian 
education, four principal colleges were 
erected in different purls of the king* 
dora — Clnnard in Mealh, t'lonfert In 
Gttlway.Clonmacnois in Kings county, 
and Bangor in Dowti, The rnnnber 
of students ednca^ied in the last men- 
tioned was at one time not less than 
three thousand. Forty foyr new mouas- 
teries and abbeys are named in the 
annals of the sixth century^ besides 
many others forgotten in history. Even 
tlie pUice whereon Flood the famous 
luotmslery of Inniscathy, edtablii^hed 
at the mouth of the Shannon at th)>i 
jHriod, is now only marked by a small 
portion of the mins of it^ round lower, 
while that of Glendalocb, perhaps 
from itjB romantic surroundings. 18 some- 
what better preserved. Speaking of 



the ruins of the latter sis 

years sincii, tlie learned mitfior mM i 

Ecclesiastical History uf Irebtidi 

** The veiicmblc ruins ot "i 

at this day, prt'sifat an nwt- 
ing picture to the mial ol njo curujiu mH^ 
conicmplntivo Birunf^i^r. Atnoo;; tturte mm 
bo noticed the <'f'"^''' '"* •'■ i- •"' -*-•> 
ing on ft rising - 
The seireQ thn:' 

were the pride uuU p . \ 

for whiek it will be 
♦he ▼esugea iiovr re 
The Cathedral church 
jambs and 1= * ^ -- 
hundred a 
ancient gri 

which siirrontid it. Uur L«dy'a <*liiirch, ( 
mmt westvrard of th«» Bcren, and nf^H? i 
pt>!»itti tlie eathedr&l, i^^ iu > 
very ruiafl speak voIurjc;*. 
rDQDumtiiit<t, cr/>:®cs, n- ' ' 
the memnrj, and fill i 
painful thoughts, 8i 
culled, and undoubtedlj on« ui 
churches, la eiiiire : logcthor iriUi 
I raves, fretted «ivhe*, and nmod 
forty five fe<Jt l»igh. The ftng^ 
aloac and of httmaQ negleci Mem 
wrought the work of dcsol»Uoti ia Ihit | 
of the building. Tht* Rlu-r<-.in or 
puluhre of Kittgts ^" 
having 80 von km t^ in I 
The Ivy church slaud^ V\ the H4i«iW4ii 
its unroofed walla overgrown with [ 
Piiory of St. Saviour is a < 
TjuijJull'UA-Skellig, iQ Itio reoM of 

lUOUUtjliK, WU3 fiH '"►-'' ^" ■••ill'-'l th4*Ti8ll|p 

the DfS<-*rtj and 

of the ai»bey w* : t no 

and dnys of piirUcultif it> 

celebrAtmJ b»d iit Si, Kv\ 

side* of till " ' ' ' '^.'"'^ pc 

Ui'tyai a 1 1 rf the ftUFfiMil 

ihewatiii? 

of the an' 

uud on the 

be seen the remutuA ot a JiltiiiU •UfUe 

Ing, cdh'd 8t. Kevin'* cell'* 

The next twoeenturfefl ftil^edFem, 
Cork« KillitloG, and eleven other \ 
with their cnihedniU and ehardi^ i 
fifty fiv<' principal sebooU, n 
and abbeys. During the idliili 
tenth centuries we find ooly iWd i 
cTcnted, and no men lion af 
monasteries or schools. Thb mijr 1 
accounted for by the cotttilliial " 
siong of the Northmen, a 8W«m of 1 
barians whose native detneoti 
have been the ocean And vlioio os|f 



A 



7%$ Churches of Ireland — Ancient and Modern, 



881 



ind object were bloodshed and ra- 

From 807 until the decisive bat- 

'Clontarfin 101 2. they perpetrated 

linterrapted series of raids on Ire- 

and even sometimes held the 
r portion of the country in eub- 
9n. Landing from their ships at 
te and undefended points on the 
, they marched stealthily into the 
ior, marking their paths with the 
. of the defenceless inhabitants, 
ng neither age, sex, nor condition 
;ir fury, and bearing oflPor destroy- 
irery species of property. Churches 
given to the flames, the relics of 
laints stolen or scattered to the 
3, monks, nuns, and students put 
totword without mercy or remorse. 
ic of tliose incursions Bangor was 
lered and nine hundred monks 
htered. Armagh was sacked and 
ithedral destroyed. Cork, Ferns, 
Taghmon shared the same fate, 

the city of Kildare, its cathedral 
lunnery were razed, and their in- 
Mits massacred or carried into 
ry. Clonmacnois was thirteen 

plundered, and scarcely a rcli- 

house on the island but received 
ist one visit from the sacrilegious 
ers. 

ter a long and brilliant career an 
c seemed to have fallen on the 
h in Ireland, her monasteries were 
ins, her priesthood slaughtered, 
faier schools deserted. But the 
B of one great man was put forth 
re the people. Brian, surnamed 
mhe, King of Munster, and mon- 
)f Ireland, after repeated victories 

the Danes out of his kingdom, 
inally, by his last great battle, de- 
Mi their power for ever in Ireland, 
emnant of the once dreaded enemy, 
icing the faith of their conquerors, 
permitted, upon paying tribute, 
lie along the coast for the purpose 
eign traffic. This great king dur- 
is long reign did much to reinstate 
hurch in possession of her pro- 
, and to repair the damages of 
inturies of organized plunder, and 
iccessors continued to follow his 
pie. Even the converted Danes 



imbibed the prevailing spirit of restitu- 
tion. The see of Dublin was establish- 
ed in 1040, and its cathedral, consecra- 
ted to the Holy Trinity, (now Christ's 
church,) was built by Bishop Donatus. 
The see of Waterford was founded in 
1096, and its splendid cathedral, also 
under the invocation of the Holy Trin- 
ity, erected by Malchus, its first bishop ; 
and the celebrated priory of Selsker, in 
Wexford, was established by the new 
converts some few years afterward. 
The see of Ardfert was founded in the 
middle of the eleventh century, and that 
of Derry about one hundred years sub- 
sequently. 

It is reasonable to infer that most of 
the early Irish ecclesiastical structures 
of any magnitude were of wood, with 
perhaps a stone tower or stronghold to 
serve as a depository for sacred vessels, 
libraries, etc., and lor defence in case 
of actual attack. Dr. Petrie, in his 
great book on Round Towers, produces 
convincing proofs that these curious 
specimens of architecture, some seventy 
of which still r^ain more or less well 
preserved, were intended for these pur- 
poses. Ireland at the time of Saint 
Patrick was densely wooded, oak be- 
ing predominant, and where so many 
extensive buildings had to be erected in 
so limited a time no more convenient 
and suitable, though certainly very de- 
structible, material could be used. 
This, as well as the ravages of time 
and foreign invasion, will explain the 
fact that so many of the sites of our 
primitive edifices are recognized only 
by local tradition. The art of building 
in stone was indeed known in the coun- 
try before the introduction of Christian- 
ity, but it was not generally applied to 
church purposes till about the begin- 
ning of the twelfth century. 

When Cormac McCulinan was ap- 
pointed to the see of Cashel, it is re- 
corded that he built a cathedral in that 
city in the latter part of the ninth cen- 
tury, which, according to the annals 
of the priory of the Island of all 
Saints, was not long after rebuilt and 
consecrated with great ceremony. 
Whether the beautUul ruin now called 



832 



TIu Churches of Ireland^Andtni and Modem. 



Ck>rmac*8 chapel owes its origin to the 
warrior bishop or to a successor of the 
same name is a mooted question among 
antiquarians, as the records of the suc- 
cession in this diocese are verj imper- 
fect. However, it must have been 
erected at an early age, for we find that 
in 1170 Donald 0'Brian,Kingof North 
Mnnster, built the cathedral of St. 
Patrick in his royal city of Cashel, and 
the former church of Cormac was con- 
verted into a chapter-house, on the 
south side of the choir. Bishop O* He- 
den in 1420 repaired and beautified St. 
Patrick's aftd erected a hall for the 
vicars choral. In the same year that 
Donal O Brian built St. Patrick's he 
also caused to be constructed the beau* 
tihil cathedral of St. Mary's in Limer- 
ick, endowing it liberally, and it existed 
in great splendor until the Reformation, 
when it shared the general fate of all 
such noble institutions. 

The cathedral of St. Patrick, in 
Down, was rebuilt on the site of the old 
one by St. Malachy in 1138, and forty 
years afterward was enlarged by one 
of his successors and a namesake. 
About this time it was dedicated to St. 
Patrick, having been formerly consecra- 
ted to the Most Holy Trinity, a favor- 
ite name, it would appear, for cathedrals 
in the early centuri'^s of Christianity. 

St. Mary's, at Tuam, was built in 
1152, by O'Connor, King of Ireland, 
and Bishop O'Uoisin, the first arch- 
bishop of that see; in 1260 it was 
enlarged and a new choir added. Fi- 
nally, it was given over by Henry 
VIII. to an apostate named Bodkin. 

St. Coluraba's, in Derry, was built 
in 11G4, by King Maurice MacLaugh- 
lin. It also had to succumb to the re- 
formers who settled in Ulster, and the 
[)resent Protestant cathedral of that 
town was built on its ruins, by the 
*• London Company," in 1 633. 

The majestic cathedral of Kilkenny, 
dedicate to St. (^nice, was commenced 
in 1178, by Bishop Felix O^DuUany, 
and was finished by B shop St. Leger 
in 1286. Some years later it was al- 
tered and beautified by Bishop Ledred, 
and at tlie time of the Reformation 



was considered one of the most bean- 
tifully situated buildings in Europe 

The cathedral of the Holy Trinity, 
in Waterford, was built about the be> 
ginning of the eleventh century. lu 
subsequent fate is thus rebUed by t 
recent Protestant writer : * 

** The old cnthcdni], or rather the oldest 
part of the fimt cathedral of Waterford, vas 
built in 1096, by the Odtmen, on their ooo- 
▼erition from pvganiam ; and about two oeft* 
turies later it was endowed by King John, a 
dean and chapter having liecn appointed 
under the sanction of Innocent III. Endow, 
ments of various kinds had accumulated frum 
age to age, till the Rcformatioo, when the 
old altars were thrown down and the omt- 
ments defnced. During the rebellions and 
wars that followed, its most costly treasorrs 
were carried away, with the brass ornaments 
of the tombs, the great standing ptlicin 
which supported the Bible, the immense 
candlesticks, six or seven feet high, the great 
brnzen font, which was ascended by three 
stairs made of solid brass, and various goM 
and silver-gilt vessels. In 1773 the dean and 
chapter pronounced the old building so much 
decayed as to be unsafe for public wor^p, 
and unfortunately reiH)lved that the whole 
pile should be taken down and replaced bja 
new edifice." 

It will be seen that some of those 
lasting monuments of Irish skill and 
piety wore raised subsequent to the 
English invasion, but the advent of 
the Norman soldiers was destined 800d 
to dry up the springs of public munifi- 
cence, if not to exterminate the old 
race, and obliterate the faith of St. 
Patrick. The Anglo-Norman of the 
twelfth century, though professing 
Christianity, was at heart as much a 
pagan as the race from which he 
sprung. He was brave, canning, cruel, 
and rapacious. His greediness could 
not withstand any inducement to plun* 
der, even though sacrilege had to be 
added to robbery ; and he generally 
had courage and skill enough to carry 
out his intentions. He was neither an 
Englishman nor a Frenchman, but a 
compound of elements common to the 
worst classes of both races, supt»r- 
induced on the genuine, old nortiiem 
barbarism. He was, in fact, the pro- 
totype of the mod<;m filibuster, and, 

• Ireland and her Charchet, by Jamee Qvdkio. 



3%# Churches of Ireland — Ancient and Modem. 



;b given to fighting, preferred the 
I to the glory of warfare. Like 
of his class in every age and 
rj, he substituted superstition for 
on, and becarae only generous of 
oods when death threatened to 
ii them from his grasp. When 
ed to Protestantism by act of par- 
nt, it is unnecessary to say that 
the check of remorse, weak as it 
nras removed, and the spoliation 
ts given to God and his poor sat as 
f on his conscieuce as his coronet 
wn sat on his head. Consequent- 
tm the landing of Strongbow and 
lends until the Reformation, the 
which ensued against the natives 
occasionally diversified by the 
er of a rich abbey, or the burning 
lurchovhilenow and then we read 
institution being founded by some 
tant lord of the Pale, from which 
nere Irish " were excluded, 
ere were, indeed, a few men who 
into Ireland in the track of its 
ers, who were men of true pie- 
Among these may be classed 
Comin, archbishop of Dublin. 
3 he who, in 1190, built St. Pat- 
collegiate church in that city, 
^paired and beautified Holy Trin- 
St. Lawrence O'Toole having, 
en years before, added to its 
al dimensions by building a choir, 
, and three chapels. Those 
>ble buildings are still in use by 
rotestants of Dublin, and but little 
t?d since their Catholic days. St. 
!k's has been renovated and im- 
d through the liberality of a 
:-spirited merchant Though 
dear to the Catholic hearts of 
n for its old memories ; its fame, 
it has fallen into the possession 
present occupants, rests only in 
sociation witli the name of the 
and eccentric Swift, whose fiash- 
wit and sly sarcasms were wont 
use his drowsy congregation, 
twitlistanding the impoverished 
ion of the people, and the inse- 
of life and property, during the 
of the twelfth, thirteenth, four- 
I, and early part of the fifteenth 
VOL. v.— 63 



centuries, we find the following reli- 
gious houses established throughout 
the country : Priories of the Canons 
Regular of St. Augustin, 20; ab- 
beys of the Cistercian order, 29 ; 
convents of the Dominican order, 
23 ; of the Franciscan order, 56 ;, of 
the Augustan order, 21 ; of the Car- 
melite order, 24; commanderies of 
Knights Tempkr, 11. This latter 
order was suppressed about the middle 
of the fourteenth century, and its pro- 
perty given to the Hospitallers. 

But a new era now commenced in 
the history of the church. To the 
bitterness of niltional hate were to be 
added bloody persecution and whole- 
sale confiscation. Henry VIIL had 
commenced his quarrel with the pope, 
and, wich the vain intention of reveng- • 
ing himself on his holiness, he turned 
reformer, initiated a state religion, and 
unanimously elected himself head of 
the same. But Henry Tudor had 
method in his madness, and knew well 
that the best way to convert his Anglo- 
Irish subjects was by appealing to their 
old passion for plunder. Accordingly, 
his lord deputy, St. Ledger, in 1536, 
summoned, what was in that age called 
a parliament, and this assembly, rep- 
resenting nobody but the hirelings 
about the deputy, with one fell swoop 
contiscated three hundred and seventy 
monasteries and abbeys, whose yearly 
value amounted to £32,000, while 
their movables amounted to more 
than three times that amount. A year 
or two later all religious houses were 
suppressed and their projierty turne4 
over to the king. 

That this atrocious spoliation of the 
patrimony of the church and the pro- 
perty of the poor had not even the 
pretext of being perpetrated to replen- 
ish the treasury of an impoverished 
state may be inferred from the words 
of Ware, who, in his life of this new 
Defender of the Faith, says ; " Henry 
soon after disposed of the possessions 
of the religious orders to his nobles^ 
courtiers, and others, reserving to him- 
self certain revenue or annual rents.'' 

This exhibition of royal magnifir 



83i 



ceoct^ at once continced iKe atbreftai<1 
•* nobler find courtk'W '* ihul Henry 
was thc> veritable Head of lUe CSiurelu 
not ouly in EiigUmd, but in Ireland 
also, and tbcy luusteneil to aorept Uh 
gifts and lib iie.v relip:ion with equal 
alacrity. The eatlvedrals and ehurehea 
had now to b<f disposed of. That por- 
tion oK the laity descrilMid as noblca 
and courtiers was well provided for* 
and the clergy had to be satistficd ; a 
new religion, Henry wisely thought, 
would not lt>ok well without churchca 
and a hierarchy. Pliant tools of the 
school tj( Cmnmer and Cromwell were 
sent over from England, who, shielded 
by the military power af (he depiilVt 
and aided by a few apostates uf native 
growth, were fraudultfully indaet<*d 
• into Iri^h soef. While Brown, who 
bail bei>ofne arcbbiBhop of Dubliu, vva« 
burning in the piibUc directs tlie sacred 
image of our crucified Hedeemer, fa- 
ken from the abbey of Balhboiinn, 
and the crosier of 8L Patrick, rilied 
from Holy Truiity ; the lonl deputy 
was ** gutting'^ the old cathedral of 
Bown, violating the graves of Ir<dand'd 
threo greatest saiatn, and dcrilroying 
thtfir 6JU!red rtdics. As the!*e acts did 
not bring enlightentnent to the mtrirU 
of the bcni^'liied Catholic^^r « more 
|»e»cral sy»teai of devastation waji 
adopted. All the churches were 
•ficized and their sacrcd vessels and 
ornaments appro[»riated as Icgi lira ate 
spoils, by the ** reformed clergy,'* 
while such of the buildings m were 
not requirt-d tor the preachera of the 
new evangel were converted into bar- 
nicks or stables. The people, though 
deciuiate<i and dispirited by long and 
disastrous wars, were too much attach- 
ed to the ancient fatth nol to re^bt 
those iniquitous proceed) ag:s ; bat fire# 
Bword, fiimine, and pestilence panau- 
ed them everywhere, martyred their 
prk*sis and bid their bomeb and their 
fields desolate* 

Wliat Henry conjnjence<l, his son, 
and worthy daughter Ehzabeth, fol- 
lowed up ; Cmmweiri? troopers nearly 
left the country a desert ; and llie va- 
cillating and tivacherous Stuarti add* 




The Chufcha of Irthnd^Anmtni 



time of Wiliun 



!i 




ed, if possible, 
condition, 8*^ j 
the population in the 
of Orange, that his p*Mi:it 
those of the house of 1 
quenlly enaetel, tbouj^b ,., »,.. 
mt*i&t atrocious, r/ere c*rimpia 
harmless, so well had the *e^ 
persecution been wiehleil by tb 
deeessors. Even as late aii the 
of the la^^t century, the CalboU 
the bulk of the pen V 
in the most pititul 
tJon ; their priests 
casts before the hn 
nuns bani*h«*d or II 
if any remained *j\ 
inslitutioUd of pie« 
were to be found - 
lieufi of the larger towi; 
tending the sick and < — 
able to relieve, th«; wants ot 
*• Xo places of puhlio woi 
pennitleil," *avs llie autbor • 
tory of Duhlin. ** and the • 
moved his allar-bouks and < i 

neceiisary for the celebmlion t-i i *s rr. 
ligious rites from boUdO to hota^^mno^ 
such of his flock us were eiabk-l in 
this way to support an itluefmai 'i> 
I: Hplain t while for the |> 

I L wa>4le house or fitabl: 

D'liioLi.' or retired situation wni iftli^U* 
ed, and here the service wma ffltMll/ 
and see re I ly performed, tuialit«flTc<d 1^ 
the public eye." Indf'M, in uamf 
couDties the I d ftorttf \ 

children werv ^ men ai^ 

women unmarhcd, the • rhti 

of the last consolations u: ....^...^ and 
the poor and infirm Icil lo the cM 
charity of an unfeeling attd hoMi 
minority. The foree of petveestioo 
could go no further. Thti cxpmamA 
of conversion by force bail bm IrM 
With a votigi'ance, and Itatl lignatly ftO- 
e<l. It was evident that ukldr eUciai- 
nation or reacti^m mnft follow. 

Fortunately for the honor of iNh 
manity it was the kttcr. God wu 
with his people in their aiBiolkMW sad 
hearkened to their prayonk Slowly 
the ligiit of loleralion broka upoa lla 
darkeci«d miada of (he domitiaat Pi 



lUi Churches of Ireland^^Ancient and Modtm, 



885 



testant partj, and^ thoagh bat the mer- 
est gliminer at first, graduallj and 
ateadilj gained in intensity. One hun- 
dred and twenty years ago the first 
chapel tolerated by law was publicly 
opened in Dublin ; the more atrocious 
of the penal laws fell into disuse ; cha- 
pels, poor indeed, and monasteries, 
feeble in their very sense of insecurity, 
commenced to rais^ their humble heads. 
Protestant gentlemen of liberal views 
found a voice in the Irish and English 
parliaments. Maynooth and Carlow 
colleges were established ; a great and 
fearless Catholic,C)*Connell, arrayed his 
coreligionists in solid phalanx in de- 
fence of their rights ; and, finally, the 
British government, abashed at the 
scorn of Christendom, and yielding to 
fears of internal revolution, consented 
to emancipation. Of the many causes 
which led to this tardy act of justice 
the moral effect of religious freedom 
in the United States and the conduct 
of our Catholic immigrants during the 
revolution were not among the least 
effective. 

Turning from the past with all its 
varied trials and defeats, it is pleasant 
to dwell on the condition of Catholic 
Ireland of to-day, with its churches, 
monasteries, colleges, and schools 
innumerable. Of the city of Dublin, 
where the Reformation made its first 
attacks, and where, at the beginning 
of the century, there were but a few 
poor chapels and "friaries," we find 
the following picture drawn by one 
who, though not a Catholic nor of 
Catholic sympathies, is too clear-minded 
to shut his eyes to the actual condition 
of affiilrs around hhn. He says :♦ 

** Tbere are now thirty-two churches and 
chapels in Dublin and its vicinity. In the dio- 
isese the total number of secular clergy is 287, 
and of regulars, 1 25 ; total, priests, 4 1 2. The 
number of nuns is 1150. Besides the Cath- 
olic university, with its ample staff of pro- 
fessors, there are in the diocese six colleges, 
seven superior schools for boys, fourteen su- 



• Ireland and Her Churches. By James Oodkln. 
This very able book has Just been published In Eng- 
land, and. Uioagh written by a ProtedtAnt and a de- 
Toted believer in the opinions of that sect, is fUll of 
very valuable Information regarding the present con- 
dition of the Catholics of Ireland. 



perior schools for ladies, twelve monaatle 
primary schools, forty convent schools, and 
200 lay schools, without including those 
which arc under the National Board of Edu- 
cation. The Christian Brothers have 7000 
pupils under their instruction, while the 
schools connected with the convents in the 
diocese contai.i 15,000. Besides Maynooth, 
which is amply endowed by the state, and 
contains 500 or 600 students, all designed for 
the priesthood, there is the college of All 
Hallows, at Drumcondra, in which 250 young 
men are being trained for tbe foreign mis- 
sion. The Roman Catholic charities of the 
city are varied and numerous. There are 
magnificent hospitals, one of which especial- 
ly — the Mater Misericordiae — haa been not 
inappropriately called *The Palace of the 
Sick Poor' — numerous orphanages, several 
widows' houses, and other refuges for virtu- 
ous women ; ragged and industrial schools, 
night asylums, penitentiaries, reformatories, 
institutions for the blind and deaf and dumb ; 
institutions for relieving the poor at their 
own houses, and Christian doctrine fraterni- 
ties almost innumerabla All these wonder- 
ful organizations of religion and charity are 
supported wholly on the voluntary principle, 
and they have nearly all sprung into exist- 
ence within half a century.*' 

Miss Fannie Taylor, an English 
lady, in a recent work entitled Irish 
Homes and Irish Hearts, admirably 
describes, from personal and minute 
examination, the efficiency, success, 
and untiring devotion of the numerous 
orders of holy women, whose houses 
everywhere are to be found in and 
around the capital. Every conceiT-* 
able want, every ill that flesh is heir 
to, finds at their busy and gentle hands 
an alleviation and a soothing remedy. 
The daughters of the rich are taught 
their duties to themselves and to socie- 
ty ; the children of the poor are gra- 
tuitously trained in all the necessary 
arts of life ; the orphan has a refuge ; 
the sick are visited and comforted ; even 
the outcast woman, the loathing of the 
worldly of her own sex, is taken by 
the hand and gently led back to the 
path of virtue. Hospitals; asylums 
for the blind, the deaf and dumb, have 
beea built by them, generally out of 
their own slender means ; and even the 
raving maniac and drivelling idiot find 
a shelter and a home. W here ver death, 
sickness, poverty, ignorance, crime, or 
affliction is, there also is to be found 



MH 



n« Ckmrdta^ 



i»ajrl the wrher. a b»tr mcni 

ar.4 of tbo&e <ie«d§ c/ darker viLea 31 
r*rfhV$tj form a poweff-l*->BKflc an Irua 
lif^.'^ Words u tm^fxl » tsej are 

Followin;r Sr. &j»ik2i in wb&: !bs 
#»iU hts *• IiMpecti«>o c/ BaaawTci."' 
(PrciU^uint of ffAr«e.j »e cccae t» 
th*; dKJ««^ of Fern*, ctabrado; As 
fjountjr of Wexford. - Her?, ibw."' 
^avji the inspector. - is a p>c<Ljaatja 
thnt #eenis nafuraiJv fitted in a pr^- 
eminent decree for ?li« rpce:<>» of 
lV/fe<>!tan:jsrn ;~ bat Le frArA Lisuelf 
riii'«tak<'n. In the verr cra.dle 0^ 
C^itholicitr lo Ir^bnd be cosH a-x £:>! 
#5ven one oat of eTenr ten who e ten 
profe*ierl to be Protesranrs* He is 
equally Horprise^l at thv reqiect and 
veneration in which onr bl^^ol mo- 
ih'-r wan held in tbi» dioce*e of - in- 
dnntri/jiH. self-reliant, and ind ?pendent^ 
rnen, and acknowledges his asrooish- 
ment graceful I7 enough : 

" I hfl'l plentr of proofs of thU in the 
town of \V«fxforl, where there ar? twospi'ro- 
«Ji'l rii;ir chrirche4, with grmoi towers, buUt 
ftlrriOHt exortly ai:ke, in calheirai !>tTle ; ertx^t- 
ef] aUo ttt th«; same tim<», and chifrdy thro.:gn 
th<r fxirrtionfi of the parr.e pri«n. One cf 
th'-m ii c:iU<'<l the church of the Immaculate 
(/onrf'ption, and the other the chnrcfi of the 
A<t»iiitri)itioh ; lioth, tli«rnrfoD.% «pt.*«.*:ally de-li- 
catttd to the Virjrin Marj. There ctjuIJ J»e 
no iriHtake ahout tliiit in the mind f>f any one 
vi^ilin;; th^rw; Mplendid plaoeA of worship, 
which arr* fitted up admirably with scuts to 
the very door^*, (ini.ntie<l in the mo:*t approrcii 
htyh*. and with a di';;re<* of ta-te that ntmld 
do honor to the b(*Mt (.*athi*<]raU in En;;land. 
B'hiiid the hi;;h allar th^re \a a very large 
window of ritaiiw-d glan^, an:l a «imtiar one of 
Hinallfr ditneiiKJon!! at each Hide. To the 
ri;;lit lA Mary'ri chapel, with an altar brilliant 
aitil porg«'oii8 in the extreme. T; ere i* a 
iKMiuiiruI Htatiic of the Vir;:in ami <'hild, be- 
forf which three lamps were buniin;^ durin;; 
the day, and in the evening ei;:ht or nine 
do/j-n of candles are lighted, while ten or 
twi'lvi? vases are fille<J with a variety of flow- 
ers, kept constantly fresh, and pro lucing the 
nio«t brilliant and dazzlin*; effects for the 
woi>hi|>per.-«, who are nearly all attracted to 
this favorite altar, the beauty and iplendor 




tiw ahsr of Chxttt cospkte- 
Goenllj. Bleed, (he S«. 
I vly anniaed on the ctom. hii 
wia Bsik. and the Uood 
ijwtne 3-aiL sis pKreri aide, or «Idc lying 
bwi imt zisHCj 3 =« wpclchre. It Is oaly 
a« Vxc3. at: appcan amyed in beaniy, 
crrvTAi w-ja ii^«ct, aad eccirded wiih 
rurr. Ear ilar ai tie Wesfori cfanrrh of 
3U£ Jjsomcciia ■» <ieeBrai<«l in the taae 
Kf* m .'.e lB rTa i '7kTe CoBccpdon, bat not 
wjiz *) auxea. <iu&>xasioa. Grats loeal soi- 
iaa X!Sfc iu-re *«ec aude for the erection aa-J 
ijsmaiun£ :£ iiese tw.> chizrches. with ihflr 
safciMBS uw<r> and ffpcre«. bat mach of 
ai» Bcaey aout ^^n Gt«a Britain and tbe 
eciiTciiei: aai u a qi&estioa viiicfa I put ob 
IM *ii:f«!rt i: 3.t rt-ie, I rvwire<i for auver 
t3a: 'z SLSit ' froin all parti of the habitaUe 

' Sgl Vazdf iI as thoM tvo new churches 
>;». ih/e^ x.-v «ir7«j£«d in interna] decoratioos 
hf iza Tr%z>iv*ci3. di wh of this mwd. This 
if a p«r*<ec r:n in its war — eo elesuitly 
pk3V*i a=»i orr^^aoetited, and' so nicviy kepi, 
fo ^K^s ad cbMriag in its aspect, and 
erisetLZ S'xt rfjari to comfort in all Il« ar- 
nscsessFtc'A. t^: we can easily conceive it to 
he a ▼«?▼ F*-^-'-^- u-i fashionable place nf 
w.TTsiiiri. I: U tt ■« cmcif'.*Tni, bat built in the 
fiupe cc aa L. To the le:^ of the prinet^ial 
alixT. at ifce jaacsioa of the two pordoni, 
KAZ. i« is ijLpr^^ive prtmineacc the altar of 
the Virria Mary, •hica is corered by an ele- 
rate! canopy. rL-^rinj: npon white and blue 
pillars wiih iP-I i-.a capiuliw Tf^.n ihe alur 
su£.i« a bea'a:l5^ marble statue of the Vir> 
pa. Tzkk Un.;* l--m coc'^tantly before it. 
Oao hiri-irvd CAr-i'in? are li^jhted round it iti 
the tTec:T.z wli'a hx\: a d«izen pis-bumers. 
fiortl cr::±.i:rE.*-4 are in the pvato>t prufu- 
eion an i variety. There arv fwar lar^e stands 
oa the SLixT tli.-or, two ochenf hicher up 00 
the p(-!e«:iu a^.d a numl^^r of siuall va-^es 
will; lK»uq :«ft* TAnjotl on the a'ur. The fri- 
ary a:tacned to t:.e church prv:ieRt<« a picture 
of ordrr, nejtc<L*<i*, and vleaniiov^s which 
seeznei t.» l-e a rit^eotion of ihe cbaracirri*- 
tics of the 'Enji-.-h I»an»nies/ sb»»i::s: how 
national idio^ynoi-uMe? and so^-ial cirv-uniStao- 
ces affect rclrjion. In fact, a ci>niiti unity of 
Quakers couli not ki-ep thvir otabii^hntent 
in better order than these ».inei»i-an« kj-ep 
their friary. I c.l»:iervt-d a jm-at c«>nfr:i>t in 
this respect in the R'tman Cathuiic ♦^'tiiblii.Ii- 
ments of \Vaterl«»rd andTiiuiIes. Wexford, 
indeed, is quite a m*»:il to\tn in the Kuman 
Catholic Charcij. Tlu-re are ihr^-e oJicr 
places of worsnip l»esides those alrea>Iy il.od- 
tioned — the college chapel and the nunnery 
chaftels, and cerlainly tliere are ni» {vopie ia 
the world, perhaps, not excepting: the Kumans 
themselves, more abundantly supplitd with 
masses. Tnere is a mass tor workin;:iD«n 
at five o*clock in the moniinj;, there are mass* 
es daily during the week at later hours, aiui 



I%e Churches of Ireland — Ancient and Modern. 



SSI 



no less than six or seTen on Sundays in each 
of the principal chapels, or churches as they 
are now generally called. The college is a 
Urge building, and in connection with it is 
the residence of the bishop, Dr. Furlong." 

What has here been remarked of 
Dublin and Ferns may be said with 
equal justice of other parts of Ireland, 
Kildare and Leighlin has its splendid 
cathedral, the comer-stone of which 
was laid in Carlow in 1828, by the 
celebrated Dr. Doyle. Cork has its 
fine churches, schools, and monasle- 
ries. Of the cathedral of the diocese 
Qf Kerry, Miss Taylor says : 

** The great ornament of Killamcy is the 
cathedral, the only one I have seen in Ireland 
worthy of the name. It is one of Pugin*8 
happiest conceptions. The tower is not yet 
built, and this of course greatly detracts from 
the beauty of the exterior; but within, the 
great height of the roof, the noble pillars, 
Uie sense of space and grandeur, made one 
think of some of the beautiful cathedrals of 
<4d of our own and foreign lands." 

In the archdiocese of Tuam, where 
some years since the Most Rev. Dr. 
Kelly, the predecessor of the present 
patriotic prelate, said that out of one 
hundred and twenty-one places of 
worship one hundr^ and six "were 
thatched cabins," there are now three 
hundred and eighty-seven churches, 
three hundred and eighty two clergy- 
men, and fif^y-four rehgious houses. 



Armagh has again risen from the 
ashes of the past, and again a beauti- 
ful metropolitan cathedral appears on 
the spot hallowed by St. Patrick. The 
comer-stone of this beautiful building 
was laid by the Most Rev. Dr. Crolly, 
primate, on the 17th of March, 1840. 
The increase of churches in this dio- 
cese from 1800 to 1864 has been nine- 
ty-three ; convents and schools, twenty- 
four. 

Such is the outward visible sign of 
the progress of the church in Ireland 
for the last hundred years. What 
though the wind sighs mournfully 
through the broken arches of many 
a church and cloister, made sacred 
by the saintly men who prayed and 
taught fourteen centuries ago ; though 
the fern and the ivy grow up and ce- 
ment a thousand crumbling ruins, which 
in their desolation attest at the same 
time man's passion and his impo- 
tence ; let them be as silent teachers 
of the past and of its glorious memo- 
ries and bitter persecution. But the 
people of Ireland have the present, 
they are working not only for them- 
selves, but for the future; and they, 
too, will be known to after generations 
by the monuments they are now build- 
ing as their forefathers built ; by their 
churches, convents, and colleges, which 
shall exist, even though in ruins, in the 
grateful memories of coming ages. 



%m 



Jhhn Tefzel 



Prom TI19 DuttUii Rertev, 

JOUN TETZEL.* 



Of all Liither'a conlemporary oppo- 
nents none experienced so much of his 
(oul-mouthed vituperation as the Domi- 
nicat> preacher of indtilgences, John 
Tetzel^a viliiperatioti which Protes- 
tant writers, down to the pi-enent day, 
have not ceased, with unniitigatc4 vir- 
ulence, to heap upon hia memory- 

Nor have Catliohc writers done 
much to defend Tetters calumniated 
reputation. On the contrary, they 
have iji general allowed themselves to 
be deluded by Protestant prejodioe, 
atjd so to have abstaintnl from refer- 
ring, in hh behalf to original sources 
of information. This unworthy eourte 
they have pursaed a a thoii^^h they 
viewed Tctzel in the lij^ht of a per- 
son a j^e not worth quarrelling alx>iit, 
whom, without detriment to the church, 
ihey raif]^ht safely akindon tu the ene* 
my, nay, whom it might perhaps be ns 
well thus to abandon. They were 
fally aware thai it was not for preach- 
ing Pope Leo's indulgence thiil Luther 
really attacked TetzeL The indul* 
gence was. but the pretext seized by 
Luther for openly broaching the here- 
tical opinions wliich, ever since tlie year 
15 1 0, he had secretly formt^d, Nei- 
ther did Luther owe hia succesa to the 
alleged abuses of the papal indul- 
gence. He owed his success to the 
wide-spread moral corruption of hia 
times. Had Leo X. proclaimed no 
indulgence at all, Luthei-'s calamitous 
Reformation could hardly have been 
pre%*ented* 

Three Protestant biogmphicfl of 
John Tetzel have been written in Ger- 
many. The earliest, writteu by Grod- 



♦ Tutacd umi Luther, oiUr T^l*r!i?ir«.'?*clilcljt*' tinJ 
R*•c^T^•r^i)fUllg den Abia- '^•, 

Tfy. J.tliUJin Tttxel, m,^ u 

Viil«tiUii Gr6uet Dpctor . 1 <! 

0li>e, VerUf «l«r Nu»tt'»vU«u aucliLAniJIimg. ISdH, 



fried Hecht in Latin, appeared b 1707. 
About the same time a Life of Tec* 
2el, in German, was publi^hied bjf 
Jacob Vo^el. The third, a cnmplk- 
tion of both, id by Fricdridi Hoflm.'iao, 
and appeareil at Letpsic iti 1^4. 
Tfjey are all three, more or ke», jiut 
such ex parte productions ai mi<xhi b€\ 
expected, full of obloquy fouud*^ oa 
garbled quotations and falflilled Bunji< 
The most virulent is Hotflnnafin'f bojk» 
the lej^st so nochtV In copioofULM 
of original research, Vo^-I fiir snt* 
parses Hecht and !{<»fiaiann. An i 
couuterpoi^e to these biogrupbtiai tlw 
Cutholic parly prLMluced ntrthing till 
the year 1817. An anoay motui work 
lh«*n appeared at Frankfort cin-ih*^ 
Main, entitled Vert) 
Kathohken fiber dtn 
Martin Luthers widtti" 
TetzeL This work is su j ^ 
been written by a JcMiit. 
it contains many ttrongj ; 
dication of Telzers ii j n i 
it would not t*rjtm to kr. - ' 
ject so much in view as li 
the doctrine of indulj^ru.o ^^^. >: 
the attacks mnde on it by rf*a»0Q of 
the year 1817 being the tcnsumiermrf 
year of the Hefonnatlon, and cek^ 
brated as such {Itit^ughout Proti*iit]iai 
Germany. What Auditi to hia IM$ 
of Luthcr*8ays in fjv. ^ '^ r«el 
oeedd more from fe<l* 
research, and is coniJcquiutly oC li^ 
rior importance. Under tbe^ circwi* 
Btauces it is gratitVmg fo me^l iriili 
such a book in df^hMiee of IVfserl m 
Dr. Valeniiiie t !,» 

which, while li> i:^ 

Dominican as an able, piuua, oad de* 
voted champion of the holy &eeb lA a 
manner that establishes bis litli! in fit* 
tare to that character on a fiolid iMsts. 
be aUo contributes to tbe btatorrof 



i 



t$t0FMml 



J 



John T$tz$l 



Lather and the Heformation a most 
interesting fund of knowledge and re- 
flection. 

The true date of Tetzel's birth ap- 
pears to be unknown. It ie conjectured 
to have fallen a little later than the 
middle of the flfleentb century. He 
was a native of Leipsic, where his 
father was a citizen and goldsmith. 
Dr. Gro:ie has much to say about the 
etymology of his family name. But 
this we may pass over as superfluous. 
Of Tetzel's boyhood and youth noth- 
ing is recorded until the year 1482. It 
was the year of his matriculation as a 
student of the Leipsic university. He 
is now said to have shown superior 
abilities and great application. For 
the art of rhetoric he soon evinced a 
strong predilection. Not content with 
attending the lectures of Ck)nrad Kim- 
pina on the theory of declamation, he 
sought to gain a practical knowledge 
of it by assiduously frequenting the 
sermons of the Dominicans. This 
led to his forming an attachment to the 
order of. which, in 1490, lie.became a 
member. Two years before, he had 
received his bachelor's degree^ being 
the sixth on a list of fifty candidates. 

In the seclusion of the Dominican 
convent of St. Paul's, at Leipsic, Tet- 
zel renounced the study of humanities 
in order to devote himself all the more 
zealously to the writings of the fathers 
and doctors of the church. 

This course he adopted as the surest 
means of qualifying himself to become 
a preaching friar in the true spirit of 
St. Dominic *' The goldsmith's son," 
says Jacob Vogel, ** possessed every 
requisite to form a public speaker, a 
dear understanding, a good memory, 
an eloquent tongue, an animated de- 
livery, a manly and sonorous voice, 
the charm of whicli was enhanced by 
a tall and slender figure." 

Hie first essays as a preacher were 
confined to the church of his convent. 
Their efiect was such that his prior, 
Martin Adam, soon gave him permis- 
sion to preach beyond the convent 
walls, at the different places belonging 
to its jurisdiction. In Tetzel's day it 



was still customary not to confer holy 
orders until, according to ancient ca- 
nonical rule, the candidate had reach- 
ed the age of thirty years. This age 
Tetzel attained before the close of the 
century. He was then ordained priest 
by Philo von Trotha, Bishop of Mer- 
seburg. About the same time Pope 
Alexander VI. proclaimed the great 
jubilee. It was the eighth proclama- 
tion since the first by Boniface VIIL 
Tetzel received from his superiors the 
appointment to preach the jubilee in- 
dulgence. He preached it at Leip- 
sic, Zwickau. Nuremberg, Magdeburg, 
Gorlitz, Halle, and other towns. So 
well did he perform his duty, that he 
established his fame as one of the most 
powerful popular preachers that had 
ever appeared in Germany. *' ^j 
reason of his extraordmary eloquence," 
says Godfried Hecht, " he acquired 
great authority over the people, and 
rose higher and higher in renown.'* 
Dr. Grone adverts to various contem- 
porary attestatrons of Tetzel's surpris- 
ing success with the masses. It was 
ascribed to his resounding voice, his 
richly metaphorical language, and lo- 
gical clearness. 

In 1504, Pope Julius H. proclaim- 
ed an indulgence in favor of the Teu- 
tonic Knights in Prussia, whom the 
Russians and Tartars had reduced • to 
great straits. On this occasion Tetzel 
was again chosen to preach, along with 
Christian Baumhauer, of Nuremberg. 
He preached the indulgence in Prus- 
sia, Brandenburg, and Silesia. At the 
same time the Dominican priory of 
Glozau, becoming vacant, was offered 
to him. He was little more than thir- 
ty years old. *• What stronger proof,** 
says Dr. Grone, ** could be given him 
of the high veneration in which he was 
held by his order ?" But he did not 
accept the dignity. In the early part 
of 1507 he returned to Leipsic. On 
his way he pr»»ached for the Teutonic 
Knights at Dresden. So great was 
the desire to hear him that the largest 
church in the city was found too small 
for the congregation. Duke Greorge 
of Saxony caused him, in consequence, 



840 



John TeigeL 



to preach from a window of his palace. 
The same zealous duke, on Tetzel's 
arrival at Leipsic, received him out- 
side the gates at the head of the cler- 
gy, the civic authorities, and digni- 
taries of the university, and conducted 
him in solemn procession to St. Paul's 
convent. Here Tetzel again retired, 
a simple friar, to the seclusion of his 
cell. In 1510, he was employed to 
preach an indulgence of a peculiar 
sort, granted in aid of building a 
bridge, with a chapel on it, over the 
Elbe at Torgau. The Saxon princes, 
being themselves short of funds, and 
finding the people unwilling to contri- 
bute the money for nothing, had ob- 
tained in 1491 from Innocent VIII. 
the indulgence in question, by which 
all the faithful in Saxony who should 
give ihe twentieth part of a gold florin 
toward the bridge and chapel at Torgau 
were permitted to eat butter and drink 
milk in lent, on the rogation days, and 
the vigils of feasts, for a term of twen- 
ty years. In 1510, Pope Julius II. re- 
newed this indulgence for another twen- 
ty years. Such indul<i;ences were not 
unfrequent in the middle ages. In 
1310. Pope John XXIL, as Dr. Grone 
tells us, granted an indulgence of forty 
days toward the erection of the bridge 
at Dresden. When Julius 11. died in 
1513, the great aspiration of his suc- 
cessor, Leo X., was to complete the 
magnificent temple of Christendom, 
St. Pciter's basilica, begun by Julius 
in 150G. But Leo found that the 
wars waged by his high-minded pre- 
decessor in defence of St. Peter's pa- 
trimony, and the independence of Ita- 
ly, had exhausted the papal treasury. 
Julius having raised the tunds for lay- 
ing the foundations of St Peter's by 
means of an indulgence, Leo resolved 
to do the like toward tlie expenses of 
finishing the work. The bull which 
he accordingly issued, granting a 
plenary indulgence to all Christen- 
dom, readied Germany in 1515. The 
commission to preach it was given to 
the Franciscans. For Saxony and 
the north of Germany this commis- 
sion was divided between the guar- 



dian of the Franciscans of Menti 
and Albert of Brandenburg, the new- 
ly installed archbishop of the city. Bat 
the guardian of the Franciscans de- 
clining to act, the entire coramissioa 
passed into the hands of the arch- 
bishop. It was merely as a special 
favor that he had been included in 
the commission at all. His grace, 
in fact, had been obliged to contract 
a heavy debt with the Fuggers of 
Augsburg, the Rothschilds of the 
day, in order to pay the fees on bb 
pallium, which, for an archbishop of 
Mentz, amounted to no less a sum 
than thirty thousand gold florins. Ai 
it was not customary for the archbish- 
ops to pay this sum out of their privy 
purse, it bad to be levied on the faitJh* 
ful of the diocese. But this had been 
done twice within the last ten years for 
the immediate predecessors of Albert 
of Brandenburg, namely, Archbishops 
Berthold and James Uriel. To raise 
the sum a third time under sacli cir- 
cumstances seemed impossible without 
assistance. Wherefore, in order to 
afford relief to bis flock. Archbishop 
Albert had obtained leave from Rome 
to appropriate a portion of the pro- 
ceeds of the papal indulgence in his 
province toward the payment of his 
debt. This fact suffices, in Dr. 
Grone's opinion, to clear the arch- 
bishop from the reproach of avarice 
cast at him by ProttJStant writers, 
who have also not failed to impute 
all sorts of unworthy motives to him 
for making choice of the Dominican, 
John Tetzel, as his chief sub-commis- 
sioner, or quaes tor, in preaching the 
indulgence. But, says Dr. Grone, 
is not the archbishop's choice of Tet- 
zel tantamount to a refutation of the 
calumnies hea[)ed u|)on him as one of 
the vilest, not only of friars, but of 
men? Archbishop Albert proceeded 
with the greatest caution, an^ issued 
very clear and exact instructions, both 
on the nature of the indulgence, and 
the manner in which it should be 
preached. Had Tetzel really been 
the notoriously bad monk Protestant 
writers say he was, how could the 



John Tetul 



841 



•reUmhop, with tihe knowledge of 
audi a fact, have ventured to choose 
him at all ? How fcould Tetzel be ex- 
pected to preach with any effect, if, as 
is asserted, he was a disgrace to his or- 
der, a man who did not scruple openly 
to perpetrate the worst excesses ? Bat 
Arohbishop Albert of Mentz had, as 
we have seen, very particular reasons 
of his own for promoting as much as 
possible the success of Pope Leo's in- 
dulgence, and, accordingly, he made 
choice of Tetzel as his chief qusestor. 
Dot because he thought a coarse, sordid 
monk of infamous reputation the like- 
liest person he knew of to stir up the 
religious fervor of the people, but be- 
cause he judged this might best be 
done by one who, while eminent alike 
for piety and for zeal in the cause of 
the church and the holy sec, enjoyed 
the renown of being one of the most 
eloquent preachers then living in Ger- 
many. What motive could be more 
natural, more just, more obvious than 
this? 

Tetzel entered on his duties as 
preacher of the papal indulgence for 
the Archbishop of Mentz with his ac- 
customed zeal and ability. What he 
had to announce in virtue of the In- 
Btructio Summaria of the archbishop 
was substantially this : That all per- 
sons who repented of, and confessed, 
fasting, their sins, who received holy 
communion, said certain prayers in 
seven different churches, or befo e as 
many altars, and contributed according 
to their means a donation toward St. 
Peter's basilica, should obtain full re- 
mission of the temporal punishment 
due to their sins, once for their lives, 
and then as oflen as they should be in 
danger of death ; that this indulgence 
might be applied by way of interces- 
flion to the souls in purgatory, while 
bedridden people were to be able to ob- 
tain it ^y devoutly confessing and com- 
municating in their chambers before a 
•acred image or picture. 

In the entire document, says Dr. 
Grone, there does not occur a thought 
which the church at tiie present day 
would hesitate to subscribe. The In- 



structio Summaria further declares, 
that those who cannot afford a pecuni- 
ary donation are not, therefore, to be 
denied the grace of the indulgence, 
which seeks not less the salvation of 
the faithful than the advantage of 
the basilica. ^* Let such as have no 
money," it says, '* replace their dona- 
tions by prayer and fasting, for the 
kingdom of heaven must not stand 
more open to the rich than the poor." 
What a refutation have we here of the 
slanderous clamor against Pope Leo's 
indulgence as an alleged traffic in sin I 
With respect to the conduct of Tetzel 
himself and his subordinates, they are 
admonished to lead an exemplary life, 
to avoid taverns, and to abstain from 
unnecessary expense. That cases of 
levity nevertheless took place. Dr. 
Grone admits, but he strenuously de- 
nies that Tetzel gave cause for ani- 
madversion. Finally, the Instmctio 
Summaria directed that all indulgences 
of a particular or local kind should be 
declared, in virtue of the pope's bull, 
as suspended for eight years in favor 
of the one now granted by his holiness ; 
a declaration which did not fail to ex- 
cite a bitter spirit of opposition and 
jealousy, especially among the reli- 
gious orders and confraternities, of 
which Tetzel had to bear the brunt. 

In the church of All Saints, at Wit- 
tenberg, there was a costly shrine of 
relics resented by the reigning elector 
Frederic, afterward surnamed the 
Wise. At his request Pope Leo X^ 
so recency as 1516, had attached to 
this shrine an indulgence for the yearly 
festival of All Saints. The offerings 
which this indulgence would produce 
Frederic designed to apply for the 
benefit of the university which he had 
founded. Hence, he regarded the pa- 
pal indulgence for St. Peter's at Rome 
as a grievance, and, but for an impe- 
rial mandate requiring all the German 
princes to throw no impediment in its 
way, he would have forbidden it3 be- 
ing preached in his territories. 

Frederic, moreover, had a grudge 
against Rome on the following grounds : 
The holy sec had, in compliance with 



842 



John TeizeL 



his request, consented to confer on his 
natural son the coadjutorship to a be- 
nefice in commendam. But the com- 
mendator himself dying when the di- 
ploma conferrin<i the coadjutorship bad 
just been completed, a new diploma 
conferring the vacant commendatory 
had to be prepared instead, entailing 
on Frederic, who was of a very parsi- 
monious disposition, the vexatious ne- 
cessity of liaving to pay the fees twice 
over. This he ruminated upon in his 
sullen way, and set it down in his mind 
as a conclusive proof of that grasping, 
overreaching spirit which the encmi<*s 
of the church in that age accused Iier 
of in such exaggerated tenns. Fre- 
deric the Wise was also involved in a 
dispute with the archbishop of ]\Icntz 
re3|)ectiug certain territorial rights at 
Erfurth. 

The Augustinian hermits of Witten- 
berg sympathized with their muniQcent 
patron tlie elector. He pennitt«Hl 
them to make use of the funds accruing 
from the loc:il indulgence of All Saints 
toward the ex|K*nses of a new convent 
and church which they had in course 
of erection. But the temporary sus- 
pension of the latter iiKlulgcnt'e in 
iavorof the one preached by John Tot- 
zel for Pope Leo X. and Archbishop 
Albert inconvenienced and annoyed 
them all the more, as their buildings 
were on the point of completion. 
Neither was their ill-will toward Teizel 
the less that, in his character as a Do- 
minican, he was their anient o;>ponent 
in the schohistic and theolugical dis- 
putes of the day ; and, besides being a 
preacher of such talent and iiifiuenco, 
was a dignitary of the comt of Inqui- 
Bition at Cologne, where, of course, tho 
Dominicans presided. 

In spite of all obstacles, Tetzel 
preached ihe indulgence with signal 
success at Leipsic, 2^Iagdebarg, Ilulbi-r- 
fltadt. Brrlin, and otlier places. At 
length, about the end of October. i:)17, 
he arrived at YUterbock, near Witten- 
berg, just at the time for gaining the 
special indulgence of All Saints, In 
vain the Auguslinians secretly did what 
they could to prevent the people from 



flocking to h(*ar him. TIic very stit 
dents of the new Wittenberg university 
expressly founded as it was as a riva 
to that of Leipsic. descried the lecture 
halls in such numbers that the profo^ 
sors were filled with alarm and iudi;; 
nation. In particular. Dr. Mar;ii 
Luther was exasperated to filud him*i!'li 
so completely eclipsi»d by the proximiij 
of Tetzel, against whom he fruit lessh 
inveighed in the temporary church of 
the Augustinian hermits Even hi: 
OAn pc;nitcnts, regardless of his adino 
nitions and refusals of absoluiion, ior 
sook his confessional to obtain the in 
dulgence proclaimed at Yaterbuck 
All at once they seemed to forget ih( 
maxims he had taken so much ]>alHs tc 
instil into their minds res|>ec:ing diviin 
grace and good works ! Long had hi 
waited for an opportunity to broach hi 
new doctrine 0))enly, and Ik: and hi: 
disci |>les resolved that now or novc 
was the time to do so. 

Accordingly, on the 31st of O'lob-*] 
Luther posted up his famous nint.';y-tivt 
theses at the door of All Saints' clinn:! 
in Wittenberg, and challeng«'d all ilu 
world to dispute with him un the *\\.k 
trine they maintained. Ostensibly the; 
were levell(»d against the alleged abns^* 
of the papal indulgence. But attiu^k 
on the doctrine itself, us well as on iIk 
authority of the iK)pe, were insidiou-lj 
inteL*mingl(^d with them. 

*' Xot the ttffair of the iniliiljifneo, not Toi 
zcl, iMt tlu' o-)rnipiion ami i^rnorasuv ol x\v 
clergy, not the decay of <li«cii>liiK\" say* l>r 
Griiiio, ** but the circu instance th.it L.ittKr 
previous to the postuijr up of hi.< thesi**. \*.i 
a here lie, iiml foun«l support in the KUvio 
Frederic — thid it wa:) tJiat gave ri»o to tbi 
great Bchi:»:n in the church." 

Dr. Grone sul)stantiates his a5*»^rtioT 
by authenticated facts, and a crifica 
examination of Luther's ninety- fiv< 
theses, which, says he, 

" Were the point of transition from ^ocr^t \k 
open from timid Co ob^^tinate, here:»y. Die; 
were the t^eed nhicli, sown in the i^il, ctmtaiu* 
not only virtually, but really, all that, a* E»'ni 
and plant, it has a riglit to contain, tii-.-j 
were tlie result, the production of Liiihor'i 
mental life, corroded, as it was, by crmr aiic 
leamud self-conceit ; they wore as iutiuiau.*lj 



John TetzeL 



848 



united with it as the stem U with the root, 
therefore the j ooald only be abandoned in case 
the author himself transformed his entire inte- 
rior life. Hence, too, is to be derired the ob- 
atinacj with which Lather clung to them, with 
which he would still have clung to them, eren 
If they bad not earned him general applause ; 
hence the circumstance that, in defending 
them, he iuTolved himself deeper and deeper 
in heresy." 

By meanfi of the press Lather's 
theses were soon spread all over Ger- 
manj. Tetzel, seeing the riotous ap- 
plaase they met with from the enemies 
of the charch generally, and from his 
own enemies in particular, suspended 
bis preaching ; and, with the concur- 
rence of the archbishop of Mjentz, re- 
paired for advice to his former precep- 
tor. Dr. Conrad Wlmpina, at tliat time 
rector of the university of Fninkfort- 
oo-the-Oder. "VVimpma advised him 
to answer Luther's challenge with a 
series of antitheses. Tetzel did so, and 
published against Luther's ninety-five 
theses a hundred and six antitheses. 
They obtained for him the degree of 
doctor of divinity. In the clearest 
manner they set forth the true Catholic 
doctrine of the absolute necessity of 
repentance, confession, and satisfaction 
for the pardon of sin, affirming that, 
though an indulgence exempts the sin- 
ner from the vindicatory penalties of 
the church, it leaves him just as much 
bound as ever to submit to her medi- 
cinal and preservative ones ; that it does 
not derogate from the merits of Christ, 
since its whole efficacy is due to the 
atoning passion of Christ ; as al^o that 
the pope has power onfy by means of 
saffrage to apply the benefits of an in- 
dulgence to tlie souls in purgatory. 
Moreover, to say the pope cannot ab- 
solre the least venial sin is erroneous ; 
and equally so to deny that all vicars 
of Christ have the same power as Peter 
bad: rather to assert that Peter, in 
the matter of indulgences; had more 
power than they, is both heretical and 
blasphemous. One of the many slan- 
ders on Tetzel is, that he was not the 
author of the antitheses that he pub- 
lisbed, but that Dr. Wimpina wrote 
them for him. Luther himself fiung 



this taunt in his face, and so gave it 
the prestige among his party of an un- 
doubted fact. Dr. Grone enters fully 
into the case, and terminates his inquiry 
with ** venturing to believe that, by his 
vindication, he has annihilated every 
substantial ground for doubting that 
Tetzel was the real author of the anti- 
theses in question." They did not, of 
course, silence Luther, who replied to 
them with a popular compendium in 
Grerman of his ninety-five theses in 
twenty articles. Tetzel rejoined with 
twenty others, also in Grcrman. In the 
nineteenth he declares of Luther's doc- 
trine, in the tone of a prophet, that, in 
consequence of it, ^ many people will 
contemn the authority and power of his 
holiness the pope and the Roman see, 
will intermit the work:» of sacramental 
satisfaction, will no longer believe their 
pastors and teachers, but will explain, 
every one for himself, the sacred Scrip- 
tures according to private fancy and 
whim, and believe just what every one 
chooses, to tlie great detriment of souls 
throughout Christendom." 

At a time when all the most learned 
men in Grermany regarded the matter 
as nothing but a scholastic dispute, 
when many even in Rome deemed it 
a mere monkish quarrel, Tetzel, by thus 
pointing out in such clear and concise 
terms what Luther s principles really 
involved, what fatal results they would 
produce, evinced, in Dr. Grone's opin- 
ion, a more than ordinary penetration 
of mind. 

Luther^s fundamental thought in at- 
tacking indulgences was this : That 
indulgences are not of faith, because 
not taught in the Bible, not taught by 
Christ and his apostles ; they emanate, 
he said, only from the pope. Now, 
if this thought was an erroneous one, 
if the pope in questions oi' faith and 
morals is infallible, if he alone pos- 
sesses the right to decide the true sense 
and meaning of Scripture, every Cath- 
olic is bound on all such questions to 
submit to him ; and Luther, if ho per- 
sisted in maintaining his doctrine, pass- 
ed sentence on himself as an apostate 
and a heretic, cut himself off from all 



844 



John TeUeL 



escape. And had do other choice left 
than that of either being panisbed as 
a heretic, or making a recantation. 
Hence, in order to drive him from the 
field, it was requisite to prore that, be- 
sides the truths explicitly declared in 
holy writ, there are other truths in the 
church which we are equally bound to 
believe ; and that they comprise all 
those doctrines relating to faith which 
are defined as such by the holy sec. 
By setting up those propositions the 
dispute would be raised to one of prin- 
ciple, and Luther would be compelled 
to speak out on the pope's authority in 
matters of faith and practice. 

These considerations spurred Tetzel 
on to issue against Luther s fifly theses 
on the power of the pope ; for, indeed, 
it had not eluded his observation that 
much the greater part of the applause 
received by Luther was owing far more 
to his insidious attacks on the authori- 
ty of the holy see than to his reproba- 
tion of the indulgence. TetzeFs ^fty 
these*!, published about the end of 
April, 1518, maintained, therefore, 
that the highest power having been re- 
ceived by the pope exclusively from 
Go'l, cannot bo extended or limited, 
either by any man or by the whole 
world, but only by God alone. That 
in his power of jurisdiction the pope 
stands above all other bishops separate 
or united. That, although, as a pri- 
vate man, the pope may hold, on a 
point of faith, a wrong opinion, yet, 
when he pronounces judgment on it 
ex cathedrdj he is infallible. That in- 
dulgences cannot be granted by the rest 
of the prelates, whether collectively or 
singly, but only by the '* Bridegroom 
of the whole church," namely, the pope. 
That what is true and of faith about 
indulgences, only the pope can decide. 
That the church has many Catholic 
truths, which are neither expressly de- 
clared in the canon of Scripture, nor 
explicitly stated by the holy fathers. 
That all doctrines relating to faith, and 
defined as such by the apostolic see, 
are to be reckoned among Catholic 
truths, whether or not they are contain- 
ed in the Bible. As a warning for the 



elector of Saxony, Tetzel declares that 
all those who patronise heretics, and 
use their power to prevent them froiB 
being pat upon their trial before the 
lawful judge, incar excommunicatioo. 

These fifly theses of Tetzel*s were 
strictly in the spirit of the schoListie 
theolo;!y in vogue, a spirit which the 
experience of such cowicils as those of 
Basle, Constance, and Florence had 
contributed not a little to evoke. 

Luther at once perceived what a 
stumbling-block Tetzel had thrown in 
bis way. . He did not attempt to di^ 
pute the fiAy theses. Had be done 
so be must have plainly ackaowled^rni 
himself a heretic. As matters stood 
tliis would have been premature, 
would have spoiled all, would have 
ruined him and his cause. Tetzel 
had not designated Lather person- 
ally as a heretic. But Luther chose 
to assume that he had done so, and 
forthwith let loose a storm against 
him of such brutal and malignant io- 
vecdve as Luther alone was capable 
of. Adopting the tone of an injured 
man, a man shamefully misunderstood, 
he filled Grcrmany with hypocritical 
asseverations of his orthodoxy and bis 
devotion to the see of Peter. All his 
party, all TetzeFs opponents, followed 
in his wake. The heathen-minded 
humanists, in particular, singh'd out 
Tetzel as the butt of their ribald satire, 
holding him up to scorn and execration 
as the very impersonation of every im- 
aginable monastic abuse and scandaL 
The persecuted man found little or no 
shelter from the tempest. The friends 
of religion and the church were intimi- 
dated, confounded, paralyzed ; apathy, 
indecision, cowardice, delusion, prevail- 
ed among the guardians of the faith, 
prevailed among the German bishops. 
Home herself was slow and lenient in 
her measures. Although she cited 
Luther to come and answer for him- 
self to her, she consented, in the 
persons of Cajetan and Miltiz, to 
go to him. Ctyetan, all patience 
and condescension, allowed himself 
to be trifled with and duped. 3L1* 
tiz truckled to Luther, reviled TeizeL 



John Tetzel 



Si5 



betrayed his trust. In rain did Her- 
mann Rab, provincial of the Saxon 
Dominicans, address a touching letter 
in TetzeFs defence to Miltiz. It is 
dated at Leipsic, January 3d, 1519, 
and is quoted in full by Dr. Grone : 

" Truly I should not know where to find a 
man (observes Hermann Rab in this letter) 
who ha» done and suffered, who still suffers 
so much for the honor of the apostolic see, 
as our venerable father, Magister John Tetzel. 
If his holiness only knew it, I doubt not but 
that he would distinguish him in a worthy 
manner. With what lies and slanders beyond 
number he is overwhelmed, all the street- 
corners, where they resound in your ears, 
attest. I only wish your excellence had heard 
the sermon he preached on the feast of our 
Lord's circumcision, for then you would not 
have failed to convince yourself what his 
sentiments are, and always have been, toward 
the holy see." 

Miltiz commanded Tetzel to retire 
to his cell at Leipsic. Hs obeyed. 
ilis career was now terminated. He 
never ascended the pulpit an:ain. The 
fatigues and excitement he had under- 
gone ; the persecution he had suffered ; 
his deserted and forlorn condition ; 
above all, the course of events, so omi- 
nous for the church and the papacy, 
to which he clung with all his soul ; 
these things preyed upon his luind and 
body to such a degree that his health* 
gave, way, and he died in a state of 
profound melancholy in the month of 
August of the above-mentioned year. 
He is supposed to have been about 
sixty years old : 

"Tetzel could not have set up a better 
monument to his own character (writes Dr. 
Grone) than he did in the grief and affliction 
which hastened his end. The ruin of the 
church, the wild infidelity, nnd unspeakable 
disorders which the triumph of Lather must 
needs entail on Germany — this was the worm 
that gnawed his vital thread. It broke his 
heart to bo forced to see how the sincere 
champions of the old church truths were left 
alone, were slandered, despised, and misun- 
derstood by their own party, while the mock- 
ers and revilers of the immutable doctrine 
won applause on all sides." 

In a chapter devoted to a refutation 
of the infamous calumnies and profane 
anecdotes recorded of Tetzel, it is 
shown by Dr. Grone that they were 



mostly borrowed from the Decameron 
of Boccaccio and a congenial German 
production, styled Der Ffaffe Amis* 
For example : Tetzel, being anxious 
to impart extraordinary interest to the 
indulgence he had to preach, once told 
the people he would show them a 
feather which the devil, in combating 
with the archangel Michael, had pluck- 
ed from the archangel's wing. But a 
couple of godless wags, entering his 
chamber during his absence, stole the 
feather out of -the box in which it was 
kept, and put some coals from the fire- 
place in its stead. Tetzel, ignorant of 
the thef\, mounts the pulpit, box in 
hand, and declaims with great fervor 
on the wonderful qualities of iiis hea- 
venly feather. Then opening the box, 
finds it full of coals. Nothing abash- 
ed, he cries out, " What wonder if, 
among so many relic-boxes as I pos- 
sess, I have taken the wrong o.ie?" 
And forthwith he extols the miracu- 
lous power of the very coals on which 
St. Lawrence was broiled. 

Another merry tale of the sort is 
the following : " TetzeV they say, 
" once desired to lodge with the sacris- 
tan at Zwickau. But the sacristan ex- 
cused himself as being too poor to en- 
tertain so renowned a guest. ' We'll 
see that yoa have money enough,' said 
Tetzel, * only look what saint it is in 
the calendar to-morrow.' The sacristan 
found the name of Juvenalis. * A very 
unlucky name, he regretted to say. be- 
cause it was so little known.' 'But 
we'll make it known,' replied Tetzel. 

* Ring the bells to morrow as if tor a 
festival, and let high mass be sung.' 
The sacristan obeyed, and the people 
throng the church. After the gospel 
Tetzel ascends the pulpit, and speaks : 

* Grood people, to day I have some- 
thing to tell you which, if I were to 
withhold it, would be the very ruin of 
your salvation. Hitherto, you know, 
we have always invoked such and such 
saints, but now they have grown old, 
and are tired of hearing and hel|)ing 
us. To-day you commemorate Juve- 
nalis, and although until now he has 
been unknown, let us none the less 



a46 



John TeUeL 



honor him with all our hearts. For 
as he is a new saint, he will he all the 
more indefatigahle in praying for us. 
Juvenalis, mj friends, was a holy mar- 
tyr, whose hlood was innocently shed. 
Now, if you would also participate in 
his innocence before God, let each of 
you put an offering on the altar during 
mass. And do you, ye great and rich 
ones, precede the rest with your good 
example.' " 

Again, in 1512,Tetzcl, after having 
preached at Zwickau, had got all his 
money packed up, and was about to 
depart. But the parish priest, with 
his chaplain and clerk, came running 
to him, bitterly complaining that, while 
he had provided so splendidly for him- 
self, they had not got as much by the 
indulgence as would pay for one'jolly 
day. *' Truly I am very sorry," an- 
swers Tetzel, ** but why did you not 
tell me sooner? However, ring the 
bells again to-morrow ; there may still, 
perhaps, be something left for you." 
No sooner said than done. The peo- 
ple all came flocking to church, and 
Tetzel, ascending the pulpit, begins: 
^ Dearly beloved, true I had intended 
to depart this very day, but last night 
I heard in your church-yard a poor 
soul moaning and weeping miserably, 
and imploring some one to come to her 
relief, and deliver her out of purgatory. 
This caused me to remain here to- day, 
to have mass said and offerings made 
for this poor soul. Now, whoever 
among us should neglect to make an 
offering would thereby prove that lie 
has no compassion on the poor soul, or 
else that he musteither be a fornicator 
or an adulterer, whose conscience tells 



him he is not worthy to take part ia 
this good work. And that you msy 
know what an urgent case it is, I mr- 
self will be the first to present my of- 
fering." 

Of course all the people hasten to 
follow so edifying ao example, th<*T 
even borrow money from one another, 
for DO one wishes to be thought a foT' 
nicator or an adulterer. 

In citing such absurd stories as the 
above, along with many others of t 
still more profane description. Dr. 
Grone shows that, in several insauh 
ces, they were the same as were em- 
ployed to slander the character of Ber- 
nardin Samson, the Franciscan preach- 
er of Pope Leo's indulgence in Svrit- 
zerland. He also cites two contempo- 
rary documents, one of them signed by 
the authorities of the town of Halle, 
the other by John Pels, prior of the 
Dominican convent of Nevenwerk, de- 
nying in emphatic terms that Tetzel, 
in his sermons, ever blasphemed the 
Blessed Virgin in the shocking way be 
was accused of doing. In fine, had 
he really been the monster of depra- 
vity, the shameless drunksird, swindler, 
liar, blasphemer, and adulterer his ene- 
mies make of him, it is but too obvious 
that, instead of opposing, he wouM 
have joined Luther, whose earliest 
and most ardent disciples wer^ prin- 
cipally degenerate monks, in love wiih 
the Lutheran doctrine of the futility of 
good works-^nonks, in a word, cor- 
responding in every respect to the 
Protestant descriptions, but opposite in 
character as day and night to the tme 
nature of John TetzeL 



The Bride of MertUin. 



847 



From Once a Weeic 

THE BRIDE OF EBERSTEIN. 



A LEGEND OF BADEN. 



FotTR hoars distant from the city of 
Baden, near the market village of 
Malsch, on a bold, projecting wood- 
crowned eminence in the Black Forest, 
stood the Cafitle of VValdenfels. It is 
now a heap of ruins, and scarcely can 
the traveller discover the spot which 
was formerly the residence of an opu- 
lent and powerful family. 

In the thirteenth century, Sir Berin- 
ger. last of his race, inhabited the castle 
of Waldenfels. His lately departed 
consort had bequeathed him an only 
daughter, Rosowina by name. In by- 
gone years Sir Beringer had oft times 
felt distressed that he would leave no 
male heir to propagate the name and 
celebrity of his ancient stock ; and, in 
this feeling, he had adopted He in rich 
von Grertingen, an orphan boy, the son 
of an early friend and companion in 
arms, and Uie representative of an an- 
cient but impoverished house, to whom 
be purposed to bequeath his inheritance 
and his name. Not long, however, 
after this event, his daughter was born. 
And as Rosowina, afler her mother's 
early death, advanced in the blossom 
of youth, she became the pride and 
happiness of her father's age, and never 
caused him sorrow, save in the reflec- 
tion that some day she would leave the 
paternal for the conjugal hearth. All 
now that troubled him was his adopted 
8on. The growing boy, while manifest- 
ing a becoming taste for knightly ac- 
complishments, and obtaining success 
in their display, nourished in his breast 
the germ of fiery passions, which, 
while they caused'distress and anxiety 
to the Lord of Waldenfels, impress^ 
his daughter with terror and revolted 
feeling. At length, when Rosowina 
bad attained her sixteenth year, she be- 



came to Heinrich the object of a wild 
and desperate devotion. He repressed 
the sentiment awhile, but at length 
yielded himself its slave. He perse- 
cuted Rosowina with his ill-timtMl and 
terrible addresses ; and one day, hay- 
ing found her alone in the castle gar- 
den, he cast himself at her feet, and 
swore by all that was holy and dear 
that his life was in her hand, and that 
without her he must become the victim 
of an agonizing despair. Rosowina's 
terror and confusion wcro boundless ; 
she had never experienced the smallest 
feeling of aflTection for the youth, but 
rather regarded him with aversion and 
alarm. She knew not at the moment 
how to act or what to say. At that 
instant her father appeared. The 
confusion of both sufficiently discov- 
ered what had occurred: in a burn- 
ing rage Sir Beringer commanded 
the unhappy youth instantly to quit 
the castle for ever. With one wild 
glance at Rosowina, Heinrich obey- 
ed; and muttering, "The misery 
thou hast brought upon my life come 
upon thine own I" rushed despairingly 
away. Next morning his body was 
found in the Murg, his countecance 
hideously distorted, and too well ex- 
pressing the despair with which he had 
left the world. Efforts were made, so 
far as possible, to conceal the horrid 
truth from Rosowina, but in vain ; time, 
however, softened the features of the 
ghastly memory. She had now com- 
pleted her seventeenth year, and was 
abready celebrated as the beauty of the 
surrounding country. And not only 
was her beauty the subject of universal 
praise; her maidenly modesty, her 
goodness of heart, her prudent, thought* 
ful, intelUgeut cast of mind, were tke 



848 



7%€ Bride of JSberstein. 



theme of commendation with all who 
had enjoyed the privilege of her soci- 
ety. 

A few hours' distance horn the Cas- 
tle of Waldenfels, in the pleasant val- 
ley through which rush the clear watera 
of the Alb, stood the monastery of Her- 
renalb. The Holy Virgin was patroness 
of the foundation, and the day on which 
the church celebrates the festival of her 
nativity was annually observed as the 
grand holiday of the convent, when the 
monks, to do honor to this occasion, ex- 
hibited all the splendor and magnifi- 
cence which Christian bounty had placed 
at their disposal, and spared no ex- 
pense to entertain their guests in the 
most hospitable and sumptuous manner. 
And now Sir Beringer of Waldeufela 
had promised his liosowina to ride 
over to llerrenalb with her the next 
St. Mary's day. He was ever a man 
of his word ; how should he now be 
otherwise, when that word assured a 
4 pleasure to the darling of his heart ? 

Bright and genial rose the autumnal 
morning when Sir Beringer and Roso- 
wina, with a small retinue, rode over 
the hills to Herrennlb. The knight 
and his daughter were courteously and 
hospitably received by the abbot, and 
his monks. The presence of tlie noble 
heiress of Waldenfels excited mucli in- 
terest and observation in the minster 
church ; but the maiden herself appear- 
ed unconscious of the fact. Seldom, 
however, as she found herself disturbed 
by worldly thoughts in her devotions 
in the castle chapel at Waldenfels, the 
splendor of the monastic church and ser- 
vices, and the innumerable hosts of wor- 
shippers, were to her so new, that stie 
felt tempted, from time to time, to give 
a momentary glance around her. Oa 
one occasiou her gaze encountered a 
pair of eyes which seemed to rest on 
the attraction of her countenance with 
an earnest yet respectful expression, 
and, inexperienced as she was, she was 
at no loss to comprehend its meaning. 
The gazer was a stately youth, who 
was leaning against a pillar. His 
strong- built and well-proportioned 
frame, his noble and expressive coun- 



tenance, and even his rich and tasteful 
apparel, were well adapted to fix the 
attention of a youthful maiden of shjv- 
enteen, while his whole demeanor can- 
vinced her how deeply he was smittea 
with the i)ower of her charms. 

The service over, the worshippers 
dispersed, and the sumptuous nhhuj 
opened its hospitable gates to all who 
could advance any claim to ontertain- 
ment. A sister of Rosowina's mother 
was a nun in the cloister of Frauenalb, 
and Bosowina was permitted occasion- 
ally to visit her, and had here enjoyed 
the opportunity of making the acquaint- 
ance of several noble young ladies of 
the neighborhood. She met some of 
them on this occasion, whom she ac- 
companied into the spacious garden of 
the convent. Among these was the 
young Countess Agnes of Ebersteio, 
with whom as she was sauntering 
through an avenue of umbrageous 
beeches, suddenly there stood bi^fore 
her the abbot of the convent and the 
young man who had attracted her 
attention in the church, who, side by 
side, had emerged from a side -way path 
into the main walk. Rosowina tri^m- 
bled in joyful alarm as she recogniz.Hl 
her admirer : her first thought wjis to 
return or retreat, but, without a mani- 
fest discourtesy, this was now impo^^si- 
ble. Neither was the Countess A;^iic3 
at all willing to escape, but rather forc- 
ed forward the reluctant Rosowina, 
welcoming at the same time the youth- 
ful stranger as her beloved brother, the 
Count Otto of Eberstein. After mutual 
salutations, Agnes introduced Rosowina 
to her brother, who was delighted to 
recognize in the object of his admirsi- 
tion the friend of his sister. He male 
advances toward a conversation, but 
the abbot, whose heart was less sensi- 
ble to beauty, would not, even for a few 
short minutes, postpone the subject of 
their discussion. At the banquet, how- 
ever, which followed, it was eisy for 
the Count of Eber8tein, from bis high 
connection with the monastery, to 
choose his place, and he plac^ himself 
opposite Sir Beringer and his daughter. 
The knights hud met occasionally be 



The Bride of Eberetein. 



W» 



foro, and a nearer acquaintance was 
soon made. To an engaging person 
Sir Otio anited the attractions of polish- 
ed manners, of knowledge extensive 
for that period, acquired bj residence 
in most of the courts of Europe, and 
ot' a lively conversational talent, which 
rendered him everywhere a welcome 
addition to society. With so many 
claims on her regard, it was little won- 
derful that Rosowina should accept with 
pleasure the homage of the count, and 
encourage in his breast the most de- 
lightful of hopes. 

About that time the Counts of Eber- 
stein had built a new castls above the 
beautiful valley of the Murg, not far 
from the family residence of tht-ir an 
cestora. The splendor of Neueberstein 
was the subject of universal conversa- 
tion, and all who had the opportunity 
of seeing the new palace were eager 
to embrace the privilege. An invita- 
tion from Count Otto to tlie Knight of 
Waldenfels and his daughter was only 
natural, and was no less naturally ac- 
cepted with especial welcome. 

Warm and mild shone the bright 
autumn sun on the lovely valley of the 
Murg, as Sir Beringer and his daugh- 
ter rode on beside the crystal stream; 
nor could Bosowina suppress the 
thought how she might ere long as- 
cend the steep winding pathway to 
the castle no longer its visitor, but 
its mistress. Sir Otto met his guests 
at the castle-gate, and, with eyes beam- 
ing with joy, more especially as he saw 
the joy was mutual, lifted Rosowina 
from her palfrey. After brief rest and 
refreshment, the inspection of the cas- 
tle began. Halls and chambers were 
duly examined, and at last the party 
ascended the rampart of the loftiest 
tower, whence an enchanting prospect 
met the eye. Far below them the 
Murg rolled its restless waters, now 
flowing peaceful between banks of 
lively green, now toilsomely forcing 
its passage between wild masses of 
rock. On either side the dusky hills 
towered above the scene; and here 
and there now glimmered out of the 
shadow of the forest a solitary moun- 
voL. v.— 54 



tain village, now a mass of mighty 
cliffs; and as the eye descended tlie 
rapid mountain stream, it rested on 
the blooming plain of the Rhine, 
where, in the. violet tints of distance, 
arose the awful barrier of the Vosges. 
Lost in the magnificent spectacle stood 
Rosowina, unable to satiate her eye on 
the glorious picture, and unaware that 
Otto was close beside her, contemplat- 
ing with secret pleasure the beaulifal 
spectatress. At length the involunta- 
ry exclamation escaped her, ^ A para- 
dise indeed !" 

Then found she herself softly clasp- 
ed in a gentle arm, and her hand 
affectionately pressed, while a well- 
known voice uttered softly, '*And 
would not Rosowina make this place 
' a paradise indeed,^ were she to share 
it with me !" 

Unable now to suppress her feelings. 
Rosowina replied by a glance more 
expressive than any words. She re- 
turned that evening with her father 
to Waldenfels the happy affianced 
bride of Count Otto of Eberstein. 

On a bright spring morning, sym- 
bolizing well the feelings of the lovers, 
the marriage solemnity was held at the 
Castle of Neueberstein, with all the 
pomp and state of the period, which 
few understood better than Otto to dis- 
play. From towers and battlements 
innumerable banners, with 4he Eber- 
stein colors and blazonry, floated gal- 
lantly in the morning breeze, and the 
portal, adorned with wreaths and ar- 
ras, cast wide its hospitable gates. 
Toward noon appeared, in the midst 
of a glittering pageant, the bride, 
magnificently arrayed, but brighter 
in her incomparable beauty ; and all 
praised the choice of Otto, and agreed 
that he could have selected no worthier 
object to grace his halls. Rosowina, 
however, felt unaccountably distressed. 
It was not the confusion of maiden mo- 
desty — it was not the embarrassment 
of the bride — that troubled the sereni- 
ty of her heart. She knew not herself 
what it was ; but it weighed upon her 
mind like the foreboding of a threaten- 
ing misfortune. An image, moreover, 



850 



!%€ Bridi of Bber$iein. 



arose to ber thought which kmg had 
Aeemed io have vanished from her 
memoiy, even that of the unhappy 
Heinrich Yon GertiDgen. Slie en- 
deavored lo repress her anxiety, and 
succeeded so well that the happy bride- 
groom saw not the cloud of sorrow that 
shaded the faur brow of his bride. But 
when the priest had spoken the words 
of blessing, the last spark of gloomy 
foreboding was extinct, and with un- 
troubled tenderness she returned ber 
bridegroom's nuptial kiss, reproaching 
him smilingly, and yet seriously, for 
exclaiming, as he did, with solemn ap- 
peals, that all the joys of paradise and 
all the bliss of heaven were poor and 
insipid pleasures in comparison of the 
happiness which he enjoyed in calling 
her bis own. 

The nuptial banquet followed. It 
was served with profuse splendor ; but 
when the joy was at its height, and the 
castle resounded with jubilant voices, 
and the dance was about to begin, a 
page announced a stranger kniglit, who 
wished to speak to the bridegroom ; 
and forthwith a figure walked into the 
halL The stranger's armor and man- 
tle were black, and he wore his visor 
down. He proceeded with stately ad- 
vance to the place where the newly 
wedded pair were seated at the table, 
made a low reverence, and spoke with 
a hollow and solemn tone : 

** I come, honored Count of Eber- 
slein, on the part of my master, the 
powerful monarch of Rachenland,* to 
whose court the celebrity of this occa- 
sion and of your bride has come, to as- 
sure you of the interest which he takes 
in your person, and his gratification in 
the event of this day." 

His speech was interrupted by a 
page, who, kneeling, presented bun 
with a goblet of wine. But the 
stranger waved aside the honor, and 
requested, as the highest favor that 
could be shown him, that he might lead 
the first dance with the bride. None 
of the company had heard of Rachen- 
land; but the knowledge of distant 

• ^Ji^XM, •• Hw UBd of VaogwBM.** 



countries was not then extensive, and 
the representative of a mighty prince 
could not be refused the usual cour- 
tesy. 

Bosowina, however, at the first ap- 
pearance of the stranger knight, hiid 
experienced an unaccountable shudder- 
ing, which amounted ahnost to terror, 
as, leading her forth to the dance, be 
chilled her whole frame with the freex- 
ing touch whicii, even through bit 
gauntlet, seemed to pierce her venr 
heart. She was forced to summon all 
her strength to support herself during 
the dance, and was painfully impatient 
for its conclusion. At length the de- 
sired moment arrived, and her partner 
conducted her back to her seat, bowing 
courteously, and thanking her. Bat 
at that instant she felt even more 
acutely the icy coldness of his hand, 
while his gk>w2ng, penetrating eye, 
through his visor, seemed to bum for 
a moment into her very souL As be 
turned to leave, a convulsive pang rent 
her heart, and, with a shriek, she sank 
lifeless on the floor. Instant and uni- 
versal was the alarm ; all rushed to the 
scene of the calamity; and in the 
confusion of the moment the stranger 
knight vanished. 

Inexpressible was tlie grief of alL 
In the bloom of beauty and rich ful- 
ness of youth lay the bride, cold and 
inanimate, a stark and senseless corpse. 
Every conceivable appliance was tried 
to recall departed life ; but departed it 
had for ever, and all attempts were 
vam; and when ft was ascertained 
beyond a doubt that not the smallest 
hope remained, the guests in silence 
left the house of mourning, and tlie in- 
habitants of the castle were lefl alone 
with their sorrow. 

Three days had now passed away. 
The corpse of Bosowina rested in the 
vault of the castle chapel, and the 
mourners, after paying the last hon- 
or? to the dead, had again de|iarted 
Otto, left alone at Eb»erstoin, refused 
all human consolation. The first stu- 
pefaction of sorrow had now given place 
to a clamorous and boundless despair. 
He cursed the day of his nativity, aod 



The Bride of Merstein, 



851 



irild desperation cried aloud that 
lid readHy sacrifice the salvation 
8oal, and rcnoance his claim on 
I happiness, were it only granted 

spend the rest of life at Boso- 
side. 

>re the door of the vatdt in which 
mg countess slept the wakeless 
Grisbrecht kept watch and ward, 
cht was an old man-at-anns of 
ise of Ebersteio, which he had 

faithfully for more than forty 
He was a warrior from his 
and had stood loyally at the side 
naster, and of his master's father 
randfather, in many a bloody 

; fear, except the fear of God, 
he diligently cultivated, was a 
T to his soul. With slow and 
■ed tread he paced up and down 
station, meditating the sudden 
f the young and beautiful coun- 
id thence passing in thought to 
lability and nothingness of all 

things. Often had his glance 
on the entrance to the vault ; 
w — what was that? Scarcely 

trust his eyes ; yet it was so, 
ite opened, and a white-robed 
»me forth from the depths of 
ulchre. For a while, Gisbrecht 
Lotionless, with bated breath, but 
i, while the apparition approach- 
But when he gazed nearer on 
e, ashy countenance, and recog- 
)eyond a doubt the features of 
na, the horrors of the spirit- 
mme upon him ; and, impelled 
mutterable terror, he rushed up 
)S, and along the corridor which 
his lord's chamber, unheeding 
. of the white figure, which fol- 
ilose upon his track. 
It Otto, in his despair, was turn- 
iself from side to side upon his 
ben he heard a heavy knock 
le door; and, as he rose and 

it, there stood old Gisbrecht, 
embling, with distorted features, 
ircely able to stammer out from 
nbling lips : 

my lord count I the Lady of 
nfels— " 
i mad, Gisbrecht!** cried the 



count, astonished at the manner and 
words of the old man. 

'* Pardon me, lord count,** continued 
Gisbrecht, stammering ; ** I meant to 
say the young departed countess — '* 

*^ O Boeowina !** exclaimed the count, 
with an involuntary sigh. 

** Here she is — thy UosowinaP' cried 
a pallid female form, which, with these 
words, precipitated herself into the 
count's embrace. 

The count knew not what to think. 
He was overpowered Mritb astonishment. 
Was it a dream ? was it an apparition ? 
or was it Rosowina indeed ? Yes, it 
was' indeed she. It was her silver 
voice. Her heart beat, her lips breath- 
ed, the mild and angelic features were 
there. It was Rosowina indeed, whom, 
wrapt in the cerements of the grave, 
he held in his embrace. 

On the morrow, the wondrous tale 
was everywhere told in the castle and 
the neighborhood. The Countess Roso- 
wina had not died ; she had only been 
in a trance. The sacristan, fortunate- 
ly, had not fastened the door of the 
vault, and the conntess on awakening, 
had been enabled by the light of the 
sepulchral lamp to extricate herself 
from the coffin, and to follow the af 
frightened sentmel to his master's 
chamber. 

And now at Castle Eberstein once 
more all was liveliness and joy. But 
boundless as had been the despair of 
the count at his loss, he did not feel 
happy in his new good fortune. It 
seemed as though a secret unknown 
something intervened between him and 
his youthlhl bride. He found no more 
in her eye that deep expression of soul 
that so oft had awakened his heart to 
transports of joy ; the gaze was dead 
and cold. Tlie warm kiss imprinted 
on her chilly lips met never a return. 
Even her character was opposite to all 
he had expected. As a bride, loving 
and gentle, trustful and devoted, open 
and sincere, now was she sullen, testy, 
and silent. Every hour seemed these 
peculiarities to unfold themselves more ; 
every day they become more unendur- 
able. Often was his kiss rejected. 



The 3Iiner. 



isoinetimes with bitter mockery ; if he 
lefl her awhile through annojanee, she 
reproached him, and filled the castle 
with complaints of his neglect and 
aversion ; when business called him 
abroad, she tortured him with the most 
frightful jealousy. Even in her man- 
ners and inclinations the Countess of 
Eberstein was an actual contrast to the 
heiress of Waldenfels ; all in her was 
low, ignoble, and mean ; one habit was 
chiefly remarkable in her, always to 
cross her husband, to d^tress and 
annoy him, to embitter all his joys, 
to darken all his pleasures. And 
soon it became the common saying 
of the neighborhood : *' The Count of 
Eberstein thought he had been court- 
ing an angel, but he had brought home 
a dragon from an opposite world.^' 

With inexhaustible patience, with 
imperturbable equanimity, Count Otto 
endured these annoyances. No com- 
plaint, no reproach, ever passed bis 
lips. He had loved Rosowina too 
faithfully, too entirely, to let the con- 
duct of her whom he now called his 
wife so soon extinguish the passion 
of his heart. But these disappointed 



hopes, this perpetual straggU 
love and despised self- esteem 
concealment of the 8har|K?«it 
his soul, gnawed at the very 
life, and destroyed it at its 
slow fever seized him, and he 
visibly decaying, and approa 
grave. One morning ho w 
unexpectedly in the death 
He asked for tlie chaplain of 
tie, in order to make his dyin 
sion ; but the holy man oul; 
in time to witness bis last n 
nizing groans. At the same n 
frightful crash shook the founc 
the castle, the doors of the bui 
sprang open, and some of tht 
tics saw the spectral form of £ 
sweep into it, and vanish in t 
ness. 

The deserted castle of New 
sank in ruins, uniniiabi ted form 
turies; the popular belief beingl 
and Rosowina continued to if 
its haunted apartments, and tot 
thereby the solemn k'sson, that i 
the most foolish and wicked of i 
who gains even the whole wofi 
loss his own sou!. 



From The Lamp. 

THE MINER. 



FR03C THE GERMAN OP K0VALI3. 



In a room of a clean inn sat a group 
of men, partly travellers, ])artly per- 
sons that had entered to drink a glass 
of beer, who conversed with each other 
on various subjects. The attention of 
the company was particularly directed 
to an old man in strange attire who 
was seated at a table, and answered 
in a friendly manner all the questions 
which were put to him. 

^ He came from foreign parts,*' he 
said ; ** and was a native of Bohemia. 



From early youth he had had 
ment longing to know what n 
den within the mountains whe 
water gushed up into the sprin 
where we found the gold, sih 
precious stones, which have atti 
so irresistible for man. In the 
of the neighboring monastery 
of\en gazed upon the solid br 
of the images and reliqoarii 
wished that they could spei 
tell him of their mysterious 



7%e Miner. 



853 



eard sometimes that they 
I &r (listaDt lands; but he 
himself why these treasures 
should not be found in his 
fL Not without a purpose 
lountainous regions so vast, 
▼ed so securely ; so it seem- 
as sometimes on the hills he 
ht and glittering stones. He 
slambered into cleds and ca- 
I beheld with unspeakable 
those primeval halls and 
^t leni^th he once met a 
rho advised him to become 
>y which means he might 
3 curiosity. He had told 
there were miners in Bo- 
ld that, if he followed the 
course of the river, he 
T ten or twelve days' jour- 
at Eula ; there he bad only 
nd he might at once become 
He had not sought for fur- 
lation; but the next day had 
his journey. 

a fatiguing walk of several 
continued, *• I arrived at Eu- 
ot express the joy I felt when 
ammit of a hill I saw large 
nes, overgrown with shrubs, 
which stood little wooden 
when in the valley below I 
1 of smoke rolltVig over the 
istant noise increased the 
of my expectation. With 
curiosity, and full of silent 
stood upon one of the stone 
fore the black abyss, which, 
iterior of the hut, led down 
I to the mountain. Then I 
own the valley, where I met 
[y-clad men with lamps, who, 
ly supposed, were miners, 
bful anxiety I mentioned 
to them; they listened to 
kindness, and bade me go 
Iting house and inquire for 
'or, who would at once in- 
whether or not my offer 
accepted. They thought 
ish would be fulfilled, and 
e usual words of salutation, 
ifr with which I should 
surveyor. Full of joyful 



expectation, I left them, and could 
never cease repeating to myself the 
novel salutation, so full of signifi- 
cance. 

*' I found a venerable old man, who, 
when I told him my history, and had 
informed him of my eager desire to 
learn his curious and mysterious art, 
promised in a very friendUy manner to 
grant my request. I seemed to please 
him ; and he kept me in his house. 
With impatience I waited for the hour 
when I should descend into the mine, 
and see myself clothed in the costume 
which had so great a charm in my eyes. 
That evening he brought me a suit of 
miner's clothes, and taught me the use 
of several instruments, which he kept 
locked up in a room. 

"In the evening several miners 
came to him; and although for the 
most part their language and the 
subjects of their conversation were 
unintelligible and novel to me, I en- 
deavored not to miss a single word 
of what was said. The little, how- 
ever, which I fancied I understood 
increased my curiosity, and suggest- 
ed strange dreams to me during the 
night. 

'^ I awoke betimes, and was soon 
with my new host, around whom the 
miners gradually assembled to receive 
his orders. A room in his house was 
fitted up as a chapel. A monk appear- 
ed, who said mass, and afterward re- 
cited a solemn prayer, in which he be- 
sought the Almighty to take the miners 
into his holy keeping, to support them 
in their perilous toil, to shield them 
from the assaults and malice of evil 
spirits, and richly to bless their la- 
bors. 

" Never before had I prayed with so 
much fervor, or felt in so lively a man- 
ner the high significance of the divine 
office. My future companions seemed 
to me, as it were, subterranean heroes 
who had to surmount a thousand dan- 
gers, but whose lot was enviable from 
the wonderful knowledge they possess- 
ed, and who, through theu* solemn and 
silent acquaintance with the primeval 
caverns of nature, were in her dark 



854 



The Miner. 



and marvellous chambers endued with 
heavenly gifts and blissfully raised 
above all the annoyances of the world. 

"At the close ojf the service the 
sur^'eyor gave me a lamp and a small 
wooden crucifix, and went witli me to 
the shaft, as wc call the steep entrance 
to the subterranean abode. He show- 
ed me the manner of descent, and in- 
structed me in the names of the nume- 
rous objects and their divisions. Hold- 
ing a rope, which was attached by a 
knot to a side-post, with one hand, and 
a lighted lamp with the other, he be- 
gan to descend. I followed his exam- 
ple ; and, proceeding at a somewhat 
rapid pace, we soon arrived at a con- 
siderable depth. 

" A feeling of deep solemnity per- 
vaded my mind, and the light which 
moved before me seemed, as it were, a 
fortunate star which guided me to the 
secret treasuries of nature. We reach- 
ed below a labyrinth of paths ; and my 
friendly master was never wearied an- 
swering all my questions, and instruct- 
ing me in his art. 

" The murmur of the water, the 
distance from earth^s inhabited sur- 
face, the daricness and intricacy of 
our route, and the sound from afar 
of the miners at work, filled me with 
extraordinary pleasure, and I felt with 
joy that I was now in full possession 
of that which it had ever been my 
earnest desire to possess. It is impos- 
sible to explain and describe the full 
satisfaction of an inborn desire — that 
wonderful pleasure one finds in things 
which have some secret connection with 
one's inmost being, and in occupations 
to which one is called, and for which 
from his cradle his nature is adapted. 
Perhaps to most people these might 
appear obscure, vulgar, or repulsive, 
but to me they seemed as necessary 
as air or food. 

" My aged master was much pleased 
with my genuine satisfaction, and pre- 
dicted that my zeal and attention would 
insure success. With what rapture 
did I see for the first time in my life, 
now more than five-and- forty years 
ago, the king of metals lying in delicate 



leaves io the clefU of the rodLl It 
seemed to me as though be were kere 
kept in close imprisonment, and abone 
with pleasure upon the miner who viib 
so much danger and labor had dora 
his way to him through strong walb to 
bring him to the light of day, so that be 
might be honored in royal crowns and 
vessels and holy reliquaries, and might 
lead and govern tho world in valued 
and well earned coin. 

^'Thenceforth I remained at Eula, 
and rose by degrees to the grade of 
hewer — who alone among the miners 
carries on the work on the rock it;«elf— 
from carrying out the loose metal in 
baskets, to which work I had been at 
first appointed. 

** On the day when I became a hewer 
my aged master laid bis hand on his 
daughter's head and on mine, and ble:':^- 
ed us as bride and bridegroom. On 
the same day before sunrise I bad cut 
open a rich vein. The duke gave mc 
a gold chain with bin likeness on a 
large medal, and promised me my step- 
father's situation. What happiDo^s 
was mine when on our wedding day I 
hung it round the neck of my bride, 
and all eyes were fixed upon her ! Our 
old father lived to see several grand- 
children, and at length passed in (teuce 
from the dark mine of this world to 
await the great day of general retribu- 
tion." 

Here the old miner paused awhile 
and wiped away some tears from bis 
eyes. 

" Oh !" he at last exclaimed, '* God's 
blessing must needs rest upon the mi- 
ner s labors ; for there is no craft wbiob 
makes its workers more fortunate and 
more noble-minded, which tcndit more 
to excite faith in God s wisdom and 
providence, and which preserves purer 
innocence and youthfulness of heart 
than that of (he miner. Poor is he 
born into tho world, and poor he leaves 
it. It is his hizh joy to discover where 
the potent minerals are to be found, 
and to bring them to light ; but their 
dazzling brilliancy has no iiifiuence 
over his heart. Free from all periloos 
covetousness, his pleasure is rather de- 



The Miner. 



855 



riTed from their wonderful formation, 
the singularity of theJr origin and their 
habitatt^ than from their possession, 
though it promises all things. Thej 
have no greater charm for him than if 
they were common wares; and he 
would rather seek for them through 
toil and danger in the def*p fastnesses 
of the earth, than strive for them on its 
surface bj illusive and fraudulent arts. 
That toil keeps his heart fresh and his 
mind courageous; he enjoys his scanty 
pay with genuine thankfulness, and 
ascends every day from the dark scenes 
of his calling with renewed pleasure in 
life. He alone knows the real charm 
of light and repose, the beneficent in- 
l]uencc of the fresh air and the pros- 
pt^cts which meet his eye. With what 
zest and thankfulness does he eat his 
daily bread, and with what friendly 
fetdings does he associate with his fel- 
lows and taste the pleasures of familiar 
conversation ! In his solitude he thinks 
with hearty good- will of his compa- 
nions and his family, and feels ever re- 
newed in his mind the mutual needful- 
ness and relationship of men. His 
calling teaches him unwearied patience, 
and never permits him to waste his 
attention on unprofitable thoughts. He 
has to deal with wonderfully hai-d and 
inflexible |)Ower, which can only be 
overcome by obstinate labor and con- 
stant vigilance. 

'^ But what a splendid plant he finds 
growing and blooming in these dreadful 
depths ! It is real trust in his heaven- 
ly Father, whose hand and providence 



are daily made visible to him by un- 
mistakable signs. How often have I 
sat down in my place of work and con- 
templated by the light of my lamp my 
rude crucifix with the truest devotion ! 
There for the first time di<l I rightly 
comprehend the holy significance of 
that mysterious symbol ; there has my 
heart felt its noblest impulses, which 
have been of continual use to me. 

"Truly he must have been a godlike 
man who first taught the minor's craft, 
and hid in the bosom of the rocks that 
solemn emblem of human life. Here 
the vein discloses itself wide and un-. 
worked but valueless. There the rocks 
confine it within a narrow obscure cleft ; 
but there it is found of the noblest pro- 
portions. Other veins running into it 
debase it, until it is joined by one of a 
similar nature, which finally enhances 
its value. Often it breaks before the 
miner in a thousand fragments ; but he 
is not discouraged. He pursues his 
work quietly, and presently sees* his 
perseverance rewarded as it stretches 
itself before him in increased dimen- 
sions. Sometimes an illusive fragment 
leads him astniy, but, soon perceiving 
his mistiike, he vigorously breaks 
through it till he finds the vein l»*ading 
to the true ore. How well Jicquainted 
is the miner with all the humors of 
chance! but how thorouglily does he 
understand that zeal and perseverance 
are the only real means to manage 
them and to take from them their ob- 
stinately defended treasures I" 



Q56 



Miscellany. 



MISCELLANY. 



PhotographB of Ghurehes in France, 
— This year's issue of transcripts from 
ancient Gothic buildings and portions of 
buildings by the Architectural Photo- 
graphic Association is unusually inter- 
esting, not only on account of the beauty 
and clearness of the sun-pictures of which 
it consists, but of the subjects that have 
been chosen for the camera. These con- 
tain no renaissance examples or speci- 
mens of sixteenth century craft in impos- 
ing semi-barbarous fronts on noble Goth- 
ic churches of earlier date, as in the works 
at Belloy, !Luzarches, and Verteuil. 
These changes had remarkable interest 
of their own, and were acceptable to the 
student who cared to see how great was 
the debt of the remodelling architect to 
his middle age forerunner. The studies 
now before as range from St Georges de 
Boscherville, founded in 1050 by Ralph 
de Tancarville, chamberlain to William 
the Conqueror, to the very beautiful and 
interesting west front of the church at 
Civray, wliich, like its greater neighbor, 
Notre Dame de Grande, at Poitiers, also 
represented here, dates from the first 
half of the twelfth century, through the 
curious rather than important early 
church of St. Ours, at Loches, at the 
door of which stands a Roman altar that 
appears to have been used as a font ; the 
superb |)ort:ils of Notre Dame, at Char- 
tres, of which we have five admirable 
phot02Taphs ; St. Julien, at Le Mans ; the 
interior of the church of St Pierre, at 
Lisieux, the west front of the same, with 
its unequal but beautiful towers; and the 
church of St. Riquier, near Abbeville, 
which may be said to have been dis- 
covered by Dr. W he well, and is a splen- 
did Flaml)oyant work, with certain ele- 
ments of decoration that assimilate it with 
those of perpendicular. Of this church 
we should very much enjoy a good inte- 
rior view, on account of its value in illus- 
trating the happy union of early French 
Gothic with much later Flamboyant. 
To these must be added a view of the 
very fine Flamboyant west front of St. 
Wulfram, at Abbeville, an admirable ex- 
ample of its kind, and the west front of 
the cathedral of St Gatien, at Tours, a 
work which was begun in IrWO, and 



brought to perfection in 1500, under 
Robert de Lenoncour, then archbishopi 
We can only find one fault in this series, 
that is, the excessive number of door- 
ways it contains. A doorway, or series 
of portals, is one of the happiest fields 
for architectural art ; but there is a dis- 
proportion in this respect here, where, 
out of twenty- two examples, we have 
but one interior view, that of St Pierre, 
at Lisieux, and three general views, two 
of which comprise portals. 

St Georges do Boschervillc is one of 
the best known examples of the early 
Norman churches, and remarkable for the 
extreme simplicity of its exterior, its fine 
proportions, beautiful central tower, and 
high octagonal spire. Interiorly, the 
building is much richer than without, 
and comparatively light in style ; the 
west front is among the most highly or- 
namented examples of its kind and date 
in Normandy, and comprises a round- 
headed arch with five concentric roll- 
mouldings, with as many shafts in the 
side of the entrance, and is decoratcil 
with beaked heads, frets, cables, and 
chevrons to an unusUal degree, and capi- 
tal in design. The apse of this church, 
which is shown in the view befonj uji, 
is very curious. The western turrets 
are works of the thirteenth century. 

Notre Dame, at Poiiiers, is too well 
known to the artist and antiquary to 
need commendation or description here; 
the design is a noble one, and happily 
illustrates the Romanesque of Poitou. 
It has been remarked that the window, 
which resembles that at Civray in posi- 
tion, has been converted from the origi- 
nal round form to a tall shape, and that 
this was done to admit the introduction 
of painted glass. We believe this is a 
mistake, and the window retains its pris- 
tine form. The window at Civray was 
certainly never circular. The canopied 
niches of fifteenth century work, at the 
sides of this window, which once dis- 
figured the facade, have been removed 
by late restorers of the edifice, obviously 
to the improvement of the design. We 
do not see in the two views of the church 
of St Ours, at Loches, enough to demand 
a double illustration : one better selected 



Miwellany, 



867 



tiow than either of those which appear 
here would he enough. A general prospect 
of the church wouldhave heen valuable as 
an illustration of its four tourcllcs, with 
their roofs of stone, after the manner of 
those in the west front of Notre Dame, 
at Poitiers. Doubtless the low porch of 
the church at Loches, which is not shown 
in the photograph, prevented the Rclec- 
tion of a more powerful effect of light 
and shade, and interfered with the choice 
of poin ts of view. Mr. Petit has carefully 
analyzed this church in his Architectural 
Studies of France. We have also a view 
of the details of the doorway exterior re- 
presenting the carvings of what may be 
called the imperfect capitals of the jambs. 
The glorious porches of Chartres, es- 
pecially that magnificent one on the 
south side, are admirably represented in 
five photographs. These give the south 
door war, north doorway, details of the 
north ioorway, doorways of the west 
front ; the last represents the long-rob- 
ed statues of the royal saints and other 
features of the Porte Royale, (so called, 
probably because Henry the Fourth en- 
tered by it to his coronation,) after they 
left the restorer's hands, and is a fine, 
clear photograph. — Atheiurvm. 

Jfeanpaper Zoology, — The Pall Mall 
Gazette has published the following in- 
teresting note: *^The Courier do Sai- 
gon reports some extraordinary items 
of natural history from the land of the 
Anamites. There is a certain fish, called 
Ga-ong in the language of the country, 
which has distinguished itself to that de- 
gree that the king has bestowed upon it 
the proud title of *Nam hai dui bnong 
gnan,' which, as everybody knows, means 
'Great General of the South Sea.' It 
appears that this laudable fish is in the 
habit of quietly paddling round the ships 
near the coast until somebody tumbles 
overboard. He then seizes him instantly, 
and, instead of eating him, gently carries 
him in his mouth to the shore. At Wung- 
tao, near SL James's Cape, they keep a 
skeleton of this extraordinary philan- 
thropist It is about thirty-five feet long, 
poMCSses front teeth like an elephant, 
very laiige eyes, a black skin very smooth, 
a tail like a lobster, and two wings on the 
badL." 

Mechanics of Flight. — An extremely 
interesting paper on this subject was read 
by Mr. Wenham to the Aeronautical So- 
ciety. The subject is too difficult and 
complex to be explained bricfiy, and 



therefore we will only say that Mr. Wen- 
ham has brought into the explanation of 
flight the effect of the forward motion 
in retarding descent Imagine a paral- 
lelogram 10ft. long by 2 ft broad, weigh- 
ing 20 lbs. Such a body would descend 
in still air at the limiting rate of 1820 
ft. per minute, the resistance of the air 
put in motion by the plane balancing at 
that velocity the effect of gravity. If 
now a force be applied horizontally so as 
to carry the plane with its long side for- 
ward at a speed of thirty miles per hour, 
then the motion of the plane being both 
downward and forward, a great volume 
of air will pass under the front margin 
of the plane, and will be carried down- 
ward before leaving the hinder margin. 
The weight of air thus put in motion 
will be enormous, and the descending 
velocity of the plane proportionately re- 
duced. &Ir. Wenham calculates that the 
velocity of descent would in these cir- 
cumstances be reduced to one fifteenth of 
the passive rate of descent, or would 
not exceed 83 ft. per minute. Each par- 
ticle of air would then be moved down- 
ward eight tenths of an inch by the 
passage of the plane, and conversely, if 
this inclination were given to the plane, 
it would move forward without descend- 
ing. Mr. Wenham finds that few birds 
can raise themselves vertically in the air, 
the exertion in that case being excessive. 
The eagle can only lift itself from the 
ground by running with outstretched 
wings till its velocity having become 
sufficient, it glides into the air as if slid- 
ing on a frictionless plane. — Popular 
Science Eeiieic. 

A New Volcano in the South Seas, — 
From a letter forwarded by the English 
consul at Navigators' Islands, we learn 
that a volcano has just broken out at Ma- 
nna, about two miles from the islands of 
Oloscqa. It was preceded by a violent 
shock of earthquake, which commenced 
on the 5th of September, and on the 12th 
dense thick smoke rose out of the sea. 
Lava was thrown up, discoloring the water 
for many miles round, and destroying large 
quantities of fish. Wherever the ashes 
fell on the adjacent island, they destroyed 
all vegetation. Up to the middle of No- 
vember dense smoke was still being 
thrown up. It is said that the smoko 
rose higher than the neighboring island, 
which is over 2000 feet high. The consul 
has been unable to ascertain whether 
there is any bank thrown up in the water. 



858 



M%9ceUany, 



A Chemical Method for effectually 
Cleaning Glass is given in a recently pub- 
lished work on one of the processes of 
photography. It is simple, reliable, and 
completely efficient, and will, we doubt 
not, be found very useful by our readers. 
It is as follows: Dilute the ordinary hy- 
drofluoric acid sold in gutta-percha bot- 
tles, with four or five parts of water, 
drop it on a cotton rubber, (not on the 
glass,) and rub well over, afterward 
washing till the acid is removed. The 
action is the same as that of sulphuric 
acid when used for cleaning copper; a 
little of the glass is dissolved oft', and a 
fresh surface exposed. The solution of 
the acid in water does not leave a dead 
surface on the glass, as the vapor would; 
if a strong solution is left on long enough 
to produce a visible depression, the part 
affected will be quite bright This method 
is recommended in some cases for clean- 
ing photographic plates. 

Nature of the Earth eaten hy tlie 
People of Borneo, — The Chemical News 
gives us the composition of the clay 
which is eaten so extensively by the 
natives of Borneo. It states that some 
years ago the manager of the Orange- 
Nassau colliery, near Zandjermanin, in 
the island of Borneo, found that many 
of his work-people (natives; consumed 
large quantities of a kind of clay ; a sam- 
ple of this material was forwarded to 
Batavia for analysis, and the following is 
the result in lOU parts: 

Pitcoal resin, (orpfanic matter vol- 
atile at red heat,) 15*4 

Pure carbon, '* " " 14-9 
Silica, " " •' 38-3 

Alumina, " " ^ 27-7 

Iron pyrites, " *' " 87 

1000 

Photography at the Paris Exhibition, 
— On the whole, the art-science of pho- 
tography plays its part well at the great 
French International Exhibition, and in 
the collective displays of various nations 
we find its numerous and diverse appli- 
cations, improvements, and moditications 
fairly represented. The Austrian collec- 
tion is a very attractive one, and contains 
some of the very best specimens of pho- 
to-lithography yet produced ; its speci- 
mens of portraiture from life-size down- 
ward are of a very excellent character, 
and, like those of France, Prussia, and 
Russia, are decidedly superior to the 



English. In the Darmstadt contributions 
are some interesting specimens by Dr. 
Reissiz, exhibited to illustrate his theory 
of photogenic action. In the Prussian 
department a large portrait lens attracts 
attention ; it is fourteen inches in diame- 
ter, and covers a square of thirty inches. 
Tho French department contains some 
interesting specimens of photogmphic- 
engraving process, of enamelle<l photo- 
graphs, and of enlargements from micro- 
scopical photographs, amongst which is 
one of a flea enlarged to tlie size of a 
small pig. Amongst the novelties and 
applications of photography to decorative 
art are photographs of a singular charac- 
ter, illustrative of a new process called 
** Chrysoplasty." They represent gold- 
smiths^ work, ancient armor, dni(»encs 
embroidered with gold and silver, bronze 
statuary, philosophic instruments, etc, 
and are apparently in the same metals as 
the originals. This process, is a secret 
one, but the inventor, Mr. Iktringer, is 
prepared to produce such photi»graphs 
from any negatives whidi may he sent 
him for that purpose. He is at present 
making a large collection of specimens 
from antique curiosities and works of art 
in metal dispersed in the public and 
private museums of various nations, and 
with this end in view ap[>eals to the 
owners and guardians of such collections, 
and those who have negatives of the 
required description, to render him asMs- 
tance. In photographic portraiture, by 
universal consent, the French stand prom- 
inently foremost, so much so that^ as 
The Times says, ** amongst those arlicle^j 
which are specially called artielcn de Pa- 
rity a good photographic portrait is now 
to be placed." In the £nglish department 
we miss most of our foremost photop-a- 

Shers, amongst them Mr. O. G. Beglandes, 
[r. T. R. Williams, and but too many 
others. Mr. May all, M. Claudet. Lock and 
Whitfield, Ross, and other of our chief 
portraitists exhibit largely, but all show 
but weak and mean when contrasted 
with their rival portraitists as represented 
in the French collection. As landscap- 
ists English photographers, like English 
painters, carry off the palm. Why land- 
scapes by English operators so far sur- 
pass others we cannot explain, but no 
one with any artistic taste or judgment 
would hesitate to attribute the superior- 
ity of the French portraits purely and 
simply to a more refined taste and greater 
knowledge of pictorial science in their 
producers. The English photography 



860 



New Publications. 



aoquaintance with tho classic poets upon 
these pages, we aro surprised to meet 
with such words as **hluey/'. "blcaky," 
" browny," and the like ; together with 
elisions, as "'T" for *^it," to begin a 
line; "nccd'd" for "neede<l;" and such 
unwarrantable extensions as giving three 
syllables to words like *' Cliristiun," 
*' solely," etc. "NVe feel so mucli pleased, 
however, with his modest iiitniduction* 
to the volume that wo will allow him 
to speak here for himself: **That the 
book is very imperfect, I am fully con- 
vinced of; that it be but taken by ano- 
ther as a spur to elicit a more perfect 
one in illustration of a similar theme, is 
my earnest desire. Tlio many and al- 
most unceasing demands of a higher or- 
der have allowed mo to bestow only a 
few 'tempora subseciva' on a work to 
which I would have gladly devote<l ilay 
and night As such it can hardly he 
anything else than deficient in many re- 
spects. Yet if 1 be the cause of giving 
to but one person the pleasure of a mo- 
ment in perusing these pagi-'S, and still 
more, if one be thence inspiretl to send a 
whisper of love to the saintly beings 
carolled in them, I shall consider njysvlf 
happy, and my labors more than sufli- 
ciently repaid." 

The Two Koads, Gabiiiel, Maktiia, 
]{keai> of Fokuivkness, Flowkks ikmm 
IIeavkn, Fuaiimknts of C()iii{i:>iM»N- 
dem'e. 1'. O. Shea, Publisher, New 
York. 

This is a series of beautiful sturies, 
from the French, on the beatiinik'<. 
They are well translated, and puhlished 
in good style. 



Science of IlArPiSEss; or. The Reati- 
tudes in Practice. IW Mailer Bour- 
don. P. O. Shea, New York. 

This volume contains the stories men- 
tioned above bound together, so as to 
make another book. 

Studies in the CJospels. Ky Rii'hard 
Chenevix Trencli, i).I). S'ew-V«.'rk: 
Charles Scrihncr Jb Co. 

The author of this volume is well known 
from his valuable pliiloh><:icaI wnrks. 
This volume of Studies i> r.inipnsi'd of 
sixteen chapters of expository not- s on 
ditlerent parables and events rec«>i(led in 
tho go.spels. lie has matlo free u^e of 
the standard commentaries, both Cutho- 
lie and Protestant. We cannot attach 
any critical value to the work, as wo ob- 
serve that, where Maldonatus and the 
fathers go against the system towliiih 
he is Committed, he pas>os over what 
they have said, an<l gives us in.<iti*ad ihe 
opinion of Calvin or his own. The vol- 
ume contains, however, many sugu'estive 
thoughts, clothed in pure, good Ksigli.-li. 
Tlie typographi<'al appearaneo of the vol- 
ume is remarkably g(>od. 

Mr. p. F. CrxxiNr.MAM, IMnhulelphia, 
has in press, and will soon publish, Tho 
new Life of St. Aloysins <ion/,a;::i. edited 
by Edward llealy ThonipMin, and which 
has just appeareil in I.ondiin. Il will 
make a volume oralM)Ut lour hundred pa- 
ge's. 

Mi:ssns. Iir.Nzn:i:u IlKtJS., New V.»rk 
and Cim-innati, are aliout to pul'li^h 
J{onie and th»» Popes : tran-^Iated tVom 
the (lernian of Dr. Karl IJranile-, by Itev. 
W. T. Wiseman, Professor of Church 
liistorv in Selon Hall Svininarv. 



11 




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