Full text of "The Catholic world"

THE

u to

CATHOLIC WORLD.

^MONTHLY MAGAZINE

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

VOL. XXIII.
APRIL, 1876, TO SEPTEMBER, 1876.

NEW YORK :
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE

9 Warren Street.

1876.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Abroad, How we are Misrepresented, . i

Allies' Formation of Christendom, . . 689

American Revolution, Catholics in, . . 482

Are You My Wife? .... 22,186,316
Assisi , . 7-12

Aude, The Valley of, ....

Brownson, Dr., .

640
366

Catholicity in the United States, Next Phase

of, 577

Caiholic Church in the United States, The,

1776-1876, .... . 434

Catholics in the American Revolution, . . 488

Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath, The, . 550

Charitas Pirkheimer, . . . 170

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, .... 537
Chillon, The Prisoner of, . . . . .857

Ghurch and Liberty, The, .... 243

Daughter of the Puritans, A, .
De Vere's u Thomas a Becket,"
Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Betharram,
The, ........

Dr. Brownson,

Easter in St. Peter's, Rome, 1875,
Epigraphy, Sacred, . . .
Eternal Years, The, .

92
848

335
366

255
. 270
128, 258, 402, 565

Formation of Christendom, Allies', . . . 689

French Novel, A, 158

Frenchman's View of It, A, . . . 453

German Journalism, 289

Gladstone Controversy, Sequel of, . . . 30

Hammond on the Nervous System, . . . 388
Hobbies and their Riders, .... 413

Home-Rule Movement, Irish, . ... 500, 623
How we are Misrepresented Abroad, . . i
Hundred Years Ago, One, . . . 802

Irish Home-Rule Movement, The, . . 500, 623
Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages, . . 79

Journey to the Land of Milliards, A, . . 773
Kiowas and Comanches, A Day among, . . 837

Labor in Europe and America, ... 59
Land of Milliards, A Journey to the, . . 773
Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sis-
ter, 464, 654, 687

Life and Works of Madame Barat, The, . . 592

PAGE

Madame Barat, Life and Works of, . . . 502
Miles Standish, Was He a Catholic ? . .668

Modern English Poetry, 213

More, Sir 'i homas, . 70, 224, 350, 517, 698, 817

Napoleon I. and Pius VII., .... 200
Next Phase of Catholicity in the United States,

The, 577

Notre Dame de Betharram, The Devout Cha-
pel of, .... ... 33,

Notre Dame de Piti, 116

Novel, A French, 158

Philosophy, Thomistic, . .
Pirkheimer, Charitas, ...
Pius VII. and Napoleon I.,
Plea for our Grandmothers, A,
Poet among the Poets, A,
Poetry, Modern English, .
Poets, Some Forgotten Catholic,
Primeval Germans, ....
Prisoner of Chillon, The, .
Protestant Bishop on Confession, A,
Prussia and the Church, .

3 2 7
170
200
421

J4
213

302

857

104

Religious Liberty in the United States, The

Rise of, 721

Rise of Religious Liberty in the United

States, 721

Root of Our Present Evils, The, . . . 145

Sacred Epigraphy, 270

Scanderbeg, 234

Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy, A, -30
Sir Thomas More, . 70, 224, 350, 517, 698, 817
Six Sunny Months, ..... 606, 758
Some Forgotten Catholic Poets, . . . 302

Some Odd Ideas, 710

Studio in Rome, A Quaint Old, . . .781

" Thomas a Eecket," De Vere's, .
Thomistic Philosophy, . . . .

Transcendental Movement in New England,
The, ........

Typical Men of America, The, . .

Valley of the Aude, The, ....
Vittoria Colonna,

Was Miles Standish a Catholic ?
Wild Rose of St. Regis, The, .

Years, Eternal, The, .

848
327

528
479

640
679

66S
379

128, 258, 402, 565

Ascension, The, ....

Centenary of American Liberty, The,
Chorus from the a Hecuba,"
Consuelo,

POETRY.

. 377 Lamarfne, From

Lines on Da Vinci's u Virgin of the Recks,"

433

. 653 Mysteries,

. 816

Sacerdos Alter Christus, ....

_, Sennuccio Mio,

Sunshine,

Forty Hours' Devotion, ....

1 )a Vinci's " Virgin of the Rocks," Lines on, . 13 Vago Angelletto che Cantanas Vai ? .

424
15

185

53
233
278

Contents.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Achsah, .....

Acolyte, The, ....

All Around the Moon,

Alzog's Universal Church History,

Are You My Wife? .

Asperges Me, etc.,

Authority and Anarchy, .

PAGE

. 718

. 286

430
. 279
. 426

-130
12 .,8

Breviarium Romanum, .....

Brief Biographies, ......

British and American Literature, Student's

Hand-book of,

Board of Education, Report of, ...

Boston to Washington,

Burning Questions, ...... 280

429

Cantata Cathoiica,

Catechism for Confession and First Commun-.

ion, ........ rSo

Catholic Church and Christian State, . .425

Daniel O'Connell, Popular Life of, . . . 143

Eden of Labor, The, 139

Elrmvood ; or, the Withered Arm, . . . 143
Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland,

and Ireland, ...... 432

Episodes of the Paris Commune in 1^71, . . 431

Explanatio Psalmorum, ..... 287

Faber's Hymns, 282

Father Segneri's Sentimenti, . . . .142
Faith and Modern Thought, . . . .718
Five Lectures on the City of Ancient Rome, . 142
Flaminia, and other Stories, . . . .431

Geographical Text-Books, Mitchell's, . . 860

German Political Leaders, .... 716

Gertrude Mannering, 285

Glories of the Sacred Heart, The, . . . 576

Haydon, Benjamin Robert, The Life, Letters,

and Table-Talk of, ..... 860

Histoire de Madame Barat, .... 425

How to Write Letters, "-'. . . . 287

PAGE

Labor, the Eden of, 139

Labor and Capital in England and America, . 139

Lectures on the City of Ancient Rome, . . 142
Life, Letters, and Table-Talk of Benjamin

Robert Haydon, The, ... .860

Life of Rev. Mother St. Joseph, The, . . 427

Life of Daniel O'Connell, .... 14^

Little Book of the Holy Child Jesus, . . 28.';

Literature for Little Folks, .... 287

Meditations and Considerations, . . . 719
Men and Manners in America One Hundred

Years Ago, ...... A 1 860

Mitchell's Geographical Text-Books, . . 860

Newman, Characteristics from the Writings

of, 288

New Month of the Sacred Heart, . . . 720

Note to Article on Thomistic Philosophy, . 432

Notiones Theologicse, ..... 720

Outlines of the Religion and Philosophy of

Swedenborg. 281

Ordo Divini Officii Recitandi, .... 141

Pius IX. and his Times, 288

Principia or Basis of Social Science, . . 428

Principes de la Sagesse, Les, .... 287

Publications Received. ..... 288

Revolutionary Times, ..... 720

Sancta Sophia, 859

Science and Religion, 720

Scholastic Almanac for 1876, The, . . . 144

Segneri's Sentimenti, 142

Sermons by Fathers of the Society of Jesus, . 141

Story of a Vocation, The, .... 432

Spectator, The, 144

Spiritualism and Allied Causes, . . . 713
Student's Hand-book of British and Ameri-
can Literature, The, 138

Universal Church History, Alzog's, . . 279

Voyages dans I'Amerique Septentrionale, . 432

Wyndham Family, The, 430

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIIL, No. 133. APRIL, 1876.

HOW WE ARE MISREPRESENTED ABROAD.

FOLLOWING the example of older such a measure, on the principle

nations, the United States has been that bad or incompetent representa-

accustomed to keep at foreign courts tives are worse than none. But if

and capitals certain diplomatic the custom, as appears probable, is

agents whose presence there seems still to be adhered to, it is becoming

to be considered necessary for the more and more apparent that the

protection of our national interests, personnel of our diplomatic corps

as well as a pledge of mutual friend- must speedily undergo a radical

ship and comity. Under the more change for the better, if we would

modest title of envoys or ministers not bring our country into lasting

these gentlemen exercise the powers disrepute and contempt in the eyes

and enjoy the immunities of ambas- of all just and discerning men.

sadors, and to their supposed wis- In Europe diplomacy is practicaJ-

dom, tact, and judgment are en- ly as much a profession as law or

trusted all difficult negotiations and medicine. Its students begin their

the settlement of doubtful questions allotted course at an early age in the

of international law. capacity of attaches or secretaries

In view of the increased facilities of legation. As they gain in expe-
for communication between inde- rience they are moved from one court
pendent governments afforded by to another, in regular order of pro-
railroads and telegraphs, the general motion, until finally, after years of
diffusion of accurate geographical practical observation and laborious
and commercial knowledge, and the study, they develop into accom-
ulmost total disuse of the secret di- plished diplomatists and ripe states-
plomacy of former times, it has been men, whose services are invaluable
seriously considered whether this to their country, at home and
(lass of rather expensive officials abroad. Not so in America; with
might not be dispensed with alto- us the post of minister resident or
Aether. Many persons, also, are in- envoy extraordinary, is usually the
< lined to believe that the public wel- reward of some obscure partisan,
fare would suffer little, if at all, by the solace of a disappointed Con-
Copyright : Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1876.

2 How we are misrepresented Abroad.

gressional aspirant, or the asylum in gestive of a desire on the part of the

which superannuated' cabinet officers writers to win, by unworthy means,

can find dignified obscurity. Occa- the favor of the appointing power at

sionally accomplished internationa 1 the federal capital. We also observe

lawyers like the late Mr. Wheaton with regret that they are accustomed

or Reverdy Johnson are selected, to use, with the greatest deliberation

but these rare cases are in sad con- and upon the slightest occasion,

trast with the generality of persons the terms reactionist, Romanist, ul-

chosen, every few years, to represent tramontane, and other nicknames

in foreign countries the power, dig- all of which are inaccurate and most

nity, and intelligence of the republic, of them offensive when describ-

They are almost invariably men of ing the supporters of the Catholic

mediocre ability, contracted views, Cfiurch, who, in various parts of the

and defective education ; unaccus- Christian world, are battling for the

tomed to any high degree of social rights of conscience and the freedom

refinement, and sometimes ignorant of their religion ; while eulogistic

of the very language of the country adjectives are lavished on all parties

to which they are accredited, while and measures, no matter how tyran-

not necessarily masters of their own. meal or arbitrary, provided they are

From a perusal of some volumes of directed against the church and her

state documents * we are led to con- priesthood. Just here we may as

elude that the principal duty of our well ask at the start, Is there not

diplomats is to write long, prosy occupation enough for our diplo-

letters to the Secretary of State, matic service in attending to the

nnd to encumber the archives great commercial and other secular

of his office with copious ex- interests of the republic, but that

tracts from foreign newspapers they must turn aside to devote their

of no value or public interest chief attention to the cultivation

whatever. In this mass of corre- and spread of anti-Catholic bigotry ?
spondence we look in vain for the One of the most glaring examples

keen, accurate criticism of men and of this indecent partisanship is to

manners, or the profound views of be found in the records of our di-

statesmanship which characterized plomatic relations with Mexico our

the despatches of the Venetian am- nearest neighbor and the most pop-

bassadorsof the sixteenth and seven- tilous of the Spanish-American re-

teenth centuries and the French and publics. Formerly the greatest care

English emissaries of a later period, was exercised in filling this impor-

On the contrary, we find these tant mission, only gentlemen of

letters exhibiting a remarkable fee- sound discretion and liberal views

bleness and crudity of mind, and, being selected ; but since the advent

where matters relating to religion or of Mr. Fish as Secretary of State,

morals are discussed, a purblind pre- this wise precaution has been neg-

judice unworthy of any rational lected, and, as a consequence, we

American, but especially reprehen- have had at the Mexican capital,

sible in an exalted official of our for several years, a deputy named

government. This latter blemish is John W. Foster, whose total misap-

so prominent, and withal so repeat- prehension of the duties of his office

edly displayed, as to be painfully sug- is painfully apparent, even from his

own reports. It will be remembered

" Papers relating to >ke Foreign Relations of r T

:tke United states, etc., for 1874-5. tna t m 1859 the partisans of J uarez,

How we are misrepresented Abroad.

assembled at Vera Cruz, proclaimed
war on the Catholic Church, abolish-
ed all religious communities, confis-
cated their property, and expelled
their members of both sexes. They
also declared marriage a civil con-
tract, to be entered into only before a
magistrate, abolished religious oaths,
and attempted other "reforms'
equally impertinent and detrimental
to the public good. During the short
reign of Maximilian these attempts
on the liberty of the church were
of course discontinued ; but when
Juarez assumed absolute control of
the government they were renewed,
and on the 25th of September, 1873,
were declared by his successor, Ler-
do de Tejada, apart of the constitu-
tion. This effort to make religious
proscription the fundamental law of
the republic seemed so judicious and
praiseworthy to Mr. Foster that he
immediately transmitted to Wash-
ington a full copy of Lerdo's
proclamation, with the remark :
" Their incorporation into the feder-
al constitution may be regarded as
the crowning act of triumph of the
liberal government in its long con-
test with the conservative or church
party."

Knowing something of the ante-
cedents of Mr. Foster, we are not
surprised at his sympathy with what
may be called the illiberal or anti-
church party; but the reply of our
Secretary of State is simply inexpli-
cable. On October 22 he writes :

"The Mexican government deserves
congratulation upon the adoption of the
amendments of its constitution to which
the despatch relates. It may be regarded
as a great step in advance, especially for a
republic in name. We have had ample ex-
perience of the advantage of similar mea-
sures an experience, too, which has fully
shown that, while they have materially con-
tributed to enlarge and secure general
freedom and prosperity, they have by no
means tended to weaken the just interests

of religion or the due influence ol
clergymen in the body politic."

How a gentleman of Mr. Fish's
acknowledged intelligence could
permit himself to write such a doc-
ument is incomprehensible. He
knows well that " we " meaning
the United States have not had
" ample experience," or any experi-
ence whatever, " of the advantage
of similar measures." "We "have-
had our moments of fanaticism, oui
church-burnings and convent-sack-
ings, it is true ; but neither the
municipal la.w nor the Constitution
has presumed to control the spirit-
ual affairs of the church in this re-
public. Our seminaries, colleges,
convents, and schools are yet un-
touched by the civil magistrate ; our
priests can administer the sacra-
ments without the risk of police in-
terference ; and our Sisters of Mercy
and Charity can pursue their holy
avocations and not incur the risk
of perpetual banishment. What
has contributed to enlarge and to
secure to us general freedom and
prosperity is not such anti-Catholic
legislation as that upon which Mr.
Fish congratulates the " republic in
name," but the very contrary.

It would seem, however, that
some of those entrusted with the
highest offices of state regret this
happy condition of things. Evi-
dence crops out everywhere to
strengthen the suspicion that our
government, not finding interests at
home of sufficient magnitude to oc-
cupy its attention, is drifting more
and more into sympathy with the
conspiracy now prevalent in Europe
against the rights of the Catholic
Church and that birthright of every
American citizen freedom of con-
science.

But, however unsustained by
fact, the moral sympathy thus ten-
dered by the mouth-piece of our

4 Hoiv we arc misrepresented Abroad.

government to the Mexican presi- lation of tyranny and religious pro-
dent was highly valuable to his scription. Mr. Fish and no man
party at that juncture. The laws better knows that such sympathy
against the clergy and nuns were has no foundation in the hearts of
exceedingly unpopular with the great the American people or in the real
mass of the Mexicans, and it was policy of its government. He knows
necessary that the endorsement of that the people abhor the sentiment
the powerful and prosperous repub- expressed in the ' amendments to
lie of the north should be secured the federal constitution" of Mexico.
in their favor. If such measures What are we to think, then, of a
had " materially contributed to en- statesman who, actuated by what-
large and secure general freedom ever motive, shows himself so ready
and prosperity " in one country, as to play fast and loose with the sol-
Mr. Fish solemnly asserted, why emn trusts confided to him ? Is the
should they not have the same sal- vast power that he must exercise safe
utary effect in another ? There is in the hands of one who is ready to
no reason for surprise, therefore, veer with every wind that blows,
to find that when the elated Mr. especially when it blows against
Foster transmitted Mr. Fish's letter, Rome ? Is this the true expression
with his own felicitations, to Mr. of the policy of which we have lately
Lafragua, the Mexican Minister of heard so much " Let the church
Foreign Affairs, he was answered and the state be for ever separate " ?
in the following complimentary Our American feelings rise with in-
phrase : dignation against so grave a misrep-
resentation of the principles and

<l The president of the republic lias ... ...

received with special gratification the P ohc y of our government, especially

expression of the kind sentiments which ky one so familiar with them as Mr.

animate the people and government of Fish. There is no excuse for this,
the United States respecting the people Mr. Fish's faux pas was too

and government of Mexico, which send- p rec ious to the anti-Catholic fac-

ments could not have been interpreted . . . ,

by a more estimable person than your tlon not to receive the Wldest

excellency. The president is sincerely publicity. This correspondence,"

thankful, as well for the cordial congrat- writes Mr. Foster to his principal,

ulation which his excellency the Secre- " was yesterday read in the national

tary of State has had the kindness to ad- Congress by the Minister of Foreign

dress to you on account of the proclama- . rr . . , ,. L . r ^ . ,

lion of the amendments to the federal Affairs > by direction of the president

constitution, as for the ardent wishes of the republic, and after its read-

which your excellency manifests for the ing the president of Congress, in the

consolidation of the republican institu- name of that body, expressed the

tions and of peace and for the prosper- gratifica tion with which the assem-
itv and material development of the

United Mexican States." bl 7 had received the intelligence,

and by a vote of Congress the cor-

It will thus be seen that by the respondence was entered upon its

wilfulness or indiscretion, let us call journal. The Minister of Foreign

-of Mr. Fish " the people and gov- Affairs has also caused its publica-

ernment of the United States " are tion in the official newspaper, and

credited with a sympathy for, and it, has appeared in all the periodi-

approval of, what their conscience, cals of this capital."
their spirit, and their whole history A year had scarcely passed away,

up to this time repudiate a legis- during which every effort had been

How we are misrepresented Abroad. 5

made thus to mislead and pervert all sects, kindly furnished to order
public opinion, when De Tejada's by the Boston American Board of
government found itself strong Missions and the Pacific Theologi-
enough to pass additional " laws of cal Seminary of California, who
reform ' infringing still farther on soon overspread the promised land
the rights of conscience. On the and began their labors of conver-
i5th of December, 1874, the Sisters sion. The states of Mexico, Veni
of Charity, the last remnant of the Cruz, Guerrero, Puebla, Jalisco
Catholic orders in Mexico, were Hidalgo, Zacatecas, and San Luis
also rudely expelled from their in- Potosi were especially favored by
stitutions and ordered to quit for their presence, where, from their
ever the scenes of their pious and method of proceeding, their foul
untiring labors. And in this con- abuse of the religion of the popu-
nection, a curious comment on Mr. lace, and the rank blasphemy that
Fish's congratulatory despatch was characterized their preaching, it
offered by the people of the city of was plain that they considered
San Francisco. The Sisters ex- they had fallen among barbarians
pelled by virtue of the constitution and idolaters. Going from place to
which met with such marked ap- place, and surrounded by armed
proval from Mr. Fish, were received guards, they not only fulminated
with open arms and welcomed by the heresy of Protestantism, but
our fellow-citizens in California, scattered broadcast printed traves-
Surely, this was giving the lie direct ties of the Commandments and of
to Mr. Fish by his own countrymen, the prayers and ritual of the church,
whose conscience naturally revolted some copies of which they had the
from a system of government which, hardihood to nail to the cathedrals
as its chief claim to the sympathy and other places of Catholic wor-
and fellowship of foreign peoples, ship. To make matters still more
set up its power and willingness to offensive, they frequently interspers-
banish from its jurisdiction all that ed their harangues with laudations
was purest and holiest. Yet Mexico of the " liberal " party who patron-
is as far from " general freedom and ized them, and direct attacks on
prosperity ' as ever, and Messrs, all who opposed its iniquitous
Fish and Foster, the instigators of policy.

this last outrage on humanity, con- One of those zealots, a Rev. Mr.

tinue to be high and trusted officials Stephens, after a nine months' jour-

of our freedom-loving republic. ney through several tov/ns, found

Still, the faction that controls his way to Ahualulco, where, rely-

Mexican politics was not content ing on the countenance of the gov-

with constitutional and statutory eminent officials, he commenced a

" reforms." As long as the heart series of bitter assaults on Catholi-

of the country remained Catholic city. A popular tumult was the

its hold on power was feeble and result, during which the unfortim-

uncertain. It therefore aimed at ate man was killed, March 2, 1874.

nothing less than a general conver- When news of this cruel, though not

sion of the people, at a new Refor- unprovoked, murder reached Mr.

mation, and selected what it con- Foster, he waited on the Mexican

sidered the most fitting instruments minister, who informed him that

for that purpose. These were itin- " the principal assassins and two

erant Protestant missionaries of priests had been arrested, and that

How we arc misrepresented Abroad.

a judge had been despatched to
the district with an extra corps of
clerks to ensure a speedy investiga-
tion and trial." This promise was
faithfully and promptly kept, as we
find by a despatch dated April 15,
in which the minister says :

" Up to the present date seven of the
guilty parties have been tried and con-
demned to death, from which sentence
they have appealed to the supreme court.
Twelve or fifteen more persons charged
with complicity in the crime are under
arrest awaiting trial, including the cum
of the parish of Ahualulco."

Yet this summary vengeance, nor
even the indignity offered to the
venerable cura, who had had no
participation whatever in the dis-
turbance, did not satisfy the insati-
able soul of Mr. Foster. From his
subsequent letter to Lafragua, and
Several despatches to our govern-
ment, we infer that the condign
punishment of the priest, innocent
or guilty, was to him the most desi-
rable of objects. To inaugurate the
new Reformation by the execution
of a Catholic clergyman appears to
have been considered by him as a
master-stroke of policy. But even
the Lerdistas were not prepared for
so desperate a step, and Foster was
doomed to find his hopes blighted.
Alluding to a conversation with
Minister Lafragua in September, he
writes to Mr. Fish, bemoaning his
hard fate :

4! I thanked him for communicating the
intelligence in relation to the trials of
the assassins of Rev. Mr. Stephens, the
receipt of which I had anxiously awaited,
but expressed my disappointment in
finding no mention of the proceedings
had in the trial of the cura of Ahualulco,
to whom the published accounts attribut-
ed the responsibility of the assassina-
tion. . . .'

This information, and the fact
that the appeal of the seven con-

demned persons had not been deter-
mined, drew forth one of Mr. Fish's
unaccountable diplomatic missives.
" You may farther inform him oral-
ly," s?ys our Secretary, alluding to
Lafragua, " but confidentially, if
need be, that this must necessarily-
become an international affair, unless
it shall be satisfactorily disposed of
and without unreasonable delay."
Now, why should the information be
given orally and confidentially if there
was not some desire, some trick, to
avoid responsibility for a doubtful
act tending to intimidate a friendly
power? and wherefore should the
killing of the man Stephens be made
an international affair />., a just
cause of war when so many Ameri-
can citizens had been already mur-
dered in Mexico with impunity ? Fos-
ter had repeatedly complained that
during the short time he had been
in charge of the legation thirteen
' murders of the most horrid char-
acter and revolting to our common
civilization ' had been committed
on his countrvmen, for which there

/ '

had not been a single punishment ;
yet we hear of no intimation of mak-
ing them international affairs. Were
the lives of these persons, presuma-
bly following legitimate callings, col-
lectively of less value than that of a
mendacious preacher of a gospel of
violence ?

Emboldened by the words of Mr.
Fish, Foster again returned to the
attack in a note to Lafragua, in
which he directly, and on his own
responsibility, charges the cura with
having been the instigator of the
crime. The first intimation that
the cura had had any participation
in exciting the mob against Stephens
was contained in a letter from a
brother preacher named Watkins,
who was stationed at Guadalajara,
more than sixty miles from the
scene of the disturbance. On this

How we are misrepresented Abroad.

suspicious and slender foundation
Foster had been in the habit of
building up a mass of insinuations
and charges against the priest, refer-
ring to " general ' and " printed '
reports as his authority. When af-
ter a searching investigation the
cura was honorably discharged, and
the minister again complained to
Lafragua, that official replied rather
tartly in the following unequivo-
cal terms :

" In relation to the acquittal of
those who were charged with being
instigators of the crime, it is the re-
sult of a judicial act, which has ta-
ken place after the due process had
been completed for the investigation
of the truth, which is not always in
accord with the prejudices of the
public."

If the minister had added : " and
of Mr. Foster and the Board of
Missions," the sentence would have
been more complete. Having failed
to accomplish his grand design the
chastisement of the cura the ulti-
mate -fate of the convicted laymen
became a matter of little importance
to our assiduous representative.

Another opportunity soon pre-
sented itself for Mr. Foster's official
interference. On the night of Jan-
uary 26, 1875, a riot occurred in
Acapulco, in which five persons were
killed and eleven wounded on both
sides. Of the former, one was
claimed to be an American. It ap-
pears that a Rev. M. N. Hutchin-
son, supported by the United States
consul, J. A. Sutter, and a few na-
tive officials, had commenced his
evangelical labors in that city by per-
sonally insulting the parish priest,
Father J. P. Nava, and by openly
abusing everything considered holy
and venerable by Catholics. This
method of preaching Christ's Gospel
so exasperated the populace that an
attack was made on the building

used as a Protestant church, and a
street fight, with fatal results, fol-
lowed. Hutchinson, the cause of
the fray, escaped and found refuge
on board a ship ; while Sutter, who
seems to have been as cowardly as
he was vicious, threatened to aban-
don the consulate and follow his ex-
ample. As in the case at Ahualulco,
the " liberal " authorities at once ar-
rested the cura, but so indignant
were the citizens, and even some of
the federal employees, at the act
that he was at once set at liberty.

Here was a rare chance for Mr.
Foster to display his reformatory
energy, and on this occasion he had
a most efficient associate in the gal-
lant consul. That truthful gentle-
man writes to his chief, January 27,
three days after the riot :

"All the Indians are under arms, and
threaten to attack the town if the parish
priest who, in my opinion, is the prime
mover of these heinous crimes should
be arrested. So he is still at large, and
laughing, probably, at the impotence of the
authorities. . . . Everybody in town
is. afraid of the Indians, who, incited by a
fanatical priest, would perpetrate the
most atrocious crimes."

All this Mr. Foster believed, or
appeared to believe ; for we find him
embodying it in his official commu-
nications to Lafragua, with some
additional remarks of his own to
give the calumny greater point and
force. Supported by the Amer-
ican minister, Sutter now looms up
as the defender of Protestant rights
in general. Addressing personages of
no less distinction than the governor
of the state and the district judge,,
he requests them to " promptly take
the necessary measures within your
power to procure the speedy pun-
ishment, according to the law, of
the instigators and perpetrators of
the atrocious massacre of Protes-
tants," etc. There is no limitation

8 How we are misrepresented Abroad.

here, it will be observed, to Ameri- kind of men for important posts, or

can citizens ; the peremptory consul, indeed for any posts at all, com-

" in obedience to instructions receiv- plained of at the beginning of the

ed yesterday from the Hon. John W. article. It is clear that this Mr.

Foster, envoy extraordinary, etc.," Foster has missed his vocation. He

had assumed a protectorate over the would be more at home in a Protes-

entire evangelical body of Acapulco, tant board of missions, or as a

and felt himself at liberty to insult 'worker" in " revivals," than stand-

the executive and judiciary of the ing before a people as the represen-

state of Guerrero. tative of the truth, worth, and ge-

The people of Acapulco, however, nius of a great nation,
differed materially in opinion from the Mr. Foster was not satisfied with
consul. Not only did they not fear the explanation. He had lost one
the Indians or regard their priest as priest, and he was not going to
an abettor of riot and murder, but, on .let another slip through his fingers
the contrary, five or six hundred of without a struggle. He reminds
them waited on Governor Alvarez, Lafragua of Mr. Fish's " congratula-
and, in the name of the rest, assured tions," and appeals to his gratitude,
him that the disturbance was whol- " While it is very natural that I," he
ly caused by Hutchinson and his writes, " as the representative of a
handful of Protestants, requesting government which has officially con-
him at the same time to remove the gratulated that of Mexico on the
disturbers from their city, as he had constitutional triumph and recogni-
the power to do under the laws of tion of the principles of religious
the state. Even the Minister of For- liberty, should watch with deep in-
eign Affairs though, like so many terest the practical enforcement of
of his party, deadly opposed to the these principles, I have made the
church could not help but ascribe outbreaks of fanatical mobs the sub-
the riot to something like its proper ject of diplomatic intervention only
cause. Annoyed, doubtless, by the when American citizens have been
impertinence of Sutter and the im- assassinated." But the plea was in
portunities of Foster, he writes to vain ; even the government of Lerdo
the latter in a vein of delicate de Tejada dared not molest the ciira
irony : of Acapulco, who, strong in his in-
" The consul in Acapulco cannot be oc ence and in the affection of his
ignorant of the fact that Protestant wor- flock, continued to exercise the
ship was a new propaganda among a duties of his sacred office, regard-
people who, unfortunately, have not been i ess al i ke of native reformers " and
able to attain to that degree of civiliza- j- i T r
tion to enable them to accept without ffici US dl P lomats - U P to the latest
aversion religious tenets which they dis- dates Mr - Foster had not yet caught
own, and it is well known that the reli- & cura, and the people of Mexico
gious sentiment is one of the most sensi- seem as far as ever from the enjoy-
tive.and that, when attacked, it is all the ment o f tne blessings of a new Re-
more irritable." r

formation, so happily and charac-

The logical position of the Mexi- teristically begun.

can minister is unassailable. But The Central American States in-
what a humiliating predicament for elude Guatemala, San Salvador, Hon-
our government to be placed in by duras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica,
her diplomatists abroad ! Such is each of which holds an undivided
-the natural result of selecting the fifth interest in the official attention

How we are misrepresented Abroad. g

of Mr. George Williamson, our wor- which 'gathered gear' unto itself 'by

thy minister peripatetic. When not evei y wile >' has been dethroned ; agri-

, , . , , i u culture now has the aid of the numerous

involved in domestic brawlswhich , aborcrs who were employed in the erec .

seldom happens these miniature tion of large edifices for monks and nuns

commonwealths have a habit of and religious exercises."
varying the monotony of peaceful

life by a descent on one of their A subsequent communication on
neighbors, and even a civil and a the state of public education fur-
foreign war have been known to nishes a rather strange commentary
rage at the same time and place, on the above :
Having such a vivacious people to

look after, the attention of our re- 'Jhe present attempt at organizing a

. . public-school system is, in my judgment,

presentative might reasonably be one of the most laudable acts of the pre _

considered fully occupied ; yet we sent government, for which it should be

learn that he has ample leisure to entitled to credit, whether there be suc-

devote himself to theological and cess or failure. My opinion is that there

educational speculations, and par- f e *"> "fy obstacles to be overcome

' . for the plan to be successful, and that

ticularly to the subject of marriage. the government is under taking a grave

On this important social relation experiment which is likely to create

he not only becomes eloquent, great dissatisfaction, and may result in

though occasionally obscure, in his revolution. But having driven out most

despatches, but is evidently looked of . the P/ ies . ts and nuns who were here-

, ,., tolore the instructors of the people, it

upon as an authority by the liber- seemed nccessary the government should

al " party on the Isthmus. Having try to sup piy their place."
been asked his opinion by President

Barrios of Guatemala, who contem- The same latitude of opinion and
plated extending civil marriage to ill-concealed hostility to the Cath-
his people, "I replied," he says, "it olic Church, the same desire to
would in all probability soon come ; take advantage of every trifling cir-
. . . that in our country we con- cumstance to misrepresent and ma-
sidered the civil law supreme, and lign the motives of her supporters,
would neither furnish a hierarchy pervade the correspondence of our
of Romanists nor Protestants, to as- other representatives in South Amer-
sert its sanction was necessary to ica, almost without exception. Thus
give validity to a contract which Mr. .Thomas Russell has no scru-
the law pronounced good." It may pie in lauding the usurping govern-
be objected that this passage is not ment of Venezuela, which, in 1870,
well constructed ; so, in justice not first imprisoned and then banished
only to the liberal views, but to the perpetually the Archbishop of Car-
erudition of Mr. Williamson, we acas and Venezuela, suppressed the
quote the following descriptive ex- seminaries, confiscated the property
tract from a despatch on the con- of the monasteries, and expelled the
dition of the Central American nuns. Still less has Mr. Rumsey
population : Wing in assuring the Minister of

Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, in writ-

" Intelligence is more generally diffus- ing about an alleged desecration of

ed ; people are slowly learning republi- a grave j n Q u i to , that the news " of

adopting republican h Qut Qn the bodies of p ro _

ideas; a monarchical hierarchy that ,,

fostered superstitions, that only allowed testants would create an intense

education in a certain direction, and feeling not only in my own country

io Hoiv we are misrepresented Abroad.

but throughout Europe "; while, a law forbidding members of the or-

i i der of Jesuits to reside within the ju-

having nothing else to send, we risdicti ^ n of Peru> i n violation of this

suppose, the same OlficiOUS gent] law> mem bers of that order who had

man forwards to Washington copies been expelled from other Spanish repub-

< t' two decrees of Congress, one lies took possession of a convent in the

-ranting a tithe of the church rev- interior of Peru, and took measures to

5 , . TT , ,1 r i organize their society. President Pardo,

cnues to his Holiness the Pope, and in g conformity to t / e law> issued a pro .

the other placing clamation requiring them to leave the

the protection of the Sacred Heart, country, which has caused some degree

"to show the intense Catholicism of excitement."
prevailing in this country."

Then Mr. C. A. Logan, some This fact, and the attempts of the

time of Chili, appears to have in- government to introduce irreligious

terested himself very much in local books and periodicals into the

politics, and it is not difficult to schools, were sufficient, in the opin-

discover upon which side. his sym- ion of our impartial minister, to

pathy rests. In a despatch to Sec- provoke the Catholics of Peru to

retary Fish, November 2, 1874, he the foulest crimes,

has the hardihood to charge the The Emperor of Brazil, in his

Archbishop of Santiago with bribing open war on the church, also finds

congressmen, pending the passage an advocate and eulogist in Mr.

of a bill for the partial repeal of a Richard Cutts Shannon, the Ameri-

penal law against the clergy. He can charge at his court, who em-

vrites : ploys his vicarious pen in justifying

the arrest, trial, and condemnation

"The day arrived for the vote, and a o f the Bishop of Olinda to four
large crowd gathered about the building, ^ imprisonment with hard labor,
awaiting the result with the most breath- -L. , , ,
less anxiety; among these was the arch- But he 1S ^passed by minister
bishop himself, in full clerical robes. James R. Partridge, who, m alluding
Much to the chagrin of the liberals, a to the determined intention of the
two-third vote was gained by the church government to prosecute to the bit-
party under the spur and lash of the ter end the vario us vicars who were
clericals, and, as it is freely asserted, by . . r ,,
the liberal use of money. The senate is named . to take the P lace . f tllOSe
composed of only twenty members, successively cast into prison, em-
which is not a large body to handle, if phatically declares : ' From present
they take kindly to handling." appearances, the ministerial party

are going on and are determined

Mr. Francis Thomas, of Lima, goes to carry it throug h. j t is to be

even farther than his confrere, and hoped that their courag e may not

deliberately asserts the complicity fail> neither by rea son of the long

of the Catholics, as a body, in the list of those who are thlls declared

recent attempt to assassinate Presi- ready to become martyrs, nor by

any political move of the ecclesias-
tic conspirators," he says, "had tical party."

calculated upon the co-operation of all Such, in brief, are the views of
that class of the population of this coun- the men sent to represent this coun-
try who have become hostile to the pres- t Qn American soil. If we turn
ident of Peru on account of his proceed- -^

ings, in which high dignitaries of the to Europe though we may acknow-

Catholic Church were concerned. The led g e a higher order of ability in

congress of Peru at its last session passed our diplomatic agents there we

Hoiv we are misrepresented Abroad.

discover prejudice as strong and
partisanship equally conspicuous.
Referring to the German Empire,
we are pained to find so profound a
student of the past as Mr. Bancroft
our late minister at Berlin, so easi-
Iv deceived in contemporary histo-
r . . Nothing, certainly, can be more
untrue than the following statement
of the position of affairs in Prussia
in 1873:

" The effect of the correspondence [be-
tween the Pope and Emperor William]
has been only to increase the popularity
and European reputation of the emperor,
and to depress the influence of the cleri-
cal part}', thus confirming the accounts,
which I have always given you, that the
ultramontane political influence can nev-
er become vitally dangerous to this em-
pire. The Catholic clergy are obviously
beginning to regret having commenced
with the state a contest in which it is not
possible for them to gain the advantage.
The intelligent Catholics themselves
for the most part support the government,
and so have received from the ultramon-
tanes the nickname of state Catholics."

There is not a single sentence
in the above which is not a mis-
apprehension of facts. How far
Mr. Bancroft's easy assertions and
confident predictions, made scarce-
ly two years ago, have been jus-
tified by the event is a mat-
ter that happily needs no inquiry,
while comment on our part would
be almost cruel. Mr. Bancroft,
however, was not content with sup-
plying information to the State De-
partment on matters exclusively
pertaining to his mission. His wide
range of vision took in all Europe,
past and present. Of the old Hel-
vetian republic he writes :

" Switzerland shows no sign of receding
from its comprehensive measures against
the ultramontane usurpations ; and the
spirit and courage of these republicans
have something of the same effect on the
population of Germany that was exercis-

ed by their forefathers in the time of the
Reformation."

And again :

" How widely the movement is extend-
ing in Europe is seen by what is passing
in England, where choice has been made
of a ministry disinclined to further con-
cessions to the demands of the Catholic
hierarchy, and where the archbishops of
the Anglican Church aie proposing mea-
sures to drive all Romanizing tendencies
out of the for-ms of public worship in the
Establishment. Here in Germany, where
the question takes the form of a conflict
between the authority of the state at
home within its own precincts, and the
influence of an alien ecclesiastical power,
it is certain that the party of the state is
consolidating its strength ; and I sec no-
thing, either in the history of the country,
or in the present state of public opinion,
or the development of public legislation,
that can ra sea doubt as to the persisten-
cy of the German government in the
course upon which it has entered/'

What the " comprehensive mea-
sures " in Switzerland " against the
ultramontane usurpations ' mean
readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD
already know. They are simply a
rather aggravated form of the Falck
laws a form so aggravated that it is
only within the past year M. Loyson
himself warned the world that the
" comprehensive measures against
ultramontane usurpations," which
Mr. Bancroft finds such reasons
to commend, were aimed, through
Catholicity, at all Christianity. And
yet a high official of our free govern-
ment, a man of universal reputation
and great authority in the world of
letters, finds in this elaborate sys-
tem of proscription and intolerance
food for congratulation. One would
suppose from the spirit so plainly
animating Mr. Bancroft that he is a
member of the O. A. U., and that
he was chosen rather to represent
that delectable society in Berlin
than the American Government. It
is to be presumed, from his own

Hoiv ive are misrepresented Abroad.

despatches, that he would have our
government follow the tyrannical
attempt of Prussia and Switzerland
to " stamp out ' freedom of con-
science. Mr. Bancroft's diplomatic
experience, under the influence of
the court of Prussia, seems destined
to reverse his principles and max-
ims as an American historian. He
has, we fear, remained too long
abroad for the good of his native
truth, character, and sense of right.
It is to be hoped that this baneful
influence of foreign courts does not
pursue him on his return to his
own country and people.

Mr. John Jay, who formerly acted
as our envoy at Vienna, though not
so pronounced or diffusive in his
despatches, is not far behind Mr.
Bancroft in expressing his entire
concurrence with the restrictive
policy recently adopted by the gov-
ernment of Austria towards the
church ; while Mr. George P. Marsh,
our representative in Italy, is so
great an admirer of Garibaldi that he
is never tired of chanting his praises
in grandiloquent prose. Those fa-
miliar with the life of that notori-
ous bandit will be surprised to learn
from so high an authority as the
American minister that " he has
never through life encouraged any
appeal to popular passion or any
resistance to governments, except
by legal measures or in the way of
organized and orderly attempts at
revolution ; and, from the moment
of his arrival at Rome, he exerted
himself to the utmost to restrain
every manifestation of excitement."

In marked contrast to the unfair
and ungenerous spirit displayed in
the despatches of those ministers
are the letters from France, Spain,
and England. The stirring political
events which occupy the entire at-
tention of the two former countries
leave no room, perhaps, for the dis-

cussion of penal laws and judicial
decrees against Catholicity ; while
the latter, having carried out Pro-
testantism to its logical conclusion,
and found it a sham, is more inclin-
ed to profit by the blunders and
crimes of its neighbors, so as to
push its commercial interests, than to
imitate them and begin anew the role
of persecutor for conscience' sake.

In explanation of the erroneous
views so frequently put forth by so
many of our diplomatic officials, we
are assured that most of those sent
to Mexico and Central and South
America have been members of se-
cret societies, and, having been ac-
customed to affiliate with the lodges
of those Freemason^ridden countries,
have had whatever little sense of
equity they originally possessed per-
verted by the sophisms of their
new associates. Possibly ; but let us
consider how much harm mav bj

done by following such a short-sight-
ed course. All the independent coun-
tries south of us on this continent are
largely Catholic, and, with the excep-
tion of Brazil, claim to be republican.
They are bound to us by strong ties,
political as well as commercial, and
are naturally inclined to look upon
the United States as their exemplar
and guide, and, if need be, their
protector. When they shall have
shaken off the incubus of military
dictation that now weighs upon
them, and, restoring to the church
its rights as will eventually be done
have entered on a new career of
freedom and material prosperity,
how will they be disposed to feel to-
wards a power which they have
known only through its agents, and
those the advocates and supporters
of everything that is illiberal in poli-
tics and degrading in polemics ?

In Europe the influence of in-
capable and unworthy representa-
tives is likely to be even more de-

Lines on Leonardo da Vinci s " Virgin of the Rocks." 13

leterioiis to our national character, as such, anywhere, no matter how
The affections of the people of the harsh or unjust may be their griev-
( )ld World are strongly inclined to- ances. This country is not Catho-
\v;ird the free institutions of the lie, it is true, neither is it Protes-
Nc\v. But if we continue to per- tant ; and, indeed, it is questionable
mit our delegated authority to be if, in any strict sense, it can be call-
used only in favor and encourage- ed Christian. But it is a country-
men t of such enemies of human civilly and religiously free, by cus-
liberty as the usurper at the Eternal torn, statute, and Constitution, and
(,'ity, the tyrant at Berlin, and the we have a right to demand that
communists of Geneva, the popular whoever undertakes to act for it, as
sympathy born of our protestations part and parcel of the machinery of
of liberality will soon fade away, to our government, among foreigners,
give place to feelings of mistrust, if shall represent it as it is, in spirit
not of positive aversion. as well as in fact the opponent of
In calling public attention to the all proscription for conscience' sake,
incapacity and perversity of the the enemy of tyranny whether exer-
majority of our diplomatists men cised by the mob or the state. Is
who do not hesitate to put into their it not the true policy of our govern-
correspondence with foreign govern- ment to send abroad as representa-
ments, and their private home de- tives of our interests men who,
s patches, sentiments they dare not while they are not hostile to the
UIU.T publicly in the forum or prevailing religious beliefs of the
through the press we by no means country to which they are accredit-
desire to restrict proper expressions ed, are, at the same time, true
of opinion or limit the just criti- and stanch Americans? If such
(isms of the agents of the Depart- men cannot be found, let us, in
ment of State. We only insist that the name of common sense, have
these shall not be indulged in at the none at all. Some minor interests
expense of a very large and respect- may perhaps suffer by the omission,
able portion of this community, but the honor and reputation of the
Neither do we require that they republic will remain unsullied and
shall take sides with Catholics, unimpaired.

LINES ON LEONARDO DA VINCI'S "VIRGIN OF

THE ROCKS."

MATERNAL lady with the virgin grace,

Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth sure,

And thou a virgin pure.

Lady most perfect, when thy sinless face

Men look upon, they wish to be

A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.

CHARLES LAMB.

14 A Poet among the Poets.

A POET AMONG THE POETS.

It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly discern what rule for its course, in ordei

to avail itseli' of the field now opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to take. The
rule may be summed up in one word disinterestedness.

MR. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL * has most successfully-accomplished task
applied Mr. Matthew Arnold's rule which he has yet undertaken ; and
with rare fidelity in his essays, just the cultivated American public-
published, on Dante, Spenser, Words- should thank one who has amused
worth, Milton, and Keats. His esti- and diverted it as well as he has
mate of the two greatest of modern done for the solid instruction which
poets, especially the paper on Dante, this volume conveys in a style at
is calculated to attract general atten- once scholarly, fresh, and refined,
tion, and to arouse, we apprehend, Lowell's mental temperament is ad-
some acrid sentiment in a certain mirably adapted for the mirroring of
class of literary butterflies who are poets' minds. Himself a genuine
accustomed to sip or decline accord- poet, without ambition above his
ing to the theological character of capacity, his agile fancy discerns
the garden. It requires consider- the quicker and appreciates more
able courage to place Dante above intensely the imagination of epic
all his rivals and salute him as souls; while his critical faculty, n:i-

' The loftiest of poets !" turally acute, has the additional ad-
vantage of a keen sense of humor,

in an hour when poetry has lost the w hich enables him to discover more
qualities that made Dante lofty readily the incongruous, and is,
and Milton grand, and when the therefore, an invaluable assistant in
epithet 'Catholic," which Dante literary discrimination,
loved and Milton hated, has become j t j s t h e trac ie o f criticism to
again a reproach. Lowell's consid- expose blemishes ; it is genius in
eration of both is characterized by criticism to appreciate the subject,
disinterestedness as to time, reli- The journeyman critic of the last
gion, politics, and literature ; and two centuries has been so busy mak-
the sincere student who casts aside i ng aut hors miserable without felici-
his prejudices, like his hat, when he tating man kind that when we read
approaches the temples that en- through an essay like Lowell's on
shrine so much of divinity as God Dante , on Wordsworth, or on Spen-
deposited in the souls of the Floren- serj we cheerfully recognize a man
tine and the Puritan, will find it where experience has taught us to
to dissent from the judg- look only for an i nge nious carper
Lowell upon their mdividu- or spiteful ferret> However, critics
ahty, their inspiration, or their art. are no worse than tl used to be
Lowell is peculiarly adapted to the Swift> who had exce ll en t opportuni-
form of literature, semi-critical, t of forming an opinion, both in his
semi-creative, m which he has re- own tice and in the obser vation
cently distinguished himself. We o f that of others, has left this drama-
believe his essay on Dante to be the tic picture> the truthfulness of which
* Among my Books. Second Series. there is no reason yet to question :

A Poet among the Poets. 1 5

" The malignant deity Criticism homo, not vir my theme is man,

dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain not a man."

in Nova Zembla ; Momus found her Why, then, do we not read him
extended in her den upon the spoils more and value him as he deserves ?
of numberless volumes half devour- For two reasons : first, the difficulty
ed. At her right hand sat Igno- of adequate translation ; next, the
ranee, her father and husband, blind mysterious richness of his thought,
with age ; at her left, Pride, her whose pearls are not strung across
mother, dressing her up in the scraps the door of the lines to warn us, as
of paper herself had torn. There later poetry so candidly does, that
was Opinion, her sister, light of within there is nothing but barren-
foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, ness. The proper understanding
yet giddy and perpetually turning, of Dante has been a growth, oegin-
About her played her children, ning in Italy as soon as he was
Noise and Impudence, Dulness and dead, extending gradually over Eu-
Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and rope, into England, and now west-
Ill-Manners." Such is reckless and ward, gaining in clearness and
conscienceless criticism even to glory as -time recedes and space en-
this day ; and we turn from it, in larges.

grateful delight, to the reverential Within a century after the poet's
commentary which Lowell has pro- death lectures on his works were
duced upon one of the saddest of all delivered in the churches, and, as
human creatures the great Catholic soon as the invention of printing
poet of the middle ages. enabled, numerous editions were
Dante, little understood by those edited and circulated. The first
who have the largesftitle to his lega-. translation was into Spanish ; then
cies, is, after all, the universal poet into French ; next into Qerman ;
-the poet of the soul. Homer and a copy of a Latin translation
chants the blood-red glories of war, of the Divine Comedy by a bishop
and is the poet of a period ; Virgil was made at the request of two
charms by the grace of his lines, English bishops in the early part of
and is the poet of an episode ; Mil- the fifteenth century, and was sent
ton awes with the mighty sweeps of to England. Spenser and Milton
his rhetoric, and is the poet of the were familiar with the poet's works,
grandiose ; Shakspeare astounds but the first complete English trans-
with his knowledge of human nature lation did not appear until 1802.
and enchains with his wit, and is Of the English translations since
the poet of the passions ; Dante, +hen, the most familiar are Gary's
when read aright, is found to be aim Longfellow's ; and to this caca-
the poet of the Soul. The line that logue Mr. Lowell adds : " A transla-
divides him from Shakspeare lies tion of the Inferno into quatrains
between the subjective and the ob- by T. W. Parsons ranks with the
jective Shakspeare's themes are best for spirit, truthfulness, and ele-
ment and women ; Dante's sole sub- gance" praise which will be cor-
ject is Man man within himself, dially endorsed by those who have
as he is related to God, to re- profited by Mr. Parsons' labor,
ligion, to eternity. As Lowell fe- We propose to discuss Dante the
licitously writes it, " Arma virumque man and Mr. Lowell's estimate of
canoj that is the motto of classic him, as exhibited in his writings,
song. Dante says, Subjcctum e.st and shall touch upon the latter only

A Poet among tJic Poets.

as they may be necessary to the
clearer revelation of their author's
character. For Dante, like Milton,
was not of common mould ; in what-
ever aspect we view him he proves
extraordinary to a degree which
frequently becomes incomprehensi-
ble. It is natural to wish to throw
the two under the same light, al-
though the result of the experiment
is only to magnify their points of
difference and diminish those of
comparison. The sum of the re-
sults appears to be that only in the
accidents of life are they compar-
able ; in the essentials of character,
with a single exception that of in-
tense faith they were radically un-
like. Widely apart as their names
appear Dante dying in 1321 and
Milton entering life in 1608 men
were engaged during the lives of
both in civil revolution, and each
had his own theory of government
and exercised the functions of polit-
ical power. Both were men of sor-
row, both were unappreciated in
their day and generation, and the
light and joy which each experienced
emanated from within and supplied
the fire of their genius. The noblest
work of each was written in the
gloomiest period of his life. Here
the possibility of parallel ends.

There is a close relation a much
closer one than may at first be sus-
pected between Dante and the in-
stant condition of American society
and politics. Nearly six hundred
years have passed ' away, and we
have to go back to Dante to learn
personal virtue in political life, as
well as religion in social affairs.
Lowell has escaped the poison of
the time. He perceives the essence
as well as the necessity of virtue,
and fully realizes its absence in our
own state.

" Very hateful to his fervid heart and
sincere mind would have been the mod-

ern theory whicn oeals witn sin is in-
voluntary error, and by shifting cff the
fault to the shoulders of Atavism or those
of Society personified for purposes of
excuse, but escaping into impersonal-
ity again from the grasp 01 retribution
weakens that sense of personal responsi-
bility which is the root of self-respect
and the safeguard of character. Dante,
indeed, saw clearly enough that the
divine justice did at length overtake so-
ciety in the ruin of states caused by the
corruption of private, and thence of civic,
morals ; but a personality so intense as
his could not be satisfied with such a
tardy and generalized penalty as this.
' It is Thou,' he says sternly, ' who hast
done this thing, and Thou, not Society,
shalt be damned for it ; nay, damned all
the worse for this paltry subterfuge.
This is not my judgment, but that of the
universal Nature, from before the begin-
ning of the world.' . . . He believed in
the righteous use of anger, and that
baseness was its legitimate quarry. He-
did not think the Tweeds and Fisks, the
political wire-pullers and convention-
packers, of his day merely amusing, and
he certainly did think it the duty of an
upright and thoroughly-trained citizen to
speak out severely and unmistakably.
He believed firmly, almost fiercely, in a
divine order of the universe, a concep-
tion whereof had been vouchsafed him,
and that whatever or whoever hindered
or jostled it, whether wilfully or blindly
it mattered not, was to be got out of the
way at all hazards ; because obedience
to God's law, and not making things
generally comfortable, was the highest
duty of man, as it was also his only way
to true felicity. ... It would be of little
consequence to show in which of two
equally selfish and short-sighted parties
a man enrolled himself six hundred
years ago ; but it is worth something to
know that a man of ambitious temper
and violent passions, aspiring to office
in a city of factions, could rise to a level
of principle so far above them all.
Dante's opinions have life in them still,
because they were drawn from living
sources of reflection and experience, be-
cause they were reasoned out from the
astronomic laws of history and ethics,
and were not weather-guesses snatched
in a glance at the doubtful political sky
of the hour."

In this Dante strikingly differed

A Pvet among the Poets.

from Milton, who was a revengeful
and intensely-bigoted fanatic of
his own faction, and he admitted to
his companionship no man, high or
low, who presumed to differ from
him. Dante was a politician by
principle, placing his country first,
and setting a high value on himself
as her servant. Milton was a poli-
tician by bigotry, placing himself
first, and setting a high value on his
country because he was her servant.
But the manliness of Dante in de-
manding that the severe precepts
of religion should be inflexibly ap-
plied to political administration in
an age whose corruption was only
less shocking than that of our own,
is the particular lesson which this
vigorous extract from Lowell con-
veys. If society in this era should
esteem political wire-pullers, con-
vention-packers, and politicians who
deem patriotism the science of per-
sonal exigencies, as Dante esteemed
and treated them, should we be
any the worse off? Dante looked
upon a thief as a thief, and the
knave who conspired to defraud the
government as fit only to " begone
among the other dogs." Would
there not be a healthier tone in our
political affairs if these classes of
criminals were not met, as is usual-
ly the case, by justice daintily
gloved and the bandage removed
from her eyes, lest she should make
a mistake as to persons ?

The inspiration of Dante was
strictly religious. So was Milton's ;
but with this distinction : that Dante's
religiousness was real and benefi-
cent, while Milton's was unreal and
malignant as Lowell says, Milton's
4v God was a Calvinistic Zeus."

A brief and succinct analysis of
the Divine Comedy will be found
serviceable by those who have not
analyzed it for themselves, and at
the same time will make manifest

the dependence of Dante's inspira-
tion upon Catholic doctrine :

" The poem consists of three parts
Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Each part
is divided into thirty-three cantos, in allu-
sion to the years of the Saviour's life ;
for although the Hell contains thirty-
four, the first canto is merely introduc-
tory. In the form of the verse (triple
rhyme) we may find an emblem of the
Trinity, and in the three divisions of the
threefold state of man, sin, grace, and
beatitude. . . . Lapse through sin, me-
diation, and redemption these are the
subjects of the three parts of the poem ;
or, otherwise stated, intellectual convic-
tion of the result of sin, typified in Vir-
gil ;.. . moral conversion after repent-
ance, by divine grace, typified in Bea-
trice ; reconcil'ation with God, and actu-
al, blinding vision of him ' The pure in
heart shall see God.' . . . The poem is also,
in a very intimate sense, an apotheosis of
woman. . . . Nothing is more wonder-
ful than the power of absorption and as-
similation in this man, who could take up
into himself the world that then was, and.
reproduce it with such cosmopolitan truth,
to human nature and to his own individ-
uality as to reduce all contemporary his-
tory to a mere comment on his vision. We
protest, therefore, against the parochial
criticism which would degrade Dante to a
mere, partisan ; which sees in him a Lu-
ther before his time, and would clap the
bonnet rouge upon his heavenly muse."

Dante proved himself a reformer
of the most aggressive kind. The
difference between him and Luther
was that Dante endeavored to re-
form men by means of the church ;.
Luther endeavored to destroy the
church rather than reform himself.
Evils existed within the church, as
a part of society, during the periods
of both. Dante helped to correct
them as a conservative; Luther
chose, as a radical, to tear the edi-
fice down. Unlike the temple of
Philistia, the church stood, and the
Samson of the sixteenth century fell
beneath the ruins of a single col-
umn.

No fact in the history of poetry is

1 8 A Poet among tJic Poets.

more striking than the necessity of neighbors of these great events, and

religion as a source of inspiration, might have caught high inspiration

The ///#</ and Odyssey acquire their from them? Since the Reformation

epic quality from the religion of the moral world has been growing

Greece ; gods stalk about, and Min- iconoclastic, and there is no poetry

erva's shield resounds in the clangor in iconoclasm.

with that of Achilles. The sEneid Next to religion, woman has been
wt-uld be beautiful without the as- the great inspiration of poets; but
sociation of mythology ; but it is the modern idea of marriage has
mythology which enhances its grace shattered the sanctuary walls which
into grandeur. The Vedas are an Christianity erected around it ; the
expression of the religious aspi- sacredness of home is invaded, the
rations of the Hindoos. The verse oneness of love destroyed there is
of Boccaccio is pleasing only in no poetry in divorce,
proportion as religion cleansed his Is not the decline of poetry a
pen. Petrarch's sonnets would never very curious, if not a fatal, reply to
have been written had not Laura the hypothesis of evolution, carried
taught him the distinction between logically into the moral and Intel-
pure love, as the church knows it, lectual world ?

and the passions which carried By- Mr. Lowell completes his essay

ron into hysterics. The Italian epic by a minute examination of Dante's

of the sixteenth century, Jerusalem thought and style, as exhibited in

Delivered, which is held by Hallam the Divine Comedy j and we can

to be equal in grace to the ^Eneid^ find space only for the closing

had the First Crusade for its theme, period :

Would it have been possible for A ,,i, A T ^^ tv

,.,- , . At the Round Table of King Arthur

Milton to have written any poem there was left alvvays one seat empty for

equal to Paradise Lost out of other him who should accomplish the adventure

than Scriptural materials? Aside of the Holy Grail. It was called the peril-

from the .literary characteristics and ous seat > bcca use of the dangers he would

dramatic strength of the plays of cncounter f who would win * In the

ou , , c . \ J . . _ company of the epic poets there was a

Shakspeare, does not their chief place left for whoever should embody the

value lie in their correct morality Christian idea of a triumphant life, out-

:the morality which is found nowhere wardly all defeat, inwardly victorious ;

^outside Catholic teaching? This is who should make us partakers in that

not the place to discuss the modern CU P of ^rrow in which all are commum-

j T f , , cants with Christ. He who sliould do

decline of poetry. Matthew Ar- this would achicvc indeed the perilous

nold's theory it is a general favor- seat; for he must combine poesy with

ite is that history and boldly-OUt- doctrine in such cunning wise that the

lined epochs make poetry ; and one lose not its be:iut J nor the other its

Lowell says, in his essay on Milton, ******-** Dante has done it. As he

u T , . i i takes possession of it we seem to hear

It is a high inspiration to be the the cry he himself heard when Virgil rc .

neighbor of great events." But the joined the company of great singers :
last two centuries have been crowd-

_j -,i i i i n i- 1 All honor to the loftiest of posts !

ed with history; boldly-outlined

epochs have lifted their awful sum- Mr. Lowell's Dante is a man di-

mits in England, in France, in Italy, vinely inspired and overshadowed

in the United States, in Spain, by divinity to the grave itself a

Where are the great poets among character austere, devoid of hu-

the verse-makers who have been mor, unflinchingly faithful to his

A Poet among tJic Poets.

conceptions of right whether moral
or political, self-respecting, and be-
lieving in his own commission from
God ; a mind logical, systematic,
and illuminated by Heaven, con-
sciously developing its marvellous
genius in the midst of contumely ;
a heart consumed first by human
love for Beatrice, and by it purged
and refined out of personality into
the love of God and the proper re-
lative appreciation of all creatures ;
a sublime human soul, in brief,
transformed from the individual
into the universal, and teaching all
men, as it was taught in sorrow and
in love, to seek .eternity as the sole
object worthy of human effort ; and
teaching in a lofty splendor of
phrase and successions of exquisite
imagery which continue to astonish
posterity and will for ever adorn
general literature.

The essay on Milton is devoted
rather to Mr. David Masson than to
the poet. There is nothing to in-
dicate* that the critic is in love with
either the poems or the personality
of the sublime Puritan who offici-
ated in the capacity of Latin secre-
tary to Oliver Cromwell, and who
devoted himself to epic verse after
his services ceased to be available
for the oppression of his fellow-men.
Still less is he enamored of Mr.
David Masson as a biographer of
Milton, and the jovial though thor-
oughly effective manner in which
he demonstrates the Scotch profes-
sor's unfitness for this office adds
to his volume a flavor of pungency
which brings back happy recollec-
tions of the "Table for Critics."
Musson is very voluminous and
exasperatingly given to remote and
often irrelevant detail ; and Macau-
lay, in extinguishing s'ome of the
literary pretenders of his time,
was never more dextrous than
Lowell in this grotesque joust at

the Edinburgh professor's faults,
nor half so witty. Referring to the
length of the biography there are
eight volumes octavo of the Life and
Works Lowell says with perfect
gravity : " We envy the secular lei-
sures of Methuselah, and are thank-
ful that his biography, at least (if writ-
ten in the same longeval proportion),
is irrecoverably lost to us. What
a subject that would have been for a
person of Mr. Masson 's spacious pre-
dilections!" And he goes on to say:
" It is plain, from the preface to the
second volume, that Mr. Masson
himself has an uneasy consciousness
that something is wrong, and that
Milton ought to be more than a
mere incident of his own bio-
graphy." Masson, on the other
hand, is of opinion " that, whatever
may be thought by a hasty person
looking in on the subject from the
outside," no one can study Milton
without being obliged to study also
the history of England, Scotland,
and Ireland ; whereupon Lowell
retorts that, even for a hasty person,
eleven years is " rather long to have
his button held by a biographer ere
he begins his next sentence."

Masson's rambling history of the
seventeenth century " is interrupted
now and then," says Lowell, " by an
unexpected apparition of Milton,
who, like Paul Pry, just pops in and
hopes he does not intrude, to tell us
what he has been doing in the
meanwhile." Blinded by the dust of
old papers which Masson ransacks,
to discover that they have no rela-
tion to his hero, the critic compares
the ponderous biography to Alls-
ton's picture of Elijah in the wilder-
ness, "where a good deal of re-
search at last enables us to guess at
the prophet absconded like a co-
nundrum in the landscape, where
the very ravens could scarce have
found him out."

2o A Poet among the Poets.

This characterization of Edin- In our school-days most of us were

burgh by Harvard will certainly led to look upon the sightless poet as

inspire suggestion, if it does not a being more than man, if a little less

awaken hope; but Lowell's right than God. Virtues, as he under-

to criticise the sedate and prolix stood them, he certainly possessed ;

gentleman who occupies in the Scot- but many more virtuous than he

tish metropolis the chair which he suffered ignominy and death for pre-

himself fills at Cambridge does not suming to exercise the very liberty

rest, as we have already seen in the which he grandly claimed for him-

essay on Dante, on Susarion's fac- self, but which, we find on examin-

ulty of turning the serious and dull ing his prose, he was dilatory in

into actual comedy. awarding to others, even in the ab-

Like all who have recently writ- stract. These prose writings are at

ten of Milton with the exception of once curious and monstrous, and

Masson Lowell looks upon him as exhibit the real Milton in a true

a being" set apart." To idealize the and natural light, even as Samson

author of Paradise Lost is quite Agonistes, Lycidas,. and Paradise

as natural as to idealize Dante, not- Lost manifest his superb and su-

withstanding their relative distances -preme characteristics as a poet,

from us ; but in the former case, In prose he wrote as he thought ;

with Lowell, it is the idealization of in verse he wrote as he could. He

admiring awe ; in the latter, of ten- was always the rhetorician, making

der and exquisitely appreciative an art of what men of less genius

love. He does not appear to hold can display only as the artificial ;

Milton in any degree of the per- but while his poetry is the complete

sonal affection which he feels for manifestation of his art, his prose,

the inspired Florentine, but is con- always written with an obvious and

strained to iasist that Masson is dis- acknowledged personal purpose,

respectful toward his subject, and manifests himself. His prose works

that " Milton is the last man in the are already scarce ; the day is not

world to be slapped on the back distant when nothing will remain of

with impunity." them but .their ashes, for the types

When Lowell writes of Milton's will plead release from perpetuating

literary style, although he does it the hard, angular, stony reality of a

sparingly, every stroke is a mas- man whom taste, if not instinct,

ter's. His estimate of Milton as a yearns to withdraw from our painful

man is calm, judicial, and coura- knowledge of what he was, and veil

geous. ; ' He stands out," he says, him in a radiant mistiness of what

' in marked and solitary individual- we wish he might have been. No-

ity, apart from the great movement thing better illustrates the idealism

o-f the civil war, apart from the su- with which the pencil of youth paints

pine acquiescence of the Restoration, Milton than Macaulay's essay, w r rit-

a self-opinionated, unforgiving, and ten while he was still a boy, but in-

unforgetting man." It is the habit eluded with the mature expressions

of hurried teachers of our day, who of his manhood. Nothing could

have to teach so many more things more completely pulverize this rose-

than they know, to exalt Milton ate estimate than Milton's own

-High on a throne of royal state" WOrks ln the da >' S when he Wr . te

for time and not for immortality.

and swing before him the incense No matter what the theme, his

of a senseless and absurd homage, prose is always ponderous and poly-

A Poet among the Poets. 2 1

syllabic, abounding in magnificent woman, is as veritable a curiosity as
metaphor, violent epithets, arrogant antiquarians have yet rescued from
dogmatism, and personal abuse of the monumental mysteries of old
tho ; se who differed from him, of Assyria. In politics and religion
which no trace, happily, remains in he was as unsound and wavering as
our day. The higi*ier the man, the in his laws for society. An aris-
coarser the missile which he hurled tocrat of the most despotic type, he
at him with a giant's force. In his enthroned learning, and yet permit-
reply to Salmasius he addresses ted his daughters to acquire only
that eminent scholar as 'a vain, the alphabets, that he might use their
flashy man," and, in the progress senses as his slaves. He despised
of his argument, reminds him that them as human beings, and they, in
he is also a knave, a pragmatical turn, hated and deceived him, and
coxcomb, a bribed beggar, a whip- almost his last words on earth were-
ped dog, an impotent slave, a rene- terrible denunciations of those
gade, a sacrilegious wretch, a mon- whom God intended to illumine his
grel cur, an obscure scoundrel, a home, soothe his life, and deliver his
fearful liar, and a mass of corruption, whitened head, already aureoled, to

He Seems tO have lacked both - Dear, beauteous Death."

consistency and clearness of convic-
tion. He was apparently incapable For many years the very best
of loving woman; he scarcely re- of his life he lent himself to the
spected her ; and, in his social theo- political schemes of Oliver Crom-
ry, awarded the sex a place some- well, and the violence and coarse-
what below that which it occupied ness of his pamphlets made him one
under the patriarchs, and considera- of the most conspicuous figures of
bly lower than that described by a long series of civil storms; yet
Homer as peculiar to the heroic age Lowell is constrained to admit that
of Greece. He obtained coy and "neither in politics, theology, nor
pretty Mary Powell from her father social ethics did Milton leave any
in consideration of so many pounds distinguishable trace on the thought
of the coin of the realm, at a time of his time or in the history of
when a mortgage had become em- opinion." He considered his ideas
barrassing and a daughter was the and inclinations correct and above
only available means of extinguish- appeal, simply because they were
ing it. When that volatile young John Milton's. The harshest word
woman, shivering in the shadows which Lowell says of his prose style
of a Puritan despot, found courage is his comparison of a man of Mil-
enough to leave his roof, Milton ton's personal character, which was
was undoubtedly more impressed without taint, to Martin Luther,
by her audacity than grieved by her whose writings were a true reflection
absence. It was his pride that was of their author. Lowell is very
hurt ; and notwithstanding that he gentle in saying of so noted a pla-
had previously advocated social giarist as Milton : " A true Attic
views of the straiteat and most con- bee, he made boot on every lip
servative kind, he then published his where there was a trace of truly
essay on divorce, which, in amaz- classic honey." He did indeed, not
ing egotism, in wealth of classical in prose only, but in his verse. But
and Scriptural allusion, in loose- we easily forgive him. There arc-
ness of morals, and in equality of so- thieves whom stolen garments- more
cial privileges as between man and become than their owners.

Arc You My Wife?

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BV THE AUTHOR OF u PARIS BEFORE THE WAR," " NUMBER THIIU'ttS.V," " TIUS VI.," ETC.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE EPISODE EXPLAINED.

THE night closed in night, that
is so cruel, yet so merciful; intensi-
fying every pain in the long dark
watch, or lulling it in blessed sleep.

There was very little sleep for
Raymond that night, and none at
all for his two nurses. They sat
bv his bed while the slo\v hours

dragged on, watching his feverish
restlessness, that was occasionally
soothed by broken snatches of rest,
thanks to a potion that was admin-
istered at intervals. Franceline's
anxiety gradually returned as she
sat there observing every sound
and symptom. She could not but
see that there was something far
more serious in this sudden attack
than an ordinary fainting fit. Ray-
mond was so troubled and excited
in his sleep that she almost wished
him to awake ; and then again she
longed for unconsciousness to soothe
his feverish terrors. He clutched
her hand; he could not bear her to
move from him. At last the dawn
came, and like a bright-winged
angel scattered the darkness and
scared away the ghostly phantoms
of the night, and Raymond fell into
a slumber long and deep enough to
be refreshing.

Some days passed without bring-
ing any change; but he was no
worse, which, the doctor said, meant
that he was better. His condition,
however, continued extremely criti-
cal.

It was wonderful both to Ange-
lique and to herself how Franceline

bore up under the strain ; for both
her mental and physical powers
were severely taxed. She had hard-
ly closed her eyes since her father
had fallen ill ; and she took scarcely
any food. But anxiety, so long a.>
it does not utterly break us down,
buoys us up.

The few neighbors who were
intimate were kind and sympa-
thizing. Lady An \vyll had driven
over and made anxious inquiries,
and would gladly be of use in any
way, if she could. Miss Bulpit also
came to offer her services in any
way they could be available. Miss
Merrywig called every day. So far
Franceline had seen none of them ;
she was always with her father
when they called, and Angelique
would not disturb her for visitors.

Father Henwick came constant-
ly to inquire, but did not always
ask to see the young girl. France-
line wondered why her father had
not before this expressed a wish to
see him ; it seemed so natural that
such a wish should have manifest-
ed itself the moment Ravmond

was able to receive any one. She
dared not take the initiative and
suggest it, but she could not help
feeling that it would be an im-
mense relief to the sufferer if he
could disburden his mind of the
weight that was upon it, and speak
to Feather Henwick as to a tried
and affectionate friend, if even he
did not as yet seek spiritual help
and guidance from him. It had

Are Yon My Wife ?

loner since been borne in on France-

line that the horrible suspicion
which had so mysteriously fallen
on Raymond was in some way or
ulher connected with his sudden
illness; she brooded over the
thought until it became a fixed idea
and haunted her day and' night.
How was it that he did not instinc-
tively turn for comfort to the Source

where he was sure to find it? Fa-
ther Hen wick himself must feel
pained and surprised at not having
been summoned to the sick-room
before this. Franceline was think-
ing over it all one morning, sitting
near Raymond's bedside, when An-
gelique put in her head and an-
nounced in a loud whisper that
M. le Cure, as she dubbed Father
Hen wick, was down-stairs, and
would be glad if she could speak
to him a moment. Franceline rose
softly, and was leaving the room,
when her father, who was not doz-
ing, as she fancied, said :

' Why does he not come up and
.see me? I should be glad to see
him; it would do me good."

Father Hen wick came up with-
out delay, and Franceline soon

> '

made a pretext for leaving, him
alone with the invalid. It was
with a beating heart that she closed
the door on them and went down-
stairs to wait till she was recalled.
She could hear only the full, clear
tones of Father Henwick's voice
at first ; after a while these grew
lower, and then she heard the mur-
mur of Raymond's voice; then
there seemed to follow a silence.
She was too agitated to pray in
words, but her heart prayed silently
with intense fervor. The confer-
ence lasted a full half-hour, and
then Father Henwick's cheerful
voice sounded on the stairs.

1 How do you think he looks,
father?" she said, meeting him at

the study door with another ques-
tion in her eyes that Father Hen-
wick thought he understood.

" Much better than I expected !"
he answered promptly and with a
heartiness of conviction that was
music to her ears ; " and you will
find that from this out he will im-
prove steadily, and rapidly, I hope,
too."

A stifled "Thank God!" was
Franceline's answer.

' And now how about you ?" said
the priest, with something of the old
blunt grumble that was so much
more reassuring than the tender-
ness called forth by pity. " I heard
a very bad account of you this
morning no sleep, and no food,
and no air; you mean to fret your-
self into an illness before vour fa-

ther is up and able to attend on
you, do you ? That would be one
way of showing your dutiful affec-
tion for him. Humph ! Are those
the eyes for a young lady to have in
her head on a fine sunny morning
like this ? Did you go to bed at
all last night ?"

" Yes, but I could not sleep ; I
was too anxious, too unhappy."

" Too unbelieving, too mistrust-
ful. Go up-stairs this minute, you
child of little faith, and lie down
and lay your head upon the pil-
low of divine Providence, and be
asleep in five minutes !"

He left her with this peremptory
injunction, and Franceline, with a
lightened heart, went up-stairs de-
termined to obey it. It was as yet
of course, a matter of pure conjec-
ture what had passed between the
priest and her father; but when,
an hour later, after obediently
taking that refreshing sleep on the
pillow of divine Providence which
had been commanded her, she
came into Raymond's room, there
was a marked change in his whole

Are You My Wife?

demeanor. He had not passed
the interval in the listless apathy
that had now become habitual to
him. He had made Angeiique
bring over a little celestial globe
and set it on the bed for him, and
had amused himself with it awhile ;
and then he had taken up the book
Franceline had left on the chair
beside him when she stole out of
the room. It was The Imitation of
Christ. He was reading it when
she entered, and there was an ex-
pression on his features that made
her happier than she had been for
a long time. He looked more
peaceful, more life-like than she had
seen him for weeks even before he
had fallen ill.

" You are feeling better, petit
pere?" she said, kissing him, and
taking the dear face between her
hands to look into it more closely.

" Yes, my clair de lime, much
better," he replied, with a smile
that had all its wonted sweetness
and something of the old bright-
ness. " I think I shall be able to
get down-stairs in a day or two."

' I see you have been at your
old tricks again," she said, shaking
her finger at him and pointing to
the globe ; " you know you are for-
bidden to do anything that gives
you the least fatigue."

'It was not a fatigue, my little
one it amused me ; but I will not
do it again, if you don't wish it."

Franceline hugged his head to
her cheek, and said she would let
him do anything so lon^ as it

J O O

amused him.

' I was thinking of you last
night, petit pere," she said, mak-
ing the globe revolve slowly on its
axis; 'the sky was so beautiful
at twelve o'clock when I happened
to look out of my window that I
longed for you to see it."

" Ha ! Then probably it will be

the same to-night," said Raymond.
" I will keep my curtain drawn, so
that I may see it, if it is."

" Yes ; and let the moon keep
you awake whether you will or
not ! I should like to hear what
Angeiique would say to that pro-
posal ! No ; but I will tell you
what we'll do : I will be on the
watch to-night, and if the stars are
like last night I will steal in and
see if you are awake, and if you
are I will draw the curtain so that
you may see them from your bed.
We shall be like two savants mak-
ing our ' observations ' in the
night-time, shall we not ? And
who knows ? we may discover u
new star !"

Raymond pinched her cheek and
laughed gently. His hopes in this
respect were limited by facts or
rather negatives that Franceline
did not stop to inquire into ; she
had not gone deeply into the
science of astronomy.

" There is no saying what I
might not discover with those
bright eyes of thine for a tele-
scope," said M. de la Bourbonais.

Angeiique rejoiced in her own
fashion at the decided turn for the
better that her master had sud-
denly taken. She saw that he
spoke a good deal during the even-
ing, and ate with a nearer approach
to appetite than he had yet shown ;
so she settled him for the night,
and went to bed with a lighter
heart than for many past nights,
and soon slept soundly.

Franceline did not follow her
example. It was not anxiety that
kept her awake, but happiness;
she could not bring herself to part
with it so quickly, and lose it for a
time in unconsciousness. There
was a presence, too, in the ecstatic
silence of the night, that answered
to this sense of joy and appealed

Are You My Wife ?

to her for responsive watch. Joys
are more intense when we dwell on
them in the night-time, because
they are more separate, farther
lifted from the jarring discord of
our daily lives, where pain cries
around us in so many multiform
tongues. It is as if the world grew
wider in spiritual space, and that
senses and fibres, too delicate to
vibrate in the glare of daylight,
woke up in the solemn hush when
the world of man is out of sight
and God comes nearer to us.

Franceline stood at the window
and gazed at the beautiful scene
that spread itself before her. The
moon was at her full ; the land-
scape, diluted in the moonlight,
floated in mystic, illimitable space,
r;till and hushed as if the world
were holding its breath to hear the
stars tingling in the sapphire dome ;
every tree and blade of grass were
listening to the silence; the river
sped stealthily along like a silver
snake between its banks where the
gray poplars stood looking down,
frighted by the vibration of their
own shadows, dyeing themselves
black in the water.

' If he were awake, how he would
enjoy this !" murmured Franceline
to herself; and then, unable to re-
sist the temptation, she stole soft-
ly through Angelique's room and
across the landing into Ravmond's.

o <

The doors were all open, partly to
admit more air, partly that they
might hear the least tinkle of
his little hand-bell, if he sound-
ed it.

" Is that my Franceline?" asked
a voice from the bed. The night
light threw her shadow on the
floor, and Raymond, who was not
asleep, saw it.

' Yes, petit pere," she answered
in a whisper; " the sky is so lovely
I thought I must come and see if

you were awake. Shall I draw the
curtain ?"

"Yes."

She did so, and then crept back
and knelt down beside him. Ray-
mond laid his cheek against her
head, and clasped her hand in his,
and they remained for some mo-
ments gazing at the beauty of the
heavens in silence. Then he said,
making long pauses, as if he were
thinking aloud rather than speak-
ing to her :

" How wonderful is the splendor
of God as he reveals it to us in his
works ! . . . Who can measure his
power, his glory ? . . . Think what
it means, the creation of one of
those stars ! And there are my-
riads and myriads of them spangling
millions of miles of blue sky !
There are no steppes, no barren
spots, there where the stars cannot
grow. They are not like flowers,
those stars of our world ; they
never perish or fade they only
draw behind the light for a while; al-
ways harmonious, moving in their
appointed places like the notes of
a divine symphony ; they make no
discord. The great stars are not
scornful of the little ones ; the little
stars are not jealous of the great ;
each is content to be as it is
and where it is, and to stay where
the great Star-Maker has fixed
it. ... My clair de lune, let us
try and be content like the stars."
Franceline raised his hand to
her lips, and murmured the strophe
of her favorite hymn of S. Francis :
" Praised be my Lord for our
sister the moon, and for the stars,
which he has set clear and lovely
in the heavens. . . . '

The next morning Father Hen-
wick came and was once more
closeted with Raymond. Nothing
had been said about it, but, when
the door-bell sounded, M. de la

2 6 Are You My Wife ?

Bourbonais glanced quickly at the approaching. No need to ring ; the
clock, and exclaimed in a tone door stands open to its widest, and
of surprise: "Already half-past Angelique, kneeling on the thresh-
twelve ! I did not think it was so old, adores and welcomes the di-
late. Thou wilt show him up at vine Guest; a little bel! goes tink-
once, my child, and then leave us ling up amidst the flowers, and
alone for a little." ceases as it enters the illuminated

No further explanation was ne- room. . . .
cessary. Franceline kissed him

in silence, placed a chair close by The sudden improvement in Ray-

his pillow, and then, in a happy mond's state was not followed by a

flutter, went down to meet Father proportionately rapid progress. He

Henwick. still continued extremely weak, and

Two days after this there was was not able to come down-stairs
great joy at The Lilies. The little until several days later. Dr. Blink
cottage was decked out as for a was puzzled ; he had been very
bridal. Franceline had stayed up sanguine when the rally took place,
late to have it all finished for the and now he hardly knew what to
early morning ; she would do every- think. He was convinced from
thing with her own hands. The the first that the attack had been
stairs were wreathed with garlands in a great measure caused by some
of green leaves and ferns; every mental shock; but that seemed at
vase and cup she could find was one moment to have righted itself,
filled with the sweet spring flowers and he thought his patient was safe.
cowslips, primroses, anemones, This was apparently a mistake,
and wild violets and placed in The pressure may have been unex-
the tiny entrance and on the land- pectedly lightened, but it was clear-
ing opposite Raymond's room, ly not removed ; and until this was
The room itself was transformed done medicine could do very little,
into a chapel. At the foot of the "There is something on his
bed stood a small table covered mind," said the doctor to Mr. Lan-
with Franceline's snowiest muslin, grove one morning, on coming out
joyously sacrificed for the occasion, from his daily visit; " there is some
Lights were burning on either side trouble weighing on him, and he
of a large crucifix ; there were will not recover until something is
lights and flowers on the mantel- done toward removing it."
piece, where she had placed her The vicar understood perfectly
statue of the Madonna and other the drift of this remark. It was an
precious ornaments ; the thin cur- appeal from the medical man to
tains were drawn and filled the the friend of the patient for help or
little room with a soft golden twi- light. Mr. Lang-rove could give
light. Franceline was kneeling be- neither. He observed that the
side the bed, reciting some litany count had been seriously anxious
aloud, which Raymond answered about Franceline's health ; but Dr.
from a book in timid, reverential Blink shook his head. He knew
under-tones. how to discriminate between the

But now a sudden hush falls effect of heartache and a pressure
upon the faintly-broken silence, on the mind. In this case the mind
There is a sound of footsteps with- was oppressed by some secret bur-
out ; a dear and awful Presence is den, or he was very much mistaken ;

Are You My Wife ?

it might be some painful appre-
hension in the future, or something
distressing in the past ; but what-
ever the cause was, past or future,
i IK; present effect was unmistaka-
lile, and, unless some friend who
luid the full confidence of the pa-
ik-nt could afford some relief, the
\vorst might still be apprehended.
Mr. Langrove answered by some
irrelevant expression of sympathy
and regret, but volunteered no
opinion of his own. He went
home and sat down and wrote to
Sir Simon Harness. This was all
he could think of. If Sir Simon
could not help, he believed no one
else could.

It so happened that the baronet
was just now absent in the South
of Italv, in dutiful attendance on

> /

Lady Rebecca; and as he had been
called off suddenly, and left no or-
ders about his letters being sent af-
ter him, those directed to his bank-
ers lay there unopened. There
was another besides Mr. Langrove's
lying there, which, if it had reached
him, would have rejoiced the baro-
net's heart and provoked a quick
response.

The fears which Raymond's tardy
progress raised in the mind of his
medical man were not shared by
Franceline. Hope still triumphed
over alarm, and she felt confident
that, since the great weight on her
father's mind had been removed,
his complete recovery must ulti-
mately follow. This certainty made
the delay easy to bear. It was
wonderful how her own strength
bore up. She had quite lost her
cough a fact which confirmed the
doctor's previous opinion that the
nerves had more to do with this
symptom than the lungs she kept
well, and was altogether in better
health than for some months pre-
viously. Her spirits raised to ela-

tion after that happy morning's epi-
sode, continued excellent at times
as joyous as a child's.

The moment M. de la Bourbonais
was able to get down-stairs Ange-
lique insisted on Franceline going
every day for a walk while the sun
was shining. One morning, when
he had come down and was com-
fortablv established on the sofa in

his study, propped up so that he
could see out of the window, Fran-
celine said she was going to gather
him a bouquet. She smoothed and
changed the cushions, put another
shawl over his feet, moved the sofa
a little bit nearer the window, and
then back again a little bit nearer
the fire, until, finding there was ab-
solutely nothing more to fuss over,
except to kiss him for the tenth
time with " An revoir, petit pere I"
as if they were separating fora jour-
ney, she sallied forth for her consti-
tutional.

The weather was mild and beau-
tiful ; spring was intoning the first
bars of its idyl, striking bright em-
erald notes from the tips of the
trees, and drawing low, pink whis-
pers from the blackthorn in the
hedges ; the birds were beginning to
tune their lutes and make ready for
the great concert that was at hand.
Franceline's heart bounded in uni-
son with the pulse of joy and uni-
versal awakening; she began to
warble a duet with the skylark as
she went along, stopping every now
and then to make a nosegay of the
pink and white anemones and violets
and torch-like king-cups that grew
in wild luxuriance in the woods
and fields. Dullerton was famous
for its wild flowers. Half an hour
passed quickly while thus engaged,
and then she turned homewards.
The doves were on the watch for
her, " sunning their milk-white bo-
soms on the thatch," as she came

2 g Are You My Wife?

in sight, and swelling the sweet liar- ' Shall I tell him that you are ex-
mony of earth and sky with a ten- pected down to-day ? That would
der, well-contented coo. But hark ! break it to him," suggested France-
Could that be the cuckoo that was line. "Or you might write a line and
already calling from the woods? send it in first to say you were here;
She paused with her hand on the would that do ?"
latch to listen. No; it was onlv Before Sir Simon could decide for

the voice of the sunshine echoing either alternative, fate, in the shape
through her own happy heart. She of Angelique, decided for him. She
pushed open the gate and walked had seen Franceline enter the gar-
quickly on ; but again her step was den, and wondered why she loitered
arrested. Some one was coming outside instead of coming in ; so
round by the park entrance. It was she came out to see, and, on behold-
no doubt Mr. Langrove; no one ing Sir Simon, threw up her arms
else came that way no one but Sir with a shout of astonishment.
Simon Harness, and there he stood.. Franceline cried out u Hush !" and
Franceline had nearly uttered a cry, shook her hand at the old woman,
when a quick sign from the baro- but it was too late ; Raymond had
net checked it and made her walk seen and heard her from his sofa,
leisurely on without doing anything ' Go in at once," said Sir Simon,
to attract attention. She cast a much excited " go and tell him I
furtive glance towards the casement, am come to kiss his feet; to ask
to see if by chance her father had his forgiveness on my knees. Tell
changed his place and come to sit him / know everything" And he
by the window ; but he was still on pushed her gently from him.
the sofa where she had left him. Franceline did not stop to ask what

Sir Simon opened his arms and the strange message could mean, but

clasped her with a warmth of emo- ran in, thinking only how best she

tion that did not surprise France- could deliver it so as to avoid too

line. sudden a shock to her father.

" You heard that he was ill ! You Raymond was sitting up on the

are come to see him!" she ex- sofa, his face slightly flushed,

claimed. " What is the matter ? Who is

" I have only heard it this minute there ?" he cried.

from my people at the house. Why 'Dear father, nothing is the

did you not write to me, child? matter; only something you will

Ah ! he would not let you, I sup- be glad to hear, . . ." she began,

pose ? My poor Raymond! And 'Ha! it is Simon ! What has he

now how is he? Can I see him ? come for? What does he want ?"

Will he see me ?" " He wants to embrace you ; and,

" Why should he not see you, father, he bade me say that he

dear Sir Simon ?" said Franceline, knows everything, and has come to

raising her large, soft glance to him, ask you to forgive him and let him

full of wondering reproach. kiss your feet. He is waiting;

; ' Of course, of course," said the may he come in ?"
baronet; * but is he strong enough But Raymond did not answer;
to see me ? They tell me he has he was murmuring some words to
been terribly shaken by this illness, himself, with hands lifted reverent-
It might cause him a shock if he ly as in prayer, while a smile of un-
saw me too suddenly." earthly joy diffused itself on his

Are You My Wife?

whole countenance. The emotion
was too much for him ; he fell back
exhausted on his pillow.

Franceline thought he had faint-
ed and screamed out for help. Sir
Simon was beside her in an instant.

" Raymond ! my friend, my bro-
ther, can you ever forgive me ?" he
(lied, kneeling beside M. de la
Uourbonais and taking his hand in
both his.

* You know the truth, then ? You
got his letter ?"

" Whose letter ? I got no letter ;
but I found the ring. Look at it !"

He drew an enamelled snuff-box
from his pocket, opened it, and
held up the diamond, that flashed
in the sun like a little star.

" Thank Heaven ! I shall now be
justified before all men !" exclaim-
ed M. de la Bourbonais with trem-
bling emotion. " This is more than
1 dared to hope. My God ! I give
thee thanks for this great mercy."

No one spoke for a moment.
Franceline had signed to Angelique
to leave the room, but remained
herself, a silent spectator of the
strange scene.

"Who had it? How was it
found?" said M. de la Bourbonais,
taking the ring and examining it
with an expression of mistrust, as
if it were some uncanny thing that
he half expected to see melt in his
fingers.

' It has been in my possession,
locked up at the Court, all this
time!" replied Sir Simon. "You
mny remember I used this snuff-
box that night, and sent it round
.t'ne table. Someone dropped the
ring into it unawares ; it was not
opened afterwards, and it never en-
tered into my stupid brain to think
of looking into it. I went away in
a great hurry next morning, and

threw the snuff-box into d sate in
my room where 1 keep papers and
the loose jewelry I have in use. I
came down this afternoon to get a
deed out of the safe, saw the snuff-
box, and by the merest chance
opened it and found the ring."

' Mon Dieu !" murmured Ray-
mond, after hearing this simple ex-
planation of the mistake that had
very nearly cost him his life.

" Bourbonais, can you ever for-
give me ?" said Sir Simon.

Raymond opened his arms with-
out speaking. Sir Simon flung him-
self with a sob upon his breast, and
the two clung together and wept.

Franceline felt as if even she
had no right to be present ; that
she was intruding in a sacred place
where some mystery, not intended
for her eyes, was being unfolded.
She was moving softly toward the
door when her father called her
back.

"Come hither, my child; come
and embrace me. I can have no
happiness that thoudost not share."

" Franceline," said Sir Simon,
rising from his knees and taking
her hand with an expression of
humility that was very touching in
the grand, white-haired gentleman,
" I have been guilty of a great act
of disloyalty towards your father.
I cannot tell you what it was ; per-
haps he will. Meantime, he has for-
given me for the sake of our long
friendship, and because his soul is
too noble, too generous, to bear
malice, even against an unfaithful
friend. Will you do as he has done,
and say you forgive me too ?"

His voice was full of trembling,
his eyes were still moist. France-
line did as he had done to her fa-
ther : she fluris: her arms round his

nec;c an

V-'

TO BE CONTI.N'U

\ ' It t . >, . .

A Sequd of the Gladstone Controversy.

A SEQUEL OF THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY.

in.

THE keen relish which we all have
for other people's sins is proverbial.
As those who think with us are right,
so are they virtuous who have only
our own vices. Prodigality, which,
to the miser's thinking, is the worst
of sins, is, in the eyes of the spend-
thrift, merely an evidence of a
generous nature. Men who wish
to be thought gentlemen have a
weakness for what are called gentle-
manly vices ; but from the coarser
though less depraved wickedness of
the vulgar they turn with loathing.
This bias of our common nature is
not confined in its action to indi-
viduals ; it affects classes, nations,
races. The rich are shocked by the
vices of the poor, and the poor, in
turn, no less by those of the rich ;
masters hate the sins of servants,
and are repaid in their own coin.

When the free-born Briton sings,
" England, with all thy faults, I
love thee still," he means that faults,
if only they be English, are after all
not so bad. Wrapt up in the precious
bundle of our self-love are all our pet
sins and weaknesses. The universal
hatred which existed between the
nations of antiquity must be attri-
buted in great part to the fact that
their vices were unlike, and therefore
repellant. The national contempt
for foreigners is, in Christian times,
strong in proportion to the barbar-
ism of the people by whom it is felt ;
but in Greece and Rome such civil-
ization as was then possible seemed
to have no power over this preju-
dice. Not to be a Greek was to
have been created for vile uses, and
not to be a Roman was to be no-

body. The French, as seen by the
English, are giddy and lack dignity :
the English appear to French eyes
sulky and wanting in good nature ;
the Turk thinks both struck with
madness, because they walk about
and stretch their legs when they
might sit still ; and though he is at
their mercy, yet he cannot persuade
himself that they are anything but
Christian dogs. The negro is quite
sure the first man must have been
black, and in this he is in accord
with Mr. Darwin. The North Amer-
ican Indian will vanish from the
earth through the golden portals
of the western world still believ-
ing that he is the superior of
the "pale face." The power of na-
tional prejudice is almost incredible.
"Our country, right or wrong' is,
w r e believe, an American phrase ;
but it expresses a sentiment which
is almost universally held to be right
and proper. In international dis-
putes men nearly always take sides
with their own country, without
stopping to inquire into the merits
of the quarrel, which, indeed, the
strong feeling that at once masters
them would prevent them from being
able to do. They act instinctively
like children who always think that
in difficulties with neighbors their
own parents are in the right. We
Americans are certainly not paragons
of virtue, and in this centennial
year it is probably wise to discuss
almost anything rather than our
morals ; yet we cannot but think
that M. Louis Veuillot was some-
what under the influence of national
prejudice when he wrote that, if we

A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy. 31

were sunk in the bottom of the Catholics themselves, we are as-
ocean, civilization would have lost sured, admit the fact and are con-
nothing. Our form of government, cerned only about its explanation ;
it is true, does not lead us to look and, strange to say, they have
for salvation, either in church or found the key to the mystery in
state, from a king by divine right ; the greater fidelity of Protestants
still, he might just as well have let to their religion : so M. de Laveleye
us alone, especially as he is at no and the Catholics shake hands and
loss for quarrels at home. Nor can the dispute is at an end.
we think that the Germans who The position of Protestants with
have raised such a storm of indig- regard to this question is peculiar,
nation over the crime in Bremer- The very life of their religion is inti-
haven, committed, as it is supposed, mately associated with a fixed belief
bv an American, would have held in the preternatural wickedness of
the whole German people and their popes, priests, nuns, and Catholics
civilization responsible for the of- generally. The sole justification
fence had they known its author to of Protestantism was found in the
be native there and to the manner abominable corruptions of Rome,
born. and its only defence is that it is a
As no passion takes hold of the purer worship, capable of creating a
human heart with such sovereign higher morality. The history of
power as that of religion, it follows the Reformation, as written by Pro-
that no bias of judgment is more testants, traces its origin to an aw-
fatal to truth than religious preju- ful and heaven-inspired indignation
dice; and now let us gently de- at the sight of papal iniquity, which
scend again to M. Emile de Lave- resulted in a divine Protest against
leye and his pamphlet : sin. It is this feeling, indeed, which

is the living human magnetism in

It is agreed on all sides/' he says (p. the WQrds of Luth Calyi Zwb _

25), that the power of nations depends on .. . , r

their morality. Everywhere is found the S h > and KnOX ' 1 he >' a11 felt that m

maxim, which is almost become an axiom SO far a $ they protested against open

of political science, that where morals and patent evil they were right,

are corrupted the state is lost. Now, it and therefore strong. Leo X., with

tblished fact that the God > s etemal tmth but encirded

moral level is higher among Protestant , n i /-. i *

than among Catholic populations. Reli- b Y a11 . the Graces and Muses, was

gious writers confess this themselves, at a disadvantage with those strong

and explain it by the fact that the former and plain-spoken men. In fact, the

remain more faithful to their religion eternal ally of human error is hu-

than the latter, which explanation I be- man truth> It { sbecause men who

here to be the true one. . . ,

are right do wrong that men who

Here is fairness surely. The are wrong seem right ; and if men

soft impeachment could not have in general were fit to be priests of

been made in a more moderate or God, there would be on earth no

subdued tone. Catholics are noto- power to oppose the Catholic

riously more immoral than Protes- Church. St. Paul had protested,

tants ; but the subject is a painful St. John Chrysostom had protested,

one, and M. de Laveleye does not St. Peter Damian had protested,

wish to emphasize the unpleasant St. Bernard had protested, St. Cath-

truth by giving proof which, in- erine of Sienna had protested, and

deed, would be superfluous, since yet there was no Protestantism.

32 A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy

To protest was well and is well, bu# Christian writers in our own day,

to seek to found a religion upon* a in which, for the first time since the

protest is madness ; and this is Pro- Reformation, a considerable num-

testantism. With Protestants puri- ber of learned men who are neither

ty of dogma is out of the question ; Catholic nor Protestant have been

and nothing, therefore, remains to able to view this subject dispassion*

them but purity of morals. To ately. We do not mean to say that

tTas they must cling like drowning these writers prefer the church to

men to straws. Protestantism, if the sects ; on the contrary, they are

considered from a doctrinal point partial to these because in their

of view, is nihilism. Gather up the workings they perceive, as they

hundred sects which, taken collec- think, the breaking-up and dissolu-

tively, are called Protestantism, and tion of the Whole Christian system.

we will find every positive religious Protestantism is valuable in their

dogma excluded ; not even the eyes as a stage in what Herbert

personal existence of God remains. Spencer calls ' the universal reli-

Mr. Matthew Arnold is a true Bi- gious thaw ' which is going on

ble-Protestant, who has a little sect around us. If there has been no

of his own, and all that he holds is divine revelation, then whatever

that there is " a Power in us, not tends to weaken the claim of the

ourselves, which makes for right- church to be the depository of such

eousness "; and this he has discov- revelation is good, especially as

ered to be the sum and substance her claim is the only one which

of all Scripture teaching. Doctri- rests upon a valid historical basis,

nal Protestantism is like the wrong And it is because a very large num-

side of a piece of tapestry with its ber of men more than half suspect

fag-ends hanging in patches, twist- there never has been a revelation

ed and jumbled; and yet they are that Protestantism meets with so

the very substance out of which much favor from the unbelieving

has been wrought a work of divme and pagan world, as serving the

beauty. The dogmatic weakness purpose of an easy stepping-stone

of Protestantism throws its whole from the strong and pronounced

energy upon the moral side of reli- supernaturalism of the church to

gion. Its utter falseness, when we the nature-worship of Darwin and

accept the fact that Christ has es- Spencer or the German Culturists.

tablished a divine system of faith, is Macaulay was struck and puzzled

so manifest that no impartial think- by what his keen eye could not

er would hesitate to give his full fail to perceive to be so universal a

assent to the sentiment of Rousseau : phenomenon as to have the force of

" Show me that in religious mat- a law of history,
ters I must accept authority, and I

shall become a Catholic at once." '^ is surely remarkable/' says this

. -,, . . .. . brilliant writer, "that neither the moral

.Supposing the Christian religion to revolution of the eighteenth century nor

be what it is commonly held to be the mora l counter revolution of the

by both Catholics and Protestants, nineteenth should have in any per-

it necessarily follows that the Cath- ceptible degree added to the domain of

olic Church is the only logical as it Protestantism. During the former pe-

,, i -U- i r-u. S riod whatever was lost to Catholicism was

is the only historical Christianity. lostalsoto Christianity ; during the latter

This, we believe, IS the almost imi- whatever was regained by Christianity in

versally-received opinion of non- Catholic countries was regained also by

A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy. 33

Catholicism. We should naturally have into downright hatred of the Papacy,

expected that many minds, on the way Tne wor ldly lives and ways of

from superstition to infidelity, or on tl f h ' had been ^ fud
way back" from infidelity to superstition,

would have stopped at an intermediate for the conflagration which was to
point. Between the doctrines taught in burst forth. Men, unconsciously it
the schools of the Jesuits, and those may be, grew accustomed to look
which were maintained at the little sup- U p On the Christian religion and the
per-parties of the Baron Holbach, there is p as distinct and sepa rable ;
a vast interval in which the human mind, ' .
it should seem, might find for itself and the temper of the public-
some resting-place more satisfactory than mind, while remaining reverential
either of the two extremes ; and at the toward Christ and his religion, was
time of the Reformation millions found embittered against his vicar. When,
such a resting-place. Whole nations frQm amidst the sodal abuses and
then renounced popery without ceasing .
to believe in a First Cause, in a future political antagonisms of Germany,
life, or in the divine authority of Christi- Luther, in the name ot Christ, de-
anity. In the last century, on the con- nounced the pope, his voice struck
trary, when a Catholic renounced his precisely the note for which the
belief in the Real Presence, it was a thou- bHc ear wag listening and as
sand to one that he renounced his belief .
in the Gospel too ; and when the reac- Macaulay says, whole nations re-
tion took place, with belief in the Gospel nounced allegiance to the pope
came back belief in the Real Presence, without giving up faith in God and
We by no means venture to deduce from h[ s Christ. This was done in the
these phenomena any general law ; but excitement o f revolutionary enthu-
we think it a most remarkable fact that , , ,
no Christian nation which did not adopt siasm > when P assion and Badness
the principles of the Reformation before made deliberation impossible, and
the end of the sixteenth century should when a thoughtful and analytical
ever have adopted them. Catholic com- study of the constitution of the
munities have since that time become church was out o f trie question.

become Catholic again, but Reformers imagined that they

none has become Protestant. *

could abolish the pope and yet

There could not be a more satis- save Christianity, just as in France,
factory proof of the transitional and two centuries and a half later, it was
accidental nature of Protestantism, thought possible to abolish God
Like all human revolutions, it grew and yet save the principle of au-
out of antecedent circumstances ; thority, without which society can-
cind these were primarily political and not exist. And, indeed, it is as rea-
social and only incidentally religious, sonable to suppose that this world,
The faith in the divine authority of with its universal evidence of de-
the Christian religion was at that sign and adaption of means to ends,
time absolute, and not at all affected could have come into existence
by the tendency to scepticism ob- without the action of a supreme and
servable among a few of the Hu- intelligent Being, as to think that
manists. The political power of the the system of religious truths
pope, however, together with his pe- taught by Christ can have either
culiur temporal relations to the Ger- unity or authority amongst men
man Empire, had gradually created without a living centre and visible
throughout Germany a very strong representative of both. Protestants,
national prejudice against his au- by rejecting the primacy of the
thority, which, upon the slightest pope, were forced to accept as fun-
provocation, was ready to break out damental to their faith a principle
VOL. xxin. 3

34 A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.

of so purgative and drastic a nature Christianity, but none who become
that, in the general process of slough- Protestants; for we cannot con-
ing of religious thought which it sider such persons as Achilli or
brings on, it is itself finally carried Edith O 'Gorman as instances of
away into the vacuum of nihilism, conversion of any kind. A very

This became evident as soon as limited acquaintance" with Catho
the attempt was made to agree upon lies and Catholic thought will suffice
articles of belief. New heresies to convince any reflecting mind
sprang up day after day, and com- that for us there is no alternative but
plete chaos would have ensued from to accept the doctrine of the church
the beginning had not the different or to renounce faith in Christ. Was
states taken hold of one or other of there ever fairer field for heresy to
the sects and " established " it, thus, flourish in than that which opened
by the aid of the temporal power, up before Old Catholicism at its
giving to it a kind of consistency, birth ? But it was" still-born. To
but at the same time depriving it this day its sponsors have not dar-
of vitality. Thus what Macaulay ed define its relation to the pope ;
regarded as so remarkable that and until this is done it remain?
no Christian nation which did not without character. At any rate, it
adopt the principles of the Reforma- does not claim to be Protestant,
tion before the end of the sixteenth Turning to view the present con-
century should ever have adopted ditionof Protestantism, we are struck
them and he might as well have by the contrast. The very word
made the proposition universal, ' Protestant ' is without meaning
since there was no reason why when, applied to two-thirds of the
he should limit it to Christian na- non-Catholics of Germany, Eng-
tions, since it is well known that in land, and the United States. Their
nothinghas Protestantism given more mental state is one of disbelief in,
striking proof of its impotence than or indifference to, all forms of posi-
in its utter failure to convert the tive religion ; and if occasionally
heathen, this, we say, far from they are roused to some feeling
surprising us, seems so natural that against the church, it is through an
we cannot understand how an ob- association of ideas, traditional with
servant mind should think it strange, them, which places her in antago-

Protestantism was, in the main, nism with their political theories

the product of the peculiar political and national prejudices. Among

and social condition of Europe dur- earnest and reflecting Protestants

ing the last period of the middle who are united with one or other

ages, and to expect Catholic nations, of the sects, there are two oppo-

or indeed individual Catholics of site currents of religious thought of

any intellectual or moral character, a strongly-marked and well-defined

to become Protestant in our day character. Those who are borne on

argues a total want of power to the one are being carried farther

grasp this subject. As well might and farther away from the historic

one hope to see the pterodactyls teachings of Christ, and are busied

and ichthyosauri of a past geologic in trying to dress out in Biblical phra-

era swimming in our rivers. Cath- seology some of the various cosmic

olics there are, indeed, now, as in the or pantheistic philosophies of the

eighteenth century, who become day. They very generally assume

sceptics, who abandon all belief in that religion has nothing to do with

A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.

theology, nor, consequently, with
doctrines and dogmas. As its home
is the heart, its realm is the world
of sentiment ; and so it matters not
what we believe, provided only we
feel good. Opposed to this current,
Avhich is bearing with it all the dis-
tinctive landmarks of the Christian
religion, is another which is carry-
ing men back to the church. In
fact, all great minds among Protes-
tants who have been strongly im-
pressed by the objective character
of Christian truth have been drawn
towards the Catholic Church. Who
can have failed to perceive, for in-
stance to mention only the three
greatest who have occupied them-
selves with religious questions how
Leibnitz, Bacon, and Bishop Butler,
in their intellectual apprehension of
the Christian system, were, in spite
of themselves, attracted to the
church ? Or who that is acquaint-
ed with the English Catholic litera-
ture of our own day is ignorant of
the divine illumination which many
of the most intellectual and reverent
natures from the sects of Protestant-
ism have found in the teachings of
the one Catholic Church ? In this
way, by a process of supernatural or
natural selection, the fragments of
Protestantism are being assimilated
to the church or are disappearing
in the sea of unbelief in which even
now they are seen only as barren
islands in the wild waste of waters.

These considerations must be
borne in mind by whoever would
take a comprehensive view of the
question which we propose now to
discuss. In the first place, by re-
flecting upon them we shall find no
difficulty in accounting for the mark-
ed difference in tone and character
between Catholic and Protestant
controversy, by which no attentive
observer can have failed to be
struck. Taking for granted the ex-

istence of God and the divinity of
Christ, as admitted by the earlier
Protestant sects, the logical position
of the church is unassailable, which,
as we have already stated, is gener-
ally conceded by impartial non-
Christian thinkers.

As a consequence, Catholic con-
troversialists, assured of the abso-
lute coherence of their whole sys-
tem with the fundamental dogma
of the divine mission of Christ,
have been chiefly concerned with
showing the logical viciousness of
the essential principles of Protest-
antism. They have, indeed, not
omitted to remark upon the moral
unfitness of such men as Henry
VIII., Luther, Knox, and Zwingli to
be the divinely-chosen agents of
a reformation in the religion of
Christ ; but such observations have
been incidental to the main course
of the argument, and this is alike
true of our more learned discus-
sions and of our popular controver-
sies.

Catholic writers allowing for in-
dividual exceptions have not felt
that, to show the falsity of Protest-
antism, it was necessary to de-
nounce Protestants or to stamp
upon them any mark of infamy.
They have treated them as men
who were wrong, not as men who
were wicked. Protestant contro-
versy, on the other hand, presents
for our consideration character-
istics of a very different nature.
In the consciousness of their in-
ability to settle upon a fixed creed,
which has been shown by history,
and from the necessarily feeble
manner in which articles of faith
could be held by them, on account
of the disagreement and conflict of
opinion among themselves, Pro-
testant writers were forced to treat
their religion, not as a doctrine, but
as a tendency ; and for this reason,

36 A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.

together with the natural hatred without sarcasm or exaggeration,

which men entertain for a church consists essentially in a holy horror

or government against which they of popery. Were it possible to

have rebelled, they were led to eliminate the Catholic Church from

draw contrasts between the results human society, Protestantism would

of Protestantism and Catholicity ; at once fatally assume an attitude

so that it became customary to at- towards the world wholly different

tribute all the enlightenment, mo- from that in which, it now stands,

rality, progress, and liberty of the At present, when attacked by evo-

world to Protestantism, and to rep- lutionistic pantheism which means

resent Catholics as cruel, ignorant, all the sophistries of the day it

corrupt, and in every way depraved, takes refuge behind the historic for-

Luther, as we should naturally ex- tress of Christianity, the Catholic

pect, led the way in this style of Church, and, when encountered by

controversy. the church, it makes an alliance with

" The Papists," he said, " are for cosmism or anything else. Were

the most part mere gross block- the Catholic Church not in existence,

heads. . . . The pope and his crew it would be forced at once to build a

are mere worshippers of idols and fortress of its own ; for the Bible is

servants of the devil. . . . Pope, only a breastwork, which must be in

cardinals, bishops, not a soul of charge of a commander-in-chief if

them has read the Bible ; 'tis a we hope to hold it for the sovereign

book unknown to them. They are a Lord. From the beginning, then,

pack of guzzling, stuffing wretches, Protestants branded Catholics with

rich, wallowing in wealth and lazi- a mark of infamy ; they were idola-

ness. . . . Seeing the pope is An- ters, worse than pagans, for the most

tichrist, I believe him to be a devil part gross blockheads, who fall an

incarnate. . . . The pope is the easy prey to the designing arts of

last blaze in the lamp which will go priests and monks, who are only

out and ere long be extinguished knaves and rogues, whose chief

the last instrument of the devil, aim is to carry out the fiendish pur-

that thunders and lightens with poses of the pope, the arch-enemy,

sword and bull ; . . . but the Spirit Antichrist, the devil in the flesh ;

of God's mouth has seized upon and thus the church becomes the

that shameless strumpet. . . . An- Woman of Babylon, flaming in scar-

tichrist is the Pope and the Turk let, and alluring the nations to de-

together. . . . The pope is not bauch.

God's image, but his ape. . . . No evidence, therefore, is needed

Popedom is founded on mere lies to show that Catholics are immoral,

and fables. ... A friar is evil depraved, thoroughly corrupt. To

every way ; the preaching friars are doubt it would be to question the

proud buzzards ; all who serve the truth of Protestantism and to believe

pope are damned ; the Papists are that something good might come out

devoid of shame and Christianity." * of Nazareth. In good sooth, do not

This is the style of Protestant con- the Catholics, as M. de Laveleye

troversy which, except in form, still says, admit the fact themselves?

lingers in this nineteenth century. We often hear persons express

Protestant devotion, it may be said surprise that intelligent and honest

Protestants should still, after such

' r/te Table-Talk of Martin Luther, pp. 200.

et passim, sad experience, be so eager to be-

A Sequel of tJie Gladstone Controversy. 37

lieve the " awful disclosures ' of It is not surprising, in view of all
" escaped nuns," and to patronize this, that Protestants should have
that kind of lecture of which, thank habitually held the church responsi-
God ! Protestants have the monopoly ble for the evil deeds of Catholics,
-delivered to men or women only, When quite recently the excited
in which the abominations of the Germans charged the dynamite
confessional are revealed and the plot of Thoniassen upon our Ame-
general preternatural wickedness of rican civilization, we replied, with
priests, monks, and nuns is made perfect justice, that such crimes are
fully manifest. This, to us, we must anomalies, the guilt of which ought
say, has never seemed strange. The not to be laid upon any nation,
doctrine of total depravity is an ar- and all reasonable men admitted
ticle of Protestant faith, and, when the evident good sense of our an-
applied to Catholics, to none other swer ; but Protestants the world
have Protestants ever clung with over have been unanimous in seek-
such unwavering firmness and per- ing to hold up the church to the
feet unanimity. When disagreeing execration of mankind as responsi-
about everything else, they have ble for the St. Bartholomew massa-
never failed to find a point of union ere. Is Protestantism answerable
in this. Even after having lived for Cromwell's massacres at Drog-
and dealt with Catholics who are heda and Wexford ? Religious
kind-hearted, pure, and fair-minded, fanaticism, no doubt, had much to
in the true Protestant there still do in urging him to butcher idola-
lurks a vague kind of suspicion that ters and slaves of Satan ; but we
there must be some mysterious and should blush for. shame were we
secret diabolism in them which capable of thinking for a moment
eludes his observation ; that after all that such inhumanities are either
they may be only " as mild-manner- produced or approved by the real
ed men as ever scuttled ship or cut spirit of the Protestant religion,
a throat "; and after his reason has We know of nothing in the Ca-
been fully convinced that the Catho- tholic Church which in any way
lie Church is the only historical corresponds with Protestant anti-
Christianity, he is still able to re- popery literature ; indeed, we doubt
main a strong Protestant by falling whether in the whole history of
back upon the undoubted total de- literature anything so disgraceful
pravity of Papists. Dr. Newman, and disreputable as this can be
in his Apologia, the most careful found, unless, possibly, it be that
and instructive self-analysis which which is professedly obscene, but
has been written in this century, or which has nowhere ever had a re-
probably in any other, declares that cognized existence ; and we ques-
after he had become thoroughly tion whether even this is as dis-
persuaded of the truth of the Catho- creditable to human nature as the
lie Church his former belief that " awful disclosures ' and " lectures
the pope was Antichrist still re- to men or women only " of Protes-
mained like a stain upon his imag- tants.

ination; and yet he had never been In discussing the comparative

an ultra-Protestant. Many a Pro- morality of Catholic and Protestant

testant has ceased to believe in nations it would be more satisfac-

Christ, without giving up his faith in tory, even though it should not be

the pope as Antichrist. more conclusive, to consider their

38 A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.

respective virtues rather than their does not win and convert them to

vices. There would seem to be God.

neither good sense nor logic in tak- If, instead of comparing the
ing the individuals and classes that crimes, we should consider tne re-
are least brought under religious spectiye virtues of Catholic and
influences of any kind, in order to Protestant nations, we should at
use their depravity as an argument once be struck by the difference in
for or against the church or Protes- their standards of morality. The
tantism. In the apostolic body one most practical way of determining
out of twelve was a thief and trai- the real standard of morality of any
tor, yet neither Catholics nor Pro- religion is to study the character of
testants are in the habit of conchid- its saints. There we find religious
ing from this that they must all ideals made tangible and fully dis-
have been rogues and hypocrites, cernible. Here at once we perceive
The amount of crime, one would that there is an essential difference
think, is but a poor test of the between the Catholic and the Pro-
amount of virtue. As the greatest testant standard of morality. The
sinners have made the greatest lives of our saints, even when un-
saints, so in the church depravity derstood by Protestants, generally
may co-exist with the most heroic repel them. They are, in their eyes,
virtue, though, of course, not in the useless lives, idle lives, superstitious
same individual. Our divine Sav- lives, unnatural and inhuman. We
iour plainly declares that in his take the words of Christ, " If thou
church the good shall be mingled wouldst be perfect, go sell what thou
with the bad ; that the cockle shall hast, give it to the poor, and come
grow with the wheat till the harvest and follow me," in their full and
time ; that some shall call him Lord complete literal meaning. The
and Master, and yet do not the will highest life is to leave father and
of his Father ; that even, with regard mother, to have nor wife nor chil-
to those who sit in the chair of dren, nor temporal goods except
Moses and, let us add, of Peter what barely suffices, and to cleave
though their authority must ever be to Christ only with all one's soul in
acknowledged, yet are not their poverty, chastity, and obedience,
lives always to be imitated, nor ap- Now, this life of prayer in poverty,
proved of even. It is manifestly chastity, and obedience is an offence
contrary to the teaching of Christ to Protestants. They do not believe
to make the note of sanctity in his in perfect chastity, they hold reli-
church consist in the individual giotis obedience to be a slavery, and
holiness of each and every member, poverty, in their eyes, is ridiculous.
He is no Puritan, though he is Inasmuch as the monks tilled the
the all-holy God. A puristic reli- earth, transcribed books, and taught
gion is essentially narrow, self-con- school, they receive a partial recog-
scious, and unsympathetic ; it draws nition from the Protestant world ;
a line here on earth between the but inasmuch as they were bound
elect and the reprobate ; its disci- by religious vows they excite dis-
ples eat not with sinners, nor en- gust. We should say, then, that the
ter into their abodes, nor hold out distinctive trait of Catholic morality
to them the pleading hands of is ascetic, while the Protestant is
large - hearted charity. Such a utilitarian. The one primarily re-
faith does not grow upon men ; it gards the world that is to be, the

A Sequel of tJie Gladstone Controversy. 39

other that which already is. The can be no possible excuse. In the
one inclines us to look upon this as statement of facts, however, which
a worthless world to lose or win ; the we propose now to give, we make
other is shrewd and calculating no use whatever of the testimony of
this is the best we have any practi- Catholics, but rely exclusively upon
c.al experience of; it is the part of the authority of Protestants and of
wisdom to make the most of it. The statistics ; and that our readers
one seems to be more certain of the may have the benefit of observa-
future life, the other of the present, tions extending over considerable
It is needless to prolong the con- time as well as space, we will not
trast, and we shall simply confess confine ourselves to the most re-
that we have always been inclined cent writers or statistics on the
to the opinion of those who hold subject under discussion. Laing,
that Protestantism, in its aims and a Scotch Presbyterian and a most
direct tendencies, is more favorable conscientious and observant travel-
to what is called material progress ler, who wrote some' thirty-five' years
than Catholicism. In fact, one can- ago, says of the French : " They
not realize the personal survival of are, I believe, a more* honest peo-
the soul through eternity, and at the pie than the British. ... It is a
same time be supremely interested fine distinction of the French na-
in stocks or the price of cotton. tional character and social economy
Not that the church discourages that practical morality is more
efforts which have as their object generally taught through manners
the material interests of mankind; among and by the people them-
but, in her view, our duties to God selves than in any country in Eu-
are of the first importance, and to rope."* Alison, the historian, writ-
these all others are subordinate, ing about the same time, but refer-
What doth it profit ? she is always ring to the early part of this century,
asking, whereas Protestantism is says that the proportion of crime to
busy trying to show us how very the inhabitants was twelve times great-
profitable and pleasant the Refor- er in Prussia than in France.f To
mation has made this world and this may be added the testimony of
virtuous, too, since honesty is the John Stuart Mill, in his Autobio-
best policy and enlightened self-in- graphy, published since his death,
terest the standard of morals. It is who passed a considerable portion
the old story God and the world, of his life in France. Referring to
the supernatural and the natural, his sojourn there when quite a
progress from above and progress young man, he says :

from below. , T , ,. t , f ^

. . . " Having so little experience of Eng-

Jut we feel that it is time we should 1}sh life> and the few pe ople I knew be-

give our readers proof that we have ing mostly such as had public objects

no desire to avoid direct issue with of a large and personally disinterested

M. de Laveleye. We flatly deny, kind at heart, I was ignorant of the low

then, his assertion that the Catho- mo y al ton * . f T*. at f in E f n ^ nd is c f ed

society: the habit of, not indeed prof ess-
are more immoral than ing> but taking for granted in every

the Protestant; and when he further mo d e of implication that conduct is of
affirms that Catholic writers them- course always directed towards low and
selves for his words can have no petty objects ; the absence of high feel-
other meaning admit this, he lies , Nofes ffa Travelltr ^ pp . 8o .
under a mistake for which ther*e \ History of Europe, vol. m. chap, xxvii. 10, n.

A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.

ings, which manifests itself by sneering
depreciation of all demonstrations of
them, and by general abstinence (except
among a few of the stricter religionists)
from professing any high principles of
action at all, except in those preordained
cases in which such profession is put on
as part of the costume and formalities
of the occasion. I could not then know
or estimate the difference between this
manner of existence and that of a people
like the French, whose faults, if equally
real, are at all events different ; among
whom sentiments which, by comparison
at least, may be called elevated are the
current coin of human intercourse, both
in books and in private life, and, though
often evaporating in profession, are yet
kept alive in the nation at large by con-
stant exercise and stimulated by sym-
pathy, so as to form a living and active
part of the existence of a great number
of persons, and to be recognized and
understood by all. Neither could I then
appreciate the general culture of the un-
derstanding, which results from the ha-
bitual exercise of the feelings, and is thus
carried down into the most uneducated
classes of several countries on the Conti-
nent, in a degree not equalled in England
among the so-called educated, except
where an unusual tenderness of con-
science leads to a habitual exercise of the
intellect on questions of right and
wrong." *

This is strong testimony when we
consider that it comes from an Eng-
lishman. In speaking of the elder
Austin the same writer says : " He
had a strong distaste for the general
meanness of English life, the absence
of enlarged thoughts and unselfish
desires, the low objects on which
the faculties of all classes of the
English are intent." f Mill's opinion
of the French is confirmed by
Lecky, who writes : " No other na-
tion has so habitual and vivid a
sympathy for great struggles for
freedom beyond its border. No
other literature exhibits so expan-
sive and oecumenical a genius, or ex-
pounds so skilfully or appreciates so

* Autobiography, pp. 58, 5Q .
t Ibid. p. 177.

generously foreign ideas. In no
other land would a disinterested war
for the support of a suffering nation-
ality find so large an amount of sup-
port. "*

Much has been said and written
of the licentiousness of the French,
which may, in part at least, be due to
the fact that they, more than any-
other people, have known how to
make vice attractive by taking from
it something of the repulsive coarse-
ness which naturally belongs to it,
but must also be ascribed to the
feeling that they are Catholic, and
therefore sensual. But let us ex-
amine the facts on this subject.
We again bring Laing forward as a
witness.

" Of all the virtues," he says, " that
which the domestic family education of
both the sexes most obviously influences
that which marks more clearly than any
other the moral condition of a society,
the home -state of moral and religious
principles, the efficiency of those princi-
ples in it, and the amount of that moral
restraint upon passions and impulses
which it is the object of education and
knowledge to attain is undoubtedly fe-
male chastity. Will any traveller, will
any Prussian, say that this index-virtue
of the moral condition of a people is not
lower in Prussia than in almost any part
of Europe?" f

Acts which in other countries
would affect the respectability and
happiness of a whole family for gen-
erations are in Prussia looked upon
as mere youthful indiscretions. But
let us take the statistics of illegiti-
macy, which is a method of discuss-
ing the question made popular
among Protestants by the Rev.
H.obart Seymour in his Evenings
with the Romanists.

The number of illegitimate births
in France for every hundred was, in
1858, 7.8; in the same year in Pro-

* History of European Morals, p. 160.
t Notes of a Traveller, p. 172.

A Scqv.cl of the Gladstone Controversy.

testant Saxony it was 16 ; in Protest-
ant Prussia, 9.3 ; in Wiirtemberg
(Prot.), 16.1; in Iceland (Prot.) (1838
-47), 14; in Denmark (1855), 11.5;
Scotland (1871), 10.1 ; Hanover
(i855) 9-95 Sweden (1855), 9.5;
Norway (1855), 9.3.

Catholic France, then, judged by
this test, stands higher than any Pro-
testant country of which we have
statistical reports, except England
and Wales, where the percentage
was, in 1859, 6.5 ; but England and
Wales are below other Catholic
countries, and notably far below
Ireland. The rate of illegitimacy in
the kingdom of Sardinia (1828-37)
was 2.1; in Ireland (1865-66), 3.8;
in Spain (1859), 5.6 ; in Tuscany, 6 ;
in Catholic Prussia, 6.1.

In Scotland there are, in propor-
tion to population, more than three
times as many illegitimate births as
in Ireland ; and in England and
Wales there are more than twice as
many, and in Protestant Prussia the
percentage is a third greater than
in Catholic Prussia. *

If chastity, to use Laing's expres-
sion, is the index-virtue, the ques-
tion as to the comparative morality
of Protestant and Catholic nations
may be considered at an end.
Lecky's words on the Irish people
have often been quoted, to his own
regret we believe.

" Had the Irish peasants been less
chaste," he says, "they would have been
more prosperous. Had that fearful fam-
ine which in the present century desolat-
ed the land fallen upon a people who
thought more of accumulating subsistence
than of avoiding sin, multitudes might
now be living who perished by literal
starvation on the dreary hills of Limerick
or Skibberecn." f

There is not in all Europe a more

* For the f'.ill discussion of the statistics of this
subject see THE CATHOLIC WORLD, vol. be. pp. 52
and 845.

\ European Morals, p. 153.

thoroughly Protestant country than
Sweden. For three hundred years
its people have been wholly with-
drawn from Catholic influences.
During all this time Protestantism,
upheld by the state, undisturbed by-
dissent, with the education of the
people in the hands of the clergy,
and a population almost entirely ru-
ral, has had the fairest possible op-
portunity to show what it is capable
of doing to elevate the moral char-
acter of a nation. What is the re-
sult ? In 1838 Laing visited Swe-
den and made a careful study of the
moral and social condition of the
people ; and he declares that they
are at the very bottom of the scale
of European morality. In 1836 one
person out of every 1 1 2 women, in-
fants, sick, all included had been
accused of crime, and one out of
every 134 convicted and punished.
In 1838 there were born in Stock-
holm 2,714 children, of whom 1,577
were legitimate and 1,137 illegiti-
mate, leaving a balance of only 440
chaste mothers out of 2,714.

Drunkenness, too, was more com-
mon there than in any other country
of Europe or of the world. Nearly
40,000,000 gallons of liquor were
consumed in 1850 by a population
of only 3,000,000, which gives thir-
teen gallons of intoxicating drink to
every man, woman, and child in the
kingdom.

If these things could be said of
any Catholic nation, the whole Pro-
testant world would stand aghast,
nor need other proof of the abso-
lutely diabolical nature of popery.
Compare this agricultural and pas-
toral population with the Catholic
Swiss mountaineers who to this day
claim to have descended from a
Swedish stock, and whose climate
is not greatly different from that of
Sweden and we find that the Cath-
olic Swiss are as moral and sober

A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.

as the Protestant Swedes are cor-
rupt and besotted. Or compare
them with the Tyrolese, than whom
there is no more Catholic and lib-
erty-loving people on earth.

" Honesty may be regarded as a lead-
ing feature in the character. of the Tyro-
lese," says Alison. . . . " In no part
of the world are the domestic or conju-
gal duties more strictly or faithfully ob-
served, and in none do the parish priests
exercise a stricter or more conscientious
control over their flocks. . . . Per-
haps the most remarkable feature in the
character of the Tyrolese is their uni-
form piety a feeling which is nowhere
so universally diffused as among their
sequestered valleys. . . . On Sunday
the -whole people flock to church in their
neatest and gayest attire ; and so great is
the number who thus frequent these
places of worship that it is not unfrequent
to see the peasants kneeling on the turf
in the church-yard where Mass is per-
formed, from being unable to find a place
within its walls. Regularly in the even-
ing prayers are read in every family ; and
the traveller who passes through the vil-
lages at the hour of twilight often sees
through their latticed windows the young
and the old kneeling together round their
humble tire, or is warned of- his approach
to human habitation by hearing their
evening hymns stealing through the si-
lence and solitude of the forest. . . .
In one great virtue the peasants in this
country (in common, it must be owned,
with most Catholic states) are particular-
ly worthy of imitation. The virtue of
chariiy, which is too much overlooked in
many Protestant kingdoms, is there prac-
tised to the greatest degree and by all
classes of people." *

With true Protestant condescen-
sion Alison adds : " Debased as
their religion is by the absurdities
and errors of the Catholic form of
worship, and mixed up as it is with
innumerable legends and visionary
tales, it yet preserves enough of the
pure spirit of its divine origin to in-
fluence in a great measure the con-
duct of their private lives."

* Alison's Miscellaneous Essays, p. 119.

Among rural populations more
than elsewhere the divine power
of the Christian religion is made
manifest. To the poor, the frugal,
and the single-hearted those hea-
venly truths which have changed
the world, but which were first lis-
tened to and received by fishermen
and shepherds, appeal with a force
and directness which the mere
worldling and comfort-lover cannot
even realize. In the presence of
nature so silent and awful, yet so
vocal, everything inclines the heart
of man to hearken to the voice of
God. Mountains and rivers ; the
long, withdrawing vales and deep-
sounding cataracts ; winter's snows,
and spring, over whose heaving bosom
the unseen hand weaves the tapes-
try that mortal fingers never made ;
summer's warm breath, and autumn,
when the strong year first feels the
chill of death, and " tears from the
depth of some divine despair rise
in the heart and gather to the eyes '
-all speak of the higher world
which they foreshadow and symbo-
lize. But in the hurry and noise
of the city, with its extremes of
wealth and poverty, of indulgence
and want, of pride and degradation,
the pleading voice of religion is not
heard at all, or is heard only as
a call from the shore is heard by
men who are madly hurrying down
some rapid stream. It is evident,
therefore, that the easiest and surest
way of getting at the relative moral
influence of the Catholic and Pro-
testant religions is to study their
action upon rural populations. We
have already established on the best
authority the incalculable moral
elevation of the Catholic rural popu-
lations of Switzerland and the
Tyrol over the Protestants of the
same class in Sweden. Let us now
turn to Great Britain,

Kay, after having given a table

A Sequel of tJie Gladstone Controversy.

of criminal statistics for England
and Wales for the years 1841 and
1847, makes the following remarks
upon the facts there presented :

"This table well deserves study. It
shows that the proportional amount of
crime to population calculated in two
years, 1841 and 1847, was greater in both
years in almost all the agricultural coun-
ties of England than it was in the ;#/-
facturin^ and mining districts. . . . With
what terrible significance do these sta-
tistics plead the cause of the poor of our
rural districts ! Notwithstanding that
a town life necessarily presents so many
more opportunities for, and temptations
10, vice than a rural life ; notwithstanding
that the associations of the latter are nat-
urally so much purer and so much more
moral than those of the former ; notwith-
standing the wonderfully crowded state
of the great manufacturing cities of Lan-
cashire ; notwithstanding the constant
influx of Irish, sailors, vagrants, beggars,
and starving natives of agricultural dis-
tricts of England and Wales ; and not-
withstanding the miserable state of most
of the primary schools of those districts
and the great ignorance of the majority
of the inhabitants, still, in the face of
all these and other equally significant
facts, the criminality of the nianvfacluiing
districts of Lancashire is LESS in pro-
portion to the population than that of
most of the rural districts of England
and Wales ! " *

In Scotland illegitimacy is more
common in the country than in the
towns and cities. In 1870 the rate
of illegitimacy for the whole coun-
try was 9.4 per cent., or i in every
10.6 ; whereas in the rural districts
alone it was 10.5, or i in every 9.5.
In 1871 it was for the whole coun-
try i o.i, or i in every 9.8, and in
the rural districts 11.2, or i in every
8.9. f In England also the rate of
iliegitimacy is much larger in the
rural districts than in the cities,
whereas in Catholic France it is
just the reverse. In the country

* Kay's Social Condition of the People, vol. ii.
P- 392.
t See London Statistical Journal, 1870, 1871.

districts of England we have the
following rate :

Nottingham,

York, North Riding, .

Salop, ....

Westmoreland, .

Norfolk, .....

Cumberland, . .

8.9
8.9
9.8

9-7
10.7
11.4

In France :

Rural districts, .
La Vendee,
Brittany Cote d'Or,

4-2

2.2

1.2

Thus in the most Catholic rural
districts of France there are only-
one or two illegitimate births in
every hundred.

This is also true of Prussia,

whose most strongly Catholic pro-
vinces are Westphalia and the Rhine-
land. In Westphalia there are only
three and a half illegitimate bfrths
in every hundred, and in the Rhine-,
land only three and a third ; but
in thoroughly Protestant Pomerania
and Brandenburg there are ten and
twelve illegitimate births in the
hundred.* In Ireland, again, we
find the same state of things. The
rate of illegitimate births for all
Ireland is 3.8 per cent. ; but the
lowest proportion is in Connaught,
nineteen-twentieths of whose peo-
ple are Catholics, and the greatest
is in Ulster, half of whose popula-
tion is Protestant. " The sum of
the whole matter," says the Scots-
man (June, 1869), a leading, organ
of Presbyterian Scotland, " is that
semi-Presbyterian and semi-Scotch
Ulster is fully three times more
immoral than wholly popish and
wholly Irish Connaught which cor-
responds with wonderful accuracy
to the more general fact that Scot-
land as a whole is three times more
immoral than Ireland as a whole."
There is np reason why further
proof should be given of what is a

* Historische Politische Blatter, 1867.

A Sequel of tJie Gladstone Controversy.

manifest truth : that rural popula-
tions let us say, rather, the people
in proportion as they are Catholic,
are also chaste ; and consequently
that the Catholic Church, as every
man who is competent to judge
must know, is the mother of purity,
which is the soul of Christian life,
and without which we cannot draw
near to the heart of the Saviour
and supreme Lover of men. Pro-
testants, however, will be at no loss
for arguments. Should the worst
come to the worst, illegitimacy, like
the gallows, may be declared an
evidence of civilization, and then it
needs must follow, as the night the
day, that it is more common in Pro-
testant than in Catholic countries.

Let us now turn to the vice of
intemperance. " I am sure," says
Hill, " that I am within the truth
when I state, as the result of minute
and extensive inquiry, that, in four
cases out of five, when an offence is
committed intoxicating drink has
been one of the causes." *

In an attempt, then, to form an
estimate of the relative morality of
nations, we should not omit to con-
sider the vice of drunkenness, 'which
is the cause of half the crime and
misery in the world. Were it in
our power to obtain accurate statis-
tics on this subject, as on that of
illegitimacy, the superior sobriety
of the Catholic nations would be
shown even more strikingly than
their superior chastity. The Span-
iards, it is universally acknowledg-
ed, are the soberest people in Eu-
rope, as the Swedes are the most
intemperate. Their respective geo-
graphical positions suggest at once
what is often assigned as a sufficient
explanation of this fact the great
difference of climate. It was long

* Crime : ifs Amount, Causes, and Remedies.
By Frederick Hill, Barrister-at-law, late Inspector
of Prisons. London, p. 65.

supposed that the southern nations
were more sensual than the north-
ern, because it was thought a warm
climate must necessarily develop a
greater violence of passion. We
know now, however, that this is not
the case. Though climate has an
undoubted influence on moralitv,

- r

its action is yet so modified or con-
trolled among Christian and civil-
ized nations that generalizations
founded upon its supposed effects
are unreliable. The Swedes and
the Scotch are intemperate, the
Spaniards and the Italians are
sober. The former are Protestant,
the latter Catholic ; it is therefore
at once evident that religion has
nothing to do with this matter,
which can only be accounted for
by the difference of climate. These
are the tactics of our opponents :
those virtues in which the Catholic
nations excel must be attributed to
natural causes ; but when some of
them are found to lack the enter-
prise and industrial spirit of the
English or the Americans, it would
be altogether unreasonable to as-
cribe this to anything else than
their religion.

Scotch statistics show a greater
amount of intemperance in summer
than in winter, which would seem
to indicate that a high temperature
does not tend to destroy the passion
for intoxicating drink. But we do
not- propose to enter into a discus-
sion of causes, which, however, we
are perfectly willing to take up at
the proper time. Our controversy
with M. de Laveleye turns upon
facts.

We have already cited the testi-
mony of Laing to show that the
Swedes, after they had been under
the exclusive influence of Protes-
tantism for three hundred years,
were the most drunken people in
Europe. Laing was in Venice en

A Sequel of tJie Gladstone Controversy.

the occasion of a festival, when the
whole population had turned out
tor pleasure, and he did not see a
single case of intoxication ; not a
>ingle instance, even among the
hoys, of rudeness ; and yet all were
singing, talking, and enjoying them-
selves. He gives the following ac-
count of a popular merry-making
which he saw at Florence :

" It happened that the gth of May was
kept here as a great holiday by the
lower class, as May-day with us, and
they assembled in a kind of park about
a mile from the city, where booths, tents,
and carts, with wine and eatables for
sale, were in crowds and clusters, as at
our village wakes and race-courses. * The
multitude from town and country round
could not be less than twenty thousand
people, grouped in small parties, danc-
ing, singing, talking, dining on the
grass, and enjoying themselves. / dia
not see a single instance, of inebriety, ill-
temper, or unruly, boisterous conduct ; yet
the people were gay and joyous." *

Robert Dale Owen, writing from
Naples, said: " I have not seen a
man even partially intoxicated since
I have been in the city, of 420,000
inhabitants, and they say one may
live here for four years without see-
ing one."

Let us now turn to Protestant
lands. St. Cuthbert's parish, Edin-
burgh, had in 1861 a population
somewhat exceeding 90,000 souls.
Of these, 1,953 were " drunk and in-
capable," 3,935 were " drunk and
discharged "; making in all 5,888,
or nearly i in 15.

In Salford jail (England), in 1870,
the proportion of commitments for
drunkenness was, as compared with
commitments for all offences, 37 per
cent.f

We have it upon the authority
of the English government that in
1874 no fewer than 285,730 Britons

* Notes of a 7'>-ave7er, pp. 418-19.

t See London Statistical Journal, 1871.

were proceeded against for being
drunk and disorderly, or drunk and
not disorderly; and, of coarse, to
this must be added the probably
greater number who escaped arrest.
Mr. Granville, one of the secretaries
of the Church of England Society
in the Diocese of Durham, estimates
that there is an aggregate of 700,000
habitual drunkards in England.
' It is a melancholy but undeniable
fact," says the Alliance News, " that,
notwithstanding "vast agencies of
improvement, intemperance, crime,
pauperism, insanity, and brutality
are -more rampant than ever ; and,
if we except pauperism, these evils
have more than doubled in the last
forty years." We have not been
able to get the statistics of drunken-
ness for Ireland, and can therefore
institute no comparison between
England and that country with re-
gard to intemperance ; * but we have
before us the criminal* statistics of
both countries for 1854, the popula-
tion of England and Wales* in that
year being about three times as
great as that of Ireland. The fol-
lowing table of convictions will en-
able us to form an estimate of the
comparative honesty of the two
nations :

Robbery by persons armed, Eng-
land and Wales, . . . 210

Robbery by persons armed, Ire-
land, - 2

Larceny from the person, Eng-
land and Wales, . . . 1,570

Larceny from the person, Ire-
land, 389

Larceny by servants,! England

and Wales, . . 2,140

* In 1871, 14.501,983 gallons of spirits were distilled
in Scotland. What proportion of this was consumed
at home we do not know. For the same year the
number of gallons entered for home consumption in
Ireland was 5,212.746. The population of Scotland
is nearly three millions and a half, and that of Ireland
about five millions and a half.

t England and Wales, with not quite three times
tl.? population of Ireland, had fifty times as many
cases of dishonesty among servants, which clearly
accounts for those newspaper advertisements in

A Sequel of the Gladstone Controversy.

Larceny by servants, Ireland, . 44
Larceny, simple. England and

Wales, ... . . . 12,562

Larceny, simple, Ireland, . . 3,329
Frauds and attempts to defraud,

England and Wales, . . 676
Frauds and attempts to defraud,

Ireland, .... 62

Forgery, England and Wales, . 149
Forgery, Ireland, ... 4

Uttering and having in posses-
sion counterfeit coin, Eng-
land and Wales, . . . 674
Uttering and having in posses-
sion counterfeit coin, Ire-
land, ..... 4

On the other hand, the following
crimes are proportionately more nu-
merous in Ireland :

Convictions for manslaughter in 1854:
England and Wales, ... 96

Ireland, 50

Burglary, England and Wales, . 384
Ireland, .... 240

We cannot think, however, that
these returns are reliable, for the
Statistical Journal of 1867 gives the
following criminal tables for Eng-
land in 1865 :

Wilful murder cases tried, . . 60
Manslaughter, .... 316
Concealment of birth, . . . 143

Total,

519

And in Ireland from 1865 to 1871,
a period of six years, only 21 persons
were sentenced to death, of whom 13
were executed.

It is greatly to be regretted that
criminal statistics give us no infor-
mation upon the religious character
of the persons accused or convicted
of offences against the law. Many
persons have been baptized in in-
fancy, and are called Catholics,
though they have never been brought
under the influence of the church.
In the absence of official statistics,
Dr. Descuret, who, in his capacity
of legal physician in Paris, had
abundant opportunity to obtain data
relative to this subject, made, about
thirty years ago, a careful study of
the religious views and sentiments of
French criminals. The conclusion
which he reached was that, in every
hundred persons accused of crime,
fifty are indifferentists in religion,
forty are infidels, and the remaining
ten sincere believers. In a hundred
suicides he found only four persons
of known piety, three of whom were
women subject to melancholia, and
the other had been for some time
mentally deranged.*

which English housekeepers are careful to state that
" no Irish need apply."

* La. Mddecine dts Passions, p. 116.

Primeval Germans.

PRIMEVAL GERMANS.

Urdeutsch (which we have trans-
lated Primeval Germans) is a his-
torical novel, the scene of which,
is laid in the Black Forest towards
the second half of the fourth cen-
tury. The author, Conrad von Bo-
landen,* says in his preface that he
intends it to be the first of a series
of three illustrating the action of
Christianity on the German people :
the state in which it found them,
that to which it brought them, and
that to which he says they are likely
to be reduced by modern infidelity.
The story which is mainly put to-
gether from facts of the biogra-
phy of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours,
and from descriptions of ancient
German life drawn from Roman
and German historians is interest-
ing as the record of a time utterly
gone by, and of a state of barbarism
incident to the childhood of nations.
Very nearly the same characteristics
appear in the earliest chapters of
the history of all uncivilized tribes,
and a special likeness can be traced
between the Teutons of the ninth
century and the American Indians
of the sixteenth and seventeenth.
Sprung from widely different races,
and experiencing the effects of
Christianity in a very different man-
ner, there is yet a striking likeness
in some of the manners and customs,
the industries, the opinions, and the
few moral axioms of both peoples
with which Christian missionaries
have made us familiar.

* Conrad von Bolanden, a brief sketch of whose
life has already appeared in these pages, requires
no introduction to the readers of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD, who will know him best as the author of
The Progressionists, Angela^ The Trowel or the
CrosS) etc.

The plot of the story is slight, and
has the advantage of not being con-
fused and complicated, as is the
case in many modern novels. St.
Martin, yet a deacon, is travelling to
Strassburg with his servant Eustace
(one of the best characters in the
book), and stumbles upon a sleeping
barbarian, whom he awakens from a
bad nightmare by the strains of his
harp or lyre. He then asks of the
gigantic German what is his errand,
and the Buffalo (such names were
common among the Teutons) tells
him that he is on his return from
the famous grove of Helygenforst,
where he had been sent by Bissula,
the only daughter of the last king
of the Suevi, to consult an oracle on
the issue of a blood-feud between the
two noble families of the Walen and
the Billing. She and her youngest
brother Hermanric are the only rep-
resentatives left of the former fami-
ly, her father and her eleven broth-
ers having all fallen victims to the
enmity of the Billing. St. Martin
remonstrates with the German (a
freedman of the Suevi), and tells him
that the true God abhors blood-
feuds, and, availing himself of the
German belief in one Supreme God,
the All-Father, whose reign is to be
made manifest after the end of the
world and the destruction of the
gods Odin, Thor, Freya, Loki, etc.,
tells Buffalo that he is the messen-
ger of the All-Father, and will save
the last of the Walen from their dan-
ger and dilemma. The German,
by his word and his hand (as was
also the custom later in the vowing
of feudal homage), constitutes him-
self the Muntwaldo, or protector, of

48 Primeval Germans.

the deacon, and they set off to the aprons. The house had but one
land of the Suevi. Eustace, for- apartment, which served all pur-
merly a soldier under Martin when poses : the fire was in the middle,
the latter was a centurion, strongly while to one side were bundles of
objects to this arrangement, and straw and skins, the primitive beds,
grimly reiterates his certainty that and to the other a slightly-raised
nothing will ever transform the platform, the primitive table and
hopelessly barbaric Germans. On chairs. The men sat or lay on this
their way the party are attacked and ate off their shields, or some-
by four Chatti, a tribe opposed to times off wooden platters. The wo-
the Suevi, and Martin forbids Buf- men served them at meals and filled
falo to fight in his behalf, saying the drinking-horns with beer and
that he will willingly go with the mead. Besides these horns, human
strangers, but in six days will not skulls those of enemies slain in
fail to visit the Suevi. Buffalo goes battle were used as goblets, and
on his way, and the two Romans these, together with the skulls of
are taken to the village of Duke sacred horses and the horns of
Fraomar, the leader of the Chatti. stags, adorned the walls of the
Here follows an interesting de- dwelling. There was also general-
scription of the dress and domestic ly a wooden chest, clumsily fash-
arrangements of the early German ioned, containing the clothes of
tribes. The duke is not an heredi- the family. The women, children,
tary chieftain, but a leader chosen by and slaves ate round the hearth
the tribe for his valor and strength, after their lords, and while these
who has collected round himself were gambling with dice. The
a personal following or guard, a passion of gambling seems to have
sort of freebooter's company the been an inveterate one, and a man
original, perhaps, of the roving bands would often stake his all, including
of " Free Companions " who played wife, children, and slaves some-
such a conspicuous part' in the wars times even himself. If he lost, he
of the middle ages. The dress of was reduced to the condition of
the freemen of the tribe consisted a slave. The walls of the house
mostly of skins and furs, with the were black and glistening with the
head of the animal, whether buffalo, <noke of the mighty and continu-
stag, wolf, or bear, drawn like a ous fires, and there is no mention of
hood over the head, and the front even a hole in the roof as an outlet,
paws tied under the chin or cross- St. Martin and his servant are in-
ed on the breast. The women troduced into this wild interior just
wore long, rather tight-fitting gar- after the Duke Fraomar has been
ments of coarse linen, with short winning house, lands, slaves, cattle,
sleeves and bands of gaudy colors and even his wife, from a freeman
sewed round the hem; the feet of the "hundred." The strangers
were bare. Both men and women are made welcome and become the
wore long hair; it was a sign of guests of the duke, which implies
free or noble birth, and was plenti- that henceforth their persons are
fully greased with butter, as were sacred, as nothing was more shame-
also, on some occasions, the bodies ful in the eyes of the Germans than
of the warriors. The children and to break their word or infringe the
the slaves were for the most part rights of hospitality. Eustace, how-
naked or only provided with leathern ever, looks ruefully on the evi-

Primeval Germans.

deuces of good-will tendered him in
the shape of a kind of oat-broth,
seasoned with the primitive Ger-
man preparation of salt, which
(Pliny is responsible for the state-
ment) consisted of charcoal made
of oak or hazel, impregnated when
hot with the water of salt springs ;
the black morsels giving the same
odor to the broth with which they
were mixed.

Duke Fraomar, who has a pro-
mise from Odin's oracle to help
him in a foray against the neighbor-
ing Suevi, provided he does not at-
tack them before the "ninth full
moon," is rather uneasy at having
these strangers, who are under the
protection of his enemies, brought
to him, in case anything untoward
should happen to them, and the
Suevi fall upon him to avenge
them, before the charmed time.
The next day one of the freemen
takes the saint and his servant
round the settlement ; and the au-
thor here introduces an account of
the old German division of property
in a "hundred," or community of
one hundred freemen, each possess-
ing the same quantity of ground,
and each obliged to render military
service to the head of the tribe.
The agricultural economy was by
no means contemptible. Ploughed
land and land overgrown with bushes
alternated in lots, and each was
cultivated during six years, then al-
lowed to lie fallow six more. Ma-
nuring was unknown, chiefly be-
cause the animal manure was used
as a safe and warm covering to the
earth caves where the grain was
stored in winter, and where not sel-
dom the owner and his family also
took refuge from the cold. Each
freeman had his stables, his slave-
huts, and his brewery, the latter be-
ing generally a cave in a rock fur-
nished with one or two mighty cal-
VOL. xxiii. 4

drons. At the end of this inspec-
tion of the " hundred " (such a di-
vision exists still in England, though
far enough in spirit from the ideal
of the free Teutons) the strangers
come upon a terrible scene of cruel-
ty and superstition.

The "journey to Walhalla " was
the poetical title given to the
immolation of aged and wealthy
persons of both sexes, who, instead
of being allowed to die a natu-
ral death, were, according to the
ancient custom, first killed and
then burned with their possessions,,
with an accompaniment of religious
ceremonies. A pile of wood was
raised, and the victims, stupefied
with beer, laid thereon, with one or
two slaves who were to wait upon
them in the halls of Odin ; for the
Germans believed that no one who
died a natural death went to Wal-
halla, but endured torments and
shame in hell. Men and women,
therefore, willingly allowed them-
selves to be killed, and often commit-
ted suicide as another means of
reaching Walhalla. On this occasion
two old men and a woman were to
be immolated. A ludicrous dispute
occurs here between one of the men
and his son, who grudges him two
slaves as his servants in Odin's hall,
whereupon the father announces
his determination to live rather than
go to the other world with so paltry
a following. This settles the ques-
tion, and the son gives up the second
slave. A great deal of drinking and
a sacred chant by the priest of
Odin precede the butchery, and
the victims are each killed by
one blow of " Thor's hammer,"
wielded by a freeman deputed to
this office by the heathen priest.
The worst part follows. Just as the-
pile has been set on fire an in-
fant is thrown on, the child of the
woman whom the duke won the

50 Primeval Germans.

night before at dice. The indiffer- and a German Christian sovereign
ence of the mother at the order for family called the Tribboki. Her
this barbarous execution seems to us dress and dwelling are described as
rather overdrawn. Human nature is much embellished by Roman arts
human nature the world over ; and and many degrees removed from
if there is one feeling more obsti- the ancient German simplicity,
nately ineradicable than any other, But, though outwardly less a Ger-
it is the feeling of a mother for her man, she is at heart an uncompro-
child or, say, in the very lowest mising adherent of the old customs
possible scale of civilization, of a fe- of her fathers, particularly of the
male for her young. Even though in- blood-feud. She lives for the sole
fanticide is common among most hea- purpose of avenging the death of
then nations, and was certainly not her father and brothers ; and, in-
unknown among the early Germans, deed, her stern determination is the
it is rather an exaggeration on the only circumstance of the book which
part of the author to represent the can be called a "plot." Withimer,
mother herself in this case as utter- the son of the king of the Trib-
ly and absolutely indifferent to the bold, is her lover and her suitor, and
child's fate. While their guide is comes to her house to offer himself
busy drinking among the spectators as her husband. He is a Christian
of this scene, Martin and Eustace and hopes to convert her also, but
penetrate the sacred grove, round the terrible blood-feud stands be-
which is drawn a cord, which no tween them. She loves him as
German would have passed with passionately as he loves her, but re-
unbound hands. Unknowing of fuses to marry him unless he will
this custom, the strangers enter the swear to take upon himself the
wood and gaze on the human skulls duty of revenge against her ene-
and skeletons, the bloody skins and mies, the Billing. This, as a Chris-
the sacred horse-skulls, hung on the tian, he cannot do, and hence ensues
branches of the trees. The priest a hard struggle between his love
soon discovers their presence in and his conscience, in which the
the holy grove, and threatens to " baptized heathen," as the author
kill them on the spot, but is re- calls him, very nearly breaks down
strained by the duke's messenger, and forswears the faith. Bissula,
their guide. He afterwards goes to on her side, is still more determined,
the duke and demands that the law and once even attempts suicide by
shall be carried out, which, for such throwing herself in the way of a
a sacrilege, decrees that the pro- wild beast while out hunting, say-
faner of the holy grove should lose ing, as she does so, that she can
his right hand and his left foot, more easily give up her life than
Fraomar, thinking of his plan for her love, but that her honor is yet
attacking the Suevi at the ninth dearer to her than her love. Vari-
moon, and not before, hesitates to ous devices are resorted to by Katu-
consent to the priest's demand and wald, the young chief of the Bil-
seeks to protect his guests. ling? the hostile family, to end the
Meanwhile, the story goes on to blood-feud by marrying Bissula,
follow Buffalo to the house of the with whom he is in love; and the
Walen princess Bissula, who, though author now introduces the <( Thing,"
a heathen, has be^ninGaul and had or assembly of the people, the pri-
some intercourse with the Romans meval parliament. This took place

Primeval Germans.

in a circle surrounded by trees, on
which the freemen hung their, shields
and helmets. A rock, sacred as a
kind of tribunal, stood in the cen-
tre, and round this stone benches
\vere ranged, on which sat the re-
presentatives of the several hun-
dreds. The oracle which Buffalo
had been sent to consult had re-
turned the answer, " Let the Thing
judge the cause," the priest who
represented the deity having been
bribed by the Billing prince to send
this answer. Bissula, with her lover,
appears at the assembly ; but before
their coming a lesser court ot jus-
tice is held for the adjustment of
local claims, which gives us an op-
portunity of reviewing some curi-
ous customs of the ancient Ger-
mans.

For instance, the value of hu-
man life in the case of a slave is
shown in two " cases" which come
up for arbitration. A slave but
the son of a free father, and a free-
man himself by birth secretly mar-
ries a freewoman, and, on her fa-
ther's discovering the connection,
the choice is given her of killing
her husband with her own hand or
of being herself degraded to sla-
very. A sword and a distaff were
offered her ; if she chose the for-
mer, she was free, but was forced to
plunge it in the man's breast ; if
the latter, she became a slave.
There were two other possible
means of settling the question :
the father had the right to kill her,
and the owner of the slave might
give him his freedom. In the case
in point this last was the happy
solution of the problem. Another
difficulty arose in the case of dam-
ages claimed by a freeman whose
neighbor's tame stag, trained for
hunting purposes, had broken into
his fields, killed a dozen head of
cattle and two slaves, in return for

which he himself had shot the stag.
The latter was declared by law tc
be of a greater value than the two
slaves, and a fixed rate of compen-
sation was adjudged, which com-
pletely satisfied both parties. From
a heathen point of view, consider-
ing that both men and stags were
'* chattels," it cannot be wondered
at that the latter were thought most
valuable ; for the market was over-
stocked with slaves, who might be
had any day during a foray, while
" domestic'' stags were very hard to
train, and required to be taught
some years before they could be of
any use to their owners.

When Bissula makes her appear-
ance, the gathering of the people
resolves itself into a " Thing," and
she and her enemies, the five sons
of the noble Billing Brenno, take
their place by the rock. Herman-
ric's absence causes some wonder
and annoyance, but Marcomir, the
umpire, nevertheless begins the ses-
sion. Katuwald boldly proposes to
end the feud by marrying Bissula,
who openly and contemptuously re-
fuses his suit, whereupon a great
tumult arises and Hermanric rides
into the circle, a bloody head dang-
ling at his saddle-bow. He recounts
his exploit how he, though not yet
invested with a man's weapons (as
the rule was to entrust neither
sword nor spear to a youth under
nineteen), forced the aged Brenno,
who had stayed at home, to fight
him in single combat, the Billing
armed with sword and shield, and
himself only with a club. The
trembling slave who follows him
corroborates his story, and Katu-
wald, already sore from Bissula's
proud refusal of his love, looks up-
on the youth with a significant and
angry eye, and at last leaves the
council, having publicly asked to be
told the law of compensation for

Primeval Germans.

carrying off another man's wife or
betrothed. Affairs stand thus with
the Suevi, while the story returns
to Martin in the hands of the
Chatti.

An assembly of the freemen of
this tribe is held to discuss the
question raised by the priest, as to
Martin's punishment for invading
the sacred grove. This takes place
the same day that Buffalo goes in
quest of his friend, and he arrives
in time to be present at the gather-
ing. Duke Fraomar is anxious to
save the strangers not for their own
sakes, but for fear of precipitating
the attack on the Suevi before the
propitious time appointed by the
oracle. At last Martin proposes an
ordeal such as, since the days of
Elijah, has often been resorted to
to decide rival claims to truth. A
few chosen representatives are to
accompany him and the priest to
the shrine of the heathen gods in
the forest, and the Christian and
the priest are both to call upon
their gods to show themselves.
Here follows a description of the
shrine a building of wood beneath
a gigantic oak-tree. Within are
kept " Thor's hammer " and " Tyr's
sword," and the car of the goddess
Hertha, the Cybele of Teutonic
mythology, or simply the Earth-
mother. Into this car she was at
times supposed to descend, when a
yoke of cows was harnessed to it,
and it was covered with a white
cloth, and thus drawn solemnly
through the "hundred." After
these processions, the car and cloth
were washed by slaves in a pond,
into which the latter were after-
wards thrown and drowned. The
statue or figure of the goddess was
erected in a huge crack of the sacred
tree, and her grim, enormous head,
with staring eyes and yawning mouth,
black with clotted blood, crowned

a clumsily-carved block, without
either arms or legs.* Horse-skulls
and white horse-skins (the priest
was also clad in such skins), human
skulls and skeletons, dogs' heads
and skins of wild beasts, hung from
the branches of the sacred tree,
which might have sheltered a regi-
ment. Near the sacred car stood
a stone altar encrusted with blood.
The priest carefully placed the
Christian stranger within easy reach
of his arm, and distributed the
others, the duke, the Sueve Buffalo,
and the wise men of the hundred,
where they could not see his move-
ments. After his prayer, he was
preparing to swing the hammer so
as to reach the saint's head, when
Buffalo, suspecting foul play, stole
quietly forward and called to Mar-
tin to shift his position. Martin
simply bade his companions, who.
like himself, had their hands secure-
ly bound, rise up and lift their
hands free from the cords. The
fastenings fell off and the heathens
stood in awe, waiting for his words.
This, says the author, is word for
word from St. Martin's biographer,
Sulpicius Severus. Then came a
crashing noise, and the lightning
fell on the priest, killing him in-
stantly, while the mighty tree was
rent in pieces and fell to the earth,
carrying in its fall the idol, temple,
altar, and car, which disappeared
under its burning branches. With
awe and terror Fraomar and the
Chatti besought the stranger, as a
terrible magician, to leave them and
not work them any more mischief.
The saint sorrowfully complies,
grieving that the true God had not
yet conquered their hearts, though
his might had been shown in such
a way, and goes his way with Buffa-
lo to the Suevian settlement. Here

* This reminds one of the Aztec war-god Quatza-
coatl.

Primeval Germans.

ne takes up his abode in a cave, in
front of which is a spring called
Odin's Spring, and in which the
( Germans bathe their new-born chil-
dren and give them names. Mean-
while, Withimer, the Christian,
struggles with his love, and Bissula,
the proud, beautiful heathen prin-
cess, still refuses to marry him un-
less he will undertake the duty of
avenging her murdered father and
brothers. St. Martin reasons with
both, and at last prevails with the
former to give up his love for the
sake of his conscience ; but having
painted the evils of ingratitude to
God and of eternal damnation in
vain, he at last conquers the youth
by reminding him that, as a German,
it would be an indelible disgrace to
him to forswear himself by break-
ing his baptismal vows. Bissula
mourns his sudden departure, which
she attributes' to a messenger having
recalled him during her absence,
and turns her attention to preserv-
ing her last remaining brother from
the hatred of the Billing. This she
does by resorting to the charms
of the Abruna woman Velleda, a
priestess said to be hundreds of
years old, and to possess marvellous
powers, as Circe of old, to change
men into stones, trees, and animals.
She is, however, not a witch, but
the enemy of witches ; and here fol-
lows a terrible account of the cruel-
ties and absurdities to which the
belief in witches led in those times,
and, indeed, in all times. Chateau-
briand's* beautiful Gallic Velleda
is a very different character from
this hideous old hag of the Black
Forest. Though not a witch, she
has, in Bolanden's book, all the con-
ventional " properties " of one in
the shape of a talking raven and
two snakes entwined round her

* Les Martyrs , Chateaubriand.

neck and arms. She promises Ka-
tu\vald to give Bissula a love-drink,
to turn her heart from Withimer to
himself; and by a charm, consisting
of a piece of skin inscribed with
mystic characters, she promises to
Hermanric invulnerability against
" sword and spear."

St. Martin, in the meanwhile, has
managed to gather an audience of
children, whom he instructs in the
truths of Christianity and teaches to
behave according to Christian mo-
rality, not forgetting also to induce
them to clothe and wash themselves
regularly every day. Some of the
parents also join his catechumens,
but the greater part still look upon
him as an impious contemner of
the gods and a powerful magician
The priest of this " hundred ' .sice
tries* to entrap him at the head of a
crowd of infuriated Germans, but
the saint mildly and logically drives
him into contradictions which are
evident even to his unlearned hear-
ers. On this occasion the two ac-
counts of the creation, the Biblical
and the Teutonic, are set side by
side. The defeated priest retires,
but only to plot further mischief ; and
the scene changes to a German wed-
ding, which forms a very interesting
chapter. Girls of an age and will-
ing to be married usually wore sev-
eral little bells in their girdle, and
it was allowed to any freeman to
carry them off, provided he after-
wards loyally paid the stipulated
price two fat oxen, a caparisoned
horse, two slaves, a sword, a spear,
and a shield to the bride's father.
The bridegroom's dress was that
usually worn by freemen on state oc-
casions, and of course the full com-
plement of weapons was indispensa-
ble. Falk, the bridegroom, is repre-
sented as wearing a magnificent bear-
skin, with the head drawn over his
own as a hood. The bride, besides

54 Primeval Germans.

her linen tunic or undergarment, speak sweet words to thy husband,
wore also a cloak of Roman manufac- but no bitter ones." After this cere-
ture and of gaudy colors. The whole mony the bride's head was wrap-
kindred of the bridegroom accom- ped in a cloth, and she was led to
panied him with horns, pipes, and a the closed door of the dwelling, and
kind of cymbals to his father-in- in succession to those of the stables,
law's house, and the oxen, etc., were the grain-store, and the slave-huts,
led by the slaves. The father per- each of which she struck with her
formed the ceremony, and Talk right foot, while the women shower-
swore by " sword and spear ' to ed handfuls of wheat, oats, barley,
hold his wife in all honor and truth, and beans on her head, during which
The father put a ring on the bride's rite the father said to her: "As
finger and bade her remember that, long as thou governest thy house
although her husband would be al- with industry, so long shalt thou not
lowed by ancient custom to take lack the fruits of the earth." Falk
other wives if he pleased, she herself now took the ck)th off his wife's
would nevertheless be bound to the head and kissed her, and all the
most unswerving fidelity ; and, giv- family followed with their congratu-
ing her two yoked oxen as a wedding lations.

present, told her that as these two The expected presence of Bis-

drew one car, so husband and wife sula at the banquet had led to a

were bound to share and carry to- departure from the ordinary Ger-

gether the 'burdens of life.* The man usage, and a table had been

shrill music of the horns and clash- prepared for such as would sit at it

ing together of weapons accompan- during the bridal feast. The king's

ied the approving hurrahs of the two daughter, when she came, brought

families, and Falk now led his wife a much-valued present, one which

home. From the door of his house German housewives of the present

hung a naked sword the " marriage day rate as highly as their gigantic

sword'} a warning of the doom that ancestresses of the days of old a

follows the least infidelity ; and on store of home-spun linen. After

going in the bridegroom led the the banquet, a wild dance was per-

bride three times round the hearth, formed in honor of the young couple,

saying: " Here shalt thou stay and Tacitus gives an account of it : The

watch as housemistress in chastity, young men assembled in a crooked

prudence, and industry." A free- double line, half of them holding

woman of the husband's kindred naked swords and the other half

then brought a bowl of water and spears, held forward, crossing each

washed the bride's feet, after which other. Four or five youths, entire-

the bride's father dipped a linden- ly naked, now began a skilful dance,

branch in the same water and threading their way with incredible

sprinkled the bed, the domestic quickness between the shining wea-

utensils, and the relations of the pons. The Scotch sword-dance is

bridegroom. A wooden platter full thought sufficiently clever nowa-

of honey was then handed to him, days, but what is it compared to the

and, as he anointed the bride's real danger, and the opportunity of

mouth with honey, he said these showing dexterity as well as courage,

words : " Let thy mouth always which this ancient German custom

offered ? This game was accompa-

* Tacitus, Germania. nied by the shrill blast of horns

Primeval Germans. 55

and pipes and the hoarse shouting immolate a slave and two oxen as a
of the excited spectators. Another propitiatory offering before their
drinking bout followed this ex- foray against the Suevi ; and one
ploit, when, as the day began to more example of German manners
fade, the priestess Velleda made and customs is afforded by the fune-
her appearance. And now a natu- ral of Hermanric, Bissula's brother,
ral phenomenon was added to the whom the Billing Katuwald has
strange scene a partial eclipse of slain with an arrow. This is gor-
the moon, which the Germans ex- geously described : the car, drawn
plained as the struggle between the by six horses, contained the corpse
moon and the giant wolf Managarm, and was adorned with endless plate,
a half-divine creature, who feeds on jewels, rare stuffs, and articles of
the bodies of the dead and now Roman workmanship of great value ;
and then hunts and pursues the the horses' heads were wreathed in
heavenly bodies. As the shadow oak and ash garlands ; three fully
grew less and the moon's light caparisoned horses and eight gor-
broke forth again, the guests clam- geously-arrayed slaves, the special
ored and clashed their arms to- servants and companions of the de-
gether, crying out," The moon wins ! ceased, followed the car and were
the moon wins !" as if encouraging destined to be struck dead and
human combatants. During this burned with their master. Mar-
confusion Katuwald, the Billing comir, the umpire, pronounced a
chief, emboldened by the love-po- funeral oration, and the priest's
tion which Velleda has given Bissu- deputy had lifted the sacred ham-
la to drink, attempts to carry her mer to kill the first slave, when a
off; but the maiden, strong as the strange whirlwind began to shake
women of giant growth of old, Ger- the forest around the funeral pile,
many ever were, wrestles with him Trees were uprooted, the wind tore
and overcomes him, bearing him and howled through the branches,
in her arms into the midst of the thunder and. lightning added their
assembled guests. Most of the au- terrors, and the Suevi stood rooted
thorities quoted by Bolanden go to to the ground in awe and amazement,
confirm the facts of the extraordi- St. Martin is seen in the distance
nary strength of the women of that advancing towards them at a mirac-
tirae, their stature of six and often ulously quick pace, and as he comes
seven feet, and of the custom pre- nearer the storm-cloud is just seen
valent among the Germans of passing away, while the sun breaks
teaching young girls to wrestle and forth again. The cry of " The
throw the spear like the men. sorcerer!" is raised, but Buffalo cries
The next scene of primitive life in out, " He is no sorcerer, but a holy
the Black Forest is the doom of the man," and, breathless, they all watch
adulteress, a wretched, guilty woman the saint.

being driven naked through the Here the author again draws on

' hundred," pursued by all the free- Sulpicius Severus for a signal miracle

women, each armed with long whips nothing short of a raising from

and small knives. This was the the dead. St. Martin commands

common punishment decreed for the dead Hermanric to arise and

such offences. A human sacrifice live ; the youth starts up and clings

to the gods of Walhalla is also por- to the saint's mantle, while the by-

trayed in vivid colors: the Chatti standers are dumb with fear and awe.

$6 Primeval Germans.

He comes forth, and, mounting one golden, flowing hair, the outward

of his horses, seats his deliverer on badge of his sovereignty. His vic-

another and rides away with him, tory over himself and his true hu-

bidding his sister believe in the mility are very beautiful. In the

almighty and only God of the baptism scene it is interesting to be

Christians, and telling his slaves reminded of the old formula of the

that as they were to have followed questions addressed to the catechu -

him into Walhalla, so he expects mens, of which the following are

them the next day at the saint's specimens :

abode, to follow him in the new " Forsachis [renouncest] tit, diabo-
way of life he has at last discov- fa? ... End ec [and /] forsacho
ered. The end is easy to see : allum diaboles workum \T.vorks\ en
Bissula becomes a Christian, re- wordum [words]. Thunaer ende wo-
nounces her hatred against the ten ende [and] allein them unholdum
Billing, and receives baptism with \imcleaii\ theira genotes [companions]
hundreds of her relations and sint. .... Gelobis tu \believest thou\
slaves, to all the latter of whom in got alamehtigan [Almighty] Fa-
she and her brother give their doer \Father\ ? "
freedom and certain necessary We meant to have spoken more
possessions in fact, almost por- at length of the mythology of the
Zoning out their estate between Teutonic races, but have no space
them. Bissula then marries Withi- for the subject. The authorities
mer, and they spend their lives in Bolanden has followed are Tacitus,
trying to spread the light of the Grimm, and Arnkiel. Concerning
Gospel among their fellow-country- history, manners, and customs he
men, while Hermanric follows St. quotes Julius Caesar, Tacitus, Pro-
Martin and becomes a monk in one copius, Strabo, Pliny, Schmidt, Sim-
of the first Frankish monasteries. rock, Wirth, Heber, Cantu, Ozanam,

Among the most natural charac- and Arnkiel. For the traditions of

ters in the book are Eustace and St. Martin's life Sulpicius Severus,

Buffalo, who delight the reader with his deacon, friend, and biographer,

their various shrewd sayings and is the authority. We should like

their dog-like fidelity to St. Martin, to give an example of the poetry

One or two curious facts have an of the ancient Germans ; but as

incidental place in the story ; for the Nibelungenlied is accessible to

instance, the derivation of the mod- every scholar and widely known

ern German word for grandson even to the ordinary reading public,

Enkel vouched for by Simrock, and no specimen of inferior war-hymns

which is a survival of the old custom would be worth drawing attention

of reckoning the two nearest degrees to. We will conclude by a beauti-

of relationship by the two joints ful description of the simplicity and

of the leg ; the knee signifying the humble appearance of a holy bishop

son, and the ankle the grandson. of the fourth century, Justinus of

A very good point is also made in Strassburg, and who, as well as St.

Withimer's spiritual probation, his Martin, had a high opinion of the

penance in the cave with St. Martin, grand " raw material," ready to the

and his meekly submitting, after a hand of Christian workers, in the

terrible struggle with his own pride brave, truthful, loyal, hospitable,

and passions, to receive a scourg- even if cruel and uncivilized, Ger-

ing from the saint, and to cut off his mans of the "forest primeval."

Primeval Germans. 57

Bolanden says : " The simplicity of church and the most fruitful signs
the bishop reminded one of the of her progress. Neither did the>
apostolic age. He bore no out- acknowledge the golden fetters of
ward sign of his high rank, and his kings, which hinder the working
only garments were two tunics of of Christ's messengers. They were
white wool, one long with long free in their sacred ministry, and
sleeves, and another, sleeveless and God's protection accompanied them
short, over it, while over all hung a in their hallowed work."
cloak of Roman make. His feet Bolanden's book has, of course, an
were shod with sandals. His black arriere-pensee, which is so evident
beard hung low over his breast, through the story that it rather
while a ring of whitening hair en- spoils the mere literary value of the
circled his bald head. His features book, as " a purpose " more or less
were thin, as if with fasting and cramps any literary production,
mortification, his glance calm, and But, as a clever contemporary says,
his demeanor humble ; while his ' In the hot theological controver-
hands, used to toil, were extraordi- sies of the present day it is hard to
narily strong, for he followed the ex- treat any subject, even remotely con-
ample of St. Paul, who refused to be nected with ecclesiastical history,
i burden upon any one. . . . For without betraying a 'tendency.'
precisely the most pious and holy Bolanden is outspoken enough as to
of the bishops of the Frankish conn- his, which has for object the pre-
try gave themselves to manual la- sent Prussian laws against religious
bor, to give a good example to the freedom. But we think we may
Franks, who shrank from work as safely say that the first book of the
from a shameful occupation, . . . series will be the most original and
and this, too, by no means to the interesting, illustrating as it does a
prejudice of the vineyard of the period so little known and not yet
Lord. On the contrary, those self- become, like the middle ages, the
denying men, indifferent to life, hackneyed theme of every novelist,
seeking no earthly honors or distinc- from first to fifth rate, of every civi-
tions, thinking only of the service lized and literary European nation-
of God, were the pillars of the ality.

-
58 Sacerdos Alter CJiristus

SACERDOS ALTER CHRISTUS.*

THE priest, " another Christ " is he,

And plights the church his marriage-vows ;
Thenceforth in every soul to see
A daughter, sis'er, spouse.

Then let him wear the triple cord

Of father's, brother's, husband's care;
In this partaking with his Lord
What angels cannot share.

O sweet new love ! O strong new wine !

O taste of Pentecostal fire !
Inebriate me, draught divine,
With Calvary's desire !

" I thirst ! " He cried. The dregs were drained

But still " I thirst ! " his dying cry.
While one ungarnered soul remained,
The cup too soon was dry.

And shall not / be crucified ?

What though the fiends, when all is done,
Make darkness round me, and deride
That^not a soul is won ?

God reaps from very loss a gain,

And darkness here is light above.
Nor ever did and died in vain
Who did and died for love.

1871

* St. Bernard.

Labor in Europe and America.

LABOR IN EUROPE AND AMERICA.*

THERE was a time, not far distant,
when men thought they had found
in the United States of America
the sovereignty of labor. It was
the boast of its people that there were
no American paupers. The work-
ing classes looked with something
like contempt upon the condition
of their fellow-laborers in Europe.
Here was the land where every
man's independence rested in his
own hands and his willingness to
labor. No day should come when
an honest day's work would not
earn, not bread alone, but a home
an American home. This was the
time when the followers of Boone
were disclosing to wondering eyes
the virgin richness of the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys ; when, later, ad-
venturous spirits led the way over
the Rocky Mountains to a new
western empire ; when, close suc-
ceeding, California opened its Alad-
din's caves, not to the lash of
kings or tyrants over toiling slaves,'
but to the picks and pans of free
labor. Yes, here at last was found
what the poets and philosophers of
Greece and Rome had only dream-
ed of the ideal commonwealth, a
golden age. Thus had a free re-
public, established in the richest and
grandest territory the sun shone on,
conquered at last the problem of
ages, and labor stood the peer of
capital nay, aspired to be its mas-

* 'Labor in Europe and America : A Special Re-
port on the Rates of Wages, the Cost of Subsist-
cnce, and the Condition of the Working Classes
in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany,
the other Countries of Europe, and in the United
States and British A merica. By Edward Young,
Ph.D., Chief of the United States Bureau of Sta-
tistics. 1875.

ter. It was claimed not only that a
particular form of government had
achieved those economic results, but
that it was capable of maintaining
them indefinitely. Politics bade de-
fiance to political economy.

Is this state of things true of to-
day ? In part, yes, it may be an-
swered. Looking at the compara-
tive independence and comfort of
the great masses of the working
classes of this country, noting that
intelligent zeal for personal liberty
which pervades them, much reason
for congratulation still remains. But
the pressure of those social condi-
tions affecting labor in other coun-
tries is beginning to be seriously
felt. The reserve forces of capital
are coming up. The " salad days '
of the nation are over. It has
grown to manhood, and, growing
thus, has met the harsh experiences
inseparable from national as from
individual life. It begins to feel
the burd.ens of maturity, and to be
harassed by its anxieties. Labor
has met war, its wild fever, its dead-
ly collapse ; labor has met debt,
the second and costlier price of
war, sucking out the life-blood after
the wounds of battle have been
stanched ; and, lastly, labor has met
capital, which, like one of those
genii described in the Arabian
tales, rises portentous to its full
strength and stature out of the
smoke of war and the shadow of
debt. These two forces, labor and
capital which, to borrow an image
from the ancient myths, AvayKij
or Necessitas seems to have linked to-
gether in iron bonds mutually hos-

60 Labor in Europe and America.

tile yet inseparable co-laborers in the Here, then, is a problem for the
work of human progress, are. prepar- statesmen of this age widely differ-
ing to try their strength in the New ing from that which engaged the
World as they have done in the Old. attention of the fathers of the Con-
The first murmurs of that contest stitution, yet like it in this : that the
which it was deemed republican in- successful solution of each aims at
stitutions could for ever avert are the amelioration of the condition of
plainly heard. Daily observation mankind. One was political ; the
shows that the laws governing the other is, and will be, social, and may
accumulation of wealth elsewhere be regarded as a sequel to, and
increase stimulating increase in a complement of, the first,
geometrical ratio are not suspend- Must we sink into the old ruts along
ed here. * The rich are growing which labor has slowly and painful-
richer, the poor poorer." Any of ly dragged its burdens for ages in
the. great daily newspapers need Europe ? Is there no help for this
only to be looked at from week to Sisyphus ? Must the stone roll
week and month to month to find down the hill again, after having
the growing record of strikes, the mounted so near the top ? Or is it
agitation of labor, the increase of possible that the light which the
pauperism. The glory of the coun- founders of this republic set up as a
try, its greatest source of prosper- beacon for the political regenera-
ity, has had in it an element of tion of mankind one hundred years
weakness. That rich and wide do- ago may be rekindled in the same
main, which invited immigration, land in a succeeding age to lead the
postponed, but has not been able way to the regeneration of labor ?
eventually to stay, the aggregation It is a task for the highest, the
of surplus labor especially on the most Christian, the most Catholic
two seaboards which everywhere statesmanship. The church, faith-
becomes the bond-slave of capital, ful to its great role of emancipator
and fights its battles against free or manumitter, which it took up, in
labor. In a word, politics, the advance of the age, in the darkest
barriers of merely political pronun- eclipse of the declension of the Ro-
ciamientos, have yielded in the Unit- man Empire, and has never since
ed States, as elsewhere, to those abandoned, will be found again in
primal laws of supply and demand the van of this movement. Labor
which govern the wages of labor, and capital, which, left to themselves,
We are assimilating to the economic would rend each other, may find
conditions of Europe. A revolution in its arbitrament a truce peace-
has taken place during the course harmonious working,
of the last quarter of a century in Is the hope that this republic
the industrial features of this coun- shall be the first to utter to Europe
try. The flux and reflux both of and the world some grand maxims
labor and capital between America in social economy, as one hundred
and Europe are instant and inevi- years ago it did in politics, chimeri-
table. Henceforward the contest cal ? By its realization we shall be-
between them will be fought out on able to avert from this country the
the old conditions, little or not at atheistic commune which is threat-
all affected by political or what is ening to ravage Europe, or to meet
the same thing sentimental consid- it and defeat it should it come,
erations. Wise action must be the result

Labor in Europe and America. 6 1

of good information. Such a work, thing i, 2, 3. But man is too stub-
therefore, as this of Dr. Young's on bornly self-willed ever to be made
Labor in Europe and America\s&\3\&- the term of an equation.
able auxiliary to those who like to How different, how inferior, such
know what they have to deal with a work as this, for instance, of Dr.
before moving in any matter. It is Young's comprehensive and well
a bulky volume of over eight him- digested as it truly is to any one of
dred pages octavo of closely-printed his great namesake's in the last cen-
matter; but it is not so appall- tury, Arthur Young, who, more just-
ing as it looks, the number of conn- ly than M. Adolphe Quetelet, de-
tries surveyed and the diversity of serves the title of the " father of
the conditions of labor presented modern statistics." One is like the
making it interesting even to the Turkey carpet that Macaulay speaks
general reader. Dr. Young's position of in his criticism on Montgomery,
as chief of the United States Bureau which contains indeed all the colors
of Statistics has given him excep- that are to be found in a master-
tional advantages and facilities for piece of painting, but is fit only for
obtaining information in the prepa- its own uses ; the other is a picture
ration of such a work, and it is fair instinct with life. The old method
to say that he appears to have avail- of personal, detailed, and necessari-
ed himself of them with great indus- ly limited observation, while it ex-
try and ability. It is, in fact, the celled in picturesqueness, gave at
work of a specialist who is devoted the same time solid, accurate, spe-
to his subject, and is therefore//'/;;^ cial information which the hasty
facie worthy of attentive considera- generalizations of the present day
tion. Nor does it fail in great part too often miss. The latter confuse
to make good its pretensions. Yet the mind by their immense array
it has all the faults of the current of figures.

works of the infant science of statis- Again, Dr. Young has given, we
tics. It jams everything into col- think, a disproportionate share of
umns of tabular statements, and attention to Europe, Asia, and even
seeks to draw infallible averages Africa occupying in all over seven
and wide-sweeping deductions from hundred pages with his account of
them which cannot be always sus- labor in those countries, while he
tained on closer scrutiny. Observa- handles the subject in the United
tion is everywhere too limited, the States and Canada in just one hu.n-
conditions of society and of indivi- dred pages. His explanation is that
dual existence and labor too minute- his work is intended chiefly for cir-
ly diversified and shifting, to be dilation in the United States, but
toted up like a sum in addition by a this explanation is unsatisfactory,
calculating machine. Were we to His long introductory history of la-
listen to the statisticians, however, bor from the remotest times, compil-
\ve would displace the Pope and ed, as it plainly is, from the works
put them in his chair. They would of European scholars within every-
feel quite at ease there, and the in- body's reach, and his view, chiefly at
fallibility they shake their heads at in second hand, from the reports of
Tio Nono would fit them to a charm. American consuls, of the state of la-
Like the jailer in Monte Christo, bor in Europe, are manifestly inferi-
they would blot out all individuality or, both in interest and authority, to
and number every one and every- the copious original works of the

62 Labor in Europe and America.

statisticians of particular foreign great example is vanishing from
countries ; while his history of Russia under the benignant edicts
American labor and presentation of of Alexander II. But there is no
its existing conditions, which ought doubt that that form would have
to have given its real value to his developed itself in the United States
work, are extremely meagre and from negro slavery if the distinction
superficial. His own tour through of color could have been annihilated,
the manufacturing centres of Eng- It was already tending in that di-
land and the Continent appears rection when the war intervened,
from his statements to have been We must pass over Dr. Young's
of too flying a nature to yield any account of labor under the feudal
very authoritative results. But we system, but we cannot help noting
wish it to be distinctly understood the prejudice he seems to share with
that while the plan of Dr. Young's the vulgar against the monks. To
work, and, in some respects, its read his pages, one would necessari-
execution, appear to us defective, ly be led to infer that the clergy
we are by no means disposed to were among the worst oppressors
undervalue the great utility of of the poor ; that they ground their
what he has accomplished in thus unhappy serfs, and were the allies
presenting to the American reader of the nobles and military comman-
in compact form a survey of the his- ders in keeping down the working
tory of labor down to our own classes. That all this farrago of
times. It is only from a study of calumny is directly the reverse of
the subject in its widest, aspects that the truth is now so universally ad-
an intelligent comprehension of the mitted by students of those ages
factors of the problems before us in that it is needless to enter into the
America can be arrived at. question, nor would our space per-
Dr. Young begins by a review of mit us to do so. It will suffice to
the origin of slavery and gradual quote Hallam, who, while opposed
development of wage labor, follow- to the principles upon which mon-
ingits thread through the rise and de- asteries are founded, calls those of
cline of the ancient empires of Egypt, the middle ages " green spots in the
Greece, and Rome. The conquest wilderness where the feeble and the
and carrying off of alien races for the persecuted could find refuge." * And
uses of manual labor, while their again, speaking of the devastation of
conquerors followed the profession immense tracts by war, he says : "We
of arms, was the most fruitful source owe the agricultural restoration of
of slavery in ancient times. This the great part of Europe to the
species of slavery is still found in monks, "f It is singular that such
Africa. It was long ago extinguish- testimony is omitted by Dr. Youn ;.
ed in Europe. It was crippled in It would be still more singular if it
America by the suppression of the had escaped his observation. His
slave trade, and has finally disap- admissions are as ridiculous as his
peared in the United States by the omissions. In a foot-note of a sin-
emancipation of the negro race, gle line, which is lost in the midst
On the other hand, we have never of two chapters on the subject, he
had in this country the predial sla- says: "It. is admitted that the ab-
very which is bound to the soil
and digs the ground it originally

* ... * Hallam's Middle Aees. ch. IK. part i.

sprang from, of which the last t id. ch. ix. part u.

Labor in Europe and America. 63

bots were most indulgent landlords." of 1874 about 45,000 members^
This is as if a writer on the woollen had 30 branches in the United
manufacture of the present day States at the end of 1873, with
should devote a hundred pages to an aggregate membership of 1,405.
the knitting-needles of the old wo- These branches were spread over
men in our country towns, and in- every manufacturing city of the first
form his readers in a one-line foot- or second class in the Union, Five
note : " Steam machinery was also branches were established in Cana-
used in this age in the manufacture da. Some idea of the power of
of woollens." The monastery was such a society, apart from its mere
as distinctively the economic feature roll of membership, may be gath-
of the civilization of the middle ered from its annual statements of
ages as the steam-engine is of our the account of its accumulated fund,
times. Each played the same part Its balance on hand at the close
in' its development. It is just as of 1873 amounted to ^200,923 is.
easy to be blind to one as to the 6^d. Its expenditure during the
other. same year amounted to ^67,199
Passing over the period included 175., 5Xd., including such items' as
between Elizabeth and George III., telegrams, banking expenses, delega-
and the early days of what Dr. tions, grants to other trades, parlia-
Young aptjy terms the " era of mentary committees, gas-stokers'
machinery," we come down to the defence fund disclosing, in fact, all
consideration of the organization and the incidents of a powerful and ac-
prices of labor, the rates of wages tive organization,
and cost of subsistence, and the The " Amalgamated Society of
habits of the working classes in Carpenters and Joiners" has 265
England at the present day. These branches, 14 of which are in the
are fruitful themes, and are treat- United States. The membership,
ed of in detail. We will endeavor however, appears to be small in this
to present a few items of compari- country, numbering only 445 men.
son, from the statistics given in con- The governmental organization of
nection with them, with those af- societies of this class is very elabo-
forded later in the case of the Unit- rate and centralizing in character,
ed States. Monthly reports are received from
What we have said about the all the branches, including those in
change that has taken place in the the United States. For instance,
conditions of labor in the United the monthly reports of the Amalga-
States is shown by Dr. Young's ac- mated Carpenters' Society for Jan-
count of the trades^unrons of the nary, 1875, from the United States,
Jnited Kingdom, instead of, as represent the state of trade as
formerly, maintaining their position " bad," " dull," or " slack," with the
on a totally different and higher exception of San Francisco, where
plane than European workmen, it is reported " good," and Newark
American mechanics now take the as " improving." Although no data
law, in many cases, from English are here given, it is not to be doubt-
organizations. For instance, the ed that this system of reports will
" Amalgamated Society of Engi- be, or has already been, extended
neers," a union including machinists, to such organizations as the "Mi-
millwrights, smiths, and pattern- ners' National Association," num-
makers, and numbering at the close berhig 140,000, and the National

64 Labor in Europe and America.

Agricultural Laborers' Union, num- recouped by the advance gained in
bering 60,000, thus seriously affect- wages. These conclusions are now
ing the immigration not only of beginning to be so well understood
skilled but of agricultural labor. In in England where, from more per-
fact, we are already aware that per- feet organization, strike's are larger
sonal reports have been made by and cost more to both parties than
Joseph Arch and others, some of in the United States that the chair-
them not favorable. The formida- man of the Trades-Union Congress
ble character of the trades-unions of the United Kingdom, held at
of Great Britain is seen by the mere Liverpool in January, 1875, in his
statement of their aggregate mem- opening address referred to strikes
bership, which Dr. Young estimates, as a mode of settling differences
with all deductions, at 800,000 in with employers which ought to be
January, 1875. avoided by all practicable means,
The question of strikes in Eng- and resorted to only in the most ex-
land is too large a one to be enter- treme cases an opinion afterwards
ed into here. Dr. Young gives a embodied in a resolution which was
brief history of the great Preston adopted by the Congress. The
strike of "1836, of the Nottingham, principle of arbitration has already
the Staffordshire Colliery, the Pot- been tried successfully in several
tery, and the Yorkshire strikes, all important instances,
of which proved unsuccessful after Dr. Young illustrates the rates of
terrible suffering on the part of the wages in the United Kingdom by
workmen and great loss on both tables. He accompanies the tables
sides had been endured. A short with the explanation that " in a
account is also given of the unsuc- very large number of .occupations
cessful " Amalgamated Engineers' the hands are paid by the piece or
strike of 1851-52, and the pro- by weight, and the actual rate of
tracted engineers' strike on the wages would not indicate the sum
Tyne, 1871-72, for the nine hours' an operative would take home with
system, which resulted in a compro- him at the end of the w r eek as the
mise. Experience has demonstrat- price of his labor. The sums stat-
ed of strikes, ist, that they are ed in all these tables are therefore
usually unsuccessful ; 2d, that they the average sums earned per week,
lessen the employer's ability to whether the labor be paid by the
maintain even the wages paid be- day or the piece." The same ex-
fore the strike, by giving an advan- planation holds good for the United
tage to his competitor in other States. Of these tabular state-
countries which he cannot always ments our space will only permit us
recover; 3d, that where they are to give two or three, to which \ve
fought out to the end they cause shall subjoin the rates of wages in
suffering and develop disease in the the United States in the same oc-
weak, and in women and children, cupations by way of comparison,
which no wages can pay for or cure ; The British pound sterling is com-
4th, that they deteriorate the char- puted at $4 84, and the shilling at
acter of the men engaged in them 24 cents,
by promoting a feeling of lawless- WAGES IN COTTON-MILLS.
ness and desire for stimulation even The reduction in the hours of
among the best disposed ; 5th, that, labor and the increase in the rates
even if successful, there is a greater of wages in English cotton-mills are
dead loss in money spent than is shown in the following table :

Labor in Europe and America.

Statement shewing the average weekly earnings of operatives in cotton-mills during the

years 1839, 1849, 1859, and 1873.

% t

OCCUPATION.

SEX.

WORK OF

69 HOURS.

WORK OF

5o HOURS.

1839.

1849.

1859.

1873.

S team-engine tenders,
Warehousemen.

$5 76

4 O2

$5 72
4 So

$7 20

c 28

$7 63
6 -A

Carding:
Stretchers, .
Strippers, . . .
Overlookers

Women and girls, .
Young men, .

i 68

2 64

6 oo

i 80

2 88

3 ^<->
I 92

3 36

6 72

u -4

2 88
4 56

7 68

Spinning :
Winders on self-acting mules, .

Women and young men.

3 84
i 04

\J J4.

432

2 l6

u /^

4 80

2 4O

6 oo

3 84

Overlookers, ....
Reeling :
Throttle-rulers, ....
Warpers, .....

Women,

4 80

2 16

5 28

*> S2

5 28

2 28

5 28

c C2

6 24

2 28

5 52
6 oo

7 20

3 oo

6 2*4

7 2O

Doubling :
Doublers,

Women, . .

i 68
5 76

I 80

6 oo

2 l6

6 72

3 oo

7 68

Other branches show the same ratio of advance."

The following statement was fur-
nished to Dr. Young by the proprie-
tors of the cotton-mills of Messrs.
Shaw, Jardin & Co., of Manches-
ter, operating 250,000 spindles, and
producing yarns from No. 60 to
220, sewing cottons, lace yarn, crape
yarn, and two-fold warp yarns :

Average wages (per week of 59 hours) of
persons employed in 1872.

Rhode Island, for the reason that
the rate of wages there appears to
be a good average, being lower
than is paid in Massachusetts and
higher than in New York.

Wages in cotton-mills (weekly average).

RHODE ISLAND.

OCCUPATION.

OCCUPATION.
Carding:

Overseer, ....

Second hand, . . .

Drawing-frame tenders, .

Speeder-tenders, . .

Grinders, ....

Strippers, ....
Spinning :

Overseer, ......

Mule-spinners, . . . $13 31

Mule-backside piecers, . 2 42

Repair-shop, engine-room, etc. :

Foreman or overseer, . . .

Wood and iron workers, . . .

Engineer, ......

Laborers,

WAGES.
$10 89

7 26

2 66

3 14
5 32
S 32

to
to

14 52

*5 73
387

14 52
7 74
9 68

5 32

These tables will be found on pp.
.S3 0-3 1. Now let us compare the
\\ '.ges there given with those paid
the same class of operatives in
the United States. On pages 750-
51, Dr. Young gives a table show-
ing the average weekly wages paid
in American cotton-mills in various
States in 1869 and 1874. We select
VOL. xxin. 5

1869.

1874.

Carding :

Overseer, ....

$ 17 oo

$17 oo

Picker-tenders, .

7 80

7 72

Railway-tenders,

3 5

"N 47

Drawing-frame tenders, .

5 oo

is 40

Speeder-tenders,
Picker-boy, . .

6 12

6 25

*4 03

Grinders, . .

9 08

9 10

Strippers, .

7 26

7 5

Spinning :

Overseer, . .

15 60

17 69

Mule-spinners,

9 So

10 16

Mule-backside piecers, .

2 85

*2 52

Frame-spinners,

5 oo

t3 70

Dressing:

Overseer, ....

'3 75

14 80

Second hand, . . .

9 oo

ji 83

Spoolers, . . .

5 oo

$4 3 2

Warpers, ....

5 75

J6 98

Drawers and twisters,

5 oo

Dressers, ...

ii 25

13 ii

Weaving :

Overseer, ....

'8 33

18 oo

Weavers, ....

8 oo

$7 91

Drawing-in hands, .

7 50

i? 25

Repair-shop, engine-room,

etc.:

Foreman, . .

18 oo

15 79

Wood-workers,

15 oo

Iron-workers,

13 16

13 68

Engineer, . .

18 oo

13 71

Laborers, . .

9 33

8 59

Overseer in cloth-room, .

15 oo

12 42

* Boys. t Females. % Part femalas.

66 Labor in Europe and America.

It will appear, therefore, from an merits of the operatives, it was
examination of the tables that the claimed that many of the men
average weekly wages in Rhode Is- were making only ninety-six cents
land cotton-mills (which fairly rep- a day before the strike, and the
resent those of the rest of the conn- women sixty-five cents. Those fig-
try) are in most cases from a third tires, therefore, in the case of one
to nearly double those paid in Man- of the largest companies, represent
Chester. But it will also be ob- labor as already reduced below
served that, whereas English wages English rates. This strike also af-
appear to have increased steadily in forded, an illustration of the state-
every grade, the American rates ment, made in the beginning of this
show a decided tendency down- article, of the instant ebb and flow
wards. The highest skilled Ameri- of labor, as well as capital, which
can labor holds its own with difircul- now characterizes industry in the
ty, but in the lower grades cheaper United States. The operatives were
labor has been extensively employed about half English and half Irish
since 1869. Dr. Young's explanation (the overseers alone being Ameri-
inust also be borne in mind in read- can), and the first movement of
ing these tables viz., that the labor those who had enough money to
is frequently piece-work. In some do so was to return to England or
instances the English operatives Ireland,
also employ their own helpers. Notwithstanding the readiness

But do these figures really repre- of operatives to strike the moment
sent the present rate of wages ? the opportunity offers a readiness
Doubtless the average given is a perfectly well known and appreci-
fair one. But any one whose atten- ated by their employers and not-
tion was directed to the strike at withstanding also, it may be said,
the Lonsdale Mills, R. I., January, the determination of employers to
1875, mus t have noticed that wages regulate wages by the laws of trade,
are in reality much lower than here it is nevertheless one of the most
given. Into the merits of that con- noble and encouraging features of
troversy we do not enter we wish the industrial pursuits of this age
merely to arrive at the figures. The that the employers in many in-
company would appear to have done stances -and those generally the
everything they could for the com- chief show that they intend that
fort and improvement of the condi- their minds shall not be diverted
tion of their hands, and the reduc- from the purpose of improving the
tion complained of probably could condition of their workmen, both
not be avoided in the then depress- mentally and materially. It is well
ed state of the market. The spe- that the mild voice of Christian
cial correspondent of the New York charity should still be able to make
Herald of that date gives the state- itself heard in the midst of this
ment of the superintendent, who whir of iron machinery,
said that the weavers before the re- In the condition of no kind of
duction were receiving fifty cents per labor does the United States corn-
cut (wide goods), and with the re- pare more favorably with England
duction of 10 per cent, the price paid and the Continent of Europe than
would be forty-five cents per cut ; in agriculture. Here the respective
or, in other words, they would earn wages paid hardly admit of corn-
about i a day. Taking the state- parison. But it is not to be lost

Labor in Europe and America,

sight of. that, wretched as the con-
dition of the English agricultural
laborer may appear to us, his way
of viewing things is not ours. The
rough, arduous, irregular, exposed
labor of the Western backwoods-
man, or even farmer, appears to him
more terrible than the dull, stated
servitude, with its beer in the pre-
sent and its work-house in the fu-
ture, that shock our free thought.
The report of the delegates of the
Agricultural Union was decidedly
unfavorable in the case of Cana-
da, where the conditions of labor
do not essentially vary from those
of the Northwestern States. This
question of agricultural labor is,
however, too vast a one to be
treated of here. Dr. Young's re-
ports are very valuable, but take,
perhaps, the American view of the
question too much for granted.*

\VAGES OF MECHANICS AND SKILLED
ARTISANS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

This branch of his subject is co-
piously treated by Dr. Young in
connection with his tour through
the chief manufacturing cities of
the United Kingdom in 1872. From
the numerous tables presented we
select one under the head of " Skill-
ed trades in London, weekly wages
in 1871 ' (page 242) as being the
most comprehensive.

The average daily wages of per-
sons employed in the same trades
in the United States in 1874 was
from 2 25 for shoemakers to $3 33
for bricklayers or masons (pp. 745
-747) ; or, in other words, from 50
per cent, to 100 per cent, more
than in England.

* $r a day for laborers was offered by public ad-
vertisement in February of this year, by the super-
intendent of the Centennial grounds, and men were
glad to take it. How strange the spectacle in free
America how fruitless and disheartening the
struggle it portends when legislation is invoked at
Albany, in the great State of New York, to keep up
a fictitious price of labor !

Statement showing the established rates of
wages obtained by members of the various
trades societies of tJie metropolis, in sum-
mer and winter, compiled under (he super-
vision of A J sager Hay Hill, LL.B.

TRADES.

X CO

W
d. W

SO"

RATE OI-

WAGES*

* 1

Suni'r

Winter

Bakers, .

$3 87

$5o8

Basket-makers,

3 63

4 84

Boat-builders,

8 47

7 26

Bookbinders,

702

7 26

7 26'

Brass-cock finishers,

8 47

Brass-finishers,

8 47

Bricklayers, .

'2,386

16*

1 6*

Brush-makers,

400

(t)

Cabinet-makers, .

500

7 26

Cabinet-makers, deal,

7 99

Carpenters, .

4,74

9 *4

Carvers and gilders,

4 84

Coach-builders, .

9 68

9 63

Coach-makers,

320

9 63

9 68

Coach-smiths,

200

4 84

12 58

Coach - trimmers and

makers,

6 05

Compositors,

3^55

4 84

8 47

Cork-cutters,

IOO

7 26

Cordwainers,

? 678

(*)

tt)

Curriers, . .

1,900

8 47

Engineers, . .

33,539

j 16*
{ 18*

16*
16*

Farriers,

220

9 68

12 IO

French polishers-, .

7 26

Hajnmermen, .

5 81

5 Si

Iron - founders and

moulders, .

7O7 2

9 20

Letterpress printers,

7 26

Painters, house, .

14*

Pianoforte makers,

400

16*

10*

Plasterers,

I 4 *

14*

Plumbers,

18*

Pressmen, printers,

7 26

Skinners,

225

7 26

Steam-engine makers, .

IOO

j 16*
1 18*

16*
18*

Stone-matons,

17^93

9 J 4

7 82

* Per hour. t Piece-work.

Uncertain.

PURCHASING POWER OF WAGES.

But we cannot stop at the mere fig-
ures in dollars and cents. In this
connection we must consider what
those wages will buy in ea'ch coun-
try what is their purchasing pow-
er :

" If a workman in Birmingham " says
Dr. Young, " receive for fifty-four hours'
labor 305., or about $3 33 in United States
currency, and another, of the same occupa-
tion, in Philadelphia earn $12 50, it would
be inaccurate to say that the earnings of
the latter were 50 per cent, more than
those of the former. The question is not
what is the United States equivalent of
the thirty British shillings, but what is
the purchasing power of the wages of the

Labor in Europe and America.

one workman in England and of the
other in the United States? In other
words, how much food, clothing, and
shelter will the earnings of the one pur-
chase as compared with the other?"

For the solution of this question
Dr. Young enters into an elaborate
analysis of the price of provisions,
clothing, house-rent, etc., in each
country. In this we are unable to
follow him. But taking the amount
paid for board by single men and
women employed in mechanical
labor in the great cities of both
countries, the average price paid
by men in Great Britain ranges
from $2 50 to $3 50 per week ; in
the United States, from $4 50 to
$5 5- For women, in manufac-
turing cities in England, from $i 50
to $2 50 per week; in the United
States, from $2 50 to 3 50. In
the great American manufacturing
centre, Philadelphia, the average
price of mechanics' board is, for
men, $5 per week ; for women,
3. But this does not mean a single
room for each ; in most cases two,
in some three, four, and even five,
sleep in the same chamber. Bri-
tish workmen probably eat as much
meat as American workmen, but
they have not the same variety
of dishes. House-rent is cheaper
in most English cities even than in
Philadelphia, where great and com-
mendable efforts have always been
made to provide good and cheap
houses for working-men. Clothing
Dr. Young estimates at less than half
the price in England for the labor-
ing classes compared with the
United States ; partly from cheaper
rates, and partly from the inferior
kind British workmen consent to
wear fustian or corduroy being
the most common material.

We would wish to follow Dr.
Young, if it were possible, into a
comparison of the rates of wages

and cost of living in the great iron
and steel works on the Tyne, at
Essen, Prussia, and in Philadelphia,
but our space is already exceeded.
The highest wages earned at the
works of Fried. Krupp, Essen,
which Dr. Young personally visited
in 1872, were $i 80 for n hours'
piece-work. At the same establish-
ment dinner (meat and vegetables
and coffee) and lodging are sup-
plied to unmarried men at $i 18 per
week. Bread is an extra charge.
Large bakeries are attached to the
works.

In the comparison of the general
rates of wages and cost of living
in Great Britain and the United
States, so many and so great diver-
sities exist in both countries that it
is a hazardous matter to draw gen-
eral conclusions. Stated broadly, it
would appear that the rate of wages
in Great Britain since 1865 has
shown a steady tendency to ad-
vance, with some fluctuations, while
the cost of living is nearly station-
ary; in the United States, within
the same period of ten years, wages
have remained stationary or shown
a tendency to decline, allowing for
the fluctuations caused by a depre-
ciated currency, while the cost of
living has increased. The com-
mercial depression existing since
1873 has affected labor in both
countries, but more sensibly in the
United States. The great falling
off in immigration since 1873 is a
remarkable and sensitive test of the
depreciation of the labor market in
the United States and the simulta-
neous rise of wages in Europe.
From the recent report of the New
York Emigration Commissioners it
appears that there were landed at
Castle Garden during 1875 84,560
immigrants, against 140,041 for 1874
and 294,581 for 1873. The falling
off has been equally divided among

Labor in Europe and A merica. 69

all nationalities. Nor does this tell necessary, not speculative, work to
the whole story ; for the steamship be done before it can be establish-
companies show a very large return eel on a sound basis. Fresh enter-
of laborers to Europe during the prises, promoting renewed inflation
past year. It is not intended to and over-production, will lead to
convey the impression by these fig- another collapse. In the effort to
u res that European emigration has recuperate, and before a new start
finally stayed its course towards can be made on a safe road of pros-
these shores, but it is evident that perity (which it is not doubted will
it has received a serious temporary be opened again), those who are al-
check. It is not the purpose of ready poor will suffer the most, as
this paper to investigate what the always has been and will be the case,
remedy for this state of things may The American working classes will
be. But it may be stated as the have eventually to abandon most
conviction of the writer that a mere of those habits of personal expense
return to specie payments, though which now .seem to them a matter
beneficial, will not do all for the of course, but which European
country that its advocates claim, working-men would regard as ex-
Something more will be required travagant, and to approach nearer
that is, economy, curtailment of ex- to the old-country standard of liv-
penses, national and individual be- ing.

fore we can reach bottom. Like We are not able to follow Dr.

youth sometimes, we have tempo- Young in his researches into the

rarily outgrown our strength. We rate of wages and cost of subsistence

have no vast deposits of wealth, in the various countries of continen-

the hoardings of centuries, to fall tal Europe which he visited. None

back upon like some European of them approach so near the

countries. We have always lived American standard as Great Britain,

right up to our income, and have In most of them labor is poorly

not yet adjusted ourselves to our paid and the working classes live

sudden plunge into national debt, meanly according to our notions, yet

Hope has all along buoyed us up contrive, withal, to enjoy a degree of

to over-production and consequent comfort, and even happiness, which

over-expenditure. The supply of to us seems hard to understand

labor must equalize itself to the under the circumstances. *

Sir Thomas More.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

VI.

THERE was a castle in Yorkshire
whose tall, majestic towers com-
manded a view of the country for
miles around, rising far above the
sombre depths of the ancient forest-
trees that covered the hills on which
the castle was seated.

A silence like the grave reigned
within and around this princely
habitation. Merry young pages no
longer bounded over balustrades
and the walks winding from the
drawbridge. The Gothic arches no
more re-echoed with the noisy cla-
mor of the hounds nor the loud
cheering of the young hunters.
Rank weeds covered the lofty ram-
parts and clusters of wild flowers
swung between their solitary bat-
tlements, as though nature had
struggled to conceal the eternal
mourning which they seemed for
ever condemned to wear.

A traveller approached the castle
and examined with great attention
the arches bearing the arms of the
earls of Northumberland. He held
by the bridle a beautiful horse, cov-
ered with sweat and dust, whose
drooping head and trembling limbs
attested his extreme fatigue.

' This is certainly the place !" he
exclaimed, still looking around him.
" I recognize the crouching lion of
Northumberland!" He knocked
loudly and waited a long time.

At length the door opened and
an old man appeared before him.

"What do you want?" he de-
manded brusquely of the traveller
" If you ask hospitality, you will not
be refused ; but if you ask to see
my master, the Earl of Northumber-
land, you cannot see him."

" It is he whom I wish to see," re-
plied the stranger.

The old domestic contracted his
white eyebrows. " That cannot be.
Since the death of his father he sees
nobody."

" The old Count of Northumber-
land dead!" replied Sir Walsh (for
it was he).

" Alas ! yes, for an entire year.
We buried him at Alnwick," an-
swered the old servant, wiping away
a tear.

" Go to your master," replied Sir
Walsh, " and tell him that some one
asks to see him on the part of the
king. I will wait for you here."

"On the part of the king!" re-
plied the old servant. " On the part
of the king ! That will make a dif-
ference, I think, and I do not want
you to stay here. Follow me."

After fastening the horse to one
of the iron rings which were fixed
in the wall of the inner court, he
led Sir Walsh into the castle. They
crossed long courts, then entered
magnificent galleries, where they
saw arranged, between the Gothic
arches which separated the vast and
deeply-embrasured windows, the
richest armorial trophies of all ages

Sir Thomas More.

Lances, longbows, and javelins fill- prospect that met his gaze, and his

ed up the interstices. Shields and conductor made a sign to him to

bucklers, borne in battle by the remain there until he had inform-

ancestors of the noble earl, were eat- ed his master of his arrival,

ing away with rust, and the festoons The old domestic, noiselessly en-

of spider-webs which hung from the tered Lord Percy's chamber, and

huge antlers of stag and deer bore paused near the door in order to

witness to the neglect and indiffer- observe him ; then an expression of

ence of the master of the castle. profound sadness stole over his fea-

Sir Walsh, as he passed along, tures and he advanced still more

regarded all these things with an slowly.

admiration mingled with astonish- Seated in the embrasure of a large

ment. He could not understand the window, and always dressed in the

state of abandonment in which he deepest mourning, Lord Percy

found a habitation that he had scarcely ever left his room. Sur-

always heard described as being rounded by a great number of

one of the most magnificent in all books and papers, he appeared to

England. The delicately-sculptur- be absorbed in reading, and the mes-

ed wainscoting, the costly paintings, senger was quite near before he

the rich gilding of the rafters and was aware of his presence,

ceilings, were renowned among "My lord!" he said in a very,

artists and considered as models low and gentle voice, ' there is a

which they labored to imitate. stranger here who wishes to speak

"How singular all this is!" he to you."

said to himself. " How can Lord " You know very well that I re-
Percy, whom I have known at court, ceive nobody, Henry," said the
so brilliant and accomplished, con- Earl of Northumberland without
tent himself in a place like this, mag- turning his head. " Have you ask-
nificent without doubt, but aban- ed him his business ?"
doned, desolate, especially since " Most assuredly," replied Henry
the death of his father? And- why with a lofty and important air. 'I
has he not returned to court, where know it, too. He comes here on
his tastes and habits naturally .call the part of the king of the king
him ?" himself," he repeated.

While absorbed in these renec- " On the part of the king !" cried

tions Sir Walsh, preceded by his Northumberland, turning pale. "Of

aged conductor, entered a large oc- the king ! What does he want with

tagonal saloon, gilded all over and me ? Have I not done enough for

pierced with crosslets on every side, him ? Is he not satisfied with hav-

through which poured floods of ing destroyed all my hopes, all my

brilliantly-colored light, reflected happiness, all my future ? Of what

from the stained glass with which consequence to him now is my ex-

they were ornamented. istence ?"

The view extended very far, and And, overwhelmed with the weight

a large river, like a broad belt of of his afflictions, he folded his arms

silver, wound through the beauti- on his breast and forgot to give his

ful fields, interspersed with clumps servant an answer,

of trees that increased still more the "My dear son," murmured the

beauty of the landscape. old man softly, after a moment of

Walsh paused, enraptured with the silent attention, " are you going now

Sir TJioinas More.

to torment yourself again, and may
b,e, after all, without any cause ?"
For he dreaded beyond expres-
sion anything that might arouse or
excite what he termed his master's
" manias."

" No, my old foster-father, do not
be alarmed !" replied Northumber-
land, who knew very well what was
passing in his mind. " Go, and
bring in this stranger."

He then arose, in a state of agi-
tation he was unable to control.

Henry soon returned, bringing Sir
Walsh. ;

On entering, the latter was pre-
pared to give Northumberland a
joyful surprise and fold him in his
arms ; but on being suddenly usher-
ed into his presence he recoiled in
astonishment. Could this be the
gay and brilliant young man he had
known, always cheerful, always af-
fable, whose handsome face and
charming manner attracted all
around him ? Dressed in the deep-
est mourning, which by contrast in-
creased the pallor of his face, his
expression anxious and haggard, a
painful constraint was observable in
all his movements.

' You do not recognize me, Lord
Percy," said Sir Walsh at last.
' There was a time when you call-
ed me your friend, and I was proud
to bear the title !"

" Oh ! no, my dear Walsh," re-
plied Northumberland, " I could
'not have forgotten you. Rather
say you no longer recognize me ;
for time has passed like a dream.
Since you saw me last I have been
transformed into another person.
But tell me, why does the name of
him who sends you come to invade
my solitude ? What have I done to
him to bring him here again to dis-
turb my ashes ? For am I not al-
ready dead ? Does this castle not
strike you as being strangely like a

tomb, to which no one any more
finds entrance ?"

"But I think," said Sir Walsh,
astonished at this outburst and
forcing a smile,, " that some youn;;
girl, descended from her palace of
clouds to the midst of your abode,
draws around her crowds of your
astonished vassals. They admire
her snowy robes and crown of
stars."

"No," replied Northumberland
gloomily ; " no, never ! No female
inhabits this place. She who ought
to have ruled here will never come,
and she who did rule would not re-
main !"

" What do you mean by that rid-
dle ?" inquired Walsh. " What ! is
the Countess of Northumberland no
longer here ?"

" No, she is no longer here," re-
plied Lord Percy. And he passed
his hand over his eyes, unable to
conceal the emotion all these ques-
tions excited; for, in 'spite of him-
self, the sight of an old friend had
agitated him to the depths of his
soul. Man was not made for soli-
tude ; he is a social being ; he has
need *of his fellow-men to love
them, or even to complain of and
to them ; and for many long, weary
months no human being had knock-
ed at his door or come to offer a
word of consolation.

Wa'lsh regarded him with increas-
ing solicitude ; at length, unable to
restrain his feelings, he threw his
arms around his neck.

" My dear Percv," he exclaimed,
" what has happened to you ? You
seem overwhelmed with sorrow. I
felt so happy in anticipation of sur-
prising you by this visit, and again
seeing you at the head of all the
young nobles of the north, loved
as you were among us, the life of
the chase and of all those sports in
which you excelled ! Alas ! my

Sir TJioinas More.

friend, what misfortune has befall-
en you ? Tell me ; for I* swear I
will never more leave you."

" What misfortune has befallen
me, do you ask, my dear old
friend?" replied Northumberland,
deeply moved. " Yes, you are ig-
norant of alk And what does it
matter ? It was irreparable. But
tell me the cause that brought you
to me. Why has the king sent you
hither?"

" For nothing that need give you
the least uneasiness," replied Walsh
-" a commission readily executed,
and in which you must assist me.
We will return to this later. Tell
me first of yourself of yourself
alone, my friend and of your fa-
ther."

" My father ? He died in my arms
more than a year ago without suf-
fering. I have done what he wish-
ed," continued Northumberland,
his eyes filling with tears. " I have
nothing with which to reproach
myself on that account. I have
obeyed him. Yes," he added, fix-
ing his eyes on the floor, " that is
the only thought that ever comes to
console me."

'I do not understand you!" re-
plied Walsh. " Speak more ex-
plicitly; explain what you mean."

" Well, know, then, "replied North-
umberland in an altered voice,
and making a violent effort to con-
trol himself " know that for a long
time I loved Anne Boleyn yes,
Anne Boleyn ! We were betrothed.
The day, the hour, for our marriage
were fixed, when the king tore her
from me for ever ! In his jealous
hatred he commanded Cardinal
Wolsey, to whose household I be-
longed, to summon me before him,
and forbid me in his name dream-
ing, for an instant, of marrying her ;
but on my refusing to obey he ap-
pealed to my father, who ordered

me to marry immediately a daugh-
ter of the Earl of Shrewsburv, under

penalty of visiting upon me all tiic
weight of his indignation if 1 hesi-
tated for one moment, in \viii i
tried to resist; my father was tu-
rious and threatened me with his
curse. I at length submitted, and
you have all assisted at the festivi-
ties of my marriage, and, seeing my
new bride, have pierced my heart
with your congratulations and as-
surances of my future happiness. I
tlien left the court. I brought her
here ; and that young wife, justly
wounded by my melancholy, absurc
and ridiculous in her eyes, wearied
of the retired life I compelled her
to lead, left me very soon after my
father's death and returned to her
family. And shall I acknowledge
it? sensible of the wrong I have
done her, I am quite reconciled to
being forgotten and finding myself
abandoned and alone. I have dis-
missed successively all my pages and
valets, retaining only the oldest ser-
vants belonging to my house. Hen-
ry, my old foster-father, takes entire
charge and. control of everything.
Misfortune and sorrow have made
me prematurely old ; I need the com-
panionship of the aged, and not of
youth. I love to hear around me the
slow and faltering step of a man ready
to sink into the grave ; he seems
to hasten the hour for me. His
soul, cold and subdued, soothes and
refrpc-hss mine. He never laughs ;
never comes to tell me of a thou-
sand chimerical projects, a thousand
vain hopes, recalling those in which
I have indulged in days past. His
presence alone would be sufficient
to expel them! And yet, notwith-
standing all this, the sorrow that
slumbers in my soul is often sud-
denly aroused, more wild and in-
supportable than ever. Weaned by
long vigils and sleepless nights, I

Sir Thomas More.

sometimes imagine I see Queen
Catherine enter my chamber ; the
reflection of her gold-embroidered
robes sheds a dazzling light around
her. Her ladies follow. I hear
the rustling of their heavy trains ; I
hear them laugh and converse to-
gether about the tournament of the
day before. Then all becomes
dark ! Anne Boleyn turns her eyes
away from me ; she is envious of
the queen ; pride, ambition, stifle in
her heart every sentiment of affec-
tion. Then my agony is renewed.
I weep, I sigh, and the shadows
vanish into nothingness.

" What happiness can any one
expect to find in the honors of a
usurped rank ? Ah ! my friend, I
have seen, and felt, and suffered
everything. Our faults are the sole
cause of all our afflictions. There-
fore, far from feeling incensed at
the injustice of men, I no more re-
cognize an enemy among them. My
heart goes out with deepest pity
toward the suffering ones of earth,
and I would gladly be able to con-
sole them all."

Saying this, Northumberland
paused, overcome by emotion.

"Ah!" at length replied Walsh,
who had listened with rapt atten-
tion, " how limited are our judg-
ments ! Had I been asked the
name of the happiest mortal living,
I should have given yours without a
moment's hesitation."

" I know it, and have been told
it a hundred times," replied North-
umberland earnestly. " Many men
have had their marriage relations
dissolved, their fortunes changed,
and have still borne up courage-
ously under their misfortunes ; but
with me it cannot be thus. If Anne
Boleyn had married another lord of
the court well, I might have been
reconciled. I should at least have
been spared the outrage of her dis-

honor ; for her dishonor is mine !
had so taken her heart into my own,
united rny life so entirely with hers,
in order not to suffer the slightest
stain to touch it, that there is no
torture equal to that which I now
endure. Every moment I feel, 1
suffer ; I hear the whisperings of
this infamous and widespread re-
port which her foolish vanity alone
prevents her from discovering
around her."

"Dear Percy," replied Walsh,
" you cannot imagine how much you
exaggerate all this ! The solitude
in which you live has excited you
to such a degree that you almost
imagine she bears the name ot
Countess of Northumberland."

"Yes!" he exclaimed excitedly,
" she bears it in my heart ; and
there, at least, no one can dispute
her right ! "

"And poor Lady Shrewsbury?"
replied Walsh.

"Lady Shrewsbury," cried North-
umberland, " is the victim, like my-
self, of compulsion ! Never have
I regarded her as my wife. If the
king had demanded my head, I
should not have been bound to
obey ; but a father's curse is a
weight that cannot be supported !
My obstinacy would have brought
upon his tottering old age the bit-
terness of poverty and want. No,
no ; that is my only excuse, and Lady
Shrewsbury herself would have for-
given me had she known my sorrow."

" My dear Percy," interrupted
Walsh anxiously, " I am deeply
grieved to find you in this condition ;
your heart misleads you, and I per-
ceive the commission with which I
am charged will be anything but
agreeable. However, what can I
do ? Here," he added, unfolding a
letter and a roll of written parch-
ment, from which hung the king's
seals, " take and read."

Sir Tliomas More.

He preferred giving him the order true beyond doubt, but neither you
to read rather than have the un- nor I can do anything ; it only re-
pleasant task of verbally announcing mains for us to try and accomplish
what he now foresaw would cause this disagreeable commission with
him such extreme grief. Northum- as little noise as possible."
berland had no sooner glanced over " Ah !" replied Northumberland,
it than the parchment fell from his '* why has he imposed such a corn-
hands, mission on me ? See if even the

"Who? I?" he cried. "I go to slightest pleasure of my life is not
arrest the archbishop at the very instantly extinguished. I was re-
moment when all the nobility of joicing at seeing you, and mime-
these parts are assembled to assist diately I am made to pay for it."
at the ceremony of his installation ! He continued for a lon^ time

I, formerly of 'his household, who talking in this manner, when, Walsh
have spent all the happiest years of having expressed a 'desire to go
my youth with him charge ;/&r\vith through the castle, Northumberland
such a commission ? The king wish- consented. They found every-
es, then, to have me regarded with thing in a state of extreme disor-
horror and detestation by all the der. In many places no care was
inhabitants of this country ! Know, taken even to open the house to
my friend," continued Percy, fixing admit the light of day. A,s old
his flashing eyes upon Walsh, " that Henry successively opened to them
since Wolsey came here he has each new hall of the immense cas-
made himself universally loved and tie, the dust, collected in heaps
cherished. He is no longer the like piles of down, arose and flew
vain, imperious man whom you away to collect again further on in
knew ; adversity has entirely chang- the apartment upon some more val-
ed him. He occupies himself only uable piece of furniture,
in doing good, reconciling family Walsh could not avoid express 7
differences, and relieving the dis- ing to the earl his surprise at see-
tressed. And this gorgeous entry, ing him so neglect the magnificent
which causes the king so much un- abode of his ancestors. " It is
easiness, he was to have made on wrong," replied Percy, "but I prize
foot with the utmost possible sim- nothing any more. Of what con-
plicity. sequence is it to me whether the

' For a long time Wolsey hesi- roof that shelters me is handsome

tated, entirely for fear of seeing his or plain ? When our hearts are

enemies array themselves against crushed by sorrow, we become ob-

him ; but his clergy seemed so Hvious to all outward surround-

wounded at conduct contrary to the ings."
usage of all his predecessors that he
at length consented. But see how

they deceive the king, and endea- When night came on, his host re-

vor to excite him against those who tired and left him to that repose

least of all merit his displeasure!" of which, after the fatigue of his

" What shall I say to you, my journey, he stood so much in need,

dear Northumberland?" replied Northumberland ordered old Henry

Walsh. " When the king issues an to retire and leave him alone as

order, how can its execution be usual; but Henry had decided

avoided? All that you say is otherwise, ond continued for a

76 Sir Thomas More.

long time to come and go and empty ; their names- alone remain
pass the chamber slowly under va- inscribed upon them. Why have
rious pretexts, as his solicitude on not I the courage, then, to endure
account of his master was more this time of trial they call 'life,'
and more increased on remarking which I have wished to consider the
that his habitual sadness had been end, but which is only a road lead-
redoubled since the advent of his ing to the end a road perilous,
visitor. rough, and wearing ? The shortest

" Accursed stranger !" he said to is the one I consider the best ; and

himself, " bird of ill-omen, what he who travels over it most rapidly,

has brought him here ? That fam- has he not found true happiness ?

ished maw of his would have been ' Have you not sometimes seen,

very well able to carry him far from in the midst of a violent storm, a

the moats of our castle ! It is the poor bird wildly struggling with

king who sends him here ; but is winds and waves ? You behold it

not our son king of these parts ?" for a moment in the whirlpool, and

And' thus muttering to himself, old suddenly it disappears. Just so I

Henry walked on. Not being able have passed through the midst of

to determine on leaving his master, the world ; I had hoped to shine

he stopped and peered through the there, because I was dazzled with it.

door in order to observe Lord To-day it becomes necessary to for-

Percy. The latter sat leaning on get it. O my soul ! I wish thec,

the table before him, his eyes I command thee, to forget."

closed, his head resting on his At this moment a slight noise

hands, and seemingly oblivious to was heard. Northumberland start-

everything around him. ed.

"There he sits still, to take- a " What do- you want, Henry ?" he

cold with this trouble !" continued asked, seeing the old man standing

Henry. " However, I must go and like a shadow at the end of the

leave him." And the old domestic, apartment.

still turning his palsied head to "Nothing!" he replied impa-

look back, passed slowly under the tiently.

heavy tapestry screen, that fell rust- "But truly," said Lord Percy,

ling behind him. " why have you returned ?"

" He is gone," said Northumber- " To see if you were asleep,"

land to himself- ' gone, perhaps, for brusquely answered the old servant,

ever ; for who knows how long approaching him. " It was scarcely

Henry has yet to live ? What hap- worth the trouble," he continued,

piness to think we must die ! When elevating his voice, " of harboring

weary with suffering, the soul re- so carefully this new-comer, if he

poses with a bitter joy upon the must pay his reckoning in this

brink of that tomb which alone can way."

deliver her from her woes! How "Ah!" replied Northumberland,

the certainty of seeing them end regarding his old foster-father with

sweetens the sorrows we endure ! a suppliant expression. " Tell me,

Here where I stand" (he arose to Henry, have you never known

his feet), " beside this hearth, each what it was to grieve for one whom

one of my sires has taken his place, you loved ?"

and each has successively passed " Ay, in sooth," replied Henry,

away. Their armor hangs here " unfortunately I have known it ;

Sir Tliomas More. yj

but we are not able to live, like you, for having spoken of the fetes the
in idleness, and have hardly time to Countess of Northumberland had
be unhappy. When I lost my poor given in the castle; he imagined it
Alice, your foster-mother, what an- was the recollection of his mother
guish did I not feel in the depths that had so affected Lord Percy.
of my soul ! Well, if I had stopped The archbishop ! the arch-
to think of her, I should have heard bishop !" repeated Northumberland,
immediately my name resounding ''Oh! let me banish the name, in
through all the turrets of the castle : mercy for a few hours, at least!
' Henry ! my lord my lord goes He said, I believe, that they gave
hunting; hurry! make haste I my balls here ! What did he say ? Yes,
lord gives a ball this evening to all that must be it : my mother loved
the ladies of the country.' And them. Yes," he continued, looking
away I had to go, to come, to run ; round at the large and magnificent
otherwise my lord your father panels of his chamber, " here they
would fly into a passion. How hung garlands and baskets of
would you find time to weep if flowers ; a thousand lamps reflect-
somebody was always calling after ed their brilliant colors ; delicious
you ? Besides, I poor Henry if music floated on the perfumed air ;
they had seen me sitting, like you, crowds of people of every age, sex,
all the day in silence, with tears in and rank eagerly gathered here,
my eyes and my arms folded, they Time has very soon reduced them
would have laughed at me, and to an equality; the sound of their
the pages would have called me a footsteps is heard no more ; their
fool." voices are mute ; they have all

That is true ; you are right," passed away. I alone still exist."

replied Northumberland in an ab- The entire night was spent in

stracted manner. ; You say, then these reflections, and when day be-

they gave balls here ?" gan to dawn the heavy tramp of

"And superb ones, too !" replied horses was heard in the courtyard,

Henry, who liked, above all things, and soon, in the cold fog of morn-

to talk about the old times. " In ing, there issued from the castle gate

those days you were not here; they a troop of armed men wearing long

educated you with Monseigneur cloth cloaks and caps. It was the

the Cardinal, our good archbishop earl's retainers, whom he had as-

at present." sembled during the night from all

On hearing these words North- the surrounding country. He rode
umberland became violently agitat- in the midst of them in profound si-
ed, and his old servant, perceiving lence ; even Sir Walsh, reading in
his countenance change and his his countenance the melancholy de-
features contract, stopped sudden- jection under which he labored,
ly in great alarm. had simply pressed his hand without

' You are ill, my lord ?" he ex- daring to address him a word.

Claimed. As to the followers of Northum-

No, no," replied Northumber- berland, they were astonished at

land; ''becalm. Leave me, Henry ; this sudden departure; they were

1 want to be alone. Go to your completely ignorant of whither their

bed- I command you." master was carrying them, having

Henry, forced to leave his mas- learned nothing from old Henry

ter, as he went reproached himself himself, to whom Lord Percy had

Vago Angellctto die Cant anas Vai.

deemed it inexpedient to reveal the
destination, and still less the object,
of this expedition. The old man
felt singularly anxious on the sub-
ject, as he was every day becoming
more and more accustomed to re-
gard himself as the guardian and
adviser of him whom he called his
son. Therefore, after having closed
the gate of the castle upon the tra-

vellers, he went sadly and took his
station on the highest tower, to see
in what direction his master was
going.

A few moments only he followed
them with his eyes ; for, the valley
once crossed, their route conducted
them into the depths of the forest,
and the cavalcade was soon lost to
view.

TO BE CONTINUED.

VAGO ANGELLETTQ CHE CANTANAS VAI.

FROM PETRARCH.

SWEET bird, that, singing under altered skies,
Art mourning for thy season of delight
For lo ! the cheerful months forsake thee quite,
And all thy sunshine into shadow dies
O thou who art acquainted with unrest !

Could thy poor wit my kindred mood divine,
How wouldst thou fold thy wings upon, my breast,
And blend thy melancholy plaint with mine !
I know not if with thine my songs would rhyme ,
For haply she thou mournest is not dead :
Less kind are death and heaven unto me ;

But the chill twilight, and the sullen time,
And thinking of the sweet years and the sad,
Move me, wild warbler, to discourse with thee.

Italian Commerce in t/ic Middle Ages.

ITALIAN COMMERCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

" Your mind is tossing on the ocean ;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
Thatcurfsy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings."

Merchant of Venice, act i. sc. i.

THUCYDIDES, in the introduction
to his history, remarks that one of
the principal causes that raised
some of the Greek cities to such a
high degree of prosperity and pow-
er was their engagement in mercan-
tile pursuits. All the great peoples
of antiquity by whom the shores of
the Mediterranean were occupied
Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Etrus-
cans, lonians of Asia Minor rose to
wealth and importance by the same
means. The Romans alone despis-
ed it.

After the subversion of the Wes-
tern Empire and the last inroads of
the barbarians, the natives of Italy
were the first to emerge from the
ruins of the ancient world. Except
religion, they found no worthier or
more potent element of civilization
than commerce, which procures, to
use the words of a celebrated writer,
what is of far greater value than
mere money " the reciprocation
of the peculiar advantages of dif-
ferent countries "; and throughout
the middle ages, until the passage
to India by the Cape of Good Hope
and the discovery of America, Italy
was the most forward nation in
Christendom for wealth, refinement
of manners, and intellectual culture.

Italian commerce reached its
greatest development between the
thirteenth and fifteenth centuries
that is, between the .ages when Mar-
co Polo travelled to Tartary, China,
and the Indies and Christopher

Columbus discovered America. In
these two men, representatives of
Venice and Genoa, are embodied
the geniuses of trade and naviga-
tion; and as though Florence, seat-
ed between the rival cities and en-
gaged rather in reaping the fruits
than in sowing the seeds of enter-
prise, were destined to unite in
herself the glory of both Italian
shares, one of her citizens Ameri-
cus Vespucius gives his name to
the New World. This commerce
began slowly but progressed rapid-
ly, and attained its noblest propor-
tions during the fourteenth century,
when for a hundred years it spread
over every sea and land then known
in the eager search after riches,
bringing back to its votaries what-
ever luxury Europe, Asia, and Africa
produced or man's invention had
evolved out of the necessities of his
nature. Next, it gradually fell away
and almost disappeared in the six-
teenth century, leaving behind it
only the cold consolation that there
was no reason why it alone should
be excepted from the common doom
of human affairs, which, when they
have enjoyed a certain measure of
success, must surely decline and
fall.

When the Goths, Longobards,
and Carlovingians had conquered
Italy, although most of the arts and
sciences were lost or hidden in
cloisters, neither trade nor commerce
was quite neglected ; but, despite the

Italian Commerce in tJic Middle Ages.

dangers from pirates, the ignorance
of the sea, and the exactions of the
lawless on land, the Adriatic and
Mediterranean were timidly at-
tempted by the inhabitants of the
coast, while in the interior of the
country an interchange of commo-
dities was carried on between neigh-
boring districts at places set apart
for the purpose. These places were
generally the large square or princi-
pal street of a town, or under the
Avails of a monastery, and the inter-
change took place on certain days
appointed by public authority.

The assemblies of the people were
usually held on the Saturday, and
were at first called markets ; but af-
terwards the rarer and more impor-
tant ones, w r hich were held annually
and for several consecutive days,
were termed fairs, from the Latin
vfordferia, because they always took
place on the feast of some saint.
Many rights and privileges were
granted at an early period to the
merchants who exhibited wares at
these yearly gatherings ; for without
such inducements few cared to un-
take a journey with a part, or per-
haps the whole, of their earthly sub-
stance about them, along roads and
across ferries beset by robber-no-
bles, who levied toll from passers-by
and sometimes seized goods and
persons for their own use.

The Venetians began earlier to
sail on distant seas, and maintained
themselves longer on the water,
than did the natives of any other
parts of Italy. Cassiodorus repre-
sents them in the sixth century as
occupied solely in salt-works, from
which they derived their only profit ;
but in course of time they issued
from their lagoons to become the
most industrious and venturesome
traffickers in the world. At the be-
ginning of the ninth century they
had already introduced into Italy

some of the delicacies of the East,
but drew odium on themselves for
conniving with pirates and men-
stealers to capture people and sell
them mto slavery in distant quarters
of Europe and Asia. On the oppo-
site shore of Italy the inhabitants
of Amalfi showed themselves the
most successful navigators during
the early middle ages, trading with
Sicily and Tarentum, and even with
Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople.
Their city is described by the poet-
historian William of Apulia, in the
eleventh century, as the great mart
for Eastern goods, and the enter-
prise of its sailors as extending to
all the ports of the Mediterranean.
Flavio Gioja, a citizen of Amalfi, if
he did not invent the mariner's
compass, as is somewhere asserted,
certainly improved it about the year
1302, either by its mode of suspen-
sion or by the attachment of the
card to the needle itself. This dis-
covery gave such an impulse to
navigation that what had been for
ages hardly more than a skilful art
became at. once a science, and ves-
sels no longer crept along the shore
or slipped from island to island, but
attempted " the vasty deep ' and
crossed over the ocean to the New
World.

Another rich emporium at an
early period, on the same side of
Italy, was Pisa. The. city was four
or five miles from the sea, but had
a port formed by a natural bay to
the southward of the old mouth of
the Arno at a place called Calam-
brone. The Pisans at first traded
principally with Sicily and Africa.
They fitted out expeditions against
the Saracens,* seized several islands

* The Cathedral of Pisa, one of the most remark-
able monuments of the middle ages, owes its origin
to such an expedition ; for it was built with part of
the rich booty taken from the Saracens at Palermo
in the year 1063.

Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages. 8 1

in the Mediterranean, and with both The Genoese had at first been the
land-troops and seamen took an im- allies of the Pisans, and united with
portant part in the first Crusade, them to drive the Saracens out of
being careful, before returning from several important islands. They
the East, to establish factories at also ravaged the coast of Northern
Antioch and Constantinople. They Africa in the eleventh century, and,
also sent fleets to humble the Mo- taking part in the first Crusade,
hammedan cities of Northern Africa, obtained settlements on the shore-
Through commercial jealousy and of Palestine, particularly at Acre,
political reasons they became in- Owing to their secure position at
volved in bitter wars with the Gen- home and their foothold in the East
oese for the possession of Corsica, and the islands of the West, their city
and with the Amalntans, who had became one of the two great mari-
sided against the emperor. The time powers of Italy and the only
Pisans, as auxiliaries of the Emperor noteworthy rival of Venice. The
Lothaire, sent a strong squadron to power of the Genoese and Vene-
Amalfi, which was. held by the Nor- tians was immensely increased by
mans, and, after a rigorous blockade, the Crusades, and at one time so
took it by storm in 1137. It was feared were they in the Levant
on this occasion that a copy of the that .they were able to draw pen-
long-lost Pandects of Justinian was sions and exact tribute from the
found, which is said to be the origi- pusillanimous emperor at Constan-
nul from which all subsequent copies tinople. The Venetians were espe-
in Italy were made, thus reviving dally favored t by Alexius Comne-
the study of Roman law. It was mis, through whom they acquired
taken from its captors by the Flo- convenient establishments along the
rentines in 1411, and is now pre- Bosphorus and at Durazzo in Alba-
served in the Laurentian Library at nia. Their doge was honored with
Florence. The monk Donizo, in his the pompous title of Protosebaste.
metrical life of the Countess Matil- In the meanwhile intestine disturb-
da, being annoyed that the mother ances and wars with neighboring
of the countess should have been republics had reduced several of
buried in Pisa, describes the city those cities which had lately been
somewhat contemptuously as a most flourishing, and none could
flourishing emporium whose port compete successfully in the four-
was filled with large ships and fre- teenth century with Venice and Ge~
quented by many different races of noa, to which the foreign trade of
people, even by swarthy Moors. Italy was left, and to whose marts
To the north of Pisa rose her the produce of the Levant and the
haughty rival, Genoa, surnamed the countries bordering on the lower
Superb from her pride and magnifi- Mediterranean was brought, and
cent natural position. After four either there or at the great cities of
sanguinary wars with the Pisans, the the interior exchanged for domestic
Genoese swept their fleets from the manufactures and the industries of
*ea, destroyed their port, and ruined Central and Northern Europe. The
their foreign commerce. The city carrying trade was almost exclusive-
never recovered from that blow, and ly their own, but the home or in-
line population, which once exceed- land business was shared by many
t'd 100,000, has fallen to a fifth of other cities principally by Bologna,
that number. Ferrara, Florence, Lucca, and Mi--

VOL. XXIII. 6

Italian Commerce in t/ie Middle Ages

Ian. At that period the Atlantic
ocean and northern coasts of Eu-
rope were but rarely navigated by
Italian merchants. The Venetians
alone despatched annually a large
fleet, which taking its name, the
Flanders fleet, from its destination
carried tin an enterpri^ng and lu-
crative traffic with the Low Coun-
tries, and, in connection with the
Hanseatic League or directly, spread
over England, Scotland, and the
nations lying on the North Sea and
the Baltic, the spices, gums, silks,
pearls, diamonds, and- numerous
other articles of oriental origin
which they had procured from the
Levant and further Indies. The
Genoese furnished the same things
to the French, Spaniards, and
Moors of Andalusia; but Portugal
was served by their rivals.

A maritime power had risen be-
fore this time which disputed with
the Genoese and Venetians the as-
cendency on the Mediterranean.
This was Barcelona, whose sailors
were among the best on the sea,
and whose merchants were largely
engaged in commerce. Many bold
encounters took place between the
Catalans and Italians, through jeal-
ousies of trade, but the former
finally succumbed.

The products of the more dis-
tant East reached Italy in Genoese
and Venetian ships, through Arme-
nian merchants at Trebizond, and
through Arabs by way of Alex-
andria and Damascus. Those of
the north, so necessary for a seafar-
ing people, were brought from the
mouth of the Don, the merchandise
being floated down that great river
in boats from the interior. The
Mongols were the masters of all the
region thereabouts ; but the insinu-
ating Italians, aware of the interest
of this branch of commerce, played
upon their barbarous pride with so

much dexterity that they succeed-
ed in making treaties with them by
which they were allowed to occupy
certain trading posts where the
goods ordered might accumulate
and their own wares be exchanged
for the productions of Russia, Tar-
tary, and Persia. The wily Geno-
ese had bought from a Tartar prince,
at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, a small piece of land on
the south-eastern shore of the Cri-
mea on which to build a factory.
Only a few rude cabins were raised
at first, for stores and the dwellings
of their agents ; but the traffic soon
brought together a large popula-
tion, sumptuous palaces were erect-
ed, a strong and lofty wall was
built around, and Kaffa * became
one of the most opulent colonies of
the republic, with a population at
one time of 80,000.

The rival Venetians had their
great deposit at the city of Azov, on
the banks of the Don, twenty miles
from its mouth. They were not
the proprietors, and, although they
received numerous favors from the
Tartar governor, they were obliged
to share them with the Genoese,
Florentines, and others, who also did
a flourishing business. The amount
of goods collected there was so im-
mense and the value so consider-
able, that when, as sometimes hap-
pened, a destructive fire broke out
or the place was plundered, the loss
was felt as a shock to commerce
throughout the whole of Europe.

All along the coast of the Black
Sea the Italians plied a profitable
trade, and many merchants were
settled at Trebizond, from which

* This city was taken from the Genoese by the
Turks in 1474, but the Christians were not all
driven out. The late Father Theiner has publish-
ed an interesting letter from the Papal Nuncio in
Poland in 1579, in which he mentions having met
some Kaffa people at Wilna and tells of their strange
manner of obtaining a priest, reminding one a lit-
tle of Michasand the Levitein Judges xvii.

Italian Commerce in tJic Midlde Ages. 83

vantage-ground they had an impor- ports of Palestine and Asia Minor,

tant communication open with Ar- It passed through Bagdad, which

menia, whose people, being united was a great commercial emporium

by religion to the Latins, granted during the middle ages and an

them very valuable commercial entrepot for the commodities of

privileges. The Venetians were eastern and western Asia. A me-

favored above the rest. They had morial of those days when Frank

churches, magazines, and inns, coin- merchants, mingling with Persians,

ed money, and in all matters in dis- Arabs, Turks, Hindoos, Koords, and

pute were tried by judges chosen Armenians, ransacked her splen-

among their countrymen, or rather did bazaars, remains in our lan-

their own fellow-citizens. They guage in the word Baldachin, be-

could introduce their goods with- cause canopies made of costly stuff

out paying duty, freely traverse the interwoven with gold thread were

kingdom, and monopolize the expor- manufactured in this city, which

tation of camel's hair, which was an was known to the Italians as Bal-

important article of traffic. The dacca, and in the adjective form

Genoese were no less- enterprising Baldacchino. Much trade was also

than their rivals, and restored in the done by way of the Red Sea, Cairo,

port of Trebizond a mole that had and Alexandria,

been built by the Roman Emperor In all the ports of the Euxine

Hadrian. Large quantities of India and -Mediterranean the Italians had

goods, and especially spiceries, were shops and warehouses, and every

stored by Italian merchants in the rich company kept a number of

warehouses of Trebizond, Damas- factors, who despatched goods as

cus, and Alexandria. There were they got orders and maintained the

several overland routes by which this interests of their principals. An

merchandise was transported, but officer called a consul, who was

none of them was safe, on account appointed by the government at

of the frequent revolutions in the home, resided in each of these for-

countries through which they ran. eign sea-ports, to defend the rights

Some of the caravans that brought of his countrymen, and decide

the commodities of India and China differences among themselves, or

passed through Balkh, the Baetria of between them and strangers. Con-

the ancients and at one time the com- suls were recognized as official per-

mercial centre of eastern Asia,, then sonages by the sovereign in whose

up to Bokhara, whence they de- territory they resided, and were

scended the Oxus for a distance, honored as public magistrates by

touched at Khiva, and, traversing their own people, from whom they

the Caspian Sea, ascended the river received certain fees for their sup-

Kour (the Cyntsvi Strabo, xi. p. 509) port, according to the quality and

for seventy miles to its junction amount of business they were call-

with the Aras (the Araxcs of Hero- ed upon to perform,

dotus, iv. 40), from which they cross- The maritime republics of Italy

ed by a journey of four or five days were very fortunate in having trans-

into the historical Phasis at Sha- ported the Crusaders to the Holy

rapan and down to the Euxine. Land in their ships, for by this they

Another beaten track entered Syria acquired many rich establishments

by the Tigris and the Euphrates, in the Levant, and it was not long

and diverged towards the several before the dissolute and degraded

84 Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages.

Greeks, who would neither take Italian republics, especially of

counsel in peace nor could defend Genoa and Venice, corresponded

themselves in war, became subject to their vast commercial interests

to the imperious will of the Italians, and the number of colonies they

The Venetians obtained in 1204 were expected to enlarge and de-
the fertile island of Candia, which fend. Thus, the Pisans in 1114
became the centre of their exten- sent an armament, consisting of
sive Egyptian and Asiatic trade. 300 vessels of various sizes, carrying
They also had a quarter in Con- 35,000 men and 900 horses, to the
stantinople, which they surrounded conquest of the Balearic Islands,
by a wall, the gates of which were which had become a nest of Moor-
guarded by their own soldiers, and ish pirates. A great part of these
a distinct anchorage for their own troops were mercenaries procured
vessels in the Golden Horn. A from all parts of the world, and con-
senate and bailiff representing the tingents drawn from their possessions
doge held 'authority in this settle- in Sardinia. In 1293 the Genoese
ment, and exercised jurisdiction fitted out in a single month, against
over the minor establishments of the Venetians, 200 galleys, each of
the republic in Roumelia. which bore from 220 to 300 comba-

The Genoese were still more tants recruited within the continen-

powerful at the capital, and the tal limits of the republic ; and in

Emperor Michael Palaeologus., who the vast arsenal of Venice during

was indebted to them for his return the fourteenth century 800 men

to the throne, had given them the were continually at work, and 200

beautiful suburbs of Pera and Ga- galleys, not to count the smaller

lata, on an elevated plateau, which craft, were kept ready in port for

they made still more secure, under any emergency that might arise,

the elder Andronicus, by a moat Such formidable fleets were manned

and triple row of walls. To these either by voluntary enlistments or

places they transferred "their stores impressment; the hope of heavy

and stock ; nor was it long before plunder, according to the barbar-

the churches, palaces, warehouses, ous war-system of those days, which

and public buildings of Pera vied the church strove against but could

in magnificence with those of the not wholly change, appealing to

metropolis itself. The island of young men to serve as sailors or

Chios, where gum-mastic was col- soldiers. The furious rivalry be-

lected and the finest wine produced, tween Genoa and Venice began to

was another of their colonies. These show itself soon after the taking

were all ruled by a podesta annu- of Constantinople by the Franks in

ally sent from Genoa. The Gen- 1244, each desiring to reap alone

oese and Venetians had also facto- the profits of the Levant trade.

ries in Barbary, through which they After many bloody encounters a

drove a brisk trade with the inte- peace was patched up in 1298, by

rior of Africa. To them more than 'which the latter was excluded for

to any others was it due that for thirteen years from the Black Sea,

three hundred years the commerce along whose shores the former had

of Italy was famous from the colonies, forts, and factories, and was

Straits of Gibraltar to the remotest forbidden to send armed vessels to

gulf in the Euxine. Syria. Terms so propitious raised

The maritime strength of the the pride and influence of Genoa to

1 Italian Commerce in tfie Middle Ages. 85

the utmost ; and feared by all, and profession, just as on land condotticri
claiming to be mistress of the seas, could be hired to sack cities and
she upheld the honor of her flag castles and desolate whole provin-
with extravagant solicitude. In 1332 ces. The little town of Monaco
she wasted the coast of Catalonia was notorious during the middle
with a force of 200 galleys, and in- ages for its pirates, as it still is for
flicted great injury on the commerce its ravenous land-sharks. There
of Barcelona ; and two years later, were two sorts of corsairs. Some
having captured twelve ships of the were private individuals who went
enemy, heavily freighted with mer- to sea through lust of gain, or be-
chandise, in the waters of Sicily, cause driven from their homes dur-
Cyprus, and Sardinia, with an ex- ing the fights of faction, and seized
ample of ferocious cruelty which whatever they could. These rob-
only the " accursed greed of gold ' beries and depredations marked
and a determination to exclude the piracy in its original form. Ne-
Catalans from any share in Eastern vertheless during the twelfth, thir-
commerce could prompt, six him- teenth, and fourteenth centuries
dred prisoners were hanged at a many otherwise honorable charac-
single execution. She was resolved ters, who were often unjustly de-
to command the seas, and conse- spoiled of their uatrimony and dri-
quently the trade of the world; ven as outcasts from their native
but h'er rival, although crippled, was cities, took to this occupation not
not prostrate, and the fourth war entirely from inclination, but im-
broke out between them in 1372 for pelled by the brutality of their
possession of the classical island of countrymen. We may recall as
Tenedos, so valuable as a naval an extenuating circumstance what
station and renowned for its wheat that grave judge, Lord Stowell, ob-
and excellent red wine. The Gen- served (2 Dods. 374) of the bucca-
oese actually got into the lagoons neers, whose spirit at one time ap-
of Venice, vowing to reduce her to proached to that of chivalry in
the stagnant level of the waters, and point of adventure, and whose man-
approached so near to the city that ner of life was thought to reflect no
their admiral could shout to the af- disgrace upon distinguished Eng-
frighted people on the quays, De- lishmen who engaged in it.
Icnda est Carthago ! but by a singu- Other corsairs were patriotic citi-
lar freak of fortune they were them- zens who armed their ships to injure
selves totally defeated, and glad to the enemy during lawful hostilities ;
accept the mediation of Amadeus and although there w r as abuse in
VI., Duke of Savoy. It was agreed the system, they were not pirates,
that neither party should have the but privateersmen. Foreign na-
island in dispute, but that the duke tions used to buy ships from the
should hold it at their common ex- Italians to increase their own arma-
pense for two years and then dis- ments, or engage them to harass
mantle the fortress. their opponents. It is curious, con-
During this war, called the War sidering how completely maritime
of Chioggia, which lasted until 1381, supremacy has deserted the Medi-
unusually large number of cor- terranean for northern seas, to know
sairs roved the seas ; but the Ital- that the poet Chaucer was sent by
ians had long practised piracy, and King Edward III. in November,
whole communities were corsairs by 1372, as envoy to the republic of

86 Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages.

Genoa to hire vessels for his navy; and other medicines, amber, indigo,
and Tytler says (Hist, of Scotland, pearls, and diamonds from India
vol. ii. p. 261) that in the same cen- and Central Asia. From Persia
tury many of the privateers employ- there came silks, carpets, skins, ana
ed by the Scots against England manufactured articles used by the
appear to have been vessels of great for clothing or for the comfort
larger dimensions and more formid- of their homes. Tartary and Rus-
able equipment than those of Eng- sia furnished hemp, canvas, ship-
land, probably from their being for- timber, tar, wax, caviare, raw-hides,
eign built, and furnished by the and peltries. From the ports of
Genoese or the Venetians, for the Syria and Asia Minor, and particu-
purposes both of trade and piracy. larly from Smyrna, were shipped

It was now that the word Jane to Italy hare-skins, leather, camel's
came into the language Chaucer hair, valonia, cotton stuffs, damasks,
and Spenser use it for a small dried fruits, beeswax, drugs and
com so-called from Janua (Genoa), electuaries, arms, armor, and cut-
It is termed in the old English sta- lery ; and many articles of Asiatic
tutes a galley half -pence. luxury and magnificence found their

The Florentines had originally way thence through Italian mer-

no seaboard, and were obliged to chants to the courts and castles of

charter ships wherever they could. England, Scotland, France, Ger-

In 1362, having taken into the ser- many, and other northern nations,

vice of the republic Pierin Grimal- Greece sent fine wines, raisins, cur-

di of Genoa, with two galleys, rants, filbert-nuts, silk, and alum,

and hired two more vessels, their A large quantity of grain was

little fleet took the island of Giglio brought into Italy from Egypt and

from the Pisans, and the following the Barbary States ; but the supply

year, having broken into the port to the colonies in the Levant came

of Pisa itself, they took away the mostly from the Black Sea. Wool,

chains that protected it and hung wax, sheep-skins, and morocco came

them as trophies on the porphyry from the Moorish provinces of Af-

columns of their Baptistery. rica. These were the principal im-

The foreign commerce for which ports, and were exchanged for the
the maritime cities of Italy, and products and manufactures of Italy
particularly Genoa and Venice, so and the countries to the north, for
savagely disputed, to the scandal which the Italians acted as agents,
of the Christian name among the The Genoese exported immense
infidels, as the old English traveller quantities of woven fabrics from
Sir John de Mandeville shows, was the looms of Lombardy and Flor-
certamly very considerable, and a ence, fine linens from Bologna, and
source of almost fabulous profit to cloths of a coarser make from
those engaged in it who were fortu- France, for which a ready mar-
nate in their ventures. Commerce ket was found in the East and
was the foundation of Italy's pros- among the Italians settled in the
parity, which was greater than that Archipelago and Levant. The oils
of any other European country of Provence and the Riviera of
from the twelfth to the fourteenth Genoa, soaps, saffron, and coral,
century. The Italian merchants were also largely exported. Quick-
got cottons, silken goods, brocades, silver was a valuable article in the
Cashmere shawls, spices, rhubarb hands of the Venetians, who got it

Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages.

from Istria and sold it in Spain and
the Levant ; they also extracted a
great amount of salt from Istria
and Dalmatia, which was sold at a
good profit in Lombardy and other
parts of Italy. Sardinia, Sicily, and
Naples also did a large foreign busi-
ness ; the last city importing cargoes
of delicate Greek and Oriental wines,
such as the famous Cyprian, Malm-
sey, and Muscatel, much of which
was sent to different parts of Italy,
and into England and the Nether-
lands. Spain, Portugal, and Flan-
ders were supplied with the pro-
ducts of the Indies and Levant
principally by Genoese and Vene-
tian merchants. The latter espe-
cially had many privileges and fis-
cal exemptions in Flanders, and in
returning from the North loaded
their ships in Portugal with tin,
silver bars, wines, and raisins ; while
the former had the greater part of
the trade with the Moors of Africa
and southern Spain, from whom, in
return for spiceries and other East-
ern products, they got gold, cordo-
vans, and merino wool, which were
sold to advantage in France and
Italy.

The Italians were the best cloth-
weavers in Europe in the fourteenth
century, although the Flemings were
not contemptible rivals. The manu-
facture of cloth was industriously
carried on in many of their cities ;
in those of Tuscany particularly, the
finest kind of work being done in
Lucca. When this city was taken
by Uguccione della Faggiuola, in
1314, the factories and goods were
destroyed, and many citizens emi-
grated to other parts of Italy, and
even into France, Germany, and
Kn gland. Yet long before this
Italian operatives had introduced,
or at least improved, the art in the
northern countries. Crapes, taffe-
tas, velvets, silks, camelots, and

serges were extensively made :n
Italy, the richest quality being sold
at Florence, where the home indus-
tries seemed to centre, and only the
most skilled artisans Vere employed.
The art of weaving wool was prac-
tised by thousands of citizens, and,
nominally at least, by some of the
noblest families of the city and con-
tado (commune), since there was a
law that no one could aspire to
public office unless he were a mem-
ber of one of the trades-corpora-
tions of the republic. The citizens of
Florence were classed from 1266 into
twelve companies of trades or pro-
fessions, seven of which were called
arti maggiori, viz., i. lawyers and
attorneys; 2. dealers in foreign
stuffs ; 3. bankers and money-chang-
ers ; 4. woollen manufacturers and
drapers; 5. physicians and apothe-
caries ; 6. silk manufacturers and
mercers ; 7. furriers. The lower
trades were called arti minori. The
records of these corporations are
now preserved in a part of the
Uffizi palace devoted to -the pub-
lic archives of Florence. They
range from A.D. 1300 to the end
of the eighteenth century. Around
the hall, which was fitted up a
few years ago to receive them,
are the portraits of some of the dis-
tinguished men who belonged to
these guilds : Dante, Cosimo de'
Medici, Francesco Guicciardini, and
others. Balmes gives an interest-
ing account, after Capmany, in his
European Civilization, p. 476, of '" the
trades-unions and other associations
which, established under the influ-
ence of the Catholic religion, com-
monly placed themselves under the
patronage of some saint, and had
pious foundations for the celebra-
tion of their feasts, and for assisting
each other in their necessities."
Although his long note refers prin-
cipally to the industrial organization

88 Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages.

of the city of Barcelona, it is ac- The cloths of France and other
knowledged that Catalonia borrow- northern countries found a sale in
ed many of its customs and usages Florence, not so much for home use
in this matter from the towns of as for exportation through the
Italy. Genoese and Venetians. An excep-
Before the middle of the four- tion, however, must be made for a
teenth century there were over two rich article called say, manufactur-
hundred drapers' shops in Florence, ed in Ireland, and esteemed so beau-
in which from seventy to eighty tiful as to be worn by the ladies
thousand pieces of cloth were made of that refined city.* John Villani,
every year, to the value of 1,200,000 already mentioned, says that there
gold florins, and employing more was a quarter of Florence called
than thirty thousand people. The Calimala, containing twenty stores
historian John Villani says that the of the coarser cloths of the JNcrtn,oi
trade had been still more flourish- which thirty thousand pieces, of the
ing, when there were three hundred value of three hundred thousand
shops open and one hundred thou- gold florins, were yearly imported,
sand pieces were made yearly, but Florence in the middle ages had
that they were of a coarser quality a territory extending only a few
and consequently did not bring as miles round its walls; but the in-
much money into the city, although dustry and speculative spirit of its
more people got work. The art of citizens wonderfully enriched them,
dyeing cloths and other stuffs was and, since " all things obey money '
cultivated by the Italians during (Ecclesiastes x. 19), they soon be-
the middle ages with considerable came the predominant power, and
success. Alum, which is much used finally the masters in Tuscany,
for this purpose, was eagerly sought They were money-changers, money-
after, and the Genoese obtained lenders, jewellers, and goldsmiths
from Michael Palaeologus, on pay- for the whole of Europe and no
merit of an annual sum, the exclu- little part of the East. The ele-
sive right of extracting it from a ments of a business education were
certain mine in the Morea that had given to its youth in numerous
previously been worked by Arabs, schools, attended by some twelve
Catalans, and others. The lessees hundred boys, who were taught
began operations with a force of arithmetic and book-keeping. A
fifty men, and soon built a castle to great deal of money circulated with-
protect themselves, and finally a in the city itself, and a large amount
town, which was destroyed by the was necessary, particularly before
Turks in 1455. The Florentines the introduction of bills of exchange,
were so expert in dyeing wool that to accommodate merchants in their
the material was sent to them for visits to other countries. The pub-
the purpose from other parts of lie mint coined annually during the
Italy, and even from Germany and fourteenth century from three him
the Netherlands. It was only in dred and fifty thousand to four hun-
1858 that an immense wooden dred thousand gold florins, and
building for stretching and drying about twenty thousand pounds weight
cloth in the sun, called // tiratoio of coppers, called danari da quattro,
ddla lana, which had been used for or half-farthings ; and eighty pri-
over five hundred years, was torn

-. .. , , , - * Mcrherson s Annals of Commerce . vol. i.

down as too liable to catch nre. p . 5 6 2 .

Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages. 89

vatc banks assisted the circulation, patic/ns, the higher classes handled
The beautiful golden florins were the money, and would appear to
first coined in the year 1252, bear- have taken lessons of the Jews,
ing on one side the impression of The great feudal nobles of the
St. John Baptist, the patron, and on north, with more land than gold,
the other that of a lily, the device would often ask their chaplains to
of the city. This was considered reprove them with some holy text
the finest coin in the world, and so of Scripture Ecclesiasticus x. 10
much admired that many princes being a favorite one when interest
and governments began to imitate was demanded or mortgages were
it while preserving its original name, forfeited. They were not by any
and consequently perpetuating the means the only Italians who public-
monetary renown of Florence. It ly courted the queen Regina Pe-
was current in Europe, Asia, and cunia ; the ancient name in Eng-
Africa. The workmanship of the land for a banker, which was Lom-
Florentines was so superior that bard, and the street in London call-
they were often called upon to con- ed Lombard Street, preserving the
duct or superintend the coinage in memory of the Milanese and others
foreign countries. During the reign out of Lombardy who took up their
of King David II., in the first half first residence there before the
of the thirteenth century, he ap- year 1274, and were great money-
pointed a Florentine one of the two changers and usurers. The stu-
keepers of the exchange for all Scot- pendous fortunes of the Chigi, who
land, and masters of the mint ; and gave Pope Alexander VII. to the
under King Robert III. (1390-1424) church and are now Roman princes,
gold was minted for that kingdom and before them of the Medici fam-
by Bonaccio of Florence.* In 1278 ily, which became royal, were amass-
the Exchange at London was under ed chiefly in the banking business ;
the direction of some Lucca mer- but it is a popular error that the
chants ; and it seems to be directly well-known sign of the pawnbrok-
from the Italian that we get our ers' three gilt balls is derived from
English word cash, derived from the armorial bearings of the latter.
cassa, the chest in which Italian which their agents in England and
merchants kept their money. We other countries placed over the
may have some idea of what a doors of their loan-shops. The
money-centre Florence was in that arms of the Medici were or, six
age from the fact that the notori- torteaux gules except the one in
ous French adventurer, the Duke chief, which was azure charged with
of Athens, who was elected Lord of three fleurs-de-lis or. Whether
Florence in 1342, contrived in the these roundlets had any allusion,
course of only ten months to draw as has been suggested, to doctors'
four hundred thousand golden flo- pills and the professional origin
rins out of the city. The Floren- whence the family name is supposed
tines, who had the reputation of to be derived, we cannot deter-
being the smartest people in Italy, mine ; but the gold pieces called
were extremely fond of banking in bezants because coined at Con-
all its branches. While the middle stantinople Byzantium and so
and lower orders of society were common at an early period in Italy
mostly engaged in mechanical occu- that the saying Aver buoni JBisanzi

*Innes, Scotland in the Middle Agewy* WaS a ptOVCrbial expression of OHC

90 Italian Commerce in the Middle Ages.

who had plenty of money, seem to For the convenience of customers,
have been early the distinguishing the bank-offices used to be on the
sign of money-lenders and changers, ground-floor of the houses some-
and are the true origin of the pawn- times palaces the masters living
brokers' balls. above. The rate of discount on
The shrewdness of the Italians in exchange was from one and one-
money matters did not always save half to two per cent., and four per
them from disastrous failures and cent, on sums advanced. Jacques
bankruptcies caused by wars, breach Savary, in his Parfait Negotiant,
of faith in persons too high to be says that the invention of bills of ex-
reached, loss of goods and bullion change is due to French Jews who
by fire, piracy, shipwreck, and other were driven out of France by Philip
accidents. The first great failure the Fair in 1316, and took refuge
of this kind was that of a mercan- in Lombardy. By means of such
tile company in 1296, which had bills they were able to get the
existed for one hundred and twen- value of the property they had
ty years, and became insolvent for left in the hands of friends. They
400,000 gold florins, due to citizens were imitated by certain Ghibel-
and strangers. It was felt through- lines who, being exiled, went to
out the republic of Florence like Amsterdam and saved some of their
the loss of a battle. Even worse goods left in Italy. In negotiating
was the failure of the Bardi and these bills and effecting the sale of
Peruzzi in 1347. They were both goods, persons called sensali (bro-
merchants and bankers, and stood kers) were employed,
at the head of their class in Italy. No duties were levied on exports,
Loans to the kings of England and but imported goods had to be stored
Sicily brought them down. The in government buildings called do-
first owed them 900,000 and the gane /.<?., custom-houses, or, per-
second 450,000 gold florins. These haps more accurately, bonded ware-
were unavailable assets when the houses from which, although they
550,000 florins they owed their might be hypothecated, they could
fellow-citizens and others began to be withdrawn only after payment of
be called for, and therefore, they a certain sum. There was a chain-
broke. This downfall carried with ber of commerce called Mercanzia
it a large number of smaller houses, at Florence, and all the other com-
and among them that of Corsini, of mercial cities had their merchants'
the since princely family of that exchange for the transaction of busi-
name, which gave St. Andrew and ness, the sordid use to which they
Pope Clement XII. to the church, were put being often disguised by
The celebrated historian John Vil- the beauties of architecture, paint-
lani was a great loser by this fail- ing, and sculpture. Thus, the Sala
ure, and was even imprisoned in del Cambio at Perugia was decorat-
the Stinche in consequence of it as ed with frescoes by the celebrated
an insolvent. The law punished Pietro Perugino, assisted by his im-
fraudulent failures very severely ; mortal pupil Raphael of Urbino.
but if it could be proved that the In all seaports there were certain
failures resulted from unavoidable judges, elected by and from among
accidents, the debtors were allowed the merchants, who composed a tri-
to go free, after surrendering all bunal called Consolato di Mare.
they possessed to their creditors. They settled disputes between tra-

Italian Commerce in tlie Middle Ages. 91

ders and ship-owners, gave assis- magnificence of the patricians in
tance in distress, and watched over their provisions, furniture, and dress
the interests of commerce. The during the thirteenth and fourteenth
origin of such boards of trade was centuries. Nuptial entertainments
very ancient among the Italians, for and civic festivals were the occa-
as early as the year 1129 one was sions of most display ; and Chaucer,
established at Messina. It is said who had partaken of such, writes
that the Pisans were the first to probably as much from recollection
make laws regulating navigation, as after Petrarch, whom he has imi-
and that their code was approved tated, when he describes the prepa-
in 1075 by Pope Gregory VII.* rations for Griselda's wedding to the
There was no appeal from the deci- young Marquis of Saluce.
sions of these admiralty courts, and The women were particularly
in cases of fraud or other misde- dainty, and many sumptuary laws
meanor the guilty party was punish- were enacted to restrain the ex-
ed by public authority. cess of refinement in houses, fur-
Sericulture began in Italy in the niture, and apparel. A very fine
fourteenth century, and was prac- sort of thin, transparent linen, made
tised with success, especially in in Cyprus, was much worn by the
Lombardy. The statutes of Mo- female sex. It resembled, but was
dena obliged the peasants to plant not quite so indecent as the Coa
a large number of mulberry-trees, vestis of the ancients. They also
in order to promote it. carried much jewelry, and were
The wide extent of Italian com- clothed in garments worked in sil-
merce and the industrial prosperity ver and gold stuff. Their minds
of Italy, which was a consequence naturally ran on money :
of it, greatly enriched her higher

' Juha. What thinkest thou of the rich Mercutio?

Classes and led tO the mOSt CXtrava- Lvcetta. Well of his wealth ; but of himself,

srant luxury during the latter part so, so."

, J . rwo (jentlemen of Verona^ act i. sc. 2.

of the middle ages. Nations now

reckoned highly civilized, and where The habits and head-dress of the
the comforts of life are within the men were o f ten bespangled with
reach of all, were then badly clothed precious stones, and their whole at-
and poorly fed. The effeminacy of tire answered to their haughty bear-
the wealthier Italians during the i ngj w hi c h bespoke successful for-
fourteenth century, when commerce e i gn ventures and a splendid style
was most extended, caused them to maintained at home. In innume-
despise, amidst the delicacies of the ra bl e ways they exemplified Dr.
East and the fruits of their own Johnson's observation :" With what
intelligence, the rude simplicity munificence a great merchant will
of their more northern neighbors. spen d his money, both from his hav-
Even the lower classes among them i ng j t a t command and from his en-
felt a desire for greater convenience larged views by calculation of a good
and refinement. Dante, Boccaccio, effect upon the whole." Few of
the chroniclers, and other writers of them would have dared to say with
this period portray or lament the Bassanio :
ever-increasing luxury of the age,

14 Gentle lady,

and we can gather from them an ac- when \ d id first impart my love to you,

curate idea of the style of living and J freel y told X ou a11 the wealth J had

Ran in my veins ; I was a gentleman.

* Muratori, A nt. //a/., torn. ii. p. 54. Merchant of Venice \ act iii. oc. a.

9 2

A Daughter of the Puritans.

When Shakspere uses the expres-
sion " royal merchant " in the play
from which we have just quoted, it
is, as Warburton remarks, no rant-
ing epithet ; for several Italian mer-
chant families obtained principali-
ties in the Archipelago and else-
where, which their descendants en-
joyed for many generations, and
others of their'class made sovereign

alliances. For instance, James, King
of Cyprus, married Catherine Cor-
naro, daughter of a Venetian mer-
chant, who gave her a dowry of
100,000 golden ducats.*

* The ducat was the great money of Venice, as
the florin was of Florence, and bears in its name a
proof of the more aristocratic government of the for-
mer city. The first gold ducats were coined by the
Doge John Dandolo in 1280, and are inscribed
IO. DANDVL. DVX.

A DAUGHTER OF THE PURITANS.

ROSE STANDISH HOWSON that
was her name, and very proud she
was of it. Back of the Mayflower,
she knew little about her ancestors ;
but certain it was that in that well-
filled vessel one of her forefathers
had come to America, and, marry-
ing a distant connection of the veri-
table Standish family, had handed
this name down to all succeeding
generations. Rose boasted, so far
as it is proper for a well-bred New
England girl to boast, that, however
it might have been outside of her
own country, here at least her line-
age was most democratically noble ;
she belonged and could prove it,
too, out of a little book compiled by
her grandfather thoroughly to the
old Puritan race. In all her books
the name was written in full Rose
Standish Howson ; and it was her
unfailing source of regret that her
only brother had not been called
Miles. John Howson laughed good-
naturedly at his sister's foible, but
was really quite as proud as she,
though in a more passive way.

Their home was not in Boston.
Let this important fact receive our

prompt attention. But, since it
could not be there, it was in the
next best place an old academic
town ;' in which New England State
matters little to our story. There
for thirty years RoseHowson's father
had been the academy's honored
principal. His wife had died young,
leaving only this son and daughter.
John fitted for Harvard at the aca-
demy ; Rose went steadily through
grammar-school and high-school in
her native place, then went to Bos-
ton with hopes of at least a two
years' added course of study there.
It resolved itself into one brilliant
winter and spring of hard work and
exhausting pleasure, symphony con-
certs, Shakspere clubs, Parker Fra-
ternity lectures, abstruse reading,
and keenly exciting conversation ;
one merry June, one gay class-day,
one delightful commencement, when
Dr. Howson came to Cambridge to
meet old pupils and friends, and set j
his son bear off the highest honors ;
then they went home for vacation,
and before it was over Dr. Howson
sickened and died.

The whole town was in a fervor

A Daughter of the Puritans.

of excitement ; there was a funeral,
to which people came from far and
near ; resolutions were passed, and
in the flush of enthusiasm John
Ho-.vson, young as he was and just
out of college, was elected on trial
to fill his father's place. So the bro-
ther and sister still lived on in their
old home, but into it they infused a
new manner of living. Fresh from
the intellectual arena, they sought to
shape society about them into some
likeness to that they loved so well,
and they found their old friends and
playmates more than ready to meet
them half-way. A book club was
started, into which the current litera-
ture of the day was crowded, and
from which, it was placidly affirmed,
all " trash " was excluded ; but Mill
was there, and Darwin, and a strange
mixture of/>erman philosophy, which
the young men, but more especially
the young women, read, or fancied
they read, and about which they talk-
ed much, after a fashion revealing
more ideas than thought. There
were ; ' musicals ' too, and a Shak-
spere club, and German and French
conversations and readings, and the
second winter after Dr. Howson's
death there were dramatic entertain-
ments and concerts ; and it came to
pass that almost every afternoon
and evening of Rose's life was filled
with some sort of intellectual work
or pleasure. She was a capital
housekeeper, and so her early morn-
ings were occupied with household
cares; but, later, she was always
ready for a walk or talk, and her
reading was done in snatches by
day and by long hours of steady
work late at night.

About religion " experimentally '
she knew little. The old meeting-
house, which the Puritan settlers
had built, was still standing, but it
had been enlarged and made over,
though not beautified. There Rose

had been accustomed to go Sunday
after Sunday as a matter of course,
and sometimes to the Friday even-
ing prayer-meeting ; but she was not
" a Christian." Once there had
been a revival, when she tried to
be converted, but she had failed.
Then in Boston she had been taken
to hear preachers who were not
' orthodox " at all ; she had almost
feared them at first, because of
strange names she had heard ap-
plied to them they had German
tendencies, rationalistic tendencies,
were free-thinkers. But when she
came under the spell of their pre-
sence and their eloquence she was
fascinated. They appealed to what
she thought the highest faculties of
her nature her intellect, her love
for the beautiful, her reason. She
missed it when she came home and
she did more than miss it : she be-
gan to doubt. Was old Mr. Gray
wiser than the cultured men she had
been hearing ? He claimed that
they were wrong ; how did he know
that ? How could she tell that
he was not mistaken ? In this one
small town, originally occupied by
orthodox Congregationalists only,
there were now Orthodox Uni-
tarians, Methodists, Episcopalians,
Baptists, and Universalists. A
Roman Catholic priest was serv-
ing there too, in a dingy hall in a
back street, but " society ' rarely
noticed him or his work ; he and
his alike were out of its pale, ano-
malies, hardly worth mentioning ex-
cept with pitying wonder or idle
jest and scorn. What made Mr.
Gray superior to any or all of these
in his power of discerning truth ?

And while Rose queried thus on
Sunday mornings, sitting wearily in
her accustomed place at the right
of the pulpit, sometimes trying to
find out how to be good, but oftener
losing herself in memories of the

Daughter of the Puritans.

feasts of reason she had known for
so brief and bright a while, some
one came to town who was to influ-
ence her life greatly. Looking up
suddenly from one of these reveries,
she found herself still in the meet-
ing-house, but opposite her was a
new face, a lady's, thin and pale,
with searching eyes fixed upon hers,
and after service the lady came
straight to her pew and held out
her hand.

" I am sure you are Miss How-
son," she said. " Your friend Grace
Roland has told me much of you.
I am Ellen Lawton."

Rose's heart leaped up. In those
happy Boston days she had often
heard Ellen Lawton spoken of as
one of the most elegant and cul-
tured women of her time, and she
had read her writings with delight,
but she had hardly hoped to meet
her. It took her breath away with
joy when she learned that Miss
Lawton had come to live for a
while in this quiet country place.

It was a season of keen delight.
Rose had thought she knew what it
was to revel in intellectual pleasure,
but it was something new to meet
one so superior to herself, yet so
loving; always ready to listen to her
ideas, to help her unfold them, and
yet so calm and tranquil. Miss
Lawton was an invalid, and, after
that first Sunday, Rose ,never saw
her at church again. Once, when
Rose stopped on her way thither
to leave her some flowers, Miss
Lawton said that she was. going to
sit in the sunshine ; v/ould not Rose
stay with her ? And when Rose de-
murred, Miss Lawton said gently,
: ' Shall we not please God as well in
the beauty of? his sunshine as in
that bare and cheerless house where
you know you do not like to go ?"

This was the beginning of Rose's
first knowledge of Ellen Lawton's

so-called religious life ; they sat
and talked all that morning about
it. With a sweet smile upon her
calm face, the invalid said quietly
that she believed there might be a
God ; she was not sure, of course ;
but if there was one, he was kind
and good, and loved to see her
happy. She made life as bright
and beautiful as she possibly could
always ; it was given her to enjoy.
Books and music and art and flow-
ers were parts of her religion ; be-
yond this world she did not look;
what came after death she knew not
and cared not; if there was a God,
he was good and would be good to
her; if there was not, the thought
of annihilation did not distress her.
Rose watched her closely after this ;
she never heard an impatient word
or saw a hasty movement; the life
was an exposition of what a great
many people would call " the beauti-
ful," and Rose found in it more and
more satisfaction for her extreme
intellectual cravings.

One morning a servant ran in
with blanched face to tell her that
Miss Lawton was dead. Rose had
known that heart-disease was the
fatal malady which was surely sap-
ping at her friend's life, yet this
blow fell upon her with an awful
suddenness. She went to the house,
where they left her to do as she
would, for she was the nearest
friend Miss Lawton had there ; she
went up to the silent room, and
shut herself in alone with the silent
dead. Ellen Lawton lay as they
had found her; she must have risen
in the morning and dressed with her
usual dainty care; then, perhaps feel-
ing some acute pang of the pain to
which she was subject, she had sunk
upon the couch by the window. Her
face was, as in life, calm and noble ;
about her lay her books that she
had loved, her rare pictures looked

A Daughter of i lie Puritans.

down upon her, her flowers scented
the room ; outside the sun shone
brightly on the grand hills she had
been used to watch, finding in them
food for heart and soul both, she
said. None of these moved her
now at all.

Rose went close to her and look-
ed at her, and looked, and looked,
as if she would waken her by the
very fixedness of her gaze. What
was this tiling lying there, this beau-
tiful clay, this voiceless, motion-
less, tenantless body ? Yesterday it
spoke to her, kissed her, loved her ;
what had changed it, gone out of
it? The spirit? The soul ? Where
was that soul then ?

She knelt down trembling, and
put her hand where the heart had
beat not five short hours ago.
There was no movement now ;
and the silence in the room grew
terrible. Where was that which
yesterday she spoke with ? No-
where ? Then to-morrow she her-
self might be nowhere and nothing.

Suddenly there came to her a
memory which she had striven for
years to banish. A stranger had
preached at the time of that unfor-
gotten revival ; he had painted vi-
vidly and unsparingly the torments
of the lost. Often in the night
Rose had wakened from a dream
of it, and found herself cold with
horror, and cried out, " I never
will believe it." Now like a paint-
ing she seemed to see it all again,
and through her mind rang the
words with which the sermon had
ended, " Doubt on as you will, O
unbeliever, O careless soul, O faith-
less Christian ! Laugh on as you
will, forget as you will. But sup-
pose that you wake up after death
and find this true ! H7iat then /"

John Howson, hearing the news
at school, hurried home at noon to
comfort Rose, but she was gone.

He found her in that room of
death, rocking to arid fro upon her
knees, her hands held out over the
dead, while she was whispering in
hoarse tones : " Ellen, is it true ?
Tell me it is not true." And no one
answered.

John lifted her tenderly, and she
clung to him like a little child.
''Take me home!" she cried, quiv-
ering all over. She could not walk ;
he had to carry her, and all the way
she clung to him as if the very
touch of something that lived and
loved was comfort. " O John ! I am
so glad you are alive.," she sobbed.
" Dear John, do not die, do not
die!"

He could hardly bear to leave
her for afternoon school, and when
he came home she was crouching
by his arm-chair, while Abby, their
old servant, sat looking at her with
pitying horror. " You'd best do
what you can for her, Master John,"
she said, " or she'll kill herself go-
ing on in this way."

" No, no ! not kill myself," Rose
answered hysterically. " It is aw-
ful to live, but it is worse to die."

John sat down near her, and she
took his hand and held it tightly.
" I want to feel that you are here,
and warm and well," she said. "O
John ! tell me what is true."

"What is true ?" he repeated.
" Why, I am, I hope ; and you, dear
child."

" Oh ! no," she exclaimed, as if his
tender lightness were unbearable.
" Is God true ? Is there a God ?
What comes after death ?"

He answered her honestly ; he
had even less faith than she, but his
doubts did not trouble him. He
lived a life as upright and fair as
his neighbors ; whether there was a
God or not, what difference did it
make, so long as he behaved him-
self? This was John Howson's

A' Daughter of the Puritans.

creed, if such a title could be ap-
plied to it.

How strong and kind he looked,
how honorable he always was ! Why
should Rose worry, if he did not ?
Either there was no God, and what
they did made no difference they
could live as they liked and get all
the pleasure possible or, if there
was a God, he was too good to be ever
angry with them. It was a consoling
belief; she would take the comfort
of it. But alone at night the hor-
ror returned. Suppose there was a
God who demanded something she
knew not what from his creatures ;
she could only express it by the
vague term, " to be Christians."
She held her head between her
hands and tried to think what that
meant. Yes, she must be convert-
ed, and be sorry for all her sins, and
join the church. How were people
converted, and what church should '
she join ? Perhaps she had better say
a prayer. "O God!" she began,
then paused. Her brain was reel-
ing with the doubt whether there
was any God at all ; and even if
there were, what was the use of
prayer ?

The next morning she went to Mr.
Gray. With nerves unstrung by in-
tense feeling, she had little thought
left for ordinary greetings or for
ceremony. The old man was jarred
and hurt by what he thought her
rudeness, never dreaming that he
was dealing with a soul which
was fast losing all care for earthly
joys or pains, or for any earthly
thing at all, in the one absorbing
fear of eternal things. For forty
years he had labored in this place
in a calm routine, hearing some-
thing but comprehending little of
the doubts through which the world
without was passing. It filled him
with horror to hear Rose talk ; he
had never imagined what thoughts

had been working in the mind of
his old friend's child.

" What must one do to be a Chris-
tian ?" she had asked abruptly.

He had not expected such a
question, and looked surprised, but
he answered simply enough : " You
must believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, my child, and come to him
in repentance."

" And where is he ?" Rose cried,
" and who is he, and what does he
want of me ?"

Mr. Gray stared at her in amaze-
ment and sorrow. " My dear," he
said, " who is he ? He is God, and
he is everywhere, and he wants
your heart."

" How do you know that ?" Rose
exclaimed. " Tell me how you know
it."

The old man laid his hand upon
his Bible. " Where should I know
it but here?" he asked.

" But other people think differ-
ently," Rose said. " I have read
it myself, and I don't find what
you preach. The Baptists read the
Bible, and so do the Methodists,
and so do the Episcopalians, and
you cannot agree to be one. How
do you know the Bible is true?"

It was of no avail to tell her
of internal evidence, or of spiritu-
al conviction, or of visible effects.
Quickly enough it became clear
that Rose Howson had no faith
left in the Lord Jesus Christ as
God. She did believe as an his-
torical fact that he had lived
once upon earth, and was man,
and possibly something more than
man ; that was all. To everything
Mr. Gray said she returned the
answer, "How do you, know it? Is
not the Baptist minister a Christian ?
and yet you differ. Is not the
Unitarian minister a scholar, and
does not he pray to God ? and yet
you say he is mistaken." And

A Daughter of the Puritans.

when Mr. Gray reminded her of
her father, and asked how he would
have felt to hear her speak thus,
she cried out that she was a woman
grown, and it was her own soul
she was talking of, and her father
could not save that ; fathers made
very little difference when it was
heaven and hell you were thinking
about.

" All Christians agree on the vital
points," Mr. Gray said ; " at least,
all evangelical Protestants."

" And what about the unevangeli-
cal Protestants and the poor Cath-
olics ? and who decides what are
the vital points ? and why cannot
you and the Baptists commune to-
gether, then ?" The eager questions
were poured forth, overwhelming the
listener.

Mr. Gray shook his head sadly.
" I do not think you are in a fit
state to speak of such matters,
Rose," he said. "The Lord Jesus
Christ died for you. Pray to him
that he will himself teach you."

Rose stood up. " Good-by, Mr.
Gray," she said gently. "I am
afraid I have troubled you. Per-
haps you will say a prayer for me
sometimes."

'I will indeed, my child," he an-
swered her, with a very troubled
look upon his face ; " but you must
pray too."

' Pray ?" she repeated to herself
mechanically as she went out of
the room. " I wonder how they do
it, and what they mean by it, and
what good it ever does ? Pray ?
Oh! if I only could."

After this Rose was never seen
de the old meeting-house again.
lv erybody learned that she was
in some religious difficulty ; most
persons never mentioned the sub-
ject to her; some told her not to
worry, but to trust; others that it
made no manner of difference what

VOL. xxin. 7

she believed, so long as she was
sincere. To the one she answered
that the only belief she was sincere
in was that she did not know what
to believe ; to the other she made no
reply. But to John once she answer-*
ed wearily : " If you sat here study-
ing, and I told you the house was
on fire, and you could'smell it burn-
ing, would you keep still at your
books, and trust and not worry, be-
cause other people said it was not
your house ?"

On one occasion she took up a
Protestant Episcopal Book of Com-
mon Prayer which she found in
her father's library, and, . turning
its pages, came to the Apostles'
Creed. It comforted her to read
it ; she thought it must be a bless-
ed thing to be brought up always
with that impressed upon one,
and never to know anything else.
She had some Protestant Episcopal
friends ; they seemed very content.
But, still idly turning the leaves, she
came to the Thirty-Nine Articles,
and her eye lighted on the words,
" As the Church of Jerusalem, Alex-
andria, and AntiocJi, have erred ; so
also the Church of Rome hath erred,
not only in their living and manner
of Ceremonies, but also in matters
of Faith." So then even they could
not be sure and settled in their
belief, she said to herself ; for if
Rome and Jerusalem and Antioch
had erred, why not the Protestant
Episcopal Church of America ? It
was the closing drop of bitterness.
John found her that noon in as
terrible a state as on the day of El-
len Lawton's death

" Rose," he said gravely, " for
some time, as you know, I have
doubted the existence of a God ;
but I will tell you now that my
doubts on that point are settled.
Wherever and whatever he may be,
there surely is one ; for I am con-

98 A Daughter of tlie Puritans.

vinced that no one could suffer as at once it failed me. Now I see a

you do without some reality to death's-head behind all."

cause it." " Rose ! Not really ?"

The unexpected words brought a Rose almost smiled at Fanny's
ray of comfort ; she lifted her poor scared face. " No, Fanny ; not lite-
pale face to his with a look of piti- rally, at least. Once, though, I did
ful longing. " Then, John," she really see it in the very centre of
said, " don't you think he must loveliness, and I cannot forget."
know how dreadful the suffering is, " I wish you could forget," Fan-
and that he will tell me some day ny said pityingly. " I wish we could
where to find him ?" be little girls once more, Rose."

The tears a man's rare tears "No, no!" Rose answered, shud-

sprang to John Howson's eyes. " I dering. " Not to live all these years

surely think he will, Rose," he an- over again. But, O Fanny ! if I

swered ; and he stooped and kissed only could forget for ever so short a

her with great compassion. His while !"

love was the only comfort Rose The strained, wild passion of her

had now, and at times she found no look and manner frightened Fanny ;

comfort even in that. she tried to return to her former

Fanny Mason came to see her in chatty lightness. ;< I'll tell you what
the afternoon. People did not you had better do," she said, " since
come to the house as freely as they you are tired of the beautiful. The
used to come ; Rose showed too Catholics are going to keep Ascen-
plainly that she did not care to see sion Day too. What a queer set
them. But Fanny had been an in- " they are ! Do you know that they
timate family friend always ; the call this the month of Mary, and in
affection between the .two girls was their hall her image is dressed in
more like that of relatives than of lace and flowers, with candles burn-
friends. Fanny was not at all intel- ing around it all day long? It is
lectual, had never known a shadow not so pretty there, I assure you.
of doubt; she ran in to chat and Suppose you try that." Then laugh-
gossip, not waiting for replies, and ing as if she had suggested the most
brought a sense of refreshment, or absurd of absurdities, Fanny went
at least of change, to Rose's bur- away,
dened mind. The dark cloud of depression

" To-morrow is Ascension Day," which had come upon Rose that
she said. " The Episcopalians are morning, and had lifted slightly at
going to have service and trim John's words, shadowed her now
their church beautifully white li- more densely than ever. She look-
lacs and wistaria and lilies of the ed about the room which John's
valley and bunches of forget-me- taste and hers had made so fair,
not. It will be lovely; wouldn't How everything palled upon her!
you like to see it?" What good was it to try to make

" I am tired and sick of prettiness life as beautiful as possible, if even

and pettiness," Rose said. in life she ceased to care for the

" Rose Howson ! What next ? beautiful ? The strong, the true,

You used to say that the beautiful the lasting, was what she needed

satisfied you entirely." now.

" I thought it did," Rose answer- It seemed to her that there was

ed sadly. " But where is it ? All no hope anywhere. She fled out

A Daughter of the Puritans. 99

Tito the open air, and walked fast Heart, the poor statue of the holy

.0 escape her haunting thoughts; Mother. Like a flash the thought

but there was no escape from self, came into her mind, "Jesus Christ

Passing the hall where the Catholics God ascended into heaven, and

had services, she saw an old woman he had a heart like ours, and he

climbing the steps, remembered had a mother."

Fanny's words, and followed her. It was not as if she were uttering

' Since the beautiful fails me," she a belief whether Jesus Christ was

thought with a bitter smile, " I will God she did not know ; she was not

look at what is not beautiful." even thinking about it then. But it

It was a very dingy hall, and unin- was as if she had grasped a link in
viting. On the side walls were poor a mighty chain, which, if one other
wood-cuts representing the scenes link could be supplied, would solve
of the Passion. On a plain white and settle all doubt for ever. Over
wood altar a lamp was burning, and over she said the words, fear-
Near by hung a colored print of ing to lose or forget them : " Jesus
the Saviour, but as Rose had never Christ God ascended into hea-
seen him portrayed before with his ven, and he had a heart like ours,
Heart exposed upon his breast, and and he had a mother." If this was
, great blood-drops falling from it. true, how God in heaven must pity
Rose shrank from the sight ; it dis- her, how he must love her !
pleased her. Close by the altar- And suddenly the tears were fall-
rail was a highly-colored and gau- ing on Rose's cheeks. When she
dily-decorated statue of the Blessed had wept last she could not tell ;
Virgin, with flowers distastefully ar- certainly not since Ellen Lawton's
ranged about it. The old woman death, though she had often craved
had fallen on her knees before it, the relief of tears. Now they fell
and was praying. Rose wondered softly and plenteously, while she
at her. kept repeating the strange formula

But she was strangely conscious with a keen sense that it soothed

of a peculiar quiet in the place ; it her and she was resting ; and oh !

soothed her. She sat down on one she had been so tired. A mother,

of the benches, and took up a book a mother how very sweet it must

lying there. The Key of Hca- be to have a mother ! And a God

rev it was called; a very soiled with a heart like , ours, a heart that

and worn book it was ; she hardly 'could be wounded and bleed and

liked to touch it. It opened at the suffer sorely ; oh ! how one must love

Apostles' Creed. " He ascended a God like that,

into heaven," she read. " John," she said abruptly, when

Who was " he " ? Jesus Christ they were sitting by the study-lamp

God ! So Catholics believed as well after tea, " what are Catholics ? I

as Mr. Gray; in this they were mean, what do you know about

agreed. But, oh ! what difference them ?"

did it make ? God and heaven were " Not much of anything," he an-

so very far away if indeed there swered in some surprise, ' except

v, ere a heaven anywhere that who as one is always coming upon them

on earth could tell anything about in history and the papers. Why ?"

them ? She looked up wearily " What makes them different from

from the book ; again her eyes Protestants ? Aren't you always

met the poor print of the Sacred coming upon them too ?"

IOO A Daughter of t lie Puritans.

" Not in the same way, child, speaking to the whole church as the

You know that Protestants are not Head of the Church, cannot be

so so obtrusive." mistaken, simply because God will

" But why, John ? I want to not permit him to be. Do you

know about them." understand?"

There was an animation in her She was sitting in the full light

manner which reminded him of old of the lamp. He noticed the quiet,

times ; he saw that she was really in thoughtful look upon her face ; it

earnest, and set himself to answer made him very happy to see it there,

her in his straightforward, kindly " John," she said after a minute's

way, glad to notice any change for pause, " why should it not be ?"

the better in her tone of mind. ' What, Rose ?"

" I have never thought very much ' I mean, if there is a God Al-

about them, Rose," he said ; " but mighty, why could he not keep a

every general reader must come in man from error in teaching, just as

contact with them somehow, even easily as he could make a man in

if, like me, he has not had personal the first place ?"

acquaintance with them in society. ' Really," said John with an

Of course you know the distinguish- amused smile at what he thought

ing features of confession and tran- her brightness, " I don't see but

substantiation, the papacy, the wor- that he could ; that is, if you give

ship of saints and relics, prayer for up the idea that we are free agents."

the dead." " But do they say he is not gen-

' Are you sure they are all erally a free agent ?" Rose asked,

wrong ?" like one thinking out a problem.

" Not at all. We were brought " Only, when God wants to use

up to think them wrong, but I have him to teach the church, he will not

never looked so deeply into the let him teach a lie. Why should

matter as to make such an assertion not an Almighty God do that ? O

on rny own judgment ; it never has John ! look here."

seemed worth while. However, if She hurried to the bookcase,

you care for my opinion, I will tell brought back and opened the Book

you what, from all I have read and of Common Prayer. " I believe in

heard, presents itself to my mind as the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic

the peculiar and fatal mark of Ca- Church," she read. " Then there

tholicism. It is its claim of abso-- are those who do really believe it ;

lute authority over the bodies and who really think that now to-day

minds and souls of men a claim there is a church where God

which reached its height of tyranny speaks plainly and unmistakably,

in the declaration of the infallibility and always will speak so, and there

of the pope." can be no error ?"

' What does that mean, John ?" " Yes, Rose."

' Why, that whatever the pope Was it only the glow of the lamp-
may say no matter who he is, re- light shining upon her face? Did
member, if he is only a pope that his eyes deceive him, or was that
thing you and I and every one must creature, radiant with happiness and
believe to be right. However, I a bloom of beauty never witnessed
mean to be just to all sects. If I there before was this his poor and
have the idea rightly, their exact fading Rose of that very noon?
claim is this: that the pope, as pope, Once in his life he had heard a

A Daughter of the Puritans. IOI

child laugh who had been suddenly not a mere man that can make mis-

and entirely released from excruciat- takes. I am quite content to yield

ing pain a low, sweet laugh most my intellect and my will to him."
L-xquisite to hear in the sense it And then, as suddenly as it had

gave of indescribable relief. Such come, the glow faded from her face ;

a laugh he heard now from Rose's she was kneeling down beside him

lips, which he had almost feared with that look of anguish in her

would never so much as smile again, eyes which for so many long weeks

"John," she said exultingly, "I had wrung his heart with pity,

have it ! There is a Heavenly " You know I have suffered," she

Father God and he made us all. said, "but, John, it is only the outside

And there is Jesus Christ God you have seen ; you can't tell what

who ascended into heaven, and he it' has been within. And now a

had a heart like ours, and he had great light is coming I am sure of

a mother. And there is a Holy it. It is not the love of beauty

Ghost God who is with the or anything I used to crave. It is

church, and so she cannot lie. And the thing I need and we all need ;

how those three are one, and how something stronger than we are :

the blood of Christ saves us, we something that cannot by any pos-

may never be able to explain ; but, sibility teach us a lie ; something

if there is a God, he will never let that cannot by any possibility err ;

his church tell lies or err or make something plain to hear and plain

mistakes, and whatever his church to see infallible ! I have not got

says that we ought to believe, it yet ; I am only on my way to it.

whether we understand it or not. If it was in your power to stop me,

And only Catholics claim an infalli- would you do it ?"
ble voice. John, I am going to try " I do not understand you, Rose,"

it. I shall speak to the priest to- he answered thoughtfully, " nor do

morrow." I entirely follow your train of rea-

" You are your own mistress, soning. Still, I grant that for a tern-
Rose," he said gravely. " You perament such as yours has of late
can do as you please. I only warn disclosed itself to be there is com-
you that after that one act of your fort in what you think you see.
own choice, you must give up your No, I would not say a word to stop
reason and will to another." you, my poor child ! It goes against

The color flashed more brightly the grain to think of one of us be-
in her cheeks. He was amazed as coming a Catholic ; but if anything
he looked at her ; once again the will help you, I shall bless the hand
fire was in her eyes, and the bril- that brings relief."
liant intellect shone in the face that She looked full in his face with a
had been dulled so long. look of grave surprise. ' I did not
'I shall give up my reason and think that of you, "she said; 'you
my will to God," she said. "It is always have seemed so honest. Don't
he who will speak to me, without you know that nothing in heaven or
erring and without lying. I do not earth can satisfy me, unless it is
expect to be as wise as my Creator, the truth? No shams, no half-way
and I am sure I shall be none the things, but something like rock that
worse for it when he who is wis- will never fail. I did not think that
dom itself teaches me. It is God of you, John!"
that I am talking about, John, and John sat alone and puzzled over

IO2

A Daughter of the Puritans.

her words that night. " I always
have to puzzle things out," he said.
" They never come to me like a
flash, as they do to Rose. Stop,
though ! I am wrong there. She
has been months in getting at it, and
they were months that almost killed
her. Why was it ?"

Plainly enough he saw at last why
it was. God, the soul, eternity
those things which are invisible
were more real to Rose than the
visible things. And should they
not be ? He knew very well that
he would be stung to the quick to be
told that his body his material,
tangible, lower nature had the up-
per hand in his life. No, his rea-
son, his intellect something intan-
gible and invisible anyhow, by what-
ever name you named it was the
governing power. And if so, then
why should not One invisible and
intangible be the ruler of that, and
claim from him more than a merely
blameless life and an honest fame ;
demand submission of his will and
reason and thought ? John shook
his head ruefully ; the idea struck
home ; he did not like it, but there
it was.

The next day Rose quietly laid
before him her little Catechism, open
at the very first section, and John
read this :

" Question. Who made you ?

"Answer. GOD.

" Q. Why did he make you ?

"A. That I might know him, love him,
and serve him in this world, and be hap-
py with him for ever in the next.

" Q. To whose likeness did he make
you?

" A. To his own image and likeness.

" Q. Is this likeness in your body or in
your soul ?

" A. In my soul.

" Q. In what is your soul like to God ?

" A. Because my soul is a spirit endow-
ed with understanding and free will, and
is immortal that is to say, can never die.

" Q. In what else is your soul like to
God?

" A. Because as in God there are three
persons and one God, so in man there is
one soul and three powers.

" Q. Which are the three powers?

" A. Will, memory, and understanding.

" Q. Which must we take most care of,
our body or our soul ?

" A. Of our soul.

" Q. Why so?

"A, Because, 'What doth it profit a
man if he gain the whole world and lose
his own scful ?'

" Q. What must we do to save our
soul ?

"A. We must worsnip God by faith,
hope, and charity ; that is, we must be-
lieve in him, hope in him, and love him
with all our heart.

" Q. How shall we know the things
which we are to believe ?

" A. From the Catholic Church of God,
which he has established by innumera-
ble miracles, and illustrated by the lives
and deaths of innumerable saints."

" John," said Rose steadily, " be
honest with God."

Professor Howson is a name
which no one hears now, though it
was once supposed that it would
rank among those of New Eng-
land's noblest scholars. But John
Howson teaches still. People had
often said of him that he would
never marry ; that his books and his
sister were enough for him. He
never did marry ; but it was God
and the church of God that satis-
fied him. Once, in a great city, an
old friend of his collegiate days,
who had not heard of him for
years, met him face to face in his
dress of a religious, and stopped
him in utter amazement.

1 John Howson ! You are un-
mistakable, but how is this ? I was
told of your change, but did not
know it had gone so far. Are not
your Puritan ancestors groaning in
their shrouds, man, because of such
doings ?"

A Daughter of the Puritans.

103

The priest returned a courteous
answer, and would have turned to
other themes, but his friend per-
sisted. Then, not with the old out-
spoken frankness as of one who
feared none, but instead, thought-
fully and humbly as in. the very fear
of God, there came this reply :

" Once I matched my mind with
the mind of God, and judged him,
and thought his will to be of no ac-
count. It was a great sin, and he
saved me from it. After that I
could only say, as another in like
case once said, * I cannot give God
less than all.'

"A great sin ?" his friend repeat-
ed. "I do not understand that."

He saw a shade of peculiar awe
creep over the countenance before
him. " And is it no sin," John
Howson asked in a deep voice, " to
hear said in the face of God that
there is no God ? to have counted
your own judgment superior to
his ? to have given God the lie ?
One who is now of the mightiest
saints thought that he did God ser-
vice while he fought against him,
and afterward he named himself the
chief of sinners. But I did not so
much as think of the service of God
at all in matters of belief."

"I can't see the fault in that,"
his friend said wonderingly. " If it
was murder you had on your con-
science, I might sympathize with
you ; but this !"

' You are fresh from Massachu-
setts," said Father Howson, " and
it is years since I was there. Do
they still count the mind as nobler
than the body, and the intellect as
among their highest gifts ?"

" Yes," was the proud reply.

" Some time," returned Father
Howson with deep meaning in his
tone, " we all- shall have to learn
that God judges sin of the mind
by as terrible a judgment as sin of
the body, and that he demands his
gifts with usury. Believe me, it is
better to forestall that judgment,
and to meet that demand here than
hereafter."

And Rose ? Long since she learn-
ed to say, " I have loved, O Lord,
the beauty of thy house ; and the
place where thy glory dwelleth."
Long since she learned that there
is One invisible who is fairer than
any child of man, and to him she
gave the heart which a wealth of
intellectual and earthly loveliness
had failed to satisfy. She has learn-
ed that there is a nobler Blood than
any that the world can boast ; His
place is with the nobility of an
eternal kingdom, whose peculiar
marks of honor are poverty, and
self-renunciation, and an utter low-
liness of obedience, whereby every
faculty of one's nature is brought
with a glad free-will into the obe-
dience of Christ. One day the
daughter of the Puritans heard an-
other voice than theirs call her bv

that tender name : " Hearken, O
daughter, and see, and incline thy
ear : and forget thy people and thy
father's house. And the King shall
grea'tly desire thy beauty : for he is
thy Lord God." Once before, but
after sore struggle and heartrend-
ing suffering, she had heard that
voice. Hearing it 'again, she rose
up joyfully and followed it, as then,
without delay

104

Prussia and the Church.

PRUSSIA AND THE CHURCH.

in.

WE have already alluded to that
feature in the recent ecclesiastical
legislation of Prussia which gives
to the people the right to choose
their pastors, and we have also seen
how nobly the Catholics of Ger-
many have thwarted this unholy at-
tempt to create dissension and dis-
cord in the church. When it could
no longer be doubted that the Ger-
man bishops were immovable in
their allegiance to the pope, Prus-
sia sought, by holding out every
possible inducement to apostasy, to
create disunion between the priests
and the bishops ; but in this, too,
she met with signal defeat. Noth-
ing, therefore, remained to be done,
but to devise measures whereby the
administration of ecclesiastical af-
fairs would be placed exclusively in
the hands of the laity ; since the
breaking of the bonds which unite
church and state would not have as
a result that weakening of ecclesias-
tical power which is so ardently
desired. This Professor Friedberg,
in his German Empire and the Catho-
lic Church, expressly states in the
following words :

" If the government were to adhere to
the plan of a total separation of church
and state, what would be the conse-
quence ? Would the bishops lose their
authority because the state no longer
recognized it? Would the parochial
system be broken up if unsupported by
the state? In a word, would the church
lose any of her power? It would argue
an absolute want of perception and a
total ignorance of Catholic history to af-
firm that she would. The stream which
for centuries has flowed in its own chan-
nel does not run dry because its course
is obstructed. It only overflows and

floods the country. To continue the met-
aphor, we must first seek with all care to
draw off the waters, and to lead them in-
to pools and reservoirs, where what re-
mains will readily evaporate."

The Protestants of Prussia are
opposed to the separation of church
and state, because they are well
aware that in the present condition
of religious opinion in Germany
the rationalists and socialists would
at once get control of most of the
parishes of the Evangelical church,
if it were deprived of the support of
the government ; and, on the other
hand, both they and the infidels
are persuaded that the Catholic
Church is quite able to maintain
herself, and even to wax strong,
without any help from the temporal
power.

" One thing," says the Edinburgh Re-
view, "the state is quite at liberty to do.
The state is not bound to pay cr main-
tain churches or sects which it does not
approve. Indeed, if these conditions are
annexed to the acceptance of state pay-
ment, the church herself would do well
to reject the terms. But will Prince
Bismarck withdraw the stipend and set
the church free? Nothing of the kind.
There is no freedom of religious orders
or communities in P'russia. The whole
spirit of these laws is to make every form
of religious belief and organization as
subservient to the state as a Prussian re-
cruit is to the rattan of a corporal. That
we abhor and denounce as an intolerable
oppression ; and it is only by the strang-
est perversion of judgment that any Eng-
lishman can have imagined that the
cause of true religious liberty was iden-
tical with the policy of Prince Bis-
marck." *

To consent to a separation of

* April, 1874, P. 195.

Prussia and the CJiurcJi.

105

church and state would be a re-
cognition of the independent exis-
tence of the church, which Prussia
holds to be contrary to the true
theory of the constitution of human
society in relation to government
and religion. This theory is that
man exists for the state, to which he
owes his supreme and undivided al-
legiance ; whose duty it is to train
and govern him for its own service
alike in peace and war. All the
interests of society, therefore, mate-
rial, political, educational, and reli-
gious, must be subjected to the
state, independently of which no
organization of any kind ought to
be permitted to exist. And in fact
the whole spirit of the recent eccle-
siastical legislation of Prussia is in
perfect consonance with this theory.
The Falck Laws deny to the church
the right to educate her priests,
to decide as to their fitness for the
care of souls, to appoint them to
or remove them from office ; in a
word, the right to administer her
own affairs, and consequently to
exist at all as an organization sepa-
rate from the state.

It can hardly surprise us that the
attempt should have been made to
prove that this is in accordance
with the teachings of the New Tes-
tament.

" The New Testament," says the Brit-
ish Quarterly, "requires that the Chris-
tian shall be a loyal subject of the gov-
ernment under which he lives. ' Let
cver) r soul be subject unto the higher
powers. For there is no power but of
God ; the powers that be are ordained of
God : whosoever therefore resisteth the
power, resisteth the ordinance of God.' " *

After quoting several texts from
the Epistles of St. Paul, of the
same general import, the writer in
the British Quarterly continues :

" Now, it is impossible to find in the
* Romans xiii. i, 2.

New Testament any injunctif ns of obe-
dience to organized ecclesiastical power,
like those here given of obedience to the
civil government. It is not ecclesiasti-
cal authority, nor a corporate ecclesiasti-
cal institution, but the personal God,
and the individual conscience in its
direct personal relations with God, which
is set over against an unrighteous de-
mand of the civil authority in the crucial
motto of Peter, 'We ought to obey God
rather than men,' and in the teaching of
Christ, ' Render unto Caesar the things
which are Caesar's, and unto God the
things which are God's.' Of conscience
as an ecclesiastical corporation, or of con-
science as an imputed or vicarious facul-
ty, determined and exercised by one for
another, the ethics of the New Testament
have no knowledge." *

It is hard to realize the ignorance
or the bad faith of a man who is
capable of making such statements
as these. Let us take the last
words of the gospel of St. Matthew :
" And Jesus coming, spoke to them,
saying : All power is given to me
in heaven and in earth. Going,
therefore, teach ye all nations, . . .
teaching them to observe al} things
whatsoever I have commanded you ;
and, behold, I am with you all days,
even to the consummation of the
world." Here surely is an organ-
ized body of men, receiving from
Christ himself the divine command
to teach all the nations of the earth
their religious faith and duties, which
necessarily carries with it the right
to exact obedience. But, lest there
be any room for doubt, let us hear
Christ himself : " He that heareth
you, heareth me : and he that de-
spiseth you despiseth me. And he
that despiseth me, despiseth him that
sent me." f

Again : " And if he will not hear
the church, let him be to thee as the
heathen and the publican. Amen
I say to you, whatsoever you shall

* The British Quarterly, January, 1875, p. 17.
t Luke x. 1 6.

io6 Prussia and the Church.

bind upon earth, shall be bound They would go out to pray on tne
also in heaven : and whatsoever you hillside and by the river banks ra-
sh all loose upon earth, shall be ther than submit to such tyranny,
loosed also in heaven." * Is not the right of revolution,

When Peter and John were which in our day, especially outside

brought into court and " charged of the Catholic Church, is held to

not to speak at all, nor teach in the be divine, based upon the principle

name of Jesus," they should have of divided allegiance ? Practically it

submitted at once, upon the theory is impossible to distinguish between

that the state has the right to ex- loyalty to the government and loy-

act supreme and undivided allegi- alty to the state ; and no man in

ance ; but they appealed to their this age thinks of questioning the

divine commission, just as the bi- right of rebellion against a tyranni-

shops of Germany do to-day, and cal government. This divided al-

answered, " We cannot but speak legiance marks the radical differ-

the things which we have seen and ence between Christian and pagan

heard." f civilization. Before Christ there

And in the council at Jerusa- was no divided allegiance, because

lem, " an ecclesiastical corporation ' : the individual was absorbed by the

surely, the apostles say : ;< For it state, and nothing could have

hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, wrested mankind from this bond-

and to us, to lay no further bur- age but a great spiritual organiza-

den upon you than these necessary tion such as the Catholic Church ;

things " ; J plainly indicating and and this, we believe, is generally

using their right to impose com- admitted by our adversaries. They

inands and exact obedience. But fail to perceive, however, that there

enough of this. The persecutors is no other institution than the Ca-

of the church to-day are not at all tholic Church which has the pow-

concerned about the teachings of er to prevent the state from again

the New Testament. The attempt, absorbing the individual and de-

however, to make it appear that stroying all civil and political liberty,

only Catholics protest against the If the church could be broken up

doctrine of absolute and undivid- into national establishments, and

ed allegiance to the state is wholly the entire control of education

unjustifiable. There is no Protes- handed over to the state, the bring-

tant sect in England or the United ing all men to the servile temper

States which would submit to the which characterizes the Russians

intervention of the government in and Protestant Prussians would "be

its spiritual life and internal disci- only a question of time. Many

pline. Would the Methodists, or will be inclined to hold that the

the Baptists, or the Presbyterians general freedom, and even license,

permit the state to decide what of thought of our time would be

kind of education their ministers a sufficient protection against any

are to receive, or to determine such danger.

whether they are capable of proper- A little reflection, however, will

ly discharging their spiritual duties, suffice to dispel this illusion. -No

or to keep in office by force those number of individuals, unless they

whom the church had cast off? are organized, can successfully op-

.. , ... pose tyranny: and mere specula-

* Matthew xviii. 17, 18. r . . J .

tActsiv. ao. $ Acts XT. 28. tions or opinions as to the abstract

Prussia and the Church. 107

right of resistance can not stop the tween priests and people was given
march of the state toward absolut- last year when the so-called State-
ism. The most despotic states have Catholics tried to get up a protest
often encouraged the most unbound- against the encyclical letter of the
cd freedom of thought, and we need Pope, in which he declared that the
not go beyond Prussia for an exam- May Laws were not binding upon
p!e. In no country in the world the consciences of Catholics. All
has there been more of what is call- the liberal papers of Germany were
ed free-thinking, nor has any gov- loud in praise of this project, which
eminent been more tolerant of wild presented the fairest opportunity
theories and extravagant specula- to Catholic government officials to
tions ; and yet the free-thinkers and curry favor by showing their accep-
illuminati have done nothing to pro- tance of the Falck laws ; and yet, in
mote the growth of free institu- spite of every effort that was made,
tions or to encourage civil or reli- only about a thousand signatures
gious liberty. They are without were obtained, most of which were
unity or organization or programme, found outside of the eight millions
Many of them to-day are the strong- of Prussian Catholics,
est supporters of Bismarckian des- Mr. Gladstone, in his article on
potism. Even in 1848 they sue- the " Speeches of Pope Pius IX.," *
ceeded only in getting up a mob says of the Catholic clergy that
and evaporating in wild talk. they " are more and more an army,

The divine right of resistance to a police, a caste ; further and further
tyranny would have no sanction or from the Christian Commons, but
efficacy if it were not kept living in nearer to one another and in closer
the hearts of men by supernatural subservience to the pope." How-
religion, ever near the Catholic clergy may

This is thoroughly understood by be to one another, it certainly

the advocates of absolutism, who do shows a great lack of power to see

not trouble themselves about doc- things as they are to maintain that

trines of any kind, except when they they are losing the hold which more

are upheld by organizations, and for than any other class of men they

this reason all their efforts are di- have always had on the hearts of

rected to the destruction of the or- the people. The persecution in

ganic unity of the church. Had Germany has shown there that in-

Prince Bismarck succeeded in his separable union of priest and peo-

attempt to get the Catholic congre- pie which is to-day as universal as

gations which have been deprived the life of the church. Had there

of their priests to elect pastors for existed any seed of discord, it cer-

themselves, there would have been tainly would have sprung up and

but another step to open schism, flourished in Prussia during the last

which would have inevitably resulted four or five years,

in favor of Old Catholicism. But, What circumstances could have

as we have seen, out of more than a been more favorable to such develop-

lumdred parishes, not one has lent ment than those created by the Old

itself to the iniquitous designs of the Catholics in league with Bismarck ?

enemies of the church. The unprecedented victories over

Another striking example of the Austria and France had set all
perfect unanimity of thought and

, . , . * The London Quarterly Review, January,

action which m Prussia exists be- p . X 6o.

io8 Prussia and the Church.

Germany wild with enthusiasm, man hands, with paste and glue, out
" Deutschland liber alles, liber alles of these broken pieces can remake
in der Welt," was the refrain of the heavenly vase once filled with
every song. On the other hand, God's spirit of faith, hope, and love,
many Catholics, especially in Ger- is an idle fancy. Into this patch-
many, had been prejudiced and work no divine life will come ; men
somewhat soured by the false inter- will not believe in it, nor will it
pretations which were everywhere inspire enthusiasm or the heroic
put on the dogma of papal infal- courage of martyrdom. Therefore
libility. Just at this moment Dr. they who leave the church, their na-
Dollinger, whose reputation was tive soil, have indeed all the world
greater than that of any other Ger- before them, and yet no place
man theologian, announced his where they can find rest for their
separation from the church, and at souls.

once there gathered around him What the religious policy of the
a party of dissatisfied or suspend- Prussian Liberals is, Herr von
ed priests and rationalistic laymen. Kirchmann, to whom .in a previous
Reinkens was made bishop, and the article we introduced our readers,
Emperor of Germany publicly pray- informs us in the following words :
ed that the " certainly correct con-
viction of the Hochwurdiger Herr " The majority of the Liberal repre-
Bischof might win ground more and Datives are highly-educated men who

.. , have fallen out with the Christian church-
more. Fortune smiled upon the eS( because they no longer accept their

new religion and everything seemed creed, and therefore hold as a principle

to promise it the brightest future, that freedom ot conscience for the indi-

What has been the result ? In a vidual is abundantly sufficient to satisfy

population of eight millions of Ca- < he rel ^ ious w , a " ts of ^e people.

\. . . ' . , . , . . best, they would consent to the exist-

thohcs this sect, with the aid of the ence of congregations . any organization

state, German enthusiasm, and the beyond this they consider not only un-

whole liberal press, has been able necessary but hurtful.*'
to gather only about six thousand

adherents ; and they are without This, then, is the Liberal pro-
zeal, without doctrinal or moral gramme : the individual shall have
unity, having as yet not even dared perfect freedom to believe, as he
to define their position towards the pleases, in God or the devil ; but
Pope. Dr. Dollinger himself has there shall be no ecclesiastical or-
lost interest in the movement, and ganization, unless a kind of congre-
its most sanguine friends have gationalism, which, having neither
yielded to despondency. Old Ca- unity nor strength, can be easily ren-
tholicism was, in fact, impossible dered harmless by being placed un-
from the beginning. But two roads der police supervision. These men
open before those who to-day go of culture, as Herr von Kirchmann
forth from the fold of the church : says, have fallen out with all the
the one leads to the Babel and de- churches ; and they are liberal
composition of Protestant sectarian- enough to be willing to do every-
ism, the other to the unbelief of thing in their power to make it im-
scientific naturalism. possible that any of them should
To declare that Christianity is exist at all, since without organic
lying disjointed, in shattered frag- unity of some kind there can be no
ments, and yet to pretend that hu- church, as there can be no state.

Prussia and the Church. 109

But let us hear what Herr von masses as a system of belief, receiv-

Kirchmann has to remark upon this ed on the authority of a church, is

subject. essential to the preservation and per-

"This view," he says, "may satisfy manence of our civilization. This

those who have reached the high degree ls a subject to which we Americans

of culture of the Liberals ; but those might with great profit give our

who take it utterly ignore the religious thoughts.

wants of the middle and lower classes, As Emerson, who is probably our
and fail to perceive the yearning, msepa- rrnrarrenVir thinker hac <\*

rablefrom all religious feeling, for associ- hmker, has de-

ation with persons of like sentiments, in clared that he would write over the

order, through public worship, to obtain portal of the Temple of Philosophy

the strength and contentment after which WHIM, American Protestantism

this fundamental craving of the human seems more and more i ncl i ned to

accept this as the only satisfactory,

To the existence of this feeling, or indeed possible, shibboleth in reli-
and its yearning for the largest pos- gion. The multiplication of sects
sible association, the history of all holding conflicting creeds, while it
Christian peoples, down even to the has weakened faith in all religious
present day, bears witness ; for this doctrines, has helped on the natural
reason nowhere have men been sat- tendency of Protestantism to throw
isfied with the freedom of the indi- men back upon their own feelings
vidual, but have ever demanded a or fancies for their faith. This, of
church with acknowledged rights course, results in the breaking up
and the privilege of free intercom- even of congregations into atoms
mimion. of* individualism, and will, if not
"To the dangers which would threaten counteracted, necessarily destroy
society if religious associations should our character as a Christian people ;
be broken up, and faith left to the whim and for us it is needless to say
of individuals, these highly cultivated Christianity is the only possible re-
men give no heed, because they do not Ho-ion

themselves feel the need of such sup- T,-

f . Our statesmen politicians may

port ; but they forget that their security,

the very possibility, indeed, of reaching be the more proper, word though

the point at which they stand, rests upon not irreligious, lack grasp of mind

the power of the church over the masses ; and depth of view, else they could

and should they destroy this by allow- not f a ^ to perceive, however little

the congregations to break up into t] sympathize with the doc-

atoms, leaving the Christian creed to-be . J J J

fashioned by passion and ever-varying in- ;rmes or what the / conceive to be

terests, according to the fancy of each the social tendencies of the Catho-

and every one, nothing would remain but lie Church, that just such a strong

the brute force of the state, which, with- and conservative Christian organism

,ut the aid of the internal dispositions ^ ^ { ^ for ug an indispensable
of the people, cannot save society from ... ,

complete dissolution."* political requirement. That none

of the leading minds of the country

Herr von Kirchmann, then, adds should have taken this view is a

his testimony to that of many other S ad evidence of want o. intellectual

observers who, though they do not power or of moral courage. The

believe in the divine origin and most that any of them feel autho-

truth of the Christian religion, yet rized in saying in our favor is that

hold that its acceptance by the a country which tolerates free-love,

* Der c#r/k*;;*//,28,2 9 . Mormonism, and the joss-house of

IIO Prussia and the Church.

the Chinaman ought not, if con- life of this country ; our peril lies
sistency be a virtue, to persecute in the opposite direction ; and that
Catholics. In spite of appearances so few of those who think should
which mislead superficial observers, see this is to us the saddest sign of
we are the most secular people in the times ; but those who do recog-
the world. No other people is so nize it cannot help knowing that
ready to sacrifice religious to mate- the Catholic Church is the strongest
rial interests; no other people has bulwark against this flood-tide,
ever to an equal extent banished all The social dangers of an open per-
religious instruction from its nation- secution of the Catholic Church are
al education ; no other people has most clearly seen in Prussia to-day,
ever taken such a worldly view of Since the German chancellor en-
its religion. The supernatural in tered upon his present course of vio-
religion is lost sight of by us, and lence five bishops and fifteen thou-
we value it chiefly for its social" and sand priests have been imprisoned
aesthetic power. The popular creed or fined, and about the same num-
is that religion is something which ber of laymen have suffered for dar-
favors republicanism, promotes the ing to speak unfavorably of these
exploitation of the material re- proceedings. Never before, proba-
sources of the globe, softens man- bly, have the police been so general -
ners, and 'makes life comfortable. ly or constantly employed in arrest-
The proposition to tax church ing men who are loved and venerated
property 'shows that a large 'portion by the people, and whose only crime
of the American people have ceas- is fidelity to conscience. The ineyi-
ed to believe in religion as a moral table consequence of this is that the
and social power. A church is like officers of the government come to
a bank or theatre or coal-mine be looked upon, not as the ministers
something which concerns only of justice, but as the agents of ty-
those who have stock in it, and has ranny and oppression, which must,
nothing whatever to do with the of course, weaken respect for au-
public welfare. The school-house thority. These coercive measures,
occupies quite other ground. The from the nature of things, tend only
country is interested in having all to confirm the Catholics in their
its citizens intelligent ; this is for conscientious convictions, and the
the general good ; but whether they government is thereby instigated to
believe in God or the soul is a harsher methods of dealing with this
matter of profound indifference, un- passive resistance. The number of
less, possibly, to themselves, since confessors of the faith increases, the
this can in no way affect the pro- enthusiasm and devotion of the peo-
gress or civilization of the American pie are heightened, and it becomes
people. This is evidently the only an honor and a glory to be made a
possible philosophy for those who victim of tyranny. The feeling of dis-
would tax church property. The grace which is attached to the penal-
popular contempt for theology en- ties for violation of law is more effi-
couraged by nearly all Protestant cacious in repressing crime than the
ministers is another evidence of suffering which is inflicted ; but this
the tendency to religious disintegra- feeling is destroyed, or rather chang-
tion. There is but little danger ed, into one of an opposite character
that any church will ever get a con- in the minds of the people when
trolling influence in the national they behold their venerated bishops

Prussia and the Church. ill

and much-loved priests dragged to of property greater, and the relations

prison for saying Mass or administer- f between the K^reni passes of society

far more peaceable and fiicndly than in

ing the sacraments. No amount of the provinces to which l have jus t made

reasoning, no refinement of logic, can allusion. The socage and heavy taxes

ever convince them that there can pressed hard upon the peasantry ; never-

be anything criminal in the perfor^ theless in 1848 insurrections against

mance of these sacred functions, < he landlords were not more frequent

, . i here than elsewhere. It wasunquestion-

In this way the ignominy which ; m ablythe power f u l influence of the clergy

the public mind follows conviction which, in spite of so many obstacles,

for crime is wiped away, and the gave to the people their moral character,

sacredness of the law itself endan- and produced the general contentment

j and obedience which reflected the great-

-- . est honor upon the whole population.

his alone is sufficient The yice of drunken ness, through the

how blind and thoughtless Prince agency of temperance societies establish-

Bismarck has been in making ed solely by the priests, had been in an

war upon the Catholic Church just almost marvellous manner rooted out

at the moment when wise coupsels ^^^Stf^S^

means of my official and political posi-

the Strength of reverence and re- tion I had the opportunity to make the

spect to the enthusiasm with' which acquaintance of a large number of the

the creation of the new empire had pastors and curates, and still to-day I

r^, i-ij recall with pleasure my intercourse

been hailed. The spoilt child of wkh these ^ for the ^ part culti .

success, wounded pride made him vated? but above all distinguished by

mad. How serviceable he might their thorough gentleness of character,

have found the moral support of the They were firm in maintaining the

Catholic clergy Herr von Kirchmann ri s hts of their church, they were filled

. f with the excellence of their mission, but

they never thought of thwarting the civil
authorities ; on the contrary, they found

" I myself," he says, " from 1849 to in the clergy a great and efficacious sup-
1866, with the exception of some inter- port, so that this province needed fewer
vals, lived in Upper Silesia, a wholly protective and executive officials than
Catholic province, and, as the president others."*
of the Criminal Senate of a Court of Ap-
peals, had the fullest opportunity to NQ en ii g i lte ned and fair go vein-
study the moral and religious state of . , . f A./-. +1-.^
the people, which in nothing is so truly ment has anything to fear from the
seen as in those circumstances out of influence of men who are as nrm
which spring offences against the law. in upholding the authority of the
Now, although this province of more state as they are in asserting their
than a million of men was thoroughly Qwn ifo QYiy o f conscience ; who will
Catholic and entirely in the hands of . . , * i
the clergy ; although the school system neithei do wrong nor tamely Si
was still very imperfect, and the popu- mit to it. If, in the social, religious,
laiion, with the exception of the land- and political crisis through which
owners and the inhabitants of the large the nations of Christendom are
cities, not speaking the German language, p ass i n g SO und reason is ultimately
; thereby deprived of culture and of . d dvilization is fco be
intercourse with the German provinces, .
yet can I unhesitatingly affirm that the preserved, the necessity oi an insti-
inoral condition of the people was in no tution like the Catholic Church will
way worse than in Saxony or the Margra- come to be recognized by all who
vate where formerly I held similar official are capa bl e o f serious thought,
positions. The number of crimes was
rather less, the security of person and * Guitar kainff, pp. 33-34.

112 Prussia and the Church.

The divided allegiance, the main- The change which has taken place,
tenance of the supremacy of con- though it have something of the
science, is essential to the preser- nature of growth and development,
vation of the principle of authority is yet, unquestionably, more a break-
in society. If it were possible to ing down and dissevering. The Ca-
nationalize religion by placing all tholic Church, by the reverence
churches under state control, the which she inspires for institutions,
authority of the state would neces- is, and in the future will be yet
sarily become that of brute force, more, the powerful ally of those
and would in consequence be de- who will stand by the Constitution
prived of its sacredness. The re- as our fathers made it.
spect of Christian nations for the Our statesmen, we know, are in
civil power is a religious sentiment ; the habit of looking elsewhere for
and if the church could cease to be, the means which are to give per-
there would be a radical revolution manence to our free institutions,
in the attitude of the people toward The theory now most in favor is
the state. In Europe even now, in that universal education is the sur-
consequence of the progress of un- est safeguard of liberty, and it is
belief, respect for authority and the upon this more than upon anything
duty of obedience have been so far else that we, as a people, rely for
destroyed in the minds and hearts the perpetuity of our form of gov-
of the masses that government is ernment. This hope, we cannot
possible only with the support of but think, is based upon an erro-
immense standing armies, which neous opinion of the necessary ten-
help on the social dissolution ; and dency of intellectual culture ; which
with us things would be in a still is to increase the spirit of criticism,
worse condition, were it not that and consequently, by dissatisfying
the vast undeveloped resources of the mind with what is, to direct it
the country draw off the energies continually to new experiments, with
which else would be fatal to public the hope of finding something bet-
order. Our strength and security ter. Now, though this may be well
are rather in our physical surround- enough in the realms of speculation,
ings than in our moral resources, and may be a great help to the pro-
Our greatest moral force, during gress of science, it most assuredly
the century of our existence, has does not tend either to beget or to
been the universal veneration of foster reverence for existing institu-
the people for the Constitution, tions of any kind ; and this same
which was regarded with a kind of mental habit which has already
religious reverence ; but this ele- made American Protestantism so
ment of strength is fast wasting fragmentary and contradictory will
away and will not pass over as a beyond doubt weaken and, unless
vital power into the second century counteracted, destroy the unity of
of our life. The criticisms, the our political life. This is a ques-
amendments, the patchings, which tion which does not concern us
the Constitution has been made to alone ; with it is bound up the fu-
suffer, have, more than civil strife, ture of the human race. If the
debased it to the common level of American experiment of govern-
profane parchments and robbed it ment by the people fails, all hope
of the consecration which it had re- of such government perishes. If
ceived in the hearts of the people we allow our personal prejudices to

Prussia and the Church. 113

warp our judgment in a matter so authority. She does not permit the in-
catholic and all-important, no fur- dividual to decide in matters of faith and

ther evidence of our unfitness for disci P line ; and sh f e st P^fectly real-
. . , . . _, izes the essence of religion, which can-
the great mission which God seems not proce ed from the individual, but
to have assigned us is needed. Un- must have its source in the command-
fortunately, we are at the mercy of ments of God. In the bishops, in the
politicians for whom all other ques- coun cils, in the pope, the individual

tions than the present success of fin 1 ds aut ^tie 8 who announce to him

J . religious truth, and by the administration

party have no interest, and who of the sacramen t s bring him nearer to

therefore flatter the passions of the God. Changes in faith and worship

people instead of seeking to en- which, with the progress of science and

lighten them ; and the insane hatred of general culture, become necessary, are

and fear of the church which the ^e withdrawn from the disputes of the

. , . learned and the criticism of individuals :

Protestant masses have inherited in the councils and in their head> the '

from the Old World prevents them pop e, an institution is found by which

from seeing what a source of strength modifications may be permitted without

and bond of union is her stroner and shaking faith in the teachings of the

i v>
firmly-knit organism in a social state

In the position of the priest toward

like ours, m which there are so the laity this re]ation of ^ individua ,

many elements of dissolution and to the church becomes most intimate,

disintegration. and numerous special ordinances culti-

Herr von Kirchmann, though, as vate the *P irit of obedience and respect

we have seen, not a Catholic nor for . the commands of ecclesiastical su-

,-,, c penors, while they also serve the ends

a Christian, is yet too profound Christian charity and benevolence.

statesman not to recognize the n ought not, indeed, to be denied that

supreme social importance of the this repression of individual self-deter-

( hurch to the modern world. mination and this fostering of obedience

may be carried too far, and to some ex-

" Human society," he says, " cannot do tent has, in the Catholic Church, been

without the principle of authority, of exaggerated, as in civil society the cul-

obedience, of respect for law, any more tivation of individual freedom and the

than it can do without the principle of repression of authority have produced an

individual freedom ; and now that the opposite excess ; but precisely through

family has been shoved into the back- the interaction of these extremes will the

ground*, there remains to uphold this true mean be obtained ; and therefore

principle of authority only one great in- ought the state to seek in the Catholic

stitution, and that is the Christian church- Church that powerful institution which

es, and, above all, the Catholic Church. alone, by virtue of her whole organization,

' The Reformation has so filled the is able to ward off the dangers which
Evangelical Church with the principle threaten society from the exaggeration
of self-examination and self-determina- of the principle of individual freedom,
tion that she cannot at all take upon But to do this the^ church must be left in
herself the mission of protectress of au- the possession of her constitution as it
thority, of respect for law, as law ; which has hitherto existed, and the state, con-
is essential to modern society. She is sequently, should not interfere with her
also too far removed from the laity, and external power any further than its own
lacks those special institutions which existence demands. In this respect the
\vouldenableherenergeticallytouphold principle of individual freedom which
this principle. pervades all modern life is so powerful

' The same is true of all reform parties an auxiliary of the state that no fear of

within the church, and must be applied the influence of the church need be felt,

to the Old Catholics, should they sue- of which a little too much is far less dan-

ceed in acquiring any importance. The gerous to society than too little.

Roman Catholic Church alone must be "These are considerations, indeed,

considered the true mother of respect for which are not in harmony with the pro-
VOL. XXIII. 8

114

Prussia and the Church.

gramme of modern liberalism, and will
therefore have but little weight with those
who swim with the current of the time ;
nevertheless, if we look around us, we
perceive many evidences of the instinc-
tive feeling of human society that in the
Catholic Church may be found a protec-
tion for the harmony of social life which
now no longer exists elsewhere. Only
in this way can we explain the rapid
growth of the Catholic Church in her
strictly hierarchical constitution in Ame-
rica, and the increasing Catholic move-
ment in England, together with the efforts
of the Established Church to draw nearer
to the Catholic ; and this tendency would
be far more pronounced had it not to
contend against historical reminiscences
which in England are more vivid than
elsewhere. Similar reasons influence
the government of France to seek rather
to strengthen than to weaken the power
of the church ; and in this matter the un-
believing Thiers has not acted otherwise
than the religious MacMahon.

" After the principle of authority had
been shaken by revolutions and an un-
happy war in France more than in any
other country, the people knew not
where to seek help, except in the foster-
ing of religion and the support of the
Catholic Church. Like grounds prevent
Italy and Austria from coming to an
open rupture with the church ; they pre-
fer to yield somewhat in the execution
of the laws rather than suffer themselves
to be deprived of her indispensable aid.
Similar tendencies exist in the other
German governments, and also among
the rich and powerful families of Ger-
many and Prussia. Everywhere, even
where these families are not adherents
of the Catholic faith, they feel that this
church is a fortress against the anarchy
of individual freedom which should be
defended and not destroyed. The mem-
bers of these families are not blind to the
defects of the church ; but they know
that in the present age these are the least
to be feared, while her power against the
self-exaltation of the individual is indis-
pensable to modern society. It is alto-
gether a mistake to attribute this bearing
of the wealthy classes of all civilized na-
tions towards the church to selfish mo-
tives or to the cunning of priests ; these
motives may, as in all great things, slip
in in isolated cases ; but this whole
movement in Europe and America
springs from deeper causes from causes

which lie at the very bottom of our com-
mon nature, which can neither suffer the
loss of freedom nor yet do without order
and authority.

" About every ten years we are assured
that, if only this or that is reached, the
Catholic Church will of herself fall to
pieces. Never has the attempt to bring
about this consummation been made with
more spirit and energy than in the litera-
ture and political constitutions of the last
century ; and yet this church lives still in
our day, and what she has lost in tempo-
ral sovereignty is doubly and trebly made
up to her in the growing number of her
children and the gradually-increasing in-
sight into the significance of her mission
for human society.

" For this reason the present conflict
with the church in Prussia ought not to
be pushed so far as to bring her power as
low as the state has brought that cf the
Evangelical Church. If the Catholic
Church is to fulfil the great social mis-
sion which we have just described, and
which consists essentially in her main-
taining an equilibrium between freedom
and obedience, which is indispensable
to society and the state, her external
power and internal organization must not
be interfered with in a way to render the
accomplishment of this exalted mission
impossible." *

Herr Joerg, the editor of one of
the first reviews of Germany, has
said that Prince Bismarck has done
more to strengthen and make popu-
lar the Catholic cause in the em-
pire than the two hundred Jesuits
whom he has exiled could have
done in half a century. This, we
believe, is coming to be general-
ly recognized. The war on the
church was begun with loud boast-
ings. Men of high position declar-
ed that in two years not a Catho-
lic would be left in Germany.
The prince chancellor disdained to
treat with the Pope or the bishops,
and defiantly entered upon his
course of draconic legislation to
compel to his stubborn will the con-
sciences of eight millions of Prus-
sian subjects. He is not able to

* Cutturkampf pp. 44-47.

Prussia and the Church. 115

conceal his disappointment. With upon the feebler organizations of

glory enough to satisfy the most Protestantism. Since the law on civil

ambitious he could not rest con- marriage has been passed compara-

tent, but must court defeat. All tively few contract matrimony in the

his hopes have fallen to the ground, presence of the Protestant ministers ;

The Old Catholics who were to have great numbers refuse to have their

been his most powerful allies have children baptized or to have the

sunk into the oblivion of con- preachers assist at the burial of the

tempt ; the priests whom he ex- dead. The government has become

peeled to throw off the authority of alarmed, and quite recently circulars

their bishops have not been found ; have been sent to the officials

the uprising of the laity against charged with carrying out the law

their pastors has not taken place ; on civil marriage, in which they are

the bishop who was to have put instructed to inform the contracting

himself at the head of a German parties that the law does not abro-

Catholic Church has not appeared ; gate the hitherto existing regulation

the Falck laws have not served the concerning ecclesiastical marriage,

purpose for which they were enact- and that they are still bound to pre-

ed, nor have the numerous supple- sent themselves before the clergy-

mentary bills met with Better sue- man and to have their children

cess. He has indeed made his vie- baptized as formerly. The service

tims personally most uncomforta- of the police, we need scarcely say, is
ble ; bishops and priests he has ' not required to induce the Catholics

cast into dungeons, monks and to seek the blessing of the church

nuns he has driven forth from their upon their marriage contracts or to

homes and their country to beg the have their children baptized,

bread of exile ; laymen he has s-ent The result of all this is that many

jail for speaking and writing the wise and large-minded men, like

truth ; but with all this he has not Von Hoffmann, Von Gerlach, and

advanced one step towards the end Von Kirchmann, have lost all sym-

he aims at. He has not made abreach pathy with the policy of Bismarck

in the serried Catholic phalanx, towards the Catholic Church, as

His legislation has nearly doubled well as confidence in its success,

the number of Catholic representa- They now thoroughly understand

lives in the parliament ; it has given that, were it possible to destroy the

new life and wider influence to the church, this would be an irreparable

holic press ; it has welded the misfortune for the fatherland. The

union of bishops, priests, and peo- state needs the church more than

pie, and bound all closer to the the church the state. She can live

From their dungeons the with Hottentots and Esquimaux,

>hops and priests come forth and but without her neither liberty nor

e received in triumph like con- culture can be permanent. It must

lering heroes ; imprisonments and also be humiliating to Prince Bis-

imes of Catholic editors serve only marck to see with what little success

to increase the circulation of their those who have sought to ape him

journals. In the meantime the have met. Mr. Gladstone, from faith

! irals and revolutionists are in the chancellor, thought to bolster

ining strength, crime is becoming up a falling party by " expostulat-

more common, and the laws aimed ing ' with the Pope, and he has

the church are beginning to tell succeeded only in finding himself

Notre Dame de Pitie.

in the company of Newdegate and come possible ; and he will retire to

Whalley. President Grant has been the obscurity of private life with the

r.iade to believe that the Pope is such stigma of having sought to stir up

a monstrous man that by means of religious strife for the furtherance

him even a third term might be- of his own private interest.

NOTRE DAME DE PITIE.

41 Was ever sorrow like, unto my sorrow ?"

THERE is in the Imperial Library
at Paris an old copy of the gospels
written on parchment, evidently of
the fourteenth or fifteenth century,
with the arms of Colbert on the
cover. It once belonged to the
church of Albi. At the end of the
gospels is the Planctus, or Com-
plainte de Notre Dame in the langue
(fOc the old language of Southern
France full of naive piety and
charming simplicity. No one could
hear unmoved the touching tone
of reproach and grief it breathes
throughout. It is in thirty-two
stanzas, the lines of which, monoto-
nous and melancholy, are like the.
repeated tellings of a funeral bell.
The last words of each verse are an
expression of exhausted grief the
dying away of a voice drowned in
tears. . . .

It is entitled : " Here begins the
Plaint in honor of the Passion of
our Lord Jesus Christ and the
sorrow of his most holy Mother '

u Planh sobre planh ! dolor sobre dolor !
Cel e terra an perdut lor senhor,
E yeu mon filh, el solelh sa clardor ;
Jusieus Ian mort an grande desonor.
Ay filh, tan mortal dolor !" *

The cry of Ay filh ! " Alas ! my

*"Woe on woe! grief on grief! Heaven and
earth have lost their lord, and I my son ; the sun its
clearness ; Jews have slain him, to tneir great dis-
honor. Alas ! my son, what mortal grief i"

Son " at the end of every verse is
like a sob that breaks the plaint.
This long wail of maternal grief,
which no translation fully renders,
was doubtless sung round many an
effigy of the dead Christ in the dim
old churches of Languedoc centu-
ries ago, just as the people of the
Pyrenees at this day gather around
their dead to weep and improvise a
dirge of sorrow. We were particu-
larly touched at coming across this
ancient document ; for it seemed to
echo the devotion to the Mother of
Sorrows which we had found written
all over southwestern France. Ev-
erywhere in tli is Terra Mar ice are
churches and oratories in honor of
Notre Dame de Pitie, most of which
are monuments of an age as sorrow-
ful as the holy mystery they com-
memorate.

It is remarkable how popular de-
votion turned to the Mater Dolaro-
sa in the sixteenth century, when
Christ seemed bleeding anew in this
land of altars ruined and priests
slaughtered by the Huguenots.
Numberless are the legends of the
apparitions of Our Lady of Sorrows
in those sad days, which led to
the erection of a great number of
churches wherein she is represent-
ed holding her divine Son taken
down from the cross one of the

Notre Dainc de Pitti.

117

most affecting appeals that can be
made to the human heart. For the
long, sad procession of mourners
who go weeping and groaning
tli rough this valley of tears %e-
mcntcs et flentes in hac lacrymarum
italic constitutes the greater part of
the human race. The widow, the
orphan, the friendless, the infirm,
the needy, and the laborer with
little or no joy in life, when they
turn towards Mary, love to find her
at the foot of the cross in mute sor-
row over the inanimate form of her
Son, or with the wheel of swords
in her bleeding heart, or some
other attribute of human infirmity.
Hence the names given to these
mountain chapels by the sorrow-
ful as a mark of their trust in this
sweet type of grief: Notre Dame
des Larmes, Notre Dame des Souf-
f ranees, dx la Consolation, de Es-
perance names which have balm
in their very sound. Above all is
the title which seems to include
all other sorrows Notre Dame de
Pitie the most common among the
perils of the mountain streams
and on the broad moors of the
Landes. There are innumerable
Pittas, or Pities, all through this
region on the sands of the sea-
shore below Bayonne, where the
sailors go to pray before embarking
on the perfidious waves of the Bay
of Biscay; in dangerous mountain
passes, as in the oratory of Pene-
Taillade beyond Arreau ; among
country groves, as in the lone sanc-
tuary near Lannemezan to which
the husbandman resorts to be spared
the ravages of hail among his vines
and wheat-fields ; in the valleys of
Bigorre ; on the Calvary of Betha-
ram ; on the heights near Pan ; and
at Goudosse, where the poor goitre <ux
of the mountains go to pray. Yes,
the shadow of this great type of
sorrow extends over all the land.

There are several chape.s of
Notre Dame de Pitie in the eccle-
siastical province of Auch that are
particularly renowned. One of
these is the beautiful chapel of
Notre Dame de Garaison, in the
Diocese of Tarbes, dear to every
Catholic heart in the land, em-
bosomed among the hills of the
Hautes Pyrenees like a lily in the
green valley, whose Madonna was
solemnly crowned in 1865, by the
authorization of Pope Pius IX., in
the presence of forty thousand peo-
ple. At the very entrance is a
Pieta, melting the heart with the
sight of the pale, inanimate Christ
and Mary's incomparable woe.

" Ay filh, tan mortal dolor /"

Within are dim Gothic arches,
large gilt statues of the twelve
apostles, and the holy image of the
Mere des Douleurs, before which we
went to pray amid devout pilgrims.
At one side is the fountain of heal-
ing waters ; behind is a garden of
roses ; and on the other side are
cloisters shaded with acacias, in the
centre of which is the white Ma-
donna standing serene and holy
in the peaceful solitude with out-
stretched arms, as if calling on all :

" Dites, dites une oraison
A la Vierge de Garaison
Vous qui en ces lieux amene la souffrance,

Bon pelerins,
Accables de chagrins,
Pour que vos cceurs s'ouvrent a 1'esperance.

Dans ce sejour,
Dites avec amour,
Dites, dites une oraison,
A la Vierge de Garaison !" *

Near Gimont, in the department
of Gers, is Notre Dame de Cahuzac,

* Say, say an orison

To the Virgin of the Garaison,
Ye who in this spot solace seek from pain,
Pilgrims so good,
'Neath sorrows bowed,

That your hearts may open up to hope again.
Here while you stay,
Say with love, say,
Oh ! say an orison
To the Virgin of the Garaison.

iiS Notre Dame de Pitie*.

in a pleasant valley on the left dinals. The archbishops of Auch,
bank of a stream that bathes the who bore the high title of Primate
walls of the church. Like all of the two Navarres, when they
places of pilgrimage in this land of took possession of their see, came
favored sanctuaries, it has its old to place themselves under the pro-
legend, which is associated with a tection of Our Lady of Cahuzac.
venerable elm, the relic of past Popes granted indulgences to the
ages. It was in the sixteenth cen- chapel, which thousands of pilgrims
tury when a young shepherd, lead- came annually to win not only
ing his flock at an early hour to a dis- peasants from the neighboring
tant pasture, saw an elm in a gar- fields, but the nobles of the land
den by the wayside surrounded by in penitential garb, with bare feet
an extraordinary light. The amazed bleeding from the roughness of the
youth fell on his knees a spon- way.

taneous act in those days when the This holy sanctuary was saved,

heart turned naturally to God at as it were, by a miracle from the

the moment of terror stammered Huguenots who came to lay it

a prayer, and, unable to turn his waste three centuries ago, the

eyes away, saw through the branches leader being struck down, as by an

aflame, but not consumed, the won- invisible hand, at the very door, to

drous form of Our Lady of Pity, the consternation of his followers.

As soon as he recovered his self- It was closed at the Revolution,

possession he ran to the Cistercian but again spared; and when better

abbey at Gimont, and the monks, days arrived, it was reopened to

going to the tree, found the sacred, popular devotion. The Abbe de

image of Mary, which they bore in Cahuzac, a young nobleman who

procession to their church with had renounced the honors of the

songs of praise. The next day it world and received holy orders at

was gone, and they found it again Rome, became chaplain of the

in the favored elm. Three times church that bore his name. He

they bore it to their church : three served it with zeal and affection for

times it returned to the tree. It more than thirty years, and at his

was no use to contend with divine death bequeathed a part of his for-

Providence. The garden was then tune for its support, leaving behind

purchased and an oratory built on him a holy memory still dear to the

the spot a graceful monument of people.

rural piety, to which one generation A confraternity of Notre Dame

after another has resorted for spiri- de /'////was founded in this chapel

tual favors and physical aid. It by Dom Bidos, abbot of Gimont,

has its silver lamps and vessels; its under the patronage of Cardinal de

walls are hung with golden hearts, Polignac, which became celebrated

valuable medals, and other offer- in the province and included all

ings from the grateful votary, ranks of society. Men of illustrious

There is great devotion among birth, beside the man of humblest

Catholics to the one leper who re- condition, bore the lighted torch

turned to give thanks. before the revered image of Cahu-

Cahuzac became renowned zac in the public processions,
throughout the kingdom and at- The arches and walls of the

tracted pilgrims of the highest dis- church were, under Henry IV.,

Unction lords, bishops, and car- covered with rich paintings, which

Notre Dame de Pi fie. 119

in time became half effaced. The day, in the good old times, the

church has been recently restored, chaplain piously read the Passion

and attracts great numbers of pil- according to St. John in this cha-

grims from the neighboring depart- pel, and then sang on his knees the

ments. It consists of a nave and Stabat Mater with the verse,
five chapels. Over the main altar Quando corpus morietur,

is the revered Statlie, full Of SWeet, Fac ut animae donetur

,, r c i i Paradisi gloria,"

sad grace, at the feet of which so

many have sought consolation. On to obtain a happy end for the dy-

one of the capitals in the nave is ing.

sculptured an episode from the old In the middle of the sixteenth

Roman dit Renard, in which the fox century Dominique de Cuilhens was

takes the guise of a preacher to a appointed chaplain of Sainte-Gem-

barnyard auditory, who do not me. He was born in the vicinity

perceive the store of provisions in the old manor-house of Cuilhens,

already accumulated in the hood which falling mto his possession

thrown back on his shoulders. This in the year 1569,116 at once drew

species of satire was one of the li- up a will in which he founded the

berties of former times of which little hospital of St. Blaise for the

artists'largely availed themselves. poor, and bequeathed to the needy

Another chapel of Notre Dame of the parish the annual sum of

de Pitie is at Sainte-Gemme, built forty-five livres, which the magis-

against the walls of an old feudal trates of the place, who were the

castle a cave-like oratory of the executors, continued to pay till

thirteenth century, beneath a square 1789.

tower, simple, antique, severe. Its In 1648 the lord of Sainte-Gem-

gilt statue of the Mother of Sor- me, about to join the royal army in

rows and a few old frescos of the Catalonia, made a will, in which, in

Passion are the sole ornaments, order to encourage morality in the

unless we except the arms of the town, greatly weakened by the trou-

old lords of Sainte-Gemme, carved bles of the times, he gave the inter-

among the arches. When the cas- est of a thousand livres, to be dis-

tle was besieged by the Protestants tributed annually by the rector and

in the sixteenth century, the chdte- consuls of the place to girls of irre-

laine and her attendants betook proachable morals about to marry

themselves to the foot of the altar, a legacy regularly paid till 1792.
where they prayed with fervor while The widow of his brother, Marie

the lord of the place defended it d'Antras, in her will ordered her

against the attacks of the enemy, body to be buried in the sanctuary

A superhuman power seemed to aid where the lords of Sainte-Gemme

him. After a few days the siege had been buried since the ninth

was raised, and he came, with his century, and left extensive domains

handful of brave followers, to as- for the foundation and support of a

cribe the deliverance to Our Lady chapel adjoining, to be served by

of Pity. The chapel became cele- three chaplains, who were to say

brated, and so great at times was two requiem Masses a week for her

the affluence of the pilgrims that soul, a De Profundis at the end of

services were held in the court of every Mass, and perform a funeral

the castle before an altar set up be- service on the anniversary of her

neath a venerable elm. Every Fri- death. Moreover, the parishioners

I2O Notre Dame de Pitit.

were to be summoned by the ring- thusiasm manifested when this day
ing of the bell every Saturday at comes. The bells ring out joyfully
a late hour to join in the Litany of from the very dawn. All the men,
the Blessed Virgin, which the three women, and children in the vicinity
chaplains were to say aloud, add- gather together, and, under the gui-
ing a De Profundis in her memory, dance of their curt, proceed to No-
Out of these domains were to be ire Dame de Gaillan, the glory of
paid various legacies to relatives Puycasquier, chanting the litany as
and domestics. They were seized they go. As soon as they reach
by the revolutionary government the edge of the hill, where they can
and never restored to the church, look down on their beloved sanctu-
The parish made an effort to save ary, they all fall on their knees and
the legacy of the old lord to poor chant three times the invocation :
girls of good morals, but in vain. Sancta Maria, Mater Pietatis, ora
The chapel of Our Lady of Pity pro nobisl The Liber a is .sung as
Avas also closed, and the govern- they pass through the gfa\ es in the
nient has never allowed it to be re- churchyard, and the priest intones
opened for public worship, except the Oremus when he comes to the
during Passion Week, when Mass is door, and gives the absolution,
still offered at the ancient altar and Then they enter the church with
many come here to pray and re- the joyful Regina cceli, Icetare, as if
ceive the Holy Eucharist. calling on the Virgin of Sorrows to
There is another chapel of Pitie rejoice over the resurrection of her
near Puycasquier, the ancient Po- Son at a season when all nature
dium Asterii the height of Astier rises to newness of life. There is
an old town of the middle ages, now a solemn pause of silent pray-
This is a votive chapel called No- er. At eight o'clock precisely the
tre Dame de. Gaillan, built to com- priest reverently takes down the
mem'orate the cessation of a pesti- miraculous Virgin from its niche,
lence that once raged in the neigh- and places it on a kind of trestle
borhood, where on Whitmonday a amid a profusion of flowers be-
dozen parishes around still come in neath a rich canopy. The litany is
procession to hear Mass, deposit begun, and four notables of the
their offering, and place under the town carry the statue to the church-
protection of Mary their hopes for yard gate, where it is received by
the coming harvests. It stands a four ploughmen whose privilege
short distance from the town, hid- alone it is to carry the Virgin on
den in a deep, narrow valley be- these important occasions. Follow-
tween two streams, in the centre of ed by the people in procession, ac-
a churchyard where lie whole gen- companied by the local authorities
erations of the dead. It is a long, in official array, and frequently es-
n arrow chapel with arches of the corted by the national guard under
fourteenth century, not beautiful in arms, they climb the heights of
style or ornament, but dear to a Puycasquier, winding around the
grateful people, who come here in hill till they arrive at the opposite
procession on the twenty-seventh side of the town, which they enter
of April to fulfil the vow of their and proceed to the church, singing
fathers when delivered from the the martyrs' hymn in honor of SS.
plague. One would think the bene- Abdon and Sennen, the patrons of
fit only of yesterday, from the en- the parish two noble Persians,

Notre Dame de Pitti. 12 1

martyred in the early ages, who are thus duly announced, the curd is

honored in four country churches conducted by the mayor to the re-

at about equal distances from Auch, sidence of the latter, where the table

devotion to whom became popu- is loaded with cakes of all kinds,

lar in France after their bodies were especially the tourteau * and pacte,\

brought to Soissons in the time of by no means unacceptable to appe-

Louis le Debonnaire. The Virgin tites sharpened by so long a walk

of Gaillan is thus borne all around in the fresh mountain air. There

the parish, and then reinstated in is then an exchange of Gascon wit

her niche with acclamations. still more savory, with which the

Among other usages peculiar to festival ends.

Puycasquier which have come down Another custom no less ancient
from ancient times are two that are and peculiar is connected with the
somewhat curious. On Easter Eve, Mass at Gaillan on St. Agatha's day,
at one o'clock in the afternoon, the which at least one member out of
mayor and sub-mayor, -in all the every family in the parish attends,
majesty of their village consequence to implore a blessing on the fruits-of
set off by their official regalia, pro- the earth. Before beginning the
ceed in solemn state to the presby- Holy Sacrifice, the curt solemnly
tery, accompanied by all the town blesses the loaves brought by his
officers, the bells ringing, as is due, parishioners, and after the Mass is
at a haute volfo. The cure", thus no- over they cut them in pieces,, and,
tified, stands ready to receive them going to their fields, bury them here
in the wide-open door. He invites and there in the ground, setting up
them to enter, and hastens to pre- a little cross, often a mere thorn-
sent wine as a proof of his hospital- bush twisted into proper shape,
ity, which is drunk to the peace and Picasqud, petito bilo, gran clouque
happiness of the people under their Puycasquier, small town, great
rule. The two magistrates now pray belfry is a proverbial expression
the cur/ to accompany them to the associated with the town on account
church to sing the Regina cceli, and, of the fine old tower, visible all over
placing themselves at his side, they the neighboring country. It was
escort him through the crowd, which fortunately spared when the place
by this time has assembled, to the was ruined by the Huguenots
holy place, where, in surplice and three centuries ago. Around its
stole and pluvial, he intones the Eas- base are held great fairs several
ter hymn, which is catrght up by the times a year, the resort of all the
whole congregation. The curt then people in the vicinity,
places himself once more between The baptistery of the parish
the powers that be and proceeds to church has a curious font of lead
the chapel of Gaillan, followed by a which is very ancient probably
crowd of all ages and conditions in more than a thousand years old,
holiday attire, full of animation and from the style. It is cylindrical in
joy, but not immoderate in their form and covered with bas-reliefs
gayety. TheZ/fora and Regina cosli like the lead font at Strassburg.
are here chanted as on the twenty- There is a swan emblem of the
seventh of April, after which they purity of the soul after baptism.

return tO the parish church tO sing * T he tourteau is a round cake with a hole' in the

the latter a third time at the Virgin's centre, made particularly for Palm Sunday.

r ri j f , -p, 3 . 1 1 he paste is a kind of biscuit for the Pascal sea-

1 he day of the Resurrection S on.

122

Notre Dame de Pitti.

An archer stands ready to attack it
as soon as it issues from the re-
generating waters, but the arrow he
lets fly so vigorously is received by
a lion passant \^ his shoulder, which
marches resolutely on, undisturbed
by the evil adversary. It is the
Lion, of the tribe of Judah, who
saves the soul by his power and
bleeding wounds.

The votive chapel of Notre Dame
de la Croix, at Marciac, is another
pious monument of Mary's pro-
tection during a great pestilence.
Over the doorway is the following
inscription :

Marciacam cum dira lues subverteret urbem,
Ipsamet hanc jussit mater evibi Virgo dicari
Sub crucis auspiciis gnatique insignibus aedem.*

It is a pretty church, with an.
altar of jasper and tabernacle of
white marble, over which is the
Mother of Sorrows holding the
body of the crucified Saviour. It
was built at the repeated instances
of a poor woman, who was at first
treated as visionary or mad, because
she asserted a divine mission for
the cessation of the pestilence,
which had carried off eight hundred
and four persons in a short time.
Her persevering piety was at length
rewarded by the foundation of the
chapel and the deliverance of her
townsmen from the plague, which
is to this day commemorated. Pope
Innocent XI. encouraged the de-
votion to Notre Dame de la Croix
by granting many privileges to those
who went there to pray and perform
some good work.

There is a chapel of Notre Dame
de Pitie 1 'at Condom called the Pie-
tat, now belonging to the Filles de
Marie, but formerly to the Brothers
of St. John of God, who served the

* When a dire pestilence came nigh destroying the
city of Marciac, the Virgin Mother herself com-
manded this temple to be dedicated to her under
the powerful protection of the cross and of her Son.

sick. Near it is a miraculous
spring called the Houn dou Teou,
where pilgrims go to ask deliver-
ance from their infirmities.

Near the historic Chateau de La-
vardens is the chapel of Notre Dame
de Consolation in the woods, quiet
and solitary, surrounded by graves.
The pensive and the sorrowful love
to come here to pray undisturbed
before the simple altar of Mary,
Consoler of the Afflicted. It is one
of the stations for the processions
in Rogation Week. It is the very
place to implore peace for the soul
and to find it !

There is another Notre Dame de
Pitit at Aubiet, an obscure village
on the right bank of the Arrats,
about twelve miles from Auch.
The houses are poorly built, the
streets narrow and irregular, with
nothing remarkable but the fine

tower of the ancient church. It
never was a place of much import-
ance, except in a religious point
of view, and has never recovered
from its almost entire destruction
by the Huguenots in the sixteenth
century. In fact, it is only f note-
worthy for its religious associations
and picturesque situation on a hill
overlooking the fertile valley of the
Arrats, which comes from Mau-
veziii on the one side, and goes
winding through a delicious coun-
try, girt with yine-clad hills, towards
Castelnau-Barbarens on the other.
Though small, the town is ancient,
and figures under the name of Al-
binetum in the old legend of St.
Taurin, who was martyred some
time in the fourth century in the
Bois de la Verdale at the west of
the town a spot now marked by a
cross and an old mutilated bust of
the saint. A graveyard is near,
where the villagers come to repose
around the place watered by the
blood of the holy bishop who con-

Notre Dame de Pitti.

123

verted their forefathers ages ago.
How venerable the religious tradi-
tions of a country which extend
back to the first ages of Christian-
ity, and how good to pray at the
tombs of those who lived so near
the apostolic times !

Small as Aubiet has always been,
it formerly had five churches a
proof of the religious spirit that
animated the people ; but most
of them were destroyed by the Hu-
guenots in the sixteenth century.
Among these was the parish church,
in which was a chapel of the Five
Wounds, built and endowed by the
father of Pere de Mongaillard, the
Jesuit annalist of Gascony; and the
church of St. Nicolas, where was
established a confraternity of Blue
Penitents under the patronage of
Monsieur St. Jerome. Nor was the
hospital connected with this church
spared, though the holy asylum of
human miseries, where there were
numerous beds for the poor.

SS. Abdon and Sennen are vene-
rated as the special patrons of the
place. Pere de Mongaillard, who
lived in the seventeenth century,
tells us that, in his day, the people
called upon all the musicians of the
country around to contribute to the
pomp of the festival of these saints,
on which solemn Mass and Vespers
were sung and a procession made
through the town. The day always
ended with a great repast and pub-
lic rejoicings. These customs have
been perpetuated, more or less, to
this day.

The most remarkable church at
Aubiet is that of Notre Dame de
Pitic, which dates from the year
1499. It was providentially spared
by the Huguenots and became the
parish church. The people, mourn-
ing over so many ruined sanctuaries,
gathered with fresh devotion around
the altar of Our Lady of Pity, with

whom they were brought into closer
companionship. This altar is still
in great repute. The church has
recently been repaired, and in one
of its windows is depicted St. Tau-
rin in pontifical robes with the
martyr's paUn in his hand.

Father Mongaillard relates some
curious customs connected with this
church. One of the altars was dedi-
cated to St. Eutrope, where a portion
of his relics was enshrined and re-
garded with great veneration. The
people brought wine for the priest
to plunge a relic of the saint therein,
and then carried it to the sick,
especially to those suffering from
dropsy or violent colic, who often
found relief a custom also common
at Marciac, where there is a chapel
to Sent Estropi, crowded with peo-
ple on the last of April. This de-
votion is now discontinued. St.
Eutrope of Saintes was one of the
early apostles of the country. Not-
ker, a monk of St. Gall, says he was
consecrated bishop and sent into
Gaul by St. Clement, the successor
of the apostles.

Another singular custom at Au-
biet was that of the boys of the
place, who always assembled around
the high altar to hear Mass, and the
instant the priest elevated the Host
cried repeatedly, in a loud voice :
" Segnour Diou, misericordie ! "
Mercy, O Lord God ! so that their
exclamations, as discordant as they
were singular, could be heard by
the passers-by, and produced a pro-
found impression on their minds.

The same father relates another
practice in this church. When a
child was brought for baptism, the
priest poured the regenerating wa-
ters on its head three times, and
the largest bell was rung to an-
nounce the event to the whole par-
ish and admonish the people to
pray for the new lamb of Christ's

124 Notre Dame de Pitti.

flock. If a boy, the bell was struck their lives and the repose of their
nine times, very nearly as for the souls after death.
Angelus; if a girl, six times were This same Jehan, the elder, in
thought sufficient. And when it in his last will and testament, like-
sounded, every one within hearing wise founded seven votive Mass-
cried heartily : " God bless thee !" es on every Friday in the year-

Aubiet formerly had many cler- one in honor of God the Father ;

gy, and religious services were con- another of the Holy Ghost ; the

ducted with a splendor scarcely to third, of the Holy Trinity ; the

be found now in the largest cathe- fourth, of Notre Dame de Pitie' ;

drals. This was principally owing the fifth, of St. Joseph ; the sixth,

to a celebrated confraternity of the for the dead ; the seventh, in honor

Blessed Sacrament, which was or- of the Holy Name of Jesus. The

ganized in 1526 by Cardinal Cler- latter was to be sung with deacon

mont-Lodeve, archbishop of Auch, and sub-deacon. All the chaplains

at the request of eighteen priests were to assist devoutly at its cele-

of the town, who, with uncovered bration, and if any one failed to

heads and robed in their surplices, attend he was obliged to pay a fine

presented themselves for the pur- of olive-oil for the lamps. No one

pose before that prelate when he was to be appointed chaplain un-

came to make his pastoral visit, less a native of the place and doc-

The. act of foundation still exists, tus in musicd, et non aliter.
Every Thursday a solemn Mass was Another remarkable foundation

to be sung with deacon and sub- is still to be seen in an old Latin

deacon in honor of Corpus Domini, will of a notary at Aubiet. He

and on the first Thursday of every requests to be buried before St.

month the Blessed Sacrament was Peter's altar in the church of Our

to be carried in procession around Lady of Charity (as it was sometimes

the church of Notre Dame de called). Among his curious lega-

Pitie'. cies are nine sous for nine requiem

This institution became very po- Masses for his soul, showing what
pular, for it was an outburst of was the customary fee in those
faith, love, and reparation ; and nu- days. He also founds a solemn
merous legacies and foundations Mass of requiem at St. Peter's al-
were made all through that century tar every Wednesday, for himself
for its support by people of every and all his relatives who have died
condition. One of the priests, in a state of grace, for which pur-
foremost in founding the confrater- pose he bequeaths various lands,
nity, was the first to show his pious Pierre Lacroix, in a will of the
liberality. This was Jehan Jour- sixteenth century also, leaves a cer-
dan, the elder, a venerable old man, tain sum for his funeral expenses,
who, in 1626, appeared before the Six torches are to burn around his
assembled clergy of the place and bier, and eighty priests were in-
begged them to accept, out of his vited to aid in the service. They
devotion to the Holy Eucharist, are to have bodily refreshments:
the sum of two hundred and twenty habeant refectionem corporalem. On
crowns, that Mass might be offered the ninth day after his death all the
in perpetuity at the altar of Our priests of Aubiet are to assemble to
l^ady of Pity for the welfare of pray for his soul. They are to re-
donor and his relatives during ceive duas duplas two doubles but

Notre Dame de Pitti. 125

no refreshments. At the end of the of the Blessed Sebastian, martyr.

month the eighty priests are again He also founds seven other daily

to be invited, who are to sing Mass Masses one of them on Saturday,

for his soul ; six torches, of half de lacrymd Christi, in honor of the

a pound each, to burn meanwhile. Holy Tears of Christ. For all these

They are to be provided with bodi- services he leaves numerous lands

!y refreshments. At the end of the and revenues.

year the eighty are again to be sum- These and many other founda-

moned, and this time they are to tions, extraordinary for a small

have eight liards each pro labore et country village, express the reaction

pcena, but nothing to refresh the against the innovations of the age,

body. and are remarkable proofs of the

The lord of Beaupuy, who dur- deep faith and piety of the people,

ing his life always had three Mass- And they are only examples of simi-

es a week celebrated, leaves at his lar cases throughout the country, the

death a legacy of seven and a half records of which it does the heart

sacks of wheat a year from his good to ponder over. How pious

lands at St. Mezard, with one-third are the formulas with which such

of the produce of the vineyards, to bequests are made: In remissionem

be delivered to two priests, each of peccatorum suorum Pro remedio

whom is to say one Mass a week animcz sues et aniniarum parentiim

for his soul. suorum, et aliorum pro quibus de-

Jehan Cavare, a man of consid- precare tenetur, etc. Everywhere
arable distinction at Aubiet, makes they express devotion to the Bless-
several rich bequests and founda- ed Virgin, and to some saint in
tions to the different chapels of the particular, as well as to all the in-
place. At his funeral two wax habitants of' the heavenly country
torches of half a pound each are to in general. This was in accord-
burn. To the attendant priests qui ance with the traditions of the
cantabitnt\\z gives three doubles and country, where the heart naturally
no bodily refection. If they do not turns to Jesus in the arms of Our
sing, nothing is to be given them. Lady of Pity at the awful moment

One hundred poor are to be fed of death. St. Bertrand of Com-

.011 Good Friday with a loaf, wine, minges, when his end drew near,

and one sardine each. The same had himself transported to the

obligation is imposed at All Saints, chapel of the Virgin and breathed

but this time there is no mention out his soul at the foot of her altar,

of the sardine. Bernard de Sariac, a distinguished

Thirty crowns are to be given to bishop of Aire, founded on his

two girls of irreproachable morals death-bed a chapel in honor of

at Aubiet on the day of their mar- Notre Dame de Pitie'. The old

riage ; and a woollen gown, all lords of the country show, by the

made, is to be given to twelve wid- solemnity of their last bequests,

ows or poor single women of Man- their faith in Mary's powerful as-

vezin. sistance at the supreme hour of

'Moved," as he says ; "by the death. William, Count of Astarac,

grace of God and love for the in his legacy to Notre Dame de

church of Notre Dame de la Chart- Simorre in 940, says: "Inspired

te," he also founds seven Masses a by God and the hope of Paradise,

week in perpetuity in the chapel and in order to increase my reward

126

Notre Dame de Piti/.

in the day of judgment, I give the
most holy Virgin the following
lands in Astarac." Raymond de
Lavedan, in 1253, left this clause
in his will : " I give my land to
St. Mary with all it bears towards
heaven and contains in its depths."
There are a thousand similar exam-
ples of illustrious barons of the
olden times whose tombstones in
the Virgin's chapel in many in-
stances remain an enduring testi-
mony of their devotion to Mary,
though the building itself is demol-
ished.

The confraternity of the Blessed
Sacrament at Aubiet only admitted
thirteen of the most notable per-
sons of the town. Among other
obligations, they had to accompany
the Holy Eucharist when carried
to any of the members who were
ill, bare-headed, wearing surplices,
and bearing lighted torches in
their hands; to assemble in like
robes on the first Thursday of every
month ; to follow the divine Host
in procession ; and every Thurs-
day to attend a Mass of the Corpus
Domini under the penalty of a fine.
One peculiarity of this Mass was
the Kyrie Eleison, which they sang
with a thousand modulations :

KYRIE, Pater aterne, fontana Deltas,
ex quo manant flumina rerum, ELEISON ! *

KYRIE, fons co-cstcrncs lucis et claritas,
luce in foimans ptinw dierum, ELEISON ! f

KYRIE, fons superne, redundant boniias.
pancm mittens de cozlo verurn, ELEISON ! \

CHRICTE,. lucis fons, lux de hiceprodiens ;
Dei piiiguis mons, quo pascente vii'it esuri-
ens ct impletui- pane vivente, ELEISON !

* O Lord, Father eternal, Fountain of the Deity,
whence flow all things, have mercy !

t O Lord, Fount and clearness of co-eternal light,
who didst make light on the first of days, have
mercy !

% O Lord, Fount supernal, goodness overflowing,
sending down true bread from heaven, have mercy !

O Christ, Fountain of light, light from light
proceeding ; fruitful mount of God, ou which feeding
the hungry liveth and is filled with living bread,
have mercy !

CHRISTE, cordiuin via, vita, veritas ; cibus
mentiuni, in quo sistit sutnma suavitas et
satietas consistit, ELEISON !

CHRISTE, suniptio tui sacri corporis esl
refectio vires pr&bens immensi roboris, ct
molesta sahttis demens, ELEISON !

KYRIE, dectis amborum, Patris Nati^ue,
et duorum non duplex Spititus ; quo spirante
lux datur nwruin, ELEISON ! *

KYRIE, qui veritatis lumen es diffusum
gratis, dictus Paraclitus, dans solanten his
desolaiis, ELEISON !

KYRIE, saua palatum, quo gustamus pa-
nem gratum et missum ccelitus, in Maria
per te formatum, ELEISON ! f

This is an example of the tropus
Q? farcius, so common in the middle
ages, which is a paraphrase or ex-
tension of the liturgy by inserting
additional words between the im-
portant parts as at the Gloria in
Excekis, the Sanctus, the AVJMS Dei,
etc. the word farsus, farcins, or
farcitus, as it was differently written
by the monks of the middle ages,
being derived from the Latin far-
are, used by Pliny the naturalist,
Apicius, and Cato the agriculturist,
in the sense of filling, distending,
enriching. Pope Adrian II. is said
to have instituted these farci to be
sung in monasteries on solemn fes-
tivals. They were \\\z f estiva I aud-es
of the Romans. Others attribute
them to the Greek church. These
farci were of three kinds in France:
the usual liturgy being expanded by
inserting additional words in Latin ;
or the text was Greek and the para-
phrase in old French ; or, again, the
latter was in the vulgar tongue of

* O Christ, the way, the life, the truth of hear;-- ;
the food of minds, v/herein abides the sweetest sweet-
ness and fulness is contained, have raercy !

O Christ, the taking of thy sacred Body is a re-
freshment, giving mighty strength, and removing
every obstacle to salvation have mercy !

O Lord, the beauty of both, of the Father and
the Son, and the spirit of each, yet not twofold, by
whose breath the ligh.t of all right things is given,
have mercy !

t O Lord, who art the light of truth, freely spread
abroad, thou who art called the Paraclete, givi - g
consolation to those who are desolate, have mercy !

O Lord, purify our taste, that so we may enjcy
the gracious bread sent down from heaven, fom.cJ
by thee in Mary's womb- -have mercy !

Notre Dame de Pitit*.

127

Oil and Oc. These paraphrases in
the vulgar tongue became popular,
not only in France, but in England
and Germany. From them was de-
rived the proverbial expression, Se
farcir de Grcc et de Latin that is, to
have the head full. These tropes or
farcies of mixed French and Latin
are still very common in southwest-
ern France, especially in the popu-
lar Noels, which are often rude lines
in patois alternate with Latin, after
the following style :

Born ii z. manger

Ex Maria Virgine,
On the chilly straw
Absque tegumine.

It is not surprising that, with daily
High Masses and a perpetual round
of imposing services, the people of
Aubiet should feel the change when
the place became impoverished, the
number of priests diminished, and
most of the churches destroyed at
the invasion of the Huguenots. We
are told that when the vicar was un-
able to sing High Mass on the fes-
tival of St. John the Baptist in
1623, there was universal murmur-
ing, and the magistrates drew up a
solemn protest against so unheard-
of a scandal, which document is
still extant.*

But the church of Notre Dame
de Pitic, although profaned, was left

11 In the year 1623, and the 24th of June, in the
town of Aubiet in Armagnac, in front of the parish
church of said place, before noon, in the reign of the
most Christian prince, Louis, by the grace of God
King of France and Navarre, appeared before me
tne undersigned royal notary, and in presence of the
witnesses whose names are hereunto affixed, Mes-
srs. Jehan Gaillnn, Jehan La Mothe, Jehan Gelotte,
and CailJard Mailhos, consuls of said Aubiet, and
Jehan Helloc, syndic, who, speaking and addressing
his words to M. Jehan Castanet, priest and vicar of
said church of Aubiet, represented to him, for want
of a rector in said Aubiet, that from all time and all
antiquity it had been the custom to celebrate in the
parish church High Mass with deacon and sub-dea-
con on solemn days like the present ; and whereas,
because there was no one to aid him in performing
the office, the divine service was omitted, the said
consuls and syndic protest against the said Casta-
net, vicar aforesaid, etc.

1 The said Castanet affirmed that he did every-
thing in his power, but had no one to aid him."

standing. The admirable confra-
ternity of the Blessed Sacrament
soon revived, and with it many of
the former solemnities. Pere de
Mongaillard tells us the Kyrie elei-
son farci was still chanted in his
time.

We find a similar confraternity of
the Blessed Sacrament at Touget,
another village of Gascony, which
suffered horribly from the religious
wars. It was for a long time in
possession of the Huguenots, who
abolished the Catholic religion and
ruined the churches. To repair
these profanations the association
was established, the statutes of
which are still extant in the Gas-
con tongue. By these we learn
that there were nine chaplains in
honor of the nine choirs of angels;
twelve laymen in honor of the
twelve apostles ; seventy-two other
lay members in memory of the se-
venty-two disciples (husband and
wife being counted as one) ; and
seven pious widows in honor of the
seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin.
They were all to be natives of the
place, but "no ruffian, renegade,
public usurer, or vicious person ad-
mitted among them." Every Thurs-
day all the members were to attend
High Mass in the parish church,
robed in their surplices. They
were to accompany the Host in
solemn procession through the vil-
lage, at stated times, tapers in
hand ; sing the Office of the Dead
before the door of any deceased
member, and attend the requiem
Mass for his soul. These and
various other pious obligations
were encouraged by the bishop of
Lombez, who granted certain indul-
gences of vray perdon, especially
on the festivals of St. Germain, St.
George, St. Vincent, and St. Fritz,
\Vhojse relics were honored in the
church.

128

The Eternal Years.

Such is the spirit of love, sor-
row, and reparation which per-
fumes a few of the countless chapels
of Our Lady of Pity in southwest-
ern France, where so many hearts
have forgotten their own grief be-
fore that of Mary! In all these
sanctuaries, wan and desolate, she
seems to plead for the nation. So
pleads she all over the earth.
Every mystery of religion is per-
petuated in the church. Christ is
always crucified somewhere on the
earth. Mary is always sorrowing
over his bleeding wounds.

We have seen her weeping over
the door of many a tabernacle in
Italy, as if over the Saviour wound-
ed anew in the sacrament of his
love. Who can turn away from the
affecting appeal in this day of pro-
fanations in that unhappy land,
where the very angels of the church

veil their faces before the agony of
the divine Sufferer before Mary's
woes? . . . Around the altar sa-
cred to her grief let us echo the
ancient Plank referred to at the
beginning of this article :

" I conceived thee without cor-
ruption ; to-day my heart is broken
with grief: thy Nativity was ex-
empt from all suffering ; now is the
day of my travail

' Alas ! my Son, on account of
thy torments !

" When thou wert born tlie shep-
herds came singing with joy, danc-
ing to the sound of their pipes ;
now traitorous and cruel Jews come
to seize thee with horns and cries,
staves and swords.

" Alas ! my Son, loving and beau-
tiful."

Ay filh ! am\ros e bel !

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE DIVINE SEQUENCE."
III.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD 5 S GOVERNMENT ABUNDANCE.

WE have adverted to the indi-
rect government of the creation by
God to the government which
he condescends to administer first
through the primary laws which he
has stamped upon the universe ;
and, secondly, through the moral
and physical activity with which he
has endowed mankind.

We are making vast and rapid
strides in this day towards discov-
ering and unravelling these primary
laws. At the present moment we

seem to have got ourselves some-
what into a tangle of knowledge,
which threatens to asphyxiate us
with the overpowering perfume of
its lavish blossoms, like that of the
exuberant growth of the tropical
flora.

We are caught as in the meshes
of a net, and are hardly allowed
time to solve one problem and sat-
isfy ourselves with a conclusion be-
fore some new tendril of the ever-
growing parasite has flung another

The Eternal Years. 129

flowering coil of verdure around us mental vision that the soul ceases to

and arrested our steps once more, be dazzled by the false light of fall-

\Ve have come upon the time long ing stars. The robust vigor of the

ago predicted by the Archangel studious habits of old has ceased

Michael to the prophet Daniel : from among us, and the modern

" Flurimi transibunt, ct multiplex mind is attenuated and enfeebled

crit sciential* We are dazzled by a vast variety of subjects indif-

and bewildered ; and some timid ferently explored, many of them

souls are like ostriches, which hide received on trust and without in-

their heads in the sand, preferring quiry, and all smoothed down to

not to see and know, and hoping one dead-level of superficial thought

that their ignorance and the igno- and inadequate expression. Not

ranee of the multitude generally that for a moment we would imply

will serve as a dam to the coming that mere habits of ^tudy are all

flood, and leave us freed from a tor- that is needed. These habits may

rent of questions which, if once they exist, and do exist to a great extent ;

are there, must be answered. It but the silence and the solitude do

is to be regretted that these per- not exist, and the studies them-

sons cannot learn to possess their selves have long ago ceased to be

souls in patience, and to watch of a nature to clear the mind for

calmly and intelligently the progress the gradual, patient, interiorly-

of this gigantic growth of science, evolved contemplation of the eter-

nssured that it will all arrange and nal truths which lie at the bottom

classify itself in time, in perfect of all things. The old scholastic

harmony with what they know to be philosophy and theology laid the

true and enduring, and which they only real foundation of all specula-

so dishonor by their apprehensions, tive knowledge, and built for us, for

However, since this is too much all future time, that solid fabric of

to expect of many, there is nothing theological truth in the received

for it but to allow such people to and authorized teaching of the

keep themselves in peace in the way great doctors of the church which,

that suits them best ; only not per- like a mighty magnet attracting to

mitting them to discourage others itself strong bars of iron, will draw

from investigation and reverent within its own embrace all other

inquiry. St. Thomas tells us that truth and all other science, because

the end of all science is contained " the end of science is within the

within the end of all theology and end of theology." Meanwhile, if we

is subservient to it. Theology, would not find ourselves swamped

therefore, ought to command all in the torrent of surmises, partial dis-

other sciences and turn to its use coveries, inverted reasonings, and

those things of which they treat, unreverential decisions, we must

IUit we shall not arrive at this virile go back to the spirit and me-

steadfastness until the real study of thod of the ages which produced

theology has become more general, the deeply metaphysical thinkers

There is very little in our modern and theological writers of old. The

ucation or habits of thought to flood of events pours on, and the

teach that calm gaze into the concussion of each tears through

pths of the divine mysteries our daily life and ploughs up the

which imparts such strength of hours and the days in hurried dis-

*Daniei xii. 4 . order, leaving no time for seed to
VOL. xxiii. 9

130 The Eternal Years.

develop in the fallow soil, for the we again become manly and brave,
green blade to strengthen and the and yet avoid the charge of being
harvest to ripen. Modern inventions coarse and too outspoken? Only
speed the latest intelligence into by going back to the noble candor
the innermost recesses of our homes, of the great thinkers of old, and by
and we live like people in a house trying to see things as they are in
without doors or windows, open to the mind of God, and not as they
every blast ; while the age, whose are in fallen man ; by looking at
needs seem most to call for con- the laws of creation as they came
temptative recluses, on the contrary from the hands of the Creator,
stamps contemplation out of the before man had written his run-
heart of man, and substitutes the par- ning commentary of evil and sin,
amount necessity for outward acti- and thus defiled the glorious page,
vity. There is no solace, there is no There are two forms of purity,
rest, but in prayer. There is no con- The one is the purity of ignorance,
solation but in cultivating thought The intellect that knows nothing of
in the hidden recesses of our minds, the species cannot predicate the ac-
and, amid the racket of life, to go cidents ; and no doubt blank igno-
decp down into the silent caverns of ranee is better than an evil imagi-
our souls and dwell in an inner soli- nation. But there is another and a
tude with thoughts of eternal truth, higher purity ; it is the purity of
The tendencies of the age have add- an informed mind which, from the
ed a new difficulty to the treatment sublime heights of science, or, bet-
of many of the questions more or ter far, from the depths of union
less inextricably mixed up with any with God in the all-pervading sense
largely philosophical views of the of his presence, has acquired that
union of science with divine truth. faculty of viewing subject-matter in
We have perverted our language the abstract which leaves no asso-
because thought, of 'which language ciation of imagination or fancy to
is the clothing, is perverted. We drag it down into the lower nature
dare not handle questions that in and so defile it. The more truly
themselves are pure, because we scientific a mind becomes, the more
have allowed necessary words to will it inhabit those cool, serene
represent unnecessary indelicacy, heights of passionless intellect. But
No word that expresses a neces- the first, the truest, the absolutely
sary fact is in itself evil; but woe sure science 'of theology is the one
to the imagination which makes it royal road to the habit of mind
so ! Purity is always dignified, which can, as it were, stand outside
But if you take the white roses of its lower nature and contemplate
innocence to crown a wanton, white facts and truths in their essential
roses will fall into disrepute ; and nature, divested of human contact
this is what we have done with Ian- or defilement ; or, where both must
Words no longer only mean be recognized, can eliminate the
thing they represent. They law from its abuse, and trace back
been made to insinuate the the former to the bosom of the
underflow of evil fancy that Creator; for "to the pure all things
uption has poured forth. How are pure." This seems to be the
we cleanse the source, that we faculty which is more and more

more use language of dying out amongst us.
;trength and purity ? How shall It is probable that some of the

The Eternal Years. 131

hurry and abseilce of precision and must condescend to the primary
of tenacious research which char- and natural law which he imposed
acterize the modern form of mind on our world when he called it out
may be the natural result of the of chaos ; and we must endeavor
sudden rush of new discoveries to explain what were the special
which have taken us, as it were, by characteristics of that law, and what
surprise and carried us off our feet, light it throws upon the attributes
By degrees it is probable we shall, of Him who gave it.
as a race, accept the changes in our The three chief characteristics
condition, and shall become gradu- which we discover in the govern-
any adapted to the varied forms of ment of creation are abundance,
life imposed upon us by the vast patience or longanimity, and pro-
and multiplied combinations which gression. The first command which
every day are extending our power the Creator uttered over the first
over the external world and open- recorded living and moving crea-
ing new paths for activity and en- tures of his hand was, " Increase and
terprise. Doubtless this power multiply." This was the initial law
will increase rather than diminish, of all that we see and know in the
and at the same time take less hold external world ; and as no temporal
upon us in a revolutionary way, lav or material condition exists in
and we shall lose some of that God's creation without its spiritual
flurry and excitement which now intention and inner meaning, this
characterize us rmuch in the way law is typical of what is beyond
that the young colt of a week old sight and belongs to the domain of
r tarts no more than does the old faith. In attempting to define that
mare when the engine rushes down command we find it conveys an
the railway that skirts the field ; and impression, wider than the heavens
yet when railways first began both and more diffused than the ambient
v/sre alike alarmed. air, of generosity, benevolence, and

But for the present we have lost paternity. It is the law of " our

much of our original moral and Father who is heaven." It beams

intellectual dignity. Upon such upon us like the genial warmth of

questions as interest us we are ex- the noontide sun. It shadows us

cited and flurried. Those which like the stretching boughs of a large

we do not affect to understand we forest perfumed with the dews of

cannot seriously listen to ; and be- earth. It was spoken first to the pro-

een the bustling activity of the ducts of the water and the denizens

first and the listless frivolity of the of the air; and again it was spoken

last it is not an easy task to bring over the two first beings created

forward old- truths with new faces, "after His own image and likeness."

old facts with a fresh moral, lest Wherever there is life, even life

those who listen should persist in in its lowest form and so low that

viewing the question from the science hesitates to pronounce upon

"ong side, and in taking scandal it as being life, and stands uncer-

\vhere no scandal was meant. tain how to designate evident growth

We have set ourselves the task without equally evident life, like the

of investigating the chief attributes unintelligent but absolutely accu-

of God's government of creation rate formation of crystals there too

d its uniformity of design in com- the law reigns of" increase and mul-

plexity of action. To do this we tiply."

132 The Eternal Years.

Attraction and affinity declare tic life and made them less a neces-
the law, and carry it on, while re- sity than a high moral duty,
pulsion is but the inverse of the So universal was the sentiment
same ; and though, for aught we that many, in the tenacity of their
know, and judging by induction, desire to carry on the holy tradition,
there is not one molecule added on and too earthly to perceive the sin
our earth to the original chaotic of doing wrong that good might
matter, and all reproductions are come, thrust aside the law of con-
composed of the same elements science rather than fail in what
passing through varied forms and weighed upon them as an over-
phases, nevertheless the same im- whelming necessity to continue the
pulse governs all living things and natural line that perhaps they, too,
everywhere represents the large, might form one of those from whose
lavish benevolence of the God of loins should spring the Saviour of
life. the world. It was thus that a dig-

The animal creation is the unrea- nity was imparted to natural ties
soning and innocent embodiment which surpassed among the Israel-
of the natural law, and carries out ites the same sentiment among the
its mandates unconscious of the Gentiles, but which was but a fore-
why and the wherefore ; whereas in shadowing of their sacred and sac-
fallen man the natural law has over- ramental state in the church of
lapped the moral law, and the lat- God.

ter has become warped by the pres- " Wisdom is justified by her chil-
sure of the former, making all dren " ; and all that God has or-
things discordant. As abundance dained must reach its ultimate per-
is one of the characteristics of the fection in his church before it can
natural law, so the modes and forms pass into another phase. ' Till
of its execution lie at the very root heaven and earth pass, one jot or
of all creation. The Spirit of God, one tittle shall not pass of the law,
the brooding Dove, moved over till all be fulfilled."
the face of the waters. The same As all things in creation are by
image of incubation and conse- and for him, as all culminate in
quently of imparted heat (motion him, so when the prophecies were
and heat being allied as recipro- accomplished, and Mary, the im-
cal cause and effect), was in the maculate and virgin daughter of
mind of the old Egyptians when the House of David, had, through
they carved a winged world amongst the operations of the Holy Ghost,
their mystic signs. So sacred, so become the Mother of God the law
holy, so full of deep-hidden mean- "increase and multiply' having
ing was the idea as it lay from all thus ascended to its mystical fulfil-
eternity in the divine Mind, that ment and ultimate development-
it was through the four thousand so from henceforth did it confer a
historic years which preceded the new and more holy character on
birth of the God-Man the mode natural ties by consecrating them
through which God taught the cho- as the type and image, of what is
sen people to expect the Redeemer, spiritual.

It became the hope of every maiden The one end in view had sur-

to form one link in the long chain vived through all, despite man's

which was to lead up to the Messiah, ignorance, infirmity, and sin; and
It sanctified all the ties of domes- * Matthew v. 18.

The Eternal Years.

133

that end once attained, the sinless
Mother clasping to her bosom the
Infant God who was from all eter-
nity in the bosom of the Father,
from that moment all that was hu-
man had a new and divine element
in it. All creation, all life, all we
have and are, became in a special
way " holy to the Lord." " Know ye
not that ye are the temple of God ?
If any man violate the temple of
God, him will God destroy. All
things are yours, the world, or life,
or death, or things present, or things
to come : all are yours : and ye are
Christ's, and Christ is God's."*

Through long centuries man had
failed to comprehend even while
he felt the underlying mystery of
creation. He looked on the fair
fields of nature with undiscerning
eyes. He hardly guessed at the
enigma of the outer world as lead-
ing upwards to something nobler ;
and therefore he dragged the im-
age of God down into the mire of
his own existence. He even sought
the Deity in what was below himself,
worshipping, not men and heroes,
but beasts and creeping jthings ; be-
cause, being dominated by the idea
of the great and all-pervading force
of the laws of life and nature, the
lower creation presented a more
simple and abstract image of their
potency. The idea of the principle
of life haunted him like a dark and
perplexing riddle. Its magnitude
weighed upon him. Its universali-
ty perplexed him. He had not the
light of truth in its plenitude to
illumine the dark places of the
earth. He could only make guess-
es at the typical meaning of crea-
tion ; and as the whirr of life
rushed ceaselessly around him with-
out bringing any answer to his
questionings, it became a relief to
embody the idea which obseded

* i Ccr. iii. 16, 17, 92, 23.

him in the obscurity of inarticulate
being, as affording, if not some solu-
tion, at least an absolutely simple
and vulgar manifestation of t he-
great fact, until the very scarabci
became sacred ; and with inverted
moral sense, in lieu of seeking for
transcendent and pellucid truth in
what was above him, he dug down
into the very miseries of his own
degradation in his attempt to de-
scribe the incomprehensible, and
that to a degree which we cannot
pollute these pages by expressing.

Thus had man covered over with
the veil of his iniquities and the
thick darkness of his ignorance all
the sanctities of life, until the church
of God revealed to him that Christ is
the head of the church, as the hus-
band is the head of the wife, and
placed matrimony among the sac-
raments ; because as a sacrament
only is it holy to the Lord, and
because, as a sacrament, it is typical
of that highest and most divine
union of Christ with his church-
that union which is her strength,
her inviolability, her guarantee, and
her ever-enduring and indisputable
infallibility.*

How little did poor fallen hu-
manity dream of the sanctity and
dignity of common life until the
church turned the full light of rev-
elation on the laws of our being
and taught us what those laws pre-
figured in the Eternal Mind ! It
is not until St. Paul wrote by
inspiration that astonishing chapter
to the Ephesians that the laws of
being were really less awful in their
hidden sanctity. They were never
in themselves mean, miserable, and
degraded. It is true the state of
matrimony only foreshadowed a
sacrament ; for under the old law
there were no sacraments in the
specific sense in which we now use

* Ephesians v. 23, 32.

The Eternal Years.

the term in the Catholic Church, sanctity of those who, even in this
It was holy under the old law, life, are to touch on perfect union
and it may be said to have had with their Creator,
a sacramental character ; and that Can any one seriously doubt that,
character was the anticipation of if a greater and more hallowed ven-
Vv'hat it was to become when it eration for the laws of our natural
should be raised into one of the existence became more general and
seven sacraments of the church, more intense, they would, in their
and the type of Christ as head of typical and sacramental character,
the church. But at that time man- develop further heights of holiness-
kind was still in darkness. Hu- not as the exceptional ways of a
inanity could not earlier review the few miraculous saints, but as the
expression of the mystery. Only table-land of all humanity? As it
the Gospel could open their eyes to was the hardness of heart in the
the full understanding of the sacra- Israelites which compelled Moses
mental principle which alone makes to give a law of divorce, so may it
life holy, and, O sorrowing, suffer- not be our hardness of heart, lessen-
ing hearts ! which alone to you ed indeed, but not yet melted, which
can make it endurable.* leaves us so often such mere corn-
See how the beneficent thought monplace appreciation of natural
of God has touched all our common ties, and thus fails to realize in them
lot ! See what flowers blossom all that they possess and can yield ?
amid the thorns, what gems of light Jesus is our father, our brother,
sparkle in the dark ways of life, our friend, our master, and our
ennobling all, beautifying because spouse. These titles are taken from
sanctifying all, and enabling us, our common life. But the abstract
while the heavy burden of sorrow, idea which these titles express by
disappointment, regrets, and even subdivision and restriction dwelt
ruined hope, may seem to take all for ever in the mind of God as the
the color out of life, and to send form and fashion he would give to
us back to a treadmill existence human life in his foreknowledge of
and a gray, despairing twilight, to the divine Incarnation, for which
realize that nothing can alter the end solely do all things exist. What
fact that we are holy to the Lord, further thoughts can we need to
and that in our daily, hourly lot, make us tender over our own du-
as husbands, wives, sons, daughters, ties and our own condition ? What
masters, and servants, we are carry- a noble origin there is to all that
ing on the ceaseless weaving of that we are apt to look upon as an en-
web of sacred typical life which has cumbrance, a failure, a mere unfor-
from all eternity been in the mind tunate accident ! Our ties enchain
of God as the law of our natural us ; then let us hug our chains, and
being, and in one form or another find in wearing them " the freedom
envelops, like the husks of the wherewith Christ has made us free."
sweet nut, the gradually-ripening All our life is a God-directed edu-
cation of our souls ; and the fashion

* This statement, if its terms are taken in a strict f our human life IS the mould which

maS!Tnd e er\r t ^T ct ' In * e Mn * tha ' God has prepared for us each as

matrimony under the old law was holy, and fore- . . . , L

shadowed a sacrament, it may be called sacramen- individuals, Save always where there

tal. TWe were no sacraments, in the specific sense i s ci n or its nroyimitp nr-Tsinn nr
in which we now use the term in the Catholic ' (

Church, before Christ instituted them. ED. C. W. where a higher VOCatlOll that Sllb-

The Eternal Years. 135

lime infringement of the common dotal coat of many colors. There-
law comes to impel the soul to for- fore did they dip the coat in - the
sake all and follow the divine Spouse, blood of a kid, as in mockery of his
Then all else melts before the fur- sacerdotal character, given him by
nace of divine love ; the interme- his father, but not acknowledged by
diate, ordinary steps which lead oth- his brethren.

ors to God through the sanctities Little did they dream that while,
of common life are cleared at one in the full exercise of their own
bound, and God puts in his claim free-will, they gave license to their
to do what he will with his own. thoughts of hatred, they were enact-
To resume all in a few words : all ing as in a type the one great fact
we see around us, from the soil be- of the universe, the world's one
neath our feet, through the vegeta- important history, the tragedy of
,ble and animal worlds, even to our- all creation, when he who, though
selves, is the working out of the in his human nature he is the
first law of increase and multiply, younger born of God's children,
Consequently, this being, as we have holds, and for ever shall hold, sa-
already said, the representative idea cerdotal rank over the elder and
of the creation, its sacredness lies in fallen Adam.

that very fact, and dates. not mere- They who said, ' See whether A.

ly from the new dispensation nor be thy son's coat or not," * were the

from the old, but from the Eternal forefathers of those who exclaimed,

Mind before creation was. We have "Let Christ the king of Israel

arrived at the facts which prove come down now from the cross,

this representative idea by the aid that we may see and believe." f

of natural science, of which the old They mocked at the father who

spiritual writers knew next to no- claimed to have made his younger

thing, and who consequently, look- son the priest of his house, and

ing at nature through the black their descendants declared of the

mists of man's defilement, sometimes great Priest of our race that " he

took distorted views of laws and ought to die because he made him-

facts the exquisite harmony of which self the Son of God." In both

come out in the deductions of mo- cases their pretensions were turned

dern research, and so establish the into ridicule and treated as a crime,

claim we are now making to the ab- They dipped the sacerdotal coat of

solute beauty and sanctity of all the Joseph in the blood of a kid ; but

fashion of human existence as lead- the great High-Priest they covered

ing up by typical forms to spiritual with his own blood, in derision of

truths. The witness of this like a his claim to be their King and their

golden thread in the dim web of God. And through it all, through

patriarchal times may be found in the good and the evil, the adaptive

the fact that it was the eldest son government of God worked out

who officiated as the priest of the his ultimate designs, turning the

family, thus blending the natural wickedness of men to his own

and spiritual by making the former glory and hiding the secrets of his

the basis of the latter. This was providence beneath the course of

the reason of the envy and malice events, the incidents of common

of Joseph's brethren. He was not life, the history of a people, of a

the first-born ; and yet it was for tribe, of a family. We look back

him that his father made the sacer- * Gen. xxxvii. 32. tMarkxv. 32.

136 The Eternal Years.

on the long-drawn-out story and ' Show me thy glory." Hear the

understand somewhat of the under- answer : " Thou canst not see my

lying mystery. But while it was face : for man shall not see me, and

going on it was but little even live. Thou shalt stand upon the

guessed at. God is unchangeable, rock. And when my glory shall pass,

the same for ever and ever. What I will set thee in a hole in the rock,

he did then does he not do now ? and thou shalt see my back parts :

-for his church, his bride, above but my face thou canst not see."*
all, but also for all humanity, all And thus Moses saw the back parts
the wide universe according to its of Him who is from all eternity,
measure, as it can bear it, when it through the aperture of time. He
can receive it ; leading on by de- had revealed to him the far-off in-
grees so slow that to us they seem tention of creation. He looked
almost imperceptible, but which wi- back, in God, to the time before
den and spread like the rings on time ' when he had not yet made
the surface of the water when a the earth, nor the rivers, nor the
stone has been flung into its poles of the world ; when Wisdom
depths. was with him forming all things,
Our range of vision is so narrow, playing before him at all times,
and our knowledge of even the playing in the world, and whose
past so limited and so full of inac- delights were to be with the chil-
curacies, that we can do little more dren of men."f The back parts
than guess at the manifold unroll- were beheld by him, and even this
ing of the divine intentions. We he could not have endured in his
know enough to fill us with hope as feeble flesh had not the Eternal
to the ultimate destination of all ' right hand protected him." All
creation, and of ourselves as the that the past could teach him in
children of God. We know not the flash of one moment was then
the future, save faintly as faith re- made known to him. What floods
veals it. Even of the past we of light, knowledge, and divine hope
know but dimly and in broken and expectation must that wonder-
lines. To one only of the children ful backward view have imparted to
of men, so far as the Holy Scrip- Moses, the man singled out of all
ture informs us, was the past fully mankind to read the past ! But
and entirely made known, so far as even with the strength which know-
that was possible to a mortal man ledge such as that must have con-
supernaturally sustained to bear it. ferred upon him, still he could not
How many in the hallowed, bold, see the face of God and live. We
and rash moments of inarticulate are using weak human words, because
prayer have ventured in their lesser they alone are given us. It was the
degree to say with Moses, " Show forward look of God which Moses
me thy glory" ! As the thought could not see and live. It was the
grows upon us of God's wonderful unutterable Glory that is prepared
ways and of his unutterable love for us in the future, with and through
and beneficence, we too long to Jesus, that not even the man who
know with certain knowledge some- had conversed with God as man
thing of that Glory which the great speaks with his fellow-man, face to
lawgiver intuitively felt would be face, could see and live. Its stu-
at once the knowledge of all and
the consummation of every desire.

The Eternal Years. 137

pendous and exceeding brightness tained within the end of all theo-
\vould have shattered his being as logy," so the seeing the glory of
the flash of lightning shatters the God would be the knowledge of
oak ; even as our Lord revealed all history taken in its widest and
to one of his chosen saints that, fullest meaning ; for if history could
could she perfectly realize his im- be truly written, whether as the
mense love for the souls of men, that life of an individual, the history
moment of intense joy would snap of a nation or of the whole world,
the frail thread of her life with it would be the unravelling of the
its excessive ecstasy. What Moses hidden providence of God work-
saw he tells us not. No word es- ing through all events to his own
capes him of that transcendent greater glory. The perfect sight is
vision. He neither tells us of its the perfect knowledge ; and that
nature nor of its effects upon him- cannot be obtained save through
self. But who could marvel if, hav- the "light of Glory," which is the
ing had it, he was henceforth the beatific vision. The perfect know-
meekest of men ? What could ever ledge of God would be the know-
again disturb the serene patience ledge of all things, not only of all
of him who could divine so much science, but of all facts ; for all are
of the future from having seen all contained in him. The use of. our
the past ? And how impossible it faculties in the acquirement of
must have been for any torments of knowledge or in its exercise is like
pride to ruffle the calm serenity of* the gathering up of fragments caught
one who was humbled to the very from the skirts of his garments as
dust by the unutterably lavish and we follow slowly in his mighty foot-
surpassing developments of love and steps ; and the closer we get to him
grace and glory which his vision of in our patient toil, the brighter is
the past bade him anticipate in that the lustre and the sweeter the per-
future which even he who had borne fume still left upon these shreds
to see the past could not gaze -upon of the divine passage through the
and live ! mazes of creation and the heaped-
As " the end of all science is con- up centuries of time.

138

New Publications.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE STUDENT'S HAND-BOOK OF BRITISH
AND AMERICAN LITERATURE. Contain-
ing sketches, biographical and critical,
of the most distinguished English
authors, from the earliest times to the
present day, with selections from their
writings, and questions adapted to the
use of schools. By Rev. O. L. Jen-
kins, A.M., late president of St.
Charles's College, Ellicott City, Md ,
and formerly president of St. Mary's
College, Baltimore, i vol. i6mo, pp.
564. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co.
(New York : The Catholic Publication
Society.) 1876.

This book has many excellencies. The
au thorshows himself thoroughly versed in
his subject. He writes with elegance, oc-
casionally with force, as in the remarks on
the influence of the Protestant Reforma-
tion on literature. His taste is true and
his judgment sound. In fact, judging
by the work itself, he would seem pos-
sessed of the qualities fitted to make
him an admirable compiler of a literary
manual.

The first sentence of the author's pre-
face explains the object of the book :
" The compiler of this work has long
felt the necessity of some text -book of
British and American literature which,
in its general bearing, would be free
from sectarian views and influences, and,
in the extracts, be entirely unexception-
able in point of morality." This sentence
is open to misinterpretation. It is plain,
however, from the general plan of Father
Jenkins' work, as well as from numer-
ous passages in it, that he has had in
view from the beginning to restore to the
Catholic Church, the inspirer of the high-
est literature, the mother of Christian art,
and the fosterer of the sciences, her
rightful place in English letters. In
most of the text-books used in schools
her influence on thought and literature
ii altogether ignored and herself in too
many instances derided. It is clear,
then, what the learned author meant by
freeing his book from "sectarian views."
While giving their lawful place to all
writers, of whatever manner of belief or
no belief, he had for his direct object the

pruning out of all anti-Catholic and im
moral passages, and the insertion of
established Catholic authors who are
systematically excluded from ordinary
text-books.

No object could be better calculated
to confer more lasting benefit on the
minds of the young generation growing
up around us, for whom chiefly the pre-
sent work is intended. We open the
book with eagerness, therefore, and turn
over page after page with interest, often
with admiration, until we come up to
the present century, when, especially
within the later half of it, Catholic liteia-
ture in England and the United States
has, from a variety of causes, received
a new and remarkable impulse. It is
hardly too much to say that Catholic
questions are among the chief questions
of the day here as well as in England ;
they have been such for the last fifty
years ; they promise to be such for at
least fifty years to come ; and Catholic
writers to-day hold their own in every
branch of literature. After three centu-
ries of silence, of death almost, the
church has risen again among these
peoples who went astray, the voice of
truth is heard, and its utterances are
manifold. Surely there is reason to
expect that due notice of such awaken-
ing, of such 5-igns of life and hope, be
taken in a literary text-book, which, after
all, can only hope to make its way in
Catholic schools. Yet here, in this cru-
cial point, Father Jenkins' work is singu-
larly and lamentably defective. Whether
or not he intended to supply the defi-
ciency is not known to us ; but those
who took up the work after his death
ought to have supplied it.

We turn to the book, and what do we
find? The only Catholic writers of the
century who are found worthy a place in
this Catholic manual are, to take them as
they occur : Dr. Lingard, Thomas Moore,
Cardinal Wiseman, Dr. Newman, Au-
brey de Vere, in England and Ireland ;
Bishop England, Robert Walsh, and
Archbishop Spalding, in America. And
these are all !

Where is Dr. Brownson ? His name
o:curs in a casual note of the author's, in

New Publications.

139

the same way as the names of Griswold,
Cleveland, or Reid occur. Where is
Dr. Pise, Dr. Huntington, Geor,e H.
Miles, Dr. White, Colonel Meline, John
G. Shea, Dr. R. II. Clarke, Archbishop
Hughes they simply run off the pen
together with dozens of others, many of
whose names will not need recalling to
the readers of this magazine ? We shrink
from extending the catalogue of the ab-
sent to England and Ireland.

Writers conspicuous by their absence
are by no means restricted to the Catho-
lic faith. Among strange omissions are
the following : Southwell is in, but not
dashaw ; Shakspere, but not Massing-
cr, or Beaumont and Fletcher; Addison,
but not Steele ; all the earlier novelists
are absent. The dramatists of the reign
of Charles IT. are ignored. Goldsmith is
remembered, but Sheridan is forgotten.
Scott is in, but Burns is out. Moore
and Byron, and even Rogers, find their
place ; but Shelley and Keats are no-
where to be found. Dickens and Thack-
eray a:e here, but Bulwer Lytton is ab-
sent ; and so the list goes on.

The book is supposed to reach up to
the present day. The writers on politi-
cal philosophy, the scientists, the theolo-
gians, many of the writers on history
known to us as living among us still and
destined to live long after us, are alto-
gether omitted. Not a hint even of their
existence is given. The " compiler,"
as he styled himself, says in the pre-
face that "whatever has relation to our
common humanity, and interests all men
alike, whether it be fictitious or real, in
poetry or in prose, comes within the ap-
propriate province of literature. Even
popularized science is not excluded."
And he adds, strangely enough in the
light of the chief defect we have no-
ticed : ' If, in the early periods, the
name of an eminent divine or scholar is
introduced whose writings might seem
to belong rather to the department of
science than belles-lettres, it is because
he ranks among the few men of his
epoch who were remarkable for intellec-
tual vigor and general knowledge." This
being so, where are the English, Irish, and
American Catholic theological, philoso-
phical, and polemical writers of the last
half-century?

Of course a work of this kind, which
aimed at doing justice to our Catholic
writers of the present century, would
quite overrun the limits of an ordinary

text-book of English' literature. Still,
the addition of two or three hundred
pages devoted just to this subject is
necessary to complete what in its pres-
ent form is, for the purposes for which it
was intended, quite incomplete.

THE EDEN OF LABOR, THE CHRISTIAN
UTOPIA. By T. Wharton Collens, au-
thor of Humanics, etc. Philadelphia :
H. C. Baird, Industrial Publisher, Sio
Walnut Street.

LABOR AND CAPITAL IN ENGLAND, FROM
THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW. By
C. S. Devas, B.A., Lecturer on Poli-
tical Economy at the Catholic Uni-
versity College, Kensington. London :
Burns & Gates, Portman Street.

These two publications may be com-
bined in one notice. They treat of the
same subject, essentially in the same
spirit, though looking at it in different
lights. Both deal with that momentous
struggle between labor and capital which
has shaken the world in all ages ; both
profess to find the solution of the eco-
nomic problems of the day in the teach-
ings of Christianity as interpreted by the
Catholic Church ; but one invokes the
aid of the imagination in portraying what
labor might be if all men -were just and
charitable ; the other confronts the actual
position of labor in England. Each is
equally valuable in its own way, and
both are champions of the rights of labor.

Mr. Collens' work, The Eden of Labor ^
is the fruit of much thought upon
the subject, a powerful imagination, and
a feeling heart for those who labor. The
author pictures Adam as founding a pa-
triarchal empire after the fall, in which,
under wise and equitable laws, labor
was universally rewarded by competency
and happiness. In the description of
this antediluvian Utopia of its system
of government and society, of its condi-
tion and rewards of labor, of its land
tenure, its trade, foreign and domestic,
and its currency the author gives him-
self the opportunity of promulgating his
conception of the true doctrines of politi-
cal economy. In this he takes issue
with the liberal school of political eco-
nomists which recognizes Adam Smith
as its founder. Me denounces its teach-
ings as framed solely in the interest of
the selfish and tyrannical employer of
labor, and as leading irresistibly to the
robbery and enslavement of the over-
matched laborer. While admitting the

140

New Publications.

truth of Adam Smith's law that " labor is
the true measure of exchangeable val-
ues," the author strenuously argues that
he (Smith) and his disciples nullify the
just results of that axiom by defending
the specious but unchristian doctrine of
"supply and demand," which results in
the supremacy of might over starvation,
and by losing sight of their original affir-
mation of the common right of all to the
use of " natural values," which the libe-
lal economists in the end surrender ab-
solutely to the capitalist.

As a foil to his picture of the " Eden
of Labor," Mr. Collens gives, in hig de-
scription of Nodland, or the empire of
Cain, a history of the enslavement and
misery of labor, and the corruption and
tyranny of the " money lords," conse-
quent upon the surrender of society to
purely selfish instincts, and its abandon-
ment of laws which Adam had derived
from his original intercourse with God.
This second part may be regarded as a
satire upon our modern civilization. An
ingenious monogram representing Labor,
half-starved, drawing a miserable sub-
sistence from the reservoir of " Natural
Values," which at the same time feeds the
plethora of Capital, is prefixed to the
work and fully explained by the author
in the appendix.

Philosophers from Plato to Sir Thomas
More have sought, in their descriptions
of Utopia under different names, to por-
tray a commonwealth in which justice
should reign and labor receive its right-
ful reward. In following the steps of
those illustrious thinkers Mr. Collens
has the opportunity of presenting to his
readers, with freshness of treatment and
originality of plan, his solution of the
labor questions specially affecting this,
age. The danger besetting works of this
kind, where the author is dissatisfied
with the existing order of things, and
feels a strong sympathy with oppressed
labor, is that they insensibly verge to-
wards the vindication of the theories of
communism and the revolutionary rights
of man. We are convinced that no con-
clusions could be more opposed, or even
abhorrent, to Mr. Collens' mind than these.
His preface, written on" the Feast of the
Holy Name of Jesus," and the whole
spirit of his work, bespeak him a fervent
Catholic ; but, if followed to a logical
and forcible conclusion, it would be diffi-
cult to distinguish the goal to which the
doctrines embodied in the author's de-

nunciation of the " appropriates of
natural values " would lead from that
seen at the end of Proudhon's " La
proprietJ, c'est le vol^ This, however, is
a defect inherent in all Utopias not of
their own nature, but from the fallen con-
dition of man. With this caution we
can safely recommend Mr. Collens' work
as both interesting and instructive.

Professor Devas' pamphlet is on a
more ordinary plane of authorship. It is
historical and practical in the sense, as
to the latter word, of treating of the ex-
isting facts of labor in England and
their remedies. But we are not of those
who would confine the meaning of the
word* " practical " solely to results im-
mediately before us. A work like that
of Mr. Collens, depending largely upon
the imagination and investigating first
principles, may be practical in the high-
est and most extensive sense, so far as it
influences the original sources of human
action. In his special treatment of the
subject, however, Professor Devas has
written a very able treatise. It is a re-
print of three articles originally published
in the Month, two of them containing the
substance of a paper read before the
Academia at Westminster. The first
treats of labor and capital in general ;
the second, of the economic powers in
manufacturing industries ; the third, of
their relative positions in agriculture. In
his first article Professor Devas discusses
the question whether contracts should be
left to competition or a -fair rate of
wages -justum pretium fixed, and, if so,
how and by whom. He 'holds a middle
view between the liberal economists who
will listen to nothing but the rule of
" supply and demand," and the socialist
school which denounces all competition
and would have the state fix a compul-
sory rate. He cites the Nottingham
hosiery trade as a case in point where
wages are not fixed by competition, but
by tariff determined upon at a periodical
meeting of masters and workmen, in
which the state of the market and all
attending circumstances are mutually
considered, and suggests this example as
a mode of arriving at the justum pretium
in all trades. In his chapter on manu-
facturing industries Professor Devas
takes the bold ground of defending
trades-unionism, not in its details but in
its general principles. He is of opinion
that the trades unions have been one of
the chief agents in alleviating the condi-

New Publications.

141

of the working classes and raising
ihc rate of wages in England during the
last forty years. In this latter conclusion
he is supported by Dr. Young in his re-
cently-published work on Labor in Europe
and America. In spite of the fact that the
large strikes in England and upon the
European Continent have been in the
majority of special cases unsuccessful, the
general result, according to Dr. Young,
has been an advance of wages during the
last twenty years. The effects of trades-
unionism in Europe may be likened to
the flow of the tide, which, repulsed as
to each successive wave, yet gains slowly
upon the beach. This advance, however,
is not always aided by strikes ; on the
contrary, they have frequently postponed
it, by the exhaustion of the struggle, for
,nany years. Their potential combination,
or whatO'Connell, in a different agitation,
called " moral force," has been a more
successful factor in obtaining justice for

them.

ORDO DIVINI OFFICII RFCTANDI, ETC.,
1876. Baltimorae : Apud Fratres Lu-
cas, Bibliopolas.

Whether by the word " rectandi " the
compiler of this guide for the clergy
would imply that the principal duty de-
volving on them with regard to the Office
is its correction rather than its recita-
tion, we are unable to say. We do not,
it is true, find the verb "recto" in the
dictionary, but feeling confident, from
the Ciceronian style displayed in other
parts of the Ordo, that it must be good
Latin, especially as it has appeared two
years in succession, presume that it
must be the dictionary which is at fault,
and cannot suggest any other meaning
for the word.

Whether that is its meaning or not,
however, it certainly well might be.

We do not profess to have made a tho-
rough examination of the book. It is
full of misprints, as usual, of which the
one just mentioned and the familiar
" Rcsurect" are good examples. Wheth-
er the putting of St. Anicetusfor St. Ana-
cletus, which was also noticed last year,
" can be considered as such seems rather
' doubtful.

There are some trifling omissions
which really ought to be supplied. The
anniversaries of the consecration of about
forty of the bishops of the United States
are passed by in silence. For what spe-
cial reason the remainder are given it is

hard to imagine, unless it be to remind
those who use the Onlo that they ought
to take notice of such an anniversary and
find out when it occurs ; but, unfortunate-
ly, it has just a contrary effect, for every
one who sees the anniversary of another
diocese noticed expects to be similarly
reminded of his own, and only remem-
bers that he has not been when the time
has gone by.

The law according to which the feast
of St. Leo varies between the 3d and the
7th of July is a matter of curious specu-
lation. From its occurrence for two suc-
cessive years on the 3d we are inclined
to cherish the hope that it has finally set-
tled down upon that day.

Why cannot we have an Ordo that
would be creditable to the compiler and
the publishers, and in which confidence
could be placed ? More care is all that
is needed.

This notice has been de'ayed till this
month on account of more important
matter. It will probably do as much
good now as if it had been published at
an earlier date.

SERMONS BY FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY OF
JESUS. Vol. III. London : Burns &
Gates. 1875. (For sale by The Ca-
tholic Publication Society.)
It is somewhat rare to meet with ser-
mons that will bear publication. The
circumstances attending their delivery,
the authoritative character of the priest,
the sacredness of the time and place,
tend to disarm the critical faculty and
dispose the hearers to a favorable im-
pression. Not so, however, when they
are given to the world' in book-form, to
be subjected to the cool criticism of the
closet. Sermons that can stand this test
are certainly worthy of praise.; and this
merit, we are happy to say, belongs to
the volume before us. The selected ser-
mons are by Fathers Kingdon, Purbrick,
Coleridge, Weld, and Anderdon names
already familiar to many of our readers.
Their subjects are such inexhaustible
themes as the Passion of Our Lord, the
Holy Eucharist, Our Lady's Immaculate
Conception, etc., treated mainly in their
devotional and practical bearings. They
thus form a collection of spiritual read-
ing rendered particularly attractive by
many excellencies of style and expres-
sion. Regarded merely as sermons, they
are models in their conformity to the
accepted canons of this branch of com-

142

New Publications.

position. The subjects are clearly di-
vided, with an easy transition from point
to point. The style throughout is grace-
ful and flowing, and there are many pas-
sages full of eloquence a kind of elo-
quence not merely ornamental but prac-
tiqal in its effects. The secret of it lies
in that warmth and earnestness which
can proceed only from those who are
animated by a fervid zeal for the good
of souls.

FATHER SEGNERI'S SENTIMENTI ; OR,
LIGHTS IN PRAYER. Translated from
the Italian by K. G. London : Burns
Gates. 1876. (For sale by The
Catholic Publication Society.)
Father Segneri is one of the greatest
of the distinguished preachers of the
seventeenth century. His name is fre-
quently met in the Italian dictionaries,
as an authority of the language. His
sermons are based upon the classic
models of eloquence. Though not as
exhaustive as those of the great French
masters of sacred oratory, they are more
forcible in rhetoric and more luxuriant
in style. We have a great desire to see
the complete works of Father Segneri
rendered into English, and those who
have read the volume of his sermons,
lately put forth by the Catholic Publica-
tion Society, will doubtless welcome any-
thing bearing his name.

The little book before us is made up
of pious reflections found among the
papers left by Father Segneri, and evi-
dently intended for his own private peru-
sal. They give us a glimpse of the ten-
der religious, seeking obscurity, craving
the higher gifts, while the world applauds
his brilliant and conspicuous talents.
This contrast is always pleasing. The
Sentimenti. reveal how far this holy
man had advanced in virtue, and how
well founded is the reverence which has
ever been felt for his sanctity.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES: French Political
Leaders. By Edward King. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Son's. 1876.
These are bright and readable sketches
of various prominent Frenchmen of the
day. Whether all of those whose bio-
graphies are given may be fitly designat-
ed " political leaders " is for the reader
to satisfy himself and the future to de-
termine. Mr. King does not aim at pro-
found reflection. He cuts skin-deep and
passes on. The title of the book seems

to us suggestive of something more se-
rious than this. The political leader: of
France will influence more than France,
and it would be worth considering who
and what are the French politics! leader;
of the day. Of what stuff are they made ?
Whither are they tending? In what do
they lead ? Is it a lead backwards or for-
wards? Mr. King passes such ques-
tions by, and contents himself with more
or less interesting biographies of those
whom he takes to be political leaders.
Among them we find Henri Rochefort,
but fail to find Louis Veuillot. Mr.
King is like all non-Catholic writers-
least at home when he comes across
a Catholic. Among his leaders Mgr.
Dupanloup, the Bishop of Orleans, very
properly holds a place. We scarcely
recognize the bishop, however, as paint-
ed by Mr. King. One sentence will
suffice to show our meaning: 'The
haughty mind which sneered at the En-
cyclical Letter [which Encyclical Let-
ter ?] and the Syllabus became one of
the most ardent defenders of illiberal
measures." By " illiberal measures " Mr.
King seems to mean freedom of educa-
tion in France, of which Mgr. Dupanloup
has been a lifelong, and recently a suc-
cessful, advocate. "The haughty mind
which sneered at the Encyclical Letter
and the Syllabus" is something new to
us, particularly as Mgr. Dupanloup, long
previous to the Council of the Vatican,
wrote a pamphlet in defence of the Sylla-
bus for which he received the special
thanks of the Holy Father. It is to be
hoped that all Mr. King's biographies
are not equally as accurate as that of
Mgr. Dupanloup.

FIVE LECTURES ON THE CITY OF AN-
CIENT ROME AND HER EMPIRE OVF.R
THE NATIONS, THE DIVINELY-SENT
PIONEER OF THE WAY FOR THE CATH-
OLIC CHURCH. A supplement to the
student's usual course of study in Re-
man history. By Rev. Henry Formby,
London : Burns, Oates & Co.
In these lectures Father Formby essays
the proof of what many a well-read stu-
dent would at first hearing pronounce as
a thesis exceedingly difficult, if not im-
possible, of demonstration viz., that the
Roman Empire, the arch-persecutor of the
church of God, drunk with the blood of
ten millions of martyrs, and nursing-
mother of every heathen idolatry, had,
in spite of these seeming contradictory

New Publications.

143

characteristics, a divine mission, fulfilled more and more turned to O'Connell and

especially by her universal empire and the work he wrought. No later than last

the singular part she played in the lor- year the Holy Father held him up as a

mation of the political and social life of guide to Catholics in their conflict with

the nations of the world. powers leagued together against the

The learned author signalizes among church, against Catholic rights, and, as a

other marks of the divine providence matter of consequence, against all right,

shown in the history of the mistress of The more the great Irish leader's life' is

nations, which point her out as a pioneer studied, the more evident becomes the

of the kingdom of Christ, the following fact that freedom, liberty, right, were not

remarkable classes of services rendered to him merely national but universal

by her to the accomplishment of that claims. What he demanded for his own

work : he would have granted to all, and in

1. " The formation of the nations of the claiming his own he asked no favor;
world into a political unity of govern- he called for none of what are known as
ment, in which there existed a great deal heroic remedies ; he appealed simply to
to foreshadow and prepare the minds of the spirit of all sound laws and the sense
men for the future church; while every of right that is in the conscience of all men.
eye was taught to look up to the city of It would be well if, in future lives of him.
Rome, not only as the centre of all politi- this great, this greatest perhaps, feature
cal action, but as supreme in religion, as of O'Connell's character were brought
well as the fountain of all civil honor and out in stronger relief. For it is just this
dignity. that makes him more than a leader of his

2. "The preliminary mission of the people; it makes him a leader of all peo-
Roman Empire to civilize the nations, and P^ es who have wrongs -to right and abuses
to promote among them education and to abolish. The small volume before us
the cultivation of literature and the arts tells the story of O'Connell's life in the
of life, the care of which was to become, conventional manner. " Popular " is on
in a far higher and more effective manner, the title-page, and there is no reason why
part of the mission of the future church. the " life " should not be popular. It "has

3. " The mission of the Roman Empire been compiled from the most authentic
to inculcate and preserve among the na- sources," says the preface modestly
tions the knowledge of a certain number enough, and in this the value of the book
of the doctrines and virtues forming part is rated in a line - It is a compilation,
of the original revelation which Noah and no more. As a compilation there is
brought with him out of the ark. no especial fault to be found with it. On

4. "The advantage, for the formation the contrary, the various parts are stitched
of the Christian society, of the firm estab- cleverly together, so as to make a suffi-
lishment of the outward framework of ciently interesting narrative. Compila-
good public order, of municipal liberties, tions, however, are becoming too numer-
and of the general peace of the world , in- ous nowadays, and the literature in which
eluding the necessary security for life and shears and paste-pot play the chief part
prosperity." is growing into a school, and a school

These are weighty considerations, and that cannot be commended. It is not

\vorthyofamuch more extended devel- encouraging to open what the reader

opment than the author gives in the iec- takes to be a new book, and find in it

tures before us. His thesis affirmed as page after page of matter that has been

probable (and we deem it no less), Ro- writ or told a thousand times already,
man history would need to be re-written,

and by one who should be not only an ELMWOOD ; OR, THE WITHERED ARM.

historian, but a philosopher and a Chris- By Katie L. i vol. i6mo, pp. 233.

tian. The perusal of these lectures can- Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1876.

not fail to interest the student, and parti- The title of this story, though sufri-

cularly those who pretend to study the ciently thrilling, gives but a faint indica-

philosophy of history. tion of the chamber of horrors that lies

concealed between the pleasant-looking

POPULAR LIFE OF DANIKL O'CONNELL. covers. The title of the first chapter is

i vol. i6mo, pp. 294. Boston : Patrick " Midnight," and it begins as follows :

Donahoe. " W-H-I-R-R ! groaned the old clock.

Public attention in these days is being The sound ran/r throughout the immense

144 New Publications.

corridor, reverberating like the moan of pages," which, it says, " is too obvious to

a lost soul." Three lines lower down, "A need particular specification." Possibly;

wild, unearthly yell " breaks "with fearful nevertheless, we thought it our duty to

distinctness on the midnight silence." specify it above. The preface adds that

Chapter III. begins : "Silence! Gloom! the book was written ''during some of

Remorse ! Anguish ! Alone ! all the sweetest hours " of the writer's life,

alone !" and so on. We spare the reader " in the midst of the most charming sur-

tke prolonged agony. roundings, and solely for the eyes of a

The story might be called a series of few friends." It is to be deeply regretted,

paroxysms, and, were it only intended as a for the writer's own sake, that one, at least,

caricature of the dime novel, would be of her few friends had not the courage and

oxe of the most successful that was ever kindliness to deter her from " sending

written. Murder glares from every page, forth upon its new and unexpected mis-

and agony reverberates along every line, sion " a book that can only bring pain to

There is an abundance of " tall, slight the author and pain to those who feel

figures robed in white," " ethereal oil- bound to condemn it.
lamps," " howling tempests," " deathly
faintnesses," thrilling " ha ! ha's ! " " blue

chambers," "north-end chambers," " aw- THE SCHOLASTIC ALMANAC FOR 1876. Ed-

ful arms," " blood-stained hands," poi- ited by Professor J. A. Lyons, Notre

son, murder, despair, agony, death. Dame, Ind. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg

There are the usual heroes with the con- & Co. 1876.

ventional marble brow and clustering This is modelled on the Illustrated

curls around it, and the heroines, tall Catholic Family Almanac, the first of

and stately, sylph-like and sweet, blonde the kind published in this country, only

or brunette, according to order. Every- it is not illustrated. Its literary matter

body is Maud, or Elaine, or Edwin, or is very good, and in its paper, press-work,

Herbert. One quite misses Enid, Ga- etc., it is a creditable publication,
vrain, Launcelot, and Guinevere. Of

course there is no special quarrel with THE SPECTATOR (SELECTED PAPERS). By
nonsense of this kind, beyond the regret Addison and Steele. With introduc-
tfeat there should* be found persons not tory essay and biographical sketches
only to think and write it, but sane by John Habberton. New York : G.
persons to publish and propagate it. P. Putnam's Sons. 1876.
When, however, we find religion dragged This is the first of a series to be made
in to give it a kind of moral flavor up of selections from the standard Bri-
dragged in, too, in the most absurd and tish essayists. The present volume con-
reprehensible fashion what might be tains careful selections from the Spectator.
passed over as a foolish offence against Those who care to see what journalism
good sense and good taste becomes a was in the days when Addison and Steele
matter of graver moment, to be utterly were journalists will welcome this series,
condemned as irreverent and harmful, so well begun in the elegant volume be-
however unintentional the irreverence fore us. It is to be feared that Addison or
and harm may be. [t is necessary to be Steele would stand a poor chance of em-
severe about this kind of literature. Un- ployment in the present "advanced"
instructed Catholics who, by whatever stage of journalism. Nevertheless, our
misfortune, have access to paper and editorial writers would do neither them-
types, do a world of harm, though they selves nor their readers much harm in
themselves maybe actuated oy the best trying to discover what is the special
motives possible. This book would do charm that lingers about the pages of
no more harm to sensible persons than these dead-and-gone magazines. When
cause a laugh, possibly a shudder, at its they have made the discovery, they will
tissue of absurdities. But falling into the be in a fair way to make it worth the
hands of non-Catholics, it would by many while of an enterprising publisher, say a
be taken as the natural outcome of Cath- century hence, to wade through the pages
olic teaching, and disgust them with of their journals for the purpose of un-
everything connected with the Catholic earthing the author of such and such
name. The preface to the book speaks articles, with a view to giving them again
of " the moral conveyed in the following to the world.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIIL, No. 134. MAY, 1876.

THE ROOT OF OUR PRESENT EVILS.

WHEN Mr. Dickens repaid the dations of a great empire upon a
hospitality which he had received comprehensive and stable adjust-
by his extremely humorous satires ment of all the functions of govern-
of this country, he called the atten- ment. We have eliminated the
tion of all Americans to the extent vast system of human slavery from
to which our national vanity was which our ruin had been predicted,
likely to blind us. Mr. Chollop's We have overcome the most power-
opinion to the effect that " we are ful assault upon the integrity of
the intellect and virtue of the airth, our national existence ; and any
the cream of human natur, and violent attempt upon our govern-
the flower of moral force," has been ment seems at present to be both
secretly cherished by many better impossible of occurrence and hope-
men, less of success.

The conviction of ordinary Amer- It cannot be denied, however, that
icans is that our system of govern- recent events have awakened in
ment is so evidently perfect, and the minds of earnest and patriotic
the course of our development so Americans a sense of uneasiness
manifestly healthy, that nothing^ and anxiety very different from any
but sheer blindness can account similar feeling in the past. The
for any suspicion as to their future professional politician sees in the
stability. To those who question corruption lately developed in
the success of our future we are W T ashin|ton simply the evidence
wont to reply by a smile of genuine of decay manifested by a powerful
pity, or by pointing to the results organization which has enjoyed
already achieved and the difficul- unlimited power and survived the
ties which have been surmounted, issues which brought it into exis-
\\'e have fused the most incongru- tence. He would persuade the
ous race-mixture into one homo- people that a " rotation " is all that
igneous nation. We have occu- is necessary in order to restore
pied a continent, and laid the foun- things to an honest and sober con-
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKEK. 1876.

146 The Root of Our Present Evils.

dition. Less thoughtful men de- class of local politics ; then it was

mand a return on the part of offi- restricted to the city of New York,

cials " to the simplicity of our fore- Now it is proved to extend from

fathers," and applaud blindly every the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to

effort at retrenchment. All obser- exist in every circle of society,

vant writers and thinkers deprecate The suspicion which once attached

any such impossibility and are quite to the " ward politician " now hangs

clear as to the folly of attempting about our representatives and sena-

it. The Nation, March 16, says : tors. Dishonesty in commercial

; We confess that there is to us transactions perpetrates renewed

something almost as .depressing in outrages. We shall soon have to

this kind of talk as in the practice, establish fresh associations to insure

in which many of our newspapers our insurance companies and to

indulge, of drawing consolation for guarantee our banks. The medical

the present corruption of this re- profession feels called upon to issue

public from the reflection that the tracts in order to guard against the

corruption of the English monarchy physical degeneracy of the entire

one hundred and fifty years ago race.

was just as great ; because both To deny that there is a pronounc-
one and the other have a tendency ed, marked, and universal deca-
to turn people's minds away from dence in morality is simply to stul-
real remedies and throw them back tify all faculties of observation and
on quackery." to contradict the testimony of every
The feeling exhibited by this sense. It is not necessary to repeat
writer is not confined to himself; the list of scandals which are daily
and the protest which he makes appearing, or to appeal to the con-
against disguise and quackery is viction, which prevails everywhere,
extended much further than he him- that we have seen but a small por-
self has carried it. For the most tion of those which really exist. It
part careful observers are willing is the common sentiment that the
to postpone the question of treat- next century will witness either a
ment until the public is settled complete and radical reform of the
as to what the malady really is. present state of things, or else a condi-
We are shaken out of our cus- tion far worse than the enemies of
tomary habit of mind by witnessing this country have ever yet predicted,
the disgrace and infamy which cov- Startling as this conviction may
er our present administration. Ev- appear, the only thing which ought
erybody feels that something ought to surprise us is that the present
to be done. But to pay particular disorder has not been foreseen and
attention to this portion of the body is not now more fully understood,
politic, without examining how far It would have been easy to predict
the disease extends and what is its the increase of wealth and the con-
source, is simply to run the risk of sequent increase of luxury in our
suppressing a symptom instead of midst. No sane person can doubt
curing a disorder. that these sources of temptation
The slightest attempt at candid will be greater in the future. The
observation reveals clearly that cor- presence of wealth, the possibility
ruption is not confined to Washing- of attaining it, will call forth all the
ton. A few years ago it was sup- activity of the rising generation,
posed to be limited to a certain and the keenness of the struggle, in

The Root of Our Present Evils.

147

which all are free within the limits
of the law, will tend constantly to
lower the standard of honesty. The
strictness of party discipline, the
disgust which the mass of citizens
have for attending to the details of
politics, offer the widest scope for
unprincipled adventurers.. There
are few careers in which quackery,
fraud, and imposture cannot secure
those fruits for the possession of
which honesty and labor are forced
to suffer and to strive.

It does not involve a cynical
view of mankind to decide that
where the occasion of sin abounds
wickedness will increase and prove
destructive, unless adequate means
are taken to preserve the purity of
a nation.

This restraining influence in the
history of nations hitherto has been
religion, which is supposed to furnish
otives and to supply the strength
and means of combating these evil
tendencies, and of defining and con-
solidating public morality.

The religion under profession of
which the older portions of the
republic developed was professed-
ly Christian and retained much of
the traditional morality of the mid-
dle ages. There was no particular
form of Protestantism which suc-
ceeded in impressing itself perma-
nently upon the growing republic,
although some connection of church
and state was universally recogniz-
ed in the early State constitutions.
The rigid forms of Puritanism and
Quakerism were well calculated to
preserve frugality and simplicity of
life as long as they could be main-

.ied in rigidity. But no system
forms or external restraint

;iU suffice for the direction of a

ilization which, still in its in-
fancy, presents so much richness
and luxuriance of growth. Neither
the austerity of the Roundhead nor

the dignity of the Cavalier could
hope to remain as the type upon
which the American character was to
be moulded. The external habili-
ments of the early generations were
bound to disappear, as they have
disappeared. But their principles
i.e., the beliefs of Protestantism
were to remain and to form the intel-
lect and conscience of the American
people. However great the influ-
ence of Southern statesmen upon our
external constitution, the New Eng-
land mind has wrought most power-
fully upon the popular sentiment of
the country. This action has been
manifold.

The stock in trade, to use a
homely comparison, with which Pro-
testantism assumed its duty of pro-
viding for the moral and intellec-
tual necessities of the American
people was contained in the princi-
ples of the so-called Reformation.

In addition to the theory of pri-
vate judgment, which was retained,
with the utmost inconsistency, the
early religion of this country repos-
ed upon two fundamental and mis-
chievous errors which were inherit-
ed from the authors of the Refor-
mation. These were the heresies
of justification by faith alone and
the total depravity of human na-
ture. If any proof were wanting
of the strength and permanence
of the religious instinct in man, it
would appear in the fact that such
monstrous delusions could so long
receive the assent of those who pro-
fessed at the same time perfect free-
dom of belief. These disgusting
caricatures of Christian dogma have
almost lost their control over human
reason, and will remain only to de-
monstrate the needs of man and his
weakness when acting in abnormal
ways and under false traditions.
But the fruit which they have borne
will not speedily perish. After crys-

148 The Root of Our Present Evils.

tallizing into a system and found- or less dilution of its original doc-
ing institutions for perpetuating its trines, another movement had aris-
growth, the Calvinism of New Eng- en in the very heart of Calvinism,
land assumed all the proportions The Unitarian movement has prov-
and manners of an established sect, ed a complete reaction against what
The preachers were intellectually are called the doctrines of the Re-
v> ell worthy of the position which formation. It has resulted in the
they enjoyed. Great eloquence, extinction of the religious sentiment,
rich thought, and all the scholarship Its popular summary is to the ef-
of which they were possessed were feet, that it makes little difference
wasted in elaborate sermons prov- what one feels or believes, provided
ing, or attempting to prove, their he does right. From the society of
dark and malignant creed. A large the Free Religionists back to the
mass of the people, however, not at- original shades of Calvinism is a
tracted by the airs of Calvinism, gloomy road for even the imagina-,
were repelled by the heavy and me- tion to travel, but no one can pass
taphysical style of the Calvinistic over it in fancy without perceiving
pulpit. the utter impossibility of persuading

Before the separation of the colo- one who has once emerged from,
nies from the mother country New ever to return to, the earlier dark-
England Calvinism had become suf- ness.

ficiently dry and devoid of senti- To continue in a creed which in-
ment to prepare the way for a more volved blasphemy against the good-
emotional religion. Thousands of ness of God and the denial of all
eager souls drank in the enthusiasm the natural sources of morality, or
of Asbury, Coke, and the other apos- to surrender one's self to religious
ties of Wesleyanism. The founders emotion without any solid intellec-
of Methodism in America, though tual principle, or else to place in-
obliged to adopt some articles of dividiials in entire dependence upon
faith as distinctive of their organi- their private perceptions of religious
zation, owed their success to the and moral truth, and finally pass
fact that, discarding all reasoning, from one degree of scepticism to
they appealed to religious emotion, another one of these three alter-
and were mainly instrumental in natives was proposed as the occu-
founding that school of theology pation of the American intellect
whose doctrine is that it matters during the most active period of
little what one does or believes, pro- national growth,
vided one feels right. The Egyptian darkness which

Emotionalism has run its course Calvinism brings upon any thought-

and dies out in the Hippodrome, ful soul was the inheritance of the

whither the official teachers of religious youth of the country,

evangelicalism have led their con- What virtue can exist when total

gregations to receive from the min- depravity is daily preached ? What

istrations of two illiterate laymen bar does it put to the passions of

that spiritual stimulant which can man to know or to believe that his

no longer be obtained from edu- salvation does not depend upon his

cated preachers in the fashionable good life ? What conception of the

meeting-house. universe can he form who sees in it

While the ancient organizations only the work of what a popular

of Puritanism continued, with more preacher has called an ' infinite

TJie Root of Our Present Evils.

149

gorilla" ? Nothing is more pathe-
tic than the history which we have
of minds whose natural goodness
vainly struggled against these de-
testable heresies. And if the reli-
gious heart of New England found
in its creed nothing but discourage-
ment, what was the effect of that
religion upon the popular mind ?
Is it not mainly to its influence that
all that is repulsive and hard in
the Yankee character is to be at-
tributed ?

But, on the other hand, what has
been left by the decay of emotional
religion ? It might have been pro-
phesied with safety that the result
would be simply a reaction. So far
as can be observed, it is nothing
more or less. The writer was not a
little amused at reading lately in a
Methodist paper an editorial charg-
ing strongly against the present style
of revivals, under the heading of
" Religious Fits." The editor, in the
course of his remarks, very bluntly
asserted that religious fits are not
much better than any other kind of
fits a proposition which sums up
the vital weakness of Methodism.
And when a whole nation or a large
class is reduced to this condition, the
recovery from the fit will be attended
\vith great disaster. "The religion
of gush," as it has been forcibly styl-
ed, is fatal to morality. It is an at-
tempt to feed a starving man upon
stimulants. The appearance of
strength which it gives is simply an
additional tax upon the system.
Emotional religion may succeed in
quieting women who are secluded
in domestic life, or even the weaker
sort of men who are occupied solely
in teaching it ; but for the com-
mon mass, who are daily exposed to
temptation, it is, at most, a salve
with which the wounds inflicted
upon conscience are plastered over.
There is nothing in it to discipline

the soul before trial, and nothing
to repair its weaknesses after it has
fallen.

With regard to the results of the
naturalistic revolt against Calvin-
ism there is little to be said. The
charming writers who have given it
prestige are not its product but its
cause. In so far as they assert the
dignity of human reason against
Calvinism, to this extent they are
in harmony with our natural in-
stincts and have tended to produce
a wholesome influence. But even
transcendentalism is past its wane,
and will be known in the future
only by its literary reputation.
Free religion has developed no
permanent constructive idea. Its
principal effect will be to obliterate
whatever of Christianity has clung
to the tradition of New England
Protestantism. Its mission will be ac-
complished when all connection be-
tween the pastand present shall have
been effectually broken. It leaves us
only a considerable amount of sci-
entific knowledge which we should
possess without it. Its morality
staggers through the wide range
extending from free love and spi-
ritism into the undefined vacuity
t which it supposes to lie between
these bolder theories and old-fash-
ioned uprightness. Like emotion-
al Protestantism, it is wholly inca-
pable of withstanding any strain or
of guiding and controlling the ab-
solute individualism which it has
created. If the Congregational
pastor of Plymouth Church affords
a sad example of the impotence of
emotional pietism, the unfortunate
plaintiff in the lawsuit against him
is no less a melancholy instance of
the aberrations of the last phase of
American Protestantism.

There is little affectation of con-
cealment, on the part of thoughtful
Americans, of the conviction that

150 The Root of Our Present Evils.

our national growth and the sue- were able to furnish the people
cess of our government are subject with sound moral instruction, we
to the universal laws according to could understand something of the
which past empires have risen and enthusiasm which describes them
perished. It is to be hoped that as the sources of natronal morality
the success with which we have and as the salvation of the future,
been blessed so far will not blind God knows we have no desire to
our eyes to this truth. We must cut off one ray of light ; but the
have a solid basis of morality, or we present moment is not one in which
are doomed to fall into such a con- to indulge in madness. The soon-
dition as will make our absolute ex- er it is understood that our system
tinction a desirable thing. Whence of education is destroying the gen-
is this new life to come ? Is there eration that is subjected to its influ-
anything in American Protestantism ence, the better. It stands to rea-
which can reverse its steady process son that the great need of the hour
of decay and disintegration ? Has is to save our children from its evils,
it any principles which can arrest Our public education barely suc-
for one moment the popular ten- ceeds in exaggerating all the moral
dencies ? We are unable to see in and physical degeneracies of the
it even a " serviceable breakwater day. To develop the desire and
against errors more fundamental capacity for action and enjoyment,
than its own " ; quite the contrary, without providing means of guiding
Its dogmatic front only serves to and restraining within wholesome
disgust those who mistake it for limits the power thus produced, is
Christianity. Protestantism never simply to court disaster. We are
converted a nation to Christianity suffering at present from aversion
or formed one. It could do neither to hard labor and a quiet life from
even if it had an opportunity. In the unbridled desire of wealth and
its latitudinarian aspect it directly pleasure, from the absence of well-
fosters the present vagueness of defined moral sentiment. The pre-
moral convictions; while its emo- sent system of education, so vehe-
tional tendency only justifies the mently applauded, is an aggravation
substitution of sentiment for reason < of all the morbid tendencies of our
and nullifies all attempts to subject condition. This complaint will not
the feelings to the judgment. receive much attention coming from

However one may be disposed to this source, but it is finding univer-
prefer the paganism which univer- sal utterance from the medical pro-
sally pervades our era to the un- fession, and its justice will speed-
lovely fanaticism of earlier times, ily appear to the most casual ob-
experience, both past and present, server.

forbids the indulgence of any hope There is nothing in paganism,

of future success springing from it. however brilliant its science or art,

It is hard to imagine what thought that can restore the health of a race
has been expended upon this sub- which is morally corrupt. The
ject by those who profess to see 'positive stage of development,"
the way out of our present difficul- as it is styled by a certain class
ties through a lavish system of public of modern writers, is an age of de-
education. We hear declamations on crepitude. If the analogy be true
this subject which fill us with bewil- which they hold to exist between
derment. If the public schools the life of man and the develop-

The Root of Our Present Evils.

ment of a race, we .must expect
death as soon as the "positive 1
era has been attained. The muscu-
lar epoch has passed. The age
of delusions has left the mind in^
capable of anything but observ-
ing facts ; the demand for artificial
stimulants has exhausted the brain
of the nation ; and the body politic,
though surrounded with luxury, is
moribund beyond the power of re-
covery.

While we do not fully accept the
analogy of positivism, we are con-
vinced* that neither Protestantism
nor paganism can raise the nation
from the slough in which it seems
about to settle. Nor will it be saved
by the infusion of fresh blood, as was
the ancient world according to some
ingenious writers. The Hun and
Vandal and Goth would never
have changed their originally sav-
age state had they not met in
the world that they destroyed an
indestructible power which, after
surviving the assaults of both Ro-
man and barbarian, by its subtle
constructive faculty altered the face
of the earth. This power was
Christianity, whose work of univer-
sal civilization was so fatally marred
by the religious catastrophe of the
sixteenth century.

Now that the false Christianity
of our forefathers has developed
its utter worthlessness as a guide,
it will be well to inquire whether
the religious system, which is his-
torically identified with Christian-
ity, contains any of those elements
of stability so lacking in our civili-
zation.

It is not to be expected that such
a discussion, even if resulting favor-
ably to Catholicity, will be sufficient
to convert the American people to
its faith, but it will greatly conduce
to removing misconceptions and
ignorance on the part of many of

our fellow-citizens with regard to
the relative merits of Catholicity
and Protestantism.

No system can ever prove effi-
cient which is unable to maintain
its own integrity. No intellectual
movement can hope to exert any
large practical influence after it
has lost its unity. Protestantism,
having begun with a denial of the
need of authority, was soon forced
to contradict itself in practice in
order to preserve its existence.
But the principle which had given
it life could not be disregarded, and
the germ of discord, involved in
the idea of a teaching body without
any claim to be believed save what
private conscience might be willing
to concede to it, continued to pro-
duce disintegration without end.

The evils of our present exagge-
rated^individualism are universally
admitted. Men are united upon all
points except those involving moral
responsibility. While it is quite .
clear that in matters of science we
are willing to trust to authority, on
the other hand, in the more com-
plex and easily perverted order of
ideas (involving as they do the gra-
vest consequences), every man is
endowed with infallibility. This is
simply an inversion of the natural
order. The normal and rational
order is preserved by Catholicity.
With the Catholic Church religious
truth as the basis of morality is a
tradition whose bearing upon hu-
man science and politics always re-
quires fresh application and is co-
extensive with the possibility of
human growth. But while this ap-
plication of principle is left to indi-
vidual effort and furnishes the pro-
per exercise of the intellect, the ex-
cesses of individualism are always
to be counteracted by a living au-
thority. The ability of the church
to maintain her unity has been

152 The Root of Our Present Evils.

demonstrated and perfected in its courages labor in its development of

operation by the storms which the nature as a means of discipline and

last three centuries have launched as furnishing the necessary condi-

against her. The opposition to her, tion of peace and civilization. It

on the contrary, has brought about stimulates art to search after beauty

its own destruction. If the absur- as a means of showing the necessity

dities of modern individualism are and embellishing the truth of hea-

to be remedied, the cure lies in an venly doctrine. It is true that the

earnest consideration of the claims of Catholic faith does not permit the

Christianity. Protestantism, though intellect to repose in any one of

a grievous calamity, has served to these occupations as its sole end.

settle for ever all those questions In the light of divine truth science

concerning the supreme source of and art are united by a synthesis ;

doctrinal authority which had been and the rest which faith forbids the

raised by the intrigues of the secu- soul to take in earthly pursuits is

lar power in the middle age. Now denied by its own nature. The

it is no longer possible to confuse the synthesis which faith provides is

sentiment of obedience to author- sought restlessly and eagerly by the

ity by reference to unlawful sources, mind. Modern thought, which has

The attack of modern governments been turned away from Catholicity,

upon the church tends still further searches vainly for some principle

to circumscribe the limits of secular of unity.

power, and to define clearly that The faith which redeemed the
which belongs to Csesar and that ancient world and prepared the
which belongs to God. germs of that degree of 'civilization
The stability and permanence of that has not been wholly destroyed
Catholic thought are maintained in by Protestantism, was in no respect
great measure by the prerogatives like the withering, soul-destroying
of the spiritual power, which pro- horrors of Calvinism. The doc-
mulgates and guards the divine tra- trines which supplied matter for the
dition committed to its care. But intense intellectual life of the mid-
the real power which that tradition die age, which corrected Aristotle
exercises is its truth and its con- and piled, tome after tome of the
formity with facts. The divine re- close, serried reasoning of St. Tho-
velation is made to reason. It sup- mas Aquinas, was in accord with
poses a rational being. It is ac- human reason, vindicated the dignity
cepted on rational and convincing and powers of man, and stimulated
evidence, and becomes operative in him with fresh vigor in every sphere
virtue of divine grace. Its aim is of science, poetry, and art. Scho-
to elevate and ennoble human na- lasticism was nothing else than an
ture and to heal its infirmities. In effort of human reason to demon-
fulfilling this mission it acts in har- strate the reasonableness of Chris-
mony with God's other works, al- tianity. The present generation is
ways above and with reason, but so grossly ignorant of those eight
never against it. It puts no obsta- hundred years of most intense life
cle in the way of human science, which formed Christendom that it
which, as the Vatican Council de- is not capable of appreciating their
clares, can only contradict revela- influence and still less their cha-
tion by being incomplete or by mis- racter. But whoever will read the
interpreting divine truth. It en- prooemium of the Summa Contra Gen-

The Root of Our Present Evils. 153

tiles of the " Angel of the Schools ' evangelical religion is no guarantee

will see the difference between the of a better state of morals. Our

constructive doctrine of the middle people have got beyond simply

age and the reactionary delusions believing and feeling ; they wish to

of the sixteenth century the bitter do right, but they are gradually

fruit of that splendid revival of pa- coming to acknowledge that man

ganism. Protestantisrr , viewed as cannot bright without knowing what

a system of doctrine, was simply an he ought to do, viz., what is right ;

extravagant caricature of the super- and the best and wisest will confess

naturalism of the Catholic Church, that they do not know what they

As a system of morality it was no- ought to do, and that they can see

thing else than the emancipation of nothing in the future from whence

the passions from the restraints im- they may expect to learn. Whether

posed by Christianity. Having de- they will be content to review the

stroyed the necessary conditions of evidences of Catholicity we knov^

faith by denying authority, it pre- not. Many are doing so, but the

sented the ideas of grace and sane- intense worldliness of the day is

tification in such a distorted man- not favorable to serious thought on

ner as to render sacraments mine- the part of the multitude. Should,

cessary and unmeaning, to do away however, the authority of true

with free will, merit, and natural Christianity be revealed to, and

goodness in a word, to abolish hu- accepted by, them, we may justly

man nature. Wherever the heirs expect a development of the utmost

of the so-called Reformers have re- significance in the history of the

volted from the unnatural task of world.

propagating their religious system Catholicity not only preserves

they have left mankind, not simply and restores the Christian truth of

bewildered by the darkness whence which men have been robbed by

it has emerged, but without the the heresies of the Reformation,

heavenly guidance which genuine but it preserves, sanctifies, and

Christianity provides. It has rob- makes fruitful the natural goodness

bed men of the light of heavenly which remains in the individual,

doctrine, and has furthermore strip- the race, and the nation. But

ped them of the aid of the sacra- above all things it applies those

mental system, the means of the principles of natural justice and

action of divine grace and of the purity which are now so seriously

growth of supernatural life, without jeopardized.

which natural virtue and natural An unjust man can console him--
intelligence cannot long endure in self, when transmitting his dishon-
purity. est gains to his descendants, by
The present state of our people reflecting that he is to be justified
calls for what Protestantism has by faith alone. This has been done
not. Justification by faith could to our certain knowledge, and doubt-
not save its first professor from less every New Englander can recall
breaking his vows and debauching similar cases. A man who admits
another person equally bound ; nor the injustice of his transactions
will its influence increase by repeat- can find ways of forgetting his in-
ing his famous dictum, Pecca fortiter debtedness. The fraudulent bank-
sed crede fortius. The evanescence rupt can revel in the wealth of his
of genuine fanaticism on the part of wife and children. Even the thief

154

The Root of Our Present Evils.

who admits in the abstract the ob-
ligation of restoring that which he
has stolen, without the assistance
of the confessional is too apt to
cling to that which he has once
acquired.

We want, first, to hear the Cath-
olic doctrine of the necessity of
restitution in the place of maudlin
denunciation of " carnal righteous-
ness." We want to have it well
understood that no amount of ex-
alted emotion will relieve the
guilty thief until he has handed
over his ill-gotten goods. We do
not say that the neglect of this doc-
trine is the cause of the special
cases of corruption which come
before our eyes ; but we freely as-
sert that the spread of dishonesty
is due to nothing less than the in-
eptitude and fatuity of Protes-
tantism in this respect.

We further assert our conviction
that no amount of preaching will
change the present widespread dis-
regard of the rights of property.
These must be enforced in the pri-
vate life of each man, backed by a
supernatural principle. The means
which the Catholic Church has pro-
vided for the support and assistance
of the individual conscience is the
confessional. This it is which has
created the very sentiment of hon-
esty that is now dying out among us
for want of it. Antiquity did not
possess this sentiment. The Greeks
encouraged stealing and made a
god of theft. The Romans ac-
knowledged only the claims of
hospitality and the force of law.
Our barbarian ancestors grew and
thrived upon piracy and pillage. It
was no abstract or speculative doc-
trine which overcame their savage
traits and established the new sen-
timent which condemns successful
viilany ; nor will the present de-
cay of honesty be arrested by any

system which divorces it from the
institution that has brought it into
existence.

The most fatal symptom, however,
of our lapse into paganism reveals
itself in that department of mo-
rality in which the struggle is car-
ried on with the most lawless of hu-
man passions. The morality of Pro-
testantism offered no assistance to the
individual in this conflict between
reason and the excesses of that in-
stinct which is at once the most neces-
sary and at the same time the least
governable. Developments such as
Mormonism and the Oneida Commu-
nity, the increasing frequency of di-
vorce, and the freedom with which
the maxims of the ancient Christian
morality are questioned, are suffi-
cient to illustrate the decay of fixed
principles of morality. Such results
are not strange when we recall the
actual conduct of the founders of
Protestantism. Nor is it unreason-
able to expect a certain amount of
laxity in an intellectual movement
which constitutes each individual
his own supreme judge and teacher
of morals ; but the worst is that the
very source of purity is thoroughly
vitiated. In ancient Christianity the
laws of chastity were clearly defined,
peremptory, and plainly set before
the intellect. Modern individualism,
having begun by denying man's re-
sponsibility and asserting his neces-
sary depravity, has placed the rule of
virtue, not in reason, but in instinct.
The old morality was a sentiment
based upon dogmatic conviction.
The modern Neo-protestantism has
nothing upon which to depend for
its purity of life except the natural
feelings of modesty and shame.
The very idea of attempting to sub-
ject sexual instinct to reason is
scouted as an absurdity by popular
writers. The license taken by those
whose occupation is to amuse the

The Root of Our Present Evils. 155

public every day increases in shame- most commonly in her aesthetic
lessness. Art, whether pictorial or character and influence ; but we
dramatic, will not listen to any sug- must not forget that her immorali-
gestion of restraint, and the natural ty as recorded in history was hide-
sentiment upon which our virtue ously dark. The product of her
rests is constantly being weakened. sensuous and overwrought know-
It is foolishly supposed that this ledge and enjoyment of nature
species of disorder, having gone to spread with her literature and art.
certain lengths, will at last return They brought death to the strong
to rational limits. It is with some and vigorous race which had over-
such notion that the enthusiasts, come the world. The annals of
who profess to see in popular Suetonius and Tacitus, the calm
education a panacea for all evils, records of current facts, are too
expatiate upon the future. This, obscene to bear circulation among
however, is mere thoughtlessness, ordinary readers of our day. The
The development of the nervous literature of their time has to be ex-
temperament in the system of a na- purgated before it is fit to be pe-
tion is no remedy for this moral rused by youthful students. The
illness ; on the contrary, the reverse crimes which are charged by the
is true. The result is the most dan- apostle in his terrible invective
gerous form of sensuality. When against the heathen culture, which
an intense and excitable organism, are rehearsed by Terence and Aristo-
quick in its intellectual movements, phanes, satirized by Juvenal, laugh-
eager in its appreciation of beauty, ed at by Horace, celebrated in the
is left to follow its own instincts in flowing measures of Anacreon, Ovid,
the application of wealth, we have and Catullus, and coldly set down
the nearest approach to the ancient by historians as the public acts of
classic type of culture. The re- the cultivated classes these fright-
cent development of American art ful excesses live to-day, with all
is a source of universal remark, their unnatural beastliness, in the ex-
Here the successful artist finds quisitely-wrought marbles and fres-
golden appreciation. The diva of cos of Pompeii,
the lyric stage, the painter and There was, never a case in which
sculptor, meet with substantial wel- either a nation or an individual was
come. The growing taste for beau- cured of this species of corruption
ty of line is well known and ac- by increasing the aesthetic faculties
knowledged. Extravagance in dress and amplifying the temptations of
is becoming a national weakness, wealth. But, it is urged, education
There is every indication that the gives the rising generation the abil-
next century will witness in our ity to read, and therefore puts it
descendants a race more elegant in in the way of acquiring sound in-
its tastes, more intense in its en- struction. Let it be understood
joyment of every form of beauty, that we believe no parent has a
than even the heirs of European right to deny this instruction to his
refinement a generation as unlike children ; but we bespeak on the
the ungainly type of Brother Jon- part of all earnest men the utmost
athan as an Athenian of the age attention to the practical issue of
Pericles was dissimilar to the this theory, in order that they may
Ic Pelasgic fisherman of the see how incomplete it is as a safe-
Hellespont. We think of Greece guard to the virtue of the youth now

156 The Root of Our Present Evils.

growing up. What is the nature native element, and in the absence

of our popular literature ? Upon of the existing immigration from

what sort of reading is the newly- abroad, the population of our older

acquired art exercised ? What is States, even allowing for the loss by

the ratio of books which furnish emigration, is stationary or decreas-

useful instruction to those works ing." Dr. Storer did not hesitate

whose aim is solely to amuse and to attribute this fact to the crimi-

excite the imagination ? And of nal destruction of human life or to

the latter class, what is the pro- the suppression of the family by

portion between the harmless and those whose natural instincts ought

noxious publications ? Those who to procure its conservation. The

receive only elementary instruction evidences of this widespread evil

practically go to school in order to are before us in every daily issue of

learn to read novels and the trashy the press.

and immoral periodicals whose costly The demands of pleasure, the

illustrations and increasing number numerous inducements to women to

amply prove the increasing demand find their occupation outside of do-

forthem. The influence of the press mestic life, and to shrink from the

is necessary and indispensable, but duties and cares of maternity none

there is nothing in our literature of those temptations which furnish

which will in any degree restrain the occasion of this crime are to

the tendencies of our civilization. be met by increasing the size and

We wish it were possible to use beauty of our public schools or by

language of sufficient force to ex- providing the children of the poor

press the reality of our perilous with elegant accomplishments. Nor

condition ; for our people have al- will the result be more favorable

ready gone far enough in this di- if the privilege of the elective fran-

rection to excite the utmost alarm, chise is added to the other extra-

The moral corruption of New Eng- domestic responsibilities of Ameri-

land is such as to threaten with ex- can women. What, then, is to save

tinction the vigorous race which us when marriage, if recognized,

originally inhabited it. The me- has ceased to be a desirable state,

dical profession of this country when luxury and nervous develop-

is so profoundly impressed with ment have subjected the chastity of

the constant decrease in the birth- single life to the severest tempta-

rate of the native stock and with its tion, and when our inherited morali-

marked physical decadence, that ty has vanished in the process of

essays on these subjects are to be our growth?
seen in every scientific periodical. If the native American race is not

Ten years ago Dr. Storer called going to die out. it must learn from

attention to the fact that, as far foreigners the secret of their vitality,

back as 1850, the natural increase Christianity has, in the confession-

of the population, or the excess of al, the means of applying not only

births over deaths, was by those of sacramental grace to the fallen and

foreign origin, and that subsequent- repentant, but of securingthem from

ly the ratio in favor of foreign pa- further disorder. Dr. Storer has told

rents was constantly on the in- the country very plainly that : ' the

crease. " In other words," he says, different frequency of the abor-

" it is found that, in so far as tions depends, not upon a difference-

depends upon the American and in social position or in fecundity,

The Root of Our Present Evils. 157

but in the religion." In other words, much faster than it is doing. We

the cultivated American is far be- cannot tell how soon it will be able

low the ignorant immigrant in mo- to receive the divine truth of Chris-

rality ; and the reason of this is that tianity. It will be no pleasure to

the immigrant referred to is a us to have the old faith vindicated

Catholic and his employer is not. by the destruction of this people.

Dr. Storer proceeds to observe : We beg to be allowed to preserve

'It is not, of course, intended to our Catholic population and to keep

imply that Protestantism, as such, them pure and faithful, at least until

in any way encourages or, indeed, non-Catholics can offer something

permits the practice of inducing which will meet their own contin-

abortion ; its tenets are uncompro- gencies. If this demand be per-

misingly hostile to all crime. So sistently disregarded and our hon-

great, however, is the popular ig- est attempt to save ourselves be

norance regarding this offence that misconstrued into an assault upon

an abstract morality is here com- others, we will do the best we can,

paratively powerless." This touches at all events.

the fundamental truth involved in But, in the meantime, let all ear-
the whole discussion " an abstract nest men admit the reality of danger,
morality " never can prove effective Do not let attention be absorbed by
against any concrete evil. But the particular manifestations of a dis-
doctor further expresses his convic- ease which is universal. The evils
tion, drawing the legitimate conclu- which threaten our life will not be
sion and stating the fact : " And removed by retrenchment of gov-
there can be no doubt that the eminent expenses, or by a tempo-
Romish ordinance, flanked on the rary destruction of party tyranny,
one hand by the confessional and or by an ostentatious simplicity in
by denouncement and excommu- official circles, or by " justification
nication on the other" (he has by faith," or by pietistic feeling,
previously quoted from the pastoral or by acting out individual crotch-
of a Catholic prelate), '' has saved to ets, or even by sound moral doc-
the world thousands of infantlives." trine in an abstract form, but by the
The American people is beginning living truth of God, taught by him
to perceive that wealth and culture through human lips, applied by him
without true morality mean ruin, with divine efficacy through the min-
If it does not perceive that Protes- istry of human hands. The truth
tantism is the cause of its present which has saved the ancient world
corruption, it at least confesses that and has produced all that is desira-
its inherited religion is powerless to ble in modern civilization is alone
remedy the evils of the day. We able to preserve our nation in its
cannot ask it to reject its false guide future growth.

158

A French Novel.

A FRENCH NOVEL.*

THIS title will prove a disappoint-
ment to those who only associate
the idea of a French novel with that
typical production of vicious and
feverish literature to which the fic-
tion-mongers of France have so
long accustomed us, and whose cor-
rupt influence has made itself felt
far beyond the limits of the nation
which gives it birth. Our present
purpose is not to discuss one of
those pernicious books, but to con-
sider one which rises as far above
their level by its artistic beauty
and literary merits as by the nobler
tone of its morality. A novel by a
Catholic writer, impregnated from
first to last with the spirit and prin-
ciple of the faith, full of noble sen-
timents, and yet as amusing and as
exciting as any " naughty " novel ; a
book where all the good people, even
the holy people, are as charming,
witty, odd, or fascinating as if they
were anything but holy ; a book that
conveys in the characters and scenes
it brings before us a great moral
lesson, and which at the same time
absorbs and excites us as powerfully
as the cleverest novel of the sen-
sational school, with its inevitable
murders and forgeries and double
marriages the appearance of a
novel such as this is surely an event
that it behoves us to examine close-
ly as the curious literary phenome-
non which it is.

Mrs. Augustus Craven's last work,
Le Mot de VEnigme, which, under the
title of The Veil Withdrawn, ap-
peared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD

* Le Mot de P Enigme The Veil Withdrawn.
Ey Madame Craven. Translated by permission.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
1875-

simultaneously with its issue in the
Correspondent of Paris, is known to
most of the readers of the present
article, but we would ask them if,
when enjoying its persual, they have
sometimes stopped to consider what
a genuine achievement the book
was, and how pregnant with promise
for the lighter- Catholic literature of
the future? Any book by the au-
thor of the Recit d'une Sceur is sure
to command a wide audience in Eu-
rope and America among readers
of different languages and creeds ;
but there are reasons why The Veil
Withdrawn should meet with a spe-
cially triumphant welcome from us
Catholics, for it is in truth a triumph
over prejudices whose narrow and ty-
rannical rule have hitherto been fatal
to Catholic fiction. T\&R&itd'un*
Saur, the peerless story that stands
unrivalled amidst the literature of
the world, taught many lessons to
our day, but no one, perhaps, more
important, considering its possible
results, than that which it conveyed
to Catholic writers namely, that re-
ligion, in its most ardent form and
its most rigid application, is com-
patible witl; the tenderest romance ;
that human hearts and imaginations,
far from being chilled or fettered by
the sublime truths of the faith, are
kindled and enlarged by their influ-
ence ; that human passions come
into play as powerfully in souls ruled
by the divine law as in those that
reject and defy it, the only differ-
ence being that to the former they
are weapons used in noble warfare,
servants and auxiliaries, whereas to
the others they are tyrants that
strike only to destroy. The loves of
Alexandrine and Albert revealed this

A French Novel. 159

secret to the world, and this alone issue to ruin or to endless victory ;
would have sufficed to immortalize souls where all the forces are clash-
the^?/a'/. No romance ever reached ing in deadly and desperate strife
the skyey heights to which these lov- these things are forbidden ground
ers soared ; and yet, while their to the Catholic novelist. He may
hearts sang their sweet love-song to- tread timidly on the outskirts of the
gether, their souls were fixed on God, battle-field, but he must not ven-
dreaming of heaven, where their love ture into the thick of the fight; he
was to find its perfect consummation, must not lift the veil and let us look
scorning the pitiful meed of earthly upon the scene where this momen-
happiness, unless it might lead them tous combat is going forward, where
to the secure possession of the eter- nature and grace and all the allied
nal bliss of which this was but the enemies of the human heart are wrest-
transient foretaste. " Pour la vie, ling and striving in fierce war.
t*e$t trap court !"* was Alexandrine's These things would not be " edify-
reply when Albert asked her for the ing " ; they would not be fit reading
ring on which the words were gra- for young girls ; they might put ideas
ven, Pour la vie ! And such should into their heads and excite their
be the motto of all love worthy of imaginations. And why, we ask, is
the name. it invariably taken for granted that
This pure key-note is struck Catholic writers only write for young
and sustained with a master-hand girls ? Are there no Catholic men
throughout the whole story of The in the world ? It might be urged,
Veil Withdrawn, and the success with better show of reason, that
with which the principle it enunci- young girls are not obliged to read
ates has been forced into the service novels at all stories, yes ; but
of art is the point which we would novels do not form any necessary
invite Catholic writers in all coun- part of their education. These are
tries to consider attentively. Our intended for men and women peo-
grand mistake, as a rule, is to as- pie who have found out the " an-
sume that Catholic literature, in order swer to the riddle," learned some
to be true to its mission, must be con- of the dark and painful lessons of
stantly talking of holy things, bring- life ; who turn to the pages of a
ing forward pious maxims and prac- novel to find an hour's harmless
tices ; that the heroes and heroines recreation, if nothing more, and to
of its stories must be pious people, forget the dull round of care and
or else very wicked people whose vexing realities in the amusement or
final cause is the glorification of excitement of imaginary troubles
the pious ones who are to convert and joys. We are far from saying
them ; it must never deal openly that the novel has no higher pur-
vvith the great problems of life, never pose than this ; but if it claimed no
grapple with its deepest mysteries, other, this, in itself, is a legitimate
never describe men and women as one. Human nature must have re-
they ordinarily exist around us laxation. The most ascetic saints
human beings endowed at their sought recreation of some kind
birth with the fatal inheritance of from the strain of work and con-
Adam, with mighty capabilities for templation. Still more must ordi-
good and evil, with passions and in- nary mortals seek it ; and as novel-
stincts that have to work out their reading has become one of the
*" For life, is too short !" easiest and most popular forms of

160 A French Novel.

mental diversion, it is of the highest novelist is forbidden to strike the

importance that it should be of deep, vibrating chords of nature and

good and wholesome quality. Now, of souls, but he believes himself free

a novel is neither good nor whole- to handle the most sacred subjects, to

some when it ignores the canons of preach and moralize to the top of

art, and eschews the true study of his bent. It is hard to speak of this

human nature, and confines itself to folly as dispassionately as we should

pretty commonplaces and pious al- wish ; but looking at it with all

lusions and exemplary sentiments possible indulgence, is there not

exchanged between namby-pamby something in the stupid conceit

people who are represented as in a and self-complacent audacity of it

state of society which, practically, that may justly rouse indignation?

has no prototype in real life, where We see grave men, who have gradu-

strong passions and conflicting in- ated in the schools, give up long

terests and fierce te.mptations have years to the study of sacred science,

no existence, but where all difficul- in order that they may some day

ties are adjusted by a pious su.gges- be competent to speak worthily on

tion offered at the right moment these high themes, that they may

by a friend or a book. Grown- learn how to balance the relations

up men and women will not be put of right and wrong, and define the

off with this sort of thing, be they limits of temptation and sin, of

ever such good Catholics ; when cause and effect ; and when, with

they take up a novel, they do so for knowledge ripened by study and

interest or amusement, and, for lack meditation, they venture to write, it

of better, they fall back on the real is in a spirit of great reverence and

novels, sensational or otherwise. in fear and trembling. On the other

This is a lamentable state of hand, we see incompetent laymen,

things, and as fatal to Catholic wri- young ladies and young gentlemen

ters as to their readers. It is this fresh from school, utterly inexperi-

false idea of the character and re- enced, but well supplied with the

quirements of Catholic literature boldness of inexperience and in-

which has brought it to the low ebb competence, dipping a dainty pen

at which it now is among English- into a silver inkstand and proceed-

speaking Catholics, in spite of the ing to discourse in a novel of pious

growing numbers of a cultivated subjects of prayer, and temptation,

and intelligent audience. Every and sacraments, and priests and the

one recognizes the fact, and many priestly character, and controversial

deplore it, but no one has the cour- subjects as flippantly as they might

age to attempt the remedy. It discuss the merits of a new opera

would require, indeed, something or a new costume. And they fancy,

more than any effort of individual forsooth, that this is doing good

influence to break down the preju- and giving edification ! They im-

dices and puerile traditions that agine that it is enough to mention

fence in the authorized field of. Ca- sacred subjects and emit pious or

tholic fiction in the present day, quasi-pious sentiments in order to

and it is difficult to say which calls reach the human heart and strike
for strongest denunciation the pro- - the sursum corda on its springs !

hibition which excludes certain sub- One could afford to laugh at the

jects, or the large license given to silly delusion, if the danger did not

the use of others. The Catholic lie so close to the folly of it. A

A FreucJt, Novel.

161

moment's reflection and a little
humility would suffice to convince
these well-meaning persons of their
mistake. Many of them might
ivally attain their end of edifying
if they had only the sense to con-
fine themselves within the range of
their powers. If a beginner, or
one endowed with a delicate sense
of music but limited musical abili-
ty, should attempt to perform one
of Beethoven's glorious sonatas, he
\vould only irritate us by spoiling
the masterpiece ; but if the same per-
son wisely contented himself with
playing some simple air, he might
afford genuine and unalloyed plea-
sure, touching some chord of feel-
ing in the listener's heart, evoking,
mayhap, sweet memories of child-
hood, sacred and iong forgotten.
Few things provoke the disgust of
an intelligent reader, pious or not,
more than to come upon religious
platitudes yin a book ostensibly
written to Amuse ; and the prospect
of meeting with this kind of thing
at every page is sufficient to pre-
judice him agaiiut a book which
bears a Catholic name on the title-
page. Even the name of a Catho-
lic publisher brands it at first sight
as " dull and silly." Here, as else-
where, the cause and effect react
upon eaeh other, and the puerile
tone and absence of artistic treat-
ment in the author, by failing to
i^ain the favor and attention of the
public, paralyzes the most energetic
efforts of Catholic publishers, and
those few 'Catholic writers who can

mmand a wider audience are un-.
avoidably driven to the Protestant
publishers in order to secure a
hearing.

Is it too much to say that a Cath-
olic novelist who would successfully
break through these narrow-minded

'I false theories, and courageous-
ly inaugurate a new reign in Catho-

VOL. XXIII. II

lie fiction, would be conferring a
great benefit on our generation ?
We claim for Mrs. Augustus Craven
the merit of having achieved this
feat. The mission which she be-
gan in the Rfait d'une Sceur was suc-
cessfully continued in Fleurange,
and may be said to triumph com-
pletely in The Veil Withdrawn.
Her last novel is a book which ap-
peals as strongly to the interest of
the unbeliever and the heretic as
of the most fervent Catholic. The.
moral lesson it conveys may be ac-
cepted or not, just as the reader
pleases ; it is there, brilliantly and
powerfully delivered ; but, like so
many messages broadly written on
the face of nature or faintly whis-
pered to our hearts, we may heark-
en or we may close our ears to it.
as we choose ; the story still remains
one of enthralling interest, full of
tenderest romance, of fiery passion,
of picturesque description, of spark-
ling repartee, of gay and pathetic
and thrilling situations. With the
skill of a real, artist the author lifts
the curtain and bids us look into the
hearts of our fellow-creatures ; she
touches the hidden springs, reveals
the dubious motives, evil sometimes
blending with good so closely that
it requires the finest analysis to dis-
cern their true proportions,to decom-
pose the elements, and show where
and how far each in turn prevails.

The two characters who stand
out from the canvas as the leading
figures in the picture are brought
face to face in the most terrible
conflict that human hearts can
know. Ginevra not a child, not a
placid convent maiden suspecting
no life beyond her " narrowing
nunnery walls," but a woman with a
strong, impassioned soul is first
inebriated with the pure wine of
permitted happiness ; the cup is
dashed from her, and she tries

1 62 A French Novel.

to clutch it in defiance and de- ed, but destined to rise to such
spair. It eludes her still. She prestige amidst them all ; Ottavia,
beholds her happiness wrecked, the fussy, superstitious, devoted
her life blighted, at the very outset, old nurse ; Mario, the sombre and
She cioes not take her rosary, and, jealous-tempered brother they all
with conventional propriety, accept come before us with the reality of
the ruin of her young life with the living characters whom we love, fear,
resigned spirit and smiling counte- or suspect as they gradually reveal
nance of a saint; far from it. The themselves. The episode of the flow-
evil that is in her starts into er flung from the window in a mo-
activity and makes a fierce fight ment of frolic and girlish vanky, and
against her cruel lot. She plunges which leaves so deep a mark on
into the whirl of society, and tries Ginevra's life, is cleverly introduc-
to drown her misery in such conso- ed and prepares us for the retribu-
lations as excitement and gratified tion which awaits the poor child's
vanity can give. We follow her innocent misdemeanor. Her life
step by step in the perilous career, glides on peacefully in the old
now trembling at her rashness, now frescoed saloon, where she cons her
rejoicing at her escape, but never, book and tends her nightingales,
in the bottom of our hearts, believ- until one day, while high perched
ing that she will prove unworthy on a stool, ministering to her sing-
of her nobler self. ing bird, the old majordomo flings

Let us glance over the story, not the door wide open and in a sono-

to analyze its merits as a work of rous voice announces Sna eccdlenza

high art and moral philosophy, but il Duca di Valenzano ! Gihevra

simply to review it in the light of starts, and so does the reader ; for

a novel characteristic of our times he knows instinctively that this vis-

and full of the stir of nineteenth- itor is the fairy prince of the story,

century life. destined to make the golden-hair-

It opens at Messina, in an old ed maiden supremely happy or su-
palazzo, where Ginevra, blossoming premely miserable. Ginevra's con-
out in her fifteenth summer, sits fusion, at being discovered by this
watching the sea through the half- illustrious intruder in such an awk-
closed window, listening to the ward attitude and so childishly
wave sobbing on the beach, uncon- engaged, is charmingly described,
scious and dreamy, but already vi- She knows not whether to be terrified
brating to the " low music of hu- or delighted when the handsome
manity ' that stirs the unwakened duke goes forward and assists her
pulses of her heart. She rivets to descend from her aerial stand-
our attention at the first glance as point. Bui old Don Fabrizio knows
a creature whose beauty, sensitive- what to feel about it, and surveys
ness, and dormant energy of charac- the group in the. embrasure of the
ter contain all the elements of some window with a glance of stern dis-
h'i'gh romance. The description of pleasure. This high-born client of
her home and its inmates forms a his has nothing in common with
charming and animated picture. Don Fabrizio's daughter, and it is
Fabrizio, the learned and. somewhat with undisguised reluctance that
austere father ; Bianca, the mother, the proud lawyer obeys the duke's
with her tenderly brooding love ; request to introduce him to the
Livia, the sister, at first so misjudg- signorina.

A French Novel.

163

And now th story is fairly afloat, and Lorenzo were sitting on the
and we follow it with an interest terrace, listening to the water lap-
that grows in proportion as the plot ping on the shore, to the nightin-
advafices, rising in dramatic power gales trilling in the ilex gloves ; the
at every chapter. We know that young wife, hushed into silence by
Valenzano is not to be trusted, that the ecstatic beauty of the scene,
he has in him all the elements of a laid her hand upon her husband's
faithless lover and a cruel husband ; arm and whispered to him, " Let us
but we surrender ourselves all the lift up our hearts in prayer for one
same to the charm of his manner, moment, and give thanks for all this
his genius, his irresistible fascina- beauty." Lorenzo bent on her a
tions. The love-making is as warm look of tenderest love, and then
as the author dares to make it in murmured with a smile, as if an-
a country where the freedom of swering the poetic folly of a child,
Ano:lo-Saxon courtship is unknown,

Beatrice m suso, ed 10 in lei guardava.'*

and where the course of true love

runs smoothly between the contract- Thine eyes are my heaven, Ginevra.

ing families on one side and the I feel no need to raise my own any

family lawyers on the other. Ginevra higher." A cold chill like the first

goes forth to her new life with suspicion of a great sorrow crept

a mixture of delight and fear that over the young wife. But Lorenzo

are like the foreshadowing of the quickly chased it away, and she tries

flickered destiny that awaits her, to banish the memory of it. But

and Livia's voice strikes like a note we do not forget it. Slight as the

of painful warning in the concert incident is, it has all the import of

of the family joy and triumph and the first growl of the distant thun-

congratulation, when she reminds der, the small patch of cloud, " no

Ginevra that ; ' marriage is like bigger than a man's hand," upon

death ' -a thing that we wait and the summer sky, that are the cer-

watch for, but never know until we tain forerunners of the storm,
have passed the gates and it is too But the storm will not burst just

late to turn back. The description yet, and meantime we follow Gine-

of the bridal festivities, when she vra in her brilliant career, first tra-

goes home to her husband's palace, veiling here and there with her hus-

and, worn out by the grandeur and band, and finally enthroned as a

the glare, takes refuge alone in the queen in her delightful world at

quiet starlight, and removes the Naples. The first thing that makes

circlet of glittering jewels from her us tremble for her is Lorenzo's

brow, that cannot bear the pressure startled exclamation of anger was

any longer, presents one of those it? when he comes upon Donna

pictures of life in the great Italian Faustina's card amongst those that

world that Mrs. Craven excels in are left at the young duchess' door,

depicting. and the latter, in surprise, asks what

Life has now become like an en- it means. He turns it off adroitly,

chanted dream to Ginevra. But and Ginevra dismisses it from her

the first touch of the awakening mind. The interval that follows is

reality is not long delayed. One bright with incident and pictures of

night, when the moon was high in society in Naples and in Paris. We
the blue heavens and flooding earth

. , . , Jr. *" Beatrice gazed upwards and I on her did ga~e.

and sea v/ith a mystic glory, Ginevra -DANTE.

164

A French Novel.

see Lorenzo' at work in his studio,
where Ginevra sits to him as a mo-
del for his Vestal, and. where his
rapturous admiration of her beauty
makes her recoil instinctively as
from a homage unworthy of her,
too much " of the earth earthly."
And yet this husband, who is almost
an unbeliever, who smiles with in-
dulgent fondness on his wife's ardent
piety, is glad enough that she should
have religion to guard her from the
perils that beset her on all sides ;
he recognizes the power and utility
of her faith, and is careful not to shock
it or to let her see how little he
really shares it. Lando, the cousin
and boon companion of the duke,
now comes upon the scene, and for
a time we side with Ginevra in her
dislike and suspicion of him ; but
soon we find out our mistake, and
acknowledge that, in spite of his
loose principles and wild ways, he
is kind-hearted and a stanch and
loyal friend to Ginevra. He does his
best to save both her and Lorenzo,
though to the last he is unable to
understand why any woman in her
right mind should care so much
more for her husband's love than for
his fortune, and why the ruin of
the latter should be as nothing to her
compared to even a passing breach
in the former. The scene at the con-
cert, where she first detects Lorenzo
at a card-table, and it breaks upon
her that her husband is a gambler,
is finely introduced, and the con-
versation of Lando with the terri-
fied young wife is admirably drawn.
But we know that the real crisis in
her peace and happiness has yet to
come, and we hurry on till Donna
Faustina enters. Lorenzo disarms
us, and almost gains our sympathy
for this evil genius of Ginevra, by the
frankness with which he tells her
story to the latter ; but the rela-
tions between all three, as he now

tries to establish them, are radically
false, and it requires no prophetic
eye to foresee how they must end.
What barrier have either Faustina
or Lorenzo to stem the torrent of
passion when it breaks loose out-
raged love and desire of revenge
on her side, and on his the embers
of a love 'that he fancies dead, but
which it only needs the vanity of
his own undisciplined nature and
the spell of her guilty passion to
fan into a livelier flame than ever ?
While the storm is rapidly rising in
this direction, Gilbert de Kergy
crosses Ginevra's path ; but she is
yet far from suspecting that he is
the messenger of fate to her, the
one who is to exercise a supreme
influence in her life and call oiU
its energies in her soul's defence
with a courage that till now has
never been demanded of her. We
know how the battle is sure to go
with Ginevra, as we foresee the issue
with Lorenzo and Faustina. We
see the force that will ensure the
victory in the one case, just as we
see how the want of it must lead to
slavery and surrender in the other.
And here again the skill and power
of the author triumph and afford a
striking contrast to the old system
we have denounced. She never
moralizes, or reminds us that Lo-
renzo, being a bad Christian, who
never goes to Mass or the sacra-
ments, is certain to fall, and that
Ginevra, in spite of passions that
sway her heart with such relentless
power, will come safe out of it
because of that restraining force
which, like a mysterious presence,
rules her even when she is uncon-
scious of it the author does not
say these things ; she proves them
by making her characters demon-
strate their truth and act out their
conclusions. We will quote the
passage where Gilbert and Ginevra

A French Novel.

part, only to meet again in those
sweet and tempting days at Naples.
Gilbert has been lecturing on his
travels with an eloquence that car-
ried away his hearers. Then Gi-
nevra says :

" I remained seated near the mantel-
piece, and fell into a dreamy silence,
while Diana sat down to the piano. She
began to execute, with consummate art,
a nocturne of Chopin's, which sounded to
me like the expression, the very language,
of my own thoughts. ... I woke
up from my reverie with a strange thrill,
and blushed to the very roots of my hair ;
for in lifting my eyes I met those of
Gilbert fixed upon me, and mine were full
of tears. I brushed them away quick-
ly, and muttered something about the
effect Chopin's music always had on my
nerves, and then rose and drew near to
the piano, where Diana continued to
pass her hands in rapid changes over the
keys. . . . Gilbert remained silent
and pensive in the place where I had
left him, following me with his eyes, and
perhaps trying to guess the real cause
of my emotion. . . . When the time
had come for me to go, and Mme. de
Kergy clasped me to her heart, I no
longer strove to repress rny tears. . . .
Gilbert gave me his arm and conducted
me to my carnage without speaking.
As I was entering it, he said in a voice
that faltered slightly:

1 Those whom you are leaving are
greatly to be pitied, madam.'

' I am still more to be pitied,' I re-
plied, and my tears flowed freely.

' He was silent for a moment, and
then he said :

4 As forme, I have the hope of seeing
you again ; for 1 shall come to Naples,
. . if 1 dare,"

' And why should you not dare ? You
will be received and welcomed as a
friend.'

" He made no reply, but when he had
placed me in the carriage, and I held
out my hand to him to say adieu, he
nunnured in a low voice : An revoir / ''

And he keeps his word. He

to Naples and meets Ginevra

-U a ball, whither she has rush-

.d, half mad with despair and

jealousy, reckless of everything

resolved to drown the anguish of
her heart in the intoxication of
gayety and the adulation of the
world, that until now she had care-
lessly despised. It was the night
after the masked ball at the Festina,
where, on the impulse of the mo-
ment, she and her beautiful friend
Stella went as dominos to join in
the fun and mystify their friends a
little. Ginevra recognized Loren-
zo's stately figure the moment she
entered the ball-room, and, terri-
fied at finding herself alone in the
crowd, seized hold of his arm,
clinging to him in silence. Loren-
zo, deceived by the color of her
domino, mistakes her for Faustina,
whom he is expecting. He stoops
low and whispers a tender welcome
in her ear. Ginevra, with a stifled
cry, starts from him and rushes
frantically from the scene. The
next night, with the delirium of
this discovery upon her, she goes
forth in her loveliest attire to
dispute the palm of beauty with the
rest. .

" I had my diamonds and pearls brought
out, and I gave precise directions as to
how I intended to wear them ; this done,
long before the time came I began my
toilet and spent an endless time over it.
So many women seem to take pleasure in
making a triumphant entry into a ball-
room, I said to myself, and in being flat-
tered and admired, why should I not
taste of this pleasure as well as they? I
am beautiful, I know that very beautiful
even. Why should I not attract and in-
dulge my vanity and coquetry like other
women?"

And she does attract, and her
vanity is satisfied to overflowing.
Her beauty and the dazzling splen-
dor of her jewels create a perfect
furore the moment she appears.
She announces her intention of
dancing, and the noblest cavaliers
in the room are at her feet in a mo-
ment, quarrelling for the honor of

1 66

A French Novel.

her hand. Never was the triumph
of a coquette more complete than
Ginevra's. Her youth and its in-
stinctive love of pleasure vindicat-
ed themselves for a time, and she
enjoyed her success to the full ; but
as the night wore on nobler in-
stincts asserted themselves, wor-
thier voices made themselves heard
above the din of this ardent and
puerile vanity, and Ginevra feels the
cold chill of remorse stealing over
her ; a sense of vague misfortune
takes possession of her and stills
her feverish gayety like a touch of
ice. Her last partner leads her to
her seat, and she sinks into it ex-
hausted and miserable.

" At the same moment," she says, " I
heard near me a voice well known though
well-nigh forgotten a voice at once calm,
strong, and sweet, but which now sound-
ed slightly sarcastic. ' Although I can-
not aspire to the honor of dancing with
the Duchess de Valenzano, may I hope
that she will deign to recognize me?'

" I turned around quickly. The speaker
who stood there and thus addressed me
was Gilbert de Kergy."

The ordinary French novelist had
here a fine opportunity for bringing
matters to a crisis between Ginevra
and Gilbert ; but the present author
uses it differently. Gilbert does
not take advantage of the tempo-
rary madness of Ginevra to gain
influence over her and beguile her
from her allegiance to Lorenzo,
faithless and cruel as he is. Gilbert
is far too noble for this, and his first
feeling, on beholding his ideal in
this dangerous and unworthy at-
mosphere, is one of censure and
poignant regret. Neither he nor
Ginevra is of the conventional
type of defaulters ; both are good,
high-principled, and brave ; they are
both practical Christians, and the
idea of betraying their duty to God
and to their own honor would have

revolted them had it presented itself
in its naked horror. But it did not.
The approach was gradual, imper-
ceptible. And here we have a great
truth illustrated one which it is
customary in Catholic authors to ig-
nore practically, if not theoretically :
The possession of the faith and the
practice of religion do not act as
opiates on human beings, deadening
their hearts and annihilating nature,
and lifting them to a secure region
where the great temptations of life
cannot reach them, or where, if they
do, they glide off harmless as ar-
rows glance from the steel cuirass
of the soldier. Ginevra is pure and
true as ever woman was who vowed
at the altar " that most solemn vow
that a woman can utter " ; she was,
moreover, genuinely pious. Gilbert
was the very ideal of manly chivalry
and honor and goodness, an accom-
plished type of the Christian gentle-
man; but neither he nor she was
fireproof when the time of trial came.
He loved Ginevra before he knew it ;
and she, forsaken, humiliated, stung
in her love and her wifely pride, is
thrown into his constant compan-
ionship, not by her seeking, but
through one of those accidents to
which women of her class and cir-
cumstances are liable every day.
She is grateful for Gilbert's brother-
ly regard, she admires his noble life
and his sentiments, so true, so differ-
ent from those of other men ; she is
grateful to him for the frank rebuke
which he spoke out at the ball
when she was drifting she knew not
whither. Step by step the friend-
ship grows to a tenderer feeling, and
at last culminates in a love whose
depth and power Ginevra does not
even suspect, so gradual has been
its development. We tremble for
her ; but even when we see her tot-
tering blindfold on the edge of the
abyss, we feel certain she will never

A Frencli Novel.

167

take the fatal plunge. All this is
depicted with infinite delicacy and
rare psychological skill.

Li via now reappears upon the
scene as one of the visible forces
that are guarding Ginevra along the
slippery road. Livia is one of the
most striking and carefully drawn of
the subordinate characters. It is
worth mentioning en passant that
here, as elsewhere, Mrs. Craven
breaks boldly through the time-
honored traditions of the Catholic
novelist. The holier and more
spiritual-minded her dramatis perso-
na, the brighter, more sympathetic
and accessible they are. Stella, the
heroic friend in days of sorrow,
so gifted, so beautiful, so untainted
with the spirit of the world where
she lives and moves Stella has the
high animal spirits of a school-girl,
the glad heart le sang joy eux, as she
herself calls it of a happy child.
Livia, who in her father's home was
pensive almost to melancholy, the
moment she embraces the austere
rule of the cloister, spending her
days in the contemplation of heaven-
ly things, grows as merry as a lark.
Joy is henceforth the keynote and
regulator of her life ; we have no
trace of the downcast face and
solemn, mournful voice that have
hitherto been characteristic of
pious people in novels. No one
pulls long faces here, or whines or
sighs, except it may be those who
have forsaken the fountain where
true joy has its spring, to drink of
the poisoned waters of this world's
pleasures, of sin, ambition, or folly.
How winning, too, is Livia's tender
interest in the gay life of her bril-
liant yourtg sister ! She has not
closed her heart against the actors
on the world's stage outside her
convent gates, but keeps her sym-
pathies wide open to all life and all
humanity beyond them.

" ' Gina mia, you don't tell me every-
thing,' she says one day that Ginevra is
conversing with her through the grating.
' Is it that you think I take no interest in
your life now ?'

" ' It is not only that, Livia, but it is
difficult to talk about such trivial, foolish
things in presence of these bars and
looking at you as you stand behind
them.'

" ' Nay, it is always good for me to hear
you and for you to talk to me,' replied
Livia. ' It is true that when Aunt Clelia
comes here with her daughters, I. put on
a severe countenance now and ihen, and
tell them pretty plainly what I think of
the world ; . . . but I must say that my
aunt bears me no malice for it, for she
counts on my vocation to get good hus-
bands for Mariuccia and Teresina. . . .
She does not look upon me as " jett.it> nee "
at all now, I can tell you !'

" She laughed so merrily as she spoke
that I could not help exclaiming with
envy and surprise :

" ' Livia, how happy you are to be so

i' "

The sense of humor, so essential
to preserve the balance in true men-
tal power, is not wanting in this
story. Donna Clelia is lightly and
brightly touched. She is everywhere
true to herself; self-important, sil-
ly, and good-natured, she and her
daughters are redeemed from hope-
less vulgarity as much by their
naivete and naturalness as by the
sheer inability of the author to de-
pict vulgarity a fact which we no-
tice without comment, leaving our
readers to decide whether it be a
merit or a fault. Donna Clelia's
intense satisfaction at being able to
parade " my niece, the duchess " is
one of those touches that throw a
character into striking relief. Her
enthusiasm for the * view ' from
the baronessa's house, where " not a
donkey-boy, nor a cart, nor a horse,
nor a man, nor a woman could pass
in the narrow street but you saw
them so plainly you could tell the
pattern of their clothes," gives us
the measure of her artistic percep-

1 68

A French Novel.

tions, while her raptures over the
situation " with the church on one
side and the new theatre on^ the
other . . . figurateir ! so that the
baronessa can let herself into the
church on the right, and through a
passage into her box in the theatre
on the left," is equally characteris-
tic of the manners and minds of
the society around her. The de-
scription of the splendid pageant of
the Carnival, passing under Donna
Clelia's balcony, is as spirited a bit
of picturesque writing as we have
come upon for a long time. But
we hurry on through these gay and
vivid scenes, impatient for the crisis
that is at hand between Gilbert and
Ginevra. Nothing, so far, had pre-
pared our heroine for its approach.

vineyards ana villages and smiling
gardens, spreading desolation before
it. Ginevra, with a large party of
friends, goes out to witness the mag-
nificent spectacle from a safe emi-
nence. She and Gilbert are thrown
together and climb to the top of a
hillock overlooking the scene of the
conflagration. The flames rose on
all sides as in some vengeful apoca-
lypse, high, fantastic, awful. Ginev-
ra could not take away her eyes from
the sight, but gazed on it as on some
mysterious apparition that held her
spell-bound. At last she exclaimed :

Apparently," says Ginevra, "and in
reality, our intercourse was precisely
what it had always been ; every word he
said to me might have been said before
the whole world. I felt, it is true, that
he spoke to me as he did not speak to
any one else, and I, on my side, spoke to
no one as I did to him. We were seldom
alone, but every evening, in the drawing-
room or on the terrace, he managed to
converse with me for a moment or two
when no one was by. He did not dis-
guise from me that these stolen moments
were to him the most enjoyable of the
evening, and I knew they were the same
to me. From time to time something in-
definable in his voice, in his glance, even
in his silence, made me shudder as at
some threat of danger. But. as he had
never swerved by so much as a word
from the position he had assumed towards
me that of a friend my slumbering
conscience did not awake !'

The awakening, however, came at

! rpi i- r .

last. 1 he immediate occasion of it

was an eruption of Vesuvius, which
is described with a dramatic power
worthy, if possible, of the sublime
and terrible subject. The mountain

is on fire; the lava streams forth
r .

from a rent in its side, and, strong
and pitiless as fate, flows on over

This is trul > r & '#<* ^hnte / We
have before our eyes a faithful picture of
+h 1 t d ' '

"Gilbert did not answer. He was a
prey to some emotion more poignant
than mine, and, in glancing towards him
in the lurid glare of the fire, I was fright-
ened by the change in his features and
their strange expression. ' Would to
heaven,' he muttered at last, ' that it
were so in reality, and that the last day
were corne for me ! Yes, I wish I could
die here, on this spot, near you and wor-
thy of you!'

" In spite of the appalling scene around
us, in spite of the roar of the detonations
thundering above the dull noise of the
lava, the accent of his voice struck upon
my ear, and his words made my heart
leap up with an emotion mingled with
terror.

" ' You are growing giddy,' I said, and
my voice trembled. ' Take care ; the ef-
feet of looking long at this is sometimes:
to draw one on to the abyss.'

" ' Yes, Donna Ginevra,' he replied in
the same strange tone, ' you are right; I
am giddy and I am walking on to the
abyss. I know it. I exposed myself
rashly ; I presumed too much on my

'The look which he fixed upon me in

, .,

pronouncing these words gave them a

meaning which it was impossible to mis-
understand. It was no longer Gilbert
who was speaking to me ; it was no long-
er the man to whom 1 fancied I had
f^ted nly , th ^ safe P"vilege S of a
friend. The bandage which I had wil-
fully placed upon my eyes fell off in an

instant, and, in the sudden emotion which

A French Novel. 169

followed, the sight of the roaring flames how the same strong hand which
that encircled us, the certain peril to hdd Gineyra safe on the brink f
which one step further would lead us, , . . f , r <
appeared to me as the exact representa- the Precipice led her faithfully
tion of the danger to which I had madly through the peril, and brought her
exposed my honor and my soul ! For back, not only to the inward peace
one moment I covered my face with my which follows every generous re-
hands, not daring to utter a word. At nunciation e conquest over
last I said in a voice of supplication : ir , . . J - ..

"Monsieur de Kcrgy, cease to look self > but ho f lt: finally won back

upon the fire that surrounds us ; lift up ner husband's love, crowning them

your head and see how, far above this both with a joy such as they had

hell, the night is calm and beauti- never known in the days of their

fill

f .. early happiness. The fitness of

Gilbert s eyes followed mine and re- T / . .

mained for some time fixed upon the Lorenzo s punishment, the wreck

peaceful stars, that seemed, indeed, as far of his fortune through one passion

away from the terrible convulsion of na- and the vengeance brought upon

turc as from that which was agitating our his selfish pride by the other, is

Mine felt the need of a mighty WQrked Qut wkh a constmcdve art

hcip, and 1 murmured in a low voice, r

and with a fervor which had long been f no mean order - The minor

a'.-sent from my prayers : ' O my God ! characters and their parts are care-

hivc pity upon me.' A long silence fully finished and satisfactorily dis-

cnsued, and then Gilbert said in a voice posed of. Livia to the last shines

that was low and tremulous : 1:1^, u ,,

<AX711 ,- . ,,,.. like a sweet, pure star above the

'Will you forgive me, madame? Will , . r ' l .

you trust yourself to me to lead you honzon f Ginevra s stormy life,

from this place ?' pointing onwards and upwards with

' ' Yes, I will trust you,' I replied, faithful hand, never /too strong for

' But let us make haste to leave it, for it pity or too far removed for sym-
pathy, sorrowing with those who

Do not fear, he said in a tone that ... . .

had resumed its wonted calmness ; we mourn > rejoicing With those who re-
must make haste, but the only danger joice. Her interview with Ginevra
would be if you were to become fright- after the fearful ordeal through
cned. Give me your hand.' which the latter has passed, when

He would have taken it, but I hesitat- she CQmes Hke Qne wh h b

ed and made an involuntary movement, , , _

as if I meant to descend without his saved > but thr <gh fire, to seek

help. consolation in the peaceful atmo-

4 In the name of Heaven," he said sphere of the convent, rises to a

quickly, and trembling with agitation, high degree of power We are

Dn't refuse my assistance in this ex- strongly tempted to quote the scene

tremity! You cannot do without it ; , T-. i

you must give me your hand !' between Padre Egidio and Ginevra,

" His voice was now almost imperious ; but it is almost too sacred to be

[ gave him my hand, and, grasping his made matter of critical comment,

arm firmly with the other, we descended an d would lose, moreover, much in

the hill slowly together." effect by bdng detached from the

Utit although this first victory is complete frame, and especially from

the sure guarantee of the ultimate the crucial experiences which pre-

one, Ginevra has a fierce battle yet pared Ginevra's soul for that touch

to fight. Perhaps it will be better of the divine hand which healed

th.it our cursory notice of the story and strengthened and uplifted her in

should, however, end here, and that one instant. Such an episode can

we should leave our readers to dis- only be appreciated in its proper

cover the sequel for themselves: place as part of a whole which

I/O

Char it as Pirkheimer.

justifies and glorifies it. The close
of the story is full of deep pathos.

It is significant that this novel,
which is recognized as the herald
of a new era in Catholic literature,
should have made its appearance at
the same time in France and in
America. May we not venture to
infer from the coincidence that
America, in harmony with sound
Catholic teaching, placing greater
confidence in human nature, may
aid in redeeming Catholic English

fiction, and prove to the world that
the faith does not paralyze the im-
agination, but elevates it ; leavim;
the novelist at liberty to deal with
the deepest problems of life, to
disport himself freely in the wide
realms of fancy, nature, and the
world, and, guided and enlightened
by the Spirit of truth, to grasp with
a firm hand and turn to the best
account all those things that come
within the scope and province of
art?

CHARITAS PIRKHEIMER.*

"Good and evil fortune are to a brave man as his right hand and his left : he uses either equally
well." Saying of S. Catherine of Sienna.

CHARITAS PIRKHEIMER, the eldest that is, capable of being elected
daughter of John Pirkheimer and members of the ruling body or
Barbara Loffelholz, was born on the council of the little republic. Of
2ist of March, 1466. Her family those whose names occur again and
was a distinguished one in the an- again in this history one of the
nals of Nuremberg, her native town, most ancient was that of the Pirk-
one of those old free cities of Ger- heimer, who, for at least a hundred
many whose burghers, as yEneas and fifty years before the birth of
Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., Charitas, had been celebrated for
once said, were better lodged and their learning, piety, and statesman-
more daintily fed than the kings of ship. Upright and honorable in
Scotland. Among the citizens of their private life, as well as in the
Nuremberg there was a kind of execution of their public trusts, they
prescriptive aristocracy or patrici- were looked up to by all, and their
ate composed of those families women no less than their men were
technically called " Rathsfahig " distinguished for strength of char-
acter, love of learning, and solid,

* Charitas Pirkheimer, Abbess of St. Clare at ~ r ,i; rr 1,f~ror1 T-V f

Nuremberg. Ry Franz Binder. Herder, Freiburg :1 & n */
im Hreisgau. The biographer. Franz Binder, has
compiled the life of Charitas, which we have con-
densed in the present article, from trustworthy

Nuremberg was at that time a
centre of art and letters. Her

sources, the principal ones being the Works of yoiltllS Went tO Italy and Studied at

\Yilibald Pirkheimer^ in Latin, published at .-, . . J r ^

Frankfort in 1 610; MS. letters of the Pirkheimer th C Old universities Of Padua and

family preserved in the town library at Nuremberg ; Bologna, whence they brOUffht back

Charitas own diary, published at Hamberg in 1852; ... . J . _ &

Dr. Lochner's Bi-igrafihy of Celebrated Nurem- the prevailing enthusiasm for claSSl-

ttrgers, published in 1861 ; and other less important ca j l ore . t h e RCW art of printing had
and snorter works in which passing reference is . ,

made to the events of Charitas' life.

found in her

citizens discerning

Char it as Pirkheimer. 171

patrons * the streets were full of the P"t ourselves entirely in her circumstan

beautiful houses of the rich mer- ces * E * ^his done, she will appear to

j us peculiarly- worthy of respect and con-

chants ; churches jmd monasteries sideration as a gifted and conscientious

adorned with treasures of sacred opponent of the new religion. . . . Both

art abounded, as even to this day by speech and in writing did she oppose

the passing tourist can see ; Albert all attempts to convert her ; and even if

Dlirer, Adam Krafft, and Peter Vis- ^ e differ from her > we <; annot bntadmire

her earnest conviction, her prudence and

cher made their native city known understandingi and especially the pa-
far and wide in the world of art ; tience which she added to her other
while Regiomontanus drew his as- virtues."
tronomical instruments from Nu-
remberg and published his works Her father, John, was at the time
there, and his disciple, Martin Be- of her birth a doctor of civil law
haim, a Nuremberger by birth, dis- (the degree had been conferred at
covered the sea-route to the East the University of Padua), and was
Indies. Literature was even more shortly after called to the service of
firmly established, and John Pirk- the Bishop of Eichstadt, William of
heimer himself instituted a sort of Reichenau, as counsellor, in which
academy after the model of those capacity he also for some years
of the Italian princes. Wilibald, served the Duke of Bavaria and the
his only son and the last of his Archduke of Austria at their respec-
name, continued his work and be- tive courts at Munich and Inns-
came famous as the friend or patron brlick. He was also often sent as
of nearly all the renowned men of envoy and representative to other
learning of his time. courts, after which services he re-

Among these refining influences turned to his native city and died
Charitas grew up, and early showed there, a member of the council. Of
her enthusiasm for " polite " studies, his seven daughters only one mar-
The historians of Nuremberg, Lilt- ried Juliana, the youngest ; the rest
zelberger and Dr. Loclmer, both all took the veil. Charitas and
Protestants, have left high testimony Clara were joined in a lifelong
of the breadth of her intellect and friendship in the Convent of St.
the great consideration in which Clare in Nuremberg. By all ac-
she was held by men of all parties, counts the former seems to have
The latter calls her " a gifted, en- entered the convent at the age of
lightened, pious, and prudent wo- twelve, whether as a novice or a
man, who has conferred lasting scholar we are not told. The con-
honor on the Convent of St. Clare," vent had existed as a Clarist institu-
and who "deserves a high degree tion for two hundred years, when
of respect for the firmness and dig- some nuns of Soflingen, near Ulm,
nity with which she withstood the had introduced the Franciscan rule ;
storm of the Reformation, which to but the building, which was several
her and her community was a sor- centuries old, had been tenanted
ro \vful event." Liitzelberger, in a before by a community of Sisters of
lecture delivered at Nuremberg, St. Mary Magdalen. All the nuns,

id to his Protestant audience : with very few exceptions, were Nu-

rembergers by birth and descent

the Reformation was a deep grief to /,_, j-,- r ^i

her pious heart, accustomed as it was to ( thlS wa * a c <dition of their ad-

the gentle amenities of convent life, and, nuttance) ; and as each generation

if we would judge her aright, we must of every illustrious family was re-

172 Cliaritas Pirkheimer.

presented by one or two members, things, he once reminded them

the convent had become peculiarly that the convent life alone was not

a cherished local institution, whos-e enough to save their souls. " There

welfare was closely connected with is no other way to deserve the eter-

that of the town. One of the coun- nal Fatherland," he says, "but by in-

cil was charged with its temporal dustriously keeping all God's com-

concerns, and gifts and bequests mandments." He also furnished

were often made to it by the citi- them with books, a Commentary on

zens. It was also the school where the Liturgical Hymns and Sequences,

the young girls of patrician family 1494, and 1506, and the Discourse

were mostly educated. of St. Augustine on the Siege of Hippo.

A model of strict observance and This was sent apropos of a siege in

reformed rule, it was under the 1502 which Nuremberg suffered at

spiritual direction of the barefoot- the hands of the Margrave Casimir,

ed Franciscans, who, in the middle and during which three hundred

of the fifteenth century, under the brave and noted burghers, all heads

protection of Pope Eugenius IV., of families, lost theti'lives. On the

had, in a time when discipline was occasion of her father's death, in

relaxed in many of the houses of 1501, he writes to Charitas :

their order, taken up their abode in ,< Therefore we must not sorrow whea

Nuremberg and put things upon the a man has deserved to return from a

old ascetic footing ruled by the strange land to his own country, from an

great reforming saint, Francis of * nn to his own house, from work to rest,

A ss ; s i . from death to life, from time td eternity,

, and especially when he has, by a blessed

Apolloma Tucher was Jiantas exchange, accumulated many good works;

best and dearest friend. They for we are all like unto merchants sent

lived together more than fifty years, into this pilgrimage of earth, that with

and died within a few months of temporal goods we may buy and win

each other. Through her Charitas eternal life> "

also learnt to know and appreciate This learned and holy man died

Sixtus Tucher, her cousin, the pro- at the age of forty-six, in 1507, but

vost of St. Lawrence, also a promi- not before he had seen his friend

nent man in those days. Apollonia Charitas chosen abbess of St. Clare,

was at that time prioress and Chari- She was only thirty-eight, but her

tas a teacher in the convent school^ strength of character made the

The provost kept up a regular cor- choice unanimous ; and if the nuns

respondence with the two nuns, of could have foreseen what a stormy

which unfortunately one part has time they would soon have to tide

been lost; but all his letters are pre- over, they would have congratulated

served, and were first translated into themselves still more on their good

German by his nephew, Christopher sense in electing her. From hence-

Scheurl, and dedicated to a succes- forth she was the heart and soul of

sor of his at St. Lawrence Provost the convent : the nuns looked to

George Behaim. .His advice to her for advice, support, and comfort . ;

Charitas and her friend was a great the council saw in her a distinguish-

boon, and now and then he would ed, learned, and enlightened coun-

send little presents, such as gilt trywoman, the example not only

lanterns for the church, which he of her own community, but of those

always accompanied by some sym- in the neighborhood who followed

bolical warning. Among other her lead. One of the first events

Char it as Pirkhcimcr.

that marked her rule was the attack she wrote to the learned but scarcely

of the plague which visited Nurem- Christian Celtes, she saw in Scrip-

i>erg in 1505 and laid low one of ture the "field of the Lord, whence

her own spiritual family. She in- learning must draw the kernel from

sisted upon nursing the sick nun, the shell, the spirit from the letter,

notwithstanding the remonstrances oil from the rock, and blossoms from

of her anxious sisters, and was re- the thorn."

warded by the recovery of the pa- She had much to do also to man-

tient. In those years of peace and age the temporal concerns of her

prosperity the convent fully vindi- house. The town demanded a

rated its claim to being a house of yearly account of her stewardship ;

happy labor. Besides the instruc- and in every report made by the

tion given to the young girls of the council on her administration there

city, the nuns were occapied in va- is nothing but praise and recogni-

rious artistic works, such as illumi- tion of her business talents. She

nation, copying, and embroidery, corresponded with a circle of letter-

Their particular industry was the ed friends whom she knew through

manufacture of carpets and tapes- her brother Wilibald, and these lit-

tries for hangings. They fulfilled erary friendships form one of the

orders for public and civic buildings, most interesting phases df her life,

as well as for private families, and Conspicuous among her friends was

once the town council gave the her brother himself, the friend of

imperial regalia into their hands Albert Diirer, who has left us a por-

for putting in order for the coro- trait of him, the correspondent of

nation of Charles V. at Aix-la-Cha- Erasmus, the polished man of let-

pelle. Nuremberg had the care of ters, the scholar of two Italian uni-

these venerated garments, and was versities, for some time the head of

jealous of its reputation ; so that the council of the republic, and the

the nuns felt a high responsibility leader of the Nuremberg contingent

in being allowed to handle and re- in the war with Switzerland (1499*).

pair such treasures. They care- This last office he held when he was

fully mended and re-embroidered only twenty-nine, and he afterwards

the white dalmatic, and lined other became the historian of the war.

pieces of* the imperial dress, until When the first beginnings of the

they were fit to do honor to the care Reformation disturbed and excited

of the city of Nuremberg. The all thoughtful minds in Germany,

convent had also a library of some he looked upon them as simple

note for that time, the Scriptures moral reforms, a renewal of ancient

and the fathers of the church fervor and discipline. But as the

forming the principal part of it. true nature of the changes heralded

Charitas' favorite among the latter by Luther broke upon him, he sepa-

\vas St. Jerome. She was solicitous rated himself from the movement

concerning the daily reading of the and rallied to the side of the church

Scriptures, both in Latin and in doctrines so ruthlessly attacked.

German, which was done in com He proved a great support to his

mon as well as in private a fact sister in the days when the con-

which she brought to her own de- vent was under the ban of the tri-

fence in the evil days that follow- umphant Reformers of Nuremberg,

i d. She might truly say that she and his opinion of the classical

i'tood on evangelical ground ; for, as studies which some of the atheistic

174

Charitas PirkJieimer.

literati would fain have exalted as
the only learning fit for civilized
men was clearly expressed in these
words : " It is not my belief that
Christian knowledge is incomplete
without heathen literature. God
forbid ! Divine Wisdom needs no
human inventions, and it is possible
to attain to the highest point of theo-
logy without the help of Plato and
Aristotle." Wilibald was accustom-
ed to write to his sister in Latin, as
Sixtus Tucher also did, and Chari-
tas' style, notwithstanding her lowly
opinion of her own proficiency, was
such as to do honor to her educa-
tion. He often sent her presents of
books for instance, the Hymns of
Prudentius, the Christian poet, and
some writings of her favorite doctor,
St. Jerome. Later on he dedicated
to her the works of Fulgentius,
which he had edited. Both Chari-
tas and her sister Clara were great
admirers of Erasmus and diligently
read his German translation of the
New Testament (in 1516), as well as
some works of the famous scholar
Reuchlin (1520). To the former
Charitas excused herself from writ-
ing "on account of her bad Latin,"
but sent him many complimentary
messages through her brother, and
both he and Reuchlin spoke of her
in high terms in their letters to Wili-
bald. Clara also was marvellously
fond of books, and playfully told her
brother that there was nothing she
envied out of her convent except his
library. The women of the Pirk-
heimer family all seem to have been
distinguished for their love of art
and books. Catherine, Charitas'
niece, was almost a transcript of
her aunt and showed a wonderful
strength of character. The abbess'
married nieces were earnest and
generous women, a great support to
the convent in the evil days that
followed ; and her sister Sabina, the

abbess of a Benedictine monastery
on the Danube, was a patroness of
sacred art, the friend of Diirer, who
sent her designs for her illumina-
tions and took great interest in the
school of miniature-painting estab-
lished in her community.

Celtes was one of Charitas' cor-
respondents, and dedicated to her
his compilation of the works of
Roswitha, the poet-nun of Gan-
dersheim in the tenth century.
On the occasion of his being attack-
ed by robbers she writes him a let-
ter of condolence, in which, in the
style of the day, she alludes to " the
precious treasure of true wisdom,
which is the noblest and only pos-
session wherein consolation may be
found " ; but at another time she
thinks it due to her conscience to
speak to him of a higher wisdom,
and says :

" Your worthiness, of which I am a
humble follower, will pardon me for be-
ing also a lover of your salvation, and there-
fore do I beseech you from my heart, not,
indeed, to give up worldly knowledge,
but to add to it that higher one which
will lift you from the writings of the
heathen to the sacred books, from the
earthly to the heavenly, from the creatme
to the Creator. For although no kind
of knowledge or experience ordained
of God is to be despised, ye| a vinuous
life and the study of theology is to be
considered above everything ; for man's
mind is weak and may err, but true
faith and a good conscience can never
err."

Christopher Scheurl, a clever ju-
rist and called the Cicero of Nurem-
berg, who had learnt letters at the
University of Bologna, dedicated his
book on " The Use of the Mass >:
( Utilitates Missce) to Charitas, and
sent it to her from Bologna, where
it was printed in 1506, through his
uncle, Sixtus Tucher. In his dedi-
cation Scheurl says that in all his
life he has only known two women-

Cliaritas Pirkhcimer.

'75

the pious Cassandra of Venice and a name given to the burghers of Nu-
Charitas of Nuremberg who ; ' for remberg, first in scorn, but now be-
their gifts of mind and fortune, their come a mere jest,
knowledge and high station, their Charitas' mind was like a diamond
beauty and their prudence, could of many facets ; she was no angular,
be compared to Cornelia, the mo- sour ascetic, narrow in her syinpa-
ther of the Gracchi, and to the thies and petrified in her preju-
daughters of Laelius and Horten- dices, but a genuine, warm-hearted
sins." He praises her that, following woman, with as much love for inno-
the example of her illustrious ances- cent mirth on the one hand as for
tors, she has preferred "the book the widest researches of learning on
to the wool and the pen to the the other. With her the words of
spindle," and proved her high de- her contemporary, Abbot Trithe-
gree of mental culture by such re- mius, were true " To know is to
markable letters as he had seen love" and her affection for her own
and received. family, no less than her appreciation
Albert Diirer was also often in of the intellectual movement of the
communication with the sister of his age, is shown in her voluminous
friend Wilibald. He, with the ad- correspondence. She and her bro-
ministrator of the convent, Kaspar ther often exchanged little simple
Niitzel, and another companion, had domestic presents, and she delight-
gone in 1518 to the Reichstag at ed to seiTd him sweetmeats, preserves,
Augsburg, where the painter was to - and cakes made in the convent, of-
take the old Emperor Maximilian's ten with her own or her nieces'
portrait. They wrote her a joint ac- hands.

count of their doings there, which But she was not destined to

she received in the same jesting end her life in these pleasant and

spirit as it was written ; for she says peaceful interchanges of friendship,

she " cried for laughing " when she The storm was brewing, and the

read it. She also touches on the " new learning," or new doctrine, as

political questions of the day, and it was called, was beginning to take

playfully gives them each his lesson formidable proportions and go far

to learn in Augsburg. The convent beyond the needed reforms which

administrator was to admire in the Pope Adrian VI., one of the noblest

Swabian Confederation " an exam- men who ever sat in the apostolic

pie of strict observance " ; the sec- chair, so anxiously recommended

rotary of the council, Lazarus Spen- to the nuncio Chieregati on the oc-

gler, was to observe " the apostolical casion of the Reichstag at Nurem-

life in common' of the members; berg in 1522. Charitas grieved to

and the painter to take note of the see holy things indiscriminately at-

fine buildings for which Augsburg tacked, often with unworthy motives

; famous, in case they might cloaked by the convenient plea of

some day want good designs for the conscience and zeal for the Gospel,

rebuilding of the convent choir, and grieved still more to hear no

MIC also bade them not to forget the voice among her learned friends

' little gray wolf " among the stately raised in defence of all she held

black and white habits of the reli- dear. At last, however, Jerome

gious of Augsburg (her nuns wore a Emser, licentiate of canon law at

gray habit), and alluded to the three Leipsic, and private secretary of

men as the captive " sand-hares " Duke George of Saxony, published

176

Charitas PirkJicimcr.

a masterly defence of the old faith,
and Charitas eagerly read it through
and caused it to be read aloud
to the nuns during meals. The
sisters and the abbess of the Convent
of St. Clare at Eger, who had sent
her Eraser's writings, begged her to
acknowledge them in a letter to the
author, which she accordingly did,
writing in fervent, unconstrained
terms and thanking him in the name
of her sixty sisters and all other con-
vents of her order. But this letter fell
into other hands, and in a distorted,
mutilated shape, and accompanied
by a malicious commentary on its
sentiments and motives, was pub-
lished by an enemy of Emser and
Charitas. Even her brother Wili-
bald, who had not yet seen through
the real motives of the Reformers,
was vexed at her taking part in the
fray, and told her she had better
have held her tongue. This was
the beginning of a teasing persecu-
tion of pin-pricks which gradually
became serious and well-nigh insup-
portable as years went on. Her
brother, when he had fully rallied
to the Catholic party, had left the
council and could be of little prac-
tical use to his sister, while the ma-
jority of the council were decidedly
hostile. The convent's administra-
tor especially used his station and
authority only to torment the poor
nuns. Charitas at this time began
to keep a diary, of which her bio-
grapher has made good use. Dr.
Lochner, the historian of Nurem-
berg, recognizes that many evil
deeds were done in the name of re-
ligion; and as to the case of the Con-
vent of St. Clare, he says that " it
was the victim of that force which
at many times clothes itself in the
garb of a moral and divine reform,
without being any the less mere
force, the right of the strongest."
In 1524 Charitas says :

" There came to the convent many
strangers, men and women, but especial-
ly the latter, to tell the nuns the new
things that were being taught from the
pulpit, and to represent to them what a
' damnable ' state was that of the rel'gious
life, and how impossible it was for them
to be saved in the cloister, adding most
unceremoniously that nuns were all the
devil's creatures. Many citizens spoke
threateningly of withdrawing their rela-
tives from the convent, whether the per-
sons in question wished it or no."

As may be supposed, these at-
tacks made no impression on the
sisters ; but the town council, ready
enough now to seize upon any pre-
text, ascribed their steadfastness to
the influence of their spiritual di-
rectors, the Franciscans, and order-
ed the convent to be put under the
control of the new preachers. Char-
itas immediately drew up a petition,
which was approved by the com-
munity, in which she represented
to Kaspar Niitzel, the administra-
tor, that this was the first time for
forty-five years that she had seen
her sisterhood in grief, and went
on to beseech him, as he had always
been her friend and supporter in
temporal matters, so, now that she
required his help more than ever,
he would not fail her in this spirit-
ual distress. She likewise wrote to
Jerome Ebner, another of the high-
est dignitaries of the council, whose
daughter Katharine was one of her
community ; and to Martin Gender,
her brother-in-law, to whom she
touchingly appealed on the ground
of the innocence and evangelical
character of the community.

" I beg of you," she says, " do not
allow yourself to be persuaded by
those who untruly say that the clear
word of God is hidden from us ; for, by
the graoe of God, this is not so. We have
the Old and New Testaments here as
well as you who are out in the world ;
we read it day and night, at meals, in
the choir, in Latin and in German

Char it (is Pirkheimcr. 177

in common and in private. By God's century movement took place at Nu-

grace we know well the holy Gospels rem berg at the beginning of March.

and St. Paul's Epistles but still I think . re l ig ious of the Carmelite,

lie is more praiseworthy who fulhls the . . .

Gospel's precepts in his actions than he 1'ranciscan, and Dominican orders

who has them- always on his lips, but took the Catholic side against seven

does not act up to them." She continues : preachers of the Lutheran doctrines

- We desire to be no burden or offence ( among them the f amous Qsian-

to anyone ; but if any one can point out der) under th leadershi of

an abuse, let him do so, and we will . . /

gladly reform it. For we acknowledge th prior of the Augustmians at

ourselves to be weak creatures, who Nuremberg. The debate lasted for

may go easily astray, and who do not eleven days, or five sessions, with-

dare to take pleasure in good works. out any s hadow of an accommoda-

We only ask that no one shall do us tion appearing possible, and at the

wrong and violence, and that we shall . => L '

not be forced to do that which we con- Sixth sessi O n the Catholic doctors

sider a disgrace and against our eternal gave in a written statement to the

salvation." effect that the affair had become:

a discussion such as by imperial

Charitas' former petition to Nut- mandate was strictly forbidden,

zel was now supplemented by a and that, as there was no impartial

more formal petition of the con- judgment to be looked for, the

vent, addressed to the town council, presidents of the colloquium being

She protested against the violent known adherents of the new doc-

< hange meditated, andfepelled the trines, they thought it best to retire

idea of submitting to spiritual direc- from the useless conflict. The

tors imposed by the republic ; she council, however, had attained ks.

?.sked the councillors why they end, and prepared an opportunity

should object to a few women vol- for formally introducing the new

untarily living in common, and be- religion into the republic. The

sought them not to root up a time- convents and monasteries were

honored institution which was so ordered to give up their rule and

intimately connected with the an- the members to enter the world

nals of their native city. Part of again. Four of the male commu-

ihe council was decidedly in favor nities did as they were bid ; the

of less violent measures, and by the Dominicans and Franciscans still

advice of these members the intru- refused to comply. The former

sion of Lutheran directors was put were compelled to leave in 1543,

off for a time and affairs left to take and the latter stood their ground

their own course ; but the lull was till the last brother died. They

but momentary. People still be- were, however, forbidden to preach

ged the convent, threatening its and hear confessions, and the direc-

inmates and disseminating scan- tion of both convents of women, St.

dalous rumors in the town, and Clare and St. Catherine, was taken

ihe poor nuns lived in daily fear from them.

some outbreak. This was in the The first open attack on St. Clare

Advent of 1524, and in March, was made five days after the reli-

25, the storm broke Io332 a^iin. gious disputation, on the ipth of

One of those frequent and use- March, 1525. A deputation from

disputations on the subject of the council demanded admittance

iigion which made such a char- into the interior of the convent, and,

;'. -i eristic feature of the sixteenth- though Charitas pleaded the " en-

VOL. XXIII. 12

1/3

Charitas Pirkheimer.

closure " and offered to gather the
community at the grated window
through which it was customary to
speak with strangers and men, she
was forced to accede to their de-
mand and admit the councillors in-
to the winter refectory. The two
representatives began with a hon-
eyed address, telling the assembled
nuns that, now the light of the Gos-
pel was fully manifested in the city,
it were a shame that they alone
should be denied the privilege
of seeing it. Therefore a learned
and distinguished preacher, Herr
Poliander, of 'Wiirzburg, would im-
part to them this knowledge, and,
the Franciscans being removed,
the council w r ould provide the
nuns with suitable confessors. The
abbess heard them out, and then
retorted that her nuns were well
stored with Gospel knowledge, which
had been clearly preached to them
before, and that the connection be-
tween their order and the Francis-
cans was of long date and authoriz-
ed by papal and imperial decrees, but
that, if they were to suffer violence
in this matter, God and their con-
science urged them to declare that
it was so, and that they protested
against such violence being used.
The councillors said that, since
they objected to secular * priests
as confessors, they might choose
one of the Augustinians (who had
apostatized), since they too were
' religious." But Charitas- answer-
ed : " If we are to have religious,
why not leave us the Franciscans ?
We know and honor them and have
had long experience of them ; but
as to the order you name, we also
know how lax its discipline has
grown."

' Nay," said the councillors, " you
v/ill soon not have that to complain

* Literally lay priests, but, we think, referring
to seculars.

of; for these brothers will doff
their cowls and enter into another
state."

To which the abbess replied :
' That is no comfort to us. They
could only teach us to follow their
example ; and as they have taken to
themselves wives, they would have
us take husbands. God forbid !"

The useless conversation was
carried on some time longer, and
on Charitas asking the reason why
the council so oppressed her sister-
hood, and whether they had com-
mitted any offence, the councillors
were forced to allow that the
" council knew of no offence or
abuse on their part, but, on the
contrary, only of honor, diligence,
and modesty," but that in other
communities it was not always so,
and the new laws must be enforced
everywhere fdike. The very next
day Poliander, the Lutheran preach-
er, came for the first time to preach
to the reluctant nuns, while on the
2ist of March the Franciscans
were allowed to pay their charges a
farewell visit, administer the sacra-
ments, say Mass, and preach. This
was the last time the nuns enjoyed
these holy privileges ; henceforward
the dying were deprived of the
Viaticum and Extreme Unction,
and Mass was no longer said in the
convent chapel. On the 22d Cha-
ritas assembled a chapter of her
nuns, which decided on presenting
a second petition to the council,
and the abbess sent to ask Kaspar
Niitzel to come in person to the
convent. He consented and sent
her a friendly message, but it was
clear he expected submission. He
came and set before the commu-
nity the advantages of gracefully
giving way and the evil they would
entail on themselves by resis-
tance ; but Charitas answered to the
point : that, although he had spoken

CJiaritas Pirkhcimcr

179

in friendly terms, he had not men- peasants who had risen in arms
tioned the real subject of the dispute against the Catholics. To this she
i.e., the question of who should answered calmly that it was well
be the convent's spiritual directors, known that the peasants had risen
' We see," she said, ' that every because, in the midst of this new
means is being used to drive us to preaching of fraternity and evangel-
accept the new doctrines, but until ical freedom, they saw a way to
the whole church accepts them abolish the custom of vassalage,
neither will we. Nothing will part and meant forcibly to possess them-
us from the fellowship of the uni- selves of that which their richer
versal church nor from the vows brethren were so glibly prating of
we have vowed unto God." She in theory. As the second petition
then offered to let the administrator had remained without effect, Chari-
ask each nun her opinion separate- tas drew up a third, a model of
ly during her own absence ; but clearness and logic. Quoting St.
Niitzel saw that this would be use- Paul, she said, "I can do all things
less, and even refused to take the in Him who is my strength," and
petition, whereupon the abbess read she again assured the council that
it aloud before him. The gist of nothing would drive the sisters out
it was contained in the prayer that, of the church. This paper was sign-
in the name of the Gospel-freedom ed by all the nuns. She also asked
which the times had so extolled, no through Niitzel for a secular priest,
violence should be done to the con- a holy man of the name of SchrO-
sciences of the nuns. They beg- ter, for a confessor, since the coun-
ged also that if their confessor was cil was determined that the Fran-
taken from them, at least no one ciscans should no longer serve the
should be imposed upon them in convent ; but this prayer was also
his place. But it was evidently in refused.

vain, although Niitzel reluctantly Things grew worse and worse,
pledged himself to represent their Poliander preached vile and oppro-
case to the council. . Before he left brious sermons to the poor nuns,
the convent, however, he attempted upbraiding and accusing them ; and
to cajole the abbess out of her firm when he left Wiirzburg, two oth-
(tesistance to his wishes, and, taking ers, Schleussner and Osiander, suc-
her aside, begged her to put her ceeded him and preached regularly
authority and influence on his side, three times a week in the chapel,
telling her that she might personally A sharp and degrading watch was
do much to prevent even blood- kept over the nuns, as the council
shed, and that, if he could only win suspected them of stopping their
her over, he would think himself ears with cotton-wool or exercising
sure of the city and the neighbor- other petty devices to escape the
hood. Indeed, many pinned their words of the distasteful sermons,
faith to her steadfastness and looked This continued throughout Lent,
to her example for support in their and the violence of the preachers
own temptations. But neither flat- inflaming the passions of the peo-
tery nor threats could win her over, pie, the nuns lived in daily fear of
nor even the hint that by her obsti- seeing the latter put into execution
nary she would confirm others in their frequent threat of burning
contumacy, and bring upon her down the convent. The serving-
native town the vengeance of the girls could hardly go out of the

I So Charitas Pirkheimer.

house in safety to purchase provi- nimously (there were nearly sixty
sions, and the friends of the nuns had of them) declared that they did not
to use all manner of subterfuges to wish to be "made free' after the
be able to visit them in peace, while council's pattern of freedom ; they
every knock at the door frightened meant to keep to their vows and
the poor women as if it heralded maintain their rule, and begged the
their doom. But worse was yet to abbess not to forsake them. She
come. On the yth of June three then swore to stand by them as
of the councillors, Ftirer, Pfinzing, long as they would stand by their
and Imhof, visited the convent and vows, and exhorted them to stead-
laid before the nuns five proposi- fast courage and fervent prayer,
tions with which ( the council de- Her friends in the council, seeing
manded instant compliance : an in- that their influence was too weak to
ventory was to be taken of all the help the convent, advised her to
convent possessions, a laxer rule in- consent to the lesser propositions,
troduced, the religious dress laid and accordingly the inventory was
aside, the grated window replaced quietly made and handed over to
by a common one of glass, and free the authorities; the grating was taken
permission granted to every nun to down, and, at Wilibald Pirkheimer's
leave if she chose, taking with her suggestion, some part of the nuns'
whatever dowry she had brought to habit was dyed black and assumed
the convent, or a suitable remune- only at the parlor window and in
ration for the services done during the gardens, while in the private
her stay there. Charitas wisely p&rts of the house the usual gray
showed a disposition to yield in garb was worn. But the nuns stead-
minor matters, in which she knew fastly refused to change the rule
that the council would find means or to consider themselves absolved
at any rate to force her compliance, from their vows, and, unless they
but on the matter of the religious were to be forcibly ejected from
vows she stood firm, answering : the convent, there was no possibility

of carrying out these two important
' In so far as my sisters owe me any .

Dersonal obedience and consideration, I changes. But the council was pre-

am ready to forgive them the debt, but I pared for anything, and soon even

cannot absolve them from vows vowed this last violent act was publicly

unto the Lord ; for what are we poor crea- enforced
tures that we should lay hands on the Dame ^ ^ Tetzd had akead

things that are God s? . .. ... . .

tried some months before, with the

The council allowed her four help of her brothers, to get her
weeks to make up her mind to these daughter Margaret, who had been
changes, and promised, in case of for nine years in the convent, to
compliance, to protect the convent ; leave it and come home ; but the
but if these conditions were resisted, girl herself vigorously resisted the
neither the house nor the nuns would attempt, and Charitas represented
be either protected or supported, it to the mother as an infringement
Charitas called a chapter together of the rights of the convent. Things
and announced her determination had marched rapidly enough since
to have nothing to do with an then to enable Dame Tetzel to re-
' open convent," at the same time new the attempt with more certain-
asking the sisters' opinion on the ty of success ; and accordingly she,
council's proposal. The nuns una- with the wives of the two council-

Char it as Pirkhcimer. 181

lors, Ebner and Niitzel, who had towards the abbess, cried out :" Dear

each a daughter in the convent, de- mother, do not let me be driven

termined to take their children away from you !" Four persons,

home at all hazards. They gave however, seized hold of her, and

the nuns a week's notice, and on amid loud cries on all sides she

the 1 4th of June appeared with a was dragged over the threshold of

number of their male relations in the chapel, where she and Margaret

two large conveyances or wagons. Tetzel fell over each other, the lat-

A great crowd had collected round ter having her foot crushed in the

the convent door, and a considera- crowd. Dame Ebner followed her

ble excitement prevailed ; the street daughter with angry threats, telling

and the churchyard were full. Cha- her that if she did not go willingly

ritas, on her side, had requested she would fling her down the stairs

two of the councillors, Pfinzing and and break her head on the pave-

Imhof, to be present as witnesses ment below. At last poor Charitas

of the disgraceful scene she fore- could stand it no longer and took

saw. The young nuns, respectively refuge in her cell, while the coun-

nineteen, twenty, and twenty-three cillors who had witnessed the scene

years old, fell on their knees before declared that, had they foreseen

the abbess, weeping and entreating such a sad sight, they would not

her not to let them be taken away, have come for a world of money,

They even wished to hide them- and never again would they lend .the

selves ; but this, of course, Charitas sanction of their presence to such

forbade and led the girls with her violent proceedings,
to the chapel where they had taken The poor young nuns were put

their vows. She prayed and wept in the wagons and driven away,

with them, and hesitated taking but they still cried out to the

them over the threshold into the crowd that they were suffering vio-

presence of their mothers ; but the lence and demanded to be taken

latter came into the chapel and vio- back to their convent. Dame Ebner

lently upbraided their children, who got so incensed that she struck her

with tears piteously begged to be daughter on the mouth, and the

left alone. Katharine Ebner espe- poor girl bled all the way home.

( ially spoke in eloquent tones for There were many in the crowd who

more than an hour, and, as the cried " Shame !" and would gladly,

councillors afterwards said, " She had they dared, have attempted a

spoke no word that was weak or use- rescue, but the strong hand of the

less, but talked with such force and " trained bands " of Nuremberg was

cogency that every word weighed a not to be defied in vain. Charitas

pound." Her mother stormed, and never saw her spiritual children

Held, the brother of Dame Niitzel, again, but she heard from time to

threatened her "like an executioner," time that they were still unchanged

but Katharine continued speaking in their feelings. Clara Niitzel ate

in her own behalf and that of her nothing for four days after she was

friends : " Here will I stand and taken away, and day and night

not move one step ; and if you em- cried to be taken back again.
ploy force, I will complain to God This scene of violence made a

in heaven and every man upon great stir at the time and awakened

earth." She was rudely dragged much sympathy for the convent, and

forward, but, stretching her arms at least it had this good effect :

182

Charitas Pirkheimer.

that no more forcible abductions
were attempted. Some time later
one nun, Anna Schwarz, whose sis-
ters had left the other convent of
Nuremberg, St. Catherine, left St.
Clare of her own accord ; she was
the only one who voluntarily gave
up her vows. In this case, how-
ever, her mother was not well pleas-
ed and by no means urged her to
leave. The community was now
reduced to fifty-one members, and
of these none henceforward left the
convent, unless by the call of God
to a better and more peaceful life.

In the following autumn Me-
lanchthon visited Nuremberg, and,
though their views now differed, his
friendship with Pirkheimer was not
weakened. He inquired into the
state of affairs, and, together with
the administrator, Niitzel, visited
the convent and had a long conver-
sation with the abbess. She says
in her diary : " He was more gentle
and discreet in his speech than any
of the new teachers I have met
before "; and, indeed, she had long
had the greatest esteem for the
young and ripe Greek scholar.

" He spoke much of the new doctrines,"
she continues; "but when I told him
that we did not place our hope in our
own works, but solely in the grace of
God, he replied that in that case we
might 'be saved in the cloister quite as
well as in the world. Indeed, we agreed
in the main on all points, except con-
cerning the vows, which he holds not
to be binding, but yet strongly disap-
proved of the violence that had been
done to the nuns to force them to give
up their vows. He took leave of us in
a very friendly manner, and afterwards
strongly reproved the administrator and
the other councillors for having forbidden
the Franciscans to celebrate divine ser-
vice at St. Clare, and having dragged
the children out of the convent against
their will ; indeed, he told them that,
between themselves, he considered that
therein they had committed a grievous
sin."

Charitas dated from his visit a
quieter state of things and the cessa-
tion of many petty persecutions on
the part of Kaspar Niitzel. She
says of Melanchthon in her diary :
" I hope God sent this man to us
at the right time; . . ." and
later in a letter she writes thus of
the administrator : " Would to God
every one were as discreet as Mas-
ter Philip ; we might then hope to
be rid of many things that are very
vexatious."

Although the three young nuns
were not restored to the convent,
their parents, smarting under the
many insinuations made against
their conduct, conveyed to the
abbess, through Sigismund Fiirer
and Leonard Tucher, a formal ac-
knowledgment of their satisfaction
at the " manner in which the girls
had been brought up and their
health cared for "; while the two
men added of their own accord
that as to the girls they must tell
the truth z>., that if it depended
upon them, they would be back at
the convent before evening. Kas-
par Niitzel himself said the same
thing to the abbess, thanking her
for the care bestowed on his daugh-
ter's physical and moral well-being,
and acknowledging himself indebt-
ed to the convent for this favor.
But, better than this, he soon wrote
a letter in which he distinctly stat-
ed that he regretted having several
" times " overstepped his legitimate
authority in his attempts to convert
her to the new doctrines," and pro-
mised that in future he would attend
with peculiar zeal at least to the
temporal concerns of the convent.
Their possessions had, however,
been so curtailed during these trou-
blous times that they almost liter-
ally subsisted on alms.

On All Souls' day, 1527, the same
two councillors who had witnessed

Ckaritas Pirkhcimcr.

183

the forcible taking away of the
young nuns two years before, and
two other associates, were commis-
sioned to institute a domiciliary vis-
itation in the convent and to speak
in private with each sister, with a
view to elicit their grievances and
give them a chance ofspeaking free-
ly. The poor nuns were very much
frightened at the proposal, but Char-
itas only made this remonstrance :

"Worthy masters," she said, "you are
somewhat vehement confessors. It has
pleased our rulers to abolish private con-
fession to one man, and now you require
us poor women to confess to four men at
once, and lay open to them all our spirit-
ual needs !" And as the men were
rather staggered, she continued : " You
say many abuses among us have come to
the ears of the council. We should like to
hear them detailed. We have been driv-
en and oppressed like worms for three
years, and would gladly, if we could,
have hidden ourselves under a stone like
worms ; but if we have offended in any-
thing, let it be clearly brought home to
us."

The men looked at each other,
and one said : " This point is not yet
settled"; while another asked help-
lessly : " What am I to say ? I do
not understand the matter." At last
they went through the form of ex-
amining each nun alone and sepa-
rately, and got tired and left off
when they had examined thirty-nine.
The preacher Osiander once held a
discussion with Charitas for four
hours without any result but both par-
ties remaining stronger in their own
belief; and on another occasion,
when Dr. Link, formerly an Augus-
tinian, and now preacher at the hos-
pital, sent her a controversial pam-
phlet, she answered him in writing,
argument for argument, and made
all who saw her defence marvel at
ihe clearness of her logic and the
ease of her style. He had put him-
self forward as an example (doubt-

less because he had been, like her,
a religious), but she answered :

" Forgive me if I do not care to fol-
low the example of any man ; our exam-
ple is Christ, and, even if we were to look
for models among men, it would be
strange if we sought for them among liv-
ing men while such men as St. Augus-
tine, St. Jerome, St. Cyprian, and others
are set aside and disowned."

Later on she again wrote to him :

" If God does not inspire us with lore
for your new faith, we cannot of ourselves
force our hearts to it. We should de-
ceive ourselves and do violence to our
conscience (which is wrong) if we were to
listen to the threats or persuasions of men.
It is no luxurious life, God knows, that
keeps us in our convent ; neither is it
any belief that simply to have taken the
veil assures salvation. We do not place
our hope in the conventual rule, but in the
mercy of God and his only Son. I hold
none of my nuns back against their will ;
if they choose to leave, they are free to do
so. I only ask that they should not be
forced to do it, as has happened already
on one occasion."

Towards the end of 1528 came a
time of negative peace for the nuns,
and, as the "silver wedding" or ju-
bilee of the abbess fell about Christ-
mas time, the convent prepared it-
self for a modest festival in honor
of this event. It was the first time
that an abbess had held her office
for so many years, and the celebra-
tion was looked upon with so much
the more interest that no former
abbess had gone through such stir-
ring and troublous times during the
period of her abbess-ship. The
festival was put off till Easter,
1529, and was long remembered by
the nuns as one of their few red-
letter days. Their friends from the
town sent them presents of wine,
fruit, cakes, and preserves, and Pirk-
heimer and Dame Ursula Kramer,
his neighbor, both sent their plate
to adorn the nuns' table on the oc-
casion. This pleased the simple

1 84

Char it as Pirk/ieimer,

women immensely, and Katharine,
Charitas' niece, wrote in glowing
terms to her father, giving him an
account of the festivities of the day.
We will quote a few passages from
her letter :

" In the morning the whole Community
came to the mother, each sister bearing
a torch, and the prioress put a crown
upon her head and led her to the choir,
where we said the Office for the day
and then sang the Mass as best we
could. Then the mother took the Bless-
. ed Sacrament from* the tabernacle and
exposed it, and the community -knelt to
adore it and make a spiritual commu-
nion. We comforted ourselves with the
words of St. Augustine : Crede et mandu*
casti (Believe, and thou hast eaten). The
mother then sat by the altar, and one by
one we all went up to her and embraced
her, . . . and she had her hands full of
rings, and gave each of the sisters one
as a pledge of their renewed espousals
with their Bridegroom and of their re-
solve to be true to him ; . . . although it
has not been the custom hitherto with
us, the mother thought that, considering
these exceptionally sad years, it would
be a remembrance of the obedience and
earnestness with which we have hung to-
gether through these vicissitudes. . . .
Then we took the mother to table, . . .
and you, dear father, have proved yourself
a generous host. The sisters said, ' Oh !
that Master Pirkheimer were here to see
how we are enjoying his good gifts' ;
and your plate and Dame Kramer's de-
lighted us also mightily. ... At last, at
night, we had a little dance. The old
nuns danced as well as the young ones.
Mother Apollonia Tucher, who has been
fifty-seven years in the convent, took hold
of me and turned me round ; . . . and
the dance was so hearty that the mother
said, ' Dear children, spare my tables.'"

This was the last joyful event of
Charitas' life. Three months after
this festival her niece Crescentia,
Pirkheimer's daughter, died, and
the wicked tongues of the town
took occasion to wag against the
nuns, accusing them of worrying her
to death ; but Pirkheimer himself
put down these scandalous rumors
by publicly thanking the community

for the care bestowed on his child,
and by making a special gift to the
convent in recognition of it. He
also singled out the sisters who had
had special care of his daughter
during her illness, and sent them
tokens of his gratitude ; and, not con-
tent with this, he left the convent
fifty gulden in his will, which they
received after his death.

Another cross befell the abbess
in the loss of reason of two of her
nuns a circumstance of which her
enemies did not fail to make good
use ; but, the two sisters being per-
fectly harmless, except at long inter-
vals, no removal was necessary, and
they went about their common du-
ties peacefully until their death.

In. 1530 Charitas lost her well-
beloved brother Wilibald, which
was a sad break-up to her ; but be-
fore he died he published an Apolo-
gy for the Convent of St. Clare, which
greatly comforted, if it did not help,
the nuns. But the council con-
temptuously overlooked this as it
had done all previous petitions.

Two years after her brother's
death the noble Charitas Pirkhei-
mer followed him to- a better land,
and her sister Clara was chosen
abbess in her stead. Her friend
Apollonia Tucher died within a few
months, on the i5th of January,
1533, and the new abbess the fol-
lowing month, whereupon her niece
Katharine became abbess and rul-
ed the community for thirty years.
She was the last abbess but one ; for
towards the end of the century the
last nun died and the convent re-
verted to the town.* But the good

* The church of St. Clare at Nuremberg remain-
ed for a long time closed. It was then opened again
and soon afterwards given over to Protestant wor-
ship. It was subsequently used for commercial pur-
poses, as a magazine of wares, a market-place, and
place for local exhibitions, and finally as a barracks.
In 1854. it was given back to the Catholics of Nurem-
berg as their second church. In the following year
its restoration was begun, and on May 13, 1857, the
Church of St. Clare was publicly consecrated anew
for Catholic worship.

Mysteries.

1 8 5

fight

had been fought, and the
noble defeat only brought fresh
and eternal honor on the name
of the Clarist Order; for, as says
Montaigne, " There are defeats that
dispute the palm with victories,"
and Lacordaire comments thus on

the saying : " This ncble axiom
applies no less to moral than to
military defeats, and we should
never tire of inculcating the prin-
ciple that as long as honor and
conscience are safe, so long also is
fame deserved.'

MYSTERIES.

" IT might have been." We say it oft,
With aching heart, with streaming eyes ;

We grope with eager, outstretched hands
After another's slighted prize.

We call a life a wasted life.

O mourning souls ! be not too sure.
Out of great darkness may come light,

And, after evil, hearts grow pure.

God only knows. We leave to him

The things that are not what we would,

And trust that in his own good time
He will do that which he sees good.

His will be done. The quivering lips
Must say it, though with bitter tears.

His will ! It is enough, enough
To hush our murmurs, soothe our fears.

He overrules all pain and sin,

Makes dire disgrace work out his word.
Poor souls, bow down before his might

And trust all myst'ries with the Lord.

1 86

Are Yon My Wife

ARE YOU MY WIFE ?

BY THE AUTHOR OF u PARIS BEFORE THE WAR," "NUMBER THIRTEEN," '' PIUS VI.," ETC.

CHAPTER XV.
A TRIP SOUTHWARD.

WHEN the first overflow of emo-
tion had subsided, Sir Simon drew
a chair close to the sofa and wanty-
ed to hear every detail about Ray-
mond's illness what the doctor had
done, and, if possible, everything he
had said about it at each visit. When
Franceline had told the little there
was to tell beyond the one terrible
central fact, it was Sir Simon's turn
to be catechised. He submitted
willingly to the inquisition. He
went over the story of Glide de
Winton's letter, and all the happy
consequences it had entailed the
hard-hearted Jew sent to the right-
about, the rest of the duns quieted,
all Sir Simon's difficulties happily
settled. Glide's name was openly
mentioned in the course of the narra-
tive, and coupled with epithets of
enthusiastic admiration and grati-
tude he was a noble-hearted fel-
low, true as steel, generous as the sun,
delicate as a woman ; it was impossi-
ble which to admire most, his gen-
erous conduct or the delicacy with
which he had done this immense
service to his father's old friend.
Franceline said nothing while this
panegyric was being sung, but she
could not hide from herself the fact
that it was sounding in her ears
like the sweetest music. She had
found out long since why Glide's
name had become a dead-letter with
Sir Simon, why he never even al-
luded to his existence in her pre-
sence ; since he now broke through
this reticence, was it not a proof
that the motive of it had been re-
moved, and that he was free to

speak of Glide, and she to listen,
and that consequently no barrier
existed any longer between their
lives ? The truth was that Sir Si-
mon had come to the conclusion
that the barrier was of no great im-
portance to either of them by this
time. He was not given much to
diving into the depths of human
hearts, analyzing their motives and
impulses ; and he did not give
other people credit for spending
their lives in such unprofitable
work as brooding over sentimental
grievances and pining after the
impossible. It was evident that if
Franceline had been in love with
Glide, she must have either died of
it by this time or got over it. She
had not died, ergo she had *got
over it. There was no harm, there-
fore, in singing that fine young fel-
low's praises in her hearing, and it
was a great satisfaction to the bar-
onet to be able to pour out his
grateful eulogies to a sympathizing
audience. So they went on playing
at cross purposes, each perfectly
unconscious of what was uppermost
in the other's thoughts; Sir Si-
mon settling it in his own mind
that Ponsonby Anwyll would carry
the day, now that everything else
had adjusted itself so satisfactorily,
while Franceline dreamed her own
little dream, and fancied it must
be the reflection of it in her father's
thoughts that filled his eyes with
those gentle sunbeams as his glance
met hers.

Sir Simon, having emptied his
budget of news, proceeded to un-

Are You My Wife?

187

fold his programme, and was agree-
ably surprised to find that lie was
to be spared the trouble of defend-
ing it. Franceline was overjoyed
at the prospect of seeing a new
country, and Raymond acquiesced
in everything as placid and inno-
cently happy as an infant. So it
was agreed that they would start
for the south without the loss of a
day, if possible. Angelique was
called into council and ordered to
begin to pack up at once. To-
morrow morning Dr. Blink should
decide what climate was best suit-
ed to Raymond, who was now the
person to be chiefly considered.
Meantime, Sir Simon took rather
an unfair advantage of the medical
man by biassing the inclinations of
both patients towards a certain sun-
girt villa on the Mediterranean,
where myrtle and olive groves were
said to crown every hillside, where
the vine and the orange and the
pomegranate grew like wild flowers
elsewhere, mirrored in the sea that
is "deeply, darkly, beautifully blue."
" When did you come home to
En "land, I mean ?" said M. de

o /

la Bourbonais when the baronet
paused in his glowing description
of a Mediterranean sunset.

" This morning. I came straight
on here from Dover. The lawyer
wanted that deed that led to my
finding the snuff-box. I must go
back with it by the early train to-
morrow ; it is absolutely necessary
that it should be forthcoming to
prove the validity of Lady Rebec-
ca's marriage settlement."

" Marriage settlement !" exclaim-
ed Raymond and Franceline to-
gether. " Do you mean that she is
going to be married ?"

'* Good gracious, no ' Poor soul,
she's gone gone to her great ac-
count," said Sir Simon, shaking his
head with becoming solemnity.

It C*

She died three days ngo. It was
a happy release, a most merciful re-
lease ! She really had nothing to
regret, poor, dear soul." And her
step-son heaved a dutiful sigh, and
drew his hand across his forehead
with a gesture expressive of resign-
ed sorrow.

Raymond was in no mocd to
laugh, even if the subject had been
less solemn ; but he could not but
remember and Sir Simon knew he
must remember how often this
mournful event had been devoutly
invoked by both of them in days
not so long gone by. It was pro-
bably the recollection of this that
prompted his next question.

" How did she leave her pro-
perty ?"

" Oh ! admirably ; nothing could
be kinder or juster," replied the
baronet, heaving the tribute of an-
other sigh. " She left her ^50,000
to me unconditionally, chargeable
merely with a life legacy for three
old servants; the jointure, you
know, reverts to the estate. So
you see the duns would not have
had so long to wait even if De
Winton had not come to the res-
cue. She was an excellent woman.
Of course one feels the blow, but it
really would be selfish to regret
her ; she was a great sufferer, and
it was a happy release."

" Then you did not stop in Lon-
don to ask if there were any letters
at your bankers'?"

" No ; were there any ?"

"There was one from me or at
least written at my request."

"Ha!"

Sir Simon looked up, full of curi-
osity. Franceline feared she was
in the way of some explanation,
so made an excuse to leave the
room about some tisane it was
time for her father to take.

" You must be more puzzled

188

Are You My Wife ?

than ever now to know why I re-
fused to let my pockets be exam-
ined that night," said M. de la
Bouibonais, resorting to his old
trick of fixing his spectacles to
hide his shyness.

" Why was it ?" said Sir Simon,
pulling out his cigar-case, and care-
fully selecting one of the choice
Hnvanas, as if he had the re-
motest intention of lighting it; it
was only an excuse not to have to
look at Raymond.

" You may remember that there
were little pates de foie gras at din-
ner ; they looked like petits pains ?"

" I remember it perfectly ; and
excellent they were. I had just got
the recipe from the Freres Proven-
$eaux j it was the first time Dorel
had ever made them. Well ?"

" Franceline was, you know, very
ill just then ; she could eat no-
thing. I fancied these might tempt
her, so I slipped a couple of them
into my pockets with some bon-
bons. This was why I would not
turn them out. I was ashamed to
exhibit my poverty to all those men,
especially to that stranger who had
been taunting me with it; I would
not let him see what a poor devil I
was, and to what straits poverty
drove me to get food for my sick
child."

" My poor Raymond !" was all
Sir Simon could say, and he grasp-
ed his hand.

" Then you remember I came
back ? I was rushing home when

it occurred to me that I had done

a mad thing; so I threw away the
pale's and the bonbons, and went
back and made a fool of myself, as
you know. I think I must have
been mad. I know I had been tak-
ing a great deal of wine to keep
me up ; anyhow, I did not reflect,
until I saw the effect of my pre-
sence, what a preposterous act it

was, and that you should have
been all fools to see any proof of
my innocence in it."

You might have trusted me"
said Sir Simon reproachfully. " I
would have believed you I did
believe you in spite of my senses.
I came to the conclusion you were,
as you say, either mad or drunk,
and had taken it unawares. Why
didn't you write to me?"

' I did. I wrote you a full ac-
count of it all; but, as ill-luck had
it, your letter telling me to send
back the ring arrived before mine
left. I was so incensed at your
suspecting me that I tore up the
letter. I was a fool, of course but
you know of old that pride is my
weak point. It was not until I was
struck down by illness, and brought
face to face with death, and with
the thought that I was going to
leave my child friendless in the
world with a dishonored name,
that I resolved to sacrifice it, and
for her sake to write to you and
ask you to take charge of her and
do what you could to clear my
memory from the stain that my
own vanity and folly had fixed
upon it. Father Henwick wrote
to you to this effect in my name on
Tuesday. The letter is lying at
your bankers'."

"I was as much to blame as
you. I ought to have known you
better than to mistrust you ; I
ought to have known there must
be some mistake in it," said Sir
Simon, rising and going to the
window. " I ought to have written
to you to ask you for an explana-
tion, and so I was always intend-
ing to do; but what with the ex-
citement of Glide's finding his of
his fin'ding out my difficulties and
so on," he continued, checking
himself in tim3 before the murder
was out, " and then poor, dear

Are You My Wife?

189

Lady Rebecca's telegraphing for

me, I nearly lost my head, and
kept putting off writing from day
to day, in hopes that you would
write."

'' Is monsieur going to stay to
tea ? Because, if so, it is time I
began the omelette," said Angelique,
following Franceline into the room,
carrying a tray with something on
it for M. de la Bourbonais.

But Sir Simon said he must be
going that very minute. How the
time had flqwn, and he had so many
tilings to see to at the Court ! Ray-
mond was rather exhausted when
his friend left, but he slept sounder
that night than he had done for a
long time.

The warm southern spring had
burst its green bonds and flown
suddenly into the arms of summer;
it lay disporting itself in the
t )lendor of new-clad flowers along
the shores of the Mediterranean,
laughing up at the dazzling sky
like a babe smilinsj into its mother's

face. Everything was fresh, lustrous,
and dewy. The sun was not too hot
to be enjoyable, the birds were not
too tired to sing, a light breeze
came fluttering from the sea to cool
the vines, and died away in sighs
and whispers amidst the ilex-grove
that made a background to the
white-washed villa where a group
of three persons were sitting out
on the terrace under the shade of
a. broad veranda. I dare say you
have recognized the young lady in
the fleecy muslin dress. The pink
tint in her ivory complexion is a
decided improvement ; but it has
not so changed her that you
could forget her. She looks strong-
er now ; there is an energetic grace
in her movements that tells of im-
proved health ; so, too, does the
\v;;;-iner glow of the dark gold hair

and the more animated glance of
the eyes. You see she has brought
her doves with her, and seems to
have many interesting things to* say
to them as they perch on her head
and her finger, and utter that, to
her, melodious chant of theirs,
but which Sir Simon Harness has
the bad taste to find wearisome
and lugubrious.

" Could you persuade those doves
of yours to cease that dismal noise
just for ten minutes, Franceline?
It's working under difficulties, try-
ing to correct proof-sheets while
they keep up that dirge."

Franceline, deeply offended, car-
ries off her darlings to the other
side of the house, without deigning
any further comment than a toss
of her pretty head at the speaker
and a look, of mild reproach at her
father, who yields a tacit consent to
the insult by his silence. More-
over, when Franceline and " those
doves of hers" are out of sight, he
breathes an audible sigh of relief
and proceeds to read the contested
sentence aloud again. There was
a good deal of arguing and bicker-
ing over it; Sir Simon insisting
that the epithet was too strong and
should be modified, while M. de la
Bourbonais maintained that whether
he applied the term " patriot cast
in the rough antique mould" to
Mirabeau or not signified very lit-
tle, since the facts as he stated and
construed them applied it far more
forcibly. They were squabbling
over it still when, half an hour later,
Franceline came back, apparently
in a forgiving mood, and expressed
her wonder how people could go
on quarrelling when everything
around was so full of peace, in a
world where all created things were
steeped in beauty and in bliss ;
where life was not a struggle, but a
joy; where nothing was needed but

190

Are You My Wifef

the will to vibrate to the pulse of
love with which the great mother's
breast was heaving, to respond to
the sun's wooing and the wind's
wafting, to the music of flowers
and birds, to be a voice in the
choir and a grain of incense on
the altar, to live, to love, and to be
happ\r. What were proof-sheets
worth if they could not swell the
glad concert and sound their chime
in the joy-bells of life ? They were
sounding their little chime, though,

in spite of the frequent clash of
arms they gave rise to between the
author ar>d his pig-headed Tory
critic. The crisp little rolls of pa-
per were an immense superaclded
interest to Raymond and conse-
quently to Franceline in their new
life of golden sunshine. They
would come to an end soon now ;
a few more bundles of proofs, then
a pause of solemn expectation, and
the great work would appear im-
mortalized between the boards.

CHAPTER XVI.

FOUND AT L AST !

WHILE the three inmates of the
white-washed villa were watching
the days go by, and wondering if
to-morrow could possibly be as hap-
py as yesterday and to-day, Glide
de Winton was living a very differ-
ent life in his lodgings near the asy-
lum. He had not yet been permit-
ted to see the lady whom he believ-
ed to be his wife. She had fallen
ill with an attack on the lungs
which had very nearly proved fatal,
and during the six weeks that it
lasted it was impossible to let any
one approach her except the fami-
liar faces of the doctor and her at-
tendant. She had rallied from this
illness only to return to her old de-
lusion with a fonder intensity than
ever. Day after day she decked her-
self in her faded flowers and ribbons,
and stood or knelt at her window,
stretching out her arms to the mid-
day sun, calling to him with the ten-
derest words of endearment, and tell-
ing him her passionate love-tale
over and over again ; then turning
from this to paroxysms of despair
more violent than formerly, and
which threatened at each crisis to
shatter the fragile vase and send
the feeble spark flying upwards.

" And now she courted love ; now, raving, called ori
hate."

Glide had repeatedly asked to see
Mr. Percival, but the desire for an in-
terview was evidently not mutual ;
for,although no refusal was ever sent,
the promises held out by the medical
man were continually broken ; the
visit of Mr. Percival was always
"unexpectedly prevented " by one
cause or another. Stanton arrived
at the conclusion that he did not
wish to meet Glide, and that, more-
over, he was constantly at the asy-
lum unknown to them, and that the
only way to see him would be to lie
in wait and collar him, and make
him speak out by main force, since
he would not do it otherwise. Mr.
de Winton saw difficulties in the
way of this summary method of
proceeding, but his valet entreate \
him to leave it in his hands anil
not trouble himself about that.
Glide had small confidence in the
diplomatic skill of his man, but he
could trust him not to do anything
dangerously rash ; so he asked no
questions, but let him follow his
own devices for catching Mr. Per-
cival. That gentleman, however,
proved himself a match for Stantor..

Are You My Wife?

191

He was not to be taken either by
stratagem or force ; and though
Stanton dodged about the park
gates, and recruited a small police
torce, amongst little boys on the
lookout for a penny, to skulk about
late and early- to watch the comers
and goers from the asylum, and give
him timely warning, it led to no-
thing but vain hopes and frequent
disappointments.

Glide was growing sick to death
of the miserable business. He had
been more than two months now
stationed at his post. Isabel's illness
had made two-thirds of that time
utterly useless to him ; but it was
now a full week since the doctor
had declared her convalescent, and
he seemed no nearer the solution
of her identity than when he first
descried her through the panel of
the door. He determined at last
one morning to go in and speak out
his mind to the medical man. He
told him that he insisted on an in-
terview with Mr. Percival, or else he
would take steps in the matter which
might be disagreeable to all parties.
It was quite inexplicable, he said,
that they should not have been able
to find an opportune moment or
letting him approach the patient all
this time, and the persistent obsta-
cles that were thrown in the way of
an interview with the man who call-
ed himself her guardian led him to
infer that both Mr. Percival and the
doctor were in league to prevent
her identity being tested and estab-
lished.

The effect of this broadside, was
startling. But although it took the
doctor entirely by surprise, it did
not throw him off his guard or
disturb his presence of mind. He
looked at the speaker for a moment
in silence, and then said in a per-
fectly cool and collected manner :
' I see there is no use in playing

at this game any longer. I have
humored you up to this, and borne
with your mania, because I knew it
was a mania* It has been plain to
me from the third time I saw yon,
Mr. de Winton, that you were
yourself the victim of a delusion
and an eligible candidate for a luna-
tic asylum. I have prevented Mr.
Percival from taking steps to have
you confined the law empowers
us to do so when a madman threat-
ens the security and honor of an-
other because I hoped the mono-
mania would wear itself out with
patience. I find I have been mis-
taken. I shall interfere no farther
with Mr. Percival in his legitimate
desire to protect the lady who is
under my care from your persistent
persecution. She is no more your
wife than she is mine. Your story
about her is as groundless as the
ravings of a man in fever."

While the doctor delivered him-
self of this attack Glide stared at
him in stupefaction. He- saw the
medical man's glance fixed on him
with the expression of one who
was versed in the art of reading

the mind through that lucid and
faithful interpreter the eye. But
though he was both shocked and
indignant, he was not a whit fright-
ened ; he bore the scrutiny without
flinching, without dropping his lid
once.

u You are a clever tactician, I
see," he said coolly. " Carrying the
war into the enemy's country is
one of the desperate strategies of a
daring general, but it is sometimes
more fatal to the invader than to
the invaded. You have now thrown
off the mask and shown me exactly
what manner of man I have to
deal with, and I shall resort to
other means than those I have
hitherto employed for seeing the
patient whom I am now absolutelv

192

Are You My Wife f

and fully convinced is no other
tii an my unhappy wife."

He rose, and was leaving with-
out further parley wheti the doc-
tor cried out :

" You can see her this moment, if
you choose that is, if you choose
to be guilty of homicide. I am
prepared to state before the first
men in the faculty, and to stake my
character on the assertion, that if
she be your wife the sight of you,
supposing that it brings recognition,
will be fatal to' her life by causing
the rupture .of a vessel on the brain.
Come back with any qualified wit-
nesses you think fit, and I will re-
peat this in their presence, and
then, on your responsibility, I will
conduct you to the patient."

Glide made no answer, but left
the house, and was soon on his
way to Piccadilly in a cab. The
admiral had come to town the
night before ; it was partly the
desire to be able to give his uncle
some definite information concern-
ing the inmate of the mad-house
that had driven him to burn his
ships and have it out with the doc-
tor.

The cab stopped, and as Glide
alighted he was accosted by a
friendly voice and the grip of a
heavy hand on his shoulder.

" Hallo, De Winton ! How are
you? Where have you turned up
from ?"

It was Ponsonby Anwyll's voice;
he looked in the highest state of
elation, blonder and burlier than
ever, the very picture of good tem-
per, good digestion, and general
prosperity.

The sight of him jarred on Glide ;
he had naturally a vindictive feel-
ing toward poor Ponsonby since
that random shot of Sir Simon's
about his making Franceline a good
husband by and by. He did

not believe a word of it ; but it
made him feel savagely to the
young squire, nevertheless. How
dare he behave so as to get his
name coupled with hers at all ?

' I have been hanging about
town for sometime," returned Glide
as stiffly as he could without being
uncivil. " I suppose you're on
leave ? Or perhaps quartered
somewhere hereabouts ?"

" Quartered ! No such luck !
We're vegetating in Devonshire
still, I'm sorry to say; but there'll
soon be an end of it for me. I
mean to sell out and settle down
one of these days. I've come up
to try and get a month's leave. I
think I'll succeed, too, the colonel
is such an awfully good fellow;
and what do you think I'm going
to do with it ? Where do you think
I'm going to spend it?"

"How^should I know?"

"At Nice! Sir Simon Harness
has asked me over to stay at his villa
there; the De la Bourbonais are
there, you know. You'll be glad
to hear .that Franceline has made
a splendid recovery of it, and the
count has picked up wonderfully
too. . . . Oh ! I beg a thousand
pardons. Pray allow me ! . . ."
This was to an old lady whose um-
brella he had whisked into the
middle of the street with a touch
of his stick, that he kept swinging
round while he held forth to Glide-
When he had picked it up and
dusted it, and apologized three
times over, he went on to say :
' Why shouldn't you run over and
see them all too, eh ? You used
to be very friendly with the count,
eh ? And Sir Simon would be en-
chanted to see you. There's no-
thing he likes so much as being
come down on by a friend unawares,
you know."

"I never gratify my friends in

Are You

thar'ft^pect," said Glide freezing!}- ;
>; I always wait to be invited. Are
you to be a large party at the villa ?"

" I don't fancy so ; but I real-
iy don't kno\v. The only invita-
tions I know of are myself and
R.oxham. He's a capital fellow,
Roxham ; I'm glad we are going to-
gether. I wish you'd come too,
though, .eh? Perhaps you'll think
it over and pop down on us one
of these days when we least expect
it ? Have you any message for
Sir Simon or any of them ?"

" My best respects to M. de la
Bourbonais and his daughter.
Good-afternoon. A pleasant jour-
ney to you !"

; Wish me good-luck about the
leave first !" said the good-natured,
obtuse dragoon as he strode on,
laughing.

u The lumbering idiot ! How I
should like to kick him ! The im-
pudence of the lout calling her
Franceiine !" This was Mr. de Win-
ton's soliloquy as he stood looking
after Ponsonby, giving at the same
time a pull to the bell as if the
house were on fire.

The admiral was out. Cromer,
his old valet, who had first sounded
the signal about Isabel, happened to
be at his master's for the day, and
said he believed he had gone to see
Master Glide. Glide jumped back
into his cab and told the man to go
like the wind, as he wanted to over-
take some one. His reflections on
the way were none of the pleasantest.
What was bringing Ponsonby An-
wyll to spend a month at Sir Simon'j
while M. de la Bourbonais and his
daughter were there ? What but to
marry Franceiine ? Had she, then, so
Completely forgotten Glide? AVhy
not ? If his love for her had a tithe
of the unselfishness it boasted, he
on;Jit to be the first to rejoice at
it ; to be glad that she was happy

VOL. XXIII. 13

My Wife?

and was about to become the wife
of a good and honorable and warm-
hearted man whom she loved. Did
she love him? could she love him ?
a lump of red and white clay with
as much soul as a prize bull ! She
that was such an ethereal, lily crea-
ture how could it be possible ?
What could any girl see in him to
love ? If this was an irrational and
unfair estimate of Ponsonby's out-
ward and inward man, it was natu-
ral enough on Glide's part. No
man, be he ever so reasonable, is
expected to do justice to the claims
of any other man to be preferred
by the woman lie loves. But Glide
was more savage with Sir Simon,
. even than with Anwyll. What bus-
iness had he to go meddling at mak-
ing a match for Franceiine ? Why
could he not have let her alone,
and let destiny take its course
or, to put it^in a more concrete
shape, let Glide de VVinton take his
chance? Glide did not consider
that his chance virtually had no ex-
istence whatever in Sir Simon's cal-
culations. He. believed that Isa-
bel's identity was established be-
yond a doubt, and that this fact,
much as he might regret it, exclud-
ed Glide for ever from having anv

ij *

part in Franceline's destiny. He
believed, moreover, or he wished to
believe which with the sanguine
Sir Simon meant one and the same
thing that Glide had quite got over
his passion malhcurcuse for France-
line, but, whether he had or not, it
ould not be helped ; he couid not
marry her, and it was preposterous
to expect that she was to remain
unmarried out of consideration for
his feelings. Here was an admirable
settlement in life that presented it-
self, and it was Sir Simon's duty, as
her self-elected guardian and her
father's oldest friend, to do all in
his power to secure it to her.

194 Are You My Wife?

Oh! but if Franceline would him. To be free; to burst at once

but wait a little longer it might be this odious, insufferable chain that

such a very little while until Glide must soon be dissolved by death;

was free ! " What a pitiful thing a to be able to sei^e the prize that

woman's love is compared to a was about to be snatched from him

man's ! If I had been in her posi- at the very moment he felt sure

tion, and she in mine," he thought, that a little delay would have se-

"I would have waited a lifetime cured it to him for ever to obtain

for her !" this Glide would have signed away

You see Glide was assuming, in his life, ay, and his soul's life too,

spite of his oft-sighed hopes to the for the asking. No evil one, it is

contrary, that Franceline did love true, presented himself in a bottle-

him. He argued the point bitterly green coat or any other visible

in his mind, accusing her and ac- attire, but one, nevertheless, got

quitting her and cursing his own close enough to the distracted

fate all in the same breath, as he lover's ear to whisper a proposal

rattled over the stony street. But audibly. An invisible devil jumped

the cursing brought no relief. Help into the cab with him, and sat close

was nowhere at hand. In the old to him all the way from Piccadilly

story-books, when a man found home, and never ceased urging,

himself at bay with difficulties, he pleading; no tongue of flesh ever

called the devil to the rescue, and spoke more distinctly:

the devil came. These delightful ; You have the game in your

legends generally represent him in own hands. The doctor is out now.

spectacles and a bottle-green coat ; You know your way to her room,

they may sometimes differ as to No one will stop you. Go straight

the precise color of the coat, but up, and walk in, and address your

they all agree that he was the most wife ; you are her husband, and

accommodating practitioner, often have a right to do it. The shock

volunteering his services without will kill her; but what of that?

waiting to be asked. When it What is life to her that any merciful

came to striking a bargain, no one man should wish to prolong it ?

was more liberal than he. The man Death will be the cessation of men-

in difficulties made his own terms: tal and bodily anguish to her. poor

unlimited wealth, a long life with raving maniac, and it will set you

the lady of his choice, the sweet free free to- marry Franceline*

triumphs of revenge one or all of You know Franceline loves you.

these the devil would concede with The mercy will then be for her too ;

the utmost generosity; all the if she marries Ponsonby Anwyll, it

client had to do in return was to will be only to please her father,

scratch his name to a bit of paper^ She will be miserable ; it will break

signing his soul away a sort of her heart. Go and save both her

post-obit bill to be presented at and yourself."

some period that was not always When the tempter comes armed

even of necessity specified. with such weapons as these, and

If this obliging old legendary finds us in the mood in which Glide

personage had appeared at this was as he drove home through the

juncture to Glide de Winton, I sns- noisy streets into the quiet suburb,

pect he would have had little the issue of the struggle, if siiug-

difficulty in striking a bargain with gle there be, is hardly doubtful.

Are You My Wife?

IQ5

There was a struggle in this case.
You could see it in the feverish
movements of the tempted man ;
he could not sit still, but kept shift-
ing his limbs as we are apt to do
when there is no other escape from
the steady contemplation of our
thoughts. One moment he leaned

back with his hands thrust deep in-
to his pockets, and stared out of
the window ; the next he started
forward and bent down on his
knees, as if examining closely some-
thing at his feet. He took off his
hat, smoothed it with his coat-
sleeve, pushed back his hair, and
put his hat on again. This physical
agitation seemed to bring him no re-
lief. He drew out his pocket-book
and read over attentively the merJ-
oranda of the day before ap-
pointments at the club, with his
tailor, books that he had dotted
down for reading ; but while he
perused these commonplace items
the voice of the tempter kept on
whispering, louder and louder,
sweeter and sweeter. The dusty
cab was the temple of a vision.
Franceline stood before him, with
her arms outstretched ; she drew
nearer, she called him by his name ;
he felt her breath upon his cheek,
the soft touch of her hand in his.
Guild sin come to him in such
guise as this? His features for a
moment were convulsed, swayed by
the terrible conflict. Gradually the
combat ceased, and an expression,
not of calm, but of rigid determi-
nation, settled on them ; the dark
brows drew together, making that
black line across the forehead which
ve to Glide's face its peculiar,
strong individuality. He had not
accepted the tempter's arguments,
but lie had accepted the issue they
pointed at, twisting reasons to
his own purpose, and adopting the
sophistry of passion : " I will go

and accost her. Ten to one what
do I say ? a hundred to one, she is
not my wife. The absence of the
silver tooth ought to have con-
vinced me of that long ago. It
ought to have settled the non-iden-
tity from the first; for Percival says
he never heard of such a thing.
As to its killing her, supposing she
be my wife, it's all nonsense; the
fellow is in Percival's pay, and
that's why he has fought out so
against my seeing her. I'll defy
him once for all, and make an end
of it one way or another."

Glide did not, or would not, see
the palpable paradox that there was
in this train of reasoning ; but deaf-
en himself as he might by sophistry
and inclination, he could not drown
the voice of conscience, that clam-
ored so as to make itself heard
above every other.

*' Has the admiral been here ?"
was his first question as he sprang
out of the cab and rushed up-stairs.

"Yes, sir; him and Mr. Simp-

son.

Ah ! Simpson. Are they long
gone ?"

" Not above a good quarter of
an hour. They're not gone very
far; they're over yonder," said
Stanton, with a knowing jerk of
his head in the direction of the
asyhim.

Glide started.

" What do you mean ? What are
they gone to do there ?"

" They're just gone to have it
out with the doctor, sir. Mr. Simp-
son says it's all gammon about your
not beincr let see her. He's <rone

o zy

over to insist on seeing her him-
self him and the admiral; and if
the doctor refuses to let them up,
Mr. Simpson'll set the law on him."
"Good God! they will kill her.
They have done it already per-
haps ! I am too late to stop them !' ;

196

Arc You My Wife?

said Glide, white to the lips, and
taking a stride towards the door.
The room reeled round him. Was
he going to be an accomplice in
the murder of his wife? He would
at that moment have renounced
Franceline for ever to prevent the
act that a few minutes ago he was
bent on committing.

Stanton was frightened.

" Stay you here, Master Ciide,"
he said, taking him by both arms and
forcing him into a chair. "Don't
you take on like that. I'll run
across and stop 'em. There an't no
'arm done ; the doctor's never in
the 'ouse at this hour, and they never
'ud let them hup without him. You
stay quiet while I run after them.
I'll be back in no time."

Glide made no resistance ; he let
himself drop into the chair in a
kind of stupor. The sudden reac-
tion, coming close upon the fierce
mental conflict he had gone through,
acted like a blow on a drunken
man; it stunned and felled him.

" Go, then, and be quick, for
God's sake !" he muttered.

Ten minutes went by, and the*
fifteen, and Glide began to wonder
what was keeping Stanton.

He could bear the suspense no
longer, but took up his hat and
went to see what caused the delay.

Stanton, meantime, had not been
amusins: himself. In answer to

his inquiries the porter informed
him that the two gentlemen he was
looking for had called at the house
and asked to see the doctor, and,
on hearing that he was out and not
expected home for half an hour,
had declined to come in, but were
walking about the place waiting
for him. Stanton hesitated a mo-
ment whether he should run home
at once with this reassuring news
to his master, or fetch the admiral

and Mr. Simpson, and bring them
back with him ; he decided for the
latter and set off to look for them.
The grounds were spacious and
thickly planted enough to admit
of two persons easily getting out
of sight for a few minutes ; but
when Stanton had looked all round,
walking hastily from avenue to alley,
and could see no trace of the two
gentlemen, he began to think they
must have changed their minds and
gone away. He went on, however, a
good way behind the house until
he came on a low brick wall that
he fancied must mark the limits of
the premises. He was about to turn
back when he heard a loud, shriil
scream proceeding from the other
side of the wall. He ran along by
it till he saw a door that was ajar,
and then, without pausing to con-
sider where he was going or what
he was doing, rushed in and ran on
in the direction of the scream.
Presently he heard voices raised in
angry strife. A few more steps
brought him in presence of Admi-
ral de Winton, Mr. Simpson, and a
third gentleman. They were dis-
puting violently. The admiral was
supporting a woman who had ap-
parently fainted ; the stranger was
expostulating and trying to take
her from him; Mr. Simpson was
standing between them, speaking
in loud and authoritative tones:

Very well, very good ; we shall
see if it is as you say. But we must
see for ourselves; we must find
out if there was nothing in her cry-
ing out 'Glide! Glide!' the mo-
ment she saw this gentleman and
heard his voice. Stand back !
Don't lay a finger on him or on
her ! I do know what I am doing
I know better than you do,
Stand off, I tell you !"

The stranger was, however, de-
termined to make a fight for it, and

Are You My Wife?

197

was answering in a bullying, inso-
lent manner when Stanton came up.

" I know that voice ! Where have
I heard it?" was the valet's first
thought as the loud, ha*jh tones
fell on his ear.

'Hie re was a garden "seat close
at hand. The admiral was carry-
ing the fainting woman towards it.

O cJ

Stanton ran forward to help.

" Go to the house and call for
proper assistance," said Mr. Simp-
son shortly to the stranger. " You
know where to find it, I suppose ;
you know the house."

"I know I sha'n't move from this
while my child is at the mercy of
two escaped lunatics ! That's what
I know," retorted the other sav-
agely.

The words were not out of his
mouth when Stanton was at his
throat, collaring him with both
hands.

" You scoundrel ! I've caught
you at last," lie said. " You villain
of villains ! I'll do for you ! He's
the fellow that called himself Pren-
dergast, and that's master Glide's
wife!" '

All this took much less time to
enact than to relate. The scream
which had brought Stanton to the
spot had been heard by an atten-
dant; there was always one on the
watch in the neighborhood of the pa-
tients' garden, and she came hurry-
ing up in an instant.

' Who are you all, and what are
you doing here ?" she cried, cast-
ing an alarmed look at the three
men and at the lifeless figure
stretched on the wooden seat.

' A couple of escaped lunatics !"
shouted Mr. Percival, struggling
furiously. Stanton was holding him

- o

by the collar, while Mr. Simpson
pinioned him from behind, the ad-
miral standing meantime, bent in
eager scrutiny, over the strange

figure, decked out in faded flowers
and ribbons, that lay insensible be-
fore him.

"Gome here!" he said, beckon-

ing to the attendant; 'come and
attend to this poor creature, and
leave those gentlemen to settle
their business alone."

The woman evidently felt that
this was what it most concerned
her to do ; she allowed the admiral
to lift the patient in his arms, while
she guided him into the house.
They had just entered by a back
door when Glide de Win ton walk-
ed by in search of Stanton. The
porter had directed him to " some-
where about the grounds," and,
after looking in vain up and down
the avenues, he was going to give it
up in despair when he saw the
door 141 the garden wall, now wide
open, and heard a voice which he
recognized as Stanton's, ** Come
on ! You may as well give in and
come quietly; bad language and
kicks will only make it worse for
you, you rascal !"

Glide was quickly on the spot,
and beheld Stanton and Mr. Simp-
son wrestling desperately with a
man whose fury seemed a match
for their united strength.

" I've caught him, Master Glide !
We have him tight that rascal
Prendergast ! You an 't he? You
be choked for a liar!"

Glide stood for a moment con-
founded. There was not a trait of
resemblance, as far as he could
see, between the stout, full-bodied
man with jet black hair, and the
gray-haired, thin, miserable-looking
mortal whom he remembered as
Mr. Prendergast. His first idea was
that Stanton had made another
outrageous mistake, as in the case
of Miss Eliza Jane Honey.

" Who are you ? You are not
the Mr. Prendergast I knew, are

198

Are You My Wife?

you ?" he said, addressing the
stranger.

" Of course I am not ! I never
saw you or this madman in my
lite! My name is Mat hew Perci-
val ; my daughter is unfortunately a
patient in this asylum, and this fel-
low will have it that she is his wife !"

" My master's wife, you scoun-
drel ! Don't think to come over
us with making believe not to un-
derstand ! She's Mr. Glide de
Winton's wife!" said Stanton, tak-
ing a tighter grip, as if he feared
the prize might make a sudden
dart and escape from him.

" You are the man who called him-
self Prendergast, and whose niece,
as you then called her, I married !"
said Glide. The voice and the broad
Scotch accent were unmistakable,
though the speaker had ma,de an
effort to disguise them. "You say
she is your daughter now. Speak
the truth at once. The patient in
yonder house is the Isabel Cameron

whom I married. Let him go,
Simpson ! Stanton, let go your
hold on him! Speak out now."

Mr. Prendergast, or Percival,
looked down sullenly for a moment,
as if making up his mind how to
meet this challenge; then he look-
ed up with the dogged, defiant air
of a man at bay who is resolved to
die game. He was going to speak,
when a woman, the same attendant
who had just left them, came run-
ning up in breathless haste.

" Stanton ! Which of you is
Stanton ?" she cried.

"It's me!"

"Then go as fast as you can and
fetch your master ! His wife is
calling for him ; run quickly, or it
will be too late. She is dying !"

" I am his master ! I am her
husband ! Take me with you !"
said Glide, turning so white that
Stanton thought he was going to

faint and made a movement to
give him his arm ; but Glide waved
him away and walked on with a
steady step.

Something between a cry and an
oath escaped from Percival; he
made no attempt to follow them,
but muttered more to himself than
to his companions :

; The murder is out ! There is
nothing more to tell. She is his
wife, and I am the Prendergast he
knew."

Stanton 's fury had subsided in
an instant, quenched by the chill
which those words of the attendant
had thrown upon the group : " She
is dying /" What had human pas-
sion or earthly vengeance to do
now with Isabel or Mr. Prendergast ?
In the presence of the Great Aven
ger all other vengeance was silenc-
ed. The three men walked on to-
ward the house without exchanging
a word. The porter let them in.
The doctor, he said, had not yet re-
turned. It did not matter; they
would wait, not for him now, but
for Death.

When Glide entered the room,
he beheld Admiral de Winton seat-
ed beside the dying woman's bed;
her face was lifted toward his with
a mute expression, half of yearning,
half of fear, while she listened to
the soothing words he tried to speak
to her. The moment Glide appear-
ed her eyes turned toward him.
There was no mistaking the iden-
tity now; those eyes, so faded and
dim, were the same that had first
fired his foolish heart with their
dark young radiance. The cheeks,
once round, were wan and hollow,
the glossy, ebon hair was specked
with gray, but the face was that of"
his long-lost wife, the Isabel of his
boyish love.

" You have come ! . . . You
have come to say that you forgive

Are You My Wife ?

199

me!" she said in faint, low tones,
fastening a wistful, trembling glance
on him; for Glide did not advance
at once, but stood on the thres-
hold, arrested by the mournful
spectacle.

" Isabel !" he exclaimed, ap-
proaching softly, and he knelt down
and leaned over her.

She looked at him so long with-
out speaking that he began to
fear she did not know him after
all. He raised the little hand to his
lips, and then stroked it caressing-
ly ; the action, the touch, seemed to
strike some chord long sleeping.
' Glide, Glide !" she murmured,
and the tears rose and rolled in
large drops down her cheeks. His
heart was wrung with pity; there
was no room for any other feeling.
If she had wronged him as deeply
as he had ever feared, he forgave it
all. He remembered nothing but
that they had once loved each
other, that she had suffered cruelly,
and that she was dying.

l< My poor Isabel ! I forgive you

with all my heart, as I hope to be
forgiven; so help me God!"

He let his head fall on the pillow
beside her and wept silently.

Admiral de Winton made a sign
to the attendant that they had
better withdraw and leave them
alone ; she hesitated a moment,
and then followed him and closed
the door softly behind her. And
so they were once more together
those two who had been joined
and parted, and reunited now for a
moment only before the final part-
ing. No one disturbed them, no
eye looked behind the curtain
while that last sacred interview
lasted. For three hours Glide
knelt by the side of his dying wife,
her hand in his, her head resting
on his breast. He whispered words
of tenderness and mercy to the
wearied* spirit ; he told her of a
Love greater than his, and of a par-
don mightier and more availing, of
which his was but the pledge and
the forerunner.

At sunset she died.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

2OO

Napoleon I. and Pius VII.

NAPOLEON I. AND PIUS VII.*

IN the Life of Pope Pius VII. Miss
Allies has given us a picture of rare
beauty and deep interest. We
think, however, that the title of the
book has not been well chosen. It.
is not a biography of Pius VII., but
a history of the efforts of Napoleon
Bonaparte to make the Papacy an
appendage and support of the vast
empire which he had founded with
his sword. The materials for the nar-
rative have been drawn chiefly from
the Memoires of Cardinal Consalvi
and the Memorie Storiche of Cardinal
Pacca, both of whom were witnesses
of the facts which they relate. The
author is also greatly indebted to
the recent work of d'Haussonville,
L'Eglise Romaine et le Premier Em-
pire.

The shock of the Revolution of
1789, which unsettled everything
in Europe ideas, customs, laws,
government could not possibly
have left the church undisturbed.
In France the goods of the clergy
were declared to belong to the na-
tion. The churches were turned
into temples of Reason, the convents
converted into barracks, the priests
who remained faithful to their con-
sciences guillotined or sent into ex-
ile. The new republic, " one and
indivisible," aspired to be also uni-
versal, and soon the clash of arms
resounded throughout Europe. Na-
poleon, at the head of the army of
Italy, gained those brilliant victories
which kindled in his heart the flame
of an all-devouring ambition. He
was ordered to march upon Rome,
and he AA^rote to Cardinal Mattei :

* The Life of Po fie Pius VII. By Mary H, Allies.
London : Burns & Gates. 1875.

" Save the pope from the greatest of
evils ; be persuaded that I need only
the will in order to destroy his pow-
er." Pius VI. was in consequence
forced to sign a treaty in which he
gave up a considerable part of his
territory, and in the following year
(1798) the French republic invaded
Rome. The reign of the popes was
declared to be at an end ; the Holy
Father was dragged away into cap-
tivity, and in August, 1799, died at
Valence. The following Novem-
ber the cardinals met in conclave in
Venice under the protection of Rus-
sia, England, and Turkey, and elect-
ed Barnaba Chiaramonti, who took
the title of Pius VII., and on the 3d
of July, 1800, entered Rome amidst
universal demonstrations of joy.
Just two months before Bonaparte
had led his victorious troops across
the Alps, and, having triumphed
over Austria, had a Te Deum sung
in the cathedral of Milan for the
deliverance of Italy from infidels
and heretics the Turks, namely,
and the English. Shortly afterwards
he informed Pius VII. of his wish
to open negotiations for the arrange-
ment of religious matters. The First
Consul was preparing to assume the
purple. " I did not usurp the crown,"
he said ; " il was lying in the mire :
I picked it up. The people placed
it on my head." He felt, however,
that an empire founded upon " blood
and iron " could not dispense with
the moral support of religion. He
therefore determined to enter into
a Concordat with the pope. This
resolution, we are bound to believe,
sprang purely from political and
selfish motives. Whilst fortune

Napoleon I. and Pius VI L 201

smiled upon him Napoleon cared o need of Rome ! I have no need of

for religion only so far as it served the PP e ! If Henry VIII., without the

his ambitious ends. To Menon, in ^tieth partpf,m y power, was able to

T . , u T ,, , - change the religion of his subjects, how

Egypt, he wrote thank you for much more ablc am not j , In j changing

the honors you have paid to our the religion of France I shall change it

prophet." In India he would have * n all Europe, in all places where my

been for Ali, for Confucius in China, P wcr is felt - 'When will you go ?"
and in Thibet for the Dalai Lama.

Consalvi was despatched to Paris to 'After dinner," replied the car-
enter into articles of agreement with dmal with seeming unconcern.
the First Consul. When the car- This outburst of wrath was meant
dinal presented himself before Bona- to frighten Consalvi: Bonaparte
parte, he turned abruptly upon him had really no intention of breaking
and said : " I know what brings you so suddenly with the pope. Again
to France. I wish the negotiations negotiations were begun. The Con-
to begin at once. I give you five cordat was signed, and Joseph was
days, and, if at the end of that time deputed to take it to the First Con-
matters are not arranged, you must sul to obtain his placet ; but the
return to Rome ; for my own part, I great man tore the paper into a
have already provided against such hundred pieces. Finally, however,
a contingency." he yielded, and the public exercise
After many discussions the First of religious worship was again per-
Consul declared that he was ready to mitted in France,
ratify the Concordat. Joseph Bona- But when Bonaparte published
parte, Bernier, and Cretet were to the Concordat, he added to it the
sign for the French government, and : ' Organic Articles/' by which many
Consalvi, Spina, and Caselli for the of its provisions were practically
pope. At the appointed hour and annulled ; and he was even guilty
place they all met. Bernier held in of the falsehood of making it ap-
his hand what he said was the Con- pear that these articles were part
cordat, and, as the cardinal claimed of the convention with Pius VII.
the right of signing first, he attempt- He was resolved to rule the con-
ed to get him to affix his signature sciences of men in the same abso-
without looking at the document ; lute way in which he commanded
but a glance showed Consalvi that his army. The bishops were re-
a spurious paper had been substi- quired to submit all their official
tuted, and he refused to sign his documents to the prefects of the
name. The Concordat was to be departments. To prelates who were
proclaimed at a public dinner on particularly zealous pastorals were
the following day ; so the discus- sent, made to order by the central
sions were reopened and continued bureau at Paris. A bishop was not
through the whole night, but no permitted to appoint or remove a
satisfactory conclusion was reached, priest without Bonaparte's permis-

'he hour for the dinner arrived, sion. Public worship was placed

and when the cardinal entered the under the supervision of the police,

banquet-hall Bonaparte called out On the i6th of May, 1804, the

to him in a mocking tone : senate voted that Napoleon should

assume the title of emperor. Two

"So you wish to break with me, Mon- months before, with premeditation

sieurlc Cardinal? Well, be it so ! 'l have and in cold blood, he had had the

2O2 Napoleon I. and Pius VII.

Due d'Enghien assassinated at Vin- order to astonish him by his know-
cennes ; and this stain upon his ledge of church history. Alreadyhe
name made him the more anxious was pondering over the thought of
to receive the imperial crown from keeping the Holy Father in France,
the consecrated hands of the pope. The archiepiscopal palace was to
A middle course vvas not open to be fitted up for Pius VII. and re-
Pius VIL He had either to accept served exclusively for the Pontifical
Napoleon's invitation or to declare Court. When this was intimated to
himself his enemy. the pope, he replied that it had

With the understanding that the not been unforeseen ; before leaving

" Organic Articles ' should be re- Rome he had signed a formal abdi-

pealed, and that the constitutional cation, in case he should be forcibly

clergy should make their retracta- detained in France. The document

tion in his hands, the pope set out was in Palermo in the hands of

for Paris. In his long journey he Cardinal Pignatelli ; the emperor

was permitted to stop but twice, and might imprison Barnaba Chiaramon-

upon his first meeting the new em- ti, the simple monk, but not Pius

peror he was treated in the most VII., the Vicar of Christ,

uncivil manner. The subject was dropped. The

On the eve of the coronation petty jealousy and dread of rival pow-
Pius VII. received a visit from er or popularity which was so mark-
Josephine. She came to unburden ed a feature in Napoleon's character
her heart to him. The church had could not be concealed whilst the
never blessed her marriage with Holy Father remained in Paris as an
Bonaparte, and she felt that this independent sovereign. He was not
would probably be her last oppor- allowed to celebrate pontifical Mass
tunity to have this matter arranged, at Notre Dame on Christmas day ;
The pope declared that he would and he was hurried off to Macon
not assist at the coronation unless before Easter, and thence contin-
the marriage was first contracted ued his journey back to Rome,
according to the rite of the church, having refused to assist at the cere-
The duplicity of Napoleon had mony of Napoleon's coronation at
deeply wounded the Holy Father, Milan as King of Italy,
and the emperor's wrath could not Jerome Bonaparte, a younger
shake the pope's firm resolve. During brother of Napoleon, had married a
the night preceding the coronation, Protestant girl in the United States,
therefore, Cardinal Fesch performed and the emperor, who wished his
the marriage ceremony in the chapel brothers and sisters to make matri-
of the Tuileries in the presence of monial alliances with the most pow-
two witnesses. When the moment erful families of Europe, applied to
for the coronation came, Napoleon the pope to annul the marriage,
took the crown from the altar of Pius VII. declared that he had
Notre Dame, and himself placed it no power in the case. Napoleon
on his head. He had given the sought revenge by meddling still
Holy Father his word that there further with the affairs of the church
should be but one coronation ; in in Italy, and by taking forcible
violation of this promise he had possession of Ancona, a portion of
himself crowned a second time in the papal territory. The Holy Fa-
the Champ de Mars, He crammed ther protested in a letter dated the
for his interviews with the pope, in i3th of November. 1805, which

Napoleon L and Pius VII. 203

Napoleon did not find time to an- buted the pope's firmness to the
swer till January 7, 1806. In those counsels of Consalvi, and he deter-
two months he had brought to a mined to drive him from office,
close one of his most brilliant cam- Tell him," he wrote to his ambas-
paigns, had conquered the empe- sador, " that but two courses re-
rors of Austria and Russia, and main open to him : always to do

dictated terms to all Europe. what I wish or to quit the minis-
In reply to the protest of the try.'' He also informed the cardi-

Holy Father Napoleon wrote to his nal that none of his movements

ambassador at Rome in the following were unknown to him, and that

style : " The pope has written me for the first compromising act he

a most ridiculous, a most foolish let- should answer with his head; he

ter. These people thought I was would have him arrested in the

dead. . . . Since these idiots do streets of Rome. " These priests,"

not object to the possibility of a he said, " keep the soul for them-

Protestant occupying the throne of selves and throw me the carcass."
France, I will send them a Protestant All this storm of imperial rage

ambassador. ... I will change no- had broken upon the Head of the

thing outwardly, if people behave church because he had dared de-

themselves with me ; but otherwise fend the honor of a Protestant girl,

shall reduce the pope to be bi- the daughter of a simple American

lOpofRome. Really, nothing is so citizen, against the attacks of the

anting in sense as the court of most terrible monarch of Europe.

ome." Napoleon's dream was to found

Only the Emperor of Russia and a great western empire like that of

King of England he declared Charlemagne, and for the accom-

were masters in their own states, plishment of this design he saw

because they had no pope to trou- that the co-operation of the pope

ble them. was necessary. He was therefore

A month later (February, 1806) willing to defend the pope on con-
Pius VII. received another letter dition that he should become his
from Napoleon. tool and lend himself as an obedi-
ent slave to his ambitious projects.

' Your Holiness," he wrote, " must But when he saw that there was no

profess the same regard for me in the h of brin ging Pius VII. to accept

temporal order as I profess for you in the ^i i,- i \

spiritual order. All my enemies must hlS V16WS n thlS Sub J ect > he be S an

be your enemies. That an Englishman, to govern the church after his own
a Russian, a Swede, or a minister of the , fashion. The bishops and priests

Sardinian king should henceforth re- who did not conform to his wishes

side in Rome or in any part of your were t h rown mto prison or forced
states is entirely unfitting. No vessel ., TJ i j u-

belonging to any of these states should tO keC P S ' lenCe ' , He ha , d llIS " Ct -

enter your ports.'" nes proclaimed from the pulpits ;

he furnished pastorals and exhorta-

The Holy Father replied that he tions in which it was made to ap-

\vas unable to assent to demands pear that he was the defender of

which were opposed to the charac- the faith, fighting against infidels

ter of his divine mission, "which and heretics; he recommended that

owns no enmities, not even with prayers should be said that '* our

those who have departed from the brothers, the persecuted Catholics

centre of unity." Napoleon attri- of Ireland, might enjoy liberty of

2O4 Napoleon I. and Pius VII.

worship." "Inform M. Robert, a was to be imprisoned. Napoleon
priest of Bourges," he wrote, ' of had just annihilated the wonderful
my displeasure. He preached a troops of Frederick the Great, and
very foolish sermon on the i5th of from his palace at Berlin he once
August. L'Abbe de Coucy is a more dictated terms to the Holy Fa-
great worry to me. He keeps up ther. " Let the pope," he wrote,
too great a correspondence. I wish ; ' do what I wish, and he will be re-
him to be arrested and put into paid for the past and the future."
a monastery. ... It is really shame- All Europe, save England, was
ful that you have not yet arrested lying helpless at the feet of the
M. Stevens. People are too sleepy ; conqueror ; and that the pope
else how could a wretched priest should continue to defend the in-
have escaped ? . . . I see from your terests of a Protestant country
letter that you have caused a cure against the power of a second
of La Vendee to be arrested. You Charlemagne was an impossible sup-
have acted very wisely. Keep him position.

in prison." All religious newspapers But Napoleon was now so great
save one, the Journal des Cures, that he refused to enter into per-
whose publications were strictly sonal correspondence with Pius
supervised were suppressed. r< No VII. ; so he wrote to Eugene Beau-
priest," said Napoleon, " should harnais, the Viceroy of Italy, with
bother his head about the church instructions that he should commu-
except in his sermons." A special nicate his letter to the pope.
Sunday each year was set aside to

commemorate the coronation and " They say," wrote the emperor, " that

the victories of the Grande Arme'e ; they want to publish all the evil that I

and in the sermon preached on that !\ ave c , om itted against religion.

. L . idiots ! They ignore, then, that there

day particular mention was to be does not exist a spot in Italy> Germany>

made of those who had fallen at O r Poland where I have not done more

Austerlitz. M. Portalis was charg- for religion than the pope has done evil,

ed with the preparation of a new What dues Pius VIL mean b > r

imperial catechism, which was pub- *S me to Christendom ? Docs

,. , , . . o / rr^i i M he imagine that their arms will fall from

hshed in August, 1806. The chil- the hands of my soldiers? . _ . Per .

dren of France were taught that haps the time is not far off when, if this

"the honor and the service of the meddling in my affairs does not stop, I

emperor is one and the same thing sha11 acknowledge the pope to be no-

as the honor and service of God "; f hin mo je than bishop of Rome, hold-

_, ,, -. . ,, . ing a rank in all respects similar to my

that those who,were wanting in their bishops In tw words? this is ^

duty to Napoleon rendered them- i ast time that I consent to treat with

selves worthy of eternal damnation ; these wretched priests of Rome."
and that God had given the crown

not only to him, but to his family. The pope replied to these insults
The French bishops submitted in in a letter full of meekness and hu-
silence to this orthodox imperial- mility, in which he declared that
ism. he had refused Napoleon nothing
The next step was to deprive the which his conscience would permit
pope of his temporal power. As him to grant. Napoleon gave or-
Pius VII. had refused to enter into ders for the occupation of Rome
the emperor's plans for the found- by the French troops under Gen-
ing of a great western empire, he eral Miollis; and the army passed

^ Napoleon L and Pins VII. 205

in through the open gates of the recognize." Everything was" to be
city on the 26. of February, 1808. organized as if no pope existed."
The pope was a prisoner. The No priest was to be ordained with-
Neapolitan cardinals were carried out the emperor's permission. "Give
off by force ; and in March all who orders," he wrote, " to the prefect of
were not natives of the states of the Taro department to choose fifty
the church were ordered to leave of the worst priests at Parma and
Rome. The dethronement of the fifty of the worst at Piacenza. . . .
pope was proclaimed with the sound Let them embark for Corsica."
of the trumpet, and his dominions The time had now come when
were declared irrevocably united to Napoleon was resolved to bedivorc-
the kingdom of Italy. The Holy ed from Josephine. He consulted
Father signed the bull of excom- the Archbishop of Bordeaux and his
munication, and in the night of the clergy on the subject. Their reply
5th of July, 1809, General Radet was unfavorable, and he summarily
broke into his apartments, arrested dismissed them and had the vicar-
him and Cardinal Pacca, hurried general and the superior of the
them into a closed carriage, and seminary deprived of their offices,
drove out of Rome through the One day, after a very silent repast
Porta Pia, accompanied by a de- with the empress, he broached the
tachment of gendarmes. The pope, subject to her. She fell fainting to
who was ill and weak, was driven in the floor ; the emperor summoned
great haste through Italy to Savona, the chamberlain and had her car-
a fortified town near Genoa, where ried to her apartments. Her adieu
lie was imprisoned. to sovereignty was effected under
Europe was dumb, the press was trying circumstances. A grand re-
silent, and people dared not even ception took place at the Tuileries
express sympathy for the Holy Fa- on the evening of her departure.
ther. Napoleon tried to make the She assisted at the funeral of her
world forget that there was a pope ; worldly greatness, and the fate of
but he himself was often reminded Napoleon was decided at the same
of his existence. Many dioceses moment by a few hurried words
were without bishops, and the pope spoken by two courtiers as they
refusedto confirm those whohad been were leaving the imperial presence,
appointed, so long as he was depriv- Negotiations for the marriage of Na-
ed of his liberty. The emperor had poleon with the Grand Duchess
some of the highest dignitaries of Olga, sister of the Czar of Russia,
the French church to write to the were all but concluded. That night
prisoner of Savona to represent the M. Floret, the first secretary of the
evil consequences of this refusal ; Austrian Embassy, whispered to M.
but to no purpose. All the cardi- de Semonville that the emperor
nals were summoned to Paris to might easily have the hand of Marie
grace the Imperial Court. The Louise of Austria. This was re-
Pcnitentiaria and Dataria were also lated to Napoleon ; the alliance with
removed thither. Napoleon sent a Russia was broken off; and two years
circular to the bishops, ordering later came the retreat from Moscow,
them "to suppress the prayer to when the arms fell from his soldiers'
St. Gregory VII., and to substitute hands. But to espouse a daughter
another feast for that of this saint, of the Catholic house of Austria
whom the Gallican Church cannot it was necessary to obtain not

206 Napoleon I. and Pius VII.

only a civil but also a religious di- submitted to the pope. In conse-

vorce from Josephine. No other an- quence they determined not to as-

thority than that of the pope, Cardi- sist at the marriage of Napoleon

nal Fesch declared, would be other- and Marie Louise. When Cardinal

wise than " uncertain or dangerous " Fesch reported this to the emperor,

on the subject ; but to apply to the he got into a fit of rage. "Bah! they

captive of Savona would be useless, will not dare," he exclaimed; and

Napoleon therefore created an ec- when Cardinal Consalvi, the leader

clesiastical tribunal for the occa- of the thirteen, came to a public

sion, over which his uncle, Cardinal audience at the Tuileries eight days

Fesch, was appointed to preside, before the ceremony, Napoleon

The emperor first attempted to make came up to him, stopped before him,

it appear that his marriage with Jo- gave him a thundering look, and

sephine in 1804 was invalid, because passed on without speaking a word,

it had taken place without witnesses As he entered the chapel of the

or deed ; but the cardinal was able Louvre for the wedding he wore an

to show that this was not true. He air of triumph ; but his countenance

next alleged as a cause of illegality grew dark when he perceived the

the absence of the parish priest ; thirteen were not there,

but the faculties conferred upon ' Where are the cardinals ?" he

Fesch by Pius VII. more than sup- asked in an irritated tone,

plied this deficiency. As a last re- " A great number are here," was

sort Napoleon declared that he had the reply.

never consented to the religious " Ah ! the fools ; but they are not

marriage, thus openly confessing here," said Napoleon with another

that he had deceived Josephine, Car- glance at the empty seats. The

dinal Fesch, and the Holy Father, fools, the fools!"

This statement, however, was pro- He declared that it was his inten-

bably an after-thought and false, tion to cause the resignation of tJicse

which is not surprising in an habit- individuals, and that henceforth

ual liar like Napoleon. The tri- they were to be deprived of the

bunal was threatened with the anger Purple. In this way arose the title

of the emperor if it kept him wait- of Black and Red cardinals. The

ing beyond a certain day. As it had property of the thirteen was seized

been created only to do his bidding, and their income went to swell the

his marriage with Josephine was public treasure, whilst they were

declared null ; but let us remark sent to different provincial towns

that the Holy Father had nothing and placed under surveillance,

to do with this business ; he was not The difficulty as to the appoint -

even consulted, as he had already ment of bishops to vacant dioceses

given proof of what might be expect- had not been settled. In May, 1810,

ed from him in the case of Jerome Napoleon despatched two cardinals,

Bonaparte and Miss Paterson. most favorable to his pretensions,

Nearly all the cardinals were at to Pius VII., whom he still held a

this time living in Paris. Fourteen prisoner in Savona, to persuade the

of them gave it as their opinion pope to confirm the bishops ap-

that the divorce had been rightly pointed by the emperor; but the

granted ; thirteen others asserted Holy Father was immovable. Na-

that the tribunal was incompetent, poleon thereupon resolved to make

and that the case should have been his own bishops and dispense with

Napoleon I. and Pius VII.

207

the papal confirmation. Cardinal
Fesch, who had accepted the title of
Archbishop-elect of Paris, now re-
fused to take possession of his see
without the approval of the pope.

' I can force you to obey me,"
said Napoleon to his uncle.

" Sire, potiits mori" replied the
cardinal.

'' Ah ! ah ! potius mori rather
Maury. Be it so. You shall have
Maury." Cardinal Maury accept-
ed, and in a few days his vicar-gen-
eral was arrested and sent to the
dungeon of Vincennes, where he re-
mained till the fall of the empire.
About the same time Vincennes
opened its gloomy gates to Cardi-
nals di Pietro and Gabrielli. This
was in 1811. Pius VII. had been
in prison for two years. Napoleon
now ordered his jailers to treat him
with greater severity. No person
was allowed to see him without the
emperor's permission ; and for vio-
lating this regulation some priests
from Marseilles were thrown into a
filthy dungeon. All letters to and
from the Holy Father were submit-
ted to the inspection of the keeper
of the prison.

'It is useless for the pope to write,"
said Napoleon ; "the less he does, the
better it will be. ... The less that
which he writes reaches its destination,
the better. ... I trouble myself
very little as to what he may do. . . .
Let him be told that it is distressing for
Christendom to own a pope so ignorant
of what is due to sovereigns, but that the
state will not be disturbed, and good
will be effected without him."

On the 8th of January, 1811,
experts sent from Paris entered the
episcopal palace at Savona, where
the Holy Father was confined, open-
ed his doors and drawers, searched
his correspondence, unsewed his
clothes, and broke open his desk,
in order to discover something that

might incriminate him. They even
took away his breviary and the Office
of the Blessed Virgin. He was also
ordered to deliver up the Ring of the
Fisherman ; but, justly suspecting
that it would be used for fraudulent
purposes, he broke it in two and
handed the pieces to Napoleon's
agent. A moral terrorism reigned
over the religious world in France
and Italy. The emperor's ven-
geance pursued even ladies who
gave alms to the Black cardinals.
The cardinals, bishops, and priests
who had spoken against his tyranny
were in prison ; the rest remained
silent.

Napoleon now called a National
Council to devise measures for gov-
erning the church without the assis-
tance of the pope. The French
bishops had for the most part been
kept ignorant of the precise nature
of the trouble between himself and
Pius VII., and he intended by this
new move to impress upon the
mind of the Sovereign Pontiff that he
could nor rely upon the support of
the bishops. First, -however, a de-
putation was sent to the pope to
urge upon him the pressing necessity
of conforming without further delay
to the will of the emperor. Pius
VII. was at this time in very feeble
health, and Napoleon did not hesi-
tate to bribe his physician, Dr. Por-
ta, that he might inform the mem-
bers of the deputation of the most
favorable opportunity to take ad-
vantage of the weak and suffering
state of the Holy Father to wring
from him the desired concessions.
For some days those who surround-
ed him were able to attest the pre-
sence of all the symptoms of mad-
ness.

" You will have seen," wrote his jailer
to the Minister of Worship, " by ray last
letters that the uncertainty of the pope
when he is left to himself goes to the

208

Napoleon J . and Pius VII.

length of affecting his reason and his
health. At present the mental alienation
has passed off."

Still, the bishops sent by Napoleon
to Savona were obliged to return
without the pope's signature to the
document of concessions. The Na-
tional Council was opened on the
i yth of June, in the Cathedral of
Notre Dame, under the nominal
presidency of Cardinal Fesch. The
opening discourse was delivered
by Mgr. de Boulogne, Bishop of
Troyes, who srjoke in eloquent and
burning words " of the Supreme
Head of the episcopate, without
whom it resembles a branch sepa-
rated from the tree and withered,
or a vessel tossed by the waves with-
out rudder or steersman."

" This see may be removed," he
said, " but it cannot be destroyed.
Its magnificence may be taken away,
but never its strength. Wherever
this see shall establish itself it shall
draw all others around it." These
words fell like burning coals in the
midst of the assembly and produced
great emotion. The effect had not
died away when the Bishop of Nantes
arose to comply with the formality of
asking each prelate whether it pleas-
ed him that the council should be
opened. " Yes," answered the Arch-
bishop of Bordeaux, " saving the obe-
dience due to the Sovereign Pontiff,
to whom I bind myself and whom 1
swearto obey." Then Cardinal Fesch
in a loud voice read the oath as
prescribed by a bull of Pius IV.:
" I acknowledge the Holy Catholic,
Apostolic, and Roman Church to be
the mother and mistress of all other
churches ; I promise and swear per-
fect obedience to the Roman pon-
tiff, the successor of St. Peter, Prince
of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus
Christ on earth." One by one the
bishop's bound themselves irrevoca-
bly to the cause of Pius VII. Na-

poleon was furious and berated his
uncle for " getting up one of his
scenes." Two laymen were appoint-
ed to be present in his name at all
future meetings of the bishops.

Some of the courtier prelates
drew up a fulsome address to Napo-
leon, a kind of treatise on state theo-
logy, which they presented to the
members of the council for their
signature. Mgr. de Broglie, Bishop
of Ghent, declared he would never
sign it. Another bishop proposed
that "the liberty of the pope " should
be demanded. This was received
with a confused murmur of applause ;
but Cardinal Fesch, who dreaded the
wrath of his nephew, declared that
the time was inopportune for such a
request. Napoleon, unable longer
to restrain himself, ordered the
council to put an end to its " idle
debates." He gave the members
eight days to devise an expedient
for providing bishops for the va-
cant sees. As a sign of his displea-
sure he refused to receive the coun-
cil officially at the Tuileries. The
bishops, he said, had " acted as cow-
ards." In answer to the demand
to find an expedient for providing
bishops for the vacant sees without
the confirmation of the pope, the
council declared that it would first
be necessary to send a deputation
to consult Pius VII. This declara-
tion was carried by Fesch to his im-
perial nephew. He was received
with an outburst of anger. Napo-
leon would soon show the bishops
their place. When the cardinal at-
tempted to reason with him, he
rudely stopped him : ' What ! theo-
logy again ! Where did you learn
it ? Be quiet ; you are an ignora-
mus." He threatened to dissolve
the council and organize a system
of state religion, but finally drew
up a decree himself, in which he
falsely asserted that the pope had

Napoleon L and Pius VII.

209

macie the desired concessions. The
bishops were deceived, and, with
two exceptions, voted in favor of
the decree. A little reflection,
however, convinced many of them
of the fraud which had been prac-
tised upon them, and they recalled
their votes. Suddenly, on the nth
of July, Napoleon dissolved the
council. The following day, at three
o'clock in the morning, Mgr. de
Broglie, Mgr. de Boulogne, and Mgr.
Him, who had taken a prominent
part in opposing the decree, were
arrested in their beds and carried
off to the prison of Vincennes. In
August five cardinals and eight
bishops, partisans of the emperor,
were sent to Savona to make still
another effort to win over Pius VII.
to Napoleon's plans. The Holy
Father, who was so closely guarded
that no one was allowed to see him
except his bribed doctor and the
jailer, was in total ignorance of all
that had passed in the National
Council. For five months, from
September, i8n,to February, 1812,
these cardinals and bishops used
every argument and artifice to in-
duce the pope to sign the decree
of the council.

Their efforts were successful.
Pius VII., worn out with impor-
tunities, feeble in body and in
mind, wrote the brief of adhe-
sion. But Napoleon was not satis-
fied. He was already organizing
his army for the fatal Russian cam-
paign, and he wrote to his Minister
of Worship the following instruc-
tions : " I send you the original
papal brief. Keep it and commu-
nicate its contents to nobody. I
wish to find the bishops in Rome
on my return, to see what we can
do. ... The truth is, the church is
experiencing a crisis." His victory
over Russia was, in his imagination,
already an accomplished fact ; he

VOL. XXIII. 14

would return the undisputed sove
reign of all Europe, would gather
the bishops in Rome, and would
give to the church, as lie had given
to the state, a Code Napoleon.

On the 24th of January, 1812, the
Holy Father wrote to him in the
most unaffected and simple manner,
and begged to be permitted to con-
sult disinterested counsellors and
to have free communication with
the faithful. Napoleon disdained
to answer this letter, but sent
through his Minister of Worship the
following notification to the deputa-
tion at Savona : " His majesty deems
that it is unfitting to his dignity to
answer the letter of the pope. . . .
His majesty pities the ignorance of
the pope, and compassionates a
pontiff who could have played so
great a part, but who has become
the calamity of the church. . . .
His majesty understands these mat-
ters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction bet-
ter than the Holy Father. ... If
the pope cannot make a distinction
.which is simple enough to be grasp-
ed by the most uncultivated semina-
rian, why does he not voluntarily
descend from the papal chair and
leave it to a man who is less feeble
in mind and better principled than
he?" And now, just as he was set-
ting out on the Russian campaign,
he ordered that Pius VII. should
be transferred from Savona to Fon-
tainebleau.

The Holy Father was unwell, but
to this no attention was paid. Just
before reaching the Mont Cenis he
fell dangerously ill. The journey
was not interrupted. A bed was
fitted up in the carriage and a sur-
geon procured, who, with the instru-
ments that might be needed, ac-
companied him. When they reach-
ed Fontainebleau nothing was pre-
pared, and the pope had to pass
the first 'night in the porter's lodge.

2iO

Napoleon I. and Pius VII.

A Guide-book of Pan's, published at
this time, informed the French that
they possessed a "papal palace " in
their capital. But the end was
drawing near. On the 24th of
June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the
Niemen at the head of an army of
live hundred thousand men. As he
reached the opposite bank his horse
stumbled and fell. His fatalism
led him to consider this a bad
omen. The Russians fled before
him, and, after the victories of Smo-
lensk and Borodino, he rode into
Moscow on the i5th of September.
It was silent as a desert, and the
Kremlin, where he took up his resi-
dence, was like a tomb. At mid-
night from a hundred quarters the
flames burst forth, and in the lurid
light of the burning city the army
began the fatal retreat. The weath-
er, which had been fine, suddenly
grew cold ; sleet and snow and rain
beat with merciless fury upon the
men, from their benumbed hands
their arms' fell, and by the roadside
they laid down to die. On the iSth
of December Napoleon arrived, a
fugitive, in Paris. In this one cam-
paign hehad lost 25o,ooomen,halfof
whom had died of cold and hun-
ger.

With the beginning of the year
1813 he wrote to Pius VII. and
begged him to believe that his feelings
of respect and veneration were inde-
pendent of circumstances. Shortly
afterwards he went to visit the
Holy Father at Fontainebleau, and
upon their first meeting for eight
years he embraced him with 'every
mark of affection. The health of
the pope was wretched, and advan-
tage was taken of his weak condi-
tion to obtain still further conces-
sions.

Upon the promise of Napoleon
to liberate the imprisoned cardinals,
bishops, and priests, Pius VII. signed

the Concordat of Fontainebleau
an act which he almost immediately
recalled, and which he never ceased
to regret. When the faithful Pacca,
after so long a separation, was at
length admitted to his presence,
he expressed his admiration for the
pope's heroic constancy.

" But finally," cried out the Holy Father
in anguish, " we have sullied cur con-
science. Those cardinals dragged me to
the table and made me sign "

Pius VII. was still held a prisoner,
and Napoleon acted as though the
Concordat of Fontainebleau still ex-
isted. He appointed bishops, im-
prisoned priests, and drafted semi-
narians to fill up his decimated regi-
ments.

The victories of Lutzen and Baut-
zen were more brilliant than impor-
tant. In August, 1 813, the Emperor
of Austria de'clared against his son-
in-law. Then came the crushing
defeat of Leipsic, and Napoleon was
slowly driven back upon France,
closely followed by the allied armies.
Orders were sent to remove Pius
VII. from Fontainebleau, and a few
days later the war was raging at the
very gates of the palace which he
had so recently occupied. Finally,
on the loth of March, 1814, when all
hope was lost, Napoleon signed a
decree which restored his domin-
ions to the pope. Since his remo-
val from Fontainebleau Pius VII.
had been driven about through 'va-
rious parts of France, closely guard-
ed ; but now that he turned his
face toward Rome, his journey as-
sumed the appearance of a trium-
phal procession, and at length, on
the 24th of May, 1814, the Feast
of Our Lady, Help of Christians, he
re-entered the Holy City amid the
universal enthusiasm of his people.
Just one month before, in the palace
of Fontainebleau, Napoleon signed

Napoleon I. and Puts VII.

211

the decree which declared his em-
pire at an end ; and, a fallen sover-
eign, he passed out in silence through
the ranks of the men whom he had
so often led to victory.

In his last meeting with Josephine
he took her hand and said : " Jose-
phine, I have been as fortunate as
any man upon earth. But in this
hour, when a storm is gathering over
me, I have in the wide world none
but you upon whom I can repose."
And in St. Helena he said to Cau-
laincourt : " If I live a hundred years,
I shall never forget those scenes ;
they are the fixed ideas of my sleep-
less nights. I have had enough of

o o

sovereignty. I want no more of
it ; I want no more of it."

It is not easy to form a just esti-
mate of the character of Napoleon.
We have heard veterans who had
fought at Austerlitz and Lutzen
declare that when he rode along
the line his glance did so blind the
eve thatl'they could not look upon
him ; and they thought so. This
light of glory still enshrines his
memory and dazzles us, to prevent
us from seeing him as he was. No
one has ever doubted his surprising
strength ; his almost incredible pow-
er to bear labor, whether of body
or mind ; his wonderful intellect,
which grasped things with equal
ease, in general and in detail ; his
unequalled ability to organize an
army, a nation, or a continent ; his
courage, which rose superior to the
most crushing defeat.

But with these great endowments
he had a coarse and selfish nature.
He was as ready to lie as to tell
the truth. No act that was expe-
dient was bad. His ambitious
ends sanctified all metins by which
they could be attained. Dissimu-
lation, deceit, hypocrisy, betrayal
of friends, imprisonment, murder,

^assination, he was ready to use

indifferently as his purposes de-
manded. Without moral convic-
tions himself, he believed others
equally devoid of them. To assign
conscience as a reason for anything
was in his eyes pretence and hypo-
crisy. The religious scruples of the
pope and cardinals he held to be
mere obstinacy and ill-will. When
Pius VII. declared he had not the
power to annul the marriage of
Jerome with Miss Patterson, Napo-
leon saw in this only a desire to
take revenge for the way in which
he had been insulted at the coro-
nation. After having persecuted
bishops and priests, keeping many
of them in prison, during his whole-
reign, he had the impudence to de-
clare in St. Helena that the priests-
were all for him as soon as he al-
lowed them to wear violet-colored'
stockings. He was the coarsest
reviler and insulted all whom he
feared or hated. The pope and
the cardinals were " idiots and
fools "; the republicans were " mad
dogs and brigands "; the King of
Prussia was " the most complete
fool of all the kings on earth ";
the Spanish Bourbons were " a flock
of sheep "; De Broglie, the Bishop of
Ghent, was " a reptile "; the priests
iwho disapproved of the Concordat
were " the scum of the earth "; and
of the philosophers he said : ' Je
les ai comme use vermine sur mes
habits." His conduct towards wo-
men was coarse and contemptuous.
They ought to know nothing and
were not fit to have opinions. He
told Madame de Stae'l to go home
and knit her stockings ; the great-
est woman was she who had the
most children he wanted soldiers.
He did not conceal his contempt
for men. " Every year of my rei^n,"
he said in St. Helena, " I saw more
and more plainly that the harsher
the treatment men received, the

212

Napoleon I. and Pins VII.

greater was their submission and
devotion. My despotism then in-
creased in proportion to my con-
tempt for mankind." From 1804
to 1815 he sacrificed to his mad
ambition not less than five millions
of men. Several thousand French
subjects were shot merely for de-
sertion. Each principal town had
\\splace aux fusillades. The prisons
of France were filled with his vic-
tims. A more thorough tyrant than
he never lived. Liberty of all
kinds was odious to him. He
hated all whom he could not en-
slave. To be free was to be his
enemy. While he reigned men
spoke with bated breath, the press
was fettered, and the church was in
chains. In his own family he was
a despot ; he gave his brothers
crowns, but only on condition that
they would become his slaves; and
when Lucien thought that even
royal honors might be bought at too
dear a price, he was forced to leave
France.

His jealousy was surpassed only
by his vanity. " Go," said he to his

soldiers, "kill and be killed; the
emperor beholds you."

He had a barbaric love of vulgar

display, and this was one of the pas-
sions which impelled him to his
bloody wars. No man ever had
less heart. If he loved any one, it
was Josephine, and her he sacrific-
ed without a pang. Remorseless as
destiny , which was his god, he trod
out with the iron hoof of war right
and life, and where he passed there
was wailing and desolation as after
pestilence. In his last illness on
the desolate rock of St. Helena he
spoke with reverence and feeling of
religion. From the hands of the
priest sent to him by Pius VII. he
received the sacraments of the
church. For six years he had
held in cruel confinement Christ's
vicar, the gentlest of men ; for six
years he himself pined in living
death on the barren island of St.
Helena. It was the 5th of March,
1821, that he died. On the tomb
of St. Peter Pius VII. offered up
the divine Sacrifice for the repose
of the soul of Napoleon.

Modern English Poetry. 213

MODERN ENGLISH POETRY.

MR. STEDMAN, the author of The but does he understand what he
V 7 ictorian Poets, appears to be a means by this ? We do not. Are
painstaking and conscientious wri- we to understand that the only inse-
ter. He has read with extraordi- parable qualities, the only proper-
nary industry all the poetry of the ties, of poetry which must charac-
period to which his criticism is lim- terize " work of all kinds " -by
ited, including not a little which, which we presume he means every
if he deemed it his duty to stiK real poetical production are sim-
dy, it was not worth his while to plicity and freshness ? What does
name. He has brought to this study he mean by simplicity ? what by
a highly, although we think not freshness? Does he refer these
methodically, cultivated mind and qualities to expression only ? If
a retentive memory. He has a re- so, what does he mean by " simpli-
markable fluency of diction, border- city not being excluded from the
ing occasionally on volubility, and Miltonic canon of poetry " ?
a certain fecundity of illustration ; In the higher efforts of poetry, he
but his words have at times a vague- tells us, we must still have simplicity ;
ness, not to say inaptness, of appli- but instead of freshness we are there
cation which is not suggestive of to look for " spontaneity." Are,
clearness or depth of thought. His then, " simplicity and spontaneity '
work, he will pardon us for thinking, the basis of persistent growth (we
is rather an " essay in ' technical must own that even the meaning of
than "philosophical criticism." He this expression is hidden from us)
himself appears to be conscious of and of "greatness in a masterpiece"?
this ; for he writes in his preface : No ; it must be " simplicity and
' If my criticism seems more techni- spontaneity refined by art, exalted
cal than is usual in a work of this by imagination, and sustained by
kind, it is due, I think, to the fact intellectual power." But will not
that the technical refinement of the the simplicity, and most assuredly
period has been so marked as to de- the spontaneity, disappear in the
mand full recognition and analysis." "artistic refinement"? Still more
Furthermore, he informs us that he difficult is the idea of " simplicity
' has no theory of poetry " ; and we and spontaneity exalted by imagi-
must own that, in the absence of nation ' being the * basis ' of a
any theory of poetry, a philosophi- poetical "masterpiece." Poetry is
cal criticism of it seems to us to be the offspring of the imagination,
out of the question. The qualities Its excellence depends absolutely
he requires of it " are simplicity and on the force and vigor of that intel-

.hness in work of all kinds, and, lectual power. There can be no

the basis of persistent growth poetry in its absence. And what

and of greatness in a masterpiece, other is imagination than intellec-

simplicity and spontaneity, refined tual power ?

by art, exalted by imagination, and The poetic feeling we believe to

sustained by intellectual power " ; be the echo of the soul to God in

214

Modern English Poetry.

the presence of all his works. It is
the emotion really rapture which
wells up within it at the contempla-
tion of the sensible images in which
he reveals portions of his beauty
in every variety and combination
of form, proportion, color, touch,
scent, and sound. Let the poet
stand alone by the long margin of
the sea on a still summer day. What
but it is that profound emotion of
which he is so intensely conscious
as he looks out upon the immense
ocean in its still unrest, which
the blue heavens only seem to
limit because his power of vision
can reach no further, and when
he hears the mellow murmur of the
wavelets as, rearing themselves in
graceful curves, they fall in low
whispers along the yellow sands, as
if depositing some message from
infinitude, and then rapidly with-
draw ?

What else is that indefinable
transport, resembling, only in an in-
finitely inferior degree, the ecstasy
of a saint, which holds in suspense
all our faculties as, in the languid
heat of summer-tide, we stand at the
foot of craggy heights between which
in distant ages some river has found
for itself a channel ; and, as we gaze
into the impenetrable shade of the
dense thickets which cover their
sides, hear the distant sound of fall-
ing waters, and scent the fresh per-
fume of the breathing foliage, the
river flowing past us at our feet, to
be almost immediately hidden from
our view by projecting headlands,
covered, they too, with the living
darkness of foliage crowding upon
foliage, trees on trees ?

The delightful trance into which
the poetic soul is lulled by the
beauty and truth of God speaking
through even the least of his works
defies analysis ; but we may say of it
with some confidence that the objects

that provoke it never weary of their
charm. And wherefore ? Because
they do not obstruct the instinct
of immortality, the yearning for
infinitude, which is a passion with-
in the soul of the poet, but is wholly
absent from no one in whom God's
image is not quite effaced. On the
contrary, their apparent endless-
ness, their want of boundary and
definite outline, suggest infinitude,
and awake the echoes of immor-
tality from their profoundest depths,
and minister to the deep yearning
of the soul for something more
lovely than aught of which it has
been hitherto cognizant.

This it is which accounts for the
immense superiority of Gothic to
Grecian architecture a superiority
so complete as to elevate it into
quite another sphere of beauty.
The pleasure we experience at the
sight of the highest efforts of a
Greek architect is almost exclu-
sively aesthetic, sensible, artistic.
It is occasioned by sharpness of
outline, grace of form, beauty of
proportion. In these is the only
poetry it can express ; which can
never, consequently, mount to sub-
limity. It can only be beautiful
at best. It pleases the sense, but
the soul of the poet, at all events-
soon wearies of them.

But the Gothic cathedral, with
its soaring arches interlacing one
another, its many naves, aisles,
chapels, and recesses, its endless
wealth of tracery and sculpture,
its clustering pinnacles and spires
pointing heavenwards, the deep
shadows of its buttresses, and its
many mounting roofs in short, the
utter absence of definiteness of out-
line, and its grandeur as well as
grace of form and beauty of pro-
portion respond, and powerfully,
to the soul's craving for infinitude,
impatience of limitation, and heart-

Modern EnglisJi Poetry. 2 1 5

yearning for the infinitely Beautiful white surface for the amusement

and True. of children. It was to convey to

This poetic sense it is which us intimations of himself, as well
causes all mere human pleasures so as snatches of his happiness. Tin-
soon to pall upon us. For it is im- spherical form of the unnumbered
possible for the human soul to ex- worlds ; the limited power of our
perience any save a transient plea- visual organ, which can only sex-
sure from aught less than the infinite the beginnings of things ; perpetual
and eternal. Life itself is not a motion ; sound and scent, which
pleasure, because we know it is fail not when they are no longer
passing away. If we believed we within the reach of our senses ;
should be annihilated at death, the the revolution, in never-ending cy-
pain of life would be intolerable. cles, of years, seasons, weeks, and

We hold, therefore, that this sug- days ; renewed life never failing to
gestiveness which must not be come forth from rest and repose
confused with obscurity, an element ay, even from death and corrup-
antagonistic to poetry must under- tion ; imaginary horizons, vanishing
lie every expression of poetry, what- distances, light prevailing over dark-
ever form it may take. A didactic nes.s ; the thrill of awful pleasure
poem is a contradiction in terms, with which the created soul of man
although such a production may apprehends this deep meaning of
abound in poetical passages. It things that spiritual instinct to
reminds one of the pictures one which time is a pain, eternity a rap-
sees sometimes in which the paint- ture in all are mirrored, in every
er represents with great accuracy variety and form of grace and love-
a melon or grapes, a glass with liness, as well as of unsightliness
wine in it, knives and forks, a loaf and horror, Infinitude, Immor-
of .bread, a cheese sometimes, not tality, God the infinitely lovable,
omitting the maggots, or a lobster because he is the infinitely Beauti-
tempts his brush in short, any- ful and True.

thing which goes into the human In proportion to the strength of

mouth for bodily sustenance. Or- this instinct is the excellence or

dinary folk gape with wonder at inferiority of the poetic gift. From

the cleverness of the imitation ; this must it draw all its highest

but there is no one so dull as to inspirations. Poetry is, in fact, its

suppose that there is in it any of advertent expression ; and thus the

the poetry of art. poet is, like God only, of course,

The visible creation is the ex- after a secondary and imitative

pression of the divine Idea in it. fashion a creator (TTOI^T?}?). He

It is impossible, consequently, that avails himself of some of the illimi-

it should not express, in all its table wealth of imagery in which

infinitude of forms, modes, color, God has expressed, or given objec-

scent, sound, etc., the truth and tive existence to, his own one but

beauty of Him who conceived it. infinitely varied idea, and, by fresh

It would be contrary to reason to combinations, throws them into

suppose that he sent it forth into really new forms or creations. Out

objective existence as a mere toy of many examples that come to

for the amusement of his august mind for excellence in this is less

creature, as we throw dissolving uncommon than in the higher order

views of grotesque figures upon a of poetry, of which the crown and

2l6

Modern English Poetry.

lord of nature form the material-
may be quoted the following crea-
tion of a midsummer noon in the
Paradise, by Morris :

iw \Vithin the gardens once again they met,
That HOW the roses did well-nigh forget ;
For hot July was drawing to an end,
And August came the fainting year to mend
With fruit and grain ; so 'neath the trellises,
Nigh blossomless, did they lie well at ease,
And watched the poppies burn across the grass,
And o'er the bindweed's bell the brown bee pass,
Stiil murmuring of his gains. Windless and bright
The morn had been, to help their dear delight ;
But heavy c ouds, ere noon, grew round the sun,
And, half-way to the zenith, wild and dun
The sky grew, and the thunder growled afar ;
But, ere the steely * clouds began their war,
A change there came, and, as by some great hand,
The clouds that hung in threatening o'er the land
Were drawn away ; then a light wind arose
That shook the light stems of that flowery close,
And made men sigh for pleasure."

This brings us to another, and an
important, point in which it is our
misfortune to differ from Mr. Sted-
man. He regards poetry as an art.
He treats it as such throughout
this work ; and as such he criticises
it. Hence his criticism is almost
exclusively technical ; hence, too,
it exhibits frequent inconsistencies.
For example, amongst the proper-
ties he assigns to the highest poetry,
which we have already quoted, he
places spontaneity. By this term
he means, we presume, a freedom
from effort, the unbidden outflow
of imagination, not the labored pro-
duct of teaching and practice. But
this is utterly inapplicable to art,
which supposes instruction, clumsy
first efforts, and perfection acquir-
ed only by years of toil. What
there is of art in poetry is limited,
or nearly so, to its expression; and
even here the less there is of art,
and the more of what Mr. Stedman
means by spontaneity, the loftier
and the more genuine the poetry.
It is no praise but a depreciation

* This epithet, to our mind, is a blemish in a very
beautiful creation. In the midst of lofty and sug-
gestive natural imagery it abruptly sinks us to a
vulgar matter-of-fact struggle of men at fisticuffs
armed in the product of the blacksmith's shop.

of Matthew Arnold's or Tennyson s
poetry to trace the inspiration of
one to Bion and Moschus and of
the other to Theocritus. In good
sooth, he does the laureate injustice
in the far-fetched examples of imi-
tation of Theocritus he ascribes to
him. It is the blemish of nearly
all our modern poetry that its ex-
pression is so labored, so technical.
For this it is that, in the highest
poetry, nearly all who have tried it
have failed ; none more signally
than Tennyson in Queen Mary.
One only has succeeded Sir Au-
brey de Vere. Another whom,
because he has so foully outraged
the moral sense of all mankind, we
prefer not to name until he has
made reparation, and who, if he
had not cast from him all sense of
the beautiful and the true, might
have been perhaps the greatest poet
of the age is as remarkable for the
originality and unstudiedness of his
expression as for the brilliance and
fecundity of his imagination.

Mr. Stedman literally limits po-
etry to expression. In a passage
at the side of which is the marginal
index, "What constitutes a poet,"
he writes : " Again, the grammarian's
statement is true, that poetry is a
means of expression. A poet may
differ from crther men in having
profounder emotions and clearer
perceptions ; but this is not for him
to assume, nor a claim which they
are swift to grant. The lines,

" Oh ! many are the poets that are sown
By nature men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine,
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse,"

imply that the recognized poet is
one who gives voice, in expressive
language, to the common thought
and feeling which lie deeper than
ordinary speech. He is the inter-
preter ; moreover, he is the maker
an artist of the beautiful, the

Modern English Poetry.

217

inventor of harmonious numbers
which shall be a lure and a repose."
It is clear from this unintelligible
and self-contradicting passage that
the writer has no theory of poetry.
Vet in it he makes a very definite
attempt to sketch such theory,
although he before told us that
he has none. What he means
by it being " a grammarian's state-
ment " that " poetry is a means of
expression ' we know not. Had
he asserted that poetry is the poet's
means of expression, we could have
understood him without agreeing
with him; but he identifies poetry
with its expression. Say they must
co-exist ; but they are not identical.
There is not a human soul without
a body, nor a leaf without the sap
of the tree; but great confusion
would ensue from identifying the
one with the other. He goes, how-
ever, even further than this. It
seems to be his idea that no one
can be a poet who does not write
poetry. It is true he uses the term
' recognized," but he goes on to
describe the poet as " an artist of
the beautiful, the inventor of har-
monious numbers." But it is not
necessary, for any one to be a poet,
that he should be recognized as
such. There are those who " want
the acomplishment of verse " through
the very intensity of the poetic gift.
Their intuitions are so profound
that language sinks, under the task
of conveying them ; expression is
overwhelmed. People never write
more feebly than when under the
influence of strong emotion. For
this reason it is, too, that poetry
may sometimes be improved by the
travail of art, the less, however, in
proportion to the inspiration of the
poet. There are those, pre-emi-
nently Shakspere, in whom the ex-
pression is nearly as inspired as the
poetry.

Ingenium misera fortunatius arte
Credit, et excludit sanos Helicone Poe'ta*
Democritus.

In more than one passage Mr.
Stedman approaches the truth about
poetry, as when he says that u po-
ets differ from other men in having
profounder emotions and clearer
perceptions "; and again when he
writes : " Certain effects are suggest-
ed by nature ; the poet discovers
new combinations within the ground
which these afford." If for "ef-
fects " had been substituted " con-
ceptions of the beautiful," it would
have been very near a sufficiently
accurate description of the creative
power of the poet; but he is ham-
pered by his identification of poetry
with its expression,andso, even here,
substitutes " effects ' -which real-
ly has no meaning in the context
for ideas. Poetry is the intuition of
the Beautiful and True as expressed
in nature and in man, not an analysis
of its causes and effects. Not the least
inspired of modern poets, Rossetti,
has very exquisitely sung this the-
ory of poetry in a sonnet on " St.
Luke the Painter " :

11 Scarcely at once she [Art] dared to rend the mist
Of devious symbols : but soon having wist

How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day
Are symbols also in some deeper way,
She looked through these to God, and was God's
priest."

The fault of almost all the modern
English poets is that they are too
artistic. Certainly their poetry can-
not be blamed as carmen quod non.

Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atque
Perfectum decies non castigavit ad unguem.

But it makes too much display of
labor. We admire its artistic skill,
and that is its principal attraction.
We feel that it is not nature which
is hymning amidst so much art.
The result of such obvious effort
betrays the handicraft of the arti-
san rather than the inspiration of
the poet. It is the Versailles foun-

21 S Modern English Poetry.

tains instead of Niagara. It cannot the wings soon droop, and the poet

be too much insisted on that poetry is on the earth again, or lower than

is not one of the fine arts. The the earth anywhere but soaring

greater number of modern English heavenwards. He has in him the

poets, however, treat it as such, as making of a poet. Had he the

much as is possible with only the Catholic faith, his imagination would

imagery of words for their material, carry him to great heights and keep

They are disciples rather of Horace him there. He might have soared

than of Democritus. There is plen- nigh to Shakspere. His talent is

ty of labor and litura, and of verse dramatic which is to say, his

perfectum decies ad unguem / of inge- poetic gift is of the highest order ;

ilium miserd fortunatius arte but lit- but nature has no divine sugges-

tle. They surpass in mountain- tiveness to him, the hollow shell

labor the forgotten LucUius,' who in whispers no eternity in his dull ear ;

versu faciendo scepe caput scabunt, vivos for him man has no end, events

et rodunt ungues; but they have too no purpose ; and inasmuch as man

little of " the sacred madness of the has a definite end, and a sublime

bards " for admission into Helicon, one, to which events definitely con-

The reason is not far to seek. We tribute, he is not able to create men

notice a similar phenomenon in and women, a destiny, or destinies,

Greece when religious belief was in any of which should there be a

forced to retire before scepticism living verisimilitude. A plot in

and the prating sophists. To the which men, women, and children

sceptical temper of the age is un- talk and act as men, women, and

doubtedly owing the labor devot- children do talk and act is out of

ed to expression, which has done his reach. His highest effort is the

all it could to reduce poetry to dramatic poem, in which, however,

an art. It has also occasioned a occur at times' passages of great

certain subjectivity, if we may use dramatic power, showing what he

the word a painful mental analy- could have done had he not been a

sis which is fatal to poetry. heathen.

Robert Browning is the greatest Mr. Tennyson has been the sub-
offender in this regard. So pain- ject of various articles in THE CA-
fully intense, in truth, is his intro- THOLIC WORLD ; but so markedly
spection that he pays far less atten- does he contrast with Browning,
tion to expression than his contem- and so noteworthy is the different
poraries. Cut off from the divine bias given to the poetry of each by
suggestiveness of nature by his hard the materialistic spirit of the age,
materialism, he does nothing but that we cannot afford to pass him
think; and thinking poetically rather by here in complete silence,
than syllogistically is an unamalga- We may look in vain in the poet-
mation. Thought and expression ry of the laureate for passages of
are alike confused, rugged, and dramatic force such as now and
difficult. The reader, without even then light up the creaking, groaning
melody of rhythm to help him on, poetry of Browning; but he never
stumbles and gropes through intri- grovels, as the latter does very often
cate sentences, parentheses in pa- indeed.

rentheses, a startling image riere Tennyson has strong sympathy

and there ; anon a whirring flight with the one faith, and, as one may

of poetry, or what resembles it ; but think, a kind of supernatural bias in

Modern English Poetry.

219

its favor, or he too, like the author
of Paracelsus and Bishop Bloscgranis
Apology, might have used his poetry
as a fantastic costume for crude
psychological problems and for the
mind-darkness of doubt. The dis-
tinguishing characteristic of his po-
etry is the exquisitely artistic finish
of its expression. Every line shows
signs of careful toil. His genius
has been without doubt hampered
by it. He is more artist than poet ;
and, as though conscious of this, he
seems to claim inspiration by an af-
fectation of oracular obscurity. Yet
not unseldom the refined simplicity
of word and phrase, the grace of
imagery, and all the artistic bril-
liance of choicest ornament ex-
press poetry, although never of a
very high order. An elegiac poem
such as In Memoriam, of nearly
seven hundred quatrains, however
beautiful in expression, has "unreal "
on the face of it ; and that is fatal
to its pretensions as a poem. Yet
are there indications here and there
of true poetic feeling.

Painful is it, and not without
shame, to have a difference with all
the world of criticism. But if we
have reason, our fellow-critics will
not disdain us ; and if we have
not, we throw the blame on our
theory of poetry. But there is a
modern poet Rossetti whom, on
the whole, we must place on a higher
pedestal than Tennyson. With an
equal simplicity of word and phrase,
a refinement of expression not infe-
rior, he has the art, if it be the re-
sult of art, to conceal his art. It
is true he has all the artistic finish
of Ti on so much so that we
cannot but feel that it is an artist
who is singing to us; but the artist
dts rs in the poet. We must

disenchant ourselves of the thrall
of his poetry before we can criticise
the artistic perfectness of its ex-

pression. It is not only that, as
Tennyson, he paints scenes of na-
ture and human doings with consum-
mate art ; but, true poet that he is,
he catches the very life of nature
and it throbs within his verse. His
soul echoes to the Beautiful and the
True imaged in nature through all
her modes and forms of color, scent,
and sound ; he reads their meaning ;
and when he reproduces them, as
Mr. Stedman has it, " in different
combinations," they are as sugges-
tive of those ideas of God as the
very images of nature herself. Take,
for example, the eleventh song in
The House of Life The Sea Limits :

" Consider the sea's listless chime :
Time's self it is made audible
The murmur of the earth's own shell.

Secret cont nuance sublime
Is the sea's end : our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was

This sound hath told the lapse of time.

" No quiet, which is death's it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath
Its painful pulse is in the sands
Lost utterly, the whole sky stands,
Gray and not known, along its path.

" Listen alone beside the sea,

Listen alone among the woods ;
Those voices of t\* in solitudes
Shall have one sound alike to thee.
Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
Surge and sink back and surge again
Still the one voice of wave and tree.

" Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips : they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.
And all mankind is thus at heart
. Not anything but what thou art .
And earth, sea, man, are all in each."

This is poetry of the loftiest kind.

We cannot forbear quoting one
more example of his "quality." It
is poetry which reaches near to
Shakspere. " The poet of the
world ' himself might have thus
grandly imaged lust with more
nervous terseness, may be ; but the
structure of dramatic numbers ex-
acts that, and we do not yet know

220

Modern English Poetry.

that Mr. Rossetti is not equal to
the drama.

" Like a toad within a stone
Seated while time crumbles on ;
Which sits there since the earth was cursed
For man's transgression at the first ;
Which, living through all centuries,
Not once has seen the sun arise ;
Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
The earth's whole summers have not warmed ;
Which always, whitherso the stone
Be flung, sits there, deaf, blind, alone
Ay, and shall not bs driven out
Till that which shuts him round about
Break at the very Master's stroke,
And the dust thereof vanish as smoke,
And the seed of man vanish as dust :
Even so within this world is lust."

Thus much we have quoted in
support of a criticism which will
not be readily assented to by all.
Our space does not admit of our
quoting more. But we refer the
reader to The Blessed Damozel as a
gem not to be outshone ; and, for
dramatic power joined to the lof-
tiest poetry, to A Last Confession.

Next after Rossetti, if at all after,
comes William Morris. In the form
and sound and bias of their num-
bers there is a close resemblance.
The imaginings of the latter flow
more profusely, perhaps because he
does not tarry to spend so much
care upon his art. Indeed, whilst
the art of Rossetti is faultless in its
way, a seldom blemish, like a mi-
nute blur in a diamond of the best
water, may be detected in that of
Morris, as the word " now ' thrice
in three successive quatrains, the
word " golden ' in five successive
lines, in a scene, of almost tragic
pathos, of Sir Galahad, a Christmas
Mystery the finest music he has
smitten from the chords of no fee-
ble instrument :

l> Why not, O twisting knight, now he is dead?"

But amidst so much finish and fault-
lessness slight fallibilities like these
are, as it were, a relief. The truth
is, the artistic spirit in both, which
(and no wonder) is all enamored of

mediaeval art art in those ages of
faith when she appeared in forms
of beauty as sublime as faultless
is too forgetful of the living, breath-
ing, moving present. That they should
drink in inspirations of the Beauti-
ful and the True from the forms in
which that most poetic age embo-
died them, is well ; but the ar ti-
the poetic expression was natural
to that epoch ; it is not natural to
this. If this is made too conspi-
cuous, as we think it is in both these
poets, there is a risk of mannerism ;
and mannerism is an artistic blem-
ish. The attempt to entice men
away from the turbid and muddy
torrent of sounding hap-hazard
words, which, setting in from John-
son and Gibbon, has swollen into
an inundation of all but sheer non-
sense from the babbling tributaries
of the cheap press, to the nervous
grace of simple words and simple
sentences and the suggestive imagery
of pure nature, is a service to letters
as well as art, for which alone they
and Tennyson, and all the poets of
that school, deserve to be crowned.
But aught by which so profoundly
artistic a renaissance is needlessly
dissociated from the present should
have been carefully eschewed. In
the matter of words we do not
think that such as "japes," "dro-
mond," " whatso," the substitution
of the ending " head " for " hood '
in words for which universal custom
has decreed the former, and so on,
are a needed revival of the obso-
lete. We think, too, that simplicity
of grammatical construction has
been pushed to the verge of affec-
tation. Still, it is so artistically
done, is so beautiful in itself, and
evidences such a return of leal hom-
age from hideousness to the right-
ful Beautiful and the True, that it
goes against us to complain.

It is time that the appointment

Modern English Poetry.

221

of a poet-laureate should cease in
England. It is an anachronism.
It is almost an insult to the world
of letters. These are not times in
which people are likely to accept
the criticism of the British crown
or of the crown's advisers as decisive
of a poet's merits. So, too, there is
such a dearth of independent, trust-
worthy criticism, it has become
such a follow-the-leader kind of
business, that if the crown merely
caps the opinion of the contemporary
public, there is every chance of the
wrong man being put in the wrong
place. At any rate the appoint-
ment should not be limited to one.
There should be " power to add to
their number." We have no hesi-
tation in assigning a higher niche to
either Rossetti or Morris than to
Tennyson. In two respects Mor-
ris surpasses Rossetti. We have as
yet from the latter no sustained ef-
forts such as The Earthly Paradise
of the former, and the poetic fire
appears to be kindled in him with
less effort. We are quite sure that it
is in no spirit of challenge or rivalry
that he takes Tennyson's very own
theme in The Defence of Guenevere,
King Arthur's Tomb, Sir Galahad,
a Christmas Mystery, and The Cha-
pel in Lyoness j but it is an involun-
tary.expression of conscious power.
In all the Idyls of the King there
is not a passage of such vivid poetry
as the following in The Defence of

' All I have said is truth, by Christ's dear tears.'
She would not speak another word, but stood
Turned sideways, listening like a man who hears

" His brother's trumpet sounding through the wood
Of his foe's lances. She leaned eagerly,
And gave a slight spring sometimes, as she could

" At hi t hear something really ; joyfully

cheek grew crimson, as the headlong speed
Of the ro.in charger drew all men to see.
The huisht who came was Lauucelot at good

d."

The poetry of the Idyls, glittering
md charming as it may be, is cold

and pulseless by the side of King
Arthur s Tomb, a poem which rises
to the utmost height of tragic pathos.
The description of the remorse of
Guenevere for merely ideas of dis-
loyalty to her kingly husband which
she had permitted herself to enter-
tain, as well as of the satisfaction
she made, is poetry in its noblest
form, short of the drama. But we
should never meet throughout all
the poetry of Tennyson such blem-'
ishes as those we have already quot-
ed, nor such as

"I tell myself a tale
T hat will not last beyond the whitewashed wall '

an image which is beneath the dig-
nity of poetry, whilst it rather dulls
than quickens our idea of the fleet-
ing nature of his tale ; or

" . . . till the bell
Of her mouth on my cheek sent*a delight
Through all my ways of being. ..."

But for a poetry so lofty and so in-
'spiring we can well afford to pay
the penalty of a few blemishes.

We think that he shares with
Tennyson, to a certain extent, the
fault of obscurity never, as Ten-
nyson, in single passages, but in
the design and end of entire pieces.
We cannot suppose, for example,
that he has not a definite end and
purpose in The Earthly Paradise ;
but it is an immense defect that it
must be very carefully studied in
order even to conjecture one ; that
it does not readily occur, and still
more that, study it as one may, he
cannot feel quite sure he has con-
jectured rightly. And we feel this
very serious defect the more keen-
ly because in several of the separ-
ate portions of that poem we are
afraid to trust ourselves implicitly to
the poet ; we dare not throw our-
selves into his imagination, fear-
ful whither it is to bear us. This
is specially remarkable in Cupid

222

Modern English Poetry.

and Psyche. The subject startles us
from the first. Gods and goddesses
whose memory only remains as the
long-passed-a\vay images of false-
hood instead of the Beautiful and
the True, especially sensuous imper-
sonations of impurity, are a subject
which is calculated to scare rather
than attract us. But we gain con-
fidence as we read on. Had Byron
sung of it, we should have luscious
and sensuous imagery of base sug-
gestiveness. Had it been the theme
of a living poet, we should have
had shameless obscenity. Our poet
transfigures it into purity itself. Not
an unchaste image shocks the soul.
The whole subject is etherealized
we would say, if we felt quite sure
of its purpose, even spiritualized.
As we interpret it, the heathen
myth, although used without stint,
is, by the inimitable genius of the
poet, stripped of all impure sugges-
tiveness, and is even made a vehicle
of exquisite beautifulness for con-
veying one of the most touching
revelations of the great poem of hu-
manity. Psyche (the soul) is re-
presented to us undergoing by the
power of divine love all sorrow, over-
coming superhuman difficulties, suc-
cored always, when hope was well-
nigh gone, by guardian angels, until,

" Led by the hand of Love, she took her way
Unto a vale beset with heavenly trees,
Where all the gathered gods and goddesses
Abode her coming ; but when Psyche saw
The Father's face, she, fainting with her awe,
Had fallen, but that Love's arm held her up.

" Then brought the cup-bearer a golden cup
And gently set it in her slender hand,
And while in dread and wonder she did stand
The Father's awful voice smote on her ear:
1 Drink i^ow, O beautiful ! and have no fear ;
For with this draught shall thou be born again,
And live for ever free from care and pain.'

" Then, pale as privet, took she heart to drink,
And therewithal most strange new thoughts did

think,

And unknown feelings seized her, and there came
Sudden remembrance, vivid as a flame.
Of everything that she had done on earth,
Although it all seemed changed in weight and

worth,

"Small things becoming great, and great things

small ;

And godlike pity touched her therewithal
For her old self, for sons of men that die ;
And that sweet new-born immortality
Now with full love her rested spirit fed.
Then in that concourse did she lift her head,
And stood at last a very goddess there,
And all cried out at seeing her grown so fair."

This is the inspiration of true
poetry. Nothing at all approaching
it can be found throughout the
poetry of Tennyson.

In contrast to the soul led by
divine love, the poet depicts her
sisters devoured by envy and ha-
tred, until, deceiving themselves
the while with the dream that they
too were objects of delight to divine
love, the one having reached * the
bare cliff's rugged brow," her end
of life,

11 She cried aloud, ' O Love ! receive me now,
Who am not all unworthy to be thine.'
And with that word her jewelled arms did shine
Outstretched beneath the moon, and with one

breath
She sprang to meet the outstretched arms of

Death,

The only god that waited for her there,
And in a gathered moment of despair
A hideous thing her trait'rous life did seern ";

and the other

"... rose, and, as she might,

Arrayed herself alone in that still night,

And so stole forth, and, making no delay,

Came to the rock a-nigh the dawn of day ;

No warning there her sister's spirit gave,

No doubt came nigh her the doomed soul to save,

But with a fever burning in her blood,

With glittering eyes and crimson cheeks, she

stood

One moment on the brow, the while she cried,
k Receive me, Love, chosen to be thy bride
From all the million women of the world !'
Then o'er the cliff her wicked limbs were hurled,
Nor has the language of the earth a name x
For that surprise of terror and of shame."

Can anything be grander than
this imaged suicide of the evil human
soul? And the glowing description
of Psyche content to forget her fa-
ther and her father's house, and
finding the fondest delight in se-
questering herself alone with her di-
vine Lover, whom she never sees,
only whose voice she hears, is the
most exquisite piece of poetic im-

Forty Hours Devotion in tJie new CatJiedral of Boston. 221,

ining to be met with anywhere.
Hut the poem deserves a criticism
to itself.

We have here to pause. We
had hoped to apply similar canons
of criticism to others of our mod-
cm poets. We had selected Bu-
chanan, Adelaide Procter, Matthew
Arnold, Aubrey de Vere, and es-
pecially his father, whose mantle

has descended on him. Sir Au-
brey de Vere is the only one of the
modern* poets who has written a
poem belonging to the highest or-
der of poetry Mary Tudor, a his-
torical drama which, although at
a long distance from the dramas of
" the poet of the world," is the near-
est to them that has been written
since his day.

ON THE FIRST OCCASION OF THE FORTY HOURS' DEVO-
TION IN THE NEW CATHEDRAL OF BOSTON.

41 No ivor d shall be impossible with God"

O BLESSED bells ! ring joyfully to-day;

O incense clouds ! float gladly up to heaven ;

All glory, honor, power, and praise be given
To Him whom earth and sea and sky obey.
Behold, the conqueror doth assert his sway

Here where men once would fain have died unshriven,

Proclaimed the Holy Faith unholy leaven,
And drove its followers out as Satan's prey.
But now, beneath a great cathedral's dome,

The Sacred Heart doth beat, and men adore ;
Our Lord hath found at last a glorious home,
In spite of unbelief that rages still.

Thy kingdom come," pray we as ne'er before,
Whose eyes have seen his power to work his will.

MARCH, 1876.

224

Sir Thomas More.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

VII.

"THIS is very singular!" cried
Sir Roger Lassels, master of the
earl's household, as they passed the
edge of the wood. " I had made
a bet with myself that we would
follow the road on the bank of the
river. At all events, the expedition
will not be a very long one, since they
have given me no order for provi-
sions. It is true, however, that our
poor young lord's head is not as
sound as it might be. Ah ! well,
in the time of the late duke things
were not managed in this fashion.
When they were going into the coun-
try, the duke would send for me
eight days in advance. ' Lassels,'
he would say ' my dear Lassels,'
slapping me on the shoulder, * above
all take great care that we shall want
for nothing. Prepare everything
in advance ; because in matters of
cooking, you know, I hate nothing
so much as the uncertainty of the
' fortune of the pot.' He was right,
very right, was the duke. The duch-
ess used always to say on seeing our
wagons passing by : * With Roger
Lassels they carry everything with
them.'"

In the meantime the first rays of
the sun were not slow in dissipat-
ing the heavy mists of morning;
the air became pure and exhilarat-
ing, and the northern pines, which
grew in great profusion in that por-
tion of the forest, imparted to the
atmosphere a sweet, pungent odor.
Myriads of dewdrops, more bril-
liant than diamonds, were suspend-
ed frpm the points of the leaves,

which the slightest breath of air was
sufficient to call down in a laughing
shower. Creeping vines, thickly
laden with blossoms, crossed and
recrossed the road, almost hidden
by the thick verdure with which
it was overgrown. The birds salut-
ed the return of day with a thou-
sand joyous songs ; me deer and
young fawns bounded beneath the
heavy shade of the forest. All na-
ture wore an air of majestic beauty,
calm and tranquil ; the heart of
man is alone found to remain al-
ways in a state of agitation and
unrest.

"Oh! what a beautiful shot,"
cried a voice from the crowd, on
seeing a large grouse, its wings drip-
ping with the dew, flying slowly
above their heads.

" Take it, then !" cried another.

" For what purpose ?" exclaimed
Northumberland.

Sir Walsh, hearing the voice of
Lord Percy, took advantage of that
moment to urge his horse beside
him, and declare the pain it caused
him to see his friend so deeply de-
pressed.

"What could you expect?" re-
plied Percy. " All is ended with me.
I have renounced everything. I am
detached from everything earthly.
A single moment has dissipated all
the illusions of my short and mis-
erable life illusions in which so
many others remain for ever envel-
oped. I believed that henceforth a
word would be sufficient to ansv.vr
my every thought; to suffer alone,

Sir TJiouias More.

while awaiting death, which is only
the beginning of life. Might I not
thus believe myself to be almost
shielded by evils, since I was deter-
mined to endure them all ? One evil
only I had not foreseen that of be-
ing made the cause of suffering to
others ; of becoming, in the hands of
an unjust and barbarous ruler, an in-
strument destined to destroy my
friends ! Ah ! it is this that makes
me rebel, that bows me to the earth
and surpasses everything that I have
yet been made to suffer. I go at this
moment to arrest the Archbishop of
York to conduct him, doubtless, on
the road to execution ; and the day
will come when those who loved him
will exclaim, while they point the
finger of scorn at my abode : ' There
lives the man who arrested the
great Wolsey, the venerable friend
who had reared and educated him
in his own house !"

"The great Wolsey!" replied
Walsh, astonished.

" Yes, great" said Northumber-
land. " When he will be no more,
then will they forget his faults and
appreciate his great qualities. He
has known how to keep the lion
chained, so that you have only seen
him lap ; but you will know him bet-
ter if he ever gets the chance to use
his teeth."

'Who is this lion ?" asked Walsh.

"I cannot name his name," replied
Northumberland angrily ; " he is one
whose claws tear the heart and de-
stroy the innocent ; one who is
Hut never mind !" And he abrupt-
ly ceased speaking.

After

through the forest, they at last
emerged into a vast plain, in the
midst of which appeared several
villages ; and very soon they found
themselves near a church, whose
ringing chimes announced the be-
ginning of the divine Office.

VOL. XXIII. 15

riding for some time

"Ah!" said Sir Roger Lassels to
himself, " there is to be Mass at the
chapel of Sir William Harrington."

At that moment the Earl of
Northumberland turned to Sir
Walsh. " If agreeable to you," he
said, " we will stop and hear Mass.
We shall, at any rate, arrive soon
enough at Cawood. You will have
an opportunity, if you are curious,
of visiting the monuments Sir
William Harrington has had erect-
ed to the memory of his parents in
this chapel, founded by him in order
that prayers may every day be of-
fered for the repose of their souls."*

' I ask nothing better," replied
Sir Walsh.

They all entered the chapel, where
Mass had already begun. A great
number of the inhabitants of the
surrounding country were assem-
bled, and Lord Percy found him-
self close beside a woman, still
very young, but whose features
seemed to have been entirely
changed by misery and suffering.
Two small children knelt beside
her and held to her coarse, black
woollen gown.

" Mother, I am very hungry yet !"
said the eldest in a voice as sweet
as that of a young dove. " Brother
has eaten up all the bread." And
he laid his head against her shoul-
der.

The young woman looked at the
child, and her eyes filled with tears.

" My dear child," she replied in
a low, choking voice, " I have no-
thing more to give you ; this evening,
may be, I shall find something to
buy bread with. If your father were
living, w r e would be very happy ;
but, my son, a poor widow is cast

* The son has now ceased to invoke in this once
hallowed spot the divine mercy on the sonls of his
fathers ; the bells no more announce the vows nor
the regrets of the heart ; the august Sacrifice is
never offered up but in the gloomy silence imposed
ty persecution.

226

Sir Thomas More.

off by all the world, even though
she is too feeble to work for bread
for her children."

Tears streamed from her eyes as
she pressed the starving child close
to her bosom.

Northumberland listened to the
woman's mournful complaint, ob-
serving especially that she did not
murmur ; she only wept. The ex-
pression of her pale and suffering
face, as well as the feeling she had
expressed of entire abandonment,
filled his soul with pity.

" Such as these," he said to him-
self " such as these indeed have a
right to complain of life and its
miseries. I have ignored them.
Shut up in my castle, I have even
forgotten the orphan. Of no possi-
ble service to my kind, the earth
supports me like an arid, sterile
plant. Cruel selfishness ! Is it, then,
essential for all to smile around me
before I can think of those who are
crushed by poverty and misfortune ?
My tears, my sighs, my regrets,
have all been in vain, have vanish-
ed into thin air ; there remains for
me nothing but duty to my neigh-
bor, and that I have not done !"

Greatly agitated, he remained
for an instant motionless, then, lean-
ing over toward the woman, he re-
quested her to leave the chapel for
a moment.

Surprised that any one should
think of speaking to her, she raised
her eyes, all streaming with tears,
to his face, while astonishment was
painted on her emaciated features.

She arose, however, and followed
him out, and they stopped a short
distance from the chapel.

" You weep !" said Northumber-
land compassionately. " You are a
widow, it seems. Are you not able
to support your children ?"

" Alas ! sir," replied the young
woman without hesitation, " my

husband died in a strange land
while on a voyage which would
have secured us a living ; and I, a
stranger in this country where he
has left me, and where I have no
relations, no friends, to assist me,
have been brought down to extreme
poverty. My work has scarcely
sufficed to keep us alive, and to-day
it has failed entirely."

" Poor woman !" said Northum-
berland, putting some pieces of
gold in her hand, " hereafter have
no fears ; I will take care of you
and your young children."

" My God !" cried the woman, fall-
ing on her knees " bread, bread
for my children ! Are you an an-
gel sent from heaven to save us ?
O sir ! who will thank you for
me ? Ah ! it shall be my poor
children and your own ! May
they love and bless you as I do this
moment."

"Alas!" replied Lord Percy, "I
have no children ; I shall never
have any ! But you, poor mother,
can at least rejoice in the happiness
of possessing children to love and
cherish you."

In spite of the painful recollec-
tions awakened in his soul, when
Percy returned to the chapel his
heart was overflowing with a secret
and sweet consolation ; he felt that
henceforth he would find brothers
and friends in these unfortunates,
whose father he would replace by
taking upon himself their support.

When the Mass was ended, they
all remounted their horses to con-
tinue their journey. They had
scarcely started when they were
joined by a troop of horsemen as
numerous as it was brilliant, being
composed of a great number of the
most distinguished gentlemen in
the province, who were proceeding
to York to assist at the installation
of their archbishop. At their head

Sir Thomas More.

227

rode old Robert Ughtred, chief of
one of the oldest Yorkshire families,
whose valor and .merit had been
admired by all his contemporaries.
Six of his sons accompanied him.
At his side rode Clifton, Lord d'Hu-
manby, his friend and relative ;
Thomas Wentworth, of Nettlestead ;
Sir Arthur Ingram de Temple,
Lord of Nevvsam ; Walter Vavas-
sour ; John de Hothum, Lord of
Cramwick and of Bierly ; William
Aytoun, Swillington ; Meynill, Lord
of Semer and Duerteton, together
with a crowd of others. They recog-
nized with astonishment the Earl of
Northumberland, and eagerly ap-
proached to salute him.

This meeting, but little agreeable
at first, became still less so when in-
formed of the object of their jour-
ney. Percy, however, deemed it
inexpedient to let this opportunity
pass of creating for himself a sort
of justification for the future. On
being told, therefore, that they would
spend two days at the little village
of Cawood before going to salute
the archbishop, he assured them he
would be most happy to do the-
same and not separate from their
company ; but he was forced to go
where he had been ordered, and
that it was a mission on which he
proceeded with the greatest reluc-
tance and sorrow.

The travellers, astonished at his
singular explanation, looked in-
quiringly at each other ; but as
they regarded the Earl of North-
umberland with great deference
ause of his rank, his well-known
worth, and the affection they cher-
ished for the memory of his father,
they held their peace, and con-
tinued their journey until within a
very short distance of Cawood.

>twithstanding the resolution
aken by Cardinal Wolsey that the

ceremony of his installation should
be attended by the least possible
Sclaf) he could not prevent the en-
tire nobility of the province from
assembling to do him honor and to
express on this solemn occasion
their affection and joy. The little
village of Cawood and the castles
around it were crowded with visi-
tors. The archbishop's courtyard
was constantly filled with carts laden
with game, fruits, and all kinds of
provisions, sent to him from every
direction to assist in doing honor to
the entertainment it was customarv

to give on these occasions.

Wolsey felt touched to the heart
by these testimonials of friendship
and esteem, in which there was no
reason to suspect that self-interest
mingled its destructive poison. Nev-
ertheless, he felt more than ever de-
pressed, and his sptrit was oversha-
dowed by dark and terrible pre-
sentiments, in spite of all his efforts
to dispel them.

It was the hour for the repast
taken by our fathers at noon, and
Wolsey found himself seated oppo-
site the salt-cellar which divided
the table, and served also to desig-
nate the rank of the guests. In those
remote times a common expression
prevailed : " It takes place above or
below the salt."

The chaplains were seated around
him, quietly discussing the foun-
dation of the cathedral of York.
Some of them stated that the Ven-
erable Bede alleged in his writ-
ings that it was Edwin the Saxon,
King of Northumberland, who, hav-
ing embraced the Christian faith in
the year 627, was the first to build
a wooden church, which he after-
wards rebuilt of stone. But the
others contended, the monument
having been pillaged and devastated
by the Danes, then burned by the
Normans, together with a portion

228

Sir Thomas More.

of the city, the title of founder
could only be accorded to Arch-
bishop Roger, who commenced the
erection of the superb edifice in
1171, and to his successors, John
of Romagna and William of Melton,
who had the honor of completing it
after forty years' labor. They in-
sisted that it would assuredly be
just to include among them Robert
Percy, Lord of Bolton, who had all
the wood cut employed in the con-
struction, and Robert Vavassour,
who had furnished the stone.

The archbishop for a long while
had finished eating. He had listen-
ed patiently to their lengthy dis-
cussions. When he saw at last they
had nearly concluded, he arose to
say grace ; but at the moment they
were standing with bowed heads
awaiting the act of thanksgiving,
the black velvet robe of Dr. Augus-
tine, his physician, became entan-
gled in the foot of the large silver
cross that was carried before the
archbishop. This cross was stand-
ing in one corner, resting against the
tapestry, and the robe made it fall
with its entire weight on the head
of Dr. Bonner, who sat on the op-
posite side of the table. He utter-
ed a piercing cry.

They all rushed toward him.

" What is the matter with him ?"
demanded the archbishop, who had
seen nothing of the accident.

" The cross," explained Caven-
dish, his master of the horse " the
cross, which was leaning against the
wall, has fallen in Dr. Bonner's

face."
tt

In his face ! Is he bleeding ?"
cried Wolsey.

" Yes," replied several of those
who surrounded the wounded man,
"but it is nothing serious; the skin
only is broken."

"Ah!" said Wolsey, and he
stood motionless ; his head sank on

his breast, as tnougn he had sud-
denly fallen into a profound reverie.

' \Voe is me!" he at length ex-
claimed, "woe is me!" And the
tears coursed down his cheeks. He
quickly wiped them away and re-
tired immediately to his bedroom,
where no one dared follow him
without being summoned.

The attendants of the cardinal,
however, were extremely apprehen-
sive, having remarked the sudden
change in his manner and the ex-
treme pallor which had overspread
his countenance. Dr. Bonner es-
pecially earnestly insisted that Ca-
vendish should go to him at once.

He finally resolved to do so. On
entering the apartment he found
the archbishop on his knee's, and
remarked that the floor of his cham-
ber was wet with tears.

Wolsey made a sign for him to
retire ; but the faithful servitor stood
near the door and hesitated to obey
him. The cardinal then called him
to assist him in rising to his feet,
feeling, he said, extremely feeble.

" Alas ! my dear lord," said Ca-
Vendish, " what is it that so deeply
grieves you ? and why will you
withdraw from your trusty servi-
tors, if it is in their power to assist
you ?"

" I thank you, Cavendish," replied
the cardinal, inclining his head,
" but listen to me. My poor friend,
I am going to die very soon I have
a presentiment of it ; and God, in
his mercy, often sends us these warn-
ings, in order that we may not be
surprised by death. The cross of
York has fallen : it represents my-
self."

" Why think you so ? " asked
Cavendish earnestly. " This cross
fell because it was struck ; nothing
could have been more natural than
such an accident."

"No! no!" e'xclaimed Wolsey,

Sir Thomas More.

22Q

" it was not at all natural, but it is
only too true. York is overthrown !
Augustine is my accuser ; he makes
my own blood flow in making
Bonner bleed, the master of my
faculties and spiritual jurisdiction.
My destiny is accomplished. My
doom is sealed. Cavendish, if you
doubt it, you will soon be convinced.
My shadow, the sound of my name
alone, is sufficient to alarm them ;
already I am no more, and yet this
remnant of life makes them tremble,
even in the midst of their triumphs.
It is necessary for their peace that
my last breath be extinguished ;
they have resolved and they will ac-
complish it !"

" No ! no !" cried Cavendish,
deeply moved. " The king loves
you ; he will defend you ! All love
you," he continued warmly. " See
with what eagerness they hasten
hither to give you the most earnest
assurances of their devotion."

" That is true," replied Wolsey,
who was becoming more calm, and
was greatly relieved by the presence
of Cavendish. " It is the only feel-
ing of joy I have experienced in a
long time ; but I am grieved not to
have received any token of remem-
brance from the young Earl of
Northumberland. His intellect,
goodness, and his many amiable qua-
lities have always made me regard
him with the greatest esteem and
affection. They say he loves soli-
tude, and I am well assured that
he receives no visitors ; but I very
much fear he cherishes bitter recol-
lections of the court and Anne Bo-
Icyn. However, he should not take it
ill that I have helped to prevent
him from marrying such a woman !"

Whilst Wolsey was speaking a
great noise was heard in the court-
yard. Cavendish, at the cardinal's
request, immediately went out to
ascertain the cause.

He had advanced but a few
steps when he encountered an-
other equerry, coming in all haste to
announce the arrival of the Earl
of Northumberland.

Overjoyed at hearing the name,
Cavendish at once returned to in-
form the archbishop.

" Here is Lord Percy himself,
who also comes to congratulate your
grace!" he exclaimed the instant
he came in sight of Wolsey.

"The dear child!" cried the
cardinal, his heart overflowing with
a gush of tenderness. " Cavendish,
you are not mistaken. Eh ? Ah ! I
shall never forget him ! Let us go
and receive him, Cavendish."

He advanced with a tottering
step, and more rapidly than he was
able, toward the staircase which
Northumberland had just ascend-
ed. On seeing the archbishop ap-
proaching to meet him Lord Percy
felt his heart suddenly throb with a
sensation of inexpressible wretch-
edness.

"He comes to meet me!" he
exclaimed.

He found him so much changed,
so old and worn, that without his
vestments he would scarcely have
recognized him.

" He also has found the cup of
life embittered !" said Northum-
berland. " Sorrow carves . deep
furrows on the brow, and with hei
haggard finger impresses every
feature."

He turned anxiously to look for
Walsh, but found he was no longer
near him. In the meantime Wolsey
advanced rapidly toward him, and,
taking him in his arms, pressed him
closely to his heart.

" You are most welcome, my
dear lord ! How happy I am to see
you !" he exclaimed. " But why
have I not been informed of your
coming ? I should, at least, have

230 Sir Thomas More.

been prepared to give you a better self suddenly to a determined de-
reception ; " for you must know that gree of resolution, he approached,
what formerly required but a mo- and, laying his hand gently on the
merit to effect I am now scarcely arm of the archbishop, said in a
able to execute at all. But you voice tremulous with emotion :
will, I hope, appreciate my good * My lord, I arrest you on the
intentions; and if I am ever so charge of high treason !"
happy as to be re-established in my Wolsey sat so completely stupe-
fortune, I shall then be able to fied that he was incapable of utter-
express more worthily the joy I feel ing a word ; they gazed at each
at receiving you in my house." other in mournful silence.

" I thank your lordship," answer- ' Who has induced you to do

ed Northumberland. this?" the cardinal at length ex-

But he was unable to utter an- claimed, " and by what authority

other word. However, he embrac- do you it ?"

ed Wolsey, though with great ex- ' My lord," replied Northumber-

citement of manner, his hands land coldly, " I have a commission

trembling visibly in those of the that authorizes me; or that com-

archbishop. pels me, rather," he continued in a

" Let us go," continued Wolsey*, low voice.

glancing at the followers of Lord " Where is this commission ? Let

Percy. " I am glad to see you have me see it ?"

remembered the advice I gave you " No, my lord, I cannot."

in your youth, to love and take care "Then," cried Wolsey, "I will

of all your father's old domestics ; not submit to your authority."

that is why, I suppose, you have As he said this, Sir Walsh pushed

brought so many of them with you." Dr. Augustine, whom he had arrest-

' Yes, I prefer them," replied ed, rudely into the apartment. "Go

Northumberland. And Wolsey in there, traitor," he cried ; but per-

went and took them each by the ceiving the cardinal, he fell on his

hand, praising their fidelity and knees before him, and, removing his

recommending them to love their cap, bowed almost to the floor,

young master as he himself had Wolsey turned pale on seeing

always done. Walsh ; he at once recognized him

The more Wolsey exerted him- as being an officer of the king's

self to assure Northumberland of palace, and knew he would not be

the gratification he experienced at there without an express order,

his coming, the less strength Percy "Sir," he exclaimed, "rise, I im-

felt to thank him. However, the plore you ! My Lord of Northum-

cardinal begged to be allowed to berland comes to arrest me ! If

accompany him to his bed-cham- he has a commission, and you are

ber, where they might be alone, ex- with him for that purpose, you wil)

cept Cavendish, who remained near be pleased to let me see it."

the door, as his duty required him. " My "ord," answered Walsh, "if

For a moment they sat in silence, it please your grace, it is true that

Wolsey regarded Lord Percy with I have one ; but we cannot permit

astonishment on observing the you to see it. They have added to

latter change color and become the paper on which it is written

every instant more and more em- some instructions that we are bound

barrassed. At length, arousing him- not to make known."

Sir Thomas More. 231

" Then," cried Wolsey, melting I have committed many errors, I
into tears, " all is over with me ! know ; but it has been against God
They deprive me even of the means and against myself that I have com-
of defending myself, and my cruel mitted them, and not against my
enemies behold all their schemes king, whom I have always served
accomplished. It is well, sir," con- with an inviolable fidelity. I have
tinned the archbishop, turning his possessed great riches ; but I cm
back on the Earl of Northumber- ployed them in founding great
land; "I consent to surrender my- and useful establishments. I have-
self to you, but not to my Lord of held correspondence with foreign
Northumberland, who comes here princes, and have acquired great in-
only to enjoy my discomfiture. As fluence in their councils, but I have
to you, I know you ; your name always used it in the interests of
is Walsh, and you are one of the my king and the state. And now
officers of the king, my master, he has abandoned me to the malice
Therefore I do not demand your of my enemies, and does not hesi-
commission- ; his will is sufficient, tate an instant to believe all the
I am perfectly aware that the great- calumnies they have heaped upon
est peer in the realm is liable to be my head ! No, I shall indulge in
arrested by the lowest subject, if vain illusions no longer. I go now
such be his majesty's good pleasure, to my death; and it is my king
This is why I shall obey you with- who strikes the fatal blow ! Ah !"
out delay. Begin, then, to put your continued Wolsey, transported by
orders into execution. If I had his feelings, " would I might appear
known them, I would have assisted before him, that I might justify my-
you myself ; but, at least, I sub- self in the face of heaven and earth !
mit." . Then I should fear no man living
Saying this, the archbishop seated under the sun. But, no ; it will not
himself in silence ; but the tears be thus. I shall die without vindi-
continued to flow rapidly down his cation, in the depths of some ob-
cheeks. scure prison, some noisome dun-
Meanwhile, Lord Percy felt so geon ! Not a friend has remained
deeply wounded by the suspicion faithful ; not a single voice has been
manifested by the archbishop, and raised in my defence !"
his believing him to be actuated " Friendship," replied Northum-
by a principle of low revenge and berland, " is but a vain word, a
cruelty in coming to arrest him, that beautiful sound that dissolves in
he was about to withdraw without the air, a shifting sand requiring
offering him a solitary word of con- the one who reposes on it always
solation, as he had intended ; but a to remain on his guard, to beware ;
sudden feeling of compassion in- for one-half of the world is too
duced him to return and take a frivolous and the other half too
seat by his side. selfish for any confidence ever to be

Wolsey was deeply moved by placed in them."

this. " Therefore you yourself feel no

"My lord," he exclaimed, "I compassion for me?" said Wolsey,

swear before God I am innocent looking at him.
of all the crimes my enemies im- " You are unjust!" replied Lord
pute to me, beyond doubt, for Percy. " God is my judge how
the purpose of securing my death ! deeply I have suffered in being

Sir Thomas More.

forced before you in my present (And he fell on his knees before the

capacity. J3ut tell me, how am I archbishop.) " May God be with

to arrest the destroying tempest or you ! But first give me your bless-

turn aside the falling thunderbolt ? ing. I indeed have need of it !

Have they not crushed me also ?" I have never forgotten the care

you bestowed on me in my child-
After two long days had passed, hood."

during which the archbishop was " My dear son," said the archbi-

entirely deprived of all communica- shop, " may the Lord Almighty, the

tion with those around him, North- God of Israel and of Jacob, for ever

umberland came to inform him that bless you ! We shall meet no more

everything was arranged for the but in him."

journey and it was time to depart. As the archbishop extended his

" Alas ! where are you going to hands and laid them on the head

take me ?" cried Wolsey, to whom of Percy, and while he bent affec-

this departure seemed the first step tionately over him. Walsh entered,

toward condemnation and death. followed by a number of armed

In that fatal moment he felt an men : and the sound of smothered

attachment for every stone and sighs and stifled cries was heard,

every spot connected with the " What is that ?" exclaimed Wol-

abode which, until this time, he had sey in alarm.

regarded as the most gloomy place " Nothing, my lord," answered

of exile. Walsh in an imperious tone. " As

'Not to be able to die in peace !" you could only take four of your

he mournfully exclaimed. " Where men with you, I feared the others

are you going to take me, Lord would make too much disturbance

Percy?" at your departure; consequently, I

' I cannot accompany you," sad- had them shut up in the chapel."
ly replied Northumberland, who had " Sir," cried Wolsey indignantly,
endeavored during the preceding " I will not leave this place until I
days to make him regard his condi- have seen and bade farewell to all
tion with less terror ; " but I know my servants. You cannot have been
that Sir Walsh has orders to deliver authorized to treat me with such a
you at Sheffield Park, and place you degree of cruelty. My Lord North-
in the hands of my father-in-law, umberland, since you have seized
the Earl of Shrewsbury; and you for the king's benefit the little
need suffer no anxiety, nor doubt money I possessed, and have left
but that he will gladly exert him- me nothing to give them, at least
self to have you well treated as far permit me to thank them for their
as depends on him. To-night you services and mingle my tears with
will sleep at Pomfret." theirs."

" At the castle ?" demanded Woi- " We thought it would be painful

sey. for you to witness their grief," re-

" No, no," replied Lord Percy: plied Northumberland, " and wish-

' at the abbey. I am certain of it. ed to spare you the infliction. But

I swear it ! I have myself sent the they shall be summoned."

order for you to be received there. As soon as the door of the chapel

O my father !" continued Percy, was opened they gathered in a

who felt more and more deeply crowd around Wolsey, kissing his

grieved, " I must now leave you." hands and his vestments.

Sennuccio Mio, BencJie Do^lioso e Solo.

233

" My children," he said to them,
" weep not ; we shall meet again very
soon, I hope. My Lord Northum-
berland, I recommend them to you !
You will take care of them I feel
assured of it."

He then hastened to depart, feel-
ing his courage ready to desert
him. At every step he took his
anguish redoubled ; and when he
reached the great courtyard, he
turned his eyes for a moment to-
ward the high, black walls of the
castle he was leaving, then glanced
at the mule assigned him to ride.
Cavendish followed with his almo-
ner and two of his valets. But a
new grief awaited Wolsey, already
overwhelmed with sorrow. Scarcely
had they opened the outer gate of
the castle, when they perceived
without a crowd of gentlemen of
the province, whom Walsh had
summoned, in the king's name, to
come and secure the arrest of the
archbishop ; because the whole
country was in a state of commo-
tion, and more than three thousand

men had gathered along the route,
in the plain, and as far as the moats
of the castle, around which they
assembled as soon as they were in-
formed of his arrest. They were
powerless to oppose his departure,
but followed him for several -miles,
shouting incessantly : " God save
his grace, and perish his enemies
who have forced him from us !"
They regarded the noblemen who
surrounded him with wrathful
scowls, without reflecting that,
while feeling it necessary to obey
the king, the lords were as deeply
disaffected as themselves, and in
their turn accused the Earl of
Northumberland of having second-
ed Walsh in this emerprise.

During the journey they unceas-
ingly manifested the greatest re-
gard for the archbishop, and only
left him after seeing him commit-
ted into the hands of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, whose castle was situ-
ated near the confines of Yorkshire,
a short distance from the town of
Doncaster.

TO BE CONTINUED.

SENNUCCIO MIO, BENCHE DOGLIOSO E SOLO.

FROM PETRARCH.

MY own Sennuccio, though bereft of thee,

Weeping and lonely, me this thought sustains :
That from this breathing tomb, these fleshly chains,

Thy soaring spirit nobly set thee free.

Now the twin poles by thee discovered are,

The wheeling lights, and all the starry ways :

Thou seest our seeing falter from afar ;

So thy delight the pain of loss allays.

But I beseech thee in that far third sphere

Greet Franceshino and the bard divine,

Cino, Guitton, and all thy comrades there ;

And tell my Love, tell her what tears are mine,

And what dark moods of wilder sorrow breeds

The thought of her sweet face and saintly deeds.

Scanderbeg.

SCANDERBEG.

" Oh ! how comely it is, and how reviving
To the spirits of just men long oppressed,
When God into the hands of their deliverer
Puts invincible might

To quell the mighty of the earth, th' oppressor,
The brute and boist'rous force of violent men,
Hardy and industrious to support
Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue
The righteous and all such as honor Truth."

Samson Agonistes.

THE Turks, from their first ap- through the word Huniades, Mat-

pearance upon European soil, have thias Corvinus, Ladislas of Hungary,

been a danger to the peace and St. John Capistran, Cardinal Julian

civilization of Christendom. When Cesarini, Scanderbeg, St. Pius V.,

their fierce hordes crossed the Bos- Don John of Austria, Mark Antho-

porus, bearing aloft the standard of ny Colonna, Sobieski, and others-

the crescent, it was a boast among who fought their advance towards

them that the sign was but a tern- the Adriatic and along the Danube,

porary emblem of their power, and As this great Ottoman inundation

that when she had waxed to the rose higher and higher, until it

fulness of her orb donee Luna totus seemed as though the work of the

impleatur orbis, as was insolently church for a thousand years would

said to an ambassador of the West be swept away in fewer days, God

her silvery sheen would change spoke : " I set my bounds around

to the golden glory of the sun, and it, and made it bars and doors ; and

blaze from an eastern sky over pros- I said : Hitherto thou shalt come,

trate and Mohammedan Europe. and shalt go no further : and here

With one foot upon Constantino- thou shalt break thy swelling waves"

pie and the other on Rome,* the (Job xxxviii.)

colossus of Islam would have pro- In the fifteentn century several

jected an awful shadow over the independent princelings, called des-

Christian world. Efforts tremen- pots by the Greeks, were in posses-

dous and long sustained were made sion of the rich and populous dis-

to lift itself up ; but this it could trict of Albania, which stretches

never do, and it has fallen and is along the coast of the Adriatic and

broken, but in its fall covers fair Mediterranean Seas, and corre-

provinces and crushes a multitude sponds geographically to the Epirus

of unfortunate Christians. If the of the ancients. One of the noblest

Turks have ceased to be a stirring of these chiefs was John Castriot,

menace to the nations, we must -as- who came of an ancient family in

cribe the curbing of their power to Lower Macedonia. His wife, Woi-

divine Providence, which brought zava, presented him with nine chil-

forward at critical times a number dren, and among them that George,

of men mighty by the sword or born in 1404, who was destined to

become the defender of his perse-

* it was a common boast of the more ambitious cu t e d race, the Christian Gideon, as

sultans that they would some day feed their horses , . , , .

at the tomb of St. Peter. he was hailed by Pope Paul II., and

Scanderbeg. 2 3 5

the hero of his native country This was a difficult position to be
against the Turks. Several omens placed in ; for he had not forgotten
are reported to have accompanied that he was born a Christian and
his birth and signified his future had been impressed into his pre-
greatness. Without denying that sent service. He felt a great dis-
these may have been something like to turn his arms against co-
more than mere accidents or freaks religionists and countrymen. His
of the imagination, we only certify brothers were dead, and now his
that as the child grew up he deve- father died in 1432. At this junc-
loped a strength of character and an ture the sultan very unjustly took
aptitude for arms which his after- possession of his hereditary domin-
successes amply justified and the ion, and, sending his mother and
inherent nobility of his parents had sister Mamisa into exile, put a
prepared. pasha over the country. Scander-
beg did not immediately pronounce

" Fortes creanturfortibus ct boms; i ir ^.i_ i

nee imbeiiem feroces himself against this act of treacher-
Progenerantaqidiacoiumbam^* ous spoliation, although several Al-
banian noblemen, proud of his re-
Sultan Mohammed I. had invad- nown and convinced that he was
ed Albania in 1413, and obliged not at heart attached to his new
John Castriot to deliver up his four creed, corresponded with him se-
young sons to him as hostages. He cretly, urging him to come and put
immediately, and against the sol- himself at the head of the Christian
emn promise made to their father, population to free the country from
caused them to be circumcised and the infidel. The Albanians have
educated in the Mussulman reli- always been distinguished for theii
gion. George, our hero, was the spirit of nationality, and, like the in-
youngest. He was endowed with a habitants of all mountainous regions
prodigious memory, and soon learn- are remarkable for indeDendence
ed to speak the Greek, Turkish, and love of home.
Arab, Illyrian, and Italian languages. The favorable moment to declare
A handsome person, unusual bodi- himself had not arrived but his
ly strength, and vigorous mental plans were maturing. At last, after a
qualities won for him the warm af- great battle lost by the Turks at
fection of the next sovereign, Am- Morava on the loth of November,
urath II., who changed George's 1443, he concerted with his nephew
name to Scanderbeg />., Beg or Lord Hamza and a few trusty friends
Alexander and at the early age of of Christian origin, forced, like him-
eighteen gave him the rank of san- self, to serve the foreign tyrant, and
giac and command of five thousand by a skilful ruse and very sudden
horsemen on the confines of Anato^ irruption at the head of six hundred
lia. His personal prowess and mili- Albanians, who hastened to join
tary skill in Asia Minor brought him as soon as his defection was
him into considerable notice, and known, he obtained possession of
he was given a command in the Croia, the capital of his paternal
iropean provinces of the empire, dominions? The Turkish garrison,

not so much by his orders as from

* The good and brave beeet the brave ; ^ii,,ui~ ,,!,. ^f ^nf

. . Fierce eagles breed not harmless doves. an Uncontrollable impulse Of Ollt-

I'hc family standard of the Castriots, which Scan- raged feelings in the populace, Was

derbeg carried in his battles, was a black, double- .-i j o . J^-U,

headed eagle on a red field. put tO the SWOrd. Scanderbrg WES

236

Scanderbeg.

just twenty-nine years old. He pub-
licly renounced Mohammedanism
and renewed his profession of the
Catholic faith. The chiefs of Alba-
nia were then invited to meet him.
When they came together at Croia,
they called him their deliverer, un-
animously proclaimed him Prince
of Epirus, and soon collected an
army of about twelve thousand men.
While the troops were being raised,
the civil service and revenues of
the state were reorganized. Be-
sides a large immediate contribu-
tion from his own countrymen, he
obtained two hundred thousand
ducats from his neighbors, the Ve-
netians, and had a large source of
income in the salt-mines near Du-
razzo.

Petralba was next taken, and this
success brought new accessions of
men and means to prosecute the
war. Within a month after the
first blow had been struck every
fortress except one was captured,
and every Turk either killed, a
prisoner, or in flight. Sfetigrad
could not be surprised, and, leaving
a force of three ^thousand men to
watch it and cut off supplies, Scan-
derbeg retired with the rest of the
army to Croia for the winter, and
occupied himself- in making an alli-
ance with the republic of Venice,
which held several towns along the
coast of Dalmatia, and in preparing
for the inevitable struggle the sul-
tan would make to recover the
country. Amurath did not dissem-
ble his anger at the revolt of one
whom he had treated, he said, with
so much kindness and taught the
use of the arms he was now turning
against him. Being engaged at the
time against the Hungarians, he put
off revenge until the spring, tliinking
that he could at any moment easily
subdue the undisciplined bands of
Albania ; but when a truce was con-

cluded and spring opened with fair
weather for an imposing campaign, he
sent Ali Pasha in command of forty
thousand men, his orders being to
crush the insurrection at a single-
blow. Scanderbeg had by this time
reduced Sfetigrad and strongly
fortified and garrisoned the more
important towns. He now took
the field with only fifteen thousand
troops, knowing that in such a
country as the one he was to defend
a very large force would be diffi-
cult to handle and impossible to
feed. His tactics were generally
those of partisan warfare. His lit-
tle army was composed partly of
cavalry from the northern, and part-
ly of a hardy and active infantry
from the southern section of the
country. His object was to wear
out the enemy by a stout resistance
at every point, and harass the re-
treats which the very vastness of
the Turkish armies would neces-
sitate by the impossibility, if for
no other reason, of providing for
so many mouths. Only occasional
raids were made in force upon the
fertile plains of Thessaly and Ma-
cedonia to capture horses, cattle,
sheep, and to gather in grain to be
stored in the fortified towns. Dur-
ing the war of Albanian indepen-
dence, which lasted a quarter of a
century, the Turks always, except
towards the end, repeated the fatal
blunder of sending immense armies,
consisting in some cases of two
hundred thousand men, into a coun-
try where they could be maintained
only for a single and brief campaign,
and to fight a general who was sure,
from his bravery, skill, and tho-
rough knowledge of every torrent,
mountain pass, road, and valley, to
turn defeat into overwhelming dis-
aster. It was thus that the army
of Ali Pasha was drawn by wily man-
oeuvres into a narrow district only

Scanderbeg. 237

ninety miles from Croia and open- the victory by letters to Pope Eu-

ing into the very heart of Albania, genius IV. and several Christian

The upper end was very contract- princes; and while some of the

ed, and here Scanderbeg drew up twenty-five captured battle-flap:s

his main body of troops, to the were distributed among the confed-

number of ten thousand, which erate chiefs, others were suspencl-

\vere posted in three divisions ed in the principal church of the

en echelon. As soon as the enemy capital.

was well engaged in the valley Amurath was so alarmed by this
three thousand horsemen, who had defeat not, perhaps, so much from
been watching their slow advance, what he had to fear on the side of
came down at its lower end, which the immediate victors, but from the
had been left quite unguarded, encouraging effects it might have
while fifteen hundred irregular in- in leaguing the Christian princes
fantry lay in ambush on either side against him that he wrote a letter
amidst the woody acclivities. As from Adrianople, offering Scander-
soon as the Turks came up to the beg peace on certain conditions.
Albanians they halted, tried to But when these were discussed in
deploy, but could not, repeatedly the council at Croia, they were de-
charged and swept up in heavy clared unjust and humiliating, and
columns against the small but solid Scanderbeg was advised to reject
masses who evenly filled the gap every sort of condition and insist on
and made it impossible to flank the complete independence of Alba-
them. The Turks after a while be- nia. The answer to this letter an-
gan to waver and fall into still nounced his intention of holding out
greater disorder. Ali Pasha had to the last extremity, and began
blundered. with these valiant words : " From our
The Albanians now took the of- camp near Croia, August 12, 1445.
fensive. The signal-clarions sound- George Castriot, surnamed Scander-
ed, and, while the Turks were at- beg, soldier of Jesus Christ and
tacked in front, the cavalry from the Prince of the Epirotes, to Othman,
lower end of the valley charged Prince of the Turks, greeting." A
them in the rear, and the infantry second army under Fizour, and a
that lay in ambush came rushing third and larger one under Musta-
down on both sides with terrific pha, were successively defeated, but
Ties and sword in hand to complete not without considerable loss in men
their discomfiture. It was now a and damage to the country. Dur-
slaughter ; and although the battle ing the inroads of these fierce bar-
lasted only four hours altogether, barians into Albania they perpetrat-
over twenty thousand infidels were ed the raost horrible massacres with-
killed or wounded. Few prisoners out regard to age or sex, and heaped
not more than two thousand were the most brutal outrages upon the
taken. The rest of the enemy, un- inhabitants. The handsomest girls
der cover of darkness and from were seized for the seraglios of the
sheer exhaustion on the part of the sultan and his wealthy minions, the
victors, escaped through the now prettiestboys were kept to minister to
open passage at the lower end of the their unnatural lusts, while youths of a
val ley. maturer age or less attractive appear-
When Scanderbeg had entered ance were circumcised, educated in
Croia in triumph, he announced the Mohammedan religion, and draft-

238 Scanderbeg.

ed into the Janizaries. Others who out of the country, he turned towards

were not butchered on the smoking Sfetigrad and sat down before it on

ruins of their homes were driven in September 20, 1445, with eighteen

chains to the slave markets, while thousand men, among whom were

many were made eunuchs and set to adventurers from almost every coun-

guard the harems of their masters in try in Europe, Germans, French,

Asia Minor. and Italians being the most numer-

Mustapha Pasha, although he had ous. For want of artillery no regu-

been defeated, was entrusted with lar siege could be conducted, and

another army, but with a similar re- Scanderbeg was repulsed with heavy

suit, and even worse ; for he himself loss in his attacks on the place,

was taken prisoner. Twenty-five Hearing that Amurath was prepar-

thousand golden ducats were paid ing to return, he hastily concentrat-

for his ransom. Scanderbeg now ed his available troops around Croia,

made a razzia on a large scale in- which was provisioned for a long

to Macedonia and returned laden resistance. Some large, unwieldy

with an immense booty of every dc- pieces of cannon, directed by French-

scription. His fame was so solidly men, added to the strength of the

established by these victories that capital. The sultan was slow in his

the republic of Venice sent a mag- movements, and did not appear as

nificent embassy to compliment him soon as was expected. In the mean-

and convey to him the news of his while Scanderbeg was encouraged

appointment as governor-general of by receiving congratulatory letters

all the Italian possessions along the from Pope Nicholas V., which were

Adriatic and in the interior, where brought to him by two Franciscans,

the important cities of Scutari and one of whom was a bishop. The

Alessio were situated. His name winter of 1449-50 had been passed

was enrolled in the Golden Book at by him in the saddle inspecting

the head of the list of Venetian every fortress, going into every part

nobles. of his dominions to encourage the

The revolt of the Janizaries hav- people and hasten the levy of troops,

ing obliged Amurath to leave his The coming tempest was naturally

luxurious retreat at Magnesia and expected to assail the capital ; and

once more resume the management to make its neighborhood a howling

of public affairs, he determined to wilderness, the whole country around

conduct in person the war against Croia was ravaged by his order, for a

Scanderbeg. He soon appeared at distance of from fifteen to eighteen

the head of a formidable army before miles, so completely that not a house

Sfetigrad, which surrendered after a or a bridge was left standing, and not

gallant resistance. During the siege a road passable ; every growing an 1

the Turks lost in one of the assaults living thing was either destroyed c:

six thousand men. Satisfied, appa- removed. The enemy could find

rently, with this single victory, the no shelter there,

slothful sultan retired into Macedo- On April 15, 1450, the sultan

nia after leaving a strong garrison appeared before the city with an

in the captured fortress. . Scander- army of one hundred and sixty

beg hovered on his flanks and rear, thousand fighting men and a host of

making many prisoners and taking camp-followers. Uranocontes com-

a large amount of stores and war manded inside and repelled numcr-

material; then, after seeing him well ous assaults, while Scanderbeg, wiJi

Scanderbcg. 2 39

a force of five thousand picked cav- precious stones. Scanderbeg was
airy, hovered about the outskirts of very proud of this really regal head-
trie enemy, inflicting considerable gear, and ranked it along with his
loss in men and stores, but above famous sword, a veritable Exca!ibiu\
all annoying the long line of com- the blade of which was of perfect
munications by which the army Damascus workmanship, and the
drew its daily supplies. Amurath handle a blaze of Oriental gems set
finally tired of the siege, and, being with exquisite skill by a Persian
convinced that the mountains and lapidary. This weapon was a pre-
valleys of Epirus were not worth sent .from Amurath on giving him
his time, his trouble, or his money his first command. With it he kill-
while richer conquests awaited him, ed at least two thousand T;irks in
charged a certain Yousouf to leave his war of independence, and it was
the camp and seek Scanderbeg, to looked upon by his enemies with a
try and induce him to accept the species of superstitious awe. Dur-
single condition of an annual tribute ing one of the informal truces be-
of only ten thousand ducats. After tvveen the Turks and Christians
a two days' search he was found, but Sultan Mohammed begged to see
instantly rejected even this almost the blade of which he had heard so
nominal condition attached to the in- much. It was sent to him and tried
dependence of his country. Know- by the best swordsmen of his army,
ing that he could not take Croia by but not one of them could perform
assault or maintain his . army any the feats that its owner had been
longer in such a country, the sultan seen to do with it ; and when it was
slowly retreated and died soon after- returned, the sultan told him this
wards at Adrianople, on February and asked the reason. " I sent your
5, 1451. He was succeeded by his highness the sword," said Scander-
son, Mohammed II., who renewed beg, " but not the limb that wields
his father's offer, but with no bet- it i" When he went into battle, it
ter result. was always with his right arm bare
The news of Amurath's ill-sue- and his shoulder perfectly free. He
cess before Croia made a great was so tall and strong that a few years
noise in Italy, and even beyond, later, when he went over to Italy to
The kings of Hungary and Ara- ass i s t King Ferdinand, and had oc-
gon, and Philip, Duke of Burgun- casion to meet the commander of
dy, sent complimentary missions the enemy's troops the famous
to the Albanian hero, and presents condottitre Count Piccinino, whose
of money and provisions. King stature, it is true, was small, but still
Alphonsus of Aragon, who was also that of a grown person he- took him
King of Sicily and Naples, sfdt him by the belt with one hand, and, slow-
four hundred thousand bushels of ly raisinghim up, impressed a court-
grain. Among other rich presents ly kiss upon the forehead and as gent-
that he received from this magnifi- \y se t him down again. He looked
cent monarch was a helmet or so brave and handsome that even his
casque of the finest Spanish steel, f oes applauded,
lined on the inside with Cordovan
leather and soft silk, and covered on M ^ haughtie helmct> horrld all with gold)

the OUtside with the purest gold ar- Both glorious biightnesse and great terrour brcdd :

tisririllv rl-nQ^H nrtrl pmhn^prl hv For all the crest a dragon did enfold

Call y D y With greedie pawes, and over all did spredd

an Italian jeweller and Studded with His golden winges ; his dreadfull hideous hedd,

240

Scanderbeg.

Close couched on the bever, seemed to throw
From flaming mouth bright sparcles fiery redd,
That suddeine horrour to faint hartes did show ;
And scaly tayle was stretcht adowne his back full

low."

Spenser.

In May, 145 1, Scanderbeg married
the Princess Donica, daughter of
Arrianites Thopia, one of the most
influential lords of Albania, and
connected on his mother's side with
the imperial family of the Comneni.
He received at this time from King
Alphonsus five hundred arquebu-
siers, the same number of expert
crossbow-men, and a few pieces
of artillery with their cannoniers.
We have only space to mention the
events of the next years : how suc-
cessive armies of Turks were de-
feated ; how Scanderbeg himself
was repulsed with a loss of five
thousand men in an attack on Bel-
grade ; and how, during a lull in the
war, he was invited over to Italy
by Pope Pius II. to the assistance
of King Ferdinand, son of his old
friend Alphonsus, who was hard
pressed by his rival, John of Anjou.
(Raynald. Annales Eccl. ad an. 1460,
num. Ix.) He contributed greatly to
the victory won at Troja on Aug.
1 8, 1462, and for his services was
created Duke of San Pietro, in the
kingdom of Naples. He remained
in Italy a little over a year. Recall-
ed to Albania by the appearance of
the Turks, he repulsed Sultan Mo-
hammed from Croia; but his own
losses and the new plans of the
enemy, which consisted in sending
only small armies under experi-
enced generals one of whom, Bala-
ban Badera, was an Albanian rene-
gade with orders to avoid battle
if possible, but to remain in the
country at all hazards, made him
feel that his cause was failing, and
that, unless relieved from the west,
he must sooner or later succumb.
In this emergency he went to Rome

and appealed to the pope and car-
dinals to preach a new crusade.
The example of the broken-hearted
Pius II. showed how fruitless it
would have been for them to do so.
Paul, indeed, wrote to all the Chris-
tian princes, but he got nothing but
fair words in return. The great
schism had lamentably diminished
the prestige of the Papacy, and a
multitude of heretics more or less
openly preluded that Reformation
which would soon divide Chris-
tendom itself into hostile camps.
The pope gave him three thousand
golden florins and conferred up-
on him the insignia of the cap
and sword which is annually bless-
ed by the pontiff on the vigil of
Christmas for presentation to the
prince who has deserved best of
the church. Scanderbeg lodged
while in Rome in a house which, al-
though rebuilt in 1843, still retains
over the door his portrait in fresco
and the laudatory inscription set up
soon after his death. The street
and an adjoining little piazza under
the Quirinal gardens have long per-
petuated his name as the Via di Scan-
derbeg. He left Rome in disap-
pointment and sorrow.

" Ah ! what though no succor advances,

Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances

Are stretched in our aid ? Be the combat our own !

And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone ;

For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,

By the virgins they've dragged from our altars,

By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,

By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,

That, living, we shall be victorious,

Or that, d^ing, our deaths shall be glorious."

Campbell.

On his way back to Albania he
was allowed to recruit in the Vene-
tian territories a force of thirteen
thousand men, which he commanded
in person. His former little army
in the field was captained by his
faithful friend Tanusios, and after
planning together the two generals
attacked the Turks around Croia

Scandcrbcg. 241

on two different points, while a vi- Scanderbeg. The presence of those
gorous sortie was made by the be- barbarous Asiatics in any part of
sieged, during which Balaban, the Europe is one of the foulest stains
Turkish commander, was killed. His upon the moral sense and the poll-
death and the suddenness and vigor tics of Christian governments.
of the triple attack threw the ene- When Alessio was captured the
my into confusion, and they were infidels dug up the remains of the
completely routed. We pass over great warrior and divided his bones
other battles and victories, by which among the soldiers, to be worn in
Scanderbeg's resources were finally rich reliquaries as amulets of cour-
exhausted. The end had come. age. His countrymen still sing of
During the winter of 1466-7 he him as their national hero, and the
was making a tour of inspection, Turks frighten naughtv children
and while in the city of Alessio, or with his terrible name.
Lissa, as it is sometimes called, After Scanderbeg's death many
where the ambassador of Venice Albanians emigrated to Italy, either
and the confederate chiefs of Alba- in the suite of his son or indepen-
nia had convened to meet him and dently. The most remarkable col-
combine for one last and desperate ony was in Calabria, where as late
effort, he was seized by a fever as 1780 their descendants, number-
which proved fatal. After address- ing about one hundred thousand,
ing a solemn and pathetic discourse retained the dress, manners, and
to his principal officers, he embrac- language of their ancestors. An-
ed them one by one, and gave or- other colony, not so numerous, is
ders to his only son John to cross scattered about the Abruzzi. The
over to his Neapolitan fiefs with his last lineal descendant of the hero
mother, and there wait until some was the Marquis of Sant' Angelo,
favorable occasion might present it- who was killed at the battle of
self to return and put himself at the Pavia by the hand (as Paulus Jo-
head of his countrymen as his fa- vius says) of Francis I.
ther had done. He died during Most of the Albanians remained
the night of January 17, 1467, after Christians until the middle of the
having received the Viaticum and seventeenth century, when the ma-
xtreme Unction, and was buried jority conformed, outwardly at
the cathedral church of Alessio. least, to the Mohammedan religion,
iis death caused a profound sensa- The popes have tried hard to keep
tion throughout Europe. Moham- alive the Catholic faith among the
rned exulted over the loss of one population, and, under the circum-
rhom he called the sword and stances, with considerable success,
buckler of the Christians, and mime- Pope Clement XL, of the (now)
diately poured his troops into Al- princely family of Albani which em-
ma; but it was not until the year igrated from Albania in the six-
1478, when Croia surrendered on teenth century, and settled at Ur-
ronditions which were afterwards bino, established a purse of four
ly violated, that the war ended, thousand scudi in 1708 for the sup-
Since that time the infamous Turks port of three students from that
lave lorded it over the land made country in the Propaganda College.
rious in legendary lore by the The Catholics there do not now
i of Achilles, in history by King number more than ninety thou-
Pyrrhus, and in modern times by sand. There are two archbishop-

VOL. XXITI. 1 6

Scandcrbeg.

ncs, Antivari united with Scutari, Spanish and Portuguese ; in French
and Durazzo, and three bishoprics, by Du Poncet (Paris, 1709, in
Alessio, Pulati, and Sappa. These I2mo), a Jesuit, who took upon him-
sees are usually filled by Francis- self to refute the calumny of Ma-
cans, who, with a few Propagandists chiavelli and Helvetius, that Chris-
(with one of whom, now bishop of tian principles and practices can
Alessio, we have the honor of being never develop the qualities of a per-
acquainted), are the only missiona- feet soldier, a hero. Other French
ries in the country. We conclude biographies are those of Chevilly
our article with a bibliographical (Paris, 1732, 2 vols. i2mo), and
notice of the subject, because, as Camille Paganel (ibid. 1855, i vol.
Dr. Johnson used to say, a great 8vo), which is the best we have
part of knowledge consists in know- read. In English there is one by
ing where knowledge is to be Clement C. Moore, an American
found. (New York, 1850), and another by
The original source of informa- Robert Bigsby, an Englishman (Lon-
tion upon which all subsequent don, 1866); while we have also, from
writers, whether with or without the graceful pen of Benjamin Dis-
acknowledgment, have drawn is a raeli, The Rise of Iskander, a tale
work by Marino Barlezio, a priest founded on Scanderbeg's revolt
of Scutari, who, besides being a na- against the Turks (London, 1833).
tive of the country about which he A Summarium or epitome of his life
wrote, was an almost constant com- is preserved among the MSS. of the
panion of Scanderbeg and an eye- Royal Library at Turin ; and the
witness of most of the events which Grand Ducal one at Weimar trea-
he relates. He was a scholar and sures among its rarities a MS. parch-
penned very excellent Latin, which ment called The Book of Scanderbeg,
greatly adds to the charm of his composed of three hundred and
narrative. W T e give the full title : twenty-five leaves, each of which is
De Vita et Moribus ac Rebus pra- beautifully illustrated with figures
fipue adversus Turcas gestis Geor- in india-ink representing scenes
git Castrioti clarissimi Epirotarum from civil and military life in the
Principis, qui propter eleberrima fa- fifteenth century. It was a present
cinora Scanderbegus, hoc est Alexan- to the Albanian hero from Ferdi-
der Magnus, cognominatus fuit. Li- nand of Aragon. Two Latin poems
bri xiii. It is not certain where have been published about him, one
this curious book was first publish- by a German named Kokert at Lu-
ed. Some say at Rome as early as bee, 1643, and the other by a French
1506, but this is extremely doubt- Jesuit, Jean de Bussieres, at Lyons,
ful; others at Frankfort in 1537 (in 1662, in eight books; finally, one in
folio). A German translation by Italian, called La Scanderbeide, by a
Pinicianus was published in 1561 lady named Margherita Sarrocchi,
in 4to, with woodcuts ; and a French without date or place of publication;
one, the language of which is quaint but it sometimes turns up in book-
and racy, by Jacques de Lavardin, sales at Rome.

in 1597. Independent biographies Scanderbeg's large gilt cuirass,
have been written in Latin by an damaskeened with designs of East-
anonymous author at Rome in 1537 ern pattern, is found in the Belve-
or earlier, in folio ; in Italian by dere collection at Vienna. It is
T. M. Monardo, Venice, 1591, and supposed to have been one of his
almost immediately translated into trophies captured in Anatolia.

The Church and Liberty.

243

THE CHURCH AND LIBERTY.

MEN are governed more by their
sympathies than by reason. Weak
arguments are strong enough when
supported by prejudice which is
able to withstand even the most
conclusive proofs. We do not pre-
tend to say that this is wholly wrong.
Our feelings are in general sincerer
than our thoughts ; spring more
truly from our real selves ; are less
the product of artificial culture and
more of those common principles of
our nature which make the whole
world akin. But since in rational
beings the feelings cannot be purely
instinctive, it follows that they are
more or less modifiable by the action
of the intellect, which in turn is also
subject to their influence. Preju-
dice, therefore, may be either intel-
lectual or moral, or the one and the
' other ; the most obstinate, however,
is that which is enrooted in feeling
and springs from sympathies and
antipathies ; and this is usually the
character of religious prejudice.
The tendency to make religion na-
tional, which is a remarkable feature
in the history of mankind, together
with the fact that states have always
been founded and peoples welded
into unity by a common faith, has

a rule thrown upon the side of
religion the whole force of national
prejudice, which, though it does not
touch the deep fountains of iminor-

i life and of the infinite, revealed
by faith, is yet an immense power,
more than any other aggressive and

fiant. As the Catholic Church
non-national, it is not surprising
that she should often be brought in-
conflict with the spirit of nation-
alism.

Christ was himself opposed by
this spirit ; on the one side he was
attacked by the religious national-
ism of the Jews, and on the other
by that of the Romans. These ene-
mies surrounded the early church.
There was the internal struggle
to free herself from the bonds of
Judaism, a purely national faith;,
and there was the open battle
with the Roman Empire for the
liberty of the soul and her right to
exist as a Catholic and non-national
religion. Heresies and schisms have
invariably been successful in propor-
tion as they have been able to rouse
national prejudice against the uni-
versal church. To pass over those
of more ancient date, we may safely af-
firm that but for this Luther's quarrel
with Tetzel would never have given
birth to Protestantism. The con-
flicts during the middle ages be-
tween popes and emperors and
kings, together with schisms and
scandals, had accustomed the pub-
lic mind, especially in Germany and
England, to look upon the successor
of St. Peter as a foreign potentate ;
nor was it easy, in the state of things
which then existed, to draw the line
between his spiritual and his tempo-
ral authority. He came more and
more to be considered an Italian sove-
reign who had usurped undue power,
and thus in Germany and England
Italians grew to be both hated and
despised ; and this more, probably,
than kings and parliaments helped
on the cause of Protestantism.

The Catholic faith was made to
appear, not as the religion of Christ,
but as popery, a foreign idolatrous
superstition, which had by artful

244 The Church and Liberty.

means insinuated itself amongst the prejudice. Hence the objections
various nations of German blood ; to the church which really influence
and to throw off the yoke of Italian men are not religious but social,
despotism was held to be both po- A Protestant who accepts the Bible
litical and religious disenthralment. as the word of God, and receives
The specific doctrines of Luther in the literal sense all that is there
and the other heresiarchs had mere- narrated, could not with any show
]y an incidental influence. In Eng- of reason make difficulty about be-
land, where the separation from lieving the teachings of the church ;
the church was more complete nor can one who trusts to himself
than elsewhere, there was the least alone for his creed feel great confi-
doctrinal departure from Catholic dence that those who are supported
teaching ; which is of itself proof by the almost unanimous consent
how little any desire for a so-called of all Christians for fifteen hundred
purer faith had to do with the move- years, and of the great majority
ment. The appeal to the Scrip- even down to the present day, are
tures was popular because it was an less certain of salvation than him-
appeal from the pope. That the self. But when he comes to con-
Reformation was not an intellectual sider the social influence of the
revolt, at least primarily, there is church, he finds it less difficult to
abundant evidence in the indisputa- justify his dislike of Catholic insti-
ble fact that the most enlightened tutions ; for in this direction he is
and learned people of that age the upheld most strongly by traditional
Italians remained firm in their at- prejudice. That the church fosters
tachment to the old faith ; and even ignorance and immorality is to his
in Germany, which was compara- mind axiomatic. He still thinks
tively rude and barbarous, the cul- that the darkness, the scandals, and
tivators of the new classical learning, crimes of the middle ages, which he
which had been revived in Italy, always exaggerates, are to be as-
were for the most part repelled by cribed to her and not to the barba-
the coarseness and ignorance of the rians. The labors of the learned
preachers of Protestantism, who in have long since shown the old Pro-
England found no favor with men testant theory, that the church sought
like More and Wolsey, scholars, to keep the people in ignorance, to
both of them, and patrons of letters, be not only groundless, but the re-
As Protestantism did not spring verse to be true ; and that not less
from intellectual convictions, but false is the charge that she encour-
from 'passion and prejudice na- aged immorality, however corrupt
tional antagonisms, which had been some who have held high ecclesias-
intensified by ages of conflict and tical positions may have been. But
strife, and which became the potent as we have quite recently discussed
allies of the ambition and rapacity these questions,* we turn to the
of kings and princes it is but na- subject of the relative influence of
tural that Protestants, continuing the church and of Protestantism
the traditions of their fathers, should upon civil liberty. Discussions of
still be influenced in their opinions this kind, though not new, are ne-
of the Catholic Church more by vertheless full of actual interest,
their antipathies than by reason, and
that these antipathies should invaria- *" A Se <i uel of the Gladstone Controversy.'

, , -1,1 r i THE CATHOLIC WORLD, February, March, and

bly run with the current of national April.

1 he Church and Liberty. 245

The subject of social liberty pro- Liberty are the centripetal and cen-

foundly influences the practical con- trifugal forces of the social world ;

trovcrsies of the age, and bids fair but, unlike those which govern the

to become of still more vital mo- motions of the planets, they are

ment in the future. The adversa- indefinitely modifiable by free hu-

ries of the Catholic Church never man agency. To regulate these

feel so secure as when they attack two powers is the eternal political

her in the name of freedom. She problem, which is never solved be-

is supposed to be the fatal foe of cause the factors of the equation

all liberty, intellectual, religious, and are ever varying and consequently

social. never known. The exaggeration

For the present we shall put aside of the principle of authority is ty-
the controversies concerning liberty ranny ; of that of liberty, anarchy ;
of thought and discussion, and con- and the excess of the one is follow-
fine ourselves to the examination ed by a reaction of the other, so
of the relation of the church to so- that, whichever preponderates, the
cial freedom. And it will be neces- resulting evils are substantially the
sary, in order to institute a com- same. Tyranny is anarchical, and
parison between her action and that anarchy is tyrannical ; and both are
of Protestantism, to go back to the equally destructive of authority and
first ages to study her early efforts liberty.
in behalf of human rights. Though authority and liberty,

Those great battles for human as applied to human society, are

liberty were fought, not by Chris- relative terms, they presuppose the

tianity, but by the Christian Church, absolute, and therefore have as their

The religion of Christ was from the only rational basis the existence

beginning corporate and organized ; of a personal God ; and hence the

and it was through its organization social order is, in its very constitu-

that it exerted its influence upon tive elements, religious. In view

individuals and upon society. To of this fact it is not surprising that

understand, therefore, the true rela- the state, which is the symbol of

tion of the church to liberty, we secular society, should be drawn to

must study her history in the past usurp the functions of the church,

as well as in the present. In fact, the symbol of the spiritual order,

it is only in the light of the past As a result of this tendency, pre-

that the present can be understood. Christian history shows us a univer-

The clear perception of her spirit sal subordination of religion to the

and action during the centuries temporal government, or, what is

ivhich preceded the advent of Pro- practically the same, the identifi-

^tantism will enable us to see how cation of the two powers ; since,

far and in what respect the politico- where both are united, that which

religious revolution of the sixteenth regards man's present, visible, and

century was favorable to social free- urgent wants will always prepon-

dom. derate.

Human society, like the heavenly The direct consequence of this

bodies, is guided by two forces, the was the destruction of liberty ;

natural tendencies of which are indirectly it also undermined au-

antagonistic, but whose combined thority. The state was absolute,

action, when properly harmonized, and under the most favorable

produces order. Authority and circumstances, as in the Gracco-

246 The Church and Liberty.

Roman civilization, recognized the roams the forest, or plunges through
rights of the citizen, but not those the stream, or beholds the eagle
of man ; and even the citizen had cleave the blue heavens. It was as
rights only in so far as the state active in the breasts of the early
saw fit to grant them. The logical Greeks and Romans as in the bar-
development of the absorption of barians who rushed headlong upon
all power by the state may be seen a falling empire. The love of lib-
in imperial Rome, in which the erty was, in fact, with them a sublime
ruler was at once emperor, supreme passion, and yet they were unable
pontiff, and God. to found free institutions because
When the Christian, though the state, absorbing the whole man,
willing to obey Caesar in temporal made itself absolute,
matters, reserved to himself a whole They lacked, moreover, that of
world upon which he would permit which the barbarians were also de-
no human authority to trespass, prived the knowledge of the worth
he asserted, together with the su- and dignity of human nature. Man,
premacy of his spiritual nature, as man, was not honored ; to have
the principle to which modern any rights did not come of our corn-
nations owe their liberties. It mon nature, but of the accident of
would indeed be difficult to ex- citizenship. Slavery was consecrat-
aggerate the influence of this as- ed as beirg not only just but neces-
sertion of the sovereign rights of sary ; and the slave was outside the
the individual conscience. It con- pale of the law. Woman was de-
tains the principles of all rights and graded and infant life was not held
the essential elements of progress sacred. In nothing is the contrast
and civilization ; it is the necessary between modern and ancient civili-
preamble to every declaration of zations more striking than in their
human liberties ; the logical justifi- manner of regarding human life,
cation of all resistance to tyranny, With us the life of the unborn child
and of every reaction against brute is under the protection of con-
force and consecrated wrong. It science, of public opinion, and of
is the impregnable stronghold of the law equally with that of the
freedom, without which the senti- highest and noblest. Its value to
ment of personal independence the state, to society, to the world, is
which the barbarians brought with not considered ; we think of it only
them into European life would as a creature of God, endowed by
have been powerless to found free him with rights which men may not
institutions. That sentiment was violate. But this doctrine is un-
as strong in the North American known to paganism. In Rome the
Indians ; in the Tartar and Turkish father was free either to bring up
hordes which swept down from the his child or to murder it ; even the
table-lands of Asia upon fairer and laws of Romulus grant him this
more fertile regions ; and yet with privilege, with the nominal restric-
them it only subserved the cause tion of obtaining the consent of the
of despotism. It is, indeed, inherent nearest of kin; but under the em-
in human nature. To be self-con- pire his right to kill his newly-
scious is to wish to be free and to born infant was fully recognized,
take delight in the possession of The abandonment of children by their
liberty. This feeling finds a sane- parents was a universal custom, and
tuary in the heart of every boy who one of which the Emperor Augustus

The Church and Liberty. 247

approved in the case of the infant child of God, in whose sight slaves
of his niece Julia. If child-murder have equal rights with kings. It
.was not a crime, abortion, of course, was necessary to bring out man's
'was no offence at all, and was uni- personal destiny in strong contrast
versally practised, especially among to the pagan view, which took in
the rich. The contempt in which only his social mission, and this nar-
human life was held is seen also in rowly and imperfectly,
the public games in which hun- This is what the Christian reli-
dreds of men were made to butcher gion did : it created a personal self-
one another merely for the amuse- consciousness which made heroes
ment of the spectators as well as of the commonest natures. The
in the power of life and death of the Roman died for his country; the
master over his slave. Christian died for God and for his
It has been maintained quite re- own soul's sake. He was not led
cently that those who gave their to brave death by the majesty of
approval and lent the countenance the city, of the empire, or by the
of their presence to these inhumani- memory of the victories which had
ties were not therefore cruel ; that, borne his country's arms in triumph
on the contrary, many of them were through the world, but by his own
kind-hearted and benevolent ; but individual faith and duty as a man
this, if we grant it, makes our argu- with a personal and immortal des-
ment all the stronger, since it proves tiny. When the Christian appealed
that the system was more vicious from emperors and senates and
than the men. A social state which armies, from the power and force
does not respect life is incompatible of the whole world, to God, it was
with liberty. It would be vain to the single human soul asserting it-
seek for the origin of our free in- self as something above and beyond
stitutions in any supposed peculiar- this visible universe. Never be-
ities of our barbarous ancestors, fore had the eternal and the infinite
Nothing short of a radical revolu- come so near to man; never before
tion of thought as to what man is had he so felt his own immortal
could have made civil liberty possi- strength. He was lifted up into the
ble. It was necessary to re-endow heaven of heavens, stood face to
the individual with absolute and in- face with the everlasting verities of
violable rights in the presence of God, became a dweller in the world
the state. Man had to be taught that is, and the garments of space
that he is more than the state ; that and time fell from his new-born soul,
to be man is godlike, to be a citizen He was free ; strong in the liberty
is human ; but this he could not with which Christ had clothed him,
learn so long as he remained help- he defied all tyrannies. " As we
lessly under the absolute power of have not placed our hope," said
the state ; nor could he, with the Justin to the Emperor Antoninus,
conviction that the state is the " on things which are seen, we fear
highest and that he exists for it, not those who take away our lives ;
make any effort to break the bonds death being, moreover, unavoida-
of his servitude. Before this could ble." The pagan Roman knew, in-
bc possible he had to be received deed, how to die; but his death,
into a society distinct from, and in- though full of grandeur and dig-
dependent of, the state ; he had to nity, was sombre and hopeless ; he
be made fully conscious that he is a died as the victim of fate. To the

248

The Church and Liberty.

Christian death came as the messen-
ger of life ; he died as one who is
certain of eternity, as one whose
soul is free and belongs to himself
and God. This sense of a personal
destiny which is eternal, of infinite
responsibility, gave to the individ-
ual a strength and independence of
character for Avhich we will seek in
vain among the religions of pagan-
ism. It is a feeling wholly distinct
from the barbarian's dislike of re-
straint. The love of wild and ad-
venturous life neither fits men for
the enjoyment of liberty nor predis-
poses them to grant it to others.

The more we study the history
of Christian nations, the more pro-
found is our conviction that without
their religion they could never have
won their liberties, which even now
without this divine support could
not be maintained. It is to our
religion that we are indebted for
the creation of popular free speech.
Before Christ gave the divine com-
mission to the apostles, philoso
pliers had discoursed to their chosen
disciples, and orators had declaim-
ed to citizens, on the interests of
the state ; but no one had spoken to
the people as moral beings with
duties and responsibilities which
lift them into the world of the
infinite and eternal. There were
priesthoods, but they were mute be-
fore the people, intent upon hiding
from them all knowledge of their
mysteries. Religious eloquence did
not exist ; it first received a voice on
the shores of the Lake of Gene-
sareth and on the hills of Judea, in
the preaching of Jesus, who remains
for ever its highest exponent, speak-
ing as one who had authority with
godlike liberty on whatever most
nearly touches the dearest interests
of men ; speaking chiefly to the
people, bringing back to their minds
the long-forgotten truths which

prove them the royal race of God.
The preaching of God's word with
the liberty of Heaven, which no
earthly authority might lessen, be-
came the great school of the human
race ; it was the first popular teach-
ing, and like an electric thrill it ran
through the earth. It belongs ex-
clusively to the religion of Christ.
Mahomet, who sought to borrow it,
was able to catch only its feeble
echo. This free Christian public
speech is unlike all other oratory ;
it possesses an incommunicable char-
acteristic, through which it has ex-
ercised the most beneficent influ-
ence upon the destinies of mankind.
It is essentially spiritual, lifts the
soul above the flesh, and creates
new ideals of life ; inspiring con-
tempt for whatever is low and pass-
ing, it begets enthusiasm for the
divine and eternal. It is a voice
whose soul-thrill is love, the bound-
less love of God and of men, who
are the children of this love, and
therefore brothers. This voice can-
not be bought, it cannot be silenced.
Currit verbum^ said St. Paul, and
again from his prison-cell : " But the
word of God is not fettered." On in-
numerable lips it is born ever anew ;
and always and everywhere it is a
protest against the brutality of power,
an appeal in the name of God, our
Father in heaven, in behalf of the
poor, the oppressed, the disinherit-
ed of humanity. Men may still be
tyrants, may still crush the weak
and sacrifice truth and justice to
their lustful appetites ; but the
voice of God, threatening, com-
manding, rebuking, shall be silent
nevermore.

Festus will tremble before Paul ;
at the bidding of Ambrose Theo-
dosius will repent; and before Hil-
debrand the brutal Henry will bow
his head. At the sound of this
voice all Europe shall rouse itself,

The Church and Liberty. 249

shall rush, impelled by some divine this new race the apostle of Christ
instinct, into the heart of Asia, to spoke : " My brothers," he said, or
strike the mighty power which " My children " ; and though all
threatened to blight the budding history and all society shrieked out
hope of the world. If we would against him, his hearers felt and
understand the relations of the knew ths,t his words were God's
church to liberty, we must consider truth. The heart is not deceived
the influence of this free speech, in love. " I seek not yours," he
which, without asking the permis- said, " but you ; for God is my wit-
sion of king or people, impelled by ness how I long after you all in the
a divine necessity, made itself heard heart of Jesus Christ. . . . I could
of the whole earth. Over the door wish that myself were accursed, if
of his Academy Plato had inscribed : only my brethren be saved." And
a None but geometers enter here " ; then, with the liberty which love
over the portals of 'the church was alone can inspire, he threatened,
written the word of Christ : '* Come rebuked, implored, laid bare the
to me, all ye who labor and are hidden wounds of the soul, nor
heavy laden." ' All you," exclaim- feared to become an enemy for
ed St. Augustine, " who labor, who speaking the truth. To the great
dig the earth, who fish in the sea, and rich he spoke in the plainest
who carry burdens, or slowly and and strongest manner, reminding
painfully construct the barks in them of their duties, denouncing
which your brothers will dare the their indifference, their cruelty, their
waves all enter here, and I will injustice ; and then, in words soft as
explain to you not only the yvooSi oil, he breathed hope and courage
aeavrov of Socrates, but the most into the hearts of those who suffer,
hidden of mysteries the Trinity." showing them beyond this short and
This new eloquence was as large as delusive life the certain reward of
the human race ; it was for all, and their struggles and sorrows. He
first of all for the poor and the op- taught them that the soul is the
pressed. It was not artistic, in the highest, that purity is the best, that
technical meaning ; it did not cap- only the clean of heart see God ;
tivate the senses ; it was not polish- that man's chief worth lies in that
ed. There was no showy marshal- which is common to all, derived
ling of words and phrases, no sweet from God and for him created. Hu-
and varied modulation of voice, no man life was perishing, wastefully
graceful and commanding gesture, poured through the senses on every
Around the altar were gathered the carnal thing. No love of beauty or
slave, the beggar, the halt, and the truth or justice was left. The mind
blind the oppressed and suffering was darkened, the heart was par-
race of men. If with them were alyzed. The great, strong human
found the rich and high-born, they passions that bore the people of
were there as brothers their wealth Rome in triumph through the earth
and noble birth entered not into were dead ; everywhere, in religion,
the church of Christ. Here there in art, in manners, was the deadly
was neither freeman nor slave all blight of materialism; a kind of de-
wore one. Thus in every Christian lirium hurried all men into animal
-embly was typed the humanity indulgences fatal alike to soul and
which was to be when all men body. To a race thus glued to the
would be brothers and free. To earth by carnal appetites came the

250 The Church and Liberty.

voice of the apostle, preaching citizenship in a great and prosper-
Christ and him crucified ; telling of ous state than in the possession of
the divine love that had bowed the vast wealth. The religion of pa-
heavens and brought down to men triotism was a low and material
God's own Son to suffer, to labor, creed without eternal verities upon
to die for them. He was poor, he which to rest. Power was its di-
was meek and humble, he fasted, he vinity, and it was therefore without
prayed ; he comforted the sorrowful, mercy ; success was its justification,
gave hope to the despairing ; he and it consequently trampled upon
offered up his life for men. Such right. It is not surprising that
as he was those who believe in him such principles should have creat-
must be. To serve the lusts of the ed states whose chief business was
flesh, to be heartless, to be cruel, to to prey upon the human race, and
be unjust, is to have no part with which, when conquest was no lon-
him. The greed of gold and of plea- ger possible, were brought to ruin
sure had reduced the masses of by the viciousness of their essential
men to slavery and beggary ; those constitutions. In fact, patriotism,
who would follow God's Son in the as understood by the pre-christian
perfect way were to sell what they states, was a denial of the princi-
had, to give to the poor. The pies out of which the common law
whole race of men was fallen, sunk of Christendom has grown. It
in sin ; the disciples of Christ \vere placed the interests of the nation
bidden to separate themselves from above those of the race, and there-
a world which had denied God, that, by justified all inhumanity if only
having received faith, hope, and it tended to the particular good of
love through union with him, they the state.

might bring to the dying peoples In contradiction of this unjust
a new life. and narrow spirit, the Christian
The Christian religion turned preacher declared that man's first
the mind's eye from the cdntem- duty is to God, as his first aim
plation of beauty of form to the should be to seek God's kingdom
inner life of the soul ; from thoughts by purifying and developing his
of power and success to principles own moral nature. He declared
of right and justice. All the forces that man is more than the state, as
of society had been brought to- God is more than the world ; in-
gether to develop in its highest spiring in another form those views
potency the passion of patriotism, of the paramount worth of the in-
which, bending to its purpose all dividual soul without which there
the powers of individual life, had could be no successful reaction
created mighty states, embellished against the slavery and degradation
them with art, crowned them with of paganism. The world, J> said
victory, made them eternal in liter- Tertullian, " is the common country
ature that cannot die; but on the and republic of all men."
altar of all this glory man had been These principles gradually work-
sacrificed. Patriotism had failed, ed their way, through " the foolish-
hopelessly failed, to satisfy the un- ness of preaching," into the minds
utterable longings of an immortal and hearts of the masses and became
race. It was based upon false the leaven of a new society. Let
principles and perverted instincts, us examine their action more spe-
Man's end is not more fulfilled in cially. In the church the brother-

The CJ lurch and Liberty.

251

hood of the race was from the ear-
liest day not only taught but recog-
nized as a fact. " There is neither
Jew nor Greek," said St. Paul,
" neither bond nor free, neither male
nor female ; for you are all one in
Christ Jesus." This doctrine is
stated in various places in the New
Testament with such emphasis as to
leave no doubt of its true meaning.
It is equally certain, however, that
the apostles did not proclaim the
emancipation of the slaves. " Let
those who are servants under the
yoke," said the same apostle who
declared that in Christ there was
neither bond nor free, " count their
masters worthy of all honor, lest the
name of the Lord and his doctrines
be blasphemed."

It was not the spirit of the Chris-
tian faith to encourage visionary
schemes or to awaken wild dreams
of liberty ; but rather to subdue
and chasten the heart, to make men
content to bear worthily the ills of
life by giving to suffering a meaning
and a blessing.

The misery of the pagan slave
was extreme, but it was also hope-
less. He believed himself the vic-
tim of relentless fate, from whose
power death was the only deliver-
ance, and he therefore rushed wildly
into all excess, giving little thought
to whether he should live to see
the morrow. Suffering for him was
without meaning a remediless evil,
a blind punishment inflicted by re-
morseless destiny. For this reason
also his wretchedness excited no
pity. Even as late as the time of
St. Ambrose the pagans were accus-
tomed to say : " We care not to give
to people whom the gods must have
cursed, since they have left them in
sorrow and want."

But with the preaching of Christ,
and him crucified, came the divine
doctrine of expiatory suffering of

suffering that purifies, regenerates,
ennobles, begets the unselfish tem-
per and the heroic mood. When
the Christian suffered he was but
filling up the measure of the suffer-
ings of Christ. The slave, laboring
for his master, was not seeking to
please men ; he was " the servant
of Christ, doing the will of God from
the heart"; "knowing that what-
soever good any man shall do, the
same shall he receive from the
Lord, whether he be bond or free."
Masters in turn were taught to
treat their slaves kindly and gently,
even as brothers ; " knowing that
the Lord both of them and of you
is in heaven, and with him there is
no respect of persons."

Thus, without attempting to de-
stroy slavery by schemes that must
have been premature, the Christian
religion changed its nature by dif-
fusing correct notions concerning
the mutual rights and duties implied
in the relations of master and slave.
The slave as a brother in Christ is
separated by a whole world from the
slave who is a tool or chattel. Who
can read St. Paul's Epistle to Phile-
mon, written in behalf of the fugi-
tive slave Onesimus, without per-
ceiving the radical revolution which
Christianity was destined to make in
regard to slavery ? " I beseech thee
for my son, Onesimus: . s, . re-
ceive him as my own heart ; no lon-
ger as a slave, but as a most dear
brother. If he hath wronged thee
in anything, or is in thy debt, put
it to my account."

This is after all but the applica-
tion of the teaching of Christ : I
was hungry, I was thirsty, I was
sick, I was a captive, and ye fed
me, ye gave me to drink, ye visited
me ; for inasmuch as ye have done
this for the least of my brethren, ye
have done it for me. In every suf-
fering and wronged human being

252

The Church and Liberty.

there is the Christ to be honored, to
be loved, to be served. Whosoever
refuses to take part in this ministry
places himself outside the kingdom
of God.

Slavery, from the Christian point
of view, is but one of the thousand
ills entailed upon the human race
by the transgression of Adam ; it is
enrooted, not in nature, but in sin ;
and as Christ died to destroy sin,
his religion must tend to diminish
and gradually abolish its moral re-
sults. The freedom of all men in
Christ which the great apostle so
boldly proclaims must in time find
its counterpart in the equality of
all men before the law. Indeed, the
admission of the slave into the
Christian brotherhood logically im-
plied the abolition of slavery. It so
raised the individual by giving him
the knowledge of his true dignity,
and so softened the master's treat-
ment, that the moral elevation of the
whole class was the inevitable result.
In this way the church made the
slave worthy to be free, and from
this to liberty there is but a step.
" We teach the slaves," said Ori-
gen, " how they may beget in them-
selves a noble spirit, and so become
free "; and it need not surprise us,
therefore, when Lactantius testifies
that among Christians already in his
day the difference between master
and slave was but formal ; in spirit
both were brothers and fellow-ser-
vants of Christ. Nor is it remark-
able that as evidence of this moral
regeneration we should find the
slaves among the early martyrs.
There is an example of the senti-
ments which Christians entertained
for their slaves in the self-reproaches
of St. Paulinus in his letter to Sul-
picius Severus : " He has served
me," he wrote ; " he has been my
slave. Woe to me, who have suffer-
ed that he who has never been a

slave to sin should serve a sinner.
Every day he washed my feet, and,
had I permitted it, would have
cleansed my sandals ; eager to ren-
der every service to the body, that he
might gain dominion over the soul.
It is Jesus Christ himself whom I
venerate in this youth ; for every
faithful soul comes from God, and
every one who is humble of heart
proceeds from the very heart of
Christ." Men who felt so lovingly
and so deeply for their fellows
could not long consent to hold them
in bondage. "We have known,"
wrote Pope Clement to the Corin-
thians, " many of the faithful to be-
come bondsmen that they might ran-
som their brethren."

Pagan masters, such as Hermes
and Chromatius, on the occasion of
their baptism gave freedom to their
slaves ; and holy women, like St.
Melania, induced their husbands to
follow this example. " Every day,"
wrote Salvian in the fifth century,
" slaves receive the right of citizen-
ship and are permitted to carry with
them whatever they have saved in
the house of their master." And
we know, upon the authority of St.
Gregory of Nyssa, that these manu-
missions frequently took place at
Easter and other solemn festivals of
the church. After the conversion
of Constantine the influence of the
church induced the civil authority
to relax the severity of its legal en-
actments concerning slaves. Their
manumission, especially from reli-
gious motives, was facilitated and the
cruelty of masters was restrained.
The successors of Constantine, par-
ticularly Justinian, continued to act
in the same generous spirit, until
finally, in the sixth century, all the
harsher pagan laws were abolished,
and men who had been slaves were
even admitted to holy orders. This
wonderful change in the policy of

The CJ Lurch and Liberty. 253

the Roman state had been wrought A council held at Rome under
by the pressure of Christian influ- this great pope (A.D. 595) decreed
ences. The voices of the great that slaves who wished to enter the
preachers, St. Chrysostom, St. Am- monastic life should receive their
brose, St. Augustine, never wearied liberty ; and so great was the num-
in pleading the cause of the slave ; ber of those who availed themselves
the councils of the church placed of this privilege that the masters
them under the protection of the on all sides loudly complained of it
ecclesiastical law ; the bishops and as an intolerable abuse. The church
priests defended them against the of the middle ages went still fur-
cruelty of their masters ; and when ther in the warfare for human liber-
once they were free, the church ty. Slavery existed among the Ger-
clothed their liberty with an invio- manic races which overran the Ro-
lable sanctity. In other ways, too, man Empire and took possession of
religious influences were at work to its territory ; and with Ihem, too, the
destroy slavery. The universal cus- slave was the property of the mas-
tom of the ancient pagan nations, ter, who had the right to exchange,
which , deprived captives of war to sell, or even to put him to death,
of their freedom, was an unfailing The struggle which had been but
source of supply to the slave mar- begun amidst the corruptions of
kets. Though the church was tin- ancient Rome with an effete and
able at once to erase from the bat- dying race was renewed with the
tie-flags of the ancient world the wild and rugged children of the
VCR victis, she found means to al- forest. In this great battle for the
leviate the lot of the captive. rights of man the monks came for-

We have quoted the words of St. ward as the leaders. In many con-
Clement to show that in his day al- vents it was forbidden to have slaves,
ready Christians not unfrequently and when the wealthy took the mo-
took upon themselves voluntary ser- nastic habit they were required to
vitude in order to redeem their emancipate their slaves,
brethren. The property of the A council held in England in
church was considered best em- 816 ordained that at the death of a
ployed when used for the redemp- bishop all his English slaves should
tion of captives. For this purpose be given their freedom ; and at the
the bishops were permitted to sell Council of Armagh, in 1172, all Eng-
even the sacred vessels of the altar, lish slaves in Ireland were emanci-
' Since our Redeemer, the Creator pated. The Council of Coblentz,
of all things," wrote Pope St. Gre- held in 922, declares that he who
gory, " has vouchsafed in his good- sells a Christian into slavery is guil-
ness to become man, in order to ty of murder.

restore to us our first liberty by Numerous decrees of ecclesiasti-

breaking, through his divine grace, cal synods condemned the slave-

the bonds of servitude by which we trade, and with such efficacy that

re held captive, it is a holy deed by the end of the tenth century

to give to men, by enfranchisement, slaves were no longer sold in the

their native freedom; for in the be- kingdom of the Franks.

ginning nature made them all free, In the British Islands this abuse

and they have been subjected to was not eradicated till towards the

the yoke of slavery only by the law close of the twelfth century. In

of nations." Bohemia it was abolished in the

254

The Church and Liberty.

tenth, and in Sweden in the thirteenth
century. The church continued to
buy slaves in order to give them
their liberty. The right of asylum
was given to those who fled from
the cruelty of their masters. The
historical records of manumission
in the middle ages, as preserved in
testamentary acts, almost univer-
sally assign religious motives for the
emancipation of slaves.

The efforts of the church in the
first centuries of Christianity, and
later too, in behalf of the weak and
the oppressed woman, the child,
and the slave are intimately con-
nected with the progress of civil
liberty. It is impossible for us,
who are the children of two thou-
sand years of Christian influences,
to realize the full significance of
her enthusiastic devotion to the
people, poor, suffering, and degrad-
ed, in an age in which no other
voice than hers pleaded for them.
In order to do this we should be
able to place ourselves in the midst
of the old pagan world, so as to
contemplate the abject condition
to which the masses of men had
been reduced a state so pitiable
that possibly nothing short of the
appearance of God himself, in pov-
erty and sorrow, could have inspir-
ed the courage even to hope for
better things.

The history of heathenism, in the
past as in the present, is marked by
contempt for man, by the degra-
dation of the multitude. In this re-
spect the civilization of Greece and
Rome was not different from that
of India and China in our own day.
If in Christian nations, after long
struggles and terrible conflicts, a
better state of social existence has
been brought about, we owe it to
Christ working in and through his
church. To render liberty possi-
ble an intellectual and moral revo-

lution had to take place. New
ideas as to what man is in himself
simply, new sentiments as to what
is due him by virtue of his very
nature, new doctrines as to what
all men owe to all men, had to be
preached and accepted before there
could be any question of civil re-
form in the direction of larger and
more universal liberty. Institu-
tions, laws, constitutions are me-
chanical, the surfaces of things,
social garments which, unless they
cover and protect some inner life
and divine truth, are merely useless
forms. Liberty, individual and so-
cial, is inseparable from self-con-
trol, which is born of self-denial.
Good men cannot be made by good
laws any more than by good
clothes. Man, of course, is influ-
enced, in part educated, by what
he wears as by what he eats ; but it
does not follow that the wisest
course would be to hand over the
children, body and soul, to cooks
and tailors. Not less unreasonable
is it to surrender them to politicians
to be drilled and fashioned by the
mechanical appliances of govern-
ment.

Liberty is of the soul ; it is from
this sanctuary that it passes into the
laws and customs of society. Men
who are slaves in heart cannot be
made free by legislative enactments.
The church of Christ taught men
how to be worthy to be free by
showing them liberty's great law-
self-denial ; by restoring to the soul
the sovereignty of which it had been
deprived since the gates of Paradise
were barred ; by clothing human
nature with inviolable sacredness
and inalienable rights ; by proclaim-
ing that man, for being simply man,
is worthy of all love and respect.

When Christ came, the slave, with-
out honor and without hope, wa
everywhere. The master was like his

Easter in St. Peter 's, Rome, 1875.

255

slave. Surrounded by human herds,
to whom vice in its most degrading
forms had become a necessity, he
breathed in an atmosphere of cor-
ruption against whose deadly poison
he \vas powerless to contend. His
life was a fever alternating between
lust and blood. The debauched are
always cruel, and as men sank deep-
er into the slough of sensual indul-
gence the cry for carnage grew fiercer.
Nothing but the hacking and man-
gling of human bodies could rouse
the senses, deadened by the grati-
fication of brutish passions. Here
and there a stray voice protested,
but only in the sad tones of despair.
Hope had fled; the world was pros-

trate ; in the mephitic air of sensu-
ous indulgence the soul was stifled ;
the poor were starving and the rich
were glutted ; a thousand slaves
could hardly fe$d the stomach of
Dives ; and Jesus Christ took Laz-
arus in his arms, and in a voice from
heaven called upon all who believed
in God and in man to follow him
in the service of outraged humanity ;
and his voice was re-echoed through
the earth and through the ages. At
its sound the despairing took heart,
the dead lived, the poor heard the
new gospel of glad tidings, and' the
slave, crushed and ignored by human
society, found citizenship and liber-
ty in the kingdom of God.

EASTER IN ST. PETER'S, ROME, 1875.

THE glorious sun of Easter morn- faith, we took our way to the Basi-
ing, 1875, arose in splendor, gilding lica of St. Peter. Multitudes filled
the domes and turrets of the Eternal the streets, men and women in ho-
City with burnished gold, picturing liday attire, but not with the old-
to the mind the gates of Paradise time life and exhilaration of a great
this day opened by the Sun of Right- fcsta. Loss does not sit lightly
eousness. The Roman people were on the Roman ; and everywhere
early astir, though no cannon sound- there seemed to be something want-
ed from Mount St. Angelo to usher ing to make this day what it should
in the great festival, nor papal ban- have been ; no grand processions,
ner flung its folds to the breeze no public solemn High Mass cele-
from that old citadel this bright brated with august ceremonies by
spring day to speak to Christians his Holiness, no precious benedic-
of him whom our Lord appointed tions from his paternal hand. A

watch over his sheep. veil hung over the face of our Eas-

After early. Masses at the church ter joys ; for the Bride of Christ sat

of Sant Andrea delle Fratte, so much in sackcloth,

beloved and sought after by Eng- When we entered on the pave-

ii and American Catholics in ment of St. Peter's, far-off sounds of

Rome as the place where Ratisbon joyous music came from the canon's

the Jew received the great gift of chapel, scarcely reaching the hal-

256 Easter in St. Peter's, Rome, 1875.

lowed arches without ; but a wail of sight-seeker, the tourist, whom no
sadness, a chord of grief, ran through solemn function can hold more
it all, for wicked men had made it im- than a few minutes, coming even
possible that our Holy Father should on Easter day with their red-cover-
present himself at the altar where ed ' Badeker,' and sometimes with
he alone officiates, lest his presence their opera-glasses levelled at the
should excite tumult and blood- altar where the priest was saying
shed among his dear children. Mass, and walking with perfect
High Mass was being celebrated in nonchalance over and among the
the canon's chapel, which contains people kneeling in devotion. They
one of the forty or more altars of spoke to each other in undertones (in-
St. Peter's, and is shut off from the telligible to one of their own tongue),
aisle by a glass partition. Crowds and with visible sneers, of the sub-
had pressed in among the dignita- jection and superstition of " these
ries of the church, and far out into Romanists." A few of them were
the nave hundreds were uniting Americans, while more were Eng-
themselves to the Holy Sacrifice lish; but, it is needless to say, none
there offered. of them persons of good breeding.

There is perhaps no place on Long lines of students from the
earth where a person can be so various colleges in Rome passed
entirely alone among a multitude and repassed, each in their dis-
as at St. Peter's. Each one seems tinctive color, pausing a moment
bent upon the particular purpose on bended knee to speak to our
that brought him there. The dear Lord in the Blessed Sacra-
church on this day contained ment, then going onward toward
twelve thousand people at least the hundred lamps that burn con-
(we heard the number rated much tinually before the tomb of the
higher), but no noise was heard Prince of the Apostles, and pass-
save the constant footfall on the ing quietly out again to visit some
marble pavement and the faint other temple. There were schools
echo of the voices from the choir, of boys and schools of girls in pic-
while of room there was no lack, turesque costumes, charity children
Low Masses w r ere being celebrated and children of princes, all kneel-
at many of the altars, around which ing together before their common
gathered groups of attentive wor- Lord, all seeking their share in his
shippers ; and when the tinkling of Easter benedictions. Streams of
the small bell hung at the door of people flowed in from the Campag-
the sacristy gave notice of another na, often rough, ragged, unkempt-
Mass, from every quarter persons the women in their harlequin holi-
were seen moving rapidly forward day clothes, the men in goat-skin
following the priest to the altar breeches and brilliant vests. Thv
where he was to celebrate. like the others, had come home; for

Many there were in that privileg- St. Peter's is a home for all, and

ed place on that holy day who had the poorest beggar feels that he has

come from motives of curiosity, to a right within those consecrated

see what it was all like gazers who walls. Soldiers and officers in the

looked upon Catholics with cool varied uniform of the Italian army

contempt as but a step removed walked about listlessly, sometimes

from the heathen to whom they haughtily, only a few bending their

send missionaries ; the industrious knee as they recognized the div

Easter in St. Pcter*s, Rome, 1875.

257

Presence. We pitied them greatly ;
to be an earnest Catholic in Victor
Emanuel's army must be a great
trial to one's faith.

The numerous confessionals, for
many different languages, were the
resort of wayfarers that day, while
the confessors sat quietly at their
posts hour after hour listening to
the tale of sin and repentance.
Almost every Catholic paused to
touch and kiss the foot of the bronze
statue of St. Peter, worn by centu-
ries of devout kisses. The statue
had this day a new attraction ; for
over it was hung a gorgeous dra-
pery of scarlet and gold. We found
that these rich hangings, so grace-
ful and beautiful, were in mosaic
from the famous workshop of the
Vatican. A fine portrait of the
Holy Father crowned the whole,
wrought from the same material,
and a very satisfactory likeness.

This calls to mind an incident
which took place in the Vatican
Basilica a short time before the
Easter day of which we are writing.
We had gone to St. Peter's for
Lenten rest and refreshment, and,
having visited the Chapel of the
Blessed Sacrament, were directing
our steps to the altar of our Blessed
Mother, when a sacristan politely
requested us to leave the church.
\Ve were inclined to rebel for a
moment, till we observed the whole

^embly, priests as well as people,
moving towards the entrance ; we
followed, of course, and the doors
were closed. So surprising a move-
ment in the middle of the day was
the cause of much questioning, and
it was discovered that his Holiness
wished to see the decorations put
over the statue of St. Peter by his

VOL. xxiu. 17

orders. He could no. appear be-
fore the congregation, lest the zeal
of his Catholic children might get
the better of their prudence, and
cries of Viva il Papa ! might bring
upon innocent friends the indigna-
tion of the Italian government, as
they had done on a former occasion.
This day we were to see no illu-
minations of the grand fafade and
the broad portico; no brilliantly-
lighted cupola, visible to the furthest
corner^ of Rome ; none of the im-
posing ceremonies that have been
so much sought after and admired
by Protestants. These latter go
away from the Easter celebrations,
dissatisfied, sometimes annoyed and
angry, that they should be de-
prived of the fine sights "just
for a whim of the Pope." We
heard them utter these words as we
passed down the massive steps
leading to the piazza. They seem-
ed to forget that holy church puts
not forth her beauties solely for the
delectation of Protestants who come
to Rome at Christmas and Easter
"to see sights." They might know
that when her Head is bowed with
sorrow, all true children of the
church carry the same cross, the
whole body suffering with the head.
There was joy tempered with much
sadness in our hearts as we went
from the noble basilica and wan-
dered away to the Coliseum, fit
emblem of the church in the Rome
of to-day. Ruthless hands hands
of those who would, make Rome
like any modern city have shorn
this sacred spot of half its beauties ;
hard hearts have stripped it of its
hallowed stations and forbidden
the people to pray where the mar-
tyrs shed their blood.

258

The Eternal Years.

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.' 1

IV
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD'S GOVERNMENT LONGANIMITY

As a lavish and yet unwasteful
abundance was the first condition
and eminent characteristic of the
creation, so is longanimity, or pa-
tience, the special quality which
marks the dealings of God with
his creatures, in the gradual and
long-enduring developments of his
government. It is the quality to
which we are most indebted, and
yet which, as regards the history
of mankind, we value and under-
stand the least. Possibly the fact
of our own brevity of life, as com-
pared with the multitude of thoughts,
efforts, and emotio s which the im
mortality of our being crowds across
the narrow limit of time, leaving
an impression of breathlessness and
haste, may put it almost out of
our power save as all things are
possible by the grace of God to
raise ourselves to any approximate
appreciation of God's long-enduring
patience. And this is increased in
the minds of those who are zealous
for God's glory. They chafe at the
outrages committed against his law ;
they sicken before the long, dreary-
aspect of man's incredulity and
hardness of heart ; and the rise
of a new heresy, the advent of an
antipope, or the horrors of a French
Revolution lead them hastily to
conclude, and impatiently to wish,
that the last day may be at hand.
Experience is a slow process. At
fifty a man only begins to learn the
great value of life and to look back

with marvel at the lavish waste of
his earlier years. But if to the in-
dividual the convictions resulting
from experience are of slow and
laborious growth, they are still
more so to the multitude. Conse-
quently, though more than eighteen
hundred years have come and gone
since St. John wrote to his disciples,
" Little children, it is the last hour,"
nevertheless the pious of all shades
of opinion in all ages have not been
afraid to utter random guesses that
the end of the world cannot be far
off. because of the wickedness of
men. It is indeed true, as the Ho-
ly Ghost spoke by St. John, that it
is the " last hour." But what does
that " last hour " mean ? Not sure-
ly a literal last hour or last day,
but a last epoch. The epoch in
the history of the cosmos before
the coming of the Redeemer that
is, before the hypostatic union in a
visible, tangible, and real human
body of the second Person of the
Triune Godhead was the first hour,
or the first epoch. The period
since the Incarnation is the last
hour, or the last epoch ; because
nothing mightier or 'greater can
take place than the fact of God
taking flesh in the womb of the
Blessed Virgin. It is the consumma-
tion ; it is the one great end of all
creation. This last epoch will have
its eras, evolving themselves within
the bosom of the Catholic Church,
just as the first epoch had its eras

The Eternal Years.

259

in the diverse revelations which But it is cruel to speak harshly

God made of himself to man ; and of a few words of discouragement

which were, if we may use the term falling from the lips of those who

without seeming to derogate from are weary with vigils waiting for

their unspeakable importance and new daylight. Only let us learn

their divine origin, of a more desul- that the Sun of Righteousness to

tory nature than those which are, our perceptions, as it were, sets and

and shall be, accorded to God's rises again. ' We are like children

spouse, the infallible church. What who think when the glorious golden

is this but to say again what we disc has sunk beneath the horizon

are endeavoring to express in every that it is utterly gone and is per-

page, namely, that " He who sitteth haps extinct, while on the contrary

on the white horse went forth con- the children of another hemisohere

quering, that he might conquer" ;* are playing in the warmth of its
and that God's work ever has been, beams ; so we see the dark clouds
is now, and ever will be a progressive of evil hiding from us the light of
work. " Gird thy sword upon thy grace, first in one spot, then in
thigh, O Thou most mighty. With another, and we grow downcast
thy comeliness and thy beauty set and impatient. We forget that
out,/>/w<?^/prosperously and reign. "f ' not one jot or one tittle shall pass
When the whole of Scripture is of the law till all be fulfilled "; *
teeming with promises of future and that our Lord tells us he " did
more glorious eras of which we now not come to destroy either the law
only see the germ, developed here or the prophets, but to fulfil them."
and there in some favored soul, in Bearing this in mind, let our
some special corner of God's vast readers take up the Psalms and the
vineyard, the church (for the saints Prophets, and study, with a deliber-
have always been men of the fu- ate faith in the inspired words, the
ture, in advance of their own time), promises which concern the future
is it not a marvel to hear despond- of the world under the tent of the
ing men talking as though there church, the place of which tent
were nothing better to be hoped for shall be enlarged that she may
than the end of the world, coming, "pass on to the right hand and
as they seem to expect it, like a ter- to the left ; and inhabit the [now]
rific frost which shall nip in the bud desolate cities." f
all 'the, as yet, unfulfilled promises, It is a want of hope and let us
and drown the wicked in a deluge ever remember that hope is a vir-
of flame ! And this we expect and tue, and not a mere quality or fac-
almost desire, hoping we ourselves ulty of the mind which leads us to
may be saved, but without a second read the stupendously sublime pro-
thought for God's beautiful earth, mises of God to the whole earth in
which he has blessed a thousand the future of the church, as so
fold by his own divine footprints on much beautiful imagery of which a
its surface ; and where he now limited application manifests itself,
makes his tabernacle in ten thou- from time to time, in the partial
sand churches, Waiting, nay watch- conversion of some thousands here
ing, with that ineffable patience of and there over the vast face of the
his, whose cycles of longanimity we semi-civilized world, while millions
are incapable of appreciating ! * Luke v. 18.

t See the whole of the 54th chapter of Isaias, as

* Apocalypse vi. 2. t Psalm xliv. well as numerous other passages.

260 The Eternal Years.

upon millions remain heathens, We have already spoken of the
Hindoos, Jews, and Mussulmans, indirect and adaptive government
We read these glorious utterances of God ; of " the government which
of the Scriptures with the restrain- he condescends to administer in his
ed admiration of one who, while world through the moral and physi-
admiring a poem, makes allowances cal activity with which he has en-
for the " fine frenzy " of the poet, dowed mankind." We have shown
We take it cum gra?io salis, and for- that the representative law of crea-
get that it is the trumpet voice of tion is "increase and multiply."
absolute truth ; and that whether We now come to the fact that since
or no it point to a millennium upon the fall the corollary of that law is
earth a question left open by the labor and toil. The earth from
church, and so little discussed as yet henceforward brought forth thorns
by her modern theologians that we and thistles ; in other words, on all
will not dwell upon it it must mean sides obstacles and difficulties met
all it says; and, after the fashion the advancing steps of the discrown-
of God's gifts, more than we can ed lord of creation. Speaking ac-
conceive. This, then, is what the cording to the eternal decrees of
patience and longanimity of God God, and not according to their man-
is leading us to. These glories, ifestation through tiitie, we should
which have exhausted the tenderest say that the younger and fallen sons
as well as the most powerful utter- of God had to reconquer the world
ance of language to depict, are the they were given to reign over, as
future of the church, when the the elder Son of God, he who is
spouse of Christ shall be the mis- from all eternity, has, inconsequence
tress of the world. St. Paul in the of the same fall, to reconquer the
Epistle to the Hebrews, quoting the reign of grace in the souls of men,
eighth Psalm on the high destinies step by step, vanquishing the thorns
of man, says, " Thou hast subjected and thistles with which our unbe-
all things under his feet," and adds, lief and iniquity tear and rend his
"but we see not as yet all things bleeding feet ! There is God's work
subject to him." Nevertheless the going on in the material world,
delay gave no place for doubt and there is God's work going on
that the promise should have an in the spiritual world. And what
ultimate and complete fulfilment ; we want to do is to persuade our
while he unfolds to us the where- readers not so constantly to put the
fore of these sublime predictions, two in opposition, as though, while
the only adequate reason why the the progress of grace is exclusively
human race should be crowned with God's work, material progress were
glory and honor the one, sole quite as exclusively man's work to
emphatic cause, namely, that all say nothing of those who hold it to
creation is in and for the Incarna- be the devil's work,
tion; that the Incarnation is the When the three Persons of the
basement, and the sublime archi- ever blessed Trinity said, " Let us
trave and final coping-stone of the make man, "it was with the express-
whole edifice ; that the creation ed intention that he should have
is for him as entirely as it is by dominion over the whole earth-
him, and that man is the younger "universes terra" That constitu-
brother of his Redeemer, and shares tion of man as the lord of creation
in his inheritance. was not annulled when man fell. It

The Eternal Years. 261

is true that it became a dominion he too has to conquer his territorial
he had to contest with the beasts of inch and govern in the creation,
the forest, who were originally to though he do so but as a shepherd
have been his willing slaves ; with or a ploughman. We are conscious
the thorns and thistles that ever as we write this of all that may be
since bar his passage ; and with the said in detriment of material pro-
convulsions of nature, to the secret gress, of the luxury it leads to, of
harmonies of which he had lost the the rapid propagation of false opin-
key ; while the angelic guardians ions, evil literature, and irreligious
of the cosmos could not hold in- thought ; or of the increased facili-
tercourse with him in his degrad- ties for the wholesale slaughter of
ed state, who, although they be mankind in modern warfare. No
" ministering spirits," are so in se- wonder the pure-minded shrink in
cret only, until the time shall come dismay from much that material
for their promised mission upon progress appears to be producing in
earth. Nevertheless man was a the world, and that timid souls are
monarch still, though a fallen mon- led to believe that such progress
arch. Or rather we should say that, not only is not God's work, but (if
as redeemed man, he is God's vice- we may make this distinction) is
roy ; and in that character is re- also not his intention. We would
conquering the material world, that entreat all such to take courage
as the ages roll on the church, the from a few considerations which will
spouse of Jesus, may " lengthen her lay before them their error in princi-
cords and strengthen her stakes." * pie, and also give them a wider view
Materialism is.no necessary conse- of God's merciful designs in his own
quenceof material progress. Scien- creation.

tific discovery, whether as regards First, it may be assumed that,
the solar system, the dynamic forces, as the Almighty has not abdicated
chemical affinities, or the properties his providential government of the
of the world's flora, the habits of its world in favor of the powers of
fauna and the uses to which all darkness, therefore no great and
these may be put, is next to the wide-spread movement takes place
development of theological truth, amongst the children of men with-
of which in a certain sense, as will out its having an ultimate end. for
one day be proved, it is the corre- good. We do not believe that evil
lative the highest gift of God. It is to win the day. We utterly re-
is simply man's fulfilment of his fuse to give credit to those who
second and inferior mission upon look upon the Lord of Hosts as
earth. His first mission, or rather vanquished in the end, and upon
his vocation, is to save his soul from the personal Lucifer, and the princi-
sin, and to live in union with his pie of evil which he embodies and
God. His second is to fill the one represents, as going off the field with
spot, be it wide or narrow, which a crowd of prisoners who will far
God has assigned him in the crea- outnumber the armies of the Lord.
tion with all the faculties of his This desponding about the triumphs
mind and intellect. It may be a very of grace is the residuum of Protes-
smull, a scarcely discernible spot tantism. It is the melancholy of
that he occupies ; but in his degree sectarianism. It is not in accor-
dance with the teaching of the
* Isaias liv. a. church ; she who is forever lifting

262 The Eternal Years.

up her eyes unto the hills from God. We are looking out on the

whence cometh her help. The world through the small aperture of

church which is built on the Incar- time, our own limited time, our own

nation, which is fed with the Eucha- individual brief life, and thus we see

ristic Sacrifice, and which owns as all the present evil, and but little, and

her queeVi the woman " clothed occasionally nothing, of the future

with the sun," " terrible as an army good. But surely as Christians we

with banners," does not limit her are bound to believe that no waves of

hopes to a few sheep scattered in thought or sentiment, and no sustain-

the wilderness, but knows that the ed and wide-spread effort of any kind,

" cattle on a thousand hills ' also take possession of mankind without

belong to her Lord and Master. a special beneficial intention of God's

We have no wish to palliate the providence, and without a distinct
evil which dogs the footsteps of and absolute good being their ulti-
modern progress. We see that, like mate result. We bow our heads to
the huge behemoth, it tears down the storm of the elements ; we ac-
many a sacred barrier, many a hallow- cept the flood and the hurricane,
ed landmark, with its gigantic strides, and even the pestilence, as coming
and we mourn with our mother the by the permission of our heavenly
church, and with all the body of the Father, and as in some way work-
faithful, over the souls that perish in ing for good. And shall we behold
the fray. But not even for this is it the moral and intellectual activity
possible to doubt the ultimate de- of man scanning the high heavens,
signs of God's providence in making searching the deep bosom of the
all work together for good. earth, snatching from nature her

Good works through evil, not as most hidden secrets ; seeking the
its instrument but as its vanquish- principles of life, and the occult laws
ed enemy; and material and sci- of development and progression;
entific ' progress is so certainly a shall we watch wonderingly the
good in itself that it arises from and strange, new, and pathetic tender-
forms part of the development of ness with which men are beginning
man's original destination, as being to appreciate and investigate the
lord over the creation. It is the ne- whole world of creation inferior to
cessary result of that ; consequent- themselves, but holding perchance
ly it is a fulfilment of God's will, in its silent and patient existence
As to its fatal, or at least deleteri- secrets important to us shall we be-
ous, moral effects on individuals, or hold all this, while our hearts burn
even for a time on the multitude, within us, and not intimately and
this is but the weaving of the dark intently believe that God is carrying
woof into the web of man's exis- on his work, while man seems only
tence, which is the result of man's to be following his own free will
estrangement from God, but which, in the exercise of his intellect? Let
neither in this nor in any other form, us be larger hearted and more trust-
will be allowed ultimately to de- ing with our God ; nor for a mo-
fraud the Almighty of his glory, by ment suppose that the reins of gov-
turning a relative, and much less eminent have fallen from his hands,
a positive, good into positive evil, or that passing evil will not termi-
We see the beginning ; we do not nate in greater good. The darkest
see the end, save by the eyes of hour is ever the one before the
faith, and trust in the goodness of dawn. Doubtless when the eagles

The Eternal Years. 263

of Rome sped victorious over the moral results which flow therefrom.
vast and crowded plains of the Gaul The moral law is the first law, and
and the Frank there were gentle material progress is not a real gain
spirits left at home who, having kept until it is married to the moral law.
themselves pure by the undiscerned The immediate consequence of ma-
aid of the grace which our heavenly terial progress is to increase wealth ;
Father never refuses to men of and the immediate result of in-
good will, grieved that the corrup- creased wealth is a doubtful bene-
tion of Roman luxury should infil- fit. While the wealth remains in
trate its poison into the simple Hves the hands of the few, the gulf be-
of the semi-barbarous and valorous tween rich and poor is widened
nations. And yet, but for these and animosities increased. When
victorious eagles what would the first it percolates into the lower
world be now ? strata of society, for the time it ex-
God brings good out of evil; ercises thereon a demoralizing effect;
and though material progress is sel- for the tendency of a vast deal of
dom a real advantage at its first ad- material progress, and of its result-
vent, yet when the moral excitement ing modern institutions and modern
of its early possession has subsided, customs, is to sap real happiness,
when the ever living, ever penetrat- and substitute a fictitious excitement
ing spirit of God has gradually, based on wealth and luxury. We
through the poor human instruments are thus forever eating the fruit of
he condescends to use, claimed all the tree of the knowledge of good
that man can know, do, or acquire, and evil. The bitter and the sweet
as belonging to himself in the great will grow together till God shall
scheme of creation and redemption, part them. But the evolutions of
then, by slow degrees perhaps, but the eternal years gradually recon-
by sure ones, the evil gives way to quer the crude materials to the
good. It rests with us to hasten cause which must ultimately tri-
the appropriation of all that men umph; and as the spirit of God
call progress, gathering into Peter's moves over the face of the troubled
net the large and the small fishes; waters the discordant social elements
for it is all ours. As children of the fall into place, and a further degree
church, to us alone does the world of the real, true, moral progress of
belong in the ultimate and supreme mankind is found to harmonize with
sense. It is our fault if we are not the material progress that man was
more rapidly converting the raw ma- so proud to have gained, and which
terial which is swept to our feet when he did so was but the coarse
into increments of God's glory. It though precious ore which waited
rests with the church in her children to be purified in the crucible of the
to make what the world calls pro- divine law.

gress become a real progress. Is there any sane man now living
There is no real progress without who really regrets the invention of
a fixed principle as its basis and printing ? We have heard the pro-
starting point. And that Christi- ject of a railroad in China deprecated
unity alone can give; and chiefly by a zealous friend to truth. It will
Christianity in its only full and per- carry our merchandise ; but will it
fec.t form, the Catholic Church. By not also carry our priests ? We re-
Christianity we mean the fear and member when men said murders
the love of God, with all the pure would increase because London was

264 The Eternal Years.

to be lit with gas! Do these sin- There is- another point from which
cere-hearted men really think that we can view the material progress
man is working out solely his own of the world with hopefulness, as
will, and that an evil will, in all this helping to work out the future in a
heavy tramp of material progress sense favorable to the church ; and
through God's world ? Is not man this point comes under the head of
fulfilling his destiny of conquer- what we have called God's adap-
ing the world; and when he has tive government of his creation,
done his part, albeit done too It is the fact that the progress of
often in blind and arrogant ignor- civilization develops the natural
ance, will not the rightful owner of characteristics of the various races
the vineyard come and claim the of mankind, and that the history
whole ? of the church reveals how the provi-
It is impossible for us to be dence of God makes use of the
slack in the exercise of any one vir- characteristics of race as he does
tue without the omission affecting of everything else for the building
the whole of our inner and spiritual up and development of the church,
life. If we allow our hopes to sink and of truth by her. The life and
low it is certain to affect our faith ; death of our Lord having been ac-
and if our faith, then also our love, complished in the chosen land,
Nor should we forget that it is among the chosen people, the infant
" according to our faith that it shall church was speedily transplanted
be done unto us." We are not sec- from the shadow of Mount Calvary
onding God's precious intentions to- to the City on the Seven Hills,
wards us so long as we are taking a Judea was her cradle, but Rome
desponding, narrow, and unaspiring was to witness her adolescence,
view of what are likely to be his in- The two leading characteristics of
tentions as regards the future of the Latin race were necessary to
his creation ; and all despising of her growth ; for the Latins were
that creation, all holding cheap the the conquerors and the lawgivers
law, the order, the beauty, and the of the world, and the pioneers of
uses of the material creation, arises the future. She was borne on the
from an inadequate sense of the wings of the Roman eagles. Shefol-
mystery of the incarnation, of the lowed in the footsteps of the victo-
Verbiuh caro factum est which is the rious legions, and as Rome and time
one sole efficient reason of all we went on with devouring steps, she
see and of all that exists. Once caught the conqueror and the con-
raise the inferior questions of na- quered both in her mystic net, and
ture, of science, and of art up to reigned among the Latin-Celtic races,
that level, and we shall find that it Rome was the world's lawgiver,
imparts a certain balance to all our The Latin genius is essentially legis-
thoughts, and diffuses a peace- lative and authoritative. Subtlety,
ful looking forward and a calm en- accuracy, and lucidity were the
durance of present ills which are necessary human elements for the
morally what the even pulse and the outward expression of the divine
vigorous strength are physically to truth which the church carried in
the man in perfect health. He is her bosom ; for Catholic theology
as free from the excitability of fever is a certain science, admitting of
as from the lassitude of debility ; fuller developments as " things new
he is a sane man. and old ' : are brought forth from

The Eternal Years. 265

her treasured store, but never mak- nine choirs of angelic ministers,

ing one step too far in advance of As full of mystery as of practicality,

another throughout her rhythmical beautiful, graceful, and complete,

progress. These human elements it runs through all the life of the

resided essentially in the Latin church like the veins through the

mind ; and in the Latin tongue, living body, and carries order and

which has ever been the language of harmony through every low Mass

the church, and which, the church in the village church, through high

having consecrated it to her own pur- pontifical ceremonials and within

poses, became what we popularly the silent gates of cloistered or-

call a dead language so far as con- ders where men and women daily

cerns the shifting scenes and fluid and hourly enact and represent the

states of man's mortal life ; she drama of the church,
laid her hand upon it, and it subli- The same genus runs through all

mated beneath her touch, and was the component parts ; and that ge-

consecrated to her use, beyond all nus belonged to the race to whom

changing fashion or wavering sense, was consigned the laying of the

The dying Roman Empire involun- church's foundations, and the rais-

tarily bequeathed it to her ; and the ing of the edifice. And thus there

language of the great lawgivers of exists, besides the divine integrity

the world became that of the church, of the whole, a certain human con-

and only on her lips is a living Ian- sistency which, humanly speaking,

guage to this hour. The Latin peo- is the consequence of the work

pie were the fountain of law ; their having been put into the hands of

code to the present day forms the the race that was naturally adapted

common law, or the base of the com- to effect it. Now, as the ways of

mon law, of all Christian nations God are necessarily always conse-

except where the retrogradations quent that is, consistent with each

of the Napoleonic code have been other, moving in harmony and

flung in the face of humanity and working through law it is not a

the church as an insult to both. The vain presumption to imagine that

principle of law, the love of law, as he has constituted different races

lay in them as an hereditary gift, with different characteristics, so it

Thus were they as a race specially is his intention to make use of

adapted to become the framers of each and all in the fuller develop-

the church's canon law, of her dis- ments of his church,
cipline, and of her glorious ritual, " Other sheep I have that are

each phrase of which is the crystal- not of this fold ; them also must I

lization of a theological truth, a frag- bring." The words were spoken

ment from the Rock of Peter, but in Jerusalem while the Latin race

perfect in itself and concomitant was lying in the blind pride of

with all the rest. paganism, and the Celtic races

Thus also she wrote in letters of were only recently being hewn out

red and gold her marvellous ritual, of the darkness of their far-off life

the least part of which embodies by the swords of the conquering

a symbolic act relating to the things nation. Surely it is one of those

that are eternal. There is not a words the fulfilment of which is not

touch that is not significative, there complete. There are other races

is not a line that does not seem waiting to bring into the vineyard

caught from the traditions of the the tools that their native genius

266 The Eternal Years.

has put into their hairds. As the to him and make our abode with

church through the Latin race him."

has formed her external, congrega- Nothing less than this is the pro-
tional, hierarchical, and authorita- mise of God, and should be the
tive condition, and has crowned the object of man. The church in her
whole in the last Vatican Council by sacraments and ordinances is the
the dogma of the infallibility, lay- one authorized and infallible wag-
ing thereby the keystone that locks to bring about this blessed union,
the perfect arch, so now the Teu- But unless that be accomplished,
tonic Saxon races, the people of all the outward devotions that
individuality, of complete inner saints, or confraternities, that indi-
life, combined with vast exterior viduals or congregations, ever de-
activity and resistless energy, will vised and poured into the church's
be brought forth in God's provi- lap like handfuls of flowers, will be
dence to carry out the law of liber- to those who rest in them as fading
ty which is the correlative of the as flowers, and as sure to be swept
law of individuality. away and burned when the fire
God speaks to the individual shall try of what sort the work is.
soul through his organ the church, The dying to self not as man's
through her sacraments, down to restrictions can produce its out-
lier least ceremony, and through ward semblance, but as God's work-
her authority. Nor have we any ing in the soul joined to our good
absolute test and security that it is will can alone effect it and the
his voice we hear and no delusion consequent union with him whose
of our own, except as we are in har- divine spirit rushes in wherever we
many with her authority. All may make room for him to come, is the
be a mistake save what is in accor- one sole object of all that the
dance with the one infallible voice, church gives us and does for us ;
But nevertheless it is to the fn- of all the barriers she erects, of all
dividual soul that God speaks, and the gardens she plants, of all her
not to the masses as such. God leads discipline and her ceremonial. It
each soul separately, and individu- is the only living reality. It was
ally apart, and there is no real so with the saints of all ages and
religion that is not the secret inter- nations. They valued all in pro-
course, the hidden communion, of portion as by its use they killed
the solitary soul, alone with God. self and put the living God instead ;
Every human soul has its secret with and they valued it no more. Low
God, a secret of love, or a secret down in the soul the deep pulsation
of hatred, or of avoidance. God o f the thought of God, ruling all
penetrates our souls through the O ur actions from the least to the
sacraments of the church ; but greatest, this is what our dear Lord
past the sacraments, and as the demands of us in every communion
result of the sacraments, there must we make; this is what his church
grow up the continued, sustained, intends in all her teaching. This
and ever more and more habitual alone will hasten the reign of the
presence of God in the soul, before Holy Ghost, when God " will pour
we arrive at that state for which his spirit on all flesh, and your sons
the church and the sacraments are and your daughters shall prophesy,
but the means to an end though
a divine means. "We will come *johnxiv. a 3 .

The Eternal Years. 267

your old men shall dream dreams, Saxon races are the races who are

and your young men shall see specially extending it throughout

visions."* In other words, the the world. We have endeavored to

gates of the supernatural world show that in material progress man

shall be thrown open, not to a rare is achieving his secondary mission

and scanty few, but to all to whom of exercising dominion over the

u it is given to know the mystery whole creation. Thus we find that,

of the kingdom of God."t having in his wonderful providence

We seem to have wandered from united the two characteristics of
our subject; but it is not so. We strong individuality and vehement
were writing of the future develop- activity in certain races, God has
ment of the church through the prepared for the future of the church,
different characteristics of different when inner spiritual life shall be
races, as instruments in God's hands more diffused, an era when the spirit
in the working of his adaptive gov- of God will take possession of all
eminent ; and this has led us to de- that man can know, do, or acquire as
scribe the necessity of the inner life belonging to himself, " and through
of the soul with God, because the him to his church, in the great scheme
Teutonic and Saxon races are the of creation and redemption." And
people with whom the tendency to thus material progress will be as-
a deep inner life is a natural pecu- similated to the welfare of the
liarity. They are more self-con- church ; and the stones will be
tained, self-reliant, reserved, and re- turned into bread not in the sense
collected than the versatile Latin of the arch deceiver, who claims all
races ; and though none of these material progress as his own region,
characteristics necessarily lead to a but united with " the word that pro-
spiritual inner lif )f any form that ceedeth from the mouth of God "; *
being a free grace from God they the material sanctified by the spiri-
are the apt instruments for grace to tual, when all shall be " holy to the
make use of in producing a certain Lord."

form. They are, therefore, those to The inaccuracy of the popular,-
whom we may look for the next im- as distinguished equally from the
portant era in the church's history ; Catholic and the rationalistic view
when all the vast and complicated of the importance of matter, and
edifice of her hierarchy being com- of material progress which is the
plete she has now to expand the march of man's conquest over mat-
fuller development and deeper ut- ter, arises chiefly from the imperfect
terance of her inner life in individ- manner in which we realize the uni-
ual souls ; and that no longer as an versal presence of God. Many
occasional glorious phenomenon of among us can look back with a dis-
grace, but as spread over a vast tinct recollection to the time when
area, as influencing whole peoples, a mother first announced to us the
and as becoming the sustained life great truth that God is everywhere,
of Christianity. Law and liberty in With the unfailing practical sense of
one ; the "freedom wherewith Christ children, we probably began to in-
hath made us free." dividualize certain familiar objects

We were also speaking of material with the query was he there in

progress ; and these sjftne Teutonic this table, in that flower, in my liv-

* Joel ii. 28. , t Mark iv. 11. * Matt. iv. 3, 4.

268 The Eternal Years.

ing hand, in the pen I hold ? And completeness, may be brought to

the bewilderment of immensity bear on the question now before us

crept over us as we tried to grasp of the value of the cosmos, of the

the thought of the great universal status of matter, and of the fact

presence. that it is the indirect revelation,

As in later years theological ques- even as the Incarnation is the di-

tions opened upon us the mysteries rect revelation of God Jesus Christ

of our faith, the angelic choirs, the the God-Man being the mediator

army of saints and martyrs, the between the creature and his crea-

Incarnation, and the localization of tor.

the eucharistic presence in the First let us bear in mind that no
Blessed Sacrament many of us cause can act where it is not virtu-
have gradually dropped the more in- ally present by its power, even if
tense sense of God's omnipresence, not actually present by its matter.
It probably was more accurately And this law has its correlative in
felt by the Old Testament saints the spiritual world. I influence
than by any, except saints, under you only so far as I touch you. I
the new law. It is not that we shall have written in vain unless
have lost sight of the truth that he these pages touch your sight. If
sees, hears, and knows each one I were speaking to you with my
of us, always and everywhere ; but living voice I could only reach the
we forget that he fills all space, and hearts of those who heard me. To
that he is in all things. It is a re- all the rest I am dead ; and they
markable fact that the very lowest, are dead to me. This is the moral
the least theological and dogmatic, side of the question, as between
of all heathen beliefs, where all are man and man. As regards the ma-
a jargon of error, is nevertheless the terial side, let us suppose I push
faint reflection of this truth, We forward a ball. It is force emanat-
allude once more to the animism ing from my touch which sets it in
of the lower savage races, which motion ; but my force has not ceas-
lends a spiritual presence even to ed with my direct touch. It is still
inanimate and inorganic matter, my force propelling it as absolutely,
To them God is everywhere and though not so powerfully, as at the
in every thing ; so that to them no moment I touched it ; and the ball
thing exists disconnected from a only stops when my force is ex-
spiritual presence as abiding in it, pended, or when a counter force
and that not in the pantheistic form arrests it. But whence comes my
of many gods, but as all matter force ? Solely from him in " whom
holding an occult spirit, which is we live, and move, and are." He
the same spirit in each substance, is our motive power ; every act of
But there it ends ; a blind creed, ours is formed out of his force,
which does not even go the length equally whether we are acting ac-
of acknowledging a personal deity cording to his will or against it.
or a divine providence. None the We have said that causes can
less is it founded on a truth which only act where they are actually or
often slips out of our consciousness, virtually present. But it is a great
while we are occupied with the fact in the material world that there
more familiar articles of our faith, is no such thing as material contact.
Let us examine how this great truth, No matter what substance or what
as we hold it in its fulness and fluid we select, the limpid air or

The Eternal Years.

269

the hard iron, in all each infinitesi-
mal molecule dwells solitary and
apart, and crush them together as
we may there is still a space be-
tween.

Now, theology teaches us that
(lod is nearer to us than we are to
ourselves. His divine contact with
us is closer on our bodies and our
souls than the molecules of our
bodies are to each other. The only
real contact is the presence of God ;
whether through ourselves or in
the vast cosmos around us, the ac-
tion of forces is God making himself
felt. Force is the contact of God,
the touch of the divine being on
the material world. He is not in
us, nor in the worlds around us, as
he is in his own essential essence,
as he is in himself; but he is there
in the effects of his concurrence,
and the moment he were to cease
to be there (were such a thing pos-
sible) in all, or in any one part, the
whole or the part would fall away
into chaos, quite as certainly as
the ball which I have set in motion
will cease to roll the instant my
force has exhausted itself and ceases
to act on the ball. My force di-
minishes gradually ; it is a limited
and a borrowed force. The ball
goes slower and slower; but so
long as it moves, my force is upon
it in a stronger or weaker degree.
But the force of the divine Being is
almighty, is always absolute, is al-
ways infinite, is always under his
own control ; and consequently it
never fails, it never waxes less at
any one moment, in any one direc-
tion.

In every act of our existence we

. using God's force, for him or

against him. The whole universe

is doing the same. His presence is

the sole real contact; the contact

of the Qui Est, of pure absolute be-
ing with his own creation.

And all around us we hear a vain
clamor about an immutable law
that governs nature, while the great
primary cause has withdrawn him-
self from all interference.

We hear of blind forces which
spring from nowhere, and hurry us
on without any guide save them-
selves. We repeat it Law and
force are not God ; but God is both
law and force. There is no motion
without a motive power ; and there
is no motive power at an actual dis-
tance from the object set in motion.
And thus God, who is law and force,
is upon us, within us, around us ;
and within all, always, and through-
out space. There are mutations
and diversities in the exhibitions of
God's force, according to his divine
will ; but there is never anywhere
any cessation of it. And there
never will be ; for if there were,
he would contradict himself, and
that is impossible.

This, then, is what matter is. It
is the exponent of the being of God
to the angels and to us, It is not
the exponent of himself to himself.
That is the eternal generation of
the Son in his own bosom ; the sec-
ond person of the Trinity, the di-
vine Logos. And the Incarnation
of the eternally-begotten Son in
the womb of the ever blessed Vir-
gin Mother is the blending of this
double exponent of his being; for it is
the Word made flesh; it is God cloth-
ing himself in the matter of his own
creation, and dwelling amongst men

Could matter be more beautiful
than this ? Can we say mor,e in its
praise ? And could any reflections
lead us further from the notions of
materialism, or draw us nearer to
God?

2/O Sacred Epigraphy.

SACRED EPIGRAPHY AND THE INVOCATION OF THE
MARTYRS IN BEHALF OF THE DEAD.

THE church is once more in the cessory influence of the saints, so
Catacombs. She has not fled thith- did she in the beginning, when not
er from persecution, albeit she is her dogmas, but her very existence,
suffering sorely at present ; but she was called in question ; when, had
has gone down there to live over she been a human institution, she
again the memories of the past, must have made a false step, for
With the lamp of research held aloft, then there were no critical rational-
she paces reverently through those ists or fribbling logicians to take her
dark and tortuous passage-ways to task. Sophists there were many,
where erst she lived in her saints even in those days. But they had
and martyrs. Many a precious re- good faith enough to acknowledge
lie of her primitive existence is delv- that, if she were a church at all, she
ed out of the accumulated masses could not err ; so they consistently
of tufa and cttbris, all more or less confined themselves to an attack
showing forth the usages of the early upon her existence,
jimes, and she experiences no small Among the many important dis-
consolation in beholding that what coveries made of late in the ceme-
she was then, in all those usages tery of St. Domitilla, outside of the
which are founded in dogma, she is gate of St. Sebastian at Rome, by
now. She has not changed. She the illustrious Chevalier de Rossi
is consistent throughout the beau- (to whose Bulletin we are indebted
tiful Spouse of Christ, yesterday, for the inscriptions given below), that
to-day, and for ever. Every new of the tomb of Veneranda, a Re-
discovery in those limitless necro- man matron, is not the least impor-
polises is a vindication of the tant, since it constitutes a strong
maxim of St. Augustine: Ecdesia linkin the chain of archaeological evi-
orat, ergo credit The church prays, dence on the antiquity of interces-
therefore she believes. The cha- sory prayers for the dead. The tomb
pels, the altars, the rude frescos, lies in a chamber which branches
the sarcophagi, the very inscriptions off from one of the subterraneous
on the tombs, bear evidence to the galleries, entered from the apsis of
great truth couched in the words of the old basilica. On the wall over
the inspired Doctor of Hippo. To the sarcophagus is a fresco in a good
prove, therefore, that the church state of preservation and of a style
prays is identical with proving that anterior to the Byzantine. It re-
she believes ; and what she believes presents a matron in the act of
must be true, else she is no church, praying in the garden of Paradise,
not the spouse of Christ, but an un- which is symbolized by a flower
worthy and intruding handmaid, plant springing up at her feet. She
But we are not going to dogmatize, is dressed in a loose dalmatic, and
We would only show on archaeolo- veiled like other Christian matrons
gicai authority, that, as the church, who are represented as praying in
in her liturgy, at this day commends various cemeterial pictures of the
the dead and the dying to the inter- third and fourth centuries. There is

Sacred Epigraphy. 271

none of that stiffness in the style and meet the departing soul and con-
coloring which indicates the grace- duct her to a " place of refreshment,
less Byzantine school, but such an light, and peace." In the same
ease and elegance mark the figure manner the acclamations which we
as have induced De Rossi to com- read in the epitaphs of the early
pare it with that of the ' Five ages call upon the spirits of the
Saints " (St. Dionysias and her com- blessed to receive the soul of the
panions) in the crypt of St. Euse- departed. Here is a beautiful epi-
bius in the adjoining catacombs taph, discovered in one of the ceme-
of St. Calixtus. Over the right arm teries of Rome towards the end of
is the inscription, VENERANDA the last century :

DET. VII. IDVS IANVARIAS. PAVLOFIL.O MERENTI 1N PA

On the left is the figure of a maiden, CEM TE SVSCIPIAN OMNIVM ISPIRI
without any veil, dressed in a long

double tunic and pallium. The The acclamation reads: Paulo Filio
right hand of the figure is extend- merenti : in pacem te suscipian(f)
ed as if in the act of welcoming or omnium ispirita sanctorum To the
receiving Veneranda. She points worthy son Paul : May the spirits
with the left to an open box or cas- of all the saints receive thee in
ket full of volumes, a symbol of the peace. The strange plural form,
salutary faith contained in the Holy ispirita or spirita, need not be won-
Scriptures. An open volume is dered at. The Catacombs abound
suspended on the wall, and on the in similar inscriptions. Here are a
pages are the names of the four few of the most noteworthy : Leo-
Evangelists. Beside this figure are pardum cum spirita sancta [that is,
the words PETRONELLA MAR- Cum spiritibus sanctis\ acceptum
Tyr. Of the title of martyr applied Leopard received with the blessed
to St. Petronilla we will say a few spirits. Another inscription, bear-
words presently. On the whole, the ing the date 291, reads: Rcfrigera
style of the fresco, the fashion of cum spirita sancta Grant him re-
the dress, the form of the letters, freshment with the blessed spirits,
and the ancient laconism " Petro- From what has been said a clue
nella Martyr," without the epithet may be had to the understanding of
saint, pronounce the picture to be many more or less laconic acclama-
as ancient as the middle of the tions which the visitor meets with
fourth century. The purpose of in the Roman Catacombs ; such as,
the picture is unmistakable, being CVM SANCTIS INTER SANC-
in form like many which represent TOS. They are to be taken in the
some of the characters in an attitude sense explained above, because they
of prayer, while others are in the allude clearly to the soul of the de-
act of receiving them into heaven parted, and not to the body, which is
or inviting them to go in as they buried close to the tomb of the saint
draw aside the curtains. This pic- appealed to. The prayers and ac-
cure, however, has the additional clamations of the faithful to the
worth of declaring explicitly the saints in behalf of the dead were
names of the intercessor and the not simply the outpourings of tender
advocate. The prayers used by hearts moved by a pious fancy, but
the church from time immemorial the result of a strong belief, con-
in behalf of the dying invite the firmed by the authority of the
saints and martyrs to come and church speaking in her liturgies.

272 Sacred Epigraphy.

In an ancient Sacramentary of Gaul ment ; may the souls of the faith-

we read, in the Mass of a martyr : ful departed that enjoy blessedness

Tribue (Domine) tuorum intcrces- assist us ; may those [souls] that

stone sanctorum ?nartyrum carts nos- need consolation be pardoned

tris, qui in Christo dormiunt, refrige- through the prayers of the church.

Hum in regione vivorum Grant, O The distinction in this prayer be-

Lord ! through the intercession of tvveen the commemoration of the

thy holy martyrs, to our beloved living, of the blessed, and of those

who sleep in Christ, refreshment in souls that have need of the prayers

the land of the living; and in the of the church could not be more

Mass of *SS. Cornelius and Cyprian : evident.

Beatorum martyrum, Cornili \sic\ et The faith of the early Christians

Cypriani. . . nos tibi Domine commen- in the efficacy of the prayers of the

det oratio, ut car is nostr is, qui in Christo martyrs especially, was the reason

dormiunt, refrigeria ceterna concedas why they had such a strong desire,

Let the prayer of thy blessed mar- and regarded it as a great privilege,

tyrs, Cornelius and Cyprian, com- to be buried near the tombs of the

mend us to thee, O Lord ! that thou martyrs. St. Gregory Nazianzen,

grant eternal refreshment to our be- in his funeral epigrams, makes fre-

loved who sleep in Christ.* In an quent allusions to proximity with

ancient Mass, discovered by More, the tombs of the martyrs, and takes

express mention is made of the occasion thence to apostrophize

times of persecution a proof that them in behalf of the dead. In an

the invocation of the saints for the epigram which he wrote on the

repose of the faithful departed was death of his mother, Nonna, whose

an established usage in the very body was laid close to the martyrs,

earliest days of the church. Before he says: "Receive, O martyrs! this

the reading of the diptychs the great victim, this mortified flesh,

priest prayed in these words : Deus, joined to your blood." The words

prcesta, si quies adridat te colere, si " joined to your blood " have a spir-

tcmptatio ingruat, non negare God, itual signification. By her life of

grant that if peace smile upon us, mortification and sacrifice she had

we may continue to worship thee ; assimilated herself to the martyrs ;

if temptation assail us, we may not but they have also a literal meaning,

deny thee. Here there is an evident and allude to the material contiguity

allusion to the intervals of peace of her tomb with that of the mar-

which the early Christians enjoy- tyrs ; for he premises with the

ed between different persecutions, words, " Her body we have placed

After the recitation of the diptychs near the martyrs." The idea that

the priest continued : Sanctorum tu- the blood of the martyrs penetrated

orum nos gloriosa merita, ne in pee- into the neighboring tombs, and its

;/tf(m) veniamus, excusent j defuncto- spiritual signification, that the mer-

rum fidelium animcz, qua beatitudi- its of their sufferings, and their in-

nem \sic\ gaudent nobis opitulentur ; tercession, invoked by the living,

qutz comolatione indigent ecclesice pre- would be salutary to the dead, are

cibus absolvantur May the glorious beautifully shown forth in the epi-

merits of thy saints excuse us, that gram of St. Ambrose on the tomb

we may not be brought to punish- o f his brother Satirus, who was

buried in Milan, side by side with

* Mabillon, LUur^ia Gallicana veins, pp. 278,289. the martyr St. Victor :

Sacred Epigraphy.

273

* s Hsec meriti mercea ut sacri singuinis humor
Finitimas penetrans abluat exuvias." *

This distich was quoted by the
Irish monk Dungal, in the eighth
century, as a powerful argument in
favor of intercessory prayer, against
Claudius of Turin, who was op-
posed to the invocation of the saints
in behalf of the dead. The same
thought is expressed in the touch-
ing verses of Paulinus of Nola,
wherein he narrates the sepulture
of his little child near the last rest-
ing-place of the martyrs. And as
the little innocent (he died at the
age of eight days) had no short-
comings of his own to atone for, the
father beseeches him, and his cousin
Celsus, who died at the age of eight
years, that the intercession of the
martyrs, near whose holy remains
they slept, might be turned to the
benefit of their parents.

'* Innocuisque pares meritis, peccata parentum
Infantes castis vincite suffragiis."t

This was in the time of St. Augus-
tine. We find him interrogated by
the same Paulinus, who had granted
permission to a widow to bury her
son, Cynesius, near the tomb of St.
Felix of Nola : Utrum prosit cuiquc
post mortem quod corpus ejus apud
sancti alicujus memoriam sepeliatur
Whether it might benefit one after
death to have his body buried near
the tomb of some saint. The an-
swer was St. Augustine's celebrated
work entitled De cura pro mortuis.
The ultimate conclusion of the book
is this : that being buried in proxi-
mity to the tomb of the martyrs is
beneficial to the dead in this much
only : that the remembrance of the
place invites the living to commend
them to the intercession of the mar-

* Such the reward of his merit that his sacred
blood should penetrate and lave [spiritually] adja-
cent remains.

t And being alike in the merits of innocence, chil-
dren, cover the sins of your parents by your pure
intercession.

VOL. XXIII. iS

tyrs whose holy remains repose
near by. It is in this sense that we
must understand MaximuS of Turin
when he writes : Eratrcs, veneremur
cos \jnartyrcs\ in saculo, quos defcn-
sorcs habcre possum-it s in futuro ; ct
sicut eis ossibus parentum iwstrontin
jiingimur, ita ct eis fidei imitations,
jungamur ; . . . sociemur illis
tarn religioneqiiam corpore Brethren,
let us venerate them [the martyrs]
in this life, that we may have them as
our defenders in the next ; and as
we are united with them through
the bones of our parents, so also let
us be joined to them by imitating
their faith ; let us be associated with
them in religion as well as in the body.
Nor did the archdeacon Sabinus de-
part from the spirit of the church
and the old fathers when he censur-
ed the indiscreet desire and the
material devotion of many of the
faithful, in wishing to be buried
near the tombs of the martyrs. He
himself chose the last place, near the
door, in the Church of St. Lawrence
outside the walls of Rome, and on
his tomb is the following inscription,
written at his own dictation :

41 Nil juvat, immo gravat, tumulis haerere piorum ;
Sanctorum meritis optima vita prope est.
Corpore non opus est, anima tendamus ad illos,
Quse bene salva potest corporis esse salus."*

In the first part of the epitaph he
alludes to the difficulty of finding a
place vacant near the tombs of the
martyrs, and in the end he writes that
the efficacy is not in being joined to
them in body, but in the soul, which,
being saved, will ensure the salva-
tion of the body. Maximus, whose
words we cited above, and who
was bishop of Turin after the year
/<i2, insinuates the same when he
says : Et sicut eis ossibus parentum

* It availeth nothing, nay it oppresseth rather, to
lie near the tombs of the blessed. The best life ap-
proacheth the merits of the saints. In body it is
not necessary ; let us cleave to them in soul, which,
being saved, can be the salvation of the body.

274

Sacred Epigraphy.

nostrorum ju ngimur. Hence we con-
clude that the usage of burying
the dead near the bodies of the
martyrs was regarded as an ancient
tradition even in the fifth century.
It is not the fact of the material
burying-place to which we would
invite the reader's attention, but to
the spirit of faith in the efficacy
of the martyrs' intercession. The
chamber which contains the tomb
of Veneranda is filled with loculi,
most of which date back as far as
the year 356. A Roman epitaph of
the year 382 testifies that even at
that date they were very few who
obtained the privilege of being bu-
ried intra limina sanctorum within
the threshold of the saints. The
privilege was only granted to those
whose merits during life had been
eminent, and who had signalized
themselves in the service of God,
and especially in their charity to-
wards the poor. Thus we read of
a Roman by the name of Verus,
qui post mortem meruit in Petri limi-
na sancta jacere who after his death
merited that he should repose with-
in the sacred threshold of Peter.
We are far, however, from asserting
tli at the formula sociatus sanctis al-
ways alludes to the proximity of a
martyr's tomb. Very often the for-
mula refers to the soul, which is al-
ready supposed to be in Paradise.
Here is a fragment of a beautiful
epitaph found in the cemetery of
St. Commodilla :

The infant Eusebius, going to the
place [abode] of the saints without
sin, because of his age, rests in
peace.

To remove all doubt regarding
the spirit which prompted the early
Christians to desire burial near the
tombs of the martyrs, we will cite a
passage from one of the homilies of
Maxim-us, Bishop of Turin: " There-
fore the martyrs are to be honored
most devoutly ; but we must vene-
rate those especially whose relics we
possess. With these we have /#;#/-
liarity; . . . they receive us
when we go out from this body."
This special devotion of familiarity
with the martyrs, whose relics the
faithful possessed, as it inspired, the
pious trust that the spirits of the
martyrs would welcome them into
the realms of bliss, so did it induce
the faithful living to invoke the inter-
cession of the martyrs for those who
were already gone from this life. But
we have yet some of the most beau-
tiful epigraphs to cite those touch-
ing, deprecatory appeals to the
saint or martyr by name, near whose
tomb the remains of the departed
are placed : SANCTE LAVREN-
TI, SVSCEPA(m) (h)ABETO AN-
IMA(m) (ejus) * St. Lawrence, re-
ceive his soul !

In the cemetery of St. Hippolytus
Bosius read the following: REFRI-
GERI TIBI DOMNVS IPOLITVS
refriger(z\^ tibi dom(\)nu$ Hippoly-
tus May the lord Hippolytus re-

The ingenious De Rossi makes of fresh thee. Here is an invocatioi

this fragment the following inscrip- in a fragmentary state, of St. Basil-

tion: (Euse)^kf in/am per atatem la: SERENVS FLENS DEPRE-
scne (sine) pecca(\.o] (accWzsw ad

r . / \ / -x * The in cr ption is one cr.rned from Rome to

lOCUm lH /tf (CC) (qUlJeSCtt the museum in Naples.

Sacred Epigraphy

275

COR IPSE deum . . . ET BEA-
TA(m) BASILLA(m) VT VOBIS
PRO M(eritis). Another appeal to
St. Basilla may be seen in an epi-
graph now exposed in the Late-
ran museum. It is that of a bereav-
ed father and mother who com-
mend their departed daughter
to the protection of the saint :
Domina Basilla, commandamus tibi
Crescentinus ct Micina JFilia(m) nos-
tra(m) Cresfen(tia.m) St. Basilla,
we, Crescentius and Micina, recom-
mend our daughter Crescentia to
thee. Side by side with this is the
epitaph of Aurelius Gemelli, a child
of four years of age. It was written
by his mother, of whose tender af-
fection a more moving expression
cannot be found than those four
words : Commando Basilla Innocen-
t/a(m) Gemelli Basilla, I recom-
mend [to thee] Innocence Gemelli.
She calls him not only innocent, but
innocence itself. Since we have
mentioned the above as a specimen
of the tender affection of the Ro-
mans for their dead, and how they
gave expression to it in their epi-
taphs, it may not be out of place to
mention another, to be seen to-day
in the hypogcum of the Church of St.
Praxedes. It is in this form : Sanc-
fi Pet re, Marcelline, suscipite v 2 strum
alumnum ! Sts. Peter and Marcel-
linns, receive your pupil. The
Chevalier de Rossi is of the opinion
that this inscription belongs to the
netery of St. Helen, on the Lab-
,n ^'ay. As a sort of counter-
part to it he gives another, of the
name tenderness of tone, which he
read in Carpentras : MARTER
II \VDELI S PER PASSIONIS
DIKDNO DVLCEMSVVMCOM-
M KX I )AT ALMVNVM Martyr
ii del ins per passion is [-sv/tf'] <//-( m)
:> io diilcem sunm commcndat
alitmn um- -The martyr Baudelius,
through the day of his passion, com-

mends his sweet pupil to the Lord.
Hence we may conclude with the
illustrious archaeologist, whose eru-
dition has borne us out so far, that
the custom of burying the dead near
the tombs of the martyrs, and of
asking, as it were, their local pro-
tection for the dead, was universal
in the first five or six centuries.
He cites the only exception to this
usage that has come within his ex-
tensive observation. It is a Greek
epitaph, in which the three divine
Persons, the archangels Michael
and Gabriel, the prophets Jeremias
andHenoch, the Blessed Virgin, and,
finally, the sibyl are besought in be-
half of the departed.

Thus far we have appealed al-
most exclusively to the testimony
afforded us by inscriptions discov-
ered in the Roman Catacombs. In
conclusion we would transcribe en-
tire two epitaphs which, though
not Roman, are of the greatest im-
portance in the matter we have
been treating. One is the epitaph
on the tomb of Cynesius, in the
Church of St. Felix of Nola, the
same of whom. Paulinus wrote to
St. Augustine, asking " whether it
were efficacious to bury the dead
near the tomb of the martyrs."
The inscription was probably dic-
tated by Paulinus himself. We
give it with the restorations :

ilium nuNC FELICIS HABET DOMVS AL-
MA BEATI
atque itaper loNGOS SVSCEPTVM POSSIDET

ANNOS
patronus plACITO LAETATVR IN HOSPITE

FELIX
sic protectVS ERIT IVVENIS SVB IVDICE

CHRISTO
cum tuba terriBILIS SONITV CONCVSSERIT

ORBEM
excitaeque aniMAE RVRSVM IN SVA VASA

KEDIHVNT
Felici merito HIC SOCIABITVR ANTE TRI-

RVNAL *

* The holy house of Blessed Felix no\v holds him,
and so possesses him for long years. Felix his pa-
tron is glad in his happy guest ; thus when the
awful trumpet shall shake the world with its sound,
and resuscitated souls shall return to their bodies,
the youth shall be protected before Christ, the

276

Sacred Epigraphy.

Here there is a thought expressed
rarely to be met with in sacred epi-
graphy that the martyr Felix will,
on the day of general resurrection,
accompany his " guest }:1 before the
tribunal of the Great Judge, and
that " the youth shall be protected
befure the judge, Christ." As a
general rule the patronage of the
martyrs is invoked for the souls of
the faithful departed as they are
now. We will give another epigraph
in conclusion which confirms the
conception we have just been speak-
ing of. It is read upon the tomb-
stone of a priest in Vercelli, by
name Sarmata. It is metrical, and
the illustrious Father Bruzzi is in-
clined to attribute its authorship to
St. Flavian, the poet, who was bi-
shop of Vercelli about the end of the
fifth century. This is the Fla-
vian who was styled by his contem-
poraries the " Damasus of Liguria."
Sarmata was buried in the loculi
between the martyrs Nazarius and
Victor. The chronicles speak of
this privilege in the following terms :
Sedes proximo, sanctis martyribus con-
cessa est ad mercedem mentis The
nearest place to the martyrs was
given as a reward of his merits.
Here is the epitaph :

NAZARIVS NAMQVE PARITER VICTOR-
QVE BEATI

LATER1BVS TVTVM REDDVNT MERI-
T1SQCORONANT

O FBLIX GEMINO MERVIT QVI MAR-
TYRE DVCI

AD DOMINVM MELIORE VIA REQVIEM-
QVE MERERI.*

Nazarius and Victor are here spo-
ken of as the ushers of Sarmata
into the presence of the Lord ad
Dominum and to eternal rest. In
the same manner St. Petronilla is

Judge ; he will stand near Felix before the tribu-
nal.

* For Blessed Nazarius and Victor alike protect
him at their side and crown him with merits. Oh !
happy he who was worthy to be led to the Lord
through a happier path by the two martyrs, and to
obtain repose.

represented, in the fresco of which
we spoke in the beginning, as intro-
ducing the matron Veneranda into
Paradise. The epigraphical, liturgi-
cal, and patristic testimonies hither-
to quoted place in a clear and un-
mistakable light the deep religious
significance and the topographical
worth of the representation on the
tomb of Veneranda. St. Petronilla,
the patroness of the departed, and
whose holy ashes reposed not far
distant, familiarly (the expression
of Maximus of Turin) receives her
into heaven, and the painter gave
expression to the holy trust of her
relatives that St. Petronilla would
intercede for her, while the picture
itself would invite them to pray
more fervently to the saint whose
holy " memories ' (St. Augustine)
were near at hand.

Now that the signification of the
picture has been fairly determined,
it may not be an unfitting conclu-
sion to our paper to inquire into
the accuracy of the title of martyr
applied to St. Petronilla in this fres-
co. In the first place, it is certain
that no other saint or martyr is al-
luded to but the veritable St. Petro-
nilla whose remains reposed in the
hypogeum of the basilica of SS.
Nereus and Achilleus. Still, it is
also certain from the Acts of the
two martyrs, in which mention is
made of St. Petronilla, that she was
not a martyr in any sense whatever.
The martyrology of Ado speaks of
her thus : " When Flaccus, a knight,
desired to be united with her in
marriage, she asked for a delay of
three days, and, together with her
foster-sister, Felicula, giving her-
self up to continual fasting and
prayer, and the divine Mysteries
being celebrated on the third day,
as soon as she had received the
Sacrament of Christ she lay do\vn
upon her bed and gave up the

Sacred Epigraphy. 277

ghost." In other codices of her were not. Thus popes who lived af-
life the opening chapter is entitled, ter the persecutions Mark, Julius,
DC obitu Pctronilla et passione Felt- and Damasus are called martyrs.
culic On the death 'of Petronilla Nay, Petronilla herself is named
and the martyrdom of Felicula. martyr in the Liber Pontificate, at
I fence there is a formal contradic- the life of Leo III. (816), when the
tion between her Acts and this fres- history of her life, as given by Ado,
co. Without entering into a criti- was universally accepted. How-
cal examination of the authenticity ever, if we recall to mind what has
of the Acts of Nereus and Achilleus already been said on the special
-which, by the way, receive new confidence of the primitive Chris-
confirmation from every fresh dis- tians in the intercession of the mar-
covery in the cemetery we will tyrs for Jhe dead ; if we reflect that
merely say that, were they apo- they were regarded as the principal
cryphal, the supposition would be citizens in the kingdom of God, to
that they would rather magnify her whom the heavens were opened, as
glory, by giving her the title of St. Stephen said (martyribus patent
martyr, than diminish it. Setting codi\ and hence that to them was
aside the inscription, the appear- attributed, equally with the angels,
ance of the picture confirms her the office of introducing departed
Acts. She is said to have been a souls into the divine Presence, it is
virgin cf extraordinary beauty, and easy to understand why the artist,
that she belonged to a noble family, in portraying Petronilla as receiv-
The picture coincides perfectly with ing Veneranda into Paradise, either
this belief; for she is represented believed her a martyr or deliber-
as being beautiful ; she wears her ately wished to make her equal to
hair in plaited tresses, wound into one. Pictoribus atque poetis aqua est
a knot on the top of the head, ac- licentia.

cording to the custom of virgins in But in this matter we must not
those days ; while the make of her observe the material form as it is
dress proclaims her as belonging to presented to us, accurately or inac-
noble rank. For the rest, there is curately as the case may be. That
not a single authentic document is merely relative and secondary,
which gives her the title of martyr, It is the spirit of the work which
but all speak of her as Sancta Pe- we must contemplate that great
tronilla, or simply Virgo Petronilla. faith in the intercessory prayers of
Hence there is no reason in the those who had fought the good
world why we should give credence fight, and whose happiness was corn-
to the inscription of the painter, plete in the Beatific Vision. Some of
The title of martyr accorded to her the epigraphs may be very inaccu-
by him does not become an inex- rate, even exaggerated; yet they bear,
plicable mystery to us when we re- in their way, testimony to a sublime
rail to mind the many and obvious dogma of the church the commu-
i-xamples of the title of martyr be- nion of saints, not only for the good
given, especially by private in- of the living, but for the happy re-
(iividuals, without due regard for pose of the dead. In fine, they are
torical facts. For instance, St. the embodiment of the loving coun-
Pudentiana, St. Cyriaca, and others sel : " It is a holy and a wholesome
have been styled martyrs, when we thought to pray for the dead, thgt
have positive evidence that they they may be loosed from, their sins."

278 Sims/tine.

SUNSHINE.

OVER the glad earth, with her robe of beauty,

Glideth the Spring ;
Pouring out perfume from a thousand censers

The peach-wands swing.

Down through the sunny vista of the orchard

Tender green glows,
Gnarled apple-boughs arrayed in robes of splendor

Pearl tint and rose.

Out from the dead leaves and the soft green mosses,

Like joy from pain,
Trailing arbutus, the sweet May evangel,

Bloometh again.

Who can remember, in this wealth of beauty,

How April came ?
Crowned with a frost wreath on her pallid forehead,

And snow-star rain.

Yet 'neath the shadow of the wing of winter

Nature's heart beat,
Golden wine surging through each rugged column

Like dancing feet.

Thus, my beloved 1 though upon us shadows

Coldly may fall,
God worketh slowly with the germs of beauty

Given to all.

Out from the shadow of our solemn parting

Shall sweet hope spring ;
Faith, to an altar where the fire is hallowed,

Her gifts will bring.

Grace hath not left thee ; it but sleeps, beloved.

Through wintry hours,
Waiting the footsteps of the soul's glad spring-time

To wake the flow'rs.

What though the sadness of an earthly parting

On us be laid ?
In the bright sunshine of the blest hereafter

Shadows shall fade

New Publications.

279

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ALZOG'S UNIVERSAL CHURCH HISTORY.
Pabisch and Byrne. Vol II. Cincin-
nati : Robert Clarke & Co. 1876.
(For sale by The Catholic Publication
Society.)

The time included in this second vol-
ume of the great work edited by Dr. Pa-
bisch and Father Byrne extends from
the beginning of the fourth century to
the beginning of the sixteenth. We have
already said all that is requisite on the
excellence of the work in general in our
notice of the first volume. At present
we have no criticisms to make, except
on a very few special points. A con-
densed summary of this kind is always
liable to the fault of ambiguity in some
of its general statements from the very
fact of its extreme conciseness, and thus
may give occasion to false impressions
on the mind of an ordinary reader.
There is a notable instance of this on
page 22, where a short notice is given of
the famous Ulfila. He was, as is well
known, an Arian. The historian tells
us that he " accepted it [viz., Chris-
tianity] with simple and earnest faith,
just as he found it, putting aside all the
idle and speculative questions that dis-
tracted the religious mind of the age."
We are inclined to agree with the opin-
ion, which the author evidently intended
to express, that Ulfila was not culpably
in error respecting the faith, and that to
his simple, untutored mind the disputes
between Catholics and Arians were un-
intelligible. Nevertheless, the language
we hav r e quoted, taken in connection
with a previous sentence in which the
Gothic bishop is called a "great apostle
and bishop," and another in which it is
curtly stated that the Christianity to
which the Goths were converted " meant
simply the Arian heresy," is so extreme-
ly awkward and inaccurate that one
would naturally understand it to imply
that Catholic faith only differed from
Arian heresy in respect to idle and specu-
lative questions. A careful and instructed
reader would, of course, judge that Dr.
Alzofj could not have intended such a

grossly absurd and heterodox sense ; ne-
vertheless, his translators would have
done well to add an explanatory note
showing what he really did intend, but
signally failed to express in a suitable
way.

On page 972 the author speaks of the
" pantheistic language of Tattler." In
this instance he seems to have followed
closely the opinion of Dr. Stockl, an
author for whom we have a sincere re-
spect, but whose estimate of Tauler we
regard as altogether wrong. ' We have
no fault to find with the censure pro-
nounced upon the 7*heologia Gennanica,
and pass over what is said of the writ-
ings of Master' Eckhart, since, although
we incline to the opinion that his subjec-
tive sense was orthodox, the objective
sense of many of his propositions is pan-
theistic and deserved the condemnation
of the Holy See. In regard to Tauler,
however, of whom the author speaks in
another place in the highest terms, Dr.
Alzog has made, as it seems to us, an
inconsiderate statement by a blind fol-
lowing of Stockl and other authors who
condemn all the German mystics with-

out discrimination. We have never ob-
served a single expression in Tauler
which has any more semblance of pan-
theism than the language of St. Bona-
vcnture or any o:hcr approved mystical
writer. We cannot perceive any differ-
ence between the doctrine of Tauler and
that of St. John of the Cross, except that
the latter states more distinctly the pre-
cise theological and philosophical sense
of several important propositions.

The learned editor-in-chief of the pre-
sent translation, Dr. Pabisch, sustains
his reputation as a scholar who h:is a
vast knowledge de ^mnilnls rebus ct qui-
bnsdam aliis, perhaps on a par with that
of Dr. Alzog himself. With the excep-
tion of occasional infelicities of diction
of not much importance, and the fre-
quent use of italics, which gives us the
sensation of jouncing on a road with
many ruts in it, the style and monnor <>t
the translation, which are chiefly due to

2 SO

New Publications.

the diligent care of the Rev. Mr. Byrne,
are satisfactory, and the various tables
at the end are extremely serviceable to
the student. One more volume will
complete this exceedingly valuable com-
pendium of the history of the church.

BURNING QUESTIONS. By William Moli-
tor. London : Burns & Oates. 1876.
(For sale by The Caiholic Publication
Society.)

Burning pretty briskly they have been,
these questions, for some time past ; the
fire seems to be spreading, and not a
very speedy prospect of putting it out!
Mr. Molitor has a very agreeable and
skilful way of handling this kind of fire.
A gentleman once went to lecture on
nitro-glycerine. Proceeding coolly and
with an unembarrassed air to the plat-
form, one of the committee who sur-
rounded him and were pleasantly chatting
on the subject of the lecture having
casually asked him if he would exhibit
any specimens, he replied: "Oh! cer-
tainly ; my pockets are full of them."
Several gentlemen of the committee re-
tired to the back seats on hearing this
announcement, awaiting in fear and
trembling the dreaded explosion in the
safest place they could find. The appli-
cation of Catholic principles to politics
has long and widely been dreaded as
explosive and incendiary. Of late poli-
tics have been brought into pretty smart
collision with Catholic principles. Of
course it makes no particular difference
whether you throw nitro-glycerine on a
rock or throw a rock on nitro-glycerine.
An explosion has certainly resulted in
Europe which is likely to be followed by
more explosions. If any damage is done,
it will not be suffered by the church.
The anticipated destruction of Hell Gate
by General Newton next July is a figure
of what must take place in that quarter
after which a certain locality in the
East River was facetiously named by
our Dutch ancestors. We have said that
Mr Molitor, although in a similar posi-
tion with the gentlemalh who lectured on
nitro-glycerine, handles his themes very
agreeably and pleasantly. He is not only
good-tempered and humorous, but he
makes his somewhat abstruse topics
quite intelligible and interesting. The
form adopted by the author, who is a
German priest of high rank in the church
and of considerable note as a writer, is
that of a series of conversational discus-

sions. The interlocutors are educated
men of several nationalities, one of them
an American, who are passing a vacation
together on the borders of Lake Como.
Several little episodes and descriptions
of scenery are introduced, making a
pretty and enlivening mise en scene for
the talkers and their very intelligent and
learned talk. We have not seen the
book in its original language, which is
German, but the English translation
reads well, and the book is a master-
piece in its way, both in respect to its
matter and form. The intelligent reader
will already have perceived that its sub-
ject is the relation of the church to the
state. In substance it is a popular ex-
position of one part of ethics which is
treated of scientifically in every Catholic
text-book or featise on morals such, for
instance, as Liberatore's PhilosopJiical
Prelections. We cannot too strongly
recommend its careful perusal to all
those of our readers who wish to under-
stand what Catholic principles and doc-
trines really are, in opposition to the
popular errors condemned in the Sylla-
bus. We are glad to see that a more ex-
tensive and formal treatise on the same
topics by Hergenrother has been translat-
ed and is advertised in the English
papers, although we have not yet receiv-
ed a copy.

CATECHISM FOR CONFESSION AND FIRST
COMMUNION. By a Priest of the Dio-
cese of Springfield. Springfield: Philip
J. Ryan. 1876.

We never take up a new catechism
without distrust. It is easy to find ob-
jections, real or imaginary, to any and
every abridgment of the Christian doc-
trine, and consequently there is little dif-
ficulty in coming to the conclusion that
anew catechism is needed ; but it is rare
that even tolerable success rewards the
compilers of text-books of this kind. We
are of the opinion that it is not so impor-
tant that we should have the best possi-
ble catechism as that one which is good
should be adopted throughout the whole
country. Many of our wisest and most
learned prelates have insisted upon this
point, and in the first Plenary Council
of Baltimore (1852) a catechism was ap-
proved of and recommended to the clergy
of the United States ; and this is still to-
day, we think, the best to be found in this
country.
The catechism by a priest of the Diocese

New Publications.

281

of Springfield, which we have carefully
examined, has not changed our opinion
upon this subject. It is not free from
errors and inaccuracies which are of.
themselves sufficient to deprive it of any
value as a text-book of religious instruc-
tion. In the "Act of Hope," p. 4, we
come upon the following ungrammatical
sentence : "O my God ! who has promis-
ed every blessing." "What is God?"
is asked at the very outset, and the answer
given is: "God is a spirit." This is
no more a definition of God than it is of
an angel or a soul. " What was the Gar-
den of Paradise? Answer A place of
pleasure." This is a poor, not to say
false, rendering of the Scriptural phrase.
" Who is the devil ? Answer One of
the fallen angels." Is he not the prince
of fallen angels ? - " Who are the angels ?
Answer Pure spirits without a body."
Is it, then, possiblefor pure spirits to have
a body? Hell, we are informed, is "a
place of eternal torments, where there
is all evil and no good." This is theo-
logically inaccurate. It is impossible
that a place where there is no good should
exist, since existence itself is a good.

' What are the chief things we must
believe? Answer The chief things we
must believe are contained in the Apos-
tles' Creed." Question and answer do
not agree. The one is what and the other
is where.

' Why did he establish but one church?
Answer Because God being one, he
could have but one church." To affirm
that God's nature renders more than one
church impossible is, we think, unwar-
ranted.

" Can the church err ? 'Answer She
cannot." The catechism approved by
the First Plenary Council says : " She
cannot err in matters of faith." The
priest of the Diocese of Springfield fails to
give the four marks of the church ; and
this is certainly a very grave omission,
lie, moreover, says not a word about the
infallibility of the pope, which is equally
inexcusable.

' llow many kinds of sin are there?
Answer Two kinds : original sin and ac-
tual pin." We were under the impression
that the kinds of sin were very numer-
ous.

'What sins are mortal? Answer
Grievous sins." And what sins, then,
are grievous? Mortal sins, we sup-
pose.

"Is talebearing a great sin? An-

swer Yes ; supported by a text of
Scripture." Now, we cannot think that
tale-bearing is necessarily a great sin,
or even that it is generally so.

" What is the Eucharist made from ?
Answer From wheaten bread and the
wine of the grape." This, in our eyes,
as a matter of taste, if for no other rea-
son, is very objectionable.

We confess that much of what we have
found fault with is not of great moment,
but in a work of this kind we have the
right to demand the strictest care and
accuracy. We have no desire to be se-
vere in our criticism, and gladly bear
testimony to evidences of talent in the
author, who, with greater pains, would
have given us, we doubt not, a very ex-
cellent catechetical text-book.

OUTLINES OF THE RELIGION AND PHI-
LOSOPHY OF SWEDENBORG. By Theo-
philus Parsons. Boston : Roberts
Brothers. 1876.

Philosophy of Swedenborg ! That is
a desideratum which we have looked for
in vain some twenty years or more. We
have read a considerable number of vol-
umes of the writings of Emanuel Swe-
denborg and much that has been written
on their contents, conversed with not a
few of his prominent followers, and yet
we have failed to obtain from them nil a
clear and philosophical statement of the
doctrines which he taught. Here, how-
ever, is a volume written expressly to
give to the world such a statement.

But, alas ! we are again doomed to dis-
appointment ; for nowhere do we find in
it, in precise terms, the nature of this
new revelation. The nearest we come
to it is in the following passage : " If a
new revelation was to be made through
him, if it was to be made by his state-
ment of spiritual truths, they should be
not merely new, but so entirely distinct
from all that was ever before known, so
well adapted to send the mind forward
on anew path and from a new beginning,
so able to supply new motives and in-
centives to a new moral and affectional
as well as intellectual progress, and new
instruction to guide this progress, as to
justify and authorize this large claim."

The first pretension made in this para-
graph for the new church is " new mo-
tives and incentives to a new moral and
affectional progress." Neither Sweden-
borg in his life nor his followers in theirs
have yet made this title good. Nowhere

282 New Publications.

have they shown the signs of a higher ter a Christian by throttling his rea-

spiritual life or of a greater self-sacrifice, son " ? It seems that this new revelation.

When they shall have given us a St. instead of being an incentive to intellec-

Charles Borromeo, or a St. Vincent de tual progress, acts upon the intellectual

Paul, or the heroism displayed by a Sis- faculties like a poison, leaving them

ter of Charity, then, and not till then, without tone, vigor, or logical perccp-

will there be reason to investigate their tion, rapt in a dreamy self-sufficiency,

claim of a revelation which is superior to The author says " he agrees with Pro-

that given by Christ himself. fessor Tyndall in saying that to yield to

The next assertion in this paragraph the religious sentiment reasonable sat-
is that this "new revelation" is a source isfaction is the problem of problems at
of " new intellectual progress." Sweden- the present hour," and adds : "We believe
borg revolted at some of the grossest also that the s) r stem of thought and be-
errors of Protestantism, and, in repudi- lief introduced by Swedenborg will lead
ating them, seems to have been entirely to the solution cf this ' problem of prob-
ignorant of Catholic theology. The au- lems ' " (page 30). This is equivalent to
thor supposes Swedenborg's opposition saying that the Creator has made man
to the errors of Calvinism is the cause for a destiny which he has carefully con-
of its decline ; seemingly, he is unaware cealedfrom him these six thousand years
of its refutation centuries before Sweden- or more !

borg lived, and the statements of the The same Creator did not fail to satisfy
truths opposed to it, by the Council of every appetite with its proper food, ex-
Trent. What is true in Swedenborgian- cept the highest of all the thirst of the
ism is not new, and what is new is not soul to know its true destiny and the
true. means of attaining it. This he allowed

As a specimen of "intellectual pro- to tantalize man up to the date of this new
gfess" we take the very first sentence of revelation ! Pity poor Professor Tyndall
this book : " A church," the author says, could not be made to see it ! Happy Pro-
" may be defined as the collective body fessor Theophilus Parsons, who has found
of those who agree together in faith and it at the feet of Emanuel Swedenborg,
in worship." This is the same as if he whose words, he tells us, " were not God's
had said : "A man may be defined as words, but his own ; full, as 'we believe,
the collective body of those members of truth and Wisdom, but limited in their
which agree together in physical action." scope and liable to error" (page 31).
This is the play of Hamlet with Hamlet Swedenborgianism is a product cf a
left out. Had Mr. Parsons the true con- mind given to the pursuit of natural
ception of the church, this would have sciences, ignorant of theology, and trans-
started the question of the mission of his ported into the dream-world a subli-
master ! a point upon which his evidence mated materialism. There runs through
would have proven very unsatisfactory. all the writings of the followers of Swe-

Again he says " that it is of the denborg the assumption of a superior

very essence of this revelation that it is knowledge of spiritual truths, which al-

given to man's reason " (page 22). lies it closely to the old heresy of Gnosti-

Is the author ignorant of the fact that cism. In kind, Swedenborgianism does

Christianity from the beginning made, not differ from modern Spiritism, only it

and has always made, appeal to man's assumes an air of greater respectability,
reason ? By Christianity we mean the

Catholic, the Roman Catholic, Church, HYMNS. By Frederick William Faber,

outside of which Christianity never had, D.D. New York: E. P. Button &

and has not now, a real, separate exist- Co. 1876.

ence. Have we to tell Mr. Parsons that The title " Faber's Hymns " gleams in

the Catholic Church has always upheld golden letters from the back of this hand-

the value of human reason and defend- some little volume, "Hymns by Fied-

ed its rights? Has he ever looked into erick Wm. Faber, D.D." (in choice me-

any work of Catholic theology? Has diaeval characters) on either cover,

he ever opened the Summa of St. Tho- " Faber's Hymns " consequently they

mas, or his volume Contra Gentiles? must be. It is impossible to doubt their

Does the author not know that it was authenticity, surrounded as they are by

Martin Luther who asserted against the all that wealth of adornment in which

church that " a man becomes all the bet- our ritualistic friends delight. Here

New Publications. 283

are the thorns, and the hammer and gin Mary, St. Joseph and the Holy Fam-

nails, and a chaste border of what may ily, and for the Devotions in honor of

be taken at will for the passion flower or them, and the Hymns addressed to the

forget-me-not, and over the title a gor- Angels and Saints."

geous cross and beneath it I. H. S. One In other words, it contains " all of the
would be shocked not to meet with the author's latest revised edition" with the
softest-toned paper inside paper full al- insignificant omission of very nearly one-
most of that "dim religious light" that half. How many hymns "of the au-
Milton sang. He lingers over these thor's latest revised edition" were not
externals, for they are very lovely, and " written for the use of Roman Catho-
very characteristic ; so lovely that a sen- lies" were an investigation worth mak-
timcntal person would weep to find they ing, which the reader may take up at his
are only the adornments of a wilful and choice. Leaving those points, however,
systematic mutilation of the hymns of the it is to be supposed that so honest a con-
gentle and saintly man whose name 'the fession amply atones for everything, es-
volume bears. pecially after Father Faber's permission

A complete collection of Father Faber's to Protestants to use his hymns. But

Hymns was published in London in there was a solemn stipulation attached

rS6i with the approval of the author and to that permission, and to inquire into

under his direct supervision. He wrote how far that stipulation has been ob-

a preface to it in which he complained served is the purpose of the present no-

of the liberties that had been' taken with tice.

his hymns. He added that " he was on- From the hymn entitled " God," which

ly too glad that his compositions should is only the fourth in the volume, verses

be of any service, and he has in no in- 7 and 9 are left out. Those verses have

stance refused either to Catholics or the name of Mary in them and sing of

Protestants the free use of them : only her beauty. The beauty of the angels

in the case of Protestants he has made it a and saints, which is sung in the same

rule to stipulate, wherever an opportunity hymn, is allowed to pass, but for the

has been given him, that, -while omissions queen of angels and saints of course

might be made, no direct alterations should there is no room.

attempted. Hence he wishes to say In the hymn " My Father," a few pages

that he is not responsible for any of the on, the same thing is observable. The

lymns in any other form, literary or doc- tender conscience of the editor revolted

tiinal, than that in which they appear in from and consequently struck out such a

this edition." verse as this :

That edition bore and bears the same

title as the one now under notice. The " Mary, herself a sea of grace,

difference in size, however, between the A ******* a11 be ?" dr ,? wn from Thme J

, . , . , . ,, . And thou couldst fill a thousand more

two volumes is rather startling. This From out those depths divine

difference is accounted for by the fact

that in the ritualistic version fifty-eight In the rendering of the Veni Sancte

hymns have disappeared. There are Spintus the last verse, which prays for

one hundred and fifty in the original, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, is

there are ninety-two in the new, and struck out, the editor probably objecting

what the editor and publishers would to those gifts for some reason of his own.

doubtless consider improved edition. In " Christmas Night" the pretty chorus

Nor is the list of -omissions complete is mutilated for the purpose of throwing

even with these fifty-eight absent. out the name of Mary. The original

But, to do what justice may be done to reads :
the ritualistic editor and publishers we

should be dcliglued to ? ive the editor's "^M^^oje,

name as well as the publishers , only that God hardly bom an hour,

a judicious modesty has concealed it Sweet Babe of Bethlehem !

from us we quote from the preface: Hail Mary's^Little One,

,. -ri , c , s T- i , Hail Uod s internal Son,

This book Of selections trom Faber S Sweet Babe of Bethlehem,

Hymns contains all of the Author's la- Sweet Babe of Bethlehem !"
test revised edition, except the Hymns

written for the use of Roman Catholics, This the critical editor improves as

such as those for the festivals of the Vir- follows .

284

New Publications.

"All hail, Eternal Child!
Sweet Babe of Bethlehem !

Hail God's Eternal Son,
Sweet Babe of Bethlehem !"

The fine hymn "The Three Kings" is
shortened by two verses 4 and 12. To
be sure those two verses bear rather hard-
ly on Protestants, but in that case, and in
many others, why not leave the hymn out
altogether? In the hymn immediately
following it, "The Purification," the last
verse, which claims " all rightful wor-
ship" for the Mother of Christ, is thrown
out of course by Father Faber's express
desire. In " Lent," on the very next page,
verse 3, which celebrates " the feast of
penance," does not appear. Two pages
on, in that most touching of plaints,
"Jesus Crucified," such verses as these
are found unworthy a place :

" His mother cannot reach His face ;
She stands in helplessness beside ;
Her heart is martyred with her Son's ;

Jesus, our Love, is crucified !

" Death came, and Jesus meekly bowed ;

His failing eyes He strove to guide
With mindful love to Mary's face ;
Jesus, our Love, is crucified !"

What a starved religion it must be that
cannot stomach such lines as those ! And
what justice to Father Faber ! Yet the
editor allows the next hymn to open with
the lines :

" Hail, Jesus ! hail ! who for my sake
Sweet blood from Mary's veins didst take."

It is to be supposed that he could not
well deny the physical fact, though he
would seem to have strong doubts about
it, for presently we find him in " We
come to thee, Sweet Saviour," changing
the last line of the chorus,

" O blood of Mary's son,"
O blood of God's dear son."

Just one-half the hymn to "Jesus
Risen " is thrown out, from verses 2 to 6
inclusively. These verses treat of the sa-
cred humanity. " The Apparition of Je-
sus to Our Blessed Lady," "The Ascen-
sion," and ' Pentecost," which immedi-
ately follow, are among those struck out,
as are also the first eight verses of " The
Descent of the Holy Ghost." The reason
of course is that they eulogize the Mother
of God. For the same reason verses 13
and 14 are omitted. Indeed this hymn
alone must have caused the pious soul
of the editor much trouble ; for we find

in his fourth verse (the twelfth in the ori-
ginal) the lines ;

" One moment and the Spirit hung
O er tkem with dread desire ";

" O'er her with dread desire "

is the original. Again in his sixth verse,
which in the original reads :

" Those tongues still speak within the Church,

That Fire is undecayed ;
Its well-spring was that Upper Room
Where Mary sat and prayed."

Of course Mary cannot be tolerated in
such company. Her name is accordingly
stricken from the roll and " the disciples "
substituted for it, so that the last line
reads :

11 Where the disciples sat and prayed."

It is too much to look to this man for
respect for the Mother of God ; but at
least he might have some respect for Fa-
ther Faber, and at the very least for the
laws of rhythm.

It is useless to multiply instances of
this kind. They run through the book.
A few other gross liberties taken with
the text cannot pass unnoticed.

In " The Wages of Sin " the second
verse of the author reads :

" We gave away all things for him,

And in truth it was much that was given
The love of the angels and saints,
And the chance of our getting to heaven."

The Protestant editor objects to

u The love of the angels and saints,"

for which he substitutes

" We gave away Jesus and God,"

a line that belongs to the third verse.
This third verse of course disappears, be-
cause it sings of " Mary and grace " and
" prayer and confession and Mass."

Why the last verse of " Conversion " is
condemned, even by so tender a con-
science as that of our editor, it is impos-
sible to conceive.

" Jesus, Mary, love, and peace"

sang Father Faber in " The Work of
Grace " ;

" Jesus, mercy, love, and peace"

sings his self-appointed editor.

In " Forgiveness of Injuries," the very
title of which might have caused him to
pause, a happy specimen of his pecu-

New Publications.

285

liar art and animus is given. Father Fa-
ber's first verse read

" Oh ! do you hear that voice from heaven
Forgive and you shall be forgiven ?
No angel hath a voice like this ;
Not even Mary's song of bliss
From off her throne can waft to earth
A promise of such priceless worth."

In the Protestant version only the tirst
two line? appear ; the other four are
taken from the second verse ; the re-
mainder of which, with the rejected four
of the first verse, are thrown away al-
together.

1 1 ere an examination which might be
prolonged indefinitely may as well end.
The reader may judge for himself wheth-
er the word " mutilation" a grave word
to use is misapplied in this instance.
Selections, of course, may be taken from
a man's works in these days, though we
should say not without permission from
the author or from those empowered to
grant it. But that, such permission
should be extended to hacking a man
right and left, distorting his words, spoil-
ing his verses, studiously making him
say just what 'he does not say, persistent-
ly making him dishonor those whom he
most honors strange indeed must be
the conscience which can interpret the
widest permission thus ! We need not
refer to the glowing love of Father Faber
for the Blessed Virgin. It was no vague
aspiration after some ideal being, existing
or not existing in a remote state. It was
a vital reality to him. The Blessed Vir-
gin was near him always. To her he
turned with the love and confidence of a
child, as to no imaginary mother, at all
times. Her name was ever on his lips,
as her love was in his heart. It was na-
tural, then, that all his writings, but above
all his hymns, should bubble over with
the love that was ever welling upwards
from the very depths of his being. Yet
this man, pursued apparently by hatred
of the Mother of Jesus, and thinking to
honor the Son by dishonoring the Mother,
follows her up and hunts her from the
pages of one so devoted to her, wher-
ever it was possible to do so. Further
comment on a man who can commit so
dishonest an act, in the name too of reli-
gion, is unnecessary. As for the pub-
lishers who can lend themselves to such
unworthy work, we leave them to their
own reflections.

We have no desire to take this as

characteristic ot our Protestant friends
generally, particularly of the Protestant
Episcopal section of them. But there ir,
too much of such dishonest practice.
The Following of Christ ; the Devout
Life, by St. Francis de Sales ; the Me-
morial of a Christian Lift-, by Father
Lewis of Granada ; the Spiritual Com-
bat, and all Father Avrillon's works,
have been tampered with in the same man-
ner and by the same set of zealous Chris-
tians. Is it too much to detect in this the
old spirit that gave us what is known as
the King James version of the Bible, and
that is content to let centuries of great
Christian faith go by, for the purpose of
claiming a fancied union with that of
the earlier centuries, basing the claim on
distorted extracts from the works of a few
great writers 1

GERTRUDE MANNERING : A Tale of Sac-
rifice. By Frances Noble. London :
Burns & Gates. 1875. (For sale by
The Catholic Publication 'Society.)

One begins to grow shy of " tales of
sacrifice" written by Catholic authors.
They are so very like one another that
the maxim Ev uno disce omnes is nowhere
more applicable than to them. Given
the characters and their relations one to
another, and a very limited amount of
experience will enable the reader to
sketch out the story faithfully enough for
himself without going to the trouble of
reading the book. Gertrude Manncring,
though bearing, a strong family likeness
to her sisters, and beginning in the ortho-
dox fashion in the convent, of course
improves upon acquaintance, and leaves
the reader with the impression that the
hand which fashioned her is capable of
much better work. It is useless to
sketch the story, which is a short one
and of simple enough construction. Its
defects are of the usual order, though
in a less degree than ordinarily. There
is too much pious "talk," in season and
out of seasoa When will our Catholic
story-writers learn this first lesson of fic-
tion : that a little of such talk goes a very
long way? Even inquiring Protestants
are not likely to be moved profoundly by
the tremendous arguments of a girl of
sixteen or seventeen just out of a con-
vent, while Catholics yawn as soon as
they appear, and either skip the pages
that contain them or close the book.

286

New Publications.

Then, again, Gerty blushes a little too
often, even for a convent girl. The color
rises in her cheeks more or less deeply
at almost every other page. One grows
rather tired, too, of the frequent mention
of " the pale, proud face " of the " haughty
Stanley " and his " splendid intellect."
These, to be sure, are the ordinary attri-
butes of lady novelists' heroes, but, at
least, the last quality might be judicious-
ly omitted, unless excellent grounds
are given for it. A " splendid intellect "
is no doubt a very good thing to have, as
is also a " pale, proud face " in its way ;
but when the "splendid intellect" only
shows itself in rather commonplace ob-
servations, such as persons with no pre-
tension at all to so rare a gift would use,
the effect is not quite satisfactory.

One more objection we must make, and
a serious one. The sacrifice around
which the story turns is by no means to
be commended and would have been
better omitted. Young ladies, even
young-ladies whose love has been crossed,
can easily find something: far better to do
with their lives than to offer them to God
for the soul of some young gentleman
whom they are particularly anxious to
convert. Martyrdom for the faith is one
thing ; but the picture of a young lady,
who cannot conscientiously marry a
young infidel, offering her life to God for
his conversion, is quite another thing.
One is tempted to ask how much the
" pale, proud face " and the " splendid in-
tellect " of the " haughty Stanley " had to
do with so tremendous a sacrifice in the
present instance. Gerty might have done
him, and herself, and her reader much
more good by living than by dying for
him, as did that practical patriot when
the cause of his country seemed lost.

We have noticed this story at some
length because the writer, whose name
meets us for the first time, seems, as al-
ready hinted, to give promise of much
better work. Lady Hunter is a well-
drawn character. So, apart from the ex-
cessive tendency to blush and " talk pi-
ous," is Gert)^. The " haughty " Stanley
is rather a conventional hero, which, per-
haps, is only natural in days when so
many young men lay claim to " splendid
intellects." The scene between Gerty and
Stanley, where love and duty on the one
side, and love and pride on the other,
contend for mastery, is drawn with gen-
uine power, while the end is indeed
touching.

THE SCHOOL QUESTION : CATHOLICS AND

EDUCATION, i vol. 8vo, pp. 200.

New York : The Catholic Publication

Society.

The republication of the various es-
says on education which have from time to
time appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
treating this all-important subject from
widely different points of view, present-
ing a great variety of style and method
as well as of authorship, will, we are
confident, be welcomed* by the reading
Catholic public as especially opportune
at the present moment,* when the ques-
tions here discussed enter so largely
into all our social, theological, and po-
litical controversies.

Though the subject of education is
much talked of and written about, it is
rarely carefully examined or seriously
studied. We have ourselves been made
to blush more than once by the ignorance
on this point of even intelligent Catholics.
Self-respect, one would think, should
suffice to make us acquaint ourselves
with the arguments upon which our dis-
sent from the theories of education com-
monly received in this country is based.
At the expense of very little time and
labor any ordinarily intelligent Catholic
might be in a position to defend himself
against the attacks of the advocates of a
purely secular school system. To those
who feel the need of informing them-
selves more thoroughly on this subject
we heartily commend these essays. The
questions with which they deal have
been discussed, not without ability and
sound reason, in pamphlets and lectures ;
but before the publication of this vol-
ume we should have been unable to re-
fer to any one book as giving a fair and
satisfactory statement of Catholic princi-
ples on the subject of education. This
collection supplies a want which many
besides ourselves must have felt.

THE ACOLYTE ; OR, A CHRISTIAN SCHO-
LAR. A story for Catholic youth. Phila-
delphia : Peter F. Cunningham & Son.

1876.

Stories for Catholic youth, which are at
once interesting and safe, are greatly to
be desired. Every honest attempt to
satisfy this want is consequently to be,
in a certain sense, commended. Our
boys, however, fare rather badly at the
hands of writers. The books written
for them are, as a class, either slow and
uninteresting or so goody-goody that a

New Publications.

287

boy yawns before he has finished half a
dozen pages. The author of The Aco-
Ivte, though animated with the best in-
tL-ntions, has fallen into the common
mistake. His book is too "good." His
hero, whom he evidently locks upon as
the beau-ideal of a Catholic student, is, it
must be confessed, rather a tiresome
young person, having a dreadful propen-
sity to indulge in disquisitions of class-
room philosophy with his young sister
and others. In fact, ihe atmosphere of
the class room pervades the book, and
the result is not agreeable. When boys
read a story, they want to be out of
school. There are excellent things in
this book, but such as would appear to
better advantage in one of a purely spir-
itual character, where they would proba-
bly find more readers, even among
boys, than they are likely to do in
their present form. The volume is dedi-
cated to the " Acolythical Society" of a
church in Cincinnati. If such a society
exist, we recommend it to change its
name. "Acolythical" is a barbarism
which should not be tolerated.

LlTHlATURE FOR LITTLE FOLKS. SELEC-
TIONS FROM STANDARD AUTHORS, AND
EASY LESSONS IN COMPOSITION. By
Elizabeth Lloyd. Philadelphia : Sower,
Potts & Co. 1876.

The object of this little book is to
make even the "Little Folks" so fami-
liar with good English as habitually to
speak and write it correctly. They will,
it is claimed by the author, thus acquire a
knowledge of correct English without
going through the regular but slow pro-
cess of first committing the rules of syn-
tax to memory. The object is praise-
worthy, and the plan of the work seems
well adapted to make it easy of accom-
plishment.

How TO WRITE LETTERS. A Manual of
Correspondence, etc. By J. Willis
Westlake, A.M. i vol. i6mo, pp. 264.
Philadelphia: Sower, Potts & Co.
1876.

This is no mere compilation in the

;.\1 style of manuals, but an elaborate

1 interesting little work, showing the

>per structure, composition, punctua-

n, formalities, and uses of the various

kinds of letters, notes, and cards. It

also contains a considerable amount of

miscellaneous information about cpislo-

lography in general, and an article on
" Roman Catholic Titles and Forms,"
with particular reference to thfs country.
The appearance of such a complete work
of this nature is a proof of that more
careful attention now paid by Americans
to the written forms and etiquette of so-
cial intercourse, which, whatever may
be ranted about republicanism and de-
mocratic habits, are as necessary, or at
least as desirable, in the United States
as in Europe. We would say of them,
as of the devices of heraldry, if used at
all, they should be used correctly ; and
this book will show people how to use
them.

EXPLANATIO PSALMORUM. Studio F. X.

Schouppe, SJ. Prolegomena in'S
Scripturam. Auctore F. X. Schouppe,
S.J. Bruxellis. 1875. Benziger Bro.
thers, New York.

These two treatises from the pen of
Father Schouppe, the learned Belgian
Jesuit, who has labored so indefatigably
to enrich Catholic literature, form part
of the author's " Course of Sacred Scrip-
ture," but have been published separate-
ly in order to give them a wider circula-
tion. In the " Explanatio Psalmorum "
Father Schouppe has chosen for eluci-
dation the psalms which are appointed
to be recited in the common offices of
the Roman Breviary, and his commen-
taries are made with speciak-reference to
this official devotion of the priesthood.
Each psalm is accompanied by a para-
phrase ; a short but satisfactory com-
mentary follows ; and, finally, the sei:sus
liturgus is given, showing its special
appropriateness to the various offices of
the Breviary in which it is found.

The " Prolegomena " is a brief intro-
duction to the study of Holy Scripture,
in which the various subjects comprised
under the head of hermeneutics are
discussed.

Botli these treatises are characterized
by the solid learning and lucid style
which distinguish all the works of Fa-
ther Schouppe.

LES PRINCIPES DE LA SAGESSE. Par Fran-
9015 de Salazar, S.J. Traduits de 1'Es-
pagnol. Gand. Benziger Brothers,
New York.

This work of Father Salazar. a Spa-
nish Jesuit, was discovered in 1628 by
Dom Geronimo Perez, a doctor of the
University of Alcala, who, in his Siimnia

288

New Publications.

Theologide, speaks of it in the following
terms : " I have read with attention all
that the most weighty authors have writ-
ten on subjects proper to effect the con-
version of the soul ; but I have met with
no one who has treated these matters
with a force equal to that which is found
in a manuscript of Francis de Snlazar, a
religious of the Society of Jesus."

The success of the book has more than
justified this estimate of Dr. Perez. It
has passed through innumerable editions
in the original Spanish, and has been
translated into nearly all the languages
of Europe. The French translation now
before us has reached a fifteenth edition.

BREVIARIUM ROMANUM, CUM OFFICIIS
SANCTORUM NOVISSIME PER SUMMOS
PONTIFICES USQUE AD HANC DIEM CON-
CESSIS. Turonibus, 1875. Benziger
Brothers, New York and Cincinnati.
This is a new and elegant edition of
the Roman Breviary, to which have been
added the offices of St. Boniface and St.
Paul of the Cross, the recitation of which
has recently been made obligatory upon
all priests by a decree of the Holy Father.
It is printed in large and clear type on
delicately-tinted paper of a shade pecu-
liarly grateful to the eye, strongly bound
in morocco, and of convenient size. We
have rarely seen a finer edition of the
Breviary.

Pius IX. AND HIS TIMES. By Thomas
O'Dwyer, M.D., M.R.C.S. (late Eng-
lish Physician at Rome). London :
Burns, Gates & Co. 1876.
This volume is made up of a series of
entertaining sketches of travel and let-
ters from Rome, where the author resided
man}^ years, during which he was corre-
spondent to the London Weekly Register.
His letters to that journal make up the
bulk of the book. At a time when so
much that is false issues from the capital
of Christendom and finds a welcome
place in the columns of non-Catholic
journals, the letters from the same city
of an observant and intelligent Catho-
lic would possess a special value quite
apart from their intrinsic literary merit.

AUTHORITY AND ANARCHY ; OR, THE BI-
BLE ON THE CHURCH. London : Burns
& Gates. 1876.
The author of this pamphlet presents

the argument for the church from the

Scriptures with very considerable skill

and ability.

CHARACTERISTICS FROM THE WRITINGS OF
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. Being Selec-
tions, Personal, Historical, Philosophi-
cal, and Religious, from his Various
Works. Arranged by William Samuel
Lilly, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-
at-Law. With the author's approval.
New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.
1876.

This is an American reprint of the Lon-
don edition. The latter has already been
noticed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. The
praise given to the original edition cannot
be accorded to the present volume. The
type is too small for general use, and the
book lacks what we characterized at the
time as " one of the best portraits of Dr.
Newman which we have seen."

THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE HOLY CHILD
JESUS: A Prayer-Book for His Chil-
dren. By Canon Warmoll. London :
Burns & Gates.

This useful little book is intended for
very young children. It contains short
prayers, acts, meditations, and instruc-
tions for Mass, confession, communion,
and daily conduct. The meditations are
admirable, being just adapted to catch
the attention of children. The instruc-
tions also are excellent. Only here and
there are to be found passages that strike
us as a little too ponderous for very
young children.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Lives of the Saints. Rev. F. X. Weninger, D.D.
Part VI. P. O'Shea.

" Messenger Series." No. 6. The Acts of the
Early Martyrs. By J. A. M. Fastre, S.J. Phi-
ladelphia : Peter F. Cunningham & Son. 1876.

A Study of Freemasonry. Translated from the
French of Monseigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of
Orleans. New York : D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

Pax Anhnse : A Short Treatise declaring how ne-
cessary the tranquillity and peace of the soul is,
and how it may be obtained. By St. Peter of Al-
cantara. From an old English translation of
1665. Edited by Canon Vaughan. London :
Burns & Oates. 1876.

Major John Andre : An Historical Drama in Five
Acts. By P. Leo Haid, O S B. Baltimore :
John Murphy & Co. New York : The CathoL
Publication Society. 1876.

The Martyrdom of St Cecily : A Drama in Thre^
Acts. By the Rev. Albany Christie, S.J. Lon-
don : Burns & Oates. 1876.

Christianity the Law of the Land. A discourse
delivered in the Church of the Saviour, Brooklyn,
N. Y. <y the Pastor. A. P. Putnam. With an
Appendix; or, Voices of American History.
Brooklyn, N. Y.

Report of the Xavier Union of the City of New
York. 1875.

Report of the City Superintendent of Schools to the
Board of Education of the City of New York, for
the Year ending December 31, 1875^

Addresses at the Inauguration of Daniel C. Gilrr:
as President of the Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, February 22, 1876.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. XXIII., No. 135. JUNE, 1876.

GERMAN JOURNALISM/

THE universal hymn of journal-
istic praise, sung throughout the
civilized world with hardly a dis-
cordant note, is of itself no mean
evidence of the power of the press.
;; Great is journalism," says Carlyle.
" is not every able editor a ruler of
the world, being a persuader of it ?"
From France M. Thiers declares
that the liberty of the press is theo-
retically and practically the most
necessary of all ; and was it not our
own Jefferson who solemnly affirm-
ed that he would rather live in a
country with newspapers and with-
out a government than in a coun-
try with a government but without
newspapers ? Did not the great
Napoleon himself stand in greater
awe of a newspaper than of a hun-
dred thousand bayonets? !i Give
me but the liberty of the press,"
cried Sheridan, " and I will give to
the minister a venal House of Peers ;
I will give him a corrupt and

* Die dent sche Zeitschriften und die Entste-
fiieng- der offcntlichen Mcinung. Ein Beitrng
Geschichte des Zeitung^wesens. Von Hein-
rich Wuttke. The German newspapers and the
origin of public opinion : a contribution to the his-
tory of journalism. Leipzig: 1875.

servile House of Commons ; I will
give him the full sway of the pat-
ronage of office ; I will give him
the whole host of ministerial in-
fluence; I will give him all the
power that place can confer up-
on him to purchase up submission
and overcome resistance ; and yet,
armed with the liberty of the press r
I will go forth to meet him undis-
mayed ; I will attack the mighty
fabric he has reared with that
mightier engine; I will shake down
from its height corruption and bury
it amidst the ruins of the abuses it
was meant to shelter."

But we do not propose to treat
our readers to a dissertation writ-
ten in the style of him who declar-
ed that, were the starry heavens
deficient of one constellation, the
vacuum could not be better suppli-
ed than by the introduction of a
printing-press. We fully recognize,,
however, the very great power of the
press which controls public opinion,
and indeed often makes it. No-
thing is unimportant which throws
light upon the constitution and
workings of this " Fourth Estate,"

290

German Journalism.

into whose hands the destinies of
modern nations and civilization
seem to have been delivered ; and
it is for this reason that we take
pleasure in bringing to the notice
of the readers of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD the work of Professor Wutt-
ke on German Journalism and the
Origin of Public Opinion.

It would be difficult to find a
more curious or instructive book.
For years connected with the press
himself, a leader of the " great
German party," and the author of
several valuable historical and phi-
losophical works, Herr Wuttke
has brought to his present task the
thoroughgoing and painstaking con-
scientiousness of a German pro-
fessor. He is wholly in earnest;
neither smiles nor laughs ; does not
even stop to give smoothness and
polish to his phrase, but without
remorse or fear invades the edito-
rial sanctum, and pours upon its
most hidden mysteries the profane
light ; holds them up before vulgar
eyes, and leaves not the suspicion of
a doubt but that he is resolved to
tell all he knows. His courage no
one can deny. The enterprise to
which he has devoted himself was
full of perils, none of which were
hidden from him.

German newspapers before the
revolution of 1848 were chiefly of
a literary character. Their col-
umns were filled with criticisms of
books, philosophical and theologi-
cal discussions, aesthetic treatises,
accounts of travel, entertaining
stories, and theatrical notices.
Scarcely any attention was paid to
events of the day, and least of all
to those of a political character.
The explanation of this anomaly is
simple. The governments of Ger-
many exercised a rigorous censor-
ship over the press, and allowed no-
thing to be published which might

set people to thinking about what
their rulers were doing. But the
storm of 1848 blew the pen from
the hand of the official censor, and
opened the columns of the news-
paper to all kinds of political theo-
ries and discussions. The govern-
ments were at sea, borne helpless
by the popular wave which had
broken them loose from their an-
cient moorings and was carrying
them they knew not whither. Their
official organs, with unlimited finan-
cial support from the state, were
powerless, because people refused
to read them whilst independent
journals were within their reach.
The revolutionary outburst was
soon followed by a reaction, partly
brought on by its own excesses ; and
with the aid of the military the
former governments were restored.
Restrictions were again placed up-
on the liberty of the press ; but so
universal had the political agita-
tion been that to think of carrying
through a policy of rigorous repres-
sion was manifestly out of the ques-
tion. It became necessary, there-
fore, to devise some expedient by
which the press might be controlled
without being muzzled.

With this view Von Manteuffel,
the Prussian minister, established
in Berlin a " Central Bureau of the
Press," which stood in intimate re-
lations with the government and
received from the " Secret Fund '
a yearly support of from forty to
fifty thousand thalers. With this
money the pens of a crowd of
needy scribes were bought, who for
twenty or thirty thalers a month
agreed to write articles in support
of the views which, the director of
the Bureau should inspire. The
next step was to make an opening
for these articles in the columns
of journals in different parts of
the kingdom. This was not diffi-

German Journalism. 291

cult, as the contributions were well of the Berlin ministry. The edi-
written, by persons evidently tho- tors themselves were often igno-
roughly informed, and were offered rant of the fact that the pens of
at a nominal price, or even without their co-laborers had been bought
pay. On the 9th of March, 1851, and sold. Even foreign journals,
the director of the Bureau sent a in England and France, did not
circular to " those editors and pub- escape the meshes of the " Press-
lishers of the conservative party Bureau," but were entrapped and
with whom he has not at present made to do service for Prussia,
the honor of holding personal re- Another contrivance for working
lations," in which he promised, up public opinion was the " Litho-
with special reference to his con- graphic Correspondence-Bureau,"
nection with the Ministry of State, which is a French invention. This
to send them from time to time is an agency for the manufacture
communications concerning the real of correspondence from all parts
condition of political affairs, in or- of the world, at home and abroad,
der to furnish them indispensable which is lithographed and sent to
materials for the successful prose- journals that are willing to pay for
cution of their labors. This assis- it; and nearly all of them find this
tance was to be given free of cost, the cheapest and easiest method
and many editors were eager to avail of keeping abreast of the times,
themselves of it without inquiring As the men who found these
with much care into its special Bureaus are chiefly intent upon
significance. In this way the "Cen- making money, and live, moreover,
tral Press-Bureau ' wove a net- in salutary awe of the government,
\Vork of lines of communication they generally find it advisable to
Ov^er the whole kingdom, which, place themselves at its disposition,
however, was carefully hidden from The correspondence-agency of Ha-
public view. It also kept up con- vas-Biillier in Paris was Orleanistic
stant intercourse with the repre- under Louis Philippe, and Napo-
sentatives of Prussia at the various Iconic under the Empire. In re-
European courts, which enabled it turn it obtained the monopoly of
to give tone to public opinion on ' lithographic correspondence " ;
foreign affairs as well as on matters so that, during the reign of Louis
at home. Through the influence Napoleon, France received its
of the government, and by spending knowledge of the foreign world
money, the Bureau gradually sue- through the single channel of this
ceeded in introducing its agents Bureau, which was carefully super-
into the offices of many newspapers, vised by the government. This was
and occasionally in getting entire too excellent a device not to find
control of this or that journal. By ready acceptance in Berlin, and in
this cunning policy the Prussian the most natural way in the world
government was able to lead the the "Lithographic Correspondence-
unsuspecting public by the nose. Bureau " was placed alongside the
Whilst confiding readers through- " Press-Bureau "; the journals which
out the land were receiving the had already fallen under the influ-
views of their favorite journals as ence of the latter yielded without
the honest expression of public resistance to the seductions of the
opinion, these newspapers were in new ally, and thus became to a still
fac f only the whispering-galleries greater extent the tools of the gov-

German Journalism.

eminent. In this way the "eu-
nuchs of the court and press " were
in position deliberately and with
malice to falsify and pervert public
opinion, which soon came to mean
the utterances of the herd of venal
scribes in Berlin who had sold
themselves, body and soul, to the
" Press-Bureau." One of the five
sins which, according to Confucius,
is unpardonable, is from under the
mantle of truth to scatter broad-
cast lies which are hurtful to the
people ; and this is the charge
which Professor Wuttke brings
against the crowd of German news-
paper-writers.

Telegraphy, which was first intro-
duced into Germany in 1849, led to
further improvements in the art of
manipulating the press. The " Cor-
respondence-Bureau ' of Havas-
Biillier became a telegraphic agency
and furnished despatches free of
charge to the Parisian journals, in
order to prevent the starting of a
rival business ; and when, notwith-
standing, the Agence Continentale
was organized, it was suppressed
by Persigny, the Minister of State,
who by this means was enabled to
control the publication of telegrams
in all the leading journals of
France. In Italy the Stefani
Agency, at Turin, rendered similar
services to the government of Vic-
tor Emanuel ; sending out the most
shameless falsehoods to the four
corners of the earth, and carefully
suppressing whatever the authorities
wished to conceal from the pub-
lic. These despatches were printed
in the leading journals of Europe
and America as coming from un-
suspected sources, when they were
in fact the " cooked ' : telegrams of
the secret agents of Cavour and the
Revolution.

In 1850 Reuter established his
telegraphic Agency in Aix-la-

Chapelle, but removed it in the fol-
lowing year to Berlin; and a fe\\
months later, when the cable be-
tween Calais and Dover was laid,
he made London the central point,
of his operations. In Berlin a sim-
ilar business was opened by Dr,
Wolf, a Jew. In 1855 he sold out tc
a number of capitalists, who organiz-
ed the Continentale Tclegrafenkom-
pagnic, and then entered into a com-
bination with Reuter and Havas,
through which they controlled the
telegraphic despatches furnished tc
the press of all Europe. To have
the latest news was a journalistic
necessity; and yet to maintain
special agents in the great centres,
and to pay the high rates for send-
ing special telegrams, would have
been too heavy a burden. Nothing
remained, therefore, but to take the
despatches of the Agencies which
were now in league with one an-
other.

In Prussia nearly all the tele-
graphic lines, most of which were
put up during the reaction after the
revolution of 1848, were in the
hands of the government ; and this,
of itself, was sufficient to place the
Agencies at its disposal. And in
point of fact, it is no secret that in
Prussia there exists a censorship of
the telegraph, and that the govern-
ment decides as to the despatches
which the newspapers shall receive.
Whoever will take the trouble to~
weigh this matter will see what a
terrible instrument for the perver-
sion of public opinion is thus placed
in the hands of the state. A de-
spatch has always in its favor the
force of first impressions. When,
after days or weeks, explanations
follow, they are passed over, new
events having already preoccupied
public attention. All the world
reads the telegram ; comparatively
few pay any attention to the later-

German Journalism.

293

coming corrections of inaccurate or
false statements.

Prussia, then, through her " Cen-
tral Press-Bureau," her " Corre-
spondence-Bureau," and her " Tel-
egram-Bureau," succeeded in get-
ting control of the leading Ger-
man journals, which, while keep-
ing up the appearance of inde-
pendence and honesty, were either
in her pay or under the influence
of her agents. Public opinion in
Germany was at her mercy ; so that,
after she had made the most tho-
rough preparations for the war of
1866, she found no difficulty in
having it proclaimed throughout
the fatherland that Austria had
been arming and was ready to fall
upon her in order to rob her of
Silesia. The newspapers even lent
themselves, when the war had be-
gun, to the publication of a spuri-
ous address to the army by Bene-
dek, the Austrian leader, in which
there was not one word of truth,
but in which he was made to speak
in a way that could not fail to
arouse the indignation of the Prus-
sian soldiers. This forged docu-
ment was circulated by the press
and read by the captains to their
men as soon as they had entered
Bohemia.

The creation of the new empire
has not improved German jour-
nalism. The " Press-Bureau" has
enlarged the circle of its activity,
while the government has invented
other means not less effective for
controlling the newspapers. " We
care not for public opinion," said a
high official in Berlin some months
ago ; ;< for the entire press belongs
to us." Prussia has German public
opinion, in so far as it is allowed to
find expression, in her keeping. Af-
ter the war with Austria the annual
secret fund of the " Press-Bureau"
was increased to 70,000 thalers ; but

this is in reality a very inconsiderable
portion of the money at its disposi-
tion. The incorporation of Han-
over and Hesse with Prussia threw
into the hands of the government
very large resources. From George
of Hanover King William exacted
19,000,000 thalers, and from the
Prince Elector of Hesse property
with an annual rental of 400,000
thalers. Both these sums were
placed at the disposal of Bis-
marck by the Landtag, that he
might use them to defeat the " in-
trigues" of the enemies of Prussia.
It was on the occasion of this grant
that Bismarck used the words which
have given to the " Press-Bureau"
fund a name which it can never
lose. " I follow," he said, " malig-
nant reptiles into their very holes,
in order to watch their doings."
The money which he received to
carry on this dark underground
business was appropriately desig-
nated by the Berlin wits the " Rep-
tile-fund" (Reptilienfond). A vo-
cabulary of slang has been invent-
ed to designate the hired scribes
of the Bureau and their operations.
Bismarck calls them " my swine-
herds" (ineine Sauhirten). To write
for the " Press-Bureau" is to take
mud-baths (Schlammbdder nehtnen)',
and the writers themselves, who are
classified as " officious," " high-offi-
cious," " half-officious," and " over-
officious," are called " mud-bathers"
(Schlammbdder}, and they devour
the "Reptile-fund." The instruc-
tions issued by the directors for the
preparation of articles for the dif-
ferent journals are styled ' wash-
tickets" ( Waschzettef). The direc-
tors who are not immediately
connected with the Bureau are
known by the name of " Piper"
(Pfeifer), which, in the jargon of
Berlin, has a peculiar and- by no
means flattering signification.

294

German Journalism.

As the buzzards fly to the carcass,
so gathered the hungry German
scribes around the " Reptile-fund " ;
but their pens were cheap and the
" Press-Bureau " was able to feed a
whole army of them, and yet have
abundant means to devote to other
methods for influencing public opin-
ion. Its machinations are, of course,
conducted with the greatest secre-
cy. All manner of blinds are used.
Its agents assume in their articles
a style of great independence, deal
largely in loud and captious epi-
thets, occasionally even criticise
this or that measure of the govern-
ment, and ape the ways of honest
and patriotic men. The " Central
Press-Bureau ' itself is pushed as
far out of sight as possible ; stalking
horses and scarecrows are put for-
ward ; and the institution is made
to appear as only a myth. But the
Cave of ^Eolus is in Berlin, and
the winds which are let loose
there blow to and fro, hither and
yon, through all Germany, start-
ing currents in other parts of the
world. In this cave the old snake-
worship of so many ages and peo-
ples still exists, and the god is the
u Reptile-fund." Out of this cav-
ern are blown the double-leaded
leaders which fall thick all over the
land, and always, as if by magic, just
in the right place. False reports
eddy through the air ; stubborn
facts are pulled and bent and beat-
en until they get into the proper
shape. The light which is permit-
ted to fall upon them is managed
as skilfully as in an art-gallery or a
lady's drawing-room. With the aid
of the " Reptile-fund " the " Press-
Bureau ' found little difficulty in
extending its business of buying up
journals, paying sometimes as high
as a hundred thousand thalers for a
single newspaper ; and where this
could not be done money was free-

ly spent to start an opposition sheet.
Whenever a journal was found to
be growing weak, aid was proffered
on condition that it should open its
columns to the " Press-Bureau " ;
sometimes with the understanding
that one of its agents should be
placed in the editorial chair. So
thoroughly has this system of bri-
bery taken possession of Prussian
journalism that the court decided
(October, 1873), in a suit against the
Germania newspaper, that to ac-
cuse an editor of being in the pay
of the " Press-Bureau " is not a crim-
inal offence, since it does not in the
public estimation tend to lower his
character.

Occasionally, in spite of the great-
est care, the secrets of the Bu-
reau are betrayed. Thus in Feb-
ruary, 1874, a circular was sent to
various journals, and amongst
others to the Neue Wormser - Zei-
tung, with the offer to furnish from
the capital, first, a tri-weekly ori-
ginal article on the political situa-
tion ; second, original political and
diplomatic advice from all -the de-
partments of the government, also
three times a week ; third, a short
but exhaustive parliamentary re-
port ; fourth, special correspon-
dence from other capitals (written in
Berlin) ; fifth, original accounts of
foreign affairs, drawn from the spe-
cial sources of the Bureau ; and,
sixth, a short daily, as well as a
more lengthy weekly, exhibit of
the Berlin Bourse. For these ser-
vices nothing was demanded ; but,
that the thing might not appear too
bald, it was stated that the editor
should fix his own price. Now, it
so happened that when this cir-
cular was received by the Neue
Wormser - Zeitung that paper was
in the hands of Herr Westerburg, a
Social Democrat, who straightway
took the public into his confidence.

German Journalism. 295

The newly-acquired provinces of had been first written in German,
Prussia were a favorite field for the were translated back into German
operations of the Berlin Bureau, and published by the reptile-press
General Manteuffel, in 1866, sup- as the expression of public opinion
pressed the Schleswig-Holsteinische in foreign countries on Prussian af-
/,1'itung, and handed the country fairs. " I could give the names,"
over to the reptile-press. In Alsace says Professor Wuttke, " of the
and Lorraine also journals were press-reptiles who write for the In-
suppressed, and others established, dependance Beige, of those who take
by the government. In these pro- care of the Hour, and of others
vinces the independent press has whose duty it is to furnish articles
wholly disappeared, with the excep- to the Italian and Scandinavian
tion of two tame and unimportant newspapers." * To hold the Eng-
sheets. In fact, if we except the lish in leading strings, Berlin had, in
Catholic and a few Social Demo- 1869, a North Germany Correspon-
cratic newspapers, there is hardly dence, and then, under the supervi-
a journal of any weight in the Ger- sion of Aegidi, the director of the
man Empire in which the press- '' Press-Bureau, "a Norddeutsche Cor-
reptile is not found. " I know," respondenz, which is still the chief
wrote to Professor Wuttke an au- source from which both English
thor well acquainted with the cir- and American journals draw their
cumstances " I know few German information on German affairs,
newspapers in which there is not a The attempt made from Berlin to
mud-bather." For even passing buy KatkofPs Journal of Moscow
services the Bureau is ready to was defeated by the incorruptibility
pay cash. Chaplain Miarka, the of the proprietor,
editor of the Katholik, has declared The reptile-press, of course, ig-
publicly that he was offered 7,500 nores and strives to hush whatever
thalers on condition of consenting may throw light upon the dark work-
to write in a milder manner during ings and intrigues of the " Press Bu-
the elections. reau " ; and no better instance of its

The working up of public opinion power in this respect can be given

through the press extends far be- than the history of Professor Wutt-

yond the boundaries of the German ke's book on German journalism.

Empire. The proceedings of the Its existence was not recognized by

court in the trial of Von Arnim in the press-reptiles ; its startling rev-

1874 developed the fact that he, elations were ignored pr received

whilst representing Prussia at the in profound silence ; and so suc-

Tuileries, had entered into rela- cessful was this policy that a year

tions with various journals of Paris, after the publication of the work

Vienna, and Brussels; and it is gen- only three hundred copies had been

erally understood that 50,000 thalers sold; and it is chiefly through the

were placed at the disposition of efforts of a Catholic newspaper

Herr Rudolf Lindau for the pur- the Germania and of Windthorst, a

pose of manipulating the Parisian leader of the party of the Centrum^

press. Through these and similar that it has finally been brought to

means an opening for the articles public notice and has now reached

of the "Press-Bureau " was made in a third edition. In the German
English, French, and Belgian news-
papers ; and these articles, which * Die deutsche Zeitschriften, p. 309.

296 German Journalism.

Parliament, on the i8th of Decem- France in 1870. A false telegram.
ber, 1874, Windthorst took Professor purporting to come from Ems,
Wuttke's book with him to the dated July 13, 1870, in which the
speaker's stand, and, in a powerful French minister, Count Benedetti..
address against any further grant was said to have grossly insulted
of the " Secret Fund " (JReptilien- King William, was eagerly taken
fond\ made special reference to up by the venal press and com-
this work, which he characterized as mented upon in a way which ex-
" conscientious " and full of startling cited the greatest indignation in the
revelations which leave room to minds of the Germans against Na-
suspect even worse things. A year poleon, who, they firmly believed,
before (December 3, 1873) the same was bent upon humiliating Prussia,
speaker declared in the Prussian In this way public feeling in both
Landtag that in Germany the gov- countries was fanned into a heat
ernment had nearly succeeded in which could be cooled only by
getting entire control of the press ; blood. The account of the inter-
that the influence of the " Reptile- view at Ems was a fabrication, as
fund " was already noticeable in for- Benedetti has since clearly shown ;
eign countries, particularly in the but Bismarck's " swineherds ' had
newspapers of Vienna; and that the faithfully done their unholy work.*
attempt had been made to establish When, just at the beginning of
a " Reptile-Bureau ' ' in connection the war, the French army made an
with the London embassy ; and attack on Saarbrlicken, the reptile-
when this was found not to work press spread the report that they
well, a " Press-Bureau " for England, had reduced the city to ashes ;
France, and Italy was organized in and this infamous falsehood made
Berlin. These charges, made in a deep impression throughout Ger-
public parliamentary debate, were many. A similar lie had been pro-
allowed to pass without contradic- pagated at the commencement of
tion, although Aegidi, the director the Austrian war. On the 27th
of the Central Bureau, was a mem- of June, 1866, the Prussians were
ber of the Assembly and present driven from Trautenau by General
during the discussion. Gablenz, and forthwith the reptile-
Eugen Richter, the member for press raised the cry that the citi-
Hagen, brought forward other accu- zens of Trautenau had poured from
sations of like import on the 2oth their houses hot water and boiling
of January, 1874. We have al- oil on the retreating soldiers ; and
ready given an example of the the government lent itself to the
uses to which the Prussian govern- spreading of this detestable cal-
ment puts the reptile-press, in the umny by dragging off the mayor of
instance of the forged army ad- Trautenau, Dr. Roth, to prison,
dress attributed to Benedek, and where he was detained in close
published throughout Germany at confinement nearly three months.!
the outbreak of the war with Aus- There is no subject on which the
tria in 1866.* Similar services organs of the " Press-Bureau " are
were rendered by the "mud-bath- more united or more eloquent than
ers " at the time of the crisis with the necessity of keeping up the full

* See Ma Mission en Prusse, by Benedetti, Paris,

*This spurious document has got into many 1871, p. 372 et seq.

books; e.g., into Hahn's Gesckichte ties freus- t Roth, Acktzfg Tage in fireussischen Gefangcn-

sischen Vaterlandes. sc/iaft, p. 13.

German Journalism. 297

strength of the standing army ; nay, throughout the fatherland took up
they have gone so far as to demand the chorus and began to shout that
that the Reichstag shall consent to the empire was threatened. Now,
take from the representatives of all the world knows that France at
the people the right to legislate that time was as little thinking of
on military affairs during the next making war on Germany as of tun-
seven years. But before taking this nelling the Atlantic Ocean ; but
step, hitherto unheard of in the this piece of journalistic legerde-
history of constitutional govern- main roused the Teutonic mind to
ment, it was necessary to manipu- the necessity of strengthening the
late public opinion, so that the mem- army and increasing the military
bers of parliament might seem to resources of a country which was
be compelled to this decision by already a camp of soldiers,
the will of the people themselves. No figure of rhetoric *s more for-
With this view packed meetings cible than repetition, and we may
were gotten up in various parts of calculate with mathematical preci-
the empire which the telegraph sion just how many leading articles,
lyingly announced to the world all saying the same thing in fifty
as very numerously attended and different localities, are required in
unanimous in demanding the seven- order to fabricate a public opinion
year enactment ; but the popular on a given subject,
gatherings which were held to pro- Another trick of the reptile-press
test against this violation of consti- is employed to prevent the people
tutional rights were passed over in from getting a knowledge of the
dead silence, and their action, con- speeches of the opposition in par-
sequently, did not become known out- liament. The arguments of these
side of their own immediate neigh- orators are either excluded from
borhood. The reptile-press acted its columns or caricatured so as
in full harmony with the " Tele- to appear childish or ridiculous.
graph-Bureau." The Spener'sche When, for instance, Sonnemann,
Zeitung) in Berlin, went so far as to the member for Frankfort, made an
declare that no protests had been appeal in behalf of the Alsacians,
heard, whereupon the Provinzial- who had themselves been reduced
korrespondenz exclaimed that the to dead silence, and showed from
movement, which had proceeded authentic documents the pitiable
from the depths of the nation's condition to which that province
heart with unexpected power, should had been brought, the organs of the
force the Reichstag to yield to the " Press-Bureau " declared that " to
demand of the government. answer such utterances would be
As a part of the same programme, beneath the dignity of a chancellor
the " Press-Bureau " just a year ago of the empire ; such want of politi-
raised the cry that France was buy- cal honor had no claim to pass as
ing horses, and that in less than the honest views of an individual " ;
three months she would declare and when Mallinckrodt placed his
war on Germany. On the same hand on Lamarmora's book to
day and at the same hour this prove his charges against Bismarck,
startling announcement was made the Spenersche Zeitung announced
in Frankfort, in Leipzig, in Stutt- that " the national parties were
gart, and other cities. The follow- filled with deepest disgust at the
ing day hundreds of newspapers conduct of the Centrum's, faction,

298 German Journalism.

and were not able to conceal their was place for withering scorn, pa-
regret that Prince Bismarck should triotic thunder, lurid lightning to
deign to answer these Ultramontane sear the Jesuitic head bent upon
brawlers, since, by consenting to the ruin of the new empire. And
notice the tricks of Windthorst, with what demoniac delight the
Mallinckrodt, and Schorlemer, he hired crew ring the changes on
was giving prominence to what each popular catch-word progress,
ought to be completely ignored " ; liberty, culture, free thought ; and
and then closed with the phrase of how they foam and rage when a
Frederick the Great, " Shall we play bishop or a priest has the " bound-
at fisticuffs with the rabble ? ' The less impudence ' j to speak in de-
Norddeutsche Allgemeine and Nation- fence of the church ! " It has
al Zeitung indulged in similar strains, come to this," says the Dresdencr
and these Articles were then repub- Volksbote (April 17, 1873): " Mi-
lished by nearly the entire German norities must keep silence."
press. When an opponent is espe- " Gone," exclaims a former Ger-
cially troublesome the press-reptiles man Minister of State,--" gone is
raise the cry that he has been the reign of noble ideas ; the pow-
bought up by foreign gold ; and in er of the love of country and of
this they are probably sincere, since freedom ; the worth and honor of
it must be difficult for them to un- the national character ! Money
derstand how any man could refuse alone is loved, and all means by
to sell himself for a proper consid- which it is acquired seem natural
eration. and praiseworthy." The very foun-
For five years now Bismarck's dations of the moral order are at-
venal press has poured the full tide tacked by this vile press. The
of its wrath upon the bishops and events of 1866 and 1870 are now
priests of Germany. Here was a spoken of as " an historical phe-
subject upon which the reptiles nomenon, which cannot be judged
could distil their venom to their by the current notions of morality,
hearts' content. What magnificent but in accordance with which these
opportunities were here offered to moral principles themselves must
the " mud-bathers " to hunt through be widened and corrected." This
the sewers of the centuries and to is the low and degrading philoso-
wallow in the mire of the ages ; phy to which the idolatry of success
to revive Luther's vocabulary and fatally leads.

refurbish the rusty weapons that But, for the honor of journalism,
for hundreds of years had lain idle a portion of the German press has
and hurtless ! What an open field remained closed against the insid-
was here in which to ventilate his- ious power of the ' Reptile-fund."
torical calumnies, to produce start- No Catholic newspaper has lent
ling effects by the dramatic group- itself even covertly to this con-
ing of striking figures ; to bring spiracy against truth and liberty ;
out the light of the golden present and -it must be admitted, too, that
by causing it to fall upon the dark the socialistic journals have refus-
and bloody background of the past ! ed the government bribes ; their
And what divine occasions for in- circulation, however, which is not
dignation, wrath, horror, word- large, is confined almost exclusive-
painting to cause the hair to stand ly to the laboring classes, and their
on end and the eyes to start ! Here influence is but little felt. The

German Journalism. 299

power of the Catholic press in Ger- sold daily, and many other Catholic
many is of recent growth. In the journals have a circulation of from
early part of the present century five to ten thousand copies. As
the only periodical of any weight this powerful Catholic press could
devoted to the defence of the in- not be bought, nothing remained
terests of the church in Germany to be done but to silence it.
was the Theologische Quartalschrift, At the close of the year 1872 all
founded in 1819 as the organ of Prussian journals were warned, un-
the Tubingen professors. Twenty der pain of confiscation, not to pub-
years later Joseph Gorres establish- lish the Christmas Allocution of
ed in Munich the Historisch-politi- Pope Pius IX. Mallinckrodt, the
schen Blatter, which soon caused the vigilant Catholic leader, raised his
influence of his powerful mind to voice in protest against this attempt
be felt throughout the fatherland, upon the liberty of the press ; but
and which, under the editorial man- the Reichstag was silent, and the
agement of the historian Jorg, is newspapers which had not heed-
still to-day one of the ablest re- ed the warning were seized. The
views in Germany. The censor- Mainzer Journal was brought into
ship of the press which, prior to the court for having presumed to print
revolution of 1848, was maintain- an open letter to the emperor, in
ed in all the German governments, which was found the following sen-
was exercised in a way that rendered tence : " The emperor is bound by
Catholic journalism impossible. No the laws of the moral order just
sooner, however, had the Parlia- like the least of his subjects." The
ment of Frankfort proclaimed the government procurator (Schon, in
liberty of the press than the Catho- Mainz, on the I9th of December,
lies hastened to take advantage 1873) declared that the emperor is
of it by creating newspapers to a " sanctified ' person, whose ma-
advocate their religious interests, jesty is " above the laws of the
The bishops and priests, in obedi- state," and the bare address "to the
ence to the earnest exhortations emperor ' is a punishable offence,
of Pius IX., threw themselves into For republishing this open letter
the work with a will; the people the editors of the Kolner Volkszei-
followed their example ; press- tung and the Miihlheimer Anzeiger
unions were formed and a large were condemned to prison for two
number of Catholic newspapers months. Siegbert, the managing
sprang into life. Bismarck's per- editor of the Deutscher Reichszeitung
secution of the church gave yet (Catholic), was called upon to give
greater force to this movement and the name of the writer of a certain
increased both the number and article which he had published ; and
the circulation of Catholic journals, upon his declaration that this would
In the new German Empire there be a breach of honor he was thrown
are to-day two hundred and thirty into prison.

newspapers devoted to the interests On the ist of July, 1874, a new
of the church. The Augsburger law came into force, by which still
U'ochenblatt has a subscription further restrictions were placed up-
list of thirty-two thousand ; the on the liberty of the press ; and on
Mainzer Volksblatt, one of thirty the i5th of the same month the Mi-
thousand. Twelve thousand copies nister of Justice enjoined upon the
of the Germania (in Berlin) are government officials to keep sharp

3OO German Journalism.

watch upon the newspapers. With- on earth in these days, and know-
in six months from this date the ing he was so appointed, and bent
Germania newspaper in Berlin had with his whole soul on doing and
been condemned thirty-nine times ; able to do God's work." And our
and there were besides twenty-four great centennial celebration of the
untried charges against it in court, reign of popular government is to
In January, February, March, and be desecrated by a colossal statue
April, 1875 four months onehun- of the man who is its deadliest
dred and thirty-six editors were enemy.

condemned either to prison or to We have not, in this country,

pay a fine. The most of these were wholly escaped the evil effect*

Catholics, though some of them be- of the vast European conspiracy

longed to the democratic and so- against truth and honor which is

cialistic press. It is not necessary carried on through the agency of

to say that the " press-reptiles >: ' Press-Bureaus," " Telegram-Bu-

were not represented among them, reaus," " Correspondence-Bureaus,"

These editors were thrust into the and " Reptile-funds." One may, for

cells of common criminals, were re- instance, readily detect the " trail

fused books and writing material, of the serpent" in many of the

and were forced to live upon " pri- cable despatches to the Associated

son fare," which many found so un- Press, and not less evidently in the

palatable that they could eat no- European correspondence of some

thing but rye-bread. of our leading journals. Is it not

The reptile-press alone is tole- worthy of remark that so few of
rated. If a man wishes to be hon- our great newspapers should have
est, and has, notwithstanding, no taken up the defence of the perse-
desire to go to jail, the most un- cuted and -imprisoned German edi-
wise thing which he could do would tors ? x The American press, which
be to become a journalist in the can, upon such slight compulsion,
new German Empire. To refuse to be blatant and loud-mouthed, has
eat of the " Reptile-fund" is to con- been most reserved in its treatment
demn one's self to Bismarck's " pri- of Bismarck ; has, indeed, hardly
son fare " of beans and cold water. attempted to veil its sympathy with

To poison the wells is not held his despotic and arbitrary measures,

to be lawful, even in war ; but to If this approval of tyranny went

taint the fountain -sources of know- merely the length of applauding

ledge, and to corrupt the channels his persecution of the Catholic

through which alone the public re- Church, it might be explained by

ceives its general information, is not the desire to pander to popular

thought to be unworthy of a great Protestant prejudice. But how

hero, if we may judge from the shall we account for it when there

Prussian chancellor's popularity is question of the degradation and

with Englishmen and Americans, enslavement of the press itself; of

which is not diminished even by the violation of every principle of

his determined efforts to crush all liberty ; and of the systematic con-

who refuse to sell their souls or re- solidation of the most complete

nounce their manhood. military despotism which the world

u The only man," said Carlyle of has ever seen ? Might it not be

Bismarck " the only man appoint- possible, even, to trace to the Rep-

ed by God to be his vicegerent here tilien-fond the recent attempts to

German Journalism.

301

rekindle in the United States the
ilame of religious hate and fanati-
cism ? However this may be, it is
unfortunately true that money is
the controlling power in Ameri-
can as in German journalism. Its
influence is as discernible in the
columns of our own " independent "
press as in a genuine Berlin " mud-
bather's" double-leaded leader.

"How can we help it?" said a
well-known editor of Vienna. " A
newspaper office is a shop where
publicity is bought and sold." "I
will be frank," said another jour-
nalist. " I am like a woman of the
town (Jch bin die Hure von Berlin} :
if you wish to have this and that
written, pay your money." Praise
and b?ame, approval and condem-
nation, are the articles of merchan-
dise of the press, and they are offered
to the highest bidder.

" When the proprietor of a jour-
nal," says Sacher-Mosach, a widely-
known and conscientious writer,
who was for some time connected
with the Vienna newspaper, the
Prcssc, and afterwards with the
Ncue Frcie Presse "when the
proprietor of a journal has entered
into lucrative relations with a bank,
he is not content with placing his
sheet at its disposition in whatever
relates to financial matters ; but if
the director of the bank, as some-
times happens, is a man of fancy
\\lio patronizes an actress who has
beauty but not talent, he will order
his theatrical critic to praise this
lady without stint; and the critic
will reserve all his squibs for some

old comedienne who is not protect-
ed by a bank director or by any
one else. If a great publisher has
all the works which appear in his
house advertised in the journal, the
proprietor will direct his book critic
to find them all admirably written,
profound, and full of the freshest
and most delightful thoughts; and
the author is just as certain to be
praised in thu sheet as he is to be
torn to pieces by the newspapers in
which his book has not been adver-
tised. The first principle of jour-
nalistic industry and of the criticism
at its command is to recognize
merit only when and so far as it is
financially profitable to do so." *

It is far from our thought to wish
to deny the vast power for good ex-
ercised by the press ; but this is its
own constant theme, and we have
deemed it a more worthy, even
though a less pleasant, task to point
out at least some of the ways in
which its power may be turned
against the highest interests of truth
and the dearest liberties of the peo-
ple. A thoughtful and fearless
work on the influence of journalism
on our American civilization would
be a fitting contribution to the cen-
tennial literature, and at the same
time a most instructive chapter in
the history of the country. The
only attempt of this kind which so far
has been made does not rise above
the dignity of a compilation, and is
without value as a philosophical dis-
cussion of the subject.

* Sacher-Mosach, Utter den Werth der Kritik,
Leipzig, 1873, p. 55-

302

Some forgotten Catholic Poets.

SOME FORGOTTEN CATHOLIC POETS.

"... Illacrimabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa
Nocte carent qma vate sacro."

WHEN we speak of Catholic poets,
three of the foremost names in
English literature come up at once
Dryden, Pope, and Moore. The
two latter are more eminent, per-
haps, as poets than as Catholics, but
of Dryden 's sincerity and steadfast-
ness in the change of faith which
" moralized his song ' and gave
a masterpiece to English poetry
there is, happily, no doubt. Many
later names are familiar to the gen-
eral reader as those of Catholics
whose genius has lent lustre to our
own epoch. Some, like Newman,
Faber, De Vere, and Adelaide Proc-
ter, claim fellowship with the most
famous and are known wherever
English poetry is read. Others,
like Caswall, Coventry Patmore, and
D. F. MacCarthy, are favorites of
a narrower circle. All are known as
Catholic poets to many by no means
intimate with their works. Even
poor Clarence Mangan has not been
denied his place and his crust of
praise on the doorsteps of the " Vic-
torian Era " he was never a very
importunate suppliant : no act of
Parliament could have made that
minstrel a " sturdye begger " and
is scarcely yet forgotten, although
he added to the (aesthetic) crime
of being a Catholic and the weak-
ness of being an Irishman the un-
pardonable sin of living and dying
in utter poverty and wretchedness.
Our present business, however, is
not with these or with any who, be-
ing dead, have friends and follow-

ers to sound their praises, or, living,
whose books may still be read and
admired, if only by themselves. We
shall take leave to introduce the
reader into an obscurer company,
where he will yet, we are assured,
find those who are not unworthy of
his friendship and esteem. They
themselves and their memories even
are ghosts ; but they will gladly
take form and substance to re-
ceive our sympathetic greeting and
unbosom themselves of their sor-
rows. Fate has pressed hardly on
them ; they have felt the " iniquity of
oblivion "; forgetfulnesshasbeefifor
most of diem their only mourner ;
upon their trembling little rush-
light of glory that each fondly
hoped was to be a beacon for eter-
nity that sardonic jester, Time, has
clapped his grim extinguisher and
they are incontinently snuffed out.
Posterity, their court of last appeal,
is bribed to cast them, and their
scanty heritage of immortality is
parcelled out among a younger and
greedier generation. Instead of
the trophies and mausoleums they
looked to so confidently, the mon-
uments more lasting than brass*,
they are fain to put up with a bro-
ken urn in an antiquarian's cabi::
a half-obliterated headstone in Sex-
ton Allibone's deserted graveyard.
We own to a weakness for neg-
lected poets. The reigning favor-
ite of that whimsical tyrant, Fame,
ruffling in all the bravery of new
editions and costly bindings, world-

Some forgotten Catliolic Poets. 303

ly-minded critics may cringe to and his world-famous memory moulders
flatter; we shall seek him out quietly beneath it. Surely there is
when he is humbled and in disgrace, something pathetic in such a des-
very likely out at elbows and ban- tiny ; something which touches a
ished to the Tomos of the book- human chord. We may pity the
stall or the Siberia of the auction- fate of many a forgotten poet whose
i-oom. We are shy indeed of those poems we should not greatly care to
great personages who throng the read. With their keen self-con-
council-chambers of King Apollo, sciousness, which is not vanity, and
and are ill at ease in their society, their sensitiveness to outward im-
\ bo wing acquaintance with them we pressions, poets more than most men
crave at most, to brag of among our cling to that hollow semblance of
friends, and, for the rest, are much earthly life beyond the grave, that
more at home with the little poets mirage of true immortality, we call
who cool their heels in the gracious posthumous fame. More than most
sovereign's anteroom. These wecan they dread and shrink from the cal-
take to our bosoms and our fire- lous indifference, the cynical dis-
sidet ; but imagine having Dante respect, of the mighty sans-culotte,
every day to dinner, leaving hope Death. To die is little ; but to die
at the door as he comes scowling and be forgotten, to vanish from the
in, or Milton for ever discoursing scene of one's daily walks and talks
'' man's first disobedience " over the and countless cheerful activities, as
tea and muffins ! Don Juan's Com- utterly and as silently as a snow-
mander were a more cheerful guest, flake melts in the sea; to be blotted
It is pleasant, we take it, to turn out of the book of life as carelessly
aside now and then from the crowd- as a schoolboy would sponge a ci-
ed highway where these great folks pher from his slate this jars upon
air their splendors, and lose our- us, this makes us wince. From that
selves in the dewy woods where the fate, at least, the .poet feels himself
lesser muses hide, tracing some secure ; he leaves behind him the
slender by-path where few have Beloved Book. With that faithful
strayed. secretum tier et fallentes se- henchman to guard it, the pale
mita vita. The flowers that grow phantom of his fame cannot be
by the roadside may be more radi- jostled aside from the places that
ant or of rarer scent ; but what de- knew him by the hurrying, selfish
light to explore for ourselves the crowds. It will remain, the better
shy violet hidden from other eyes, part of himself, " the heir of his in-
to stumble by untrodden ways up- vention," but kinder than most
on the freshness of secret springs, heirs, to jog the world's elbow from
and perhaps of a sudden to emerge time to time and buy him a brief fur-
in the graveyard aforesaid, where the lough from oblivion. Through that
air is full of elegies more touching loyal interpreter he may still hold
than Gray's, and our good sexton converse with his fellows, who might
is at hand to wipe the dust from ill understand the speech of that re-
this or the other sunken tombstone mote, mysterious realm wherein he
of some world-famous bard and has been naturalized a citizen; he
help us to decipher his meagre re- will keep up a certain shadowy cor-
cord. The tombstone is the folio respondence with the cosey firesides,
containing his immortal works ; it is the merry gatherings, he has left that
heavier than most tombstones, and may serve to warm and cheer him

304 Some forgotten Catholic Poets.

in the chilly company of ghosts ; haunted through life by the dim,
perhaps who knows ? may even appalling spectre of his own bad-
lend him dignity and consequence ness,- helplessly prescient in lucid
among that thin fraternity. He intervals of the quaintly cruel doom
will not wholly have resigned his which is to consign him after death
voice in mundane matters ; his to the paper-mill, there to be made
memory, as it were a spiritual sha- over heu ! fides mutatosque deos !
dow, will continue to fall across the for the base uses of other bad po-
familiar ways ; he will have his ets, his rivals if to this martyr we
portion still, a place reserved for cannot give consolation, we surely
him, in the bustling, merry world, need not grudge compassion.
Very likely at this stage of his re- The discerning reader may have
flections he w r ill whisper to himself, gathered from these remarks that
Non omnis mortar; in his enthusiasm the bards we are about to usher
he may go further, and with gay, back from endless night into his
vain, prattling Herrick share im- worshipful presence are not all of
mortality, as though it were a school- the first order, or indeed of any
boy's plum-cake, among his friends, uniform order, of excellence. They
Hugging this smiling illusion, he re- are not all Miltons or Shaksperes :
signs himself to the grave, and the si quid meremur would be for some of
daisies have not had time to bloom them an idle boast, and their posterity
thereon before the Beloved Book, can hardly be convicted of insanity
the loyal interpreter, the faithful for having sedulously let them be.
henchman, the wonder-worker of his But neither must we argue rashly
dream, is as dead and utterly forgot- from this neglect of them that they
ten as well, let us say as the prom- deserved to be neglected. Neglect
ises our friend the new Congress- was for a time the portion of the
man made us when he expressed greatest names in English letters,
such friendly anxiety about our Up to the middle of the last cen-
healthjust previous to the late elec- tury it was practically the common
tion. lot of all the writers who came be-
So utter, even ludicrous, a boule- fore the Restoration. Literary gen-
versement of hopes so passionate tlemen, the wits of the coffee-house,
and there is nothing a poet longs the Aristarchuses of Dick's or But-
for so passionately as remembrance ton's, knew about them in a vague
after death, unless it be recognition way as a set of queer old fellows
in life may touch the sourest cy- who wrote uncouth verses in an
nic. It may be as Milton says in outlandish dialect about the time
his proudly conscious way : Si quid of Shakspere and Milton. The
meremur, sana posteritas sciet. But more enterprising poets stole from
what comfort is it to our undeserv- them ; but English literature as a
ing to know that a sane posterity is living body knew them not. They
justified in forgetting it ? Good were no longer members of the
poetry, like virtue, is its own re- guild or made free of its mysteries ;
ward. But the bad poet, outcast they were foreigners among their
of gods and men, and of every book- own people, speaking a strange
seller who owns not and publishes tongue, shrewdly suspected of un-
a popular magazine ; the Pariah of wholesome dealings in such forbid-
Parnassus, the Ishmael of letters, den practices as fancy and imagi-
with every critic's hand against him, nation, and on the whole best ex-

Some forgotten Catholic Poets. 305

eluded from the commonwealth of speaking trump. But for his im-
letters. Even Shakspere and Mil- pertinences to the ' ; poor despised '
ton were little more than names. Lear he would be quite forgotten.
To the patched and periwigged He is a fly like many another pro-
taste of Queen Anne's and the Geor- served in Shakspere's amber.
gian era they made no appeal ; the One reads with a sort of dumb
critics of the quadrille-table and the rage of these essays of smirking me-
tea-gardens, the ' pretty fellows ' diocrity to " improve on ' : that co-
of the Wells, voted them low and lossal genius. It was Gulliver trick-
insipid. Milton was a wild fanatic ed out by the Liliputians. Tate
with heterodox notions of regicide, was not the only 'prentice hand that
who wrote a dull epic which the tried its skill at " painting the lily."
ingenious Mr. Addison saw fit to Gibber and Shadwell "were indus-
praise in his Spectator for a novelty, trious at it, and to this day many
of course, though his papers upon of us know Shakspere's " refined
it were certainly far less amusing gold " only as it comes to us elec-
than those devoted to Sir Roger troplated from the Cibberian cru-
and his widow or the diversions of cible. Lord Lansdowne prepared a
the Amorous Glub ; while Shak- y&v of Venice, which was acted
spere was a curious old playwright with a prologue by Mr. Bevill Hig-
whom the great Mr. Pope stooped gins another Phoebean title which
to admire with qualifications, and the great trumpeter has unaccount-
even to edit with notes, and some ably dropped. Mr. Higgins brings
of whose rude productions, notably forward Shakspere telling Dryden :
King Lear, when polished and made M These _ jcenes in thdr rough natiye dress were
presentable by the elegant Mr. Tate, mine, .

PTP rpnllv tint- sn hirl thnncrh of But now, improved, with nobler lustre shine ;

eally no DaQ, t The first rude sketches Shakspere's pencil drew,

COlirse not for a moment tO be COm- But all the shining master-strokes are new.

pared to such superlative flights of R3g5l ^ ES5BZ*

genius as The Distressed Mother or

The Mourning Bride. Does any- Here are two of the shining mas-
body nowadays read the elegant ter-strokes :

Mr. Tate, King William's laureate " As who should say, I am, sir, an oracle ";

of pious and immortal memory? .. .

..... * " 9tiil quiring to the blue-eyed cherubim

licsides his labors, in civilizing A tng

r and his celebrated Poems upon And this was Pope's ' Granville

', perhaps also upon toast, a the polite," the ' Muses' glory and

grateful country owed to him, in delight " of Young, who informs us,

conjunction with Dr. Brady, its moreover he had certainly a very

i-scue from Sternhold and Hop- pretty taste and boundless genero-

5, " arch-botchers of a psalm or sity in praising a person of quality

prayer," of whom we read, with a that, though long may we hope

subdued but mighty joy, that they brave Talbot's blood will run In

great descendants, Shakspere has

. . . had great qualms j^t one , And him my Lord (he

When they translated David's Psalms,' ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ t() ^

well they might. Yet, despite But in kind silence spare his rival's

notable achievement, Nahum shame. The generous reserve is

hum, O Phoebus ! was his name) vain, however. Each reader wii

long since ceased to fill the defeat his useless aim, And to him-

VOL. XXIII. 2O

306

Some forgotten Catholic Poets.

self great Agamemnon name. Great
Agamemnon is Granville :

" Europe sheathed the sword
When this great man was first saluted lord,"

apparently tnat he might give his
whole time to filling Shakspere with
shining new master-strokes like
those above.

All this sounds ridiculous enoush.

But even genius was bitten by the
same tarantula. We all know how
Johnson treated Lycidas. Dryden
found the rhyme in Milton's juve-
nile poems " strained and forced"
(this of L' Allegro and // Penseroso,
for example !), and confessed that
Shakspere's diction was almost as
difficult to him as Chaucer. How
difficult Chaucer was much nearer his
own time may be inferred from the
leonine Latin version of the Troilus
and Cresscide which Francis Kinas-
ton, an Oxford scholar, published
in 1635, with the avowed object
of rescuing Chaucer " from the ne-
glect to which his obsolete lan-
guage had condemned him by ren-
dering him generally intelligible."
And Cartwright, " the florid and
:seraphicall preacher," approves his
;pious labor, telling him :

'Tis to your happy cares we owe that we
Read Chaucer now without a dictionary."

What a commentary on the educa-
tional system of the time that in
England such English as this

" This Troilus, as he was wont to guide

His yonge knights, he lad hem up and doune
In thilke large temple, on every side
Beholding aie the ladies of the toune,"

should be less generally intelligible
than such Latin as this :

" Hie Troilus pro more (ut solebat)

Juveniles equites pone se sequentes
Per fani spatia ampla perducebat
Assidue urbis dominas intuentes."

But so it was, and so it was to be
long after. In 1718 Bysshe, in his
Art of Poetry, " passed by Spenser
and the poets of his age, because

their language has become so ob-
solete that most readers of our age
have no ear for them, and therefore
Shakspere is quoted so rarely in
this collection." And Thomas War-
ton says of Pope's obligations to Mil-
ton, " It is strange that Pope, by no
means of a congenial spirit, should
be the first who copied Comus or //
Penseroso. But Pope was a gleaner
of the old English poets; and he
was here pilfering from obsolete
English poetry without the least
fear or danger of being detected."
Pope certainly was a proficient in
his own "art of stealing wisely."
" Who now reads Cowley ?" he asks,
and answers his own question in
the lines he borrowed from him.

What an anomalous period in our
literature was this ! polished, witty,
brilliant to the highest degree, dis-
playing in its own productions in-
comparable taste and art, yet so in-
capable, seemingly, of " tasting" the
great writers who had gone before
it ! Fancy a time when people
went about people of cultivation,
too asking who was that fellow
Shakspere ! To us he seems as
real and as large a figure in his
dim perspective as the largest and
most alive that swaggers in the
foreground of to-day. Do we not
feel something weird and uncanny,
something ghostly, on opening the
Retrospective Review so late as 1825,
and finding Robert Herrick gravely
paraded as a new discovery ? Fifty
years ago that was by the dates ;
as we read it seems five hundred.
The critic antedates by centuries
his subject like his own god Ly-
feus, "ever fresh and ever young"
and is infinitely older, quainter,
more remote from us. Is it our
turn next to be forgotten? Shall
we not all be asking at our next
Centennial if Tennyson ever liv-
ed, debating whether Master Far-

Sam* forgotten Catholic Poets.

307

quhar was really the author of the
poems attributed to Browning, find-
ing Longfellow difficult and obscure,
and wondering in our antiquarian
societies if Thackeray was a reli-
gious symbol or something to eat?
Shall we but if we keep on in
this wise, one thing plainly we
shall not do, and that is get back
to our neglected Catholic poets
now twice neglected. Let us
leave our future to bury its own
dead, and betake ourselves once
more to the poetic past.

We have seen that our Catholic
poets, if forgotten, were at least
forgotten in good company ; in the
ample recognition which came at
last to the latter they did not so
fully share. In that Renaissance
of our early literature which markea
the close of the last century, and
which, pioneered by Percy, Ritson,
Wright, Nichols, Warton, Brydges,
and others, restored to the Eliza-
bethan poets, with Chaucer and
Milton, their " comates in exile,"
a pre-eminence from which they will
scarcely be dislodged, many of our
particular friends came to the sur-
face. But most of them did not
long remain there, dropping quick-
ly out of sight, either from intrinsic
weight or the indifference of the
literary fishers who had netted
them. How far any such indif-
ference may have been due to their
faith we will not venture to say.
We should be sorry to believe that
the hateful spirit of religious bigo-
try had invaded the muse's peaceful
realm, scaring nymph and faun from
the sides of Helicon with strange and
hideous clamor. For our own part,
we like a poet none the worse for
being a Protestant, though we may
like him a trifle the better for being
a Catholic. We have a vague no-
tion that all good poets ought to be
Catholics, and a secret persuasion

that some day they will be; that
the Tennyson s, the Holmeses, the
Longfellows and Lowells and
Brownings of the future will be
gathered into the fold, and only the

s or the s (the reader will

kindly fill up these blank spaces
with his pet poetical aversions) be
left to raise the hymns of hetero-
doxy on the outside in melancholy
and discordant chorus,

" Their lean and flashy songs
Grating on scrannel pipes of wretched straw."

Awaiting that blissful time, how-
ever, we are content to enjoy the
" music of Apollo's lute" as it
comes to us, without inspecting too
curiously the fingers that touch it,
so long as they be clean. And we
are willing to believe that if our
Catholic poets have had less than
their fair share of attention, it has
been their misfortune or their fault,
and not because of any sectarian
cabal to crowd them from the
thrones which may belong to them
of right among " the inheritors of
unfulfilled renown."

To tell the truth, indeed, such
of them as we find prior to the
time of Elizabeth have few claims
on our regret. We count, of course,
from the Reformation ; when all poets
were Catholics, there was nothing
peculiarly distinctive in being a
Catholic poet. The Shyp of Folys
of the Worldc, translated out of Lat-
in, Frcnche and Doche into Englyshe
tonge by Alexander Barclay, preste,
is too well known to come fairly
into our category. But the Sliyp
of Folys belongs, after all, at least
as much to Sylvester Brandt as to
Barclay, and the more original
works of the good monk of Ely
his Eglogiies (though these,
too, were based on Mantuanus
and ^Eneas Sylvius, afterwards
pope), his Figure of our Mother

308

Some forgotten Catholic Poets.

Holy Church oppressed by the French
King even those trenchant satires,
in which he demolished Master
Skelton, the heretical champion,
are sufficiently forgotten to be his
passport. Another of his transla-
tions, The Castle of Labour, from
the French, may have suggested- to
Thomson his Castle of Indolence
to the latter bard a more congenial
mansion.

The " mad, mery wit " which
won for Heywood, the epigramma-
tist, the favor of Henry VIII. and
his daughter Mary seems vapid
enough to us. Perhaps it was like
champagne, which must be drunk at
once, and, being kept for a century
or two, grows flat and insipid. The
Play called the four JP's, being a new
and merry Enter hide of a Palmer,
Pardoner, Poticary, and Pedlar,
would scarcely run for a hundred
nights on the metropolitan stage.
His Epigrams, six hundred in Number,
which were thought uproariously fun-
ny by his own generation, ours finds
rather dismal reading. We somehow
miss the snap of even that wonder-
ful design, his Dialogue containing in
effect the number of al the Proverbes in
the English tongue, which all Eng-
land was shaking its sides over
long after Shakspere had flung his
rarest pearls at its feet. Heywood's
great work is an allegory entitled,
The Spider and the File, " wherein,"
says a polite contemporary, "he
dealeth so profoundly and beyond
all measure of skill that neither he
himself that made it, neither any
one "that readeth it, can reach to the
meaning thereof." It is a sort of
religious parable, the flies represent-
ing the Catholics, and the spiders
the Protestants, to whom enter pre-
sently, dea ex mac hind, Queen Mary
with a broom. Heywood " was in-
flexibly attached to the Catholic
cause," and when, the broom-wield-

er having gone to another sphere,
the spiders got the ascendant, he be-
took himself to Mechlin, where he
died in exile for conscience' sake.
Therein Chaucer could have done
no better.

Can we enroll Sir Thomas More
among our tuneful company ? Brave
old Sir Thomas was a Catholic cer-
tainly a 'Catholic of the Catholics
and he wrote poetry, too, or what
passed for such. It is one of the
many heinous charges brought
against him by worthy Master Skel-
ton in his Pithie, Pleasaunt and Pro-
fitable Workes his going about

" With his poetry
And his sophistry
To mock and make a lie.'

But if poetry were a crime, and
no other had been laid to his
charge, the good chancellor might
have stood his trial freely on such
evidence as is found in his works.
His Mcry Jest, how a Sergeant
would learn to play the Freere, is
thought by Ellis to have furnished
the hint for Cowper's John Gilpin.
A Rufull Lamentation on the death
of Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII.'s
mother, has touches of pathos. The
dying queen soliloquizes :

u Where are our castels now, where are our towers?
Godely Rychemonde, sone art thou gone from me !
At Westminster that costly worke of yours,*
Myne owne dere Lorde. now shall I never see !
Almighty God vouchsafe to grant that ye
For you and your children well may edify ;
My palace byldyd is, and lo ! now here I ly."

These, however, were the pastimes
of his early youth, and even so
were greatly, and doubtless justly,
esteemed in his own time for their
purity and elegance of style. For
this refson also they are freely
quoted by Dr. Johnson in the pre-
face to his dictionary. More's fame
does not rest on these achievements,

* Henry VII. 's chapel.

Some forgotten Catholic Poets. 309

but On the greatness Of mind Which '' Right over stood in snow-white armour brave

, rrt , . i j 1 - A he Memphite Zoroas, a cunning clerk.

baffled the tyrant, and the erudi- TO whom the heavens lay open as his book,

tion Which Overthrew the fabric And in celestial bodies he could tell

e r i i j ! j. i_- 1 he moving, meeting, light, aspect, eclipse,

Of false learning and Civilized hlS And influence and constellations all."

country." If not a poet, he was

better than a poet, a great and The eighteenth century might own
good man, and his memory not these lines, the product of the first
Catholics only, but all good men, half of the sixteenth,
must ever hold in affectionate re- Edward Parker, Lord Morley, was
verence. a " rigid Catholic " and a prodigious
Surrey, the gallant and the ill- author. He lived to be near a
fated, exactly reverses our doubt hundred, and left at least as many
about Sir Thomas. A poet beyond volumes as he had years. Besides
question, is he to be reckoned a translations of countless Latin and
Catholic ? His father was, and his Greek authors from Plutarch and
son would have been had he had Seneca to St. Thomas Aquinas and
the courage of his opinions. The Erasmus, he wrote " several trage-
former, imprisoned at the same time dies and comedies the very titles
with Surrey, " though a strong Pa- of which are lost," and " certain
pist," says Lord Herbert, " pretend- rhimes," says Bale with a sniff of
ed to ask for Sabellicus as the most disdain. All alike are " dark ob-
vehement detecter of the usurpa- livion's prey," but history has pre-
tions of the Bishop of Rome." And served the important fact that " this
Surrey's sister, the Duchess of Rich- lord having a quarrel for precedence
mond, who swore away his life, " in- with the Lord Dacre of Gillesland,
clined to the Protestants," says he had his pretensions confirmed
Walpole, "and hated her brother." by Parliament." What a sermon on
We need not dwell upon the doubt, human ambition ! Genius toils in-
however, since Surrey is otherwise cessantly for a century or so, turn-
ruled out of our small society. A ing off tragedies and comedies,
poet included in all the regular col- rhymes and commentaries, without
lections, called by his admirers the number, to be its monument through
first of English classics, and by Pope all time, and presently along comes
accorded the final glory of being that uncivil master of ceremonies,
: ' the Granville (!) of a former age," that insufferable flunky, Fame, kicks
can scarcely be held one of the these immortal works without cere-
meglected to whom alone our suf- mony into the dust-heap, and intro-
frages are due. There, too, is Nich- duces Genius to posterity as the per-
olas Grimoald, also of dubious or- son who " had the quarrel for pre-
thodoxy, though undoubted genius, cedence with my Lord Dacre of
Nicholas was Ridley's chaplain and Gillesland." No distinction here,
suspected of being tainted with his you see ; not even a decent obser-
patron's heresy, but cleared himself vance of those pretensions which
by a formal recantation. Let us Parliament confirmed. Lord Dacre,
trust it was sincere. Grimoald's who never wrote, perhaps never
verses are often of remarkable ele- knew how to write, a line, has his
gance, and to the "strange metre" or name bawled as loudly to the corn-
blank verse, which he adopted from pany as the author of all these tra-
Lord Surrey, he lent renewed grace gedies and comedies and rhymes,
and vigor. Poor Lord Morley ! may he rest as

3io Some forgotten Catholic Poets.

soundly as his books ! His preten- centuries later approve that judg-

sions to oblivion, at least, no one ment. The author of this famous

is likely to dispute. poem was Dr. Andrew Borde, or

Another poet and scholar not Andreas Perforatus, as he preferred
less scurvily treated, and to whom to call himself, " esteemed in his time
we have somehow taken a wonder- a noted poet, a witty and ingenious
ful fancy, was George Etheridge, a person, and an excellent physician,"
fellow of Oxford and Regius Pro- serving in the latter capacity, it is
fessor of Greek there under Mary, said, to Henry VIII. Hewastheori-
Persecuted for Popery by Queen ginal of the stage Merry-andrew,
Elizabeth, he lost his university pre- "going to fairs and the like, where
ferments, but "established a pri- he would gather a crowd, to whom he
vate seminary at Oxford for the prescribed by humorous speeches
instruction of Catholic youth in couched in such language as caused
the classics, music, and logic." mirth and wonderfully propagated
He also "practised physic with his fame." He wrote, besides the
much reputation," greatly, no doubt, Merry Tales, The Mylner of Abing-
to the joy of his pupils. A friend ton, a satire called the Introduction
of Leland, the antiquarian, his ac- of Knoivledge, and various medical
complishments were varied and his works giving curious details of the
learning profound. " He was an domestic life of the time,
able mathematician," says a con- Many others we might catalogue
temporary, " and one of the most who were better churchmen than
excellent vocal and instrumental poets William Forrest, Queen
musicians in England, but he chiefly Mary's chaplain, whose gorgeously-
delighted in the lute and lyre ; a illuminated MSS. show that he, at
most elegant poet, and a most exact least, had a due appreciation of his
composer of English, Latin, Greek, Saincted Grlseilde and his Blessed
and Hebrew verses, which he used Joseph; or Richard Stonyhurst, who,
to set to the harp with the greatest like Heywood, died in exile for his
skill." Of all these elegant pro- faith, and who merits immortality for
ductions one only survives a Greek having written probably the worst
encomium, we are sorry to say, on translation of Virgil ever achieved
that royal reprobate, Henry VIII.; by mortal man. It was in the amaz-
and the memory of this pious ing hexameter of the time, that
scholar of the sixteenth century has " foul,lumbering, boisterous, wallow-
suffered the slight of being con- ing measure," as Nashe calls it,
founded with the graceless dramatist which represented to Sir Philip Sid-
of the seventeenth. ney and his coterie the grace and

A cockle-shell weathers the melody of Virgil's line. The wits
storm that wrecks a fri'gate, and a laughed it to death, and we read its
nursery rhyme has outlived Ether- epitaph in Hall's parody :
idge's poetry and Morley's erudi-
tion. If widespread renown be a ^"^d ??/"
test of merit, The Merry Tales of the

Madman of Gotham must be a work On names like these, however, we

of genius. ' Scholars and gentle- have not space to dwell. Not even

men " temp. Henry VIII. " account- neglect can sanctify them. We are

ed it a book full of wit and mirth," at the dawning of that glorious out-

and the scholars and babies of three burst of creative genius which made

Some forgotten Catholic Poets.

3*1

the Elizabethan era a splendor to
all times and lands, and worthier
subjects await us.

At the outset we must prepare
for something like a disappointment
in the scanty list of Catholic poets
which even this prolific period could
furnish. Looking back on it, all
England seems to have been furi-
ously bent on making poetry enough
to last it for all years to come.
Englishmen, we know, in those days
did other things circumnavigated
the globe once or twice, and con-
quered a continent or so in the
intervals of rhyming ; but the won-
der is how they found leisure for
such trifles from the absorbing busi-
ness of the hour. Poetry, in that
electric century of song, appears to
have been the Englishman's birth-
right; Apollo possessed the nation.
The judge scribbled odes upon the
bench ; the soldier turned a sonnet
and a battery together; the sailor
made a song as he brought his ship
into action ; the bishop preached
indifferently in sermons and satires
-it was hard at times to tell which ;
the office-seeker preferred his claims
in rhyme, and his complaints were
" married to immortal verse " it is
lucky our own age is more given to
office-seeking than to poetry; the
bricklayer dropped his trowel and
was a mighty dramatist ; the con-
demned, like Andre Chenier at a
later day " the ruling passion
strong in death " strung couplets
on the very steps of the scaffold.
Even princes were smitten with
the general madness, and, catching
something of the general inspiration,
made verses which were no worse
than a prince's verses ought to be,
and were often better than their
laws. Were we poet-haters like
Carlyle, we should have ample food
for disgust in exploring that fid-
dling age. At every step in the

most unlikely corners we stumble
upon the inevitable rhymer.

In the Mermaid, where we drop in
for a quiet cup of canary, and per-
haps a glimpse of that rising dra-
matist, William Shakspere, we find
him bawling madrigals over his
sack; we overhear him muttering
of " hearts " and " darts " as we
take our. constitutional in Powle's
W r alk ; the very boatman who wher-
ries us across the Thames is a
Water-Poet, as though poets were
classified like rats, and will impor-
tune us before we land to buy one
of his four-score volumes; like
black care, Rhyme sits behind the
horseman and climbs the brazen
galley. We fly from him to the
camp; and there is that terrible
fellow, Walter Devereux, Earl of
Essex, whom we heard of anon
slaughtering "vulgar Irishry," men,
women, and children, like so many
rabbits there is that martial hero,
fresh from his last battue of unarmed
peasants, simpering over the com-
position of " godly and virtuous
hymns." We ship with Drake for
a trip to the Azores " to do God's
work," and incidentally to fill our
pockets, perhaps, as somehow or
other " God's work " usually did for
that pious and lucky mariner. Scan-
dit ceratas vitiosa naves the rogue
Apollo is there before us. We have
scarce got over our sea-sickness be-
fore our ingenuous skipper will be
asking our opinion of the commenda-
tory verses which " he hath writ," he
explains a fine blush mantling un-
der his bronze " for his very good
friend, Sir GervasePeckham's./?^/'/
of the Late Discoveries" We peep
over my Lord of Pembroke's shoul-
der as he sits writing in his cabinet
it is a liberty that by virtue of his
privilege a well-bred chronicler may
take. By his knit brows and pre-
occupied air it is some weighty state

312 Some forgotten Catholic Poets.

paper he is drafting a minute, per- Rules andCautelis for the fashioning

haps, of her majesty's revenues from of the same, he has no time to ob-

iines of popish recusants, and how serve that his mother is being led

the same may be increased. to death. But what is a mother's

life to those imperishable works ?

14 Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,"

u How, best of poets, dost thou laurel wear !"

the state paper begins, and it is a

minute of the perfections of the roars lust Y Ben Jonson, brimful

Lady Christiana Bruce. of sack and loyalty.

Even the queen's majesty, be- . Thou best of poets more than man dost prove,"

tween hangings of priests and vir-
ginal coquettings with princely echoes the faithful Stirling. Yet,
wooers, finds time for the making strange as it may seem, we can never
of royal " ditties passing sweet and read these superhuman productions
harmonicall." When next we seek wlth an Y comfort. The Divine
her beauteous presence, worthy Sonnets fade, and instead we see
Master Puttenham will buttonhole the S loom y sta g e at Fothermgay,
us in the ante-chamber and launch the hapless but heroic victim, the
out into loyal praises of her " learn- frowning earls, the gleaming axe,
ed, delicate, and noble muse." the fair head dabbled with gore.
" Of any in our time that I know Let us turn to merely human gen-
of," he asseverates, " she is the luses.

most excellent poet, easily sur- In this time of inspiration, with

mounting all the rest that have a11 England, from prince to peasant,

written, before or since, for sense, bursting into song and three-fourths

sweetness, or subtilltie, be it in Catholic, we find from Spenser to

Ode, Elegie, Epigram, or any other Cowley a scant dozen, or, counting

kinde of Poeme, Heroick or Lyrick." Shakspere, at most a baker's dozen,

Master Puttenham is known to be of Catholic poets worth naming,

writing a book on the Arte of Poesie. And Shakspere, in spite of Charles

We think as we listen to him of an- Butler's ingenious theory and its

other Royal Poet singing yonder spirited revival by Mr. George

at Fotheringay behind prison-bars, Wilkes, we can scarcely claim,

whose strains sound sweeter to us, That g reat P oet ' s religious creed,

though we shall do well to hide our like other important features of his

preference here sweeter, but infi- llfe > must no doubt remam alwa y s

f _-. c _.q . matter of conjecture. If he was a

nueiy bciu . ,.,.,. J n 111

Catholic, his creed was probably

u o Domine Deus, speravi m te ! no more than a tradition, strong

O care mi Jesu, nunc libera me ! , , . ,, r

In dura catena, in misera posna, desidero te ! enough to keep hlS pagCS free from

Languendo, gemendo, et genuflectendo, tne pictures of dissolute monks and
Adoro. imploro, ut hberes me ! .... _ , .

nuns m which most of his contem-

Liberty is the burden of this cap- porary playwrights delighted, but far
tive's song, and her royal sister from the fervor which sent South-
lends a gracious ear to her prayer, well to the scaffold, or the sincerity
The headsman is already sharpen- which, in a milder age, made Sher-
ing his axe to break her fetters, burne welcome poverty and dis-
And still another princely genius grace. Omitting Shakspere, then,
up there in Edinburgh is so busy our muster-roll is but short. For
with his Divine Sonnets, and his this there were many reasons. In

Some forgotten Catholic Poets. 313

those days there was other work for when Catholics were subject no
Catholics than verse-making; the longer to be murdered, but only
church needed martyrs, not min- to be robbed of Crashaw, whose
strels, and the blood-stained record ' power and opulence of invention"
of the English mission tells how Coleridge has remarked, another cri-
intrepidly the need was met. tic has said that, with more taste and
Southwell and Campian are only judgment, " he would have out-
two of a brilliant band almost stripped most of his contempo-
equally gifted, equally heroic. The raries, even Cowley."
life they led promised little for These were all priests. But out-
polite letters. Hunted like wild side of the priesthood Catholics
beasts, in hourly danger of the found work in other directions
most cruel and ignominious death ; which left little leisure for lit-
sleeping, when they slept, in hay- erary pursuits. Chidiock Titch-
ricks or the open fields ; studying, bourne, whose talents and unhappy
when they caught a breathing-spell fate the elder Disraeli has feelingly
for study, in caves and thickets commemorated, was one of " an as-
many of these noble youths have sociation in London of young Ca-
left behind them proofs of a genius tholic gentlemen of family who met
which, under happier auspices, would at the house of Mr. Gilbert, in Fet-
have borne abundant fruit. South- ter Lane, and took care of Jesuits."
well's poems, composed in the in- Thomas Habington, an associate of
tervals of thirteen rackings, reveal Titchbourne in this enterprise, and
a spirit of uncommon force and who, if not a poet himself, was at
beauty. Campian is known to least the father of a poet, narrowly
have written at least one tragedy, escaped hanging for concealing in
Nectar and Ambrosia, performed at his house the Jesuits Garnett and
Vienna before the Emperor Ro- Oldcome, accused of complicity in
dolph. It must be remembered, the Gunpowder Plot. Dymoke, the
too, that both of these dauntless champion of England, apparently
missionaries were cut off in the the same who translated // Pastor
very flower of their age, Southwell Fido, won the title to a more glori-
being thirty-two and Campian forty ous championship by dying (1610)
when executed. Francis Beaumont, in the Tower, where he had been
cousin and namesake of the drama- imprisoned for his resolute refusal
tist, was a Jesuit and a poet. So to conform. Dr. Lodge, a most
was Jasper Heywood, son of the charming poet as well as an emi-
epigrammatist. He translated sev- nent physician, we find in "the list
eral tragedies of Seneca, and is said of popish recusants indicted at the
by some to have been one of the sessions holden for London and
one hundred and twenty-eight priests Middlesex, February 15, 1604." It
executed by the clement Elizabeth, is of interest to note en passant
He is one of Gibber's Poets. Ellis that with Dr. Lodge was indicted
Heywood, his brother, also a Jes- for the same cause "Ambrose
nit, though he left behind him a Rookwood, of the army." Twenty
prose work in Italian, is not known months later Ambrose Rookwood,
to have written in verse. Of Cra- of the army, expressed his opinion
shaw, whose fortune it was to live of this treatment by engaging in
at a time when the storm of perse- the Gunpowder Treason. At a
cution had spent its fiercest fury, later period we have Sir Edward

Some forgotten Catholic Poets

Sherburne, a scholar and poet of
no mean pretensions, resigning of-
fices of large emolument rather
than betray his faith. Certainly,
under the last of the Tudors and
the first of the Stuarts a Catholic
poet may be said to have cultivated
his art under difficulties.

The obstacles in the way of Cath-
olics, then and long after, not only
for obtaining culture but the ru-
diments of learning, were indeed
enormous. Classed by legislative
enactment with " forgers, perjurers,
and outlaws," they were denied
education for themselves or their
children, except at the cost of con-
science or of ruinous penalties.
Their liberty they held at twenty
days' notice ; their lives at a mo-
ment's purchase. At any hour of
the day or night their houses were
open to the invasion of ruffianly
pursuivants, searching ostensibly
for "Mass-books' and other "po-
pish mummeries," but prone to
confound recusant jewels or broad
gold pieces with the relics of super-
stition ; and for such robberies they
had absolutely no redress. In the
courts of justice they found not only
no protection, but renewed oppres-
sion. To use a phrase often mis-
used, they had really no rights which
a conforming subject was bound to
respect, and their freedom, their
fortunes, nay, their lives, were at
the mercy of the rapacity or the
malice of their Protestant neigh-
bors. Much of their time they spent
in going to and from prison ; they
crowded the common jails in such
multitudes that many new ones had
to be opened for the sole accommo-
dation of these hardened malefac-
tors ; and their estates were impov-
erished to "pay for the privilege,
not of going to their own church
that was denied them in any event
but of staying away from one

they could not conscientiously en-
ter. Men so occupied doubtless
found ample employment for their
leisure without making acrostics
to Elizabeth Regina or panegyrics
on the "best of poets."

Yet even this untoward time
and chilling air yielded blossoms
of Catholic poetry which we need
not disdain to gather. Some of
the daintiest of them have been
culled by careful gleaners like
Headley and Ellis and Sou they,
and a stray flower here and there
salutes us in the more tasteful
modern collections, such as Mr. De
Vere's Selections, Mr. Palgrave's Gol-
den Treasury, or Mr. Stoddard's
Melodies and Madrigals, the lattei
a gem among its kind. But the
bulk of the Catholic poetry of
this period is practically unknown.
Massinger, luckier than any of
his great rivals (for Shakspere was
above rivalry), still keeps the stage
with a single comedy, A New
Way to pay Old Debts. But Shir-
ley, little his inferior in dramatic
ability, is, in spite of Dyce's elegant
edition, utterly neglected. He may
be said to owe his rescue from
oblivion to that one noble song
in The Contention of Achilles and
Agamemnon, " The Glories of our
Blood and State " a song which
alone is worth a library of modern
ballads, and which might be call-
ed truly Horatian but for a moral ele-
vation which Horace never reached.
And even this song, almost his sole
slender hold on immortality, Shir-
ley came near losing ; for in a
spurious compilation of Butler's
posthumous works it is given to
the author of Hudibras, and there
entitled A Thought upon Death
upon hearing of the Murder of
Charles /., though anything further
from Butler's style can scarcely be
imagined. Ben Jonson if, in virtue

Some forgotten CatJiolic Poets.

315

of his twelve years spent in the
church and the period of his best
work, he may be considered #s a
Catholic poet at all " rare old
Ben," in spite of his "weighty thought,
his pungent humor, his fertile fancy,
remains among the authors who
are widely talked of and little read.
Lodge again, who may dispute with
Bishop Hall the honor of being
the earliest English satirist, and who,
"though subject to a critic's mar-
ginal," gives evidence of a glow
and richness of imagination not
common even in that opulent time
-Lodge has no literary existence
except as one of the wistful shades
that flit through the Hades of the
cyclopaedias. Sir William Davenant
has from Southey the distinguished
compliment that, avoiding equally
the opposite faults of too artificial
and too careless a style, he wrote
in numbers which, for precision and
clearness and felicity and strength,
have never been surpassed. Yet
who now reads Gondibert, or its
notable preface, which inspired
Dryden with the germ of dramatic
criticism ? Sir Edward Sherburne,
whom Mr. Dyce calls "an accom-
plished versifier," whose transla-
tions may even now be read with
pleasure, and whose learning was
above the average of his learned
time, is equally forgotten. Cra-
shaw is remembered less for him-
self than as the friend of Cowley,
whose monody on his death, in
Johnson's opinion, has "beauties
which common authors may just-
ly think not only above their
attainments, but above their ambi-
tion." Southwell we think of as
the martyr rather than as the poet.
The verses of Sir Aston Cokayn
and his friend Sir Kenelm Digby are
not, perhaps, of the sort which the
world does not willingly let die ; yet

the plays of the former are not with-
out merit, especially Frappolin credu-
tiprincipe, an adaptation of the same
Italian original whence Shaksperc
took the hint for his prologue to
the Taming of the Shrew. His
minor poems, too, if they have no
other merit, throw some curious side
lights on the literary history of the
time. The life of Sir Kenelm Dig-
by, "of whose acquaintance," says
Dryden, ' all his contemporaries
seem to have been proud," was
itself a poem, and certainly one
more worthy of being told than
that of many of the gentlemen
whom Johnson's vigorous pen has
thrust into uneasy and unnatural
immortality.

" Sweet Constable, who takes the wond'ring car
And lays it up in willing prisonment,"

who was rated -as the first son-
neteer of his time, is as little known
as the pure* and pensive Habington,
the only love-poet of the reign of
Charles I. whose pages are without
stain. The two last-named writers,
however, we may expect to see more
noticed, both having been lately
reprinted Constable's Diana by
Pickering, and Habington's Castara
being included in the admirable and
wonderfully cheap series of English
reprints edited by Mr. Edward
Arber.

We had thought to give a few
specimens of at least the more
obscure of the writers last mention-
ed. But we have already over-
stepped our limits and must bring
this ramble to an end. The reader
who may be tempted for himself to
loiter in these unfamiliar ways will
meet with much to reward him*.
" Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely
good " he will find in abundance :

44 . . rich in fit epithets,
Blest in the lovely marriage of pure words,"

Are You My Wife*

ARE YOU MY WIFE ?

BY T7IE AUTHOR OF u PARIS BEFORE THE WAR, 1 ' "NUMBER THIRTEEN," " PIUS VI.," KTC,

CHAPTER XVII.
THE END.

THE admiral telegraphed at once
to Sir Simon, informing him of
what had happened. It was no
surprise, therefore, when, on the
morning of the funeral, the baronet
walked into Glide's room. The
meeting was affectionate but sad.
Glide had no heart to give a joyous
welcome to his old friend. Even
Franceline for the time was forgot-
ten. The shock of the tragic death
he had just witnessed had shattered
his airy castles to pieces. He was,
as yet, too much under the solemn
spell of that event to turn his mind
to the brightness that it might
have made an opening for in the
future.

Mrs. de Winton had come up
from Wales, and was for taking
Glide with her to a more suitable
residence than his dingy lodg-
ings ; but he refused to stir until
all was over, and she knew, as did
all who knew Glide, that when he
made up his mind to do or not to
do a thing, he was immovable as
fate. When the little band who had
followed Isabel to the grave return-
ed, they went by appointment to see
the medical man under whose care
she had spent the last months
of her life. Mr. Percival, who,
strangely enough, had not been at
the funeral, was to be there to
.meet them. He was in the room
when they entered. Sir Simon
Harness started on perceiving him.
' Mr. Plover ! I hardly' expected
to meet you here."

'* Plover !" echoed Glide and Mr.
Simpson.

The same, at your service,"
replied the other with cool effron-
tery. Then, turning to Glide, he
said :

' Gan I see you alone ? What we
have got to say had better be said
privately."

Glide made a gesture of assent,
and the doctor showed them into
an adjoining room.

The outline of Mr. Prendergast's
confession is already known ; it is
only necessary to fill it up with a
few details of interest. Isabel was
not his own niece, but the step-
niece of his wife by her first hus-
band, an Italian singer, from whom
the girl inherited her gift of song.
She was thrown on the care of Mr.
Prendergast when quite a child.
He was a needy adventurer, and de-
termined to make her voice useful ;
for this end he cultivated it to the
highest degree. But the^e was mad-
ness in her family. Just as her
musical education was complete,
and she was preparing to come out
on a provincial stage in Italy, her
mind became deranged, and he was
obliged to place her in an obscure
lunatic asylum near Milan. Mean-
while, he travelled as agent to a
large London firm, and saw a great
deal of life, chiefly in the West
Indies. On his return he found
Isabel recovered and in splendid
voice. Complete change and tra-
velling were advised as the best
means of strengthening her against
the danger of a relapse. He took
her to America ; then followed her
marriage and her flight. Whether

Are You My Wife? 317

the fraud that she had practised on knew her slightly and had business

Glide was entirely a deliberate false- of her own there accompanied

hood, prompted by that strange them as a sort of chaperon for

cunning which is one of the char- Isabel. Stanton had recognized her

acteristics of madness, or whether at the hotel, and she him. The

it was the delusion of a disordered rest of the story was already known

brain, it signified little now to him ; to Glide. Mr. Prendergast was very

it was certain that she had become emphatic, however, in declaring that

fully alive to the fact that she had he never intended to keep the poor

grossly deceived her husband, and child on the stage ; this one season

that discovery would ruin her. was so magnificently paid for that

Rather than face it, she fled and the sum, added to his own means,

threw herself on her uncle for pity would make them both wealthy for

and protection. Then followed the the remainder of their lives,

checkered life : now the glare of " And now I have made a clean

the footljghts, now the obscurity of breast of it ; you know every-

a lunatic asylum. It had been her thing," he said, bringing his narra-

own passionate desire to go on the tive to a close.

stage so Mr. Prendergast said " No, not everything," replied
and he had only yielded to it be- Mr. de Winton, fixing a searching
cause he saw there was no other look on him. "You have not ex-
course open to her. Her terror of plained the motives of your own
her husband's anger was so great conduct throughout. You changed
that the idea of being discovered your name twice ; you persistently
by him threw her into a state of avoided me; you had recourse to
despair which threatened to unset- unworthy subterfuges to escape de-
tie her brain beyond all chance tection. Admitting that my poor
of recovery. She had caught a wife was, as you say, too frightened
glimpse of him from her window at to trust me or to let me know what
Dieppe, and insisted on her uncle's she was doing, it was your duty to
carrying her off that very night, or communicate with me, and to give
else she would commit suicide, me at least the option of providing
The excitement of the stage soon for her, instead of compelling her to
brought on a return of madness, foster the disease that was destroy-
Prendergast locked her up and ing her by adopting the career of
went abroad again on a commis- an actress. What motive had you
sion ; fell in with Russian Jews on for not doing this? I give you the
the borders of China, bought vain- choice of telling the truth your-
able stones from them, and return- self; if you refuse, I must take
ed to fulfil the dream of his life : to other means of finding it out. 1
buy a country place and live " like Mr. Prendergast hesitated. There
a gentleman." He found Isabel was evidently something yet to be
again recovered, and with her voice told which he shrank from avow-
in greater power than ever. The ing; but, as Glide intimated, he
oiler of a fabulous sum for one sea- must either confess it of his own
son from a manager who had long accord or be driven to do so.
had his eye on the beautiful young " You are right," he said. * I had
piano tempted her uncle ; he ac- a motive in avoiding you ; in keep-
>ted an engagement for her at St. ing out of the way, not only of you,
. A London milliner who but of everybody. You may have

31$ Are Yon My Wife?

heard of a great speculation started ous nature is easily moved to par-
ten years ago in Canada, called the don.
Ramason Company ?" " What mercy is it that you ask

"I remember hearing of it; it of me?" he answered. 'The mercy

was a disreputable affair. My un- that you need most it is in no man's

cie, Admiral de Winton, took shares power to give or to withhold. You

in it and lost heavily by the trans- have lent yourself for years to a

action." course of cruelty and falsehood-

"I was the man who started that cruelty to the unhappy child whose

company, and I ruined many by friendlessness and terrible misfor-

inducing them to take shares in it. tune should have claimed your pity

I was obliged to keep out of the and protecting care ; falsehood to

way for several years, lest I should me, whom you well-nigh led into

be seized and made amenable for committing a great crime and in-

felony. About a year ago the one voluntarily causing the shame and

man who swore to bring me to the ruin of another. But I will take no

hulks for it died. I don't think vengeance on you. Go and ask for

there is any one now who would mercy where you have most sinned."
be at the trouble of prosecuting

me; but I am in your power. You Sir Simon had started without an

can hand me over to the law, if you hour's delay on receiving the admi-

choose ; vengeance is sweet and it ral's telegram announcing Isabel's

is within your grasp. Only remem- death. If he had waited for the

ber," he cried, with a sudden first post, it would have brought

change from dogged indifference to him a line from Ponsonby Amvyll

a more appealing tone "remember to say that he was setting off the

that as we judge we shall be judg- next day, and hoped to be at the

ed ; remember that we are stand- Villa des Olives nearly as soon

ing both of us by a new-made as his letter. Roxham would join

grave, and that, if I have sinned, I him at Marseilles, and thence they

have already eaten the bitter fruit would go on together,

of my misdoing. I was a poor man, So while Simon was rushing to

struggling to live; fighting for the London Ponsonby was rushing out

bread I ate. If I had been born to of it ; he presented himself with

estates and a fortune, I should have Lord Roxham at the villa the day

been no worse than others who have after his host's departure. Their

done no evil because they have surprise was very great when they

never been tempted. Think of were informed that Sir Simon was

this, Mr. de Winton, and for the not there, and that M. de la Bour-

sake of her who bore your name, bonais and his daughter were the

and who, in the midst of her poor only occupants of the house. They

mad wanderings, brought no dis- asked to see them, and were very

honor on it, be merciful!" cordially received, but it was quite

There was nothing abject in the clear they were not expected.

way the wretched man thus threw All the explanation Raylnond could

himself on Glide's clemency. He give of Sir Simon's extraordinary

did not cringe or whine ; he threw conduct was that he had received a

down his arms and appealed to telegram the day before which

the generosity of his conqueror, obliged him to set out for London

Glide was generous, and a gener- immediately; he had not entered

Arc You My Wife?

319

into any explanation, but the intelli-
gence was apparently rather exciting
than painful, for he had gone away
in very good spirits. The travellers
looked at each other in perplexity.
What were they to do ? To come
and install themselves at the villa
was impossible, not so much on ac-
count of the host's absence as be-
cause of Franceline's presence.
Raymond was discussing the same
difficulty in his own mind, and
was sorely puzzled as to what he was
expected to do. Lord Roxham
came to his assistance :

" The fact is, we have been too
precipitate; we ought to have wait-
ed for another letter from Harness.
However, it really does not much
matter as far as the journey is con-
cerned. I was on my way to these
parts, and Anwyll is very lucky in
getting a month's leave and the
chance of exploring this pretty place
with a cicerone like myself. We
shall have no difficulty, I dare say, in
getting some tolerably comfortable
quarters at a hotel in the town.
You, count, will perhaps kindly put
us in the way of that. What is the
best hotel here ?"

Giacomo, the odd man and gen-
eral out-door factotum, runner-of-
errands, and finder-out-of-every-
thing, was called and despatched to
the hotel with the gentlemen's lug-
gage and proper instructions about
their requirements. This essential
point once settled, all restraint was
at an end. M. de la Bourbonais felt
free to allow his courtesy full play
and to offer all the hospitality that
he wished to the two Englishmen.
He insisted on their remaining to
dinner; they had just half an hour
to refresh themselves before it
would be ready. Franceline joined
her father so graciously in urging
the request that they yielded a not
unwilling assent.

Raymond had never met with
Lord Roxham or Ponsonby since
that memorable dinner at the Court,
but he had received letters from both
immediately on Sir Simon's return
and discovery of the ring. These
letters were written in a frank, man-
ly tone that it would have been
difficult to resist if Raymond had
been far more deeply incensed
against tlie writers than lie was.
Both assured him of their unshak-
en esteem and their conviction all
along that the mistake for mis-
take they felt certain it was would
sooner or later be cleared up; if
they had given any pain by not
sooner expressing this opinion to
M. de la Bourbonais himself, they
sincerely regretted and apologized
for it. Raymond had replied gra-
ciously to both, and so the old
kind feeling was restored. He re-
tained a grateful recollection, too,
of Ponsonby's prompt though for-
mal salutation when Mr. Charl-
ton had passed on, cutting him
dead.

The evening passed pleasantly as
the party sat chatting away on the
terrace, with the young May moon
shining down on the blue waves
that beat against the pebbly beach
with a murmurous plash. France-
line had all sorts of questions to
ask about DullertOn after nearly
three months' absence a long time
at her age. She seemed astonished
that there was nothing remarkable to
tell about the place and the people
during that interval, and I am afraid
that Sir Ponsonby Anwyll drew on
his imagination now and then, rather
than acknowledge the humiliating
fact that he knew nothing concern-
ing the thing he was catechised
about. He talked of probable
plans and contemplated movements
of the various persons, as if plans
and movements entered into the

320

Are You My Wife?

lives of the homespun natives of
Dullerton at all.

It was late when the two young
men took leave, with the promise to
return early next morning for a drive
by the sea. Sir Simon had contriv-
ed a wonderful nondescript vehicle,
a cross between a char-a-banc and
a wagonette, with an awning sup-
ported by iron rods, so as to obviate
the necessity for umbrellas or para-
sols. Franceline was to do the
honors of this and show them the
beauties of the coast.

They were punctual to their ap-
pointment, and everybody enjoyed
the drive exceedingly.. They dined
at the Villa des Olives again that
day, and there was more sitting out
on the terrace and endless conver-
sations.

Glide, meantime, was waking up
as from a bad dream. As soon as
the cloud of those few hurried days
was dispelled, he seemed sudden-
ly to cast off the chill of awe that
had fallen on him by his wife's
dying-bed, and clung to him until
the grave had closed on her and
shut out that chapter of his life
for ever. Then youth vindicated
itself, the elastic spring rebounded,
and the future that yesterday was
out of sight began to dawn brightly
on him once more. The yearning
to see Franceline, to claim her for
his own,' asserted itself with a force
that was only the greater for being
so long repressed. 'But now that
all obstacles were removed on his
side, it remained to be seen whether
she was still free free at heart, and
willing to be his ; it was possible
nay, did not his better sense add pro-
bable ? that the seed of love he had
sown in her heart had perished there
before this, chilled by his neglect,
crushed to death by his seeming
faithlessness and desertion.

He must know first from Sir Si-
mon how matters stood between
her and Amvyll. Sir Simon told
him the truth. He had left France-
line heart-whole, as far as he knew ;
but here was the irrepressible Pon-
sonby as good as installed under the
same roof with her, walking, riding,
making./tfr//<?.y by sunrise and con-
versations by moonlight; passion-
ately in love with her, and Raymond
most anxious for the success of his
suit. Sir Simon had sounded him
before he invited Amvyll to Nice.
Was Franceline made of different
stuff from every other woman in
every other country that she could
remain proof to all this, and not
ignite at the contact of this faith-
ful flame, not yield to this un-
yielding perseverance ? Sir Simon
thought not. Glide thought differ-
ently ; but the wish, with him, might
too easily engender the belief.

Strange to say, neither he nor Sir
Simon felt the least alarm con-
cerning Lord Roxham. Yet there
could be no doubt as to which
would be pronounced the more
dangerous rival of the two by any
competent jury of young ladies.
He was far better-looking than Pon-
sonby Anwyll, more intelligent and
agreeable, and he was the son of a
peer to boot. This last attraction
would no doubt constitute a much
less dangerous man a formidable
rival in the eyes of most English
young ladies. But Franceline de
la Bourbon ais was not English, nor
endowed with that fine native facul-
ty which enables a woman to look
at a man through the crystallizing
medium of a peerage and discern
its magically beautifying power.
Still, considering that she did not
love Ponsonby Anwyll when he
presented himself at the Villa des
Olives, there is no denying that
Lord Roxham was a rival of whom

Are You My Wifef

321

the young squire of Rydal might
justly have been afraid. Sir Si-
mon had no deeply-laid plot or
counterplot in his mind when he
asked him; he did not mean to
play him off against Ponsonby, as
he had once played him off against
Glide; he merely thought it would
make it pleasanter to have him. It
would throw Franceline more off
her guard, too, perhaps. He was rov-
ing about the Pyrenees, and he might
just as well come on and spend a
little while with them at Nice.

Glide said very little while Sir
Simon rin on about the contents
of Franceline'-s letter, and proceed-
ed to expound his views on the
possible state of affairs at the villa
since he had left.

4 ' Yes; I see the danger," he said
at length : " Anwyll has had the field
so far to himself with all odds on his
side ; her father, who could make
her do almost anything short of a
sin to please him, is backing him
up. Well, a la grace de Dieu ! I
will start with you for Nice by this
night's mail."

It was an hour after sunrise the
sweetest hour of the day. France-
line was an early riser, and seldom
missed the enjoyment of a short
walk by the sea in the freshness of
the early morning. To-day, how-
ever, she was not walking ; she
was sitting on the beach at the
foot of the garden that sloped
down to the water's edge, sitting
with her milk-white hands in her
lap, without book or work, gazing
v.icantly at the advancing tide and
the sunlight dancing on the
waves. She was tired; she had
j)t badly hardly slept at all, in-
:d and she wanted the fresh sea-
breeze to revive her, and the soli-
tude of the silent beach to help her
to come to a decision that she had

VOL. XXIII. 21

spent the night vainly trying to
arrive at. After a while she drew
a letter from her pocket, opened it,
and spread it on her knee. She had
read it so often already that she
might have repeated it word for
word by heart ; but she read it
again, as if expecting to find some
new light in it now. Things look
different sometimes by daylight, just
as faces do, and she had only read
this letter by the light of her bed-
room candle. But the sunbeams
did not alter one line or modify
the force of one word in the four
pages covered with a large, strag-
gling, but bold, legible hand-writing.
The letter was from Ponsonby
Anwyll, asking her to be his wife.
Her father had put it into her hand
last evening when he kissed her
and bade her good-night.

' My child, here is a message
that I have been charged with for
thee ; thou wilt read it alone and
give me thy answer to-inorrow."

He did not add one word as to
what he hoped the answer might
be, but the sigh, the close embrace
with which he held her to him, told
Franceline plainly enough what his
longing desire was. She returned
his embrace in silence and carried
the letter to her room. She had
thought over it all night; but the
night had brought her no counsel.
She was still hesitating, undecided.
Yet she must make up her mind
one. way or the other within a very
short time oh ! how short a time.
Why could she not yield ? Her
father desired this marriage ardent-
ly, and there was everything to
recommend it. Ponsonby loved ,
her so sincerely, with such a hum-
ble, honest, manly love. It was no
light thing to fling away such a gift
as this. A faithful heart is not an
offering to be cast aside as if it
were a " common thing with more

322

Arc You My Wife?

behind," to be picked up at any
moment. It was in all probability
the turning point of her life that
she was now called upon to decide ;
if she let the tide go by, it might
never flow towards her again. Fran-
celine would have made small ac-
count of this if she had had only
herself to consider. She was hap-
py as she was, and would gladly
have renounced all hope or chance
of changing her present lot ; she
had no ambition, and she did not
realize the future keenly enough to
forecast probabilities and take pre-
cautions against them. She knew
her father was an old man, but she
never let her mind dwell on the
consequences of that fact. If he
were taken away first, i.t seemed as
if life must come to an end for her ;
she did not want to look beyond
so remote and dreaded a possibility.
But she knew that he looked be-
yond it, during his illness especially
he had said things occasionally that
showed he was painfully preoccu-
pied about her future, about what
was to become of her if he went
and left her alone in the world with
no one to love her or take care of
her. She knew that nothing could
sweeten his remaining years more
than to see her happily married ;
that, in fact, such an event would,
: humanly speaking, be very likely
to prolong his life. This it was
ithat kept her trembling on the
verge of surrender and pleaded
loudly in favor of Ponsonby's suit.
Why was it so hard to yield ?
There was nothing to hinder her
now. If she had cared for any one
else . . A bright crimson suffus-
ed her cheeks ; she covered her face
with her hands with an involuntary
movement, as if to hide that blush
of exquisite shame from the roses
that were its only witnesses.

But this emotion passed away

and sober reflections piescnted
themselves. The idea, once so
firmly rejected as a presumptuous
temptation, that she might con veil
Ponsonby by marrying him, appeal-
ed to her suddenly with a force
altogether new. It would be no
doubt a glorious thing to sacrifice
her own personal feelings and
wishes for such an object, and it
seemed to Franceline, as she con-
templated it for the first time
calmly, that the generosity of the
motive must ensure the reward of
the sacrifice. If she could but consult
Father Henwick ! But that was im-
possible. The distance was too great.
In those days railroads were few
and far between. It took four days
for a letter to reach Duller ton, and
as many for the answer to return ;
and it was imperative that she
should make up her mind at once.
She drew from her pocket a little
book in which she had written
down some striking passages from
various authors, and some words
of advice that Father Henwick had
given her from time to time. The
words that had sounded so sustain-
ing when uttered spoke to her now
with even a more pointed signifi-
cance : " Be sure of one thing : so
long as we are sincerely seeking to
do what is right God will guide us to
it. ... The danger is that some-
times we are all the time hankering

after our own will when we say,
and even fancy, that we are seeking
the will of God." Then later, in
answer to some question about the
mode of discerning between these
two wills, the writer said : " Thiniis

' w

that are not of our seeking or wish-
ing are mostly of his ordering. . . .
Obedience and circumstances are
our safest guides." Here France-
line closed the little book, murmur-
ing to herself: " It is quite certain
that this marriage is not of my seek-

Are You My Wife ?

32.3

ing nor of my inclination ; if that
be a sign, I am safe in doing God's
will in consenting to it." Then
she remembered how she had read
somewhere that God would send
an angel from heaven rather than
let a faithful soul go astray when
striving to do his will. No angel
had come to forbid her yielding,
and the time pressed for her deci-
sion. Franceline buried her face
in her hands, and for the next few
minutes a fierce struggle went on
within her. She trembled from
head to foot, her pulses beat fast,
a sharp pang shot through her
whole being and seemed to tear
it asunder for one moment, then
gradually recoiled upon her will,
stimulating it to a firm, irrevocable
impulse. All that she had hitherto
known of energy or courage was
as nothing compared to what she
was feeling now. She looked up
and pushed back her hair, as if to
see a vision more clearly. A light
had gathered in her eye, a high
resolve shone upon her brow. The
vision was vanishing, but she saw
it still : angels were beckoning.
The spirit of Renunciation pointed
with golden palm-branch to that
hour when every sacrifice receives
its crown, when every selfish denial
is avenged. She stood by her
father's death-bed; life was fading
away like a dream ; the hour of
il awakening was at hand. Con-
science spoke out : " Prove thy
love," said the clear, stern voice,
14 accept the reality which the kind
will of Heaven has appointed for
you, and cast from your heart once
and for ever the vain dream that
it has cherished too long. Make
your father happy ; become the
wife of this good and faithful man
who loves you. Go forth, im-
molate yourself, and lead him to
the light of truth."

When Franceline rose to her
feet, Ponsonby's cause was won.
She folded his letter, and went in
and sat down at once and answered
it. Her hand did not falter; there
was no trace of reluctance or -hesi-
tation visible in her countenance.
As soon as the letter was finished
she went down-stairs to meet her
father, and handed it to him open.
'Am I to read it?"
'Yes, father; it is you who have
written it," she said, kissing him.

Before M. de la Bourbonais could
reply, Angelique and the major-
domo came in with the breakfast,
and kept fussing in and out of the
room while it lasted ; so it was some
little time before he was able to go
out on the terrace and read the let-
ter alone.

Franceline did not wait to see
its effect upon him. She escaped to
her room, and sat there until he
should call for her; but instead of
this Raymond took up his straw hat
and went straight out of the house.
She saw him walk with a quick,
buoyant step down the garden and
disappear into the road. He was
gone with her answer to Ponsonby,
guessing rightly that until he re-
ceived it the young man would not
venture to return to the villa, and
that her father was impatient to
make the lover happy. Franceline
saw him go forth bearing the fiat
that decided her destiny, that plac-
ed a stranger henceforth between
them, dividing with another the
duty and the life that had hitherto
been all his own. Oh ! if she had
but loved the other as it was in her
to love the man who was to be her
husband. A cry that was almost
a shriek escaped from her, and she
threw herself upon the ground in a
paroxysm of tears. But this weak-
ness was soon over; she arose and
hurried out of the house> so as to

324 Are You My Wife?

avoid meeting Angelique or any of up, she beheld, not Angelique,

the servants, and went down to the but Glide de Wmton. Franceline

beach. screamed as if a sword had been.

The tide was in ; she seated her- driven through her heart, fell for-

self .in the crevice of a rock ward, and was caught in Glide's

a favorite seat, where she was shel- arms.

tered from the sun and surrounded " Franceline ! my darling ! my
by the beautiful blue sea on every own !" he murmured, straining her
side. She had taken a book with passionately to him
her, dutifully opened it where the She had not fainted ; she was
marker was, and then leaned her only stunned. Rallying in an in-
head against the side of the rock stanr, she struggled to free herself,
and began to dream. How plea- and looking at him with a frighten-
sant it would be if she could drift ed, bewildered glance, "How is this?
away in one of those white fishing- What do you mean ? Are you free ?"
boats, herself and her father, to she exclaimed.

some " fair isle of the blest " where " Should I dare to come to you,

there is no marrying or giving in to speak to you thus, to clasp you

marriage, whore no winged angels to my heart, if I were not free ?

come with cruel messages of duty O Franceline, Franceline ! have

to weak, reluctant hearts ! Was that you known me so little all this

steamer whose smoke was curling time?"

like a dark snake in the pure blue Her head drooped upon his

atmosphereM>ound for one of these shoulder, and she struggled no

happy isles ? Oh ! would that she more ; he gathered her to his heart,

were on it and making for that and she did not draw away her face

haven of rest. She must have sat from the warm kisses that he press-

a long time dreaming her dreams, ed on it.

for the steamer was a long while Angelique's voice breaking in

out of sight and the water had ris- upon this moment of rapture roused

en almost to her feet, when she her to the remembrance of other

heard Angelique's voice calling her things : her father's errand, the

up and down the garden. She did letter, she had written engaging

not move. It was Ponsonby come herself as Ponsonby Anwyll's wife,
back with her father, no doubt, to " O Glide, Glide !" she cried,

salute her as his bride. Let him putting her hand to her forehead

wait ; there was time enough. An- with a look of agonized distress,
gelique went on calling for some "My darling! what is it?"
minutes, and then ceased. France- But Angelique was down on

line thought she had given it up, them now, and began to scold the

and was congratulating herself on young girl for letting her shout

the reprieve, when she heard the herself hoarse calling to her this

sound of footsteps falling heavily hour past without an answer, until

on the pebbles close behind the she thought Mam'selle must have

rock. There was no use resisting ; fallen asleep and dropped into the

she must goto this impatient loverat sea; that's what would happen

once, it seemed. She rose with a some of tl;ese clays, and then her

weary, resigned sigh, and was step- body would be carried off by the

ping over the ledge of the- rock to tide to the north pole, and M.

gain the terrace, when, looking le Comte would die of grief, and

Are You My Wifef

325

the only thing for Angelique to do
would be to drown herself. Glide
tried to divert the vials of the old
woman's wrath towards him, and
so cut her short in this dismal horo-
scopic view of the family history.
M. de la Bourbonais, meanwhile,
was hastening to meet them ; the
sight of his smiling countenance
sent a dagger through Franceline.
She embraced Sir Simon, hurriedly,
and then ran to her father.

" You went with that letter?-" she
whispered.

" Yes, my little one ; I went
straight off with it."

" Ha ! Then he knows already ?
You have given it to him ?"

' No ; unluckily, he was not at
home. They had just gone out
when. I got to the hotel."

"O father! thank God! Then
give it to me quick !" She flung
her arms round his neck, and kiss-
ed him with an energy that nearly
sent his spectacles flying into the
Mediterranean.

"Eh, eh? What is the matter?
What is this ?" said Raymond, res-
cuing the precious lunettes and re-
fixing them on his nose.

" Father, I will not marry him.
I am engaged to Glide de Winton !"

The sun was not long risen for
the dew was still glistening on the
deep-bladed grass, and the birds were
babbling in their nests as they do in
the fresh dawn before men are astir
to drown the delicious concert
when three figures might be seen
wending towards the little gray
:hurch, where Father Hen wick
was awaiting them. They found
the door open and the candles light-
ed on the altar, although there was
not a soul in the church but them-
selves.

I dare say you recognize the three
at a glance, though it may surprise

you to see Glide de Winton there
and at so unwonted an hour.

The church was beautifully ar-
rayed ' in flowers and evergreens
and banners of every hue. For
this is to be Franceline's wedding-
day, and she has come with her
fiance and her father to ask a bless-
ing on it.

There was something peculiarly
sweet and thrilling in the sound of
the bell through the almost empty
church, and the voice of the priest
reverberating in the solemn silence,
tender and tremulous as a throb
that broke from his inmost heart.

The walk home was silent ; only,
when they entered the park, M. de
la Bourbonais stood a moment and,
looking down on the little cottage
where he and his child had suffered
so much and known so many happy
days, he said with an emotion
which he made no effort to conceal :
* My children, God has been very
good to us ; to me especially for I
have deserved it least. I shall not
live long to prove that I am grate-
ful ; but you who are young you
will both of you love him and
thank him for me all your lives."

Glide's only answer was a silent
pressure of the hand, while France-
line fell upon her father's breast
and wept a few sweet tears.

Yes, the wedding-day had arriv-
ed ; the sun shone brightly, -every-
thing was bright, everybody seemed
happy. Miss Merrywig sported a
splendid new gown for the occa-
sion pale blue silk, with rosebuds
and forget-me-nots on abroad, white
satin stripe, most appropriate for a
wedding; and such a bargain ! She
was entreating Lady Anwyll to make
a guess just one guess at what
it had cost; but Lady Anwyll fought
off, declaring it would only make
her envious if she knew, and, be-

326

Are You My Wife?

sides, sne wanted Miss Merrywig to
keep her bargain as fresh as pos-
sible for another episode like the
present which would be taking
place soon, she hoped, in the neigh-
borhood. She would not say more ;
it was rash to speak of these mat-
ters until everything was quite set-
tled ; but it had long been suspect-
ed by the whole county that that

sweet little Lady Lucy B and

Ponce were planning some mischief
together. Then followed whisperings
and squeezing of hands between
the two old ladies, which were pre-
sently interrupted by a loud, pre-
monitory buzz through the great
Gothic hall where the guests wore
fast assembling from the adjoining
rooms. Sir Simon appeared, mar-
shalling the twelve pink and white
bridemaids into ranks on the broad
landing at the top of the stairs.
Down they came gliding as softly
as a sunset cloud, and stood below
awaiting the bride. Everybody
whose acquaintance you have made
ever so slightly at Dullerton is pre-
sent, I think everybody except Sir
Ponsonby Anwyll, who sent his good
wishes and regrets by his mother,
explaining that he had not been
able to get home just at present.

And now a murmur, deep and
prolonged, runs through the gay
crowd. The bride is coming ;
stately she steps down flie grand
oak stairs, leaning on her father's
arm. To my mind, she is the
sweetest, loveliest bride that ever
"the sun shone on." But then,
to be sure, I may be prejudic-
ed. I wish I could describe her
dress to you ; but it would be very

much like trying to describe the
texture of a moonbeam. I can
only certify that it was white, dia-
phanous, and fleecy as a cloud, and
that, in some mysterious way, eu-
charista lilies floated here and there
over the soft, snowy foam. The
graceful head, too, bowed modestly
under its golden weight of hair,
was crowned by the same lovely
flowers, and a cloud-like veil of
gossamer tissue encircled her like
a morning mist.

M. de la Bourbonais looked very
happy as he passed through the
sympathetic groups with his clair-
de-lune on his arm; there was
subdued joy on his venerable face
that smoothed away all painful
traces of his late illness, and al-
most obliterated the lines of age
and the deeper furrows of care on
his thoughtful brow.

As to Glide de Winton, every-
body declared that he bore himself
admirably on this most trying oc-
casion, presenting a model of what
a bridegroom ought to be manly,
dignified, and simple ; he made a
speech at the wedding breakfast,
and it was pronounced capital. I
don't think the effort proved
such a very severe trial to him,
either, as he had once expected ,
for when Mrs. de Winton, who had
expanded like a sunflower in cordi-
ality that day, asked him with an arch
smile whether he found the ordeal
very dreadful, Glide answered frank-
ly that it was not so trying as he
had anticipated, and that, even
when the worst was said, a wedding
ceremony, with all its fuss, was not
an unmitigated evil.

Thomistic Philosophy.

327

THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY.*

THERE is some evidence of the
undue conceit which the present
age has of its learning and culture
in the fact "that the works of the
great writers of the middle ages in-
definitely surpass our best literary
productions in intellectual acumen
and in the depth and width of real
philosophical science. St. Thomas
commences his Siimnia Theologica by
telling us that it is to be an elemen-
tary work for the use of beginners
in the study of sacred doctrine, ac-
cording as the apostle says, Tarn par-
vitlis in Christo, lac vobis potum dedi,
non escam. This book for junior
students, this " milk for babes " of
the mediaeval times, is nowadays
somewhat strong for the mental di-
gestion of full-grown men, not ex-
cepting those whose minds have
been carefully trained under the
tuition of judicious preceptors. It
was no doubt the modesty of the
saint which prompted him to speak
in this manner of that most wonder-
ful work. Had he lived in such
days as ours, so remarkable for fee-
bleness of intellect, so conspicuous
for contemptuousness, for self-con-
fidence and self-sufficiency, such
language would not have been pos-
sible with him ; for he could only
have used it in the bitterest sar-
casm, which is utterly foreign to his
meek and gentle character.

* Philosophia Elementaritt ad usum Acade~
miciK ac prcesertim Ecclesiastics Juventutis.
Opera et studio R. P. Fr. Zephyrini Gonzales, Or-
dinis Praedicatorum. Matriti apud Polycarpuim
Lopez, Cava-Baja, 19. MDCCCLXVIII.

Pkilosofikia juxta inconcussa tutissimaque D.
Tkomce Dogmata. Auctore P. F. Antonio Gou-
din, Ordinis Praedicatorum. Editio novissima. Ur-
bevetere : Praslis speraindeo pompei. 1859.

Since the days of the Angelic Doc-
tor, it has become necessary to dis-
pose the minds of those who would
drink of this source of science by
previous instruction in the first ele-
ments of his philosophy. Of all the
elementary philosophies of the strict-
ly Thomistic school, the most uni-
versally esteemed has been that of
Father Goudin, who gave lectures
in the Dominican College of Paris
towards the end of the seventeenth
century. The great aim of this
faithful professor of Thomism is to
be true to his master in every point,
not only in the higher principles of
philosophy, but even in the details
of physics. He wrote at a time
when a great revolution was taking
place in men's minds with regard
to science, and he saw with concern
that the new doctrines would prove
in their results subversive of all
that was Christian. He therefore
set about opposing the doctrinal
novelties of Descartes and his school
by an uncompromising reassertion
of the teaching of St. Thomas. In
the judgment of posterity Goudin
has erred somewhat, but not so
much, certainly, as the school which
he opposed ; for the Cartesian doc-
trines have proved the source of
many subsequent errors, as scepti-
cism, rationalism, pantheism, athe-
ism. The mistakes of Goudin sim-
ply regard some of the details of
physical science which, whether
correctly or erroneously explained,
tend little to the benefit of our
fellow-beings, although interesting
enough to the minds of the well
educated

328

Thomistic Philosophy.

We are assured that the strictest
Thomists are not bound to adhere
to the details of the physics of their
master. The Angelic Doctor, in mat-
ters of this kind (which, we submit,
concern little the theologian, or
the metaphysician, or the m'oralist),
adopted the prevailing opinions of
the time. We do not read that he
ever showed much enthusiasm for
natural or experimental science, and
in this respect he differed from his
friend and quondam preceptor, Al-
bertus Magnus. But in those fun-
damental questions of philosophy
which are intimately connected with
our moral conduct and with na-
tural or positive religion, and in-
deed in all questions where St. Tho-
mas is bound to think for himself,
we do not find that he simply
endorses the teaching of another.
When it is objected by knowing
people that Aquinas teaches doc-
trines which are exploded or pue-
rile as, for instance, that the earth
is stationary, or that the east is the
right hand of the heavens it would
be well for them to reflect that
these are rather the doctrines of
the universally-admired Aristotle
than of his Christian disciple.*

Father Gonzales (since created
Bishop of Cordova) has given to
the church an excellent manual of
Thomistic doctrine. At the outset,
he seeks to determine the sense of
the word philosophy. This is no
easy matter, as the definitions given
by different authors are many and
various. Cousin declares it to be
reflection completely emancipated and
freed from the trammels of authority,
so that reason depends solely upon it-
self for the acquisition of truth. By
the subjectivists of Germany it is

* The writer was talking recently with a clergy-
man of the Anglican Establishment, who gave it as
his opinion that the Sutnma T/ieologica was not
worth studying, " because it was based on the false
decretals of Isidore."

defined the Ego as it places and offers,
itself by thesis and antithesis. Ac-
cording to Kant, it is the necessary
science of the laws and causes of spon-
taneous reason. Cicero says that
philosophy is re rum divinarum et
Jiiimanarum causarumque, quibits /uc
res continentur, scientia ; and this is,
perhaps, the popular notion of the
word, so that all scientific studies
are included in the general term of
philosophy. Thus we speak of the
philosophy of history, the philoso-
phy of language, the philosophy of
manufactures, of laws, and so forth.
A writer of the name of Mr. Robert
Hooke tries to impress upon his
readers the vast extent of philoso-
phy in the following curious disser-
tation :

"The history of potters, tobacco-pipe
makers, glass-grinders, looking-glass
makers or fbilers, spectacle-makers and
optic-glass makers, makers of counter-
feit pearl and precious stones, bugle-
makers, lamp-blowers, color-makers, co-
lor-grinders, glass-painters, enamellers,
varnishers, color-sellers, painters, lim-
ners, picture-drawers, makers of babies'
heads, of little bowling stones or mar-
bles, fustian-makers, music-masters, tin-
sey makers and taggers ; the history of
school-masters, writing-masters, prin-
ters, bookbinders, stage-players, danc-
ing masters and vaulters, apothecaries,
chirurgeons, seamsters, butchers, bar-
bers, laundresses, and cosmetics, etc.,
etc. (the true nature of each of which be-
ing exactly determined), will hugely fa-
cilitate our inquiries in philosophy."

By most scholastics philosophy is
defined as a cognitio certa ct evidens.
These are the words of Goudin, and
we observe that they are adopted
by Father Lepidi in the first vol-
ume of his new work. Gonzales,
however, demurs to assent to this,
for the reason that in philosophy
many questions are discussed of
which we have neither evidence
nor certainty. The objection is in-
serted and responded to in Father

Tliouiistic PJiilosophy, 329

Lepidi's book, and also in the works physics, while the science of being

of Goudin. The proper and pri- is called ontology or general meta-

mary object of philosophy is certain physics.

and evident ; it treats of questions However, Gonzales refuses to

that are obscure only secondarily grant that psychology belongs pro-

m&consequenter. Nevertheless, Gon- perly to metaphysics, because, al-

zales prefers to define philosophy though the soul of which it treats is

as cognitio scicntifica et rationalis beyond the ken of the senses, yet the

Dei, mundi et hominis, qua viribus operations of the soul depend upon

;iaturalibus per altiores causas seu them and are recognized by them.

prindpia habetur. In the latter He determines, therefore, that this

words of the definition he is in con- science belongs as much to ethics

formity with the rest of his school, and to logic as to metaphysics : to

but in the first part that is, in the metaphysics, inasmuch as it treats

genus of the definition he differs of the essence of the soul ; to logic,

from them. as it regards the faculties of cogni-

The essence of philosophy being tion ; to ethics, as far as it concerns

determined, at least in the sense in the moral power. Later on, when

which the author is going to treat Gonzales comes to treat of psycho-

of it, we are next invited to decide logy cxprofesso, he suggests that it

upon a suitable division. The older should be either reduced again to

scholastics had divided it into four physics or made a distinct and spe-

parts : logic ; physics, whose object cial portion of philosophy. Such

was ens mobile, or all changeable na- is the unsatisfactory consideration

ture ; metaphysics, which treated of of the question by men eminent for

being in the abstract, and all concrete their science. We see in the newly-

objects which transcend the powers issued volume of Father Lepidi's

of the senses; and ethics. Some philosophy that in his division he

added a fifth part namely, mathe- leaves out altogether the words

matics. Goudin's definition of phi- physics and metaphysics, and pro-

losophy seems capable of embracing poses the following heads : logic,

this science also ; however, he dis- general ontology, cosmology, an-

poses of it, whether consistently or thropology, natural theology, and

not we need not stop to inquire. ethics. This mode of division seems

Later Christian writers, who have to us, with all due deference to

adhered in the main to the doc- Bishop Gonzales and other writers,

'trines of the scholastics, have the most satisfactory. Moreover,

somewhat varied their division, it is explained by Father Lepidi in

Physics in its details is excluded a most logical manner, based as it

from philosophy strictly so called, is upon two incontrovertible philo-

while in its more universal relations sophical maxims. Before we leave

it is considered as belonging to this subject of the division, we will

metaphysics. Thus the science of mention that proposed by the late

the laws of the world is called cos- Canon Sanseverino in his great

mology, and the science of the soul, work, which, unfortunately, was

its essence, its faculties, and its . never completed. He considers

operations, is called psychology, philosophy under a twofold aspect,

Cosmology and psychology, together subjective and objective. Subjective

with theodicy or natural theology, philosophy is divided into four

are the subdivisions of special meta- branches logica, dynamilogia^idealo-

330 Thomistic Philosophy.

gia, and criteriologia. Objective phi- are not called immaterial by St

losophy has also four parts natura- Thomas, at least not usually. This

Us theologia, cosmologia, anthropologia, subject of cognition is well treated

cthica. We observe that he is one of by Gonzales. In another part

with Father Lepidi in discarding the of this treatise he endeavors to

use of those vague terms of which prove the necessity of an intellectus

\ve have spoken. agens as distinguished from the intel-

Father Gonzales has published lectus possibilis, the passive intellect,

his work in three volumes, the the faculty of understanding,

first of which comprises the trac- In the second part of Psychology,

tates of Logic and Psychology. In the simplicity of the soul, its spiri-

the Logic we have noticed nothing tuality and immateriality, are clearly

particular to be mentioned, except- demonstrated. Its unity also is

ing its completeness and the ex- stoutly maintained, and the opposite

ceeding clearness with which the errors, both ancient and modern,

subjects are treated. The treatise are stated with admirable terseness

of Psychology, however, has greatly and pertinence, and then put aside

interested us, and is the best we as wanting in scientific consistency,

have seen. It is divided into two With the hypothesis of one soul, all

,parts, empiric and rational. Psy- vital operations can be accounted

chologia empirica treats of the pow- for ; with that of more than one

ers of the soul, and we notice in a principle of life, various phenomena

few instances a deviation from the could not be explained ; therefore

explicit doctrine of Goudin. For the doctrine of one principle is to

instance, those species or representa- be admitted.

tions of objects which are received Appended to the tractate of Psy-
in the cognitive senses, are stated chology is a special chapter on
by Gonzales to be immaterial and Ideology. The various systems of
spiritual, while Goudin has said Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Locke*,
that they are material. It might, Leibnitz, Bonald, Malebranche, Gio-
perhaps, be suggested that these berti, Kant, Schelling, Fichte, and
species may be called immateriales Cousin are set aside one after
negative. This epithet is allowed another as insufficient or absurd,
by the author to be applied to the Then we have an exposition of the
anima of brutes ; and as the species subject according to the principles
we speak of belong to animal life, of the Angelic Doctor ; and this por-
they must be of the same nature, tion of the work is of unusual ori-
Cognition is a vital act, and all ginality, specially interesting and
vitality is above the condition of instructive to many readers. The
that which is merely material. A reality of ideas, as distinct intellec-
very recent writer has implied that tual representations of objects, is.
St. Thomas distinguishes immate- first established in opposition to the
rial and spiritual existences. We doctrines of those philosophers who
do not remember to have noticed maintain that the understanding
such a distinction in his works, perceives objects without the inter-
Perhaps the writer makes allusion vention of ideas or the need oi
to the doctrine that some opera- an intellectus agens. The doctrine
tions of material beings transcend of impressed ideas as distinct frorr,
the qualities of matter v.g., sensitive those that are expressed is insisted
cognition. Yet these operations upon.

Thomistic Philosophy.

331

The origin of our ideas is thus
explained: There are four kinds
of ideas, idece primaries abstractionis,
idea pure intelligibiles, idece pure spi-
rituales, and idea entis, and this di-
vision is applicable to both impress-
ed and expressed ideas. We must
ask pardon for our attempt to Angli-
cize the scholastic terms. Now, as
to expressed ideas, all these have
their origin from the passive intel-
lect. The difficulty, therefore, of
explaining the origin of ideas re-
gards only those which we call
idece impresses, and of these only we
have now to speak.

Ideas of primary abstraction,
which refer to corporeal or sensible
objects as, for instance, a man, a
hoisse, the sun come from the active
intellect, which draws them out of
the species contained in the imagi-
nation. Ideas purely intellectual
as those of substance, cause, effect,
good, evil have their origin from
both the active and the passive in-
tellect : from the former, because in
the ideas of primary abstraction it
discovers other more universal re-
lations, as those of good, bad, etc. ;
from the latter, as far as it works
out and develops those germs of
higher knowledge imperfectly mani-
fested by the active intellect. As
to purely spiritual ideas those of
God, of the angels, of our own
souls these have not all the same
origin. If the idea of God is ob-
tained by reasoning from that which
is contingent to the conclusion that
a necessary being must exist, such
an idea is the product of the pas-
sive intellect, which has worked it
out of impressions previously re-
ceived. But if the idea of God be
conceived as of the first cause of all
things, then it is acquired in the
same way as the ideas of causes in
general, and belongs in reality to
that class of ideas which are call-

ed purely intellectual. The idea
of an angel is acquired from the
analogy of our own soul ; hence the
iifta cxpressa of our soul may be-
come the idea impressa of an angel.
As to our own soul, there is no im-
pressed idea of it, but its operations
are sufficient for the acquisition of an
expressed idea of it, without any need
of an abstraction of the active in-
tellect. As to the idea of being, it
is an abstraction of the active intel-
lect, but natural and spontaneous ;
indeed, it is its first perception, as
the expressed idea of being is the
first conception of the passive intel-
lect. And the reason of this is,
that our intellectual faculties are
reflections of the mind of God.

Father Gonzales next proceeds to
explain in what sense scholastics
understand the axiom of the Stagi-
rite, Nihil est in intellectu, quin prius
fuerit in sensu. All ideas depend
upon the senses so far forth that
sensible cognition must always pre-
cede that which is intellectual, and
because all intellectual cognition
requires an accompanying exercise
of the imagination. Ideas of pri-
mary abstraction depend upon sen-
sible representations directly and
immediately ; ideas purely intellec-
tual, remotely and inadequately ;
ideas purely spiritual, especially of
angels and of our own souls, depend
upon the senses only indirectly and
occasionaliter. Hence the senses are
never the efficient causes of our in-
tellectual ideas ; the most that can
be said is, that they are the mate-
rial causes of some of them. In
this sense only can we accept the
maxim of the great pagan philo-
sopher without becoming implicat-
ed in the sensism of Locke and
Condillac. Gonzales next warns
his students not to consider ideas
as the object of intellectual know-
ledge ; an idea is not id QUOD cognosci-

332 Thomistic Philosophy.

tur, but id QUO cognosdtur. These are ance of the elements of the Eucha-

the words of St. Thomas, and it is rist after consecration, is well sus-

of the greatest importance to realize tained. Gonzales argues that

the doctrine, if we would avoid the substance and accidents are really

Charybdis of idealism as well as the distinct in essence, consequently

Scylla of sensism. the idea of their real separation in-

In the second volume we have volves no contradiction of terms ;
the tractates of Ontology, Cosmolo- and the Protestant philosopher
gy, and Natural Theology. In onto- Leibnitz is quoted in support of
logy the real distinction of essence this doctrine. Accordingly, after
and existence is affirmed and ably the words of consecration, when the
advocated, as, indeed, it usually is substance of bread and wine is
in works emanating from the Do- converted into the substance of the
minican Order. We have known body and blood of Christ, all the
personally more than one professor accidents remain unchanged, both
of that order who have differed in appearance and in reality, ex-
from Gonzales and Goudin in this cept that extension subsists of itself
point, and who have taught their after the manner of a substance,
doctrines in the lecture- rooms with- Cartesians, on the contrary, deny
out scruple as the veritable teach- that the accidents of the elements
ing of St. Thomas. Our province is really remain, and consider that the
not to attempt to decide the ques- appearances of bread and wine are
tion, either on its own independent only phenomenal. Many modern
merits or according 'to the aratho- philosophers who are scholastic in
rity of the Angelic Doctor. There most points agree with the Carte-
are difficulties in the subject which sians in this ; among others, Father
seem to increase on examination. Tongiorgi, S.J. This subject is
Father Liberatore, in the later edi- worthy of the attentive study of all
tions of his Institutiones Philosophic^, who believe in the doctrine of trail-
has passed from the ranks of those substantiation.

who deny the real distinction to join In the tractate of Cosmology the

those who teach it, and he gives different systems of pantheism are

weighty reasons for doing so. We explained and disposed of, and the

do not just now remember a con- doctrine of the creation of the world

version so conspicuous in the re- by a Being supreme, independent,

verse direction ; but we know of one and free is demonstrated. Then

or two such conversions, which, follows a discourse upon that inte-

however, have attracted little no- resting subject, the principles of

tice. bodies. Gonzales, as a staunch

In the treatise of Ontology there Thomist, upholds the doctrine of

is an interesting dissertation on the matter and form, and insists that it

principles of aesthetics. We are is the only system which is capable

afraid to attempt a synopsis of it, of satisfying the mind. Modern

as it would not be appreciated, philosophers generally reject this

Gonzales' definition of beauty is system, and some of them in very

worthy of a disciple of St. Thomas : contemptuous language. Cudworth,

Splendor harmonicus vert et infiniti. for instance, calls it genus quoddani

The doctrine of St. Thomas, ac- metaphysics stultitice. Father Ton-
cording to which he explains the giorgi does not accept this doctrine,
mystery of the unchanged appear- and seems to be persuaded that his

TJ touristic Philosophy. * 333

arguments in favor of chemical atom- nothing of the subject that tickles
ism are unanswerable and destruc- them ; and such a faculty is some-
tive of the ancient theory. Gonzales times of great convenience. Gon-
discusses successively the systems zales defines primary matter as
of the atomists and the dynamists, realitas substantialis et incomplete*,
and those go-betweens whom he nnllum actum out formam ex se ha-
calls atomistico - dynamists ; and bens, scd qua capacitatcm et potentiam
they are successively dismissed as habet ad universas formas substan-
incomplete or erroneous. Then the tiales. He defines substantial form .
old scholastic or Aristotelian sys- Realitas substantialis et incompleta,
tern is clearly and beautifully repre- materiam primo actuans ac determi-
sented. There are changes going nans ad constituendam simul cum ipsa
on in nature which are observed by substantiam complete subsistentem. Mat-
all. Substances are corrupted and ter is the subject of the form ; form
substances are generated ; the cor- is the perfection or actuality of
ruption of one is the generation of matter. It is worth while to ob-
another. These changes are called serve that Father Liberatore is a
substantial mutations. And yet, in firm supporter of this theory,
spite of all these changes, something To the principal objections, so
remains ever the same. When wood cleverly put by Father Tongiorgi,
is turned into fire, fire into ashes, against the Peripatetic system, Gon-
these into earth, earth into vegetable zales has always a suitable rejoin-
or mineral substances, there is al- der. After a categoric respondeo
ways something that remains unal- to each one severally, he makes
tered in its essence. What is this some general reflections upon them
thing ? It is primary matter (mate- all which we will try to do into
riaprima). What is it that makes English:

the change when wood becomes "Although no answer were forthcom-

fire, or earth, or a stone ? It is the ing to the famous objections of Tongiorgi,

new substantial form which sue- the scholastic system would continue to

ceeds the one that has departed by nold its own in respect of the first prin-

corruption. In scholastic language, c |P le , s of bodies Our system regards

, . r . chiefly bodies which are simple, and

the matter has changed its form. bodi / s endowed with life . NOW( none

As matter is something not know- O f the arguments of the Italian philoso-

able of itself, and could not exist, pher have any reference to either of

even by a miracle, without being ac- these kinds of bodies. Consequently,

tuated or perfected by substantial they not only do not overturn the Peri-

r . - ,, . patetic system of matter and form and

forms, it follows that its essence can of substantial generation, but they do

be but vaguely understood. For not even touch the question. The most

the same reason, a scientific defini- that can be inferred from his arguments

tion of it is not possible. Hence is - that substantial generation does not

Aristotle thought it profitable to take place in respect of inanimate bodies

. .? which are compound. Now, these corn-
give a negative definition of it : Nee pound bodies can be considered merely

i/uid, nee quale, nee quantum, nee alt- as bodies which are imperfect in unity of

{jiiid eorum per qi/ce ens determinatur . nature and substance, and as such they

We have known this definition to belong to that class of bodies which were

excite the irrepressible merriment st >' 1 5 d / b j the old scholastics """" im '

perfecta.
oi several. Some people have the

fiirulty of being able to laugh at The rest of the treatise of On-

vrill, even when they understand tology is well handled, especially

334 Thomistic Philosophy.

that which regards the principle and ages of Christianity to the time
manifestations of life. It is here of Charlemagne; the second, from
that we observed a distinction we Charlemagne to the Renaissance
have before mentioned. The anima of the fifteenth century; the thir.i,
of the brute creation is immaterial from thence to our own tim .
negative and similitiidiiiarie, for its For a literary student this shor\
operations transcend the conditions history is very valuable. All the
of matter; it is material positive, be- systems of philosophy that can
eause it exists and acts only in de- be thought of are sketched in
pendence on matter. their principal characters, with a
The tractate of Theodicy is good, short notice of their originators and
and contains in a short compass all champions. Father Gonzales does
that is necessary for the course of not weary his readers with a special
the young philosopher. As was to refutation of each particular system ;
be expected of a Dominican author, this is unnecessary after having
the questions which have come to taught his principles so well in the
be regarded as distinctive of the didactic essays. About fifty sys-
schools of the order v.g., pr&motio , terns of the period before Christ are
physica and predestination ante pra- briefly stated, and above a hundred
visa merita are taught and defend- and fifty of those which have ap-
ed with the most able of available peared since. This short history is
arguments. evidently the result of very exten-

In the third volume we have first sive reading.

of all a treatise of Ethics, which is As a student's manual, we know
interesting and contains much that of nothing more complete than the
is of importance for our own days. Philosophia Elementaria of Bishop
The duty of regulating our conduct Gonzales. It is an excellent course,
according to the law of reason and both for the young cleric who is
of God, by the commands of the preparing for the study of the scho-
church, of our civil rulers, of so- lastics, and for the secular youth
ciety, is well set forth, and the su- about to take his place in the world,
periority of Christian morality to all The style of writing is simple, but by
others is proved. We only regret no means devoid of elegance. Span-
that the treatise is not longer. ish writers who have been trained
The latter part of the third volume in the schools of Melchior Cano
gives an excellent epitome of the have never been at a loss to express
history of philosophy. This his- their thoughts in a becoming form,
tory is divided into two periods. We have heard many regrets that
The first starts with the beginnings there was no modern text-book of
of philosophy and continues to the philosophy of the school of Goudin.
time of Christ, in quo instaurata sunt This want is now fully supplied by
omnia. It is subdivided into three Gonzales, and it will be doubly
epochs : the first from the beginning satisfied when the rest of the volumes
of philosophy to its introduction into of Lepidi's Elementa Philosophic
Greece; the second, from that time to Christiana have appeared. We do
the days of Socrates ; the third, from not say that Goudin will become
Socrates to Christ. The second * unnecessary ; the serious student
period is from the time of Christ to will still continue to consult him.
our days, and has likewise three But there can be no doubt that
epochs : the first, from the early Gonzales' work is more adapted to

The Devout C Impel of Notre Dame de Betharram. 335

the times. It is also more terse, He has published a remarkable

more interesting, more suitable to work in his own mother tongue,

captivate the minds of youthful Estudios sobre la Filosofia de Santo

students. We hope that what we Tomas, which would be productive

have said may help to make Bishop of good if it were translated into

Gonzales more known among us. English.

THE DEVOUT CHAPEL OF NOTRE DAME DE BETHARRAM.

" Tu mihi, Virgo parens, in carmine suggere vires
Audacesque animos et grandibus annue coeptis."

Pierre de la Bastide.

La devote chapelle de Notre Dame sight of the clear, green current of
de Be'tharram, about ten miles from the Gave, everywhere the most way-
Lourdes on the way to Pau, has ward, the most picturesque, and
been for eight hundred years the most fascinating of rivers, we came,
most renowned sanctuary in Beam, in ten minutes after leaving the
and, to quote St. Vincent of Paul, narrow gorge of St. Pe, to the sta-
" the second, or at least the third, tion of Montaut-Betharram, where,
most frequented in the kingdom." away to the left, we could see the
Founded by the Crusaders, endow- cross on the Calvary, and the domes
ed by kings and nobles, favored by of the white oratories of the Pas-
supernatural graces, the favorite re- sion gleaming among the trees on
sort of the poor and afflicted, sung its sides. The Devout Chapel of
by poets, and its history written by Notre Dame de Be'tharram is at the
learned men, it has every claim on foot of the mount, on the further
the interest of the pious heart. bank of the Gave, and wholly shut

We left Lourdes one pleasant out of sight. A straight road leads

morning in September in advance to it from the station, which is about

of a large pilgrimage from Mar- half a mile distant. The bridge

seilles, that we might have an op- that spans the river with a bold

portunity of examining the church arch is extremely picturesque, the

of Betharram at our leisure. The sides of the arch being completely

railway runs along the valley of the covered with ivy, which trails to the

Gave, leaving at the left the sacred very water and lines the steep

grotto of Massabielle and the fair banks. Nothing could be more ro-

church of the Immaculate Concep- mantic. Trees lean pensively over

tion, which stand in full view on the limpid stream, and flowers

the further shore. We passed the bloom along the shore. The Gave,

forest of Lourdes at the right, and as the poet of Betharram remarks,

in fifteen minutes came to the little after rushing through the broad val-

village of St. Pe Sanctus Petnis de ley with impetuous haste, threaten-

Generoso, as the old chronicles call ing to overflow the meadows with

it on a bend of the river, shut in by its swelling current, suddenly slack-

the mountains. Keeping along in ens its speed as it approaches the

The Devout CJiapel of Notre Dame de Betharram.

chapel of the Virgin, and flows
gently by with a murmur of softest
homage. Opposite the bridge is a
long range of monastic-looking
buildings with narrow windows and
thick walls, the asylum of meditation
and prayer. Connected therewith
is the church, which stands with its
side to the river, facing the west.
The front, of Pyrenean marble, is
adorned with white marble statues
of the Evangelists with their em-
blems two each side of the mild-
eyed Virgin who stands above the
open door treading the serpent be-
neath her feet.

It being early in the afternoon,
we found the church delightfully
quiet. There were only a few per-
sons at prayer, and, having paid our
vows at the altar of Our Lady, we
proceeded to examine the building
and recall its varied history. The
interior of the church consists of
a nave and two aisles. The latter
are literally lined with confessionals.
The clerestory walls are covered
with paintings supported by gigan-
tic caryatides amid a profusion of
gilding and ornament somewhat
Spanish in character. The whole
effect is imposing, and there is an
impressive air of antiquity and
gloom about the church, though it
was rebuilt only two centuries ago.
The Madonna, a modern produc-
tion, by Renoir, a pupil of Pradier,
is over the high altar in the centre
of a reredos, rich with gilding and
carving, which extends to the very
arches. At the end of the right
aisle is the chapel of the Pastoure,
so called from the bas-relief depict-
ing the legend of the shepherds who
discovered the Virgin of Betharram.

The devotion to Notre Dame de
Betharram, so popular all through
the Pyrenees, is supposed to have
arisen in the eleventh century an
age of simple faith, when God loved

to manifest the wonders of his grace.
The church is fondly believed by
many to have been founded by the
Crusaders, who perhaps gave it its
pleasing Oriental name. Gaston
IV., a prince of the Merovingian
race, noted for his devotion to the
Blessed Virgin, then reigned in
Beam. One of the bravest war-
riors who went to the rescue of the
Holy Sepulchre, he directed the
construction of the war-machines
before the walls of Jerusalem, and
was one of the first to commence
the assault at the side of Godfrey
of Bouillon.

We are chiefly dependent on the
ancient traditions of the province
for the early history of Betharram,
as the old church was burned down
by the Huguenots. One of the le-
gends attributes the name of Be-
tharram to a miraculous occurrence.
A young girl, who was one day
gathering flowers on the banks of
the Gave, accidentally fell into the
stream and was carried away by
the current. She instinctively cried
to the Virgin for assistance, who
instantly appeared, holding out a
leafy branch, by which she was
drawn to the shore. The girl grate-
fully offered her celestial protec-
tress a beautiful branch or, to use
the language of Beam, a beth ar-
ram of gold.

" ' Youb' offri dounc ma bere arrame ;

Que Tab' d<5paiisi stis Tauta ;
Y-mey que hey bot en moun ame
Qu'aci daban bous, Nouste Dame,

Gnaiit lath arrant que lusira."

That is to say, literally :

*' I offer you, then, my golden bough>

Which \ lay on the altar divine ;
Furthermore, in my inmost soul I vow,
In this blest place, O Mother of Grace !
For ever a beautiful branch shall shine."

La Bastide, the poet-priest of Be-
tharram in the time of the Fronde,
is the first writer to mention this
derivation, which furnishes him

The Devout Cliapel of Notre Dame de Be'tharram. 337

with a comparison to illustrate the
mysterious effects of divine grace :
" This name signifies, in the lan-
guage of the country, a beau rameau
a beautiful branch planted on
the shore of the Gave by the au-
gust Virgin, yielding fruit of a de-
licious savor that serves for the
nourishment of souls."*

The old legends say a girl of
the neighboring village of Lestelle,
named Raymonde, predicted the
erection of a church on this spot
in honor of Nouste Dame, but her
prophecy was scoffed at, even by
her own parents. Not long after,
some children, who were amusing
themselves at the foot of the hill
of Betharram while tending their
flocks, saw a bright flame among
the sharp rocks on the banks of the
river, in the very place where now
stands the high altar of the Devout
Chapel. Like the mysterious bush
on Mount Horeb, it burned intense-
ly without consuming the thicket
around. After a moment of stu-
pefaction the little shepherds tim-
idly approached, and what was their
astonishment to behold in the midst
of the flames a beautiful statue of
the Virgin and Child ! They fell
down before it in pious reverence,
"and then hurried awav to Lestelle

to relate the wonderful event. The
inhabitants ran in crowds to the
place, followed by the priest in his
white surplice, who fell on his knees
amid the prostrate throng and bent

his face to the ground before the

11 *

marvellous image.

As the place was rocky and ap-
parently unsuitable for a chapel,
people proceeded to construct
-mall niche at the further end of

hers think it one of the numerous names left

he country by the Moors, the Arabic word Beit

Ifnrmii signifying the '-acred Abode. Hut the old

chroniclers of B^arn, who attribute the foundation

ihe church to Gaston IV., believe the name

:ght from the Holy Land, the Hebrew words

Bctk Aram meaning the House of the Most High.

VOL. XXIII. 22.

the bridge, to which the priest car-
ried the statue amid the joyous
shouts of the people. But it was
not there that Mary chose to be
honored, and the following day the
niche was discovered to be vacant,
and the miraculous Virgin standing
on the rocks where she .originally
appeared. She was taken back,
but, mysteriously returning again
and again, the people of Lestelie
concluded to transport her to their
village church, which they did with
great pomp, and carefully fastened
her in, that they might ascertain
whether she had been moved by
human agency or some higher
power. In spite of this precau-
tion, the statue was again found
at dawn on the rocks of Bethar-
ram. Then Raymonde took cour-
age once more, and declared this
was the spot the Reyne deii Ceil had
chosen for her sanctuary. Again
the people began to laugh at her
revelations, but she now spoke with
authority, and, moved by divine in-
spiration, threatened them with a
terrible chastisement if they refused
to obey the command. And, as if
to give force to her words, while
they stood hesitating a sudden
cloud appeared in the sky, from
which fell a torrent of hailstones.
The people cried to heaven for
pardon and mercy, and immedi-
ately vowed to erect the chapel.

The learned Abbe Menjoulet of
Bayonne thinks the church of Be-
tharram was built in the eleventh
or early in the twelfth century,
from the style of the portions still
to be found here and there in. the
modern building. It certainly ex-
isted long before the ascendancy
of the Huguenot party in Beam,
and had been for ages regarded as
the holiest spot in the land. Pierre
de Marca says its remote origin is
lost in obscurity. The distinguished

338 The Devout CJiapel of Notre Dame de Betharram.

Jesuit, Pere Poire, in his Triple were marked instances of divine
Couronne de la Mere de Dieit, thinks manifestation. By night the ruins
it of a later date, but he had never were often seen lit up with a won-
visited it in person. His account derful light, as of many torches,
was derived from a magistrate of and the sound of angelic music
Pan. He says the ancient pilgrims, was heard. The crumbling walls
as soon as they came in sight of preserved their miraculous virtues,
the Devout Chapel, fell on their and unhappy mothers came with
knees, and completed their pil- their sick children in the night-
grimage in this way with a lighted watches to pray among the ruins,
torch in their hands. Cures with- and returned joyfully in the morn-
out number were wrought, the ing bearing the evidence of their
divine anger stayed, and whole answered petitions with them,
armies put to night at the inter- As soon as it was safe to do so,
cession of the Bonne Bierge of the inhabitants of Lestelle, in spite
Betharram. The walls were hung of their poverty, hastened to restore
with the crutches of the paralytic, the church of their Bonne Vierge,
the chains of liberated prisoners, -vrho, for more than half a century,
and the wax limbs given by those had preserved them from the con-
who had been healed, many of tagion of heresy. Not a person in
which offerings resisted the flames, the place had joined the Huguenots,
and were found after the destruc- and it was the only village in Beam
tion of the church by the emissaries where Catholic services had been
of Jeanne d'Albret. maintained.

This princess cherished a lively Leonard de Trappes was at this

resentment against the Holy See on time archbishop of Audi, the me-

account of the alliance of Julius II. tropolitan see. He was one of the

with Ferdinand the Catholic, which most distinguished prelates of

she thought led to the conquest France, and honored with the con-

of Navarre, to the injury of the fidence of Henry IV. A man of

house of Albret. After dissimulat- ardent piety, and solicitous for the

ing her sentiments for some time, spiritua welfare of his flock, he

she threw off the mask and sub- founded a congregation of mission-

jected the Catholics of Beam to aries for the wants of his diocese,

a violent persecution. Montgom- and established them at Notre

ery was the agent of her ven- Dame de Garaison under the charge

geance, and he was well fitted for of Pierre Geoffrey, who devoted his

the work. It was in 1569 that, whole fortune to the work. Louis

on his destructive round through XIII. having granted permission for

the country, he came to the sane- rebuilding the church of Betharram,

tuary of Betharram, which he laid Geofffoy resolved to celebrate the

waste. The miraculous Virgin, how- event by a grand pilgrimage to this^

ever, was saved, and, after being ancient shrine. He had trained a

hidden for some time at Lestelle. choir of mountaineers, whose superb

was carried to Spain, where it be- voices greatly added to the solem-

came an object of veneration under nities of Garaison. Taking these

the name of Nuestra Senora la Gas- men with him, Geoffrey set out

tonne. with six priests for Beam, in those

During this sad time, in which days a fatiguing journey. Every

.Mary's altar lay desolate, there one represented to him the danger

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Be'tharram. 339

of venturing into a country still in The archbishop set up the votive

a state of agitation, but, in spite of Madonna over the high altar, and

some insults and threats on the celebrated Mass in the presence

part of the Calvinists, he pressed of six thousand persons.* He re-

on, joined here and there by a mained several days at Be'tharram,

band of Catholics, who at last num- administered the sacrament of con-

bered several thousand. Among formation, received several Hugue-

them were the Baron and Baroness nots into the fold, and erected an

de Miossens from the Chateau de immense wooden cross on the sum-

Coarraze, and many nobles. mit of the mount) as if he had a

It was a fine spring morning foresight of its future consecration

when this grand procession appeared to the divine Passion. He always

on the banks of the Gave. The cherished a delightful recollection

valley resounded with the glad of his pilgrimage, and when he

hymns of the mountaineers of Ga- died he bequeathed to the church

raison, in which the vast multitude a silver lamp, with a fund to supply

joined with the utmost enthusiasm, it with oil to burn continually be-

The hill of Betharram was lite- fore the Virgin he had given to

rally covered with people from Betharram.

the neighboring towns, who, when Pierre de Marca, whom we find

they caught sight of the immense here with the Archbishop of Audi,

procession coming to reopen the was the learned author of the Au-

church of their beloved Virgin, tiquities of Bdarn. He was made

burst into tears and acclamations counsellor of state under Richelieu,

of joy. Geoffroy celebrated Mass in and conceived so great a devotion

the church, and afterwards preach- to Notre Dame de Betharram that he

ed to five thousand people on the became the historian of the chapel,

public square of Lestelle. This He studied its past traditions, and

was forty-six years after the de- recorded a vast number of miracles

struction of the sanctuary. that occurred here, with the names,

The niche of the Virgin was still dates, and other particulars, often
empty. Mgr. de Trappes resolved taken from the lips of the persons
to supply the deficiency, and? had a themselves, many of whom belong-
new statue carved out of wood in ed to the nobility of Beam, Gui-
the style of 1 the old one, which he enne, and Languedoc, and sworn
took t.o Betharram himself. It was to by reliable witnesses in the pre-
in July, 1616, he set out from Ga- sence of the chaplains and magis-
raison with a numerous escort of trates. He relates that not long
priests. Passing through Lourdes, after the visit of Mgr. de Trappes,
he stopped at St. Pe", whence he five villagers of Montaut, while
continued on foot, followed by all eating their noontide meal on a
the monks, a vast number of priests little hillock in the valley, struck
from Bigorre and Beam, all the by a noise, as of a furious wind,
nobility of the country, and an looked towards the Mount of Be-
innumer.able crowd of people with tharram, and saw the cross planted
crosses and banners, carrying the on its summit suddenly wrenched
new statue of the Virgin and filling *-, .,

& . * The statue remained m its niche until 1841,

the air With their hymns in her \vhenit\vasreplacedbythemorebeautifuloneof

honor A mono- them \vis Pierre HP Kenoir. The gilt Virgin of Mgr. de Trappes is still

to be seen on the wall of the left aisle near the

chapel of the Pastonre.

340

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Bttharram.

from its place and thrown on the
ground, and then, as if by its own
might, rise again to its former posi-
tion, crowned with a mysterious
light.*

This miraculous occurrence mer-
its the more particular attention
because it led to the construction
of the famous Calvary, which con-
tinues to attract pilgrims to this
day. It happened about the time
Louis XIII. re-established the Ca-
tholic religion in Beam, and was,
says Marca, one of the causes that
determined him to go in person to
Pan, from which time he cherished
a special affection for Betharram
and became one of its benefactors.

A month after the facts of the
case were established, the town of
Lestelle gave the hill of Betharram
to the church. Tlie bishop of the
diocese now induced Hubert Char-
pentier to take charge of the De-
vout Chapel. He was a licentiate
of the Sorbonne, for some time a
professor of philosophy at Bordeaux,
then a missionary at -Notre Dame de
Garaison, where -he distinguished
himself by his zeal and eloquence
in the pulpit, and afterwards, devoted
to charitable works, director of the
city hospital at Bordeaux. He was

* Marca enters into a long dissertation to establish
the truth of this wonderful event, which may be
thus summed up : There were five persons to wit-
ness it, four of whom were still alive when he wrote.
They were cultivators of the soil an innocent occu-
pation that has often led divine Providence to make
choice of those who pursue it to publish the won-
ders of his grace, as when shepherds were chosen
to announce the Nativity. They were natives of
Beam, where the people are free from any undue
credulousness, and where the Catholic religion had
been proscribed for more than forty years, so that
of course they had not been brought up with the
care that would have rendered them particularly
susceptible of religious impressions. Moreover, they
knew a statement of this kind would be sifted to the
bottom by Protestants as well as Catholics Tkey
could have no interest in the matter, as Betharram
belonged to Lesteile,with which Montaut was often
at rivalry. The chaplains were absent, and wholly
ignorant of the affair. And these five men were
people of probity, who swore to the truth of their
statements on the Holy Gospels before the magis-
trates of Lestelle and Montaut.

appointed grand chaplain of Be-
tharram in 1621, and had six minor
chaplains given him to aid in the
work. The first sight of the holy
sanctuary and the mountain above
made a particular impression on his
mind. Studying the traditions and
features of the place, he was struck
with the miracle of the Cross and
the general resemblance of the
neighborhood to the environs of
Jerusalem. The mountain of Be-
tharram was higher than that of
Olives ; the valley at the foot more
extensive than that of Josaphat;
and the Gave a more abundant
stream than the Cedron. He con-
ceived the idea of building a suc-
cession of oratories along the side
of the hill, in which should be de-
picted the principal scenes of the
Passion, and crowning the summit
with three crosses and a chapel of
the Holy Sepulchre. To every one
the project seemed like a divine
inspiration, which he afterwards
modestly confessed was the fact.
About this time an abbess of St.
Clare related to him that, when she
first entered the convent at Mont-
de-Marsan, she found an old nun
of eighty years of age, a native of
the vicinity of Betharram, who was
fond of describing the glories of
the miraculous chapel before the
rise of heresy in Beam, and said
the place was called the Holy Land.
Charpentier's proposition was re-
ceived with so much enthusiasm
that, on Good Friday, 1623, a Christ
on the Cross was solemnly set up,
between the two thieves, on the
summit of the mount, and the ora-
tories of the Passion were at once
begun. Louis XIII. built the Cha-
pel of St. Louis, with two cells and
a gallery looking off over the beau-
tiful valley to the gorge of St. Pe. '
To ensure the quiet solitude of Be-
tharram, he forbade the building of

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Betharram. 341

any inn or public-house in the neigh-
borhood, and at his death bequeath-
ed three thousand livres to the
church.

Marie de Medicis and Anne of
Austria also became its benefactors,
as well as Louis XIV., who took
pleasure in his youth in reading
Marca's Traiti des Merveilles ope-
rccs en la Chapelle Notre Dame du
Calvaire de Betharram. Charpen-
tier himself gave all he possessed.
Madame de Gramont, Madame de
Lauzun, and the Countess de Bri-
enne also brought their offerings.
La. Bastide writes : " I have seen
the great ones of the earth rivalling
each other in the magnificence of
their offerings to this august sanc-
tuary."

It is time we should speak of the
poet of Betharram Pierre de La
Bastide, a native of the diocese of
Audi, who now became associated
with the labors of Charpentier. His
poems are in Latin. He is a grace-
ful writer, with a pleasing cadence
in his lines. His poem on Notre
Dame de Betharram is at once his-
toric and descriptive. It is divided
into four parts, giving the history
of the foundation, a description of
the Calvary and surrounding re-
gion, a re'sume' of the miracles in the
Devout Chapel, and a picture of the
life of the chaplains. The poem is
at once brilliant, pleasing, and pic-
turesque, and of great value to all"
who would study the history and
spirit of the place.

It was at Belharram La Bastide
translated into Latin verse the
French poem of Arnauld d'Andilly
on the life of Christ, which was
such an event in the literary world
when it first appeared in 1634. At
that time the graver part of society
thought nothing serious could be
expressed in the form of French
poetry, and the religious held it in

horror. D'Andilly broke loose from
this prejudice, and, as he says in his
preface, " abandoned the illusory
praises of profane love to use the
charms of poesy in depicting the
life of Christ, in order to attract
pious hearts by placing before their
eyes a picture of the wonderful
things wrought for our redemp-
tion." *

La Bastide is not the only poet
to sing the praises of Our Lady of
the Beautiful Branch. M. Bataille,
a few years since, received from the
Archaeological Society of Beam a
silver bough for his charming poeti-
cal version of the legend in the
Bearnais language, which he hung
up over the altar of the Virgin.

The Calvary of Betharram be-
came dear to all who loved to re-
trace the overwhelming mysteries
of the Redemption. The sorrow-
ful way up the mount's steep sides
seemed to them

41 A road where aiding angels came."

Every station was marked by some
memory of God's special grace. It
was in the dim, shadowy oratory of
the Garden of Olives a merchant
from Grenade-sur-Adour was de-
livered from the adversary of souls.
Further on, where Christ was re-
presented blindfolded, a poor wo-
man recovered her sight after seven
years' blindness. At the Holy

* Arnauld d'Andilly was the eldest son of the
Antoine Arnauld who, under Henry IV., pleaded for
the University against the Jesuits, and whose twen-
tieth and youngest child was the second Antoine
Arnauld the oracle of Jansenism. D'Andilly is
looked upon as belonging to the first generation of
Jansenists, though he had nothing of the austerity
and repulsiveness of that sect. He scarcely broache .
polemics. He celebrates in elegant verse the
praises of the Blessed Virgin and the prerogatives
of St. Peter, and after translating all that is grand-
est and sweetest in Christian literature such as the
works of St. Augustine, St. John Climacus, St.
Teresa, etc. reposed from his labors by tending
the espaliers of Port Royal, of which the beautiful
and pious Anne of Austria always had the first
fruits.

342

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Betharram.

Tomb where lay the sacred Body
embalmed

" In spices from the golden shore,"

the sick obtained renewed life and
the grace to give out henceforth the
sweet odor of piety and good works.
And so on. The very shadow of
Christ Suffering seemed to have
power. Fifteen thousand pilgrims
often came here in a year a great
number for a remote mountain
chapel, less accessible in former
days. Marca relates that M. de
Gassion, a zealous Calvinist of Pan,
came to Betharram to behold the
superstitions he supposed practised
on the mount, but he was so touch-
ed by the devotion he witnessed
that he was impelled to pray at
every station, and thank God he
had inspired his ministers with so
pious and praiseworthy a project.

The chaplains established a con-
fraternity of the Holy Cross, com-
posed of laymen animated with a
special love for our crucified Lord,
which became so numerous that
Pope Urban VIII. accorded many
indulgences to all who belonged to
it. Several of its members retired
wholly from secular pursuits to the
solemn gloom of this Mount of the
Passion as to " a holy tower against
the world," that, by self-chastening
rod, vigil, and fast, they might sub-
due the baser instincts of their na-
ture and put on Christ and him
crucified. What ineffable nights
they must have spent beneath the
oaks of Betharram watching with
tearful, eyes the Divine Sufferer in
the Garden or treading with bleed-
ing feet the rough Way of the
Cross !

There were many of Jiese her-
mits' cells on the shaggy sides of the
mount, First, there was St. Ber-
nard's cell, built by the Baron de
Poyane, a brave soldier who was

governor of Navarrenx under Louis
XIII., who had the holy life of the
Abbot of Clairvaux painted on its
walls. A little higher was St. Cy-
prian's cell, the favorite retreat of
La Bastide, with a little terrace and
stone steps leading down to the'
church. Then came the cell of St.
Francis de Paul, for persons of rank
who wished to pass a limited time
in solitude on the mount. It stood
below the chapel of St. Louis and
commanded a lovely view of the
plain of Montaut. Its foundations
are still to be seen supporting a
pretty hanging garden. St. An-
thony's cell was encrusted among
the sharp rocks that served as a
foundation to the chapel of Louis
XIII. a formidable cliff, bare in
winter, but in summer covered with
vines that surpassed the most beau-
tiful tapestry. On its top was sus-
pended the royal chapel among the
verdant trees. Behind the church
was St. Joseph's hermitage, for a
long time the only dwelling of the
chaplains, where also were lodg-
ed the infirm who came for succor
to the Virgin of Betharram. Near
the oratory of the Garden of Olives
were the cells of St. Stephen, St.
Anne, and St. Francis. A little
above was the votive cell of St.
Roch, built by the citizens of Mont-
de-Marsan at the time of a great
plague. Here was a little spring
which still supplies the pretty fount
of St. Roch near the entrance of
the church. On the summit of the
mountain was a small cell, beside the
chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, where
for more than two hundred years
lived a succession of hermits who,
buried with their Lord, gave them-
selves up to a life of contemplation.
The last one died in 1857.

Louis XIII. , in authorizing the
Calvary of Betharram, wished there
were many others like it in his

The Devout CJiapel of Notre Dame de BetJiarram. 343

kingdom, and requested Charpen- ber 10, 1650, three years before

tier to establish one on Mount the Aiigustinus was condemned by

Valerian, near Paris. This holy the Holy See. His body was found,

priest, whose soul was devoured without any trace of corruption,

with longing to extend the devo- in 1802. His heart, at his own re-

tion to the sufferings of Christ, was quest, was sent to the church of

struck with the grand idea of set- Notre Dame de Betharram, where it

ting up the cross over the splendors is enclosed in the wall on the epis-

of the capital and displaying the tie side of the chancel. The place

emblems of the Passion in sight of is marked by a tablet of black mar-

the gay city, as a constant reproach ble, on which is the inscription :

to its pleasure-loving people. Char- " Id est le cceur de Hubert Ctiarpen-

pentier tore himself away from tier, fondateur dit Calvaire."

his beloved Betharram. At Paris The most distinguished chaplain

he was hospitably welcomed to the of Betharram in the eighteenth cen-

house of the pious Countess de Bri- tury was the Abbe Cassiet, for se-

enne, who took pleasure in convers- veral years connected with the Ca-

ing with him on the things of eter- nadian mission. It seemed strange

nity, and said she had no greater in this distant mountain chapel of

enjoyment than this holy inter- Beam to come upon the traces of

course. an old American missionary, and a

The devotion to Calvary took natural curiosity was felt to know
root in Paris. Richelieu favored something of his history. We can-
the work. Cardinal de la Roche- not forbear the pleasure of giving it
foucauld lent his aid. Louis XIV. pretty nearly as related by M. 1'Abbe
authorized the consecration of the Sebie, the cure of Montaut, from de-
mount; and the Archbishop of tails given by the nephews of M.
Paris approved of the congregation Cassiet, now living at an advanced
of the Pretres du Calvaire, similar to age in that place,
that in Beam. M. Pierre Cassiet was born at

As soon as Charpentier arrived Montaut, in the Landes, in 1727.
at Paris, in 1633, he became the ob- He made his preparatory studies
ject of the most flattering attentions at the seminary of Agen, and, feel-
on the part of the Port-Royalists, ing a strong desire to devote him-
then under the direction of a priest self to the work of foreign missions,
from Bayonne the famous Abbe entered the Se'minairc des Missions
St. Cyran, a man of an ardent, aus- Etrangeres at Paris, the superior of
tere nature, who at that time seem- which was also from the diocese of
ed devoted to the revival of Chris- Aire. He was at first destined for
tian and ecclesiastical discipline, the mission of Cochin China, but a
Nothing must be inferred against few days before the time fixed for
the orthodoxy of Charpentier or La his departure a missionary intend-
Bastide on account of their inno- ed for Canada falling ill, it was
cent relations with Port Royal, proposed that the Abbe Cassiet
Not the least suspicion ever rested should take his place. He consent-
on their orthodoxy. Charpentier ed and went to Canada, where he
was occupied in good works rather remained nine years, till the coun-
than controversy. He died on try was ceded to the English by
Mount Valerian, with a reputation the treaty of Versailles, February,
for extraordinary sanctity, Decem- 1763. At the time of his arrival

344 The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Bttharram.

the see of Quebec was vacant, and cious coup de main so contrary to

the diocese was governed by M. de the law of nations, to say nothing

Lalanne, likewise a native of Mon- of humanity and religion. One

taut, who, after sixteen years of hundred and sixty-six French priests

useful labor, returned to France assembled at Quebec, according to

and died superior of the seminary orders. They were surrounded by

at Dax, about the year 1775, beloved troops, seized, and put on board a

and honored by every one.* ship, which was instantly ordered

In Canada M. Cassiet had charge to set sail for Europe. Nothing

of the parish of St. Louis, where the could exceed the inhumanity with

festivals of the church were cele- which these martyr-priests were

brated with as much splendor as treated during the voyage .by the

in Europe. He was successful in brutal and fanatic Englishmen who

winning the confidence of his had charge of them. Anchoring at

parishioners. He mingled among Plymouth, England, they kept their

them, interested himself in their prisoners on board for three months,

pursuits, taught the natives the cul- They did not massacre them, but,

ture of many useful vegetables and with the most refined barbarism,

the raising of domestic animals. As subjected them to all the tortures

there was regular commercial inter- of hunger and thirst. Their rations

course with Bordeaux and Bay- were reduced to an insufficient

onne, he was able to procure quantity to sustain life, and the

many serviceable things from his distribution of water was, delayed

native land. every day, till they were extenuated

When the English took posses- by the privation. Thirst killed
sion of Canada they called together more than hunger, and, when the
all the French priests in the coun- ship at last touched at Morlaix in
try, -wishing, they said, to regulate Brittany, of the one hundred and
their relations with the new autho- sixty-six priests who left Canada,
rities. Several of them had a pre- only five remained, and these were
sentiment of evil, among whom barely alive. M. Cassiet was of the
was Abbe Cassiet, who buried the number. He had the sorrow of
sacred vessels in the ground, pack- losing his faithful Canadian on the
ed his trunk, and took a faithful way, and was himself so low that he
servant with him. The treaty of lost his senses and was speechless.
Versailles stipulated the mainte- He was taken charge of by a lady
nance and protection of the Catho- at Morlaix, who, for some days,
lie religion, that the French priests only sustained his life under horri-
should receive an annual salary from ble sufferings by infusing a few
the English government, and be al- drops of honey from time to time
lowed to continue the exercise of into his mouth,
their ministry under the direction His health re-established in a
of the bishop of Quebec. This measure, he proceeded to Paris to
treaty, according to the French ac- report himself at the Missions Et-
counts, was kept with Punic faith, rangeres, where his condition excit-
though the English deny, or at ed general sympathy. The govern-
least greatly extenuate, the atro- ment, though too weak to demand

satisfaction from the English, prom-

* M. de Beyries, a nephew of the Abbe de La- i se d him a pension of six hundred

lanne, and a prominent citizen of Montaut, has ,. ~,

many precious memorials of his uncle. llVrCS a year. Thence he went tO

"lie Devout Chattel of Notre Dame de Betkarram.

345

Rome, where he was received with
the respect due to his sufferings for
the faith.

After his return to Montaut, find-
ing his pension not forthcoming, he
resolved to go to Paris again to
claim it. Accordingly he bought
one of the small horses of the
Landes for twenty crowns, and pro-
ceeded by short stages to the capi-
tal. He put up at the Missions
Etrangeres as usual, but was dis-
appointed to find the court at
Versailles, as well as the Abbe de
Jarente, who had the portfolio of
benefices and pensions, and formed
part of the king's household. M.
Cassiet, undiscouraged, set out again
the next morning on his way for
Versailles. He little suspected the
dramatic manner in which he was
to present himself at the palace.
Crossing a bridge, his horse, fright-
ened at meeting a carriage, took
the bit between his teeth and
sprang forward like lightning. Our
cavalier lost his hat, calotte, whip,
and everything not secured to his
person. In short, it was a repetition
of the famous race of John Gilpin.
In this way he was borne full tilt up
to the palace gates. M. 1'Abbe de
Jarente, by some singular coinci-
dence, happened to be there, and
at once conceived a lively interest
in the ecclesiastic who arrived at
court in so queer a plight. M. Cas-
siet, as soon as his natural excite-
ment was somewhat over, explained
the cause of his unclerical appear-
ance, and made known his object
in coming. His pension was assur-
ed ; and the Abbe de Jarente was
so taker with such a feat of horse-
manship that he offered a hundred
crowns for the spirited steed. M.
Cassiet, courteous and generous by
nature, at once presented him to
the minister, refusing any return.

Our Abbe was afterwards given a

small benefice near Montaut, called
Las Prabcndes, but he resigned it in
favor of a young priest who subse-
quently became a Carthusian at
Bordeaux. He was then appointed
canon of St. Girons de Hagetmau,
but he found the life too calm and
monotonous after so varied a ca-
reer, and about the year 1772 he
offered his services to the commu-
nity of the Prfares du Calvaire at Be-
tharram. Here he so distinguished
himself by his piety, zeal, and abili-
ty that he was soon appointed su-
perior. The house became very
prosperous under his rule. He put
to account the practical knowledge
of agriculture he had gained in
Canada, laid out gardens, orchards,
and vineyards on the banks of the
Gave, and in the course of a few
years increased the revenues five-

fold. At the same time he infused
a missionary spirit among the chap-
lains, and much of his own zeal in
winning souls to Christ.

About this time the Abbe de Jar-
ente, afterwards Bishop of Orleans,
coming to the Pyrenees to breathe
the mountain air and try the min-
eral waters, visited the Devout
Chapel of Betharram. He was de-
lighted to find here the Abbe Cas-
siet, whom it was impossible to for-
get. No doubt the story of the
horse came up, and the comical
way in which he presented himself
at Versailles. M. de Jarente offered
M. Cassiet a benefice of six thou-
sand livres a year without any obli-
gation of residence or service. It
was declined, though M. Cassiet no
longer received his pension ; but he
was finally prevailed upon to accept
a small benefice of one hundred and
sixty livres a year in the Vicomte of
Orthez. He was glad, he said, to
have wherewith to shoe and clothe-
himself without being at any ex-
pense to his congregation. His

346

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Betharram.

brother presented Betharram with
ten thousand livres, on condition
that the chaplains should give a mis-
sion every ten years at Montaut.

The Revolution brought mourn-
ing to this peaceful mountain chapel,
and M. Cassiet, after trying in vain
to propitiate the authorities, be-
came for the second time a confes-
sor of the faith and sought refuge
in Spain. Somewhere in Biscay he
met the Abbe St. Marc, a young
curd from Grenade-sur-1'Adour, also
in exile, and persuaded him to go
to the Canadian mission, where he
remained several years, but finally
died in 1845, at the age of ninety-
one, at Mont-de-Marsan, where his
memory is still honored.

When the Catholic religion was
re-established in France, the Abbe
Cassiet returned to his homestead
at Montaut,, being then too old and
infirm to undertake the restoration
of Betharram. Of the twelve priests
of Calvary in 1793, only two were
living, and they were advanced in
years.

M. Cassiet's last days were
quietly spent in his native place.
The bishop of Bayonne allowed him
to say Mass in his own apartments,
on account of his infirmities. He
died in 1809, aged eighty-two years,
surrounded with the love and vene-
ration of all, and was buried at the
foot of the cross in the public ceme-
tery of Montaut.

The church of Notre Dame de
Betharram was saved from destruc-
tion at the time of the Revolution
by the efforts of the mayor of the
faithful town of Lestelle ; but he
was obliged to abandon the Calvary
to its fury. The oratories were de-
molished, the statues .broken to
pieces, the paintings torn up, and
the holy Way of the Cross rendered
a Via Dolorosa indeed. When the
sacred image of Christ on the Cross

was overthrown, a swarm of bees
issued from the opening in the side,
and one of hornets from that of the
impenitent thief. An unhappy in-
dividual who had the audacity to
knock off the head of the Virgin at
the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre
became from that moment the ob-
ject of divine malediction, and some
time after was beheaded.

The sacraments of the church
were administered at Lestelle during
this sad period by Pere Joseph, a
Franciscan friar, who sought in
anything but " Franciscan weeds to
pass disguised." His various es-
capes from danger have become al-
most legendary. Wherever there
was a person in danger of death
or a child to be baptized, he sud-
denly made his appearance, and
then as mysteriously disappeared
concealed, no doubt, by the good
people of the village. Nine of the
citizens purchased the hill of Beth-
arram, and some others the church.
They were redeemed by the eccle-
siastical authorities as soon as better
days arrived, and a Petit Se'minaire
was established in the residence and
hospice. Here was educated Ber-
trand Lawrence, the restorer of Notre
Dame de Garaison, afterwards bi-
shop of Tarbes. The devout chapel
was now reopened for public devo-
tion ; the oratories on the mount
were hastily restored and once
more frequented, in spite of the
rude scenes of the Passion painted
by the Pere Joseph.

In 1823 the Duchess of Angou-
leme, accompanied by the bishop
of the diocese and a numerous pro-
cession of clergy, came here to make
the Way of the Cross and pray for
a blessing on the royal army under
the duke in Spain. The duchess
presented the church with a mon-
strance of rich workmanship. Four
years after her sister-in-law, the

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Bethctrram. 347

Duchess of Berry, also came to
Betharram, and was received with
the same demonstrations of joy.

The most noted chaplain of
Betharram in this century was a
holy Basque priest of great aus-
terity the Abbe Garicoi'ts, a genu-
ine Cantabrian, to whom his fellow-
priests loved to apply the words of
Sidonius Apollinaris :

" Cantaber ante omnes hiemisque, aetusque, fam-

isque,
Invictus. . . ."

He founded the Pretres dit- Sacre'
Cceiir, who continue to serve the
church. He restored the Calvary
to its ancient, beauty, and repeopled
its cells. While he was superior of
the house the sanctuary was visited
by the Abbe de Salinis, a distin-
guished Bearnais priest, who had
inherited a special devotion to
Notre Dame de Betharram. He
afterwards received the pallium, as
archbishop of Auch, at her feet,
and thenceforth came here regular-
ly to make his annual retreat. It
was he who sent Alexander Renoir,
a Christian artist imbued with the
love and spirit of the middle ages,
to design the bas-reliefs that now
adorn the Stations' of the Cross.
This sculptor spent five years at the
work, after passing whole days on the
sacred mount looking down on the
enchanting valley of the Gave and
meditating on the scenes he has so
ably depicted in the first eight ora-
tories. His figures are dignified,
the faces full of character, and the
draperies graceful. The Saviour
has everywhere the same superhu-
man expression. In the Garden of
Olives he is supported by an angel
whose outspread wings surround
him like a glory. It is evidently by
his own will he suffers himself to be
sustained. In the Flagellation his
face wears a wonderful expression

of patience ; in the Crowning with
Thorns, of inexpressible suffering
and divine submission. He stands
in all the majesty of innocence and
sorrow before Pilate, whose thought-
ful, anxious face as he looks at him
reveals the struggle within. Per-
haps the most touching scene is
when Christ meets his Blessed Mo-
ther. The Virgin is kneeling with
arms yearningly stretched up to-
wards him, with a look of ineffable
tenderness and pity, and he for an
instant seems to forget the weight
of the overwhelming cross in the
sense of his filial love. The Cruci-
fixion is terribly real. The sacred
Body visibly palpitates with suffer-
ing ; the feet and hands quiver with
agony ; the face is filled with a di-
vine woe. Mary, at the foot of the
cross, is sustained by a form of en-
chanting youth and beauty.

The fourteen oratories of the Via
Cruets are of various styles of archi-
tecture, and built, with an artistic
eye to effect, on admirable points of
view. Visible at a great distance,
they seem to sanctify the whole val-
ley. Some of them are surmounted
with a dome, others with turrets.
The royal chapel of St. Louis, built
between two cells, has three Oriental
domes that swell out on the tops of
slender, minaret-like towers and are
extremely striking from the railway.
Twenty-eight stone steps a Scala
Santa lead up to the sixth ora-
tory, that of the Ecce Homo. The
seventh lootcs like a castle with its
crenellated towers. The eighth has
a hexagonal tower flanked by four
turrets. The ninth is of the Roman
style.

The three crosses on the summit
of the mount were cast at Paris and
exhibited with success at the Expo-
sition Univcrselle of 1867. In the
Doric chapel beyond is a fine paint-
ing of the Descent from the Cross,

348

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Bttharram.

saved from the revolutionists of '93.
It is intensely realistic. The Pie.ta
of Carrara marble opposite is the
work of M. Dumontet, of Bourges
an ex voto from the Marquis d'An-
gosse and his wife. Our Saviour's
form is of marvellous beauty. The
fourteenth oratory is of the Doric
style. There is a touching grief in
the faces of the disciples bearing
the dead body of Christ to the tomb.
Mary stands in speechless sorrow.
Magdalen is a prey to violent grief.

The top of the hill is a long
plateau. The Crucifixion is at the
east end, so that the Christ, accord-
ing to ancient tradition, may face
the west. At the left is the chapel
of the Holy Sepulchre, where lies
the holy Abbe Garicoi'ts, who died on
the Festival of the Ascension, 1863.

At the west end of the esplanade,
facing the Crucifixion, is the most
imposing of all the chapels that of
the Resurrection. Two fine towers
rise on each side of the gable on
which stands the rapt form of our
Saviour ascending to heaven, the
work of M. Fabisch, the sculptor
who executed the Virgin in the
grotto at Lourdes.

Since the admirable restoration
of the hill new devotion has sprung
up among the people. Pilgrims to
the grotto of Marie Tmmaculee, in
the cliff of Massabielle, come to end
their pilgrimage by weeping with
Marie de'solee on the solemn heights
of Betharram. On great festivals
crowds may be seen Coming from
all the neighboring villages in fes-
tive array, with a joyful air, singing
psalms on the way. They carry
their shoes in their hands, but put
them on on their arrival at church.
The women carefully lift their
dresses with characteristic eye to
economy. During Holy Week
thousands often ascend the mount,
group after group, chanting old

Be"arnais hymns of the Passion, the.
men wrapped in their mountain
cloaks, and the women veiled in
their long black c&puchons, looking
like Maries at the Sepulchre.

On the 2ist of October, 1870,
his Holiness Pius IX. granted the
Calvary of Betharram all the in-
dulgences attached to the Holy
Places at Jerusalem, as well as
special ones to all who visit the de-
vout chapel. Pope Gregory XVI.
also paid his tribute of homage to
Our Lady of Betharram.

The royal family of France seems
to consider devotion to this vener-
able shrine as hereditary. In 1843
the Countess of Chambord present-
ed her wedding-dress and veil to
the Virgin of Betharram ; and the
Duchess of Angouleme, in memory
of her pilgrimage here in 1823, .sent
the communion-veil of her mother,
the unfortunate Marie Antoinette.

The statue of Mary by Renoir,
over the high altar of the church,
represents her seated, looking at the
divine Child on her knee, who leans
forward to point out the beth arram
the beautiful branch of gold at
her feet. It is a statue full of grace.
We were once more praying at this
favored altar when we heard the
sound of a chant, and, going to the
door of the church, saw the long
procession of six hundred pilgrims
from Marseilles coming with silver
crosses glittering in the sun and
gay banners wrought with many a
holy device. The priests wore their
surplices and stoles. The pilgrims
were evidently people of very re-
spectable condition, and the utmost
order and decorum prevailed. They
were singing the litany of the Vir-
gin, and seemed impressed with the
religious nature of the act they were
performing. As they entered the
church the organ, given by Napole-
on III. and Eugenie at their visit in

The Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Betharram. 349

1859, solemnly joined in their salu-
tation to Mary, and, after a short
exercise of devotion, they began the
ascent of the Calvary. We followed
them up the winding path to the
top of the mount, stopping at every
turn before the beautiful chapels.
Nothing could be more solemn,
more affecting, and at the same time
more fatiguing than climbing this
steep, rough Way of the Cross in the
hot sun and amid the dense crowd
of pilgrims. We went from one
oratory to another, chanting the
Stabat Mater, and at each station a
cure from Marseilles, with a power-
ful voice, made a short meditation
on the sufferings of Christ, every
word of which could be heard far
down the hill where wound the long
train. He identified these suffer-
ings with the actual crucifixion of
the church : " To-day also there
are Pilates sovereigns of Europe
who wash their hands of the woes
they might have prevented. Herod
has set a guard at the very door of
the Vatican. Rulers and learned
men scoff at the church and give
perfidious counsel to its members ;
and Christ is again raised on the
cross in the person of his Vicar,
whose heart is bleeding for the ini-
quities of the world. But faithful
disciples rally around him. De--
voted women pray. Yes, a sinner
(-lings to the foot of the cross
France, the poor Magdalen of na-
tions, wrapped in immeasurable woe,
her head buried in her hands, be-
wailing her guilt, and destined to
become the invincible heroine of
the church !"

Nothing could be more impres-
sive than this long file of pilgrims
slowly winding up the sad way ;

the chants in the open air, the
mournful plaint of the Virgin, which
always goes to the heart, the
stirring appeal of the priest call-
ing on us to mourn over the divine
Sufferer. The woods were odorous,
the ground purple with heather,
lovely ferns nodded, and harebells
and herb-Robert bloomed by the
wayside, giving out sweet inspira-
tions to those who know ho\v to
find God in everything he has made.
Clouds had gathered in the west
by the time we reached the top of
this Mount of Sorrows, and the
sight of the immense cross with its
pale Christ against the wild, stormy
sky was something never to be for-
gotten, reminding us of Guido
Reni's Crucifixion in the church
of San Lorenzo-in-Lucina at Rome.
No one could behold it without
being startled. It seemed to strike
terror into the soul, and we gather-
ed around it with tearful eyes and,
let us trust, with contrite hearts.

We could hardly give a glance at
the superb view unrolled before us
the immense plain with the beau-
tiful Gave winding through it, the
Pyrenees lost in the clouds, white
villages scattered on every side, and
Pau on a distant height.

O sacred hill of Betharram !
which has so often seen the cross
overthrown and set up again in the
land ; mountain of perfumes, which
so many generations have ascended
on their knees with streaming eyes ;
predestined land, so beloved of
Mary that on the shore of the same
river, in the side of the same range
of hills, she has opened two marvel-
lous sanctuaries, how good it is to
pray, to meditate, to hope, on thy
heights !

350

Sir Thomas More.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCKSSE DE CRAON.

VIII.

MEANWHILE, a great agitation pre-
vailed in the heart of the kingdom,
at the court, and in every mind.
The new favor of the new favorite ;
the discontent, ever growing but more
and more repressed, of the queen's
partisans ; the restless and shifting
humor of those who in secret held
fast to the new religious opinions ;
the uncertainty of events, new fears,
new hopes, seemed to have com-
municated to the intriguing arid
ambitious of every degree a bold-
ness and activity hitherto unknown.
Delivered from the yoke imposed
on him for so long a time by a man
at once adroit and yielding, Henry
VIII. had at last encountered a vile
and abject creature who would
gradually encourage him to display
all the natural ferocity of his char-
acter. Already he was no longer
able to separate himself from Crom-
well, who, artfully flattering each
one of his passions, constantly said
to him : " To please you, to obey
you that is the sole end toward
which all should aim, or they should
fall!"

Every day, in consequence of
their determined efforts, new com-
plaints against the clergy were re-
ported to the House of Commons.
The time had come, they said, to
distribute among the truly poor
the treasures accumulated by the
priests, and to destroy the abuses
they had made of their power.
These accusations, together with
calumnies of a blacker character,

emanating from sources always
scrupulously concealed, were art-
fully disseminated among the peo-
ple, circulated from mouth to
mouth, and served wonderfully to
irritate .the stupid and ignorant
masses ; while in the House of Lords
nothing was left undone to secure
the influence and suffrages of the
most influential members of that
body.

Confident of success in all their
designs, Henry VIII. and his favor-
ite decided that it was time to strike
the first blow ; and while the attor-
ney-general was in receipt of the
order to carry to the King's Bench
an accusation which included the en-
tire clergy of the kingdom as having
become amenable to the penalties
attached to the Prcemunire statutes,
a measure and petition were present-
ed to Parliament to prohibit every
bishop from paying dues to the see
of Rome ; secondly, that for the
future their body should neither
promulgate nor execute any of its
laws without the co-operation of
the royal authority ; and, finally,
that all those laws which had been
in force until that time should be
re-examined by a committee whose
members would be named and
chosen by the king, in order that
he might abolish them if he deemed
expedient.

These measures at first excited
universal murmurs of dissatisfac-
tion ; but people were not slow to
perceive that such expressions could

Sir Thomas More. 351

not be indulged in without danger, head of a superb greyhound that

for it was no longer a matter of held his black nose extended across

doubt that Parliament would yield his knees :

to the slightest wish of the king. " You will see, Cromwell, what a
The fear inspired by this prince, good effect this will produce on the
together with his incessant threats people ; because it is useless to con-
and menaces, secured him the sub- ceal that More is a man of such
mission of those even whom avarice exalted character and brilliant
had not been able to corrupt. worth that all the eyes of my king-
Henry triumphantly congratulat- dom are fixed upon his conduct."
ed himself on his success. The " Ah !" said Cromwell, whom th;s
courageous firmness of one single very just opinion of the king dis-
man, however, sufficed to embitter pleased mightily, " I do not believe
all his pleasure ; for, since the king it will be thus when your majesty
had openly and boldly announced has spoken."

his intention of compelling the di- " Yes, yes," replied the king;

vorce to be granted, no matter by " and that is why I congratulate

what means, More had scrupulous- myself on the expedient which sug-

ly held himself aloof, no longer gested itself last night. How can

appearing at court, except when you imagine, after he has read in

summoned by the king or when open Parliament the decisions of

the duties of his office obliged him the universities in my favor, that

to be formally present. This was the people will believe he does not

a source of deep chagrin and dis- favor the divorce ? And it is most

pleasure to Henry VIII., and the necessary to counteract by this

cold and reserved manner of the means the effect produced by the

lord chancellor kept him, when in promulgation of the papal bull."

his presence, in a state of painful " Bah ! that bull," said Cromwell,

restraint. ' is no more than a scrap of waste

"What!" he said to himself, paper. The pope forbids any of

' everything goes according to my the clergy from celebrating your

wishes, and yet the silent reproaches marriage before the queen's suit is

of this man alone annoy me unceas- decided. Now, marry Lady Anne

ingly. It would be better for him to-morrow!"

to yield," he cried in his frenzy, "To-morrow!" exclaimed the

'* or I shall be compelled to force king.

him into submission !" At that moment the curtain of

But when More again appeared scarlet silk which hung in heavy

before him, he listened to the re- folds before the entrance of the

port of affairs which he had to sub- royal apartment was drawn aside,

mit, no longer knowing what to say and Sir Thomas More appeared,

to him, and he dared not even pro- The king paused surprised ; his

nounce the name of Anne Boleyn fingers were entwined among the

in his presence. This day, how- links of the gold chain suspended

ever, he had summoned Cromwell around the neck of Cromwell, and

at a very early hour, and appeared he was familiarly patting the breast

to be in an* exceedingly joyful of that base-born creature, now

mood ; he laughed aloud, then, sud- seated close beside him.

denly resuming a serious expres- " Ah ! it is you, Sir Thomas,"

sion, he exclaimed, slapping the said Henry, affecting an air of un-

352

Sir Thomas More.

concern ; " you are always most
welcome here. I believe this is one
of your friends," he added, pointing
to Cromwell.

More made no reply ; he simply
inclined his head in response to
the king's salutation.

" Yes, yes, you understand each
other very well," continued the
king, without appearing to remark
that More made no reply. ' Is it
not so, Cromwell ?"

" I hope so," replied Cromwell,
casting a furtive glance around him.
For he was not able to encounter
the penetrating gaze of More, whom
he secretly feared and detested ;
and from the time he believed that
More could no longer be of use to
him he had ceased to overwhelm
him with visits and continual so-
licitations, as he had formerly been
in the habit of doing.

"Well, good Sir Thomas," con-
tinued Henry, always indulging in
badinage, " what would you have
with us ?"

" I would speak with your majes-
ty alone for a few moments," re-
plied More.

" A reasonable request," answer-
ed the king ; " and you know we al-
ways grant anything you ask."

He made a sign to Cromwell,
who immediately withdrew, his heart
fired with rage at the welcome al-
ways extended by the king to More.

" If ever I come into power,"
murmured he in his heart, " More,
thou shalt know me !"

"What, then, is it, More?" ask-
ed the king, and he regarded him
with an impatient expression.

" Your majesty," replied More,
" this morning sent me an order to
present myself in the House of
Commons, and carry thither the de-
cisions of the universities. Up to
this time I have been loath to speak ;
but to-day, at the moment of giving

such authenticity to these docu-
ments, I consider it my duty to
make known to your majesty that
they have been extorted by force
and are far from being regular ; a
great many of the signatures are
wanting, while others are counter-
feit."

"Counterfeit!" exclaimed the
king angrily. " Who has told you
that?"

" I am sure of it," replied Sir
Thomas quietly and in the calmest
of tones ; " and I have thought it
my duty to inform the king of the
fact before asking his permission to
retire."

" You retire !" cried Henry VIII.
4 " I had already .requested the
Duke of Norfolk," continued More,
"to express to your majesty how
painful it was to me to quit your
service and to find myself obliged
to cease from fulfilling the office
with which you have honored me ;
but my health is so feeble as not to
permit me to hold it longer." And
he was silent.

The king sat stupefied. But sur-
prise very soon changed into ex-
treme displeasure ; for he saw
perfectly well why More retired,
and felt that he had nothing to
hope from a man so firm and as
inaccessible to fear as to self-interest.
It was for this he dissembled and
evinced none of the vexation he
felt.

"I am sorry," he said coldly,
" that you should leave me ; be-
cause you were that one of my
servants whom I have most esteem-
ed and loved. But, nevertheless,
since you wish it, I will not oppose
your going. I shall always remem-
ber the services you have rendered
me, and be assured tftat any request
you may make shall certainly be
granted."

More made no reply, but the

Sir Thomas More.

353

tears came into his eyes ; he loved
the king sincerely, and would have
made any sacrifice to have saved
him from the unhappy passion that
had enchained him.

" You weep, More," said the king.
' : If it gives you pain, why do you
leave me ?"

" Jiecause I cannot do otherwise."

" As you please," replied- the king
curtly. " I force nobody to remain
in my service. You will one clay,
perhaps, repent this step. You are
rich now, I suppose?"

" Your majesty knows very well
to the contrary," replied More. "In
losing the salary of the office I now
resign, I am not sure that I shall
have sufficient means remaining to
provide becomingly for the wants
of my many children. During the
lime I filled a lucrative employment
at the bar, I saved enough to pur-
chase a small tract of land which I
now own ; but when your majesty
called me into your service, I was
naturally obliged to abandon my
profession, and since then I have
saved nothing."

"What!" said the king, "you
have nothing remaining from the in-
come of your office?"

" Not so much as one hundred
gold crowns," replied Sir Thomas.

" More," said the king thought-
fully, "you are an honest man."

kw I endeavor to be so, sire."

" It grieves me that you leave me.
Why approve not of my marriage ?"

' Because, sire, you may not have
two wives at once."

" Begone !" said Henry VIII. . . .

And Cromwell found the king in
late of excitement impossible to
cribe.

' I regret it ! I regret it !" he ex-

imed. " This will work me evil!

A man of such integrity, such

'th ! No one can doubt it. I

have done wrong in sending him to

VOL. XXIII. 23

the Parliament; it was plain that he
would refuse me."

"What says he?" thought Crom-
well to himself, surprised and anx-
ious.

" Cromwell," said the king, " he
leaves me !"

" Who

"More

" More !" cried Cromwell, scarcely
able to conceal his delight. "Well,
is it only that that troubles you ? It
is a happiness rather. The hypo-
crite unmasks himself at last; it
has been long since the happiness
of his sovereign was that for which
he cared the least."

" You are mistaken, Cromwell ; he
loved me sincerely."

"Ah!" 'cried Cromwell, "this is
the way in which your majesty's
goodness of heart unceasingly op-
poses itself to your own interests.
Sir Thomas More has never lost
an occasion of sustaining the ridi-
culous pretensions of Queen Cathe-
rine. I heard him myself exclaim
aloud in the presence of the legates
assembled to try her : " May the
queen triumph over all her ene-
mies!" Would he have done this
had he not presumed (if I may
dare to say it) upon your majesty's
weakness ? This is the opinion ex-
pressed to me by the illustrious Ma-
chiavelli : ' It is always safer for a
prince to inspire his subjects with
fear than with love ' ; love holds men
by that very feeble link called grati-
tude, while the bond of fear it is
almost impossible to sunder."

" And where has the fuller's son
known Machiavelli ?" asked Henry
VIII. disdainfully. "Truly," he
continued, with that ironical smile
which was habitual with him, and that
haughty and scornful tone with which
he often chose to crush those who
believed they stood high in his
favor, " I was not aware that you

354

Thomas More.

had studied politics under Machi-
;ivelli."

" I knew him in Italy," replied
Cromwell, profoundly humiliated,
The recollection of the lowliness of
his origin was a continual torment
to the soul of this parvenu ; nev-
ertheless, without permitting the
slightest emotion to appear in his
countenance, he continued the con-
versation. "We often," he said,
" walked together in the gardens of
the Oricellari Palace, which Machi-
avelli was in the habit of frequenting,
and where multitudes of young men
of the most distinguished families
of the city eagerly came to listen
to the words ofthis celebrated man.
He had the kindness to notice me
among them all, and received me
with particular affection. He some-
times spoke successively of all the
princes of Europe ; but in mention-
ing the name of your majesty he
could not conceal his admiration,
'I do not know,' he said, 'any
prince of our day who can be com-
pared to him, either for courage or
exalted ability.'

" I feel flattered," replied the
king; " for he was a man of great
discernment and superior judg-
ment."

And Henry's gratified vanity
brought to his features an expres-
sion of pleasure that did not escape
the notice of the adroit liar. There
was no truth in the statement he
had made to Henry VIII of having
met the Florentine secretary, at
least in his own society, as he wish-
ed to insinuate to the king, but in a
public drinking-house where Machi-
avelli (whose tastes were not al-
ways the most elevated or refined)
went to enjoy the amusements of
the common people, in order to be
relieved of the ennui that devoured
him when at his country seat and
not absorbed in business.

' These gardens of the Oricellari
Palace have a great reputation,"
said Henry VIII. carelessly, after a
considerable silence.

"Very great and very justly," re-
plied Cromwell with enthusiasm,
' since they have been embellished
by the famous Alberti he who in-
troduced again into Europe a taste
for the pure and beautiful Grecian
architecture. The celebrated Ber-
nard Rucellai, to whom they be-
long, has collected there besides a
great quantity of the precious frag-
inents of antiquity '

Cromwell paused he thought the
king was going to speak ; but, fiixl-
ing he said nothing, he continued :

'Your majesty has seen, in the
beginning of Machiavelli's book on
the art of war, the portrait he has
drawn and his eulogies on the
young Count Rucellai, the same
to whom he has dedicated his dis-
course on Livy."

"Possibly," said Henry VIJI.
He turned his head and slightly
yawned.

Cromwell was silent immediately
and racked his brain for another
subject of conversation, regretting
that the one he had already intro-
duced had been so speedily ex-
hausted.

After leaving the king Sir Tho-
mas More returned to the bank of
the Thames, wishing, as soon as
possible, to reach his home at Chel-
sea. Iri going down to his barge,
which awaited him above Westmin-
ster bridge, he saw a crowd col-
lected on the quay inspecting the
boat, which, glittering gorgeously
in the rays of the sun, seemed in
every respect worthy of the exalted
rank of her illustrious owner. Eight
rowers dressed in uniform managed
her with great dexterity ; a large
pavilion of purple silk protected the

Sir T/iomas More. 355

interior against injury from light hear them exclaim, * Here is our fa-

and air ; the bottom was covered ther ! ' But why all these appn--

vvith a heavy tapestry carpet ; and hensions?" he continued, passing

the spacious seats, capable of accom- his hand across his brow, as if to

modating a large number of per- dispel some sad and painful refler-

sons, were supplied with rich crim- tion. " God reigns in heaven ; and

son velvet cushions. The exterior have I not this day experienced his

was not less rich, and the ivory and divine protection ? The king has

little bands of gold with which the given me a kinder reception than

stem was encrusted gave it the I had hoped to receive ; he has, at

appearance of being enveloped in least, not permitted his wrath to

a delicate network, each mesh of break forth in all its violence. Per-

which seemed to sparkle with gems haps in the end it will only be more

and gold. The heavens were se- terrible; but never mind, the will

rene and cloudless, and a multitude of the Lord be done ! Nothing can

of small boats, painted green, darted happen on the earth without his per-

rapidly over the river, propelled by mission. I abandon myself to him ;

their light sails of gleaming white, and when man, his creature, casts

It was a festival day, and they were himself into his arms, he will not

filled with citizens enjoying the withdraw nor permit him to fall."

revivifying country air, and resting In the meantime the tide began

from their labors to refresh them- to rise, and the waves of the sea,

selves dn the verdant and flowery flowing into the great bed of the

lawns of Richmond, Twickenham, river, very soon extended it to the

or Greenwich. Arrayed in their surrounding banks. Carried along

most elegant robes of worsted and by the waves, More's barge no

silk, the women waved their hand- longer required other care than the

kerchiefs or sang to amuse their slight attention necessary to guide

children, while groups of sailors in it. The tired sailors rested on their

varied costumes representing differ- oars, while their eyes wandered

ent nations were engaged in play- over the charming borders of the

ing boisterous games, or, gathering Thames.

around one of their older compan- '* My lord," said one of the sail-
ions, listened eagerly to the stories ors, turning towards Sir Thomas,
he told of expeditions he had join- "here we are in front of Seat-House
ed or shipwrecks he had escaped. Gardens. We are passing the vil-

" To-day these people are hap- lage of Nine Elms."

py!" thought More, saddened by But More heard them not; he

the contrast presented by their joy seemed entirely absorbed in his own

and the interior oppression he him- reflections.

self experienced. " Let me return The men were astonished, because

to a life of peaceful obscurity like ordinarily he conversed with them

theirs, find again my plain wooden when he was alone in the boat,

boat, take my seat on the straw and questioned them about such

matting which covers the bottom, subjects as interested them. Sir

and row in my turn without a fear Thomas More thought it was his

of to-morrow ; always sure of see- duty as a master and a Christian

ing my Margaret and my other to take especial care not only of

children coming along the bank to the bodies but also of the souls of

give me a joyous reception, and his servants, in enlightening their

356 Sir Thomas More.

minds by good advice and wise simple woman ; " it is of good

exhortations. Consequently, they stone, and very much stronger and

were astonished at his silence, and, better than it was before. It will

loving him as a father, they were outlast us all a long time."

fearful some misfortune had be- Having said this, she passed on,

fallen him of which they were not as she saw Sir Thomas wished to

apprised. be detained no longer, and the

" There is the little point of Chel- cows had wandered from the road

sea spire," said the pilot, observing to graze on the .surrounding pas-

him with an anxious eye. ture.

" My lord, here is Chelsea," they " Here comes the good lord

exclaimed all together. chancellor,"" said the village chil-

" Well, my children," he replied, dren in a suppressed tone. The

" land me at the foot of the cross- crowd kneeling without on the

road." pavement of the church, too small

Sir Thomas thought, as it was to accommodate the entire congre-
the hour for evening devotion, his gation on festival days, opened re-
family would surely be at the parish spectfully, and Sir Thomas proceed-
church, anpl he would take his chil- ed down the aisle of the church
dren back in the boat with him. to his pew, where he found all his
He landed, therefore, and, ordering family seated.

the sailors to wait, slowly ascended He remained standing near, as
the beach by a rugged road, beyond the service was almost over,* and he
which he encountered a worthy old did not wish to make any distur-
peasant woman driving a number bance by opening the door of the
of cows to the river. On perceiv- pew ; but Margaret soon discover-
ing Sir Thomas an expression of ed the presence of her father, and
satisfaction overspread her features, heard his voice mingling with those
tanned and furrowed by age and of the other faithful who sang the
hard labor. She stopped to salute praises of God. Her heart throb-
him as usual. bed with joy, and she looked around

" My good lord," she exclaimed, to try and get sight of him.

"I am very glad to see you. We * William," she said immediately

every day pray to the Lord to pre- to young Roper, " my father is here ;

serve you. Since you have been give him your seat."

in this country everything has pros- But Sir Thomas motioned him

pered with us. We have not lost to sit still ; and when the devotion

a single calf nor had a bad crop was ended, and the priests had

since you rebuilt our barn, which left the altar, he approached, and,

was burnt at the same time as your opening the door of the pew where

own ; and the other day we were Lady More w T as seated, presented

talking among ourselves, and we his hand to lead her out, and said :

said that you must be very rich " Madam, my lord is gone."

to be able to make so many around This woman, as disagreeable as

you happy." she was coarse, raised her dull eyes

" The barn is a strong and sub- to her husband's face,

stantial one, at least," said More, " What do you mean ?" she asked

who could not avoid smiling at the sharply,

idea of his reputed wealth. She always received in this un-

" Oh ! as to that, yes," replied the gracious manner the pleasantries

Sir Thomas More.

357

More was so fond of indulging in,
and it was customary for one of her
husband's retinue to open the pew
door in his absence and say : " Ma-
dam, my lord is gone."

" Come with me, nevertheless,"
replied More, with imperturbable
gentleness ; " I will explain to you
now my lord is gone."

Lady More followed him, still,
however, murmuring between her
teeth because of this unusual mode
of departure ; and when they had
passed through the crowd, and
More had returned the salutations
with which all greeted him, he call-
ed Margaret to his side.

" Listen, my child," he said.
" Your mother here cannot under-
stand how my lord, can be absent.
Explain to her that I have conduct-
ed him this morning to London,
where I have left him for ever; in
a word, that I am no longer lord
chancellor, having resigned my
office into the hands of the king.
Do you understand now, my good
Alice ?" he added, turning toward
his wife.

Margaret, on hearing this expla-
nation, looked at her father in dis-
may. She immediately understood
there was something behind that
she did not know, and her pene-
trating mind was filled with alarm;
but Lady More flew into an ungov-
ernable passion.

"What is this you say?" she
cried, " and what have you done ?
More of your scruples, I warrant me.
That tender conscience of yours will
land us all in the ashes yet. Is it
not better to rule than to be ruled ?
We are ten times worse off now than
we have ever been before, and here
are you about to strip us of every-
thing."

' k Dear heart," said Sir Thomas,
without being moved in the least,
"it would be impossible, I think,

for me to strip you of your posses-
sions ; because, \vhen I married
you, you brought me no other
dowry than your virtues and thf
qualities of your heart. Of this
dowry I hope, indeed, never to see
you deprived by any means in the
world, much less by myself."

" At least," cried Lady More be-
tween her sobs and tears, " I w
beautiful and young, and certain it
is I might have easily found a hus-
band more interested in his own af-
fairs, and who would have profited
more by his learning and the favoi
of the king."

On hearing her express herself in
this manner Margaret was unable
to restrain a gesture of indignation ;
she idolized her father, and could
not tolerate the coarse manners and
selfish motives of her step-mother.
This woman, narrow of mind and
filled with vanity, had succeeded,
singularly enough, by manoeuvring
and flattery, in winning the esteem
of More at a time when, having had
the misfortune to lose his wife, he
saw with great sorrow his daughters
deprived of the good example and
tender care of a mother. It then
seemed to him he could not better
replace her than by selecting a
widow lady of mature age whose
beauty, if it had ever existed, was
more than faded, and could no lon-
ger be (so, at least, he supposed) a
subject of pretension or distraction.
But, unfortunately, Lady More, he
found, was one of those indifferent,
selfish beings who only feel what
touches themselves, who consider
nothing but their own interests, and
fear nothing but what may deprive
them of the high social position to
which they have been fortunate
enough to attain. She could not
endure, therefore, the thought of
being deprived of the honor she was
accustomed to receive as the wife

358

Sir Thomas More.

of the lord chancellor. She never
for an instant reflected on the pos-
sible difficulties experienced by her
husband, or the reasons that might
have determined him to resign his
office. She at once divined, from
the knowledge she possessed of his
extreme scrupulousness, that his con-
science had been the first cause
of this step, and the thought only
served to irritate her more, because
she insisted that such a difficulty
ought to have been avoided.

She continued to utter the most
piercing cries, refusing to listen to
anything More could say. At length,
despairing of bringing her to reason,
he began to ridicule her on her ab-
surd conduct.

"My daughters," he said, calling
Elizabeth and Cecilia, " see to your
mother's dress; something has pro-
bably stung her under her garments,
causing her to cry out in this man-
ner."

When the silly woman found her
husband assume this tone of raillery,
she immediately became silent ; but,
full of anger and spite, she seated
herself in a corner of the boat and
took no notice of anything around
her.

Margaret then took her place be-
side her father; she drew close to
him, and, seizing his hand, pressed
it to her lips, without being able to
utter a word ; her heart was full,
and her soul alone silently interro-
gated that of her father.

Endowed with an extraordinary
superabundance of feeling and sen-
timent, Margaret was enthusiastic in
doing good, and repelled evil, when
she encountered it, with a degree
of inflexibility amounting to severi-
ty. Beautiful beyond all expression,
her beauty was never for a moment
made the subject of her thoughts.
Possessed by nature of a very strong
mind, she felt unceasingly, and en-

dured with restless impatience, and
almost without being able to sub-
mit, the disadvantages which weak-
ness and conventionalities imposed
upon her sex. She possessed all
the great qualities of her father, 10ut
none of his bright cheerfulness and
admirable resignation fruits of the
long-continued exercise of the most
exemplary virtue. The poor were
always sure of finding in her an
earnest and faithful friend ; the af-
flicted, a comforter full of eloquence
and sympathy ; the vain and pre-
sumptuous man, a frigid scorn and
piquant irony which concealed
from him entirely the knowledge
of her true character, replete with
integrity, frankness, and simplicity.
Scarcely emerged from childhood,
Margaret felt she had arrived at
mature age. The accuracy and lofti-
ness of her judgment, united to that
delicacy and exquisite tact which
belong naturally to some women,
rendered her worthy of becoming
the most intimate and reliable
friend of her father, whose entire
joy and happiness centred in her
alone. Educated by him with ex-
treme care, she was familiar with
all the sciences, and several works
written by her in Greek and Latin
of great purity have come down to
us from that period.

" My daughter," said More, " why
distress yourself about me, since
I am to remain with you ?"

' Father," answered Margaret,
fixing her beautiful dark eyes on
his face, "there is something be-
hind all this that you have not
told. Why conceal it from me?"

'' No, dear daughter, nothing.
Your father is old ; he desires to
leave you no more, to see you al-
ways, until the Lord shall call him
to himself."

Seeing Margaret's eyes fill with
tears, Sir Thomas repented imme-

Sir Thomas More.

359

diately of what he had said, fearing
to excite in her the nervous sensi-
bility he had always vainly at-
tempted to moderate.

" Father," she answered, " let it
be as you wish ; I ask nothing
more."

" On the contrary, you shall know
everything, dear child. God has
blessed us ; be assured of that.
And see how green and fresh our
garden looks from here."

They were coming in view of
their house at Chelsea, and soon
found themselves opposite the small
green gate opening, at the end of
the garden, upon a path descending
to the river. One of the men, tak-
ing a large silver whistle from his
belt, blew several shrill notes as
a signal to those in the house to
come and open the gate for their
master. Nobody appeared, how-
ever, and the family began to feel sur-
prised, when at length they perceiv-
ed some short and deformed creature
advancing with irregular bounds,
breaking the bushes and overturn-
ing the pots of flowers that he en-
countered in his passage.

" Ah ! ' exclaimed Sir Thomas,
" there is my poor jester playing
his pranks and spoiling all my
garden.".

" Henry Pattison ! ' cried the
children, laughing.

" Himself," said Sir Thomas.

At that moment the little fool,
dressed in a scarlet coat all cover-
ed with gold lace, opened the gate,
and, putting out his great, flat head,
made a thousand grimaces, accom-
panied by roars of laughter and
savage cries, which he endeavored
to render agreeable, in order to
express the gratification he felt at
the return of his master.

" Ah ! well, what news do you
bring us?" said More, looking at
him.

1 Master," replied the fool, open-
ing a mouth so wide that it might
have better fitted a giant than a
dwarf, "father is sick."

"What! my father sick?" cried
More, greatly alarmed.

"Yes, my lord," replied the
jester.

But Sir Thomas, without awaiting
his response, rushed into the house
and disappeared.

On learning the accusation
brought against them in the court
of king's bench, the members of
the convocation were seized with
consternation, for they understood
by the very mention of Prtzmunire.
that the king had resolved to make
them feel the weight of his autho-
rity, and to avenge himself for the
opposition he had encountered in
the affair of the divorce. They
assembled, therefore, in all haste,
and from the hour of prime * re-
mained deliberating in one of the
upper chambers of Westminster Ab-
bey. After a lengthy discussion,
they had sent, with unanimous ac-
cord, to offer the king the sum of
one hundred thousand pounds in
return for the pardon they solicited,
never having doubted, they said in
their petition, that Cardinal Wolsey
had received the necessary letters-
patent for exercising the authority
of legate in the kingdom.

Hours passed away, and no re-
sponse arrived from the king. Ma-
ny became alarmed, and the great-
est excitement prevailed in that
venerable assembly, composed of
all the archbishops, bishops, and
abbots of the monasteries, who
formed, by right of their ecclesias-
tical rank, part of the House of
Lords or, by election, of the Com-
mons.

* Eight o'clock in the morning

360

Sir TJioinas More.

Conspicuous in the midst of them
was the learned and celebrated
Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Primate of England. His head,
entirely bald, was bowed on his
breast. He seemed to take no part
or interest in the numerous discus-
sions which were carried on around
him, and no one knew whether a
gloomy sadness had overshadowed
his soul, or if his advanced. age had
weakened the faculties of his mind
together with those of the body.
The Bishop of Lincoln, the king's
confessor, who sat beside him, vain-
ly endeavored to attract his atten-
tion. Further on, arranged around
him, were the Bishops of Durham,
Worcester, Norwich, Salisbury, St.
David's, Hereford, Carlisle, Bath,
Bangor, and others ; the Archbishop
of Armagh, near whom was observ-
ed the mild and noble physiognomy
of the Dean of Exeter, young Re-
ginald Pole, born of the royal blood
of the house of York, and descend-
ed by Margaret, his mother, from
the illustrious family of Plantage-
nets. The king, his relative, had
tried in every way to bring him to
approve of the divorce ; but neither
supplications nor reproaches, nor
the fear inspired by Henry VIII.,
could induce him to act contrary to
the voice of his conscience. Later
on Henry VIII. taught him, by
making the two brothers and the
aged mother of Reginald Pole mount
the scaffold, how far the excess of
his revenge could carry him.

Already had the young Dean of
Exeter fallen into disfavor with the
king, who closed the door of his
palace against him, at the same
time that he was forced by the ma-
nifest respect of Pole, and the proofs
he gave of his devotion, to acknow-
ledge secretly the integrity of his
heart and the rectitude of his in-
tentions. At this moment he was

talking to a man wnose cnaracu-r
was precisely the opposite of his
own the Abbot of Westminster, in-
triguing, active, and ambitious, well
known to Henry VIII., whose spy
he was, and to whose will he was
entirely submissive.

With them also conversed Roland,
chaplain to his majesty, and the
poor secretary, Gardiner, whose sim-
plicity and small aptitude for busi-
ness had been alone sufficient to
make his selfish master regret the
indefatigable perseverance and the
strong mind of Cardinal Wolsey.
At this moment he wearied his col-
leagues with a lengthy recital of all
the apprehensions which the vio-
lence of the king's character caused
him.

And now a sudden commotion made
itself felt throughout the hall. They
stood up, they leaned forward ; the
folding doors were thrown open.
" In the name of the king!" cried
the usher who guarded the en-
trance.

Cromwell stood on the thres-
hold. He paused to salute the
assembly.

They scarcely dared breathe !

" My lords," he said in a loud
voice, looking slowly around him,
and endeavoring to give his sardon-
ic features an expression of benig-
nant persuasion, " the king, our
master, always full of clemency and
benevolence toward his unworthy
subjects, deigns to accept your gift.
He makes but one, and that a very
slight, condition ; which is, that you
acknowledge him, in the act of
donation, as the supreme and only
head of the church and clergy of
England."

He paused to observe, with a
malignant joy, similar to that of the
demon when he dragged the first
man into sin, the effect of these
words on the assembly. But a

Sir Tkoinas More.

gloomy silence was the only re-
sponse they gave him. He again
looked slowly around him, and pro-
ceeded in a lower tone :

" My lords, let not this either
trouble or alarm you ; the church,
our mother, has not a child more
faithful or submissive than our most
gracious sovereign. Does he not
prove himself such each day by the
care he takes to choke up the seeds
of heresy which the malice of the
devil is trying to sow among us ?
You also know very well, and even
better than I, that he devotes his
nights to writing in defence of our
holy faith, and nothing could ever
induce him to deviate from it. Why
should you feel any scruples about
honoring a prince so virtuous by
placing him at your head as your
defender and most firm supporter ?
Remember, moreover, honored lords,
that he who should refuse this title
to the king will be regarded by
him as a traitor and disloyal sub-
ject."

He then seated himself 'in their
midst, in order to take in the words
of the first who should dare raise
his voice in opposition to the will
of the king.

All the bishops sat in silent
consternation. Several wished to
speak, but the presence of Crom-
well seemed to freeze them with
terror ; for they were beginning to
understand the base manoeuvres of
this man, and each one felt as
though he was on the point of be-
ing seized by that wicked wretch,
ready to spring upon the first un-
happy victim who might present
himself.

They looked from one to another,
while a profound silence reigned
among them.

Archbishop Warham seemed to
be seized with a lively grief, but
his voice was no more audible, and

his pale lips remained silent and
motionless.

Cromwell felt his heart thrill with
malicious delight ; beneath the fri-
gid expression of a profound and
calculating indifference this ob-
scure intriguer exulted in seeing
these men, the most learned and
honored in all England, trembling
and recoiling before him as before
the genius of evil.

But suddenly a man whom no-
thing could intimidate, a saintly
man, whose heart knew no fear c.\-
cept the fear of God, arose in the
midst of them. An involuntary
shudder ran through the assembly.
All eyes were directed alternate-
ly toward Cromwell and him, as
though to defend tjie one from the
malice of the other. It was the
Bishop of Rochester, the friend of
Thomas More, who was about to
s'peak ; and all knew that no cow-
ardly consideration of prudence
could stop him.

" My lords," he cried, as he stood
up in their midst, " what impious
voice is this that is raised in your
presence to propose to us a thing
which has never been heard of since
the foundation of human society ?
What is it they wish to exact from
us at this moment, if it be not to
raise ourselves to the level of God
himself by conferring the supremacy
of his church on a temporal prince, a
man who can have no possible right
thereto ? Shall we, then, say to-day,
as our Lord Jesus Christ said to St.
Peter : * I give you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever
you shall bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven ; and whatsoever
you shall loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven' ? And if we
should have the pride and au-
dacity to say it, where would be
our power to execute it ? Lis-
ten," continued the holy bishop, in-

362 Sir Thomas More.

flamed with zeal, and turning toward ledge that we have never yet re-
Cromwell. " Go, and say to the ceived the true faith or the veri-
king, our master, that he has been table Gospel of Christ, since we
led into error; that he should re- openly revolt against the immuta-
member the words of the Holy ble doctrine which it teaches, and
Scriptures: 'As my Father hath turn aside voluntarily and forever
sent me, so I send you,' and ask from the one and only true way of
him if he has been ordained one of salvation which it has marked out
the pastors of the church ; if he for us. During the fifteen hundred
has chosen her for his only spouse ; and thirty years that the Gospel
if he is an apostle, if he is a doctor, has been preached throughout the
or if he can build up \vith us the world, have we seen a single prince
body of Christ ; and say to him, make such a pretension ? And
moreover, that even though he when, in the fourth century, Con-
should possess all these qualifica- stantine the Great assembled in his
tions, yet, before he could be ap- own palace, in the city of Nice, and
pointed supreme head of the Cath- for the first time since the apostles,
olic Church, it would be necessary the entire body of the universal
for her to acknowledge -him as Church, did he establish himself
such, and that we cannot we, a in the midst of them as their head
feeble fraction of the Christian and sovereign he who wished, in
world impose a chief on the uni- spite of their deference and their
verse ! Go, and let not the king's request, to remain, without guards
majesty be compromised ; for he and without the pomp befitting
has suggested a desire that cannot his rank, in the meanest place
be accomplished." of the hall wherein they were as-

Cromwell, subdued by the power sembled ? * No,' said he, ' I will

of this exhortation, arose and im- not sit jn judgment where I have

mediately withdrew. The Bishop no authority either to absolve or to

of Rochester, turning toward the condemn.' . . . And who, my

assembled prelates, continued : lords, were the men composing that

" My lords, let not the fear of illustrious assembly, if not the flow-
men blind us. Let us reflect well on er of all the saintly and learned who
what they demand of us to-day ; for flourished among the nations of the
we are not only called on to renounce earth ? The patriarchs of Constan-
Clement VII., but also to cast our- tinople,of Antioch, of Alexandria, of
selves out of Peter's bark, only to be Jerusalem, and of Carthage ; the bi-
stibmerged in the waves of these shops of Africa, of Spain, of the Gauls,
countless divisions, sects, schisms, of the land of the Scythians and Per-
and heresies which it has pleased sians in a word, of the East and
the mind of man to invent. Yes, I West who gathered there in
hesitate not to say to you that, in crowds, almost all had confessed
order to give the king the title he the faith before tyrants, and bore on
demands, it would be necessary to their mutilated bodies the glorious
abandon all laws, canonical and marks of the cruel tortures they had
ecclesiastical, the authority of the endured rather than renounce it.
holy councils, the unity of the Well, you behold these holy pontiffs
world and of Christian princes, the place at their head Vincent and
traditions of the church, by which Vitus, two simple priests, because
we would at the same time acknow- they recognized them as the repre-

Sir TJiojiias More.

sentatives of their chief, the Bishop
of Rome, whose advanced age pre-
vented him from being among them.
And this regulation has been inva-
riably followed through all ages even
until the present day, and through
all the storms and heresies which
would have been sufficient to anni-
hilate the church had she not been
born of God himself. Far from us,
then, be this culpable cowardice !
To renounce his laws is to renounce
Tesus Christ. We renounce his
laws ? No, my lords, we cannot !
Nay, we will not. . . . Again,
what would become of this sublime
doctrine, if a - temporal prince had
power [to make it yield to the whim
of his vices and passions ? To-day
it is, to-morrow it is not ; it changes
with him, with his creeds, his opin-
ions, and his wishes. His caprices
would become our only laws, and
vice and virtue be no longer but
Avords which he Avould be at liberty
to change at will. No, again and
again no ! If AVC love our king,
we will never concede Avhat he de-
mands ; because it is for us to en-
lighten him witli regard to his
duties, and, on the contrary, AVC
should only be dragging him doAvn
with us in our unhappy fall."

A murmur of applause rose from
all parts of the hall, droAvning the
voice of the speaker. The Abbot
of Westminster alone maintained a
silence of disapproval. Many, how-
ever, Avhile they acknowledged the
truth of what the Bishop of Roches-
ter had proclaimed, could not but
reflect with dread on the terrible
consequences of the king's displea-
sure if they openly resisted him ;
while others, Avith less foresight and
sound judgment, thought Fisher's
zeal carried him too far, and that
it would be possible, Avithout at all
compromising their consciences, to
grant their prince something Avhich

would be sufficient to satisfy him.
Among this number Avas the Bishop
of Bath, Avho immediately arose.
After rendering public testimony to
the esteem and deference due the
Bishop of Rochester, he added that
it appeared to him impossible
that the king could think serious-
ly of having himself acknoAvledg-
ed as the cne and only head of
the church " And, as for me, I be-
lieA'e," he said, at the conclusion
of his discourse, " this is only a
snare that has been set in order to
afford a pretext for punishing and
despoiling us of all AVC possess.
The king is always in need of mon-
ey; his confidants have suggested
this means for him to procure it,
and make him distribute the great-
er part of it among themselves."

" I agree Avith my lord of Bath,'
cried the Bishop of Bangor, " tht
more especially as the king knows
how absurd the accusatio'n is of
offence against the Pr<zmi(nirc, since
he has compromised himself by ap-
pearing before the legate in the
eyes of the Avhole kingdom. It Avas
impossible to have acknoAvledged
the legate's authority by an act more
authentic, and which surpassed in
importance all the letters-patent
that could have been demanded."

"That is just and true," exclaim-
ed several voices : " and yet, al-
though we may be able to prove it,
if the king presses the accusation,
we shall be most unjustly though
most certainly condemned."

" Oh ! yes, most certainly," said
Gardiner in a IOAV voice. He Avas
cruelly frightened, being aAvare of
the measures the king had taken, in
conjunction with Cromwell, to se-
cure for himself the influence of the
judges of the court of king's bench.

"Well, my lords," said the Ab-
bot of Westminster, Avho had used
every effort to induce them to yield

364

Sir Thomas More.

to the king, " consider also if our
most gracious sovereign is wrong in
making this demand, he will be re-
sponsible before God, and I do not
see in what manner we could be
considered guilty. In reality this
title will be illusory, since he can-
not ordain the humblest priest.
When the Roman emperors had
themselves declared gods, think you
it ever entered the minds of the
people that they were such? Just
the same in this case : no one will
ever consider the king as head of
the church."

" That is most sure," exclaimed
several other ecclesiastics, struck
by this reasoning, and to whom this
pretension began to appear more
ridiculous than criminal.

"I assure yon positively," replied
the Abbot of Westminster, " that this
is an absurd humor which will fall
through of itself."

" You Deceive yourselves, my
lords; you deceive yourselves," cried
the Bishop of Rochester. "When
the king shall have received from
us the title he demands, it will be
confirmed by Parliament, and after-
wards he will believe himself in-
vested with the right of deciding
everything and making any inno-
vation. Will there then be time left
us to repent of our pusillanimous'
submission ? Will you then com-
mand this supreme head to be so
no longer, and to obey after having
been invested with supreme au-
thority ?"

New tokens of assent were break-
ing out, when they were suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of
Cromwell, who returned, accompa-
nied by Viscount Rochford and
Thomas Audley.

With an air of the coolest effron-
tery he advanced to the centre of
the hall and stood in the midst of
the bishops. He then said in a

loud and arrogant tone, pointing to
the two men who followed him :

" My lords, here are the king's
commissioners ; they come to hear
your reply. But the personal de-
votion I feel for the interest of our
holy mother church and the safety
of your reverend lordships induces
me to warn you that the king has
resolved to punish with all the se-
verity of the statutes of Pramunire
those among you who shall not have
signed by to-morrow the act ac-
knowledging him as supreme head
of the church."

On hearing these last words all
grew pale and consternation seized
on all hearts.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of
Canterbury seemed to be making a
desperate effort ; a convulsive move-
ment contracted the furrowed brow
of the old man. He fixed his eyes
on Cromwell, and, rising, stood be-
fore him.

" Knave !" he exclaimed.

The advanced age of Warhain,
and still more his learning and the
high reputation he -enjoyed, sur-
rounded him with respect and
strength ; but a secret sorrow was
gnawing at his heart, and hastening
the destruction of a life that time
had respected. He arose fiercely,
although tottering, to his feet. " My
brethren," he cried, "my brethren !-
no, I am not worthy to be seated in
the midst of you, and yet you have
accorded me the first place. I
know not if the weight of years may
not have partially unsettled my rea-
son ; but I have to reproach myself
with having inclined to favor the
king's divorce. To-day I foresee
all the evils that will fail upon my
country because of the discord and
heresies that will spring up and
multiply among us. How far, then,
have I been from anticipating tht-
fatal consequences of the opinion I

Sir Thomas More.

365

expressed in good faith ! Meanwhile,
1 trust that God, before whom I
must very soon appear, will pardon
me for what I have done. My
dear brethren, number me no more
among you ; for the anguish I feel
oppresses me to such a degree that
1 can no longer endure it ! Alas !
why is it a man must feel his life
extinguished before death has en-
tirely benumbed his enfeebled mem-
bers ? I vainly seek within my
soul the life and strength that have
abandoned it; that energy I would
wish to recover, if but for a single
moment, to use it in opposing the
ruin of religion, and repairing in an
open and fearless manner the scan-
dal I have given. But the time for
action has passed for me. It is to
your hands, young prelates, that the
care of the flock is committed. Be
firm ; die rather than let it be deci-
mated ! The most violent persecu-
tion is about to burst upon the
English Church; yes, but you will
resist it, even unto death ! Death
is glorious when we suffer it for
God ! But, O my brethren ! it is
not death I fear for you ; it is false-
hood and treachery, the silent and
hidden influence which undermines
in the dark ; far more dangerous
than tortures or imprisonment, it
destroys all, even the last germ of
;^ood which might expand in the
suiil ! No, it is not death that
kills, but sinful deeds. My brethren,
pardon me all and pray for me ! '

The aged prelate, as if exhausted
by the last effort he had made, fell
back in his chair, entirely deprived
of consciousness. He was imme-

itely carried out, but the anxiety
and excitement redoubled in the
assembly.

"We are all lost!" . . . cried
the Abbot of Westminster. " My
lords, let us obey the king, if we
would not see all our goods confis-
cated !"

" What !" cried the Bishop of
Rochester, with an indignation he
was unable to restrain, " is that the
only argument you pretend to bring
forward ? What benefit will it be
to keep our houses, our cloisters
and convents in a word, to pre-
serve our entire possessions if we
must sacrifice our consciences? What
will it profit a man to gain the whole
world, if he lose his own soul ? Yes,
it is but too true : we are all under
the rod of the king, we have all
need of his clemency, but he re-
fuses it to us ! Well, then, let him
strike ; we shall be able to endure
it!"

Electrified by these words, and
still more by the wisdom and com-
manding presence of him who ut
tered them, the assembly arose and
unanimously exclaimed :

"No, we will not sign it. Let
the king do as he will. Go, Crom-
well, say to his majesty that we are
all devoted to him, tut we cannot
do what he asks."

A wrathful light gleamed in Crom-
well's eyes, the while an ironical
smile played upon his lips. Two
ideas prevailed in the mind of this
man ; the one encouraged and sup-
ported the other.

" My lords," he replied in a loud
voice, "just as you please. The
king, your lord and master, con-
vokes you to-morrow at the same
hour, and you will consider the sub-
ject in a new conference."

He then turned on his heel and
hastily withdrew

TO BE CONTINUED.

Dr. Brownson*

DR. BROWNSON.

SOME three or four years ago a
little daughter of one of Dr. Brown-
son's intimate friends, who *was
visiting his family, after gazing
intently at him for some minutes,
exclaimed : " Is he not just like a
great lion " ! Nothing could be
more graphic or accurate than this
sudden and happy stroke of a
child's wit. We never saw Dr.
Brownson or read one of his great
articles without thinking of the
mien or the roar of a majestic lion ;
we have never seen a remarkably
fine old lion without thinking of
Dr. Brownson. His physique was
entirely correspondent to his intel-
lectual and moral power, and his
great head, crowning like a dome
his massive figure, and surrounded
in old age with a mass of white
hair and beard like a sno\vy Alp,
made him a grand and reverend
object to look at, such as we
might picture to ourselves Zoroas-
ter or Plato, St. Jerome or St.
Bruno. The marks of infirmity
which time had imprinted upon
him, with the expression of loneli-
ness and childlike longing for sym-
pathy, added a touch of the pathetic
to the picture, fitted to awaken a
sentiment of compassion, tempering
to a more gentle mood the awe and
admiration excited by his venerable
appearance. Mr. Healey has paint-
ed a remarkably good portrait of
him as he was at about the age of
sixty, in which his full maturity of
strength is alone represented. The
most perfect one, however, is a
mere photograph, taken in haste
and by accident by Mr. Wallace,

an artist of great promise, who
died at a very early age, leaving
unfinished a marble bust of Dr.
Brownson which he had commenc-
ed. The young artist met the
doctor by chance in the studio of a
photographer, who happened at the
moment to be absent. Asking him
to sit down, he placed him in posi-
tion for a profile and took the pho-
tograph, one of the most successful
specimens of this kind of art we
have ever seen, and much superior
to any other photographic likeness
of Dr. Brownson indeed, as we
have said, the best likeness which
exists, and the one above all other*
from which an engraver should
copy.

The lion is dead ; his thunderous
voice is for ever hushed. The fare-
well utterance which closed his
career as an editor with so much
dignity and pathos was his valedic-
tory to life and to the world. It is
pleasant to think that, before he
died, a response full of veneration
and affection came back to him
from the organs of Catholic opinion
and feeling in America and Europe,
and that he has gone to his grave in
honor and peace, where his works
will be his monument, and his
repose be asked for by countless
prayers offered up throughout all
parts of the Catholic Church, in
whose battles he had been a tried
warrior and valiant leader for thirty
years.

It is not an easy task to give a
perfectly just and impartial estimate
of such, a man and such a career.
The intimate relations between Dr.

Dr. Brownson. 367

Brownson and those who have been Dr. Brownson has told the world
the chief conductors of this maga- a great deal about his own history
zine, together with the very active in the book which he publish-
and extensive share which he had ed in 1857, entitled T/ie Convert.
in their efforts to establish it and The salient facts of his life are gen-
raise it to its present position, im- erally known to the public, and have
pose an obligation of personal been summarily stated in the obitu-
friendship and gratitude somewhat ary notices of the leading newspa-
like that which affects the relatives pers, so that we have no need to
and family friends of a great man take up much of our limited space
in the memorials which they pre- in recounting them. The principal
pare for the honor and fame of one interest they possess is in their rela-
whom they regard with a venera- tion to the formation of his mind,
tion and affection precluding the his character, his faith, and his
free exercise of critical judgment, opinions. He was not baptized in
On the other hand, the difference his infancy, but was nevertheless
of opinion which afterwards severed brought up strictly and religiously
the connection between Dr. Brown- according to the old-fashioned Pu-
son and THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and ritan method, in their simple, hum-
the controversy we have had with ble cottage at Royalton, Vermont,
him on some important theological by an elderly couple, distant rela-
and philosophical questions, may tives of his family, who adopted the
give to the expression of anything fatherless boy when he was six
like a discriminating judgment the years old.* A wonderful child he
appearance of an adverse plea must have been, and we can see
against an opposing advocate in in his brief narrative of his early
favor of our own cause. Neverthe- years, as in the instances of St.
less, as the motive of our friendship Thomas of Aquin and Chateau-
was chiefly sympathy in the great briand, though under circumstances
common cause of the Catholic as different as possible from theirs, a
Church, which was not essentially most interesting example of Words-
altered by a disagreement that pro- worth's aphorism, " The child is
duced no bitterness or animosity, father of the man." From the dawn
we trust that our mood of mind is of reason he was a philosopher,
not influenced by any partial and never a child, thinking, dreaming
personal bias, so as to produce in an ideal world, reading the few
either exaggeration or diminution of books he could find especially King
the just claims the great deceased James' English Bible, which he al-
publicist possesses on the admira- most learned by heart never play-
tion of his fellow-men. We may ing with other children, and en-
fail from want of capability, but we joying very scanty advantages of
cannot avoid making the attempt to schooling. After his fourteenth
tisfy in part the desire which all year he lived near Saratoga, in New
Catholics everywhere must feel to York State, and worked hard for
know what those who have been his own maintenance. At nineteen
near to Dr. Brownson during his we find him at an academy in the
public life have seen, and what they town of Ballston a privilege which
think, of his character and his ca- we believe he purchased with the
reer, more especially since his con- Mt is but a few years s ; nce the de a th of Dr.

version. Brownson's mother, and his twin-sister still survives.

368

Dr. Brownson.

hard earnings of his industry. At this
lime, from an impulse of religious
sentiment, he sought for baptism
and admission into the Presbyterian
church, which he very soon found
an uncongenial home and exchang-
ed for another sect at the opposite
pole of Protestantism, that of the
Universalists, among whom he be-
came a preacher at the age of twen-
ty-one. The subsequent period of
his life until he had passed some-
what beyond his fortieth year that
is, until 1 844 was marked by various
phases of rationalism, and filled with
active labors in preaching, lectur-
ing, writing, and editing various
periodicals, all carried on with rest-
less energy and untiring industry.
He was married earlv in life to an

amiable and intelligent lady who
was a perfect wife and mother, and
after her conversion a perfect Chris-
tian ; and the six children who liv-
ed to grow up, five of whom were
sons, all received an excellent
education. The eldest son, his
namesake, has passed his life as a
teacher and farmer in a remote
State, living the life of a good Cath-
olic with the spirit of a recluse,
altogether uninterested in the
great affairs of the world. Two
others were lawyers and died
young. The fourth, after passing
some years with the Jesuits, entered
the army of the United States at
the breaking out of the war as a
captain of artillery, was severely
wounded, and after the close of the
war was admitted to the bar, mar-
ried, and began the practice of law
at Detroit. He is known to the
literary world as the translator
of Balmes' Fundamental Philoso-
phy. The youngest son also
served gallantly as an officer of the
army of the republic during the
civil war, and died on the field of
battle in the flower of his youth.

The only daughter, who is the wife
of a most worthy and respectable
gentleman, before her marriage pub-
lished several works, and particularly
the Life of Pri?ice Gallitzin, a bio-
graphy of very considerable merit.
All the fruits of the intellectual la-
bors of Dr. Brownson were absorbed
in the support and education of his.
family and some dependent female
relatives, and beyond these simple
means of keeping up his plain and
unostentatious household, the great
and patriarchal philosopher receiv-
ed no pecuniary recompense from
his long and severe labors in the
field of literature. His true, pro-
fession was that of an editor and
reviewer. The exercise of the func-
tions of the Protestant ministry was
not to his taste, and five years be-
fore his conversion to the Catholic
Church, which took place in 1844,
he founded a Review at Boston,
which was, with a change of title,
continued during his residence in
that city, then transferred to New
York and sustained until 1864,
revived once more by a kind of
dying effort in 1873, and finally
closed a few months before the end
of Dr. Brownson's mortal career.
Aft active part in politics was taken
by Dr. Brownson during several
years of his earlier public career,
but his restless, impetuous, inde-
pendent spirit made it impossible
for him to remain long within the
ranks of any political party. Un-
til his conversion he was an agita-
tor, a reformer, associating by turns
with Fanny Wright, Robert Dale
Owen, the leaders of the working-
men's party, Channing, Parker, and
the Boston clique of world-reform-
ers, captivated by the theories of
Lerou>c and St. Simon, and* even
fancying himself the providential
precursor of a new Messias who
was to do away with all old things

Dr. Braiiunsdn. 369

and renovate the world. At last year, and his obsequies were

he became convinced that Jesus brated on the following Wednesday.

Christ founded the Catholic Church From the time of his conversion lie-

as the perpetual teacher, guide, and was not only a loyal but a pious

ruler of men and nations, and set- and practical Catholic, constantly re-

tied himself in his only true voca- ceiving the sacraments, and making

tion as an exponent and advocate his own salvation the chief object

of her doctrines and order by the to be attained in life. There can

means of his written works. It was be no doubt that he lived and died

only as a Catholic publicist that he a just and good man, full of merit,

became a truly great man, and and sure of a high place in heaven,

achieved a great work for which he as well as on the scroll of honor

deserves to be held in lasting re- where the names of the great men of

membrance. To this work the last .the age are inscribed by the verdict

thirty years of his life were devoted of their fellows.

with a gigantic energy, which dimin- If we were allowed to stop here,

ished toward the end under the our task would not have any of that

influence of advancing age and en- difficulty or delicacy which we said

feebled health, but never wholly at the outset must necessarily be-

flagged until the approach of death long to an effort at estimating Dr.

gradually quenched and at last ex- Brownson's character and career as

tinguished the vital flame of his a Catholic publicist. That he built

physical existence. During the last on the true foundation as a wise

seventeen years of his life his resi- master-builder, with gold, silver,

dence was at Elizabeth, New Jer- and precious stones, much solid and

sey, with the exception of a few fine work able to stand the fire and

months which he passed with his deserving a reward both on earth

son, Henry F. Brownson, Esq., of and in heaven, we can affirm with

Detroit, in \^hose house he died, conscientious fidelity to our own

and from which he was carried to conviction, and without fear of con-

his last resting-place in the Cath- tradiction. That there was no wood,

olic cemetery of that town. His hay, or stubble in the great mass of

last years were filled with sufferings materials which he used in his many

from severe physical infirmities, the and extensive works we dare not

sudden deaths of several of his chil- assert. The difficulty lies in discri-

dren, above all from the death of his mination, and in the relative esti-

tenderly-loved and devoted wife, and mate of a man certainly great and

from the desolation and loneliness good, in comparison with other

which is usually the cloud in which great champions of the Catholic

the setting sun of genius goes down, faith, and with the standard of per-

especially when one survives the fection. It must be remembered

period of his great activity, and that Dr. Brownson was a self-made

finds himself, as it were, walking man, and, until he was past thirty,

among the graves of friends was in circumstances most unfa-

and past works, drawing always vorable to his intellectual culture.

nearer to his own sepulchral rest- He received in his youth only the

ing-place. His death occurred on rudiments of an education, was as-

the morning of Easter Monday, sociated during his early manhood

April 17, 1876, when he was in .with vulgar sectaries and dema-

the middle of his seventy-third gogues, engaged in a rude, turbu-
VOL. xxiii. NO. 24

. Brcwnson.

lent struggle foi a living and a posi- physics and theology he had a
tion as a religious and political lead- considerable but by no means a
er, as well as in a perpetual search minutely precise and complete
after truth, without adequate means knowledge ; and with the physical
of satisfying the cravings of his rest- sciences he was still less acquainted,
less intellect and passionate heart e In the belles-lettres he was extremely
He came into contact with intellec- well versed, and of works of fiction
tual and cultivated men for the first he was an omnivorous reader. For
time in Boston after he joined the a number of years before his death
Unitarians. His efforts to educate he was prevented by the weakness
himself were certainly strenuous, of his eyes from reading very much,
He acquired the Latin, French, Ger- and was therefore, in the last series
man, and Italian languages suffi- of his Review, thrown back on his
ciently well to read books written- old resources! On the whole, the
in all those languages, and his mass of knowledge .acquired by stu-
knowledge of English authors w r as, dy which is displayed in his writ-
of course, very wide and extensive, ten works is more like a grand,
Nevertheless, the want of a syste- complex structure, imposing in
matic education in his early y.outh, magnitude of outline, sublimity of
and of regular, symmetrical intel- design, variety of details, yet irre-
lectual training, was always a great gular in plan and incomplete in
disadvantage, as it necessarily must many of its parts, than like a finish-
be to every self-made man. More- ed, scientifically-constructed, and
over, the necessity of perpetually elaborately-completed edifice,
speaking and writing on the most In his calibre of mind we think
important subjects as a teacher and Dr. Brownson may be classed with
guide of others, before he had tho- those men whose capacity is only
roughly learned what he had to exceeded by a very small number
teach, made him liable to hasty and of minds of the highest order of
crude statements, to inaccuracies genius. Intellect, reason, imagina-
and errors, to changes and modifi- tion, and memory were alike power-
cations in his views and opinions, and ful faculties of his mind, and his
to a certain tentative, erratic course great weight of brain, with a cor-
of thought. He was like a great responding nervous and muscular
ship making its way by waring and strength, made him capable of the
tacking, often changing its course, most concentrated, vigorous, and
and frequently stopping for sound- sustained intellectual labor. With-
ings, but on the whole making in the scope of his genius there was
steady headway towards one defi- no work, however colossal, which
nite point, escaping many dangers, he was not naturally capable of
and at last arriving on open sailing accomplishing. His gift of Ian-
ground by the genius of its pilot, guage, and ability of giving ex-
notwithstanding insufficient charts pression to his thoughts and sen-
and an unknown coast. In certain timents, whether original or bor-
favorite branches of study as, for rowed, was even greater than his
instance, in history, the history of power of abstraction and concep-
philosophy, political ethics, and tion ; and his style has a magnin-
English philology his knowledge cent, Doric beauty seldom surpass-
vvas not only extensive, but extreme- ed, rarely even equalled. Although
ly accurate. Of scholastic meta- Dr. Brownson was not an orator,

Dr. Brownson.

371

ind Mr. Webster was not a phi-
losopher, there is, nevertheless, a
striking similarity in the style of
the two men, who mutually ad-
mired each other's productions with
the sympathy of cognate minds. In
argument, but especially in contro-
versial.argument. and. philippics, Dr.
Brownson wielded the hammer of
Thor. His defect was in subtlety
of thought, fineness of discrimina-
tion, completeness of induction, and
minute, accurate analysis. In the
capacity of grasping a first principle
and following it out on the synthetic
method lay his great power. When-
ever he had these great first princi-
ples and fundamental ideas, either
from reason or faith, he was unri-
valled in the grand and mighty ex-
position of the truth, irresistible
in the demolition of sophistical, in-
consequent, and false theories and
their advocates, many of whom he
laid low with the ease and force of
the blow of Richard Cceur de Lion
on the cheek of the unlucky clerk
of Companhurst. Humor, wit, and
sarcasm were also at his "command,
as well as serious argument ; nor
were they always sparingly used,
although generally with the good-
humor of a giant conscious of his
strength.

When we consider the absolute
and permanent value of Dr. Brown-
son's writings as a contribution to
Catholic literature, not merely in
respect to their quality as the pro-
ductions of a great mind, but as to
their substance ; and estimate the
effective worth of his efforts as a
publicist in the promotion of Cath-
olic truth and law, we cannot avoid
taking into view the moral charac-
teristics of the man and of his ca-
reer. He was a man of great pas-

ns as well as of great intellect.
He lacked a wholesome, sound
moral and religious discipline dur-

ing more than half his life, and
was under the influence of ideas,
associates, circumstance's, most dan-
gerous and injurious, but especially
hostile to the fundamental virtues
of humility, reverence for author-
ity, intellectual and moral self-con-
trol, submission to a fixed, unvary-
ing rule of conscientious obligation.
After a stormy and turbulent life,
he submitted himself to the au-
thority of the Catholic Church over
his mind and conscience, when he
was more than forty years of age
He was always true in his allegi-
ance, and in many respects morally
heroic in the practice of the Chris-
tian virtues. His previous life was
not wanting in nobility, and in his
subsequent life as a Catholic there
is a magnanimity, a generosity, a
superiority to petty, selfish motives
and considerations, such as wealth
and popularity; a patient endurance
of toil, privation, and suffering ; a
steady loyalty to the Holy See ; a
royal scorn of baseness and wrong,
and sympathy with the things which
are good, just, true, and honorable,
worthy of a Catholic of the best
mediaeval type. He remained, how-
ever, as many of the old, heroic
Christians who were converted from
heathenism did, more or less, the
lion of the forest, with many of the
idiosyncrasies and other character-
istics, the product of his past his-
tory, but partially subdued and
modified. He was sui generis, and
his works are like himself. To de-
scribe him we ought to borrow, if
we may hint at such an impossible
supposition, the pen with which
Carlyle has described his heroes.
The pen being unattainable, we
decline the attempt. A few things
we must say, in order to prepare
the way for the estimate we are
striving to make of his career and
works.

372 Dr. Brownson.

Dr. Brownson was liable to be influence as a writer, and counter-
fascinated by some great writer, and acted to a great extent the effect
for a time to surrender his mind which his solid and weighty argu-
almost completely to his influence ments might have otherwise pro-
with an impetuous enthusiasm which duced. He has himself made a
hindered calm deliberation. When frank though not a contrite ac-
this first fervor had passed, he would knowledgment of his one great
reconsider the matter, and some- moral fault in The Convert : " I
times end by a severe castigation am no saint, never was, and never
of his late master. Like St. Chris- shall be a saint. I am not and
topher, he went in search of the never shall be a great man ; but
strongest man to serve, whereas I always had, and I trust I always
those whom he successively tried shall have, the honor of being re-
and abandoned were really weaker garded by my friends and associates
than himself. Cousin, Leroux, and as impolitic, as rash, imprudent,
last of all Gioberti were those to and impracticable. I was and am
whom he was most specially devot- in my natural disposition frank,
ed, and the influence of the last- truthful, straightforward, and ear-
named author was so strong over nest, and therefore have had, and
him that he never wholly freed him- I doubt not shall carry to the grave
self from its detrimental effects. In with me, the reputation of being
many other ways the judgment of reckless, ultra, a well-meaning man,
Dr. Brownson was liable to bias perhaps an able man, but so fond
from prejudice, passion, and moods of paradoxes and extremes that he
of feeling. In his judgment of men, cannot be relied on, and is more
and also of books, he was hasty, likely to injure than serve the
partial, capricious, swayed by ac- cause he espouses."* To the last
cidental influences, and variable, statement we must, to a great ex-
It was the same in regard to theo- tent, demur. It is so far true,
ries, opinions, and doctrines which however, that it was extremely dif-
he regarded as open questions, ficult to act in concert with Dr.
Where his faith, his conscience, or Brownson, and impossible to count
his matured, deliberate reason with security upon his movements,
were firmly settled he was steady Like the lions described so vividly
and immovable. If he was thorough- by Jules Gerard, who would be
ly convinced that he had made a heard by him roaring in -the night
mistake or fallen into error, he at distant points within a circuit of
would retract. But his old habit of twenty miles, you could not foresee
roving all over the world of thought, from what quarter the thunder of
and the lack of the regular, con- his voice would be next heard, or
sistent intellectual and moral dis- calculate his range. Many Catho-
cipline of a systematic Catholic lies were alarmed at one time, lest
culture and education, made him he should stray beyond the boun-
restless of keeping steadily in one daries of the faith. He had even so
course of thought, fond of novelty, far lost the confidence of the hie-
and ready to adopt or abandon rarchy and the Catholic public, in the
ideas without due deliberation, year 1864, that he was unable to keep
This variability and want of steady up his Review. Complaints were
balance in his intellectual opera-
tions detracted very much from his * The Convert, p. 96

Dr. Brozvnson.

373

lodged against him before one of
the Roman tribunals, and the cele-
brated theologian Cardinal Fran-
zelin, then professor in the Roman
College, was deputed to examine his
writings. The result was that they
were not found worthy of censure,
and the case was dismissed with a
kind admonition to be guarded in
his language on one or two points,
conveyed through a well-known
priest and Roman doctor of New
York, who was at the same time di-
rected to console him in his afflic-
tions and encourage him to perse-
vere in his labors. Like Monta-
lembert, Lacordaire, De Broglie,
and many other illustrious Catholic
priests as well as laymen, and even
a few bishops, Dr. Brownson was
for a time dazzled by the specious
phantom of liberalism ; but he soon
freed himself from this illusion, and
no one has more thoroughly and
heartily defended the decisions of
the Council of the Vatican, and of
the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864,
than he has done, especially in the
last series of his Revieiv. He wa-
vered for a time respecting the ne-
cessity of an uncompromising de-
fence and maintenance of the tem-
poral princedom of the Sovereign
Pontiff, and an unfortunate expres-
sion to that effect even slipped in-
to THE CATHOLIC WORLD from his
pen through an oversight of the edi-
tor. But in this and every other
respect in which he had been led
astray for a time, he never failed in
a right intention ; and for all errors
into which he was misled he made
full and ample amends, even far be-
yond what could justly have been
expected.

In regard to some points of Cath-
olic doctrine he was rigoristic and
exaggerated, sometimes censuring
the most orthodox theologians as
lax in their interpretation of dog-

mas. A satisfactory and systematic
exposition of the complete theolo-
gy of the Catholic Church cannot,
therefore, be said to have been ac-
complished by Dr. Brownson. Nor,
indeed, can we award to him the
meed of success in constructing a sys-
tem of metaphysics. That lie made
valuable contributions both to theo-
logy and metaphysics we are very
glad to admit ; and, moreover, we as-
cribe his imperfect achievement, not
to the want of intellectual ability,
but to other causes which we have
sufficiently explained already. In
point of fact, the great scheme al-
ways before his mind of the synthe-
tic exposition of faith and science,
reason and revelation, dogma and
philosophy, was too vast even for
his capacious mind and gigantic
powers, without a preparation and
a possession of materials which he
did not and could not have at com-
mand. In our opinion, some parts
of this great work have been much
better done in our own time by
other men than by Dr. Brownson.
Whether any man will arise who
will accomplish the complete work
and produce another Summa Theo-
logies, we cannot say ; but such a
man, if he appears, will be a second
Angelic Doctor. On this head Dr.
Ward, in the Dublin Review, has al-
ready written so well that we need
not add anything more. He has also,
in the number for January, 1876,
while paying a most cordial and
generous tribute to the genius and
virtue of Dr. Brownson, pointed out
in very clear, explicit terms the great
defect in his method of metaphysi-
cal reasoning. This defect is trace-
able to the influence of Kant, and
found expression in his perpetual
criticism of the analytic method
of the schoolmen, and insistance
for the substitution of a synthetic
process beginning from an & priori

374

synthetic judgment. Dr. Brownson's category of excellence and perma-
great mistake lay in his attempting nent value. The quantity of lit-
to reconstruct philosophy and theo- erary labor accomplished by Dr.
logy from the foundation, instead Brownson was literally astounding,
of applying himself to learn both especially for our day. A great
from the traditional scholastic sys- part of that which he published dur-
tem, which needs to be reconstruct- ing his fifty years of active life was
ed and completed only where cer- necessarily ephemeral. But there
tain portions have been proved by might be selected from his extant
real scientific discoveries to be publications as a Catholic reviewer
weak or have been left unfinished, a mass considerable enough to fill
But we will not weary our readers several volumes of the best quality
with any further remarks on such of matter in the most excellent, ad-
abstruse topics. We have said mirable, and enduring form. Such
enough to indicate to those who are competent judges as Lord Brough-
familiar with them the grounds of am, Cardinal Wiseman, Mr. Web-
our judgment on certain portions ster, Mr. Ripley, and the editors of
of Dr. Brownson's writings, and the principal reviews in England,
for others the requisite explanation France, and Germany, have pro-
would occupy far more space than nounced the highest eulogiums upon
we are at liberty to appropriate. the masterpieces of Dr. Brownson's
While a considerable part of these pen, either in respect to the power
writings belonging to domestic con- of thought and beauty of style which
troversy will, in our opinion, be for- are their characteristics, or the in-
gotten except as literary curiosities, trinsic value of their argument as an
there are others which deserve to exposition or defence of great truths
remain as a portion of our staa- and principles. The terse logic of
dard Catholic literature, and to be Tertullian, the polemic crash of St.
studied while the English language Jerome, the sublime eloquence of
itself endures. We are disposed to Bossuet, are all to be found there
consider the various essays on sub- in combination or alternation, with
jects belonging to the department many sweet strains of tenderness
of political ethics as the most con- and playful flashes of humor. There
summate productions of the great are numerous passages in his writ-
publicist. His work entitled The ings not to be surpassed by the fin-
Great Republic is the most exten- est portions of the works of the
sive and complete of these essays, great masters of thought and style,
but there are numerous other single whether in the English or any other
pieces, making together a great col- language, inthe present or in any past
lection, to be found in various parts age. They render certain and im-
of his own Review and of this mag- mortal the just and hard-earned
azine. The articles on the contro- fame of their author, who labored
versy with Protestants and various not, however, at least not principal-
kinds of free-thinkers, those on tran- ly, for fame and honor, but for the
scendentalism, the autobiography en- love of truth, the welfare of man-
titled The Convert, and the whole kind, and the approbation of heaven,
series of articles contributed to THE Dr. Brownson is the most re-
CATHOLIC WORLD, with the ex- markable of all the converts to the
ception of a few of minor impor- Catholic Church in the United
tance, may be placed in the same States, and among the most remark-

Dr. Browns on. 375

able in the group of illustrious men errations, a progressive movement
who have paid homage to her au- in his eccentric orbit, a " method in
thority in the present age. His his madness," even in its utmost
conversion was a great event and extravagance, a careful perusal of
made an epoch. What the amount his autobiography will show. It
of good which has been and will be requires intelligence and patience,
effected by his works may be, it is however, to read that book. His
utterly impossible to estimate ; for intellect was one always quccrcn^
such things have no statistics, no causas altissimas. When he became
criterion of measurement, no data once convinced of the truth of the
for calculation. The weight of his Catholic religion, and surrendered
testimony and the conclusiveness his mind to the supernatural light
of his arguments have been slight- of faith, although his faith wasyfofo
ingly treated, and represented as queer ens intellectum, he never changed
not worthy to be considered, on the or wavered in his belief of the
plea that he was capricious, change- grand dogmas of Catholic Christian-
able, and possessed of a kind of ity. That such a mind and dispo-
marvellous art, a sort of intellectual sition as his could be firmly held
magic, by which he could persuade under the dominion of authority
himself, and make a plausible show with the full assent of the under-
of proving to others, that any theory, standing and the joyful submission
doctrine, or scheme which took his of the will, is no weak proof that
fancy was solid truth ; somewhat as the authority is divine which sub-
Kant attributes an illusory power dued so restive a spirit. Pegasus in
to nature, by which all sorts of par- the yoke with his wings tied was an
alogisms are made to seem equally unruly, troublesome steed; but when
true and real to reason, whereas they Apollo mounted on his back and
are only phenomenal forms. To a cut his cords, he was docile to his
great number of persons Dr. Brown- rein, while with all the joy of liberty
son was an intellectual phenomenon, he flew through the air, proud to
a sort of philosophical comet of the obey such a master.
most eccentric orbit, a prestidigita- Dr. Brownson's demonstration of
tor with magical formulas, a -Pros- the divine institution and authority
pero having a magic wand, a being of the church is unanswered and un-
such as the popular superstition of answerable. It is childish trifling,
old represented Albertus Magnus, unworthy of rational men, to ignore
That a mind which is searching for his arguments and escape from his
the truth which it does not possess, logic by petty criticisms on his per-
and after a supreme good which it son. Reason is objective and real ;
knows not except as an object of the subjective qualities of the rea-
vague longing, should wander, is soner have nothing to do with its
not strange. It is the principle of authority. Several years before Dr.
Protestantism, and of the rational- Brownson's conversion, the writer
istic, sceptical philosophy which it heard several of the professors of
has produced, to be always doubt- Princeton express their opinion that
ing, questioning; "ever seeking and he was the ablest and most danger-
never coming to the knowledge of ous antagonist of Christianity in this
the truth," unless by the substitution country. Like Saul of Tarsus, he
of another, higher principle. That was changed from an enemy- to a
there was a law in his mental ab- champion of the cause of Christ

376 Dr. Broivnson.

and his church. Though somewhat press and the lecture-hall, the pro-
sudden, his conversion was from fessors of atheistic materialism,
rational conviction and the' purest he is like Socrates among the so-
motives. It is impossible to de- phists. Detected swindlers, de-
prive it of its significance or deny faulters and robbers are despised
its importance. It is one of many and denounced, disgraced and pun-
instances proving that now, as ever, ished, if it is money and material
the Catholic Church has power to goods which they administer fraud-
win and master the strongest and ulently or appropriate unjustly,
most fearless minds, the most gen- They are the small cattle-thieves
erous and disinterested hearts. Dr. of Waverley, but the great lifters es-
Brownson was generous and disin- cape unpunished and are honored,
terested. He obeyed his conscience, Tyrants who rob their subjects of
devoted himself to truth and jus- their rights or neighboring states
tice, served God and his fellow- of their possessions ; defaulters to
men, without price, in poverty, and faith, conscience, and God, who
with a total neglect of popularity abuse their gifts and power to de-
and worldly honor, comfort, enjoy- bauch and degrade the minds of
ment, and every sort of earthly pomp their fellow-men; swindlers in the
and ostentation. In a. merely nat- priceless goods of the soul and
ural point of view he was like the eternity ; the prophets of falsehood
simple old men of the Greek and and licentiousness ; are enriched and
Roman heroic age, and the early applauded. Neglect, aversion, mar-
fathers of our degenerate common- tyrdom, are the portion of the gen-
wealth. His austere figure is an uine heroes, sages, patriots, lovers
example and a reproach to a frivo- and benefactors of the race ; and
lous, luxurious, sceptical, perfidious whatever homage they receive is
generation. What a contrast be- extorted, reluctant, scanty in pro-
tween his incorruptible integrity portion to their worth and merit,
and unpurchasable allegiance to Even when they are admired and
truth and right, to virtue and hon- praised, their teaching is not heed-
esty, to order and liberty, and the ed or their example followed by
venal trafficking of our so-called the fickle, frivolous crowd. Mor-
statesmen, who swindle soldiers ally, ^when not literally, exile
.and artisans, rob the country and and the cup of hemlock are
the poor, barter and trade in votes their portion. Those who liter-
and offices, renounce their faith for ally encounter death and receive
political preferment, bid for honors the palm of martrydom are the
by appeals to sectarian animosity, happiest and most favored among
sell the most sacred rights and in- them. But these are the men who
terests fojr their own selfish advan- redeem the race, and are the only
tage, flaunt in a vulgar magnifi- lasting glory of the age in which
cence which is maintained by theft, their task of labor and suffering is
and abscond to escape the pun- fulfilled. Among these crusaders
islmient due to their felonies ! Dr. Brownson enlisted when he
Amid this mean crowd he stands abandoned the camp of infidelity
out like Aristides among the dema- and revolution to receive the cross,
gogues of Athens ; and compared The corps d 'elite of Catholic laymen
with that other brood which has distinguished by their eminent su-
settled down on the domain of the periority and illustrious services to

The Ascension.

377

the church, in this century, is a
confraternity even more chivalrous
and honorable than the Order of
the Temple ' in its purest, bright-
est days. Gorres, O'Connell, De
Gerlache, Rossi, Lamoriciere, Mon-
talembert, Veuillot, Dechamps, Mar-
shall, Ward, Garcia Moreno, Mallin-
krodt these are names which rep-
resent a great battalion of more or
less renowned warriors in fhe sacred
cause of Christ, of his Vicar, of
true religion, science, civilization,
and man's eternal welfare. The
unshaken, loyal fidelity of Abdiel
among the innumerable hosts of re-
volted angels shines forth, not with
solitary lustre, but like the splendor
of the cohort seen in the vision re-
corded -in the Machabees : Peraera
equites discurrentes, auratas stolas
habentes, et aureorum splendor em
armorum. The Catholic laity of

the United States have furnished
one illustrious champion to this
band. He loved the church first
of all, and next his country. He
deserved well of both, for Christian
and civic virtues, sacrifices on the
altar of God and the battle-field
of the republic, wise and eloquent
pleadings for Catholic law in the
Christian commonwealth, and con-
stitutional right, freedom, and or-
der in the American state. We
trust that his instructions and ex-
ample will always be a light and an
encouragement, a glory and a mo-
del, to the Catholic laymen of the
United States, and especially to
the young men of education who
aspire to- intellectual culture and
feel the impulse to act valiantly
and usefully their part as citizens
of this republic and Christian gen-
tlemen.

THE ASCENSION.

Thou art gone up on high." Ps. Ixvii. 18.

GONE up ! But whither ? To a star ?

Some orb that seems a point of light ?
Or one too infinitely far

For our fond gaze beneath the night ?

Some fairer world, to which our own,
With all its vastness, is a grain ?

Is't there the God- Man sets His throne
Fit centre of a boundless reign?

378 The Ascension.

Let science coldly sweep away
A fancied Eden here and there

From out the starry space, and say
Tis all brute matter crude and bare

Or stern philosophy demand .

May not yon myriad orbs we ken
Be but a pinch of golden sand,

To stretch the narrow minds of men ?

Yet Faith makes answer, meekly bold
Narrow to me your widest lore

Without the blessed truth I hold
That God is man for evermore.

He came to wed our life to His :

As man was born, and died, and rose

And in His victor Flesh it is
Our hopes of Paradise repose.

He wore it through the sweet delay
That kept him with His dear ones yet;

Nor put it from Him on the day
He passed from topmost Olivet.

Then still He wears it in the skies
Matter in place. And when the cloud.

Received Him from the gazers' eyes
Before their brimming hearts allowed

That they had lost Him swift as thought,
He reached the bright Elysian home

His own primeval word had wrought
New Eden for the race to come.

The Wild Rose of St. Regis.

379

THE WILD ROSE OF ST. REGIS.

AN earnest consideration of the
" Indian question" must impress
every lover of our country with the
most serious conviction of its im-
portance and the fearful account-
ing which awaits us before the sol-
emn tribunal of the future, if we
follow the policy which has unhap-
pily been hitherto adopted in re-
lation to it.

Leaving out all thought of the
principles of eternal justice, and
consulting only the promotion of
our temporal interests, the course
we have pursued could not have
been more fatal if projected for the
sole purpose of defeat and ruin.

How much more wisely did
France deal with the aborigines
from the start than England !
With what untiring patience did her
colonial governments meet each suc-
cessive savage outbreak, subduing
the ferocious foe with weapons of
Christian forbearance and clemency !
They waged no war of retaliation
and extermination against these
;< children of larger growth," whom
they found roaming through the
forests of New France. They made
no treaties with them, as we have
done from the first, with the sole
purpose, as it would seem, of break-
ing them. In their traffic with the
Indians they forced no worthless
rubbish upon them at prices far ex-
ceeding the value of the very best,
and in exchange for their wares at
a rate much below the half of their
real worth. The dealings of tra-
ders with them were not only jeal-
ously watched and guarded by ev-
ery possible check to the greed for

gain, but a breach of justice and
equity in those dealings was sure to
meet its provided penalty.

France bequeathed to England
with the cession of her Canadian
provinces, in 1763, the wisest sys-
temwisest because based upon an
immutable foundation of Christian
equity which could have been
adopted in regard to her Indian
tribes ; and England, though not al-
ways so scrupulously watchful of
the transactions of her traders, was
sagacious enough to perceive its
wisdom and to uphold and con-
tinue it, in all its leading features,
throughout her American depen-
dencies.

Herein, as we apprehend, lies
the secret of her success in this
matter, which contrasts so striking-
ly with our miserable failure here-
in, and not, as has been assert-
ed, in any essential" difference be-
tween these aboriginal races ; for
the savage is, after all, much the
same through all his nations and
tribes, and has a vast amount of
human nature in his unsubdued bo-
som, which is as easily melted by
kindness as exasperated by cruelty
and oppression.

Circumstances recently brought
to our notice have served to con-
firm and illustrate convictions we
had long entertained on this subject,
and we have thought the relation of
them might not prove inappropriate
or without interest at this time.

In the autumn of 1874 we went
with a party of friends to the rail-
road depot at St. Albans, Vermont,
to take leave of a portion of our

3 So The Wild Rose of St. Regis.

number who were about to depart Our amazement was not diminished

for Florida to pass the winter, when we heard our friend reply in

While we were awaiting the arrival the same tone and language,

of the train from the north our no- Before we could express our sur-

tice was attracted by a group of In- prise the train arrived. The bustle

dian children who passed among of departure and last words were

the crowd assembled there, in quest hardly over when we found that

of purchasers for their toilet articles the Indian party had also gone on

and Indian knick-knacks. to Burlington in the same train.

An old lady of our party whose Upon our return home we beset
father left Vermont with his family our visitor with questions as to this
early in this century, when she was singular interview and the warm
very young, to settle in northwestern affection which seemed to exist be-
New York, and who was now visit- tween her and the old squaw,
ing the home and friends of her " I became acquainted with her,
childhood for the first time seemed for a brief space, long ago, when I
to take a particular interest in these was a little child,'" she replied, " and,
children. Calling a little girl to her, though I have never seen her since,
she asked what place they were incidents occurred some years later
from. " From St. Regis," was the which revived my recollections of
reply. " And did you ever hear of her and fixed them in my memory."
Margaret La Lune ?" she asked. When we insisted upon hearing
" She is our grandmother," they all about it, she related the follow-
answered, " and is in this village ing story of

now.'

At that moment a very old squaw, THE W1LD ROSE OF ST> REGIS<
dressed in a remarkably neat Indian

costume, with a blanket of snowy When my father removed in 1815

whiteness thrown loosely around to the new settlement at Rossie, on

her aged form, entered the room, the western confines of St. Law-

To our astonishment, our friend no rence County, N. Y., the forests

sooner saw her than she ran to her covering the territory lying on Black

with open arms, embraced her, and Lake, and the borders of the Indian

kissed each of her wrinkled and River which empties into that lake

swarthy cheeks ! a few miles below Rossie had

This sudden demonstration was scarcely yet been disturbed by the

evidently no surprise to the Indian axe of the settler. Hordes of wild

woman ; for when, after a moment beasts held almost undisputed sway

of silence, our friend asked, " Why, over regions now occupied by culti-

Margaret ! how does it happen that vated farms and smiling villages,
you remember me after so many A place of more weird and sav-

years?" she simply replied: "My age aspect than Rossie presented,

daughter should know that our situated on both sides of that dark

people never forget !" finishing the stream, can hardly be conceived,

sentence with some expressions in Rich beds of iron ore of a superior

her own language which fell upon quality abounding among its rug-

our ears more like vibrations pro- ged hills, and extensive lead-mines,

duced by the wind passing over the furnished material for the operation

chords of some musical instrument, of numerous furnaces, which, with

than like any articulate utterance, the necessary habitations for their

Tin Wild Rose of St. Regts.

381

operatives, formed the little village.
The largest Indian encampment in
the county was also pitched upon
its border, a short distance down
the river.

The young squaws of the encamp-
ment mingled with the little girls
of the settlement, and often became
strongly attached to them. I was
fascinated from the first with the
manner of life in a wigwam, and
soon became a special favorite with
the Indian women. They frequent-
ly persuaded my mother to let me
pass day after day in their wigwams,
wh.ere I was carefully guarded and
taught many of the simple arts in
which they excel, and, as an unusual
mark of their high regard, instruct-
ed in some of the secrets of those
arts such as the process for dyeing
the quills of the porcupine with
brilliant, unfading colors of every
hue, in which they are so skilful ;
the mode of embroidering with
them ; the use of the moose-hair in
such embroidery, and the manner
of preparing it. I entered upon
these pursuits with enthusiastic ar-
dor and diligence, acquiring also
as a necessary consequence of this
intercourse and training with the
facility of a youthful tongue, a suffi-
cient knowledge of their language
to communicate readily with them
on all ordinary matters.

My mother was so fully engrossed
with cares attendant upon the man-
agement of a large household, re-
quired in my father's extensive
business, that she had little time to
devote to me beyond assuring her-
self of my safety. I recall with
vivid distinctness, after the lapse
of so many years, the startled sur-
prise, not to say horror, with which
she met my triumphant exhibition
of a superb pair of moccasins for
herself, lined with the soft, snow-
white fur of the weasel, the work of

my own hands. I had dressed and
dyed the skins of which they were
made, colored the brilliant quills and
moose-hair profusely wrought into
them, and finally cut, stitched, and
embroidered them, under the direc-
tion of a pious old squaw who always
watched over me during my visits
to the wigwams.

My mother examined them in
great surprise, her countenance ex-
pressing mingled pride and pity as
she exclaimed : " Poor child ! we
must send you away somewhere to
school ; for I am afraid you will be-
come a thorough little squaw if we
keep you in this wild place among
such savage companions."

I felt deeply wounded by the want
of respect for my dear friends which
her remarks implied, and insisted
warmly that the squaws were better,
more gentle, and a great deal more
pious than the civilized women of
the place ; that they were never
guilty of backbiting or quarrelling
among themselves ; never raised
their voices above the soft tones of
their ordinary conversation, but liv-
ed in peace and harmony, saying
their prayers devoutly morning and
night, and requiring their children to
do the same. I enumerated eagerly
all the good qualities for which I
admired them, to which she cor-
dially assented, but insisted, never-
theless, that, as I was destined to
live among civilized people, it was
not desirable for me to acquire
the habits and tastes of these chil-
dren of the wilderness.

One morning not long after this
occurrence, as I was playing with
the Indian children near an unten-
anted house on the bank of the river,
they told me in their own language
that we must not make much noise ;
" for there was a fading flower in
that house, and the medicine-wo-
men feared it had been chilled

The Wild Rose of St. Regis.

by the breath of the destroyer." I
understood their meaning and ask-
ed one of them to go in with me to
see the young invalid.

When we entered, an elderly
squaw, the fine texture and snowy
whiteness of whose blanket marked
her as one of the best of her race,
was bending over the slight form of
a beautiful young girl who was lying
on a bed of hemlock boughs which
had been prepared in one corner of
the room, and wrapping a blanket
around her, while she lavished upon
her those tender epithets and pet
names with which the Indian dia-
lects abound.' As she turned and
saw me, she said : " See, here is the
little pale-face of whom Loiska told
us, come to see my Rose of the
woods ! Will not the sweet flower
lift its head to the sunshine of the
pale-face ?"

The maiden smiled and extended
her wasted hand to take mine. I
shuddered at its clammy coldness.

" See, dear mother," she said plain-
tively, " the White Lily shrinks from
the touch of the dews that lie up-
on your Rose ! You must not be
false to yourself or to me ; for it is
an angel who whispers to the little
one that these are the dews of
death. Your best skill cannot stay
them, and they will cease only at
the call of the great messenger, who
will remove your flower to the gar-
den of that ' Mystical Rose ' whose
fragrance we love so well."

" Oh ! let not my blossom say so.
The journey was long and the bed
was hard. The rays ofthe sun upon
the water were too strong for our
tender bud, and it wilted, but will
soon revive in these pleasant shades.
The pale-face will procure from her
mother, who is passing kind to our
people, strengthening food and re-
freshment for the Wild Rose !"

"Yes! yes!" I cried, "she will-

and we will not let it droop. I will
go directly to my mother, and I
know she will help you !"

I was thrilled by their look of
grateful surprise when they found I
could understand their language,
and their softly-ejaculated benedic-
tions followed me as I bounded
away in quest of my mother. I
found her busily engaged in house-
hold matters, and, seizing her with
irresistible energy, literally dragged
her into the presence of my new
friends, telling her what I knew of
them by the way.

When we arrived she inquired ten-
derly as to the symptoms ofthe love-
ly invalid. Finding they had come
from St. Regis by water, and had
brought her on a -bed of boughs in
their canoe to Ogdensburg, thence
up the Oswegatchie to Black Lake,
and thus far up the Indian River,
she also was of the opinion that the
frail child was exhausted by fatigue,
and that rest would revive her.

They had undertaken the journey
in the hope that a change would be
a benefit to her health. Her father
came with them and was at the
camp, but the mother preferred a
place where her charge could be
better sheltered than in a wigwam.

My mother went home, and, gath-
ering comfortable furniture for their
room, despatched a man with it ;
then, preparing some hot wine ne-
gus with toasted crackers, she sent
them by me to refresh the sufferer
while some nourishing broth could
be made ready.

From that time I forsook the
wigwams and devoted myself to
my Wild Rose; who became so fond
of me that she could scarcely con-
sent' to my leaving her for the
nights. Each morning found -me
at her bedside before sunrise, with
. my own breakfast as well as hers,
-that we might partake of it together,

The Wild Rose of St. Regis.

383

and with a profusion of fresh flow-
ers from the abundance of my mo-
ther's flower-garden wherewith to
adorn her room The Indian chil-
dren had helped me to festoon it
with wreaths of ground pine and
boughs, until it was an evergreen
bower in. which we took great satis-
faction.

My mother gathered from her
her little history. She had been
betrothed to a young son of their
chief, and they were to have been
married the previous fall. The
time for the nuptials had been ap-
pointed and her bridal dress pre-
pared. The young man was sent
by his father on some business to
Montreal a few days before the
time thus appointed. On the way
his canoe was drawn suddenly into
a whirlpool in the rapids, dashed
to fragments upon the rocks, and
he perished. The shock of this
terrible calamity was fatal to her
health, which had never been ro-
bust. From that moment she droop-
ed, and, though quite calm, even
cheerful, had been gradually wast-
ing and sinking. They improved
the first mild days of spring to try
the effect of a change of air and
scene, after she had received the
last sacraments from their priest in
preparation for the worst.

For a few weeks she seemed to
revive, and even walked with me
once as far as my own home. Her
appetite improved, and she relished
all that my mother's care provided
for her food.

As I remember her at this distant
day, I know she must have been a
being of superior beauty and love-
liness ; but there was nothing about
her which so fascinated and impress-
ed my young heart as the spirit of
piety that governed all her words
and actions, and seemed to flow
from the depths of her pure soul

like transparent waters from a foun-
tain, refreshing every one who came
within their influence. .

One warm evening in the early
summer we sat together for a long
time in silence and alone, watching
a beautiful sunset over the wild
" Rossie Hills," when her soft voice
breathed in her own musical lan-
guage expressions which subse-
quent events fixed indelibly in my
memory.

" My sweet Lily," she said, " will
often uplift her pale face to the
smiles of the glorious sunset when
the Rose, who loved to bask with
her in their golden gleam, will be
blooming in gardens which need
them not; for the ' Sun of Righteous-
ness ' will be their light, and will* fill
them with glories unknown to earthly
bowers, and his Blessed Virgin Mo-
ther will smile upon them. But the
incense of prayer, like the breath
of its own perfume, will ever float
from the Rose to the throne of the
Eternal that her Lily may be trans-
planted at last to a place by her
side in that happy home where
sighing, and parting, and sorrow
shall cease for ever ! Oh ! will she
not strive for admittance to the
garden of our Lord", here, that she
may rejoice in the light of his coun-
tenance hereafter ?"

In a voice broken by my sobs I
promised all she asked, and I doubt
not her prayers helped me long
afterwards in obtaining the grace to
fulfil the promise.

The next morning I found her
much exhausted, and that she had
passed a restless night. Her mo-
ther raised her in her arms while
she took the broth I brought for
her breakfast, of which she was very
fond. She seemed weary, and, as
her mother lowered her gently to
the pillow, she suddenly lifted her
eyes to heaven, while a smile of ce-

384 The Wild Rose of St. Regis.

lestial rapture stole over her beau- affection which she had been wont

tiful face, and exclaimed, " Pray for to pour into the ears now closed

me, my own mother ; for, behold ! for ever, and uttering fervent pray-

the bright angel is spreading his ers to heaven that its choicest dews

wings to bear your Rose to the pre- might descend upon the Lily which

sence of her Redeemer !" and was had cheered the last hours of her

gone. The Indian mother and my- sweet Rose.

self were alone with the lifeless I was inconsolable, and told her

form of our beloved one. vehemently that, since Heaven had

The change, the shock, was so taken the Rose, the Lily would go

sudden and unlocked for that I too, and that it would never lift up

stood horror-struck and paralyzed, its head again ; and, indeed, my

for the first time, before the dread grief was so violent as to injure my

messenger who had stolen the breath health, and I was soon sent away

of my sweet Rose. The whole to new scenes.

scene was so incomprehensible to My mother assisted in preparing

mo that I could not believe the the frail form of the Indian maiden

tones of her dear voice were hushed for the grave. Her mother had

for ever, but persuaded myself that brought with her the bridal dress

she had only fallen asleep. of her child, and in that they ar-

Amazed, I watched the poor mo- rayed the beautiful departed for
ther as she calmly recited the pray- the bridal of death. Then, enfold-
ers for the departing spirit over her ing her in a linen sheet, they wrap-
child for some time, the only out- ped her blanket about her and gen-
ward sign of her anguish being the tly laid her down upon the bed of
tears which flowed in torrents down boughs her father had prepared in
her cheeks, while every line of her the canoe for\ her removal to the
wan features expressed unquestion- graves of their kindred at St. Regis,
ing resignation to the will of Him Then followed the sad leave-taking
who had given and taken her trea- and the departure,
sure. The dismal forests which clothed

The prayers concluded, she ten- each margin of the Indian River

derly closed the dear eyes, adjusted seemed to bend over that sombre

the slender form, folded the deli- stream in reverential sympathy as

cate hands over a crucifix on her the Indian father and mother, with

breast, and entwined the beads, their faded Rose, floated silently

which had so seldom been laid aside down its dark waters and out of

by them in life, closely around them our sight for ever !
in death. When she sat down at

length, and, opening her blanket, Some years had elapsed since

extended her arms towards me, the this event, and during the interval

first glimpse of the dread reality misfortunes had overwhelmed our

burst upon me in a flood of crush- family. At the very time of severe

ing agony, and, springing to the reverses in his business my father

open arms which drew me in a was taken with a malignant fever

close embrace to her bosom, I wept and died. My mother, my young

aloud in a paroxysm of frantic, un- brother, and myself were thus left

controllable grief. She fondly sooth- in desolate affliction to battle with

ed and caressed me, bestowing up- adversity as best we might. Our

on me those expressions of tender pleasant home was surrendered to

The Wild Rose of St. Regis.

385

creditors, and we sought the forests
of Upper ^Canada, whither a family
tvho had long been tenants on our
farm had gone several years before.
They had taken up a tract of land
under a government grant to set-
tlers, and, when they heard of our
great calamity, wrote, urging us to
do the same, as they could render
great assistance to us if we were
near them.

The land we took was covered
with very valuable timber, and the
first object was to get a portion of
it to the Quebec market, that its
avails might pay for clearing the
land and preparing our new home.

My brother hitherto the pet of
the family, and in danger of being
the spoiled child of fortune set
about the task with an energy that
surprised every one. He was great-
ly beloved by the Indian hunters,
who knew my father and had re-
ceived many favors from him in the
days of our prosperity. They as-
sisted us in our removal, and re-
mained to help and encourage my
brother in the lumbering business,
so new to him, under the direction
'* Captain Tom," an old Indian
who was very skilful in such ope-
rations. We removed late in the
fall, taking with us a supply of pro-
visions more than sufficient for the
winter, and but little else of worldly
gear.

When the spring opened, thanks
to our kind neighbors with their
oxen, and the good Indians, a
quantity of lumber of various kinds
had been drawn to the river bank,
.1 as soon as the ice went out
put it into rafts for transpor-
tation. These were constructed in
c-parate sections, each with its rude
ittle caboose to shelter the two men
> r ho went with it. The sections were
then firmly united in one long raft
by means of strong withes, in such

voi. xxin. 25

a manner that they could be readily
detached by cutting the withes, if
necessary, in making the dangerous
descent of the rapids above Mon-
treal.

A few days before they set out
a vicious, drunken Indian called
* Malfait," who had been loitering
around all winter, quarrelling with
the men and giving no assistance,
applied to Captain Tom for whis-
key and for permission to go down
on the rafts, both which requests
were refused. He went away mut-
tering threats, and the old Indian
feared he was meditating mischief.

My brother wished to go with
Captain Tom on the forward sec-
tion, as was the custom for the one
who conducted the navigation. We
gave a very reluctant consent, and
our parting with him was saddened
by many misgivings.

They proceeded prosperously on
their voyage as far as the " Long
Sault," so called, the first danger-
ous rapid, the chief difficulty in pass-
ing which, for experienced naviga-
tors, was to avoid being drawn, by
an almost irresistible current at one
point, into a furious maelstrom call-
ed the " Lost Channel," from which
few had ever escaped who once en-
tered it.

They reached the head of the
Long Sault late in the afternoon,
and anchored there for the night,
with the roar of the tumbling wa-
ters in their ears. The moon was
shining brightly, and they betook
themselves to rest early, that they
might start betimes in the morning.
Very late in the night my brother
was awakened from a sound sleep
by the old Indian, who laid his
hand heavily upon him and told
him to keep very calm and not to
struggle or make the least effort to
shield himself. " For," said he, " we
are entering the Lost Channel ; our

386 The Wild Rose of St. Regis.

part of the raft has been cut loose, appeared, and they did not know

I have bound you firmly to the in what direction. When her son

same stick of timber to which I am told her the circumstance and their

now binding myself. We can only suspicions for the bad character

leave ourselves in the hands of the of Malfait was well known, and

Great Spirit ; for no other arm can they had heard that Captain Tdm

help us." was coming down with rafts she

My brother was paralyzed with set out at once with men and ca-

terror as the maddened waters noes up Lake St. Louis to the foot

seized the raft as if it had been of the rapids, to give aid if it should

a child's plaything, tore the heavy be needed.

timbers apart, and bent and shiv- They discovered the timber to
ered many of them like saplings, which my brother and his faithful
The one to which he and the In- friend were lashed, and, releasing
dian were attached was often up- them, brought their insensible forms
lifted, by the force of the raging as speedily as possible to her lodge
torrent, its full length, to be thrown on the shore of that lake, with very
violently down and swallowed in little hope that they would ever
the depths of the foaming flood, revive. The old Indian, however,
The shock of these concussions soon began to show signs of life,
soon benumbed his faculties, and and, when he was able, recounted
his last conscious act was to re- what had happened. He had no
commend his soul to the mercy of doubt that Malfait came in the
God, before whose awful tribunal night, detached the raft, and steer-
he supposed he was about to ap- ed it into the rapids to satisfy his
pear. malice against him.

When he began to recover his As soon as he was strong enough
senses, it \vas like waking from to go, her son went with him down
some frightful dream. He was the river to look after the remain-
too much bewildered to realize der of the raft, leaving his young
for some time that he was in a friend in good hands, though still
comfortable Indian lodge, with a unconscious of the tender care he
kind old squaw in attendance up- was receiving.

on him. She would not allow him They found the rafts in Lake St.

to ask any questions or agitate Peter below Montreal, and her son

himself, assuring him that all was returned. She then sent him with

well, and he should know the whole some others to gather the timber of

at a proper time. As soon as he the wrecked raft. They collected

was able to hear it she gave him all that could be found on the shore

the history. of the lake, to be taken when the

On the day before their arrival at rafts should come down next year,
the Long Sault her son, with a " And now, my son," she contin-
party of Indian hunters who had ued, when she had brought the nar-
been up the St. Lawrence and were rative to this point, " I am known
returning to St. Regis, had fallen here as Margaret La Lime, but to
in with Malfait, and, from inquiries your mother and sister as the mo-
made by him, suspected that he was ther of the Wild Rose of St. Regis,
watching, with no good purpose, for You may have heard them speak
rafts that he expected would come of her, though you were too young
down the river He suddenly dis- at the time of their acquaintance

The Wild Rose of St. Regis. 387

to know about it yourself. It was member your father. He good to

to her care the Great Spirit com- his Indian brothers."
mitted you in your extremity, that You may well imagine our sur-

she might be allowed to make some prise and gratitude when we heard

return for their kindness to her and from my brother's own lips the story

her sweet child, which she has never of all that had befallen him, and of

forgotten, and has ever since en- the devotion of our excellent Mar-

deavored to repay by giving all the garet. She was absent when he

help in her power to navigators on went down the next year for the

these perilous waters. It was in last time, and he did not see her.
one of these attempts that my Our affairs prospered beyond our

husband lost his life some years expectation. We brought willing

ago. Great was my joy when I hands and courageous hearts to the

learned from your Indian friend strife with adverse fortunes, and, by

that I had rescued one so dear to the blessing of God upon our ef-

them from a grave in the rushing forts, did not fail in time to retrieve

flood." them. My mother died a few years

My brother remained with her after my marriage with a son of

until the return of Captain Tom. our former tenant, whose sister my

He delivered the lumber to the mer- brother afterwards married. She

chant in Quebec to whom it was divided her time between the two

consigned who had long known homes, tenderly beloved and cared

the sterling qualities of the faithful for by her children and grandchil-

old Indian and informed him of dren, and honored by all who knew

the situation in which he left his her.

young employer. The merchant You now understand the reason for

advanced money to him to pay off my great surprise and affectionate

the men and to bear his own and meeting with Margaret at the depot,

my brother's expenses home, send- which must have seemed strange in-

ing by him a statement of the bal- deed to the witnesses. In our short

ance left and subject to my bro- chat I promised to go to pass some

ther's order. The money for their time with her upon my return home,

expenses was all that Captain Tom and am not without hope that I shall

or his Indians could ever be per- persuade her to go with me to see

suaded to accept for their valuable the children and grandchildren who

services at that time and in after- have often heard of her and of the

years. Their only reply to my fidelity with which her people trea-

brother's persuasions was, " We re- sure uo the memory of kind acts.

388

Hammond on the Nervous System.

HAMMOND ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.*

THE wonderful relativity of psy-
chology to the purely somatic phe-
nomena comprised under the term
physiology, while not having alto-
gether escaped the observation of
earlier thinkers, did not assume the
significance it now possesses till
modern science compelled mere
psychicists to recognize the. inval-
uable services this new handmai-
den bestowed on their favorite pur-
suit. It had been too much the
vogue to frown down attempts at
chemical explanations of vital pro-
cesses as verging towards material-
ism, and thus materialism was in
reality strengthened, since the op-
ponents of modern physiology had
shut their eyes to facts as stubborn
and undeniable as the soul itself
whose cause they were champion-
ing. This antagonism was un-
fortunate ; for, though of short
duration, it gave rise to the impres-
sion in the popular mind that the
old science dreaded the new light,
and that recent discoveries tended
rapidly to overthrow the time-hon-
ored belief in the distinct substanti-
ality of the soul. To this same ar-
rogant rejection by pedantic ortho-
doxists of facts that seemingly
conflicted with accepted views, may
be ascribed the sneering and tri-
umphant manner of many scientists
who fail to take account of the
slowness with which men reconcile
themselves to truths not hitherto

* A Treatise on the Diseases of the Nervous
System. By William A. Hammond, M.D., Profes-
sor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System in
the Medical Department of the University of the
City of New York, etc. New York: D. Appleton
& Co. 1876.

suspected. Had, however, the data
of modern science been at first ful-
ly considered, it would have become
evident that theories and assump-
tions alone ran counter to the doc-
trine of a spiritual soul, and that
scientific facts, startling and nume-
rous as they were, did not, when
viewed by the light of a just inter-
pretation, conflict with any prior
truth. The hasty and groundless
character of the assumptions which
tend to materialism may be infer-
red from the claim not long since
put forward in the Ecole de Medecine
at Paris, to the effect that the sci-
ence of physiology demands in ad-
vance the rejection of any principle
of activity in man not amenable
to its methods and instruments of
research, on the ground that man in
his totality is the true objective point
of this science, and the admission
of aught in him which it cannot
determine is equivalent to stating
that man is more than he is. Ac-
cording to this authority, therefore,
the notion of a soul, viewe.d as a
spiritual substance, distinct and dif-
ferent from the body, hampers sci-
ence and circumscribes the field
of its inquiry. But if the vast
strides made by physiology within
the last decade have been the oc-
casion of some pernicious specula-
tion, and have seemed to give coun-
tenance to materialism, this has
been the case only when the science
transcended its own data and soar-
ed into the region of conjecture.
Its legitimate fruits are manifest in
the flood of light it has thrown on
the most intricate questions of psy-

Hammond on the Nervous System.

389

chology, and the elucidation of points
which, but for it, would have re-
mained for ever in obscurity. In-
deed, it may be said to have created
a new branch of psychical science,
and to have brushed away many
cobwebs that clouded the psycho-
logy of the schools. The volume
before us represents the latest
expression of the physiology and
pathology of the nervous system,
and is characterized by unusual
closeness of observation and accu-
racy of expression, while evincing a
proneness to theorize on points con-
cerning which the author is least
at home. Dr. Hammond has been
a close student at the bedside and
an indefatigable worker with those
instruments of research which have
almost built up his science, but for
all an indifferent thinker, as we
shall shortly endeavor to prove. It
is true that no authority is more
frequently invoked, and with good
reason, to determine questions rela-
tive to mental aberration and unusu-
al conditions of the nervous system ;
but when he abandons the ophthal-
moscope, the cephalohcemometer,
the cesthesiometer, and assumes the
abolla of the philosopher, he evident-
ly misses his r6le. He is undoubt-
edly a physiologist of the first rank
and a respectable authority on mi-
nute nervous histology, but as a
theorist he is a failure. Accustomed
to dogmatize on facts coming with-
in the scope of the senses, he ap-
plies the same procrustean rule of
reasoning to purely intellectual pro-
cesses, and speedily flounders in a
quagmire. His mind has tipped
the balance in the direction of ma-
terial things, and has not been able
to regain its equilibrium.

As a repertory of interesting facts,
gleaned in the course of a long and
varied experience, his book is in-
valuable. It bristles with informa-

tion and is replete with comments
which prove Dr. Hammond to be
an accurate, close, and painstaking
observer, as well as an accomplish-
ed anatomist. His chapter on
Aphasia is intensely interesting, and
constitutes a valuable contribution
to the theory of localized function.
Aphasia is that inability to use lan-
guage which proceeds, not from pa-
ralysis of the labial muscles, nor
from hysteria, nor from injury of
the vocal chords (aphonia), but
from a lesion of that portion of the
brain which presides over the me-
mory of words and the co-ordina-
tion of speech. Many instances are
adduced in proof that this inability
results from the impairment of a
given portion of the cerebral sub-
stance ; and from the constant re-
currence of the same effects from
the same lesion the inference is
drawn that a very restricted portion
of the brain is concerned in con-
necting thoughts with words, co-
ordinating these, and arranging them
in articulate sounds. Authorities,
indeed, are not agreed as to what
special brain lobe this faculty is to
be ascribed, but the fact is borne
out by unquestionable evidence that
some portion of the anterior convo-
lutions controls and regulates the
power of speech. The point of in-
terest is that the function is local-
ized and depends on the minute
physical texture of the nerve sub-
stance through which it is carried
on. Dr. Hammond justly claims
the credit of having first observed
that the form of aphasia called
amnesic (forgetfulness of words)
depends on some lesion of the vesi-
cular or gray matter of the brain,
since it is unaccompanied by para-
lysis, while the form called ataxic
(inability to co-ordinate articulate
sounds) is connected with \hecorpus
striatum which presides over mo-

390

Hammond on the Nervous System.

tion, and so we find this latter form
always associated with paralysis.

No summary of this chapter can
do it justice, so pregnant is it with
facts and abounding with varied
suggestion. We would remark, how-
ever, that Dr. Hammond has failed
to call attention to the remarkable
confirmation which the condition of
amnesic aphasia offers in support
of the inseparable connection be-
tween thought and some symbol of
expression a circumstance which
Trousseau, in his learned work on
Clinical Medicine, has noted at
length. Trousseau says : " A great
thinker as well as a great mathe-
matician cannot devote himself to
transcendental speculations unless
he uses formulae and a thousand
material accessories which aid his
mind, relieve his memory, and im-
part greater strength to thought by
givingit greater precision. Now, an
aphasic individual suffers from ver-
bal amnesia so that he has lost the
formulae of thought." This fact
of aphasia curiously coincides with
Vicomte de Bonald's theory of the
divine origin of language, which is
based on the supposed impossibility
of having a purely intellectual con-
ception without an accompanying
formula or word -to circumscribe
and differentiate it, and that accord-
ingly language, in such relation,
must have .been communicated.

It is likewise corroborative of the
view taken by Max Miiller, who
says {Science of Language, 79) :
" Without speech, no reason ; with-
out reason, no speech." And again :
' I therefore declare my conviction,
whether right or wrong, as explicitly
as possible, that thought, in one
sense of the word i.e., in the sense
of reasoning is impossible without
language."

The latest disclosure of science,
therefore, so far from conflicting on

this important point with the phi-
losophy of the Scholastics, endorses
and sustains it, and is opposed
rather to the rationalist view of the
question.

It is in the chapter on Insanity
that Dr. Hammond first betrays the
crudeness and shallowness of his
philosophy. On page 310 he says :
' By mind we understand a force
developed by nervous action, and
especially the action of the brain."
And again : " The brain is the chief
organ from which the force called
mind is evolved."

In this definition the author is
guilty of having used a term more
obscure and ambiguous than the
definiendum itself; for no two scien-
tific men agree in their view offeree.
Dr. Mayer, of Heilbronn, says :
' The term force conveys the idea
of something unknown and hypo-
thetical." " Forces are indestructi-
ble, convertible, and imponderable
objects." Dr. Bray, in his Anthropo-
logy, says : "Force is everything ; it is
a noumenal integer phenomenally
differentiated into the glittering
universe of things." Faraday says :
' What I mean by the term force is
the cause of a physical action," and
elsewhere, "Matter is force." Dr.
Bastian, on Force and Matter,
declares force to be "a mode of
motion." Herbert Spencer says of
it : " Force, as we know it, can be
regarded only as a conditioned ef-
fect of the unconditioned cause, as
the relative reality, indicating to us
an absolute reality by which it is
immediately produced." Another
writer (Grove) calls forces the : ' af-
fections of matter." Now, the word
mind conveys, even to the most
illiterate, a precise and definite no-
tion. Every one knows that it is
the principle within him which
thinks and underlies all intellectual
processes ; but when Dr. Hammond

Hammond on the Nervous System. 391

informs him that it is a " force," as Dr. Hammond uses it, implies a
and he finds that a bewildering con- far graver mistake, and ajl but stul-
fusion of opinions, expressed in the tifies its author. Either mind is a
obscurest terms, prevails concern- force (and be it remembered the
ing the nature and essence of author has not enlightened us as to
" force/* he finds that he has de- the sense in which we ought to un-
rived " Fumuni ex fulgore." Even derstand the term), having a spe-
the term " evolves " is unfortunate ; cial function to perform, from which,
for the word occurs in a great va- and from its mode of performance,
riety of connections. If force is an its character is inferred, in which
entity, it cannot be evolved ; it is case it is a simple force, no mattei
produced. Of thought, indeed, it how great may be the number and
might be said that it is evolved variety of the objects on which it is
from the mind, since it represents expended ; or, it is a combination
the latter in a state of active opera- of forces, each proceeding from its
tion, and has no separate entity of proper source or principium, and
its own; but mind, being known to each directed to its proper object-
us as something in all respects dis- term or class of object-terms, in
tinctand diverse from matter, cannot, which case it is not one force mere-
except by a lapse into the grossest ly, however much Dr. Hammond
materialism, be said to be evolved may insist upon calling it compound,
from the brain. Had Dr. Hammond but a series of forces, each possessed
present to his mind a definite idea of a distinct entity and an indivi-
when he penned the word, he might dual identity. The doctor evident-
have easily found a clearer substi- ly did not study the scope and im-
tute. Carl Vogt knew well what port of the word when he thus
meaning he intended to convey loosely employed it,- else he would
when he said : ; Just as the liver have perceived that whatever is
secretes bile, so the brain secretes compound is some one and the
thought." There is candor, at least, same thing made up of parts, and
in this statement, and none of that not a collection of individuals,
shuffling timorousness which shame- We will now see in what manner
facedly glozes materialism in the he distributes and assigns to duty
formula : " Mind is a force evolved the sub-forces comprised under the
from the brain." general term " compound force."
Having satisfied himself that there For aught we know, Dr. Hammond
can be no question as to the accu- may have once been familiar with
racy of this definition, our author the researches of Stewart, Reid,
places mind in contrast with " forces Brown, and Hamilton, not to men-
in general " by designating it a com- tion Locke, Descartes, Leibnitz,
pound force. What he means by and Malebranche ; but he certainly
'' forces in general ' it is hard to labored under some form of am-
say ; for if mind is a force, it pos- nesia when he devised the follow-
sesses the generic properties which ing scheme of psychology : He
ally it with other forces, and must declares that the sub-forces into
therefore be one of the " forces in which the compound force called
general," since that is a veritable mind is divisible are fourfold, viz. :
condition of its being a force at all. perception, intellect, emotion, and
But this is a minor error. The will. He defines perception to be
expression " compound force," used " that part of the mind whose office-

392

Hammond on the Nervous System.

it is to placfe the individual in rela-
tion with external objects." This
definition supposes that the whole
mind is not concerned in the act of
perception, but that, while one part
of it is quiescent, another may be
engaged in perceiving. This view
of perception has the questionable
merit of originality, differing as it
does from the definition given by
every author from Aristotle to Mill,
who all regard perception as an act
of the mind, and the faculty of per-
ceiving nothing else than the mind
itself viewed with reference to its
perceptive ability. Further on he
says : " For the evolution of this
force [viz., part of the mind] the
brain is in intimate relation with
certain special organs, which serve
the purpose of receiving impres-
sions of objects. Thus an image is
formed upon the retina, and the
optic nerve transmits the excitation
to its ganglion or part of the brain.
This at once functionates \_Anglice,
acts. C. W.], the force called per-
ception is evolved, and the image is
perceived."

We have quoted this passage at
some length, not only for the pur-
pose of exhibiting Dr. Hammond's
theory of perception, but to show
how admirably the argot of science
serves to hide all meaning and to
leave the reader dazed and disap-
pointed. No one yet, till Dr. Ham-
mond's appearance on the psycho-
logical stage, ventured to call a
mere impression on an organ of
sense perception ; indeed, the whole
difficulty consists in explaining
how the mind is placed in relation
with this image. It was with a view
to elucidate this much-vexed mat-
ter that the peripatetics invented
their system concerning the origin
of ideas. It is all plain sailing till
the image or phantasm in the sensi-
tive faculty is reached ; so that at

the point where the Scholastics com-
menced their subtle and elaborate
system Dr. Hammond complacent-
ly dismisses the question by saying :
" And the image is perceived." What
need we trouble ourselves about
general concepts, reflex universal
ideas, intelligible species, the act-
ing and the possible intellect, when
there is so easy a mode of emer-
gence from the difficulty as Dr.
Hammond suggests ? No doubt he
would, like hundreds of others who
do not understand Suarez or St.
Thomas, regard the writings of these
doctors on this subject as a tissue
of jargon, overloading and obscur-
ing a question which is so plain
that it needs but to be enunciated
in order to be understood. Then
the long and warm conflicts which
have torn the camp of philosophy,
and separated her votaries into op-
posite schools, would all be happily
ended ; it would suffice to say :
" Gentlemen, your toilsome webwork
of thought is no better than the pro-
duct of Penelope's distaff; the whole
affair may be summed up in these
words : A ganglion functionates,
the force called perception is evolv-
ed, and the image is perceived."
Mirabile dictu ! It is not, therefore,
necessary to discuss the question of
ideal intuition to find out whether the
idea is a representative and subjec-
tive form or objective and abso-
lute; whether we are to agree with
Reid and the school of experi-
mental psychologists, or do battle
under the colors of Gioberti and
Rosmini, or the. learned and lament-
ed Brownson? All these things are
no doubt beneath the consideration
of the materialist's psychology.

But we have still more to learn
concerning perception at the feet of
this new Gamaliel. He says (page
312): ''Perception may be exer-
cised without any superior intel-

Hammond on the Nervous System.

393

lectual act, without any ideation
whatever. Thus if the cerebrum
of a pigeon be removed, the animal
is still capable of seeing and of
hearing, but it obtains no idea from
those senses. The mind, with the
exception of perception, is lost ! '
Perception is not, therefore, con-
nected with consciousness ; for, ac-
cording to Dr. Hammond, we
may hear and see without knowing
it. We do not deny that impres-
sions may be made on the organs
of sense without eliciting an act
of consciousness, for which reason,
indeed, ordinary language has re-
served the use of words designating
the function of organs for those
cases where consciousness is elicit-
ed; for no one would dream of say-
ing that he feels the prick of a pin
or hears another speak without
knowing it. A cadaver can per-
ceive as well as a living subject, if
we are to accept Dr. Hammond's
view ; for we know that an image
may be formed and retained by
the retina after death, and this is
all that is needed for perception.
To explain all intercurrent difficul-
ties, we ha've but to fall back on
ganglia and evolution. At each step
of the intellectual process a conve-
nient ganglion exists which evolves
just the sort of force requisite to
produce the desired result, and thus
we have a perfect system of psycho-
logy. Of the intellect he says : " In
the normal condition of the brain
the excitation of a sense, and the
consequent perception, do not stop
at the special ganglion of that sense,
but are transmitted to a more com-
plex part of the brain, where the
perception is resolved into an idea."
Thus is the brain made the sole
organ of thought. We have but to
say, " A perception is resolved into
an idea," and in so many words we
bound over difficulties which made

Plato, after much deep pondering,
invent a theory of thought, yet
regarded as a matchless monument
of subtlety and sublimity, which
taxed the subtle intellects of St.
Augustine, 1 St. Thomas, Leibnitz,
and Kant, and which will, in all pro-
bability, continue to be an object of
curious research to the end of time.
If a child, beholding the changeful
images of a kaleidoscope, should,
prompted by the curiosity of youth-
ful age, inquire the reason of this
beautiful play of colors, surely no
one would cynically answer him that
one figure is resolved into another.
Dr. Hammond ^lurs over the diffi-
culty ; for the vexing question is,
How does the mind form an idea ?
not, whether a ganglion is excited
and evolves force, but how, on the
occasion of such excitation, an idea,
which is something altogether differ-
ent from the excitation, is produced
in the mind.

This question he not only fails to
answer, but exhibits a woful depre-
ciation of its scope and gravity. He
continues : " Thus the image im-
pressed upon the retina, the percep-
tion of which has been formed by a
sensory ganglion, ultimately causes
the evolution of another force by
which all its attributes capable of
being represented upon the retina
are more or less perfectly appreci-
ated according to the structural
qualities of the ideational centre."
This sentence furnishes the keynote
to the whole theory of material
psychics, and leads us to inquire
into its growth and history. When
Bichat in France and Sir Charles
Bell in England simultaneously dis-
covered that a separate function was
assignable to the anterior and pos-
terior nerve-fibres projected from
each intervertebral foramen ; that
the anterior possess the power of
causing muscular contraction, the

394

Hammond on the Nervous System.

posterior that of giving rise to sen-
sation, they laid the foundation of
the wonderful and beautiful though
much-perverted doctrine of the
localization of function. The ex-
periments of Flourens, Glaude Ber-
nard, Beaumont, Virchow, and Kol-
liker multiplied similar discoveries
and enlarged the significance of
Bell's and Bichat's conclusions. To
every ganglion its separate function
is now sought to be assigned, and
we have already alluded to the in-
teresting facts which ataxic and
amnesic aphasia have lately de-
veloped. The intimate relation thus
manifested between particular por-
tions of the brain-substance and
the corresponding mental function,
aroused and quickened curiosity to
find out the nature and reason of
this dependence. The materialist
perceived in this doctrine of the
localization of function a new wea-
pon for attacking the spirituality of
the soul, and was not slow to bring
it into requisition. It was assumed
that a reason for the difference of
function in the different portions of
the nervous structure would be
found in the intimate texture of the
nerve-tissues themselves ; and the
assumption, in so far as it is logical
to suppose, that a difference in or-
ganization can alone account for a
difference in the manifestation of
power, was fair and plausible. All
efforts were now directed towards
such discoveries in the minute his-
tology of the nervous system as
would point to a connection between
special ganglia and the functions
performed by them. The micro-
scope, indeed, brought to light many
wonderful differences, but none suffi-
cient to justify what is, therefore,
but a mere assumption the conclu-
sion that the peculiar organization
of certain portions of the nervous
system is as much the efficient cause

of the functions with which they are
connected as the sun is the cause
of heat and light, and the summei
breeze of the ripple on the harvest
field. It was deemed unnecessary
to look for an explanation of intel-
lection and volition beyond the
known or knowable properties of
those portions of the nervous sub-
stance with which the processes in
question are connected. " If, it was
argued, certain varying states of the
inner coat of minute blood-vessels
fitted them to select, some arterial
blood, and others venous blood, and
no one thought to invoke any other
agency in determining the cause of
the difference or of the function,
why should we admit the existence
of a distinct substance in account-
ing for mental phenomena, when
structural differences just as palpa-
ble and obvious are at hand to ex-
plain them ? In a word, not only
difference of function v:as attributed
to difference of structure, but this
latter difference was held to be the
sole cause and chief origin of the
function itself. Dazzled by the
brilliancy of their discoveries, and
misled by a false analogy, many
physiologists confounded condition
with cause, and, having perceived
that the manifestations of the mind
are profoundly modified by the
character of the medium through
which they are transmitted, inferred
that the medium generated the
function. This confusion of condi-
tion with cause was further aided by
the current false notion of cause.
Following Hume and Brown, most
modern men of science behold no-
thing else in the relation of cause to
effect than a. mere invariable ante-
cedence and subsequence of events,
which, of course, nullifies the dis-
tinction proper between indispen-
sable condition and cause. With
them that is cause on the occur-

Hammond on the Nervous System. 395

rence of which something else in- effects we admire. We first dis-

variably follows ; nor need we look cover in each colored glass a pecu-

for any other relation between the liarity of structure which especially

two. This doctrine, applied to the adapts it to the emission of its

phenomena of the mind, could not proper ray, and then note that the

but lead the discoverers of localized difference in the color of the rays

functions to downright materialism, depends on this same peculiarity of

They perceived that certain pheno- structure. The problem is solved,

mena invariably proceeded in the Since a structural peculiarity in the

same manner from certain portions violet pane, for instance, fits it for

of the nervous organism, and that the emission of its own ray, and so

any disturbance of the latter was on with respect to red, yellow, and

attended by a marked change in the. purple, why need we look for any

character of the phenomena with other source of those colors ? As

which it was connected. This in- we discover in each party-colored

variability of antecedence and flue- pane the cause of the difference in

tuating difference of effect pointed the color of the ray, we mistake the

unerringly, they thought, to structu- cause of the difference for the cause

ral differences in the nervous system of the ray, and assume not only the

as the efficient cause of all its func- difference of the ray to depend on

tions. Applying this doctrine of the color of the transmitting me-

causation to the process of intellec- dium, but deem that medium to be

tion, we find how logically it sustains itself the sole source of the light.

Dr. Hammond's assertion that mind In like manner the speculative

is an evolution of force from a spe- and transcendental physiologist

cial ganglion, since an excitation of .finds in the adaptation of certain

the same ganglion is always followed portions of the nerve-tissue to the

by the same result viz., a mental production of specific functions a

apprehension. reason for referring the highest or-

The invariability of sequence is der of mental phenomena to the

all that is needed to establish gan- nervous system as their cause, for-

glion in the category of causes, and getting that the adaptation in ques-

ideation in that of effects. tion may be but a mere condition

We will now apply the same modifying the manifesting power of
method of reasoning to a case in the substance which is the true
which the obvious distinction be- source of the phenomena. The ob-
tween cause and condition cannot server who regards colored glass as
fail to strike the most inattentive, the source of light, because he has
and make manifest the sophistry been able to trace a connection and
of materialistic physiology. Should establish a relation between the
we stray into a minster filled with color of the ray and the minute
a grand religious light, and find structure of the glass, differs in
chancel, nave, and pillar all radiant naught from theorists of Dr. Ham-
with purple and violet, soft amber mond's stripe, who make nervous
and regal red, we would naturally ganglia centre's or sources of idea-
look to the stained-glass window to tion> because of the invariable pro-
discover the source of those warm duction of the latter on the occasion
tints and brilliant hues, and would of some excitation in the former,
seek to determine what in those . In both instances is committed the
party-colored panes gives rise to the error of confounding condition with

Hammond on tJie Nervous Svstem.~

cause, of mistaking the cause of a
difference between two occurrences
for the cause of the occurrences
themselves.

We have dwelt at this length on
Dr. Hammond's theory of the In-
tellect, as it embodies an error so
pernicious that the callow mind of
the medical student, awed by the
authority of a name, is likely, on
reading this chapter, to imbibe
principles which, slowly elaborated,
will lead him in process of time
to the chilling tenets of material-
ism.

The l third sub-force enumerated
by Dr. Hammond is Emotion,
which, like perception and intellect,
is a force evolved on the occasion
of an excitation in some other por-
tion of the brain. Thus the emo-
tions of joy, sorrow, hope, and love
can be excited by making an im-
pression on this portion of the ner-
vous substance, just as we elicit dif-
ferent sounds from a piano by strik-
ing different keys in succession.
" 'Sblood ! do you think I am easier
to be played on than a pipe?" Yet
Dr. Hammond would of man make
a Hamlet's pipe, with its ventages
and stops, to be sounded from the
lowest note to the top of the com-
pass at the pleasure of a skilled
performer. The physiological signs
of emotion he has truthfully de-
scribed, such as blushing, palpita-
tion, increase of the salivary secre-
tion, and other bodily changes, the
connection of which with the emo-
tions themselves will, we fear, so
far as there is any hope of a satis-
factory explanation from physiology,
remain a dead secret for ever. The
fourth and last of the sub-forces
evolved by the brain is Will, with
respect to which the doctor has not
much to say, though it is easy to
understand that it owes its origin,
according to him, to the same gan-

glionic changes as the three preced-
ing. He has net even defined this
force, but merely says that by voli-
tion acts are performed. The ordi-
nary idea of will exhibits it as a
power which the soul exercises at
discretion, even at times in the ab-
sence of any motive, except caprice,
and often against a strong excite-
ment of passion, so that it can be
connected with no organic changes
which are necessary and subject to
law. This idea Dr. Hammond's
doctrine entirely overthrows ; for if
will be the result of ganglionic ex-
citation, it must surely follow the
latter, and can consequently be in
no manner connected with its caus-
ation. Whatever cause, then, may
have produced the excitation, it
must have been necessary i.e., have
necessarily produced volition. Vo-
lition, therefore, being the result of
changes necessarily produced, must
itself be necessary, and we then have
the anomaly of necessary will, which
is a sheer contradiction. There is
no such thing, therefore, as volition,
in the true and accepted sense of
the word, and what we deem to be
the free acts of the soul are brought
about as necessarily as pain or
pleasure when the exciting agents
of those emotions are in operation.
It is not difficult to estimate the
practical consequences of this doc-
trine. Man, thus made to act by
organic changes and the necessary
determination of his nature, not be-
ing answerable for these, cannot be
made answerable for their conse-
quences ; so that the good and evil
he performs resemble, the former
the changes which the bodily sys-
tem undergoes in a state of health,
the latter the morbid changes of
disease. The good he does is as
much the necessary outcome of his
nature as the golden fruit is of the
tree, while -his bad actions are as

Hammond on the Nervous System.

397

the tempest that wrecks or the
breath of a pestilence.

This is the self-same doctrine of
Broussais dressed in the garb which
the latest researches in neurological
science have prepared for it, and
much more covertly and insidiously
presented.

Broussais says : " L'ivrogne et le
gourmand sont ceux dont le cerveau
obeit aux irradiations des appareils
digestifs ; les hommes sobres doi-
vent leur vertu a un encephale
dont les stimulations propres sont
superieures a celles cfe ces appa-
reils" {Irritation et Folie, p. 823).
" The drunkard and the glutton
are those whose brain obeys the
summons issued by the digestive
organs : sober men owe their vir-

o /

tue to the possession of a brain
which rises superior to such or-
ders." Surely in this, as in count-
less other instances, history con-
tinues to repeat itself.

The definition of Insanity given
by Dr. Hammond surpasses in clear-
ness and comprehensiveness all those
which he has collected from other
sources, and is such, we consider,
as will with difficulty be improved
upon in the respects mentioned.
He calls it " a manifestation of
disease of the brain, characterized
by a general or partial derange-
ment of one or more faculties of
the mind, and in which, while con-
sciousness is not abolished, mental
freedom is perverted, weakened, or
destroyed." This definition -more
closely applies to all occurring cases
of insanity than any hitherto given,
though it is a pity the doctor has
robbed its latter portion of all
meaning by having virtually de-
nied mental freedom in his fore-
going theory of volition. The re-
mainder of the chapter on insanity
is exceedingly instructive and in-
resting. The author has clearly

exhibited the difference between il-
lusion, hallucination, and delusion,
nor has he permitted himself once,
in his application of the terms to
individual cases, to interchange or
confound them. Indeed, it is a mat-
ter of regret that so acute an ob-
server and so diligent a collector
of facts was ever tempted to betake
himself beyond their legitimate do-
main, and to launch himself on the
troubled sea of speculation. But
it has been ever thus :

"Laudet diversa sequentes."

The great bulk of the work and
it is a volume of nearly nine hun-
dred pages is taken up with the
discussion of those nervous diseases
which, for the most part obscure in
their origin and of infrequent occur-
rence, have been brought to light
for the first time in this mono-
graph, so that the medical profes-
sion owes a deep debt of gratitude
to the laborious researches of Dr.
Hammond in a very partially ex-
plored field. To the general reader
the chapter on Hydrophobia cannot
fail to prove interesting, presenting
as it does a graphic description of
the symptoms which usher in this
terrible disease, and suggesting
remedies which are within the
reach of every one, and are cal-
culated to avert the awful conse-
quences of a bite by a rabid dog,
provided they be employed without
delay. The interval between the
reception of the wound and the
outbreak of the symptoms is very
variable, but the majority of cases
occur within seven months. This
interval is called the period of in-
cubation, and is usually not charac-
terized by any other signs than a
certain amount of mental depres-
sion, often the result of a ner-
vous apprehension of consequences.
The sleep especially is apt to be

308 Hammond on the Nervous System.

disturbed by such forebodings, so in a city overrun with mongrels is
that the animal which inflicted very great ; and while we hope our
the wound is frequently dreamt readers may never have occasion to
of. The prognosis of the disease put it into practice, we would re-
is most discouraging, since our commend them to treasure it up for
author says : " There is no au- an emergency which, however sad,
thentic instance on record of is always possible,
a cure of hydrophobia." The Following the chapter on hydro-
post-mortem signs of disease are phobia are some very interesting
shrouded in obscurity ; for, though statements concerning Epilepsy a
Dr. Hammond details at great disease which, in a light form, pre-
length certain altered conditions vails more extensively than most
of the brain and spinal cord, people imagine. The most remark-
as well as of the arteries supplying i^ble precursory symptom to an at-
them, those changes are by no tack of epilepsy is what is called an
means pathognomonic i.e., peculiar aura, or breeze. This usually be-
to the disease in question. The gins in some lower part of the body
point of greatest practical interest and shoots towards the head. It
to those who have so far escaped resembles at times an electric shock,
the death-dealing fang of Blanche, and again a sharp stab or blow.
Tray, or Sweetheart is that, should The strangest aurce. are hallucina-
so sad an occurrence befall them, tions of vision which lead the pa-
they must hasten at once to a sur- tient to believe he sees a rapid
geon, and see that, after having succession of colors. The experi-
tightly bound the limb abpve the ments of Dr. Hughlings Jackson
injury, he use the knife with an un- with regard to those colored aurcp,
sparing hand, till every part with are full of interest,
which the teeth of the animal may He finds that a vision of red
have come in contact has been ushers in the phenomenon, and that
entirely removed. Cauterization, the whole prism is exhibited to the
either by fire, or nitrate of silver, or sight till the violet end of the spec-
some of the mineral acids, is pre- trurn is reached. The approach of
ferred by some physicians, and has the aura is often felt, and gives
proved quite as successful as exci- admonition to the patient of the
sion. A Mr. Youatt employed cau- speedy approach of a seizure, so
terization four hundred times on that he is thereby enabled to seek
persons who had been bitten by a place of security and retirement
rabid animals, and every time with before the actual advent of an at-
success. Dr. Hammond employed tack. Many interesting cases, ex-
cauterization seven times four with hibiting the freaks and peculiarities
nitrate of silver and three with the of this strange disease, are record-
actual cautery and always with ed by Dr. Hammond. Convulsion,
success. This proceeding should tremor, chorea or St. Vitus' dance,
be adopted, even though several and hysteria are next treated of in
weeks, or even months, may have succession, and much valuable in-
elapsed since the infliction of the formation might be derived from a
wound ; in which case, however, perusal of these chapters,
excision is deemed preferable to Catalepsy, one of the strangest of
cauterization. T^he importance of nervous disorders, receives a due
this knowledge to persons residing share of attention, though much

Hammond on the Nervous System. 399

that is authoritative cannot be af- of medical testimony giving evi-
firmed concerning it, since the data dence of the existence of disease, or
of the disease are neither numerous in any way furnishing an adequate
nor reliable. When the cataleptic scientific explanation of the facts re-
seizure is at its height, there is vealed by their historians. It is as
complete suspension of conscious- illogical and presumptuous for Dr.
ness, and a muscular rigidity super- Hammond to qualify their cases in
venes, which causes the limbs to the manner he does as it would be
retain for a long time any position, for a believer in the supernatural
no matter how awkward or irksome, to assert the miraculous character
in which they may be placed. of a mere feat of legerdemain. The
This condition so closely simu- only difference is that Dr. Ham-
lates death that in former times mond's disregard for the rules of
mistakes were frequently made evidence is applauded by the world
which were not discovered till life as indicating a vigorous and healthy
had really become extinct in the intelligence, whilst the equally illo-
grave. Another strange feature of gical assertor of the supernatural
this disease is the magnetic influ- character of what is not proven to
ence a female subject exercises over be such would be at once, and with
her unattainted sisters during a par- justice indeed, put down as an im-
cxysm. It has been observed that, becile and a slave to superstition,
if one female in a ward fall into The burden of proof is ever thrust
a cataleptic fit, those immediately on other shoulders by our author,
around her are seized in the same and never borne by his own. Let
manner, the attack lasting for a but Dr., Warlomont devise a patho-
period of variable duration. The physiological explanation of Louise
description of these nervous mala- Lateau's stigmata, not only gratui-
dies gradually leads to Dr. Ham- tous from beginning to end, but
mond's views on Ecstasy, which are even at variance with the facts of
all the more interesting as the chap- science, and Dr. Hammond gives
ter is chiefly taken up with the dis- in a blind adhesion to his conclu-
cussion of the wonderful and per- sions without a single inquiry into
plexing case of Louise Lateau. The the weight of proof on the other
chapter should have followed the side. Even Dr. Warlomont ac-
one on hydrophobia, and been en- knowledged the difficulties with
titled Thaumatophobia rather than which Dr. Lefebvre's work bristles
Ecstasy, since the doctor exhibits a in the way of a physiological expla-
most contemptuous estimate of the nation, and it is evident, from the
intelligence of those who hold that intensely-labored character of his
there can be anything not explica- report, that he entered into the con-
ble by the known laws of physiology troversy as an ex parte disputant,
in the most wonderful cases of ec- We do not intend to reopen the dis-
stasia. He ranks among ccstatics cussion of this famous case, since
of a former period St. Francis of enough concerning it has already
Assisi, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. appeared in these pages.* It is
Teresa, Joan of Arc, and Madame sufficient that we note the recusant
Guyon, all of whom, he spys, ' ex- spirit of some modern scientists
hibited manifestations of this dis- whenever there is question of the
order." With respect to those cele- , Vidt THE CATHOLIC WORLD< Novembcr?
brated personages there- is no sort March, 1876.

4OO

Hammond on the Nervous System.

supernatural. They will not be-
lieve, no matter how overwhelming
the evidence, lest they be suspected
of weakness, or of bartering their
intellectual freedom for the formulae
of an effete authority. These gen-
tlemen consult their prejudices rath-
er than truth, and, provided they
tickle the ears of radicals and non-
believers, they consider themselves
lifted into the proud position of
supreme arbiters between reason
and authority. Dr. Hammond says
ecstasy was "formerly quite common
among the inmates of convents." We
would inform him that its frequency
was never greater than now, and
the widespread attention which one
or two cases have attracted is proof
how rare is that frequency. Indeed,
it has been the invariable policy of
the church to discourage tendencies
in this direction, and spiritual ad-
visers often remind their penitents
that an unbidden and umyelcome
guest not rarely presents himself in
the garb of an angel of light. It is
related of St. Francis of Sales that
a nun having declared to him that
the Blessed Virgin had appeared t
her, he inquired how much vin ordi-
naire she had taken that day ; and,
upon her answering, " One glass," he
told her to drink two the following
day, and she might have two appari-
tions. In view of this disinclination
of ecclesiastics to encourage ecsta-
sia, especially among women, whose
nervous system is so impressionable,
it ill becomes Dr. Hammond, having
the mass of testimony at his com-
mand in support of the genuineness
of the two cases to which reference
is made, to use the following lan-
guage : " But the effort was in vain,
just as is the attempt now to con-
vince the credulous and ignorant
of the real nature of the seizures of
Louise Lateau, Bernadette Soubi-
rous who evoked Our Lady of

Lourdes and of the hundreds of
mediums, ecstatics, and hysterics
who pervade the world." The
frankness with which the church
authorities demanded the closest
and most searching scientific inves-
tigation of the case of Louise Lateau,
and their expressed determination to
accept its legitimate results, should
be to all reasonable men a guarantee
of their good faith and of their abhor-
rence of impostures. It is consol-
ing to think that the intelligence of
some scientific men is still unfetter-
ed, and that, though in the absence
of a prominent member Dr. Le-
febvre the friends and abettors of
Dr. Warlomont endeavored to spring
on the Belgian Royal Academy of
Medicine a resolution declaring the
case of Louise Lateau fully explored
and closed, the Academy refused to
adopt it, thereby admitting that so
far science has failed to account for
the marvellous phenomena of which
this girl is the subject. The inhe-
rent defect of Dr. Hammond's rea-
soning is that it identifies cases
which are merely analogous. It is
true that the majority of pseudo-
ecstasies resembling the inspired
ecstasy of holy personages are de-
pendent on a disordered condition
of the nervous system, but this re-
semblance does not necessarily tend
to classify the latter under the same
head. Yet this is what Dr. Ham-
mond and his school do. They
seize general traits of resemblance,
shut their eyes to essential differ-
ences, and, finding that the greater
number of cases obey throughout
certain known definite laws, they
conclude that all cases do likewise.
History abounds with instances of
disordered imagination depending
on a morbid condition of the ner-
vous system, but in all the impartial
observer can discern well-marked
differences, separating them essen-

Hautmond en the Nervous System.

401

tially from authentic cases of true ec-
stasy. Baron von Feuchtersleben *
relates many extraordinary cases
of this sort. Herodotus (ix. 33)
speaks of the Argive women who,
under a morbid inspiration, rushed
into the woods and murdered their
own children. Plutarch relates the
story of a monomania among the
Milesian girls to hqng themselves.
We have all read ot the convulsion-
naires at the tomb of Mathieu of
Paris. Dr. Maffei describes a
similar epidemic, which receiv-
ed the name of " Poschlianism "
from a religious, fixed delusion
which originated with one Poschl.
These cases were usually accom-
panied by convulsions and terminat-
ed in suicide. Besides the disorders
alluded to, we read of sycanthropy
among the natives of Arcadia, a
somewhat similar aberration among
the aborigines of Brazil, and the de-
lusion of the Scythians that they

* The Principles of Medical Psychology. By
Baron Ernst von Feuchtersleben, M.D., Sydenham
Society, p. 252.

VOL. XXIII. 26

were women. Dr. Hammond re-
lates a case as wonderful as any of
these viz., that of the noted Ler,
an inmate of the Salpetriere, whose
contortions and antics resemble the
hysteriaof the " Jerkers " in Metho-
dist camp-meetings. The attempt
to identify all occurring cases with
these is a flagrant violation of the
inductive method by which scienti-
fic men, above all others, claim that
they are guided. If observation
and experience are to be our guides
in determining the truth, then let us
admit nothing but what these cri-
teria verify. This is precisely what
these gentlemen do not do ; and be-
cause they perceive a general resem-
blance between a group of facts,
they identify all possessing this re-
semblance, and predicate thereon
a general law. We cannot hope for
a discontinuance of this baneful
and short-sighted procedure until
men who profess to be votaries of
science shall become truly rational,
instead of making an empty and
futile boast of being rationalists

402

The Eternal Years.

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE DIVINE SEQUENCE."

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD'S GOVERNMENT PROGRESSION.

IF the preceding considerations
have at all succeeded in imparting
to our minds a right view of the
importance of matter, not solely in
its own nature, but in the spiritual
world, and in the developments
which the spiritual world only ar-
rives at through the medium of
matter, we shall find we hold the
key to many mysteries, and are
walking at liberty in a world of
marvels.

So far as we are able to judge,
and aided by all that science can
discover, we have every reason to
believe that the act of creation is
complete, and that no more mate-
rial is needed to work out the ulti-
mate intentions of the divine Be-
ing. Certain races of animals have
become extinct, and all races are
modified more or less by external
influences of climate and food.
Probably many have all but chang-
ed their nature since they first
sprang into being ; as they will do
once more when the lion and the
lamb shall lie down together. But
whether or no this be so, it would
be rash to imagine that new crea-
tions of hitherto unexisting fauna
or flora are ever to be given to the
great cosmos. There is nothing to
prove that such is the case ; and
there is a vast amount of facts
pointing to the opposite conclusion.
Moreover, the completeness of crea-
tion is the grander idea of the two,
and the most like the ways of God,
especially when we consider that

the existence of matter is only as a
means to an end ; and that end ac-
complished, why should there be
any further increase of what makes
up the material world ? We will
therefore put aside all idea of its
being subject to either increase or
decrease, while we dwell upon the
fact that it is subject to mutations
of the most diverse and subtle na-
ture. It is true we are told there
shall be new heavens and a new
earth. But everything, even the
preliminary fact that the " elements
will melt with heat " and all things
be dissolved, points to renewal, but
not to extinction ; for we know
practically that dissolution, whether
by heat or any other force, is not
extinction in any case, but only
change of form. The new earth is
to be one in which "justice dwel-
leth."* But even on this earth we
have evidences of the sanctification
of matter by its contact with spiri-
tual things.

We have it first in the relics of
the saints, to which not only a
sacred memory is attached, but ac-
tual supernatural gifts emanate from
them, because they have become
holy to the Lord ; because they had,
whilq still in life, so frequently, or
rather so effectively, come in direct
contact with the Eucharistic Sacri-
fice, with the Body and Blood of
Him who, in taking flesh and feed-
ing us thereon, brought God to us

* a Peter ii. 10-13,

The Eternal Years.

403

and dwelt within us. But the
saints are rare ; and' the example,
therefore, derived from their relics is
an exceptional one. There are other
examples of the way in which the liv-
ing influence of the faith has chang-
ed mankind, through the ages of his-
tory, by hereditary transmission.

It has been remarked that while
Rome still remained pagan there
nevertheless existed other senti-
ments, and as it were another at-
mosphere, caught from the presence
of Christianity, even while Chris-
tianity was ignored or persecuted.
The pagan spirit was essentially
worldly. How could it be other-
wise ? Poverty made a man ridicu-
lous ; and ridicule is the beginning
of contempt. Christian charity and
compassion had no pagan counter-
part until Christian example gave
rise to the notion that it was a wise
and good thing to feed the hungry
and care for the orphan. Long be-
fore the reign of the first Christian
emperor the pagan Roman heart,
catching some warmth from the ce-
lestial fire which burnt unseen in
the largely-extended Christian popu-
lation, began to form institutions
which faintly reproduced Christian
charity; but this was the influence
of mind over mind.

What is a far more remarkable
fact is the gradually-developed in-
fluence of generations of Christian
ancestors over the mere natural in-
stincts of humanity. How much do
we not owe to the fact that we de-
scend from a mainly, Christian stock !
What sweet domestic ties, what calm,
heaven-reflecting pools of life, do
not enjoy not owing to our own
personal graces, but because grace, in
reater or less degree, has, though
may be with grave exceptions, pre-
sided over the rise and growth for
centuries of those who have preced-
ed us.

When St. Jerome wrote to the
youthful daughter of his beloved
penitent Paola, as the former was
about to dedicate herself to God in
a virgin and secluded life, a very
large and most emphatic portion of
his instructions is taken up with
exposing to her the difficulties she
will meet with in preserving an es-
sential virtue, and the extreme mea-
sures she, a maiden of seventeen,
must resort to as a guarantee against
temptation. To what, save to the
blessed effects of centuries of a
more or less Christian ancestry, do
we owe the blessed fact that, where-
as to any young girl now entering
religion her Christian parents and
her priestly adviser would fill hours
with counsels about holy poverty,
obedience, and the conquest of her
own will, hardly one word would be
breathed about any imminent peril
to a virtue which she only thinks
of in its highest religious sense, be-
cause she has never even dreamt
that it could practically be in dan-
ger ? The very flesh has been puri-
fied and chastened by centuries of
grace. The human instincts have
been almost unconsciously raised
to a higher level ; and, evil as the
world may yet be, we habitually
entertain angels unawares. Thus
does the longanimity of God wait
with ever-slackening step through
the long ages of time, while grace
permeates slowly the few but ever-
increasing willing .hearts, sanctifying
soul and body equally and together;
for " the Lord dealeth patiently for
your sake, not willing that any
should perish." He deals patiently
with the world for the sake of the
church, patiently with the wicked
for the sake of the good, and be-
cause the good are not good for
themselves alone ; they yield a per-
fume of which they are not con-
scious, but which attracts others to

404

The Eternal Years.

them ; and if but the ten righteous
men can be found, the city will be
spared !

We often hear allusions made to
the destructive work of time, to the
ruin of nations, and the obliteration
of vast and crowded cities ; and
writers of the day indulge in sensa-
tional reflections upon the future
fate of the peoples and homes of
modern days. We are all acquaint*
ed with the New Zealander who is
to sit amid the ruins of London.
But those who speak and write in
this sense have in their minds the
fate of heathen nations and pagan
cities in the first hour or epoch of
the world's existence, before the ac-
complishment of the mystery of the
Incarnation that is, before God
dwelt upon earth to reconquer by
his precious blood and sweat of
agony his kingdom among men.
But as Christians we cannot believe
that Christian nations, however im-
perfect in their Christian practice,
will ever be cast out, root and
branch, and the ploughshare pass
over their hearths and His altars as
over Ninive and Troy, as over the
Etruscan cities and the pleasure-
loving Roman towns of southern
Italy. The ten righteous are never
wanting in any city where the altars
of Jesus are erected, and where the
Mother of fair love is named with
tender and reverent confidence.
The surging tide of evil may threat-
en us, as in guilty Paris and brutal-
ized London ; but though heavy
chastisements may pour down on
these examples of modern vice, yet
never, never will the dear Con-
queror who has deigned to plant
his foot on the teeming city streets
as his priests carry the Blessed Sa-
cr-ament to the dying, and who has
his tabernacles of love here and
there through our crowded tho-

roughfares, relinquish his recovered
inheritance. Never, never will the
lands where he has dwelt be deso-
late like the godless lands of old.

Believe it, O ye loving hearts ! who
are burning in silent anguish over
the erring and the ignorant, who
are pouring sad tears on the cruel
wickedness of high places, and on
the degradation and depravity of
the neglected and the forgotten.

Heavy and sharp and terrible
may be the punishment of our ini-
quities ; but even hell itself is less
hell than it would be but for the
shedding of the precious Blood ;
and no nation where his name is
invoked, no people among whom he
has his part albeit not, alas ! the
larger part can ever perish out of
sight, out of mind, as the huge hea-
then nations have gone down in
utter darkness in the lapse of ages,
and hardly left a stone to proclaim,
"I am Babylon."

Sweet patience of Jesus ! sweet
pity of Mary ! we wrong you both
when we forget that where you
have once entered, there you will
abide ; because the few are the sal-
vation of the many ; because, though
not every door-post and lintel bears
the red cross, yet those that do
bear it plead for the rest, and the
angel of destruction stays his steps
at the first and drops his avenging
sword ; for his Lord and Master has
passed that way !

We have spoken of the creation
as being complete. We have con-
cluded that, while we are incapable
of measuring its extent, and can
only vainly guess at unknown worlds
beyond our own system, it will never
receive one atom, one molecule, in
addition to those of which it now
consists. Our reason for this be-
lief lies deep down in the very roots
of theology, which we find a better

The Eternal Years.

405

reason than any with which mere
human science can furnish us, be-
cause the end of the latter is con-
tained within the end of the for-
mer, as the greater contains the
less. We have already stated our
reason namely, that the ultimate
object of the creation was the In-
carnation, and, that object accom-
plished, there can apparently be no
need of further creation. In say-
ing this we are not presuming to
limit the power of God or. to inter-
pret his unrevealed will. We are,
with all diffidence, formulating a
supposition which approves itself
to our reason. The creation was
the expression of the goodness of
God, uttered outside himself by
the Logos, God the Son. But the
creation, merely as such, merely as
existence, and man, the lord of cre-
ation, merely in his natural state,
were incapable of union with God.
Therefore, from the first, man was
constituted in a state of grace.
Thus the second mission, which is
that of the Holy Ghost, and which
is the second in the eternal decrees,
the mine stans of eternity, is the first
in the nunc fluens of time. For the
grace of God, which is the Holy
Ghost, was given to man in mea-
sure and degree from the first mo-
ment of his being, four thousand
years before the first mission, that
of God the Son, took place in time.
Both are continuous, and both are
progressive. The mission of God
the Son did not cease when he as-
cended into heaven ; for it is con-
tinued at the Consecration in every
Mass, and in every tabernacle where
the Blessed Sacrament dwells. At
each Mass he comes and comes
again ! In the Blessed Sacrament
he remains. Therefore his actual
presence is progressive, in propor-
tion to the increase of his altars
where the bloodless sacrifice is of-

fered, and where the Bread of Life
is reserved. We are ourselves en-
tirely persuaded (and this opinion
is in harmony with that of many
modern theologians) that tli In-
carnation would equally have ta-
ken place had man never fallen.
It was the object of the creation.
Man's fall called for his redemp-
tion by the death and Passion of
our Lord, and, as a loving 'conse-
quence, also for the sacrifice of the
Mass. But it does not follow that,
had the Redemption not come after
the Incarnation, because man had
not fallen, there would have been
no Blessed Sacramental Presence.
The church having nowhere de-
fined to the contrary, it is permit-
ted to those whose devotion to the
Blessed Sacrament makes the whole
creation a blind mystery, and even
the Incarnation appear incomplete
without it, to believe that the
Blessed Sacrament would always
have been, and a sinless Adam,
with his sinless offspring, have held
communion with the incarnate God
through and by this divine nourish-
ment, even as his redeemed chil-
dren do now, only in that case
without the sacrifice of the Mass ;
for where there is no sin there is no
sacrifice. *

This may be but a pious thought,
and we have no wish to press it
upon our readers. We leave it to
their devotion to follow it out or
not as they will. All we want to
prove is that, though our Blessed

* The redemption was an ordinance of God con-
sequent upon man's fall. Had Adam never sinned,
Jesus had never been crucified. But it would seem
more consonant with the boundless love of God for
his creation to believe that the Blessed Sacrament
formed part of his antecedent will ; and that a sin-
less race would have received spiritual and divine
food, and would have been thereby sanctified, and
ultimately glorified through participation in the
Body and Blood of the God-Man. It would have
been, as it is now, the Bread of Life ; bloodless as
it is now, but also unbroken as it is not now that
is, divested of its propitiatory character in so far as
propitiation involves the idea of offence.

406

The Eternal Years.

Lord came once only, conceived of
the Holy Ghost, born of the Blessed
Virgin ; and once only was crucified,
dead, and buried, and rose the
third 43ay, and ascended into hea-
ven, nevertheless his sacramental
presence is a perpetual carrying on
and carrying out of this his first
mission to us, and that thus his mis-
sion bears a progressive character.
He is the conqueror ''''proceeding to
conquer." He is still sending his
messengers before his face to pre-
pare his way. His priests are still
going forth to all nations to preach
the remission of sins, by planting
his altar, which is his earthly
throne, in divers parts, till the
earth be filled with the knowledge
of the Lord as the covering waters
of the sea.* We are looking for-
ward to the fulfilment of that pro-
phecy in all its plenitude ; for surely
no one can allege either that this
time has already come, or that be-
cause some, it may be several, mis-
sionary priests have had a certain
success among the heathen, any-
thing faintly resembling such a
grand, lavish promise as that, has re-
ceived even an approximate fulfil-
ment. Still less will any one assert
that such promises are vain ; and if
not so, then let us look forward, and
ever more and more forward, to the
progression of our dear Lord's king-
dom upon earth ; himself present
amongst us in the Blessed Sacra-
ment, coming in that meek guise to
take possession of his territories,
and all but silently planting his
standard first here, then there, as
new altars are raised to him, and
as other souls are brought beneath
the sacraments the oaths of allegi-
ance to their new Master.

We cannot disguise from our-
selves that we have fallen upon evil

* Isaios xi. 9.

times, and that faith has grown dim.
Nevertheless, we maintain it would
be difficult for any thoughtful and
unprejudiced mind to deny the ever-
increasing evidence that the leaven
is leavening the whole mass ; still
less can it be affirmed that any-
thing has ever done this in highly-
civilized countries except Christian-
ity.

The wealth and learning of the
Romans, their vast literature, their
high art, had no effect in producing
either morality or mercy. There
were noble examples among them
of men and women who, we may
believe, responded to the light
vouchsafed them, whose names have
come down to us ; and doubtless
there were many, utterly unknown
to history, who obeyed the dictates
of their conscience, enlightened by
the divine Spirit of whom they had
never so much as heard. We do
not believe that anywhere, in any
age, in any city, however given up
to iniquity, there was nothing but
eternal death reigning over poor,
fallen, suffering humanity, and leav-
ing the beneficent Creator, the dear
Redeemer, without a soul to love and
serve him, albeit in a blind way.
We believe such a condition of
things to be simply impossible ; but
however that may be, whether more
or less than we have dared to hope,
Christianity was not there, and in
its absence nothing availed to pro-
duce generally even the apprecia-
tion of purity or real charity.

As we have said, the Romans
were a grand law-giving nation.
Civil rights were understood, up-
held, and protected better than by
the modern Napoleonic code, and
far more in harmony with Christian-
ity, which ultimately profited by, and
copied so largely, the Roman law.
But the law did not touch the heart
or enlighten the conscience ; and

The Eternal Years. 407

while the public life of Rome had nature ; and as the reign of the

much moral grandeur, the private Holy Ghost shall be more and more

existence of man and woman alike established in the now perfectly-de-

was infamous ; and it was so in fined status of her infallibility, so

proportion to their advance in will she increasingly take up unto

wealth and luxury. herself, within her own arena, all

We have said that only Christian- the gifts of knowledge and science

ity can moralize civilized nations, which are her essential prerogatives,

and we did so advisedly ; for a Once more she will become the

certain inoffensiveness, and the queen of nations, the guide and pio-

practice of many natural virtues, neer of the world,

exist among nations that have not Hers has been a long history of

come within the range of so-called struggle, and frequently of apparent

civilization. Where the intellectual defeat ; but out of it she has ever

and reasoning powers of men are risen victorious, though her victo-

undeveloped, they retain something ries are different in character from

like the innocence of children. But the triumphs of the world, because

when man without Christianity is they are so silent and so peaceful

raised to intellectual height, cultivat- that they are only known by their

ed in mind, refined in manner, sur- results. The first of these results

rounded by art, and .with advanced is more liberty, a widening of the

knowledge of physical science cords of her tent ; for as the

when he has thus developed all his church defines her own nature with

powers, without having a corre- increased accuracy, so by this accu-

sponding force given him against racy she leaves more freedom to

the inclinations of natural concupis- her children. Definition is also lim-

cence, he is then no longer in the itation; and both exclude doubt,

infancy of humanity. It is mature, Doubt is slavery, while certainty is

and the ripe fruit tends to rotten- liberty. When our Lord began to

ness. Civilization and knowledge teach of the coming kingdom of

must go forward part passu with di- God, he did* so by parables, and to

vine grace to be a real benefit to his own immediate disciples alone

mankind ; for there is no good was an explanation vouchsafed :

apart from a high moral standard, " To you it is given to know the

whether we consider the individ- mystery of the kingdom of God ;

ual or the nation, and no moral but to the rest in parables." He

standard will long support itself spoke of himself as " straitened"

without the concomitance of grace, until his work should be accom-

We are told that the great question plished.

of the day is the modus vivendi be- The whole history of the church

tween the church and modern pro- has been on the same principle,

gress. If this be so, the church Until certain things have been ac-

alone can discover and develop it ; complished her path is hemmed in,

because the church is the organ of and the accomplishment is ever e-f-

the Holy Ghost, and when our Lord fected by the means of her enemies,

was about to leave this earth he even as our salvation was by the

promised the Paraclete, who would hands of those who crucified Jesus.

irh us all things" Therefore The rise of each heresy has produc-

the church is the ultimate dispenser ed the definition of doctrine, and

of all science, no matter of what each definition has widened the

408 The Eternal Years.

horizon of our faith and flooded our material world, the world of grace,
life with light. The war with evil and the world of the prince of the
has had no other result than to im- powers of the air. The masses live
part spiritual strength to the spouse (consciously) in the first alone ; the
of Christ. And now everything good and pious remember the sec-
points to a great crisis, a culminat- ond ; but few even of these attempt
ing term, a springtide of the waters to realize the last in anything like a
of grace ; for the long war with Pro- just proportion with its immensity,
testantism has led up to the dogma its subtlety, and its ubiquity. Nor
of the Papal Infallibility. The cop- is it our object to press the subject
ing-stone is laid, and a new era is on their attention. It is not every
beginning, which will be the fuller mind that can bear to meet the
development of the individual life thought, beyond the limits of the
of the soul in the beauty of holiness universal prayer, " Lead us not into
and in the indwelling of the Holy temptation, but deliver us from evil."
Ghost. The external edifice is But those who can bear it and
complete ; the interior decoration can follow it out should be doubly
will hasten towards completion, on watch and guard in the interests
Already we see the signs of those of the multitudes who, it is true, be-
better times approaching. We see lieve in their guardian angel, but
them alike in the preternatural as forget their le-ft-hand diabolic at-
in the supernatural world. The tendant. It was not so in ear-
spirits of evil are guessing at the fu- Her times when faith was young,
ture, and, as is their wont, are an- among the primitive writers and
ticipating the coming events by the great ascetics. One of the
parodying the divine future action, holiest of the past generation said
The sleepless intelligence and never- that the cleverest work the devil
wearying enmity of Satan pursues had ever accomplished was the
with relentless accuracy every de- getting men to disbelieve in his
velopment of God's truth in the his- existence. Having, as a rule (ex-
tory of the church. With the frag- cept among Catholics), established
ments, in his fallen state, of his his non-existence in their minds,
former untold science, combined the sphere of his occult action is
with his thousands of years of cu- necessarily vastly extended. We
mulative experience, his one desire do not look out for what we firmly
is to be beforehand with God. In believe is not there. He is among
advarce of the great divine act of us, and we see him not. He has
the Incarnation, he instituted the studied the Scriptures, and he knows
horrors of possession, and practised there will be a time when our maid-
them in the pagan world on a scale ens shall dream dreams and our
he is but seldom allowed to repeat young men see visions. He guesses
where the name of Jesus is uttered, at the outpouring of the Holy Ghost,
With each phase of God's divine in a more determinate and wider
action on the world, and of concom- reign of grace, in the future of the
itant human necessities, he changes church ; and above all he has not
his tactics. There are but few forgotten, though many of us have,
among us who remember or realize that there is the promise of yet an-
the fact that every incident of our other mission that will alter the
lives is lived in connection with whole face of the world, that will
three worlds the tangible, visible, follow on the ever-growing and ex-

The Eternal Years. . 409

tending reign of the Holy Ghost, the way. Noe was more than a
and that will culminate the glories hundred years engaged in building
of their Queen the mission of the the ark, and there it lay, a sign to
angels. They will come, the bright, all men, the black timber ribs
swift-winged messengers, and " they against the gray dawn and the
shall gather out of his kingdom all flaming evening sky, scanning the
scandals, and those that work ini- heavens like a musical score on
quity, and shall cast them into the which were written the notes of
furnace of fire. Then shall the the awful anthem of God's wrath,
just shine as the sun in the king- while the hammers of the artisans
dom of their Father,"* and "the beat time through a century of
angels shall go out, and shall sepa- vain appeal to a God-forgetting
rate the wicked from among the world. The suddenness must be
just." We read these sacred words laid to their own door, and in no
constantly, but how far do we real- way resulted from God's dealings
ize their meaning ? How far have with them. The Deluge itself took
we amplified the thought in our forty days to exhaust the down-
mind, and given it form and con- pouring floods of rushing waters
sistency? We read of the day from the opened gates of heaven,
of judgment; but do we suppose The dawn is ever gradual; the
that it will be an affair of four-and- light steals upon us, though at
twenty hours the angels in the last the sun's broad disc springs
morning, the judgment about noon, sudden and refulgent above the
and all the past, present, and future gray horizon. Many of us, though
of humanity in heaven or hell by less guilty in our indifference, are
twilight ? like Gallic, who "cared for none of
It is true we are told that the those things." The round of our
awful time will come as a thief in daily life suffices us, and we nei-
the night, and we are apt to explain ther give the time nor the trou-
that into being sudden ; whereas it ble to come to conclusions or to
may more properly describe the fact arrive at definite notions even re-
that the time will steal upon us, specting the signs of the times,
silently and hiddenly. We shall which our Lord rebuked his disci-
find our bright brethren, the an- pies for not discerning. Catholics
gels, around us, among us, before will often talk among themselves
we have altogether realized their and with those outside the church
approach ; just as, gradually and in a casual way about the spiritist
by degrees, we shall find the Spirit manifestations which are so rife in
illuminating the minds and hearts our day, as if it were quite an open
of the innocent and the zealous, the question, and that it were unneces-
4 youths and the maidens," with di- sary to have any fixed opinion on
vine inspirations, first as the dawn- the subject. Not only have they
ing of new light, then as the blaze never realized that the church has
noontide. All God's dealings spoken again and again, but also
with his poor creatures have been they have never used their common
idual. They are hidden, but they reasoning powers to arrive at the
e never sudden. He always sends conclusion that either spiritist mani-
his angels before his face to prepare festations, as they are now pre-
sented to us, form part of God's
*Matt. xiii. 4 i, 42, 43, 49. mode of governing his creatures,

410

The Eternal Years

and therefore are most precious to
each of us, and not to be treated as
a trifle ; or, as they are in fact, the
devil's guess at some of God's se-
crets, and his anticipation of some-
thing belonging to the future destiny
of man. We have no intention of
polluting our pages by allusion to
the jejune trifling of spiritist ap-
pearances. We would only ask
every one solemnly and reverently
to think of God's ways in our world,
and then, as before him, to declare
whether or no the half-ludicrous,
partially ghastly, and altogether
jerky, will-o'-the-wisp performances
of spiritists have anything in con-
sonance with the dignity, the uni-
formity, the plain good sense (if this
term sound not irreverent) of God's
dealings with his children. They
talk of undiscovered natural laws !
When did any grand, God-implant-
ed natural law begin to reveal it-
self by tricks and antics? What
are natural laws but revelations
of God's action and divine being?
Every one of them shows us God,
and leads us to God by simple and
lucid gradation. It is the travesty
of his laws in which the devil de-
lights ; and as within ourselves
there are undeveloped laws which
have been overlaid by original sin,
and lie within us as the butterfly
lies in the chrysalis, therefore the
enemy of mankind, who, with far-
seeing cunning, predicates the glori-
ous future of mankind before the
final consummation of all things, is
using his knowledge to practise
upon these laws to the detriment of
those who lend themselves igno-
rantly as his instruments.

The fallen angels know far more
accurately the secrets of our nature
than we know them ourselves, and
through this knowledge they de-
ceive the unwary. Still more easi-
ly they have their way with those

whose reprehensible curiosity in-
duces them to resort to dangerous
experiments. It is distressing to
hear good, practical Catholics talk-
ing loosely on these matters, as
though they had little or no data
on which to form a solid, reasonable
opinion, and were unable to distin-
guish between natural though occult
laws, as they are brought out by
divine, supernatural influence on the
saints, and the miserable and con-
temptible practices of the spiritists,
the " lo here, lo there ' of those
who prophesy false Christs.

It is an old proverb that the devil
can quote Scripture, and so, also,
can he base his evil designs on his
knowledge of Catholic truth. We
believe in the possibility, by a spe-
cial permission from God, of the re-
appearance of the departed amongst
us, and of the holy souls coming to
ask for prayers, as we read con-
stantly in the lives of the saints ;
and probably many of us have our-
selves known of such incidents on
creditable evidence. The devil
acts upon this faith as he acts upon
his own knowledge of occult laws ;
and blending a theoretic truth with
practical error, he weaves a mesh to
catch souls, all the while forebod-
ing the time when the more devel-
oped mission of the Holy Ghost,
and the elaborating in countless
hearts of that hidden holiness by
which the church is " all glorious
within," shall bring about that
greater familiarity with the super-
natural which is foretold as a char-
acteristic of the latter times.

The early teaching of the church
laid more stress on the mission of
the angels than it became her habit
to do in later days. Not that the
church, as the organ of the Holy
Ghost, ever gives an uncertain
sound or calls back any of her di-
vine utterances ; but, like a watch-

The Eternal Years.

411

ful mother, she holds in her own
keeping such of the treasures, new
or old, which are not adapted to
the present wants of her children.
There came a time, as Christianity
grew more diffused, when the early
Christians, not entirely weaned from
the heathen practices of their fore-
fathers, were in danger of attempt-
ing to define the occupation and
attributes of the angels beyond the
limits of the church's authority.
They affected to have learnt the
names of many, and to decide on
their position and purpose in the
angelic hosts. Out of that arose a
kind of worship and invocation of
the angels which bordered on su-
perstition and savored of the wor-
ship offered to the demons among
the heathens. This fell under the
reprobation of the church, and by
a natural reaction left devotion to
the angels at a lower ebb than what
is warranted bv sound doctrine.

Then came the German heretics
and the dawn of modern Protestant-
ism ; and one of the first, of their
efforts was to banish all belief in
the interposition and ministry of
the angelic host. They took ad-
vantage of the errors and follies of
individuals to write against the
whole doctrine of angelic action ;
and though among Catholics the
faith in their guardianship and aid
is constant, yet it is not now practi-
cally (of course virtually it is the
same) what it was in earlier times.
But here also we have another in-
stance of how the church brings
forth from her divine armory the
weapon most needed to defeat the
machinations of the arch-enemy ; for
it has been reserved for our day to
see devotion to the angels taking a
fuller extension and a more definite
form than it ever before held in the
history of the church's inner life.
In all her definitions and in all her

practices there resides the spirit of
prophecy; They have not only re-
ference to the present time ; they
are far-seeing and far-stretching.
And as the definition of the Im-
maculate Conception of Mary in
our own time has led to the exten-
sion of her reign in the hearts of
men, and is preparing the way every
hour for her sweet sovereignty to
' take root in an honorable people,"
so does the increasing devotion to
the angels who form her court har-
monize therewith, and prepare for
that mission of the angels which,
however remote, is as certain as the
day of judgment. Oh ! what en-
larged hearts do we need to take in,
however inadequately, all that lies
before us in the history of God's
creation. Far distant though it be,
still is it ours, just as the past is
ours, and the present; for all are
united in Jesus. He is the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and
the end. Nothing shall be lost to
us. No treasure of the past but has
tended to brighten our own brief
day, no promise of the future but
what we shall reap ; for we have
all things in Him who contains all in
himself, and who gives his whole
self to us.

Let us in thought go back to Para-
dise, to our great progenitor before
his fall. For Adam knew Jesus.
Not, indeed, as we know him
the rainless skies of the garden
God had planted had formed no
background to the beloved sign of
our redemption ; for as the Re-
deemer Adam knew him not. We
have already given our reasons for
believing that besides knowing
Him, by the graces of infused
science, as the second Person of the
Trinity, the Logos, he knew of the
intended Incarnation through and
by which Jesus was to unite Him-
self to us. We have also dared to

412 The Eternal Years.

imagine that he foresaw the Real surely his must be the greatest of
Presence as the carrying out and all the multitude who have washed
completion of the Incarnation. But their robes in the blood of the Lamb,
in those days Adam, knew of no But the glory of the saints now
shedding of blood, of no sacrifice of in heaven cannot be compared with
suffering. The whole of that pa- that which will follow after the
thetic and terrible chapter, written second mission of our Lord at the
in red characters, was a sealed one consummation of all things; for that
to our once sinless forefather. But mission is a mission of- glory, even
in addition to the first beautiful as his first was a mission of humilia-
and tender history of the future In- tion. He came to us in the womb
carnation there was a glorious page of Mary, in the manger at Bethle-
redolent with light and full of joy ; hem, hidden and unknown, poor
for Adam looked out beyond Jesus and despised ; but when the time
as the Creator, and Jesus as the shall be ripe for that second mis-
elder Brother of man in the Incar- sion, he will come in the glory of
nation, to Jesus as the Glorificator. his Father with the holy angels.*
Adam knew that the green glades He will come as the glorificator of
and fruit-laden forests of Paradise His own creation, of which Mary is
were not to constitute his ultimate the first in rank, a hierarchy in her-
home. He aspired after the time self, a sealed fountain, a garden en-
when the God-Man would reward closed, a second paradise, but where
his fidelity at the close of a longer no sin has entered ; and in that
or shorter probation, and admit him second mission his saints, as also his
from the infancy of innocence into angels, will take part,
the resplendent manhood of accom- Thus we look back upon the
plished and final grace. Then first mission accomplished that of
would he be like Jesus ; for he the Incarnation and Redemption ;
would see him as he is ! the second mission being accom-
Thus did Adam dwell in the con- plished that of the Holy Ghost
templation of two futures the one gradually developing into the reign
tender and familiar, the other glo- of the Holy Ghost; and we look for-
rious and triumphant until his ward to two other missions that of
own act had made the rift between his angels, and, finally, that of His
the two, and the blood-stained cross own second coming. " Behold,
crowned the heights of Calvary. O he cometh with clouds, and every
felix culpa ! We dare to say it, eye shall see him. "f "For the Lord
because our mother the church has himself shall come down from
said it. And as Adam sees that heaven with commandment, and
past now, pardoned, ransomed, and with the voice of an archangel, and
glorified * with his glorified Lord, with the trumpet of God : and the
he beholds his children, with each dead, who are in Christ, shall rise
stroke of eternity's golden moments, first. Then we who are alive, who
thronging through the gates of are left, shall be taken up together
heaven by the Sacrifice of the cross, with them in the clouds, to meet
What must not his love in heaven Christ, and so shall we be always
be ! Next to that of Our Lady with the Lord. Wherefore comfort

* It is generally believed that Adam was amongst Y 6 ne another with these WOrds."J
the souls released from Limbo when our Lord de-
scended thither, and who entered heaven with * Mark viii. 38. t Apocalypse i. 7.
him. % i Thess. iv. 15-17.

Hobbies and t/teir Riders.

413

HOBBIES AND THEIR RIDERS.

UNDER the general head of hob-
bies we class a thousand peculiari*
ties distinguishing men which, if
strictly viewed according to that
accurate balance of mind known
as sanity, would almost justify us
in calling nine out of every ten
men insane on some point, how-
ever infinitesimal. Every enthusi-
asm, from the most exalted moral
self-forgetfulness to the most ludi-
crous extravagance, has been in
turn called folly and ridiculed as a
hobby. There is in the world a
tradition, or rather a prescription,
against anything which is not de-
cent and well-behaved moderation.
Even Christianity is not to be too
obtrusive ; even moral reform is to
wear a velvet glove. No one sin,
be it ever so monstrous and pre-
ponderant over other offences in
your particular time or neighbor-
hood, is to be singled out and
fought against more than any
other ; decorous generalities and
pious conventionalities are by no
means to be departed from ; and if
your heart burns within you, you
must put a seal upon your lips and
carefully prevent the zeal from in-
fecting your weaker brethren who
might thuswise be led astray.

A man's' character is better re-
vealed in his hobby than in any-
thing else belonging to him. Of-
tentimes the possession of one
shows him in a more lovable, hu-
man light. He must have both
heart and imagination to have
one. The man who is wholly in-
capable of fostering one would be
a very unpleasant, not to say dan-

gerous, neighbor. It is said that
to have no enemies argues also that
you have no friends, and that to
have no prejudices implies that you
are too cold-blooded to feel enthu-
siasm. Without taking either of
these sayings literally, it is yet evi-
dent that they are built upon truth..
The only person who has no indi-
vidual likings, no bias, no tastes to
which he is passionately attached,
is either the heartless, calculating,
selfish man who moves through
life rather as an automaton than
as a being of flesh and blood, and
generally ends by ruling his fellow-
beings by fear and by wealth, as
many statesmen we read of in his-
tory, and pettier rulers we hear of
now and then in the world of busi-
ness ; or the poor, nerveless being
whose mind remains all his life a
blank, and who sinks unnoticed in-
to an obscure grave.

Some of our friends, especially
elderly people, are often the dearer
to us for their little eccentricities,
which give a touch of piquancy to
their character, and most often re-
veal some amiable trait. Hobbies
do not sit so well on the young ; for
one always has an involuntary sus-
picion of their genuineness, and,
even if they are genuine, youth
ought to repress any attempt at
thrusting itself forward and claim-
ing undue attention. Besides, young
people have yet to earn the right
to occupy the attention of others
otherwise than in the usual way
of guidance and education, and
a peculiar turn of mind may be
cherished without manifesting itself

414 Hobbies and their Riders.

by any outward sign. Sterne has tor of pictures ; and the fewer he
a delightful consciousness of the has, the more set he is on his hobby,
value of a hobby as an indication of He gets some fine specimen of an
character when he shows us Uncle old master " for an old song ' : ' (for
Toby and Corporal Trim in the such miraculous bargains are half
back-garden at Planchy, following the charm, just as for many women
step by step the course of the army the delight of contriving and piec-
of the Allies by the help of a spade ing and otherwise skilfully eking out
and some turf, placed so as to re- old material to look *' as good as
present bastions and fortifications, new " is much greater than to pos-
This process the old soldiers went sess a new dress made of a roll of
through over and over again, always cloth just from the store); and if
with renewed zest. It was a hobby he is cheated, he probably never
something like this but too much finds it out. He often is, and woe
mixed with vain-glory and the bad to him who, thinking to do him a
taste which nature has at last sue- good turn, undeceives him. But
ceeded in hiding that prompted whether the picture be genuine or
the planting of Blenheim Park, near not, it is the source of unending de-
Oxford, in such a way as to re- light to its owner. He will discuss
present the positions of the regi- its points by the hour the lights and
ments at the battle of Blenheim, shades, the material of the colons,
The trees have had time to grow the style of the painter ; he will " get
out of this likeness, yet they stand up " the artist's life and history, buy
in ranks and platoons which one books on the subject, pin you to
can imagine to have looked' hideous your chair while he recounts how
when the oaks and beeches were he found it, who " restored " it, how
young saplings. it once got injured by a fire ; and,

Hobbies and collections are some- lastly, he will put you into corners,

how related ; at least the mind is or behind cupboards and curtains,

used to coupling them together, that you maybe sure to see it in the

One can hardly be a collector of best light.

anything without becoming ab- The hobby of the rich collector

sorbed in the collection and in the who can dignify his gathering of

knowledge required for adding to pictures with the name of gallery

and classifying it. Even if the col- has a different way of showing

lection have been begun with some itself; it crops out in a sort of in-

object of instruction or benevo- nocent ostentation, or again an

lence, or as a distraction from grief, assumed indifference. There are

it soon grows to be a great interest men whose hobby it is to conceal

of life, and toil in its behalf becomes their hobby, to ape humility and

pleasure and relaxation. But oftener pretend to a nonchalance very far

still the hobby precedes the collec- from their real feelings. Among

tion, and many people who are taken collectors, none are more voracious,

for sober, humdrum individuals, the more steady-going, and generally

mere padding of society, would in more happy than bibliopolists.

reality be fast and furious riders of They are of all ranks and degrees,

hobby-horses if their means allowed but perhaps clergymen and college

them to give outward expression to professors predominate. In Eng

their tastes. land the country squire is often an

A very familiar type is the collec- eager book-hunter. Books of genea-

Hobbies and their Riders.

415

logy and heraldry are favorite tid-
bits with him, while clergymen often
have a special mania for county
histories. The collectors of minor
curiosities, miscellaneous objects
from all parts of the world, are
generally old maiden ladies, who
have, as a class, the most amiable
and touching weaknesses, such as
that of the benevolent little fairy,
Miss Farebrother, in George Eliot's
Middlcinarch, who drops her lumps
of sugar in a little basket on
her lap, that she may have them to
bestow upon her friends, the street-
boys. Then there are collectors
innumerable of stuffed beasts, of
shells, of minerals, of old china,
laces, and jewelry, of heathen idols,
of all kinds of coins, of autographs,
of postage-stamps, etc. The auto-
graph-hunter is a very restless and
persistent individual. The American
who sent a cheese to Queen Vic-
toria must have been of this species,
and the queen did not fail to reward
him with a letter written with her
own hand.

A hobby that used to be rather
prevalent, but has somewhat gone
out of fashion now, was that of col-
lecting walking-sticks, canes, snuff-
boxes, and pipes. Apropos to this,
a story is told of an old man whose
special mania was snuff as well as
snuff-boxes. He was a man of some
standing in English society towards
the latter end of the last century.
His sitting-room was fitted up with
shelves like a shop, and on these
stood canisters of various kinds of
snuff, their names on labels, and
the locks and keys of fantastic and
rather ingenious shape. This sanc-
tum was his delight, and the shelves,
which ran all round the room, were
being constantly replenished with
new specimens *of the weed. He
used snuff to an enormous extent,
and willingly gave it away to his

friends ; but storing it was his chief
pleasure, and he looked forward to
the last variety in snuff which his
tobacconist had a standing order to
send him as soon as it touched
English soil with the same glee
with which a naturalist expects the
newest kind of living ape just im-
ported from Africa.

We have never heard but of one
person who made a sptcialite of col-
lecting pieces of wedding-cake ; she
was an old nurse who had been in
the service of a lady employed
about the court of William IV. She
had pieces of the. wedding-cakes of
all the princesses of the royal fam-
ily, including Queen Victoria and
some of her daughters, besides re-
mains of the cakes of her mistress's
family, a large and ramified one,
and of those of any person of title or
distinction of whom, through her
connections, she ctmld possibly beg
these mementoes.

The horticultural mania, empha-
tically a hobby for the rich, is one of
the most charming and desirable of
hobbies ; a healthy one, too, as it keeps
one out in trie open air to a great
extent, and supplies the place of such
feverish excitements as arise from an
interest in politics or in the state of
the funds. It even takes awav the

possibility of interest in petty gos-
sip ; for how is it possible to think
of the success of Mrs. So-and-so's
coming tea-party when your mind
is anxiously engaged on the chance
of a late frost ruining your camel-
lias, or the probable time when your
Victoria Regia will bloom ?

A hobby rather prevalent among
women is a constant attendance at
auctions. They cannot resist buy-
ing little things they do not want,
because they are cheap; and, besides,
there is a fascination about the at-
mosphere of a salesroom which is
not reducible to mere words. It is

416

Hobbies and tJieir Riders.

milk-and-water gambling, as are
many other innocent-looking de-
vices used by very worthy people
to increase their stock of pretty
possessions without paying _ full
value for them. Very opposite to
this is the hobby of petty econo-
mies, such as untying a knot instead
of cutting it, secreting tiny bits of
pencil, keeping a strict watch over
matches and candle-ends, etc. It
may be a mere habit of mind, but
it often degenerates into a foolish
hobby, such as is that of keeping
every scrap of cloth, silk, or flannel,
and carrying about this rubbish
from place to place, for the chance
of its " coming in usefully " at some
future time. Of course we know
how many a gorgeous quilt has been
evolved from these savings of years,
and' how mats have been made of
the coarser refuse, and the rest
sometimes thriftily sold to the
paper-mill ; but these are often ex-
ceptions, for time and deftness are
wanting to many who have the in-
stinct of saving, and such small
economies are apt to have in them-
selves a tendency to narrow the
mind. Besides, what is thrift in
one case is parsimony in another ;
and while one family may be praise-
worthy in its attempts to " take
care of the pence," such care would
be despicable in another of easier
means.

Shall we call it a hobby to " have
one's ringer in every pie"? Some
people are not happy unless they
are giving their neighbors gratuitous
advice, and telling them at every
turn how they would act " if I were
you." But of this kind of interfer-
ence none is so dangerous and
none so fascinating as the well-
meant contrivances of the born
match-maker. This individual is

invariably a woman, and generally
a most amiable and kind creature.

Sometimes a young matron is bitten
with the mania, and clumsily enough
she sets to work extolling the de-
lights of the honeymoon to her
girl friends ; sometimes a middle-
aged woman who has had experi-
ence, and is more wary in her
method, quietly sets her snares and
unluckily succeeds once in five
times unluckily, we say; for her one
success blinds her to her four fail-"
ures, and she continues in the slip-
pery path which, in the end, is al-
most sure to bring ruin on some
special pet of hers. Even unmar-
ried women are match-makers ;
they will plan, and speculate, and
contrive ; and it is lucky indeed if
they are nothing more than indis-
creet, for they are handling edged
tools. You never find a man to be
a match-maker ; and yet women will
have it that men are so much more
benefited by matrimony than them-
selves !

Among special hobbies, one is
said to have been the property of a
rich old Englishman of the olden
time, who altered a house on pur-
pose to suit it. He could not bear
the sight of a female servant, and so
angry was he at meeting one on
the stairs that he sent for a mason
to contrive hiding-places here and
there in which an unlucky maid, if
she chanced to meet the master,
might take refuge out of his sight.
The \vhole house was full of such
cunningly-placed holes, and in this
odd, honey-combed state it passed
to his next heir.

One or two members of a family
often take upon themselves the
guardianship of the family honor,
and bore every relation they have,
.to the sixth and seventh degree,
about the genealogy, inter-marria-
ges, quarterings, etc., of their collec-
tive fetich. They are learned in
family " trees," know every date,

Hobbies and their Riders.

417

from tne first mention of the name
in the annals of the country to the
number of goods and chattels they
brought over with them in the
Mayflower; how many shares they
bought in the cow of the first
settlement ; when this and that por-
trait was painted, and so on. 'Tis
not the knowledge that is irksome,
but the inappropriateness and uni-
versality of its mention in the con-
versation of these good people, and
the unconsciousness of the narrators
that they have ever spoken to you
of the subject before.

Have you ever known any one
whose " best parlor " was their hob-
by a scrupulous, Dutch-like rev-
erence for immaculate cleanliness
and order ? Scarcely any hobby is
more terrible to the stranger or
casual visitor. Akin to it is the ex-
cess of punctuality by which some
people make their guests wretched.
Both grow to be a punishment to
the person himself; for he, or
oftener she, suffers torture every
time a guest comes in with snow on
his boots, or any one puts a cup of
coffee on a marble table, or leans
his head on the back of an easy-
chair. Half the day is employed in
dusting and cleaning the sacred
precincts, and the other half in
resting from the exertions thereby
incurred.

The hobbies of writers furnish
some amusing stories. The histo-
rian of the queens of England Miss
Agnes Strickland, as worthy and af-
fectionate a woman as ever breathed
-had, it is well known, constituted
herself the champion of Mary, Queen
of Scots. So thoroughly had she
succeeded in realizing the doings
of the times of Elizabeth that she
spoke on this subject as you would
of an injustice that had been
done your dearest friend, and that
quite recently. It was as fresh in
VOL. xxiii. 27

her mind as some wrong committed
last week on a defenceless woman,
and she grew excited and eloquent
over it, forgetting who, with whom,
and where she was. This was very
unpractical and somewhat ludicrous,
some may be inclined to say, but
it was a peculiarity that certainly
made her happy, and it was no
annoyance to her listeners. How
much more dignified, too, than the
too common fuming over the im-
pertinence of the servant that was
discharged last week, or the chafing
over the troublesome man who
claims a " right of way " and threat-
ens to bring a suit about it next
month !

Political hobbies also abound.
These are generally the property of
old people, the traditions of whose
youth have remained proof against
the -enlightenment of the present.
There are people who boast they
have never been on a railroad, and
never will be they are common
in Europe, at least and people who
would scorn to be photographed ;
people who laugh at you if you tell
them that the sun really does not go
round the earth, and rise and set
morning and evening, and who
obstinately believe that dogs only
go mad during the dog-days. But
there are those who, with a better
education and more opportunities,
are just as unprogressive. Such will
buttonhole you and argue seriously
that the Pope is going to involve
Europe in another Thirty- Years'
War. They seriously believe it and
live in dread of it. They would not
hurt a fly ; but they firmly believe
that, if they got hold of a Jesuit,
they would remorselessly run him
through, and think they had rid
the country of a tiger or an alliga-
tor. Dr. Newman's Apologia gives
an amusing account of the awe and
terror inspired by the dark house in

41 8 Hobbies and their Riders.

a by-street where "it was said a day, and, being ushered into the
Roman Catholic lady lived all alone hall, heard his voice shouting from

with her servant." In England the behind the door leading to the bath :

Jesuits and "Bony' long divided "Come in, S , and we'll sit here

the honors of bugbear-in-chief to a while. Stay to luncheon, won't
the British public. To this day you? It is only two hours to wait."
some amiable old Welsh lady will as- The friend was so amused that he
sure you in a whisper that the whole took off his clothes and submitted
country has underground (and it is to the novel invitation of spending
to be supposed submarine) connec- the time of a morning call in a
tion with Rome, and that she never Turkish bath. Of course the con-
goes to bed without looking under- versation soon fell on Russia and
neath to see that there is no Jesuit its demoniacal secret agency in all
in disguise concealed there ! Then the troubles of the world. The
there is the man who, under the Na- man was exceptionally clever, and
poleonic regime, whether of the first these oddities of mind and beha-
or third emperor, would tell you in vior only made his society more
an awestruck manner of the impossi- charming to his friends and more
bility of putting off the evil hour any piquant to his acquaintances,
longer, and the inevitable certainty Among fixed ideas which may al-
of a French invasion and annexation most be called hobbies are certain
of England to France ; the landing preferences which blind us to the
always to take place exactly within good done without the special ad-
a few miles of his own house, if he juncts which we individually con-
lived by the seaside. If his house sider nearly indispensable. For
were further inland, he would tell instance, 1 it is recorded with how
you he knew his village would be the much truth we cannot tell of the
first and mdst convenient place to great architect, Pugin the elder,
halt at and plunder. that one day, being in Rome, he
At one time there was in London went to Benediction in a church
a great mania for Turkish baths, where it is customary to say pray-
A person of some note as a writer ers in the vernacular for the con-
and, we believe, an M.P. took up version of England. This was
the subject vigorously, and had a done after the service proper was
Turkish bath built adjoining his over, and Pugin, not recognizing
own house. Here he passed the the extra prayers at the end of the
greater part of his time, combining familiar Benediction service, asked
his reading and writing with the a neighbor what they meant. On
delights of his new hobby. But being told he turned to a friend
he had an old hobby as well, who was with him and said : " The
which w r as the evil agency of idea of praying for the conversion
Russia in the politics of Europe, of England in. such a cope as that !"
Like the philosopher who asked A clever and well-known writer for
but one question on the occasion one of our leading Catholic maga-
of any disturbance " Who is she?" zines, who is confessedly somewhat
this man acknowledged but one eccentric, is said to have been dis-
possible element of discord at the covered one morning by a friend
bottom of any diplomatic imbro- in a . state of violent agitation,
%lio i.e., Russia. A friend of his walking up and down the break-
called on him one day about mid- fast-room with quick and nervous

Hobbies and their Riders. 419

.strides, and looking like a man in which it requires a life-time to learn
passionate, personal grief. On be- -for the greatest always think them-
ing gently asked the cause of this selves still at the bottom of the lad-
emotion, lie answered vehemently : der of knowledge ; the man who
' I was thinking of how many souls tells stories to satiety, and expects
are being eternally damned at this them to be laughed at; the m;in
very moment. Is it not frightful to who interrupts 'A.t$tc-a-ti'te, or who is
think of? Every minute souls are so fulj of some interest of his own
going there, to be tormented for that he insists on your sharing it
all eternity !" Here was a fixed idea when you show no inclination to lis-
with which it was difficult to deal, ten to him ; the man who cannot
It was true, and a thought which take a hint, though he is as good-na-
would do many good if they would tured as he is obtuse these there
realize it as he did the innocent, are, and many more, who are the
large-hearted man, who did not human mosquitoes of'the world,
need the idea for his own disci- Akin to hobbies, as we said at the
pline but it was decidedly an in- beginning, are tastes, harmless for
convenient disturbance of the do- the most part, often aesthetic, and
mestic balance of things, and not almost always beneficial. Indeed,
a pleasant appetizer for the good many a taste, well regulated, has
breakfast that was before him. become an antidote or a preservative
Bores, pure and simple, are of a against vice ; and, to put it from a
remote kindred with the riders of very low point of view, a taste is
hobbies, and they are of as many generally far more economical than
kinds. There is the croaker, who dangerous company and degrading
cherishes some pet grievance and sin. The Saturday Review, in an arti-
favors every one with it ; the singer cle on this subject last year, said with
who is offended if he is not asked to truth: "Tastes are not, as a rule,
perform, and is not applauded at exorbitantly expensive; they are
the end like the leading tenor of certainly very much cheaper than
the hour ; the critic who thinks he vices. A very moderate percentage
would lose his reputation if he con- of an income, judiciously laid out,
descended to praise anything, or to will soon secure an excellent library,
admire and be pleased like a com- It is surprising how small a sum will
mon mortal ; the man (or woman) suffice for the purchase of every
who sets himself up on a pedestal standard work worth having. The
and assumes, subtly but unmistaka- most famous private libraries cost
bly, that he is entirely above his their owners nothing in comparison
neighbors or whatever people he with the price of a few race-horses."
may be with ; tlie man who has Although we have somewhat dis-
quarrelled with somebody, and in- paraged amateurs as a kind of
sists on. reading you the whole cor- " bores," this was not meant to dis-
respondence ; the man who is sure suade young men and women from
always to come to see you at inop- cultivating some taste which will
portune times, and, worse still, never serve as a resource for evening
knows when to go away; the amateur hours or any otherwise unoccupied
-a terrible species who imagines time, and be a relaxation from
he can paint, or play the pianoforte necessary work, as well as a grad-
or the flute, etc., or write poetry, or ual safeguard against coarse pleas-
draw plans, or, in short, do anything ures. As long as such pursuits -

42O

Hobbies and their Riders.

undertaken with due modesty as

to one's proficiency in them, and
not as a mere social " accomplish-
ment " to be obtruded on others on
all possible occasions, they are in-
finitely to be commended. They
grow on one, too, and soon become
the chief point of attraction in our
intellectual life, especially if our
business happens to be, as that of
most persons is, of a prosaic nature.
As we grow old they may develop
into hobbies ; never mind, they
will still make us happy and never
cause us shame. On the other hand,
what will tendencies to convivial
"pleasures," or to frivolous and ob-
jectless conversation, or to gadding
about to theatres, balls, and races,
come to in the end ? Dead-Sea fruit.
Among the minor arts which tend
to occupy one's leisure pleasantly
and usefully are wood-carving,
turning, ivory-carving, and leather-
work. Even commoner things may
be taken up. We have known
young men who, during a long con-
valescence, took to mending cane
chairs as a mode of making their
fingers useful when their brains
were still too weak to be taxed.
Basket-making, decalcomania of
the higher order i.e., a sort of
easy glass-painting akin to decal-
comania, are all useful and pos-
sible methods of employing one's
self and cultivating a pleasant do-
mestic taste. Mechanics, too, and
household carpentry we have often
seen fostered in young people and
become their pride, while illumina-
tion a really high style of art,
though a rare gift is not so uncom-
mon as some may think. Of such
tastes as gardening, reading, em-

broidering, and music we say noth-
ing; they are too well known. Such
a taste generally ends in a collec-
tion, and then the pleasure is en-
hanced a hundred-fold ; and, as the
Saturday Review says, it really needs
but a comparatively small outlay to
. secure a very fair collection of any
kind. This in its turn helps to
study by giving us the means of
reference or comparison. And if
in any family the members were
seriously to look up the money
really wasted that is, the money
spent in transitory, unhealthy plea-
sures, the value of which dies in the
mere excitement of the moment,
leaving no pleasant memory or use-
ful impression behind, and often,
on the contrary, leading to a re-
morseful, or at least an uncomforta-
ble, remembrance they would find
that every year there goes forth im-
perceptibly from the collective trea-
sury of the home enough to beauti-
fy their lives and increase their
happiness if only they would lead
it into the right channels. The
money would not be missed, while
their pleasures would be tenfold
and lasting. Even the very poorest
of the poor spends uselessly and
alas ! often wickedly what would
make him a happy, self-respecting
man ; and, strictly speaking, no one
can say that he cannot afford good
and healthy pleasures, for, as a mat-
ter of fact, he does afford bad and
unhealthy, or, to say the least, un-
satisfactory, ones. Let every one
ask this question of his own experi-
ence : Which costs most in the
long run, a healthy pleasure, say
even an innocent hobby, or a vi-
cious and lowering pursuit ?

A Pica for our Grandmothers.

421

A PLEA FOR OUR GRANDMOTHERS.

THAT there are many flaws and
deficiencies in the social structure
of our bustling republic, from its
foundation in the single family to
the collection of familievS forming
general society, cannot be denied.
Among these none are more pal-
pable than the failure to provide
comfortable space, suitable appoint-
ments, and a well-defined position
therein for our grandmothers.

Their claims to consideration as
a /class, existing albeit by mere
sufferance in every city, village,
and rural corner throughout the
length and breadth of our wide do-
main, seem to have been crowded
out and lost in the confusion and
dust upwhirled by our great social
vehicle in its onward sweep toward
an imaginary and unattainable El
Dorado. No one seems to compre-
hend the binding obligation of
those claims. The force of a play-
ful remark made by the great and
good Father Burke to his mother
when she complained that she failed
to hear his lecture because the hall
was so crowded that she could not
get in- " Ah ! mother dear, wasn't
that too bad ? Just think of it !
Why, if it hadn't been for you, dear,
I wouldn't have been there myself 7" has
not come home to Americans in con-
nection with this subject. They do
not pause to reflect that, but for our
grandmothers, this g^eat multitude
now rushing so furiously toward
every promising avenue to wealth
and influence, elbowing and jostling
each other in their mad career,
would not have been in existence.

Nor are the annoyances to which
this class is exposed in consequence
of such neglect itself the result

rather of heedlessness than design
any the less burdensome that they
are mainly of so negative a charac-
ter as scarcely to form the basis of
a positive complaint ; nay, so far
from this that when they find voice
in such utterance as the disquieting
consciousness of their reality, in
spite of their unreal guise, may force
from the victims, the moan is more
apt to excite ill-concealed merri-
ment in a listener, by its quaint
whimsicality, than pity or sympathy.
Yet these evils are real and con-
stantly increasing. The most serious
of them are the outgrowth of modern
civilization and the progressive doc-
trines of the last quarter of a cen-
tury. In this enlightened age it is
not to be supposed that people
must grow old, and it is highly im-
proper for our grandmother to insist
upon submitting to conditions pro-
per enough to humanity before it
flourished in the light of " advanced
ideas," but wholly out of place now.
As recently as twenty-five years
ago she was, perforce of that very
submission, an important element
in the domestic and social circle.
She occupied a position quite in-
dependent of such prescribed rules
and customs as govern other classes
in society. She was not expected
to conform to every caprice of
fashion. She was permitted to
dress in a manner consistent with
her age, and no one respected her
the less, or thought of indulging in
sharp criticism of her style, if it was
of an obsolete date. She could em-
ploy her time in suitable occupa-
tions, and render the useful and ac-
ceptable services to the family and
neighborhood for which the skill

422 A Pica for our Grandmothers,

acquired by her long acquaintance in relation to the dress of women of

with the world and its exigencies all ages is that it shall change in

eminently fitted her ; or repose in style with every change' of the

the calm twilight of life's evening moon, and, above all, that as much

hour, in such habiliments as best expense in material and labor shall

comported with her own comfort be lavished upon its elaboration as

and the requirements of her gradual the inventive genius of skilled artists

descent into the valley of years. can possibly devise. And Ameri-

Not so now. The milliners pro- can women even grandmothers-
vide her with no bonnets or caps are so foolish as to bow in slavish
befitting her age; nay, they utterly submission to this intolerable ty-
refuse to attempt, at any price, the ranny, which is working such wide-
construction for her of suitable spread ruin and desolation in our
head-gear. Such manufacture has country! "Let Fashion rule, though
taken its place among the "lost the heavens fall," say they,
arts," and they do not wish to re- So completely have all correct
vive it. The mantua-makers insist ideas pertaining to true taste in the
upon u the demi-train, at least," and discriminating consistency of differ-
she must submit in the matter of the ent costumes adapted to the differ-
overskirt, with its puffed abomina- ent periods of life been swallowed
tions and puckered deformities. She up in the all-prevailing fashion-
is allowed no ease or comfort in her worship, that there is now scarcely
costume, but is required to assume any distinction, save in length of
all the grotesque discomforts in- skirt, between the dress of the little
vented by modern modistes for the girl of five and that of her grand-
summer-day butterflies of fashion, mother, mother, or the young lady,
at the lisk, if she reftises, of being her elder sister. Pitiable indeed
followed, every time she ventures to is this loss of all sense of the fitness
appear among them, with such re- of things for the two extremes of
marks as, " A nice old lady ? Oh ! human life, which should be ex-
yes ; but it is a pity that she will empted from subjection to discom-
persist in making such a guy of her- forts for fashion's sake!
self, with those old-fashioned sleeves What spectacle can be more
and skirts, and her plain white mus- mournfully absurd than that of a
lin caps." pale, wrinkled old face set in a

It is curious to remark how dif- ghastly silvered frame of the hair-
ferent is the relative position of the dresser's curls and crimps, and sur-
grandfather, at home and abroad, mounted, to complete its repulsive-
from that of his female contempora- ness, with a bedizened hat, the
ry. How independent he is of con- form of which can only be made
ventional forms in his dress and in- barely tolerable by a beautiful young
tercourse with society; how free face beneath it; or that of a form
to go and come when he pleases, bending under the weight of years,
without giving occasion for wry carrying with trembling steps a load
faces or unkind criticisms if the of jewelry and such remarkable ex-
fashion of his coat has not been crescences, frills, flounces, and fur-
changed for half a century ! Is he belows, as the dressmaker insists
not rather regarded with increased upon cumbering it withal? These
respect on that account ? pitiful sights are constantly dis-

But the prevailing modern rule played in our palace-cars, at our

A Pica for on?' Gr;iii>?:n.t/iers.

423

hotels, boarding-houses and water-
ing-places, even by the aged inva-
lids who frequent the latter for their
healing influences.

This is all wrong! There is no
good sense or propriety in it. The
free-born American woman should
claim immunity from such bondage,
and the right to accept with cheer-
ful grace that rest from the petty
strifes and ambitions which agitate
life's noon-day to which she is en-
titled at its twilight-hour. If she
has either by inheritance or the
successful, if not altogether honest,
speculations of her male kin come
into possession of more money than
she well knows how to use, she
should set that inherent Yankee wit,
which is her inalienable national
dower, to devise some less ridicu-
lous, at least, if not more useful,
mode of disbursing it.

When we consider the multitudes
of starving poor that throng our
cities ; the necessities of widows
and orphans ; the notable rarity of
well-selected and amply-filled libra-
ries among our wealthy classes, and
their very meagre patronage of the
fine arts, we discover that there is
no lack of proper and elevating ob-
jects for expenditure. Above all,
when we reflect that the possessors
of wealth must inevitably be called
to a rigid account of their steward-
ship at last, the thought is appalling,
and the subject, in all its phases,
for this world and the next, is a sad
one to contemplate.

In pleasing contrast with the pic-
ture presented by the domestic and
social attitude of the average Ameri-
can grandmothers of to-day is that
which we have frequently been so
favored as to witness among the
most wealthy, as well as the poorest,
classes of our faithful foreign popu-
lations ; where the grandmother,
in her comfortable though antiquat-

ed cap and costume, was the most
honored and tenderly beloved mem-
ber of the household, its arbiter in
all disputes, its wise and chosen
counsellor in all doubts, its nurse in
sickness, comforter in affliction, and
its guide to that blessed land on
the confines of which her aged feet
were tottering.

She indulged no worldly ambi-
tions ; gave no thought to dress,
save to restrict it to the severest
simplicity and neatness. She filled
no brilliant role at home or in so-
ciety, nor cared for anything but to
do good to all as she had opportu-
nity. She was not learned in the
philosophy of books and literature ;
her deficiency in such knowledge
may have been so great as to excite
a sneer in her American neighbor,
who had enjoyed the great " advan-
tages " of the public-school system ;
but even the youngest of her nu-
merous grandchildren who gather-
ed around her chair in the most
cosey corner, of an evening, to listen
reverently to her explanations of
" Christian Doctrine," to join with
her in recitations of the beads, and
to give rapt attention to her tales
and legends of the" dear old land "
knew that her venerable head was
stored with treasures of learning

more precious than all earthly lore
in the sight of Him before whom the
" wisdom of this world is foolish-
ness," and who has chosen the
" weak things thereof to confound
the wise."

How will they miss her when she
is gone ! For how many long years
will " grandmother's ' virtues and
her pious instructions form the
theme, and her advice and prayers
the sustaining resource, of her chil-
dren's children, while they carefully
transmit to theirs her unwritten
memoirs as an invaluable legacy of
precept and example!

424 From Lamartine.

FROM LAMARTINE.

ALMOND-BOUGH with blossom rife,
Pride of beauty picturing ;

Blooms like thee the flow'r of life,
Blooms and withers in the spring.

Missed or gathered, prized or slighted,
Still from wreath and fingered spray
One by one its petals, blighted,

Pass, like pleasures day by day.

Taste we then its brief delight,
Ere the stealthy winds go by ;

Drain the laughing chalice quite,
Drink the perfume that must die.

Oft is beauty like the flow'r
Gathered for a guest at morn,

And before the festal hour
prom his chilly temples torn.

One day ends : another breaks ;

Spring and all her sweets decay ;
Every leaf the light wind takes

Whispers, * Gather while ye may.'

Since the rose is doomed to perish
Perish, pass, nor bloom again,

Lovers' lips her blossom cherish,
Love her dying sweets detain.

New Publications.

425

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN
STATE. A Series of Essays on the
Relation of the Church to the Civil
Power. Translated, with the permis-
sion of the author, from the German
of Dr. Joseph Hergenrother, Professor
of Canon Law and Church History at
the University of Wiirzburg. In two
volumes. London : Burns & Gates.
1876.

It is to be regretted that the price of
this excellent work has been placed so
high, although its paper covers and gen-
erally cheap style of execution give it
the appearance of a German rather than
an English publication. The price in
England is one pound sterling, which
makes it necessary to sell it for eight
dollars in this country, and with a decent
binding it must cost ten dollars. This
great cost must impede the general cir-
culation which such a work merits and
ought to obtain. In respect to the value
of its contents, it is well worth the price
it costs, and ought to have a place in
every public library and on the book-
shelves of every Catholic of intelligence
and culture indeed, of every educated
man who wishes to understand the
questions mooted and discussed so gen-
erally at the present time in respect to
the nature and mutual relations of the
church and the state. It is a master-
ly scientific treatise, constructed with
that solid learning and thoroughness of
exposition which characterize the works
of genuine German scholarship. The
author is one of the most eminent of the
Catholic professors of Germany, at home
in canon law, history,' and ju-isprudence,
well versed in theology, and enjoying an
established reputation for sound ortho-
doxy in doctrine. The division of his
topics into separate essays, each with its
distinct sections, makes it easier to fol-
low his course of exposition and reason-
ing than it would be if they were ar-
ranged under a more strictly methodi-
cal form, and his abundant references,
frequently accompanied by citations, give
evidence of the sources he has referred
to, as well as the means of referring, in

case of need, to these authorities. He is
succinct and brief in his treatment, yet
clear and precise. The subjects about
which Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation
have awakened controversy are treated
comprehensively and in their principles,
furnishing a general defence of the Cath-
olic Church, and a refutation of the ac-
cusations of her enemies in respect to
her polity, administration, and relations
to the natural and temporal order. In
short, it is a text-book or manual for in-
struction, fitted to be used as a guide to
those who have to teach, as an arsenal from
which those who have to write or lecture
may draw their weapons of argument,
and as a standard of reference for the
correct decision of the matters within
its scope. The private student will find
it all that is requisite for his complete
and accurate information on the impor-
tant topics of which it treats. We un-
derstand that the translation has been
made by Miss Allies, assisted by two
other ladies, and, we doubt not, under
her fathei's supervision. We have not
seen the original, but the translation
seems to have been thoroughly well
executed. The work will undoubtedly
take its place at once as a classic.

HISTOIRE DE MADAME BARAT, FONDA-
TRICE DE LA SOCIETE DU SACRE-C(EUR
DE JESUS. Par M. 1'Abbe Baunard.
Paris: Poussielque Freies, Rue Cas-
sette 27. 1876.

We have had the honor of receiving
one of the first copies of this long-ex-
pected biography of one of the great
women of this century, and take the ear-
liest opportunity of making the due ac-
knowledgment. This is not a book to
be dismissed by a brief notice, and we
hope to make it the subject of an article
in one of our future numbers, after hav-
ing given it the careful perusal which it
merits. It is published in two goodly
volumes of fair, large type, averaging
each six hundred octavo pages. The
Abbe Baunard is already celebrated as
the author of the Life of St. John. Those
who read French easily and with plea-

426

New Publications.

sure will prefer, we suppose, to obtain
the original work, which no doubt will
soon be for sale in our foreign book-
stores. Nevertheless, as a translation
from the graceful pen of Lady Georgiana
Fullerton is advertised as nearly or quite
ready, we are confident that the charm
of the Abbe Baunard's style will be pre-
served, in so far as that is possible, in
the Life of Madame Barat which is soon
to appear in English. It is already evi-
dent that this biography, which is at
the same time a history of the insti-
tute founded by the venerable lady
who is its subject, will have a world-
wide circulation. In our own country
there are great numbers who are eagerly
desiring the opportunity of perusing it.
We have as yet only commenced the
pleasing task, but we have gone far
enough to warrant the assurance that
those who are looking forward to the
reading of it as a source of great benefit
and pure enjoyment will not be disap-
pointed.

ARE You MY WIFE ? By the author of
A Salon in Paris before the War, Num-
ber Thirteen, Pius VI., etc. New
York : The Catholic Publication So-
ciety. 1876. i vol. 8vo. Pp. 292.

The startling question that gives a title
to this story has been before the readers
of THE CATHOLIC WORLD for many
months. Those who have followed out
the puzzle presented to them through its
monthly instalments will have found for
themselves the solution of the problem,
and formed their own opinion regarding
its merits or demerits. The story is now
published in book-form, and adds one
more to the number of admirable origi-
nal works of fiction given to the Catholic
public through the pages of THE CATHO-
LIC WORLD.

Are You My Wife? is remarkable,
and welcome, at least in this : that it
shakes itself loose from the mouldy tra-
ditions which seem to form the stock-in-
trade of most of our Catholic writers of
English fiction. It is a bold effort and
well sustained. The story is full of in-
terest from beginning to end ; the char-
acters clean-cut and distinct ; the inci-
dents varying and rapid ; and the secret
carefully concealed to the very last. It
is not, perhaps, of the first, but certainly
of a very good, order of art, and pos-
sesses this exceptional merit over its fel-
lows, that while the facts on which it

hangs are as interesting as those in the
best works of non-Catholic novelists, the
purity and moral elevation of the whole
are far beyond what even the best of such
writers can furnish.

It is needless here to sketch the plot,
which, though woven out of natural ma-
terials, is ingeniously intricate. Many of
the characters are such as may be met
with any day in England. The nominal
heroine is a wild, weird creation ; the
real heroine is Franceline, as charming a
girl as ever met us in the pages of a
novel or stole our hearts away in real
life. No wonder all the young men go
wild over her ; no wonder that the old
men do the same. She grows up and
develops under our sight the dreamy,
happy child, until she, and we with her,
suddenly start to find she is a woman.

The graceful yet powerful pen that
gave us such sketches as A Salon in
Paris before the War, Number Thir-
teen, and others equally good, has not
mistaken its powers indeed, has not, we
are convinced, yet tried them to the full
of their bent in the present more
finished and more ambitious work.
There is little or nothing in Are You My
Wife? to betray the hand of an unprac-
tised novelist. Only here and there oc-
curs a fulsomeness of detail on minor
matters that were better condensed. In
one or two places, though very rarely,
the conversation flags. Conversation is,
as a rule, slow enough in society itself;
in a book, when slow at all, it becomes
intolerable. These are the only blemishes
we find in an unusually interesting book.
Sir Simon Harness, Ponce Anwyll, Miss
Merrywig, Miss Bulpit, Angelique, and
Raymond are characters with whom we re-
gret to part, as also Franceline and Glide,
were they not so well provided for. Hu-
mor, wit, and imagination are plentiful
throughout the book, while the pictures
of natural scenery are often unsurpassed.
Here, for instance, is a picture of still
life that the best of pencils or pens
might be proud to own :

" On emerging from the damp dark-
ness after an hour with Miss Merrywig,
Franceline found that the sun had
climbed up to the zenith, and was pour-
ing down a sultry glow that made the
earth smoke again. There was a stile at
the end of the wood, and she sat down
to rest herself under the thick shade of
a sycamore. The stillness of the noon
was on everything. A few lively linnets

New Publications,

427

tried to sing ^ but, the effort being
prompted solely by duty, after a w.iile
they gave it up, and withdrew to the
coolest nooks, and enjoyed their siesta
like the lazy ones. Nobody stirred, ex-
cept the insects that were chirping in the
grass, and some bees that sailed fiom
flower to tlower, buzzing and doing field-
labor when everybody else was asleep or
idle. To the right the fields were brim-
ful of ripening grain of every shade of
gold ; the deep-orange corn was over-
flowing into the pa'e amber of the rye,
and the bearded barley was washing the
hedge that walled it off from the lemon-
colored wheat. To the left the rich
grass-lands were dotted with flocks and
herds. In the nearest meadow some cat-
tle were herding. It was too hot to eat,
so they stood surveying the fulness of
the earth with mild, bovine gaze. They
might have been sphinxes, they were so
still ; not a muscle in their sleek bodies
moved, except that a tail lashed out
against the flies now and then. Some
were in the open fiell, holding up their
white horns to the sunlight ; others were
grouped in twos and threes under a
shady tree ; but the noontide hush was
on them all. Presently a number of
horses came trooping leisurely up to the
pond near the stile ; the mild-eyed kine
moved their slow heads after the proces-
sion, and then, one by one, trooped on
with it. The noise of the hoofs plashing
into the water, and the loud lapping of
the thirsty tongues, were like a drink to
the hot silence. Franceline watched
them lifting their wet mouths, all drip-
ping, from the pool, and felt as if she had
been drinking too. There was a long,
solemn pause, and then a sound like the
blast of an organ rose up from the pond,
swelling and sweeping over the fields ;
before it died away a calf in a distant
paddock answered it."

THE LIFE OF REV. MOTHER ST. JOSEPH,
FOUNDRESS OF THE CONGREGATION OF
SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH OF BORDEAUX.
By 1'Abbe P. F. Lebeurier. Translat-
ed from the French. New York : D.
& J. Sadlier & Co. 1876.

When, in the early part of the seven-
teenth century, St. Francis de Sales
founded the Order of the Visitation, he
placed the corporal works of mercy, such
as visiting the sick and relieving the
poor, among the duties of its members,
but he was afterwards induced to modify

the original plan by making enclosure a
part of the constitution of the order.
There was a demand, however, for com-
munities of women devoted to the relief
of human misery ; and among the many
congregations ot this kind which were
founded during the life or shortly after
the death of St. Francis that of the Sis-
ters of St. Joseph holds an important
rank. This order came into existence
under the fostering care of Father Me-
daille, a priest of the Company of Jesus,
in the year 1650, in the diocese of Puy,
and was soon established in many other
parts of France. After an existence of a
hundred and forty years, it was broken
up and the sisters dispersed by the
French Revolution ; but upon the con-
clusion of the Concordat between Napo-
leon and Pius VII. the religious who
still survived reassembled and opened
a house in Lyons, in 1807, under the
protection of Cardinal Fesch.

One of the most exemplary and useful
members of the order since its restora-
tion, Mother St. Joseph in the world,
Jane Chanay is made known to us in
the biography whose title we have given.
There are few lives of which a judicious
and faithful account would not be use-
ful, and no kind of writing is more at-
tractive to most readers than biography.
It is seldom, however, that we meet with
a religious biography with which we are
altogether pleased, and this now before
us is not at all to our taste. There is
certainly no reason why the life of a nun
should not be as full of interest as that
of a woman engaged in the frivolities and
vanities of the world, and we cannot but
think it is the fault of the author that
Mother St. Joseph's has not been made
both instructive and entertaining. The
narrative is slow and interrupted, the
style heavy, and the facts often trivial
without being either amusing or edify-
ing. We have the authority of Cardinal
Donnet for the assertion that the book
is commendable for the beauty of its
diction ; but this is certainly not true of
the English translation, which is often
neither correct nor elegant. Take, for
instance, the following examples : " Other
saints . . . are restored to their Creator
with not a maze to dim their lustrous
brightness " (p. 22). " When once the
fire of jealousy is kindled in the soul,
nothing can saiiate its ravages " (p. 26).

We close with the following sentence,
which we commend to the attention of

428

New Publications.

grammar-schools : " This good father
having, in the course of his missions, met
with several widows and pious young
women who were desirous to retire from
the world and devote themselves to the
service of the salvation of their neighbor,
but were deterred for want of means to
enter convents, he formed the intention
to propose to some bishop the establish-
ment of a congregation into which those
devoted women could enter and devote
themselves to labor for their salvation,
and fulfil all the good works of which
they were capable in the service of their*
neighbor " (p. 66).

PRINCIPIA OR BASIS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.
By R. J. Wright. Second Edition.
Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co. 1876.

The eight or ten pages of letters from
various persons with which this volume
is prefaced, and in which the author re-
ceives thanks for copies of his book,
forcibly remind us of Sheridan's formula
for acknowledging the publications that
were constantly sent him : " DEAR SIR : I
have received your exquisite work, and
I have no doubt I shall be highly de-
lighted after I have read it." The per-
sons, known and unknown, whose names
are paraded here all anticipate a time
when they shall be able to congratulate
themselves upon having put the Basis
of Social Science beneath their feet.

Mr. Wright is doubtless a well-mean-
ing man ; and if good intentions could
pacify a critic's irritable soul, between
him and ourselves there would be no
quarrel. His aim has been, he informs
us in his pieface, to write a work which,
without offending the religious, political,
or scientific susceptibilities of any one,
would commend itself especially to " pi-
ous young men " and "students for the
ministry, who really desire to be useful
and to be abreast of their age on this
subject" ; and we are therefore prepared
to find him ready to embrace with equal
tenderness a Mormon prophet, an Oneida
free lover, a French communist, and a
Catholic monk. Mr. Wright's sweetness
and piety are as offensive to us as the
caress of a Yaho'o was to Dean Swift.
These attempts to reconcile the antago-
nisms, incompatibilities, and contradic-
tions of the age, by besmearing them all
with honey, are worse than absurd ; they
add to the confusion and weaken the pow-
er to apprehend truth. The self-imposed
task of the author of this volume is one

which the greatest mind now living could
not perform in a satisfactory manner.
Of all sciences, the social is, if it may as
yet be called a science, the most diffi-
cult, the most involved and uncertain ;
in its idea it is a synthesis of all know-
ledges, and no one who has not gather-
ed into his own mind the intellectual
achievements of the whole race should
attempt to construct a philosophy of Sv.-
cial science. The importance of the
study of sociology we fully admit, and
gladly welcome even the humblest ef-
forts to increase our knowledge of this
subject ; but when those who ought to
remain in the ranks seek to take com-
mand, they become disorganizers. Had
Mr. Wright been modest, he might have
been useful ; having attempted too much,
he has failed to accomplish anything.
In fact, he has not the first requisite of
an author a knowledge of the language
in which he writes. His style is bar-
barous and tumultuary, often ungram-
matical. It must, however, be striking
and emphatic, if we are to judge from
the number of words printed in italics
and majuscules. And his thought is
like his style incoherent, crude, and
embryotic. He has read Comte, Fourier,
Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Appleton's
Cyclopaedia^ and with their aid arid the
help of a certain " Theory of the Six
Units " he has sought to develop an
ideal of human society not more impos-
sible than Plato's Republic or more
visionary than More's Utopia.

The keynote to his system is the
"Theory of the Six Units." The six
units are the Individual, the Family, the
Social Circle, the Precinct, the Nation,
and Mankind. It seems to have been
his acquaintance with certain other " sin-
gular sixes " that led him to a belief in
six, and but six, social units. In the first
place, " the figure which gives the maxi-
mum amount of internal content with
the minimum amount of external sur-
face of similar bodies joined together is
a HEXAGON." Again: "In developed
civilization there are six great classes
of society " ; but it is only in some future
work that the author will tell us about
these six great classes. And just here
we wish to find fault with Mr. Wright
for a habit he has of adroitly arousing
our curiosity, and then, as we are be-
ginning to imagine we are about to learn
something, coolly dropping us with the
remark that the matter " will be per-

New Publications.

429

trayed in another book." He some-
times, too, seems to take a wicked
delight in puzzling his readers, as in
the following sentence : " All affairs,
when they become ordinary, are apt
to become matters of business ; and
business matters are well, we need not
say what." But to return to the " sixes."
There are six fundamental motors of
human passions. There are six infinities
namely, deific spirit, soul spirit, matter,
space, duration, diversity. There are
six organs of sense (the old notion that
there were but five is exploded) sensa-
tion, temperature, taste, smell, hearing,
sight. There are six crystallizations mo-
nometric, dimetric, trimetric, monoclinic,
triclinic, and hexagonal. There are six
religious societies Adam, Adam and
Eve, Patriarchy, Israel in Egypt, Israel
in Palestine, the Christian Church. It
follows as a matter of course that there
must be six social units ; and in fact, if
it were worth while, we could prove that
there must be ten or twenty.

There is no unit in which Mr. Wright
so much delights as the Precinct. The
real cause of the American civil war he
has discovered to have been a neglect
of Precinct by both the North and the
South ; and it is quite probable, we think,
there is no social or political problem
which may not ultimately be solved in
the same felicitous and satisfactory man-
ner.

Genius is manifested at least this is,
we believe, the opinion of Mr. Emerson
quite as strikingly in quotation as in
original composition, and we respect-
fully call the attention of the philoso-
pher of Concord to Mr. Wright as a con-
firmatory example of this law of mind.
Many a household will find food for
thought in the following citation : " Fa-
mily miffs are a grand institution for
giving needful repose and after-exhilara-
tion to overtasked affection." And this
other will be interesting to politicians:
' It is to the criminal propensities of
man that we owe civilization." " Alas !"
sighs our pious philosopher, "that the
Radicals cannot make a better basis for
civilization than the foregoing crime-be-
getting one."

From Wells, the phrenologist, Mr.
Wright gets the following quotation,
which almost makes us repent of what
we have written : " As a class the theo-
logians have the best heads in the
world."

CANTATA CATHOLICA. B. H. F. Helle-

busch. Benziger Bros.

This is a collection of music for the
"Asperges," " Vidi Aquam," several
Gregorian Masses, the Gregorian Re-
quiem, the Preface, the Pater Noster,
Responses, Vespers, the Antiphons of
the Blessed Virgin, "O Salutaris," and
"Tantum Ergo," besides a large number
of pieces intended to be used at Bene-
diction and at various other times. The
Gregorian chants for the"Asperges," "Vidi
Aquam," and the Masses are harmonized
by Dr. F. Witt. We cannot say that we
admire the peculiar " drone bass" which
Dr. Witt uses so extensively, and the
harmonies are, to our ears, crude, and
sometimes even barbarous, and as a gen-
eral rule are not in accordance with the
mode. We also noticed some ear-split-
ting fifths, used without any excuse
whatever. The Requiem is very incom-
plete ; five verses only of the " Dies
Irse " are given, and the Gradual and
Tract are entirely omitted. Mr. Helle-
busch remarks in his preface that " the
Preface and Pater Noster should only
be accompanied when required by the
officiating clergyman and after rehear-
sal." In looking in the book for the
reason for this remark, we find that to
accompany the simple melody of the
"Preface of Trinity" one hundred and
ninety sharps, flats, and naturals are re-
quired ; and in the accompaniment of the
words "socia exultatione concelebrant,"
in the " Common Preface," we find twen-
ty. The melody of the " Preface " has
also been altered by sharpening "do"
all through. Over eight pages are de-
voted to Responses, exclusive of the Re-
sponses for the Preface and Pater Nos-
ter. In that portion of the book devoted
to Vespers are some grave errors. On
page 103 is a note which informs us
that " the Psalms can be chanted to any
of the following authentic or simplified
Vesper tones." We have yet to learn
which are the eight authentic tones, and
we were not aware that authentic and
simplified meant one and the same thing.
The eight Psalm-tunes are given with
their various endings, and with the Se-
cond, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, or " Final
by words of one syllable." We suppose
" mediation " is meant ; but then the Sixth
tone has no different mediation for words
of one syllable, and the rule for Hebrew
proper names is not given at all. In the
Fifth tone the " si " is improperly marked

430

New Publications.

flat. The pointing of the Psalms is
very bad ; we have " spiritui, spiritui,
vidit, sicut, motd," etc. In the latter
part of the book, however, the pieces are
selected with good taste, and musically,
although not practically, well arranged.
The book has been made up in too great
a hurry.

ASPERGES ME. MASS IN F. MISSA DE
ANGELIS. C. P. Morrison, Worcester,
Mass.

The " Asperges" is chiefly remarkable
for some very clumsy and incorrect
modulations and the utter absence of
any kind of melody and design. The
" Mass in F ' is an easy setting of the
Ordinary of the Mass combined with a
nauseating adaptation of English words
for the use, we suppose, of the " separated
brethren " who like this kind of music.
We looked for and found the close on
the words " Filius Patris," with a new
movement for the " Qui tollis," and the
inevitable RESUERECTIONEM mor . . . tu
. . . o . . . rum. The C clef is
placed at the beginning of the tenor part,
and the notes are incorrectly written, as
if in the G clef, an octave higher. The
composer ought to know that the C clef
is of as much importance as either the G
or F clef, and not a purely fanciful char-
acter to be used or not at the option of
the writer. The harmpny of the " Missa
de Angelis " is entirely modern, full of
chromatic passages, dissonances, etc.,
which Mr. Morrison again ought to know
are not allowed in harmonies for Grego-
rian chant.

ALL AROUND THE MOON. From the
French of Jules Verne. Freely trans-
lated by Edw. Roth. With a Map of
the Moon constructed and engraved for
this edition, and also with an Appen-
dix containing the famous Moon Hoax,
by R. Adams Locke. New York :
The Catholic Publication Society, No.
Q Warren Street. 1876.

It is not often the case that translations
are, like the present one, an improve-
ment on the original, especially when
the original work is such an admirable
one as that from which this translation is
made. We noticed the first part, pub-
lished under the title of The Baltimore
Gim Club, some time ago, favorably, and
have been even more pleased with this
sequel.

Mr. Roth calls the book a free transla-

tion, but this term hardly conveys the
idea of the adaptation which he has really
made of the text. Verne certainly in-
tended, when he laid the scene in Amer-
ica, to make the characters, incidents, and
conversation thoroughly American, and
he succeeded as well as could have been
expected ; but the task was one simply
impossible for a foreigner, and any trans-
lation at all approaching to literal exact-
ness, no matter by whom made, would
have been sure to have shared the defects
of the text. Mr. Roth, therefore, to carry
out the author's idea, had practically to
rewrite the book in such a way as to pre-
serve the genius of the conception while
altering the details in a way which re-
quired an ability like that of the author
himself.

Besides having made the book really
an American one, he has added to its
scientific merit by a fuller explanation of
the problem which is the nucleus of the
story.

The " Moon Hoax," which is append-
ed, was probably the most successful and
the best contrived of all the scientific
canards which have ever appeared. It
was written more than forty years ago,
but its memory has not yet died out, and
it was so cleverly done as to be well
worthy of this reprint.

The book is illustrated by twenty-four
cuts, besides the map of the moon men-
tioned in the title. It would really have
been better without the rather clap-trap
additional about the Centennial at its
close, but this makes it all the more
American, and may be excusable under
the circumstances.

THE WYNDHAM FAMILY : A Story of
Modern Life. By the author of Mount
St. Lawrence. London : Burns &
Gates. 1876. (For sale by The Catho-
lic Publication Society.)
The best of motives and any quantity
of the most pious reflections have com-
bined to make of these two volumes a
remarkably dull stor}?-. This is to be
regretted ; for those who can overcome
the repugnance of wading through page
after page of what, with the best will in
the world, we can only call dreary writ-
ing, will find much sound sense on the
conduct of the family and what are called
"the exigencies" of modern society.
The author has attempted a bold feat to
paint the "heroics" of the kitchen, or,
as thev are called in the story, " the

New Publications.

431

glory of service." That there may be,
that there is often, glory in service there
can be no doubt. This is the power of
Christianity. That a cook may be, and
indeed often is, a model of self-sacrifice,
or at least a source of great self-sacrifice
in others, he would be a rash man who
should undertake to deny. The author
of 7"/ic Wyndham Family would reverse
the old saying that " God sends the food,
but the devil sends the cook." To be
sure, the particular cook here held up to
view turns out to be quite a superior
character, and this makes one of the sur-
prises of the story. The experiment,
however, can scarcely be considered a
happy one. Were* the two volumes con-
densed into one ; were the atmosphere of
the kitchen a little less obtrusive ; were
the girls in the story made to talk like
girls, and not like what on this side would
be called by some "school marms";
were* there only a little more of the relief
afforded by such a character as " Uncle
Sanders," The Wyndham Family might
have been not only what it now is, a ve-
hicle for highly moral reflections, but a
popular and interesting story.

It is strange that England, which has
done so much in reviving Catholic Eng-
lish letters within the last century, and
which is r;o high in the higher walks of
literature, should, with a very few excep-
tions, continue to furnish about the
poorest specimens of Catholic stories
that the world has ever seen. Indeed,
a kind of "goody-goody" school has
grown up there which holds its own
with exasperating persistency. The
sooner that school is broken up the
better. There surely might be found a
happy ^edium between the " penny
dreadful," or the fleshly school of fiction,
and that which reads like a very weak
dilution of the penny catechism.

THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY
AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK FOR THE
YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 1875.

Apart from the mass of interesting sta-
tistics contained in this report, the com-
prehensive style adopted by the compiler
of presenting facts and figures deserves
special mention.

We have be_en interested in the 'deve-
lopment of the law compelling children
to atiend school, but fail to find satisfac-
tory information regarding its workings
in the report of the Superintendent of

Truancy. An increase of 7,614 in the
daily average attendance is claimed by
him. These figures do not agree with the
facts stated on pp. 12 and 213, and in ad-
dition the attendance of 1874 shows an
increase of 15,094 over 1873.

After a year's trial the superintendent
comes to the conclusion that the law, as
it now stands, is a failure, and recom-
mends the enactment of other laws, and
the erection of new institutions to en-
force the present law, of which he says :
" Instances of opposition on the part of
the parents to the law, or the efforts of the
agents, are extreme! v rare ; but rather do
they regard them as welcome visitors and
valuable auxiliaries, their authority and
suasion being earnestly solicited for the
reformation of the child " (p. 424).

FLAMINIA, and other stories ; LUCAS
GARCIA, and other stories ; PERICO
THE SAD, and other stories ; ROBERT,
OR THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MO-
THER ; THE ^CRUCIFIX OF BADEN, and
other stories ; THE'STORY OF MARCEL,
and other tales. New York : The
Catholic Publication Society. 1876.

These are all excellent stories, choice
flowers of fiction culled from French,
Spanish, Italian, German., and English
gardens, while those of native growth
are not forgotten. They are reprints
from THE CATHOLIC WORLD ; and how
admirably fitted they are to meet a gen-
eral want the reader may judge for him-
self by glancing at this month's Bulletin,
which presents the verdict of the Catho-
lic press on them. Nothing is more
needed nowadays than good popular
Catholic literature, stories, perhaps,
more than anything else. We accord-
ingly welcome the republication in book
form of stories which were universally
well received as they appeared in the
columns of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and
only hope that the series may be con-
tinued.

EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE IN
1871. Translated from the French by
the Lady Blanche Murphy. Benziger
Brothers, New York, Cincinnati, and
St. Louis. 1876.

This is a little volume of very readable
sketches, relating the persecutions and
sufferings of the various brotherhoods of
Paris during the brief reign of the Com-
mune in 1871. Their schools were closed,
their houses invaded, and the brothers

432

New Publications.

who had not succeeded in escaping to
some safe hiding-place were arrested
and thrown into prison. The services
of the Christian Brothers as ambulance
nurses during the war were known to
the whole country ; but the Commune
ruthlessly drove them from the bedsides
of the wounded and dying soldiers.
" Down with the Black-gowns!" was the
cry. " Death to the Brothers ! Let them
go join Darboy."

"The watchword of the Revolution,"
said Raoul Rigault to M. Cotte, the
writer of one of these sketches, and late
director of the press ambulances of
Longchamps "the watchword of the
Revolution is death to religion, to ritual,
to priests!" And he added: "As long
as there is left in the land one man who
dares pronounce the name of God all
our labor will have been in vain, and we
shall not be able to lay down the sword
and the rifle."

The style of the translation is easy and
simple, and these Episodes will very fit-
tingly occupy a place in "The Catholic
Premium-Book Library."

THE STORY OF A VOCATION: How IT

CAME ABOUT, AND WHA? BECAME OF IT.

New York : The Catholic Publication
Society. 1876.

This is really the story of two voca-
tions of one in the world, and of an-
other in, but not of, the world. It is one
of those pure, graceful, yet interesting
tales which are only too few. The trans-
lation, from the French, is well done.
Parents and those who have charge of
children will find this book not only
highly entertaining but of real utility.

THE EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION IN ENGLAND,
SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND, A.D. 1400 TO
1875. With appointments to monas-
teries and extracts from consistorial
acts taken from MSS. in public and
private libraries in Rome, Florence,
Bologna, Ravenna, and Paris. By W.
Maziere Brady. Vol. I. Rome : Ti-
pografia della Pace. 1876.

This collection of curious documents
relates to the Catholic succession. It is
of great utility to the searcher into eccle-
siastical antiquities. The author has con-
sulted archives and searched out old re-
cords with much diligence, and gathered
together a number of curious items of in-
formation of great value and interest to
the antiquarian student. The most inter-
esting of these is the account of Dr. Gold-

well, Bishop of St. Asaph, the last of the
old line of Catholic succession in Eng-
land, a prelate whose learning and sanc-
tity make him worthy to close the series
which St. Augustine began.

BOSTON TO WASHINGTON. A Pocket
Guide to the Great Eastern Cities and
the Centennial Exhibition, with Maps.
New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1876.
The title of this work will give the
reader but a poor idea of its value com-
pared with other guides, which are mere
advertising sheets. This book is neat in
every way in its paper, in its printing, in
its illustrations, and in its binding and
contains a great amount of interesting
and correct information about the cities
of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Bal-
timore, and Washington, and will prove
a valuable guide to the traveller, whe-
ther native or foreign.

VOYAGES DANS L'AMERIQUE SEPTEN-
TRIONALE. Par L. R. Pere P. J. De
Smet, S. J. Bruxelles : Benziger Bros. ;
New York.

This is a French edition of Father De
Smet's travels as an Indian missionary in
the Rocky Mountains and in Oregon.
This celebrated Jesuit, besides being a
zealous apostle, was also a keen observer
of men and customs, and his descriptions
of Indian life, with which no man was
more familiar, are both entertaining and
instructive. A biography of Father De
Smet has been recently published in Bel-
gium, an English translation of which
would, we think, be welcomed by Ameri-
can Catholics.

NOTE TO THE ARTIC^p ON
"THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY."
THOSE who read carefully the philoso-
phical articles which appear from time to
time in our pages will notice that differ-
ent, and even contradictory, opinions on
some points are to be met with occasion-
ally. It seems proper to explain, there-
fore, that the editor, and those who assist
him In supervising the conduct of the
magazine, while professing a general ad-
hesion to the doctrine of St. Thomas,
allow a considerable latitude in the ex-
pression of individual opinion by the
different writers who contribute articles ;
and do not necessarily imply, in their ap-
probation of pieces for publication, that
they concur in every respect with the
statements and arguments contained in
them.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. XXIIL, No. i36.^MD\2>|76

SONNET.

(Ontario

THE CENTENARY OF AMERICAN LIBERTY.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

A CENTURY of sunrises hath bowed

Its fulgent forehead 'neath the ocean- floor

Since first upon the West's astonished shore,

Like some huge Alp forth-struggling through the cloud

A new-born nation stood, to Freedom vowed :

Within that time how many an Empire hoar

And young Republic, flushed with wealth and war,

Alike have changed the ermine for the shroud !

O " sprung from earth's first blood," O tempest-nursed !
For thee what Fates ? I know not. This I know
The Soul's great freedom- gift, of gifts the first

Thou first on man in fulness didst bestow :

Hunted elsewhere, God's Church with thee found rest :

Thy future's Hope is she that queenly Guest.

434

The CatJiolic Church

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES,

1776 1876.

THE social conditions of life
which have been developed in the
European colonies of North Amer-
ica, though to a certain extent the
result of the physical surroundings
of the early settlers, are chiefly the
freer growth of principles which
had been active, for centuries, in
;the Christian nations of the Old
World. The elements of society
;here, unhindered by custom, law, or
privilege, grouped themselves quick-
ly and spontaneously into the forms
.to which they were tending in Eu-
rope also, but slowly and through
conflict and struggle. The great
.and most significant fact, that it was
found impossible in the New World
to create privileged classes, clearly
pointed in the direction in which
European civilization was moving.
Another fact not less noteworthy is
the failure of every attempt to es-
tablish religion in this country.

Though there is but little to
prease the fancy or fire the imagina-
tion in American character or insti-
tutions, it is nevertheless to this
country that the eyes of the thought-
ful and observant from every part
of the world are turned. The Cath-
olicity of Christian civilization has
; generalized political problems and
: social movements. Civilization, like
religion, has ceased to be national;
and the bearing of a people's life
upon the welfare of the human race
has come to be of greater moment
than its effect upon the national
character. It is to this that the
universal interest which centres

in the United States must be attri-
buted.

We are a commonplace and me-
diocre people ; practical, without
high ideals, lofty aspirations, or ex-
cellent standards of worth and char-
acter. In philosophy, in science,
in literature, in art, in culture, we
are inferior to the nations of Eu-
rope. No mind transcendentally
great has appeared among us ; not
one who is heir to all the ages and
citizen of the world. Our ablest
thinkers are merely the disciples of
some foreign master. Our most gift-
ed poets belong to the careful kind,
who with effort and the file give
polish and smoothness, but not the
mens divinior, to their verse ; and
who, when they attempt a loftier
flight, grow dull and monotonous
as a Western prairie or Rocky
Mountain table-land. Our most
popular heroes Washington and
Lincoln are but common men, and
the higher is he who is least the
product of our democratic institu-
tions.

Our commercial enterprise and
mechanical achievements are worthy
of admiration, but not so far above
those of other nations as to attract
special attention.

If to-day, then, the American
people draw the eyes of the whole
world upon themselves, it is not
because they have performed mar-
vellous deeds, opened up new
realms of thought, or created
higher types of character, but
because their social and political

in tJic United States 1776-1876. 435

condition is that to which Europe, despair cry out that all have bent
whether for good or evil, seems the knee to Baal,
to be irresistibly tending. Beyond " But yet the Son of Man, when
doubt, the tendency of modern civ- he cometh, shall he find, think you,
ilization is to give to the people faith on earth ?" We may hope, we
greater power and a larger sphere may despond ; let us, then, dispas-
of action. Every attempt to arrest sionately consider the facts,
this movement but serves to make First, we will put aside the as-
its force the more manifest. This sumption that it is possible to or-
spirit of the age is seen in the general ganize this modern society so as to
spread of education, in the widen- crush the church by persecution or
ing of the popular suffrage, in the violence. In a social state, which
separation of church and state, and can be strong only by being just,
in the dying out of aristocracies, attempts of this kind, if success-
We simply note facts, without stop- ful, would inevitably lead to an-
ping to examine principles or to archy and chaos, out of which the
weigh consequences. Those who church would again come forth with
resist a revolution are persuaded or before the civil order. We can-
that it will work nothing but evil, not, then, look forward to a prolong-
while those who help it on hope ed and open conflict between the
from it every good ; and the event church and the civilized govern-
most generally shows both to have ments of the world without giving
been in error. Our present pur- up all hope in the permanency and
pose does not lead us to speculate effectiveness of the social phase
as to the manner in which the gen- upon which we have entered. In
eral welfare is to be affected by the end the European states, like
the great social transformations by the American, must be convinced
which the character of civilized -na- that, if they would live, they must
tions is being so profoundly modi- also let live ; since a modus vhendi
fied ; but we will suppose that the between church and state is abso-
reign of aristocracies and of privi- lutely essential to the permanence
lege is past, and that in the future of society as now constituted,
the people are to govern ; and we The question, then, is narrowed to
ask, What will be the influence the free and peaceable life of the
of the new society upon the old church in contact with the popular
faith ? governments which are already con-
The essential life of the Catholic stituted or are struggling for exist-
Church is independent of her world- ence ; and it is in their bearing
ly condition ; and though we are upon this all-important subject that
bound to believe that she is to re- the world-wide significance of the
main amongst men until the end, lessons to be learned from a care-
we are yet not forbidden to hold ful study of the history of the Ca-
that at times she may to human tholic Church in the United States
eyes seem almost to have ceased becomes apparent. For a hundred
to be; that as in the past Christ years this church has lived in the new
was entombed, the delctiim iwmcn society, and all the circumstances
Christianum was proclaimed, in the of her position have been admirably
future also the heavens may grow suited to test her power to meet
dark, God's countenance seeming- the difficulties offered by a dem-
ly be withdrawn, and the voice of ocratic social organization. Tru-

TJie CatJwlic CJutrdi

problem to be solved was whether
or not a vigorous but yet orderly
and obedient Catholic faith and life
could flourish in this country, where
what are called the principles of
modern civilization have found their
most complete expression.

If we would understand the his-
tory of our country, we must not
lose sight of the religious character
of the men by whom it was ex-
plored and colonized. Religious
zeal led the Puritans to New Eng-
land, the Catholics to Maryland,
and the Quakers to Pennsylvania;
and among the Spaniards and the
French there were many who, like
Columbus and Champlain, deemed
the salvation of a soul of greater
moment than the conquest of an
empire. We might, indeed, without
going beyond our present subject,
speak of the heroic and gentle lives
of the apostolic men who, from Maine
to California, from Florida to the
Northern Lakes, toiled among the
Indians, and not in vain, that they
might win them from savage ways
and lift them up to higher modes
of life. The Catholics of the Unit-
ed States can never forget that the
labors of these men belong to the
history of the church on this conti-
nent ; that the lives they offered up,
the blood they shed, plead for us
before God ; and that if their work
is disappearing, it sinks into the
grave only with the dying race
which they more than all others
have loved and served. But in
this age men are little inclined to
dwell upon memories, however glo-
rious. We live in the present and
in the future, and, in spite of much
cheap sentiment and wordy philan-
thropy, we have but weak sympathy
with decaying races. We are in-
terested in what is or is to be, not
in what has been ; and perhaps it is
well that this is so. We have but

feeble power to think or act or love,
and it should not be wasted. If
Americans to-day are busy with
thoughts of a hundred years ago,
it is not that they love those old
times and their simple ways, but
that by contrast they may, in boast-
ful self-complacency, glory in the
present. They look back, not to
regret the fast-receding shore, but
to congratulate themselves that they
have left it already so far behind.
It is enough, then, to have alluded
to the labors of the Catholic mis-
sionaries among the North Ameri-
can Indians, since those labors have
had and can have but small influ-
ence upon the history of the church
in the United States. To under-
stand this history we need only
study that of the Europeans and
their descendants on this continent.

The early colonists of the pre-
sent territory of the United States
were as unlike in their religious as
in their national characters. Eng-
lish Puritans founded the colonies
of New England; New York was
settled by the Dutch ; Delaware and
New Jersey by the Dutch and the
Swedes ; Pennsylvania by Quakers
from England, who were followed
by a German colony. Virginia was
the home of the English who ad-
hered to the Established Church
of the mother country, and North
Carolina became the refuge of the
Nonconformists from Virginia ; in
South Carolina a considerable num-
ber of Huguenots found an asylum ;
and in Maryland the first settlers
were chiefly English Catholics.
Nearly all these colonies owed
their foundation to the religious
troubles of Europe. The Puritans,
the Catholics, and the Quakers
were more eager to find a home
in which they could freely worship
God than to amass wealth.

The religious spirit of New Eng-

iii tlie United States 1776-1876.

437

land, whose influence in this coun-
try, before and since the Revolution,
has been preponderant, was as nar-
row and prescriptive as it was in-
tense, and a gloomy fanaticism lay
at the basis of its entire political
and social system. The Puritan
colonies were not so much bodies
politic as churches in the wilder-
ness. To the commission appoint-
ed to draw up a body of laws to
serve as a declaration of rights,
Cotton Mather declared that God's
people should be governed by no
other laws than those which He
himself had given to Moses ; and
one of the first acts of the Massa-
chusetts colony was the expulsion
of John and Samuel Browne with
their followers, because they re-
fused to conform to the religious
practices of the Pilgrims. If dis-
senting Protestants were not toler-
ated in New England, Catholics
certainly could not hope for mercy ;
and, in fact, they were denied re-
ligious liberty even in Rhode Is-
land, which had been founded by
the victims of Puritan persecution
as a refuge for the oppressed and a
protest against fanaticism. Though
Mr. Bancroft, whose partisan zeal,
whenever there is question of New
England, is unmistakable, denies
that this unjust discrimination was
the act of the people of Rhode
Island, it served, at any rate, so
effectually to exclude Catholics
that when the war of independence
broke out not one was to be found
within the limits of the colony.

Puritanism, more than any other
form of Protestantism, drew its vei y
life from a hatred of all that is
Catholic. The office and authority
of bishops, the repetition of the
Lord's Prayer, the sign of the cross,
the chant of the psalms, the obser-
vance of saints' days, the use of
musical instruments in church, and

the vestments worn by the ministers
of religion were all odious to the
Puritans because they were asso-
ciated with Catholic worship ; and
in their eyes the chief crime of
the Church of England was that
she still retained some of the doc-
trines and usages of that of Rome.
Religion and freedom, though their
conception of both was partial and
false, were the predominant passions
of the Puritans ; and since they look-
ed upon the Catholic Church as the
fatal enemy alike of religion and of
freedom, their fanaticism, not less
than their enthusiastic love of inde-
pendence, filled them with the deep-
est hatred for Catholics. They had
the virtues and the vices of the
lower and more ignorant classes of
Englishmen, from which for the
most part they had sprung. If
they were frugal, content with lit-
tle, ready to bear hardship and to
suffer want, not easily cast down,
they were also narrow, superstitious,
angular, and unlovely ; and these
characteristics were hardened by
a cold, gloomy, and unsympathet-
ic religious faith. The credulity
which led them to hang witches
made them ready to believe in the
diabolism of priests ; while the nar-
rowness of their intellectual range
rendered them incapable of per-
ceiving the grandeur and excellence
of an Organization which alone, in
the history of the world, has be-
come universal without becoming
weak, and which, if it be consider-
ed as only human, is still man's
most wonderful work. With the
aesthetic beauty of the Catholic reli-
gion they could have no sympathy,
since they were deprived of the
sense by which alone it can be ap-
preciated. Though they fasted, ap-
pointed days of thanksgiving, and,
through a false asceticism, changed
the Lord's day into the Jewish

438

The CatJwlic Church

Sabbath, the fasts and saints' days
of Catholics were in their eyes the
superstitions of idolaters ; and while
they assumed the right to declare
what is true Christian doctrine and
to enforce its acceptance, they in-
dignantly rejected the spiritual au-
thority of the church, though his-
torically traceable to Christ's com-
mission to the apostles.

The measures, therefore, which the
colonies of New England took to
prevent the establishment of the
Catholic Church on their soil, were
merely the expression of the horror
and dread of what they conceived
its influence and tendency to be.
In 1631, just eleven years after
the landing of the Mayflower, Sir
Christopher Gardiner, on mere sus-
picion of being a papist, was seiz-
ed and sent out of the Colony of
Massachusetts Bay, and in the same
year the General Court wrote a
letter denouncing the minister at
Watertown for giving expression
to the opinion that the Church
of Rome is a true church. Three
years later Roger Williams, whose
tolerant temper has been an ex-
haustless theme of praise, joined
with the Puritans in declaring the
cross a " relic of Antichrist, a
popish symbol savoring of supersti-
tion and not to be countenanced by
Christian men " ; and, in proof of
the sincerity of their zeal, these
godly men cut the cross from out
the English flag. Priests were for-
bidden, under pain of imprisonment
and even death, to enter the colo-
nies ; and the neighboring Catho-
lic settlements of Canada were re-
garded with sentiments of such big-
oted hatred as to blind the Puri-
tans to their own most evident
political and commercial interests.
So unrelenting was their fanaticism
that one of the grievances which
they most strongly urged against

George III. was that he tolerated
popery in Canada. In the New
England colonies* down to 1776, the
Catholic Church had no existence,
and the same may be said of the
other colonies, with the exception
of Maryland and of a few families
scattered through parts of Pennsyl-
vania. In Maryland itself, where
the principles of religious liberty,
which now form a part of the or-
ganic law of the land, had been
first proclaimed by the Catholic
colonists, the persecution of the
church early became an important
feature in the colonial legislation.
In successive enactments the Catho-
lics were forbidden to teach school,
to hold civil office, and to have pub-
lic worship ; and were, moreover, tax-
ed for the support of the Establish-
ed Church. The religious character
of Virginia, though less intense and
earnest than that of New England,
can hardly be said to have been
less anti-Catholic ; and it is there-
fore not surprising that we should
find the cruel penal code of the
mother country in full vigor in this
colony.

It would have been difficult to
find anywhere communities more
thoroughly Protestant than the thir-
teen British colonies one hundred
years ago. The little body of
Catholics in Maryland, in all about
25,000, who, in spite of persecution,
had retained their faith, had sunk
into a kind of religious apathy ; and
as their public worship had long
been forbidden and they were not
permitted to have schools, to in-
difference was added ignorance of
the doctrines of the church. A few
priests, once members of the sup-
pressed Society of Jesus, lingered
amongst them, though they general-
ly found it necessary to live upon
their own lands or with their kin-
dred, and with difficulty kept alive

in the United States 1776-1876.

439

the flickering flame of faith. With-
out religious energy, zeal, or or-
ganization, the Maryland Catholics
were gradually being absorbed in-
to mere worldliness or into the more
vigorous Protestant sects ; and, in
fact, many of the descendants of
the original settlers had already lost
the faith. In this way the charac-
ter of the old Catholic colony had
been wholly changed ; so that Mary-
land surpassed all the other colonies
in the odious proscriptiveness of
her legislation, levying the same
tax for the introduction into her
territory of a Catholic Irishman as
for the importation of a Negro slave.
The existence of the Catholic fam-
ilies there, and of the small and
scattered settlements in Pennsylva-
nia, if recognized at all by the gen-
eral public, was looked upon as an
anomaly, an anachronism, which,
from the nature of things, must soon
disappear. There is no exaggera-
tion, then, in spying that the Revo-
lution found the British provinces
of North America thoroughly Pro-
testant, with a hatred of the church
which nothing but the general con-
tempt for Catholics tended to miti-
gate ; while the seeming failure of
the Catholic settlement in Maryland,
one hundred and fifty years after
the landing of Lord Baltimore,
gave no promise of a brighter fu-
ture for the faith.

In the presence of the impend-
ing conflict with England political
questions became supreme, and the
Convention of 1774, in its appeal
to the country, entreated all classes
of citizens to put away religious
disputes and animosities, which
could only withhold them from
uniting in the defence of their com-
mon rights and liberties. Though
this appeal was probably meant to
smooth the way for a more cordial
union between New England and

the Southern colonies, which were
even then as unlike as Puritan and
Cavalier, it was also an evidence
of the public feeling, showing that
with the American people religious
questions were fast coming to be
merely of secondary importance.
At any rate it was responded to
cheerfully and generously by the
Catholics, who, without stopping to
think of the wrongs they had suffer-
ed, threw themselves heartily into
the contest for national indepen-
dence. The signer of the Declara-
tion who risked most was a Catholic,
and a Catholic priest was a member
of the delegation sent to Canada to
bring about an alliance, or at least
to secure the neutrality of that pro-
vince.

The conduct of the Catholics in
the war made, no doubt, a favorable
impression, and the very important
aid given to the American cause by
Catholic France had still further in-
fluence in softening the asperities
of Protestant prejudice ; but, unless
we are mistaken, we must seek else-
where for the explanation of the
clause of the federal Constitution
which provides that " no religious
test shall ever be required as a
qualification for any office or public
trust under the United States"; as
well as of the First Amendment, to
the effect that " Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment
of religion or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof." These provi-
sions were merely a part of a general
policy, which restricted as far as
possible the functions of the fede-
ral government, and left to the sev-
eral States as much of their separate
sovereignty as was consistent with
the existence of the national Union.

This is evident from the fact that
the federal Constitution placed no
restriction upon the legislation of
the different States in matters of

440 The Catholic Church

religion, leaving them free to pur- of church and state, and their views

sue the intolerant and persecuting were embodied in the different State

policy of the colonial era ; and, in- constitutions.

deed, laws for the support of public The year before the first battle

worship lingered in Connecticut till of the Revolution no less than

1 816 and in Massachusetts till 1833, eighteen Baptists were confined in

and anti-Catholic religious tests were one jail in Massachusetts for refus-

introduced into several of the State ing to pay ministerial rates ; and

constitutions. In New York, as yet John Adams declared " that a

late as 1806, a test-oath excluded change in the solar system might be

Catholics from office ; and in North expected as soon as a change in

Carolina, down to 1836, only those the ecclesiastical system of Massa-

who were willing to swear to belief chusetts " ; and at a much later pe-

in the truth of Protestantism were riod Judge Story was able to affirm

permitted to hope for political pre- that " it yet remained a problem to

ferment. New Jersey erased the be solved in human affairs whether

anti-Catholic clause from her con- any free government can be perma-

stitution only in 1844; and even to- nent where the public worship of

day, unless we err, the written law God and the support of religion

of New Hampshire retains the test- constitute no part of the policy or

oath. duty of the state."

The provision which denied to There is no foundation, we think,
the general government all right of for the opinion which we have
interference in religious matters was sometimes heard expressed, that the
a political necessity. Any attempt First Amendment to the Constitu-
te introduce into Congress religious tion was intended as an act of tardy
discussions would have necessarily justice to the Catholics of the Unit-
rent asunder the still feeble bands ed States, in gratitude for their con-
by which New England and the duct during the war and for the
Southern States were held together, aid of Catholic France. It in fact
The reasons of policy which for- made no change in the position of
bade the federal government to med- the Catholics, whom it left to the
die with slavery applied with ten- mercy of the different States, pre-
fold force to questions of religion. cisely as they had been in the co-

The First Amendment to the lonial era. Various causes were,
Constitution, of which we Americans however, at work which, by modify-
are so fond of boasting, cannot, ing the attftude of the States to-
then, be interpreted as the procla- wards religion, tended also to give
mation of the principle of toleration greater freedom to the Catholic
or of the separation of church and Church. The first of these was the
state ; it is merely the expression rise of what may be called the sec-
of the will of the confederating ular theory of government, whose
States to retain their pre-existing great exponent, Thomas Jefferson,
rights of control over religion, which, had received his political opinions
indeed, they could not have delegat- from the French philosophers of the
ed to the general government with- eighteenth century. The state, ac-
out imperilling the very existence cording to this theory, is a purely
of the Union. Nearly all the lead- political organism, and is not in any
ing statesmen of that day recognized way concerned with religion ; and
the necessity of some kind of union this soon came to be the prevailing

iii the United States 1776-1876. 441

sentiment in the Democratic party, munity. There was not a Catnolic
whose acknowledged leader Jeffer- school; there was no bishop; the
son was, which may explain why sacraments of confirmation and of
the great mass of the Catholics in Holy Orders had never been admin-*
this country have always voted with istered. The church was without
this party. Another cause that organization, having for several
tended to bring about a separation years had no intercourse with its
of church and state was the rapidly- immediate head, the vicar-aposto-
increasing number of sects, which lie of London ; it was without pro-
rendered religious legislation more perty, with the exception of some
and more difficult, especially as land in Maryland, which, through a
several of these were opposed to variety of contrivances, had been
any recognition of religion by the saved from the rapacity of the col-
civil power. And to this we may onial persecutors ; and, surrounded
add the growing religious indiffer- by a bigoted Protestant population,
ence which caused large numbers ignorant of all the Catholic glories
of Americans to fall away from, or of the past, it was also without
to be brought up outside of, all ec- honor. But faith and hope, which
clesiastical organization. The de- with liberty ought to make all things
sire, too, to encourage immigration possible, had not fled, and soon the
which sprang from interested mo- budding promise of the future har-
tives, and also from a feeling, very vest lifted its timid head beneath
powerful in the United States half the genial sun of a brighter heaven,
a century ago, that this country is The priests of Maryland and Penn-
the refuge of all who are oppressed sylvania addressed a letter to Pius
by the European tyrannies predis- VI., praying him to appoint a prefect-
posed Americans to look favorably apostolic to preside over the church
upon the largest toleration of reli- in the United States ; and as the
gious belief and practice. There is Holy See was already deliberating
no question, then, but the Catholics upon a step of this kind, Father
of this country owe the freedom Carroll was made superior of the
which they now enjoy to the opera- American clergy, with power to ad-
tion of general laws, the necessary minister the sacrament of confirma-
results of given social conditions, tion. This was in 1784.
and not at all to the good-will or The priests, who at this time, for
tolerant temper of American Pro- fear of wounding Protestant stiscep-'
testants. Let us, however, be grate- tibilities, thought it inexpedient to
ful for the boon, whencesoever de- ask for a bishop, were now, after
rived. At the close of the war longer deliberation, persuaded that
which secured our national inde- in this they had erred, and they
pendence and created the republic therefore named a committee to
the Catholic Church found herself, present a petition to Rome, praying
for all practical purposes, unfetter- for the erection of an episcppal see
ed and free to enter upon a field in the United States. The Holy
which to her, we may say, was new. Father having signified his willing-
At that time there were in the ness to accede to this proposition,
whole country not more than forty and it having been ascertained, too,
thousand Catholics and twenty-five that the government of this country
priests. In all the land there was would make no objection, they at
not a convent or a religious com- once fixed upon Baltimore as the

442 TJie Catholic Church-

most suitable location for the new Father Dubois, the future Bishop
see, and presented the name of Fa- of New York, had opened Mt. St.
ther Carroll as the most worthy to Mary's College. In 1805 Bishop
'be its first occupant. The papal Carroll reorganized the Society of
bulls were dated November 6, 1789, Jesus, and in 1806 the Dominicans
and upon their reception Father founded their first convent in the
Carroll sailed for England, where he United States, at St. Rose, in Ken-
was consecrated on the 1 5th of Au- tucky. Two years later episcopal
gust, the Feast of the Assumption, sees were established at New York,
1790. Boston, Philadelphia, and Bards-
Events were just then taking town, with an archiepiscopal centre
place in France which were of great at Baltimore.

moment to the young church on In this way the church was pre-
the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, paring, as far as the slender means
The French Revolution was getting at her command would permit, to
ready to guillotine priests and to receive and care for the vast multi-
turn churches into barracks ; an.d tudes of Catholics who began to
M. Emery, the Superior-General of seek refuge in the United States
the Order of Saint Sulpice, who from the persecutions and oppres-
was as far-seeing as he was fearless, sions of the British and other Euro-
entered into correspondence with pean governments. But her re-
Bishop Carroll, in England, with a sources were not equal to the ur-
view to open an ecclesiastical semi- gency and magnitude of the occa-
nary in the United States. The sion, and her history, during the
offer was gladly accepted, and the half-century immediately following-
year following (1791) M. Nagot the close of the Revolutionary war,
organized the Theological Semina- though full of examples of courage,
ry of Baltimore, and in the same zeal, and energy, shows her in the
year the first Catholic college in throes of a struggle which, whether
the United States was opened at it were for life or death, seemed
Georgetown, in the District of Co- doubtful.

lumbia. In 1790 Father Charles Like an invading army, her chil-
Neale brought from Antwerp a dren poured in a ceaseless stream
community of Carmelite nuns, who into the enemy's country, and, ar-
established themselves near Port rived upon the scene of action, they
Tobacco, in Southern Maryland, found themselves without leaders,
This was the first convent of reli- without provisions, without means
gious women founded in the United of defence or weapons of heavenly
States, the house of Ursuline nuns warfare. Far from their spiritual
in New Orleans having come into guides, in a strange land, without
existence while Louisiana was still churches or schools, the very air of
a French colony. A few years this new world seemed fatal to the
later a number of religious ladies faith of the early Catholic immi-
adopted the rule of the Order of grants ; and when, yielding to the
the Visitation and organized a con- rigors of the climate or the hard-
vent in Georgetown; and in 1809 ships of frontier life, they died in
Mother Seton founded near Em- great numbers, their orphan chil-
mittsburg, in Maryland, the first dren fell into the hands of Protes-
community of Sisters of Charity in tants and were lost to the church,
this country, just one year after Their descendants to-day are scat-

in the United States 1776-1876.

443

tered from Maine to Florida, from
New York to California.

Bishop England, though inclined
to exaggerate the losses of the
church in this country, was certain-
ly not mistaken in holding that
during the period of which we
speak, though there was an increase
of congregations, there was yet a
great falling away of Catholics from
the faith in the United States.

Unfortunately, the want of priests
and churches cannot with truth be
said to have been the greatest evil,
especially in the early years of the
organization of the hierarchy. A
spirit of insubordination existed
both in the clergy and the laity.
" Every day," wrote Bishop Car-
roll, " furnishes me with new reflec-
tions, and almost every day pro-
duces new events to alarm my con-
science and excite fresh solicitude
at the prospect before me. You
cannot conceive the trouble which
I suffer already, and the still greater
which I foresee from the medley
of clerical characters, coming from
different quarters and of various
educations, and seeking employ-
ment here. I cannot avoid employ-
ing some of them, and soon they
begin to create disturbances."
There were troubles and scandals
in nearly all the larger cities, which
in some instances were fomented
by the priests themselves. The
trustee svstem was a fruitful cause

of disturbance, threatening at times
to bring the greatest evils upon the
church ; especially as there seemed
to be reason to fear lest the dissen-
sions between the clergy and the
laity might serve as a pretext for
the intermeddling of the civil au-
thority in ecclesiastical affairs. Ex-
cept in the two or three colleges of
which we have spoken, there was
no Catholic education to be had ;
md for a long time the few elemen-

tary schools which were opened
were of a very wretched kind. In-
deed, we may say that it is only
within the last quarter of a century
that many of the bishops and priests
of this country have come to realize
the all-importance of Catholic edu-
cation.

Another unavoidable evil was the
mingling of various nationalities in
the same church, giving rise to
jealousies, and frequently to dis-
sensions ; and to this we may add
that the very people to whom above
all others the church in this coun-
try is indebted for its progress met
with peculiar difficulties in the ful-
filment of their God-given mission.
This fact did not escape the keen
eye of the first bishop of Charleston.

"England, "he says, "has unfortunate-
ly too well succeeded in linking con-
tumely to -their name [the Irish] in all
her colonies ; and though the United
States have cast away the yoke under
which she held them, many other causes
have combined to continue against the
Irish Catholic more or less to the pre-
sent day the sneer of the supercilious,
the contempt of the conceited, and the
dull prosing of those who imagine them-
selves wise. That which more than a
century of fashion has made habitual is
not to be overcome in a year ; and to
any Irish Catholic who has dwelt in this
country during one-fourth of the period
of my sojourn it will be painfully evi-
dent that, although the evil is slowly di-
minishing, its influence is not confined
to the American nor to the anti-Cathc-
lic. When a race is once degraded,
however unjustly, it is a weakness of
our nature that, however we may be
identified with them upon some points,
we are desirous of showing that the simi-
litude is not complete. You may be an
Irishman, but not a Catholic ; you may
be Catholics, but not Irish. It is clear
you are not an Irish Catholic in either
case ! But when the great majority of
Catholics in the United States were either
Irish or of Irish descent, the force of the
prejudice against the Irish Catholic bore
against the Catholic religion, and the in-
fluence of this prejudice has been far

444

Catholic CJiurcJi

more mischievous man is generally be-
lieved."*

We must not omit to add that
many of the early missionaries spoke
English very imperfectly and were
but little acquainted with the habits
and customs of the people among
whom they were called to labor;
while the five or six bishops of
the country, separated by great dis-
tances from their priests, rarely
saw them, and consequently were in
a great measure unable to control
or direct them in the exercise of
the sacred ministry. The French
missionaries, who in their own coun-
try had seen the most frightful crimes
committed in the name of liberty
and of republicanism, found it dif-
ficult to sympathize heartily with
our democratic institutions; and
from Ireland very few priests came,
because the French Revolution had
broken up the Continental Irish
seminaries from which she drew
her own supplies.

The purchase of Louisiana from
France in 1803 added little or no-
thing to the strength of the church
in the United States, since, owing
to the wretched French ecclesiasti-
cal colonial policy, which did not
permit the appointment of bishops,
the Catholic population of that pro-
vince, a large portion of whom were
negro slaves, had been almost wholly
neglected. What the state of the
church was in Florida at the time
of its cession to the United States
may be inferred from the fact that
in the whole province there was
but one efficient priest, who at once
withdrew to Cuba, and afterwards
to Ireland, his native country. In
the early years of the present cen-
tury Protestant feeling in this coun-
try was much more earnest and self-
confident than at present in the

* Bishop England's works, vol. iii. p. 233.

simple days of camp-meetings and
jerking revivals and childlike faith
in the pope as Antichrist, and in
priests and nuns as Satan's chosen
agents ; when the preachers had the
whole world of anti- popery com-
monplace wherein to disport them-
selves without fear of contradiction.
The universal feeling of pity for
those who doubted the supreme
wisdom of our political institu-
tions was bestowed with not less
boundless liberality upon all who
failed to perceive that American
Protestantism was the fine essence
and final outcome of all that is
best and purest in religion. Ca-
tholic opinion, on the other hand,
was feeble, unorganized, and thrown
back upon itself by the overwhelm-
ing force of a public sentiment
strong, fresh, and defiant. We were,
moreover, still under the ban of
English literature that for three
hundred years had been busy tra-
vestying the history and doctrines of
the church, to defend which WO.H
made a crime. There were but
few Catholic books, and those to
be had generally failed to catch the
phases of religious thought through
which American Protestants were
passing. It was more than thirty
years after the erection of the see
of Baltimore that the Charles-
ton Miscellany, which Archbishop
Hughes called the first really Ca-
tholic newspaper ever published in
this country, was founded ; and fif-
ty years after the consecration of
Bishop Carroll there were but six
Catholic journals in the United
States.

Much else might be said in illus-
tration of the difficulties with which
the church has had to contend, and
of the obstacles which she has had
to overcome, in order to win the
position which she now occupies
in the great American republic.

in the United States 1776-1876.

445

Enough, however, has been said to
show that it would be difficult
to imagine surroundings which,
while allowing her freedom of ac-
tion, would be better suited to test
her strength and vitality.

The 1 5th of next August eighty-
six years will have passed since the
consecration of Bishop Carroll, and
to this period the organized efforts
of the church to secure a position
in this country are confined. The
work then begun has not for a
moment been intermitted. In the
midst of losses, defeats, persecu-
tions, anxieties, doubts, revilings,
calumnies, the struggle has been
still carried on. Each year with
its sorrows brought also its joys.
The progress, if at times imper-
ceptible, was yet real. When in
the early synods and councils of
Baltimore were gathered the strong
and true-hearted bishops and priests
who have now gone to their rest,
there was doubtless more of sad-
ness than of exultation in their
words as they spoke of their scat-
tered and poorly-provided flocks,
of the want of priests, of churches,
of schools, of asylums, of the hard-
ships of missionary life, and of la-
bors that seemed in vain. Still,
they sowed in faith, knowing that
God it is who gives the increase.
Like weary travellers who seem to
make no headway, by looking back
they saw how much they had ad-
vanced. New churches were built,
new congregations were formed, new
dioceses were organized. On some
mountain-side or in deep wooded
vale a cloister, a convent, a col-
lege, a seminary arose, one hardly
knew how, and yet another and an-
other, until these retreats of learn-
ing and virtue dotted the land.
The elements of discord and dis-
turbance within the church grew
less and less active, the relations

between priest and people became
more intimate and cordial, the tone
of Catholic feeling improved, ec-
clesiastical discipline was strength-
ened, and the self-respect of the
Catholic bodv increased.

The danger, which at one time
may have seemed imminent, of the
estrangement of the laity from the
clergy, disappeared little by lit-
tle, and to-day in no country in
the world are priest and people
more strongly united than here.
With the more thorough organiza-
tion of dioceses and congregations
parochial schools became practica-
ble, and the great progress made
in Catholic elementary education is
one of the most significant and re-
assuring facts connected with the
history of the church in the United
States. The numberof pupils inour
parochial schools was, in 1873,380,-
ooo, and to-day it is probably not
much short of half a million, which,
however, is even less than half of
the Catholic school population of the
entire country. But the work of
building schools is still progressing,
and the conviction of the indispen-
sable necessity of religious educa-
tion is growing with both priests
and people ; so that we may confi-
dently hope that the time is not
very remote when in this country
Catholic children will be brought
up only in Catholic schools. By
establishing protectories, industrial
schools, and asylums we are grow-
ing year after year better able to
provide for our orphan children.

The want of priests, which has
hitherto been one of the chief ob-
stacles to the progress of the
church, is now felt only in excep-
tional cases or in new or thinly-
settled dioceses. A hundred years
ago there were not more than
twenty-five priests in the United
States; in 1800 there were supposed

446

The Catholic Church

to be forty; in 1830 the number
had risen to two hundred and thir-
ty-two, and in 1848 to eight hun-
dred and ninety. In ten years,
from 1862 to 1872, the number of
priests was more than doubled,
having grown from two thousand
three hundred and seventeen to
four thousand eight hundred and
nine. The lack of vocations to the
priesthood among native Americans
was formerly a subject of anxiety
and also of frequent discussion
among Catholics in this country ;
but now it is generally admitted,
we think, that if proper care is
taken in the education and training
of our youths, a sufficient number
of them will be found willing to de-
vote themselves to the holy min-
istry.

In 1875 there were, according to
the official statistics of the various
dioceses, five thousand and seventy-
four priests, twelve hundred and
seventy-three ecclesiastical students,
and six thousand five hundred and
twenty-eight churches and chapels
in the United States. There were
also, at the same time, thirty-three
theological seminaries, sixty-three
colleges, five hundred and fifty-
seven academies and select schools,
sixteen hundred and forty-five pa-
rochial schools, two hundred and
fourteen asylums, and ninety-six
hospitals under the authority and
control of the Catholic hierarchy
of this country.

One hundred years ago there was
not a Catholic ecclesiastical stu-
dent, or theological seminary, or
college, or academy, or parochial
school, or asylum, or hospital from
Maine to Georgia.

Father Badin, the first persom
who ever received Holy Orders in
the United States, was ordained in
the old cathedral of Baltimore on
the 25th of May, 1793, just eighty-

three years ago. It is now eighty-
six years since Bishop Carroll was
consecrated, and down to 1808 he
remained the only Catholic bishop
in the American Church, whose
hierarchy is composed at present
of one cardinal, ten archbishops,
forty-six bishops, and eight vicars-
apostolic.

In 1790 there was not a convent
in the United States ; in 1800 there
were but two ; to-day there are
more than three hundred and fifty
for women, and there are pro-
bably one hundred and thirty for
men.

We may be permitted to refer
also to the increase of the wealth
of the church in this country, es-
pecially since this seems to be the
cause of great uneasiness to the
faithful and unselfish representa-
tives of the sovereign people. The
value of the property owned by the
church in this country, as given in
the census reports, was, in 1850,

$9> 2 5 6 >75 8 *> in l86o > $26,774,119;
and in 1870, $60,985,565. The
ratio of increase from 1850 to 1860
was 189 per cent., and from 1860
to 1870 128 per cent.; while
the aggregate wealth of the whole
country during these same periods
increased in the former decade only
125 per cent, and in the latter only
86 per cent. In 1850 the value of
the church property of the Baptists,
the Episcopalians, the Methodists,
and the Presbyterians was greater
than that of the Catholics, but in
1870 we had taken the second rank
in point of wealth, and to-day we
think there is no doubt but that we
hold the first.

" Whatever causes," says Mr.
Abbott, in his recent article on 7Yu'
Catholic Peril in America, "may
have contributed to this significant
result, it is certain that among the
chief of them must be reckoned ex

in the United States 1776-1876.

447

emption from just taxation, extra-
ordinary shrewdness of financial
management, and fraudulent collu-
sion with dishonest politicians."

Those who know more of the his-
tory of the church in this country
than can be learned from statistical
reports, or articles in reviews, or
cyclopaedias are aware that there
are no possessions in the United
States more honestly acquired, or
bought with money more hardly
earned, than those of the Catho-
lic Church ; and that her present
wealth, instead of being due to spe-
cial financial shrewdness, has in
many instances been got in spite of
great and frequent financial blunder-
ing ; while the bishops and priests of
America, with here and there an
exception, have neither had nor
sought to have any political influ-
ence, nor would they, if disposed
to meddle with partisan politics,
meet with any encouragement from
the Catholic people. Their position
with regard to the question of edu-
cation is the result of purely con-
scientious and religious motives ;
and while claiming for Catholics the
right to give to their children the
benefit of religious training, they
have everywhere and repeatedly
given the most convincing proofs
of their sincere desire to concede
to all others the fullest liberty in
this as in other matters ; and though
they cannot approve of that feature
in the common-school system which
excludes all teaching of doctrinal
religion, they have never thought
of pretending that those to whom
it does commend itself should not
be permitted to try the experiment
of a purely secular education, pro-
vided they respect in others the
freedom of conscience which is now
a part of the organic law of the land.

With very few exceptions, Catho-
lics have, throughout the whole

country, been rigidly excluded from
all the higher political offices ;
though now, unfortunately, this can
hardly be considered a grievance,
since the general corruption and
unworthiness of public life have
caused the more respectable class
of American citizens to shrink from
the coarseness and vulgarity of our
partisan contests. On the other hand,
those nominal Catholics who acquire
influence in what are called " ward
politics " are generally very much
like other politicians, eager to serve
God and the country whenever it puts
money in their purse. What politi-
cal reasons may have determined
the great body of Catholic voters in
this country to prefer the Democratic
to the Whig, and later to the Repub-
lican, party, we know not; but we are
very sure that nothing could be more
unfounded than to imagine that the
welfare or progress of the church
can in any way be connected with
the success of Democratic partisan-
ism. As a religious body we have
nothing to hope from either or any
party. We ask nothing but the lib-
erty which with us is considered the
inalienable heritage of all Christian
believers; and for the rest, -we know
that a politician doing a good deed
is more to be shunned than an ene-
my plotting evil.

The property of the Catholic
Church in the United States has
not been exempted from taxation,
except under general laws which
applied equally to that of all other
religious denominations ; and though
we can imagine nothing. more bar-
barous, more hurtful to the progress
of the national architecture and to
the general aesthetic culture of the
people, than a change in the policy
which has hitherto prevailed, not in
this country alone, but in all the
civilized states of the world ; never-
theless, if those who hold that reli-

448

The Catholic Church

gion has no social value succeed in
revolutionizing legislation on this
subject, the Catholics will not be
less prepared than their neighbors
to abide the issue.

A more interesting study than the
wealth of the church is the growth
of the Catholic population in the
United States, though, in the ab-
sence of reliable or complete statis-
tics on this subject, we are not able
to give an entirely satisfactory or
exact statement of the facts. The
"number of sittings," to use the
phrase of the official reports, given
in the United States Census, is of
scarcely any assistance in determin-
ing the religious statistics of the
country. The number of Protes-
tant church sittings, for instance,
was in 1870 19,674,548, whereas
the membership of all the Protestant
sects of the country was only about
7,000,000 ; and it is well known
that, while in most Protestant
churches many seats are usually un-
occupied during religious service,
in the Catholic churches the same
seat is frequently filled by three, or
four, or even five different persons,
who take it in succession at the va-
rious Masses.

Ninety-one years ago Father Car-
roll set down the Catholic population
of the United States at twenty-five
thousand, and he may have fallen
short of the real number by about
ten thousand. In 1808, when epis-
copal sees were placed at Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, and Bards-
town, the Catholic population had
increased to about one hundred
and fifty thousand. In 1832 Bishop
England estimated the Catholics of
the United States at half a million ;
but in 1836, after having given the
subject greater attention, he thought
there could not be less than a mil-
lion and a quarter. Both these esti-
mates, however, were mere surmises;

for Bishop England, who always
exaggerated the losses of the church
in this country, not finding it pos-
sible to get the data for a well-
founded opinion as to the Catholic
population, was left to conjecture
or to arguments based upon pre-
mises which, to say the least, were
themselves unproven. The editors
of the Metropolitan Catholic Almanac
for 1848, basing their calculations
upon the very satisfactory returns
which they had received from the
thirty dioceses then existing in the
United States, set down our Catho-
lic population at 1,190,700, and this
is probably the nearest approach
which we can make to the number
of Catholics in this country at the
time the great Irish famine gave
a new impulse to emigration to
America. From 1848 down to the
present day the increase of the
Catholic population has been very
rapid, it having risen in a period
of twenty-eight years from a little
over a million to nearly seven mil-
lions. The third revised edition of
Schem's Statistics of the World for
1875 gi ves 6,000,000 as the Catho-
lic population of the United States,
and the American Annual Cyclopedia
for 1875 reckons it as more than
6,000,000 ; and from a careful con-
sideration of the data, which, how-
ever, are still imperfect, we think it
is at present probably not less than
7,000,000. This remarkable growth
of the church here during the last
. thirty years must be attributed to
various causes, by far the most im-
portant of which is beyond all
doubt the vast immigration from
Ireland ; to which, indeed, we must
also chiefly ascribe the progress of
the church during this century in
all other countries throughout the
world in which the English lan-
guage is spoken. No other people
could have done for the Catholic

in the United States 1776-1876. 449

faith in the United States what made the victims of lawlessness
the Irish people have done. Their or fraud, as in the burning of
unalterable attachment to their the Charlestown convent and the
priests, their deep Catholic instincts, churches of Philadelphia, or in
which no combination of circum- the spreading " Awful Disclosures'
stances has ever been able to bring throughout the land, the sympathies
into conflict with their love of of generous and honest men have
country ; the unworldly and spirit- been attracted to us. And when
ual temper of the national charac- Protestant bigotry has made an
ter; their indifference to ridicule alliance with a political party in
and contempt ; and their unfailing order to compass our ruin, it has
generosity all fitted them for the merely succeeded in forcing the op-
work which was to be done here, posing party to take up throughout
and enabled them, in spite of the the whole country the defence of
strong prejudices against their race the Catholics. Thus during the
which Americans had inherited brief day of the " Know-nothing "
from England, to accomplish what conspiracy large numbers of Pro-
would not have been accomplish- testants, for the first time since the
ed by Italian, French, or German Reformation, were led to examine
Catholics. Another cause of the into the history of the church, with
more rapid growth of the church a view to defend her against the
during the last quarter of a century traditional objections of Protestant-
may be found in the more thorough ism itself. In fact, in a country
organization of dioceses, congrega- which looks with equally tolerant
tions, and schools, by which we are complacency upon every form of
better able to shield our people belief or unbelief from Atheism to
from unhealthy influences, and thus Voudooism, from the Joss-House of
year after year to diminish our loss- the Chinaman to the Mormon Tab-
es ; while the increasing number ernacle and breeding caravansary
of converts to the faith helps to of free-love, to imagine that there
swell the Catholic ranks. Of 22,- can be either decent or reasonable
209 persons who were confirmed in motives for exciting to persecution
the diocese of Baltimore from 1864 of the Catholic Church is sheer
to 1868, 2,752, or more than 12 per madness; nor can we think it less
cent., were converts ; and our con- absurd to suppose that the good
verts are generally from the more sense and justice of the American
intelligent classes of Americans, -people will allow them to commit
The efforts to arrest the progress themselves to a policy as inconsis-
of the church, which now for near- tent as it would be outrageous,
ly half a century have assumed a However this may be, there can
kind of periodicity, may be plac- be no doubt but the repeated and
ed among the causes which have unprovoked attacks made upon the
added to her strength. These at- Catholics of the United States by
tempts are made in open violation fanatics and demagogues have help-
of the religious and political princi- ed to increase their union and cam-
pi es which are the special boast of all estness; and this leads us away
Americans, and the only arguments from the growth of the church in
which can be adduced to justify her external organization to the
them are drawn from fear or ha- consideration of the development
tred. Whenever we have been of her spiritual and intellectual life.
vol.. xxni. 29

450

The Catholic Church

And here we are at once struck
by the similarity between her pro-
gress and that of the country itself,
which has been diffusive at the ex-
pense of concentration and thor-
oughness. Nevertheless, no atten-
tive observer can fail to be struck
by the intense and earnest religious
spirit by which the great body of
the Catholics of the United States
are animated, as well as the readi-
ness with which they co-operate
with th^ir priests in promoting the
interests of religion. Nowhere do
we find greater eagerness for in-
struction in the truths of the faith,
or greater willingness to make
sacrifices in order to give to the
young a religious education, than
among the Catholics of this coun-
try. Our priests are, as a body,
laborious, self-sacrificing, and dis-
interested, and are honestly strug-
gling to make themselves worthy
of the great mission which God has
given them in America.

Our position in this country hith-
erto has turned the thoughts of our
best minds to polemical and con-
troversial writing, which, though
useful and even necessary, has only
a temporary value, since it is ad-
dressed primarily to objections and
phases of belief which owe their
special significance to transitory
conditions of society and opinion.
Controversies between Catholics
and Protestants which forty years
ago attracted general attention
and produced considerable impres-
sion, would now pass unnoticed ;
for the simple reason that Ameri-
cans, in the confusion of sects
and religious opinions, have come
to realize that Protestantism has
no doctrinal basis, and is left to
trust exclusively to religious sen-
timent. Dogmatic Protestantism is
of the past, and the most popular
preachers are those who appeal

most skilfully to the religious in-
stincts without requiring the ac-
ceptance of any religious beliefs.
Most of our best writers have been
men whose arduous labors left
them but little time for study
or literary composition, and their
works frequently bear the marks of
hasty performance ; but they will
nevertheless not suffer from com-
parison with the religious writings
of American Protestants. The
ablest man who has devoted him-
self to the discussion of religion
and philosophy, or probably any
other subject, in the United States
during the last hundred years is
Dr. Brownson, all of whose best
thoughts have been given to the
elucidation of Catholic truth ; and
though there was something want-
ing to make him either a great
philosopher or a great theologian,
or even a perfect master of style,
we know of no other American of
whom this may not also be justly
said ; unless, perhaps, we may con-
sider Prescott, Hawthorne, or Irving
worthy of the last of these titles.
And though we Catholics have no
man who is able to take up the
pen which has just fallen from the
hand of Dr. Brownson, none who
have the power which once belong-
ed to England and Hughes, we are
in this not more unfortunate than
our country, which no longer finds
men like Adams or Jefferson to
represent not unworthily its su-
preme dignity ; nor any like Web-
ster, Clay, or Calhoun, whose minds
were as lofty as their honor was
pure, to lend the authority of wis-
dom and eloquence to the delibera-
tions of a great people.

During the hundred years of our
independent life the external de-
velopment of the church, like thai
of the nation, has been so rapid thai
all individual energies have to a

in the United Staffs 1776-1*876.

451

greater or less degree been drawn
to help on this growth. Another
century, bringing other circum-
stances, with them will bring the
opportunity and the duty of other
work. A more thorough organiza-
tion must be given to our education-
al system ; Catholic universities
mast be created which in time will
grow to be intellectual centres in
which the best minds of the church
in this country may receive the
culture and training that will en-
able them tp work in harmony for
the furtherance of Catholic ends ;
a more vigorous and independent
press, one not weakened by want or
depraved by human respect or re-
gard for persons, must be brought
into existence. We must prepare
ourselves to enter more fully into
the public life of the country ; to
throw the light of Catholic thought
upon each new phase of opinion or
belief as it rises ; to grapple more
effectively with the great moral
evils which threaten at once the life
of the nation and of the church.
All this and much else we have
to do, if our God-given mission is
to be fulfilled.

And now we will crave the in-
dulgence of our readers while we
conclude with a brief reference to
what we conceive to be the office
which the Catholic Church is des-
tined to fulfil in behalf of the Ame-
rican state and civilization.

De Tcqueville, in his thoughtful
and singularly judicious treatise on
American institutions, makes the
following very just remarks :

' I think the Catholic religion has been
falsely looked upon as the enemy of de-
mocracy. On the contrary, Catholicism,
ong the various sects of Christians,
seems to me to be one of the most favor-
able to the equality of social conditions.
The religious community in the Catholic
Church is composed of but two elements
the priest and the people. Tine priest

alone is lifted above his flock, and all
below him are equals. In matters of
doctrine the Catholic faith places all hu-
man capacities upon the same level ; it
subjects the wise and the ignorant, the
man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to
the details of the same creed ; it imposes
the same observances upon the rich and
the poor; it inflicts the same austerities
upon the powerful and the weak ; it en-
ters into no compromise with mortal
man, but reducing the whole hum;<n
race to the same standard, it confounds
all the distinctions of society at the foot
of the same altar, even as they are con-
founded in the sight of God. If Catho-
licism predisposes the faithful to obedi-
ence, it certainly does not prepare them
for inequality ; but the contrary may be
said of Protestantism, which generally
tends to make men independent more
than to render them equal. . . . But ne
sooner is the priesthood entirely separat-
ed from the government, as is the case in
the United States, than it is found that
no class of men are naturally more dis
posed than the Catholics to transfuse
the doctrine of the equality of conditions
into political institutions"*

The generous sentiments which
two centuries and a half ago led the
Catholics of Maryland to become
the pioneers of religious liberty in
the New World, are still warm in
the hearts of the Catholic people of
the United States. We have even
here been the victims of persecu-
tion, and it is not impossible that
similar trials may await us in the
future ; but we have the most pro-
found conviction that, even though
we should grow to be nine-tenths
of the population of this country,
we shall never prove false to the
principle of religious liberty, which,
to the Catholics of the United States,
at least, is sacred and inviolable.
For our own part, we should turn
with unutterable loathing from the
man who could think that any other
course could ever be either just or
honorable.

The Catholics of this republic arc

* Democracy in America, vol. i. p 30$.

452 The Catholic Church in the United States 1776-1876.

deeply impressed with the inviola-
bility of the rights of the individual.
We believe that the man is more
than the citizen ; that when the
state tramples upon the God-given
liberty of the most wretched beg-
gar, the consciences of all are vio-
lated ; that it is its duty to govern
as little as possible, and rather to
suffer a greater good to go undone
than to do even a slight wrong in
order to accomplish it. For this
reason we believe that when the
state assumed the right to control
education, it took the first step
away from the true American and
Christian theory of government back
towards the old pagan doctrine of
state-absolutism. Though we up-
hold the rights of the individual, we
are not the less strong in our advo-
cacy of the claims of authority. In
fact, the almost unbounded indivi-
dual liberty which our American
social and political order allows
would fatally lead to anarchy, if not
checked by some great and sacred
authority ; and this safeguard can
be found only in the Catholic
Church, which is the greatest school
of respect the world has ever seen.
The church, by her power to in-
spire faith, reverence, and obedi-

ence, will introduce into our na-
tional life and character elements
of refinement and culture which
will temper the harshness and reck-
lessness of our republican manners.
By her conservative and' unitive
force she will weld into stronger
union the heterogeneous popula-
tions and widely-separated parts of
our vast country. The Catholics
were the only religious body in the
United States not torn asunder by
sectional strife during our civil war,
and we are persuaded that, as our
numbers grow and our influence in-
creases, we are destined to become
more and more the strong bond to
hold in indissoluble union the great
American family of States. The
divisions and dissensions of Pro-
testantism have a tendency to pre-
pare the public mind to contem-
plate without alarm or indignation
like divisions and dissensions in the
state ; and all who love the country
and desire that it remain one and
united for ages must look with plea-
sure upon the growth of a religion
which, while maintaining the unity
of its own world-wide kingdom, in-
spires those who are guided by its
teachings with a horror of political
dissensions and divisions.

A Frenchman s View of It.

453

A FRENCHMAN'S VIEW OF IT.*

M. CLAUDIO JANNET has re-
cently sent forth from the little
town of Aix, in Provence, a work
on the United States of the pre-
sent day which may be both in-
teresting and profitable to Ameri-
can readers. It does not appear
that M. Jannet has visited the
country whose moral, social, and
political condition he sets himself
to describe. His information has
been gathered from books, pam-
phlets, and periodicals ; his con-
clusions are the result of delibera-
tion rather than the hasty observa-
tions of a tourist, and they are all
the more valuable because they are
not distorted by the usual blunders
and prejudices which obstruct the
vision of the average Frenchman
in America. The European tra-
veller, particularly the French tra-
veller, finds many things in our coun-
try to shock his prejudices and
offend his tastes. The discomforts
of the journey, the harshness of the
climate, the extravagance of living,
the imperfections of our domestic
economy, the general crudeness of
our new and incomplete civilization,
the press and hurry of business,
the lack of aesthetic culture, the
vulgarity of popular amusements
all these things put him out of the
humor to be just. He dislikes the
surface aspects of American life,
and, with the best disposition in the
world, he commonly fails to see
what lies underneath. He fills his
note-book with dyspeptic com-

* Les Etats-Unis Contemporains^ ou Us Mceurs,
les Institutions et les Idees depuis la Guerre de la
Secession. Par Claudio Jannet. Paris : E. Plon
t Cie. 1876.

ments, and when he goes home he
writes a volume of blunders, and
all the Americans who read it laugh
at it. Take, however, a conscien-
tious Frenchman of sober and re-
flective turn of mind, shut him up
in his own study, supply him with
an abundance of the right kind
of American books and newspapers,
let him ponder over his subject at
leisure in the midst of his accus-
tomed comforts, and the chances
are that he will write a very good
essay on the condition of this coun-
try, and tell a great many whole-
some truths which we ourselves
hardly suspect.

M. Jannet's book has been
evolved in this way. His industry
in the collection of materials seems
to have been remarkable ; and if
his judgment has not always kept
pace with it, the instances in which
he has been misled are fewer than
we should have expected. For
most of his mistakes he can show
the excuse of an American authori-
ty. It does not become us, there-
fore, to find too much fault with
him. We are rather disposed to
overlook errors in the statement of
particular facts, and consider the
really valuable and novel points
in his essay, with the moral which
he wishes us to draw from it. We
shall find in what he says abundant
food for reflection, even when we
believe him to be wrong.

He sets out with an attempt to
show that the spirit of revolution
has been waging incessant war for
nearly a hundred years upon " the
work of Washington," and that the
Constitution, as it was derised by

454 ^1 Frenchman 's View of It.

the wise and conservative party pacity, of fitness, or of the repre-
represented by our first President, sentation of interests, since sover-
has been almost torn to shreds, and eignty is an attribute of the voter
is destined to destruction by the in his quality as a man. The ex-
aggressions of radicalism. M. elusion of women and minors from
Jannet's references to 'the school the polls is only an abuse, a relic
of Washington ' seem rather odd of old prejudices. Thus the most
to an American reader. We doubt advanced party already places fe-
whether there ever was a distinct male suffrage at the head of its
political school to which that name programme, and perhaps it wilt
could be properly applied ; and it some day be established in the
is not at all clear that there have United States. The people, being
been two well-defined and antago- sovereign by nature, cannot be
nistic political principles in conflict checked in its will by any custom,
since the very foundation of the any tradition, any respect for ac-
government, as Ormuzd and Ahri- quired rights. Whatever it wills
man, the spirit of good and the is just and reasonable by the mere
spirit of evil, waged perpetual war- fact that it so wills. There can be
fare, in the Zoroastrian system, for no permanent constitution for the
the dominion of the world. The country ; the constitution can be
philosophical historian is fond of only what the people wills, or is
tracing in the revolutions of states thought to will,/i?r the time being."
and the development of political About the year 1850, according to
theories the steady growth of some our author, the heresy of * popu-
fixed principle of action. But it is lar sovereignty," otherwise the reli-
a specious philosophy which takes gion of revolution, obtained full
no account of accidents. M. Jan- headway, and the radical party,
net has made the mistake of going making skilful use of the anti-
too deep, and overlooking what lies slavery sentiment which had hither-
right on the surface. He sees the to been cultivated only by a small
spirit of radicalism, fostered by the band f eccentric philanthropists,
influx of communistic and infidel captured the masses of well-mean-
immigrants from Europe, attacking ing, unreflecting voters. Liberty
the conservative safeguards origin- and emancipation were their watch-
ally established in our federal and words ; but their real purpose was
State constitutions, assailing the only the supremacy of the mob.
rights of the States, extending the Slavery was the abuse which they
suffrage, sweeping the country into pretended to attack, but they only
the vortex of uncontrolled demo- feigned a horror for it in order
cracy. " Popular sovereignty ' is to win over the small but zealous
the watchword of this radical move- party of sincere abolitionists ; their
ment. " The doctrine of popular actual object was to abolish the
sovereignty," says M. Jannet, " is federal Union with its limited pow-
based upon the idea that man is ers, and set up a unitary democracy
independent, and that consequently based upon the despotism of uni-
there can be no authority over him versal suffrage. ' From the day
except with his own consent. This when this party came into power
principle established, there can no by the election of Lincoln," says
longer be any question of limiting M. Jannet, " nothing remained for
the suffrage by conditions of ca- the South but to take up arms to

A Frenchman's View of It. 455

protect its rights against the pro- ever, has survived the extinction of
jects already disclosed." And he slavery itself. We must not forget
adds that the radical movement that the active men of 1876 were
towards pure democracy * alone boys in the exciting period just
can explain the unheard-of ferocity before the war, and their political
with which the Northern armies creed took shape at a time when
fought, and the odious persecution the doctrine of State rights was the
which followed their triumph, and defence of the slave-driver and the
which still lasts, ten years after- secessionist, and the federal power
wards." was the safeguard of freedom and
Thus the anti-slavery agitation union. The ideas impressed upon
was only an incident and, indeed, them during the years of conflict
M. Jannet seems not to regard have remained during the years of
it as a very important one in the peace, and have affected in a most
long, uninterrupted, deplorable de- serious manner the fortunes of the
cline of America from a moder- country during the period of recon-
ately conservative federal republic struction. For four years, so crowd-
to the despotism of an ignorant, ed with great historical changes
centralized democracy. It can that they may be counted as equi-
hardly be necessary to point out to valent to nearly a whole genera-
American readers the serious mis- tion of uneventful peace, the nation
take in M. Jannet's theory. It is was taught by the necessity of war
useless to look beyond slavery for to believe that the reserved rights
an explanation of the changes of the States must yield to the para-
wrought within the past fifteen mount necessity of preserving the
years in the character of the Ameri- Union, and ultimately of destroying
can government. Mr. Seward was slavery for the sake of union. It
right when he declared that there would be unfair to say that the let-
was an irrepressible conflict be- ter of the Constitution fell into
tween slavery and freedom. It had contempt, but there was a general
been gathering force for years agreement that constitutions, to be
when it broke into war in 1861 ; it worth anything, must be elastic
had been the original cause of near- instruments, stretched to cover
ly all the encroachments upon the unforeseen emergencies. Naturally,
rights of the States which preceded when the war was over we did not
the Rebellion, and it had made the return at once to the old ideas. In
very words " State rights ' odious the provisions for saving the fruits
to a vast majority of the Northern of the contest, guarding against
people. The plain truth is that the fresh attempts at disunion, and pro-
only State right which the conser- tecting the emancipated race in its
vative and aristocratic party cared newly-acquired liberties, the de-
about maintaining was the right to spotic and absolute spirit of the war
hold human beings in bondage, still prevailed. The federal gov-
and buy and sell them like cattle, ernment which had put down the
They chose to identify a political rebellion was called upon to secure
iheory with a hateful social institu- its victory. So for the next ten
tion, and it was only natural that, years we saw a constant assumption
when the end came, theory and in- at Washington of powers which no
stitution should go down together. Congress or President would have
The evil influence of slavery, how- dreamed of asserting a generation

456 A Frenchman's View of It.

ago. The " reconstructed States ' trial. Of course there was no law
became little more than vassal pro- which gave the federal authorities
vinces, practically ruled at the seat cognizance of murder, and no in-
of the federal government. In dictment for that offence could be
some cases, even after the military found in a federal court ; but it was
governors had disappeared and the desirable that the arrests should be
States had been restored to repre- made for political effect, and the
sentation in Congress, and nomi- accused were consequently indict-
nally to their full powers of self-ad- ed under a clause of the Enforce-
ministration, we have seen soldiers ment law for " conspiracy to pre-
sent from Washington to decide vent a citizen from voting " a con-
local election contests, legislatures spiracy to prevent his voting in
dispersed at the point of the fede- November by killing him in August !
ral bayonet, and the verdict of the The arrest served its purpose, and
ballot rudely set aside by the Presi- it is hardly necessary to say that
dent's despotic order. The general the case never was tried,
course of legislation for the South- But of late the progress of the
ern States at Washington was in- country towards centralization has
spired by the belief that the whole been sensibly checked. The abus-
Confederacy was a hot-bed of insur- es of the past few years have been
rection and crime. Special laws followed by a popular reaction,
were enacted to prevent the " rebel The temper of the South is better
element " from acquiring that pre- understood. The North begins to
dominance in the Southern com- see the dangers of the course it has
munities which naturally belonged been following, and at the same
to it, and to lift up the negroes to a time to feel ashamed of its injustice,
political power to which they were And more than all else, the Su-
not entitled by their numbers, and for preme Court of the United States,
which theywere not qualified by char- in two able decisions, sweeps away a
acter or education. The control of great mass of the most mischievous
elections was taken away from the Enforcement legislation, and rede-
States by the Enforcement laws, and fines the almosfobliterated bounda-
the ordinary police duties of preserv- ries of State and federal authority,
ing the peace were usurped by federal The judgment of the court in the
appointees under a strained inter- Grant Parish and Kentucky cases
pretation of the statutes. An inci- marks an era in our constitutional
dent reported in Alabama during history. It neutralizes a great deal
the political campaign of 1874 illus- of the evil consequences of the war
trates the extreme length to 'which period, and can hardly fail of a
federal interference was carried, and most salutary effect upon future leg-
the ingenuity with which it was em- islation. When he has read it, even
ployed for merely partisan purposes. M. Jannet, perhaps, will take a more
A Republican politician had been cheerful view of our condition,
murdered in August of that year, But let us leave the historical
and the perpetrators of the deed part of M. Jannet's book, and look
had notbeen discovered. The guilt at the picture which he draws of
was charged, however, upon several our actual condition. We do not
active Democrats, and just before purpose to criticise it. We shall
the election they were arrested by a let our readers correct errors for
federal marshal and committed for themselves, as they can easily do,

A Frenchman's View of It.

457

while we content ourselves with
showing them how the political and
social aspects of our country im-
press an intelligent foreign student.
M. Jannet is deceived sometimes ;
he takes too seriously the satire
of ' the American humorist Edgar
Poe," and the mixture of sarcasm
and burlesque which he cites from
" The gilded age by Mark Twain
and Dudley " ; but upon the whole
he tells the sober truth. He gives
a pretty exact account of our elec-
toral system, and especially of our
system of nominations, which prac-
tically prevents the people from
voting for anybody except the fa-
vorites of a little knot of profession-
al politicians assembled in a com-
mittee or ward meeting. As poli-
tical struggles in the United States,
he says, are not for the triumph
of principles, but only for the pos-
session of power, politics has na-
turally become debased, high-mind-
ed citizens have insensibly become
disgusted with it, and at the same
time the rising flood of universal
suffrage has driven the wealthy
classes out of political life. Be-
tween 1824 and 1840 the party or-
ganizations were definitively settled,
and since then politics has been
the exclusive appanage of politi-
cians by profession. M. Jannet
gives a very unpleasant sketch of
this class of persons, and describes
the machinery of manipulating con-
ventions and setting up candidates
with considerable minuteness and
accuracy. Nor is it possible for
us to read without mortification his
account of the manner in which the
professional politicians carry on the
government :

" Such institutions leave the nation
completely disarmed against corruption.
No one, either in the executive or the
legislative branch, has any interest in
stopping it. We shall even see that,

under the political customs of the coun-
try, the representatives of power in every
grade have a manifest interest in tolerat-
ing it. ... Befcre the presidential
election the politicians who manage the
conventions of the party make careful
bargains with their candidate for the
distribution of the offices. The Presi-
dent, when he desires a re-election, has
here in the same manner a powerful mo-
tive of action ; all the federal employees
fight for him with ardor and by eveiy
possible means, for the retention of
their places depends upon his triumph.
It is easy to see how party spirit is
inflamed by the prospect of so much
booty in case of success. The evils of
this system have become more sti iking
as the number of federal employees has
increased. Given the prevalence of dis-
honesty and love of money, it is evident
that office-holders who can retain their
places only a few years must make use
of the time to enrich themselves. . . .
But corruption is not confined to the
employees, properly speaking ; it extends
in a large measure even to the represen-
tatives of the nation. The President
nominates his cabinet, subject to the
confirmation of the Senate. But in
the party conventions the President's
choice is fixed in advance. Arrange-
ments of the same kind are made with
the senators ; for their approval is neces-
sary for a thousand federal appoint-
ments, and naturally for the most im-
portant. The result of this state of
things is that the Senate which, by* the
Constitution is a directing political body
without whose co-operation it is im-
possible for the President to carry on
the government, becomes a theatre of
incessant intrigue and corruption."

We prefer not to follow M. Jan-
net in his brief recital of the Credit
Mobilier scandal, the Fremont af-
fair, the Pacific Mail bribery, the
operations of the Tweed and Erie
Rings, the boldness of the lobby,
the power of the railway corpora-
tions in politics, the pressure of
enormous debts and taxes as the
inevitable consequence of legisla-
tive venality, and the degradation
of the judicial office. It is a hor-
rible account, but it is not exagge-

458 A Frenchman's View of It.

rated. For all his statements ington Irving should have ram-
save, of course, some mistakes of bled about the Alhambra, Bancroft
secondary importance M. Jannet accepted the mission to England,
can show good American authority, and Hawthorne the consulate at
In the face of all this disorder Liverpool ; that Motley should have
and corruption the best citizens, read the archives of the Dutch Re-
disgusted with political life, hold public at the Hague, Power and
themselves every year more and Story studied among the momi-
more strictly aloof from it. ments of Italy, and Longfellow

,, ,, , amused himself with the " Golden
'Men of property, merchants, and

manufacturers are injured by the mis- Legend when he might have found

management of affairs, and deplore it ; so many heroic subjects at home !

but each one finds it for his individual We are astonished that M. Jannet,

advantage not to lose his time in trying who has certa i n i y rea( ] a great many

to correct public evils. The country is . LI

still rich enough to bear the waste and American books, should not have

rascality of a government which calls it- perceived the dense ignorance which

self popular. ... Even in these days distinguishes this particular portion

there are certain influences of religion, o f Dixon's New America perhaps

race, or locality which sometimes bring aboye the rest of the book M

honest and capable men into the local T , ,

political assemblies ; but the ruling trait Jf^t has only to pause and

of American democracy is nevertheless reflect for a moment, and he wi]

the ostracism of the upper classes and not accuse Diedrich Knickerbock-

of eminent men. The consequence is er and the author of the Life of

that these classes become more and more Washington and Rip van Win-

dissatisfied with democratic institutions, 7/ r , . '

and cast wistful eyes towards the consti! kle of neglecting his own country

tutional government, in reality more free to lounge m Granada, nor blame

than theirs, which Great Britain and her the poet of Cambridge because he

colonies enjoy. From De Tocquevitle rhymed the " Golden Legend" as

and Ampere to Duvergier de Hauranne wdl ag the gt o f Evangeline and

and Hepworth Dixon, all observers have ^ f ^ c , , ,

, . Miles Standish. Hawthorne too,

been struck by this sentiment, not in . '

general openly expressed, but sufficient- the most thoroughly national

ly shown by the considerable number American romancers, and Bancroft,

of distinguished Americans who pass w ho has spent a lifetime in the

the greater part of their lives out of the study of American history ! Is it

country '" also to Mr. Hepworth Dixon that
In this there is just a modicum M. Jannet is indebted for the dis-
of truth less now, perhaps, than covery stated in the following pas-
there was when it was written ; for sage ?
there is to-day an unmistakable

tendency among our best citizens "Americans, even those who at heart

to resume that share in the man- are most disgusted with democracy, have

agement of public affairs from a passionate love of their country^

? . , ^ , r r look upon themselves as the first nation

which they have too long suf- ofthevvorld . This patriotism, despite its

fered themselves to be excluded, exaggerations, is a great power for the

But M. Jannet follows Hepworth country. Without precisely desiring the

Dixon in his stupendously absurd establishment of a constitutional mon-

remarks on the " moral emigration" <*? manv enlightened American

.. . , - ? , pire to a stronger and more stable gov-

of the best men of America, and ernment under a re p ub lican form. I

finds it a proof of distaste for de- have been struck, in the intercourse that

mocratic institutions that Wash- I have had with many of them, by the se-

A Frenchman s View of It.

459

ciet admiration with which the rule of
Napoleon III. in its day inspired them.
Tiiis rule, democratic in its origin, revo-
lutionary in its principle, but favorable
to the preservation of material order and
the acquisition 01 wealth, agreed very
well with their desire for additional secu-
rity, and at the same time with their lack
of principles. Sentiments of this kind
and they are wide spread are one of the
greatest dangers that threaten American
society."

Of course the corruption which
disgraces politics appears likewise
in the private life of the people.
The constant aim of the Yankee,
says M. Jannet, is to make money.

" The love of money seizes the young
man from the time of his adolescence, and
does not let the old man allow repose to
the evening of his life. Except in the
old slave States, there is no class of people
of leisure in America. From top to bot-
tom of the ladder, all society is a prey to
devouring activity. Its economical re-
sults ate considerable ; the rapid growth
of the nation and its prodigious devel-
opment in all the arts of material well-
being are the fruits of this ardent labor
which knows no rest. If the Americans
Fove money, it is not for the sake of mere
acquisition, but in order that they may
give themselves up to the enjoyment of
luxu ies and launch into new specula-
tions. Haipagon is a type which. does
not exist among them. Indeed, they
generally lack those habits of patient
economy which constitute the strength
and the virtue of our old races of pea-
sants and bourgeois. Their readiness to
spend and their generosity in case of
need equal their appetite for gain. One
who fails to take account of this char-
acteristic restlessness of American life
will get but an imperfect idea of the
private hal>its and public institutions of
the people. In no country are ' honors'
more eageily sought after or is demo-
cratic vanity more freely indulged ; but
it must be confessed that 'honor' is in-
terpreted among Americans, or at least
among Yankees, in quite a different
sense from that which is accepted in
Europe. No man plumes himself up-
on disinterestedness. Magistrates, gen-
erals, statesmen, accept subscriptions of
jingling dollars as testimonials of pub-

lic esteem. It is alike in dollars that
they pay, among the Yankees, for in juries
and insults. This universal thirst for
gold has perhaps the good effect of soft-
ening political asperities, at least so
long as a boundless field remains open
for work and speculation. The unbri-
dled love of money, in fact, lowers all
men to the same level, and stifles alike
fierce fanaticisms and generous pas-
sions. The same ardor in the pursuit
of wealth soon scatters the family. Aged
parents, home, or the paternal acres,
nothing can restrain those who are
ruled by this passion alone. There is
no attempt, as there is with us, to con-
ceal the love of money. ' The almighty
dollar !' cry the Americans with admira-
tion. A new comer is presented to-
them. ' How much is this man worth ?*
they ask, instead of inquiring, as we
should do, about his antecedents and
his merit. Everything is overlooked for
a rich man, and, except in a few chosen
circles, a bankruptcy counts for nothing
when fortune smiles again. Nowhere
is merit valued without money. Hence
the inferiority of American literature and
art ; hence the commercial customs that
prevail in professions which we style
liberal. Physicians, counsellors at-law,
even ministers of the Gospel (we speak,
be it understood, only of the Protestant
sects), advertise as freely as the com-
monest working-man. Poverty is held
in contempt to a degree of which our
older society, formed in the school of
Catholicity and chivalry, can have no
idea. In spite of universal suffrage and
absolute political equality, there is no
country in which so great a gulf has been
placed between the rich and the poor.
This superficially democratic society
would not live in peace two days, if it
were not that the poor man can raise
himself with a little trouble to comfort,,
if not to fortune. But when the natural
riches of the country become less abun-
dant and the demand for labor abates,
will not these hard social customs be-
come a cause of formidable antagonism ?
Distant as this future may still appear,
the question is one which no seiious
observer can well avoid asking.

"The pursuit of wealth is the main-
spring of material progress, but when it
is carried to an extreme it misses the
very object of its pursuit. The exces-
sive love of money lias developed in
the United States a financial dishonesty

460

A Frenchman's View of It.

which stains the national character and
causes a great loss of the public prop-
erty. Who has not heard of the great
fires which so often destroy entire quar-
ters of the large cities? They are often
kindled by individuals who wish to con-
ceal their bankruptcy or to get the amount
of their insurance. These crimes affect
a multitude of innocent persons and
cause an increase in the rates of insur-
ance ; in short, it is the nation at large
which pays for such frauds by an in-
crease in the cost of all its products. It
is the same thing with failures. They
entail no dishonor, as they do in France ;
that is why they are so many. . . .

" The causes of this perversion of the
moral sense are complex. Amid the al-
most infinite subdivision of Protestant
sects there is no longer any religious
teaching which addresses itself with au-
thority to the mass of the nation. We
do not take sufficient account of what
Catholicism is doing in our country to
maintain the fundamental ideas of mo-
rality even among men who during their
lives remain strangers to its practices.
The corruption of the public authorities
and the inefficient administration of jus-
tice have also a gieat influence. . . .
Moreover, we must take into considera-
tion the very mixed character of the
population. Even the native Americans
are incessantly in motion. They transfer
themselves from one end of the country
to the other for the slightest of reasons,
and thus they escape the salutary control
-of local opinion which, among stable
populations, is one of the most powerful
moral influences. The establishment of
joint-stock companies for financial and
commercial enterprises an innovation
which dates from about fifty years ago
has done a great deal to weaken the sen-
timent of responsibility. ... If certain
companies are honestly administered, a
great number are made the occasion of
shameless frauds. We see audacious
speculators buying up a majority of the
stock in order to make secret issues of
new shares. This operation is called
' stock-watering.' It is estimated that
between July i, 1867, and May i, 1869,
twenty-eight railway companies increased
their capital from $287,000,000 to $400,-
000,000. These shares only serve for
stock-gambling, and woe to those who
have them left on their hands !. ' It
would appear,' says an American writer,
4 that the railroad speculators have three

objects in view : First, to get as much as
possible of the public lands ; experience
has proved that the more they ask the
more they will obtain, and that the ease
with which Congress is induced to favor
their projects is propoitioned to the lib-
erality with which they distribute funds
for corruption Secondly, to raise in
Europe as large a loan as possible, no
matter at what rates. Thirdly, when they
have got all the land and all the money
they can, and have attracted all the im-
migration from Germany they can hope
for, they sell the railroad, at whatever
loss to the bondholders, and make a
little ring of members of the company
its sole proprietors !' The great number
of these immoral speculations, the ad-
venturous character of commerce, and
the senseless luxury in which all busi-
ness men indulge bring on periodically
grave financial crises of which Europe
feels only the after effects. Malversation
is common even in institutions which
have the best reasons to be free from it.
Enormous defalcations are daily com-
mitted in the administration of charita-
ble works, neutralizing in a great mea-
sure the generosity with which the Amer-
icans have endowed them."

Alas ! it is impossible to deny
that these statements are substan-
tially true. The discoveries of
corruption in public life which
have recently produced so much
political excitement surprise no-
body who has studied American
society. This is a " representative '
democracy; and though certain well-
understood causes, which it would
be out of place to discuss here,
have long been at work driving the
highest class of our citizens out of
public employment, it is undeni-
able that as a general rule the mo-
rality of men in office is about on
a level with that of the voters who
put them there. When peculation
and swindling become common in
commerce, and a man who makes
money is always treated with re-
spect until he goes to the peni-
tentiary, it is almost inevitable that
there should be bribery in the cabi-

A Frenchman s Vi:w of It.

461

net and conspiracy in the ante-
chambers of the White House.
The stream cannot rise higher than
its source.

But if we wish to understand the
real condition of the American peo-
ple, we must study it in the nurser-
ies of all public virtue the home,
the school, and the church. With
the first of these the woman ques-
tion has a most intimate connection.
De Tocqueville said that Ameri-
cans did not praise women much,
but daily showed their respect for
them. Now, says M. Jannet,
things have sadly changed. We
have ceased to respect women, and
we are always talking about their
rights. There is a considerable
party among us which not only
insists upon the right of women
to vote and hold office, but would
make of them lawyers, physicians,
and ministers of the Gospel, and
give them the direction of indus-
trial and commercial enterprises
precisely as if they were men. M.
Jannet confesses that American
women, on the whole, show very
little eagerness to play the new r6le
which the modern social reformers
have created for them ; but the
agitation, if it produces no practi-
cal results, has a very unhappy in-
fluence upon the female mind, and
a bad effect upon female education.
How fearfully the family relation
has been impaired in America all
intelligent observers know. The
laxity and confusion of the mar-
riage laws ; the shocking frequency
of divorce ; the publicity given to
scandalous and indecent investiga-
tions ; the prevalence of the crime
of infanticide, against which the
press, the pulpit, and the medical
profession have long exclaimed in
horror ; the growing inability or un-
willingness of American women to
bear the burden of maternity ; the

rapid decay of the American ele-
ment in the population through the
excessive proportion of deaths to
births ; the breaking up of homes ;
the license allowed to the young
of both sexes all these things are
the appalling symptoms of a deep-
seated social disorder. We have
been in the habit of making it a
reproach to the French that there
is no word in their language which
expresses the American and Eng-
lish idea of home ; but it may be
questioned whether, retaining the
word, we are not in danger of
losing the reality. In the cities,
at all events, there has been within
the last quarter of a centtuy a la-
mentable change in domestic life.
Fashionable society has broken up
the family gatherings around the
evening lamp. The mother no
longer lives in the midst of her
children ; she spends her days in
shopping, visiting, and receiving,
and her nights in the ball-room.
Children are educated by hired
nurses, and before they are full
grown emancipate themselves from
the control of parents whom they
have never been taught to respect
and obey. " At home," in the jar-
gon of the day, has become a tra-
vesty of its original meaning ; it
designates the exhibition of a do-
mestic interior from which ^11 the
characteristics of home life are rig-
orously excluded. Architects are
forgetting the meaning of home,
and in the fashionable house of the
period the domestic virtues could
hardly find a lodgment. The hotel
and the boarding-house are driv-
ing out of existence those model
homes which were once the glory
of America. What else could we
expect ? It is the woman who
gives character to the household,
and the tendency of our time
is to remove woman from the

462 A Frenchman s View of It.

.fireside and set her upon the plat- the practical affairs of life." _Oui
form. author shows how steadily the god-
That there is nothing in the less theory of education has gain-
American school system to sup- ed acceptance ; he perceives the
ply the defects of American home growing disposition to enforce it by
education no Catholic will need the authority of the federal govern-
to be assured. The whole system ment, and make it obligatory upon
rests upon the principle that the the States to provide irreligious
school-teacher has nothing to do schools, and upon the people to use
with the cultivation of the moral them. In the progress of this de-
nature of his pupil. His duty is structive tendency he traces the in-
limited to the atlas, the copy-book, fluence of German ideas, political,
and the multiplication-table. The pseudo-philosophical, socialistic, and
pretext upon which this rule has atheistic, in which lies one of the
been adopted, says M. Jannet, is greatest dangers of the republic,
respect for all religious beliefs, but : Two things strike us in these
its real end is to create a genera- new currents of opinion : on the
tion without any positive religious one hand, their opposition to the
belief whatever. Zealous Chris- old bases of Anglo-Saxon ideas and
tians even among Protestants are liberties under which the United
not deceived by it. A report up- States lived until about 1850; on
on the state of schools in Penn- the other, their identity with the
sylvania in 1864 says: "The im- principles disseminated in Europe
portance, not to say the absolute by the revolutionists. It is impos-
necessity, of religious education be- sible for an impartial observer not
comes day by day more apparent, to recognize here the effect of one
If we wish to maintain our insti- and the same cause acting in ac-
tutions, it is essential to raise the cordance with a well defined aim.
standard of character and to re'- This cause, this agent, let us say at
vive among our people the spirit once, is Freemasonry. It is easy
of Christianity. The generation to judge of the real purpose which
which will soon succeed us should it has in view'by studying it in the
not only be skilful of hand, stout United States. There the conflicts
of heart, and enlightened in mind, and passions of the Old World liave
but it must learn also to love God no place ; what Freemasonry seeks
and man and practise duty." But to accomplish is the destruction of
unfortunately, continues M. Jannet, all positive religion and of every
such remonstrances have proved principle of authority in man's po-
unavailing, and the " unsectarian" litical and social relations."
system is now permanently estab- Protestantism, far from checking
lished a sad result for which the these disastrous tendencies, has
Protestant clergy is in great part allowed itself to increase them ; and
to blame. Nearly all of them ap- even if it had the will to constitute
prove the system, in the belief that itself the defender of the state and
Sunday-schools will be sufficient the family, it is torn by intestine
for religious instruction ; but " true divisions and driving rapidly to-
Christians point out that this sepa- wards disintegration. Yet M. Jan-
ration of the two branches of edu- net does not quite give us up for
cation tends to make religion re- lost. " The crisis which is now
garded as something foreign to passing over the country and check

A Frenchman s View of It.

463

ing its material prosperity may
be the signal for a reform, in forc-
ing honest men to recognize the
vices of their institutions and the
corruption of their manners."
There are four influences which he
hopes may combine to save us.
These are, i, the wisdom and ener-
gy of the people of the South, who,
after ten years of persevering ef-
forts, have at last begun to recover
the direction of their local affairs,
and to clear away ' the ruins
caused by the war and the dom-
ination of the Radicals." 2. The
success obtained by the Democrats,
or rather the Conservatives, in the
elections of November, 1874, and
April, 1875 a success that will put
an end to the despotism with which
the Radicals have cursed the coun-
try for fifteen years. We give
these two points for what they are
worth ; of course we do not believe
that there is any such fundamental
difference between the people of
the North and the people of the
South, the people who call them-
selves Republicans and the people

who call themselves Democrats,
as M. Jannet imagines. 3. The
great number of American families
who, in the midst of corruption and
disorder, have faithfully preserved
the virtues and domestic habits
which lie at the foundation of all
prosperous society. 4- Lastly and
chiefly, the marvellous progress of
the Catholic Church.

We make no comment upon this
portion of his essay, but we end
our review with a few lines from his
closing paragraph which it will
do us Americans, at the beginning
of our new century, no harm to
take to heart : " In all countries, in
all times, under the most diverse
historical and economical condi-
tions, the moral laws which govern
human society are unchanging and
inevitable. Founded upon the de-
calogue, nay, upon the very nature
of God, the distinction between
good and evil knows no mutation.
Everywhere men are prosperous
or unfortunate, according as they
keep the divine law or break
it."

464

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.

(FROM THE FRENCH.)

ORLEANS, January, 1867.

I HASTEN to tell you, my darling
sister, of our happy arrival in -the
city of Joan of Arc. It was cold
during this long journey, but I was
so silkenly enveloped inside the ele-
gant coupe 1 which was Rent's New
Year's gift to me that I did not
feel it.

Ah ! quun autre vous-mime est une
douce chose ! " How sweet it is to
have a second self!" You know
how often I used to say this at the
Sacred Heart, and with what ques-
tioning eyes our Parisian compan-
ions were wont to regard the daugh-
ters of Erin. Our impassioned
fondness for one another surprised
them, and we said that doubtless in
France people did not know how to
love. Dearest, we have now learnt
that the country of our adoption is
as warm as our native land. What
kind hearts have we not found
here ! I am glad, therefore, to re-
main here for the winter ; besides,
with Rene I cannot grow weary
anywhere. Why, darling Kate, are
you not with us ? Prepare your-
self for frequent letters, as I have
the mania of a scribbling friendship,
to the astonishment of my mother-
in-law. True, my writing-desk ac-
companies me everywhere, and be-
fore all other pleasures I prefer
that of conversing with you.

Our home is delightful for com-
fort and elegance. We that is,
Rene and I occupy the second
story. Our house is in the Rue
Jeanne cTArc, and I have only to
go to the window to see the beauti-

ful cathedral, which I do not fail to
visit often, there to pray in union
with my Kate. A tout seigneur tout
honneur* Let us, then, speak first
of this marvel of stone; of this
Gothic pile whose lofty towers ex-
cite the admiration of the artist.
Dearest, shall I tell you ? I felt
myself more at home there than in
any other church. I am not going
to describe either the rich chapels
or the splendid windows. In these
first visits to Sainte-Croix my heart
melted with joy at the thought that
I am a Catholic. " Well, my little
Irlandaise, and so you are enthu-
siastic about Orleans," said Rene"
softly to me, on observing the flush
upon my cheeks.

I have been shown also the sta-
tue of Joan of Arc in the Place du
Martroi. This, however, I do not
admire; it is not the young shep-
herdess of my dreams, but a ro-
bust maiden of vigorous mould
on horseback. But. the bas-reliefs !
. . . These are magnificent, sub-
lime ! What memories ! What a
history ! put to death upon the
soil of this same France which she
had saved. My blood boils when
I think of the cruelty of England.

We are quite a large colony here.
I must introduce you, Miss Kate,
into this family circle. You scarce-
ly know my mother-in-law, having
only had an occasional glimpse of
her amid the solemnities of my
marriage, and when you were think-
ing only of your Georgina. We
orphans were all in all to each

* u To every noble, all honor" (proverb).

Letters of a you ng Irishwoman to Jier Sister.

465

other we who were then on the
point of being separated. Dear,
dear Kate ! my alter ego, my idol,
who, wholly possessed by the highest
love, have willed to consecrate your
youth and future to the service of
our Lord in the persons of his
poor ; and now there are you in
your coarse habit, while Georgina
the worldly is adorning herself with
the jewels which became you so
well !

My mother-in-law, who is kind-
ness itself to me, is a person of ex-
ceeding dignity ; quite a mediaeval
chatelaine, with the noble bearing
of the heroines of Walter Scott.
Her piety is fervent, and, her sons
tell me, just a little austere. Ah !
dearest, what a blessing is such
a mother as this. The breath of
the present age has not passed over
her dwelling; her children believe
and worship ; and I seem to be-
hold in her a Christian of the early
centuries or a Blanche of Castile.
My four sisters-in-law are very
kind to the last comer, your Geor-
gina. You saw my brothers in
Paris.* Mme. Adrien is a Belgian,
lively and graceful, and as proud
of her "jewels " as the Cornelia of
antiquity. She has three sons, who
are pupils of the Jesuit Fathers in
the Rue des Postes, and whom we
shall only see during the vacations.
Her daughter Helene, a superb
blonde, worthy of inspiring a Ra-
phael, has just completed her edu-
cation at the Benedictines of ..

Mme. Raoul was born of a French
family on the other side of the
Rhine. Her two daughters, Therese
;md Madeleine, are my delight.
1 sometimes go and look at them
sleeping, and then go, to sleep

* Mmes. de T- - were detained in Brittany at
the time of Georgina's marriage. The birth of
Jeanne, Mme. Paul's fourth child, took place the
same day.

VOL. XXIII. 30

myself to dream of angels. Picture
to yourself these twins, the one
small and fair, the other tall, slen-
der, with a pale complexion and
brown curls ; gayly bearing the
light burden of their ten years, and
alike in one thing only the voice ;
and thus they often amuse them-
selves in taking us by surprise and
making us guess which of the two
is speaking. Mme. Paul has four
treasures : the dauphin, Arthur,
and demoiselles Marguerite, Alix,
and Jeanne, the pretty one who
arrived last all this little popu-
lation, young, fresh, smiling, chatter-
ing, and roguish. Mme. Edouard,
the most sympathetic of all, the
most French, and the most attrac-
tive, who has been married three
years, is rich in the sweetest lit-
tle cherub that could flatter mater-
nal pride.

Adieu, dearest ; this is only a sign
of life. I am tired with the expedi-
tions of the day, and Rene reminds
me that it is late. Be happy, my
Kate, and help me to bless God
for my happiness ; I am so afraid
of being ungrateful.

YOUR GEORGINA,

JANUARY, 1867.

Booksellers are abundant here,
my dear; and Rene, who knows my
weakness, daily brings me something
new. I have just read Mme. Rosely,
by Mile. Monniot, a name dear to
our youth. How much I should
like to know this authoress ! The
mind capable of such conceptions
must be a personification of virtue
and devotedness. The thought oc-
curred to me of writing to her.
Dear busy one, you will not even
open this book ; and yet how much
it would please you, it is so beauti-
ful ! What pleasure it gave me
there to find Margaret again, be-

4 66

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

come a sister of Bo-n-Secours ! * I
visited yesterday two churches, St.
Paul and Recouvrance, both newly
restored. There are fine windows
at St. -Paul's, but the colors are too
vivid for my taste. To the right
is a chapel nearly dark, and a black
Virgin held in great veneration
Notre-Dame ties Miracles- I shall
often return thither. I prayed there
with all my heart for you, for our
friends, for our own Ireland. Re-
couvrance is a charming church,
close upon the Loire. (Did I tell
you of my transport on seeing the
beautiful river about which I had
written volumes in the upper class-
es ?) The altar is surmounted by
sculptures Mary and Joseph rind-
ing Jesus in the midst of the doc-
tors. This sanctuary is a casket.
Around the side aisles are delicious
little chapels, with frescoes by
Hippolyte Lazerges. I will men-
tion those of the baptistery Moses
striking the rock, and the Samaritan
at Jacob's well. The Samaritan
is admirably fine in form and ex-
pression. I stayed long before it
this fair page of Scripture made to
live, as it were ; the Saviour teach-
ing the truth to this sinful woman !
Here are the most beautiful confes-
sionals that can be seen, with exqui-
site little paintings the father of
the prodigal welcoming his son, and
the good Shepherd recovering his
sheep from among the thorns.

Your letter has just reached me.
Thanks, Kate ! How sweet and
good a thing it is to be so loved !
Fain would I shed around me some
little of the happiness with which I
am flooded. My mother-in-law is
so kind as to let me share in her
works of charity, and my good Rene
accompanies me into the abodes of
the poor. Oh ! in these low streets
what miseries there are, what re-

* Our Lady of Good Help.

pulsive infirmities ! These poor
quarters remind me of London, in
the evening we pay visits. Orlean-
ese society appears t<3 me much less
frivolous than that of Paris. I felt
very shy at the prospect of all these
introductions, but they came about
in the most natural way in the world.
Our family party is so united, so
animated, that we have no need to
seek amusement from without. At
ten o'clock Grandmother gives the
signal for us to separate. Rene and
I prolong the evening by reading
together. With regard to Rene, 1
am full of remorse for having quite
inadvertently, however neglected
to enclose in my last letter the one
which he had written to you, and
which you must since have received.
Oh ! how excellent he is, this brother
of yours ; and how proud of him I
am so intellectual, so distinguish-
ed, so handsome, and, what is far
better and worth all the rest, so
pious ! Every morning we go to-
gether to Mass at Sainte-CroL\\
The Masses of communion are said
in an expiatory chapel before the
image of the Mother of Sorrows.
From an artistic point of view this
chapel is an anachronism a Greek
marble in a Gothic church. But
what peace reigns there, what re-
collection ; and one can pray there
so well ! Orleans seems to me
empty in the absence of its great
bishop, now in Rome. Do you re-
member our enthusiastic exclama-
tions while reading his excellent
work on education? I am impa-
tient to be presented to him, to
speak to him of Ireland of this
people which he has justly called
" a people of martyrs and apos-
tles." *

Have read the Souvenirs d'une In-
stitutrice, by Mme. Bourdon. That
isolation, those struggles against

* Sermon preached at St. Roch, 1861.

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

467

penury, that life so troubled and
stormy, made a hymn of thanksgiv-
ing gush out of my heart to Him
whose providence has ordained for
me so different a destiny. ' O for-
tune!" said the Solitary of Cayla,
"what suffering dost thou not cause
when thou art adverse !" Dear Kate,
with all my heart I pity the poor,
especially the mothers. Rene made
a discovery yesterday a young
married couple in utter distress,
owing to the illness of the husband.
The young mother is wholly occu-
pied in the attendance necessary to
the sick man and to her new-born
son, who might be well named Ben-
oni, the poor darling ! It does not
possess even a cradle. How I wept
while listening to the story of their
last three months ! We sent the
doctor to them, and I felt the plea-
sure of a child in myself choosing
whatever I thought needful for this
family. Mary and Joseph must
have been thus at Bethlehem. The
poor woman had sold her furniture
bit by bit, not venturing to beg or
speak to any one of her troubles ;
and yet the charities here are ad-
mirably organized.

Lucy (Mine. Edouard) is coming
with us to-morrow on a pilgrimage
to Clery ; I shall pray there for my
Kate, and for all whom we love. I
go the round of the churches with
Lucy; Rene carves, paints, or
writes, and we have music together.
My mother-in-law has given me a
beautiful piano, one of Pleyel's.
Our brothers have excellent voices.
Lucy and I play splendid pieces of
.Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Beetho-
ven. What concerts, what har-
monies, what an enchanted life!
From eight o'clock in the evening
until ten we work for churches or
the poor. Don't be uneasy, dear
Kate, with regard to what you call the
unsettled, aimless life of the world ;

my hours and minutes are regulat-
ed with a mathematical precision.
Rene loves order above everything,
and my mother-in-law's hobby is
punctuality. Your Georgina, who is
not over-exact and a bit of a loiter-
er, is making rapid strides to attain
to the perfection of her lord and
master, who is good and lovable a
thousand times over, and never
scolds.

Do you remember our old mis-
tress Annah, who invariably used
to say upon quitting us, " My hus-
band will scold," at which we al-
ways laughed, little giddy ones that
we were ? I bow before your grav-
ity, and kiss you a hundred and a
hundred times..

FEBRUARY, 1867.

I am just come from St. Pierre
du Martroi, where the Pere Minjard
has been preaching a sermon in be-
half of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul an institution shown by the
eloquent orator to be a source of
comfort to sorrows otherwise in-
consolable, and also a preservative
against a social danger. What a
picture he drew of atheistic pover-
ty poverty without God ! What
eloquence ! What a soul of fire !
At last, under this austere Domin-
ican habit, I have beheld a man of
genius. Thought makes this manly
countenance its abode, and here
dwells intellect in its plenitude.
His eyes sparkle at times with a
lightning flash almost dazzling.
Ah ! dear Kate, what an absorbing
discourse.

How exactly like yourself it is to
be so interested in Benoni and his
family ! I scarcely venture to go
there, the poor woman so over-
whelms me with her thanks. In
vain I tell her again and again that
she is my sister, and that in giving
her a little from my abundance J

468

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

have done nothing more than my
strict, rigorous,, obligatory duty.
She receives me as if I were an
angel from Paradise. The young
man is recovering his health, and
the child his roses. Thanks to my
good Rene, who is really the most
generous of men, I have installed
them in a commodious and airy
apartment where everything is
bright with sunshine. This morn-
ing the God of the Eucharist en-
tered this- truly sanctified dwelling.
This little household is so religious,
resigned, and thankful to a kind
Providence that God must take
pleasure in it as in a temple.

Our pilgrimage was charming.
Lucy consecrated her baby to Our
Blessed Lady ; and how happy the
little love appeared to be about it !
The church of Clery is of Gothic
architecture, sufficiently remarkable,
but how dilapidated, poor, and
bare ! I noticed a clock and a
Christ which must be as old as the
time of Louis XL ; a magnificent
Way of the Cross ; beautiful antique
carving in a small chapel which
is quite in a ruinous state. The
black Virgin is Notre-Dame tie Clery,
who shared with Notre-Dame d'Em-
brun the affection and the eccentric
devotion of the son of Marie d'An-
jou, in whose mind they represent-
ed two distinct persons ; and were
invoked (O blasphemy !) almost as
witnesses of the atrocities and re-
vengeful deeds of the sombre lord
of Plessis-lez-Tours. The black
Virgin is over the high altar. I had
a couple of tapers placed before
this miraculous image, one for my
Kate's intentions and one for my
own. The tomb of Louis XL and
of Charlotte of Savoy is in the nave.
By the side of the pulpit is a monu-
ment of black marble ; four colon-
nades of white marble support the
upper portion, also of the same

material, upon which the King of
France is kneeling, his hand joined
and his face turned towards the altar
of the Blessed Virgin. His counte-
nance has not by any means the wily
and cruel expression given to him in
the portraits of the time. At the
four corners are four angels facing
the spectators. On the way home
we visited the Church of St. Fiacre.
The road is animated in spite of
the season ; there, too, is the river,
the beautiful river, the river so
eminently French. Besides, must
not even the dullest landscape ap-
pear radiant when one is twenty
years old, with a husband whom
one adores, a golden future in pros-
pect, and heaven itself in the heart ?
Kate dearest, I am faithful to my
daily Te Deum ; it is the only hymn
that can express what I feel.

My mother-in-law gave a large
dinner-party in the evening. I
made myself resplendent ... in
simplicity ! This, at least, is the en-
comium bestowed on me by Rene,
who pretends that I was very much
admired. I would not say this to
any one but my sister. Great
names were represented there ; some
of the greatest in France names
of chivalrous associations. How
happily inspired was Mother St.
Athanasius in making us read the
chronicles of the middle ages ! It
is to my having done so that I
am indebted for the most gracious
smiles of two .honorable dowagers
to whom I spoke of the glorious
and historical deeds of their ances-
tors. Edward sang with me Le fit
dela Vierge ;* and altogether la petite
Irlandaise -found the evening too
short and the company too amiable.
These kind brothers and sisters
never weary of bringing me for-
ward, placing me in the light, and

* " The Virgin's Thread," the poetic and popu-
lar name in France for the gossamer.

Letters of a young Irishwoman to Jier Sister. 469

making everybody love me ; my know that my large fortune tempted
mother-in-law calls me her lily, her his mother, who, by dint of entrea-
heath-flower, her violet ; and the ties, persuaded him to marry me,
children are wild about Aunt Geor- when he really loved his cousin, a
rrina. Dear Kate, how ravishingly poor and pretty orphan, who was,
fair is the dawn of my existence as moreover, well deserving of his af-
a young wife ! fection." I did not know what to
A fortunate meeting, dearie say to her. Was she seeking con-
namely, with Margaret W , the solation ? I cannot tell. She was

beautiful Englishwoman, who is, she lofty and proud until this intimate
says, en passage here. I was at Ste. confidence. I took her hand, and
Croix, lost in my thanksgiving after with the utmost tenderness express-
communion, when a rustling of silk ed my sympathy, assuring her that
and lace reminded me that I was no one could see her without loving
otill on earth, and a musical voice her, and that there could be no
with a slight English accent said in doubt that Lord William returned
my ear :" C'est bienvous? Is it really her affection. She burst into tears
7011, Georgina?" I raised my head and kissed me twenty times. Had
and recognized our friend. We I convinced her ? In the evening
came out together. Margaret has I watched 'the English peer atten-
since paid me a visit, and my mo- tively ; his amiability was perfect,
ther-in-law asked her to spare a I managed skilfully to bring out the
ivhole day to Georgina. All the talents of Margaret, who sang and
family is won by the grace and played the loveliest things, and
lively wit of la belle Anglaise. She with such an expression ! . . .
, is on her wedding tour; her hus- Pray for this heart, dear Kate. Ah-!
band is very agreeable an accom- how true it is that a serpent hides
plished gentleman, with the manners among the flowers. Who would
and bearing (if you please) of a not envy the happiness of this
peer of England. Lady Margaret young bride, endowed with all the
told us about her presentation at good things of this world, and of
court. Queen Victoria is very fond an aristocratic beauty really incom-
of her. In the evening twilight * parable ? On returning from Italy
we found ourselves alone together ; Margaret will visit Switzerland. We
then, looking straight into my eyes, have agreed that she is to write to
-Margaret asked me : " Are you truly me, and that we will do impossibili-
and perfectly happy, Georgina?" ties to meet again.
You may guess what was my an- Rene complained of my being
swer. "So much the better; so melancholy after the departure of
much the better," sighed the lofty "the English." I could not con-
lady ; and then, blushing and with a fide to him the secret of my friend,
full and beating heart, she confided " Dear Georgina, has this fine bird
to me her grief her husband does of passage inspired you with her
not love her! And yet he had wandering propensities?" 'You
seemed to me full of thoughtful at- know very well, Rene, that with you
tention to her. " Ah ! dear Geor- I desire nothing." " Smile, then,
gina, if you only knew what I suffer, my lady, or I shall think you are
I love Lord William passionately, ill ; come, sing me ' The Lake,' to
I believed in his love, and now I shake off your gloom." *

* V entre chien ct loup. * Ddsassombrir.

470

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

My eyes will no longer stay open,
dear sister ; my tender affection to

you.

FEBRUARY 17, 1867.

A heavenly day, dear Kate ; all
fragrant with holy friendship, and,
still better, with divine love. Pere
Minjard preached a charity sermon
at Ste. Croix on behalf of the schools
in the East. We went en chceur, * as
the twins say. What incomparable
eloquence ! Nothing so captivates
me as the art of language. I was
fascinated, and as if hanging on the
lips of this son of Lacordaire. He
took for his text, " We must rescue
Christ. Christ is in danger." In
a sustained and always admirable
style he showed us Christ, in peril
in the Gospel, by false criticism ; in
peril in tradition, by false science ;
in peril in the church teaching, by
false politics ; in peril in the church
taught, by false literature all this
is a social danger. Oh ! what beau-
tiful things, what sublime thoughts ;
I could have wished the sermon
never to end, and felt myself living
a life of intelligence in a higher re-
gion than I had ever dreamed of
before. Here is one among other
beauties : " In our hours of poetry
and youth have we not all dreamed
of the East, with its clearer sun, its
balmier breezes its holier mem-
ories? . . . Such is, in fact, the
incomparable favor that Christ has
granted us in leaving in our hands the
destiny of his name and his works."
Would that I could transcribe to
you this living harmony, this aus-
tere teaching, ardent and true !
How splendidly he brought before
us the ancient memories of that
East from which everything we have
has come to us ; the grand and
Christian souvenirs also of the Cru-
sades, and of those ages of faith when
men were capable of a passionate

* In choir in a body ; a whole party.

ardor for the beautiful and the good !
Never had I imagined such rapidity
of thought, such facility of elocu-
tion, such magnificence of lan-
guage. The few words of allusion
to Mgr. Dupanloup were of exqui-
site delicacy : " And I say this with
so much the more freedom because
he to whom my eulogies would be
addressed is not present." What a
picture, too, he drew of the debase-
ment of our souls if we no more had
Jesus Christ !

A walk yesterday in the Jar din
des Plantes. Our English parks are
naturalized in France, except in
the official gardens flat and mo-
notonous squares. A fine view
from the top of the rising ground
and the sky of France with Rene
all this I found superb. The twins
were with us, amusing themselves
with a violet, and at every step ut-
tering exclamations of joy. Therese
takes the airs of a duchess, and
thus gets called by no other name .
a custom which does not seem to
displease her. As for Mad, so small
and fragile, I have named her Pic-
ciola. My nieces are already pious,
and delight to take me into the
churches ; we have seen five the
Visitation, the Sacre-Cceur, the Pre-
sentation, the Bon-Pasteur, and the
Sainte-Enfance.

Great sensation at home : my
mother expects her elder sister, la
tante solennelle the solemn aunt
as the dauphin, Arthur, has whisper-
ed to me. Everybody makes up a
countenance and a toilet suitable
to the occasion ; even the babies
put on serious faces. These prepa-
rations make me afraid. I whisper
to you that the least cloud frightens
me; our sky is always so clear.
My mother-in-law, kind and mater-
nal as she is to me, nevertheless in-
timidates me greatly. Rene is go-
ing away to-morrow on business, and

Letters of a young Irishwoman to Ju r Sister. 47 1

this first separation causes me more ed this excursion immensely. The

pain than I am willing to confess, farther I go, the more I realize the

I long so much to say to him : happiness which God has allotted

Take me with you." I feel it me in giving me for guide, adviser,
would be unreasonable. He is go- and support this dear and gentle
ing to travel eighty leagues in a few Rene, so truly the brother of my
days, and does not wish to expose heart. We have been reading to-
me to this fatigue, though it seems gether the life of Saint Elizabeth
to me that with him nothing could by M. de Montalembert. The
be difficult. What will you say, " dear saint " of Protestant Germany
dear Kate, to your Georgina ? that was wont to call her husband by the
you no longer recognize her great sweet name of brother, and this we
courage, and that inability to bear thought so suave, so charming, and
the least contrariety is not the mark angelic that we agreed to call each
of a Christian ; that I ought rather other brother and sister when we
to thank Providence for sending are alone. Oh ! what a heavenly
me the opportunity of gaining a lit- thing is Christian love. That
tie merit. Dear little preacher ! the which I first of all admired in Rene,
heart that loves does not reason, even when he was to me merely a
and Rene is my universe. But I stranger, was his recollectedness in
promise you to accept this light church. He has often said to me
trial. and with what earnestness !

Send your good angel to the ' Georgina, let Jesus be all in all to

traveller, darling Kate. us." It is to your prayers, my dar-

Evening. I set out to-morrow ling Kate, that I owe this happy

with the dawn ! Rene read in my destiny,

eyes that I was fretting, and altered What a surprise ! My Aunt de

his itinerary ; I am radiant, and K was not expected before the

looking forward to a thousand de- end of the week ; but this morning,

lights. on returning from my visits among

Love your Georgina. Let us the poor, Rene left me at the house
pray together for our green Erin, door, and I hastened as usual into
so worthy of our love. I have al- the drawing-room to say good-
ways in my heart the hope of its morning to the dear little ones svho
resurrection. daily welcome me with shouts of

M 86 joy. On entering I beheld an un-

1V1AKC11 U, 1OU7. i r i ,

known lace; it was the solemn
ibout my journey, aunt A SLldden blush n: . Glint ed
We made a halt in even to my f ore head. My rnother-
inttany, the land of true poets, in _ law introduced me; while I lost
where we are to pass the summer. myself in rev erences, my aunt be-
As we walked over the barren stO wed on me a half-inclination of
heaths we shut our eyes and evok- the head so cold ! looking at me
the old memories of Armorica, all the time with so search i n g an
rhile the mile image of Guy de eye that : was almost out of coun _

Iretagne and of Isabelle aux tenance. Fortunately, the door was

mingled in our again thrown open very wid0j and a

imaginations with the shades of f oot man in full livery announced

Jear Kate, enjoy- Mme Edouard, M. Giston (this is

* The white-handed Isabelle. the pretty baby), ai'A in Miccession

472

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sistc r.

M. et Mme. Adrian, M. et Mme.
Raoul, M. et Mme. Paul. All were
richly dressed. I hid myself as well
as I could behind Lucy's fauteuil to
keep my shabby toilet out of sight, -
and then took advantage of the en-
trance of the children to make my es-
cape before the entry of Rene. The
solemnity of the dejeuner nearly
sent me to sleep. At eight o'clock

in the evening Mme. de K re-
tired to her room, alleging that she
was fatigued with her journey; you
may judge whether any one tried
to detain her. Then we began to
dress ourselves up, and exchanged
silence for joyous dances and merry
laughter. Duchesse was a " golden
fairy," superb with her lofty air;
there is a touch of my solemn aunt
about her. Picciola was charming
in her ribbon-decked costume of a
shepherdess. Your Georgina was
dressed en Sevigne j the sparkling
Lucy as a soubrette of the time of
Louis XIV. A few intimate friends
joined us about nine o'clock. The
brilliant chords of the piano troubled
not the repose of Mme. de K- ,
who was purposely lodged far from
the noise. Our songs, our dances,
and lively follies went on till one
o'clock; and as I am not tired, and,
besides, make a point of sending you
news of us before mortifying Lent
shall have proclaimed a truce to our
delights, with Renews permission I
relate to you these little events.
Dear Kate, my letters will no longer
speak of anything but sanctity. I
kiss you with all my heart. My bro-
ther, who is beginning to read me a
chapter of the Imitation, tells you
how much he is devoted to you in
Him whose love is the bond of our
souls.

MARCH 10.

My dearest Kate, do not be anx-
ious if I tell you that I am going to

keep all the fasting days of Lent.
The good doctor gives me permis-
sion to do so, in spite of my eighteen
years, on condition that in case of
the slightest fatigue I give it up.
This is understood. M. 1'Abbe
Charles Perraud, of the Oratory, is
preaching the Lent at Saiiite-Croix .
What a congregation ! It was a
compact crowd. The text was,
"Man does not live by bread alone."
In order to please your love of sac-
rifice I will not send you another
note during all these forty days ;
but as I have not yet made any vow
to renounce the most legitimate
gratifications of the heart, I shall
keep a journal with great regularity,
to send you after Easter.

I am reading again Rob Roy with
Rene ; this is for our secular reading,
but for the spiritual we have the
Conferences of Fathers Lacordaire
and De Ravignan.

1 2th. Was at the sermon: "Enter
into your heart." The orator spoke
of recollectedness, inviting us to
enter into our heart, promising that
by so doing we should find light,
joy and virtue; these were the
three points of his discourse. We
take interminable walks with Isa-
belle(Mme. Raoul) and her children.
I am working a magnificent chasu-
ble which I wish to present to our
cure \\\ Brittany. Rene reads to us
the Revue du Monde Catholique and
the Union. These gentlemen do
not go to the club, but occupy
themselves, according to their re-
spective tastes, in painting, carving,
illuminating, and creating surprises
for us. My solemn aunt took her
departure this morning, and all that
is cold, heavy and pompous went
with her.

I have not told you that Helene
and I are the best of friends. We
are of the same age ; she has always
had an especial liking for Rene,

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister. 473

and she also entrusts me with her i6th. A long walk with all the

confidences. Dear Kate, this good darlings, which made me miss a

young heart has likewise been sermon of the Abbe Bougaud,

wounded by the divine Hand, and whom I so much want to hear,

she who is the idol of her family Visited two churches. Orleans is

desires to leave us, that she may full of them, and reminds me of the

give herself wholly to God. The towns in Italy, where one comes

poor mother knows nothing, but upon them at every step. I have

she has a presentiment of this secret had some letters from Ireland, from

(at the same time sweet and dis- our friends in Dublin. Lizzie asks

tressing), and strives to dissuade me if, like her, I have a " dear,

her daughter from her purpose, sweet home " ; she is enchanted

Helene wishes to be a Carmelite, with her position. Ellen, the lively

She has her grandmother's energy Ellen, gently rallies me on my love

and greatness of soul, and nothing for France, and reminds me of

can shake her resolution. Thus Petrarch :
there will be a separation under

... r . . . , . Non c questa la patria .'

this happy root; the singing-bird is

about to spread her wings and fly How she misjudges my feelings if

away to other skies. Since my she thinks that my happiness could

pretty niece opened her heart to make me forgetful of Ireland !

me I have become quite thoughtful. 2ist. Sermon on the love of our

If it should so happen that God re- neighbor. I have no trouble in

quired of me a similar sacrifice ; loving this dear neighbor of mine,

and if, after giving up my sister to Duchesse allows herself to rally her

him, I must also give him a child f aunt on what she calls her love of

of my own ! . . . But I put aside everybody ! Happily for this lofty

this apprehension. Sufficient for little persoji, Berthe (Mme. Raoul)

the day is the evil thereof. wages unflinching war against the

i4th.- 'Bear God in your heart slightest tendency to pride, and the

and glorify him in your bodies." uncles surpass one another in teas-

This sermon has deeply impressed ing her out of it. My room is all

me ; how I love the Catholic doc- perfumed with the sweet fragrance

trine respecting the body of man ! of violets. Rene has brought me

I love to communicate by the home splendid ones from his morn-
side of Rene. Helene followed us ing's ramble. I delight in my bou-
this morning ; in returning from the quets like a child with a plaything ;
altar I involuntarily looked at her, it is long since I have had any
and was struck by the air of ecstatic flowers, and I love these balmy
joy and profound happiness which things, which the poetic Margaret
shone on her countenance. Kate, calls the " beauties of nature, queens
she is truly called ! Adrien dotes of solitude, and daughters of the
upon his daughter. Each one of sun."

the family feels the charm of her 25th. The weather was fine; Rene

bright and cheerful piety, which had the horses put in, and we set

makes her admirable even in the out together, delighted to be alone,

smallest things ; she is grandmother's As we were coming down the Rue

right hand, who feels herself living Royale I caught sight of Helene and

over again in this fair child. . . . her father, lost in admiration before

How we are going to suffer ! some fine engravings. " Shall we

474

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

take them with us ?" I said to
Rene ; and a minute afterwards the
future Carmelite was giving us her
impressions of the day. How
charming she is ! And all this
beauty is going to conceal itself
under the austere bandeau and thick
veil. . . . We went to the Chapelle
Saint-Mesmin, where Monseigneur
has his college and his summer
residence. The pure air, the per-
fumes of the spring, the evening
calm, gave me an inexpressible feel-
ing of enjoyment. For a moment
I forgot this earth, and in the isola-
tion of thought went back to my
childhood ; saw our beloved home,
and our so lamented mother watch-
ing us at play. Why is she not
with us still ? She would have
been so proud of Rene. " What
are you thinking of," asked Helene,
'looking in this way up to heaven
like the picture of the Mignon of
Ary Scheffer?" " She is dreaming
of Ireland," replied my brother, who ,
had understood me.

3 1 st. Sermon on the intellectual
life : ' Lord, give me understanding
and I shall live." My mother-in-
law was rather unwell ; I passed
the day in her room. The whole
flight of daves, profiting by this fine
Sunday, went out to flutter in the
bright sunshine. Helene presented
her grandmother with a bunch of
double violets ; she took them with
a smile, and then delicately placed
them in my hair, saying as she did
so : " Darling Violet, receive your
sisters." I kissed her hand that
soft, 'white hand which reminds me
of my mother's.

April 2. "Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God."
The days succeed each other, but
are not much alike, it is said, immu-
tability not belonging to this earth.
That which always resembles itself
is my union with Rene. He is no

sooner absent than something with-
in me suffers ; as soon as he returns
my heart overflows with joy. Lucy
asked me, 'Are you never sad?"
" Never !" " Happy sister !" she re-
joined ; " as for me, I weep some-
times when baby suffers ; then I
feel as if all was lost as if I must
die. Edward calls this exaggera-
tion." " Dear Lucy, the Holy Ghost
has said, ' If you are glad of heart,
sing: if sorrowful, pray.' Pray,
then, so that you may never be sad.
God is so good that we ought to
serve him with a joyful heart."

yth. Played some splendid duets
with Helene, who has remarkable
power. Sermon on the supernatu-
ral life : " If you eat not the flesh of
the Son of man and drink his blood,
you have no life in you." The
Pere Perraud was the intimate
friend of the gentle Abbe Perreyve
" this delightful apparition," said
M. de Montalembert, " which, after
an interval of thirty years, has
made me seem to see again Lacor-
daire as he appeared before the
court of the peers of France, young,
eloquent, intrepid, gentle and frank,
austere and charming, but above
all ardent and tender, endowed
with that spring of fascination, that
key of hearts, which is found so
rarely here below. In him one saw
again that noble and sympathetic
look which no one who had once
received it could ever forget that
eye, questioning and candid as
that of a. child."

I am reading again, with Rene,
Quentin Durward and Charles the
Bold. I am translating into Eng-
lish Les Enfants d'Edouard for Lucy,
who says she likes English better
than anything, and wishes to teach
it to her son. Edward (ours) pre-
tends that I possess all the qualifi-
cations for a good professor. They
will spoil me, these kind brothers

Letters of a young Irishwoman to Jicr Sister. 475

i2th. Way of the Cross, of the state of enthusiasm. M. Bougaud is

Friday. I love this devotion, quite what his Sainte Chantal had

Even the dauphin, Arthur, begs to go led me to anticipate: an ardent

to it ; he h?s a taste for music, and soul, a heart of fire, his style unique,

the pretty VL ices of the children' of rich, picturesque, poetic, incisive,

the choir fascinate him. penetrating ; the priestly heart

I have to-day been absorbed in a which knows all the feelings, the

delightful book for which I am in- aspirations, and the needs of souls,
debted to the obliging kindness of u Who are you, and what say you

Adrien. It is the letters of Silvio of yourselves ?" It was admirably

Pellico, translated by M. Latour. fine. He described to us the three

\Vhat an admirable man Silvio is ! wounds, the three martyrdoms, or

Do you recollect the Mcnioires d'An- the three honors of man in this

dryanc? Silvio speaks of this book, world :. in the mind, the thirst for

and deeply regrets that his friend, infinite illumination ; in the heart, a

the Frenchman, did not use more keen and incessant hunger after af-

reserve in his confidences to the fections ; and in the whole being,

public, as there were still prisoners the craving for eternity. It is from

in the Spielberg. eternity that we are descended, and

i4th. Copied a beautiful letter thither we must ascend again,
of Mgr. le Comte de Chambord, I warmly expressed my admira-
otir king, as duchcsse proudly says, tion to Rene and Edouard, who were
Mgr.' Dupanloup is at Orleans; waiting for me. My sisters were
this evening he appeared in the pul- detained at home by their maternal
pit. I was there ; for, although the cares, but it is settled that to-mor-
sermon was for men only, I like so row we are to go in choir.
much to witness this fine spectacle i6th. Sermon on the duties of
of the nave quite filled with men. mothers : " Three things constitute
I know of nothing more solemn a great soul, a soul strong and in-
and imposing than the Miserere vincible : a horror of sin, a con-
chanted by this multitude of deep tempt for all that passes away, and
and powerful male voices, accom- the love of God." Oh if it were
panied by the rich tones of the granted me to have a child, what
great organ. My heart beat ; for happiness it would be to me to de-
l was about to listen to the great velop in him these three things,
orator. Alas! after the invocation iyth. I have not been to the ser-
Monseigneur left the pulpit, and was mon, dear Kate ... A letter from

replaced by the Pere Perraud. He Fanny W has informed me of the

took for his text the words of the sudden death of our dear Mary. I

prophet Isaias : " Watchman, what have been weeping all day, thinking

of the night ? Watchman, what of the despair of her poor mother,

of the night ? And the watchman There had been nothing to prepare

answered: The morning com eth, and her for this thunderclap, Mary ap-

also the night : if you seek, seek : re- peared to have entirely recovered

turn, come." M. Bougaud preach- from the fall she had last year, of

the retreat for ladies; we are which the only remaining effect was

entering upon the week that is in- an excessive paleness "a paleness

deed holy. which rendered her so attractive

1 5th. Dear Kate, I am in a that no one saw in it any alarming

* is. xxi. xx. symptom. The eve of her death

476 Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister

she was speaking of you, of Kate,
the chosen one of her heart. Our
vigil was prolonged to a later hour
than usual ; I make use of the word
vigil, because Mary loved it. We
spoke of the great subjects of inter-
est about which she was so enthu-
siastic of the church, of Ireland,
and of Poland, that other martyr ;
and Mary said to us : ' How the
saints must implore the Lord for
their brethren upon earth !' Dear
soul ! she also implores him now.
Comfort us, darling Georgina." I
have written. I have tried to com-
fort these two hearts, so stricken by
death that wound which is incura-
ble here below. May God be their
help ! Dear Kate, you will not
hear of this loss for eight days to
come, in the midst of the Catholic
alleluia; but it is indeed alleluia
that one ought to sing over this
early tomb. Happy are they whom
God calls to himself! Rene has
been reading to me this evening
some chapters on the sufferings of
Jesus Christ, by Father Thomas of
Jesus. Truly, the Calvary of Lady
W- is the sudden departure of
her angelic child ; and who can con-
sole a mother ?

Fanny is saddened on account
of their isolation, although, with the
marvellous intuition of pure souls,
she feels that death separates bod-
ies only. " She is always present
to me," she writes. A world of
memories revived within me upon
reading these pages, bedewed with
many tears. How warmly this fam-
ily is attached to us !

1 8th . I could write a volume upon
this Holy Thursday, the Thursday
par excellence. At seven o'clock I
was in the Black Chapel with Rene ;
and we did not leave Ste. Croix un-
til past eleven. What a service,
dear Kate ! The Catholic worship
is nowhere more magnificently cele-

brated. To adorn this vast temple,
Monseigneur is having admirable
Stations of the Cross sculptured in
the walls themselves ; the sculptor
requires a year for each station, of
which the earlier ones are now open
to the pious curiosity of the public.
Before one o'clock I set out with
Rene, Helene, and the twins for the
visits to the churches a veritable
steeplechase. Duchesse had laid a
wager with Arthur that she would
see fifteen ; and as she was bent up-
on gaining it, she so prettily press-
ed me to show her " some more"
that we still went on and on. We
had afterwards a time of repose ; a
sermon from that true orator, M.
Bougaud : u Whensoever you shall
do these things, do them in remem-
brance of me." Our Lord has left
us a remembrance. What is this
remembrance, and with what ' feel-
ings ought we to regard it ? What
eloquence ! How well he depicted
this remembrance, and also how tho-
rough an insight he possesses of the
heart ! What happy similitudes and
figures ! How he feels and how he
loves ! It is plain that the love of
God predominates all else in this
soul. " When I was young I took
offence at Bossuet for saying that
friendships pass away with years ;
but now I am offended with him no
more : he saw clearly ; he saw only
too well." "When I glance over
the globe I am greatly moved. I
see Ireland dying of famine ; Po-
land groaning forth her last sigh
of agony ; Germany, who has not
yet stanched the bleeding wounds
inflicted by her fratricidal wars ;
Italy, binding up her wounds in the
sun like a poor stricken Samari-
tan ; France, who perhaps in a few
months' time will be covered with
blood all the nations shattered and
expiring. ..." Dear Kate, I wept
as I listened to this enumeration ;

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

477

for I thought of Mary, who died
almost while speaking of the mar-
tyr- nations. With regard to what
M. Bougaud said about the love of
God, my pen is powerless to ex-
press it.

\Ye are come back this evening
from Ste. Croix. Never did I see
anything more imposing. The ca-
thedral was full. The singing of
the Stabat was something admira-
ble. We were in the transept, and
before us this mass of men like a
moving sea, a profusion of lights,
numerous clergy, the grand voice
of the organ, and in the tribune
the children of the choir, with the
voices of angels. I was transport-
ed. A good day, upon the whole,
although I should have preferred
to all this agitation a few hours of
solitude at the feet of Jesus. It is
late ; Rene is waiting for me for
the holy hour. Good-night, dear
Kate ; let us love Jesus more and
more.

1 9th. This morning I hastened
with Helene to make the Way of
the Cross before there was a crowd.
The service was very fine. Mon-
seigneur was present ; he seemed
to me to be in great suffering. I
was at the sermon preached by M.
Bougaud on the Passion. What at-
tractive eloquence ! What love for
the divine Crucified One ! The
preacher showed us the Passion
as the true Sacrifice in which are
united the three parts of the sac-
rifices of antiquity : oblation, im-
molation, and communion. He
portrayed the august Victim, his
beauty, his courage, and his love;
and in accents of the most touch-
ing pathos he retraced for us the
^reat tragedy of the cross. How
lie has understood and experienced
the Saviour's love! Speech is in-
adequate to express his lofty enthu-
siasm, accompanied as it is by a

heart and an imagination enkindled
with such fervor.

On a day like this one does not
know how to quit the church. We
were there again this evening for
the sermon of the Pere Perraud :
' He was bruised for our sins."
This young preacher was truly elo-
quent ; he too believes and loves,
and the lo^e of God is a flame
which is marvellous in its inspira-.
tion. He pointed out to us in the
Passion of Jesus Christ a great
teaching : hatred of sin ; a sure
hope ; the mercy of the Lord.
Kate dearest, this is the first Good
Friday that I have ever spent away
from you !

2oth. Heard three Masses with
Rene ; his ardent piety is a help to
my tepidity. This is the vigil par ex-
cellence, the last of the holy forty days.

M. Bougaud's concluding sermon
has been worthy of the preceding
ones ; it was taken from the words
of St. Augustine, spoken on the
same day, in the year 387, when St.
Ambrose gave holy baptism to this
son of so many tears : " I believe in
God ; I believe in Jesus Christ ; I
believe in the church," To listen
to M. Bougaud is a royal treat; I
hung, as it were, on his lips, drinking
in that eloquence which is indeed
the two-edged sword spoken of in
Scripture. " God is the place of
souls. A place is that which bears,
which supports." How ably he
developed this great proposition !
" Jesus Christ is the only veritable
source of love, devotedness, immo-
lation, and sacrifice. All in the
present age that is vile, or despica-
ble, or impious will never be able
to effect anything against the
church ; while all it has that is
beautiful, noble, refined, great, and
excellent will never be able to ef-
fect anything but by the church ;
these I call the two axioms of the

Letters of a young Irishwoman to her Sister.

intelligence and love of the church.
The distinctive and immortal sign
which characterizes the church, and
which belongs to her alone, is not
science, eloquence, or genius ; it is
devotedness, immolation, sacrifice."
And speaking of the love of God,
of Jesus Christ, and of the church,
the characteristic of living souls, he
said : " It is needful to awaken in
souls this threefold love." It was
beautiful, sublime ; but a discourse
like this cannot be reproduced by
lips profane. This evening we had
no regular sermon, owing to the
fatigue of the preacher. He con-
tented himself with thanking his
male auditors for their assiduous
and willing attention (the Abbe
Bougaud thanked us also, with a
charm peculiarly his own), gave a
resume of the principal features of
the plan he has been following in
this course of instruction, and, after
saying a few words on the subject
f the Paschal Communion, ended
by inviting to it those who have not
yet responded to the call of their
Saviour, entreating them to be

among the workmen who came at
the eleventh hour. O Lord Jesus !
draw all souls unto thee ; reveal to
them the incomparable sweetness
of thy service.

Dear Kate, I am told so much of
the beauties of the Procession of
the Resurrection that I have decid-
ed to go to it. Marianne promises
to wake me. Do you remember
the good Duchess Elizabeth giving
orders for her foot to be pulled in
the night by one of her attendants,
and of the pleasing trait of the
Landgrave ? To-morrow I shall
have this volume put into the post ;
read in every line the unalterable
affection of your Georgina. I do
not mention Rene, our hearts hav-
ing been melted into one alone.
Alleluia, dear sister of my soul !
When will the Catholic alleluia be
sung in all the universe ? Who can
ever have made the title of papist
a term of reproach ? May Eng-
land herself one day become papist
and receive the pardon of Ireland !
O my country ! how devotedly I
love her

TO BE CONTINUED.

The Typical Men of America.

479

THE TYPICAL MEN OF AMERICA.

THE commemoration of the birth
of American independence one
hundred years ago, which is now
engaging the attention of our entire
community, and exciting a lively in-
terest in every quarter of the civil-
ized world, while it affords us an
excellent opportunity for the dis-
play of the most tangible evidences
of great national prosperity and pro-
gress in arts, sciences, and indus-
trial pursuits, will not be without
its salutary influence on the thou-
sands of intelligent foreigners who
this year, for the first time, may
visit our shores. Whether these
strangers come to us merely to
gratify their curiosity, or, actuated
by a laudable spirit of investigation,
to study our laws, institutions, and
peculiar systems of labor, a personal
inspection of our social and politi-
cal condition will doubtless have
the effect of removing many latent
prejudices and false conceptions
from their minds which have been
planted and fostered there by igno-
rant journalists and hostile critics.

And if, instead of confining their
observations to the things to be
seen in the grand Exhibition at
Philadelphia, or even to the sea-
board cities, with their fleets of
shipping, gigantic warehouses, and
immense factories, they should
penetrate into the interior, they will
behold a condition of society un-
equalled in any country or age.
There, in the near and far West, the
observant traveller will find millions
of happy homesteads, wherein the
laborious husbandman can repose
in the twilight of his useful exis-

tence, conscious that the fertile soil
upon which he has spent the best
years of his manhood, and the roof-
tree that covers him, are absolutely
his own, subject to no earthly au-
thority but the law which he and
his fellows have devised for their
mutual happiness and protection.

But while these advances in ma-
terial as well as political greatness
are naturally subjects of honest
pride with the people of this coun-
try, they likewise give rise to grave
reflections, and instinctively suggest
the question : Has our progress in
the higher aims of life, in civiliza-
tion, morality, and religion, kept
pace with our extraordinary in-
crease in wealth, population, politi-
cal power, and material develop-
ment ? We have no desire to throw
a passing shadow over the festive
spirit of this centennial year by
dwelling too emphatically on indi-
vidual and national faults faults
which, though more apparent in our
popular system of government than
in the more secretive polity of other
nations, are nevertheless common
to all but we are obliged in candor
to admit that the grosser pursuits
of life, the desire to possess the per-
ishable things of the world, have
occupied much more the attention
of the busy brains and restless phy-
sical energy of our population, than
the cultivation of solid mental gifts
and the practice of public and pri-
vate virtues.

Much, of course, may be urged
in palliation of this undue tendency
to materialism. Possessing a fertile,
unsettled country of vast dimensions

4-80

The Typical Men of America.

and inexhaustible agricultural and
mineral wealth, it was not unnatural
that the new-born energies of our
young republic should be directed
to the attainment of personal inde-
pendence, by the cultivation and ex-
ploration of the almost illimitable
public domain of which we became
the owners by right of conquest or
purchase. But is it not now time
to pause on the threshold of our
second century of existence, and en-
quire whether, in this headlong pur-
suit of material success, we have
not almost lost sight of the great
and sole end for which man was
created, and the means by which
his destiny in this world and the
next is to be accomplished ? Has
not our test of human usefulness
been an incomplete one, and our
standard of mental and moral ex-
cellence far too low ?

Til nature, it is said, everything is
great or little by comparison. If
the same rule be applied to the con-
duct and achievements of the men
of the present day, as contrasted
with those of a past age, we fear it
would be found that, while we are
willing to honor the virtues of our
ancestors and eager to claim a share
of their glory, we have lamentably
failed in following their brilliant ex-
ample, and much more so in improv-
ing on their plans and methods of
benefiting mankind. And yet exam-
ples worthy of imitation are not want-
ing in the short but eventful pages of
our history. We need not go back
to remote antiquity for them, or even
search through tomes of mediaeval
chronicles for what is so plentifully
supplied us in modern records mo-
dels of moral purity, unsullied re-
putation, unselfish ambition, and
perfect manhood. Take, for in-
stance, those two illustrious men
whose names are most inseparably
connected with American history

Christopher Columbus, the discov-
erer of the New World, and George

* O

Washington, the central figure in
that group of patriots and states-
men who founded the only really
free republic that now exists or ever
had an existence.

From the day he left his father's
house in Genoa, at the early age of
fifteen, till, spent by toil and worn
down by disease, he expired in Val-
ladolid, the great discoverer pur-
sued one unvarying course with a
tenacity of purpose and a strength
of will that were truly heroic. But
Columbus was more than a hero : he
was a Christian in the highest sense,
a Catholic thoroughly imbued with
the doctrines of the church, and as
jealous of her honor and authority
as the most loving son could be of
the reputation of his earthly mo-
ther. During nearly half a century
of constant study, adventure, grand
successes, and disheartening changes
of fortune, the experienced seaman,
erudite astronomer, and close ob-
server of natural phenomena ex-
emplified in his whole career, with
singular consistency, all the super-
natural virtues with which God is
sometimes pleased to endow his
creatures. To a mind well disci-
plined and stored with all the hu-
man knowledge of his age were add-
ed a profound faith ; deep-seated
reverence for authority ; a sincere
love, not only for friends and rela-
tives, but for all mankind ; and an
implicit reliance on the beneficence
and justice of divine Providence
that no terror could shake and no
reverse lessen in the slightest de-
gree.

A careful examination of the ca-
reer of Columbus leads to the con-
viction that his chief object and
ultimate aim from the beginning,
what in after-life became more
apparent, was to rescue the Holy

TJie Typical Men of America.

481

Sepulchre from the polluting grasp
of the infidel, and to bring the light
of Christianity to races of men who
were in darkness ; all other efforts,
though consistent with this grand
scheme, were subordinate and aux-
iliary to it. Actuated by an ambi-
tion 'less exalted or an enthusiasm
less aborbing, he could never have
attained that glorious success which,
though partial, has linked his name
to immortality. Neither was this
crusader a theorist or a religious
fanatic, but, on the contrary, one of
the most practical and calculating
of men. Though thoroughly satis-
lied with the feasibility of his plans
and confident in the rectitude of
his motives, he neglected no oppor-
tunity of qualifying himself for the
noble task upon which he had set
his heart. While others attempted
to reach Asia by slow and uncer-
tain coasting along the western
shores of Africa, he proposed to
launch boldly out on the unknown
and trackless deep, and, by taking
a direct course westward, to reach
the remotest parts of the East, where
was situated, it was reported, the
great Christian empire of Kublai
Khan, the land of gold and pre-
cious stones, a tithe of which would
be sufficient to initiate and sustain
a new and more successful crusade
against the Mohammedans.

With this end constantly in view,
Columbus carefully studied every
work on cosmogony and the physi-
cal sciences within his reach, accu-
rately noted down each new dis-
covery in navigation, and was never
tired of consulting old mariners on
their experience and observations,
en the writings of learned church-
men were placed under contribution.
' He fortified himself," says one of
biographers, " by references to
St. Isidore, Beda, St. Ambrose, and
Ihms Sc.otus." He also became a

VOL. XXIII. 31

practical sailor, and grew as fami-
liar with the frozen seas of Iceland
and the torrid heats of the African
coast as with the bays and inlets
of his native Italy. " I have been
seeking out the secrets of nature
for forty years," he tells us, " and
wherever ship has sailed, there have
I voyaged."

Having at length, by study and
personal observation, accumulated
a large and varied stock of scien-
tific knowledge, the future discov-
erer retired with his family to the
remote island of Porto Santo, the
advanced outpost of African dis-
covery. There for several years he
devoted his leisure to the patient
collation and arrangement of his
authorities, till he was able to re-
duce a mass of crude philosophical
speculations and ill-digested cos-
mical theories to an elaborate sys-
tem, which, if not altogether borne
out by subsequent investigation,
was in the main correct, and far in
advance of the intelligence of the
fifteenth century.

His plans thus thoroughly ma-
tured, Columbus considered that
the time had arrived to put them
into execution. He had already
submitted certain proposals to Por-
tugal, but they were rejected by a
body called the Geographical Coun-
cil, who, while they treated with
seeming contempt the scheme of
the astute Italian, had the unpar-
alleled meanness to appropriate and
attempt to use secretly the results
% of his long years of toil and study.
Armed with letters of recommen-
dation, he now appeared before the
court of Spain, and, with the ear-
nestness and lucidity of a mind
thoroughly convinced by long and
patient analysis, he explained to
Ferdinand and Isabella his great
project of crossing the Atlantic and
adding to their dual crown, not

TJie Typical Men of America.

only a new continent, but the ever-
lasting glory of having been the
means of bringing into the bosom
of the church millions of human
beings. Though engaged in the
desperate war which ended in the
final overthrow of Moslem power
in Spain, the Catholic sovereigns
gave the daring adventurer a kind
reception, and referred his propo-
sition to a junta of cosmographers
for consideration. The members
of that body, however, seem to have
been as incapable of understanding
the merits of the questions sub-
mitted for their deliberation as
they were of appreciating the high
resolve and mental comprehensive-
ness of their originator. After five
tedious years, during which Co-
lumbus, with anxious steps but
unfaltering courage, followed the
court from place to place as the
exigencies of the war required, the
junta reported that his plans were
u vain and impossible."

Disgusted, but not disheartened,
Columbus retired to the small port
of Palos, where, in the society of a
few learned men, clerical and lay,
he forgot for a while his disap-
pointment, but not his darling pro-
ject. Through the interference of
friends negotiations with the Spa-
nish court were renewed, and again
broken off on account of the condi-
tions demanded by Columbus being
considered exorbitant. He did
not think so, however, and the re-
sult proved that he did not over-
rate the value of his services. Aban-
doning all hope of co-operation
from Spain, the gifted Italian was
about to pass the Pyrenees, and
was actually on his way to the
French frontier, when a courier was
despatched to recall him to court.
The remonstrance of influential
friends, and the fear of yielding to
.a rival the profits as well as the

political prestige which were sure to
follow the success of Columbus' pro-
jects, at last overcame the caution
of Ferdinand ; \\'hile a strong sym-
pathy with the daring designs of
the gifted adventurer, and an ar-
dent desire for the propagation of
the faith, made Isabella an active
advocate of his interests. At Santa
Fe, on the lyth of April, 1492, the
agreement between Columbus and
the Catholic sovereigns was signed,
whereby he became admiral and
viceroy of all the seas and countries
he might discover ; a sharer, to the
extent of one-tenth, in all the pro-
fits accruing from the trade with
such foreign possessions ; and, by
virtue of his contribution of one-
eighth of the expenses of the voy-
age, a . proportionate part of the
gains which might result from it.

These conditions, which had pre-
viously been looked upon as inad-
missible, but which were now will-
ingly allowed, furnish the key to
the character of Columbus. Few
men of that age cared less for ti-
tles, power, or wealth than he ;
but these means were necessary,
he considered, for the accomplish-
ment of his grand ulterior design-
the Christian possession of Pales-
tine. He had studied human na-
ture thoroughly, and knew that no
great movement, social or political,
could ever command the confidence
and sympathy of the world unless
directed by leaders of approved
position and sustained by liberal
expenditures of money.

Sb far, then, his wish was gratified.
Ferdinand, the cautious, had yield-
ed a reluctant consent to the fitting
out of the expedition on satisfac-
tory terms, and Isabella, his con-
sort, the noblest woman that ever
graced a throne, pawned her jewels
to procure funds for its proper
equipment. Amid the congratula-

The Typical Men of America.

tions of his sanguine friends and
the prayers of the populace, Co-
lumbus, with his fleet of three frail
boats and scanty crews, " after they
had all confessed and received the
sacraments," set sail from Palos on
the memorable 3d of August, 1492.

Once out of sight of land, on the
boundless ocean where keel of ship
had never ploughed before, naught
around him but a gloomy waste of
waters, naught above him save the
sun and stars, no friend to consult,
no familiar voice to whisper hope
or combat despair, with a crew both
ignorant and superstitious, he held
on his prearranged course, self-
reliant, watchful, and dauntless.
Night succeeded day, and light fol-
lowed darkness, in dreary succes-
sion, yet still no land appeared.
Appalled by imaginary dangers and
sick from hope deferred, his men,
whose hearts were never wholly in
their work, first began to murmur,
then broke out into open reproach-
es, and finally threatened to throw
their captain into the sea. It was
amid such trying circumstances that
the true character of the man be-
came manifest in all its magnificent
proportions, Calm alike in sun-
shine and storm, his hand con-
stantly on the tiller and his eye
directed to the west, he heeded lit-
tle the rumbling of mutinous dis-
content beneath his feet, nor for a
moment did he allow himself to
doubt that God in his own good
time would conduct him safely to
the haven of his hopes.

In the dark watches of the night,
when the waves ran highest and the
heavens were obscured as with a
pall, he felt that he had that within
his soul beckoning him on, more
brilliant in its coruscations than
the starry cross that illumines the
southern hemisphere, as unerring in
its guidance as the beacon which

of old led the children of Israel
through the pathless desert im-
plicit belief in the sublimity of his
mission, and an entire reliance on
the mercy of his Creator, in whose
hands he felt himself an humble
instrument for the accomplishment
of noble ends. Nor were his con-
fidence and humility long unreward-
ed. After eight weeks of constant
watching and unspeakable anxiety,
land was at length discovered, the
first glimpse of the New World pre-
sented to European eyes ; and scarce-
ly had the anchor of the Santa Ma-
ria become embedded in the sands
of San Salvador, than her brave
commander and his now repentant
followers hastened ashore to plant
the sacred emblem of our salva-
tion, and, weeping and prostrate on
that heathen soil, to pour forth their
thanksgiving to the Almighty.

The honors which were showered
upon Columbus on his return to
Spain after this great event were
in strange contrast to the neglect,
treachery, and injustice of which
he was afterwards the victim.
Three times again did he cross
and recross the Atlantic, making
on each occasion 1 new and impor-
tant discoveries. But ignorance,
venality, and envy of his fair fame
and spotless honor conspired to
raise up against him a host of pow-
erful enemies, who at last stripped
him of his hard-earned rewards,
and would, had it been possible,
have robbed him even of the glory
of having been the discoverer of
America. However, he bore his
trials with fortitude as he had worn
his great honors with meekness, sel-
dom retorting on his enemies, and
but once, as far as we are aware,
condescending to complain of the
rank ingratitude of a country to
which he had given a whole conti-
nent. This occurred during his

434

The Typical Men of America.

fourth voyage, in a despatch to the
king, in which he says : " Wearied
and sighing, I fell into a slumber,
when I heard a piteous voice say-
ing to me : ' O fool ! and slow to be-
lieve and serve thy God, who is the
God of all. What did he more
for Moses, or for his servant Da-
vid, than he has done for thee ?
From the time of thy birth he has
ever had thee under his peculiar
care. When he saw thee of a fit-
ting age, he made thy name to re-
sound marvellously throughout the
earth, and thou wert obeyed in many
lands, and didst acquire honorable
fame among Christians. Of the gates
of the ocean sea, shut up with mighty
chains, he delivered to thee the
keys ; the Indies, those wealthy re-
gions of the world, he gave thee
for thine own, and empowered thee
to dispose of them to others ac-
cording to thy pleasure. What did
he more for the great people of Is-
rael when he led them forth from
Egypt ? or for David, whom from
being 'a shepherd he made a king
in Judea? Turn to him, then, and
acknowledge thine error ; his mercy
is infinite. He has many and vast
inheritances yet in reserve. Fear
not to seek them. Thine age shall
be no impediment to any great un-
dertaking. Abraham was above a
hundred years when he begat Isaac ;
and was Sara youthful ? Thou urg-
est despondingly for succor. An-
swer ! Who hath afflicted thee so
much and so many times God or
the world ? The privileges and
promises which God hath made to
thee he hath never broken ; neither
hath he said, after having received
thy services, that his meaning was
different, and to be understood in a
different sense. He .fulfils all that
he promises, and with increase.
Such is his custom. I have shown
thee what thy Creator hath done

for thee, and what he doeth for
all. The present is the reward of
the toils and perils thou hast en-
dured in serving others. '

Whether Columbus had a vision,
which is not improbable, or that he
adopted this metaphorical style of
complaint to avoid giving offence
to Ferdinand, it is equally charac-
teristic of the depth of his religious
feelings and the depth of his grati-
tude to the Almighty. But remon-
strance, no matter how just or how
delicately urged, had little -effect on
the court of Spain. T^e was soon
after recalled, to end his days in
comparative want and obscurity.
It was not apparently in the designs
of Providence that Columbus should
have succeeded in his primary ob-
ject the delivery of Jerusalem-
but his half-success, the demonstra-
tion of the rotundity of the earth
and the discovery of our hemisphere,
were productive of more benefit to
humanity than the complete victo-
ries of most other great benefactors
of mankind. W T hile he has handed
down to all ages an imperishable
name, he has also left an example
to posterity and particularly to us
Americans, who owe him so much
gratitude and reverence that far
outweighs in importance his contri-
butions to science and his efforts
to aggrandize his adopted country.
He has proved in his own person
that a soul filled with deep and in-
tense devotion to the Creator, and
a will conformable in all things to
his laws, are alone capable of lead-
ing human beings to the achieve-
ment of true and lasting greatness.

Equally salutary, though differ-
ent in degree and purpose, is the
lesson taught us by the life and
labors of George Washington, who
may be considered as having been
in the natural what Columbus was
in the supernatural order a noble

The Typical Men of America. 485

specimen of humanity ; a lover and the example of their great and good

benefactor of his kind. co-religionist, though Protestant-

As Americans, we cannot study ism, particularly that professed in
too diligently the character of him his day, and by his family and as-
who was properly called the Father sociates, had little to do with the
of his Country. No other among formation of his character or the
our Revolutionary ancestors em- regulation of his public actions ;
bodied in himself so many of those but as Catholics we yield to none
civic virtues which constitute the in admiration and affection for the
perfect citizen. Like most men noblest citizen of our common
who have played prominent parts on country. We can never forget that
'the world's stage, Washington was when our numbers were " few and
born Avith strong passions and an faint, but fearless still," when Puri-
imperious disposition ; but careful tan fanaticism and Anglican super-
self-culture early changed his pow- ciliousness endeavored to underrate
erful impulses into tenacity of pur- our services, malign our motives,
pose and strength of will, while and misrepresent our doctrines,
his natural exclusiveness gave him George Washington, rising superior
afterwards that dignity of word and to the narrow, petty bigotry of his
action which is absolutely neces- generation, was the first to give a
sary for those who are called upon hearty and candid recognition to
to command. As general of the our claims as good and faithful
army and president of the infant citizens. His words to Bishop
republic, he had men around him Carroll and the other representa-
of more brilliancy, larger experi- tives of the Catholics of the Revo-
ence, and greater mental attain- lution are indelibly impressed on
ments ; but he alone possessed in a the memory of the millions of Ca-
superior degree that well-balanced tholics among us who feel, and are
organization and intuitive wisdom proud to acknowledge, that to him
to which all could pay the homage and his associates they are mainly
of obedience. indebted for the civil and religious

Washington's mind, however, was liberty they now so freely enjoy,
neither synthetical nor originat- " As mankind become more lib-
ing. He was more a man of ability eral," he wrote, "they will be more
than of genius. He never could apt to allow that all those who
have initiated a revolution, though conduct themselves as worthy mem-
once begun, as experience has bers of the community are equally
proved, he was admirably adapted, entitled to the protection of civil
to carry it out successfully. In a government. I hope ever to see
.monarchy, he might have been a America among the foremost na-
loyal, chivalrous subject; under a tions in examples of justice and lib-
wise, conservative government, he erality. And I presume that your
would have been the first to oppose fellow-citizens will not forget the
innovation ; under all circumstances, patriotic part which you took in the
he could not have failed to be a accomplishment of their Revolution
high-toned, accomplished, afid hon- and the establishment of their gov-
brable gentleman. ernment, or the important assist-

We are not surprised that our ance which they received from a

Protestant fellow-citizens love to nation in which the Roman Catho-

point with commendable pride to lie faith is professed."

486

The Typical Men of America.

Though a sincere Christian, Wash-
ington cannot be said to have been
a religious man. The cold formali-
ties of Episcopalianism to which he
\vas accustomed could not touch
his heart nor inspire his soul with
great and glowing emotions ; but
this was more the fault of the sys-
tem in which he was reared than
of himself. The motives of his
actions seem to have been princi-
pally based on a refined sense of
honor, on his comprehension of the
requirements of the natural law,
which in his regard was usually in
conformity with the teachings of
the church. He was just, honest,
truthful, and manly; faithful in his
social relations and moderate in his
ambition. Had he possessed some
of the glorious enthusiasm of Colum-
bus, great as he was, he might have
been still greater ; and had the dis-
coverer united to his other wonder-
ful qualities the worldly wisdom of
Washington, his star might not have
descended amid the darkness and
disappointment which clouded the
last years of his eventful life.

Taking the character of the two
greatest personages, we find in
their collective lives the develop-
ment of the highest qualities which
human nature is capable of exhibit-
ing. As such, we desire to hold
them up for imitation to the youth
of this country, who in a short time
will take the place of the present
generation in the conduct of our
civil and domestic affairs. That
those men were of different races
and peculiar national tendencies
does not prevent the blending of
their characters into one harmoni-
ous whole. The greatest nations
of ancient and modern times, those
which have developed the most
equitable and stable systems of
government, with the greatest li-
berty and the highest civilization,

have been formed upon the union
of various tribes, clans, and families,
having many radically different ten-
dencies and special characteristics.
In what one people may be defi-
cient another may have a supera-
bundance; and the volatile and
supersensitive nature of one race is
counteracted by the sedateness and
stolidity of others less imaginative.
As the river Nile, flowing from dif-
ferent sources, bears in its course
the riches of the soils of a hundred
climes, and empties them all into
the lap of Egypt, so families of men,
gifted by their Creator with various
qualities of heart and mind, collect
together, each with its contribution,
to form a lasting and magnificent
commonwealth. This is as true of
religious as of political society.
The church, guided by a divine in- '
stinct, finds employment and turns
to account the genius of all her
children, no matter how peculiar
or dissimilar their attributes. She
welcomes and perfects the organiz-
ing power of the Latin races, and
the fire and enthusiasm of the Cel-
tic, equally with the solidity of the
Germanic and the imagination of
the Orientals. Unity in diversity,
authority with liberty, are essentials
and correlative in the science of
good government, whether it be
that of a republic or of the univer-
sal church.

Who knows but that the nation
now in process of forming in the
bosom of our republic, from the va-
rious races of Europe, with ampler
natural capacities quickened into
greater activity by the political
character of its institutions, is des-
tined, in the order of events, to give
to Christianity an expression more
adequate and more in accordance
with its universal spirit and divine
origin ? The church of Christ has
no reverses in the movement of her

The Typical Men of America. 487

divine mission, and she has turned tions, no nation can realize its true
to account each race according to destiny. Unity of religious convic-
its gifts in the Old World from her tion, and the virtues necessary to
beginning. May not all these, in uphold its institutions, are more ne-
their best energies combined in the cessary to a republic like ours than
New, be called to realize the highest to any other form of political gov-
type of the Christian character ? ernment. The principles and views
Do not the leading traits of Colum- of human nature on which our re-
bus and Washington point out to public is based are sustained by
us the ideal Christian, the union of the doctrines of Christianity taught
the most exalted faith with the tho- by the Catholic Church. Gradually
roughest manhood ? For as Christ the church and the republic are
was perfect God and perfect man approaching each other, and with
in one personality, so is he who this nearer approach there springs
unites the most exalted faith with up reciprocal appreciation and sym-
the most thorough manhood in one pathy. Fanatics on one hand, and
personality the complete Christian, infidels on the other, may warn,
Is not this ideal Christian the glori- may threat, and may attempt to
ous promise of the future of this keep them apart by conspiracy and
New World ? persecution, but in vain ; for God,

Protestantism, which has been the in whose providence they are des-

religion of the vast majority of our tined to be united, will not be frus-

countrymen, is gradually losing its trated by the puny efforts of his

hold upon their convictions. The enemies to keep them asunder. Out

religion alone which can claim the of this divine wedlock will spring

attention of all mankind is the Ca- forth children whose lives will be

tholic. It alone has all the notes of the highest type of Christian

of truth, both inward and outward, manhood, and whose civilization

in its favor. will be the most glorious develop-

Unsupported by religious convic- ment of God's kingdom on earth.

488 Catholics in the American Revolution.

.
CATHOLICS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

THE moment of England's tri- control their disbursement, refused
umph in the last century was the to accept new burdens and to pnv
dawn of American independence, the mother country for the honor
When England, aided by her colo- of being governed. The relation
nies, had at last wrested Canada of colonies to the mother country ;
from France, and, forcing that weak- the question of right in the latter to
ened power to relinquish Louisiana tax the former; the bounds and
to Spain, had restored Havana to just limits on either side, involved
the Catholic sovereign only at the new and undiscussed points. They
price of Florida, her sway seemed now became the subject of debate in
secure over all North America from Parliament, in colonial assemblies,
the icy 'ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, in every town gathering, and at
from the shores of the Atlantic to every fireside in the American colo-
the Mississippi. But her very sue- nies. The people were all British
cess had aroused questions and subjects, proud of England and her
created wants which were not to b.e past; a large majority were devoted
answered or solved until her mighty to the Protestant religion and the
American power was shattered. house of Hanover, and sought to re-
While Spain and France kept main in adherence to both while re-
colonies in leading-strings, England taining all the rights they claimed
allowed her American provinces to as Englishmen.

thrive by her utter neglect of them. A small body of Catholics existed

Monarchs granted charters liberally, in the country. What their posi-

and with that their interest seemed tion was on the great questions at is-

to vanish, until it was discovered sue can be briefly told,

that offices could be found there for They were of many races and na-

court favorites. But the people had tionalities. No other church then

virtually constituted governments or now could show such varieties,

of their own ; had their own treas- blended together by a common

ury, made their own laws, waged faith. Maryland, settled by a Cath-

their wars with the Indian, carried olic proprietor, with colonists large-

on trade, unaided and almost unre- ly Catholic, and for a time predomi-

cognized by the mother country. nantly so, contained some thousands

The final struggle with France of native-born Catholics of English,

had at last awakened England to the and to some extent of Irish, origin,

importance, wealth, and strength of proud of their early Maryland re-

the American colonies. It appear- cord, of the noble character of the

ed to embarrassed English states- charter, and of the nobly tolerant

men that the depleted coffers of the character of the early laws and

national treasury might be greatly practice of the land of Mary. In

aided by taxing these prosperous Pennsylvania a smaller Catholic

communities. The Americans, pay- body existed, more scattered, by no

ing readily taxes where they could means so compact or so influential

Catholics in the American Revolution. 489

as their Maryland brethren set- streams and springs of Sandusky.
tiers coming singly during the eigh- Further west, from Detroit to the
teenth century mainly, or descend- mouth of the Ohio, from Vincennes
ants of such emigrants, some of to Lake Superior, were little com-
whom had been sent across the munities of Canadian French, all
Atlantic as bondmen by England, Catholics, with priests and churches,
others coming as redemptioners, surrounded by Indian tribes among
others again as colonists of means all which missionaries had labored,
and position. They were not only and not in vain. Some tribes were
of English, Irish, and Scotch origin, completely Catholic ; others could
but also of the German race, with a show some, and most of them many,
few from France and other Catholic who had risen from the paganism
states. New Jersey and New York of the red men to the faith of Christ,
had still fewer Catholics than Penn- Such was the Catholic body-
sylvania. In the other colonies, colonists who could date back their
from New Hampshire to Georgia, origin to the foundation of Mary-
they existed only as individuals lost land or Acadia, Florida or Canada,
in the general body of the people. Indians of various tribes, new-
But all along the coast were scat- comers from England, Germany, or
tered by the cruel hand of English Ireland. There were, too, though
domination the unfortunate Aca- few, converts, or descendants of
dians, who had been ruthlessly torn converts, who, belonging to the
from their Nova Scotian villages Protestant emigration, had been led
and farms, deprived of all they had by God's grace to see the truth, and
on earth home and property and who resolutely shared the odium
kindred. With naught left them and bondage of an oppressed and
but their faith, these Acadians unpopular church,
formed little groups of dejected The questions at issue between
Catholics in many a part, not even the colonies and the mother coun-
their noble courage amid unmerited try were readily answered by the
suffering exciting sympathy or kind- Catholics of every class. Catholic
ly encouragement from the colonists, theologians nowhere but in the
Florida had a remnant of its old Gallican circles of France had
Spanish population, with no hopes learned to talk of the divine right
for the future from the Protestant of kings. The truest, plainest doc-
power to which the fortunes of war trines of the rights of the people
and the vicissitudes of affairs had found their exposition in the works
made them subjects. There were of Catholic divines. By a natu-
besides in that old Catholic colony ral instinct they sided with those
some Italians and Minorcans, brought who claimed for these new commu-
over with Greeks under Turnbull's nities in the western world the right
project of colonization. Maine of self-government. Catholics, of
had her Indians, of old steady foes whatever race or origin, were on this
of New England, now at peace, sub- point unanimous. Evidence meets
mitting to the new order of things, us on every side. Duche, an Epis-
thoroughly Catholic from the teach- copal clergyman, will mention Fa-
ing of their early missionaries. New ther Harding, the pastor of the
York had Catholic Indians on her Catholics in Philadelphia, for " his
northern frontier. The Catholic Wy- known attachment to British liber-
andots clustered around the pure ty " they had not yet begun to

490

CatJiolics in the American Revolution.

talk of American liberty. Indian,
French, and Acadian, bound by no
tie to England, could brook no sub-
jection to a distant and oppressive
power. The Irish and Scotch
Catholics, with old wrongs and a
lingering Jacobite dislike to the
house of Hanover, required no la-
bored arguments to draw them to
the side of the popular movement.
All these elements excited distrust
in England. Even a hundred years
before in the councils of Britain
fears had been expressed that the
Maryland Catholics, if they gained
strength, would one day attempt to
set up their independence; and the
event justified the fear. If they did
not originate the movement, they
went heartily into it.

The English government had be-
.gun in Canada its usual course of
harassing and grinding down its
Catholic subjects, putting the thou-
sands of Canadians completely at
the mercy of the few English
adventurers or office-holders who
entered the province, giving three
hundred and sixty Protestant sut-
lers and camp-followers the rights
of citizenship and all the offices in
Canada, while disfranchising the
real people of the province, the one
hundred and fifty thousand Cana-
dian Catholics. How such a system
works we have seen, unhappily, in
our own day and country. But
with the growing discontent in her
old colonies, caused by the attempts
of Parliament to tax the settlers in-
directly, where they dared not open-
ly, England saw that she must take
some decisive step to make the Ca-
nadians contented subjects, or be
prepared to lose her dear-bought
conquest as soon as any war should
break out in which she herself might
be involved. Instead of keeping
the treaty of Paris as she had kept
that of Limerick, England for once

resolved to be honest and fulfil her
agreement.

It was a moment when the think-
ing men among the American lead-
ers should have won the Canadians
as allies to their hopes and cause ;
but they took counsel of bigotry,
allowed England to retrace her
false steps, and by tardy justice se-
cure the support of the Canadians.

The Quebec act of 1774 organ-
ized Canada, including in its extent
the French communities in the
West. Learning a lesson from Lord
Baltimore and Catholic Maryland,
;< the nation which would not so
much as legally recognize the exis-
tence of a Catholic in Ireland, now
from political considerations re-
cognized on the St. Lawrence the
free exercise of the religion of the
Church of Rome, and confirmed to
the clergy of that church their
rights and dues."

Just and reasonable as the act
was, solid in policy, and, by intro-
ducing the English criminal law and
forms of government, gradually pre-
paring the people for an assimila-
tion in form to the other British
colonies, this Quebec act, from the
simple fact that it tolerated Catho-
lics, excited strong denunciation on
both sides of the Atlantic. The
city of London addressed the king
before he signed the bill, petitioning
that he should refrain from doing
so. " The Roman Catholic religion,
which is known to be idolatrous
and bloody, is established by this
bill," say these wiseacres, imploring
George III., as the guardian of the
laws, liberty, and religion of his peo-
ple, and as the great bulwark of the
Protestant faith, not to give his roy-
al assent.

In America, when the news came
of its passage, the debates as to their
wrongs, as to the right of Parlia-
ment to pass stamp acts or levy

Catholics in t/ie American Revolution. 491

duties on imports, to maintain an ingly the favors accorded by the
army or quarter soldiers on the col- Quebec act. She had from the first
onists, seemed to be forgotten in sought to ally herself with the
their horror of this act of toleration, neighboring English colonies, and *
In New York the Hag with the im- to avoid European complications,
ion and stripes was run up, bearing When she proposed the alliance,
bold and clear on a white stripe the they declined. She would now have
words, ! No Popery." The Con- met their proposal warmly; but
gress of 1774, though it numbered when this address was circulated in
some of the clearest heads in the Canada, it defeated the later and
colonies, completely lost sight of the wiser effort of Congress to win that
vital importance of Canada territo- province through Franklin, Chase,
rially, and of the advantage of secur- and the Carrolls. It made the ex-
ing as friends a community of 150,- peditions against the British forces
ooo whose military ability had been there, at first so certain of success
shown on a hundred battle-fields, by Canadian aid, result in defeat
Addressing the people of Great and disgrace. In New York a little
Britain, this Congress says : ' By an- colony of Scotch Catholics, who
other act the Dominion of Canada would gladly have paid off the score
is to be so extended, modelled, and of Culloden, took alarm at the
governed as that, by being dis- hatred shown their faith, and fled
united from us, detached from our with their clergyman to Canada to
interests by civil as well as religious give strength to our foe, when they
prejudices; that by their numbers wished to be of us and with us.
swelling with Catholic emigrants In the West it enabled British offi-
from Europe, and by their devotion cers to make Detroit a centre from
to administration so friendly to which they exerted an influence
their religion, they might become over the Western tribes that lasted
formidable to us, and on occasion down into the present century, and
be fit instruments in the hands of which Jay's treaty a tardy endeavor
power to reduce the ancient free to undo his mischief of 1774 did
Protestant colonies to the same not succeed in checking,
slavery with themselves." " Nor Pamphlets, attacking or defend-
can we suppress our astonishment ing the Quebec act, appeared on
that a British parliament should both sides of the Atlantic. In
ever consent to establish in that the English interest it was shown
country a religion that has deluged that the treaty of Paris already
your island in blood, and dispersed guaranteed their religion to the
impiety, bigotry, persecution, mur- Canadians, and that the rights
der, and rebellion through every of their clergy were included in
part of the world." this. It was shown that to insist
This address, the work of the in- on England's establishing the state
tense bigot John Jay, and of the church in Canada would justify her
furious storm of bigotry evoked in in doing the -same in New England.
New England and New York, was "An Englishman's Answer" to the
most disastrous in its results to the address of Congress rather ma-
American cause. Canada was not liciously turned Jay's bombast on
so delighted with her past experi- men like himself by saying : " If
ence of English rule or so confident the actions of the different sects in
of the future as to accept unhesitat- religion are inquired into, we shall

492

Catholics in the American Revolution.

find, by turning over the sad histo-
ric page, that it was the sect

(I forget what they call them ; I
mean the sect which is still most
numerous in New England, and
not the sect which they so much
despise) that in the last century de-
luged our island in blood ; that
even shed the blood of the sovereign,
and dispersed impiety, bigotry, su-
perstition, hypocrisy, persecution,
murder, and rebellion through every
part of the empire."

One who later in life became a
Catholic, speaking of the effect of
this bill in New England, says :
" We were all ready to swear that
this same George, by granting the
Quebec bill, had thereby become a
traitor, had broke his coronation
oath, was secretly a papist," etc.
" The real fears of popery in New
England had its influence." "The
common word then was : ' No king,
no popery.'

But though Canada was thus
alienated, and some Catholics at the
North frightened away, in Pennsyl-
vania, Maryland, and the French
West the fanaticism was justly re-
garded as a mere temporary affair,
the last outburst of a bigotry that
could not live and thrive on the'soil.
Providence was shaping all things
wisely ; but we cannot be surprised
at the wonder some soon felt. " Now,
what must appear very singular,"
says the writer above quoted, " is
that the two parties naturally so
opposite to each other should be-
come, even at the outset, united in
opposing the efforts of the mother
country. And now we find the
New England people and the
Catholics of the Southern States
fighting side by side, though stimu-
lated by extremely different mo-
tives : the one acting through fear
lest the king of England should
succeed in establishing among us

the Catholic religion ; the other
equally fearful lest his bitterness
against the Catholic faith should
increase till they were either de-
stroyed or driven to the mountains
and waste places of the wilderness."
Such was the position of the
Catholics as the rapid tide of events
was bearing all on to a crisis. The
Catholics in Maryland and Penn-
sylvania were outspoken in their
devotion to the cause of the colo-
nies. In Maryland Charles Car-
roll of Carrollton, trained abroad in
the schools of France and the law-
courts of England, with all the learn-
ing of the English barrister widened
and deepened by a knowledge of
the civil law of the Continent, grap-
pled in controversy the veteran Du-
lany of Maryland. In vain the Tory
advocate attempted, by sneers and
jibes at the proscribed position
of the foreign-trained Catholic, to
evade the logic of his arguments.
The eloquence and learning of Car-
roll triumphed, and he stood be-
fore his countrymen disenthralled.
There, at least, it was decided by the
public mind that Catholics were to
enjoy all the rights of their fellow-
citizens, and that citizens like Car-
roll were worthy of their highest
honors. ' The benign aurora of the
coming republic," says Bancroft,
" lighted the Catholic to the recov-
eiy of his rightful political equality
in the land which a Catholic proprie-
tary had set apart for religious free-
dom." In 1775 Charles Carroll was
a member of the first Committee of
Observation and a delegate to the
Provincial Convention of Maryland,
the first Catholic in any public of-
fice since the days of James II.
" Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the
great representative of his fellow-
believers, and already an acknow-
ledged leader of the patriots, sat in
the Maryland Convention as the

CatJioJics in the American Revolution.

493

delegate of a Protestant constitu-
ency, and bore an honorable share
in its proceedings."

When the news of Lexington rang
through the land, borne from town
to town by couriers on panting
steeds, regiments were organized in
all the colonies. Catholics stepped
forward to shoulder their rifles and
firelocks. Few aspired to commis-
sions, from which they had hitherto
been excluded in the militia and
troops raised for actual service, but
the rank and file showed Catholics,
many of them men of intelligence
and fair education, eager to meet
all perils and to prove on the field
of battle that they were worthy of
citizenship in all its privileges. Ere
long, however, Catholics by ability
and talent won rank in the army
and navy of the young republic.

We Catholics have been so neg-
lectful of our history that no steps
were ever taken to form a complete
roll of those glorious heroes of the
faith who took part in the Revolu-
tionary struggle. The few great
names survive Moylan, Burke, Bar-
ry, Vigo, Orono, Louis, Landais ;
here and there the journal of a
Catholic soldier like McCurtin has
been printed ; but in our shameful
neglect of the past we have done
nothing to compile a roll that we
can point to with pride.

When hostilities began, it became
evident that Canada must be gain-
ed. Expeditions were fitted out to
reduce the British posts. The Ca-
nadians evinced a friendly disposi-
tion, giving ready assistance by men,

rriages, and provisions to an ex-
tent that surprised the Americans.
Whole parishes even offered to join
in reducing Quebec and lowering
the hated flag of England from the

stle of St. Louis, where the lilies
1 oated for nearly two centuries.

.t the bigotry that inspired some

of our leaders was too strong in
many of the subordinates to permit
them to reason. They treated these
Catholic Canadians as enemies, ill-
used and dragooned them so that
almost the whole country was ready
to unite in repulsing them. Then
came Montgomery's disaster, and
the friends of America in Canada
dwindled to a few priests : La Va-
liniere, Carpentier, the ex-Jesuits
Huguet and Floquet, and the Ca-
nadians who enlisted in Living-
ston's, Hazen's, and Duggan's corps,
under Guillot, Loseau, Aller, Ba-
sade, Menard, and other Catholic
officers.

Then Congress awoke to its error
As that strategic province was slip-
ping from the hands of the confed-
erated colonies, as Hazen's letters
came urging common sense, Con-
gress appointed a commission with
an address to the Canadian people
to endeavor even then to win them.
Benjamin Franklin was selected
with two gentlemen from Catho-
lic Maryland Samuel Chase and
Charles Carroll. To increase their in-
fluence, Congress requested the Rev.
John Carroll to accompany them,
hoping that the presence of a Ca-
tholic priest and a Catholic layman,
both educated in France and ac-
quainted with the French character,
would effect more than any argu-
ment that could be brought to bear
on the Canadians. They hastened
to do their utmost, but eloquence
and zeal failed. The Canadians
distrusted the new order of things
in America; the hostility shown in
the first address of Congress seemed
too well supported by the acts of
Americans in Cana"da. They turned
a deaf ear to the words of the Car-
rolls, and adhered to England.

Canada was thus lost to us. Tak-
ing our stand among; the nations of

\j ^_?

the earth, we could not hope to

494

Catholics in the American Revolution.

include that province, but must ever
have it on our flank in the hands
of England. This fault was beyond
redemption.

But the recent war with Pontiac
was now recalled. Men remem-
bered how the Indian tribes of
the West, organized by the master-
mind of that chief, had swept
away almost in an instant every
fort and military post from the
Mississippi to the Alleghanies, and
marked out the frontier by a
line of blazing houses and villages
from Lake Erie to Florida. What
might these same Western hordes
do in the hands of England, direct-
ed, supplied, and organized for their
fell work by British officers ! The
Mohawks and other Iroquois of
New York had retired to the Eng-
lish lines, and people shuddered at
what was to come upon them there.
The Catholic Indians in Maine had
been won to our side by a wise
policy. Washington wrote to the
tribe in 1775, and deputies from
all the tribes from the Penobscot
to Gsspe met the Massachusetts
Council at Watertown. Ambrose
Var, the chief of the St. John's
Indians, Orono of Penobscot, came
with words that showed the rever-
ent Christian. Of old they had
been enemies ; they were glad to
become friends : they would stand
beside the colonists. Eminently
Catholic, every tribe asked for a
priest ; and Massachusetts promised
to do her best to obtain French
priests for her Catholic allies.
Throughout the war these Catholic
Indians served us well, and Orono,
who bore a Continental commission,
live,d to see priests restored to his
village and religion flourishing.
Brave and consistent, he never en-
tered the churches of the Protes-
tant denominations, though often
urged to do so. He practised his

duties faithfully as a Catholic, and
replied : " We know our religion and
love it ; we know nothing of yours."

Maine acknowledges his worth by
naming a town after this grand old
Catholic.

But the West ! Men shuddered
to think of it. The conquest of
Canada by a course of toleration
and equality to Catholics would
have made all the Indian tribes
ours. The Abnakis had been won
by a promise to them as Catholics ;
the Protestant and heathen Mo-
hawks were on the side of England,
though the Catholics of the same
race in Canada were friendly. If
the Indians in the West could be
won to neutrality even, no sacrifice
would be too great.

Little as American statesmen
knew it, they had friends there.
And if the United States at the
peace secured the Northwest and
extended her bounds to the Mis-
sissippi, it was due to the Very
Rev. Peter Gibault, the Catholic
priest of Vincennes and Kaskaskia,
and to his sturdy adherent, the
Italian Colonel Vigo. Entirely ig-
norant of what the feeling there
might be, Col. George Rogers Clark
submitted to the legislature of Vir-
ginia, whose backwoods settlement,
Kentucky, was immediately menac-
ed, a plan for reducing the Eng-
lish posts in the Northwest. Jef-
ferson warmly encouraged the dan-
gerous project, on which so much
depended. . Clark, with his handful
of men, struck through the wilder-
ness for the old French post of
Kaskaskia. He appeared before
it on the 4th of July, 1778. But
the people were not enemies.
Their pastor had studied the ques-
tions at issue, and, as Clark tells us,
u was rather prejudiced in favor of
us." The people told the Ame-
rican commander they were con-

Catholics in the American Revolution. 495

viticed that the cause was one which Indians required means. Clark

they ought to espouse, and that issued paper money in the name

they should be happy to convince of Virginia, and the patriotic Col-

him of their zeal. When Father onel Vigo and Father Gibault

Gibault asked whether he was at exhausted all their resources to re-

liberty to perform his duty in his deem this paper and maintain its

church, Clark told him that he had credit, although the hope of their

nothing to do with churches, except ever being repaid for their sacrifice

to defend them from insult; that, was slight, and, slight as it might

by the laws of the state, his religion have been, was never realized.*

had as great privileges as any other. Their generous sacrifice enabled

The first Fourth of July celebration Clark to retain his conquest, as the

at Kaskaskia was a hearty one. spontaneous adhesion of his allies

The streets were strewn with flow- to the cause had enabled him to

ers and hung with flags, and all effect it. The securing of the old

gave themselves up to joy. But French posts Vincennes, Fort Char-

( 'lark's work was not done. The tres, and others in the West which

English lay in force at Vincennes. the English had occupied, together

Father Gibault and Colonel Vigo, with the friendship of the French

who had been in the Spanish service, population, secured all the Indians

but came over to throw in his for- in that part, and relieved the fron-

tunes with us, urged Clark to move tiers of half their danger. Well does

at once on Vincennes. It seemed to Judge Law remark : " Next to

him rash, but Father Gibault show- Clark and Vigo, the United States

ed how it could be taken. He went are more indebted to Father Gi-

on himself with Dr. Lefont, won bault for the accession of the

every French hamlet to the cause, States comprised in what was

and conciliated the Indians wher- the original Northwestern Terri-

ever he could reach them. Vigo, tory than to any other man."

on a similar excursion, was captured Those Western Catholics did

by British Indians an4 carried a good service in many an expedi-

prisoner to Hamilton, the English tion, and in 1780 La Balm, with a

commander at Vincennes, but that force raised in the Illinois settle-

officer felt that he could not de- ments and Vincennes, undertook to

tain a Spanish subject, and was capture Detroit, the headquarters

compelled by the French to release of the English atrocities. He per-

il im. When Clark, in February, ished with nearly all his little Cath-

appeared with his half-starved olic force where Fort Wayne stands,

men, including Captain Charle- leaving many a family in mourning.

voix's company of Kaskaskia Ca- The first bugle-blast of Ameri-

tholics, before Vincennes, and de- ca for battle in the name of freedom

manded its surrender with as bold seemed to wake a response in many

a front as though he had ten thou- Catholic hearts in Europe. Offi-

sand men at his back, the English cers came over from France to

wavered, and one resolute attack offer their swords, the experience

compelled them to surrender at they had acquired, and the training
discretion What -is now Indiana

, Father G ^^ but espcdally Vig0i had on

and Illinois, Wisconsin and Upper hand at the close of the campaign more than $ 20,-
Mi'rhitrnn wn? won In the United ooo of this worthless trash (the only funds, however

which Clark had in his military chest), and not oiu
States. To hold it and Supply the dollar of which was ever redeemed."

496

Catholics in the American Revolution.

they had developed in the cam-
paigns of the great commanders of
the time. Among the names are
several that have the ring of the
old Irish brigade. Dugan, Arun-
del, De Saint Aulaire, Vibert, Col.
Dubois, De Kermorvan, Lieut.-Col.
de Franchessen, St. Martin, Vermo-
net, Dorre, Pelissier, Malmady, Mau-
duit, Rochefermoy, De la Neuville,
Armand, Fleury, Convvay, Lafa-
yette, Du Portail, Gouvion, Du Cou-
dray, Pulaski, Roger, Dorset, Gimat,
Brice, and others, rendered signal
service, especially as engineers and
chiefs of staff, where skill and mili-
tary knowledge were most required.
Around Lafayette popular enthusi-
asm gathered, but he was not alone.
Numbers of these Catholic officers
served gallantly at various points
during the war, aiding materially
in laying out works and planning
operations, as well as by gallantly
doing their duty in the field, shar-
ing gayly the sufferings and priva-
tions of the men of '76.

Some who came to serve in the
ranks or as officers rendered other
service to the country. ^Edanus
Burke, of Galway, a pupil of St.
Omer's, like the Carrolls, came out
to serve as a soldier, represented
South Carolina in the Continental
Congress, and was for some time
chief-justice of his adopted State.
P. S. Duponceau, who came over as
aide to Baron Steuben in 1777,
became the founder of American
ethnology and linguistics. His la-
bors in law, science, and Ameri-
can history will not soon be for-
gotten.

Meanwhile, Catholics were swell-
ing the ranks, and, like Moylan, ris-
ing to fame and position. The
American navy had her first com-
modore in the Catholic Barry, who
had kept the flag waving un dimmed
on the seas from 1776, and in 1781

engaged and took the two English
vessels, Atlanta and Trepassay j
and on other occasions handled his
majesty's vessels so roughly that
General Howe endeavored to win
him by offers of money and high
naval rank to desert the cause. Be-
sides Catholics born, who served in
army or navy, in legislative or exe-
cutive, there were also men who
took part in the great struggle
whose closing years found them
humble and devoted adherents of
the Catholic Church. Prominent
among these was Thomas Sims Lee,
Governor of Maryland from 1779
to the close of the war. He did
much to contribute to the glorious
result, represented his State in the
later Continental Congress and in
the Constitutional Convention, as
Daniel Carroll, brother of the arch-
bishop, also did. Governor Lee,
after becoming a Catholic, was re-
elected governor, and lived to an
honored old age. Daniel Barber,
who bore his musket in the Con-
necticut line, became a Catholic,
and his son, daughter-in-law, and
their children all devoted them-
selves to a religious life, a family
of predilection.

In Europe the Catholic states,
France and Spain, watched the
progress of American affairs with
deepest interest. At the very out
set Vergennes, the able minister of
France, sent an agent to study the
people and report the state of af-
fairs. The clear-headed statesmen
saw that America would become
independent. In May, 1776, Louis
XVI. announced to the Catholic
monarch that he intended to send
indirectly two hundred thousand
dollars. The King of Spain sent a
similar sum to Paris. This solid
aid, the first sinews of war from
these two Catholic sovereigns, was
but an earnest of good-will. In

Catholics in t/te American Revolution. 497

France the sentiment in favor of becomes us to set apart a day for
the American cause overbore the gratefully acknowledging the divine
cautious policy of the king, the goodness and celebrating the im-
amiable Louis XVI. He granted portant event, which we owe to his
the aid already mentioned, and in- divine interposition." France now
duced the King of Spain to join in openly took part in the war, and
the act; he permitted officers to in July, 1778, a French fleet under
leave France in order to join the d'Estaing appeared on our coasts,
American armies ; he encouraged neutralizing the advantage which
commerce with the revplting colo- England had over us by her naval
nies by exempting from duties the superiority. The ocean was no lon-
ships which bore across the ocean ger hers to send her army from
the various goods needed by the point to point on the coast. This
army and the people. The enthu- fleet engaged Lord Howe near
siasm excited by Lafayette, who first Newport, and co-operated with
heard of the American cause from Sullivan in operations against the
the lips of an English prince, soon English in Rhode Island. After
broke down all the walls of caution, cruising in the West Indies it again
An arrangement was made by reappeared on our coast to join
which material of war from the Lincoln in a brave but unsuccess-
government armories and arsenals ful attack on Savannah, in which fell
was sent out, nominally from a the gallant Pulaski, who some years
mercantile house. A year after before had asked the blessing of
the Declaration of Independence, the pope's nuncio on himself and
I 1 ' ranee, which had opened her ports his gallant force in the sanctuary
to American privateers and courte- of Our Lady of Czenstochowa, be-
ously avoided all English complaints, fore his long defence of that con-
resolved to take a decisive step vent fortress against overwhelming
not only to acknowledge the inde- Russian forces,
pendence of the United States, but In July, 1780, another fleet, corn-
to support it. Marie Antoinette manded by the Chevalier de Ter-
sympathized deeply with this coun- nay, entered the harbor of Newport,
try, and won the king to give his full bringing a French army command-
support to our cause. On the 6th ed by an experienced general, John
of February, 1778, Catholic France Baptiste de Vimeur, Count de
signed the treaty with the United Rochambeau. An army of Cath-
States, and thus a great power in Eu- olics with Catholic chaplains, ob-
rope set the example to others in re- serving the glorious ritual of the
cognizing us as one of the nations of church with all solemnity, was hail-
the earth. America had a Catho- ed with joy in New England. The
tic godmother. Amid the miseries discipline of that army, the cour-
of Valley Forge Washington issued teous manners of officers and pri-
a general order : ' It having pleas- vates, won all hearts. What that
ed the Almighty Ruler of the uni- army effected is too well known
\crse to defend the cause of the to be chronicled here in detail.
Jnited American States, and finally When Lafayette had cornered Corn-
4o raise us up a powerful friend vvallis in Yorktown, Washington
aong the princes of the earth, to and Rochambeau marched down,
^tablish our liberty and independ- the fleet of the Count de Grasse
ence upon a lasting foundation, it defeated Admiral Graves off the
VOL. xxin. 32

498

Catholics in the American Revolution.

capes of Virginia, and, transporting
the allied armies down, joined with
them in compelling Cornwallis to
surrender his whole force ; and old
St. Joseph's Church, in Philadel-
phia, soon rang with the grand Te
Deiun chanted in thanksgiving at
a Mass offered up in presence of
the victorious generals.

None question the aid given us
by Catholic France. Several who
came as volunteers, or in the army
or fleet, remained in the United
States. One officer who had served
nobly in the field laid aside his sword
and returned to labor during the
rest of his life for the well-being of
America as a devoted Catholic priest.

But France was not the only
Catholic friend of our cause.
Spain had, as we have seen, at an
early period in the war, sent a liber-
al gift of money. She opened her
ports to our privateers, and refused
to give up Captain Lee, of Marble-
head, whom England demanded.
She went further ; for when intel-
ligence came of the Declaration of
Independence, she gave him sup-
plies and repaired his ship. She
subsequently sent cargoes of sup-
plies to us from Bilbao, and put at
the disposal of the United States
ammunition and supplies at New
Orleans. When an American en-
voy reached Madrid, she sent
blankets for ten regiments and
made a gift of $150,000 through
our representative. When the gal-
lant young Count Bernardo de
Galvez, whose name is commemo-
rated in Galveston, was made gov-
ernor of Louisiana, he at once
tendered his services to us ; he
forwarded promptly the clothing
and military stores in New Orleans ;
and when the English seized an
American schooner on the Louisi-
ana lakes, he confiscated all Eng-
lish vessels in reprisal.

Spain had not formally recog-
nized the United States. She of-
fered her mediation to George III.,
and on its refusal by that monarch,
for that and other causes she de-
clared war against England. Gal-
vez moved at once. He besieged
the English at Baton Rouge, and,
after a long and stubborn resistance,
compelled . it to surrender in Sep-
tember, 1780; he swept the waters
of English vessels, and then, with
the co-operation of a Spanish fleet
under Admiral Solano and de Mon-
teil, laid siege to the ancient town
of Pensacola. The forts were held
by garrisons of English troops,
Hessians, and- northern Tories, well
supplied and ready to meet the
arms of the Catholic king. The
resistance of the British governor,
Campbell, was stout and brave ;
but Pensacola fell, and British
power on our southern frontier was
crushec\ and neutralized. Spain
gave one of the greatest blows to
England in the war, next in import-
ance to the overthrow of Burgoyne
and Cornwallis.

On the Northwest, too, where
English influence over the Indians
was so detrimental, Spain checked
it by the reduction of English posts
that had been the centre of the
operations of the savage foe.
America was not slow in showing
her sense of gratitude to Catholic
Spain. Robert Morris wrote to
Galvez : " I am directed by the
United States to express to your ex-
cellency the grateful sense they
entertain of your early efforts in their
favor. Those generous efforts gave
them so favorable an impression of
your character and that of your na-
tion that they have not ceased to
wish for a more intimate connection
with your country." Galvez made
the connection more intimate by
marrying a lady of New Orleans,

Catholics in the American Revolution.

499

who in time presided in Mexico as
wife of the Viceroy of New Spain.

But it was not only by the opera-
tions on land that the country of
Isabella 'the Catholic aided our
cause. Before she declared war
against England, her navy had been
increased and equipped, so that her
fleets co-operated ably with those of
France in checking English power
and lowering English supremacy on
the ocean.

Yet a greater service than that
of brave men on land or sea was
rendered by her diplomacy. Russia
had been almost won by England ;
her fleet was expected to give its
aid to the British navy in reassert-
ing her old position ; but Spain, while
still neutral, proposed an armed
neutrality, and urged it with such
skill and address that she detached
Russia from England, and arrayed
her virtually as an opponent where
she had been counted upon with all
certainty as an ally. Spain really
thus banded all Continental Europe
against England, and then, by de-
claring war herself, led Holland to
join us openly.

Nor were France and Spain our
only Catholic friends. The Abbe
Niccoli, minister of Tuscany at the
court of France, was a zealous abet-
tor of the cause of America. In
Germany the Hessians, sent over
here to do the work of English op-
pression, were all raised in Protes-
tant states, while history records
the fact that the Catholic princes
of the empire discouraged the dis-
graceful raising of German troops
to be used in crushing a free people ;
and this remonstrance and opposi-
tion of the Catholic princes put a
stop to the German aid which had
been rendered to our opponent.

Never was there such harmonious
Catholic action as that in favor of
American independence a hundred

years ago. The Catholics in the
country were all Whigs ; the Catho-
lics of Canada were favorable, ready
to become our fellow-citizens ;
France and Spain aided our cause
with money and supplies, by
taking part in the war, and by
making a Continental combination
against England ; Catholic Italy and
Catholic Germany exerted them-
selves in our favor. Catholics did
their duty in the legislature and in
the council-hall, in the army and
in the navy ; Catholics held for us
our northeastern frontier, and gave
us the Northwest ; Catholic officers
helped to raise our armies to the
grade of European science ; a Ca-
tholic commander made our navy
triumph on the sea. Catholic
France helped to weaken the Eng-
lish at Newport, Savannah, and
Charleston ; crippled England's na-
val power in the West Indies, and
off the capes of Virginia utterly de-
feated them ; then with her army
aided Washington to strike the
crowning blow at Cornwallis in
Yorktown. Catholic Spain aided
us on the western frontier by cap-
turing British posts, and under
Galvez reduced the British and
Tories at Baton Rouge and Pensa-
cola. And, on the other hand, there
is no Catholic's name in all the lists
of Tories.

Washington uttered no words of
flattery, no mere commonplaces of
courtesy, but what he felt and knew
to be the truth, when, in reply to
the Catholic address, he said : " I
presume that your fellow-citizens
will not forget the patriotic part
which you took in the accomplish-
ment of their Revolution and the
establishment of their government,
or the important assistance which
they received from a nation in
which the Roman Catholic faith is
professed."

5oo

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

THE IRISH HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.*

WHAT is the real nature of the
new political movement or. organ-
ization in Ireland which emblazons
on its banner the device " Home
Rule " ? Beyond all question it has
attained to national dimensions. It
has concentrated upon itself more
of the attention and interest, hopes
and sympathies, of the Irish people
than any political endeavor on the
same field of action for many years.
More than this, it seems to have
succeeded in exacting a tribute to
its power and authority which, no
previous movement received from
the adverse ministers, publicists, and
people of England. These, while
they combat it, deal with it as
"Ireland." It makes propositions,
exacts terms, directs assaults, assents
to arrangements on behalf of and in
the name of the Irish people ; and,
as we have indicated, the singular
part of the case is that not only is
its action ratified and applauded
by them, but its authority so to act
in their name is virtually recogniz-
ed by the government. In the
House of Commons it takes charge
of Irish affairs ; has almost an Irish
(volunteer) ministry, certainly an
organized party not inferior, if not
superior, in discipline to that of the
"government' or "opposition."
We hear of its " whips," its councils,
its special "division-lists, its assign-

* The above article is from the pen of Mr. A. M.
Sullivan, M.P. for Louth, editor of the Dublin Na-
tion, and one of the leaders in the national move-
ment for Home Rule in Ireland. The movement
is one of great importance and significance. It has
many enemies. It has been and continues to be
much misrepresented. For the|f reasons we open
our pages to one of its ablest and most eloquent ex-
ponents to give its history to our readers. Mr.
Sullivan will resume and close the subject in the
next number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. ED. C. W.

ment of particular duties, motions,
or bills to particular individuals ; and,
lastly, we hear of it boldly challeng-
ing the Disraelian hosts, fighting
them in debate throughout a set
field-day, and, despite the actual
government majority of forty-eight
and working majority of seventy,
running the ministerialists to within
barely thirteen votes.

In all this there is much that is
new in the history of Irish politics ;
and it were impossible that it should
not intensely interest, if not affect,
the Catholic millions of America,
bound, as most of them are, to Ire-
land by the sacred ties of faith and
kindred and nationality.

What, then, is Home R.ule ? Is
it Fenianism, " veiled ' or unveil-
ed ? Is it Repeal ? Is it less than
repeal, or more than repeal ? Is it
a surrender or a compromise of the
Irish national demand ; or is it, as
its advocates claim, the substance
of that demand shaped and adjusted
according to the circumstances, re-
quirements, and necessities of the
present time ?

With the fall of the Young Ireland
party, and the disastrous collapse
of their meditated rather than at-
tempted insurrection in 1848, there
seemed to foes and friends an end
of national movements in Ireland
for the balance of the century. It
is almost a law of defeats that the
vanquished are separated into two
or three well-defined parties or sec-
tions : those whom the blow has in-
tensified and more embittered in
their opposition ; those whom it
wholly overawes, who thereafter
consider they have done enough for

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

501

honor, and retire entirely from the
field ; and, lastly, those who recog-
nize, if they do not accept, the de-
feat;, who admit the impossibility
of further operations on a position
so advanced, fall back upon some
line which they imagine they can
hold, and, squaring round there,
offer battle with whatever of strength
and resources survive to them. This
is just what resulted in Ireland in
1848-49. The Young Ireland move-
ment of 1848 was never national in
dimensions or acceptance. O'Con-
nell's movement was, from 1842 to
1844; but from that date forward,
though there were two or three
rival movements or parties, having
for their leaders respectively O'Con-
nell, Smith O'Brien, and John Mit-
chel, no one of them had the na-
tion at its back. The Young Ire-
landers led away from O'Connell
the youth, talent, enthusiasm, and,
to a large extent, though not en-
tirely, the resolute earnestness and
honesty of the old Repeal party. It
is a very common but a very great
fallacy that they broke away on a
" war policy ' from the grand old
man whose fading intellect was but
too sadly indicated in the absurd
conduct that drove the young men
from his side. They had no "war"
policy or design any more than he
had (in the sense of a war attack
on England), until they caught up
one in the blaze and whirl of re-
volutionary intoxication scattered
through Europe by the startling-
events of February, 1848, in Paris.
They seceded from O'Connell on
this point,* because they would not
subscribe to the celebrated test re-
solutions (called " Peace Resolu-
tions ") declaring that under -no cir-
cumstances was it or would it be

* There were certain other issues, chiefly as to
alleged profligacy of financial expenditure, and as
to audit and publication of accounts, etc., which
need not be considered here.

lawful to take up arms for the re-
covery of national rights. Spurn-
ing such a declaration, but solemnly
declaring they contemplated no ap-
plication of its converse assertion
in their political designs for Ireland,
the seceders set up the " Irish Con-
federation." But the magic of
O'Connell's name, and indeed the
force of a loving gratitude, held the
masses of the people and the bulk
of the clergy in the old organiza-
tion. The Confederates were in
many places decidedly " unpopu-
lar,"* especially when, the Uncrown-
ed Monarch having died mourn-
fully in exile, his following in Con-
ciliation Hall raised the cry that
the Young Irelanders "kilted O'Con-
nell." Soon afterwards the seced-
ers were themselves rent by a se-
cession. The bolder spirits, led by
John Mitchel and Devin Rielly,
demanded that the Confederation,
in place of disclaiming any idea of
an armed struggle against England,
should avowedly prepare the peo-
ple for such a resort. The new se-
cession was as weak in numbers,
relatively towards the Confedera-
tion, as the original seceders were
towards the Repeal Association.
The three parties made bitter war
upon one another. A really na-
tional movement there was no
more.

Suddenly Paris rose against Louis
Philippe, and throughout Europe, in
capital after capital, barricades went
up and thrones came down. Ire-
land caught the flame. The Mit-
chel party suddenly found themselves
masters of the situation. The Con-
federation leaders O'Brien, Duffy,
Dillon, O'Gorman, Meagher, and
Doheny not only found their plat-
form abandoned, but eventually,
though not without some "hesitation

* Their meetings in Dublin were constantly
u mobbed " for some time.

502

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

and misgiving, they themselves aban-
doned it too, and threw themselves
into the scheme for an armed struggle
in the ensuing summer or autumn.
It was thought, perhaps, that al-
though this might not reunite the
O'Connellites and the Young Ire-
landers, it would surely reunite the
recently-divided sections of the
O'Brien following ; but it did so only
ostensibly or partially. There were
two schools of insurrectionists in the
now insurrectionary party : Mitchel
and Rielly declared that O'Brien
and Duffy wanted a " rosewater rev-
olution " ; O'Brien and Duffy declar-
ed the others were " Reds," who
wanted a jacqiierie. The refusal
of the leaders to make the rescue
of Mitchel the occasion and signal
for a rising, led to bitter and
scarcely disguised recrimination ;
and when, a couple of months later,
they themselves, caught unawares
and unprepared by the government,
sought to effect a rising, the result
was utter and complete failure. The
call had no real power or authority
behind it. The men who issued it
had not the mandate of the nation
in any sense of the word. They
were at the moment the fraction of a
fraction. They had against them the
bulk of the .Repeal millions and the
Catholic clergy ; not against them in
any combative sense, but in a decid-
ed disapproval of their insurrection.
Some, and only some, of the large
cities became thoroughly imbued
with and ready to carry through the
revolutionary determination an im-
press which Cork has ever since re-
tained ; but beyond the traditional
vague though deep-rooted feeling of
the Irish peasantry against the hate-
ful rule of England, the rural popu-
lation, and even the majority of the
cities and towns, had scarcely any
participation in " the Forty-Eight
movement."

When, therefore, all was over, and
the "Men of '48," admittedly the
flower of Ireland's intellect and pa-
triotism, were fugitives or "felons"
some seeking and receiving asy-
lum and hospitality in America,
others eating their hearts in the
hulks o f Bermuda or the dungeons
of Tasmania a dismal reaction set
in in Ireland. The results above re-
ferred to as incidental to defeats as
a rule were plainly apparent. Of
the millions who, from 1841 to 1848,
whether as Repealers, O'Connellites,
Confederates, Mitchelites, Old Ire-
landers, or Young Irelanders, par-
took in an effort to make Ireland a
self-governed or else totally inde-
pendent nation, probably one-half
in 1849 resigned, as they thought,
for ever, all further hope or effort in
that direction. Of the remainder,
a numerically small party chiefly,
though not all, men who had be-
longed to John Mitchel's section
of the Young Irelanders became
only the more exasperated by a
defeat in which they felt that their
policy had not had even a chance
of trying what was in it ; a defeat,
too, that left the vanquished not one
incident to solace their pride and
shield them from humiliation and
ignoble ridicule. Chafing with rage
and indignation, they beheld the rest
of what remained at all visible of
the national party effecting that re-
trograde movement alluded to in a
foregoing page. Of all the brilliant
leaders of Young Ireland, Gavan
Duffy alone now remained to face
on Irish soil the terrible problem,
"What next?" Openly proclaim-
ing that the revolutionary position
could not be held, he ordered a re-
treat all along the line. Halting for
a while on an attempt to revive the
original Irish Confederation policy
an attempt which he had to aban-
don for want of support he at

The Irish Home- Rule Movement. 503

length succeeded in rallying what in its own way as complete and dis-
coukl be called a political party on astrous as that which overtook the
a struggle for " Tenant Right." It insurrectionary attempt of 1848,
raised in no way the" national" ques- now overthrew the experiment of
tion. It gathered Presbyterians of a great popular campaign based on
the north and Catholics of the south, constitutional and parliamentary
repealers and anti-repealers, in an principles. Not only Avas there
organization to force Parliament to now no movement for nationality
pass a bill preventing the eviction in Ireland; there was not an Irish
of tenant-farmers unless for non- movement of any kind or for any
payment of rent ; preventing also Irish purpose at all, great or little,
arbitrary increasing of rent that It was Pacata Hibernia as in the
might squeeze out the farmer in days of Carew and St. Leger.
another way. " Come, now, this is Now came the turn for the un-
something practical and sensible," changed and exasperated section of
said matter-of-fact non-repealers and the '48 war party. Few in numbers,
half-hearted nationalists. ' Why, it and scattered wide apart, they had
is craven surrender and sheer dis- hissed forth scorn and execration
honor !" cried the irreconcilable sec- on Duffy's parliamentary experi-
tion of the '48 men. A band of ment as a departure from the re-
thirty or forty members of Parlia- volutionary faith. If he in 1849
ment were returned at the instance answered to their invectives by
of the Tenant League to work out pointing to the fiasco of the year be-
its programme. They were most- fore, they now taunted him with the
ly corrupt and dishonest men, who collapse of 1853. Not more than
merely shouted the new shibboleth two or three of the '48 men of any
for their own purposes. Were the prominence, however, took up this
people thoroughly in earnest, and actually hostile attitude. Most of
did they possess any really free them O'Brien, Dillon, Meagher,
voting power (there was no vote O 'Gorman, and even Martin more
by ballot then), all this could be or less expressly approved the re-
cured ; but as things stood, the cent endeavor as the best thing
parliamentary band broke up in practicable under the circumstan-
the first three months of their ces in Ireland. Now, however, the
existence. The English minister men who believed in war and no-
bought up its noisiest leaders, of thing but war, in total separation
whom Keogh (now a judge) and and nothing short of separation,
Sadleir are perhaps most widely would take their turn. The Fe-
remembered. In some cases the man movement thus arose,
constituencies, priests and people, If neither of the sections or sub-
condoned their treason, duped into sections of the Irish nationalists in
believing it was not treason at all, 1848 could be said to have succeed-
but " a great thing to have Catho- ed in rallying or representing the
lies on the bench." In other places full force, or even a considerable
the efforts of priests and people to proportion, of Irish patriotism, this
oppose the re-election of the trai- new venture was certainly not more
tors were vain; free election amongst fortunate in that respect. Outside
' tenants at will" being almost im- its ranks, obstinately refusing to
known without the ballot. The believe in its policy, remained the
tenants' cause was lost. Thus ruin, bulk of the millions who had fol-

504

The Irish Home-Ride Movement.

lowed O'Connell or Smith O'Brien.
Yet the Fenians worked with an
energy worthy of admiration ex-
cept where the movement degen-
erated into an intolerance that for-
bade any other national opinions
save those of its leaders to be advanc-
ed. In truth, their influence on Irish
politics was very mixed in its merits.
In some places it was a rude and
vaunting rowdyism that called it-
self Fenianism ; in others an honest,
manly, self-sacrificing spirit of pa-
triotism marked the men who were
its confessors and martyrs. If in
their fall they drew down upon Ire-
land severities worse than anything
known since 1798, it is only fair, on
the other hand, to credit in a large
degree to the sensations aroused by
their trials the great awakening of
public opinion on the Irish ques-
tion which set in all over England
at the time.

And now once more the board
was clear. England had won the
game ; not a pawn remained un-
taken on the Irish side. Not an
Irish association, or society, or
" agitation," or demand of any kind
challenged Britannia's peace of
mind. Once more it was a specta-
cle of the lash and the triangle ;
state-trials, informers, and prosecu-
tors ; the'convict-ship and the hulk ;
the chain-gangs at Portland and
Chatham.

"Who will show us any light?"
exclaims one of the Young Ireland
bards in a well-known and beauti-
ful poem- Such might well have
been the exclamation of Ireland in
1867. Was this to be the weary
cycle of Irish effort, for ever and
for ever ? Was armed effort hope-
less, and peaceful effort vain ? Was
there no alternative for Irishmen
but to become "West-Britons," or
else dash their brains out against a
dungeon wall ? Could no one de-

vise a way whereby to give scope
and vent to the Irish passion for
national existence, to give a field to
Irish devotion and patriotism, which
would- be consonant with- the. spirit
of manhood, without calling for
these hecatombs of victims ?

Suddenly a new element of con-
sideration presented itself; new, in-
deed, and rather startling.

It was Irish Protestantism offer-
ing the hand of reconciliation to
Ireland.

The Tory party had come into
power in the course of the Fenian
prosecutions, and had carried on
the work in a spirit which Crom-
well himself would approve. They
really held office, not because they
had an effective majority in the House
of Commons, but because the lib-
erals were broken up and divided,
unable to agree on a policy. To
turn to his own account the " Fe-
nian scare ' was Mr. Gladstone's
brilliant idea. To make a dash
on the Irish Church establishment
would rally all the mutinous frac-
tions of liberalism, on the principle
of " hit him, he has no friends."
It would gratify all England as a
sort of conscience-salve for the
recent dragonnades and coercion
laws. Yes ; this was the card with
which to beat Disraeli. True, Mr.
Gladstone had only a few years
before put down his foot and de-
clared that never, " no, never"
could, would, or should that Irish
Church be disestablished or inter-
fered with in any way. What was
he to say now to cover this flank
movement, made for purely party
purposes ? In all Britain there is
no brain more subtle, none more
fertile of strategic resource, than
that of W. E. Gladstone. He put
it all on Fenianism. He had
changed his mind, not because he
was out of office with a weak and

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

505

broken party, and wanted to get
back with a strong and united one,
but because he had opened his
eyes to Fenianism ! He never hit
on a more successful idea. On the
cry of " Down with the Irish
Church !" he was swept into office
at the head of the most powerful
majority commanded by any minis-
ter since Peel in 1841. It must
not be thought that Mr. Gladstone
was insincere, or meant anything
but service to Ireland (while also
serving his party) by this move.
He has the facility of intensely
persuading himself into a fervid
conscientiousness on any subject
he likes, whether it be Free Trade,
Church Establishment, Church Dis-
establishment, or Vaticanism.

The Irish Protestants had an un-
answerable case against England
that is, as between them and her
on this matter of disestablishment.
It was, on her part towards them,
an open, palpable, and flagitious
breach of faith breach of formal
treaty in fact. The articles of the
Union in 1800 expressly covenant-
ed that the maintenance of the
Irish Church establishment was to
be one of the cardinal, fundamental,
essential, and everlasting conditions
of the deed. Mr. Gladstone snap-
ped his fingers at such considera-
tions. " Mind, you thereby repeal
and annul the Union," cried Irish
conservatives. " We will kick an-
other crown into the Boyne," said
Parson Flanagan at an Orange
meeting. " We have held by this
bargain with you with uneasy con-
sciences," said and wrote num-
bers of sincere Irish Protestants ;
' break it, and we break with
you, and become Irishmen first
and before everything."

It was rightly judged by thought-
ful observers that, though noisy
braggarts of the Parson Flanagan

class would not only let the crown
alone, but would cringe all the more
closely by England's side even when
the church was swept away, there
was much of sober earnestness and
honest resolve in what hundreds of
Protestant laymen (and even clergy-
men) spoke upon this issue. Yes,
though the bulk of Irish Protestants
would prove unequal to so rapid
a political conversion, even under
provocation so strong, there would
still be a considerable movement
of their numbers towards, if not into,
the Irish camp. Time, moreover,
and prudent and conciliatory action
on the part of their Catholic coun-
trymen, would be always increasing
that rapprochement.

And so in the very chaos and dis-
ruption and upheaval of political
elements and parties in Ireland from
1868 to 1870 there was, as by a mys-
terious design of Providence, a way
made for events and transformations
and combinations which otherwise
would have been nigh impossible.

The church was disestablished ;
Irish Protestants were struck with
amazement and indignation. Eng-
land had broken with them ; they
would unite with Ireland. But,
alas ! no ; this was, it seemed, impos-
sible. They could never be " Feni-
ans." No doubt they, after all,
treasured in their Protestant hearts
the memory, the words, and, in a
way, the principles of their great
coreligionists, Grattan and Flood,
Curran and Charlemont. In this
direction they could go ; but to-
wards separation towards an " Irish
republic," towards disloyalty to
the crown they would not, could
not, turn their faces. These men
belonged in large part to a class, or
to classes, never since 1782 seen
joining a national movement in any
great numbers. They were men
of high position ; large landed pro-

5o6

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

prietors, bankers, merchants, ' de-
puty-lieutenants " of counties, baro-
nets, a few of them peers, many of
them dignitaries of the Protestant
church, some of them fellows of
Trinity College. Such men had
vast property at stake in the coun-
try. They saw a thousand reasons
why Irishmen alone should regulate
Irish affairs, but they would hold
by a copartnership with Scotland
and England in the empire at large.
This, however, they concluded, was
not what the bulk of their country-
men was looking for ; and so it al-
most seemed as if they would turn
back and relapse into mere West*
britonism as a lesser evil for them
than a course of " rebellion ' : and
" sedition."

At this juncture there appeared
upon the scene a man whose name
seems destined to be writ large on
the records of a memorable era in
Irish history Isaac Butt.

When,- on Friday evening, the i5th
of September, 1865, the British gov-
ernment seized the leading mem-
bers of the Fenian Society and
flung them into Richmond jail, it
became a consideration of some
difficulty with the prisoners and
their friends how and by whom they
should be defended. In one sense
they had plenty of counsel to choose
from. Such occasions are great
opportunities for briefless advocates
to strike in, like ambitious authors
of unacted plays who nobly offer
them to be performed on Thanks-
giving day or for some popular pub-
lic charity. No doubt the prisoners
could have had attorneys and law-
yers of this stamp easily enough ;
but it was not every man whom
they would trust equally for his
ability and his honesty. Besides,
there was the money difficulty.
The crown was about to fight them
in a costly law duel. To retain men

of the front rank at the bar would
cost thousands of pounds ; to retain
men of inferior position would be
worse than useless. Could there
be found amongst the leaders of
the Irish bar even one man bold
enough and generous enough to
undertake the desperate task and
protracted labor of defending these
men, leaving the question of fee or
remuneration to the chance of funds
being forthcoming ? What of the
great advocates of the state trials
of 1843 an d 1848? Holmes clar-
um et venerabile nomen dead ! Shiel
gone too ; Whiteside on the
bench; O'Hagan also a judge;
Sir Colman O'Loghlen a crown
prosecutor; Butt yes, Butt, even
then in the front rank, the most
skilful, the boldest, the most elo-
quent, and most generous of them
all he is just the man! Where is
Butt ?

Where, indeed ? He had to be
searched and sought for, so utterly
and sadly had a great figure silently
disappeared from the forum. Thir-
ty years before Isaac Butt was the
young hope of Protestant conser-
vatism, the idol of its 'salons. He
had barely passed his majority when
he was elected to the professorship
of Political Economy in Trinity Col-
lege ; and, at an age when such
honors were*unprecedented, was ele-
vated to a "silk-gown," as Queen's
Counsellor at the bar. Yet there
was always about young Butt an in-
tense Irishism ; he was a high-spir-
ited Protestant, a chivalrous conser-
vative ; but even in that early time
the eagle eye of O'Connell detected
in him an Irish heart and a love of
the principles of liberty that would
yet, so he prophesied, lead Butt into
the ranks of the Irish people. The
English Tory leaders enticed him
over to London, and sent him into
, Parliament for one of their boroughs

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

507

-Harwich. They made much of
him and were his ruin. In the
whirl of parliamentary life, in the
fascination of London society, he
abandoned his professional busi-
ness and fell into debt difficulty,
and dissipation. Had he been less
independent and less self-willed, he
would no doubt have been richly
placed by his ministerial friends.
Somehow or another he and they
drew apart as he went sullenly and
recklessly downward. In 1864 he
had almost dropped out of sight,
having just previously ceased to sit
in Parliament.

To the solicitation to undertake the
defence of the Fenian prisoners he
responded by giving them, it may
be said, three whole years of his
professional life. He flung himself
into that fight for the men in the
dock with the devotion, the enthu-
siasm, the desperate energy of a
man striving for life itself. His
genius and ability, conspicuous be-
fore, shone out more than ever.
He was admittedly the first lawyer
of his day; and now not only the
crown counsel but the judges on
the bench felt they were dealing
with their master. Of money he
took no thought. Indeed, in the
best and worst days of his fortunes
he gave it little heed. He has been
known in the depth of his difficul-
ties to hand back a special fee of a
hundred guineas which he knew a
poor client could not spare, and the
same day pay his hotel bill with a
check doomed never to be cashed.
The incident is unfortunately only
too typical of one phase of his na-
ture.

Three or four years immersed in
such labors one protracted series
of state trials dealing in the most
painfully realistic way with the prob-
lem of Ireland's destiny, could not
fail to have a profound effect on a

man like Butt. Meantime, he grew
into immense popularity. His bold
appeals for the prisoners, which
soon came to be the sentiments of
the man rather than the pleadings
of the advocate, were read with
avidity in every peasant's cottage and
workman's home. The Fenians,
broken and defeated as an organiza-
tion, yet still ramifying throughout
the country, looked to him with the
utmost gratitude and confidence.
Under his presidency and guidance
a society called the Amnesty Asso-
ciation was established for the pur-
pose of obtaining the royal clemen-
cy for at least some of the Fenian
convicts. A series of mass-meet-
ings under its auspices were held
throughout the island, and were the
largest assemblages seen in Ireland
since the Repeal meetings of Tara
and Mullaghmast. In fine, Mr.
Butt found himself a popular leader,
at the head of at all events the pro-
Fenian section of Irish political ele-
ments, and daily becoming a power
in the country.

The resentful Protestants, just
now half-minded to hoist the nation-
al flag, were many of them Butt's old
comrades, college-chums, and politi-
cal associates. He noted their criti-
cal position, and forthwith turned
all his exertions, in private as well
as in public, to lead them onward
to the people, and to prevent them
from relapsing into the character of
an English garrison. In his public
speeches he poured forth to them
the most impassioned appeals. In
private he sought out man by man
of the most important and influen-
tial among them. " Banish hesita-
tion and fear," he cried u Act bold-
ly and promptly now, and you will
save Ireland from revolutionary
violence on the one side, and from
alien misgovernment on the other.
You, like myself, have been early

508

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

trained to mistrust the Catholic
multitude, but when you com'e to
know them you will admire them.
They are not anarchists, nor would
they be revolutionists if men like
\ u would but do your duty and
lead them that is, honestly and
faithfully and capably lead them in
the struggle for constitutional lib-
erty." The Protestants listened,
almost persuaded ; but some sinis-
ter whisper now and again of the
terrors of a " Catholic ascenden-
cy " in an Irish parliament a re-
minder that Irish Catholics would
vte for a nominee of their clergy
right or wrong, and consequently
that if the Irish Protestant -minor-
ity threw off the yoke of England,
they should bear the yoke of
Rome seemed to drive them,
scared, from the portals of nation-
ality.

About this time, the beginning
of 1870, Mr. Gladstone raised to
the peerage Colonel Fulke Gre-
ville Nugent, M.P. for Longford
County. He was a respectable and
fairly popular " liberal ' in politics,
was a good landlord, and, though
a Protestant, kindly and generous
to the Catholic clergy and people
around him. He had held his seat
by and from the priests ; for Long-
ford County, from the days when
it heroically won its independence
a generation before, had been vir-
tually in the gift of the Catholic
clergy. This vacancy occurred in
the very fever of the Amnesty
excitement. A few months before
Mr. Gladstone had rather harshly
refused the appeal for Amnesty ;
and Tipperary made answer and
commentary thereon by electing
to Parliament one of the Fenian
convicts, at the moment a prisoner
in Chatham. It was proposed to
imitate this course in Longford,
but a more worthy resolve was

taken : John Martin of Rostrevor
-" Honest John Martin " one of
the purest, most heroic, and lovable
of Irish patriots, was put in nomi-
nation, although at the moment he
was travelling in America and un^
aware of the proceedings. But the
clergy had at a private confer-
ence committed themselves to the
son of their late member a brain-
less young officer in the army.
Neither party would withdraw their
man ; and out of this arose a con-
flict as fierce, bitter, and relentless
as if the parties to it had been an-
cient and implacable foes instead
of lifelong and loving friends.
Altar denunciations of the most
terrible kind were hurled at the
men who dared to "oppose their
clergy " by advocating John Martin.
Platform denunciations were hurled
at the men who dared to go " against
Ireland ' : by preferring to a stain-
less and devoted patriot a brainless
little fop who had not a political
idea in his head or a spark of Irish
patriotism in his heart.

Ireland, and England too, looked
on in intense amazement and curi-
osity. Here was a great problem
brought to a critical test. The old
story of the anti-Catholic English
press, that Irish Catholics would sla-
vishly <k vote black white at the or-
dering of their priests," was about
to be proved true or put to shame.
The Longford clergy defeated John
Martin and carried their man, but
he was subsequently unseated on
petition. The experiment other-
wise, however, was decisive. For
John Martin, a Presbyterian Pro-
testant, a Catholic people fought
their own clergy as vehemently as
they and those clergy had ever
fought the Tory landlords. It was
an exceptional and painful incident,
but at the moment one of vast im-
portance, which proudly vindicat-

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

509

ed both priests and people from a
damaging calumny. *

There was no misunderstanding
all this. No Irish Protestant, pa-
triotically inclined, could any longer
be scared by the bugbear of " Cath-
olic intolerance." The time at last
had come for the step they meditat-
ed. The moment had arrived also
for some attempt to answer the
aspirations of Ireland. And u the
Hour had brought the Man."

On the night of Thursday, the
i9th of May, 1870, there were
quietly assembled in the Bilton
Hotel, Upper Sackville Street,
Dublin the most exclusive and
aristocratic of the quasi-private
hotels in that city a strange
gathering. Such men had never
met to confer or act together be-
fore. It was a " private confer-
ence of Irish gentlemen to con-
sider the state of Ireland." But
looking around the room, one might
think the millennium at hand, when
the wolf would lie down with the
lamb and the lion slumber with the
fawn. Men who were Tories, nay,
Orangemen; men who were " ultra-
montanes," men who had been Re-
pealers, men who were Whigs, men
who had been rebels; Protestants,
Catholics, Presbyterians, Quakers,
Fenians, anti-Fenians, knights,
high sheriffs, aristocrats, demo-
crats a strange array, about fif-
ty in all. f Soberly and earnestly

* Not many months later the climax was capped
by the triumphant return of Mr. Martin for Meath,
probably the most Catholic constituency in Ireland ;
the candidate whom he defeated (in a stiff but tho-
roughly good-humored contest) being the son of
I/>rd Fingal, one of the best and most popular of
the Irish Catholic nobility.

t As this assembly has become in a degree his-
torical, it may be interesting to give the following
list (never before published; of those who attended
it, and others added by vote thereat to make up a
Committee on Resolutions. In nearly every case
an indication of the political and religious opinions
of the parties is now added. The list includes
some of the largest merchants in Dublin :

The Rt. Hon. Edward Purdon, Lord Mayor,
Mansion House T Protestant Conservative.

and long they discussed and de-
bated and deliberated. The men
seemed thoroughly to realize the
gravity of what they were about.

Sir John Harrington, ex-Lord Mayor, D.L.,
Great Britain Street, Prot. Cons.

E. H. Kinahan, J.P., ex-High Sheriff, Mcrrion
Square, Tory.

James V. Mackey, J.P., Beresford Place, Orange-
man.

James W. Mackey, ex-Lord Mayor, J.P., 40
Westmoreland Street, Catholic Liberal.

Sir William Wilde, Merrion Square, F.R.C.S.I.,
Prot. Cons.

James Martin, J. P., ex-High Sheriff, North Wall,
Cath. Lib.

Cornelius Denehy, T.C., J P., Mountjoy Square,
Cath. Lib.

W. L. Erson, J.P., Great Charles Street, Or.
Rev. Joseph E. Galbraith, F.T.C.D., Trinity
College, Prot. Cons.

Isaac Butt, Q.C., Eccles Street, Prot. Nationalist.
R. B. Butt, Eccles Street, Prot. Nat.
R. W. Boyle, Banker, College Green, Tory.
William Campbell, 26 Gardiner's Place, Cath.
Lib.

William Daniel, Mary Street, Cath. Lib.
William Deaker, P.L.G.,Eden Quay, Prot. Cons.
Alderman Gregg, Sackville Street, Frot. Cons.
Alderman Hamilton, Frederick Street, Cath. Re-
pealer.

W. W. Harris, LL.D., ex-High Sheriff of the
County Armagh, Eccles Street, Prot. Cons.
Edward M. Hodson, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.
W. H. Kerr, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.
Major Knox, D.L., Fitzwilliam Square (proprie-
tor of Irish Times), Prot. Cons.

Graham Lemon, Town Commissioner of Clontarf,
Yew Park, Prot. Cons.

J. F. Lombard, J P., South Hill, Cath. Repealer.
W. P. J. McDermott, Great Britain Street, Cath.
Rep.

Alexander McNeale, 104 Gardiner Street, Prot.
Cons.

W. Maher, T.C., P.L.G., Clontarf, Cath. Rep.
Alderman Manning, J.P., Grafton Street, Prot.
Cons.

John Martin, Kilbroney, u Forty-eight" Nation-
alist, Presbyterian.

Dr. Maunsell, Parliament Street (editor of Eve-
ning Mail), Tory.

George Moyers, Richmond Street, Or.
J. Nolan, Sackville Street (Secretary Fenian
Amnesty Association), Cath. Nat

James O'Connor, Abbey Street (late of Irish
People), Cath. Fenian.

Anthony O'Neill, T.C., North Strand, Cath. Rep.
Thomas Ryan, Great Brunswick Street, Cath.
Nat.

J. H. Sawyer, M.D., Stephen's Green, Prot.
Nat.

James Reilly, P.L.G., Pill Lane, Cath. Nat.
Alderman Plunket, James' Street, Cath. Nat.
Rep.

The Venerable Archdeacon Goold, D.D., M.B.,
Protestant Tory son of Goold of '82.

A. M. Sullivan, T.C., P.L.G., Abbey Street,
Cath. Nat. Rep.

Petei- Tally, Henry Street, Cath. Rep.
William Shaw, M.P., Beaumont, Cork (Presi-
dent of Munster Bank), Prot. Lib.

Captain Edward R. King-Harman, J.P., Cree-
vaghmore, County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

5io

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

They did not claim any representa-
tive character whatever ; they sp.oke
each man for himself. The ques-
tions they had proposed to discuss
dealt merely with " absenteeism and
the consequent loss of trade and
national prosperity," and " the ad-
vantages of a royal residence in
Ireland in a political and financial
point of view." But in the very
first moments of discussion even
the new converts to nationality took
up bolder ground. Lord Mayor
Purdon, a Protestant Conservative,
a man universally respected in Dub-
lin ; Sir William Wilde (husband of
the Young Ireland poetess " Spe-
ranza"), an archaeologist of Euro-
pean fame ; the Hon. Capt. King-
Harm an ; and the Rev. J. E. Gal-
braith, fellow of Trinity College,
one of the most distinguished math-
ematicians of the age, were amongst
the men of conservative politics who
came especially to the front. The
nationalists, both " extreme" and
"moderate," interfered but little in
the discussions, looking on greatly
astonished at all they heard and
saw ; but their part of the case was
well handled by the man who was
really the guiding spirit of the scene,
and who eventually rose and in a brief
speech of thrilling power proposed :

Hon. Lawrence Harman King-Harman, D.L.,
Newcastle, County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

George Austin, Town Commissioner of Clontarf,
Winstonville, Prot. Cons.

Dr. Barry, Rathmines, Cath. Lib.

George Beatty, Henrietta Street, Prot. Cons.

Joseph Begg, Capel Street, Cath. Nat. (Treas-
urer of Fenian Amnesty Association).

Robert Callow, Alderman, Westland Row.

Edward Carrigan, Bachelor's Walk, Cath. Lib.

Charles Connolly, Rogerson's Quay, Cath. Lib.

D. B. Cronin, Nassau Street, Cath. Fenian.

John Wallis, T.C., Bachelor's Walk, Prot. Cons.

P. Walsh, Merrion Row, Cath. Nat.

John Webster, Monkstown, Prot. Cons.

George F. Shaw, F.T.C.D., Trinity College,
Prot. Cons

P. J, Smith, Dalkey, Cath. Nat. Repealer.

George E. Stephens, Blackball Place, Prot. Cons.
^ Henry H. Stewart, M.D,, Eccles Street, Prot.
Cons.

L. J. O'Shea, J.P., Margaret Place. Cath. Rep.

Alfred Webb, Abbey Street, Nat., " Quaker."

" That it is the opinion of this meeting
that the true remedy for the evils of Ire-
land is the establishment of an Irish
parliament with full control over our do-
mestic affairs."

A dozen men rose to second this
resolution of Mr. Butt, which was
carried in the meeting not only
without a dissentient voice, but
with enthusiasm. Considering the
composition of the assemblage, this
was one of the most startling inci-

dents in Irish politics for half a cen-
tury. Having appointed a commit-
tee to report resolutions to a future
meeting, the assembly adjourned.

This was the birth of the Home-
Rule movement.

The course of procedure adopt-
ed, following upon the above events,
was one quite unique in Irish poli-
tics. Usually the promoters in
such cases would hold a meeting as
"we the people of Ireland" and be-
gin to act and speak in the name of
the country. Not only was this line
of conduct eschewed, it was express-
ty repudiated, by the semi-private
society or association which at first
grew out of the Bilton Hotel meet-
ing. It was only four months after-
wards (ist of Sept., 1870) that they
ventured to assume public form or
shape as a political organization.
During all this interval they an-
nounced themselves simply as a
number of Irishmen associated to-
gether in an endeavor to ascertain
the feeling of the country upon the
subject of national autonomy. They
had themselves arrived at certain
general conclusions or resolutions
(hereafter to be noticed), but they
declared they could not arrogate to
themselves any right or authority
to speak for the nation at large.
When at length they broke ground
and took the field publicly as the
; ' Irish Home Government Asso-
ciation," they still disclaimed the

The Irish Home- Rule Movement.

right to assume the authoritative
functions or tone of a great nation-
al organization.* That would come
at the right time, if the country
thought well of calling forth such a
body ; but this was at best a sort of
"precursor society" projecting cer-
tain views, and submitting them to
public examination by the people,
with the avowed intention on the
part of these " precursors" of some
day, if they found encouragement
for their course, calling on the
country to pass its deliberate and.
decisive verdict upon those views,
so that Ireland, the -nation, might
speak, and, speaking, command obe-
dience from all loyal and faithful
sons.

This was all Butt's sagacity.
Festina lente was the motto that
befitted work so grave and mom en--
tous as an effort to lift Ireland up
and bid her hope and strive once
more. There was need of this de-
liberation and caution. The ex-
periment of bringing together such
elements as he gathered around
this new venture was a hazardous
one. There were prejudices to be
allayed, objections to be removed,
antipathies to be conquered. No-
toriously there were men who
wanted not to go very far on a road
so new to them, and whom a very
little bit indeed of self-government
would satisfy. Just as notoriously
were there men who wanted to go
a great deal further than they could
get the rest of their countrymen
to join them in attempting. These
two sections the Protestant loyal-
ists and the Fenian secessionists

' This association has never proposed to itself
the position and duties of such a great popular or-
ganization as must eventually take up and carry out
to the victorfcus end the national question. It has
rather proposed to itself the less ambitious though
not less arduous task of preparing the ground for
such a comprehensive organization." First Report
fftke Iris'i Home Government Association. Dub-
lin : Falconer, Upper Sackville Street. 1871.

were the most widely opposed.
Then there were men of the " Old
Ireland ' school and men of the
" Young Ireland ' school - - men
who objected to " repeal " as worth-
less without the addition of a sepa-
rate and responsible Irish admin-
istration ; and men who objected
to repeal as dangerous without
stronger guarantees against conflict
and separation of the kingdoms.

It was expected that the greatest
difficulty would be with the (Irish)
Fenians ; but this was not so.
Mainly through Mr. Butt's great
influence with them, but partly
because adversity had taught them
useful lessons, they either came
into the new scheme or else de-
clared for a friendly neutrality.
Not that any of them did so in the
sense of recanting their Fenian
principles. They expressly reserv-
ed their .own convictions, but an-
nounced their determination to give
a fair trial and a friendly aid to an
honest endeavor in the direction
proposed. Some of their body,
absent in America, disapproved of
this resolve, and bitterly decried
the idea of letting any patriotic
scheme but their own find toler-
ance, much less favor, from their
ranks. In England, however i.e.,
among the Irish in England where
the wreck and disorganization that
had broken up Irish Fenianism had
had little effect, and where for sev-
eral years past there had resided
whatever of strength and authority
remained of that body, the propo-
sals of Mr. Butt were taken up
heartily, and even enthusiastically,
by them.

A much more formidable work it
was found to be to assure the men
of large property that this was not
an embryo scheme for rebellion and
revolution ; to persuade the Catho-
lic clergy that it was not either a

512

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

cloak for Fenianism or a snare of
Orangeism; and to convince the
Protestants that it was not a trap
laid for them by Cardinal Cullen
and the Jesuits.

And now what was the scheme
or plan or " platform " put forward
after such deliberation, inquiry, ne-
gotiation, and investigation? What
specifically has been the Irish na-
tional demand as put forth to the
world in 1870, solemnly ratified in
a great National Conference in
1873, and unmistakably and tri-
umphantly endorsed at the general
elections of February, 1874?

Substantially the old demand and
declaration on the basis of which
Ireland has been ready enough any
time for the last two hundred and
fifty years to compromise with the
English connection equality in
a copartnership, but no subjuga-
tion ; the national autonomy of Ire-
land secured ; the right of Ireland
to legislate for and control her own
affairs established. The Irish Con-
federate government of 1642, the
free Irish parliament of 1690, the
free Irish parliament of 1782, and
the decree of the Irish millions or-
ganized in the Repeal movement
of 1843 formulated just that pro-
gramme modified somewhat, no
doubt, each time, it might be, ac-
cording to the requirements of the
period ; but still, as the student of
authentic historical documents will
discover, it was on all those memo-
rable occasions in substance the
same. The Catholic Confederation
at Kilkenny in the seventeenth cen-
tury, and the Protestant convention
at Dungannon in the eighteenth,
spoke in almost identical tones as
to Ireland's position under the tri-
ple crown of Scotland, England, and
Ireland. It was very much as if
Virginia in 1865 said: "I have
fought you long and bravely ; re-

cognize and secure to me the ful-
ness of state rights, and I will loy-
ally cast in my lot as a member of
the U-nited States." How closely the
founders of the new Irish movement
kept on the old lines may be seen
from the subjoined "platform " laid
down by the " Home Government
Association " in 1870 :

"HOME GOVERNMENT ASSOCIA-
TION.

" GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

" I- This association is formed for the
purpose of obtaining for Ireland the right
of self-government by means of a na-
tional parliament.

" II. It is hereby declared, as the es-
sential principle of this association, that
the objects, and THE ONLY OBJECTS, con-
templated by its organization are :

" To obtain for our country the right
and privilege of managing our
.own affairs, by a parliament as-
sembled in Ireland, composed of
her majesty the sovereign, and
her successors, and the Lords and
Commons of Ireland :

" To secure for that parliament, under
a federal arrangement, the right
of legislating for and regulating
all matters relating- to the internal
affairs of Ireland, and control over
Irish resources and revenues, sub-
ject to the obligation of contribut-
ing our just proportion of the im-
perial expenditure :

"To leave to an imperial parliament
the power of dealing with all
questions affecting the imperial
crown and government, legisla-
tion regarding the colonies and
other dependencies of the crown,
the relations of the United Empire
with foreign states, and all matters
appertaining to the defence and
the stability of the empire at large.

"To attain such an adjustment of the
relations between the two coun-
tries, without any interference with
the prerogatives of the crown, or
any disturbances of the principles
of the constitution.

" III. The association invites the co-
operation of all Irishmen who are will-
ing to join in seeking for Ireland a fed-

The IrisJi Home-Rule Movement.

513

eral arrangement based upon these gen-
eral principles.

" IV. Tne association will endeavor
to forward the object it has in view, by
using all legitimate means of influencing
public sentiment, both in Ireland and
Great Britain, by taking all opportunities
of instructing and informing public opin-
ion, and by seeking to unite Irishmen of
all creeds and classes in one national
movement, in support of the great na-
tional object hereby contemplated.

" V. It is declared to be an essential
principle of the association that, while
every member is understood by joining
it to concur in its general object and
plan of action, no person so joining is
committed to any political opinion, ex-
cept the advisability of seeking for Ire-
land the amount of self-government
contemplated in the objects of the asso-
ciation."

Though rather diffidently and un-
ostentatiously projected, the new
movement was hailed with general
approbation. Yet it had for some
time hanging on either flank very
bitter though not very numerous
assailants. The ultra-tories, led by
the Dublin Daily Express, shrieked
fiercely at the Protestant conserva-
tives that they had entered the
camp of Fenianism and Romanism;
the ultra- whigs, led by the Dublin
Evening Post, howled wildly at the
Catholics that they were the tools
of Orangemen who shammed Home
Rule merely to spite .Mr. Glad-
stone for disestablishing the Pro-
testant Church. There can be no
doubt this latter idea had long a
deterrent effect on the Catholic
bishops and clergy; they thought
the new movement too like a Protes-
tant revenge on an English minister
whom they regarded as a benefac-
tor. u The newly-born patriotism
of these Tory-nationalists will soon
vanish," they said (not without show
of reason) ; " wait until they have
driven Mr. Gladstone from office,
and got Disraeli back again they
will then draw off quick enough
VOL. xxin. 33

from Home Rule." " Very likely,"
answered the Catholic Home-Ru-
lers ; " we are quite prepared to
find a large percentage of these
men fall- off, but enough of them
will remain faithful and true to
make the movement a success ; and
especially the Protestant youth of
the country henceforth will be
ours."

Time at all events such time as
has since elapsed has quite vindi-
cated this view.

Meantime the country was pro-
nouncing gradually but decisively
on the movement. Within the first
six months the following corpora-
tions, town commissions, and boards
of guardians passed formal votes
endorsing its principles :
Cork (Municipal Council).

Limerick " "

Athlone (Town Commission).
Ballinasloe " "

Clones
Dungarvan
Galway
Kingstown
Longford
Nenagh
New Ross
Mullingar
Queenstown

Tuam '*

Dublin (Board of Guardians).
Cork

Drogheda "

Galway
Kilkenny
Kilmallock
Millstreet
Limerick Farmers' Club
Cork
Mallow " "

This was barely a few months'
work as to the pronouncement of
popularly-elected public bodies.
A number of public meetings in
various parts of the country, at-
tended by tens of thousands of the

...

a
a

The Iris /i Ho me- Rule Movement.

people, gave a further stamp of ap-
proval and a cheer of welcome to
the movement.

The mode of electing the gov-
erning body or council of the as-
sociation was peculiar. In place
of the usual mode proposing the
list at the annual public meeting,
and passing it there and then the
members of the council were elect-
ed by ballot-papers ; each member
of the association, no matter where
resident, receiving his paper and
exercising his vote as well as if he
lived on the spot in Dublin. Much
curiosity existed to see the result
of this secret ballot-vote in a large
body so mixed in religious class
and (in a sense) political opinions.
Two-thirds or three-fourths of the
voters would be Catholics was it
not a grievous peril that by any
chance they might ballot in a near-
ly exclusively Catholic council, and
thus sow misgiving and mistrust
amongst the Protestants ? But
never yet have the Catholics of
Ireland, in private or in public,
failed to refute by a noble tol-
erance the evil suspicions of their
foes. The very first council thus
elected (under circumstances, too,
that precluded concert or arrange-
ment as to either general or par-
ticular result) turned out to be
composed of thirty-two Catholics
and twenty-nine Protestants ; and
two Protestants headed the poll ! *
The announcement had a profound
effect, not only in cementing and
solidifying the new union of parties
and creeds within the organization,
but also in spreading its principles
abroad. A good idea of the varied

* Every year nearly the same five or six men
have been returned at the head of the paper; Isaac
Butt always first, next to him either O'Neill Daunt
or John Martin ; the others almost invariably being
.Rev. Professor Galbraith, A. M. Sullivan, J. P.
Ronayne, and Mitchell Henry. [Mr. Ronayne, we
regret to say. died \vhile this article was in our
fhands. ED. C W.]

4
i

7
3
3
3
4
i

classes composing the governing
body thus elected may be gathered
from the following analysis of the
Home-Rule Council for 1872 :
Catholic clergy, .
Protestant clergy,
(The late) Lord Mayor,
Aldermen, .
Deputy lieutenants,
Doctors of medicine, .
Knights,

Justices of the peace, .
Lieutenant-Colonel, .
Members of Parliament,
Queen's counsel,
Solicitors, . . . . .2
Town councillors, . . .3
The British Liberal party, who
at first pooh-poohed the " Home-
Rule craze," at length began to
take alarm ; for without the Irish
vote that party could neither at-
tain to nor retain office. They
warned the Catholic hierarchy to
discourage this mischievous busi-
ness. It was at best " inoppor-
tune " ; it would arrest Mr. Glad-
stone's beneficent design of settling
the Catholic university education
question ; and would only " play
the Tory game." Liberalism was
not going to die easily. Things
came to a crisis in the Kerry elec-
tion of 1872. On the death that
year of Lord- Kenmare, his son,
Viscount Castlerosse, then Catho-
lic-whig-liberal member for Kerry,
attained to the earldom, and thus
created a vacancy in the parlia-
mentary representation. By a com-
pact between the great landlords
of the county, Whig and Tory, thirty
years previously, it was agreed to
" halve " the county between them-
selves : one Protestant Tory mem-
ber from the great house of Her-
bert of Muckross, and one Catholic
Whig from the noble house of Ken-
mare an " alliance offensive and
defensive " against all third parties

The Irish Home-Ride Movement. 515

or popular intruders being thus es- Barely less important (and only
tablished. On this occasion the less important because of some pe-
new Earl of Kenmare nominated culiar features in the Kerry strug-
as his successor in the family seat gle) was another election being
his first cousin, Mr. James A. Dease, fought out in Galvvay County at the
an estimable Catholic gentleman same moment. That county, about
acceptable to the people in every a year previously, had elected un-
way but one : he was not a Home- opposed, on Home-Rule principles,
Ruler. Although the Catholic bi- a man the value of whose accession
shop, Right Rev. Dr. Moriarty, to the national ranks it would be
joined the county landlords in almost impossible to overestimate,
nominating Mr. Dease, the bulk This was Mitchell Henry, of Kyle-
of the Catholic clergy, and the peo- more Castle, near relative by de-
pie almost unanimously, revolted, scent of that Patrick Henry illustri-
and, amidst a shout of derision ous in American annals. Not be-
at such a " hopeless ' attempt, cause of his large wealth he is
hoisted the flag of Home Rule, said to have succeeded on his fa-
They, Catholics almost to a man, ther's death to a fortune of over a
chose out as their candidate a young million pounds sterling but for his
Protestant Kerryman barely home high character, his great ability and
from Oxford University Roland thoroughly Irish spirit, he was a
Blennerhassett, of Kells. He was man of great influence, and his es-
a Home-Ruler, and much loved pousal of Home Rule was quite
even as a boy by the Celtic peasan- an event. Now, however, another
try of that wild Iveragh that breaks election, this time contested, fierce-
the first roll of the Atlantic billows ly contested, had arisen ; the can-
on the stormy Kerry coast. Ire- didates being Colonel Trench, son
land and England held breath and of Lord Clancarthy, Whig and Tory
watched the struggle as a tacitly- landlord nominee, and Captain
admitted test combat. John Philip Nolan, Home-Rule

candidate, under the auspices of

l Who spills the foremost foeman's life, t j preat " Prelate of the West " the

His party conquers in the strife." ' b 1 eaL ebl >

world-famed Archbishop of Tuam.

Such an election-struggle proba- For years the grand old man had
bly had not stirred Ireland since not interfered in an election or
that of Clare in 1829. It resulted emerged from the sorrowful reti-
in an overwhelming victory for cence into which he retired after
Home Rule. Deserted by every the ruin of the Tenant League,
influence of power that should have But Ireland was up for the old
aided and befriended them (save cause, and "John of Tuam," O'Con-
their ever-faithful priests, who, in nell's stoutest ally in the campaign
nearly every parish, marched to the for Repeal, was out under the old
poll at the head of their people) flag. Not to let his name and his
the frieze-coats of "O'Connell's influence be discredited in his old
count\," rising in their might, tore age was as much the point of bat-
down the territorial domination tie, certainly the point of honor, on
that had ruled them for thirty the part of the people, as to return
years, and struck a blow that decid- the Home-Ruler. The struggle was
cd the fortunes of the Home-Rule one of those desperate and merciless
movement. encounters between landlord tyran-

5 i6

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

ny on the one side and conscience
in the poor man's breast on the other,
which used to make Irish elections
as deadly and disastrous as armed
conflicts in the field. Happily, it
\vas the last of its class ever to be
seen in Ireland ; for the Ballot Act,
passed a year after, closed for ever
the era of vote-coercion. Captain
Nolan was triumphantly returned.
The famous " Galway Election Pe-
tition," in which Judge Keogh so
distinguished himself, unseated him
(for a time) soon after ; but Kerry
and Galway struck and won to-
gether that week in February, 1872 ;
and the one blaze of bonfires on
the hill-tops of all the western
counties, the following Saturday
night, celebrated the double victory
for the national cause.

In the course of the next suc-
ceeding year every election vacancy
in Ireland but one resulted in the
return of a Home-Ruler, Mr. Butt
himself being among the number.
There was now no longer any ques-
tion as to the magnitude of the
dimensions to which the movement
had attained. " Home Rule " had
become a watchword throughout
the land ; a salutation of good-will

on the road-sides; a signal-shout
on the hills. To this had grown
the work begun almost in fear and
trembling that night at the Bilton
Hotel in 1870. The hour could be
no longer delayed for convening
the whole Irish nation in solemn
council to make formal and autho-
ritative pronouncement upon the
movement, its principles, and its
programme. In the end of the
summer of 1873 it was accordingly
decided that in the following No-
vember an Aggregate Conference of
Delegates from every county in
Ireland should be convened in the
historic - Round Room of the Ro-
tunda, memorable as the meeting-
place of the Irish Volunteer Con-
vention more than three-quarters
of a century before.

But the history of that impor-
tant event fitly belongs to another
chapter of such a record as this.
The point now arrived at closes
the first stage of the Home-Rule
movement from 1870101873. The
second three years from 1873 to
1876 will exhibit it in a new light,
with the mandate of a nation as its
authority, and a powerful parliamen-
tary party as its army of operation.

Sir Thomas More.

517

SIR THOMAS MORE

A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON

IX.

AFTER the king had declared
that he no longer wished her to as-
sume any authority in the house-
hold, the queen secluded herself
entirely in the most retired portion
of the palace In default of happi-
ness, she at least found forgetfulness
there ; f6r it was no longer thought
necessary to watch over her. Her
rival, on the contrary, glorying in
the light of the king's favor and
of her own youth and beauty, spent
her days in festivity and enjoyment.
She allowed herself to be carried
away by the flattery of the throng
of courtiers who followed in her
train and servilely implored a
glance from the eye, a smile or a
word from her whom they had so
quickly abandoned but a short time
before.

For several days, however, the
tumult of these fetes, the sound of
music and dancing, had not entered
to wound the heart of Catherine in
her seclusion. She was seated near
the fire, and turning in her hands
some worsted stuff intended to
make a garment for a poor child.
The heavy folds of the curtains
hung motionless, the light flame
of the waxen tapers burning near
her had not wavered, and yet
Catherine started nervously and
trembled. The anguish of mind
she had so long endured had, so to
speak, worn away the mortal cover-
ing and brought her soul in direct
contact with exterior objects ; she
saw that which possessed no corpo-
real shape, she heard that which

had no sound. Some person un-
known has entered her apartments ;
her beautiful eyes are turned to-
wards the door. Very soon, in fact,
the curtains roll on their golden
rings. A man enters. He advan-
ces a step and pauses. It is Norris,
the favorite attendant of Henry
VIII.

"What wouldst thou?" asked
the queen with that sweet but im-
posing majesty of manner so natu-
ral to her that she could not Itv it

aside.

" Madam the king madam !"
And the unfortunate man hesitat-
ed, trembling in every limb.

A mist passed over Catherine's
eyes.

" Madam," he was at last able to
articulate, " the king, my lord, sends
me to tell you that before daybreak
to-morrow morning he wishes you
to be ready to leave the palace."

The queen turned pale. . . .

u Has your majesty any command
to give me ?" said Norris after a
moment's silence.

" The king shall be obeyed," re-
plied the queen coldly, and she
made a sign for him to withdraw.
He bowed and hastily left the apart-
ment. Catherine remained mute
with grief and astonishment. " I
have, then, still more to suffer !" she
cried at length, falling on her knees.
" He drives me from his presence
he, my own husband. He will
not even permit me to breathe in
the most remote corner of his pal-
ace ! ... Ah! well. Yes, I will

518

Sir Thomas More.

fly from this house of malediction,
whose hearthstone has been soiled
by infamy, and may I never enter
it again !"

But, alas ! Catherine had as yet
spoken for herself alone. Suddenly
the mother's heart asserted its su-
premacy ; she arose hastily, seized
one of the lights near her, and, pass-
ing rapidly through several apart-
ments, she at length paused, pant-
ing for breath.

" No one!" she exclaimed, look-
ing wildly around her, " no one has
been near these apartments to dis-
turb her rest. The most profound
silence reigns." And in her turn
she feared to awaken her daughter.

Softly approaching the bed on
which reposed the little Mary, she
drew aside with her royal hand the
heavy curtain of purple and gold.
The child was sleeping profoundly ;
her head rested on one of the deli-
cate arms ; her long, golden hair,
loosened from all confinement, hung
over her lovely neck and shoulders,
and down on her light muslin night-
dress. She had thrown off the bed-
clothing that covered her. The
blood, pure and calm, circulated
gently through the transparent
veins. She seemed as happy, as
tranquil, as her mother was agitat-
ed and miserable. Catherine, in an
agony inexpressible, regarded her
sleeping child, her hand nervously
clenching the curtain she was hold-
ing back.

"Sleep on, my daughter, sleep !"
she murmured. "Mayst thou never
know the weary vigils and bitter
anguish of suffering ! But what do
I say? Does he not involve thee
in the unjust proscription of thy
mother ? The hat'red he bears to-
wards her, will he not extend it to
thee ? Art thou not the very link
that must be broken?"

And Catherine, in despair, drew

back like a stranger in this apart-
ment she must leave before the
dawn of the morning. . . . Again she
returned to the couch of her child.
She bent over her ; her Ups almost
touched her forehead. Then a
gloomy courage took possession of
her soul.

" Why torture myself thus," she
cried, " since thou art still left to
me ? Though all forget me, though
the earth open beneath me, I will
never more be separated from thee.
Thou shalt be my joy, my life, my
hope ; thou shalt become my sole ?
my only friend ! One day, yes, one
day thou wilt understand thy mo-
ther. Let him cast thee far awav

from him ah ! what matters it ? I
open my heart to thee ! The earth
is vast ; she will welcome her unfor-
tunate children. And when, worn
down by sorrow, I shall be ready to
yield up my life, my hand will still
be raised to bless thee, and my eyes
will be fixed upon thine. It shall
be thou who wilt close these eyes
before I descend /into the night of
the grave, and thy tears will bedew
my last resting-place. Then wilt
thou be courageous, and in thy
turn learn how to vanquish and defy
evil fortune."

Thus spoke the unhappy queen.
She arose and again fell on her
knees. But the hour strikes
that hour she had desired, hoped,
waited for, as a moment of happi-
ness, of hope and consolation. It
now strikes, clashing, resounding
through the silent chambers of her
stricken heart, only to awaken a
new and fearful sorrow. Still, she
hesitates not ; she again embraces
the child, then tears herself away-
flies. She hastens eagerly on-
Catherine has disappeared. . . .

On being informed of the clergy's
refusal the king fell into a furious

Sir Thomas More.

519

rage. For three days the bishops
were shut up in Westminster. The
royal commissioners went to and
fro continually from the king's
palace to the assembly; but the
deliberations were conducted with
so much secrecy that nothing was
known of them outside.

Meanwhile, night came on, and
the most profound silence reigned
throughout the long cloisters of
the abbey. The pale rays of the
moon alone illuminated the splen-
did arches. The sanctuary was
deserted, and the red nicker of
a lamp suspended in the immense
vault showed no larger than a lu-
minous point set in space. A wo-
man covered with a long veil stood
within the sacred place, leaning
against the iron railing, apparently
absorbed in prayer. But no, she
was not praying; the human soul
must be calm and resigned before
it can truly lift itself up towards
Clod. Burning tears streamed from
her eyes in torrents upon the stone
pavement beneath her feet ; she
started at the slightest creaking
of the wooden stalls surrounding
the choir, and her attentive ear
caught even the least breath of air.
Anon footsteps were heard.

" St. Catherine, pray for us," said
a dear and well-known voice.

"Amen," responded the queen;
and she advanced towards two men
who were approaching.

" More !" she exclaimed, " More!
you have abandoned me, then?"

" Never, madam !"

" Well, then," she cried, seizing
his hand, " abandon me now ! Cease,
<x i ase to sacrifice yourself for me !
Know that you have no longer
a queen ; the banished Catherine
leaves to-morrow the palace of
her cruel husband. No place of
refuge is offered her; she is left
to choose some obscure corner of

the earth where she will be at
liberty to die. But he is mistaken !

1 will never leave the soil of Eng-

U I

land no, never!" she cried.
will never look again upon my
own happy land. * Woman,' they
would say to me, ' you have de-
serted your children ; you have
not known how to die in the land
over which you ought to reign ;
has the Spanish blood, then,
ceased to flow in your veins?'
No, never !"

On hearing her speak thus More
stood transfixed with astonishment
and sorrow.

"They have dared!" he said at
last, " they have dared, Roches-
ter!"

" Yes," replied the queen, " they
have dared ! But, Rochester, speak;
the time is short ; every moment is
precious. What has passed in the
assembly?"

" Where shall I find words to tell
you, madam?" replied the good
and venerable old man. " Parlia-
ment has been won over ; your
friends, powerless, have been made
to tremble for their own lives ;
threats of death pass from mouth
to mouth. I myself have scarcely
been able to escape their criminal
attempts on my life ; a dish on my
table was poisoned, and several of
my people have died from eating of
it. Consternation reigns secretly
in every heart. The clergy are
threatened on all sides ; the people
are exasperated by a thousand ca-
lumnies, the sources of which re-
main scrupulously concealed. The
soil of old England seems about to
be shaken to its foundations. Vice
stalks forth with head erect, while
the virtuous man flies in terror.
There is time yet, madam. Save
yourself ! Save us all ! Renounce
an alliance so fatal for you ; aban-
don this prince who no longer puts

520

Sir Thomas More,

any restraint upon his passions-
he is not worthy of \ou; and let
the house of the Lord become your
retreat and be your refuge !"

"What sayest thou?" replied
Catherine. "Was it for cowardly
advice like this 1 called you to me,
Rochester? And my daughter
what kingdom and what father
would you give hei ?"

" God, madam, and the justice
of her cause!" cried the afflicted
old bishop.

"Then you have yielded?" said
the queen.

" Yes," replied Rochester, " we
have recoiled before our worst
fears ; we have made a pact with
falsehood, since AVC can no longer
believe in the veracity of the king.
He has summoned before him in
turn each one of the most influen-
tial members of the conference. He
has sworn to them, in the presence
of God himself, that he desired in
naught to usurp the authority of the
spiritual head of the church ; that
naught could ever change him from
being the faithful and obedient child
of the church he is; that he hated
heresy, and that his sole desire was
to prevent it spreading in his king-
dom in a word, that he wished to
live and die in the Catholic faith, in
the faith of his fathers, and that he
only asked of them a title that
would give him honor and prove
the confidence they had in their
prince and the love they bore to-
ward their lawful sovereign. Now,
madam, what shall I say to you ?
He has been so far successful in
convincing them that they have
carried the majority of votes. We
have granted him everything with
this restriction, however : that we
acceded to his demand only so far as
the law of God would permit. But,
alas'! discouragement and dissen-
sions have entered among us, and

the choice of men by whom the king
surrounds himself is sufficient evi-
dence of the road he is resolved to
follow. Thomas A.udley replaces
More, and Cranmer, that base in-
triguer, is installed in the place of
the learned and immortal Warham."
' Great heaven !" said the queen,
" that vile tool of Anne Bolevn

primate of England ? Then all is
lost to faith, hope, the future, suc-
corall ! "

Meanwhile, a strange disturbance
was heard, and all at once a door
leading to the interior of the ab-
bey was opened. A number of the
king's guard appeared, armed and
bearing torches. The queen, terri-
fied, hurriedly retired with More and
Rochester within the shadow of a
chapel where for centuries had re-
posed the ashes of the old Saxon
kings. The tombs, on which they
were represented in sculpture the
size of life, lying at full length, their
hands crossed on their breasts, the
head and feet resting on pillows of
stone, cast deep shadows all around
them. These shadows, fortunately,
concealed the queen, Rochester,
and More entirely from observation,
while they could see distinctly all
that took place in the choir.

The monks, marching in two
lines, defiled two by two and took
their places in the stalls, while the
guards stationed themselves at the
different openings? The gleam of
the torches lighted up everything.
Soon was seen to enter the Abbot
of Westminster, who preceded three
men richly dressed and enveloped in
cloaks. They all three seated them-
selves in large velvet arm-chairs ; but
one of them sat in the loftiest and
most richlv adorned of all. In a

word, it was plain that a tribunal w;is
constituted, but that it waited the
presence of the accused in order to
give judgment. He tarried not long.

Sir Thomas More.

$21

The door again opened, and they
beheld a young woman enter whose
countenance was very pale. She
walked between two guards, and
her dress was that of a religious.

"What!" said Sir Thomas in a
stifled tone. " Why, that is the Holy
Maid of Kent ! I believe she has
her hands bound. No, it is her
veil. What a strange matter ! Poor
young girl ! The rumor of her pre-
dictions must have reached the
king's ears. I have so constantly
warned her not to meddle in affairs
of state !" murmured More.

" Can it be she ?" cried the queen
and Rochester in the same breath.
"More, are you sure of it?"

' Quite sure," he answered. " I
remember perfectly her pale and
suffering countenance."

In the meantime they made the
young girl seat herself on a stool in
the midst of the assembly, and the
Abbot of Westminster began to in-
terrogate her.

" What is yo-ur name?" he asked
in a very loud tone of voice.

She neither moved nor replied.

' I conjure you, my sister, to an-
swer me," he added more solemnly
still. " What is your name ?"

'Elizabeth Barton," she answer-
ed, fixing on him a lingering look
of surprise and astonishment.

'Where were you born ?"

' In Aldington, in the county of
Kent," answered she very distinct-

' What is your age?"
Twenty-three years."

' Why did you become a reli-
gious?" continued the abbot.

' I am not a religious ; I have
assumed this habit in order to do
penance and take care of the poor."

' Who has persuaded you to do
this?"

'Myself."

1 But do you not pretend to have

revelations from heaven, and have
you not told the assembled peo-
ple of extraordinary things which
are hidden in the future?"

' Yes, my lord," she replied ;
and her eyes began to gleam with
a singular light.

' \Vell! repeat what you have said,"
interrupted he who was seated in the
loftiest chair, rising abruptly to his
feet. " Repeat what you have said,"
he continued. And the long, flame-
colored plume that shaded his large
hat seemed to tremble with impa-
tience, like the head which it cov-
ered.

At the sound of that voice, so im-
perious and bearing the expression
of a soul so deeply agitated, the
Holy Maid of Kent seemed strick-
en with horror. She arose and
stood in the midst of the assembly,
and, turning toward the speaker, ex-
tended her hand.

"O King Henry!" she cried,
" think not to conceal yourself from
my eyes. I know you ; I know
with what power you are invested ;
and now vou would have me tell

you what I have said and teach
you what I have learned. Well,
then, . . . yes, . . . king, . . .
but mortal like myself, . . . trem-
ble, recoil with horror and dismay,
at sight of the black hypocrisy with
which you have enveloped your
heart. Look well; fix your eyes
on the infamous vices that have
eaten out the last sentiment of vir-
tue God had implanted there. . . .
Your crimes have multiplied like
the sands which roll with the waves
in the depths of the sea ; you will
inundate the steps of your throne
with the blood of the noblest and
purest. Heresy, introduced by you
into this land, will multiply under
a thousand different forms ; every-
where with truth will be banished
true ch'arity. The years of your

522

Sir Thomas More.

reign will witness the birth of more
calamities than the rain of heaven
will cause flowers to grow. The
woman you desire will dishonor
your bed and perish on the scaffold
which your own hands will have
erected; and your daughter, the
child you this day reject, shall
reign. Yes ! she shall reign," she
cried, " in spite of all your efforts.
Then your bones, eaten by worms,
shall be buried under the stones of
the sepulchre ; but your execrable
memory shall live among men, and
your name this name of Henry
VIII., stamped with the ineffaceable
seal of blood will carry down to
ages most remote the horrible
memory of a monster ! . . . I have
spokenV' *

Who could describe the effect
produced by these last words on
the spectators ? Whiter than the
linen robe which enveloped his
form, the Abbot of Westminster
was seized with terror. It was he
who had persuaded the king to
summon this woman, in order, he
said, to undeceive the people, who
believed in her, and pacify in this
way the credulous and superstitious
masses.

A prolonged silence reigned
throughout that vast temple ; who
should dare to speak?

Cromwell alone turned towards
the king. He encountered his fixed
and furious gaze, which plainly
said : " Woe to those who have de-
ceived me !"

He was not at all disconcerted
by it. " Be calm, sire," he said in
a low voice, " be calm ; nothing is
lost yet."

Henry made no reply, but Crom-
well needed no answer.

"My dear sister," he said in a
gentle and honeyed tone, " who has
instructed you to say these things ?"

* See Sanders on the Holy Maid of Kent.

And he saw Henry VIII. convul-
sively clench his fists.

'* No one," answered she in a
sweet, sonorous voice.

' No one ! That is hard to be-
lieve," he replied in a tone almost
of derision ..." You have, at
least, repeated all this to several
others. . . . That the king, your
lord, may believe you to be sincere,
you should hide nothing from him.

* c?

Have you not written to Cardinal
Wolsey?"

"Without doubt," she replied,
' I have informed him of what I
ought to have let him know, . . .
because that was my duty. Sir
Thomas More, the lord chancellor,
can bear witness that I tell you the
truth."

"Ah! Sir Thomas too," replied
with emphasis the odious Crom-
well ; and he dwelt especially on
the name of this just man. "Sir
Thomas More ! It is very well, my
dear sister. We verily believe
thee."

The anxiety that seized on the
invisible spectators of the chapel
may be imagined. The queen was
entirely absorbed with the thought
of her daughter ; but on hearing

<-> ' O

the terrible indiscretion of this fool-
ish or inspired woman she with dif-
ficulty stifled a cry of terror.

" More has written to you, then ?"
continued Cromwell, whose inge-

' C3

nuity was never at fault.

' Yes, to recommend himself to
my prayers, but not on this sub-
ject."

; ' But you have spoken with him
many times," replied Cromwell in a
confident tone, although he really
knew nothing about it.

' Once only," she answered, " in
the house of the Carthusians at
Richmond, where I saw him with
Masters Beering, Risby, and my
Lord Rochester. . . . But they

Sir TJioinas More. 523

advised me not to speak of these which \vas becoming every moment

things, and to keep my revelations more and more embarrassing,
secret." " It is well," he said ; "we have

"They were only the more crim- had enough of it ; I am satisfied."
inal," replied Cromwell; "because He arose abruptly. All followed

it was their duty to have unfolded him ; the guards threw open the

the wicked designs of which you doors, extinguished the lights, led

are guilty toward his royal ma- away the Holy Maid of Kent, and

jesty." the monks slowly retired into the

At the word " guilty " she raised abbey,
her head and fixed her black and

piercing eyes upon Cromwell. The hours of night rapidly suc-
" Guilty !" she exclaimed. ' It is ceeded each other; already a whit-
a crime, then, to speak the truth ?" ish circle began to rise and extend
She said no more, but took her over the horizon. Nevertheless,
seat without awaiting permission. all were wrapped in sleep in the
In the meantime the king, thanks plain and beneath the shadow of
to Cromwell, had time to recover the wcods. The industrious hus-
from the astonishment that had bandman still rested his weary
seized him, and to hide from the limbs on his rude couch ; the dog
monks the humiliation which he which guarded his thatched cottage
could hardly wait to avenge; for, had ceased to howl ; and even the
not disdaining himself to subdue invalid found, at the approach of
this feeble enemy whom they had day, a moment of repose. But
represented as unable to speak in idleness, always so prolonged in the
his presence, he had believed, on palaces of kings, seemed to have
the faith of his confidants, it was been banished from the palace of
worth while to summon the Holy Whitehall. Lights were seen glanc-
Maid of Kent before him, in order ing to and fro athwart the large
to show that she was worthy of no windows ; hurried footsteps were
confidence. Now the most furious heard running up and down the
tli oughts were at strife within him. marble stairways ; whilst a coach
How had she recognized him ? with several horses attached, slow-
Had the queen's friends instructed ly drove around a distant court-
lier ? . . . But she would not yard.

name them. What a story this Anne Boleyn herself was already

would make throughout the king- occupied with the arrangement of

dom ! And his hardened heart her attire. She was seated upon soft

could not cease being troubled- cushions of velvet before a toilet ta-

Cromwell, despite the joy he felt ble of ebony and gold. A young girl

at having made her name More and named Anne Savage, whom she pre-

the Bishop of Rochester, was at a ferred above all her maids because

loss how to close with dignity this dis- of her uninterrupted cheerfulness,

reeable scene. The monks open- her merry chat, and her expertness

ed their office- books and pretended in the arts of the toilet, perfumed

to be reading; the woman remain- the long and beautiful hair which

ed seated on her stool and said she was arranging with extreme

nothing more ; the guards waited care on the brow of her mistress,

some signal, which no one gave. while the latter was searching in

The king decided the question, a casket she held in her lap for the

524

Sir Thomas More.

jewels she wished to adorn her
ears and add to her coiffure.

" There is nothing at all in this
box!" cried Boleyn, tossing over
pell-mell the most magnificent jew-
elry. ..." These emeralds are so
trying to the face ! These pearls
injure the complexion ! Anne, go
bring me something else. All
these are frightful I tell you ! . . .
But what is that ? I hear a noise,
... a cry. . . . Listen. . . .
No, . . it is in the king's
apartments. . . ."

"I hear nothing," replied Anne
Savage after a moment's silence,
during which she had not breathed.

" Ah ! yes, I hear it," replied Anne
Boleyn ; " I suspect the cause of it,
too. . . . But I do not want to
think about this. . . . However,
it is a bad omen. .

And as Lady Boleyn was very
superstitious, and her conscience
far from easy, she let the casket
fall at her feet, and, bowing her
head on her bosom, seemed to be
absorbed in deep reflection.

Anne Savage tried to complete
the coiffure as she sat in that posi-
tion, but she failed in her task.

" If my lady cannot hold up her
head," at last cried the maid im-
patiently, " it will be impossible for
me to arrange her head-dress pro-
perly."

This admonition recalled Anne
Boleyn to herself; she immediately
raised her head and began care-
fully to scrutinize herself in the
mirror placed before her. Well
pleased with her appearance, she
arranged two or three hair-pins
ornamented with pearls strung like
the beads of a rosary, and drew
down a little the net-work of gold
that fell below her cap and confin-
ed her tresses.

With this improvement she arose,
in order to choose from among the

dresses sne aad caused to be
brought and laid out on all the
furniture in the room.

" This blue, ... or rather this
lilac," she murmured; "no, these
embroideries are heavy and ugly.
I will try this white. ... I would
have liked a rose-color ; here is
one. Really, there is nothing here
that pleases me. ... It is true,"
she continued spitefully-, " any of
these ought to be good eno.ugh for
one who is going to be married in a
garret !"

* In a garret!" interrupted the
maid. " What ! is it not in the cha-
pel my lady is to be given away ?"

" No," replied Lady Boleyn, red
dening. " The king has changed
everything since yesterday evening.
He has had an altar put up in one
of the upper rooms of the palace.
You alone are to carry my train,
and Norn's and Heneage will serve
as witnesses. These are the honors
which he deigns to accord the
Queen of England. . . . Ah ! my
dear Anne, I am very miserable,"
added Lady Anne, almost ready to
burst into tears.

" In a garret!" repeated Savage,
and she stood as if stupefied. " In
a garret ! O my lady ! how can
you suffer this ? . . . Well, now
do you not think I was right in tell-
ing you that you would do wrong
to marry the king, and abandon so
cruelly Lord Percy, Earl of North-
umberland, and lord of I know not
how many boroughs ? He would
not have believed himself obliged

to marry you in the garret of North-
umberland Castle ! He loved you
so much; he was so proud of you !
Many a time has he said to me :
' Anne, you are a good girl ; you
have the same name as your mis-
tress. You shall never leave my
wife ; I will give you a marriage
portion and an honest man for a

Sir Thomas More.

525

husband.' Besides, madam," con-
tinued Anne Savage in a grave, sen-
tentious manner, " I can never for-
get that my grandfather, who was
very learned and respected by all
the parish, used to say to me as I
would sit by his side to sew : ' Re-
member well, my little Anne, never
to marry a man who is above you
in wealth or rank ; otherwise you
will not be happy, because love
flies away very quickly, and re-
proaches follow.'

" Ah ! my dear Anne, do not recall
anew my regrets," cried Lady Bo-
leyn, with tears in her eyes. " I
have never ceased to love Percy ;
. . . and when I compare the vio-
lence and haughty manner of the
king with the gentleness and vir-
tues of Percy, I am miserable for
having listened to my ambition.
( )h ! how severely I am punished.
Henry considers me overwhelmed
with honor by his loving me ! Sub-
missive to all his caprices, I am
for ever fearful of losing his favor ;
while Percy, happy in the sole hope
of marrying me, always thanked me
for every smile or word that I ad-
dressed him. Anne, do you be-
lieve that he has entirely forgotten
me ?" she asked suddenly.

" Truly, my lady, I wot not ; I only
know by my cousin Savage that he
no longer receives any one in his
fair castle at York. . . . But be it
as it may, how, my lady, could it
profit you to-day ?"

" Nay, as thou sayest, naught, my
poor Anne," replied Lady Boleyn;
but as she spoke she could not re-
strain her tears.

She recalled to mind all that she
had done to induce the king to
marry her ; that, since she had
been able to attain an end so diffi-
cult, she certainly ought to feel sat-
isfied ; and yet, in spite of these
considerations, she found herself

overwhelmed with regrets for the
past and fears for the future. She
reflected that Henry had conduct-
ed himself so cruelly toward the
queen, if ever she ceased to please
him she would have everything to
fear ; and the happiness of that
brilliant picture of thrones and
honors which she had always dwelt
on with such ardent longings seem-
ed to vanish at the very moment
when she saw it about to be realiz-
ed. But Anne Savage could not
conceive what should afflict her or
this point.

"Why, "she exclaimed, u should
you torture yourself in this way ?
It is too late to think of bringing
him back, since he is already mar
ried. Besides, it is very strange ;
for you have told me a hundred
times that you loved nobody but
the king."

"You are right," replied Lady
Boleyn ; " that is true. I did love
him, and I love him still ; but I feel
that it is impossible to love very
long a person whom one cannot
respect."

" Better to have thought of that
sooner," murmured the maid ; but
she took care not to say so aloud.

Absorbed as she was in her sor-
row, Lady Boleyn did not forget
the care of her toilet, and, to assist
in drying her tears, she turned the
Venetian mirror in every direction
in order to survey herself; but she
was by no means satisfied with the
ensemble nor the details it presented
to her.

"See!" she cried, "how badly
these sleeves fit ; and these heavy
plaits around my waist. In sooth,
never was I so badly dressed.
This white satin robe with silver
flowers is frightful. . . . Besides, I
wanted a rose-colored dress, . . .
but of a color that is not here. They
leave me with naught indeed. This

526

Sir Tkomas More.

may not be borne. Go, bid all my
women enter ; I would know what
they think of me."

Anne Savage ran to open the
door. Scarcely had she opened
it . .

But let us leave the frivolous and
coquettish Boleyn to adorn with so
much care that form which the
dust of the tomb has long since
claimed, and follow rather this man,
all flushed, out of breath, and hur-
ried, who eagerly mounts the stairs
in search of the king. The guards
are standing near the doors ; the
mats on which they passed the
night are still lying on the floor in
the lower hall of the palace ; they
rub their half-opened eyes, still be-
wildered with sleep. They offer
the usual salutations to Norris, who
advances, and whom they recog-
nize; but he passes through their
midst without seeming to perceive
them, and enters abruptly the
apartment of the king.

Henry VIII., leaning against one
of the windows, his face pressed
close to the glass, was gazing ea-
gerly out to behold all he had been
able to see of Catherine's departure ;
but, hearing the door open, he turned
quickly around, withdrew from the
window, and, going to the far end
of the apartment, took his seat.

" Well, good Norris," he said,
looking attentively at him, " what
a sad air you wear ! It was, then,
very difficult to get Catherine off?
I had foreseen it all, however."

" Your majesty had foreseen it all,
and yet methinks you have chosen
not to be by the while."

" What, then, has happed ?"

" Naught, of great moment no,
in sooth, naught but what should
have been. But I vow my heart
was bruised sore when the queen's
grief brake forth. Nothing loath
was she to go ; but when she saw

the Princess Mary was not let go
with her, and the door of the coach
closed, she fain would have cast
herself without. Then she uttered
cries the most heartrending, and,
stretching out her arms towards us,
besought us to let her return and
once more embrace her daughter.
The princess, seeing the despair of
her mother, with sobs and cries
begged to follow her. At length,
there being no way to prevent the
queen from descending, she clasped
her a thousand times in her arms.
She then wrote something on a
scrap of paper I have here, and
bade me deliver it to your majesty,
which I promised to do. She en-
treated all present to beg you to
have compassion on her and send
the Princess Mary to her; that she
asked but this one favor, and then
she would consent to do all that
you wished. It was necessary to
carry her to the coach ; for she fell
fainting; while embracing her daueh-

O o O

ter for the last time."

" Always these fainting fits of
hers," replied the king angrily ;
"yet will she say it is I who have
slain her. Come, let us see the
paper !"

Norris presented it.

The king opened it and read the
following words which the queen
had written in a trembling hand :

" SIRE : What have I done to
you that you treat me thus ? You
banish me from your palace and
condemn me to exile. Alas ! to
this I had submitted ; but why have
you the cruelty to separate me from
the only good of mine that is left
in all the world? You know well
that never have I gainsaid wish of
yours; but is it in my power not to
be your lawful wife ? I conjure
you, then, to have compassion on
me ! Give me back my daughter ;
give her to me, and I will weep

Sir Thomas illorc.

527

more the lot you have cast for me.
Become a stranger in the land over
which you reign, at least permit to
die in peace an unfortunate woman
whom you have deprived of her
rank, her country, and her friends.
I /eave me my daughter to console
the last days of a life that is almost
ended. What can you hope or fear
from her? Since you cast her out
from your arms, leave me the hap-
piness to take her to mine. I am
her mother ; I have brought her into
the world in sorrow ; I have nourish-
ed her from my own bosom she is
mine ; and, since it is your will to
deprive her of a father, do not, at
least, tear her from the arms of her
unhappy mother."

This letter, still all wet with tears,
produced a painful impression on
the mind of Henry.

This fellow will assuredly find
me of the crudest, " he said to him-
self. " It is well, it is well," he add-
ed in a loud voice. " It is a re-
quest that she makes to me ; we will
see to it later on. Everything is
ready, Norris ?" he added immedi-
ately.

' Yes, sire ; your orders have been
executed with the greatest exact-
ness. Heneage and Lady Berkley are
below; they await your majesty."

"Is Dr. Roland also there?"
demanded the king.

" Yes, sire ; he has been there
more than an hour."

" Well, go and seek Lady Bo-
ley n."

Norris immediately descended.
He found all the doors of Lady
Boleyn's apartments open, and in
the distance heard exclamations
mingling, and unceasingly repeated.

" Oh ! how lovely is my lady.
Never did she look more fair!"
they cried. " How handsomely my
lady's hair is dressed, and what
beautiful hair it is ! What a sweet
complexion, what a charming fig-
ure ! There is not a woman in all
the kingdom who is my ladv's
equal!"

Hearing this concert of praise,
Anne Boleyn began to take cour-

age.

' No, no," she said with an air
of disdain.; " I am very badly dress-
ed to-day."

As she said these words Norris
entered and announced to Lady
Boleyn that the king awaited
her.

She followed him at once, ac-
companied by Anne Savage ; the
other women stood in astonishment,
and were very curious to know why
this favor was shown to their com-
panion, while the jealousy with
which they already regarded her
was still further increased.

TO BE CONTINUED.

528

The Transcendental Movement in New England.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND.*

THIS volume reads pleasantly.
There is attached to it a peculiar
interest, and something of the
charm of a romance, for those who
have had some knowledge of the
transcendental movement in New
England, and acquaintance with its
leaders. The author has evidently
written his account with feelings of
sympathy and friendship, which he
acknowledges, and these have led
him to bring out all the good
points of the movement, while its
shortcomings, exaggerations, and
absurdities are scarcely, if at all,
hinted at. The style is clear and
smooth, the narrative never falters ;
the writer has contrived to throw a
certain halo around the leaders of
transcendentalism, and succeeded in
presenting in his book a series of
ideal portraits calculated to impose
somewhat upon strangers. The im-
pression which the work leaves on
the mind of the reader is as if he had
been listening to the conversation of
a member of a mutual admiration so-
ciety. Octavius Brooks Frothing-
hain is not a "central thinker," his
knowledge of the subject of which
he treats rs very limited, and his
religious insight is null. Transcen-
dentalism requires a differently-
equipped man to be its historian.
There is, somehow, a narrowness of
structure and a peculiar twist in the
faculties of the New England mind
perhaps a constitutional inheritance
-which renders it inapt to conceive
fint principles and grasp universal

* Transcendentalism in New England. A His-
tory. By Octavius Brooks Frothingham. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1876.

truths ; and although transcenden-
talism was an effort to rise above this
condition, it nevertheless carried
with it in its flight all these defects.

Our author has not written a his-
tory, but an interesting sketch
which will be useful, no doubt, to
some future historian. To write a
history, especially of a philosophical
and religious movement such as
transcendentalism pretended to be,
and really was, requires more than
an acquaintance with persons and
facts. One must comprehend its
real origin, and have mastered and
become familiar with his subject.
This is a task which Mr. Frothing-
ham has not accomplished.

Every heresy segregates its ad-
herents from the straight line of the
true progress of the human race,
all deviations from which are, in the
nature of things, either transitory
or fatal. They live, for the greater
part, outside of the cumulated wis-
dom and the broad stream of the
continuous life of humanity. When
the heresy has almost exhausted
its derived life for no heresy has
a source of life in itself and the
symptoms of its approaching death
begin to appear, the intelligent
and sincere who are born in it at
this stage of its career are the first to
seek to regain the unbroken unity of
truth. This is reached by two dis-
tinct and equally legitimate ways.
The first class gains the knowledge
of the whole body of the originally
revealed truth, from which its here-
sy cut it off, by tracing the truths re-
tained by the sect to their logical
connection with other no less im-

The Transcendental Movement in New England. 529

portant truths equally contained in natural reason, as though these

the same divine revelation. The were new and original discoveries !

second class falls back upon the es- They appear to fancy that the petty

sential truths of natural reason ; and sect to which they formerly adhered,

as all supernatural truth finds its and their dreary experience of its

support in natural truth, it follows rule, have been the sad lot of the

that the denial of any of the former whole human race ! It is as if a

involves a denial of the latter. Here- body of men had been led astray

sy always involves a mutilation of into a cavern where the direct rays

man's natural reason. Once the of the sun never penetrated, and,

integral natural basis recovered, after the lapse of some genera-

the repudiation of heresy as con- tions, their descendants approach its

trary to reason follows logically, mouth, breathe the fresh air, behold

But the experience of the human the orb of light, the mountains, the

race, that of the transcendentalists rivers, and the whole earth covered

included, shows plainly that nature with trees, flowers, and verdure.

does not suffice nature ; and this For the first time this glorious

class, at this moment, starts out to world, in all its wonderful beauty,

find a religion consonant with the bursts upon their view, and, in the

dictates of reason, satisfactory to candor of their souls, they flatter

all their spiritual 'necessities, and themselves that they alone are pri-

adequate to their whole nature, vileged with this vision, and know-

They ask, and rightly, for a religion ledge, and enjoyment ! Their lan-

which shall find its fast foundations guage but, be it understood, in their

in the human breast. This appeal sober moods affects those whose

can only be answered, and is only mental sight has not been obscur-

met, by the revelation given to the ed by heresy ; somewhat like the-

world in the beginning by the Au- speech of children when first the-

thor of man, completed in the In- light of reason dawns in their souls..

carnation, and existing in its entire- For the transcendental movement.

ty and in unbroken historical con- in New England was nothing else,,

tinuity in the Catholic Church in its first instance, than the earnest.

alone. and righteous protest of our native-

This dialectical law has governed reason in convalescence against a

the course of all heresies, from false Christianity for its denial or

which they could not by any possi- neglect of rational truths.

bility escape ; the same law has Mr. Frothingham tells us that

governed the history of Protestant- " he was once a pure transcenden-

ism on its native soil, in Germany, talist," and that perhaps " his ardor

well as in old England, in New may have cooled." We protest,

England, and wherever it has ob- and as a disinterested party assure

tained a foothold. him that he writes with all the glow

Our business at present is with of youth, and in his volume he has

those of the second class, under furnished a pretty cabinet-picture, in

rhich head come our New England couleur du rose, of transcendentalism

transcendentalists ; and what is not in New England, without betraying

a little amusing is the simplicity even so much as the least sign of a

:ith which they proclaim to the suspicion of its true place in the

K-orld, in this nineteenth century of history either of philosophy or re-

the Christian era, the truths of ligion. In seeking for the " distinct

VOL. xxin. 34

530

T/ie Transcendental Movement in Neiv England.

origin ' and the place in history
of the transcendental movement in
New England, he goes back to Im-
manuel Kant, born at Konigsberg,
in Prussia, April 22, 1724, and finds
it, as he supposes, in Kant's famous
Critique of Pure Reason, published
in 1771. After mentioning some of
the disciples of Kant, we are taken
to the philosophers of France
Cousin, Constant, Jouffroy ; then
we are next transported across the
Channel to old England, and enter-
tained with Coleridge, Carlyle, and
Wordsworth ; finally we are landed
in New England and are told:

"With some truth it may be said that
there never was such a thing as tran-
scendentalism out of New England. In
Germany and France there was a tran-
scendental philosophy, held by cultivated
men, taught in schools, and professed by
many thoughtful and earnest people ; but
it never affected society in its organized
institutions or practical interests. In
old England this philosophy influenced
poetry and art, but left the daily exist-
ence of men and women untouched. But
in New England the ideas entertained
by foreign thinkers took root in the na-
tive soil and blossomed out in every
form of social life. The philosophy as-
sumed' its full proportions, produced
.fruit according to its kind, created a new
social order for itself, or rather showed
what sort of social order it would create
under favoring conditions. Its new
heavens and new earth were made visi-
ble, if but for a moment, and in a wiri-
itry season " (p. 103).

The contact with the productions
'Of the foreign philosophers as well as
religious and literary writers whom
Mr. Frothingham mentions un-
.doubtedly stimulated and strengthen-
ed the transcendental movement in
New England ; but it did not origi-
nate it. The movement was the
spontaneous growth of the New
England mind, in accordance with
the law which we have stated, aid-
ed by .the peculiar influence of our

political institutions, as will be
shown further on. Its real authors
were Channing, Alcott, and Emer-
son, who were neither affected at
their start nor afterward or if at all,
but slightly by foreign or extra-
neous influences.

Moreover, the Kantian philosophy
afforded no logical foothold for the
defence of the movement in New
England. Were our New England-
er, who still clings to his early faith
in transcendental ideas, to present
himself to the philosophical offspring
of Kant, he would no more pass
muster than his old orthodox Pro-
testant antagonist of the exclusive
traditional school. The logical de-
scendants of Kant are, in the region
of philosophy, to use an Ameri-
canism, played out, and those who
still keep up an existence will be
found in the ranks of positivism,
materialism, and blank atheism.

The idea of God, the immortality
of the soul, the liberty of the will,
the creation of the \vorld these
and all such ideas the descendants
of Kant have politely conducted to
the frontiers of philosophy, and dis-
missed each and every one, but not
before courteously thanking them
for their provisional services. Our
New Englander would appear to
their eyes as a babe still in swad-
dling-clothes, or as a child learn-
ing to read by amusing itself with
the pictures of old Mother Goose
stories. Whatever hankering Mr.
Frothingham and some few others
may have after their first love of
transcendental ideas and those in
New England with whom they are
most in sympathy, one and all are
moving in the same direction they
are only in the initial stage of the
process of evolution of the Kantian
germ-cell, the product of Protes-
tant protoplasm, and will end even-
tually in the same logical issues as

T/ie Transcendental Movement in New England.

531

their less sentimental German,
French, and English confreres.

To give us a right history of
transcendentalism, Mr. Frothing-
ham must enlarge the horizon of
his mental vision, and include with-
in its scope a stretch of time which
elapsed before his ancestors were
led off by heresy into the cavern of
obscurity. He will find a historical
no less than a " dialectical basis"
for its ideas or primary truths, and
other truths of natural reason of
which he has not yet made the dis-
covery, in the writings of Clement
of Alexandria, in Augustine, in
Vincent of Lerens, in Anselm, and
above all in Thomas of Aquinas,
whose pages contain all the truths,
but purified from the admixture
of error, of the pagan philosophers,
as also of those who had precedeu
him in Christian philosophy men
whose natural gifts, as well as devo-
tion to truth, were comparable, to
say the least, with Immanuel Kant
and his French, or English, or
American disciples. Those pro-
found thinkers maintained and de-
monstrated the truth of the great
ideas which Kant, according to his
own showing, neither dared affirm
nor deny, and which the transcen-
dentalists held for the most part by
openly contemning logic and by
submissively accepting the humil-
iating charge of being "sentimen-
talists." What those great men
taught from the beginning has been
always taught, even to our day, by
all sound Catholic teachers in phi-
losophy. So jealous has the su-
preme authority of the church been
in this matter of upholding the val-
ue of the natural powers of human
reason against those who would
exalt tradition at its expense it
has required, if they would teach
philosophy in the name of the
church, as a test of their orthodoxy,

a subscription to the following pro-
position : " Reason can with certi-
tude demonstrate the existence of
God, the spirituality of the soul, and
the liberty of man." Had the author
of the volume which we are briefly
reviewing read the Siimnia of St.
Thomas, or only the chapters which
treat of these subjects, and under-
stood them which is not, we hope,
asking too much from an advanced
thinker of our enlightened age, in-
asmuch as St. Thomas wrote this
work in the " dark ages" for mere
tyros he would have gained a
stand-point from which he might
have done what he tells us in his
preface was " the one purpose of
his book to define the fundamen-
tal ideas of philosophy, to trace
them to their historical and specu-
lative sources, and to show whither
they tended ' (p. viii.) Such a
work would have been more credi-
table to his learning, more worthy
of his intellectual effort, more satis- ,
factory to intelligent readers, and
one of permanent value. We com-
mend to Octavius Brooks Frothing-
ham the perusal and study of St.
Thomas' Summa above all, his work
Contra Gentiles, which is a defence
of Christianity on the basis of hu-
man reason against the attacks of
those who do not admit of its di-
vine revelation ; or if these be
not within his reach, to take up anj
one of the modern works on philo-
sophy taught in Catholic colleges
or seminaries to our young men.

After all, perhaps, the task might
prove an ungracious one ; for it
would not be flattering to the genius
of originality, on which our transcen-
dentalists pride themselves, to dis-
cover that these utterances con-
cerning the value of human reason,
the dignity of the soul, and the
worth of man barring occasional
extravagant expressions attributable

532

The Transcendental Movement in New England.

to the heat of youth were but
echoes of the voice of the Catholic
Church of all ages, of the traditional
teachings of her philosophers, es-
pecially of the Jesuitical school ;
all of which, be it said between our-
selves, has been confirmed by the
sacred decrees of the recent Vati-
can Council ! Still, passing this act
of humiliation on their part, it
would have afforded them what our
author says their system "lacked,"
and for which he has had recourse
in our opinion in vain to the great
German systems : namely, a " dia-
lectical basis." He would have
found in Catholic philosophy solid
grounds to sustain every truth
which the transcendentalists so en-
thusiastically proclaimed in speech,
in poetry, and prose, and which
truths, in their practical aspect, not
a few made noble and heroic sacri-
fices to realize.

To have secured such a basis
would not have been a small gain,
when one considers that these pri-
mary truths of reason are the sources
from which religion, morals, political
government, and human society draw
their vitality, strength, and stability.
Not a small service to humanity is
it to make clear these imperishable
foundations, to render them intelligi-
ble to all, and transmit them to poster-
ity with increased life and strength,
It is well that this noble task of phi-
losophy did not depend on the efforts
of the transcendentalists ; for Mr.
Frothingham sadly informs us in his
preface that " as a form of mental
philosophy transcendentalism may
have had its day ; at any rate it is no
longer in the ascendant, and at pre-
sent is manifestly on the decline,
being suppressed by the philosophy
of experience, which, under different
names, is taking possession of the
speculative world" (p. vii.) Who
knows what might have been the

precious fruits of all the high as-
piration and powerful earnestness
which were underlying this move-
ment, if, instead of seeking for a
" dialectical basis of the great
German systems," its leaders had
cast aside their prejudices, and
found that Catholic philosophy
which had interpreted the divine
oracles of the soul from age to age,
consonant with man's original and
everlasting convictions, and sus-
taining his loftiest and noblest
hopes ?

But with the best will in the
world to look favorably on the prac-
tical results of the transcendental
movement, and our sincere appre-
ciation of its leaders both of which,
the issu-es and the men, are describ-
ed from chapter vii. to xv., which
latter concludes the volume in
spite of these dispositions of ours,
our sympathy for so much praise-
worthy effort, and our respect for
so many highly-gifted men, in read-
ing these chapters a feeling of sad-
ness creeps over us, and we cannot
help exclaiming with the poet Ster-
ling :

" O wasted strength ! O light and calm

And better hopes so vainly given !
Like rain upon the herbless sea,

Poured down by too benignant heaven
We see not stars unfixed by winds,

Or lost in aimless thunder-peals,
But man's large soul, the star supreme,

In guideless whirl how oft it reels !"

But this is not to be wondered at ;
for although these men had arrived
at the perception of certain great
truths, they held them by no strong
intellectual grasp, and finally they
escaped them, and their intellectual
fabric, like the house built upon
sand, when the storm came and the
winds blew, great was the fall there-
of. This was the history of Brook
Farm and Fruitlands, communities
in which the two wings of transcen-
dentalism attempted to reduce their

The Transcendental Movement in New England.

533

ideas into practice. Here let us
remark it would have increased the
interest of the volume if its author
had given to his readers the pro-
gramme of Brook Farm, " The Idea
of Jesus of Society," together with
its constitutions. It is short, inter-
esting, and burning with earnest-
ness. There is scarcely any ac-
count of the singular enterprise of
the group of idealists at Fruitlands,
and the name of Henry Thoreau,
one of the notables among transcen-
dentalists, is barely mentioned, while
to his life at Walden Pond there is
not even an allusion. True, these
experiments were, like Brook Farm,
unsuccessful, but they were not
without interest and significance,
and worthy of a place in what claims
to be a history of the movement
that gave rise to them ; at least
space enough might have been af-
forded them for a suitable epitaph.

We will now redeem our promise
of showing how the influence of our
political institutions aided in pro-
ducing what goes by the name of
transcendentalism. But before do-
ing this, we must settle what tran-
scendentalism is ; for our author
appears to make a distinction be-
tween idealism and transcenden-
talism in New England. . Here is
what he says :

" Thers was idealism in New England
prior to the introduction of transcenden-
talism. Idealism is of no clime or age.
It has its proportion of disciples in every
period and in the apparently most, un-
congenial countries ; a full proportion
might have been looked for in New Eng-
land. But when Emerson appeared, the
name of idealism was legion. He alone
was competent to form a school, and as
soon as he rose, the scholars trooped
about him. By sheer force of genius
Emerson anticipated the results of the
transcendental philosophy, denned its
axioms, and ran out their inferences to
the end. Without help from abroad, or
with such help only as none but he

could use, he might have domesticated
in Massachusetts an idealism as heroic
as Fichte'e, as beautiful as Schelling's,
but it would have lacked the dialectical
basis of the great German systems " (p.

If we seize the meaning of this
passage, it is admitted that previous
to the knowledge of the German
systems Mr. Emerson had already
defined the axioms, run out their
inferences to the end, and antici-
pated the results of the German
transcendental philosophy. But
this is all that any system of philo-
sophy pretends to accomplish ; and
therefore, by his own showing, the
distinction between idealism and
transcendentalism is a distinction
without a difference.

Mr. Frothingham, however, tells
us on the same page that "trans-
cendentalism, properly so-called, was
imported in foreign packages " ; and
Mr. Frothingham ought to know,
for he was once, he tells us, " a pure
transcendentalist " ; and on pages
128 and 136 he criticises Mr. Emer-
son, who identifies idealism and
transcendentalism. With the ge-
nius and greatness of the prince
of the transcendentalists before his
eyes, our author, as is proper, em-
ploys the following condescending
language : " It is audacious to
criticise Mr. Emerson on a point
like this ; but candor compels the
remark that the above description
does less than justice to the defi-
niteness of the transcendental move-
ment. It was something more than
a reaction against formalism and
tradition, though it took that form.
It was more than a reaction against
Puritan orthodoxy, though in part
it was that. It was in a very small
degree due to study of the ancient
pantheists, of Plato and -the Alex-
andrians, of Plutarch, Seneca, and
Epictetus, though one or two of 'he

534

The Transcendental Movement in New England.

leaders had drunk deeply from these
sources. Transcendentalism was a
distinct philosophical system ' (p.

So far so good. Here is the place,
if the author knows what he is talk-
ing about, to give us in clear terms
the definition of transcendentalism.
But what does he ? Does he satisfy
our anticipations ? Mr. Emerson,
be it understood, does not know
what transcendentalism is ! Well,
hear our author, who thinks he does.
He continues : " Practically it was
an assertion of the inalienable worth
of man ; theoretically it was an as-
sertion of the immanence of divinity
in instinct, the transference of su-
pernatural attributes to the natu-
ral constitution of mankind. . . .
Through all was the belief in the
living God in the soul, faith in im-
mediate inspiration, in boundless
possibility, and in unimaginable
good " (p. 137). Ordinarily when
writers attempt to give a definition,
or convey information of a " distinct
philosophical system," they give one
to understand its first principles or
axioms, its precise method, and its
important conclusions, and particu-
larly wherein it differs in these re-
spects from other systems of philo-
sophy. This is what Mr. Frothing-
ham in the passage last quoted has
led us to expect ; but instead of this
he gives to the reader mere " asser-
tions ' and " beliefs." And these
assertions and beliefs every one
knows who has heard Dr. Channing,
or Mr. Emerson, or Mr. Alcott, or
who has a slight acquaintance with
their writings, to have been the
sources of inspiration in their
speech, which appear on almost
every page they have written !
Proof is needless ; for there is no
one who will venture a contradic-
tion on this point. The men who
were most influenced by the study

of the philosophers abroad were
neither the originators nor leaders of
the so-called transcendental move-
ment in New England Brovvnson,
Parker, and William Channing. Mr.
Frothingham, we submit, has not
made out his case, and has given too
much credit where it was not due,
while robbing others of their just
merit, whatever that may be. If
" transcendentalism was a distinct
philosophical system," nowhere in
his book has this been shown.

Transcendentalism, accepting the
author's statement as to its true
character, was never a philosophi-
cal system in New England ; and had
its early disciples been content to
cultivate the seeds sown by its
true leaders, instead of making the
futile attempt to transfer to our
clime exotics from Germany which
would not take root and grow in
our soil, we should have had, in
place of a dreary waste, stately trees
whose wholesome and delicious fruits
would now refresh us.

And now for our reasons why
it was native to the soil from which
it sprang. If we analyze the poli-
tical system of our country, we will
find at its base the maxim, " Man is
capable of self-government." The
American system exhibits a greater
trust in the natural capacities and
the inherent worth of man than
any other form of political govern-
ment now upon this earth. Hence
all the great political trusts are
made elective ; hence also our re-
course to short periods of election
and the great extension among us
of the elective franchise. The
genius and whole drift of the
current of our political life runs
in this direction. Now, what
does this maxim mean, that ' Man
is capable of self-government '
It means that man is endowed by
his Creator with reason to know

The Transcendental Movement in New England.

535

what is right, true, and good. It
means that man possesses free-will
and can follow the right, true, and
good. These powers constitute
man a responsible being. It sup-
poses that man as he is now born
i^ in possession of all his natural
rights, and the primal tendencies
of his native faculties are in accor-
dance with the great end of his ex-
istence, and his nature is essential-
ly good. But such views of human
nature are in direct opposition to
the fundamental doctrines of Puri-
tanism and orthodox Protestantism.
These taught and teach that man
is born totally depraved, that his
nature is essentially corrupt, and
all his actions, springing from his
nature, nothing but evil. Now, the
political influence of our American
institutions stimulated the assertion
of man's natural rights, his noble
gift of liberty, and his inalienable
worth, while the religion peculiar
to New England preached precise-
ly the contrary. In the long run,
the ballot-box beat the pulpit ; for
the former exerted its influence six
days in the week, while the latter
had for its share only the Sabbath.
In other words, the inevitable ten-
dency of our American political
system is to efface from the minds
of our people all the distinctive
dogmas of the orthodox Protestant
views of Christianity by placing
them on a platform in accordance
with man's natural capacities, his
native dignity, and with right and
honorable views of God. Herein
lies the true genesis of Unitarianism
and its cogenitor, the transcendental
movement in New England.

Dr. Charming was right in dis-
carding the attempt to introduce the
worse than idle speculation of the
German and French philosophical

-terns in New England. " He con-
sidered," so says his biographer,

"pretensions to absolute science
quite premature ; saw more boast-
fulness than wisdom in ancient and
modern schemes of philosophy ; and
was not a little amused at the com-
placent confidence with which
quite evidently fallible theorists
assumed to stand at the centre,
and to scan and depict the pano-
rama of existence." " The tran-
scendentalists," he tells James Mar-
tineau in 1841, "in identifying them-
selves a good deal with Cousin's
crude system, have lost the life of
an original movement." In this last
sentence Dr. Channing not only
anticipated history but also uttered
a prophecy. But how about a phi-
losophy whose mission it is to main-
tain all the great truths for which
he so eloquently and manfully
fought ? How about a conception
of Christianity which places itself
in evident relations with human
nature and the history of the
universe ? a religion which finds
its sanctuary in man's soul, and
aims at the elevation of his finite
reason to its archetype and its
transformation into the Infinite
Reason ?

Unitarianism in New England
owes its existence to the supposition
that Calvinism is a true and genu-
ine interpretation of Christianity.
"Total depravity," "election,"
" reprobation," " atonement," etc.,
followed, it was fancied, each other
logically, and there was no denying
one without the denial of all. And
as it was supposed that these doc-
trines found their support in the
divinity of Christ, and in order to
bring to ruin the superstructure
they aimed at upsetting its base by
the denial of the divinity of Christ.
They had grown to detest so hearti-
ly the "five points "-of Calvinism
that they preferred rather to be pa-
gans than suckled in such a creed.

536 The Transceii'ti at al Movement in New England.

Is it probable, is it i able to ly not the am< Mr. Krothing-

.iipposc that our New Knvlanders, ham's. It would be diflir ult to

wlio have .'I strong vein o! earnest find in ;i. BOD-Catholu wiiter a

i< ligious feeling in their nature, higher appreciation ol her serve

would have gone across the ocean to humanity, and mor<- clo'|i:

to find a support for the great descriptions ol certain aspects of

truths win* h they were so enthu- the Catholi' Church, than ni;iy !,'

If tic in affirming among the will- found iii his writings. Froth

o 1 ihe-wispsof the r<-;ilins of 'thought, ingham ought to know this, :ind

when ;i.t their very doors was " tlie only the limits ol < lir le hinder

church whirh has revealed more us from citing several of these. I

< omplctely man to hims !!, taken be aware that l'n-sid< nt John Ad-
possession of hU inclinations, of his ams headed the sul>s< iij^tion-list to
lasting .'ind universal convi' lions, build the first ( '..'iiholir. rhiirch in
l.nd l-.ii'j to the light those ancient JJoston. Our author, by his pn-ju-
foundatioii',, h;r> ' lc:mscd th'-ni from dices, his l;i< k of insight, and limit-
evcry stain, from cvcrry alien mix- cd information, does injustice to t li-

ture f and honored them by r< -\-/.- New Knghmd i^-opic, dcpn-M.-ites

ing their impress Of the Divinity?' tin: intelligence ;ind honesty of the

lint Mr. Frothingham tell, u , : leadew in Unitarian ism, and fails to

"The religion of New Kngland gr;i ,p the deep significance of tin-
was Protestant and of the most in- transcendental movement.
tellc' lu.d type. Romanism li.id no lie does injustice to the people
hold on the thinking people of I Jos- of .Boston espe< ially, who, when
ton. None besides the Irish labor- they hc;ml of the death of the
ing ,'ind menial Masses were Catho- saintly Bishop (Micvenis, t(;lled the
and their religion was ic-arded bells of the churches of their city to
as the lowest, form of ceremonial show in what veneration they h
superstition " (p. *<>7); -'"id almost his memory; and if he was not of
in the same breath he informs his the age to have listened, he must
readers that " the Unitarians of New have read the eloquent and appre-
lMi;<land were good scholars, ac- ciative eulogium preached by I)r.
r omplished ni'-n of |. i t.-rs, humane Channing on this great and good
in sentiment and sincere and mo- man. And Bishop Cheverus was
ral in intention "(p. no), is Octa- the guide and teat her of the
vius Brooks Frothingham acquaint- ligion of the Irish proph ol P.oston !
ed with all " the (x-remonial supersti- Mr. Frothingham will not attempt
tions " upon this earth, and does he to make a distiix lion between the
honestly believe that the Catholic n-li- "Catholic religion ' and "the r-ii

gion is"lhe lowest form" of them all? gion of the Irish menial and labor-

Or what is the same thing does ing classes' -a subterfuge of which

he think that the " good scholars and no man of intelligent e and integrity

accomplished men f ,f letters' 1 of would be guilty. The Irish people

New England thought so? I'cr- be it said to their glory have

haps such was his rercived nnprcs- from the beginning of their ,

sion, but that it was common to sion to Christianity kepi th<- pure

this class of men we stoutly deny, light of ('.atholic faith unsullied

No one stood higher among them by any admixture of heresy, and

than Dr. (Planning, and his estimate have remained him in their obedi-

of the Catholic religion was certain- ence to the divine authority ol the

diaries Carroll of Carrolilou.

537

holy HmrHi, in BpitC oi' tin- !yr;iimy,

of tllf hill. 'I < ,1 p'T,e< IllioM ()f ll ,

enemie ., and .-ill their efforts oi hi i

h'-ry or any worldly indm ennui ,
which they ini-lil hold mil. \Vhcn

ean her . after inn- religion

li:i (I hy Ilicir Ion"

'I ue.i: i lldiefl /MrM;r,ler, I'y-

ih.i I'laio, Kpi- tetuf,

Brahma, Duddh.i, ( !onfu< iui,
met, and any other noi.ihie
IMI- of philo'iophy MI- religion ; when
they have gathered up all the truth ;

illei'ed ;i moll}^ |])c <lifTr|-rnt lid i

sirs in religion sin< c tin- < 'In r,i i;m

(T.l, the .-ilfl M! :ill I In II |:I|)MI , will

only make thii irmii the pl.-niK.-r:

th<- ( :;ilh<>li< ( 'hiii< h M- .in,,,
.-mlliorily M| ;ill n-li iioni

the he-inning of the JfOl ll, :illn in
tlic lr:ulit.ion:; ;in<l < MDVK lion:, ol the
wliolr hiiiM.in i , .-UK! unite , Co-
ordinates, :i IK I hinds together all HM-

:,( altered truth:, t oJltaitted in every
religloUl system 111 .in ;ih:,(jlutc, in
versul, divine synthesis.

CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON*

IlKf.'T.ARATI
I NDUPKN 1)12 IN.TK
AI-'TRTl TUB SO"

CHAI-:I.I., r:/M'i-oi.i,'s is a house-
hold mine in the Ani< i ii .in l.nuily
th'- Ji.mie M(" ;i ni;in in.-irkecl among

a purity of < \\-.\\
ii h a ( In i '..m mind loves io
'II : /////-;;// vita scelcrii/ui' fnirus !

\ II - illdepend , BO liohle ;md

o toned with homeli-

'ic above i* an e

-i ithown lii tory H .-.. i. in I:, we ar

I. nuily. 1 1 wa**UK-

geted I- ih.il il tli- /////'/// :iiiniv r-.:.i / ',(

Alll' II' ..i I , ') I,' litlin:-!/ li'.i,-

! l'iv<- :ni'l li- .it)' ll t'l.il il

i ',1 ili .i;Mi:n, and
he a Catlioli- , H w.iil'! \><: ,lnl~,- ,'t ,/f>ruin

ness withal, th.ii of him it was said
he walked -the Streets oi his re^< n
: ii- d < oiinh y with brow ere< t and
mien expanded, because he u
\<r//\ fx'iir ft MIII. n-/>nn-/if, a />n'UX
,/n'valier the idol in the family

nary. I h- alone of the ^i
lonnders chosen by the angel M!

the Catli'-li- "f ill'-'- nun.. I ',1.,1,-i to re*trike It
for di'.ii ii-uii'-ii, and a* a I

<l;i\vn rf the hu>n/> <'*/ili ;niiiiv ruary. Nor woul-l
it be a diiic nit , ; j, We

the die Until) pfMtrvo f although ""' :i) iii'-mi"!
'I li>- '<nly alteration hoiiM oo m in il i ii-

rcvcme, thiw: d. N- Tin: exer-

gue hould read : July IV. MJKJCCLXXVI.

538

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

this land was destined to witness,
beyond the span of days usually
allotted to man, the unparalleled
prosperity and unequalled develop-
ment of the resources of a virgin
country. Such was the well-earned
reward of a career marked by the
purest disinterestedness in motives,
justice in the choice of means, and
humblest dependence on the assis-
tance of the Lord God of nations.

On the anniversary of that day
when the covenant that saved man-
kind was announced by an archan-
gel from the highest heavens, and
ratified on earth by the assent of
the lowly maid of Jesse, the Ark and
the Dove moored on the American
waters of the Potomac. A stalwart
band of. men who were to herald
and they alorle of all the Pilgrims
the great covenant of true liberty
leaped on shore and planted the
standard of salvation. They planted
the cross on a new land to be add-
ed to Mary's dowry. Truer men
were never hailed by an uncivilized
people men who had learned how
to fulfil their destinies in the schools
of Bethlehem and of Golgotha.

The Catholic student of Ameri-
can history feels his heart glowing
with sentiments of the holiest pride,
as, reverting to- the twenty-fifth day
of March, 1632, he reads that the
Catholic pilgrim alone, with his
descendants after him, has held
steadfastly and without swerving,
even to this day, to the true dictates
of that moral and religious economy
whereby man can secure his happi-
ness and moral independence here,
with a never-wavering certainty of
thereby securing a claim to an
everlasting welfare hereafter. Car-
dinal McCloskey to-day represents
and enacts these very same princi-
ples and laws among and to the
millions of Catholics in America,
which the humble Jesuit missionary

Andrew White proclaimed among
and to the tribes of the Potomac
two hundred and forty-three years
ago nay, the same principles and
laws which were, by the Lord's
mandate, proclaimed by Peter and
the apostles when for the first time
they announced their mission to the
throngs gathered in the city of
David.

We love to dwell on these facts.
The child who was christened in
his mother's arms in Jerusalem on
the day after Pentecost became en-
dowed with the same heavenly pre-
rogatives as the Indian babe regen-
erated in the laver of redemption
by Father White sixteen ages later
or by any priest of the church on
this very day ! In very deed, the
indelible marks and divine perfec-
tions of the heavenly court are mir-
rored and reflected by the city of
God on earth. That same and one
Christ who reigned, with his laws,
in the church of Jerusalem, and a
thousand years after in Vineland of
North America, reigns and rules to-
day, <with the same laws, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific.

Meanwhile, where is the church
of the Puritans ? Where are her
antecedents ? Has any of her as-
pirations been fulfilled ? Is there any
mark of benediction left by her pro-
fessors ?

The past of Charles Carroll clus-
ters around his life in manifold bene-
dictions ; his name is borne aloft

on the waters of that grand stream
over which the bark of Peter has
triumphantly glided for eighteen
centuries, and will continue its tri-
umphant course to the consumma-
tion of the world. Such is the per-
petuity of faith !

A half-century had hardly passed
away since the landing of the Pil-
grims when Daniel Carroll, the
grandsire of our Charles, came to

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

539

America (A.D. 1680). He was an
Irishman, of that prodigious stock
which, in the wonderful ways of
Providence, being transplanted on
our shores, was on some future day
to give to America most energetic
and determined laborers in the
rearing of our independence. Sure-
ly did the orator of Concord, amid
the festivities of the last Centennial,
prove himself miserably ignorant
of what his sires owed to the Irish*
of Pennsylvania.

For let it be recorded for the
hundredth time : but for those men
our cause would have been lost, in
the straits to which the public weal
was brought. They came to the
rescue, and George Washington
took good heart and went on to
victory.

Daniel was born in Littemourna,
King's County, Ireland. During
the reign of James II. he held re-
sponsible offices. Lord Baltimore
was his patron, and by his favor,
close application, sterling honesty,
and persevering industry he be-
came the owner of large estates,

* " We- enter upon the second century of the re-
public with responsibilities which neither our fathers
nor the men of fifty years ago could possibly fore-
see." Again: u This enormous influx of strangers
has added an immense ignorance and entire unfa-
miliarity with republican ideas and habits to the
voting class." And: u It has introduced powerful
and organized influences not friendly to the repub-
lican principle of freedom of thought and action,"
etc. Geo. W. Curtis, LL.D., of New York, ora-
tion before the town authorities of Concord, Mass.,
April 19, 1875. Printed by permission. The New
England Historical and Genealogical Register^
vol. xxix., October, 1875. Strange that Mr. Curtis
should have forgotten the foreign influx among the
signers ! Yet Thornton was born in Ireland ; Smith
also, Taylor also; Lewis in Wales ; Witherspoon
near Edinburgh ; Morris in Lancashire, England ;
Wilson in Scotland ; Gwinnett in England. Strange
that of fifty-nine signers so many should be strang-
ers, besides those who were born of foreigners ! And
strange that the most refined and elegant civi-
lians George Washington associated with in Philadel-
phia were Irishmen. And was not that a strange in-
flux of Nesbitt saving Washington's army from star-
vation ? And what of the $25,000 that Barclay gave,
and the $50,000 given by McClenaghan, etc., etc. ?
an influx in infimtutn. The influx worked well
a hundred years ago ; fear not, it will work well even
now, but keep demagogues and false patriots aside.
Yet on what side are most of them to be found ?

and the family prospered and in-
creased in wealth, although not in
social or political position, during
the second and thi-rd generations.*
Daniel Carroll rose very high in
the estimation of the colony, and
was chosen to offices of important
and delicate trust. So great was
his renown for spotless integrity, ex-
traordinary ability, and love of the
public weal that when Protestant
bigotry obtained the upper hand,
and, in the language of McMahon,
the non-Catholic historian of Mary-
land, " in a colony which was estab-
lished by Catholics, and grew up to
power and happiness under the
government of a Catholic, the Ca-
tholic inhabitant became the only
victim of religious intolerance," he
was exempted from the opprobri-
ous and hateful disqualifications
inflicted upon his coreligionists by
the penal code an exemption,
at first sight, of doubtful honor,
were it not for the exceptional
nature and circumstances of the
case. It entailed not the least
compromise on the part of the reci-
pient, who accepted it without hin-
drance to an open profession of his
faith ; moreover, it enabled him to
shelter less favored colonists in the
enjoyment of rights most dear to
their hearts and indispensable to
their happiness.

* Hence sprung the qualification added to the
name of Daniel's grandson. When Charles, as one
of the members delegated by the Mate of Maryland
to attend the Convention in Philadelphia, advanc-
ed on the 2d of August, 1776, to the secretary's
desk to sign his name to the Declaration, allusion
was made to the great wealth of the Maryland dele-
gate, who would thereby jeopardize it all. '' But,"
remarked a bystander u it will be hard to identify ;
are there not several Charles Carrol:s ? "

" Ah ! yes," rejoined the signer ; and dipping the
pen anew in that famous ink-stand, with that noble
grace of person so peculiar to him, he bent over the
parchment once more, and added, of Carrollton*
Surely Carrollton was the only manor of that
name, and our Charles was the only master thereof.
Hence the qualification which has since become
useless Charles Carroll of Carrollton. In our days
the great American family knows only one Charles
Carroll.

540

CJiarlcs Carroll of Carrollton.

Charles Carroll, the father of the
signer, was born in 1702. He was
a high-spirited man, but he had no
chances to display his talents, nor
field on which to exert his energies.
He chafed under the wrong and in-
gratitude with which the children
of mother church were harried in
the " Land of the Sanctuary " which
they had opened to the oppressed
of all climes. Alluding to the
legislation of the Maryland colony
in 1649, Chancellor Kent says:
" The Catholic planters of Mary-
land won for their adopted country
the distinguished praise of being
the first of American States in
which toleration was established
by law. And while the Puritans
were persecuting their Protestant
brethren in New England, and Epis-
copalians retorting the same se-
verity on the Puritans in Virginia,
the Catholics, against whom the
others were combined, formed in
Maryland a sanctuary where all
might worship and none might op-
press, and where even Protestants
sought refuge from Protestant intol-
erance."

But Protestant intolerance de-
molished the sanctuary, the handi-
work of noble and loving Catholic
hands. In accord with the wish of
many, Mr. Carroll entertained the
idea of seeking freedom of action,
liberty of conscience, and equality of
rights under another sky. Thus, in
one of his journeys to Europe, he ap-
plied to the French minister for the
purchase of a tract of land in Louis-
iana. The project was far advanc-
ed, when the minister growing
alarmed at the vast purchase which
it was their wish to make on the
Arkansas River, the negotiations
were (providentially?) broken off.
The project, viewed in the light of
succeeding events, may appear, as it
was then by many deemed, injudi-

cious. Yet great praise is due to
Charles Carroll, Sr., for his taking
the lead in the movement at a
time when, as Mr. Latrobe observes,
" the disqualifications and oppres-
sions to which Catholics were sub-
jected amounted to persecution.
Roman Catholic priests were pro-
hibited from the administration of
public worship. THe council grant-
ed orders to take children from the
pernicious contact of Catholic pa-
rents ; Catholic laymen were de-
prived of the right of suffrage; and
the lands of Catholics were assessed
double when the exigencies of the
province required additional sup-
plies." . . . Nay, more : a Catholic
was levelled to the condition of a
pariah or a helot he was not even
allowed to walk with his fellow-
citizen before the State-house.
Things were carried to a point be-
yond endurance. No wonder the
Catholics of Maryland felt relief
even in the thought of fleeing from
home. And yet, with these facts,
admitted by all American historians,
staring him in the face, the Brit-
ish ex-premier has dared to flaunt
a lie in the face of the whole
world !

Charles Carroll, Sr., died at a
patriarchal age, more than four-
score years. Like Simeon of old,
he had long waited for the consola-
tions of Israel, for the day when the
spouse of Christ would cast aside
the slave's garb, and, emerging from
American catacombs, come forth in
the radiant panoply of freedom and
celestial splendor. He himself never
had faltered in this hope. He al-
ways felt that Mary's land would not
be forsaken by her in whose name
it was first held. He saw his coun-
try free, and he rejoiced. He wit-
nessed around him the beneficent
results accruing from the influences
of mother church. He raised his

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

541

hand to bless God, to bless his kin,
to bless the land. But how shall
we portray the emotions of his
heart when no more in hiding-
places, but in full noon-day, openly
and freely, he saw the clean Sacri-
fice offered by the priests of the
M ost High ? And when the form of
his beloved son knelt before him
for a last blessing, how with the fa-
ther's benedictions must have min-
gled feelings of pride and gratitude
because even by the untiring labors
of that son had the blessings of li-
berty to church and state been
won !

It was the writer's good-fortune,
a great many years ago, to seek for
rest in what, among Catholic Mary-
landers, was formerly known as the
; Jesuit Tusculum." In a secluded
nook in Cecil County, on the Eastern
Shore, lies embosomed within dense
thickets and shady lanes the Bohe-
mia Manor, a dependency of George-
town College. When the Catholic
youth of Maryland were debarred
the privilege of collegiate training
in their native schools, the members
of the Company of Jesus had, at a
very early period, opened there a
boarding-school, especially for such
of the American boys as would af-
terwards, like their persecuted peers
in England, seek for a sound edu-
cation and a thorough Christian
training at the well-known acade-
mies of Belgium and France. Wan-
dering through those woods, rowing
over the meandering streams whose
soft murmurings give life to the si-
lent homes of the crane and gentle
game, the youthful forms of the
Carrolls and Brents, Dorseys and
Darnells, haunted the imagination
and brought one back to those days
of fervent Catholic spirit, pure hearts,
and high-minded youths who waxed
in years and strength under the
saintly training of Hudson and

Manners, Farmer and Molineux.
To the care of experienced, learn-
ed, and saintly Jesuits was entrust-
ed the training of that part of the
Lord's vineyard which, amid perse-
cution and manifold dangers, mir-
rored the days of primitive Chris-
tianity.

Young Charles Carroll, who was
born in 1737, was sent thither to
drink the first pure waters of secular
learning and Christian training. At
one time well-nigh twoscore of the
sons of the more fortunate colo-
nists were there united with him
at the Tusculum of the Company of
Jesus.

But a day of separation dawned.
Charles was in his eleventh year
when not the swift steamship of our
time but a laggard craft was to
convey him to distant shores. He
was accompanied in his journey by
his cousin, John Carroll, with whom
many years after he accomplished
a most delicate and important mis-
sion at the command of the gov-
ernment. Thus he added to the ties
and sympathies of blood a link of
such friendships as are so apt to knit
in college life and ever after con-
genial souls and hearts beating in
unison. True, when the day ar-
rived on which each was to enter
an avenue of life that would lead
to the career for which each was
fitted by nature, they chose differ-
ent gates, but came forth on the
great drama of life to be the lead-
ers of two generations, one in the
church, the other in the state.
Charles Carroll with unerring finger
points to the Catholic layman the
resources which he should improve
for the perfect execution of his
part ; John Carroll has represent-
ed him who is the infallible guide
of the church, becoming at the
same time the model of bishop and
priest, the pride and the joy of the

542 Charles Carroll of Car ro lit on.

anointed minister of that same he remained in Europe until j 764,
church in the United States. when he again set sail for his west-
Six years did young Carroll spend era home.

at St. Omer's, in French Flanders, A great change had meanwhile
in the study of the classics of come over the moral atmosphere
ancient and modern times under of his native State. Whilst bicker-
Jesuit tuition ; thence he passed ings about religion were growing
to Rheims ; and lastly he entered distasteful, a rumbling noise of
the college of Louis le Grand in threatened disasters in the distance
Paris. In the two last places he drew the hearts of the colonists
applied himself, under the guidance together. Indistinct and sombre
of learned Jesuits, to the study of figures of enemies lurking around
logic and metaphysics, mathema- the premises counselled measures
tics and natural sciences. When of internal peace, equal distribution
at Louis le Grand the elder Charles of civil rights, and a unity of senti-
crossed the ocean a third time to ments and aims as the only hope
feast his eyes and gladden his doat- of averting ruin and of conquering
ing heart on the son who had wax- a powerful foe. Ties of friendship
ed in years as well as in grace, were strengthened, measures of con-
He found the promising boy grown certed action were discussed, whilst
into a manly youth, and bade him religious questions were laid aside,
say farewell to the charms of a life and arrogant claims of superior rights
whose days glided on in unruffled on the .part of non-Catholics for-
peace, breathing in an atmosphere gotten, in the presence of an im-
of religion and science. His inter- pending danger ; the more so be-
course there was with men whose cause it was felt that there was a
aspirations were to the greatest party brooding in their midst
glory of God, whose conversation which was in accord with the
was in heaven. These men, so enemy outside,
noble, so learned, so perfect, had When the boy left the land of his
entwined the hearts of their pupils birth, and the prow of the ship that
with their own. bore him ploughed the waters of
In 1757 Charles Carroll re- the Atlantic, his soul expanded with
moved to London to enter upon a heretofore unexperienced senti-
the study of law. Admitted to the ment of liberty ; for only then did
Inner Temple, an inmate, or at he begin to feel that freely under
least a frequenter, of those halls the canopy of heaven he could
wherein surely the Holy Ghost practise his religion without let or
did not hold an undisputed sway, hindrance, without x the sneers or
the noble-minded and pure-souled intermeddling of his neighbors.
Maryland youth must have felt the Add to this the anticipated en-
change to the quick. What a con- joyment of the liberty in wait for
trast to the simplicity of his western him on the eastern lands of Catho-
home at the paternal manor, the lie faith. Yet the prospective and
sweet influences and innocent life future return to the land of bond-
at the Bohemian Tusculum, and age must from time to time have
in the blessed halls of Bruges and thrown shadows of sadness over
St. Omer's ! At the Temple he the gushing and joyful youth at
spent the five years requisite in school. But now comes a truce
order to be called to the bar; but to religious dissensions and family

Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 543

quarrels ; a victory is gained : the During the excitement of the

church is free, her shackles broken. Stamp Act Charles Carroll, who

Catholic and non-Catholic worship had returned from the Continent

at the altar of their choice freely " a finished scholar and an accom-

and publicly. They are all children plished gentleman," was at first a

of the same political family, mem- silent but careful and discerning

bers of the same moral body ! observer. He studied the ten-

But the liberties of the colonies dency of events, and the moral
are crushed by the mother country, elements on which these events
and Charles Carroll lands on these should work some remarkable de-
shores only in time to be one of velopment. Cautious but firm, he
the mourners at the funeral of lib- gradually entered the lists, and then
erty. His countrymen had been in the struggles which seemed so
galled with bitterness by the con- unequal he fought heart and soul
tempt, insolence, and arrogance of with that noble galaxy of Maryland
the British soldiery, and felt a con- patriots who, bold and undismayed,
tempt for the martinet leaders of opposed an unbroken front to those
the Braddock defeat, while at the first encroachments which were even
same time a feeling of superiority countenanced by interested parties
was engendered in their heart by in the colony. But for a prompt
the warlike qualities displayed by resistance a breach would have
rank and file under the leadership been opened for such inroads into
of him who was already first in the the domain of our liberties as
hearts of his peers. They chafed would break down its ramparts,
at being made the hewers of wood overwhelm our defenders, and en-
and drawers of water to British in- slave the people,
dolence ; they felt the sanctuary of It is not necessary for us here to
their homes desecrated by the writs relate how the obnoxious law was
of assistance ; their inmost souls repealed a tardy and unwilling act
were moved with indignation at of atonement (" an act of empty jus-
being ordered to sacrifice their tice," as McSherry well defines it) ;
hard-earned comforts, their very yet its revocation was hailed by the
subsistence, to the pleasure of a ri- colonies with great rejoicings as the
bald soldiery. Such things could harbinger of a better rule and the
not be endured by the sons of lib- dawn of a day of just polity in the
erty. And thus it happened that home government. Surely, the ru-
Charles Carroll was not welcomed lers in the mother country had felt
with the cheers of a hearty greeting ; the temper of her children abroad ;
he only heard the groans, the smoth- they loved her fondly as long as
ered curses, the oaths of vengeance she proved herself a mother ; woe
deep and resolute, uttered by his were she to forget the ties of love
oppressed fellow-colonists. and harshly deal with them !

His soul was fired with wrath Charles Carroll was neither blind-

and zeal ; but a wrath subdued by ed nor hoodwinked by this sporadic

self-control, a zeal swayed by pru- token of motherly justice. Those

dence. His was a self-possession years of residence in England were

that was never thrown off its guard, not lost to him. He well knew the

He seemed ever to be on the alert temper of the British lion, his arro-

against surprises a foe more fatal gance and his treachery. Sooner

to armies than cannon and shot. or later another paroxysm of exi-

544 Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

gencies woiud come over him ; they oughly know the habits of his fellow-

must be met, cost what it may. citizens and their calibre, whether

" Wicked is the only word which he looked upon them as a distinct

1 can apply to the government of colony or in their relations to the

your colonies. You seem to regard other provinces ; what were the ma-

t hem as mere material mines from terials and the resources of the whole

whence the mother country is to country; what guarantees could be

extract the precious ore for her drawn from the past for the welfare

own luxury and splendor." * of the future ; how far or within

The victory gained and the dan- what bounds should the liberties

ger averted for the nonce, Mr. Car- of the colonies be restrained ; what

roll devoted himself to promoting security for the rights of con-

the welfare of the colony. In fact, science ; were the rights of each

whilst a short period of comparative colony to be paramount over the

peace lasted outside the colonies, exigencies of the whole family of

Maryland was not free from inter- provinces? . . . To a mind well

nal disturbance. Two sources of stored with the choicest theoretical

disquietude were then opened the lore it became an easy matter to

Proclamation and the Vestry Act. trace its course and clearly see

Nor was the colony less annoyed by the way ahead. Thus prepared,

the unfaithfulness of leading mer- he grappled with Charles Dulany,

chants in Baltimore, who, goaded by the champion of those who oppos-

thirst of money and not prompted ed the people's claims and remon-

by feelings of love for their country, strances. Dulany was his senior

had slackened in their opposition by many years, had grown up iden-

to the encroachment of the govern- tified with the selfish interests of

ment at home. They only followed office-holders and of the established

in the wake of New York and Phi- clergy, himself high in the councils

ladelphia, and even of Boston. The of the government, whilst his oppo-

love of lucre and the diseased nent had just arrived from a long

tastes of what was then called the sojourn abroad, and was a " papist '

quality allowed the merchants of enthralled and disfranchised.

those cities to fall away from the The main point of dispute turned

compact entered upon with the sis- on the rights of the government of

ter colonies. To advance their in- the colony to tax the people arbi-

terests and to satisfy a portion of trarily for the payment of officers

the community, they forsook their and the support of the clergy. The

principles and paid the hated tri- history of the Proclamation, drawn

butes for proscribed commodities, up by Dulany himself, and the bur-

But outside Baltimore the people in ial thereof amid a most solemn pa-

the counties remained firm and un- geant by the freemen of Annapolis

shaken in their patriotism. on the 1 4th of May, 1673, are too

Charles Carroll was young in well known to require detailing

years, but ripe in judgment. The here. It is enough to say that by

future statesman lost no oppor- general acclamation the people ac-

tunities. It was of the utmost knowledged Charles Carroll as their

importance that he should thor- champion. He could not be se-

lected as a delegate, enthralled as

*A supernatural interlocutor in Father Faber's ne was b u t in public meetings held

Sights and Thoughts. London: Rivingtons, 1842, . , , . -, .

P. 181. in Frederick, Baltimore, and Anna-

C/iarles Carroll of Carrollton. 545

polis they unanimously voted and wealthy, and highly educated, who

formally tendered him the thanks threw himself headlong into the

of the people. struggle, and, growing with its tri-

Mr. Carroll entered the lists veil- als, became renowned in its darkest

cd under the name of First Citizen, hours, and honored and cherished in

whilst Dulany met him in combat its glorious success " (McSherry, p,

v&Antilon an unnecessary disguise, 170). That young man, only seven-

for he was too well known, being and-twenty, was already a renowned

the patriot "who," says McSherry, statesman.

' had long stood the leading mind A distinguished non-Catholic his-

of Maryland." The war was car- torian remarks that Charles Carroll

ried on in the columns of the Mary- brought to play on whatever he un-

laud Gazette, and Mr. Carroll sus- dertook " a decided character, stern

tained his character of "finished integrity, and clear judgment."

scholar and accomplished gentle- Truly, the star of his name had

man." Never did he swerve from reached the meridian of its course

the high tone of a writer who was already. There it became fixed,

conscious of his own powers. As- His countrymen were guided by it

sailed with offensive names by his during the dark days of the most

adversaries, he never descended to perilous events, through battles and

their level. When the real name storms, dissensions and heart-burn-

of the First Citizen was yet un- ings, the exuberancy of victories

known, the excitement created by and the dejection of defeats. Thir-

his articles, written in a style ready ty years, the best of his life, his

and incisive, and withal most grace- whole manhood, a long manhood

ful, was enhanced by and received for he grew old only when others

a keener zest from the stimulus of cease to live he devoted to the

curiosity. Wonderful was the avi- welfare of his country,

dity with which they were sought The life of Charles Carroll be-

and read. These articles fed the comes at this period so entwined and

public spirit, inspired the people blended with the history of the coun-

with courage, and shaped the course try that our article would swell into

to be pursued not only by the col- a portly volume were we to under-

onists of Maryland, but even in take a narrative of the details of his

sister colonies. The articles by public career. We have endeavor-

First Citizen were held in so much ed to give a faithful portrait of the

esteem th^it Joseph Galloway, when character of a man who is the pride

speaker in the Pennsylvania Assem- of the secular history of the Catho-

bly, would copy them with his own lie Church in America. It has been

hand, on the loan from a fortunate our aim to give a key to open the

subscriber, and send them to Ben- inmost recesses of that soul the no-

jamin Franklin. blest of the noble, that heart the

Thus tne popular party triumph- purest of the pure, that mind great-

ed. The party of oppression, with e?t among the great. Therefore

the established clergy at their back, we shall only hint at the events of

was discomfited. Hammond and his public life, omnia qua tracta-

Paca were elected. Maryland was turi sumus, narratione delibabimus, as

saved, and her saviour was Charles Quintilian would teach us.

Carroll. '* Amid these controver- As foreseen, the British lion

sies arose a young man, spirited, awoke from his apparent lethargy,
VOL. xxm. NO. 35

546 CJiarles Carroll of Carrollton.

and with a roar and a spring he and abroad. Hisrep..yto the Hon.
bounded anew. Stung to the quick Mr. Graves, M.P., who averred that
at being, even only once, foiled in six thousand soldiers would easily
his endeavors to saddle on the colo- march from one end of the colonies
nies unjust burdens, he made re- to the other, is too characteristic of
newed attempts, and the tax on the the statesman not to copy it here :
" detestable weed ' was revived. " So they may, but they will be
The people arose in their indigna- masters of the spot only on which
tion, and gave vent to it in the ha- they encamp. They will find naught
zardous but successful festivities of but enemies before and around them,
the famous Boston Tea Party. Mas- If we are beaten on the plains, we
sachusetts was disfranchised. In- will retreat to our mountains and
deed, it was the vent of a petty spite, defy them. Our resources will in-
Not the Bay State alone, but all the crease with our difficulties. Ne-
colonies, would soon disfranchise cessity will force us to exertion,
themselves, all in a body, and in a until, tired of combating in vain
way of their own. But Massachu- against a spirit which victory after
setts had given the example, and victory cannot subdue, your armies
Maryland followed close in the will evacuate our soil, and your
wake. The latter even improved country retire, a great loser by the
on the act of the former ; for what contest. No, sir ; we have made up
had been achieved in the Boston our minds to abide the issue of the
Bay under disguise the citizens of approaching struggle, and, though
Maryland consummated at Annapo- much blood may be spilt, we have
lis openly and undisguised. And yet no doubt of our ultimate success."
brave Maryland had intestine trou- In these few lines the spirit, the gal-
bles that engrossed her attention lantry, the tactics, the greatness of
troubles which were aggravated our armies from Lexington to York-
even by the fact that the abettors town are both eloquently and accu-
thereof were interested in carrying rately described,
out the measures of the home gov- And when a second cargo of the
ernment. But there shone above " detestable weed " entered the wa-
them the guiding star Charles Car- ters of Maryland, the friends of Mr.
roll led them to victory. Undaunt- Stewart, a leading merchant in the
ed and uncompromising, Mr. Car- colony, to whom the brig Peggy
roll looked coming events in the Stewart belonged, and to whom the
face; and when Mr. Chase indulg- cargo was consigned, appealed to
ed in the hope that there would be Charles Carroll for advice and pro-
no more trouble, for " had they not tection. The First Citizen was ever
written down their adversaries?" consistent. Was not the importation
he would not thus flatter himself an offence against the law ? Was not
with illusions of enduring peace, the majesty of the people insulted ?
To other means they would have To export the tea to the West Indies
yet to resort. " What other means or back to Europe was no adequate
have we to resort to?" asked the reparation what if Mr. Stewart was
other. "The bayonet," calmly re- a friend of his ? . . . "Gentlemen,
joined Charles Carroll. And so set fire to the vessel, and burn
firm was his conviction that they her with her cargo to the water's
should resort to arms that he held edge !" With sails set and colors
his opinion against many at home flying, she floated, a sheet of fire.

CJiarh's Carroll of Carrollton. 547

Amid the shouts of the people on board there was a party covertly
shore. yet powerfully at work to displace
Besides the powerful promptings the commander-in-chief in favor
of a heart burning with love of of Horatio Gates. Mr. Carroll, as
country, Charles Carroll felt moved usual, always on his guard, watched
to deeds of heroism and self-de- his opportunity. He was approach-
fence by motives of equal, if not ed cautiously and warily, even be-
superior, importance. He became, fore a vote was taken. Then
nay, he seemed to feel that he was, calmly and stoutly, yet with that
in the hands of Providence, the rock-like firmness of his that had
chosen champion to assert Catho- become proverbial, he said : " Re-
lic rights and liberty ay, might move General Washington, and I'll
we not look upon him as the O'Con- withdraw." Words were those preg-
nell of America in the eighteenth nant with weighty consequent,
century? It can be proved be- Carroll was at the head, he was
yond all doubt that the Catholics the representative of the Catholics,
of the colonies placed great trust Maryland went with him ; the Ca-
in him. Surely he became their tholics of Pennsylvania, nine-tenths
representative. There was poVer of the whole population, an ele-
in his name. He had become a ment of great power, indispensa-
leading genius, inspiring with wise ble to success, were with him. The
resolves, and determination to carry colonies needed the aid of Catholic
them out, those valiant men of his France sadly. What if Charles
faith who had clustered around the Carroll withdrew to Carrollton ?
Father of his Country, or were ad- What if he recrossed the ocean ?
mitted to the councils of the na- George Washington was not re-
tion, or formed part of the rank moved ; and under God's favor was
and file in the American army, or not George Washington the chosen
had it in their power to swell with leader, the appointed conqueror,
generous hands the national re- the Moses of his day, the Josue
sources. This power of Mr. Car- of his people ? W T ho was there to
roll was felt even outside the pale take his place as the first over those
of his own church. The case of fierce legions of sturdy and reso-
the Peggy Stewart is one to the lute assertors of a nation's life?
point. We must be allowed here to trans-
Another and far more important fer to these columns, in words far
illustration of his power is the fol- more eloquent and true than we
lowing : Thomas Conway, a meteor could ever command, both the
of sinister forebodings, with his plots source and the development of the
of disaster and ruin, has defiled a ideas to which the deeds of those
very short page of American his- two men in the infancy of the na-
tory. Yet, brief as his career was tion has given rise in our mind,
in this country, it worked mischief. In a dialogue between himself
; ' Conway's Cabal" is well known, and a mysterious apparition on the
It is well known how the despica- threshold of that Temple whose en-
ble adventurer was bribed into a trance was forbidden to the Emper-
conspiracy against Washington in or Theodosius, Frederick Faber, yet
favor of an unpopular superior ofri- an Anglican, thus addresses his com-
cer. Charles Carroll was a mem- panion :
ber of the Board of War. In that " Do you not think that we should

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

be in a more healthy state if there
were a greater indifference to poli-
tics amongst us ?"

" No," replied he ; " I know of
no indifference which is healthy, ex-
cept indifference to money. The
church has a great duty to per-
form in politics. It is to menace,
to thwart, to interfere. The Ca-
tholic statesman is a sort of priest.
He does out in public the secular
work of the retired and praying
priesthood ; and he must not be
deserted by those spiritual men
whom he is arduously, wearily, and
through evil report conscientiously
representing."

Could modern publicist ever utter
words more squarely tallying with
the circumstances of our own
times ?

We have followed our hero only
to the performance of his first acts
in the great drama in which the
Ruler of nations had appointed him
to bear such important parts.
Charles Carroll, in his adjuncts
and circumstances, as regards both
his cast of religion and politics,
stood alone among his peers. Much
he had to destroy ere he could
build. But he addressed himself
to his work with well-appointed
tools, a clear mind, a steady hand,
a glowing heart, and an immovable
reliance in Him who hath said that
" unless the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it ;
unless the Lord keep the city, he
watcheth in vain that keepeth it '
(Ps. cxxvi.) Thus appointed, he
never faltered. On, on he advanc-
ed, step after step ; stretching forth
himself to those things that were
before him, he pressed towards the
mark, until he had received the
prize.

More than onescore years and
ten he labored as man never did
labor for the well-being of his

country. When he had reached the
sixty-fourth year of his life, and
only then, he rested ; he unbuckled
his armor and laid it down, to enjoy
the blessings which his own heart
and mind had drawn on America.
How beautifully were his talents
apportioned, in equal distribution-
thirty years of study in the best
schools of Europe ; thirty years of
the most faithful service in the
greatest work that it ever was the
lot of man to be engaged in ; thirty
years of unruffled peace in the bo-
som of his family, in the home of
his youth, which became the Mecca
of the people, as a writer calls it
a shrine of wisdom and goodness !
ThCre " the patriarch of the nation '
taught two generations ; he laid be-
fore their appreciative minds the
principles and inspired their grate-
ful hearts with those sentiments of
Christian polity of which he himself
was such a shining ornament and
faithful embodiment.

We well remember how, in days
long passed away, old men who
had known him in the days of his
manhood were wont to speak of
him ; how that heart, so noble and
so pure, fondly watched the healthy
growth of that tree of liberty to
plant which he himself had lent a
strong hand. These men would
tell how the ripe and veteran states-
man felt as much zest in the enjoy-
ment of surrounding events as when,
a boy and a youth, he applied him-
self to literary studies, or pursued
the more arduous acquisition of
scientific lore in the halls of philo-
sophy or in those of law and juris-
prudence. His was an equanimity
of character seldom witnessed in
man. And that placid, calm bear-
ing which made his countenance
the mirror of a soul preserved in
patience and perfect in self-control
never forsook him to the very last

Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 549

hours of his life. A very old mem- and free American Church let two
ber of the Company of Jesus, a pro- names for ever be emblazoned with
fessor and superior of the George- undying fame John and Charles
town University, has more than once Carroll ; one the father of his
related, within hearing of the wri- clergy, the other the leader of his
ter, that the appearance of Charles people ; John Carroll, the first vicar-
Carroll riding into the college en- apostolic, the first American bi-
closure, on a docile and yet lively shop ; Charles Carroll, a signer of
pony, when the great patriot had our Magna Charta, the assertor and
already overstepped the fourscore defender of those rights which shall
years of life, conveyed the impres- for ever be the palladium of religious
sion of a youthful and innocent old freedom. Could a line of conduct
age, so full of charm and gravity, be laid before us in more unmistaka-
pensiveness and gayety, authority ble words and surer meaning ?
and condescension, that it was felt Not by the ties of blood alone
indeed, but could not be described, were those two souls knit to one
It was the reflection of a past with- another, like David and Jonathan
out reproach, and of a future with- of yore ; but inspired with love of
out fear. His very carriage, the country, and deep, holy, unswerving
manner of his conversation, were affection for the church, they fully
an embodiment of his last words : appreciated the resources, moral
" In the practice of the Catholic re- and physical, which with proper
ligion the happiness of my life was culture would make of this land a
established!" Holy words ! Sub- favorite portion of the mystical
lime expression of the hopes of Vineyard and the asylum for the
Christianity ! May the example of oppressed. John within the sacred
such a man never fail, and be for enclosure of God's tabernacle,
ever the mould in which the young Charles in the halls of legislation,
American spirit should be cast ! they worked in different depart-
Providence seems to have granted ments, yet with one accord, the
him so long an existence because former to give the great garden fit
he was the purest of the Revolu- husbandmen, and provide it with
tionary patriots, and he wished his every appurtenance in nurseries of
example to last the longest ! virtue and learning ; the latter to
After his death no page was ever lead the instincts born with a peo-
written to vindicate his character or pie, purified by trials and trained
plead in behalf of one single short- to justice, into a current which,
coming! No word of merciful for- swelling in its course within the
giveness was heard at his grave, bounds, of Christian discipline,
His peers, his descendants, had would, the one directing, strength-
naught to forgive. AVith one voice ening, hallowing the other, run to
of acclamation from one end of the endless days in great majesty and
country to the other, amid wreaths overwhelming power,
of unspotted lilies and fragrant Charles outlived the archbishop
roses, his name was emblazoned by many years, and witnessed the
on the fair escutcheon of t^e Ameri- triumphs of the Redeemer's spouse
can nation as the name of to the achievement of which his
THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHT WITHOUT great kinsman had devoted the
FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH. resources of his extraordinary
On the shield of this untrammelled mind, the most tender and invio-

550

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

late affections of his exuberant
heart, and the untiring exertions
of a long apostleship.

And here we feel as if we may
lay down our pen and look upon
our task as accomplished. We
have endeavored to be the faith-
ful limner of a character noblest
among the noble, the pride and the
guide of our Catholic laity in the
American Church.

How grand that figure loometh
in the galaxy of our greatest men !
Great and grand, pure, unselfish,
guileless, wise, loving, he stands on
a pedestal of imperishable renown,
religion blended with wisdom, char-
ity with prudence, firmness with
condescension ! . . . When shall
we look upon his like again ? Yea,

the memory of his deeds is fresh,
and his many virtues as a Christian
and as a statesman are even mirror-
ed in the -lives of many noble, de-
voted, valiant followers bright ex-
amples of true patriotism and gold-
en righteousness to our rising youth,
on whose stern vigor, unfaltering
courage, and sterling virtues mother
church will lean for comfort and
defence a youth called, may be,
to fight even fiercer battles than
our great ancestor, their shining
model, had to meet ; battles that will
need stout hearts, level minds, souls
prompt in bold resolves. But the
God of yesterday is the God of to-
day ; and with Charles Carroll in the
van our gallant youth will advance
to the battle, sure also of the victory.

THE CATHOLIC SUNDAY AND PURITAN SABBATH.

" MAMMA, what kind of a place
is heaven?" inquired a boy, after
a two hours' Sunday session in a
parlor corner, with the Bible for
mental aliment. " Why, my child,
heaven is one perpetual Sabbath !"
" Well, ma ! won't they let me go out
sometimes, just to play '?" Absurd as
was his mode of expressing it, the
boy was right as to the fundamental
idea ; and though he could not have
given the steps by which he reached
the conclusion, yet he judged well
that the Almighty, when sending us
into this world, did not decree that
we should be perpetually miserable
in it. The enforced performance
of what was intended for a devo-
tional exercise was, in his case, be-
ginning to bear its legitimate and
inevitable fruits of irksomeness at
the outset, wearisomeness while it
lasts, aad loathsomeness at the end.

All who claim the name of Chris-
tians observe, with greater or less
strictness, one day in seven as a
day of rest and worship; the de-
votional exercises conjoined there-
with, emanating from the authority
of the church in the case of Cath-
olics, and from the varying taste
and fancy of the sect, congregation,
or even, it would seem, of the indi-
vidual, among non-Catholics. We
propose in this article to inquire
into the origin of the Catholic usage
regarding the Sunday ; the grounds
and mode of its observance among
Protestants ; the difference be-
tween the sectarian modes of keep-
ing it and that, enjoined by the
church. And as about every re-
ligious practice where variance ex-
ists there must be a right and a
wrong a method of observance
consistent with authority and rea-

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath. 551

son, and one either less so or en- is nothing to show that it was even
tirely incongruous therewith we habitual with them to convene on
shall try to find (apart from the that day; still less is there anything,
authority of the church, which, either in the form of precept or ex-
though ample for us, would be of hortation, in the entire New Testa-
little avail for outsiders) on which ment, that would manifest the fact
side right reason is, and to show of any change in the ceremonial
the absurdity of wrong custom in law of Moses on the subject. There
the matter. is no announcement whatever either

The church tells us simply what of the abrogation of the Sabbath of

the law of nature informs us of, the Jews or of the establishment

the existence of God the Creator, of Sunday instead ; so that, had

and of our duty of worshipping we but the Scripture to refer to, we

him; but the time when all other should grope in the dark both as to

things must be abandoned for the obligation itself and the mode

this special purpose is subject to of its fulfilment. But when we

another law the ceremonial and come to the fathers of the Church,

as under the Mosaic dispensation the very earliest of them indicate

that law was only a shadow <tf distinctly that the Christians of

future good, to be laid aside when their day did habitually meet to-

the true Light should descend upon gether on the first day of the week

earth, so the Jewish Sabbath, which (called by them Hvpiaxr), or Do-

was clearly established in the third minted). As we go on we find them

commandment of the Decalogue, is frequently enjoin, both, expressly

no longer to be held sacred, but and by clear implication, the obli-

the first day of the week, which was gation resting upon all Christians

consecrated by the resurrection of of meeting together on that day

Jesus Christ and the descent of the for participation in the Holy Mys-

Holy Ghost, is by her ordered to be teries. Later still we find them af-

kept holy ; and she enjoins on all firm this duty as of apostolic insti-

her children at least to hear Mass tution. To give a single example

devoutly and to abstain from servile of many, St. Saturninus, before suf-

labor on that day. Having to pro- fering martyrdom at Abitina, in Af-

vide, however, for all sorts and con- rica, in the year 304, under Diocle-

ditions of men, the church adds tian, for celebrating Mass on Sunday,

that reasons of necessity or tran- exclaims, in presence of his judges :

scendent charity will excuse us " The obligation of the Sunday is in-

from either obligation. And this is dispensable ; it is not lawful for us

all that our holy mother enjoins on to omit the duty of that day /' From

the subject. As Catholics we ac- the earliest Christian records to

cept and celebrate the Sunday the present day there is no break,

wholly on her authority; and, a no link wanting. Historians have

fortiori, we are not bound to any clearly shown the practice of the

further observance of it than .she faithful, and councils have firmly

dictates. enjoined and reiterated it. So much

While it is clear from Holy Scrip- for the origin and history of Sunday

ture that the apostles did meet with worship in the Church,

each other and with the early con- It is, of course, one of the cardi-

verts to Christianity twice on the nal principles of Protestantism in

Dominica or Lord's day, yet there fact, its sole raison d'etre that " the

552 The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

Bible is the only rule of faith and must have either disappeared or
practice " ; that everything therein some ingenious mode have been
commanded should be performed discovered by which it works only
literally ; and that whatever has no when wanted, to be set aside when-
clear and direct warrant of Scrip- ever its admission would run coun-
ture is purely of man's device, and, ter to the whim which may happen
by consequence, of no authority to be in vogue,
whatsoever. All very fine, in words ; Now, the only texts of the New
but when we examine how the doc- Testament that mention the Sun-
trine works in point of fact, we day in such way that it would be
shall find an amazingly great dis- possible to draw from them any in-
crepancy between the expressed ference in regard to its observance
faith and the actual, tangible prac- are Acts xx. 7 and i Cor. xvi. i,
tice. There has certainly been no neither of which declares the abo-
considerable drain upon the reser- lition of the ancient Sabbath or
voirs of our large cities in carrying enjoins the observance of Sunday,
out the injunction that " if ye wash But notwithstanding this fact, Pro-
not one another's feet, ye have no testants at large have accepted our
part in me." It is not, so far as we Sunday, whether on tradition, which
are informed, peculiarly character- they reject ; or on the authority of
istic of any sect of Protestants, when the church, which they despise; or,
"smitten on one cheek," iminedi- finally, of their own good pleasure
ately to " turn the other "for a re- certainly not on Scripture, since
petition o the blow. No special it is not instituted therein. It is
alacrity has ever been shown, even hardly worth while, owing to their /
by the straitest sects, in eager obe- paucity, to mention as exceptions
dience to the command, " From him the Sabbatarians, who maintain that
that borroweth from thee, turn not Christians have no authorization for
thou away " ; and so far are they changing the divine institution of
from obeying the absolute injunc- the Jewish Sabbath, and who con-
tion of the Apostle James to " call sequently observe Saturday. Luther
in the priests of the church to the does not pretend any divine au-
sick," and to " anoint them with oil thority for the change, but takes for
in the name of the Lord," that they granted that "mankind needs a
rave and rage against Catholics for rest of one day, at least, in seven ;
doing so, and affirm it to be a super- and the first day, or Sunday, having
stitious observance. If St. Paul ever prescription in its favor, ought not
expressed himself clearly on any lightly to be changed." He says
point, he certainly does so most un- elsewhere that " if any man sets up
mistakably when he says that " it is its observance on a Jewish founda-
a shame for a woman to speak in tion, then I order you to labor on
the church "; yet the sectarian world it, to ride or dance on, it, or to do
is now very largely supplied with anything whatever on it that shall
"reverend' ladies, widowed, mar- remove its infringements on Chris-
ried, and maiden, who evangelize tian liberty." The Augsburg Con-
with great acceptance, and even fession pointedly says : " Those who
officiate as regular pastors to various judge that in place of the Sabbath
congregations throughout the coun- the Lord's day was instituted, as a
try. It would seem, therefore, that day necessarily to be observed, do
the cardinal principle aforesaid very grossly err." Calvin says in

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

553

his Institutes : " It matters not what
day we celebrate, so that we meet
together for the desirable weekly
worship ; there is no absolute pre-
cept " ; and he adds that the stick-
lers for Sunday are " thrice worse in
their crass and carnal view of reli-
gion than the Jews whom Isaias
(ch. i. 13) denounced." The doc-
trine of the English Reformers on
the subject is most concisely and
strikingly put by Tyndale, who, in
his Answer to Sir Thomas More,
thus speaks :

" As for the Sabbath, we be lords over
tlu Sabbath, and may yet change it into
Monday, or into any other day, ass we see
need, or may make every tenth day holy
day, only ass we see cause why. We may
make two every week, if it were expedi-
ent and one not enough to teach the
people. Neither was there any cause to
change it from Saturday, but to put a dif-
ference between ourselves and the Jews ;
neither need we any holy day at all, if
the people might be taught without it."

Even in Scotland John Knox,
who attached himself to the inno-
vators with a bigoted zeal, did not
pretend to find any Gospel warrant
for what he was pleased to call the
Sabbath ; and Dr. Hessey candidly
acknowledges that the strained Sab-
batarianism of Scotland is by no
means to be attributed to him or
his coadjutors, mentioning at the
same time that Knox, when on a
' visit to Calvin at Geneva, found
that eminent Reformer occupied, on
the Sunday of his arrival, at a game
of bowls ! If, then, it be plain that
the arch-innovators are not respon-
sible for that peculiarly unlovely,
rigid, and ultra-Judaic observance
of the Sunday (the traces of which,
growing fainter year by year, are
yet plainly discernible in the laws,
institutions, habits, and manners of
the English-speaking portion of
the Protestant world), whence did

it originate ? Why are the ideas
of English-speaking Protestants so
widely different from those of their
brethren, and even of their own
founders, on this subject ?

Fuller (in whose pages much
quaint and naive information about
the history of those transition days
is to be found) tells us that the
Puritans, " who first began to be
called by that name about 1564,"
and who dissented from the church
of King Henry on the ground that
the Reformation had not gone " far
enough," were, like all other rene-
gades, anxious to distinguish them-
selves by hostility at every point
to the camp they had abandoned.
They preached that to throw bowls
on the Sabbath " were as great sin
as to kill a man " ; to make a feast
or wedding dinner on that day
" were as vile sin as for a father to
cut the throat of his son with a
knife " ; and that to ring more
bells than one " were mickle sin
as is murder." Of this brood was
Vincent Bownde, whose great work
on the Observance of the Sabbath
first appeared in 1595 ; and to this
book, which began the polemical
controversy on the subject, is due
the rabid Sabbatarianism of the
English Puritans during the re-
mainder of the reign of Elizabeth
and the dynasty of the Stuarts.
The Scottish Calvinists eagerly seiz-
ed the cry, and from both sects (their
influence, pertinacity, and numbers
being much greater than those of
the Anglican Establishment, which
was itself, of necessity, largely tinc-
tured by their practice), through our
own hard-headed but harder-heart-
ed Puritans of New England, who
practised this unmitigating obser-
vance Of the day with the same
zeal of enforcement that they dis-
played in many other grimly ludi-
crous things, we of this age and

554

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

country are still to a great extent
under the sway of an intolerant and
enforced Sabbatarianism which the
spread of intelligence and liberal-
ity is gradually wearing away, but
which, after all, dies very hard. Just
as no enmity is so envenomed, no
hatred so intense, so in like manner
no distinctive practice or usage dis-
appears so slowly, as those origin-
ally engendered by religious faction.
It was clear that no Scriptural au-
thority existed for the abrogation
of the Jewish Sabbath, and equally
evident that the denial of the au-
thority of the church destroyed for
ever all ecclesiastical sanction for
Sunday. There remained, conse-
quently, no possible authorization
for it but to insist that the mere
meeting together of the apostles
on that day (which, so far as any-
thing to the contrary can be shown
from Scripture, might have been acci-
dental) constituted sufficient war-
rant; and next to regulate the ob-
servance of the day by the practice
of the Jews with regard to the Sab-
bath. This Bownde did without
hesitation. His book, gratifying as
it did at once the malignity of the
Puritans against the church, their
envy of the established sect, and
their own exclusiveness, became ex-
ceedingly popular, was largely read
and quoted, and its influence re-
mains to the present day. Here in
the United States we yet retain
traces of it in our laws ; as, indeed,
we still do of that other intolerance
by which Catholics were, in former
days, not allowed to hold civil of-
fice. In some of the New England
States Sunday (or Sabbatli, as they
wrong-headedly insist on calling it)
begins at sunset on Saturday ; but
in most of them it legally begins
at twelve o'clock on Saturday n-ight,
lasting twenty-four hours. In some
States contracts made on that day are

void ; but generally they are bind-
ing, if good in other respects. Of
course the name Sunday is the
Anglo-Saxon Snnnan-cUeg, equiva-
lent to the Roman dies solis, so call-
ed in both tongues from its being
anciently devoted to the worship
of the sun. Sabbath is the Hebrew
noun shabbath (rest) from the verb
shdbath (to rest).

To ourselves and those who think
with us that the state, in legislating
about matters of religion, whether
doctrinal or merely of exterior ob-
servance, is overstepping her proper
limits nay, who go further, and in-
sist that government was no more
instituted to educate our children
than to feed and clothe them ; that
there is not an assignable ground
for the former which would not be
even more conclusive for the latter
it follows that all such lecrisla-

tion, from that of Cromwell's Puri-
tans and the Six Sessions of Scot-
land, down through the Blue Laws
of Connecticut,, to the last munici-
pal regulation that allows no con-
cert on Sunday unless it be a " sa-
cred " one, and no procession ac-
companied by a band of music on
that day, seems, what it really is, an
absurdity and a monstrosity, a relic
of odious strifes and bitter hates;
and we would be glad, in common,
we think, with sensible and tolerant
men of all creeds, to see our statute-
books rid of its remotest traces.

In speaking of any religious prac-
tice enjoined by the Catholic
Church we have this advantage :
viz., that what it is at one place or
time it is in all places and at all
times. The practice, then, of Catho-
lics, in accordance with the church
teachings above stated, is to hear
Mass on Sunday, and, except in
cases of necessity, to abstain from
servile labor. Most Catholics also
attend Vespers on that day, though

T/ie CatJiolic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

555

there be no absolute obligation.
We take no extreme cases, either
of the very pious on the one side
who for their souls' sake may be
said to make a Sunday of every day
111 the week, or of those on the
other hand whose religion sits so
lightly upon them that it is some-
times difficult to tell whether, be-
yond a feeble claim to the name of
Catholic, they have any religion at
all. Among the 200,000,000 Catho-
lics of the world are to be found
many of both descriptions. We
speak, however, of the average.
Among these, Mass and Vespers be-
ing over, there will be found no
strait-lacedness ; no tone peculiar to
a Sunday, put on for that day, and
not observable on other days; no
hesitation in conversing about sub-
lunary affairs of all kinds that can
and may engage the attention dur-
ing the week. Should a concert-
hall be open, as in Europe is often
the case, the Catholic hesitates not
to go there, providing it be one to
which he would go on any day />.,
if it be a proper place for himself
or family under any circumstances.
He converses on business or for
pleasure with his friends in the pub-
lic gardens, at the cafe's j with his
family lie visits other families \rith
whom they may be intimate. He
does not hesitate to write a busi-
ness letter, to view a lot which he
thinks of purchasing, or to take the
railway train on that day. It is
needless to go further. He has
complied with the command of the
church, and, not being a law unto
Jiimsclf spiritually, he invents for
himself no obligations superadded
to those of the church, which, in
accordance with the commands of
Scripture, he believes himself bound
to hear.

In speaking of Protestant doc-
trine or practice we are, of course,

more at a loss to speak definitely
than when we lay down Catholic
usage ; since the former rarely re-
mains the same on any single point,
even within the same sect, for an
ordinary generation of man. Why,
fifty years ago Christmas was an
abomination, " a rag of popery," to
all but the Anglicans. The sign
of the cross was " the mark of the
beast." An organ in a meeting-
house was " a seeking out of their
own inventions." Of the least ap-
proach to a liturgical observance,
were it but the repetition of the
Creed, it was said : " In vain do they
worship me, teaching for doctrines
the commandments of men." Now
nearly all the sects make a feint of
some sort of service or observance
of the Christmas season ; the cross
is displayed within and without
many church buildings ; not merely
organs but string and brass bands
fill the choirs of Protestant fashion-
able churches ; they may nearly all
be heard falsely repeat, Sunday af-
ter Sunday, that they " believe in
the holy Catholic Church "; and the
prophet who should now foretell
their changes in another half-cen-
tury would run the risk of being
mobbed in the public streets.

We give the doctrinal teaching
of the Presbyterians on Sunday
and its observance, or at least of so
many of the different religious bo-
dies going under that name as still
subscribe to, and say they deduce
their doctrines from the Bible via the
Westminster Confession of Faith.
It was formerly, and is to some ex-
tent still, the most generally receiv-
ed teaching on the subject of ob-
serving the Sabbath among English-
speaking Protestants, who seem to
have had a monopoly of spiritual
information and an exclusive en-
lightenment on this whole mat-
ter. How much the bitter ha-

556

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

tred existing between Roundhead
and Cavalier had to do with the
firm hold the said observance took
on Puritans and their descendants
is not to the present purpose to in-
quire. In response to the ques-
tion, " How is the Sabbath to be
sanctified ?" we have this answer :

" The Sabbath is to be sanctified
by a holy resting all that day, even
from such worldly employments and
recreations as are lawful on other
days ; and spending the whole time
in public and private exercises of
God's worship, except so much as
may be taken up in works of neces-
sity and mercy."

What was meant by this is suffi-
ciently indicated by the legislation
effected both before and subse-
quent to the meeting of the " As-
sembly of Divines." We are assur-
ed by excellent authorities that in
England, some twenty years after
the appearance of Bownde's book,
people " dared not, for fear of
breaking the Sabbath, kindle a fire,
or dress meat, or visit their neigh-
bors ; nor sit at their own door
nor walk abroad ; nor even talk
with each other, save and it were
of godly matters." In 1643 the
Long Parliament enacted laws " for
the more thorough observance of
the Sabbath," and caused to be
burnt by the hangman James I.'s
Book of Sports. In the next year
the Court of Six Sessions forbade
in Scotland all walking in the
streets on the Sabbath after the
noonday sermon ; and soldiers pa-
trolled the streets, arresting both
old and young whom they should
find outside their houses and not
on the way to or from church.
The gates of Edinburgh were or-
dered to be shut from ten P.M.
of Saturday till four A.M. of Mon-
day ; and the case is on record of
a widow who had to pay a fine of

two merks for having "had a roast
at the fire during sermon time."

It is told of an English lady of
rank in our own day that, having
procured some Dorking fowl, she
some time after asked the servant
who attended to them whether they
were laying many eggs ; to which
the latter replied with great ear-
nestness : " Indeed, my lady, they
lay every day, not excepting even the
blessed Sabbath ! ''' Nor is the puri-
tanic feeling still existing to a con-
siderable extent among some few
of the sectaries in Scotland badly
illustrated by Sandie's remark when
he saw a hare skipping along the
road as the people were gathering
for sermon : " Ay ! yon beast kens
weel eneuch it's the Sabbath day !"
And the countryman passing on his
way to "meeting," who, when asked
by a tourist the name of a pictur-
esque ruin in the vicinity, answered :
"It's no the day to be speerin' sic
like things," gives the reader an idea
of certain peculiarities (formerly
quite prevalent among Protestants,
and still too common for the com-
fort of those who have many of
the straiter sort for neighbors)
which, we believe, are gradually
but surely fading out before the
progress of intelligence and with
the wave of superstition and intol-
erance. For it must be borne in
mind that the same Westminster
Confession, relying too on Scripture,
insists on the right and power of
the civil magistrate circa sacra,
contends that " he beareth not the
sword in vain," and that kings
should be "nursing fathers" and
queens "nursing mothers" to the
church. We will do our modern
Presbyterians the charity to believe
that in subscribing to this instru-
ment, they do so with some ' men-
tal reservation"; otherwise the cry
against union of church and state

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

557

that we so frequently hear from
them would (when taken in con-
nection with their former antece-
dents as a sect and their present
professed standards) be quite un-
intelligible.

Now, of the mode of keeping Sun-
day followed by Protestants in Con-
tinental Europe we need not speak,
nor of the practice of Anglicans in
the same regard, save in so far as
the latter have (principally through
the lower or evangelical division of
their body) been modified and in-
fluenced by its former subjection
and present proximity to the Puri-
tan element of the English popula-
tion. In the countries of Europe
claimed as Protestant, and as a very
natural as well as logical result of
the indifferentism taught by the so-
called fathers of reform, Luther
and Calvin, it is difficult for the
tourist to discern in Prussia, Hol-
land, "Denmark, Sweden, or N</r-
way, save by the greater number of
people at the theatres, concerts,
and exhibitions, in the beer-gar-
dens, taverns, and other places of
resort, whether the day be Sunday
or not. Some, of course, attend
church on that day, it being almost
the only day of the week on which
such service is ever held. Geneva
and the non-Catholic cantons of
Switzerland may be passed with
the same description, which com-
pletely exhausts Protestant Conti-
nental territory in Europe. Nor
of the mode of observing Sunday
inculcated by the Anglicans in
England can we say that it is at
all overdone or puritanical. They
have, at least, escaped the dismal
parody of asceticism which distin-
guishes such of their Scotch neigh-
bors as have any trace of the
ancient practice left.* Let us

* Not having had an opportunity of extensive
travel in Scotland, we cannot speak of anything but

glance a moment at the laws of our
Puritan friends of New England,
that we may get an idea of bigotry
run mad, and of the deductions
that may be drawn from Vincent
Bownde's book and the teachings
of the Westminster divines. " Hav-
ing themselves," as Washington Irv-
ing well observes, " served a regu-
lar apprenticeship in the school of
persecution, it behoved them to
show that they were proficients in
the art." The Puritans of Massa-
chusetts thus legislate in regard to
the "Sabbath" in the " Plymouth
Code " :

" This court, taking notice of the
great abuse and man)'' misdemeanors
committed by divers persons profaning
the Sabbath, or Lord's day, to the great
dishonor of God, reproach of religion,
and grief of spirit of God's people, do
therefore order that whosoever shall pro-
fane the Lord's day by doing unneces-
sary servile work, by unnecessary travel-
ling, or by sports or recreations, he or
they that so trespass shall forfeit, for
every such default, forty shillings, or be
piiblicly whipped ; but. if it clearly appear
that the sin was proudly, presumptuous-
ly, and with a high hand committed,
against the known command and autho-
rity of $e Blessed God, such a person,
therein despising and reproaching the

Lord, SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH, Or griev-

ously punished, at the discretion of the
court."

In support of the same wretched
Sabbath superstition the colonies
of Hartford and New Haven issue
the following edicts :

21. " No one shall run on ths Sabbath
day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere,
except reverently to and from meeting."

22. " No one shall travel, cook victuals,
make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or
shave on the Sabbath day. 1 '

23. " No woman shall kiss her child
on the Sabbath or fasting day."

Edinburgh and Glasgow ; but on the few Sundays
that we passed there, if there was any more specific
and noticeable observance of the day than by more
copious drinking^ we failed to see it.

The Catliolic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

Omitting, for very shame's sake, ly infected with the plague of stu-
to say anything of No. 38 of Gover- pid and superstitious keeping of
nor Eaton's code, the reader will the Sunday, begun in factious op-
perceive in the above quotations position to the English state es-
to what absurd results logical con- tablishment, propagated by the
sistency drives the fanatic when he work of Bovvnde, eagerly appro-
becomes so by cutting adrift from priated by Andrew Melville and
the safe moorings of God's church the Scottish politico-religious agi-
and trusts his salvation to the tators of his day, and transmitted
puny cockboat of private judgment, to us through the Rump Parlia-
These Puritans had disclaimed the ment and the Puritans of New
title of the church which originated England. The "able and godly'
the Sunday; they would not, like ministers of these latter, who, in
Crammer, accept it as " <? mere ap- the words of Mr. Oliver, "derided
pointment of the magistrates"; so the sign of the cross, but saw magic
there was nothing left for them but in a broomstick," though their de-
to slur over the utter vagueness of scendants have recoiled from the
its mention in the New Testament, teachings of their childhood into
and refer the whole observance Unitarianism or infidelity; though
back to Moses and the Third Com- not one-half the adult population
mandment. In doing this why of New England now belongs to any
were they not consistent through- Christian sect; and though of all
out ? Why did they not let their bodies of men that ever existed
lands rest in the seventh year ? Why under a guise of religion in the
not observe the year of Jubilee or- face of day they were the most
dered by the sanction of the same inconsistent, the most bigoted, the
Lawgiver? most superstitious, the most intol-

As before stated, Protestant prac- erant, and the most relentlessly

tice, like the doctrines from which persecuting, are yet often forced

it emanates, is Proteus-like in form upon our admiration. It has

and phase; nor is the method fol- somehow become the fashion to

lowed in the observance of Sun- laud these -bigots to the heavens

day any exception to the general in annual palavers of New Eng-

rule. But, upon the whole, the off- land Societies, Plymouth Rock

spring of Knox, the descendants of orators, Fourth of July and other

Bownde, and the adherents of the spread-eagle speakers ; and though

straiter sects stand up more stren- their other doctrines and practices

uously and make a stouter fight have vanished, leaving on their

(not in argument, but by sheer chosen ground scarce a trace be-

persistence) for the rigorous keep- hind, yet we are reminded of their

ing of the "Sabbath' than they spirit and quondam influence by the

have found it convenient to do shackles of legal enactment in re-

for many doctrines and usages gard to Sunday observance; by

which, logically speaking, were of the tumult that rises from certain

far more importance to Protestan- classes of Protestants as silent

tism as -a system. Our outward custom or outspoken enactment

and visible life in the United from time to time sweeps out of

States, in Canada, and in the Brit- existence some one or other of the

ish Isles is to this day, in this one trammels with which Puritanism,

matter, largely tinctured and deep- in its day of power, enthralled us.

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

559

With what persistent zeal do they
not agitate in the newspapers
and petition authorities, municipal,
State, and federal, against the run-
ning of the horse-cars, the rail-
cars, and the mail steamers on the
Sabbath ! How terrible, in their
eyes, are the Sunday excursions of
the laboring people of our large
cities ! How clearly do they not
perceive that liberty is a good thing
only so long as everybody thinks
and acts exactly as they do ! Did
they not prove that we lost the day
on a famous occasion during the
civil war by delivering battle on
Sunday ? How insanely anxious
are they not to have the Almighty
(their Almighty, that is to say) in
some way constitutionally harness-
ed to the already hard-racked in-
strument which consolidates the
government of these States ! It

is true that these men are the
tetes Diontees of fanaticism of this
sort, and we are far from affirming
that a majority of their co-religion-
ists go with them. Indeed, we
know, from daily observation, that
in many of the sects there exists
but little of the spirit indicated,
and that what remains is fast dis-
appearing. But there exists enough
of the embers to render walking
amid them very annoying, and, with
the assistance of a good breeze
from the preachers, these embers
may easily, and on small provo-
cation, be fanned into a flame !
Has not fanaticism displayed an
unexpected vigor in connection
with the question of opening our
great Centennial Exposition on the
only day on which the industrious
poor can have the chance of seeing
it without manifest injury to their
temporal interests ?

(hir Protestant friend of the
stricter sort awakes on the Sunday
morning, bethinks himself of the

day, dresses (having shaved him-
self provisorily on Saturday night),
schools his countenance into the
most malignantly orthodox cast,
takes in hand the Bible, Baxter's
Cat/, or Boston's Fourfold State,
and descends to the parlor; that
is, he would descend but that he
hears one of his boys whistling in
an adjoining room, who must at
once be reproved therefor, to be
more fully punished next day.

" To R anbury came I, O profane one !
There I saw a Puritane one
Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a rat on Sunday."

Having thus effectually "borne tes-
timony " and quenched the spirits of
the juvenile members of the family,
who, fully knowing what Sunday
means to them, have learned expe-
rimentally that

Lt Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage, 1 '

he sits down gazing at his book,
fancying, in some vague way, that
he is doing God service (though
how or to what end would seem
indistinct, since, according to his
most cherished doctrine, there is no
merit whatever in good works). He
hears with disgust the bell of the
irreligious milkman, sees the un-
sanctified horse-car pass his door,
the irreverent baker make his
round, and notes the profane news-
boy cry the Sunday papers. This
last is the most afflictive dispensa-
tion of all, and the one against
which he has most vainly and fre-
quently petitioned, never thinking
that, even on his own grounds, the
real gravamen is in the papers
of Monday morning, the work for
which must necessarily be done on
Sunday. Breakfast comes at length
eaten in solemn silence the
children being " hard up " for an
apposite moral or religious obser-
vation, and fearful lest, should they

560

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

say anything, it might be some-
thing mundane. Nor can the mo-
ther help them to diminish the
gloom of the occasion, having been
herself furtively engaged in eking
out the shortcomings of the servant
in preparing the meal, and painfully
aware that, according to the family
scheme of orthodoxy, she has not
been sanctifying the Sabbath. Fa-
mily worship (on this day longer in
the prayer than usual) adds in no
way to the general cheerfulness.
Each boy and girl, supplied with a
Sunday-school book of the stereo-
typed pattern and contents, and
given to understand the enormity
of even the desire to take a walk
on that day, longs in the inmost
heart that the day were over.
Church time comes, when, with a
warning that they will be expected
to answer on the text, the sermon,
and an admonition against drowsi-
ness, all are trooped off to meet-
ing, the parents bringing up the
rear. Then ensues an hour and a
half of dreary listening to what
most of them cannot, by the remo-
test possibility, comprehend. More
than likely some of them may have
been overcome by sleep ; in which
case even the negative pleasure of
apathy is taken away, and its place
supplied by a fearful looking-for of
judgment, either by rebuke or cas-
tigation. The dinner is, in want of
hilarity, a repetition of the break-
fast ; for no secular idea may be
expressed, and the spirit does not
move the younger branches, in any
special degree, to an interest in the
rather languid remarks of the pater-
familias upon the theological ten-
dencies of the sermon ; said obser-
vations being delivered in his Sun-
day tone, compared with which a
gush of tears would be exhilarating.
Books are retaken ; no cheerful
game or romp among the children ;

no free play or interchange of ideas
between the parents. To write a
letter would be a crying sin for the
father. It is a heinous fault when
his mind spontaneously wanders to
that note of his due on Wednesday
next ; and although the mother had
the interesting and enlivening lucu-
brations of Edwards on the Will in
her hands, yet there is much reason
to believe that the washing of to-
morrow has more than once inter-
vened to prove Edwards in the
right ; not to mention the occasion
on which she caught herself recall-
ing the trimmings of Mrs. X 's
bonnet in the front pew. No visit
from, none to, any family of their
acquaintance ; either would be a
sin against the sanctity of the Sab-
bath ! We need not visit the Sun-
day-school, to which the supersti-
tious folly of the parents, fear of
their fellow church-members, the
Mrs. Grundyism of sects, or an un-
founded belief that something valu-
able is learned there compels the
parents to send their children.
Probably most of our readers know
how these things are managed ; what
is the causa causativa of a Sunday-
school superintendent ; what is the
calibre of the young men who
teach, and the object which takes
them there. We all, of course,
know and recognize the high moral
aims as well as the literary and
theological ability of the misses
who form the grand staff of instruc-
tors in those institutions ! But we
must not be diverted from our sab-
batarian Sunday.

Then follows a dreary tea, meet-
ing and sermonizing again, from
which two of the children, having
gone hopelessly asleep soon after
the exordium, are brought home in
a dazed state, nor does a protracted
bout of family worship much assist
in arousing them therefrom ; and
then to bed ! We suppose the father

The CatJiolic Sunday and Puritan Sabbat Ji. 561

to be honest. Many such men are. whustlin' an' lookin' as happy as gin
\Ve doubt not but many of the it was the middle o' the week.
Puritans were sincere, and slit the Weel, sir, oor lads is a God-feariii
ears of the Quakers with the se- set o' lads, an' they wur joost
renity of good men engaged in the comin' oot o' kirk. Od ! they yokit
performance of a virtuous action, on him, an' amaist kilt him." This
But let us put the question square- is, after all, the point of the matter,
ly to reasonable men : Will it be a We neither can, by right, ought to
matter of surprise if this man's have, nor have we any objection
children, when they grow up, loathe to any observance of the Sunday,
and abhor all religion, thinlung it however rigid or however much
all of a piece with that in which (to our mind) it may seem strained,
they were brought up if they turn overdone, and even ludicrous. That
out, in short, what the descendants is the affair of the man himself, and
of the Puritans have become ? Why, should lie between his own con-
the writer is acquainted with a science and his Creator, where we
school, kept by a well-meaning have no right to interfere. But we
man, in which, by tedious Bible- all want and have a right to the
reading, hymn-singing, and long- same privilege for own conviction,
winded prayers at the school open- or want of conviction, that we
ing and closing, the teacher is un- cheerfully accord to him. Now,
wittingly the cause of more of this such people as he never will
what he would consider sacrilege, accord to us so long as they can
in an hour, than is heard of profan- possibly prevent it. They never
ity among all the hackmen of New have done so in the history of the
York on the longest day of the year ; ^Yorld, and, taking experience for
and his great object, which is to our guide, we have no reason to-
bring up Presbyterians, is thereby suppose that they ever will. They
rendered as utterly futile as though prate largely of liberty of con-
he were an ingenious man doing science, but that phrase means in
his utmost to make infidels of their mouth liberty to think as you
them. please, so long as you think witJi
Curiously enough, people of this them. Though he is my neighbor,
kind (we refer to the strict keeping may not my daughter play the
Sunday) are never satisfied with piano on Sunday on account of his
the liberty they enjoy (and which tender conscience ? Must I not,
nobody wishes to curtail) of ob- because he fancies the Sunday
en-ing the day just as rigorously thereby desecrated, practise the
they may desire. Not at all. flute ? I do not attempt to inter-
fere is no happiness or ease of fere with his drone of family wor-
spirit for them until by legal pains ship ; why should he be eternally
and penalties they can force you, petitioning to stop the delivery of
me, and all their neighbors to their my letters, or to prevent my going
wn peculiar way of thinking and down-town in the horse-cars on that
ftmg. This was well illustrated day? I insist that he has as much
the Scotchman who, in telling as he is called on to do in attend-
pious a people he had got ing to the affairs of his own con-
among, said : 'Last Sabbath, joost science; that the contract is quite
the kirk was skailin', there was a as much as he can conveniently
ver chiel comin' alang the road, and creditably get through with
VOL xxiii NO. 36

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

and I object (I think with reason)
to giving up mine to his charge.
I \vunt a keg of beer in my cellar,
0-, it may be, a basket of cham-
p igne. Because he is virtuous, shall
there be Jio more cakes and ale ? Shall
his beins; scandalized because I

mink proper to take a walk on Sun-
day confine me all that day to the
house ? Must his scruples of con-
science prevent myself and family
from entertaining our friends on
Sunday ? In short, must I always
be on tenterhooks to know how his
conscience regards every act of
mine on that day? It would seem,
though, as if that were just what my
neighbor and his atrabilious friends
have been aiming at. For, now
that I think of it, they have been
since ever I remember the self-
same people, who have all along
got up meetings, been active in
urging petitions, and done their
utmost to thwart everv conveni-

ence or facility that for the past
twenty- five years has been con-
trived for public accommodation on
Sunday.

On further reflection, they are
the identical individuals who have
publicly and privately been mar-
plots in every matter in our vicin-
age, during the same length of
time, which did not fully recognize
their little Ebenezer or Bethel as its
fount and origin ; and though they
are possibly not to be convinced,
yet it is highly important for these
people and all their class to learn
once for all that the days of Puri-
tanism are gone, and that nowa-
days every man is responsible for
his own acts to his Creator, and not
to % Mr. Jones next door, nor to
the congregation with which he
worships. We do not wish Mr.
J to read his letters o*n Sun-
day, nor will we force him to pa-
tronize the street-car on that or

any other day ; but we want him
and his friends to cease from mak-
ing laws that interfere with our
freedom, while thrusting upon them
nothing which, willy nilly, they are
bound to accept.

Thus it will be seen that our ob-
jection is not to our friends of the
various illiberal "schemes of salva-
tion " as individuals, nor to their
practice of a peculiar and, to us, by
no means an alluring primness of
speech and gait on Sunday; but to
their unwillingness to allow us, who
see things differently, to follow our
own convictions, and to their mani-
fest determination that we shall, in
the event of their ever having; the

power, be forced to adapt ourselves
to their views and practices. This
overbearing spirit seems to be in-
separable from their pharisaic prac-
tice and its resultant prejudices, so
that our dislike to both is well
founded. As to the sanctification
of the Lord's day, they have an in-
disputable right to celebrate it just
as austerely as may best suit them,
though we think them grossly and
foolishly wrong therein. They may
call the day Sabbath, if they please,
though we know that word to sig-
nify Saturday, and nothing else.
But in return for this (not concession,
for it is their right) we wish to sug-
gest mildly that we also have cer-
tain inalienable rights ; that among
these, according to a highly-re-
spectable and much-lauded docu-
ment of which we sometimes hear,
"are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness "; and we modestly
venture the additional suggestion
that the municipal and other la\vs
which already exist, and those
which these people would fain en-
act, touching an enforced observ-
ance of the Sunday after their fash-
ion, interfere largely with our just
liberty and militate strongly against

The CatJiolic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

563

our chances of success in the pur-
suit of happiness.

Finally, which method of observ-
ing the day seems the more in ac-
cord with right reason ? And here
we wish the Protestant to lay aside
a moment, if he can, the prejudice
engendered by the tyranny of early
education, surrounding usage, and
personal habit. Our having been
accustomed from early youth to a
specific article of diet, clothing, or
to a habit of any kind, physical or
mental, does not necessarily make
an entirely different usage wrong
or the direct reverse sinful- If ft
be a command of God that Sunday
shall be observed after the fashion
of the ancient Jews with their Sab-
bath, we have nothing to say, ex-
cept that even then we object to its
observance being made a matter of
legal enactment. No man was ever
yet driven to the Almighty by fear
of temporal pains and penalties ;
nor is any worship acceptable to
our Creator unless it be a free-will
offering of the heart. But when
Protestants admit with us that the
Mosaic dispensation is past and
the type done away with in the
fulness of that which it prefigured,
we certainly cannot consider the
law of the Pentateuch any more
binding upon us in this respect
than in regard to the rite of cir-
cumcision, the usage of polygamy,
or the obligation of a brother to
marry his deceased brother's wife.
But there is, in the New Testa-
ment, no warrant at all for the
change of the day, much less any
rule for its special observance ;
and consequently, on Protestant
principles, any day in the week
-indeed, any one in ten days,
a fortnight, or a month would
answer the purposes of religion
equally well ; and as there is no
Scriptural command, the mode of

observance is purely of human in-
vention.

We of course do not speak here
of the Sunday, or of any one day
in seven, employed (apart from re-
ligious purposes) solely for the pur-
pose of recruiting the jaded physi-
cal energies of him who toils on
the other six days in the week.
The necessity for a periodical sus-
pension of toil and labor depends
on physical laws to which no refer-
ence is now made; and as the tur-
moil of trade and the competition
of labor go on increasing, the ne-
cessity for the regular recurrence
of a day of rest becomes more and
more evident. The laboring classes
are too numerous and too deeply
interested in the preservation of
the stated holiday for it ever to die
out. In this view of the question
the purely physical . one the
mode of observance would be sim-
ply amatter of discretion and utility,
and would not come within the
purview of the civil law at all ;
though the actual appointment of
the day might, for the sake of uni-
formity and for many other rea-
sons, very properly be considered
as pertaining to government. We,
however, speak of the day as a
divine or an ecclesiastical institu-
tion, in which light its observance
will depend upon the direct word
of God or command of his church ;
but in no case will the civil law
have any right to interfere either
by dictum or permission.

But even supposing, for argu-
ment's sake, what we by no means
admit viz., that the Sunday should
be observed in accord with the
prescriptions of the Pentateuch
we do not see how it follows that
innocent and healthful recreation
should be denied on that day,
either to the young, for whom it is
absolutely necessary, or to the mid-

5 64

The Catholic Sunday and Puritan Sabbath.

die-aged and the old, to whom it is
at least desirable. There is a great
and palpable distinction between
recreation and labor. The latter is
forbidden on the Sabbath in the
Decalogue ; but does the former
stand in the same case ? The
words are : " On it thou shalt not do
any work." It does not say : ' On
it thou shalt take no recreation,
nor shalt thou play." It is one
thing to say to the hod-carrier or
the navvy that he shall not mount
the ladder with the heaped hod or
ply the mattock and spade; and it
is another and quite a different
thing to say to either that he shall
not take a walk in the suburbs, go"
with his family on an aquatic or
rural excursion, or visit the 'Ex-
hibition buildings ' on a Sunday.
It is against such superstitious
abuses, which had, in course of
time, grown up on the authority of
the sophistical Rabbins touching
the Sabbath, that our Saviour so
frequently and pointedly protests;
and against the same or similar
illiberal practices we now pro-
test.

We Catholics say that the Sun-
day is like other holidays of obli-
gation, of the same enactment, and
on the some footing with them
i.e., they are all instituted by com-
mand of the church. Now, with
the Sunday, as well as with the
other church festivals of obliga-
tion, comes the duty of hearing
Mass and refraining from servile
labor ; but the lavr of the church
ceases at that point, and '* where
there is no law there is no trans-
gression." The Catholic believes
the other days ordered by the
church to be observed just as
binding as Sunday; but it never
enters his head to attempt to co-
erce Protestants either into the
same belief or observance. His

Protestant friend says to him in
effect : " I have a very tender con-
science touching the observance of
this day. Your cheerfulness inter-
feres with my devotional feelings;
your Sunday recreations, walks,
visits, and travel scandalize me,
and offer a bad example to my
rising family. On last Sunday
morning yourself and family rode
out in the horse-cars to the park ;
in the afternoon you entertained a
houseful of visitors, during which
time you, with the flute, accom-
panied your daughter on the piano,
'^e Sunday previous you took the
train for an adjoining city. The
Sunday papers are frequently taken
at your house. You write, post,
receive, and read letters as uncon-
cernedly on the Lord's day as
though it were the middle of the
week. When we had the power
you would have been firstly fined,
then whipped, and for stubborn
persistence put to death for this;
but in these degenerate days all I
can do is to put every legal and
social obstruction in your way that
our decaying numbers but ever per-
sistent determination will enable us
to do. Alas for the days that are
gone !"

Now, with the parents on either
side we have little to do. The
mind of the Catholic is made up ;
his conscience is informed from the
precepts and instructions of the
church ; and we have no desire to
change his views or practice in the
pretnises. And, in the case of his
opponent, there are few tasks so
hopelessly wanting in results as
that of convincing a man against
his will ; as that of trying to sur-
mount religious prejudice in the
adult. But we put it to fair rea-
son, to common sense, to the com-
munity (which has a manifest in-
terest that its members shall be

The Eternal Years.

565

under the influence of some reli-
gion, and not utter infidels), to an-
swer : In which of the two families
exists the stronger likelihood that
the children will grow up stanch
and ardent believers in religion?
Will any one tell us that it will be
in that in which a dark, overshadow-
ing pall, under the name of piety,
was made " to press the life from
out young hearts "; in which every
thoughtless, merry, or exuberant
word or act of theirs was repre-
sented as sin "deserving God's wrath
and curse for ever "y in which* no
memory of youth connected with
religion can be other than sombre,
dismal, and remorseful? Or will
it be in the Catholic family, where
the child is taught, not merely in
words, but in fact, that " my yoke is
easy and my burden, is light "/ where,
as he grows up, religious observance
constantly appeals to him as a pri-
vilege, not as an infliction : where
cheerfulness, mirth, and jollity are

by no means considered hostile to,
but rather the concomitants of, true
religion ; and where no day of the
week is definitely consecrated to
unnatural gloom and false (because
enforced, and consequently hypo-
critical) devotion ?

The answer is plain. Statistics
of the result, with children brought
up under each set of influences,
bear us triumphantly out; and, in
fine, thankful as we are for the
daily and yearly decrease in num-
bers and influence of those who
maintain this rigorous observance
of the Sunday, we shall be still bet-
ter pleased, and it will be a happy
day for this and the other Eng-
lish-speaking peoples among whom
they ever existed, when the quib-
bling, narrow-minded, and sophis-
tical principles and practices repre-
sented by such persons shall have
been entirely stamped out beneath
the onward march of tolerance and
Christian charity.

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.'

CONSUMMATION.

WE have spoken of the way in
which the arch-enemy, the seducer
of God's children, is aping the mys-
teries of the still hidden future, ac-
cording as his subtlety and his en-
mity direct him. But while his
rage and cunning are devising new
deceits for those who are not en-
lightened by divine truth, or who
have hid their light under a bushel,
our attention is called in a special
manner to her whose office it is, and
ever has been, to crush his head.
Whenever and wherever the deceits
of men and devils are putting out

the light and wrapping the soul of
man in darkness, there does the Vir-
gin Mother come more openly and
more directly to counteract the fatal
influence. It has been reserved for
the cold, matter-of-fact, utilitarian
last half of the nineteenth century
to see awakened in the multitude
the simple and romantic faith in
pilgrimages and in the childlike,
pathetic histories of Mary's appear-
ances upon earth that lent such
charm to the ages of faith. If the
enemy of mankind seems to have
more power allowed to him in the

566

TJie Eternal Years.

evil days on which we have fallen,
so the Mother of fair love, from
whose pure hands the divine odyle
streams, is deigning to speak to chil-
dren and childlike souls, showing
herself to be the great channel of
special graces, the medium of divine
communications, and the sure refuge
against Satan's acted prophecy and
pantomime of God's loving inten-
tions. " We will come to him, and
dwell with him ' and Mary is the
precursor and the channel now as
she was then to his first coming,
when he took flesh in her womb.
The promise to the individual soul
is the promise to the church : and
vice versa. The revelation of God
in the church is also the life of God
in the soul the two are bound up
in one. The life of the church is
the guarantee of the life of the soul ;
it is the only sure foundation of
such life ; and the golden house, the
damns aurea, of that life is devotion
to the divine Mother. For as her
presence, her sweet virginal life,
was the necessary preliminary to
the first coming of Christ, so will
the Son of God not appear on his
glorious second mission till Mary
has come in the hearts of her people
as an army with banners ; all her
prerogatives known and worship-
ped, all her position, flowing from
her rights as the mother of the God-
man, acknowledged and under-
stood, and her court of angels fol-
lowing in her mystic footsteps up-
on earth, even as the bees follow
their -queen wherever she may
choose to alight ; and so preceding
the second coming of our dearest
Lord and ushering in the new glo-
ries of the kingdom of God upon
earth.

The Holy Ghost could only be
sent by Jesus glorified. The sacri-
fice of the cross needed to be ac-
complished and the precious blood

shed, before the promised Paraclete
could come. And thus between the
one stupendous event and the other
there lies an epoch of forty days,
when he had not yet ascended in-
to heaven, and when therefore his
risen glory was in a measure incom-
plete. At the beginning of that
dread time, full of the deepest mys-
tery, of which we but imperfectly
comprehend the meaning, he was
seen first by Mary Magdalene in
the garden. And as she fell at his
feet with extended hands, he said,
" Touch me not." We have prob-
ably all of us at some time meditat-
ed sadly on those repelling words.

Time was when she might touch
those blessed feet, not with her
hands only but with her lips. Does
he love her less now that her repen-
tance is complete, and her salvation
accomplished? Do not her rapid
thoughts go back in one rush to the
time when she sat at his feet unre-
buked, whiling away the contempla-
tive hours as she listened to his
words and heard him say she had
chosen "the better part"? Does
she not with a pang of wounded
love recall the moment when she
wiped the precious ointment with
her hair from the feet she had
bathed with it and with her tears ?
But now he says, " Touch me not !"
Yes, there is a change. But, O
loving heart ! it is not a change of
loss but of gain. It is true there is
an interim in which our beloved
Lord is shrouded from us in too
much glory for our human sense.
The cradle-time of his sweet infancy
is past, the grace of his youth, the
glory of his manhood, and all the
bitter-sweet ignominies of his cross.
He has passed somewhat beyond our
ken. He is risen, but not yet as-
cended. The first Mass * had not

* By this is meant the first Mass celebrated by a
mere man.

TJic Eternal Years.

567

then been offered. The bloody
sacrifice was over ; the Eucharis-
tic Sacrifice had not been celebrat-
ed by mere priestly hands, only by
his own divine hands on Holy
Thursday, Until Mass had once
been said, there was something as it
were incomplete in the condition of
the church. The next touch, the
only touch possible for us (save by
a special command to St. Thomas
and his faltering disciples), was in
the Blessed Sacrament.* Now we
touch him daily, and fear no re-
buke. Jesus is ascended, and the
Paraclete has come, and is ever
coming more and more; and as the
Holy Dove sheds the light of his
wings upon the church and speaks
through her utterance, so the pri-
vileges and the status of Mary are
more revealed and more developed.
We know more of our queen, and
we are learning more of her court,
and when both have taken their
place in the hearts of men and have
prepared for the reign of the Holy
Ghost, when the angels have ac-
complished their mission, the far-off
glories of which are hardly dawning
on us, then will he make us know
all that lies hidden in the deep
mystery of his second coming, and
God and man and angels will be
united in the sweet bonds of Jesus,
and through the mediation of her
who is clothed with the sun, with
the moon beneath her feet, and a
crown of twelve stars on her virgin
head.

This is the divine progression,
and this is leading to the divine
consummation.

Our task is drawing to a close.
It has been our endeavor to encir-

* With ever-yearning love he calls us in the dear
Sacrament of the Altar and before the doors of his
made that we may touch not only his sacred
feet as Mary Magdalene pressed them to her lips,
but his whele self, his humanity and his divinity in
one.

cie the whole creation with the
chain of faith, and to bind each to
all in endless links of the divine
love. We have dared to glance
back before time into the bosom of
eternity. We have beheld time, as
it appears to our human ken, in a
manner detach itself from eternity,
and seem to become an entity
which indeed it is in a certain
sense. .We have marvelled at its
slow-flowing course and its distant
results, as compared with our own
rapidity of thought and grasp of im-
agination. And we have seen that
time is patient because it is the off-
spring of eternity, and because it
is the mode and vehicle of God's
revelation of himself to us. God is
patient because he is almighty and
omniscient. For a little space we
have strained our endeavors to look
upon the flowing stream as God
sees it, and not as we break it up
into moments and hours. Our mo-
tive for doing this has been to real-
ize so far as is possible the contin-
uousness of God's action with the
indivisibility of his being as he is
in himself, and to prove that this in-
divisibility and intrinsic unchange-
ableness lie at the root of all his
manifestations of himself through,
the nunc fluens of time. Wherever
we have fancied a contradiction to
exist, or even a disparity, the error
has lain in our partial vision and not
in any shadow of change in the great
God. He meant always what he
means now, but mankind could not
always equally bear that meaning.
Therefore, as pitying his creation,
he has condescended in past ages
to *pour the divine waters of reve-
lation in diverse colored vessels ;
so that at one time the limpid liquid
seemed to us of a different hue from
what it assumed subsequently, until
at last the waters of life were held
in the crystal vases of the church,

568

The Eternal Years.

pure and white as they. We per-
ceive and understand that the God
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob
is the same God as our God of
Bethlehem and Calvary. And the
unity of God's nature becomes ever
more and more obvious to us as
we study the characteristics of his
government. At no period and in
no place has the loving Creator for-
gotten the work of his own hands.
And lest we could not find him, he
has adapted the light he poured
upon us to the weakness of our
sight. In the unity of God and in
his unchangeableness we find our
own link to the past, and discover
how we are the inheritors of for-
mer ages and the heirs of the years
to come. We have indicated (we
could do no more) the great fact
that all is because God is ; that he
has and can have no other end
than himself; and that it is exactly
in that great truth that lies all our
hope and all our salvation. For he
is absolute goodness as certainly and
as necessarily as he is absolute be-
ing. This being so, it is impossible
for us to wish anything that he has
made not to be. Dreadful as is the
thought of hell, we could not wish
hell were not we cannot wish evil
to exist. But we find it there, and
we are silent because he has per-
mitted it. We hate it, because,
though he permits it, he hates it.
But we see how it grows out of the
free will of men and angels ; and
that, as all merit lies in deliberate
choice, there could be no choice if
virtue were a necessity. Evil is
not, like good, an original and uni-
versal principle. It is the negation
of that ; and required, to give it an
actual existence, the free power of
deliberate selection, like that of the
devils when they fell. We see as
we read the history of the world, in
the light thrown by the knowledge

of God, that evil works greater good.
And as we can see this in part, we
believe that it exists in the whole,
though our perception is limited.
We know that good must triumph
in the. end. If we thought other-
wise, we should make the devil
stronger than God, and the scheme
of redemption a comparative fail-
ure.

As we enumerate all these things,
what is the result we arrive at ex-
cept one of illimitable joy and con-
fidence exultation beyond all ex-
pression in the might and majesty
of our God a hopefulness that
exceeds language a courage too
large for a narrow heart, and a
boundless, passionate yearning to-
wards all living souls, that they
may learn how great a God is our
God, and how good and grand a
thing it is to be alive and to serve
him ?

We can only measure life with
any accuracy by the amount of
thought which has filled it
that is, by the quantity of our
intellectual and spiritual powers
which we have been able to bring
to the small aperture in the camera
obscura by which to contemplate
the ever-flowing eternity that lies
beyond, and cut it up into the
sections we call time.

Another example will show us
how plastic is the nature of time.
Take the life of an animal. We
are inclined to give the largest pos-
sible and reasonable importance to
the brute creation. It is an open
question in which we see great
seeds of future development, all
tending to increased glory to the
Creator and to further elucidation
of creative love. Nevertheless it is
obvious that brutes perceive only,
or chiefly, by moments. There is,
as compared with ourselves, little
or no sequence in their perceptions.

The Eternal Years.

509

There is no cumulative knowledge.
They are without deliberate reflec-
tion, even where they are not with-
out perceptions of relations and
circumstances, past or future.
Consequently, they are more rigor-
ously subjected to time than our-
selves. Therefore, when we de-
prive an animal of life we deprive
him of a remainder of time that
is equal to little more than no time,
in proportion to the degree in which
his power of filling time with per-
ception is less than our own.*
All we have said tends to prove
that time has in itself only a rela-
tive existence ; it is a form or phase
of our own being. f It is an aspect
of eternity ; the aspect which is
consistent with our present condi-
tion.

From the way in which we have
seen that God has made use of dif-
ferent races to work for the establish-
ment and development of his church,
we have opened a glorious vista of
hope in the future, and we have
rejoic'ed over the work to be done,
and the laborers who at the
eleventh hour shall be called into
the vineyard, until even the frag-
ments that remain shall be gathered
up, so that nothing may be lost.
We have dared to maintain, against

* In other words, there is a more imperfect being
than ours. Though whether its imperfection is to
exclude all idea of their having a future fuller de-
velopment, whereby and in which they will be in-
c'cmnified for their sinless share in guilty man's
punishment, is stilt an open question.

t Time is the measure of successive existence in
created and finite beings. Asa finite spirit cannot
escape from this limit of successive existence, any
more than a body can escape from the limit of locali-
ty and finite movement in space, it is evident tkat
this statement is not correct in a literal and strictly
metaphysical sense. Eternal existence is the entire
possession of life which is illimitable in such a per-
fect manner that all succession in duration is ex-
cluded. It is possible only in God, who is alone
most pure and perfect act, and therefore is at once
all he can be, without change or movement. The
created spirit must ever live by a perpetual move-
ment or increase in its duration, because it is on
every side finite. It is impossible, therefore, that
time should cease while creatures continue to exist.
ED. C. W.

all those who cavil at the evil days
on which we have fallen, that Chris-
tianity has infiltrated its influence
in regions where it is blasphemed,
or, as in the past Roman Empire,
where it was denied. We have
endeavored to impress on our rea-
ders the importance, and in a cer-
tain sense the sacredness, of mat-
ter, as the vehicle of God's demon-
stration of himself. For, as Fene-
lon says, " God has established the
general laws of nature (which in-
volve all the laws of matter) to
hide under the veil of the regulated
and uniform course of nature his
perpetual operation from the eyes
of proud and corrupt men, while on
the other hand he gives to pure and
docile souls something which they
may admire in all his works." In
proportion as we honor God's laws,
so should we honor the means of
their manifestation, the substance
through and in which they work,
and without which they would fall
back into the abstract and have no
existence outside God himself. We
say in proportion, because the
manifestation is second to the prin-
ciple manifested, and the modus
operandi is inferior to him who em-
ploys it. We have as much diffi-
culty in conceiving of God apart
from his operations as we have in
realizing eternity apart from time.
And therefore is all honor due to
the vast creation whereby we see
the evidence of things not seen,
and everything becomes to us
" holy to the Lord." It is for this
reason that the true and intelligent
love of nature is essentially the off-
spring of the Christian faith. The
ancients cannot be said to have had
it in any degree beyond a remote
possibility in their intellectual na-
ture. To them nature was a weird
enchantress, hiding her terrible se-.
crets with a jealous care. The si-

The Eternal Years.

ience and solitude of the forests
and the mountains were full of a
sense of horror. The separate trees
held a lamenting and imprisoned
spirit ; the gay, sparkling streams
were a transmuted nymph, which,
like the perfumed shrubs and flow-
ers, told some tale of the anger of
the gods and their swift revenge.
All that was inanimate inspired
sadness. And when their pastoral
tales rose into cheerfulness, it was
that the lowing herds and bleating
sheep formed a part. The sounds
and motion of at least animal life
were essential. The solitudes of
nature were simply awful and terri-
fic ; for nature was then only a.
mystery to unredeemed humanity.
She held deep secrets in her bosom,
but the curse had set its seal upon
them all, and she waited in long
mournful silence for the hour when
the human feet of the Creator
should press her varied fields, and
by his thrilling touch break the
iron bars of her captivity, and
teach her to tell of him in the whis-
pered music of her thousand voices.
In truth, her secrets were his, nor
dared she break silence until he
had come to set free the mystery
of love for which she was created
and instituted. But when Love
himself had walked the earth, and
mingled his tears ay, and his pre-
cious blood with the dews of his
own creation, then the dark melan-
choly of nature grew into sweet
pathos, and her solitudes were filled
with secrets of his presence.

But what was then hidden from
the pagan world could hardly be
so to the first father of our race, he
who out of the vast stores of his
infused science named all created
beings. When Adam saw the corn
growing bright in thick array, and
the vine bending down with purple
fruit, surely he understood, as in

a .prophecy, the great symbol of the
bread of life and of the Holy Eu-
charist. The body and blood of
the Incarnate God, albeit unbroken
and unshed, must have been pre-
sent to his ardent expectation as
he beheld their antitype in the
garden of Paradise. The rose with
her mystic bosom deep enfolded
must ever have awakened some
passing thought of the Rosa uiys-
tica. And when to sad Eve, after
her exile beyond the gates guarded
by the flaming sword of the cheru-
bim, the rose appeared bearing
thorns among her five or seven
leaved foliage, she guessed at the
sacred crown and the divine
wounds of the God-man, and at
the sevenfold desolation of the
mother who bore him. And what
to us are the bright autumn hedge-
row leaves dabbed with blood, not
red now but tawny ? Are they not
tokens that he has trod that way
and left the traces of his past
glorious passion past, because
that blood was shed once for all,
but still and for ever remaining;
while the scarlet poppy takes up
the theme, and in every corn-field,
on barren tracks, and meeting the
way-worn traveller by the road's
dusty side, reminds him that the
sacrifice is renewed hour by hour
the wide world over, fresh and life-
giving as ever ? Can the rich wood-
lands fail to bring before us the
thought of him who gathered from
the forests of his own creation the
wood for his own cross ? Can we
sit beneath the dappled sunshine
of the flickering boughs without
remembering how it dared to lay
its quick vibrating touch upon his
sacred head, as he walked amid the
olive groves of Gethsemane, but
withdrew itself, and gave place
to the cold moon before the scene
of his great aq;ony ?

The Eternal Years. 571

Surely these shadows are full of are virtually everywhere equally,
uncreated light ; and from time to But their manifestation in mind
time the church retrims her lamps and degree is as diverse as all
of dogmatic theology, and each that exists in the vast cosmos, in-
time the light streams further down side and outside of which God is,
into the still, dim, uncertain regions infinite and entire.
of natural science, another pre- We have not enlarged upon this
cious secret is revealed, another theme as we might have done. We
ancient doubt dispelled ; and mat- have only pointed out to our read-
ter and natural laws prove them- ers how God's touch on his crea-
selves each more and more to be tion is the only absolute contact
the depositories of divine truth and that exists, and that science goes
the faithful creatures of the omni- to prove the absence of all other,
present Creator. that is, of all material contact. We

While acknowledging the force have abstained from trying to de-
of law, we have denied that law monstrate how this truth sweeps
can have an independent existence away a hundred doubts respect-
apart from a self-existing, self-con- ing God's ways towards man, and
scious lawgiver, of whom it is the a thousand difficulties that might
exponent. We have asserted the prove stumbling-blocks to our faith,
same as regards force, which is but We have desired no more than to
another name for law, or, rather, put the thought, nay, we might
which is law in posse. And we say the fact, before them, and leave
have stated that as science proves them to work out all its corol-
the absence of all direct contact in laries in love and devotion. We
the material world, the world of are not writing for sceptics but for
atoms, so the only real contact is those who believe, and would fain
that of spirit on matter, of the believe yet more surely, giving a
divine Creator on his own crea- reason for the faith that is in them,
tion. For he is nearer to us than and dwelling in prayer on thoughts
we are to ourselves. All forces, which reveal more of God's char-
all active powers, emanate from acter to the soul. We are to be
God. They are the evidences to perfect as our heavenly Father is
us of his existence. They could perfect. That is, in our measure
as little exist without him as a and degree, we are to aim at a faint
shadow can exist without light, reflection of the harmony, the pro-
They are one in their nature, portion, the justice of God. To
though they are diverse in their do this, and to aim at doing it, we
effects, because they are God's need to form in our own minds an
constant touch on his own creation, accurate though but a limited view
He exists formally in all space and of the character of God. And to
beyond all space. And everywhere effect this, we must as it were look
he is the same : the immutable and at his character all round for
absolute Ens. In his touch on his which purpose the past, the pre-
creation he gives rise to the active sent, and the future are all-impor-
iorces which virtually declare his tant to us ; and we have to view
being, and which are extended him as he reveals himself to us in
throughout space, but under a his creation, in his government, and
million varied degrees of being in his promises. We have ventured
and a million varied forms. They to maintain that the whole of his

572 The Eternal Years.

creation is with a view to his In- ness of the future which is coming
carnation ; that the Incarnation of upon us like the rays of the sun be-
the Second Person of the Blessed hind a mist ; the reign of the Holy
Trinity is enhanced by his glo- Ghost the enlargement of the
rious passion and most precious church's border, and the spreading
death working our redemption ; of the cords of her tent ; the de-
that it is glorified by his resur- votion to the Mother of ("rod taking
rection and ascension; and only root in an honorable people; and
completed in his sacramental pre- thus, through the mediation of her
sence ; that as this sacramental who is the first among all created
presence is the one great fact virtu- beings, bringing the whole outer
ally enclosing in itself all the others, world nearer to the spiritual world,
as it is the coping-stone of the great This, and the future mission, may
mystery of the Incarnation, its low- be a very distant one, of her mes-
est depth and greatest height, so is sengers the angels, are all certain
it the link that rivets the creation to because they are written, and even
the God-man, and the keystone to all now the signs of the times indicate
the science of matter and dynamic their advent. In whatever form
force. For it is the divine epitome they may come, whatever may be
of all the laws that govern both, the the details filling up the wonderful
reason of their being, and the last picture of the future, whatever, in
exponent of their rootedness in God. short, maybe the literal working-
It completes the circle within whose out of the wonderful promises of the
bounds lies the entire cosmos as a Gospel, one thing at least is certain :
globe environed by the serpent, they mean peace to men of good-
It is the golden ring with which the will. We may be quite unable to
divine Spouse has wedded himself define or explain them ; we are
to his church and to all the world, waiting for the hour when the
if they but know it. Words fail us. church shall teach us more. But
We cannot say enough ; for these we cannot exaggerate their impor-
are thoughts too deep for words, tance, nor can we deny that our
and which seem to be rather dark- blessed Lord has left a rebuke on
ened than expressed by language, those who make no attempt to dis-
And, like all that is greatest, they cern the signs of the times. There
come to us from that which seems are souls among his special servants
most simple and most hidden of all who are the men of the future,
a silken-curtained Tabernacle ; and They are those who are called to
behind the little closed door lies all ; stand on the watch-towers of pray-
every secret has its solution within er, and to hear the cry, ' Watch-
the round white limits of the Host, for man, what of the night ?"
that Host is the great ultimatum of The time of figs was not yet.
the creation, and the absolute con- Nevertheless, he in his eternal jus-
summation of God's giving himself tice cursed the fig-tree that yielded
to man, while the latter is in the him no fruit, when he deigned to
condition of viator. look up among the broad, scented
We have entreated our readers leaves of its knotted branches,
not to be deluded by the dimness There are souls who are called to
of the 'present times, but by prayer bear fruit out of season as well as
and solitary thought to strain their in season, and woe to them if they
spiritual vision to behold the bright- fail in their higher and exceptional

The Eternal Years 573

spiritual vocation. They are to be present is an epoch which may yield

beforehand with time ; they are to a larger amount of merit to those

be, though in a silent, hidden way, who know how to profit by it than

the spiritual heralds of the future, perhaps any other we may make

the harbingers of God's coming a rich harvest of faith and hope,

spring, the pioneers of prayer. And we must bear in mind that

They are the human messengers both these are virtues that will ul-

that are to prepare his way before timately be swallowed up in the

him, in those never-ceasing con- greater and crowning virtue of per-

([iiests which multiply in proportion feet charity. When we see, there

as our hearts are ready to receive wilt be an end of faith ; when we

him. They are to live, as all the know, hope will expire in certainty,

great saints have done, in advance "There remain now faith, hope,

of their age. St. Francis was cen- and charity ; but the greatest of

tunes before his time in the refine- these is charity." In .proportion to

ments of his exquisitely spiritual- the extension of our knowledge, the

ized nature ; St. Vincent of Paul area of our blind faith is diminish*

was the same in the creations of his ed. " Because thou hast seen me,

charity; and St. Francis of Sales thou hast believed. Blessed are

like St. Philip Neri in the blending they that have not seen, and yet

of deep piety with the exigencies have believed." There is a special

of modern life. The nearer we ap- grace attending these twilight days,

proach to the consummation, the when a larger demand is made

more numerous will become the upon our faith. The light will

watchers of the night, the souls that gradually increase unto the perfect

are looking out for a new dawn, day not only the real absolute

and who meanwhile are leading aa perfect day of heaven, but in a mea-

inner life in advance of the present, sure here upon earth. The merit

God alone can know them, an.4 of faith will be less, when the angels

those on whom he has bestowed are obviously carrying out their

the gift, though but partially, of mission upon earth, than it is now,

the discernment of spirits. To when the good lies so hidden, and

others they will appear as men the evil is so rampant and open,

walking in a dream, visionary and We are foolish not more truly to

unpractical. It matters not to value the advantages of our own

them. Even here they have in a time, and to rejoice that we are

measure their great reward, for they called upon to have a greater and a

can say, with their divine Master, " I stronger faith than may be possible

have meat to eat which you know in those who will, as it were, put

not." their hand into the wounded side

We are often tempted to com- where beats the Sacred Heart of

plain that we have fallen upon evil Jesus. Whatever has an appear-

times. The past seems to us to have ance of discouragement about it is

been more full of heroism, the fu- in fact a fresh demand from God

ture we believe will be richer in upon oiir larger faith and deeper

knowledge. We have slid into a trust. It is as if he said to us,

period of prosaic piety mingled u You are my friends, and therefore

with many doubts. Without paus- I can count upon you." We should

ing to argue how much of this is make haste to lay up a larger har-

false, we would remark that the vest of meritorious faith from every

574

The Eternal Years.

doubt that falls across our path
and every cloud that veils the sun-
shine, and by this very act we shall
hasten the dawn and bring on the
! joyous fruition of our prayer. "Thy
kingdom come, thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven " for surely

this ptayer is intended to be grant-
ed in a far greater degree than any-
thing the world has ever seen from
the creation to the present hour.
Remember who taught us that
prayer ; and remember the centu-
ries that it has been breathed by all
the church of God from infancy to
age. It is not a poetic phrase. It
is not a hyperbole. It is God's
word, expressive of God's will and
God's intention ; and, therefore, has
he made it the universal petition of
all his children. It is the epitome
of all he demands in every sepa-
rate soul, until the many units have
become a large multitude of the
faithful, greater than any man can
number.

It is the strenuousness of our faith
which will give a greater distinct-
ness, a more delineated and chiselled
clearness, to our convictions, and
even to our opinions. At present
they hang loose on too many of us,
and flap about in the high wind of
the world's contempt and impudent
indifference, blinding our sight and
hindering our steps. A firmer,
steadier faith will gather tight across
our bosom all our outstanding no-
tions and ideas, bringing them into
subjection to the faith which teaches
us to see all things as God sees
them that is, according to our de-
gree, but in the same light that he
sees them, which is the light of eter-
nity and of his own being. ~He has
bidden us open our mouth wide
that he may fill it. Can, we, then
hope too largely or too earnestly ?
Can we assign any limits to the grace
of sanctification in its continuous

progression, or to the advance
of lo\ie in the ever-enduring reign
of the Holy Ghost ? The God to-
wards whom we are being so sweet-
ly drawn is infinite, and though
each individual must reach his own
appointed measure and degree, yet
who can dare put a limit even in
thought to the plenitude of that
future ? But for our great and ex-
ceeding hope, how barren would
our present life appear! Like
Rachel, the church cries incessantly
to her Lord, u Give me children, or
I die." Let us repeat the prayer,
and re-echo in every act of our lives
the passionate desire for the spread
of truth and the increase of light;
for it is hardly less difficult to guess
at the beautiful and glorious future
which God reserves for his cherished
creations the garment that he has
woven for his only-begotten Son-
than it is to form an opinion of the
possible glorious future of some
souls as compared with others. And
is this all? Have we by any un-
guarded expression left on our
reader's mind a notion that we are
anticipating the perfectibility of
mankind upon earth, the absence
of evil, and a sort of pious Utopia, as
the sum and substance of our ex-
pectations a deifying of the system
of nature, a glorification in some
distant future of all the natural
laws, as ultimate and final, and
which, because of the beauty of
creation, are to content us and be
in some form or other our higher
destiny ? Not so. The end is not
in that, neither is it here. Were
Satan bound now, as one day he
will be, we still should as now
carry about with us the concupi-
scence which has tainted the na-
ture of every 'human being, save
only the Mother of God. Alas !
we need no devil to prompt us
to sin, for we carry an enemy

The Eternal Years. 575

within us. Even mortal sin can be infinity of God. Towards that we

committed without his assistance ; yearn, for it is our last end. Even

and we are but too apt to paint him the immaculate heart of Mary ; even

blacker by thrusting upon him a re- the unutterable endearments of the

sponsibility which is too often all sacred humanity; even that which

our own. We believe in no ah- in its mystery and its hiddenness is

solutely sinless existence this side the nearest approach to the undi-

the gates of death, except that of vicled thought of God the Blessed

the God-man and his immaculate Eucharist become to us but parts

Mother. But this we do believe, of a whole which must be ours, if

that "wisdom is justified by her we are to be content. The cosmos

children," * and we venture to an- rolls away from our sight like :i

ticipate that all that is holy, beauti- scorched parchment before that liv-

ful, and fitting in nature will shine ing heat. The history of Bethle-

with a renewed glory upon earth as hem and Calvary are manifestations

the dawn grows to the perfect day, limited in themselves, and indica-

before the temporal gives place to tive of more, iThe Blessed Para-

the eternal, and the Son of Man clete, whose personality AVC perhaps

shall have delivered up the kingdom sometimes find it hard to individ-

to the Father. " And when all ualize (though we do not say with

things shall be subdued unto him, the Ephesian disciples that " we

then the Son also himself shall be have not so much as heard whether

subject unto him that put all things there be a Holy Ghost"), becomes

under him, that God may be all in in our thoughts a more intense and

all." f We have borne the image absolute idea, less vague than in

of the earthly, we must also bear the past, and how inscrutably at-

the image of the heavenly when tractive ! We have reached the

God shall be all in all, when we thought of the Holy Ghost through

shall have ascended by the ladder Jesus. Atfd now we seem to sink

of the sacred humanity to the mys- into the bosom of the Father

tery of the Holy Trinity, when we through the Holy Ghost ; and, in a

shall look on the Triune God and way too deep for words, to be con-

be satisfied. Before the immensity scious of ourselves only through our

of that thought there falls a veil of perception of the great God, and to

light more impenetrable than the have lost everything save the im-

thickest darkness. We cease to mensity and the unity, the eternal

think. Our whole being becomes being and the eternal love, of the

as it were detached from our hu- Father, the Son, and the Holy

man consciousness, and for one Ghost the three Persons we have

moment, one awful, never-to-be-for- dimly known on earth ; and the

Uen moment, we hang over the one God, whom we shall only

abyss which is the eternity and the fully know in heaven, when Ave

shall have entered on the eternal

* Matt. xi. 19. t i Cor. XT. years.

THE END.

576

New Publications.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE GLORIES OF THE SACRED HEART.
By Henry Edward, Cardinal Arch-
bishop of Westminster. New York :
The Catholic Publication Society. 1876.
[Republished by special permission
of his Eminence.]

There are many excellent works on
the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. The new one whose title is given
above is not a mere repetition in a new
form of the substance of any of these
preceding treatises. It is different from
all of them, and quite peculiar in its
scope, as well as in its style, as might
be expected from its eminent author.
Its basis is strictly theological. With
his usual and characteristic accuracy of
doctrine and lucidity of style, the cardi-
nal makes an exposition of the mystery
of the Incarnation and its consequences,
especially in respect to the deification
and adoration of the sacred humanity of
Jesus Christ. The special cultus of the
Sacred Heart is explained in its relation
to the deified humanity, to the Blessed
Sacrament, to the sanctification of men,
and to the eternal glory of the elect.
This is a book to enlighten the mind of
a sincere and devout reader, and, through
the illumination of the understanding, to
awaken a solid, rational, and ardent de-
votion.

We have received the following books,
but in consequence of the unusually
crowded state of our columns must defer
notice of them until later.

TERRA INCOGNITA ; OR, THE CONVENTS OF
THE UNITED KINGDOM. By John Ni-
cholas Murphy. Popular Edition.
London : Burns & Gates. New
York: The Catholic Publication So-
ciety.

SOUVENIRS OF NOTRE DAME : A Collec-
tion of Poems and Dramas. By Mrs.
Mary T. Monroe. New York : The
Catholic Publication Society.

JULIAN THE APOSTATE, AND THE DUKE
OF MERCIA: Historical Dramas. By
the late Sir Aubrey deVere. London :
Pickering.

MARGARET ROPER ; OR, THE CHANCELLOR
AND HIS DAUGHTER. By Agnes M.
Stewart. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet& Co.

REAL LIFE. By Mathilde Froment.
Translated from the French by Miss
Newlin. Kelly, Piet & Co.

THE WISE NUN OF EASTONMERE, and other
Tales. By Miss Taylor. Kelly, Piet
Co,

SAINT ELIZABETH, THE LILY OF PDRTTJ-
GAL ; SAINT ELIZABETH, THE MATRON
OF ISRAEL ; SAINT ELIZABETH, THE
QUEEN OF HUNGARY. By the author
of " Life in the Cloister." Kelly, Piet
&Co.

MEDITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR
A RETREAT OF ONE DAY IN EACH
MONTH. Kelly, Piet & Co.

BERTHA: A Historical Romance. By
Conrad Von Bolanden. Translated by
S. B. A. Harper. New York : D. &
J. Sadlier & Co.

THE NEW MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART
OF JESUS. From the original French.
B. S. P. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cun-
ningham's Son.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION. A Lecture de-
livered at Leeds, England. By Cardi-
nal Wiseman. St. Louis: Patrick Fox.

LITTLE CATECHISM OF THE INFALLIBILITY
OF THE SOVEREIGN PONTIFF. New
York : Benziger Bros.

SPIRITUALISM AND NERVOUS DERANGE-
MENT. By William A. Hammond,
M.D. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF IMMORTALITY.
By Antoinette Brown Black well. G.
P. Putnam's Sons.

CLAREL: A Poem and' Pilgrimage in the
Holy Land. By Herman Melville.
Two vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons.

THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS. By the
Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. New York:
Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

THE FALL OF THE .STUARTS AND WESTERN
EUROPE. By the Rev. E. Hale, M.A.
Scribner, Armstrong Co.

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By Man dell
Creighton, M.A. Scribner, Armstrong
&Co.

THE LIFE, LETTERS, AND TABLE-TALK OF
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON. Edited
by Richard Henry Stoddard. Scrib-
ner, Armstrong & Co.

POEMS. By Christina G. Rossetti. Bos-
ton : Roberts Bros.

REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. By Edward
Abbott. Roberts Bros.

ACHSAH: A New England Study. By
Rev. Peter Pennot. Boston : Lee
Shepard.

A QUESTION OF HONOR. By Christian
Reid. New York : Appleton & Co.

SPIRIT INVOCATIONS. Compiled by Allen
Putnam, M.A. Boston : Colby & Rich.

In the next number of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD will be begun a new serial enti-
tled " Six Sunny Months," by the author
of The House of Yorke, Grapes and Thorns,
etc,

T H E

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIII., No. 137. AUGUST, 1876.

THE NEXT

PHASE OF CATHOLICITY IN THE
STATES.

UNITED

THE history of the universal
church, replete as it is with miracu-
lous conversions and great moral
revolutions, presents no parallel to
the growth and spread of the Ca-
tholic faith in this republic ; and if
we be allowed to forecast the fu-
ture by the light of the past, we
may without presumption predict
for Catholicity a career of useful-
ness and glory, an influence far-
reaching and all-pervading, on
American soil, hitherto unequalled,
even in the most triumphant days
of our holy and venerable mother.

In the early ages of Christianity
whole tribes and nations were won
over bodily to the Gospel, not
alone by the superhuman efforts of
a comparatively small number of
apostolic men, but incidentally by the
attractions of the purer and higher

ler of civilization which every-
where followed their footsteps and

Milted naturally from their teach-
ings. The primitive missionaries
were reformers of manners and

vernments, advocates of mercy
and equity, promoters of peace,
industry, and education, as well as

expounders of divine law. They
indeed realized the fabled power
of Orpheus, and tamed the brute
passions of paganism by the harmo-
ny of their lives and the melody of
their doctrines.

Far different have been the cir
cumstances which surrounded the
first permanent introduction of Ca-
tholicity into what is now the Unit-
ed States. Though we can dwell
with commendable pride on the de-
votion and self-sacrifice which char-
acterized the Spanish and French
Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jes-
uits in their arduous labors among
the aborigines ; and recall with
deep gratitude the beneficent and
indefatigable exertions of the zeal-
ous pioneers . of our present hier-
archy and priesthood, we cannot
help feeling that we have had no
national inheritance in the merits
of those extraordinary men of the
Old World, those confessors and
martyrs, whose names shine forth
with such resplendent lustre in the
calendar of the saints of God.

\Ye look in vain, also, for any
great name, distinguished for politi-

578 The Next Phase of Catholicity in the United States.

cal power or intellectual supremacy,
among the humble immigrants who"
first raised the standard of the
cross in the hostile atmosphere of
colonial Protestantism. As in the
crumbling yet still luxurious Roman
Empire, the foundations of our in-
fant church were laid on what, in a
worldly sense, may be called the
lowest class in the social scale, the
poor, the simple, the neglected and
despised. Wealth, fashion, and self-
interest were opposed to it. A peo-
ple shrewd, intelligent, and in their
own way religious, were in posses-
sion of the country, and had neither
the will nor the disposition to yield
one jot to the professors of a faith
which they had been taught to re-
gard as debasing and idolatrous.
Only a hundred years ago the Ca-
tholics of the United Colonies con-
sisted of a few isolated groups,
principally in Maryland and Penn-
sylvania, without influence, author-
ity, or legal recognition. In the
aggregate they counted about one
in every thousand of the population,
and, save some descendants of the
original Maryland settlers, and a
few private gentlemen who after-
wards rose to eminence in the Revo-
lutionary War, they were alike de-
void of wealth and social stand-
ing.

Still, this very obscurity was their
safeguard and defence. Though
soon declared free by the funda-
mental law of the new confederacy,
public opinion, or rather popular
prejudice, war against them, and
for many years after the achieve-
ment of our independence their
numbers increased with more steadi-
ness than rapidity. Recruits came
from all quarters. Attracted by
tuc guarantees r>resented by the
Constitution, Catholics of various
nationalities hastened to place them-
-selves under its protecting aegis.

The hurricane of revolution which
swept over France and the greater
part of Europe, and reached even
the West Indies, drove many pious
priests and exemplary laymen to
our shores. On the north the
French Canadian crossed the fron-
tier, while as our southern bounda-
ries were enlarged so as to embrace
the valley of the Lower Mississip-
pi, the inhabitants of that large re-
gion, who were nearly all of one
faith, helped materially to swell the
Catholic population of the Union.
At that period Ireland had not be-
gun to pour in her myriads, but a
small, steady stream of emigrants
was setting in from other ports as
soon as it was ascertained that the
new nation of the west had discard-
ed the penal code of England when
it had thrown off her authority.

In 1 8 10 the Catholics within the
limits of the United States were es-
timated at upwards of one hundred
and fifty thousand, and the clergy
numbered eighty, or double the
number reported in 1800. Twenty
years afterwards the laity had in-
creased to 450,000 and the clergy
to 232. The hierarchy, which only
dated from 1789, at this time reck-
oned thirteen bishops.

From 1830 may be dated the ex-
traordinary growth in numbers, in-
fluence, and activity of the Catholic
Church in this country. The tide of
European immigration, which has
flowed on with un diminished volume
till within a year or two, then fairly
began. Between that year and
1840 over 300,000 arrivals were re-
ported from Ireland, 58,000 from
France, Spain, and other Catholic
countries, and 150,000 from Ger-
many, a strong minority of whom
may also be credited to the church.
All these accessions, added to the
native-born and already adopted
element, brought the Catholic

The Next Phase of Catholicity in the United States. 579

strength in the latter year to over
one million, and swelled the ranks
of the priesthood to 482, or one for
every 2,000 souls.

Satisfactory as were these results,
the next decade was destined to
witness an advance much more
magnificent as to numerical strength,
and infinitely more salutary when
we reflect on the quarter from which
some of that strength was drawn.

The Oxford movement, as it was
called, had already spread conster-
nation among the Anglicans. Many
of the ablest and most erudite
scholars of Oxford University,
wearied and dissatisfied with the
contradictions and pretensions of
English Protestantism, had sought
peace and rest in the bosom of the
church. Their writings and exam-
ple produced a profound sensation
wherever the English language was
spoken, and nowhere a more decided
one than in this country. Men who
had formerly exhibited nothing but
contempt or indifference for Catho-
licity, and some even who had dis-
played a marked hostility to the
faith, eagerly read the works of
such thinkers as Newman, and, as
a consequence, guided by Provi-
dence, abandoned their favorite
heretical notions and became re-
conciled to the church. This spirit
of investigation and submission per-
vaded all classes, particularly the
more studious, conscientious, and in-
llnential. Judges, journalists, artists,
authors, physicians, ministers, and
doctors of divinity openly declared
their adhesion to the Catholic faith,
and arrayed themselves beside the

< ontemned and obscure Irish immi-

int and his children. Many of
the ablest publicists of to-day, not
a few of the most energetic of the

< ler<4y, and at least one illustrious
member of the hierarchy are the
fruits of this sympathetic movement

which had its origin in the cloisters
of the once Catholic university.

Another cause which helped to
swell the Catholic census about the
same time was the annexation of
Texas, which eventually led to the
acquisition of New Mexico and Cali-
fornia. The population of those
Territories could have scarcely num-
bered less than two hundred thou-
sand, nearly all of whom were Cath-
olics. By a strange coincidence the
sons of the Puritans, who claimed
the land and the fulness thereof as
theirs, were brought into the same
fold and under the same jurisdic-
tion simultaneously with the nati\c
Mexican, whose ancestors were Cath :
olics before the keel of the Ma\-

flower was laid.

German immigration, also, had
assumed large proportions. From
1840 to 1850 the arrivals were
440,000, of whom it may be safe-
ly said one-fourth, or 110,000, were
Catholics. This stalwart element
sought what was then considered
the far West Ohio, Wisconsin,
Iowa, and the Territories where
to-day we find them and their
descendants among the most de-
voted children of the church.

But all these influences combined
did not equal in effect that produced
by the tremendous exodus of the
Irish people a spontaneous move-
ment of population unexampled in
modern times. Though immigration
from Ireland had steadily increas-
ed from the beginning of the cen-
tury, it was only during the latter
half of the decade of 1840-50 that
it assumed its phenomenal propor-
tions. Notwithstanding its politi-
cal servitude, that remarkable island
in 1845 presented the spectacle of
a population as happy, moral, and
law-abiding as any in Christendom.
Her people had increased from year
to year in a ratio unknown to less

5 So Tlie Next Phase of Catholicity in the United States.

virtuous and more pampered lands.
The voice of her great leader could
at any time call together hundreds
of thousands of her enthusiastic
sons to listen to the story of their
wrongs or to descant on the near
approach of legislative indepen-
dence, and dismiss them to their
homes with the promptitude of a
general and the authority of a pa-
rent. Father Mathew, of blessed
memory, had exorcised the demon
of intemperance, and counted his
followers by millions. Agrarian
crime and faction fights, those
twin children of misgovernment,
were almost unknown, and the
soil, as if in unison with the gen-
eral spirit of peace and harmony,
never put forth such an abund-
ance of agricultural wealth. In
one night, it may be said, a blight
came over all those fond hopes and
bright anticipations. The food up-
on which three-fourths of the peo-
ple mainly subsisted was destroyed,
and Famine, gaunt and lean, sud-
denly usurped the place of gener-
ous abundance.

The destruction of the potato
crop of Ireland in 1846-7-8 was
undoubtedly the act of an inscru-
table Providence ; the misery, suf-
fering, and wholesale sacrifice of
human life which followed were
the work of man. At the worst
times of the famine there was al-
ways more than enough cattle
and grain in the country to feed
the entire population. Under a
wise or just government a suffi-
ciency of these would have been
retained to supply the primary
wants of the people ; as it was,
they were exported and sold in
foreign markets to satisfy that
most insensate and insatiable of
all human beings, the Irish land-
lord.

Appalled by the suddenness and

extent of the calamity, the pea-
santry at first stood mute, and be-
fore assistance could reach them
many hundreds had actually lain
down and died of starvation.
Then, when public and private
charity was exhausted; when pes-
tilence was superadded to want,
and all earthly succor seemed to
have failed ; when nothing but
death or the poorhouse threaten-
ed even the best of the middle
class, the people, with, it would ap-
pear, one accord, resolved to give
up home and kindred, rushed like
a broken and routed army to the
nearest sea-ports, and abandoned
a country apparently doomed to
destruction. Many crossed to Eng-
land and Scotland, others fled even
to the Antipodes, but the great
mass looked to the United States
as their haven of refuge. Thence-
forth every day witnessed the arri-
val of crowded immigrant ships in
our harbors, while the streets of our
large cities were literally thronged
with swarms of strange and emaci-
ated figures. From 1840 to 1850
over one million Irish immigrants
arrived in the United States, one-
fourth of whom landed at New
York during the last three years
of that period.

Never were a people less prepar-
ed to encounter the difficulties and
dangers which necessarily beset
strangers coming into a strange
land and among a community so
different from themselves in man-
ners, habits, and methods of living.
Unlike .the Germans and other
Europeans, who had had leisure
and means to organize emigration,
the Irish of that memorable epoch
acted without concert and without
forethought. They had fled pre-
cipitately from worse than death,
and brought with them little save
the imperishable jewel of their

TJie Next Phase of Catholicity in t/ic United States. 581

faith. Fortunately, this proved to meeting-houses were brought into
be for them even better than world- requisition. Yet, with all these ap-
ly store ; it was their bond of unity pliances, there were hundreds of
and best solace in the hour of trial small, isolated congregations who
and disappointment which awaits seldom were enabled to hear Mas*>
most of those who come among ' oftener than once a month, and
us with exaggerated ideas of the in many cases less often, one priest
wealth and resources of this coun- having to attend four or five such
try. Numbers of those helpless missions in rotation,
strangers paused upon the thres- But the clergy had other and
hold of their new home, and help- scarcely less sacred duties to per-
ed materially to swell the already form. Such heterogeneous masses
overcrowded population of the of humanity huddled together for
large towns and cities ; but very weeks in the foul holds of rotten
many, the majority perhaps, sought emigrant vessels, where was germin-
the manufacturing villages of New ated the seeds of disease sown by
England, the mineral regions of famine and pestilence, could not but
Pennsylvania, and the Western bring infection to our shores. From
prairies. Gros Isle in the St. Lawrence, and
Then began in earnest the labors along the Atlantic seaboard lo New
of the resident priesthood, which, Orleans, the deadly ship-fever pol-
though reinforced 'by numbers of luted the atmosphere, and hundreds
their brethren from abroad, were who, flying from starvation, had
still hardly equal to the herculean braved the dangers of the ocean,
task of providing for the spiritual found that they had endured those
wants of so vast a mass of people hardships only to die within sight
scattered in every direction. Some of the promised land. One prelate
means, however, had to be found to and several heroic priests fell vic-
reach and minister to those faithful tims to the dire pestilence, but
though helpless outcasts; some roof others were found equally zealous,
under which the holy sacrifice of not only to soothe the last moments
the Mass might be occasionally of- of the dying with the consolations
fered up and the essential sacra- of religion, but to comfort and care
ments of the church administered, for the helpless survivors.
The churches already built scarcely At the beginning of the second
sufficed for the Catholics settled in half of the century we find the
the country, yet here was a new Catholic population of the country
congregation arriving in every ship, estimated at two and a quarter mil-
In the large centres of population lions, the clergy at eighteen htin-
the difficulty was not so great ; for dred, or one to every thirteen hun-
with the increase of priests the dred of the laity, while the number
number of Masses said in each of dioceses had increased to thirty-
church was multiplied, while the three.

sick and the penitent seldom went Had immigration entirely ceased
unattended or unshriven. In the at that time, and the growth of the
smaller towns and remote settle- Catholic population been limited to
ments the case was far different, its natural increase, the labors ot'
Private houses, ' shanties," barns, the priesthood in ministering to the
ball-rooms, court-houses, lecture- spiritual wants of so large and scat-
halls, markets, and even sectarian tered a body would have more than

582 The Next Phase of Catholicity in the United States.

taxed the energies of a less devoted
class of men ; while the pecuniary re-
sources of the laity, always so gen-
erously expended in the building
of churches and asylums, could
have to a certain extent borne the
unusual draft on their means which
the exigencies of the times de-
manded. But it did not cease. On
the contrary, it continued for many
years with augmented volume. The
causes which had impelled such
vast multitudes to renounce home
and country for ever were still ac-
tive. From 1850 to 1860 the im-
migration" from Europe was report-
ed as follows :

From Germany,
l ' France, etc., .
" Ireland,

Total in ten years,

268,000

51,000

841,000

1,160,000

From Germany, g-;o,ooo ; % Catholic,
From France and other Catholic coun-
tries, 105,000 ; .% Catholic, .
From IreBmd, 1,088,000 ; 9-10 Catholic,

237,000*

78,750
979,200

Total in ten years, .... 1,294,950

Thus another million and a quaf-
ter were added to the church in
America, making a grand total at
the end of this decade of four and
a half millions of souls under the
charge of 2,235 priests, or one for
every 2,000 persons. Thus we see
that, though the priesthood had re-
ceived an accession of 435 members
in ten years, the labors of each in-
dividual had been almost doubled.

Incredible as these figures may
seem, the next decade showed little
diminution in amount. From 1860
to 1870 the Catholic immigration,
calculating on the above basis, may
l>e set down as follows :

* The figures showing the gross immigration are
taken from official returns, mainly from the Reports
of the Bureau of Statistics on thz Commerce and
Navigation of the U. S. ; the Reports of the Com-
missioners of Emigration, New York ; and Thorn's
Irish Almanac and Official Directory* Dublin.
The approximate number of Catholics is our own cal-
culation. Though the population of Germany is more
than one-third Catholic, we consider it safer to set
down the proportion of Catholic emigrants from
that country at one-fourth of the whole. When the
famine began in Ireland, ninety-two per cent, of the
population was Catholic ; and as it was from this
portion that our immigration has since been princi-
pallv drawn, ninety per cent, is not considered too
much .o credit to Catholicity.

If to this reinforcement be added
those who have come among us
since 1870, we find that the past fif-
teen years have increased the Cath-
olic census by about one and a half
millions from abroad, and material-
ly helped to bring it up to what, on
the best authority, it is said to be
in this year of grace, 1876 seven
millions, or about one-sixth of the
entire population

Fortunately for the interests of
religion, the increase in the number
of priests kept pace with the won-
derful augmentation of the laity.
In 1785 there was one priest to
every 1,000, laymen ; in 1808, one
to every 1,500;. in 1830, one to
every 1,900 ; in 1840, one to 2,000;
1850, one to 1,200; 1860, one to
2,000; and in 1875, one to every
1,300, or 5,074 priests of all ranks.

Yet, numerous as had been the
accessions to the priesthood in
those years, the duties and respon-
ibilities of the clerical order in-
creased in greater proportion. The
millions of strangers who had
sought homes among us, while they
preserved their faith and brought
with them the grand moral lessons
learned in the Old World, could not
bring their churches, schools, and
asylums. These had to be provid-
ed here, and the American priest
thus became from necessity a
builder and a financier, as well
as a teacher and instructor of his
people. When the abnormal. Irish
immigration began in 1847, we had
but 812 churches, several of which
were small frame buildings, hastily
constructed and totally inadequate
to the wants even of those who
erected them. Many of those have
since been pulled down, recon-

The Next Phas-j of Catholicity in the United States. 583

structed, or rebuilt, and replaced
by substantial brick or stone edi-
fires. This in itself was a work
of considerable merit ; but when we
reflect that since then no less than
four thousand- three hundred new
churches have been added to this
number, we are lost in astonish-
inent at the magnitude of the work
performed in so short a space of
time. Nor are those modern build-
ings generally of that rude and
fragile class which were so com-
man fifty years ago, but, on the
contrary, most of them are excel-
lent specimens of solid masonry
and architectural skill. The noble
cathedrals especially which adorn
Baltimore, Albany, Buffalo, Phila-
delphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, "Bos-
ton, and other sees, are models of
design, durability, and grandeur of
which any country or age might
be proud. The same may be said,
but with greater emphasis, of the
Cathedral of St. Patrick now near-
ly completed in New York that
grand epic in marble, from the
tall spire of which the glittering
emblem of our salvation is destined
at no far distant day to shine down
upon a million faithful followers
of the cross.

Thus it may be well said that
the past quarter of a century was
the era of church-building as well
as of increase. But the vast ener-
gy so displayed was not employed
solely in one direction. While
thousands of temples have arisen
to the honor and glory of God,
his afflicted creatures, the sick, un-
fortunate, and helpless; the found-
ling infant and decrepit grnndsire ;
the orphan bereft of its natural
protectors, and the worse than or-
plumed the pariah of her sex all
have been cared for, fed, cloth-
-d, consoled, and housed. Eighty-
ven hospitals and two hundred

and twenty asylums of various
kinds attest the practical charity
and active benevolence of the
Catholics of America.

It was formerly said that the
Catholic Church could not prosper
under a free government ; that it
_ needed the help of kingcraft and
despotic laws to enforce its decrees
and sustain its authority. We
have proved the fallacy of this
calumny pretty thoroughly so con-
clusively, indeed, as to excite real
or pretended alarm among bigots
of all sects and of no sect at all.
No people are more at home and
thrive better in all respects in this
land of liberty than Catholics.

It has also been asserted that
we are the enemies of enlighten-
ment. Our hundreds of convents
and academies, and thousands of
parochial schools, might be consid-
ered a sufficient answer to this
falsehood. But, in the providence
of God, the time has come when
we are called upon to take a fur-
ther step and demonstrate that in
the domain of the highest intel-
lectual studies we are a match for
the best of our opponents.

We have no means of ascertain-
ing the exact number of school-
houses which have been built dur-
ing this period; probably one thou-
sand would not be too high an es-
timate, and we are inclined to think
that there are even more. In the
large cities most of the churches
have a building for educational pur-
poses attached ; in the rural dis-
tricts the basement is generally
used. There are also a number
of what are called charity schools,
generally under the charge of some
of the teaching orders, of which
New York alone boasts twenty-
four, erected at a cost of four
million dollars. There are six hun-
dred and forty academies and se-

584 The Next Phase of CatJiolicity in the United States.

lect schools for females, with an ave-
rage attendance of sixty thousand
pupils, for whose accommodation, as
well as for the nuns and sisters who
watch over them, an equal number
of buildings, some very extensive
and costly, have been provided.

Though our seminaries and col-
leges do not show a proportionate
ratio of increase, either in numbers
or attendance, the result, if taken
by itself, is highly satisfactory. In
the last century only two of them
existed in the United States; up to
1850 ten more were added; in 1874
we had eighteen theological semi-
naries, attended by 1,375 students,
and sixty-eight colleges with over
ten thousand pupils and about six
hundred professors and teachers.

With all this it must be confess-
ed that, as far as human knowledge
is concerned, the Catholics of the
United States are as a body behind
their non-Catholic fellow-citizens.
We acknowledge this inferiority, and
can satisfactorily account for it. Un-
der the peculiar difficulties of our
position it became a matter of pri-
mary necessity .that our co-religion-
ists should first have churches where-
in to worship God, asylums 'and
hospitals to shelter and succor the
weak and afflicted, and free schools
for the training of the children of
the poor, whose faith and morals
were endangered by the plan of in-
struction pursued in the schools of
the state. But now that all these
wants have been supplied as far as
practicable, and that we may safely
confide to posterity the task of com-
pleting the work already so far ad-
vanced, our next duty plainly is to
provide for the generation growing
up around us facilities for a higher
and more thorough system of edu-
cation than has yet been attempt-
ed in our colleges and academies,
equal in all respects, if not superior,

to that so liberally afforded by the
sectarian and secular seats of learn-
ing which so plentifully besprinkle
the land.

Remembering what has been al-
ready wrought by the zed and un-
swerving perseverance of the Cath-
olic body in other directions in the
past, we should look forward with
undiminished courage and confi-
dence to the future. If with a
disorganized, unsettled people like
ours, generally poor in the world's
goods, and with never-ending per-
sonal demands on their limited re-
sources, we have been able to build
and maintain so many churches, in-
stitutions, convents, and schools in
so short a time, what may not be ex-
pected from the same class, now
that they are regularly domiciled,
and a portion, at least, of the wealth
that ever rewards industry and ap-
plication is fast becoming theirs ?

What is wanted in the first in-
stance, in order to give tone and
direction to the young Catholic
mind, is a Catholic national uni-
versity, one on a scale comprehen-
sive enough to include the study of
all branches of secular knowledge
law, physics, medicine, languages,
art, science, literature, and politi-
cal economy. Such an institution,
properly founded and conducted,
would find no lack of public patro-
nage. We are satisfied that Ameri-
can parents, whether the descend-
ants of the old Catholic settlers or
those who have embraced the faith
in later years, instead of sending
their sons to Yale or Harvard, to
France or Germany, would much
prefer to have them educated at
home in a university where their
religion would be neither a scoff nor
an obstacle in the way of their pre-
ferment, and where they would grow
up American citizens, in fact as
well as in name. The German ele-

The Next Pliasc of Catholicity in the United States. 585

ment, also, \vhich constitutes so large
a portion of the Catholics of the
West, would find in it an adequate
substitute. for those celebrated homes
of learning they left behind in
Fatherland, and, under its fostering
care, would continue to develop
that spirit of profound thought and
critical investigation so character-
istic of the Teutonic genius.

But the Irish and their descend-
ants, who will long continue to form
the majority of the Catholic popula-
tion of this republic, would derive
most benefit from such an establish-
ment. That subtle Celtic intellect,
so acute yet so versatile ; fully
capable of grappling with the most
difficult problems of human exis-
tence and social responsibility, yet
so replete with poetry, romance, and
enthusiasm ; so long repressed, yet
never dimmed, would, we feel as-
sured, spring into life and activity
beyond the conception of most men,
were such an opportunity presented.
In the three centuries following the
conversion of the Irish their schools
were unsurpassed throughout Chris-
tendom in extent, numbers, and at-
tendance. The whole island, in
fact, seemed to be turned into one
vast reservoir of learning, from
which flowed perennial streams of
Christian knowledge over the then
sterile wastes of semi - civilized
Europe. The number of mission-
aries and teachers which Ireland
produced in that most brilliant
epoch of her history is almost in-
credible, and her zeal and energy
in the dissemination of Catholic
doctrine, even in trie most remote
parts of the Continent, became pro-
verbial.

Civil wars, long, bloody, and deso-
lating, destroyed her institutions and

ittered her libraries, while penal
laws of preternatural ingenuity and
cruelty completed the work of deso-

lation by denying her even the
commonest rudiments of instruc-
tion. But as she kept the faith pure
and undefiled throughout the long
night of slavery, so she has pre-
served the moral tone and vigor of
thought which ever follow a strict
observance of the divine code.
One generation alone, removed from
the barriers and devices of the op-
pressor, has been enough to show
that, in mind as well as in body,
the Irish race is at least the equal
of even the most favored nations of
the globe. In the strength of pure
religious conviction lies the great-
ness of a people.

Perhaps now is the most fitting
time for the beginning of a work
such as we have endeavored briefly
to intimate. From all appearances
the flood of immigration which, for
twenty or thirty years, has flowed
so steadily yet strongly, is fast reced-
ing into its former narrow channels.
We shall have still, we trust, many
foreign Catholics coming among us
each year to help to develop the
resources of our immense country,
and to find peace and freedom
under our Constitution ; but we need
not expect, during this century at
least, such an influx as was precipi-
tated upon us by the dreadful Irish
famine. The Catholic population
henceforth will present a more
stable and homogeneous character,
and will have more leisure to devote
a portion of its wealth and energy
to purposes other than erecting
buildings and providing for the ne-
cessities of homeless and churchless-
millions. Churches and charitable
institutions will, of course, continue
to be built to meet the wants of
our ever-increasing numbers, but
their augmentation., being the result
of a normal growth, will be more
gradual and natural. We will, in
other words, have more time to de-

5 86 The Next Phase of Catholicity in the United States.

vote to education and the cultiva-
tion of the refinements and ac-
complishments of life, without in
any wise neglecting the primary
duties of Christians.

We have had our epochs of immi-
gration and church-building, of ex-
traordinary growth in popular edu-
cation and incredible effort to
supply the wants of the poor and
friendless. We are now entering
upon an era of mental culture,
higher, more elaborate, and more
general in its application than it was
possible, or even desirable, to initiate
amid the distractions and occupa-
tions of the busy past. But, ardent
as is our desire to see such an im-
portant step taken in a direction
which we feel would lead to certain
success, we only look on it as a
means to definite and ennobling
ends, and not as the end itself.
Mere mental training, dissociated
from moral tuition and habits of
manly thought and action, would
be worse than useless ; it would be
dangerous alike to the student, to
society, and to the cause of morality
and religion. To develop the in-
tellect merely at the expense of
those greater attributes of the soul
in the proper cultivation of which
consists the real ostensible differ-
ence between man and the brute
creation, would be to multiply infi-
nitely the number of educated im-
beciles of which the world has
already too many.

It cannot be denied that the ob-
ject of all education ought to be
truth, a knowledge of God and of
his works, that in the study of them
we may learn to love and worship
his holy name. Though the custo-
dians of the divine gift of Pentecost
are few, as children of the church
we may all become sharers in the
ineffable benefaction conferred on
the apostles. Truth is one and in-

divisible. It is found not only in
the doctrines and discipline of the
church, but in every department of
life in every pursuit, study, and
calling incidental to the existence
of accountable beings. The nearer
we come to the apprehension of this
truth, the more we are disposed to
seek and treasure it when found, no
matter in what sphere of life our
lot may be cast.

Unfortunately for religion and
civilization, the last three centuries
have been remarkable more for con-
fusion of ideas on this important
subject, and utter perversion of the
natural laws, than any other period
in the whole Christian era. The
war engendered by the Protestant
Reformation, the atheistic philoso-
phy of the Encyclopedists, the de-
structive dogmas of the secret
societies, and, in our own day, the
gross materialism of the new school
of scientists, have so clouded and be-
wildered, so perverted and debased,
the human understanding that the
world has come to look upon mere
brilliancy of diction, novelty of
opinion, and audacity of assertion
as the highest evidences of intellec-
tual superiority. Modern Europe,
from end to end, is the victim of
this lamentable delusion, and our
own otherwise favored country is
rapidly falling under its malign in-
fluence. Shall this foul plague be
allowed to enshroud us all, and
blight with its deadly breath the
future of our young republic ?

If such is to be the case, we may
read our fate in the past decadence
of the most enlightened nations of
the Old World. From the outbreak
of the Protestant Reformation they
have gone steadily, almost blindly
downwards, until, as to-day we see.
they have ended in blank infidelity.
The favored intellectual lights of
the last three centuries in Protes-

The Next Phase of Catholicity in the United States. 587

tunt Europe have been men without It is thus that the Reformers in

faith and without conscience, who, England, Germany, and the north

with the help of Protestant govern- of Europe, and the Revolutionists

inents, have sapped and undermined in France and the southern part of

and utterly destroyed even the rem- the Continent, conspired to paralyze,

mints of the faith in Christianity what they could not wholly anni-

and a divine Creator of this world hilate, that splendid fabric of Chris-

that still lingered her* and there tian thought and genius reared by

about the old homes of Christian the church after many centuries of

learning ; and literature may be toil and anxiety. In this hemi-

said to have been given over to the sphere we have suffered from the

;rvice of the enemies of Christ same malign causes, but our affec-

and of his church. tion is more accidental and sympa-

If we contemplate the condition the tic than chronic. There is no-

of modern art, we witness degene- thing in the mental condition of

racy almost as lamentable. Men this new and cosmopolitan people

wonder that no great sculptors and to discourage or repel the efforts of

painters have arisen since the Ital- those who would earnestly strive

ian, Spanish, and Flemish schools after a higher, purer, and more

of the middle ages ceased to exist. Christian mental development. But

Since then we have had artists who such efforts, to be successful, must

draw as well as, and who understood be made within the bosom of the

anatomy better than, the best of the church. The Protestant sects are

old masters ; but the inspiration, incapable of any combined move-

the spirit that made the figure on ment in that direction ; for they

the canvas seem to live, is wanting, have neither unity of action or

The best of our modern painters thought, nor a common standard by

are but copyists of nature, of land- which to measure mental excellence

scape, man, or animals. They dis- and moral soundness. Clearly the

play no creative power ; they are change must originate in the Catho-

incapable of producing anything lie body.

original, anything like the least of When we assert this we are well

those historic pieces, those almost aware of the magnitude of the

superhuman groups, which illustrate work to be accomplished and the

in a thousand varieties the incidents apparent paucity of the laborers to

in the earthly career of our Re- execute it. But our confidence in

deemer and his holy Mother, the future is sustained by experi-

\Vhy ? Because the mind must first ence. Whoever would have said at

be able to conceive in all its in- the beginning of this century that

tegrity and beauty what the hand this hundredth year of our inde-

is designed to execute. No matter pendence would find the Catholics

how exact the eye or how deft the of the United States counted by

touch, if the imagination be not millions, and their priests, churches,

purified by religion and guided by and schools by thousands, would

truth, it is vain to attempt to repre- have been looked upon as a

sent on canvas or in marble pure, dreamer or a rash enthusiast,

exalted types of excellence of Who shall say what the beginning

which we are incapable of forming of the next century may not be

within ourselves more than an in- destined to usher in ?

definite conception. As the church is the divinely-

588 The Next Pliasc of Catholicity in the United States.

commissioned teacher of the world,
we desire to see our young Catholic
men, the flower of her children,
whether they be destined for the
liberal professions or otherwise, sent
forth into society armed at all
points, prepared not only to sustain
and defend the faith that is in
them, but to demonstrate in their
own persons and by their individual
conduct how infinitely superior is
secular knowledge even when bas-
ed on eternal truth, to the vague
theories and absurd speculations of
those who foolishly seek to fathom
the designs and comprehend the
laws of God while denying the
very existence of the Creator of all
things.

Any system of education which
falls short of this would be worse
than none at all. To confer a de-
gree on a student, and allow him to
enter the world with the Mat of a
university course to give his opin-
ions a certain intellectual charac-
ter, without qualifying him to up-
hold the honor of his Alma Mater
and the integrity of his creed, would
of course be an act of egregious
folly. As well might we uniform
a soldier and send him into action
without arms, or entrust our lives
and liberties to the keeping of a
statesman of whose loyalty and
fidelity we were not fully assured.

Years ago it was confidently as-
serted by a prominent dissenting
minister of this city that the Unit-
ed States would eventually become
the battle-field upon which the
contest for permanent supremacy be-
tween Protestantism and Catholicity
would be waged. We agreed with
his views then, and everything
that has happened in the religious
world since confirms the sagacity
of the remark. We desire nothing
better than that this struggle, if it
have to come, shall take place here,

where both parties are equally free
and well matched, though each has
peculiar advantages not enjoyed by
the other. The sects, on their side,
have numbers, wealth, social posi-
tion, political influence, and pos-
session not only of the public
schools aifd institutions of the
state, but of all the old colleges
and universities. On the other
hand, the church in America has
all the energy, hopefulness, and
enthusiasm of youth united to
the mature judgment of advanced
years ; thorough unanimity ; and,
above and beyond all, a creed
and a doctrine founded on eternal
truth, fortified by tradition, upheld
by divine assistance, and guarded
by an infallible authority. The
impending conflict will not be one
of arms nor of words, but of works
and brains ; and as the superiority
of our opponents is material, not
spiritual, it is not difficult to fore-
see to which side victory would
incline.

Since rebellion against God's law
first raised its crest at Worms in
1521, the church has never had
so favorable an opportunity of
exposing the hollowness, rotten-
ness, and insincerity of the leaders
of dissent in nil its forms as that
presented in this country and gen-
eration. In older nations where
Protestantism still flourishes it is
as the mere tool of the state, the
plaything of royalty, without the
support of which it could not sub-
sist. Supposing the British Parlia-
ment, in the plenitude of its power,
should disestablish the Anglican
Church, confiscate its property, and
imprison its prelates, as Bismarck
has done to the Catholics of Ger-
many ; how long would that luxu-
rious Establishment remain in ex-
istence ? The same may be said of
Lutheranism in Prussia and Calvin-

The Next Phase -of Catholicity in ike United States. 589

i-,m in other parts of Europe. They
are of the earth, earthy, and re-
quire the aid of the temporal arm to
protect them against their more
I >gical though more: destructive
offshoots, the free-thinkers and re-
volutionists. Here, on the contra-
ry, though the sects have through
their politico-religious combina-
tion:! an undue influence in pub-
lic affairs, they have no appreci-
able direct state patronage, and
must stand or fall by their own
merits.

Now, it is well kno wn and pretty
generally acknowledged that soon-
er or later the Catholic Church has
always suffered from its connec-
tion with the state, even when the
alliance seemed to be more than fa-
vorable to her. .From the very nature
of her organization she cannot long
be made an instrument of despot-
ism or of selfish ambition. In non-
Catholic countries she has general-
ly been persecuted and proscribed :
in others she has been as often
the victim of impertinent interfer-
ence and injudicious patronage on
the part of temporal rulers. * In
none has she been free to carry
out her divine mission; and, sad
to relate but true nevertheless, on
all the broad and fair earth the
only spot where the church of
Christ may be said to be unshack-

Kd and disenthralled is this young
r public of the West.

This fact is in itself a great gain
for us in view of the opposition we
may expect in the time to come;
but there are others which, though
s apparent, are well worthy of
consideration. Few persons who
have not devoted special attention
the matter can form an estimate
the radical change which has
n taking place, gradually but
-u rely, in the American mind re-
garding Catholicity. Fifty years

ago there were hundreds of towns
and villages where the professors
of our faith, lew and obscure, were
looked upon with downright con-
tempt, while a Catholic priest, be-
cause unknown, was regarded as
little less than a monster of iniqui-
ty. This gross prejudice, the result
more of ignorance than badness of
heart, was stimulated and fostered
by local ministers and itinerant
preachers, who, having neither
fixed principles in religion nor defi-
nite notions of right and wrong
upon which to descant, have been
too much in the habit of entertain-
ing their hearers with denunciations
of the church and her priesthood.
In nearly all those places where
formerly so little was known about
our faith are now to be found sub-
stantial churches, large and respect-
able congregations, zealous and re-
spected priests, and perhaps one or
more educational and charitable in-
stitutions.

The rural American, who, with
all his deficiencies, is usually a fair-
minded and reflective man, being
thus brought face to face with the
things he had been taught to loath,
begins to feel the mists of prejudice
lifted from his judgment, and ends
by respecting the devotion and un-
affected piety of those he lately
contemned. Many other causes
have likewise contributed to this
desirable revolution in popular feel-
ing, such as the annual visit of so
many of our wealthy and influential
citizens to Europe, where the an-
cient splendor of the church may
be seen in all its perfection ; while
the conduct of the dissenting min-
isters, their perpetual quarrels
among themselves, and the open
disregard- shown by them in so
many instances for public decency,
have disgusted many of their most
attached followers, and set them

5QO The Next Phase of Catholicity in tJte United States.

groping after truth and spiritual
rest in the direction of the church.

It may now be justly said that
bigotry of the former malignant
type which affected all classes can
at present only be found among the
lowest and most ignorant, and that
Protestants of a higher grade in
society, convinced of their errors,
have gracefully abandoned them.
So far have they advanced in char-
ity that they are now willing to ad-
mit that Catholics may be good
citizens, agreeable neighbors, and
honest dealers ; but still they cannot
be persuaded but that mentally, if
not morally, they are inferior in na-
tural capacity and acquired infor-
mation to their own co-religionists.
There only remains one thing more
to be done to make persons who
think thus sincere friends and pos-
sible allies, and that is to demon-
strate to their satisfaction that
there is nothing in the teachings or
practices of our religion tending to
dwarf the intellect or weaken the
understanding ; but, on the contrary,
that the more closely we assimilate
human knowledge to the revealed
law of God as expounded by the
church, and the more we are gov-
erned by the rules which she has
laid down for our mental conduct,
the better qualified we become to
stand in the front rank of the high-
est social and intellectual move-
ments of the age. This accom-
plished, as we fondly hope it soon
will be, the future destiny of our
half-converted brethren lies in the
hands of a power superior to that of
man.

Every indication of the popular
desire for such an educational es-
tablishment as we have foresha-
dowed points out the present as the
most propitious time for its foun-
dation. By and by it may be too
late. The national character of

our people, though not yet de-
finitely formed, is fast crystallizing,
and whatever impress is made on it
now will be defined and permanent.
We do not aim to distort or subdue
the intellect of our young men, but
to captivate and to cultivate it by
holding up for its ambition the
noblest of careers the pursuit of
virtue and the study of the great
truths of religion and of nature.
We would make, if we could, the
Catholic laymen of the next gene-
ration, each in his own sphere,
leaders in a new crusade against
error, not through the use of force
or legal compulsion, but by the
greater purity of their lives and the
superiority of their genius.

Herein lies the great future of
the Catholic layman. Never before
did such a career open before him.
His sires of past ages met the infi-
del with sword and spear and the
weapons of the flesh, and beat him
back from the then hallowed soil of
Christendom. To-day he faces a
subtler, fiercer, and more resolute
infidel than the Turk. As the
flower of the Turkish hordes was
composed of the janissaries, the
perverted children of Christian pa-
rents, so to-day the standard-
bearers of infidelity are the lost
children of the cross. The wea-
pons with which this new crusade
is to be fought out are the moral
and intellectual forces. Every por-
tion of the civilized world is a
battle-field. All must not be left
to the pulpit, the confessional, the
priest. The layman moves where
the priest never penetrates, where
the confessional is unknown, the
pulpit mocked. Let him bear his
faith with him, and its influence will
tell. Let his wit be keener, his
temper cooler, his knowledge wider
and deeper than that of his foe, and
infidelity, that brawls to-day with

The Next Phase of Catholicity, in tlie United States. 591

braggart tongue, will soon learn, if
not to repent, at least to dread an
encounter where there can be no
doubt as to the issue.

\Ye cannot have a healthy Catho-
lic literature and a correct standard
of public taste without lay aid any
more than we can fill our colleges,
schools of art and science, con-
servatories and gymnasiums, with-
out such cordial assistance. Catho-
lic laymen have to a great extent
the destiny of their children and of
the church in America in their
keeping; and as their responsibility
is heavy, so will be their reward or

j t

condemnation signal, according as
they use or abuse the trust reposed
in them by an all-wise Providence.
So far they have shown every in-
dication of a willingness to make
all possible sacrifices for the educa-
tion of their children, and a reason-
able desire to encourage Catholic
literature, much more so than those
can appreciate who do not know
our country and the peculiar diffi-
culties we have had to overcome.
Some of our foreign contempora-
ries, in England especially, are in
the habit once in a while of drawing
pleasing distinctions between the
state of Catholic literature abroad
and in this country. In this com-
parison we naturally appear to no
very great advantage. We are fre-
quently reminded of the lamentable
condition of things that compels us
to draw on foreign sources for our
literary stores, while it is hinted
that it is almost time we looked to
ourselves for intellectual support.
All this, of course, we take placidly
enough, while thoroughly under-
standing the spirit that gives rise to
We are proud to concede the
superiority of the great body of
Knglish and other Catholic writers
who have done such service to the
church and conferred such honor

on the Catholic name. Still, we
do not feel so utterly hopeless of
future success in this line, nor even
despondent as to the degree of suc-
cess to which we have already at-
tained. And considering the means
at our disposal, glancing back at
the century behind us and its
fruits, the 25,000 swelled to 7,000,-
ooo, the solitary bishop to a
great hierarchy, the few scat-
tered priests to a valiant army,
the little out-of-the-way chapels to
a multitude of massive churches
and towering cathedrals, the com-
munities of religious of both sexes,
the asylums for th'e waifs and strays,
the deserted and sorrowing, the
maimed, the halt, and the blind of
the world glancing at all this, we
are in a fair position to say to lit-
erary critics : Gentlemen, thus far
our hands have been pretty full.
We grant you all the culture you
please ; may it increase a hundred-
fold! We have notjiad much time
to sit down and study. From the
beginning we .have been in the
thick of a fierce fight. Peace is at
last coming; the smoke of battle is
clearing away ; the heavens are op-
ening and smiling above us. Our
dead are buried ; our wounded are
gathered in ; the prisoners taken
from us are being sullenly but sure-
ly returned ; our frontier is guard-
ed and respected. Now we turn to
the arts of peace. All that has
been accomplished thus far has
been done without any abundance
of fine writing. This has been
mainly the work of our faithful
Catholic laity under the guidance
of a loyal clergy and episcopacy-
To that same laity we look for grea.t
er triumphs to come.

As a people we have no long line
of princes and statesmen to defend,
no schism to apologize for, no na-
tional outrages against God's church

592

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

to explain away or palliate. We
have every confidence in the Catho-
lics of this country to accomplish,
under Providence, whatever they
undertake for the benefit of religion
and the spread of Christian enlight-
enment. The future of America is
for us. While the professors of the
sectarian creeds, in their efforts to
force on the public and on each
other their peculiar views, . have
reached their climax and are de-
scending into the depths of nihil-

ism and refined paganism, the
church in this republic enjoys the
pristine vigor of youth and an un-
exampled unanimity both in spirit
and in action. In her organization
there is a vast amount of latent
force yet undeveloped, a mine of
intellectual wealth that awaits but
the master hand of the explorer to
bring it to the surface. Great indeed
will be the reward, high the fame, of
him who will help us to utilize this
unsuspected and unused treasure.

THE LIFE AND WORK OF MADAME BARAT.*

MADELEINE-LOUISE-SOPHIE BA-
RAT was born on the i2th of Decem-
ber, 1779, in the little village of Joig-
ny, in Burgundy. Her father was a
cooper and the owner of a small
vineyard, a very worthy and sensi-
ble man and an excellent Christian.
Her mother was remarkably intelli-
gent and quite well educated, far
superior in personal character to
her humble station, very religious,
and endowed with an exquisite sen-
sibility of temperament, controlled
by a solid virtue which made her
worthy to be the mother of two
such children as her son Louis and
her daughter Sophie. The birth of
Sophie, who was the youngest of
her three children, was hastened,
and her own life endangered, by the
fright which she suffered from a fire
very near her house during the
night of the i2th of December.
The little Sophie was so frail and
feeble at her birth that her baptism

* Histoirede Madame Bar at, Fondatrice de la
Societe du Sacrd-Cteur d^ J^ms. Par M. PAbbd
Baunard, Aumonier du Lycee d'Orleans, Docteur
en Theologie, Docteur es Lettres. Paris: Pous-
sielgue Frcres. 1876.

was hurried as much as possible,
and the tenure of her life was very
fragile during infancy. As a child
she was diminutive and delicate,
but precocious, quick-witted, and
very playful. The parish priest
used to put her upon a stool at cat-
echism, that the little fairy might be
better seen and heard; and at her
first communion she was rejected
by the vicar as too small to know
what she was about to do, but tri-
umphantly vindicated in a thorough
examination by M. le Cure, and
allowed to receive the most Holy
Sacrament. She was then ten years
old, and it was the dreadful year
1789. L T ntilthis time she had been
her mother's constant companion in
the vineyard, occupied with light
work and play, and learning by in-
tuition, without much effort of study.
At this time her brother Louis, an
ecclesiastical student eleven years
older than herself, was obliged to
remain at home for a time, and,
being very much struck wi;h the no-
ble and charming qualities \\hich he
discerned in his little sister, he de-

The Life and Work of Madame Barat.

593

voted himself with singular venera-
tion, assiduity, and tenderness to the
work of her education. This epi-
sode in the history of two great
servants of God, one of whom was
an apostle, the other the St. Teresa
of her century, is unique in its
beauty.

The vocation of the sister dated
from her infancy, and was an-
nounced in prophetic dreams, which
she related with childish naivete
like the little Joseph, foretelling
that she was destined to be a great
queen. When Sophie was eight
years old, Suzanne Geoffroy who
was then twenty-six, and who enter-
ed the Society of the Sacred Heart
twenty-one years afterwards, in
which she held the offices of superior
at Niort and Lyons, and of assistant
general was seeking; her vocation.

o o

Her director told her to wait for
the institution of a new order whose
future foundress was still occupied
in taking care of her dolls.

Louis Barat divined obscurely
the extraordinary designs of Al-
mighty God in regard to his little
sister, and, faithful to the divine im-
pulse, he made the education and
formation of her mind and charac-
ter the principal work of the next ten
years of his life a work certainly
the best and most advantageous to
the church of all the good works of a
career full of apostolic labors. He
was a poet, a mathematician, well
versed in several languages and in
natural science, very kind and lov-
ing to his little sister, but inflexibly
strict in his discipline, and in some
things too severe, especially in his
spiritual direction. In a small at-
tic chamber of his father's cottage
he established the novitiate and
school composed of little Sophie
J>arat as novice and scholar, with
brother Louis as the master. The
preparatory studies were soon ab-
VOL. xxm. 38

solved by his apt pupil, and suc-
ceeded by a course of higher in-
struction, embracing Latin, Greek,
Italian, and Spanish. Sophie was
particularly enchanted with Virgil,
and even able to translate and
appreciate Homer. The mother
grumbled at this seemingly useless
education, but the uneducated fa-
ther was delighted, and the will of
Louis made the law for the house-
hold. During seventeen months
he was in the prisons of Paris, saved
from the guillotine only by the con-
nivance of his former schoolmaster,
who was a clerk in the prison de-
partment, and released by the fall
of Robespierre. Sophie went on
bravely by herself during this time,
and continued her life of study and
prayer in the attic, consoling her
father and mother, who idolized her,
during those dreadful days, and
persevered in the same course after
her brother's release and ordination,
under his direction, until she was
sixteen. At this period her brother,
who had taken up his abode in
Paris, determined to take his sister
to live with himself and complete
her education. Father, mother, and
daughter alike resisted this deter-
mination, until the stronger will of
the young priest overcame, with
some delay and difficulty, their op-
position, and the weeping little So-
phie was carried off in the coach
to Paris, to live in the humble house
of Father Louis, and, in conjunction
with her domestic labors, to study
the sciences, the Holy Scriptures in
the Latin Vulgate, and the fathers
and doctors of the church. She
had several companions, and the
little group was thus formed and
trained, not only in knowledge but
in the most austere religious vir-
tues and practices, under the hand
of their kind but stern master, for
more than four years. During the

594

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

vintage Sophie was allowed to take
a short vacation at home, of which
she availed herself gladly ; for she
was still a gay and playful girl,
submitting with cheerful courage
to her brother's severe discipline,
yet not without a conflict or with-
out some secret tears. She was
a timid little creature, and the in-
judicious severity of her brother's
direction made her scrupulous.
Often she was afraid to receive
communion ; but she was obedient,
and when her brother would call
her from the altar of their little
chapel, saying, " Come here, Sophie,
and receive communion," she would
go up trembling and do as she was
bidden. Her great desire was to
become a lay sister among the
Carmelites, and her companions
were also waiting the opportunity to
enter some religious order. Father
Barat did not doubt her religious
vocation, but he wanted to find out
more precisely how it could be
fulfilled. Her divine Spouse was
himself preparing her for the ex-
alted destination of a foundress
and spiritual mother in his church ;
and when she had attained her
twentieth year, this vocation was
made known to her and accepted
with a docility like that of the
Blessed Virgin Mary to the angel's

message.

The history of the origin of the
Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
requires us to go back some years
and relate some events which pre-
pared the way for it. Four young
priests, Leonor and Xavier de Tour-
nely, Pierre Charles Leblanc, and
Charles de Broglie, had formed a- so-
ciety under the name of the Sacred
Heart, intended as a nucleus for
the re-establishment of the Society
of Jesus. The superior was Father
Leonor de Tournely, a young man of
angelic .sanctity, and a favorite pupil

of the saintly Sulpician, M. 1'Abbe
Emery. This young priest received
an inspiration to form a congrega-
tion of women specially devoted to
the propagation of the devotion of
the Sacred Heart and the higher
education of girls. The first wo-
man selected by him as the foun-
dress of the new society was the
Princess de Conde, under whom a
small community was formed at Vi-
enna, but soon dispersed by the de-
parture of the princess to join the
Trappistines. Soon after Father de
Tournely died, having scarcely at-
tained his thirtieth year, leaving in
his last moments the care of carrv-

ing out hip project to Father Varin.
Joseph Varin d'Ainville was a
young man of good family, who,
after passing some time in a semi-
nary, had left it to join the army of
the Prince de Conde, with whom
he made several campaigns. He
had been won back to his first voca-
tion through the prayers of his mo-
ther, offered for this purpose on the
eve of ascending the scaffold at
Paris, and the influence of his for-
mer companions, the four young
fathers of the Sacred Heart above
named. On the very day of the
prayer offered by his heroic mother
he was determined to return back
to the ecclesiastical life on receiving
communion at Vanloo, in Belgium,
when he had met his four saintly
friends, whose society he immedi-
ately joined. Having been elected
superior of the society after the
death of Father de Tournely in
1797, Father Varin was persuaded
to merge it in another society form-
ed by a certain Father Passanari
under the title of the Fathers of the
Holy Faith, which was also intend-
ed as a nucleus for the revival of
the Order of Jesuits. The Arch-
duchess Maria Anna, sister of the
Emperor of Germany, was selected

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at

595

to form in Rome, under the direc-
tion of Father Passanari, a society
of religious women according to
the plan of De Tournely, and she
went there for that purpose, accom-
panied by two of her maids of hon-
or, Leopoldina and Louisa Naudet.
Early in the year 1800 Father Variii
returned to Paris, with some com-
panions, and Father Barat was re-
ceived into his society. In this
way he became acquainted with So-
phie, and her direction was confided
to him, to her great spiritual solace
and advantage ; for he guided her
with suavity and prudence in a way
which gave her heart liberty to ex-
pand, and infused into it that gen-
erosity and confidence which be-
came the characteristic traits of
her piety, and were transmitted as
a precious legacy by her to her
daughters in religion. As soon as
Father Varin had learned the se-
crets of the interior life of his pre-
cious disciple, and had determin-
ed her vocation to the same work
which had been already begun in
Rome by the three ladies above
mentioned, three others were ad-
mitted to share with her in the for^
mation of the little Society of the Sa-
cred Heart. One of these was Mile.
Octavie Bailly, another was Mile. Lo-
quet, the third was a pious servant-
girl named Marguerite, who became
the first lay sister of the society. On
the 2ist of November, the Feast of
Our Lady's Presentation, the little
chapel was decorated in a modest
and simple way. Father Varin said
Mass. After the Elevation the four
aspirants pronounced the act of
consecration to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus, and afterwards they re-
ceived communion.

This was the true inauguration of
the Society of the Ladies of the
Sacred Heart, for the attempt made
at Rome by the archduchess prov-

ed a failure ; the intriguing, ambi-
tious character of Father Passa-
nari was detected, and Father Varin
renounced all connection with him
and his projects. These events oc-
curred, however, at a later period,
and for some time yet to come the
little community in France remain-
ed affiliated to the mother-house in
Rome.

The first house of the Ladies of
the Sacred Heart, the one which
has always been called the cradle
of the society, was founded at
Amiens one year after the conse-
cration of the postulants in the lit-
tle chapel of the Rue Touraine. A
college was established in that city
by the Fathers of the Holy Faith,
and a visit which Father Varin
made there early in the year 1801,
for the purpose of giving a mission
and preparing for the opening of
the college, led to an arrangement
with some zealous priests and pious
ladies of Amiens for transferring
a small school of young ladies to
the care of Sophie Barat and her
companions. Two of these ladies
of Amiens, Mile. Genevieve De-
shayes and Mile. Henriette Grosier,
joined the community, of which
Mile. Loquet was appointed the su-
perior. This lady proved to be en-
tirely unfit for her position, and after
some months returned to her for-
mer useful and pious life in Paris.
Mile. Bailly, after waiting for a con-
siderable time to test her vocation,
at length followed her first attrac-
tion and left her dear friend Sophie
for the Carmelites. Sophie Barat,
with the consent of her companions,
was appointed by Father Varin to
the office of superior, much to her
own surprise and terror, for she was
the youngest and the most humble
of her sisters; and from this moment
until her death, in the year 1865,
she continued to be the Reverend

596 The Life and Work of Ma a a me Bar at.

Mother of the Society of the Ladies adopted, and during this period the
of the Sacred Heart, through all its first foundations were made, a most
periods of successive development dangerous and well-nigh fatal crisis
and extension. It was on the 2ist was safely passed, the spirit and
of December, 1802, soon after her methods of the new institute were
twenty-third birthday, that she was definitely formed ; thus laying the
definitively placed in this her true basis for the subsequent increase
position, for which divine Provi- and perfection of the vast edifice
dcnce had so wonderfully prepared of religion and instruction whose
her. She had been admitted to corner-stone was laid by the hum-
make the simple vows of religion on ble and gracious little maiden of
the 7th of June preceding, in com- Joigny in the depths of her own
pany with Madame Deshayes. The pure and capacious heart. St. John
community and school increased of the Cross says that " God be-
and prospered, and on the Feast stows on the founder such gifts
of St. Michael the Archangel, Sept. and graces as shall be proportionate
29, 1804, they were installed in to the succession of the order, as
their permanent residence, one of the first fruits of the Spirit." The
the former houses of the Oratory whole subsequent history of the So-
of Cardinal de Berulle. The com- ciety of the Sacred Heart shows
munity at this date comprised that this was fulfilled in the person
twelve members, including postti- of Sophie Barat. After the second
lants. Their names w r ere Made- foundation had been made in an
leine-Sophie Barat, Genevieve De- old convent of the Visitation at
shayes, Henrietta Grosier, Rosalie- Grenoble, Madame Baudemont was
Marguerite Debrosse, Marie du Ter- made superior at Amiens, and the
rail, Catharine-Emilie de Charbon- first council was held for the elec-
nel, Adele Bardot, Felicite Desmar- tion of a superior-general. Mad
quest, Henriette Ducis, Therese ame Barat was elected by a bare
Duchatel, Madame Baudemont, and majority of one ; for a party had
Madame Coppina. The two last- already been formed under sin-
mentioned ladies afterwards brought ister influences which was working
the society into a crisis of the gra- against her and in opposition to
vest peril, and finally withdrew from Father Varin, and seeking to change-
it, as we shall see later. Of the altogether the spirit of the new in-
others, Mesdames Deshayes, Gro- stitute. From this time until the
sier, de Charbonnel, Desmarquest, year 1816 Madame Barat was
and Ducis were among the most merely a superior in name and by
eminent and efficient of the first set courtesy at Amiens, and she was
of co-workers with the holy foun- chiefly employed in founding new
dress herself in the formation and houses, forming the young commu-
government of the society and its nities, and acquiring sanctity by the
great schools and novitiates. The exercise of patience and humility,
final rupture with Father Passanari The new foundations were at Poi-
had already been effected, and Ma- tiers, Cuignieres, Niort, and Doore-
darae Barat was therefore the sole sele near Ghent ; and of course the
head of the society, under the direc- society received a great number
tion of Father Varin. Twelve years of new subjects, some of whom be-
elapsed before the constitutions came its most distinguished mem-
of the society were drawn uo and bers as, for instance, Madan * Du-

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

507

chesnc, the pioneer of the mission
to America, Madame de Gramont
d'Aster and her two daughters,
Madame Therese Maillucheau, Mad-
ame Bigeu, Madame Prevost, Mad-
ame Giraud, and the angelic coun-
terpart of St. Aloysius, Madame
Aloysia Jouve. We must not pass
over in silence the benediction
given on two occasions by the
august pontiff Pius VII. to Mad-
ame Barat and her daughters. At
Lyons she had a long conversation
with him, in which she explained to
his great satisfaction the nature and
objects of her holy work, and she
also received from his hands Holy
Communion. At Grenoble all the
community and pupils received his
benediction, and of these pupils
eleven, upon whose heads his trem-
bling hands were observed to rest
with a certain special insistancej
received the grace of a religious
vocation. Another incident which
deserves mention is the last visit of
Madame Barat to her father. The
strict rules of a later period not hav-
ing been as yet enacted, she never
failed, when passing near Joigny on
her visitations, to stay for a short
time with her parents, often taking
with her some of the ladies of her
society who were of noble or
wealthy families, that she might
testify before them how much she
honored and loved the father and
mother to whom she owed so great
a debt of gratitude. On her an-
nual fete she used to send them
the bouquets which were present-
ed to her. During her father's
last illness she came expressly to
see and assist him in preparing
for death, and, though obliged to
bid him adieu before he had de-
parted this life, she left him con-
soled and fortified by her last acts
of filial affection, and he peacefully
expired soon after her departure

from Joigny, on the 25th of June
1809.

At the first council the spirit of
disunion already alluded to prevent-
ed Father Varin and Madame Barat
from undertaking the work of pre-
paring constitutions for the society.
A brief and simple programme of a
rule was drawn up and approved by
the bishops under whose jurisdic-
tion the houses were placed, and
Madame Barat became herself the
living rule and model, on which her
subjects and novices were formed.
Father Varin had resigned his office
of superior when Madame Barat war;
formally elected by the council of
professed members their superior-
general. Another ecclesiastic of
very different spirit, who was the
confessor of the community ana
the school at Amiens, M. 1'Aobe
de St. Esteve, was ambitious of the
honor and influence which justly be-
longed to Father Varin. He obtain-
ed a complete dominion at Amiens
by means of Madame de Baude-
mont, a former Clarissine, who was
gained over by his adroit flattery
and artful encouragement of the
love of sway and pre-eminence
which her commanding talents, her
former conventual experience, and
her mature age, together with -the
advantage of her position as local
superior, entrusted to her against
Father Varin's advice, gave a too
favorable opportunity of develop-
ment. M. de St. Esteve arrogated
to himself the title of founder of
the society, and planned an entire
reconstitution of the same under
the bizarre title of Apost&lines, and
with a set of rules which would
have made an essential alteration
of the institute established by Father
Varin. All the other houses be-
sides Amiens were in dismay and
alarm. Madame Penaranda, a lady
of Spanish extraction, descended

593

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

from the family of St. Francis Bor-
gia, who was superior at Ghent,
separated her house from the so-
ciety by the authority of the bi-
shop of the diocese. She returned,
oowevcr, some years later, with sev-
enteen of her companions, to the So-
ciety of the Sacred Heart.

In the meantime the Society of
Jesus had been re-established and
the Society of the Fathers of the
Holy Faith was dissolved, most of
its members entering the Jesuit Or-
der as novices. Father de Cloriviere
was provincial in France, and Ma-
dame Barat, encouraged by the ad-
vice and sympathy of wise and
holy men, waited patiently and
meekly for the time of her libera-
tion from the schemes of a plausi-
ble and designing enemy who had
crept under a false guise into her
fold. This was accomplished
through a most singular act of
criminal and audacious folly on the
part of M. de St. Esteve. Having
gone to Rome as secretary to the
French Legation, in order to fur-
ther his intrigue by false represen-
tations at the Papal Court, he was
led by his insane ambition, in de-
fault of any other means of success,
to forge a letter from the provin-
cial of the Jesuits of Italy to Ma-
dame Barat, instructing her to sub-
mit herself to the new arrange-
ments of M. de St. Esteve, which he
declared had been approved by the
Holy See. In this crisis Madame
Barat submitted with perfect obedi-
ence to what she supposed was an
order from the supreme authority
in the church, and counselled her
daughters to imitate her example.
Very soon the imposture was discov-
ered. Mesdames de Baudemont,
de Sambucy, and Coppina left the
society and went to join another
in Rome, and the rest of the dis-
affected members of the commu-

nity at Amiens, although not im-
mediately pacified, made no serious
opposition to Madame Barat, and
not long after were so completely
reconciled to her that all trace of
disunion vanished. There being
now no obstacle in the way of form-
ing the constitutions, a council was
summoned to meet in Paris, at a
suitable place provided by Madame
de Gramont d'Aster, and its issue
was most successful. It assembled
on the Feast of All Saints, 1815,
and in the chapel which was used
for the occasion was placed the
statue of Our Lady before which
St. Francis de Sales, when a young
student, had been delivered from
the terrible temptation to despair
which is related in his biography.
It was composed of the Reverend
Mothers Barat, Desmarquest, De-
shayes, Bigeu, Duchesne, Geoffroy,
Giraud, Girard, and Eugenie de
Gramont. Father de Cloriviere
presided over it, and Fathers Varin
and Druilhet, previously appointed
by him to draw up the constitutions,
were present to read, explain, and
propose them to the discussion and
vote of the council. The whole
work was completed in six weeks.
The Reverend Mothers Bigeu, de
Charbonnel, Grosier, Desmarquest,
Geoffroy, and Eugenie de Gramont
were elected as the six members of
the permanent council of the su-
perior-general, arrangements were
made for establishing a general
novitiate in Paris, the society was
placed under the government of
the Archbishop of Rheims as eccle-
siastical superior, who delegated his
functions to the Abbe Pereau, a
solemn ceremony closed the ses-
sions on the 1 6th of December, and
early in January the reverend
mothers returned to their respec-
tive residences. The constitutions
were received with unanimous con-

T/ie Life and Work of Madame Barat. 599

lentment in all the houses, includ- both within and without the soci-
ing Amiens, approved by the bi- ety to transfer the residence of the
shops in whose dioceses these superior-general to Rome, and to
houses existed, and, finally, a letter modify the rules in a way to make
of congratulation, expressed in the the society as far as possible a corn-
most kind and paternal terms, was plete counterpart of the Society of
received from his Holiness Pope Jesus. In 1843 this difficulty was
Pius VII. From this period the finally settled by the authority of
authority of Madame Barat was the Sovereign Pontiff, who annulled
fully established and recognized, all the acts and decrees which had
harmony and peace reigned within been passed in the councils of the
the society, and a new era of ex- society looking towards innova-
tension began which has continued tion, and determined that the resi-
to the present time. The society dence of the superior-general should
with its constitutions was solemnly not be removed from France. Hap-
upproved by Leo XII. in a brief pily, not a house, or even a single
dated December 22, 1826, which member, was separated from the soci-
was received at Paris in February, ety by this disturbance, and when it
1827, during a session of the conn- passed by the venerable and holy
cil. By the authority of the Holy foundress was more revered and
See an additional vow of stability loved than ever before, and her
was prescribed for the professed, gentle but strong sway over the vast
and the dispensation from this family which she governed was con-
vow reserved to the pope. The firmed for ever, never again to suffer
rules were made more strict in diminution. Some of the proposed
several respects, and a cardinal changes were, however, absolutely
protector was substituted for the necessary for the order and Avell-
ecclesiastical superior. The royal being of the society, and were pro-
approbation for France was at this vided for in the year 1850 by Pius
time also solicited, and granted by IX., who decreed the establishment
Charles X., then reigning. In 1839 of provinces under the name of
another effort was made to give vicariates, each one to be governed
a still greater perfection to the by the superior of its mother-house
statutes and to provide for the more with the rank and title of superior-
efficacious government of the insti- vicar, subject to the supreme au-
tute, now become too great for the thority of the superior-general. At
immediate government of the supe- the close of Madame Barat's admin-
rior-general, by a division into pro- istration, which ended only with her
vinces under provincial superiors, life, on Ascension Thursday, 1865,
At this time the society passed there were fifteen vicariates. Since
through another dangerous crisis, then the number has been increas-
and for four years was in a disturb- ed. There are three in the United
ed state which gave great anxiety States, one in British America, one
to the Rev. Mother Barat, dimin- in Spanish America; and in these
ished seriously her influence over five vicariates there are about eleven
her subjects, and even occasioned a hundred religious of the first and
menace of suppression in France second profession, including lay
to be intimated by the government, sisters. The number of houses in
The cause of this trouble was an various parts of the world is about
effort made by a number of persons one hundred, and the total number

6oo

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

of members four thousand. Ma-
dame Barat herself founded one
hundred and fifteen houses, and
many others have been established
since her death. But of these some
have been suppressed in Italy and
Germany, and others were given up
or transferred by the superiors of
the order. Madame Goetz, who was
vicar-general to Madame Barat dur-
ing the last year of her life, suc-
ceeded her as "superior-general, and
was succeeded after her own death,
in 1874, by Madame Lehon, the pre-
sent superior-general.

Our limits will not permit even
a succinct narrative of the events
which filled up the half-century
during which Madame Barat govern-
ed the Society of the Sacred Heart,
from the memorable council of
1815 until 1865. We cannot omit,
however, some brief notice of the
foundation of the American mission
and the ladies who were sent over
to establish it. The first American
colony was composed of three ladies
and two lay sisters : Madame Du-
chesne, Madame Aude, Madame
Berthold, Sister Catharine Lamarre,
and Sister Marguerite Manteau.
Madame Philippine Duchesne was
.a native of Grenoble, where she re-
ceived an accomplished education,
first at the Visitation convent of
Sainte-Marie-d'en-Haut, and after-
wards under private tutors in the
.same class with her cousins, Angus-
tin and Casimir Perier. At the age
.of eighteen she entered the Visita-
tion convent as a novice, but was
: prevented by the suppression of
.the religious orders in France from
. making her vows. During the dark
days of the Revolution her conduct
was that of a heroine. After the
end of the Reign of Terror she rent-
ed the ancient convent above men-
tioned, and for several years main-
tained there an asylum for religious

women with a small boarding-school
for girls, waiting for an opportu-
nity to establish a regular religious
house. Her desire was accomplish-
ed when Madame Barat accepted
the offer which was made to her to
receive Madame Duchesne and her
companions into the Society of the
Sacred Heart, and to found the
second house of her societv in the

old monastery of Ste.-Marie-d'en-
Haut. Madame Duchesne had felt
an impulse for the arduous voca-
tion of a missionary since the time
when slje was eight years old, and
this desjre had continually increas-
ed, notwithstanding the apparent
improbability of its ever finding
scope within the limits of her vo-
cation. She was about forty-eight
years of age when she was entrust-
ed with the American mission, and
lived for thirty-four years in this
country, leaving after her the repu-
tation of exalted and really apos-
tolic sanctity. Madame Eugenie
Aude had been much fascinated by
the gay world in her early youth,
and her conversion was remarkable.
Returning one evening from a soi-
ree, as she went before a mirror in
her boudoir, she saw there, instead
of her own graceful and richly-at-
tired figure, the face of Jesus Christ
as represented in the Ecce Homo.
From that moment she renounced
her worldly life, and soon entered
the novitiate at Grenoble as a pos-
tulant. Even there, her historian
relates, "on souriait de ses manic-
res mondaines, de ses belles saluta-
tions, de ses trois toilettes par jour !
Meme sous le voile de novice qu'elle
portait maintenant, elle laissait voir
encore, pas sans complaisance, 1'ele-
gance de sa taille et les avantages do
sa personne. On ne tardera pas a
voir ce que cette ame de jeune fille
changee en ame d'apotre etait capa-
ble d'entreprendre pour Dieu et le

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at. 60 1

prochain." This great change was successors of these first colonists,
wrought in her soul during a retreat Madame Duchesne, in her visions
given by Pere Roger on the open- of missionary and apostolic life,
ing of the general novitiate at Paris never dreamed of those religious
during November, 1816. When call- houses, novitiates, and pensionates,
ed to join Madame Duchesne two rivalling the splendid establishments
years later, she was twenty-four years of Europe, which we now see dt
of age, and, after a long period of St. Louis, Manhattanville, Kenwood,
service in the United States, was and Eden Hall. Her aspirations
finally elected an assistant general were entirely for labor among the
and recalled to France. Madame Indians and negroes, and, to a con-
Octavie Berthold was the daughter siderable extent, they were satisfied,
of an infidel philosopher who had She began with the most arduous
been Voltaire's secretary. She was and self-sacrificing labors upon the
herself educated as a Protestant, roughest and most untilled soil of
was converted to the faith when Bishop Dubourg's diocese, and one
about twenty years of age, and soon of her last acts was to go on a
after entered the novitiate at Gre- mission among the Pottawattomies,
noble. She volunteered for the from which she was only taken by
American mission, animated by a the force of Archbishop Kenrick's
desire to prove her gratitude to authority a little before her death,
our Lord for the grace of conver- The present flourishing condition
sion, and was at this time about thirty of the two vicariates of New Or-
years of age. ** Caractere sympathi- leans and St. Louis is well known
que, cceur profondement devouee, to all our readers. The foundation
intelligence ornee, specialement ver- at New York was due to the en-
see dans la connatssance des langues lightened zeal of the late illustri-
etrangeres, Mme Octavie etait fort ous Archbishop Hughes, although
aimee au pensionnat de Paris." the first idea originated in the mind
Mgr. Dubourg, Bishop of New of Madame Barat many years be-
Orleans, was the prelate who intro- fore. In the year 1840 the cele-
duced the Ladies of the Sacred brated Russian convert, Madame
Heart into the United States. It Elizabeth Gallitzin, a cousin of
was during the year 1817 that the Prince Gallitzin the priest of Lo-
arrangements were completed at retto, and assistant general for
Paris. On the 2ist of March, 1818, America to Madame Barat, was
the five religious above mentioned sent over to establish tnis founda-
embarked at Bordeaux on the Re- tion and to make a general visita-
bccca, and on the 2Qth of May, tion, in the course of which she
which was that year the Feast of died suddenly of yellow fever at
the Sacred Heart, they landed at St. Michel, on the i4th of Novem-
Xew Orleans, where they were re- ber, 1842

ceived as the guests of the Ursu- The first residence in New

lines in their magnificent convent. York was the present convent of

Their own first residence at St. the Sisters of Mercy in Houston

Charles, in the present diocese of Street, from which it was removed,

St. Louis, was as different as possi- first to Astoria, and afterwards to

ble from this noble religious house, the Lorillard estate in Manhattan-

and from those which have since ville, where is now the centre of an

that time been founded by the extensive vicariate comprising eight

602 TJie Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

houses in the States of New York, the Feast of the Ascension, 1865.
Rhode Island, Ohio, and Michigan, The narrative of a few salient events
about five hundred religious, a no- in her life, and of the principal
vitiate containing at this moment facts in the history of the founda-
forty-eight novices exclusive of tion of the Sacred Heart, which we
postulants, and flourishing schools have thought best to present, mea-
both for the education of young gre as it is, in lieu of more general
ladies and the instruction of the observations on her character and
children of those parishes which that of her great works, for the
are adjacent to the several con- benefit of those who cannot, at least
vents. It is not necessary to de- for the present, peruse the history
scribe for the benefit of our Amer- of M. Baunard, leaves us but little
ican readers with more detail the room for any such remarks. The
history and present condition of character of this saintly woman
the Society of the Sacred Heart in must be studied in the details of
this country. Our European read- her private and public life, and in
ers would no doubt be interested the expression she has given to her
by such a history ; but, besides the interior spirit in the extracts from
imperative reason of a want of her vast correspondence published
space in the present article, there by her biographer. No one could
is another which imposes on us the ever take her portrait ; and we are
obligation of reserve in respect to assured by one who knew her long
works accomplished by the living, and intimately that the one placed
to whom has been transmitted the in front of the second volume of
humility as well as the other virtues her life is not at all satisfactory.
of their holy foundress. There is How can we describe, then, such
one venerable lady especially, now a delicate, hidden, retiring, subtile
withdrawn from the sphere of her essence as the soul of Sophie Barat
long and active administration to a in a few words, or give name to
higher position in the society, who that which fascinated every one,
is remembered with too much grati- from the little nephew Louis Du-
tude by her children, and honor by saussoy to Frayssinous, Montalem-
all classes of Catholics in her na- bert, and Gregory XVI. ? Extreme
tive land, to require from our pen gentleness and modesty, which, with
more than the expression of a wish the continual increase of grace, be-
and prayer, on the part of thou- come the most perfect and admira-
sands whose hearts will echo our ble humility, were the basis of her
words as they read them, that she natural character and of her ac-
may resemble the holy mother who quired sanctity. In the beginning
loved her and all her American her modesty was attended by an ex-
children so tenderly, as "set plus cessive timidity, so that Father Varin
chere famille" in length of days, gave her the name of ; ' trcmbleuse
and in the peace which closed her perpctuelle" This was supplanted
last evening. by that generous, affectionate con-
We have already alluded briefly fidence in God which shone out so
to the blessed departure of Madame luminously in the great trials of her
Barat from the scene of labor to the career. In all things, and always, Ma-
glory which awaits the saints, in the dame Barat was exquisitely feminine,
eighty-sixth year of her age and the She conquered and ruled by love,
sixty-sixth of her religious life, on and this sway extended over all, from

The Life and Work of Madame Barat. 603

the smallest children to the most sentiment in respect of her sanctity,

energetic, commanding, impetuous, and one, unanimous desire that the

and able of the highly-born, accom- seal of canonization may be placed

plished, and in every sense remark- upon it by the successor of St. Pe-

able women who were under her ter. A prayer under her invoca-

goverr.ment in the society, to wo- tion has been already sanctioned

men of the world, to old men and by Pius IX., and the cause of her

young men, to servants, the poor, beatification has been introduced,

fierce soldiers and revolutionists, the issue of which we await, in the

and even to irrational creatures, hope that we may one day be per-

With this feminine delicacy and mitted and commanded to honor

gentleness there was a virile force the modest little Sophie Barat of

and administrative ability, a firm- Joigny who went away weeping in

ness and intrepidity, which made the coach to Paris at sixteen to

her capable of everything and afraid found one of the greatest orders of

of nothing. Her writings display a the world under the most beauti-

fire of elqquence which may be ful and appropriate title of Sancta

truly called apostolic, and would Sophia.

be admired in the mouth of an When we consider the work of
apostolic preacher. Besides the Madame Barat as distinct from her
great labors that she accomplished personal history, we observe some
in the foundation and visitation of peculiar and remarkable features
her numerous houses, and in the marking its rise and growth. It
government of her vast society, came forth from the fiery, bloody
Madame Barat went through seve- baptism of the French Revolution
ral most severe and dangerous ill- as a work of regeneration and re-
nesses, beginning with one which storation. Many of its first mem-
threatened her life in the first years bers had been through an expe-
ut Amiens ; and was frequently rience of danger, suffering, and he-
brought, to all appearance, to the roic adventure which had given
very gates of death. Besides these them an intrepidity of character
sufferings, and the great privations proof against every kind of trial,
which were often endured during The stamp thus given to the society
the first period of new foundations, at the outset was that of generous
she practised austerities and pen- loyalty to the Holy See, and un-
ances of great severity, to the ut- compromising hostility to the spirit
most limit permitted by obedience and maxims of the Revolution,
to her directors. With her won- Another fact worthy of notice is
derful activity she united the spirit that so many small communities,
of a contemplative ; and there are private institutes for education, and
not wanting many evidences of su- persons living a very devout and
pernatural gifts of an extraordinary zealous life in the world, were scat-
kind, or proofs of her power with tered about the territory over which
God after her death. Mgr. Parisis the destructive tornado of revolu-
has publicly declared that her life tion had passed, ready to be incor-
was one of the great events of this . porated into the Society of the
century, and comparable to those of Sacred Heart, and furnishing the
St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, means of a rapid growth and exten-
St. Catharine of Siena, and St. Te- sion.
resa. There is but one, universal New orders are not absolutely

604

The Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

new creations. They spring from
those previeusly existing, and are
affiliated with each other more or
less closely, notwithstanding their
differences. Many of the first mem-
bers of the Society of the Sacred
Heart had been previously inclined
to the orders of Mt. Carmel and the
Visitation. The spirit of the Car-
melite Order was largely inherited
by the new society, and from the
Order of the Visitation the special
devotion to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus was received by the same
transmission of mystic life. The
organization was produced by the
engrafting of the principles of the
constitutions of St. Ignatius on the
new and vigorous stock. From
this blending and composition
sprang forth the new essence with
its own special notes, its original
force, and its distinct sphere of
'operation. Cardinal Racanati thus
expresses his judgment of its excel-
lence : " My duty has obliged me
to read the constitutions of almost
all ancient and modern orders. All
are beautiful, admirable, marked
with the signet of God. But this
one appears to me to excel among
all the others, because it contains
the essence of religious perfection,
and is at the same time a master-
piece of unity. The Sacred Heart
of Jesus is at once the pivot around
which everything moves, and the
end in which everything results."
Pope Gregory XVI. said that the
Rule of the Sacred Heart was in
every part the work of God. Al-
though not an exact counterpart of
the Society of Jesus, the Society of
the Sacred Heart is nevertheless,
in its government and method of
discipline, modelled after a similar
type, with equally efficacious means
for producing in its subjects, in a
manner proportionate to their femi-
nine character, all the highest reli-

gious virtues of the mixed state ot
action and contemplation. The
only important differences between
the Society of the Sacred Heart
and the older orders of women an-
the absence of the interior cloister
and of the solemn vows. The first,
which is obviously an advantage
considering the nature of the occu-
pations in which the Ladies of the
Sacred Heart are engaged, is com-
pensated for by the extreme strict-
ness of the rules governing their
conduct in regard to intercourse
with the world, and the obligation
of going at a moment's warning to
any house, in any part of the world,
where they may be ordered by the
superiors. In respect to the se-
cond, as the final vows can only be
dispensed by the pope, the com-
pleteness and sacredness of the ob-
lation for life are not diminished,
but only a prudent provision for
extraordinary cases secured by the
wisdom of the Holy See, which is
beneficial both to the order and its
individual members. In respect to
poverty, self-denial, regularity, and
all that belongs to the beautiful
order of conventual life, the written
rule of the Sacred Heart, which is
actually observed in practice, is not
behind those of the more ancient
orders. In respect to the extent
and strictness of the law of obedi-
ence, it is pre-eminent among all, and
its admirable organization may justly
be compared to that acknowledged
masterpiece of religious polity, the
Institute of St. Ignatius. The more
humble occupations to which so
many admirable religious women in
various orders and congregations
devote themselves form an integral
part of the active duties of the
society. A large portion of its
members are lay sisters, and a great
number of the religious of the choir
are engaged in the instruction of

T/ic Life and Work of Madame Bar at.

605

poor children or domestic duties
which have no exterior eclat. The
specific work of the society is of
course the education of young la-
dies, with the ulterior end of 'diffus-
ing and sustaining Catholic princi-
ples and Catholic piety, through the
instrumentality of the c'levcs of the
Sacred Heart, among the higher
classes of society. There cannot
be a nobler work than this, or a
more truly apostolic vocation, within
the sphere to which woman is limit-
ed by the law of God, human na-
ture, and the constitution of Chris-
tian society. What an immense
power has been exerted by the
dam^iters of Madame Barat in this

C-

way as the auxiliaries of the hierar-
chy and the sacerdotal order in the
church, is best proved by the per-
secutions they have sustained from
the anti-Catholic party in Europe,
and the fear they have inspired in
the bosoms of tyrannical statesmen
like Prince Bismarck, who tremble
with apprehension before the ban-
ner of the Sacred Heart, though
followed only by a troop of modest
virgins. It is after all not strange.
The women of the revolution are
more terrible than furies led on
' \ Alecto and Tisiphone. Why
uld not the virgins of the Cath-
t:!ic army resemble their Queen,
v.ho is "terrible as an army set in
array " ?

It is with great regret that we
nain from setting forth the en-
lightened, sound, and thoroughly

Christian ideas of Madame Barat,
and the various councils over which
she presided, in respect to the edu-
cation of Catholic girls in our age.
We are obliged also to omit notic-
ing the charming sketches given in
the book before us of the first pu-
pils of the Sacred Heart, and the
noble part which so many of them
played afterwards in the world.
We must close with a few words on
the merit of the Abbe Baunard's
work, and an expression of grati-
tude to the distinguished ecclesias-
tic who has furnished us so much
pleasure and edification at a. cost
of such very great labor to himself.
He has been fortunate in his sub-
ject and the wealth of authentic
materials furnished him for fulfil-
ling his honorable and arduous task.
His illustrious subject has been
fortunate in her biographer. The
History of Madame Barat deserves
to be ranked with Mother Chau-
guy's Life of St. Frances de Chantal
and M. Hamon's Life of St. Francis
de Sales. We trust that an abridg-
ed life by a competent hand may
furnish those who cannot afford so
costly a book, or read one so large,
with the means of knowing the
character and history of the Teresa
of our century. There are also
materials for other histories and bi-
ographies of great interest and util-
ity in the rich, varied contents of
this most admirable and charming
work, which we hope may not be
neglected.

6o6

Six Sunny Months.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE," "GRAPES AND THORNS," ETC.

CHAPTER I.
" CITTA VECCHJA !"

A COMFORTABLE family party
came Rome ward one May morning
from Turin. They had the railway
carriage quite to themselves, and
occupied it fully. Mr. Vane lay
stretched at length on the front seat,
with a travelling-bag and two shawls
under his head. Jt was his first
visit to Italy, consequently his first
approach to Rome, but he declin-
ed his daughters' invitation to look
out. He would prefer, he said, to
admire the country when he should
feel more in the mood. " Besides,"
he said, " to look at scenery when
one is going through it behind a
locomotive irritates both the eyes
and the temper. If you wish to see
a near object, no sooner have you
fixed your eyes upon it than it is
whisked out of sight, and your
pupils contract with a snap ; if a
distant one, the moment you per-
ceive that it is worth seeing, some
sharp bit of foreground starts up
and enters like a bramble between
your eyelids. It's a Sancho Panza
feast, and I'll none of it. x You
children can look out and tantalize
your tempers, if it please you."

"Oh! thank you," his daughter
Isabel said dryly, availing herself
of the permission.

Presently she addressed him
again : " Papa, if I could find a
fault in you, it would be that you
are such a very unreasonably rea-
sonable man. You have always so
many arguments in favor of every
proposition you lay down, there

isn't a handle left to take it up
by."

"Thank you!" the gentleman
echoed. And then there was si-
lence for a little while a silence
of tongues ; but, with a ceaseless
whirr and buzz, the Hying train was
casting the north behind, and plung-
ing into the south like a bee into a
flower.

Mr. Vane's two daughters, twen-
ty and twenty-two years of age, sat
opposite him, each at a window,
Isabel moving frequently, glancing
here and there, and speaking when-
ever the spirit was stirred ; Bianca,
the younger, seeming to be in a
trance. These two girls were as
unlike in appearance as it is possi-
ble for two persons to be who have
many points of resemblance. Both
had fine dark eyes, dark hair, com-
plexions of a clear, pale olive, and
features sufficiently regular. Bian-
ca was a trifle taller and finer in
shape, and her manner had a gen-
tle dignity, while her sister's was
lively and positive. Bianca's mouth
was fuller, sweeter, and more silent,
and her voice softer. She had a
more penetrating mind than most
persons were aware of, and thought
and observed more than^she said.
Isabel caught quickly at the sur-
faces of things, and had a clever
way of weaving other people's ideas
into her talk that sometimes made
her appear brilliant. It might be
said that the impressions of the
elder were cameo, those of the

Six Sunny Months. 607

younger intaglio. For the rest, let picture, and we accordingly find

their story speak for them. him in the land of the lotos.

The father was a large, leisurely, ' Bianca," her sister said present-
middle- aged gentleman, whom criti- ly, "do you remember the Gold-
cal people like to call indolent, smith's history of Rome we studied
He certainly had, as his elder at school? I've forgotten every bit
daughter intimated, the faculty of of it but the title, and an impres-
finding a great many excellent rea- sion of great uncomfortable doings,
sons why he should not exert him- and haranguing and attitudinizing,
self unnecessarily, and it is proba- and killing. I recollect it was al-
ble that he might never have been ways a wonder to me when I found
brought to the pitch of a trans- there were people enough left to
atlantic voyage but for Miss Isabel's begin a new chapter with. Now
politic arguments in urging the mat- we are going to see the places. .
ter. How glad I am we shall not see

"In Europe one can be so any of the tremendous people !"
quiet," she said. "One can live She put her head out of the win-
there without being tormented by dow and added : " I don't find that
the idea that one should be doing the country looks any better than
something for somebody. It isn't Massachusetts. But, for all that, I
considered necessary to have a mis- am enchanted to be here. How I
sion. Everything happens half an have longed to come !"
hour or so after time, and every- ''Indeed!" her father said, star-
body goes to sleep in the middle of ing a little. ' Why, then, did you
the day in the middle of the street, not let us come six months ago, in-
too, if they like. I've heard people stead of clinging to London and
say that it's just delicious the way Paris?"

the clergy take their promenade She smiled indulgently on him.
there. Two of them will walk " Perhaps you've forgotten how,
slowly along a few minutes, then when I was a child, and when I had
stop and carry on their conversa- mince-pie for dinner, I used to slyly
tion a little while, as if they were pick out the large raisins and put
in the Elysiau Fields, then resume them under the edge of my plate to
their walk, and so on, walking and eat afterward. I recollect your find-
pausing, in the most delightfully ing me out once, and asking me if I
leisurely way. Fancy that in New didn't like raisins, and I was in ter-
York ! Why, our idea of walking ror lest you were going to take
is to get one foot before the other them away from me. I've been do-.
us quickly as we can. Going out, ing the same thing now saving the
we see only the spot we start from best for the last. I wished to dis-
and the spot we arrive at, and we pose of everything else first, so that,
shoot from the one to the other as when I return to America, I can
if we wore percussion-caps on our shut my eyes in Rome, and not
heads. Marion says that Italy is open them again till they see the
the fabled lotos, and that all the shores of the New World. And,
dust and dirt people talk so about between ourselves, papa, isn't it a
is nothing but pollen." dreadfully new world ? I wouldn't

Mr. Vane, who in America felt own it to a foreigner, of course ;

himself like a drone in the midst of but you're such a dear, stanch old

bees, could not resist this charming Yankee!" And she leaned forward

6o8

Six Sunny Months.

and gave him an affectionate pinch
in the cheek.

The younger sister turned quick-
ly at that. " O Bell ! don't turn
traitor," she exclaimed. "Newness
is not a disadvantage always. When
the world was new the Creator
praised it, but there is no record
of his ever having praised it after."

Mr. Vane looked at his younger
daughter with a wistful, lingering
smile. He always looked attentive-
ly at Bianca when she spoke.

Isabel lifted her hands in won-
der. " Well, really, she is playing
patriot ! Who have I heard say
that her body was born in America,
but her soul in Italy? Who have I
heard say that the children of Israel
were not Egyptians, though they
were born by the Nile?"

Bianca smiled to herself softly,
and looked out of the window as
she answered : " I am not playing
patriot. The feeling was always in
my mind, hanging there silent like
a bell in its tower; and now and
then it rang. It always rung when
struck."

" That's my darling !" her father
exclaimed. " Keep your sweet-ton-
ed patriotism in its bell-tower. I
don't like the sort that is always fir-
ing india-crackers under everybody's
nose. By the way," he added after
a while, rousing again, rather unac-
countably, " what an absurdity it is
in us, this coming to Rome in May !
To-day is the second of the month.
We should have come in December.
I wonder I allowed myself to be so
persuaded. I have a mind to go
back at once."

His elder daughter regarded him
tranquilly. " Don't excite yourself
unnecessarily, papa," she said; "we
are behind a coachman who never
turns back. By the time we reach
Rome you will be as contented as a
lamb. Do not you perceive some-

thing beautiful in our coming at
this season, with the orange-flowers
and the jasmines ? We do not ar-
rive, we simply bloom. Even denr
old papa will put on a film of ten-
der green over his sombreness, like
a patriarchal spruce-tree ; and as
to Bianca and me "
She sang :

'' Two half-open roses on one twig grew,

Sweet is the summer.

A nightingale sang there the whole night through
Sweet is the summer."

" Here we are ! What a comfort-
that we have not to go to a hotel
nor search for lodgings ! It is very
nice to have a friend to prepare
everything."

In fact, a friend of the family,
resident in Rome, who had written
and received a score or so of let-
ters on the subject of this journey,
was waiting outside the barrier at
that moment. They saw her a lit-
tle apart from the crowd, looking
for them as they gave up their tick-
ets ; then a servant took their pack-
ages, and they were cordially wel-
comed to Rome. This lady has so
long been accustomed to hearing
herself announced by the maid-
servants of the friends she visits
as the " Signora Ottant'-otto," from
the number of her house, that she
will not be displeased if we con-
tinue the title.

A carriage was called, and in a
few minutes they had reached the
home prepared for their reception.
It was an old-fashioned Roman
house, situated on a high slope of
the Viminal where it meets the Es-
quiline in a scarcely perceptible
dent. The portone, entrance, and
stairs were palatial in size, the lat-
ter having broad landings lighted
by double windows in the middle
of each story ; and instead of a
mere passage or small waiting-
room, the door of the apartment

Stx Snnnr Mont /is.

609

opened at once into a noble sala.
Large chambers surrounded this
sa/a, and a backward-extending
wing held smaller rooms and a
kitchen. All this part of the
house looked into a garden, where
orange-trees stood with their sprin-
kle of fragrant snow, and jasmines
reared their solid cones of flowery
gold, perfuming every breeze that
entered. Beyond the garden ex-
tended an orchard and vineyard,
hiding all that part of the city
except the long roof and facade of
the church of St. Catherine of
Siena, and the grand old tower
that Vittoria Colonna built her
convent walls about. These look-
ed over the rich verdure, standing
out dark and massive against the
clear western sky.

"The front- rooms are town, the
back rooms country," the Signora
said. "In the front rooms we
have the ' dim, religious light' that
Italians love ; here are silence, ex-
cept for the birds, sunshine, and
flowers."

The front drawing-rooms were
conventional, but the sala and din-
ing-room had a character quite new
to the travellers. The uncovered
brick floors, freshly sprinkled and
swept ; the faded old screens of
green silk or embroidered satin,
set in carved frames ; the tarnished
gilt chairs with scarlet velvet cush-
ions ; the large sofas, and tables, and
cases of drawers, all finely carved ;
the walls almost entirely covered with
old oil-paintings of every size, some
without frames, some so dim that
amid the haze of faded color a
face would look forth, or an arm
be thrust out as from 'a cloud all
these made up a picture very dif-
ferent from the rich, toned-down
freshness of their New England
home, where they trod on velvet,
and would no more have admitted
VOL. xxm. NO. 39

a chair of scarlet and gold than
they would have allowed a curtain
to hang after the sun had made a
streak in it.

The girls were enchanted. " How
delightfully dingy everything is !"
Isabel cried. " It's like grandmo-
ther's beautiful cashmere shawl that
is a hundred years old."

And then the travellers were good
enough to say that they were hun-
gry, and would not be displeased
if luncheon should be very prompt
at the hour of noon.

" After this, you see, we shall
sail right into your track without
a break," Mr. Vane said. "Your
hours suit me perfectly ; and whether
it should be luncheon or dinner at
noon does not make the least dif-
ference to me at this season. In
cold weather I like a late dinner."

" I think you will find the early-
dinner pleasanter in summer," the
Signora said ; " that is, if you rise
early. You will soon learn, if you
have not learned already, to give up
the heavy American breakfast, and
so will be hungry by noon. That
gives you the fresh of the morning
free, with little digestive work to
dull your activity, and the lovely
evenings from five to eio;ht or nine.

" o

If you wish to go out romancing
by moonlight, the supper is just
enough to content, without clog-
ging. The next best plan is, coffee
on waking, breakfast at ten, and
dinner at four or five after your
nap. I have tried all ways, and
settled on the first for this country..
Of course it wouldn't answer for
our indoor, chilly life at the other
side of the world."

" I do not like a four or five
o'clock dinner," Mr. Vane said
with decision. " It is neither one
thing nor the other; and I hate to
go from the bed to the dinner-
table."

610 Six Sunny Months.

It was the Signora's first house- er to grant, which, in turn, moved
keeping for any one but herself, and the next wheel ; and so on, quite
she was full of a pleasant anxiety, in order, till a way was made from
What solemn conferences she had certain cool grottos, where the
with the donna, what explanations, hoarded wines sparkled to them-
what charges she gave ! And how selves in the dark, to the small din-
learned she became in matters to ner-table where our friends in the
which before she had not given a old Roman house sat and sipped
thought ! In such a dark and nar- liquid rubies or sunshine for an ab-
row street, in a dingy little shop, surdly small price considering the
was to be found the best chocolate result.

in Rome. In such another place, " But you are giving us too much
where you would least expect, they of your time," the Vanes expostu-
sold coffee of unimpeachable excel- lated. " We cannot permit you to
lence, which, of course, one had turn housekeeper for us. How
roasted and ground in one's own will you be able to write?"
house. Another journey was made For the Signora Ottant'-otto was
for tea. She became an object of an authoress. " In the first flush of
terror to sellers of meat and vege- seeing you 1 could not content my-
tables, and fruit-venders trembled self to write a line," she said ; "and
before her. To witness the scorn by the time I shall have become
with which she rejected apricots calm my machinery will be in work-
that had not the precise cloudless ing order. After that nothing will
sunset tint, peaches that were of a be necessary but an occasional
vulgar red and green complexion warning word or glance."
or too pale in hue, mandarins not This conversation did not, hovv-
sufriciently loose of skin and flat- ever, take place till the end of the
tened at the poles, and grapes and first week. The first day the house-
figs that could not answer in the af- keeping seemed to have arranged
iarmative at least six stern ques- itself without human intervention,
tions, one would have supposed As they seated themselves at the
that she must have been accustom- luncheon-table the soft boom of
ed to such fruits as grew in the Gar- the gun from St. Angelo proclaimed
den of Eden. As to wine, the story the hour of noon, and immediately
of its getting was an admirable another booming, as soft, but more
illustration of moral pulley-power, musical, came from the near campan-
A friend's friend's, etc., friend had t'/e of the Liberian basilica, where the
two friends who owned vineyards great bell struck the Angelus, fol-
and made wine, .and one was fa- lowed by all the bells in the tower
mous for his white and another for in zfesta ringing,
his red. The first power in this " That is Maria Assunta and her
machinery was a semi-weekly cup four ladies of honor," the Signora
qf tea which a certain respectable, said, with all the pride of a pro-
antique bachelor had taken regular- prietor. " I may as well tell you
ly with the Signora time out of that they and the church they be-
mind, and, losing which, his life long to "are my one weakness in
would have been quite disjointed. Rome. I have been up the cam-
The flavor of the tea did not, of fanile to visit those bells, have
course, extend beyond, him, but it read their inscriptions and touch-
anfluenced certain favors in his pow- ed their embossed sides, even while

Six Sunny Months. 61 1

they were being rung. An Italian of the nave was rosy, and pink re-
boy who was with me exclaimed flections ran along the inner sides
when I put my hand to the ring- of the two rows of white columns,
ing rim of the great bell : * E un like ripples in water, and faded at
fieccato / Hafatto tacere Maria San- the grand altar they had strained to
tissima! ' reach. You could fancy they sigh-

They smiled and listened. It ed with contentment when they did

pleased them to know what the reach it. The sacristy-bell rang for

Signora liked and how she liked. a Mass beginning just as I entered,

" I remember the first time I saw and I took that as an indication

that church," she said, pleased to that I was to go no further till 1

go on. " It was my first Christmas had heard it. So I knelt close to

in Rome, and, after having heard a the door in a little nook by the tri-

Mass at Aurora, I went out alone bune. The priest stopped at the

later, to lose myself and see what altar in the very farthest corner. 1

I would come to. I wandered into could see him between the columns,

the long street that is now so famil- and so far away that I could hardly

iar, and saw the tip of a campanile know when he knelt or rose. When

peeping at me over the hill in front the Mass was over, I seated myself

like a beckoning finger. I follow- where the bases of two columns

ed, and presently knew where I before the Borghese Chapel form a

must be, though I had carefully grand marble throne, and there I

refrained from reading descrip- stayed the whole forenoon."

tions of anything. The morn- " Nothing strikes me more in Ca-

ing was fresh and clear, but in- tholic churches," Mr. Vane said,

side the church was quite dim, ex- ' than to see a worshipper attend-

cept that the round window high ing to the service from some far

up the eastern end of the nave nook or corner, with a crowd of

was thrust through by a long bar people walking about between him

of sunshine that looked as though and the altar. You do not seem to

it might make a hole for itself out think it necessary to be near the

the other end, it was so live and priest or hear what he is saying,

solid. I recollected pictures I That is one great difference between

had seen of the Jewish tabernacle, you and Protestants. What their

with the two bars by which it was minister says is all. Though, to be

carried, or lifted, and I said to sure," he added, " one wouldn't al-

myself, Suppose another gold bar ways know what the priest were

should be put in, and the whole saying, if one were close to him."

church, and all who are in it, " It isn't necessary as long as we

carried off over hill and dale, and know what he is doing," the Signora

through the air to some Promised replied rather quickly, " Besides,

Land fairer than Italy . There was Catholics, even uneducated ones, do

a man up outside who seemed to know very nearly the words he is

be afraid of stidh a catastrophe; for speaking, without hearing them. It

lie was struggling to draw together is a mistake constantly made by

the two halves of a red curtain Protestants to think that Catholics

over the window. It was not easy do not understand, because they

to do I presume he was resisted themselves do not. They forgot

but finally everything was shut out that there is little variety in the

but a blush. All that upper end service, and that in all essential

di2

Six Sunny Months.

parts one Mass is like all other
Masses. An intelligent Catholic,
whether he can read or not, can
tell you just what the priest is
doing as far off as he can see him,
and knows just what prayers he
should offer at the moment. As
for the priest or his assistant not
speaking distinctly, they often do,
oftener than not ; and when they
do not, it is not strange. The
same words, repeated over and
over again, even when repeated
with the whole heart, have a ten-
dency to become indistinct, and to
drop the consonants and keep only
the vowels. The torso of sound is
all right."

" Like the foot of your bronze
St. Peter, worn smooth with oft-re-
peated, fervent kisses," the gentle-
man said, with a gravity that hid a

smile. " You may say that it has
only the vowel shape of a foot, the
consonant angles quite kissed away."

The Signora lifted her head a lit-
tle, and immediately changed the
subject. Decidedly, she thought,
it would be necessary to correct
Mr. Vane's conversation. But it
would not be pleasant to do so the
first day.

They lingered at the table nearly
an hour, talking over old times and
friends, and who were dead and
who were married ; till presently, it
having got buzzed about among
the select number of flies in the
room that there was fruit at hand,
they reminded the company to re-
tire.

" Tea at five and supper at nine,"
was the Signora's parting reminder.
"And now, a pleasant rest to you !"

CHAPTER II.
AY DE MI, ALHAMA ! "

THOSE who knew little or nothing
of Mr. Vane usually fancied that
they knew him perfectly, and were
in the habit of describing him with
epigrammatic brevity : A kind, hon-
orable man, indolent of mind and
body, very tolerant, has no strong
convictions, and seems, not so much
to live, as to be waiting to live, and
waiting quite comfortably as if a
fish out of water should find itself
for a few days in wine and water.

Those who knew him best hesitat-
ed to describe him ; but all agreed
that he was kind and honorable.
We will not attempt any dissection
of his character.

Twenty-three years before we
find him in Rome he married a
beautiful girl born in New Orleans
of Spanish parents. He had long
admired her, but had been kept
at a distance by her coldness ; and

when, quite suddenly, she consented
to be his wife, he could scarcely
have told if his delight were greater
than his surprise.

*' I do not love you," she said
with gentle calmness, " but I esteem
you, and am prepared to do my
duty as a wife. I should have pre-
ferred not to marry ; but my parents
desire that I should, and, as I am
their only child, I do not think it
right to oppose their wishes."

It was scarcely an explanation to
satisfy even an accepted lover, and
Mr. Vane could not help asking if
there were any one whom she pre-
ferred to him.

The answer was not prompt in
coming, and was given with great
reserve, though the lady showed
neither confusion nor unwillingness
to give it. She thought gravely for
a minute before speaking, her fair,

Six Sunny Months.

quiet face all the time open to his
study. " I have never had a lover,"
she said then, " and I have never
wished to marry any one. I have
nothing to confess nor to repent of
in this regard."

With this he had been obliged to
content himself. What unacknow-
ledged maiden preference, untouch-
ed by passion, her words might have
concealed, if any such had been, he
could not ask and he never knew ;
but gentle, faithful, prompt in every
duty, and sincerely desirous to ren-
der him happy as she was, he al-
ways felt that there was an inner
chamber in her heart where he had
never penetrated, and which she
had even closed to her own eyes.
There was no appearance of con-
cealment or conscious reserve, no
hidden pain, but only a something
wanting, as if some delicate spring
in her soul had been broken. He
had hoped to make her forget what-
ever shadow of regret her life might
have known, and to restore her to
an elastic joyousness more suited to
her age ; and, in the earlier months
of their married life, finding his ef-
forts vain, he had broken out in
some slight reproaches now and
then. But the blush of pain and
alarm, the anxious inquiries, " In
what have I failed ?" " What have
I done to displease you?" and the
gayety she strove to assume for his
pleasure, made him regret his im-
patience. Tacitly he allowed her
to renounce an affectation which
was the first she had ever stooped
to, and, as time passed on, they
settled into a friendly and unde-
monstrative intercourse. Isabel
seemed to have drawn her disposi-
tion from this lively surface of her
mother's briefly-troubled life ; but
the younger showed something of
that quiet melancholy which had
succeeded. Mrs. Vane died when

Bianca was but six years old, and
her husband had never manifested
any disposition to marry again,
seeming to be satisfied with the
society of his children.

In religion the daughters followed
their mother, who had been a Cath-
olic. The father was still Protes-
tant.

; 'Poor papa!" Isabel said when
speaking to a friend on the sub-
ject, * he never will be persuad-
ed to study theology. The only
way to attract him to a religion
would be by the excellence of its
professors ; and he protests that he
sees no difference in people in gen-
eral, that he has no doubt the Chi-
nese have amiable qualities, and
that, if he lived among the Turks,
he should probably become very
fond of them. What can one du
with such a man ? Bring out all
your hard little arguments and lay
them down before him, showiny
how perfectly they fit into the mosi
beautiful mosaic for your side, and
he listens with the greatest atten-
tion, then mixes them all up, and
rearranges them into an entirely
different pattern for the opposite
side, and ends by declaung that
both are true as far as they go.
You see, he has spent his life with
two excellent women, one Protes-
tant and the other Catholic his
mother and our mamma and that
has spoiled him for conversion.
I've often wished that dear grand-
mamma had been the least bit of a
vixen, or had even taken snuff in
her old age ; but she never did a
thing to spoil the beautiful white
halo about her, and died at last as
she had lived. Mamma went as
the moon goes, waning, growing
dimmer every day, till you see it
like a little silver cloud in the sky,
and then it is gone. But grand-
mamma seemed to look up sudden-*

614

Sunny Months.

ly, and smile, and disappear, as if
some one she thought the world of,
and hadn't seen for a long time,
had come and called her out of the
room for a minute."

" You ask what you are to do
with such a man as your father,"
her friend said. " I answer, you can
let him alone, and I strongly advise
you-to do so. He is quite capable
of thinking and observing without
being teased. He leaves you free ;
4o the same by him."

" I suppose I must," the girl
sighed unwillingly.

Bianca, who remembered her
mother only as the little silver
cloud fading in the sky, had also
her pretty tribute to pay to the
grandmother, who had not been
many years dead.

" Of course we wished her to
be a Catholic," she said ; " but no
one could know her and doubt
that she was good. She did not
believe our dogmas because she
did not understand them, but she
never spoke an uncharitable word
of us. Indeed, I used to think
that unconsciously she believed
everything. Her religion was like
11 rose-bush on which only one rose
bloomed out, and that rose was
Christ. All the rest were just
buds with the smallest pink tips
showing. She was so dazzled and
wondering over her wonderful one
rose that she could not think of
the others. What a blossoming out
there will be when she reaches
heaven, if she is not there already !"

While we have been giving this
little history, casa Ottanf-otto has
been as tranquil as if it were mid-
night instead of mid-day. The
rooms were perfectly dark, except
where a chink in the shutter or a
loose hasp let in here and there
a light too small to be called a ray,
which made a pale glow in one

spot, showing like a blotch on the
darkness. Not a sound was heard
within, and scarcely a sound from
without ; for, early as it was in the
season, the street had its quiet
hour, and the birds, the only noisy
people on the garden side, would
no more have thought of singing
at noon than of remaining silent in
the morning.

But, as the afternoon wore on,
something stirred on a red cushion
in a corner of the dining-room.
It was a black cat, called, from its
color, the abate. This member of
the family rose, stretched himself
slowly, first one side, then the
other, opened his mouth in a por-
tentous yawn, and seemed to utter
an inquiring "Mew!" but, what
with sleepiness, warmth, and lan-
guor, the sound was very nearly
inaudible. Looking about, lie saw
Adriano, the man-servant, asleep
in an arm-chair, his head, in a little
scarlet cap with a tassel, dropped
on one shoulder, his arms hanging
down over the arms of the chair.
Wakened, perhaps, by the glance,
the man opened his eyes, gathered
up his head and arms, and began,
in turn, to stretch himself out of
sleep, giving an audible yawn in-
stead of a "Mew." The abate
then exerted himself so far as to
saunter to the threshold of the
door looking into the kitchen.
Annunciata, who had placed her
chair in a corner of the room in
such a manner that the walls sup-
ported her while she slept, was just
stretching out one foot to pick up
the sandal that had dropped off
during her nap. All this the cat
saw, doubtless. It was too dark
for any one else to see.

Presently Adriano opened a half
shutter in the dining-room, admit-
ting a faint light ; then, passing,
with slip-shod feet, into the sala,

Six Sunny MontJis.

threw the windows wide open. In-
stantly all the bright out-doors,
which had been waiting to enter
sunshine, perfume, and west wind
rushed in together, lit the gilding in
a new glitter, reddened the velvet
again, whitened the curtains and
set them blowing about, roused a
hundred little winking mischiefs in
the carvings, and almost brought a
smile into the many pictured faces
on the walls that had been waiting
so long in the dark with their eyes
wide open.

After a little interval, the Signora
came out of her room ; then Isabel's
bright face appeared.

' I didn't believe I should sleep
a wink on this first day," she said;
' but I have slept the whole time.
One becomes accustomed to every-
thing. But where can Bianca be ?
I'm not at all sure she did right to
go out alone, and at this hour.
That girl does the most extraordi-.
nary things sometimes, quiet as she
seems. I sometimes think, Signora,
that Bianca has great force of will."

Uttering this last remark, the
young woman looked at her friend
as if she expected an astonished de-
nial. The Signora, on the contrary,
replied with a rather significant
smile: " Only 'sometimes,' my
dear ? If your sister had a motive
worthy, her will would be strong
enough to oppose the whole world."

"Bianca!" cried Isabel in aston-
ishment. "Why, she is the softest
creature alive."

The Signora was arranging tea-
cups on a table drawn up before
one of the large sofas, and waited
until her hands were free of them
before replying, as she wished to
speak with emphasis. " Do you
think," she said then, " that it is
only the positive, opinionated
women who have firmness of char-
acter ? My experience is that your

women who are constantly driving
and directing people in small things
can almost always be themselves
driven in great things, while those
who do not like to make a fuss
about trifles will stand their ground
when it comes to a matter of im-
portance. If the truth could be
known, I believe it would be found
that the world's heroines of action
and of suffering have been those
same soft creatures in ordinary cir-
cumstances. And here's the child
now."

In fact, the entrance-door opened
at that moment from without, and
Bianca Vane came in with cheeks
as red as roses. She had begged
the Signora's permission to go out
instead of going to bed, promising
to go no farther than Santa Maria
Maggiore, which was but five min-
utes' walk from the house.

Isabel looked at her sister very
gravely while she stood pulling the
great key out of the lock, smiling to
herself, and tugging away with the
softest, prettiest hands in the world.
The elder sister had been accus-
tomed to be called, and to consid-
er herself, the stronger of the two,
and she was not altogether certain
now that the Signora had not been
jesting.

The great Italian key, large
enough for a prison, was got out of
the lock, the door shut, half by
the wind and half by the lady, with
a force that made its three little
bells and its two immense iron bolts
rattle and ring, and Bianca went
straight to the Signora and kissed
her a somewhat unusual demon-
stration. "I've been so happy!"
she whispered close to the cheek
her lips had touched. ' How beau-
tiful it is ! You must let me have
a ' weakness ' for your church and
its bells, and all that belongs to it."

A nod and glance of intelligence

6i6

Six Sunny Months.

were exchanged between the two,
and the girl went to take off her
bonnet.

Mr. Vane appeared at the same
moment, looking as if he had enjoy-
ed a most satisfying nap, and tea
was prepared. The Signora and
the two girls occupied the long red
sofa, over which, on the wall, a
stately Penelope, seated among her
maidens, laid aside her often-ravel-
led web, and earnestly regarded the
Ulysses whom she had not yet re-
cognized, but could not remove her
eves from. At the other side of

the table, opposite them, a high-
backed, ample chair had been plac-
ed for the gentleman of the family,
who seemed to feel himself very
much at home.

" Has my little girl been asleep ?"
he asked, looking at his younger
daughter.

" Well, no, papa," was the reply,
"but she has been dreaming."

No more questions were asked
then. Mr. Vane was looking at
the picture opposite him, which
had a very pleasant suggestion of
perils and journeys over, and happy
reunion after long separation. Sud-
denly his glance dropped to the
lady beneath, went back to the pic-
ture, and a second time sought the
Signora's face.

" Why," he said, " that Penelope
looks as though you had sat for her
to a not very good artist."

The Signora gave him his tea.
"I assure you," she said, "that I
never posed for that nor any other
Penelope during the whole course
of my life. The character doesn't
suit me."

Mr. Vane took his cup, and stud-
ied over this little speech while he
slowly stirred in his tea two cubes of
sugar. He had been quite correct
in his remark. The two faces were
strikingly alike fine in their oval

shape, with dark-blue eyes, and a
hint of yellow in the thick flaxen
hair.

Presently he looked up. " I can't
guess," he said.

The lady laughed. " When it is
so plain? Well, in the first place, 1
am not so industrious ; in the next
place, I shouldn't have let Ulysses
go away without me ; in the third
place, I haven't the suitors; and, in
the fourth place, if I had had them,
I should have kept them in better
order. I think the places are all
taken. And now, Bianca has for
a long time had something on her
mind to say. You have the floor,
my dear."

" Oh ! it's nothing," Bianca said ;
" only if you are done talking about
Penelope, I should like to give you
all a piece of advice."

The company were unanimously
anxious to hear. Gentle sugges-
tions they often heard from this
young lady ; but it was perhaps the
first time they had ever heard her
propose deliberately to give advice
to any one, and still less to a com-
pany of elders.

" My advice is this," she said :
"whenever any of you take your
first walk in a strange city, look at
the house you live in before you go
away from it, and see how it is
made, and what number it is, and
make sure of the name of the street ;
otherwise, though you may find every
place you do not want, you may
never find your own house again.
That's all I have to say."

" Excellent advice !" Mr. Vane
said. "But may I ask what made
you think of it just now ?"

" First let me tell you a little
story," said Bianca. "Once upon a
time a young woman I know went
to live in a strange city where they
spoke a language she did not un-
derstand. The very first day. al-

Six Sunny Months.

617

most the first hour, she went out for
>a walk, and went alone; but her
mind was so full of the place she
was going to that she took no note
of the place she was leaving. No
matter wh;;t a nice time she had
before she started to return; that
doesn't belong to the story, which
is entirely tragical. Her troubles
began when she thought that in two
minutes she would be at her own
door. Come to think about it, she
had no idea where her own door
was, in which of three or four radiat-
ing streets it was to be found, or
what the number of it was, nor how
it looked. So she wandered up
and down, and to and fro, in the hot
sun, and passed her home without
recognizing it any more than the
Signora's portrait up there recog-
nizes her husband ; and at last,
when she was just ready to cry, and
to believe that the house anti. every-
body in it had been bewitched and
whisked off to some other conti-
nent, and that she had to go blow-
ing about for ever in that lost way,
what do you think happened ?"

The story-teller had reason to be
gratified by the expression of in-
tense interest with which her audi-
ence waited for the catastrophe. .

"Well," she continued, "this
poor wanderer happened to glance
up a house-front as she was passing,
and she saw out of a window a hand
laid on the frame just the hand of
some one who stood inside. It was
very handsome and white, and on
one finger of it was a ring that she
recognized. And then the tears of
sorrow that she was about to shed
changed to tears of joy, and she
said : * O darling hand of my
papn, with my own good-for-nothing
cameo face on it '

And Bianca finished her story by
flying up out of her chair, and
rushing to hang on her father's

shoulder, and kiss the hand that
had found her.

" You don't mean to say that you
have been out wandering about
Rome all alone!" Mr. Vane ex-
claimed, reddening.

' I only went up to the Liberian
basilica," she said; " and it was an
absurd thing in me, getting lost.
You didn't imagine I was going
properly to sleep my first day in
Rome, did you ? You might as
well have put a flame to bed, and
told it to shut its eyes."

As she spoke, a dash of clear
crimson stained her cheeks, as if
the juice of a ripe pomegranate had
been flung over them, and her head
was raised quickly and with an air
that was almost defiant, though un-
consciously so.

The Signora had seen this ges-
ture and blush once or twice be-
fore, and thought she understood
the meaning of them ; how the im-
passioned and enthusiastic nature
hidden under that pensive softness
and silence resented now and then
the languid indifference of the fa-
ther and the superficial positive-
ness of the sister, and proudly as-
serted its own claim to an individ-
ual and untrammelled existence.

Mr. Vane dropped his eyes, and
an expression of pain passed mo-
mentarily over his face. He also
had seen the look before seen it in
his wife's face as well as in his
daughter's. ' I do not mean to
shut you up, my dear," he said
gravely. ' I only wish that you
should come to no harm. If you
like to go about freely, the Signora
can, perhaps, recommend a good,
trusty servant, who will protect you
without being intrusive."

She did not say a word, only
leaned close to him, and laid her
cheek, still glowing red, on his
hair.

6i8 Six Sunny Months.

He smiled, and spoke more light- the face over a roll she v/as trying

ly. " But I should like to have to break.

you go with me sometimes, and ' They do bake their bread so

kindle my fuel with your fires." hard here and in France," the girl

She embraced him silently and sighed, giving up the attempt in

went back to her seat. despair. ' In Paris I could throw

The Signora smiled into her tea- our rolls all about the room with-

cup over this little scene, in which out injuring anything but the furni-

nothing had pleased her more than ture. I didn't make the smallest

the sweet readiness of the father to dent in the bread."

be reconciled, and his quick com- The Signora promised them the

prehension of the meaning of his most American of bread for the fu-

daughter's mute caress. " He has ture, but added : " I have become

certainly great delicacy and sensi- so accustomed to this hard baking

tiveness," she thought. " I wonder that I had forgotten all about the

if Bianca and he may not be very difference. In time you will come

much alike !" to prefer it, and to find that the

" The chief danger in walking lighter baking will taste raw to you.

out in Rome," she said, " is from Indeed, you will adopt a good many

the public carriages. The tradi- Italian customs in regard to eating,

tions are evidently all in favor of which, so far as concerns health, I

those who drive, not of those who think they understand better than

walk, and pedestrians have no rights any other nation. Their prohibi-

which quadrupeds and the bipeds tions you must certainly attend to,

who drive them are bound to re- however unreasonable they may

spect. For the rest, I have gone seem to you ; but you are not oblig-

about a good deal alone, and have ed to eat what they like. The first

had no more annoyance than I year I came here I broke a tooth

should have had in any other large trying to eat a piece of cake they

city in the world. Of course young brought me on Christmas Eve.

Italian women have not so much They said it was their custom to

liberty as we take ; but all sensible eat it at that season, and I obeyed

and honest people here understand dutifully. It is dark, a caricature

that foreigners do not cross land of our fruit-cake, and seems to be

and sea, and come to the most fa- made of nuts and raisins, held to-

mous city in the world, in order to gather by a tough, dry paste. It

shut themselves up in houses ; and, was like a piece out of a badly-

moreover, that it may well be in- macadamized street. Fortunately,

convenient sometimes to find an I broke only one tooth, and that

escort. I told Bianca that she saved my stomach ; for I do not

could go up to the church as well know what would have become of

as not, but must ^ go no further, me if I had swallowed the stuff."

It was stupid of me not to warn her Mr. Vane gave a significant

of losing her way back. And," she "Ahem!" " I should have suppos-

added, with a sudden change, "it ed," he remarked, "that any one

was still more stupid of me not who had. swallowed the Infalli-

to recollect the difference between "Papa!" cried Isabel, making a.

American and Italian bread. You peremptory gesture to silence him.

poor child!" For she had caught " bility " he pursued calmly,

sight of Isabel getting quite red in " O papa !" said Bianca, with soft

Six Sunny J\TontJis.

619

entreaty. He winced, but finished
" ought to be able to digest any-
thing that Rome can offer."

The two girls looked at the Sig-
nora. They knew her rather better
than their father did. She was fold-
ing her napkin up very carefully, and
considering. After a minute, still
smoothing the damask folds, she
spoke. " I have always thought it
wrong to ridicule even a false reli-
gion. When I think that on the
poor crumbling mythologies of the
world the souls of men have tried
to climb to such a heaven as they
had glimpses of, or were capable of
imagining, their mistakes become to
me sad, or terrible anything but
laughable. One doesn't laugh at
sight of a rotten plank that broke in
the hands of a drowning man. And
if falsehood, when human prayers
have been breathed on it, and hu-
man tears shed on it, and human
hearts have clung to it, believing it
to be truth, is something no longer
to be ridiculed, how much more
should we treat the truth seriously !
The dogma of Infallibility was the
anchor the church dropped when
she saw the storm coming, and it is
probable that before we shall have
peace again we may hang for a time
on that one rope. Nothing in reve-
lation is more serious to me."

She rose, without giving any op-
portunity for reply, and without
looking at any one. " If you like,
we will prepare for a drive," she
added, and left the room quietly.

"But in spite of the calmness with
which she spoke the Signora was
much agitated, and scarcely refrain-
ed from tears when she was alone.
To give such a reproof was only
less difficult than to suffer an affront
to the church to pass unreproved ;
and it was with a little nervousness
that she went out to meet her guest
'in.

He was in the drawing-room
alone, evidently waiting for her, and
the first glance in his face entirely
reassured her, so sweet and untrou-
bled was his expression.

'' I am like a great rough elephant
who has stepped on the kind lady
who was feeding him with sugar-
plums," he said, and offered his
hand to her with a confidence in
her good-will which was almost
more pleasing than her confidence
in his.

And so ended their first and last
quarrel.

The girls, who came presently,
with a little timidity, beamed when
they saw the two standing by a win-
dow and watching the work going
on across the street. All the space
there had once been a palace-gar-
den, but now nearly every flowery
thing had disappeared, and in their
place the foundations of a large
building were being laid in a su-
perbly solid way. Wide walls of
stone, on which three men could
walk abreast, had in some places
risen a few feet above the outer
level, their bases sunk ten feet, per-
haps, below the deep cellar bottom,
and the trenches for founding the
partition-walls were being dug. in
the same manner. They could see,
too, the beginning of the grand
stone arches which were to support
the floors. An Italian would have
passed all this without notice ; but
to one ^accustomed to the flimsy
style of American architecture the
sight was refreshing. In the centre
of the space the building was to oc-
cupy still remained a fountain-basin
from which the water had been
drawn away, exposing a circle of
beautiful round arches of gray
stone. Under these arches the
workmen were accustomed to take
refuge when a shower came up,
crouching there contentedly, and

62O

$Lr Sum iv Mont/is.

looking out at the bright drops as
they fell, like swallows out of a row
of nests under the barn-eaves.

" I have wondered whether there
ever before was a house on this
spot," the Signora said. " If there
were, a garden has bloomed over it
for centurjes, as, perhaps, at some
future time, another garden will
cover the ruins of this work of to-
day. A few months ago some
flowers still lingered here, but they
were trampled or dug away, till at
last only one red poppy was left
at the edge of the cellar-wall. I
watched it day after day, blazing
there like a heart on fire. Every
morning I looked out I feared to
miss it ; but there it clung among
trampling feet of men and beasts,
with stone-work being built almost
over it, and every sort of destruc-
tion threatening, but never fall-
ing. When nearly a week had
passed, I could bear it no longer.
If at that time I had seen a foot set
upon, or a rock crushing, the flower,
I should have cried out as though I
were myself being crushed. I sent
Adriano out to get it for me, and
pressed it carefully in the prettiest
book I have the brave little blos-
som ! Here it is, see! The thin
petals are like faded blood-stains,
but the seed-vessel in the centre is
firm, and precisely like a little mar-
ble urn with a mossy vine wreathing
its base and running up one side.
In that urn repose the dust and the
hope of a long- line of scarlet pop-
pies."

The gentleman listened indul-
gently to the Signora's story, and
watched her with interest as she
put the relic carefully away.

And then they went down to the
carriage that was waiting for them,
and drove through the long street
that stretches over hill and valley
from the Esquiline to the Pincio, so

that one looks, as through a tele-
scope, from the sunny brow of the
former to the campanile where Maria
Assunta and her maidens

" Sprinkle with holy sounds the air, as the priest

with the hyssop

Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings
upon them."

Some one has said of this street
that it is like a boa-constrictor
after it has swallowed an ox and
stretched itself out to digest him,
and the Quirinal Hill is the ox.

All the world was out that even-
ing, and even the most insensible
promenader spared a glance for
the sky. It was Roman form with
Gothic colors, the round arch of the
heavens a pale, pure gold, bright,
yet tender as a flower, and against
that background, less like a city than
like an embossed picture, Rome,
with its great cupola, its crowded
beauties of architecture, its pines
and its cypresses. Of the person-
ages, more or less distinguished, in
the circle of carriages behind them,
the new-comers took but little note.
The old papal picture, with its car-
dinals' coaches and its prelates'
costumes, was effaced, and there
was nothing in the human part of
the scene more striking than the
last Paris fashions as if some tyro
with his coarse brush should paint
over a Titian. If one should seek
for royalty in that crowd, he would
not find the angelic old king, cloth-
ed in white, as if already among the
blest, beaming on all the faces
turned toward him, and giving
benediction right and left as he
went. In place of that might be
seen to pass a brutal face, with the
color of one half-strangled, with up-
turned nose and curled-up mous-
tache, and with eyes whose glances
no respectable woman would en-
counter. The Roman people used
to say, " When the pope comes out.

Six Sunnv Months.

621

the sun cgmes out "; but no such
shining proverb was suggested by
this dark and forbidding face.

The Signora, looking with her
friends, seemed herself to behold
Rome for the first time, and to see
in swift contrast both present and,
past. Was it past, indeed, and for
ever, that dominion of centuries,
;i round which had gathered a glory
so unique 1 She stretched her
hands out involuntarily, and sighed
in the song of the vanquished
Moors :

" Ay cle mi, Alhnma !''

Mr. Vane turned to her rather
suddenly. " I have great confi-
dence in your sincerity," he said,
" and I believe that you who know
the truth need not fear. Now,
setting aside the questions of the
right of the church to possess Rome,
and the need she has of it as a base
of operations, and the fact that the
great functions are no longer per-
formed, tell me, do you really regret
the old time?"

You are setting aside a great

deal," she said smilingly ; " but I

answer you yes with all my heart.

Rome has lost in every way. There

seems no longer in the world a

place for tired people to come to.

All is hurry, and fret, and fuss;

and comfort is gone. Has it ever

occurred to you to think that many

people, especially in progressive

countries, inflict an immense deal

of discomfort on themselves and

others in striving for what they call

the comforts of life, losing with one

hand what they gain with the

other? The contented spirit is

ne, the quiet, the patience, the

simplicity, the charity. Poverty

M as never before unpitied in Rome,

and now the poor not only beg,

they starve. They never starved

in the old time. I would not un-

dervalue the improvements of mo-
dern science I am proud of them ;
but they are not all, nor the great-
est, glories of life. Such of them
as suited the place would have
come in gently and gradually, with-
out disturbing anything. They
have been brought in at the point
of the bayonet, and the bayonet-
point has been left in them. We
still feel it. I sometimes pity these
progressionists, who are often, no
doubt, sincere in their hopes and
aspirations, as well as immensely
conceited at the same time. They
feel the pains of life for themselves
and for others, and they fancy that
they have found a new solution for
the problem that the church solved
centuries ago, and that they can
have heaven let down to them, in-
stead of having the trouble of
climbing to it. It's a pitiful thing
to dedicate one's life to a great
mistake. Yes, Rome is spoilt, look-
ing at it from a philanthropic as
well as from an artistic and a reli-
gious point of view."

" It was here Lucullus gave his
famous supper," Isabel said, glanc-
ing back at the gardens. " Was
that what is called the ,most costly
supper ever given ? I forget."

Bianca clasped the Signora's arm
and whispered against her shoul-
der : " We know a costlier one,
don't we ?"

"Speak, darling!" was the an-
swering whisper.

" Where the Host gave himself,
and made the feast eternal."

After a few minutes they looked
round to find the drive almost de-
serted, and, entering their carriage,
drove slowly homeward, making a
few little turns in the neighborhood
to familiarize the new-comers with
the location of the house. The
Ave Maria was ringing from all
the belfries, great and small, from

622

Six Sunny Months.

storied campanile, and little arches
set against the sky ; workmen and
workwomen were going homeward,
and windows were everywhere being
shut on the beautiful twilight, whose
air the Italians so fear.

They went up to the sala, and,
albeit with a sigh, shut out the west
with its crescent now triumphant,
and all the sweetness of orange and
jasmine flowers, and all the twitter
of subsiding birds.

" I think," the Signora said, " that
the Roman past wishes, to monopo-
lize the Roman nights, and that the
unhealthy air we fear is nothing but
the breath of ghosts who do not de-
sire our company out of doors. But
it's a pity, besides being very dis-
agreeable of them."

Annunciata brought in a lamp,
and said " Buona sera /" in setting
it down.

' They always wish you buona
sera when they bring the lam}),
and felice or felicissima notte when
they leave you for the night," the
Signora said. "Impatient as lam
with them sometimes, they constant-
ly conciliate me by some pretty cus-
tom. I followed one 'of these cus-
toms this morning a beautiful one,

too. It is this : When a priest says
his first Mass, any one who will
may follow him to the sacristy, and
kiss his hand in the palm and at
the back. Isn't it beautiful ? A
young priest from one of the col-
leges said his first Mass in the Bor-
ghese chapel this morning. An el-
der priest, whom they call in such
cases the padrino or god-father,
stood by him, and two young fel-
low-students served the Mass, one
of them receiving Holy Commu-
nion. When it was over, I begged
and received permission to kiss the
sacred hand that had just conse-
crated and touched the Holy Eu-
charist for the first time."

They were a little tired that eve-
ning, and separated very soon after
supper. The father went to his
room, Isabel to hers, and, after their
doors had closed, the Signora stole
to Bianca's to give her one good-
night kiss, and found her just kneel-
ing by her bedside.

The girl gave a tearful smile
over her shoulder, but did not

rse.

" Felicissima notte T said her
friend, and, embracing, left her to
the care of the angels.

TO BE CONTINUED.

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

62;

THE IRISH HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.

WHATEVER the ultimate fate and
fortunes of the Irish Home- Rule
movement may be, it must be con-
ceded that the projectors of no
other political endeavor witnessed
in Ireland for a century past took
greater pains than did its founders
to constitute the undertaking as
the work, not of a party or a sec-
tion or a class, but of the whole
nation.

For three years, from 1870 to 1873,
the organization had existed in the
precursory or preliminary character
described in the last number of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD. Signs which
could not be misread had, with in-
creasing frequency and force, pro-
claimed that even already it might
well, without presumption, adopt
a more authoritative tone ; but to
the men who guided its counsels,
these things spoke only of the mo-
ment come at last for submitting
their work to formal ratification or
rejection by the country.

In what manner, or by what means,
could the opinions of the Irish peo-
ple best be collected or ascertained
for such a purpose ? By the formal
and regular, open, public, and free
election of parochial, baronial, or
county delegates to a national con-
vention, of course. But there is
a law which forbids such a pro-
ceeding in Ireland. Delegates
may be elected, and may sit, delib-
erate, vote, and act, in convention
assembled, in England, Scotland, or
Wales ; but if such a proceeding
were attempted in Ireland the
parties would be liable to imprison-

ment.* A formal election of dele-
gates to a national convention be-
ing therefore impracticable, what
course would be deemed next best ?
Only by indirect means could the
results which such a convention
would directly supply be replaced.
The votes of the parliamentary re-
presentatives would have been an
excellent test of the public feeling,
had those representatives been
elected by such free choice as the
present system of vote by ballot
secures in Ireland. But in 1873
it was only at desperate cost the
Irish constituencies could venture
to exercise the franchise as co"n-
science dictated. The votes of mu-
nicipal representatives, and other
popularly elected public bodies,
would come next in importance,
yet these were amenable to a simi-
lar objection ; although, as a matter
of fact, a vast proportion (probably
a large majority) of those repre-
sentatives, even in 1873, would
vote a protest against the rule of
the English Parliament. Summon-
ing classes, as classes, to sit in
Dublin as a national council was
not to be listened to. For a long-
period these were the questions,
the perplexing problems, which, ad-
journed from meeting to meeting,
occupied the Home Government
Council. At length they decided

* This odious law, known as the " Irish Conven-
tion Act," was passed by the Irish Parliament in
order to forbid the Volunteers and other friends
of Parliamentary Reform from "overawing the
legislature." Its repeal has been steadily resisted
by the British Parliament, which finds the restric-
tion now as invaluable as the Irish people find
it oppressive.

624

The IrisJi Home- Rule Movement.

that there was nothing for it but
to convene by a great National
Requisition, which should be a
sort of plebiscite or declaration in
itself, an aggregate conference
of delegates or " deputations '
from every county in Ireland. It
\vas urg^d by some that the requi-
sition should be an " open ' one
merely calling upon the confer-,
cnce to discuss the Irish situation ;
but this view gave way before the
advantage of making the requisi-
tion itself a more or less decisive
pronouncement from the thousands
of influential and patriotic Irish-
men who could not, from one
reason or another, be actually pre-
sent in Dublin. The form of the
document was, in fact, decided
only after consultation with at least
a few of the most prominent men
in each of the various sections
of national politicians : Repealers,
Conservative Nationalists, " Forty-
eight-men," O'Connellites, Mitchel-
ites, Fenians, Liberals,etc. The well-
known veteran Repealer, O'Neill
Daunt, proceeded to Tuam special-
ly charged to seek the counsel and
co-operation of the great man whose
name alone it was felt would be
equivalent to national approval
the illustrious Dr. McHale, "Arch-
bishop of the West." If any one
living could be fairly assumed to
speak as O'Connell himself would
speak if now alive, " John McHale '
was the man. He was the old
Repeal cause personified.*

Mr. Daunt returned to Dublin
bearing the news that not only did
the archbishop approve, but that
lie would himself head the requi-

* Some time previously he had publicly said that
Repeal he understood, but the new programme he
did not. Since that time, however, he gave ample
proof that he had come to understand it clearly.

The clergy of his diccese, the archbishop himself
in one instance presiding at their meeting, had
sent in their foimal adhesion, accompanied by large
contributions of money, to the association.

sition. The announcement was
hailed with cheers, like the tidings
of some great victory. A few days
later, accordingly, the following form
of requisition was circulated for
signature :

"We, the undersigned, feel bound to de-
clare our conviction that it is necessary
to the peace and prosperity of Ireland,
and would be conducive to the strength
and stability of the United Kingdom,
that the right of domestic legislation on
all Irish aifairs should t>e restored to our
country ; and that it is desirable that
Irishmen should unite to obtain that re-
storation upon the following principles :

"To obtain for our country the right
and privilege of managing our own af-
fairs, by a Parliament assembled in Ire-
land, composed of Her Majesty the Sov-
ereign, and the lords and commons of
Ireland.

" To secure for that Parliament, under
a federal arrangement, the right of legis-
lating for and regulating all matters re-
lating to the internal affairs of Ireland,
and control over Irish resources and re-
venues, subject to the obligation of con-
tributing our just proportion of the im-
perial expenditure.

" To leave to an Imperial Parliament
the power of dealing with all questions
affecting the imperial crown and govern-
ment, legislation regarding the colonies
and other dependencies of the crown,
the relation of the united empire with
foreign states, and all matters apper-
taining to the defence and the stability
of the empire at large.

"To obtain such an adjustment of the
relations between the two countries with-
out any interference with the preroga-
tives of the crown, or any disturbance of
the principles of the constitution.

" And we hereby invite a conference,
to be held at such time and place as may
be found generally most convenient, of
all those favorable to the above princi-
ples, to consider the best and most expe-
dient means of carrying them into practi-
cal effect."

It was expected that probably
between five and ten thousand sig-
natures might be obtained to this
document among the influential po-
litical classes in Ireland, rendering

The Irish Home- Rule Movement.

625

it the largest and most notable ar-
ray of the kind ever seen in the
country. In a few weeks, however,
nearly twenty-five thousand names of
what may truly be called " repre-
sentative men ' were appended to
it ! Only those who were in Ire-
land at the time can know what a
sensation was created by the ap-
pearance of the leading Dublin
newspapers one day with four or five
pages of each devoted to \yhat
could be after all only a portion of
this monster requisition. Not only
was every county represented, near-
ly every barony had sent its best
and worthiest men. Although most
amazement was at the time created
by the array of what was termed
" men of position," the promoters
of the movement valued even more
the names of certain men in middle
and humble life, town traders, ten-
ant-farmers, artisans, and others,
who were well known to be the men
in each locality most trusted by
their own class. Of magistrates,
members of Parliament, peers (a
few), bishops, clergymen (Protestant
as well as Catholic), mayors, sheriffs,
municipal representatives, town-
commissioners, poor-law guardians,
there were altogether literally thou-
sands. So general a mingling of
(lasses and creeds and political
sections had never before been
known (on a scale of such magni-
tude) in Ireland. Yet no effort had
been made to collect signatures
after the fashion of petition-signing.
The object was to seek a half-dozen
names of really representative men
from each district, and these were
applied for through the post-office.
In nearly every case the document,
when returned signed by a score or
t\vo, was accompanied by a letter
stating that as many thousands of
latures from that district would
have been forwarded if necessary.
VOL. xxin. NO. 40

Tuesday, the iSth of November,
1873, was the date publicly fixed
for the conference, which was con-
vened " to meet from day to day
until its proceedings are concluded.''
As the day approached, the most-
intense interest and curiosity were
excited by the event, not merely in
Dublin and throughout Ireland, but
all over Great Britain. The great
circular hall of the Rotunda was
transformed into the semblance of
a legislative chamber, the attendant
suite of apartments being converted
into division lobbies,* dining-rooms,
writing-rooms, etc., while the hand-
some gallery which sweeps around
the hall was set apart for spectators.

The English newspapers seemed
much troubled by all this. They
did not like that Ireland should in
any shape or form take to "playing
at parliament," as they sneeringly
expressed it ; and this conference
affair was vividly, dangerously sug-
gestive to the " too imaginative '
Irish. There was, however, they
declared, one consolation for them :
out of evil would come good; this,
same conference would effectually
cure the Irish of any desire for a
native parliament, and show the
world how unfit were Hibernians,
for a separate legislature. Because
(so declared and prophesied the
English papers from day to day)
before the conference would be
three hours in session, there would
be a " Donnybrook row " ; fists

j '

would be flourished and heads bro-
ken ; Old Irelanders and Young Ire-
landers, Repealers and Federalists,
Fenians and Home-Rulers, would,
it was declared, " fly at one an-
other's throats." At least a dozen
English editors simultaneously hit

* Almost incredible as it may seem to some read-
ers, this was the only portion of the arrangements
never once required Throughout the four days of
protracted and earnest debate, as will be detailed
further on, no occasion arose for taking a division.

626

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

upon the witty joke about ' the
Kilkenny cats."

This sort of " prophesying " went
on with such suspicious energy, as
the day neared for the meeting of
the conference, that it began to be
surmised the government party was
meditating an attempt to verify
it. Signs were not wanting that
wily and dexterous, as well as pe-
cuniary, efforts were being made to
incite dissent and disturbance. Ad-
mittance to the conference was ob-
tainable by any one who had sign-
ed the requisition, on recording his
name and address ; and it was quite
practicable for a few government
emissaries, by pretending to be very
" advanced ' Nationalists, uncom-
promising Repealers or anti-tory
Catholics, to get up flourishing dis-
putations and "rows." Indeed, anx-
iety, if not apprehension, on this
score seemed to prevail to some
degree on the eve of the i8th.
Would there be " splits," would
there be discord and turbulence
and impossibility of reconcilement,
or would there be order and de-
corum, earnest debate, but harmo-
nious spirit and action ? All felt
that the event at hand was one of
critical importance to Ireland.

For four days the i8th, ipth,
2oth, and 2ist of November, 1873
the conference continued in ses-
sion, sitting each day at eleven
o'clock in the morning, and ad-
journing at six o'clock in the af-
ternoon. The number of " dele-
gates" was 947 ;* and the daily at-
tendance at each sitting averaged
about six hundred. Fortunately, an
authentic record was taken of the
composition of the assembly ; and
it is only on glancing over the
names and addresses of those nine

* List of Conference Ticket-holders names
.and addresses National Conference, Noveml er,
1873." Dublin; Home-Rule League Publications.
874..

hundred gentlemen that a full con-
ception of its character can be
formed. One of the most notable
features in the scene, one that call-
ed forth much public comment as
an indication of the deep public
interest felt in the proceedings, was
the crowded gallery of ladies and
gentlemen who, having succeeded
in obtaining admission-cards, day
by day sat out the debates, listen-
ing with eager attention to all that
went forward. The pressure for
these admission-cards increased
each day, and at the final sitting,
on the 2ist, it was found impossi-
ble to seat the hundreds of visitors
who filled the avenues to the gal-
lery.

There was much speculation as
to who would be selected as chair-
man of the convention. The choice
when made known called forth uni-
versal approbation. It was Mr.
William Shaw, Member of Parlia-
ment for the borough of Bandon,*
a Protestant gentleman of the high-
est position and reputation, a bank-
er (president of the Munster Bank),
a man of large wealth, of grave and
undemonstrative manner, but of
great depth and quiet force of
character. He was one of the last
men in Ireland who would answer
the description of an " Irish agi-
tator" as English artists draw the
sketch. He was one who had every-
thing to lose and nothing to gain by
'* revolution," yet he had early join-
ed the movement for Irish self-gov-
ernment, declaring that he did so
as a business man having a large
stake in the prosperity of the coun-
try, and because he saw that the
present system was only the " pre-
tence of a government" for Ireland.

Naturally the chief event of the

t Since elected (1874) for the county of Cork,
along with Mr. McCarthy Downing. He had been
at one time a Protestant dissenting minister.

The Irish PI o me- Rule Movement.

627

first day's sitting was Mr. Butt's
great speech or opening statement
on the whole case. It was a mas-
terly review of the question of
Irish legislative independence, and
a powerful vindication of the fed-
eral adjustment now under consid-
eration. He went minutely and
historically into every fact and cir-
cumstance and every element of
consideration, making his address
rather a great argument than an
oratorical display. At the close,
however, when he came to tell how
he himself had been led into this
movement how it began, how it
had grown, till now he surrendered
it into their keeping his voice
trembled with emotion. " State
trials were not new to me," he ex-
claimed ;

" Twenty years before I stood near
Smith O'Brien when he braved the sen-
tence of death which the law pronounced
upon him. I saw Meagher meet the
same, and I then asked myself this :
' Surely the state is out of joint, surely
all our social system is unhinged, when
men like O'Brien and Meagher are
condemned to a traitor's doom ?' Years
passed away, and once more I stood by
men who had dared the desperate enter-
prise of freeing their country by revolt.
... I heard their words of devotion to
their country as with firm step and un-
yielding heart they left the dock, and
went down the dark passage that led
them to the place where all hope closed
upon them, and I asked myself again :
' Is there no way to arrest this ? Are our
best and bravest spirits ever to be carried
away under this system of constantly-re-
sisted oppression and constantly-defeat-
ed revolt ? Can we find no means by
which the national quarrel that has led
to all these terrible results may be set
right ?' I believe, in my conscience, we
have found it. I believe that England
has now the opportunity of adjusting
the quarrel of centuries. Let me say it
I do so proudly that I was one of
those who did something in this cause.
Over a torn and distracted country a
country agitated by dissension, weak-
ened by distrust we raised the banner

on which we emblazoned the magic
words, 'Home Rule.' We raised it
with feeble hand. Tremblingly, with
hesitation, almost stealthily, we unfurled
that banner to the breeze. But wherevei
the legend we had emblazoned on its
folds was seen the heart of the people
moved to its words, and the soul of the
nation felt their power and their spell.
Those words were passed from man to
man along the valley, and the hillside
Everywhere men, even those who had
been despairing, turned to that banner
with confidence and hope. Thus far we
have borne it. It is for you now to bear
it on with more energy, with more
strength, and with renewed vigor. We
hand it over to you in this gathering of
the nation. But, oh ! let no unholy
hands approach it. Let no one come
to the help of our country,

" ' Or dare to lay his hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause

who is not prepared never, never to de-
sert that banner till it flies proudly over
the portals of that 'old house at home'
that old house which is associated with
memories of great Irishmen, and ha.s been
the scene of many glorious triumphs.
Even while the blaze of those glories is
at this moment throwing its splendor
over the memory of us all, I believe in
my soul that the parliament of regene-
rated Ireland will achieve triumphs more
glorious, more lasting, more sanctified
and holy, than any by which her old par-
liament illumined the annals of our coun-
try and our race

As his last words died away the
assemblage, rising as one man, burst
into cheers long protracted, and it
was only after several minutes that
order was restored.

Mr. Butt had spoken to a com-
plete series of resolutions, which he
now submitted to the conference ;
he concluded by formally moving
the first of them :

" I. That, as the basis of the proceed-
ings of this conference, we declare our
conviction that it i5 essentially necessary
to the peace and prosperity of Ireland
that the right of domestic legislation 01,
all Irish affairs should be restored to our
country.

628

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

It was seconded by Mr. Joseph
P. Ronayne, M.P. for Cork City,
a man as honest and as just as Aris-
tides; an "advanced Nationalist,"
one in whose honor, sincerity, and
earnestness Fenians and non-Fe-
nians alike implicitly confided. ' I
did not take part," he said, " in public
life for the last twenty years, and I
hesitated a long time before joining
the Home-Rule movement. I was
a simple Repealer, when simple Re-
peal was the form in which Ireland
demanded the restitution of her na-
tionality. I was a rebel in '48."
After this manly avowal of his po-
sitton Mr. Ronayne closed a brief
but forcible speech as follows :

" I have no quarrel with the English
people ; their sins against Ireland are
sins of ignorance, not of intention. Our
quarrel is with the government, and
against the system which has prevailed
ever since England claimed possession
of this country. The measure of Mr.
Butt will solve the difficulties of the sit-
uation. I think we will maintain what
is the sentiment of the Irish people
what they contended for with England
when England and Ireland were Catho-
lic, as well as when England and Ire-
land were Protestant and Catholic that
is, the nationality of Ireland. And I see
no way but that proposed by Mr. Butt
by which this great end can be obtained,
consistently with the maintenance of
friendly relations between the two coun-
tries."

A still more important announce-
ment, from what is called the " Na-
tionalist ' as well as the Repeal
point of view, was made by the next
speaker, Mr. John Martin, M.P.,
who moved the second resolution.
He, too, avowed himself by prefer-
ence a Repealer, and every one knew
he had been a martyr, prisoner, and
exile for his share in the events of
'48. But in language strong, clear,
and decisive he gave his approval
to the Home-Rule scheme :

" Because I believe that this measure of

home government, tliis new arrange-
ment of the relations between the two
countries, will operate sufficiently for the
interests for all the interests of the Irish
people ; because I think, if carried into
effect according to the principles enun-
ciated in these resolutions, it will be
honorable to the Irish nation, it will be
consistent with the dignity of the Irish
nation, and it will be safe for all its in-
terests ; and also because, as to so much
of the rights and prerogatives of the Irish
nation as are by this scheme of Home
Rule to be left under the jurisdiction
of an imperial parliament, in which we
shall be represented, I consider that
those are only the same rights and attri-
butes that, under the old system, were
practically left together to the control of
the English Parliament and the English
Privy Council and ministry."

The full report of the proceedings
at this conference, compiled from the
daily newspapers and published by
the Home-Rule League, is one of
the most interesting publications of
a political character issued in Ire-
land for many years. The speakers
exhibited marked ability, and they
represented every phase of Irish
national opinion. There was very
earnest debate ; amendments were
moved and discussed ; poin-ts were
raised, contested, decided. But the
great fact that astounded the out-
side public, and utterly confounded
the prophetic English journalists,
was that, warm, protracted, and se-
vere as were some of the discus-
sions, free and full interchange of
opinion in every instance sufficed to
bring about conviction, and settled
every issue without resort to a poll
of votes. Every resolution was
carried unanimously,* and on no
question, from first to last, was there
need to take a division. " It is not
like Ireland at all," said an aston-
ished critic. " What on earth has
become of our traditional conten-
tiousness and discord ?"

* There was one dissentient to one of the resolu-
tions a gentleman named Thomas Mooney, Luc if
California and other places.

The Irish Home- Rule Movement.

629

The following were the principal
resolutions of the conference, be-
sides the first, already quoted
above :

Moved by Mr. John Martin,
M.I*. (Meath), and seconded by Mr.
Roland Ponsonby Blennerhassett,
M.P. (Kerry):

" That, solemnly reasserting the in-
alienable right of the Irish people to self-
government, we declare that the time, in
our opinion, has come when a combined
and energetic effort should be made to
obtain the restoration of that right."

Moved by the Mayor of Cork
(Mr. John Daly), seconded by the
Hon. Charles French, M.P. (Ros-
common, brother of Lord de
Freyne) :

"That, in accordance with the ancient
and constitutional rights of the Irish na-
tion, we claim the privilege of managing
our own affairs by a parliament assem-
bled in Ireland, and composed of the
sovereign, the lords, and the commons
of Ireland."

Moved by the Rev. Joseph A.
Galbraith, F.T.C.D., Trinity Col-
lege,* and seconded by the Rev.
Thomas O'Shea, P.P. (the cele-
brated "Father Tom O'Shea," of
the Tenant League) :

"That, in claiming these rights and
privileges for our country, we adopt the
principle of a federal arrangement, which
would secure to the Irish parliament the
right of legislating for, and regulating all
matters relating to, the internal affairs of
Ireland, while leaving to the imperial
Parliament the power of dealing with all
questions affecting the imperial crown
and government, legislation regarding
the colonies and other dependencies of

* It is impossible to treat of the Irish Home-Rule
movement without a special reference to this rev-
erend gentleman, who is one of the most prominent
figures in the group of Home- Rule leaders. He is
n mnn of European reputation in science, and of
t'lc most upright and noble character. He is great-
lv loved and universally respected. Scarcely has
Mr. Butt himself been more instrumental in the
success of the movement ; and there are now few
names in Ireland more topular than that of lt Pro-
fessor Galbraith."

the crown, the relations of the empire
with foreign states, and all matters ap
pertaining to the defence and stability
of the empire at large, as well as (he-
power of granting and providing the sup-
plies necessary for imperial purposes."

Moved by Sir Joseph Neale Mc-
Kenna, and seconded Ipy Mr. Mc-
Carthy Downing, M.P. (Cork Conn-

ty): '

"That such an arrangement does not
involve any change in the existing con-
stitution of the imperial Parliament or
any interference with the prerogatives of
the crown or disturbance of the princi-
ples of the constitution."

Moved by Sir John Gray, M.P.
(Kilkenny), and seconded by Mr.
D. M. O'Conor, M.P. (Roscom-
mon, brother of the O'Conor Don) :

"That, to secure to the Irish people
the advantages of constitutional govern-
ment, it is essential that there should be
in Ireland an administration of Irish af-
fairs, controlled, according to constitu-
tional principles, by the Irish parliament,
and conducted by ministers constitu-
tionally responsible to that Parliament."

Moved by Mr. Mitchell Henry,
M.P. (Galway), and seconded by
Mr. W. J. O'Neill Daunt, Kilcaskan
Castle, County Cork :

" That, in the opinion of this confer-
ence, a federal arrangement, based upon
these principles, would consolidate the
strength and maintain the integrity of
tho empire, and add to the dignity and
power of the imperial crown."

Moved by Mr. W. A. Redmond,
M.P. (Wexford), and seconded by
Mr. Eclmond Dease, M.P. (Queen's
County) :

"That, while we believe that in an
Irish parliament the rights and liberties
of all classes of our countrymen would
find their best and surest protection, we
are willing that there should be incorpo-
rated in the federal constitution articles
supplying the amplest guarantees that
no change shall be made by that parlia-

630

T/ie IrisJi Home-Rule Movement.

ment in the present settlement of pro-
perty in Ireland, and that no legislation
siuill be adopted to establish any reli-
gious ascendency in Ireland, or to sub-
ject any person to disabilities on account
of his religious opinions."

Moved by Mr. C. G. Doran, T.C.
(Queenstown), and seconded by
Mr. John O'Connor Power (Tuam) :

" That this conference cannot separate
without calling on the Irish constituen-
cies at the next general election to re-
turn men earnestly and truly devoted to
the great cause which this conference has
been called to prnnote, and who, in any
emergency that may arise, will be ready
to take counsel with a great national
conference, to be called in such a man-
ner as to represent the opinions and feel-
ings of the Irish nation ; and that, with
a view of rendering members of Parlia-
ment and their constituencies more in
accord on all questions affecting the wel-
fare of the country, it is recommended
by this conference that at the close of
each session of Parliament the represen-
tatives should render to their constitu-
ents an account of their stewardship."

Moved by Mr. George L. Bryan,
M.P. (Kilkenny), and seconded by
Mr. P. Callan, M.P. (Dundalk) :

" That, in order to carry these objects
into practical effect, an association be
now formed, to be called 'The Irish
Home-Rule League,' of which the essen-
tial and fundamental principles shall be
those declared in the resolutions adopt-
ed at this conference, and of which the
object, and only object, shall be to ob-
tain for Irelaiid, by peaceable and con-
stitutional means, the self-government
claimed in these resolutions."

The remaining resolutions dealt
with the constitution of the new
organization thus founded, and de-
creed an appeal "to the Irish race
all over the world " for funds to as-
sist them in the great struggle now
entered upon.

Thus was established the " Irish
Home-Rule League " which to-day
holds so prominent a position in
Ireland.

American readers, familiar enough

with O'Connell's demand for Re-
peal, will naturally be anxious to
learn in what precisely does the
above programme differ from that
of the great Liberator. O'Connell,
who had himself seen the Irish Par-
liament, and, young as he was,
sought to resist its overthrow, grew
into life with the simple idea of un-
doing the evil which yesterday had
wrought ; in other words, restoring
the state of things which existed be-
fore the " Union." This was known
as " simple Repeal " Repeal and
nothing more. Such a demand,
arising almost on the instant, or out
of the evil act complained of, was
quite natural ; but when time had
elapsed, and when serious changes
and alterations in the circumstances
arid relations of the countries had
come about, men had to perceive
that simple Repeal would land them,
in some respects, in an antiquat-
ed and impossible state of things.
Thus in the Irish Parliament no
Catholic could sit, while the act
of 1829 admitted Catholics to the
imperial Parliament. Again, the
franchise and the " pocket " consti-
tuencies that had returned the Irish
House of Commons could not be
restored without throwing the coun-
try into the hands of a Protestant
minority. Numerous other absur-
dities and anomalies things which
existed in 1799, but that would be
quite out of all sense in 1844 might
be pointed out. O'Connell saw
this, but relied upon the hope of
obtaining not only simple Repeal,
but also such improvements as the
lapse of time had rendered necessa-
ry; and he relied further on the
necessity which there would be for
Ireland and England, after Repeal,
agreeing upon some scheme for the
joint government of the countries ;
in other words, some shaoe or de-
gree of federalism.

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

Bur the great blot upon the old
system was that, although under it
Ireland had a totally separate legis-
lature and exchequer, she never
had (or under it had the right to
have) a separate responsible admin-
istration or cabinet. The cabinet
or administration that ruled Ireland
was formed by, and solely respon-
sible to, the English Parliament.
The Irish Parliament had not the
right or power to remove a minis-
ter ; was not able, no matter by
what majority, to displace even an
administration actually conspiring
against Irish liberties. Without a
separate Irish administration, re-
sponsible to the Irish Parliament,
removable by its vote, and liable
to its impeachment, it may be said
that the legislative independence
of Ireland was a frail possession.
Events showed this to be so.

The Home-Rule scheme has
been concisely described by some
of its advocates as offering before-
hand the arrangements between the
two countries which under the Re-
peal plan would have to be laid
down afterwards. Instead of first
simply severing the Union, and then
going to work to reconstruct every-
thing, the Home-Rulers project
their reconstruction beforehand,
and claim that one advantage of
this is in a large degree to allay
alarms and avert hostility. Their
plan proposes to secure for Ireland
the great advantage of a separate
responsible Irish ministry; offering,
in exchange for this, to give up to
the imperial executive such powers
as the States in America give to the
Washington Congress and execu-
tive, as distinguished from the pow-
ers and functions reserved to the
State legislatures and governments.
la fine, the Home-Rule scheme has

en borrowed largely, though not
altogether, fruin the United States

of America : Ireland to rule and
legislate, finally and supremely, on
all domestic affairs; all affairs com-
mon to England, Ireland, and Scot-
land to be ruled and legislated for
by an administration and parlia-
ment in which all three will be rep-
resented. There are, no doubt, in
America many patriotic Irishmen
who think this far too little for Ire-
land to demand; who contend she
should seek nothing less than total
separation and independence ; the
price, undisguisedly, being civil war
with its lottery of risks and chances.
However this may be, the Irish
people, if ever their voice has been
heard for a century, on the i8th of
November, 1873, solemnly and pub-
licly spoke for themselves, and their
demand so formulated is now be-
fore the world.

There can be no doubt it is
now very well known that the pro-
ceedings at the Irish National Con-
ference, especially the unanimity,
power, and influence there display-
ed, had been keenly watched by
the London government. Mr.
Gladstone had been losing ground
in the English by-elections for a
year past ; but as long as there was
a hope of the Irish Liberal vote re-
maining he had no need to fear yet
awhile. The conference, however,
was read by him as a declaration
of war. The Home-Rule leaders
themselves realized the critical state
of affairs ; they were confident Mr.
Gladstone would dissolve Parlia-
ment and strike at them in the ap-
proaching summer ; and according-
ly they set themselves to prepare
for the conflict. The " Christmas
holidays" intervening, it was the
first or second week in January be-
fore the newly-formed Home-Rule
League had fully constituted itself
and elected its council. Its leaders,
however, scenting danger, went

632

The Irish Home-Rule Movement .

quickly to work, and arranged for
beginning in February a thorough
organization of the constituencies.
In February ! They were dealing
with a man who had no idea of giv-
ing his adversaries six months, or
even six weeks, to prepare. They
were doomed to be taken unawares
and nearly swept off their feet by a
surprise as sudden and complete as
the springing of a mine.

On the morning of Saturday, Jan-
uary 24, 1874, the people of the
British Islands woke to find Parlia-
ment dissolved. No surprise could
be more complete ; for Parliament
had stood summoned for the first
week in February. - At midnight on
the 23d Mr. Gladstone sprang this
grand surprise on his foes, English
Conservative and Irish Home-Ruler,
hoping to overwhelm both by the
secrecy and suddenness of the at-
tack. And for a while it quite
seemed as if he had correctly cal-
culated and would succeed. The
wildest confusion and dismay pre-
vailed. There was no time to do
anything but simply rush out and
fight helter-skelter. In Ireland the
first momentary feeling seemed to
be one almost of despair. " Oh !
had we but even another month,"
Yet no cowardly despair ; only the
first gasp of a brave people taken at
utter disadvantage.

For the Home-Rule leaders it
was a moment of almost sad and
certainly oppressive responsibility
and anxiety. They knew how little
allowance would be made for the
mere dexterity whereby they had
been thus outwitted, if they should
lose the campaign, as it seemed to
many they must. But not a mo-
ment did they waste in sighing for
what might have been. There was
an instantaneous rush to the coun-
cil-rooms, and before the tidings
from London were twenty-four

hours old there had begun what
may be called a three weeks' sitting
en permanence of the Home-Rule ex-
ecutive. It is almost literally true
that it sat night and day through-
out that time, receiving and for-
warding despatches from and to all
parts of the country, by telegraph,
by mail, and by special messenger.
The Home-Rulers had always held
forth as an object which they could
achieve, or were determined to
achieve, in fair time, and after nec-
essary preparations, the conquest
of some seventy seats out of the Ir-
ish one hundred and three. To se-
cure even thirty just now in this
rush was deemed a daring hope.
But it seemed as if enthusiasm and
popular indignation at the Gladston-
ian coup compensated for lack of
preparation or organization. It was
a great national uprising. North,
south, east, and west the constitu-
encies themselves set the Home-
Rule flag flying. Ireland was aflame.

This was the first general election
under the free and fearless voting
of the ballot.* No more complaints
by voters of " coercion ' or " in-
timidation ' by " landlord " or
" clergy " or " mob." Neither bul-
lying nor bribing would any more
be of use. At last, for the first
time, the mind of the elector him-
self would prevail, and the consti-
tuencies of Ireland were free to pass
a verdict on the Act of Union.

One drawback, however, threat-
ened to baffle their purpose. Can-

* The ballot-voting in Ireland under the act of
1873, unlike that in America, is strictly secret : there
being no "ticket" to be seen by outsiders. Only
on entering the booth, where the few persons neces-
sarily present are sworn to secrecy, the voter re-
ceives a paper on which the names of the candidates
are printed. In a secret compartment of the booth
the voter marks a cross alongside the name of the
man for whom he wishes to vote, folds up the paper
so as to conceal the mark which he has made, brings
it forward, and drops it through a slit into a sealed
box. He then quits the booth, and no one, inside
or outside (but himself), knows for whom lie has
voted.

The Irish Home- Rule Movement.

633

didates ! Where were trustworthy
candidates to be found ? The
Home -Rule council had gone up-
on the plan of refusing to provide
or recommend candidates, think-
ing to force upon the constituencies
themselves the responsibility of
such selection. " We will set up no
candidate-factory here in Dublin,"
they said ; " it might lead to in-
trigue. WV11 keep clear of it; let
each county and borough choose
for itself." But this had to be given
up. The cry from the constituen-
cies showed its folly : " Candidates,
candidates ! For the love of God
send us a candidate, and we'll
sweep this county for Home-Rule."
As a matter of fact, owing to the
dearth of suitable candidates, no
less than a dozen seats had to be
let go by default without any con-
test at all ; while in as many more
cases converts from mere liberalism
to Home Rule, whose sinceritv was

hardly acceptable, had, from the
same cause, to be let pass in " on
good behavior."

There was, there could be, but
little of general plan over the whole
field ; it was fight all round, the
whole island being simultaneously
engaged. This was Mr. Glad-
stone's able generalship : to pre-
vent the Home-Rule leaders from
being able to concentrate their re-
sources on one place at a time.
Nevertheless, they were his inferi-
ors neither in ability nor in stra-
tegy, as the event proved. Upon
the vantage points which he deem-
ed most precious they delivered
their heaviest fire, and in no case
unsuccessfully. * The contests that,

* The defeat of his Irish cabinet minister and
former chief secretary, the Right Hon Chichester
Fortescue, in Louth County, was generally regarded
as the crushing blow of the whole campaign, as Mr.
Fortescue was Mr. Gladstone's official representative
in Ireland. He was deemed invulnerable in Louth,
having sat for it twenty-seven years, and being
brother of Lord Claremont, one of the largest and

each in some peculiar way, most for-
cibly demonstrated the determina-
tion of the people, their intense
devotion to the Home-Rule cause,
were : Cavan, an Ulster county,
where for the first time since the
reign of James II. a Catholic (one
of two Home-Rulers) was return-
ed ; Louth, where the utmost power
of the government was concentrat-
ed, all in vain, to secure Mr. For-
tescue's seat ; Drogheda, where Mr.
Whitworth, a princely benefactor to
the town, and an estimable Protest-
ant gentleman, was rejected be-
cause he was not a Home-Ruler ;
Wexford, where the son of Sir
James Power, a munificent patron
of Catholic charities, was rejected
by priests and people for the same
reason ; Limerick County, where a
young Whig Catholic squire, whose
hoisting of Home-Rule was disbe-
lieved in by the electors, received
only about one vote to eight cast
for a more trustworthy man chosen
from the ranks of the people, al-
though the former gentleman was
believed in and strenuously sup-
ported by the Catholic clergy ; and
Kildare, where the son of the Duke
of Leinster, who owned nearly every
acre in the county, was utterly
routed !

At length the last gun was fired,
the last seat had been lost and won,
and as the smoke of battle lifted
from the scene men gazed eagerly
to see how the campaign had gone.
The Home-Rulers had triumphed
all along the line ! Strictly speak-
ing, they failed as to one, and only
one, of the seats which they con-
tested namely, Tralee, where the
O'Donoghue (a former National

best landlords in the county. The government
laughed to scorn the idea of disturbing him. The
Home-Rulers selected for this critical fight Mr. V.
M. Sullivan, editor of the Nation. It \vas a des-
perate struggle : but not only was the Home-Ruler
returned at the head of the poll, but he polled two
to one against the cabinet minister.

634

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

leader, now an anti-Home-Ruler)
succeeded against them by three
votes. They had returned sixty *
men pledged to their programme.
In the late Parliament the Irish
representation stood 55 Liberals, 38
Conservatives, and 10 Home-Rulers.
It now stood 12 Liberals, 31 Con-
servatives, and 60 Home-Rulers.
The national party thus outnum-
bered all others, Whig and Tory,
combined ; and, for the first time
since the Union, that measure
stood condemned by a majority
of the parliamentary representa-
tives of the Irish nation.

Not in Ireland alone was Mr.
Gladstone overwhelmed by defeat,
his clever stroke of the midnight dis-
solution notwithstanding. The Eng-
lish elections also went bodily against
him. In the middle of the fight he
resigned, and the minister who met
the new Parliament with the seals
of office in his hand and the smile
of victory on his countenance was
Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative
leader.

There was considerable uneasi-
ness in England when the Irish
elections were found to be going
for the Home-Rulers, until it turn-
ed out that the Disraeli party
had a hundred majority on the
British vote. " The empire is
saved," gasped the alarmed En-
glishmen ; " we were lost if such a
Home-Rule phalanx found parties
nearly equal in the House of Com-
mons. They would hold the bal-
ance of power and dictate terms.
Let us give thanks for so providen-
tial a Tory majority." There was
much writing in the English news-
papers in this strain. They took
it for granted that the Home-Rulers
were " balked ' or checkmated, for

* One of them, in Leitrim, subsequently lost his
return, though in a majority, by a stupid mistake
of one of his agents.

a time at least, by this unexpect-
ed Tory preponderance. It cost
them over a year to find out that
no one rejoiced more than did the
Home-Rule leaders in secret over
this same state of things ; that it
was a crowning advantage to the
Home-Rulers as a party to have
the Liberals in opposition for four
or five years.

Returning a number of men as
Home-Rulers did not necessarily
constitute them a political party
Neither would a resolution on their
part so to act altogether carry out
such a purpose. The discipline,
the unity, the homogeneity, which
constitute the real power of a party
come not by mere resolving ; they
may begin by resolution, but they
grow by custom and practice.
Men behind the scenes in the
Home-Rule councils knew that seri-
ous uneasiness prevailed amongst
the leaders lest their ranks might
be broken up or shaken by the
prospect or reality of a return of
the Liberals to power too soon />.,
before they, the Home-Rulers, had
had time to settle down or solidify
into a thoroughly compact body,
and before discipline and habit
had accustomed them to move and
act together. Four or five years
training in opposition was the op-
portunity they most wanted and
desired. From a dozen to a score
of their rank and file were men
who had been Gladstonian Liberals,
and whose fealty would be doubt-
ful if in 1875 the disestablisher of
the Irish Church called upon them
to follow him rather than Mr. Butt.
These men would at that time have
felt themselves " Liberals first, and
Home-Rulers after." Even in any
case, and as it is, there are six
or seven of these former Liberals
among the Home- Rule fifty-nine
who are looked upon as certain to

J7ie Irish Home-Rule Movement.

635

;< cross the house " with their former
chief whenever he returns to office.
In 1875 these men would have
carried a dozen lukewarm waverers
along with them; in 1877 they will
not carry one, and their own action,
discounted beforehand, will dis-
concert or surprise no one, and will
merely cause them to lose their
seats on the first opportunity after-
wards.

Quickly following upon the gen-
eral election, the members returned
on Home-Rule principles assembled
in Dublin, 3d of March, 1874
(the Council Chamber of the city
hall being lent to them for that
purpose by the municipal authori-
ties), and, without a dissentient
voice, passed a series of resolutions
constituting themselves a separate
and distinct political party for par-
liamentary purposes. Whigs and
Tories, Trojans and Tyrians, were
henceforth to be alike to them.
The next step was to elect a sort
of ' cabinet ' of nine members,
called the Parliamentary Commit-
tee, to act as an executive ; while
the appointment of two of their
body most trusted for vigilance, tact,
and fidelity, to act as " whips," *
completed the formal organization

* It may be doubted whether there is any man
amongst the Home-Rule members better entitled
than their senior "whip," Captain J P. Nolan, to
be ranked as next to Mr. Butt himself in impor-
tance and in service. On him it rests to keep the
party on the alert; to note and advise with his
chief upon every move of the enemy ; to have his
own men always "on hand," so that they may
never be caught napping ; to keep his colleagues
informed by circular i or "whip") of all forthcom-
ing bills or motions of importance ; and finally, to
act as "teller J1 or counter on a division. In fact,
if Mr. Butt is the head or brain of the Home-Rule
party, Captain Nolan is its right hand. He be-
longs to an old Catholic family, the (V Nolans of
Leix, who in 1645 were put upon allotments be-
yond the Shannon in return for their estates in
fertile 1 eix, which were handed over to Cromwell's
trooptrs. Captain Nolan is a man of considerable
terary ability. He is a captain in the Royal Ar-
illery. and as a scientific and practical artillerist
Hands in the highest repute. He is the inventor of
Nolan's Range-finder," adopted in the Russian,
French, and Austrian armies.

of the Home-Rule members as a
party.

Not an hour too soon had they
perfected their arrangements. The
new Parliament, after a technical
opening a fortnight previously, as-
sembled for the real despatch of
business on Thursday, the ipth of
March, 1874, and next day (on the
debate on the Queen's speech), in
the very first hour of their parlia-
mentary life, the Home-Rulers
found themselves in the thick of
battle. Mr. Butt had taken the
field at once with an amendment
raising the Irish question. The
house was full of curiosity to hear
" the Irish Home-Rulers " and see
what they were like. It was struck
with their combative audacity. It
frankly confessed they stood fire
* like men," and that they acquitted
themselves on the whole with as-
tonishing ability. From that night
forward the British House of Com-
mons realized that it had for the
first time a " third party " within
its walls. How utterly opposed
this is to Englishmen's ideas of
things proper or possible will be
gathered from the fact that they
construct or seat the chamber for
two, and only two, parties ; and that
they even still make a great strug-
gle to have it regarded as a " con-
stitutional theory " that there must
be two, and can be no more than
two, parties in the house namely,
' Her Majesty's Government " and
" Her Majesty's Opposition." Ame-
rican legislative chambers, as well
as French, German, Italian, Aus-
trian, are constructed and seated
in a semicircle or amphitheatre.
The British, on the contrary, is an
oblong hall or short parallelogram,
divided right and left by a wide
central avenue running its full
length from the entrance door to
the " table of the House " front-

6 3 6

The IrisJi Home-Rule Movement.

ing the speaker's chair. There are,
therefore, no middle seats ; every
one must sit on one side or another
with the ministerialists or Tories on
the right of the chair, or with the
opposition or Liberals on the left.
Half-way up the floor there runs
(right and left to each side of the
chamber), at right angles to the
wide central avenue above referred
to, a narrow passage often men-
tioned in newspaper reports as
" the gangway." "Above the gang-
way ' (or nearest the chair) on
each side sit respectively the thick
and thin followers of the present
or late ministry. " Below the
gangway ' (or farthest from the
chair) sit on each side men who
woirld occupy some section of the
middle seats, if the house possessed
any the right and left centres, so
to speak. The Home- Rulers sit in
a compact body " below the gang-
way " on the opposition side.

In their third session public opin-
ion has now pretty well gauged and
measured the ability and resources
of the Home-Rule party. In their
first campaign, 1874, though much
praised because they were infinitely
better in every respect than most
people expected, they exhibited
plentifully the faults and shortcom-
ings of "raw levies." Their for-
mal debate on Home Rule, on the
3<Dth of June and 2d of July, was ut-
terly wanting in system and man-
agement, and would have been a
failure had not the anti-Home-Rule
side of the discussion been incon-
testably much worse handled. But
never, probably, in parliamentary
history has another body of men
learned so quickly, and so rapidly
attained a high position, as they
have done. By the concurrent tes-
timony of their adversaries them-
selves the Home-Rule members are
the best disciplined and best guid-

ed and, in proportion to their num-
bers, the most able and powerful
party in the British House of 'Com-
mons. In order to have a complete
and accurate conception of all that
relates to the Irish Home-R-ule
movement, there remains only to
be considered the policy or line of
action on which its leaders propose-
to operate. How do they expect
to carry Home Rule ?

At no time have the criticisms of
the English press on the subject of
Home Rule exhibited anything but
the shallowest intelligence ; and
many of the Home-Rule victories
have been won because of the stolid
ignorance prevailing in the English
camp. The Engli^i journalists
disliking the Irish government, be-
lieve and proclaim to their readers
only what accords with their preju-
dices ; and accordingly upon them
has fallen the fate of the general
who refuses to reconnoitre the ene-
my and accurately estimate his
strength. On this subject the Brit-
ish journalist will have it that he
" knows all about it," and has no
need to investigate things seriously.
From the first hour of the Home-
Rule movement he has declared it
to be " breaking up," "failing," "go-
ing clown the hill." It has been so
constantly going down that hill in his
story that one never can find out
when or how it got up there, or
whether there is any bottom to the
declivity which it can ever reach in
such a rapid and persistent down-
ward motion. On no feature of the
Home-Rule question has there been
more affectation of knowing all
about it, and more complacent dog-
matism as to its inevitable fate,
than this of the Home-Rule plan of
action. The way these people look
at the matter explains their con-
solatory conclusions. They view the
Home-Rulers simply as sixty mem-

The Irish Home-Rule Movement.

637

hers in a house of six hundred and
fifty-eight. " Six hundred to sixty
surely it is absurd ! Are the Irish
demented, to think their sixty will
convert our six hundred ? '

This mistake of viewing Mr. Butt
and Home Rule just as they view
Sir Wilfrid Lawson and prohibi-
tion is just where the English show
their unpardonable and fatuous
want of intelligence. Indeed, others
besides English commentators fall
into this error. They imagine the
Home-Rulers contemplate working
Home Rule through the House of
Commons by bringing in a " Bill '
and having an annual " vote " upon
it, as if it were the Permissive bill,
or the Woman's Suffrage, or the
Game Law Bill. The Home-Ru-
lers laugh heartily over all this sort
ot criticism. They dream of nothing
ol the kind. There is another way of
Booking at the Home-Rule party and
the Home-Rule question in the
House of Commons.

Six hundred men can indeed
very easily vote down sixty, and
make short work of their opposi-
tion ; always supposing these latter
to be units from places wide apart,
representing scattered interests or
speculative opinions. The House
of Commons deals every year, ses-
sion after session, with several such
sixties and seventies and eighties
and nineties. But it would be a
\voful apology for " statesmanship "
to regard the Home-Rule sixty in
this light. In their case the govern-
ment have to do, not with sixty of
their own general body of British
members, but with the -Irish repre-
sentation. The question is not
ivith sixty members of the House,
but with Ireland. In any crisis of
the empire, as the English Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer said re-

ntly about the British repre-
sentatives on the Suez Canal Board,

"their votes would be weighed, not
counted."

The purpose of the Home-Rulers,
for the present at all events, is
much less with the House of Com-
mons than with the country ; they
operate on the country through
that house. They want to get Ire-
land into their hands ; and even al-
ready they have very substantially
done so. They want to convince
and conciliate and enlist the English
democracy ; and they have very
largely succeeded. With this key
to their movements, the supreme
ability and wisdom which they have
displayed will be better recognized.
They have taken the whole of the
public affairs of Ireland into their
charge. They have taken every
public interest in the country under
their protection. Whoever wants
anything done or attended to,
whether he be Catholic, Protestant,
or dissenter, now looks to the Home-
Rulers, and to them alone. Not the
humblest peasant in the land but
feels that, if a petty village tyrant
has wronged him, the Irish party
in the House of Commons will
'know the reason why." They
have seized upon every subject deep-
ly affecting the people as a whole,
or important classes among them,
and showered bills dealing with
these subjects on the table of the
House of Commons. The distract-
ed premier knows what is beneath
all this ; he detects the master-hand
of Isaac Butt in this deep strategy.
These are not sham bills, merely to
take up time. They are genuine
bills, ably and carefully drawn, and
every one of them dealing with a
really important and pressing mat-
ter for Ireland. Every one of them
hits a blot ; they are nearly all such
bills as our Irish Parliament would
pass. Some of the subjects (such
as the " Fisheries Bill") are popular

638

] III' /A/.s// lloillt ' ]\n!c jll'fll'l'ltlt'llf.

with vei \ nearly .'ill < l.i /.<:. in 1 M
I. nid ; tlicn llici<- arc the University
I ,dn< ation UNI, lli- I .:MM I Tenure
Hill, Ihe Grand Jury Hill, the Mil-

IIK i|i:il I'l P. lle^c'S Hill, Ilie l''l.ili< 111 ,<

Hill, the Registration Hill, besidei

a IIM I nl others. Suppose I lie gOV-
ci nun nl, give W.iy, and ;n eept one ;
lliele is a slinill nl It llllil|ill III I le

I. mil : l The I IIIIMC Kulcrs li;ivi- forc-
ed lln-ir li;ind !" ami ;i < ry nl di ;-
may .nid rage from the irreconcil-
able O ramy -men :" ThegOVci nment
h,i\e : n< < iinil.ed to the Jesuits !"
Suppose they resist ;ind vole down
the liill; mailers are worse. The
Irish people are inllaiucd, and
e\ en minislei lalisls sulk and say :
This is bad policy ; 'tis playing the

Home Kuie game." Suppose, again,

Mr. Disraeli adopts a middle course
and says: "This is an excellent
bill in many respects, but really we
have not time to consider it this
\ear." A louder shout than ever
greets such a statement: "Then-
is no mom for Irish business. Then
let us transact, it here at home."

It is a matter of notoriety that
there is growing up among English-
men, within and without the House
of ('ominous, a feeling that, even
apart horn all political considera-
tions, some thing must be done to
lighten the work, and remit to
oilier assemblies a large portion
of the legislative business now at-
tempted there. The house is
breaking down under the load
laid upon or undertaken by it. So
would Congress, if, in addition to
its own functions, it attempted to
do I he work of the State legislatures
besides. There are hundreds, it
may be said thousands, of inllucn-
tial Knglish politicians who, seeing
this, re-ard as simply inevitable
something in the direction of the
Home-Rule scheme, only, of, course
"not so extreme," as they call it.

Nothing but the bugbear of " dis-

ineiiil)''! ing the cmpiie ' prevents
an l.n 'lish cry lor Iii-Jileiiing tin
ship, The I lonie-Knlers \val< h all
this, and lake very good ( aie that
the Inad whic h the house prcfi
lo retain shall presi heavily on it.
Not that they pursue or cOiilem
plate a poli< y ol mere obstruction,
which many persons, Iriends ami
, thought they would. Mi.
Hull has again and again repu-
diated t his. I Ie knows that siu h
a COUrse \\onld only put the house
on its mettle, and would defeat
his schemi- nl silently sapping tin-
convictions of the more fairly dis-
posed Englishmen, lie knows
that the' present system ( annot last

many years, lie knows that the
English people, mice Iheir convic-
tions are alfectcd, soon give way
before public exigency. To alien t
those convictions and to create
that exigency is the Homc-Knle
policy. Jt is all very well, while
the skies are clear and tranquil,
for English ministers, past and pre-
sent, to bluster greatly about the
impossibility of entertaining the
Irish demand. It is all very well,
\\hilethepresent Tory majority is
SO strong, for both parties to pro-
tect their hostility to Home- Rule.
Opinions change wondrously in
these CE8( When the Disraelian
majority has in the course of na-
ture dropped down to forty, thirty,
twenty, and ten ; when the Liberal
leaders find they can attain to
office with the Home-Rule vote,
and ( annot retain office without it,
they will offer Home-Rule? No.
Offer palliatives good places for
Home- Killers, and "good measures"
lor Ireland ? Probably. Hut when
these offers are found to be vain ;
are found to strengthen the power
and intensify the resolution >! Hie
1 lomc-Kuic party, the transforma-

The //-/s/f I Ionic l\ulc Movement.

l.ion wl:i< h I'-ii-land vvrnl throii;d) mouth, Cardiff, and mOTC than a

08 -, n. great question, <'.-ith- do/en other important English and

oli< ;. :< i|,aiion, (:iini<li Dises- Scotch constituencies returned Kn

tablfshment, etc, (-;M h in its day lish friends 01 llom<- l<ul< lol'.uiia-

JH .. miily suoi n i'i i ' in- ment, [t was not the mete mattei

possible") will b<-;',in t'l set m; '/I 10 many votes thai l'-m M< h v.-d

;ind -;dl the more loudly ilMu li ;i in- I'* t In , |.i< I ; it u ICeOti

mom- .'Mild happen to synchro- whi< h it gave to tin: growing !< I

in/.'-, with deadlock in Mi'- I- ing (amongst th- English working*

tun:, pcnl abroad, and popular re- classes >]' i.-dly) that, the In

;itmrni ;if lioiiic from I Midland '|u- ,1 ion w.i , on-- \<> \><- ',ynip;illii/<-<l

itself \vi!l i In: cry tli;ii 'Ire- with. An event whir I, o< ( urnrd in

l.-md HIM i be l.iirly dealt with." lMi^l;u:d barely a few weeks ;

At sin h ;i mometH < lliiti.li minis- w.'i'^, li'*,v:vcr, l>':yonrl all pi ' '-d'-ni

ter will / be found to "dis- in the seniotioti whn h it '

mo .1 fortunately, This was the recent M;nn h'-sin
tli.it "tl hitherto I>I-CM i-l'-ction. A week previf>usly in
nu ood," ;md th.it it is Ivn^- Hurnley it was found impossible to
land's interest not less than Ireland's return any but a Home-Rule 1 d,
to II.T.M- it ,:itis/;ir.torily adjir.tcd. and stl< h a man ;n ( ordinoly hc;.ded
I'or n is not with Ireland alone the poll. In Manchester Mr, Jacob
Jiriti-.h ministers will h;i.v: to settle, liri^ht (son of Mr. John Ilri^ht)
Alihou;di no reference has previous- was the Liberal, and a Mr. I'owH!
Iy been luad*: here to the fact, the the Conservative, candidate. I L be-
st?-, i .inn of the Home-Rule came clear that the Irish vote would

.tnd itself. Within der,ide the issue. One morning tin:

the past thirty years then- lias news was (lashed through Kn^laml

n iiD lently and unno- that Imili Candidates, Liberal and

, a new political pow^r bun- Conservative, h;i.d undertaken tn

dr- mdsof 1 1 1 Jinn-n who, voh- for \1 r. Butt's mot ion on Home

settled in the large labor Rule! What! Main hester, the poli

, have grown to < iti/.r-nsliip, tjral capital of l^ngland, gone for

ver, and influence. From IJris- Home Rule? It was even so, and

to I)nndee there is not a Mr. Bright, being preferred of tin-

city thai has not now on its two, was triumphantly returned by

roll Irish voters whose the Irish Home-Rule vote.

decide the fate of candi- All this means that on Knglish

ilncidently with the estab- ground Ireland now has hostages

of the '* Home Government hostages of security that no daring

i" in Ir'-l nid th<-r: arose act of armed violence- Jiall b<

tnd, as a co-operative but in- tempted against her; hostages oi

ii'/ i ( ion, the "Home- friend ,hip, too, as well as of safety;
tion ol ' liri- ol a. prop;i;',;indi\m, of <

:i." This body has or^ani/r-d filiation ; citadel', ol political power

.dl o. : and 'I he growth of feeling in I rid

tland, and hold, virtually in its in favor of the concession of I

ires of politi- land's national autonomy is simply

KenY'tiM^ incontestable, It may well be that,

, 1 th'-ir innV , as many Irish politician-, d-^lai

' a stlc-, Durham, Tjrn "the battle of Home Rul- lor Ire-

640

The Valley of the A udc.

land will be fought and won on
British soil."

And this is how Ireland stands
in 1876 erect, powerful, resolute,
united. What the future may have
in store for her, victory or defeat,
is beyond human ken. This effort
too may fail, as many a gallant
endeavor in her behalf has failed
before. All that can be said is
that so far it has progressed with
a success unparalleled in Irish poli-
tical annals ; that it is wisely guid-
ed, boldly animated, faithfully up-
held. Much depends on her own
children, at home and in foreign

lands ; on their devotion, their pru-
dence, their courage, their perse-
verance. May this new dawn of
unity, of concord of conciliation
herald the day they have so long
hoped to see !

And thou, O mighty Lord ! whose ways
Are far above our feeble minds

To understand,

Sustain us in these doubtful days,
And render light the chain that binds

Our fallen land !

Look down upon our dreary state
And, through the ages that may still

Roll sadly on,

Watch thou o'er hapless Erin's fate,
And shield at least from darker ill

The blood of Conn.

THE VALLEY OF THE AUDE

THE Aude is a rambling, capri-
cious river of ancient Languedoc
that rises on the confines of
Spain, among the oriental Pyre-
nees, five thousand feet above the
level of the sea. At first, imprison-
ed and half-stifled among.the narrow
gorges of the mountains, its waters,
clear and sparkling, rush noisily
and impetuously along, struggling
for room ; but as soon as they find
space in the sunny valleys they
slacken their speed as if to enjoy
the very verdure they create ; they
grow turbid, sometimes the current
dwindles away to a mere thread
among poor barren hills, and again
at the first storm spreads wide its
course through the rich vine-bor-
dered plain. At Carcassonne it be-
comes languid, and, turned eastward
by the Montagne Noire, passes along
beneath the sombre line of the oaks,
beeches, and chestnuts that cover
the mountains, and when, after be-

ing fed by thirty-six tributaries, it
falls wearily into the sea a little
above Narbonne, it is no longer the
limpid, dashing stream we met in
the mountains, but troubled in its
waters and indolent in flow.

We came first upon the Aude at
Carcassonne, where it takes a bend
towards the sea the Viile-basse, a
thriving town in the plain that dates
from the time of St. Louis ; the old
fortified city on the height above,
historic, legendary, and picturesque.
And ancient too, for it was, ac-
cording to some ambitious writers,
founded by the fugitive Trojans,
or, what is better still, by one of
the grandsons of Noe, and pros-
perous in the time of the Pharaos.
Be that as it may, it was in the pos-
session of the Romans before the
coming of Caesar. In the fifth cen-
tury after Christ it fell into the hands
of the Visigoths, who are said to
have brought hither from the sack

The Valley of the Andc.

641

of Rome jewelled utensils that came
from the palace of King Solomon
and the vessels of gold that belong-
ed to the Temple of Jerusalem, car-
ried away by Titus and Vespasian.
These treasures were long believed
hidden in a deep well still to be
scon in the upper city, but during
a dry season a few years ago it was
explored without any discovery to
confirm the tradition. They were
probably taken to Spain, or carried
to Ravenna by Theodoric the Great,
to whom several of the towers of
Carcassonne are attributed. There
are two walls around the old city :
the inner ones, with their circular
towers of the time of the Visigoths ;
the outer, with fortified gateways that
date at least from the time of Louis
IX. And then there is a venerable
quadrangular castle, with five towers
and a moat that bears the marks of
many a hard assault, but now serves
chiefly to give a picturesque look
and a pleasing air of antiquity to
the landscape. The square tower
next the Aude, if not all five, is
said to have bowed clown before
the great Emperor of the West.
But we are anticipating.

After the Ostrogoths came the
Saracens, flushed with victory, from
Spain, and they had possession
of Carcassonne when Charlemagne
came into Gaulc Narbonnaisc and
laid siege to the city, determined
to drive them beyond the Pyrenees.
The delightful old traditions of that
day, which are so much better than
history, say it then bore the name of
Atax. According to them, the em-
peror remained beneath the walls
live long years without the slight-
est success, notwithstanding the

lor of his peerless knights. So
astonishing a resistance was solely
owing to Dame Carcas, a mere
woman, and a Moor at that, who
not only possessed remarkable cour-

VOL. XXIII. NO. 41

age, but was shrewd to the last de-
gree, as we are prepared to show.
Of course, after a five years' siege
the provisions had dwindled away
to a very low ebb, and the inhabi-
tants had naturally diminished in
proportion. In fact, everybody was
at length dead in the city except
stout Dame Carcas, who seemed to
have lived on her wits. This won-
derful woman was not discouraged.
She acted on the principle of the
inscription over the gates of Busy-'
rane " Be bold, be bold, and ever-
more be bold." She garnished the
walls with effigies in armor mere
scarecrows and, making the round
of the rampart, she kept up such a
hail of arrows on the enemy, as if
she had the arms of Briareus, that
they marvelled, as well they might,
at the resources of so well-supplied
and vigilant a garrison. Wishing
to convince Charlemagne that there
was no possibility of his reducing
the city by famine, she gorged her
very last pig with her last bushel of
wheat, and threw it over the ram-
parts. It was naturally dashed to
pieces, and its internal economy
fully displayed, as shrewd Dame
Carcas intended. The besiegers,
astonished to see the very lowest of
animals fed on the purest of wheat,
now supposed the supplies quite in-
exhaustible, and Charlemagne, as
sensible as he was great, at once
raised the siege. Not without re-
gret, however, and, as he turned
back to take a last look at the
walls before which he had spent in
vain so much time and labor, won-
drous to relate, one of the mighty
towers of the Goths bowed down
before him in reverence, and never
regained its perpendicular, as may
be seen to this day by any one who
goes to Carcassonne.

Dame Carcas, you may be sure,
was on the lookout. Satisfied with

642

The Valley of tJie A tide.

having got the better of the mighty
emperor, she called him back, open-
ed the ponderous gates, and ac-
knowledged his sovereignty. Char-
lemagne, full of admiration at her
courage and wit, determined the
city should be called after her.
Hence the name of Carcassonne.
It is a pity any doubt should be
cast over so pleasing a tradition,
but some do say, let us hope with-
out proof, that it bore this name in
the time of the Romans. We do
not feel obliged to believe it. Peo-
ple who are historically as well as
religiously " convinced against their
will, are of the same opinion still."
We stick to the Middle Ages, when
.the tradition was so fully cred-
ited that a bas-relief, a kind of
emblazonry, of the bust of an
Amazon was placed over the prin-
cipal gate of the city, with the
words below : Carcas sum I am
Carcas.

. According to a popular legend,
Charlemagne besieged Carcassonne
twice. The second time it was
defended by Anchises, King of the
Saracens, who was aided by Satan
himself and an efficient corps of
African sorcerers. However, the
demons were routed, and the pious
emperor set up a fortress of the
faith, known to us as the cathedral
of St. Nazaire, which is in the south-
east corner of the city, built into
the very walls forming a part of the
old fortifications. This church is
still the jewel of the place. The
crypt alone is of the Carlovingian
age. The nave and aisles 'of the
upper church are of the eleventh
century, in the Roman style, grave
and sombre, with small windows,
massive pillars, and thick walls
capable of resisting the enemy.
These were blessed by Pope Ur-
Dan II. in 1096. The present choir
was built in .SL Louis' time, and

forms a striking contrast to the
heavy gloomy nave, for it is of the
pointed style, light and elegant,
with seven stained glass windows
of wonderful beauty, and so close
together as to leave no wall. The
arches seem to rest on the eight
colonnettes that frame the win-
dows. In one of them may be
read the whole legend of SS. Na-
zarius and Celsus, celebrated in
Italian art. Titian has painted
them in armor in a beautiful altar-
piece of the church that bears their
name at Brescia. St. Saturnin, how-
ever, the apostle of Toulouse, first
announced the faith in this region.
St. Nazaire is reputed to have ar-
rived soon after. His mother was
a Roman matron converted by St.
Peter, and he himself was baptized
by the apostle, who commissioned
him to preach the Gospel. At
Milan he exhorted and comforted
SS. Gervasius and Protasius in pri-
son, and was beaten with staves by
order of the governor. Celsus was
his spiritual child and co-laborer.
At Genoa they were cast into the
sea, which refused to drown them,
and they walked back over the an-
gry billows to land. After their
apostolic journey to Southern Gaul,
they were beheaded at Milan just
without the Porta Rom ana, where
a beautiful church still stands to
perpetuate their memory. But it
is inferior to St. Nazaire of Carcas-
sonne, which is at once antique
and poetic. What deep shadows
in its venerable aisles ! What rain-
bow lights in its jewelled windows !
The rose of the north transept is
composed of twelve lobes, in six
of which blue predominates; in
the other six, green very beauti-
ful in the sunset light. In the
window of the south transept the
lobes are in two rows, so disposed
that green is under cramoisie, and

The Valley of the Aude. 643

cramoisie under green, producing thousand souls, in a deep valley
quite a magical effect. of the Orbieu, surrounded by the

North of the cathedral, just be- rocky heights of the Corbieres.
yond its ruined cloister, is a don- This village grew up around a
jon of the thirteenth century, call- celebrated Benedictine Abbey that
ed the Tour de 1'Eveque, which flourished here for more than a
contains a well, an oven, and thousand years one of the most
everything necessary to sustain important in Occitania. Its foun-
a regular siege. Here, through dation is so remote that it has be-
the vines, figs, and almond-trees, come the theme of many popular
is the best view of the church, with traditions. These are embodied

its time-stained turrets, its but- in an old romance, said to have

tressed walls, and the fine tracery been written by Philomene, sec-

of its windows. The old city is be- retary of Charlemagne, by the

fore us with its towers and antique emperor's order, and under his

walls, on which every storm that inspection, and translated in the

has swept over Southern France thirteenth century by William of

has left its trace. Simon de Mont- Padua, a monk of La Grasse.
fort scaled them early in the thir- Charlemagne had just taken Car-

teenth century. In the fourteenth, cassonne, where five towers bowed

they braved the Black Prince, who down before him. He founded

contented himself with feasting on several churches, such as St. Na-

the well-stocked larders of the zaire and St. Saturnin, and appoint-

Basse Ville and drinking its rich ed Roger, a clerk of noble family,

wines, and afterwards setting fire bishop of the place. Then he

to the place. In the sixteenth inarched towards Narbonne, which

century the city was invaded by was in possession of the Saracens,

the Huguenots, who tore a statue intending to besiege it. He had

of the Blessed Virgin from its niche with him Pope Leo III., most of.

and dragged it through the streets, the cardinals, the patriarch of Jeru-

which so enraged the Catholics salem, Turpin, archbishop of Reims,

that they rose in their fury and and an infinite number of other

slaughtered all the offenders on prelates, abbots, and priests, to-

whom they could lay hands. Then gather with Roland, Oliver, Oger

they carried the statue back to its the Dane, Solomon of Britanny, and

place in solemn procession. And, Count Florestan his brother, and

when a royal edict of 1562 assigned other famous paladins, with dukes,

the Calvinists a meeting-house just counts, and barons too many to

out of the city, the people barred enumerate. While traversing the

the gates against the returning valley of the Orbieu, one of the

embly, and drove them -into the principal tributaries of the Aude,

very Aude. Archbishop Turpin came across

But let us leave these historic seven hermits, viz., Thomas of

details, and, turning back into the Rouen, Richard of Pavia, Robert

asanter paths of old romance, Prince of Hungary, Germain of Scot-
follow the Emperor Charlemagne land, Alayran of Flanders, Philip
along the valley of the Aude. A of Cologne, and Bartholomew, son
ittle south of the direct road from of the King of Egypt, who, after
.issonne to Narbonne, we come completing their studies at Paris,
to the village of La Grasse, of a left the world in search of Christ

644

The Valley of the Audc.

and were led by angels to this
solitary valley, where they built
an oratory in honor of St. Mary
the Virgin. Here they had lived
for twenty years on herbs, roots,
and wild fruit, and the people, in
view of their thin, wasted aspect,
as well as the arid country, called
the place of their retreat the Valle'e
Maigre.

When Archbishop Turpin brought
the emperor and Pope Leo III. to
see these holy eremites, they shed
an abundance of tears and rendered
thanks unto God. Charlemagne re-
solved to erect a superb abbey in
the place of their modest oratory,
and so well did he endow it that
the monks he established here were
soon able to fertilize the wild valley
to such a degree that its name, at
the suggestion of Turpin and the
Earl of Flanders, was appropriately
changed to that of La Valle'e Grasse.

During the erection of this mon-
astery a series of combats took place
between the Moors and the Chris-
tians, each one more marvellous than
the other. First, Matrandus, King
of Narbonne, suddenly came upon
the encampment of the valley with
a numerous army, but he was defeat-
ed by Charlemagne and pursued to
the point where the Niel empties
into the Orbieu. There he heard
the sound of a mighty horn. It was
the olifant of Roland, who was com-
ing to his aid. He made the Sara-
cens bite the dust by thousands,
and Matrandus had barely time to
take refuge in Narbonne and close
the gates behind him.

Then an enemy far more redoubt-
able made his appearance. It was
Marcilion, King of all Spain, ac-
companied by sixteen other kings,
with seven hundred thousand men.
, Charlemagne had two hundred and
forty thousand. The battle lasted
five days. At length the Saracens

were vanquished. Five hundred
thousand of their number were
slain, together with the sixteen
kings, whereas the Christians only
lost thirty-seven thousand, among
whom, however, were five bishops,
fourteen abbots, seven counts, eight
hundred barons, and the Abbot of
St. Denis, who, as he was breathing
his last, besought the emperor to
complete the abbey and bury him
in it. His wishes were not disre-
garded. The abbey was complet-
ed. A church was built. In the
church were many chapels, and .in
each chapel Archbishop Turpin,
accompanied by many bishops and
abbots, solemnly deposited sacred
relics. It was now time to cons id-
er the appointment of the abbot,
and while they were discussing the
subject Marcilion reappeared, this
time with only three hundred thou-
sand horsemen, but Roland drove
them before him into Roussillon,
where he slew more than one hun-
dred and seventy thousand men.

Then took place a fresh battle
with Matrandus, and Roland, in a
hand-to-hand encounter with Ta-
mise, brother of the King of Nar-
bonne, clove him in two like an
acorn with Durandal, his unerring
sword. In vain did the kings of
Catalonia league together to avenge
the death of Tamise. They slaugh-
tered, it is true, the seven holy her-
mits, who, weary of the tumult in
the valley of the Orbieu, had impru-
dently betaken themselves to anoth-
er solitude, but they were repulsed
by the abbot of La Grasse and his
sixty monks with considerable loss.
And yet they would rather, they
said, have demolished the abbey
than taken ten cities.

Several battles ensued beneath
the walls of Narbonne before Char-
lemagne took that city, and after, in
the course of which Roland clove in

The Valley of the A ude. 645

two Borrel cle la Combe; Oliver wrench it from the rock. The peo-

clove in two Justeamundus, the pie of this region, great lovers of

brother-in-law of Matrandus ; and the marvellous, tell how he used to

Charlemagne himself performed the gallop over the Montague Noire on

like exploit on Almanzor, King of so fiery a steed that its feet shook

Cordova. Durandal, Hauteclair, the very mountains beneath them

Joyeuse, and other famous swords and left their imprint on the rocks,

mowed down the Saracens like ripe as may be seen to this day on the old

grain, cutting off heads and arms road between lilies and Lastours.

and legs, and causing such torrents And a little higher up is a dolmen

of blood to flow that the infidels that bears the marks of his sword and

finally renounced all hostilities the print of his hands. This dolmen

against the abbey of La Grasse. is on a slight eminence near a little

During the night before the con- stream. The table is in the form

secration of the abbatial church was of a disc about seven feet in dia-

to be made by the Pope, the Divine meter and one foot thick. It must

Redeemer, so runs the legend, him- weigh several hundred tons, and

self vouchsafed to come down from would require a great number of

heaven in person, accompanied by men of ordinary strength to place it

a multitude of angels, to consecrate on its present supports. The peo-

the edifice. The following morn- pie say Roland, by way of amuse-

ing, when the Pope and Charle- ment in his moments of leisure,

magne and Archbishop Turpin saw hewed out this rock with his sword,

the marks of divine consecration, and then used it as a quoit, which

they, as well as Roland and Oliver he threw with careless ease from

and the rest, shed tears of joy, and La Valdous to Narbonne, and from

blessed God, and, while still weep- Narbonne back to La Valdous. The

ing, took leave of the monks, beg- prints of his mighty fingers are still

ging to be remembered in their daily clearly perceptible. It was he who

orisons. set this light plaything up on its

Charlemagne now departed for huge pillars, and not the Druids,
Spain, to carry war in his turn into and to this day it is called the Pa*
the country of the infidel, and with let de Roland. Near by is a myste*-
what prodigies of valor is known to rious hole called Roland's tomb,
all men. The memory of his pas- where the people insist he was bur-
sage through the valley of the Aude ied, according to his express wish
has never been effaced from the that he might repose in the place of
popular mind. The name of Ro- his innocent amusements,
land, too, echoes all through this There are many of these Celtic
region, like the horn he won from monuments in this vicinity, the
the giant Jatmund. Not far from object of great conjecture among
La Grasse is a cliff that still bears archaeologists. The .popular imagi-
his name. It was here the great nation is not so embarrassed, as we
paladin, when weary of hewing in have seen. A legend is generally
pieces the Saracens, used to come attached to them, often picturesque
to take breath and whet his sword, and dramatic. At Carnac, every
The iron ring to which he fastened one knows, it was St. Corneille who
his steed Brigliadoro is still in its changed his pagan pursuers into
place, and no hand in these degen- monumental rocks by the petrifying
erate days is strong enough to influence of his wrathful visage.

6 4 6

The Val'ley of the A ndc.

On the banks of the Lamouse, a
little creek in this region, is a tall
colossus of a rock called the peul-
ran, that stands quite solitary on a
little hill. It is, or was, fifteen feet
high, a yard and a half broad, and
not more than half a yard thick.
The people say it descends to an
inaccessible depth in the earth. If
we may believe them, forty years
ago it was no taller than a man,
but it has grown higher and higher
every year from some magic subter-
ranean influence.

People who live among lofty
mountains and dark forests, by
noisy streams and waterfalls, or
even on the borders of peaceful,
dormant lakes whose mists fill the
valleys and shroud the neighboring
hills, are apt to be imaginative and
dreamy. Here fairies and Undines
have their origin. Here White La-
.dies, such as Scott has described in
the valley of Glendearg, come forth
in floating vapory robes to flit about
the melancholy vales and fade away
with the dawn. Such is the legend
of Lake Puivert, according to which
Reine Blanche, a princess of Ara-
gon, issues every evening from her
ancestral towers, and descends into
the valley to breathe the freshness
of the air. This legendary queen
was no fair young princess who had
become an untimely victim to mel-
ancholy " sweetest melancholy"
but a dethroned queen, so infirm
and decrepit as to have lost the
very use of her limbs, and had
come to end her days in the old
manor-house of Puivert, where she
had been born. A crowd of ser-
vants surrounded her day and night,
attentive to her slightest caprice.
Every evening at set of sun a her-
ald ascended to the battlements of
the tower to proclaim the coming
forth of Lady Blanche. No soon-
er had the echoes of his horn died

away than she appeared at the prin-
cipal gate, borne on a litter by four
stout men. If the weather was calm
and the sky clear, she was taken to
a huge block of marble that rose
out of the edge of the lake, where
she loved to breathe the freshness
of the night air and the resinous
odor of the old pines that grew on
the mountain above. Two pages
in purple waved great fans to keep
off the insects. There was nothing
to disturb the delicious solitude but
the swallows that skimmed over the
surface of the lake and the mur-
muring rivulets that came down
from the hills, and here she would
remain in silent reverie till the light
faded completely away, when she
was borne back to her tower by
the light of torches. It frequently
happened, however, that the lake
was so swollen by storms that her
marble throne was entirely sub-
merged. Then she went to the
chapel of Our Lady of Bon-Secours
to pray the wrath of the threaten-
ing waters might be stayed. One
day she conceived the idea of
piercing an immense rock that
closed the entrance to the valley,
hoping by this means to let off the
surplus waters and keep the lake
always at the same level, but, alas !
at the very moment when she
thought her wishes were to be
crowned with success, the pres-
sure of the waters against the
weakened base of the rock over-
threw it, and, rushing through the
narrow gorge, overwhelmed serfs,
pages, and La Reine Blanche her-i
self. Such is the legendary cause
assigned for the rupture of Lake,
Puivert in 1279, which destroyed
the neighboring town of Mirepoix.
The feudal manor-house, so well
known in the history of the coun-
try, escaped, being on an elevation.
It is still haunted by the troubled

The Valley of the Aude. 647

spirit of Queen Blanche, who, in pears to have been so well endowed

misty white garments, may be seen that it held lands and livings and

at nightfall flitting about the low seigneuries, not only throughout

valley, wringing her pale hands over the province, but on the other side

the ruin she caused. of the Pyrenees. Louis le Debon-

Nor is this Queen of Aragon the naire took it under his special
only White Lady of the land. The protection, together with three
old people of Limoux tell of women cells dependent thereon, to wit :
in while who once a year come St. Cucufat on the banks of the
forth by night from a crystal palace Aude, St. Pierre on the Clamoux,
in the bowels of the neighboring and La Palme on the sea-shore,
hill of Taich, and go to the foun- In fact, favor towards it seemed
tain of Las Encantados the fairies hereditary in the Carlovingian race,
-where with a golden spatula Louis IX. kept up the tradition,
they beat their linen, after the and when in Palestine wrote to
fashion of the country, till the his mother and the senechal of
dawn of day. These ghostly laun- Carcassonne, recommending the
dresses are not confined to the abbey of La Grasse to their pro-
valley of the Aude. In Brittany tection. The kings of Aragon, too,
and Normandy they likewise haunt respected its extensive domains in
many regions, but they beat their their realm.

linen with an iron hand, which they The grateful abbey never forgot

do not hesitate to apply to, the ear its illustrious founder. Every morn-

of the curious intruder. ing at the conventual Mass the

On the side of a steep hill that bread and wine were offered by the
descends to the Rebenty, another lord abbot, or his representative,
branch of the Aude, are three nar- at the Offertory, for the repose of
row arches to the cave of Las En- Charlemagne's soul, till authorized
cantados the grotto of the fairies to render hina the cultus due to a
where, in the depths, the noise saint, from which time the twenty-
of the turbulent stream is repeated eighth of January was kept in his
by subterranean echoes, and chang- honor as a festival of the first class,
ed, now into a soft harmonious It is one of the traditions of this
murmur and now into a solemn monastery that, when Pope Leo III.
roar, giving the effect of an organ was about to dedicate the church,
in a cathedral. Nothing could be he received a supernatural warning
more impressive by night than this that it had been miraculously con-
mysterious music, which the people secrated, and on approaching the
formerly ascribed to some weird altar he discovered the marks of
influence. the divine hand, which remained

But to return to the royal foun- visible till the end of the fourteenth

dation of La Vallee Grasse. That century, when the greater part of

this abbey was really founded un- the church was consumed by fire,

der the patronage of Charlemagne It was then rebuilt in a style cor-

is proved by a charter of the year responding to the wealth of the

778, still preserved in the prefecture abbey, with numerous chapels, a

at Carcassonne, signed with his own choir with rare carvings, and a

imperial monogram. According to silver retablo with twelve silver

this, the name of the first abbot was statues in the niches, all plated

Nimphridius; and the house ap- with pure gold. The monastic

648

The Valley of the Aude.

buildings were surrounded by forti-
fied walls of vast circuit. They
were grouped around an immense
cloister, the arcades of which were
supported by marble columns. On
the east side were the church,
dormitories, infirmary, and rooms
for visitors. At the north were
the abbot's spacious residence,
the granary, bakery, stables, etc.
South and west were the chapter-
house, the large refectory, and
houses appropriated to the aged
monks. A hospital, where the poor
were fed and sick strangers received
gratuitous care, was further off, near
the principal gate. There x was an
extensive park, with avenues of
chestnut-trees, watered by the
Orbieu, which also turned the
grist-mills, oil-mills, and cloth-
mills. The water was also brought
into the abbey. The library now
forms part of the public library of
Carcassonne. . ,

The abbey of La Grasse was
immediately dependent on the Holy
See, in acknowledgment of which
it paid an annual tribute of five
gold florins. And the Bishop of
Carcassonne, and the Archbishop
of Narbonne, though the primate,
were obliged to recognize its in-
dependence of their jurisdiction
before they could obtain admit-
tance to the abbey. The abbot
from the time of Abbot Nicolas
Roger, the uncle of Pope Clement
VI., had the right of wearing ponti-
fical vestments. He held legal jur-
isdiction over eighty-three towns,
besides which, three other abbeys,
three monasteries, twenty-four pri-
ories, and sixty-seven parish church-
es were dependent on the house
of La Grasse.

This great abbey was suppressed
in 1790, after existing over a thou-
sand years, and before long was
transformed into barracks and

manufactories. The church became
a melancholy ruin, with its columns
lying among the tall grass, the capi-
tals covered with lichens, bushes
growing in among the crumbling
walls, and here and there scattered
mutilated escutcheons of the old
lords of the land and the very
bones from their sepulchres.

But the town of La Grasse, that
sprang up under the mild sway of
the old abbots, is still queen of
the lower Corbieres by its popula-
tion and historic interest. It is
noted for its blanquette a spark-
ling white wine, which rivals that
of Limoux.

As to the battles in the valley of
the Orbieu, it is more certain that
the Saracens, on their way to attack
Carcassonne, were met by William,
Duke of Aquitaine, in this valley,
where, .though defeated, he per-
formed prodigies of valor, and made
the followers of Mahound buy their
victory dearly. They soon with-
drew into Spain, carrying with them
rich spoils from Narbonne, among
which were seven statues of silver,
long famous in Andalusia, and
many marble columns, still to be
seen in the famous mosque of Cor-
dova, on which thev forced the vast

/ *

number of prisoners they carried
with them to labor.

Nor was the abbey of La Grasse
the only famous monastery of this
region. There was the Cistercian
abbey of Fonfroide, founded in the
twelfth century by Ermen garde,
Vicomtesse of Narbonne, to whom
Pierre Roger, the troubadour, gave
the mystic name of Tortrfavez, and
so well known from the permanent
Court of Love she held in her gay
capital. This abbey at one time
contained two hundred monks, who
were great agriculturists, and under-
stood drainage and all the improve-
ments we regard as modern. They

The Valley of the A udc. 649

brought vast tracts of land under inherited the virtues and spirit of

cultivation, and, by their industry the early Cistercians,

and economy, became wealthy and The tombs of the old vicomtes

powerful, In 1341, this abbey had of Narbonne, who were mostly

nineteen thousand two hundred buried here, are no longer to be

and thirty-four animals, including seen. William II., by an act of

sheep, cattle, mules, swine, etc. May 25, 1424, ordered his remains

Among the celebrated monks of to be taken to Fonfroide, wherever

Fonfroide was Peter of Castelnau, he might die. He left two thou-

whom the Holy See appointed one sand livres for his tomb, which was

of the legates to suppress the heresy to be of stone and magnificently

of the Albigenses, and who acquir- adorned, and an annuity of twenty-

ed so melancholy a celebrity by five livres as a foundation for a.

his conflicts with Count Raymond daily Mass for the repose of his

of Toulouse and his tragical end. soul. He was killed by the Eng-

Another member, eminent for his lish at the battle of Verneuil, the

knowledge and piety, of this house following August ; his body was

was Arnatid de Novell!, uncle fastened to a gibbet, and had to be

of Pope Benedict XII. He was ransomed before it could be brought

made cardinal by Pope Clement V., to Fonfroide.

and sent as one of the legates to Another noted abbey of the
England to make peace between country was that of St. Hilaire,
Edward II. and his barons. He built over the tomb of its patron
died in 1317, and lies buried under saint not St. Hilary of Aries, who
the high altar of the abbey church, walked all the way to Rome in the
Pope Benedict XII. himself was a dead of winter, but the first bishop
monk at Fonfroide, and succeeded of Carcassonne, who never walked
his uncle as abbot of the house, anywhere, dead or alive at least,
As pope, he is specially celebrated out of his own diocese. This abbey
for the part he took among the theo- was built in the good old days of Char-
logians of the day in discussing the lemagne, who seems to have never
question of the immediate state of missed an opportunity of building a
the righteous after death, and the de- church or endowing a monastery if
cretal which he finally issued in we are to believe all the traditions
1355 Benedictus Dominusin sanctis of France and of course endowed
suis in which he declares that the this one. However, Roger I., Count
souls of the justified, on leaving of Carcassonne, enriched it still
their bodies, are at once admitted more. He never went into battle
to behold the Divine Essence face without invoking St. Hilaire, and
to face without intermediary ; that to him he ascribed the success of
by this vision they are rendered his arms. In his gratitude, he had
truly happy, and in enjoyment of the body of the saint exhumed and
everlasting repose ; whereas those placed in a beautiful tomb of sculp-
who die in the state of mortal sin tured marble, and promised to fur-
descend immediately into hell. nish the twelve monks all there

The abbey of Fonfroide, after were at that time with suitable

seven hundred years' existence, was clothing during the remainder of

closed in 1790, but, more fortunate his life, which says very little in

than La Grasse, it is now inhabited favor of Charlemagne's endowment,

by Bernardins, who seem to have The abbey ultimately became very

650

The Valley of the A ude.

prosperous, and, among other pos-
sessions, owned the most of Li-
moux. It lost its importance, how-
ever, in tiie sixteenth century, and
was finally secularized. In one of
the rooms may still be seen the
names of its fifty abbots. The
beautiful cloister of the fourteenth
century is well preserved, and the
tomb of St. Hilaire, with its sculp-
tures of the tenth century, repre-
senting the legend of St. Saturnin,
still serves as the altar of the
church. The abbey stands in a
bend of the Lauquet, that has es-
caped from the Aude, with its little
village around it, among low hills
covered with excellent vineyards.
Here blow alternately the Cers
and the Marin, the only two winds
known in the valley of the Aude,
shut in as it is between the Mon-
tagne Noire on the north and the
Corbieres on the south. These
winds blow with alternate violence,
like two great guns, the greater part
of the year, and when one dies
away the other generally takes up
the blast. The very trees are plant-
ed with reference to them. People
who would live according to the
Delphic principle of " not too much
of anything," should not come to
the valley of the Aude. The Cers
increases in violence as it approaches
the sea, where it seems to put on
the very airs of the great planet
Jupiter itself, noted for the violence
of its winds; whereas the Marin
waits till it gets away from the
sound of " the jawing wave " before
it ventures to come out in its full
strength. However, as people of-
ten take pride in displaying their
very infirmities, as if desirous of
being noted for something, so the
inhabitants of this valley boast of
their winds. Thev did the same

in the days of Seneca the philoso-
pher, who says that though the Cir-

cius, or Cers, overthrew the very
buildings, the people of Gaul still
praised it, and thought they were
indebted to it for the salubrity of
their climate. Perhaps they acted
on the principle of Augustus Co^ar,
who erected an altar to propitiate
the Circius when he was in Gaul,
so much did he dread it.

The canal of Languedoc passes
through the valley of the Aude.
Of course the grand idea of unit-
ing the two seas could have origi-
nated with no less a person than
Charlemagne himself. Francis the
First also agitated the question.
The principle on which canals are
constructed was known in the Mid-
dle Ages. That universal genius,
Leonardo da Vinci, was the first to
make a practical application of it.
In spite of this, the canal of Lan-
guedoc required a century and a
half of profound study on the part
of men of talent before it was de-
cided on. The difficulty of its
construction can hardly be real-
ized in these days. It was not till
the time of Louis XI V. the work
was undertaken by M. de Riquet,
who brought down waters from the
Montague Noire to feed the basins
in the valley of the Aude. The
whole canal was built in seventeen
years, and cost about seventeen
millions of livres. He did not live
to see it opened. That satisfaction
was reserved for his sons. The
people awaited the day with im-
patience, and when it was open-
ed, May 15, 1681, there was one
great outburst of joy and admiration
all the way from the Garonne to the
Mediterranean. The intenclant of
the province, and all the capitouls of
Toulouse, assembled in the morn-
ing in the cathedral of that city.
The archbishop officiated. Nor was
M. Riquet forgotten amid the thanks-
giving. His sons were present. And

TJic Valley of the A ude.

at the close of Mass, the archbishop
turned and said : Brethren, let us
pray for the repose of the soul of
Pierre Paul de Riquet. Every
head bent a few moments in silent
prayer for the benefactor of the
country.

A richly carpeted bark, from
which floated the national colors,
had been prepared The Abbot of
St. Jernin solemnly blessed the wa-
ters of the canal, and the dignita-
ries set out amid the applause of
the multitude, followed by two other
barks filled with musicians. At
Castelnaudary, Cardinal de Bonzi,
with several other prelates and
lords, joined them in a magnificent
galley, amid the noise of cannon and
the peal of trumpets, followed by
twenty barks full of merchandise.
It was not till May 24 this flotilla
arrived at Beziers, where it was
nailed, as all along the way, with
salutes and cries of joy. These
demonstrations were warranted by
the immense benefit of the canal to
the country, and though now in a
great measure superseded by the
railway, it is still of the greatest
utility.

Before the Aude reaches Carcas-
sonne, it flows directly through the
pretty, industrious town of Limoux,
where the shores are connected by
an old Roman bridge. Four hills
enclose the charming valley, on the
sides of which grow the vines that
yield the blanquettcvi Limoux, which
is famous in the wine market. On
one of these hills stands a rural
chapel held in great veneration by
the people around that of Notre
Dame de Marceille, one of the
most frequented places of pilgri-
mage in southern France, which
has been sung by poets, studied by
archaeologists, and sketched by ar-
tists. Nothing could be lovelier
than its situation. From the pla-

teau around the chapel you look
down on the Flacian valley, watered
by the Aude. To the west are the
walls of Limoux in the midst of
its vineyards and manufactories.
Further off are bare cliffs and
wooded hills, while on the very
edge of the horizon rise, like an
army of giants, the summits of the
Pyrenees, almost always covered
with snow or shrouded in mist.
What a variety of temperature and
products this landscape embraces
the cold mountain summit and the
heat of the plain, verdant heights
and naked rocks, the frowning hills
and joyous valleys, gloomy forests
of pines and frolicsome vines, fresh
meadows and fields of golden grain !
Through all this flows the Aude,
past old legendary castles now in
ruins, along marvellous grottoes a
sibyl might envy, its current spanned
by bridges with their tutelar Ma-
donnas, but not disdaining to turn
the wheels of the petty industries
below us, though it has its source
amid impassable gulfs among yon-
der peaks lost in the clouds.

A paved rcunpe leads up the hill-
side to Notre Dame de Marceillc*
more than six hundred feet long,
which the pilgrims ascend on their
knees, praying as they go. Half-
way up, they stop to rest beside a
trickling fountain and drink of the
water that falls drop by drop. On
the arch above is the inscription in
letters of gold :

" Mi-lie ntali species Virgo kvavit aqua" *

The present church dates from
1488, but a sanctuary is known to
have existed here as early as ion.
From age to age it has been the
object of ever-increasing venera-
tion among the people. It belong-
ed at one time to the abbey of St.

* By this water the Virgin has cured a thousand
ills.

The Valley cf the Audc.

Hilaire, but in 1207 passed into the
hands of the Dominicans of Prouilhe.
You enter by a porch, which is sup-
ported by slender columns that
give it an air of elegance. On the
front is inscribed :

" Slay, traveller : adore God, invoke
Mary."

And on the sides :

" O Jesus, we have merited thy wrath.
Efface from our hearts every stain of sin,
that they may be rendered worthy to be-
come thy dwelling-place !"

"Spotless Maid, Virgin Mother, on
whom the Almighty lavishes the gifts of
his love, with him, with thee, bring us
by thy prayers to dwell for ever in the
celestial abode."

Another fountain near the porcn
bears also its inscription :

llic putens fons signatus. Parit undo.

salutem.
Aeger junge fidem. Sic bibe, sarnus ens.

During the cholera of 1855 more
than sixty thousand. pilgrims nock-
ed to this chapel in the space of
three weeks. All the priests of the
diocese come here annually to cele-
brate the mysteries of religion, es-

pecially in the month of September
when it is most frequented. Then
the holy hill is covered by the as-
cending pilgrims, the chapel is illu-
minated, the bells are rung, and
group after group from different
villages enter to pray and sing their
pious hymns, which have a certain
wild flavor that is delightful. Their
varied attitudes and costumes, the
rude melody of their voices, the
numerous bas-reliefs and paintings
on the walls, the altar of the Virgin
hung with ex-votos, and the robes
of the Madonna herself, overloaded
with ornaments of gold and silver
which sparkle in the countless ta-
pers, make up a picture one is never
weary of studying.

It was on descending from this
consecrated hill we stopped to look
back at the sanctuary whence
streamed still the soul-stirring
hymns. A group was gathered
about the archway of the fountain.
The base was aflush with the vines.
From Limoux came the sound of
earthly cares. Harvests covered
the plain. The heavens aglow
crowned all. It was here we took
leave of the Valley of the Aude.

Free Translation of a Chorus in the "Hecuba" of Euripides. 653

FREE TRANSLATION OF A CHORUS IN THE
"HECUBA' OF EURIPIDES.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.I

THOU of the ten years' war!
City of marble palaces no more
Hard by the mountains art thou throned a Queen,

Beside the sounding shore.
Where is thy crown of olives ever-green ?
How is thy regal head with anguish bowed !
Ah ! woe is me, enveloped in a cloud
Of leaguering foemen are thy smoking walls,

Blood-stained and desolate thy halls.

In the deep hush of night
Fate fell upon us ... in the hour of joy ;
In the first flush of our triumphant might,

Glory, and Victory.

The bowl was circling, and the festive floor
With wild flowers sprinkled o'er.
We wove the mazy dance in choral bands,
With eyes responsive and united hands
And thrilling melodies.

My husband on the bed,
Warrior out-worn, was lying; and his breast

Filled with the dewy rest:
For thou, O raven-plumed power,
Wert o'er him waving thy Lethean wings,

Flinging thy poppied odors o'er

His languid breast and eyes ;
All grateful rites complete, and pious sacrifice.

But I my ringlets dark

(A young and happy bride)
Was braiding, not unconscious of my charms,

Before the mirror wide :
Now for the first time freed from war's alarms

To lay me by his side
Whose breast was filled with dreams of peace : but hush !

A long and piercing cry

Comes ringing thro' the sky,
A sound of struggling men and clashing arms.

654

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to Jier Sister.

With robe unbound with hair

Streaming upon the air ;
Zoneless as Spartan maid, Pallas, to thee ;

O Virgin Deity !
I rush in tearless agony I bear

The maids' and matrons' prayer.

In vain ah ! what availed
Those wild embraces or that mute despair ?
Ah ! what availed ? These eyes, these eyes beheld
The husband slaughtered on the household hearth
In sight of all his gods ; but when the wave

With its unheeding rave,

Was bearing me from thee, my place of birth,
As from mine eye down sank high tower and gate,

Ruined and desolate . . .

At last my agony

Burst forth into one long and fainting cry
I fell upon my face I knew myself a slave

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER

(FROM THE FRENCH.)

APRIL 22,

YESTERDAY was the day which the
Lord hath made, the day of hap-
piness and of rejoicing in God,
Rose at half-past three, and was
at Ste. Croix before the time.
Kneeling by Rene, my heart over-
flowing with felicity, I enjoyed
during those too rapid moments
all the delights of the Christian
life. The procession and Bene-
diction were magnificent ; every-
thing that has relation to worship,
here possesses a unique and impres-
sive solemnity. Heard two Masses,
and then that of the Paschal Com-
munion of the men. I love this
spectacle these long files of com-
municants, so eloquent a protest
against the impieties of the age !
Was present at High Mass. Dear
Kate ! congratulate your Georgina :
taking all together, I spent nine

hours yesterday in church. But
my day was much less sanctified
in reality than in appearance ; I
am so easily distracted. The music
transported and the crowds be-
wildered me. Monseigneur offici-
ated pontifically at the High Mass,
after which we had the Papal Ben-
ediction. The sermon pleased me
much. " When Christ shall be
glorified, you also shall be glorified
with him." It was sweet and com-
forting to hear, and I was greatly
touched. " The measure of your
sufferings here below is the mea-
sure of the happiness which God
has in store for you. Our body
will be glorified by the absence
of all suffering ; our understanding,
by the Beatific Vision ; our heart,
by the possession of every possible
happiness and felicity; our will, by
the accomplishment of its desires.

Letters of a Voting Irishwoman to her Sister. 65 5

God will to all eternity do the their wings against the bars until

will of his saints." Then the Ben- they are free in the fields.* Little

ediction, the procession chanting whisperings are made to Aunt

the Lainlaic J'ueri and the /// exilu Georgina to receive into her coupe"

Israel, the hymn of deliverance these darling nightingales. Excur-

-vvhal splendor! O festival of sions are to be the order of the

Easter ! so solemn and so beautiful, week.

how dear thou art to me. Our poor have largely shared in
And so Lent is over, and, to in- our Paschal rejoicings. I took Pic-
demnify me for my long fast, here ciola with me to see Benoni. What
is a letter from my Kate. I read a festival it was to her kind heart !
it on my knees, like a prayer, and She had laden herself with play-
afterwards aloud to the assembled things, cakes, and bonbons, and, in a
family (except, of course, the pri- spirit of heroic sacrifice, with a pret-
vate details). It is settled that ty cage which she sat great store by,
we are all to be present when you in which sang two canaries. The
take the veil. Kate dearest! my joy of the poor family was surpass-
elder sister, my second mother, ed by the sweet child's delight. I
who have imparted to me so much watched her with admiration as she
of your own soul, the blessed went to and fro in the lowly abode,
thought of you follows me at every warbling with the brother of tJie little
step. yestfSy as she calls the darling.

Mme. de T has made splen- What a sunbeam in this dwelling! I

did presents to all her children, wish Madeleine were my daughter.
I like this fraternal custom. We Kate dearest, pray that my wishes
had been secretly "-preparing the may be realized. I am writing to
prettiest surprises imaginable, and you in my room, near the open
in the morning saluted each other window. A delicious perfume of
as they do in Poland: "Christ lilac fills the air; I love nothing in
is risen!" Rene has presented the world so much as children and
me with two beautiful volumes, a flowers. Lately I have frequently
novelty, a marvel the Rcdl (fime made Alix play. My sister-in-law Jo-
Sceur, by Mrs. Craven, nee de la hanna has had a severe cold, and I
Ferronays. Call to your remem- have laid claim to her pretty fam-
brance one of our loveliest days ily during their recreations. Mar-
in Italy, at the Palazzo Borghese, guerite, the eldest of the little
where this family long remained; girls, is not more than eight years
we have often spoken of it since, old, and is always called Lady Sen-
This is such attractive reading sible, which makes her cheeks glow
that it costs me a great effort to with pleasure. Alix is four ; she is
tear myself from the book. The fresh as a rose of May. I love to
weather is glorious ; we take long press my lips against her pure fore-
walks through gardens full of lilacs head, and imbue myself with the
in blossom. O spring ! the renew- soft innocence which exhales from
al, the awakening of nature, how this young soul. With her deep-
sweet and fair it is, and with what blue eyes, her thick, fair hair, and
joy I have hailed its coming ! her angel-look, Alix is really charm-
The children are not to be kept ing, and it seems to me that if she
within the house "anv longer; they ,..

' . ;,* Jusqu- a ce qu ils aient la ch des champs

are caged birds prettily fluttering the key of the fields.

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

were mine I should have floods of
tenderness to shed upon her.

Monseigneur is about to leave for
Rome. I shall be presented to him
before his departure. Au revoir,
dear Kate ! May God protect us !
When shall I see Ireland again ?
When shall I return to the land from
whence my ancestors, those sons of
a royal race, were banished ? The
faith is worth more than a throne.

APRIL 29.

Rene has undertaken to give you
an account of my presentation,
dearest Kate, so I need not say
anything about it. Nothing is
spoken of here but the dead and

dying. Mine, de St. M has

lost her two little girls in two days;
it makes one tremble. I have sent
Fanny your letter of Wednesday ; it
seemed as if I should profane your
holy pages by transcribing them.
Our friends wrote to me yesterday ;
you ought to have read their letters

before I did. Lady W tells me

that she shall treasure like a relic
the consolations of Kate. Dearest,
you say well that this world could
not be fit for our sweet Mary ; but
your aspirations after eternity alarm
your earthly Georgina. Live to love
me, to be my guardian angel !

You will not read Le Recit d'une
Sceur, dear, busy one ? This book
contains beauties of the highest
order ; it is like the expression of
the splendor of the beautiful. How
those hearts loved, and how much
they suffered ! But love like theirs
must give strength to bear such
sufferings. How can I describe to
you these incomparable volumes ?
Your faithful memory has well re-
called to you all the personages;
imagine, then, the mutual outpour-
ings of those great souls, the mar-
riage of Albert and Alexandrine, so
closely followed by so much heart-

rending anguish ; that family, so
numerous and so united, and which
appeared to have so many titles to
happiness, seeing death descend
upon their happy home, gradually
destroying and pitilessly mowing-
down those fair lives. Albert first
of all the gentle, -tender, pious,
poetic Albert dying on the 2pth
of June, 1836, after two years of
married life and four years of the
most pure and sanctified love ; then
the Count de la Ferronays, that no-
ble figure, that grand character, a
soul of antiquity moulded in a
Christian heart, who died at Rome
on the i yth of January, 1842, and
obtained immediately a miraculous
conversion an endless consolation
for those who wept for him ; Eu-
genie, so saintly, so detached from
the world, the most loving and de-
voted of sisters, died next, far from
all her own people, at Palermo,
whose mild climate had failed to
restore strength to that fading
flower ; a year after, at Brussels, on
the loth of February, the pure and
beautiful Olga ; in 1848, on the pth
of February, Alexandrine, the most
attractive heroine of this narrative,
the inconsolable widow, mounting
to such heights in the love of God
that she would have refused to live
over again the happiness of her
union with Albert an exception-
ally saintly soul, full of heroic de-
votion, since she offered her life to
God who accepted the offering
for that of the Pere de Ravignan ;
and, lastly, Mme. de la Ferronays,
the mother, the wife who had been,
as it were, on the cross for so many
years, and always serene, always
generous, dying in the arms of her
Pauline on the i4th of November,
1848, the same year as her daughter-
in-law. By the side of these souls
who have passed away figure sev-
eral personages of the time : M. de

Letters of a Young Irisliwouian to her Sister.

657

Montalemberi, the intimate friend
of Albert, and the ever-faithful
friend Qt Alexandrine, whom he
called his "sister"; M. Gerbet, the
author of 1^ Esqi-tisse de Rome Clirc-
Jicnne ;* Fere Lacordaire, Mme.
Swetchine, Tere de Ravignan, Gon-
falonier i, the learned M. Rio all
this related by a sister, Mrs. Cra-
ven, of whom Mine. spoke to

us so much. Remark these two
thoughts from St. Augustine : one,
the motto, is, u We never lose those
whom we love in him whom we can
never lose" ; the other, written by
Albert in his journal and several
times underlined : "All which ends
is not long." There is also this
other, of Alexandrine's : " I do not
believe that affections are injuri-
ous to affections. Our soul is
made in the image of God, and
in her power of loving she possesses
something of the infinite." What a
family ! an assembly of chosen
souls, all of them winning and sym-
pathetic, all knowing how to love as
those souls only know who love God
above all things. I should like to
know Mrs. Graven. I pity and ad-
mire her : I pity her for having
seen all those die whom she so lov-
ed, for having witnessed the depar-
ture of souls so intimately united
that thev were as if melted into one

alone; I admire her for having had
the power of retracing so many
memories at the same time sweet
and distressing, and which at every
page must have renewed her grief. Is
not Albert's offering of his life for the
conversion of Alexandrine the most
admirable type of Christian love?

We are going to eternize ourselves
at prleans, dear Kate. My mother-
in-law finds the Rue Jeanne d'Arc
very agreeable ; the children attend

ne of the cours.\ We are not

* Sketch of O'mstian Rome.

t Courses of inr.trsction on various subjects.

VOL. XXIII. NO. 42

too far from the capital ; all say in
chorus, It is good to be here ! When
1 say all, I except the gentlemen,
who, in their hearts, prefer the
country, but do not say a word to
that effect.

A letter from Margaret, charmed
to be at Rome, " that fatherland of
sorrow." Amid the ruins of the
queen of cities she walks with her
immense disappointment. Oh ! what
trial. No woman better deserves
to be loved. Do you remember
Mere Athanase saying of Margaret :
" Beautiful as Eve in Paradise, at-
tractive as Rachel, a musician like
Miriam the sister of Moses, she is
also learned as Anna Comnena, and
a poetess like Marie de France " ?
I answered : " May I be the good
Samaritan to this wounded soul !"

Duchesse is much afflicted ; a new
frock quite untakable, as she says,
is the cause. On Marguerite's
gravely asking, " Is not The"rese
going out again ? what misfor-
tune has happened to her ?" Ar-
thur replied : " Lady Sensible, look
well at Therese ; there is a wrinkle
on her forehead. She has lost . . .
her toilette." And the giddy boy-
twirled Marguerite round and round,
who cannot understand, serious lit-
tle thing that she is, how any one
should be in trouble for so small a
matter. This reminds ive of the
following verses, copied by Helene
in her journal :

" Un frais cottage anglais, voila sa Thdbalde
Et si son front de nacre est marque" d'une ride,
Ce n'est pas. croyez moi, qu'elle songe a la inert ;
Pour craindre quelque chose, elle est trop esprit

fort.

Mais c'est qtte de Paris une robe attendue,
Arrive chiffonnec et de laches perdue." *

A thousand kisses to my Kate.

* " An English cottage is her hermitage ;
And if a wrinkle marks her pearly brow,
'Tis not, believe me. that she thinks on death -
She's too strong-minded to have fear of aught
But that, from Paris, an expected dress
Crumpled arrives, and spoiled with grievous
stains."

658

Letters of a Young Irishivoman to her Sister.

MAY 3.

O month of graces and of hea-
venly favors, how I welcome your re-
turn ! To-day, my beloved Kate,
Rene and I have piously celebrated
the anniversary of your birth. May
(rod bless you, my very dear one,
and may he bless all that you do !
Oh ! how many times have I thanked
God that he has granted me to re-
ceive the love that Joseph had for
Benjamin. Kate, I am too happy.
Ask our Lord that I 'may not lose
the fragrance of these days of
peace and gladness ; that I may
not be an unprofitable servant ; that
I may do good, much good ; that I
may lal^or for the salvation of souls.

souls, souls ! You know how,
when a child, I cried when I found
that I could not be a missionary.

1 wanted to be one of the laborers
amonsr the whitening harvests. I have

O O

kept my desire, and Rene shares
my aspirations. Adrien, who heard
us yesterday talking together, called
out : " Quick, quick ! a professor of
Hindostani and Chinese for these
two apostles." My mother-in-law
was very much amused by this sally,
and the conversation became gen-
eral. A good work has come out
of it : there were in the house only
four associates of the Propagation
of the Faith, and now there are
thirty, and I am chief of the di-
zaineS) or sets of ten, by unanimous
vote. It is not to Asiatic idolaters
that I am desirous of preaching the
Gospel, but, wherever my duty shall
place me, to those who are ignorant
of it ; and by way of a beginning I
have this winter been teaching the
catechism to three little children,
'beggars by profession. I shall con-
tinue the same thing in Brittany.
Dearest, can I do too much for Him
who overwhelms me with such mag-
nificent profusion ?

The opening of the month of

Mary has been very beautiful; the
altar splendidly lighted ; lovely
hymns. Noted an enchanting voice
of a young girl, which caused me
some distractions. . . . Kate, where
is our dear oratory in Ireland, and
my place close to yours ? My
country, my country ! Some one
has said, Our country is the place
where we love. The true country
and fatherland of the Christian is
heaven. Rene speaks like an an-
gel of the love of heaven, and this,
too, makes me afraid. Oh ! how well
I understand the saying of Eugen-ie
de Guerin, * The heart so longs to
immortalize what it loves ' that is
to say, the heart would fain have no
separation, but life or death with
the object of its love. Dear Kate,
to whom I owe my happiness, may
this day be always blest !

I leave you now, as my mother-
in-law sends Picciola to request my
company. " If," says the gentle
little ambassadress, " it is to Ma-
dame Kate that you are writing,
tell her especially that I love her
with all my heart ; and let me put
a kiss upon the page."

By the side of this sweet, pure
kiss I place my tender messages,
or rather ours, loving you as we
both do.

MAY 6.

The spiritual enjoyments of this
fairest of months are infinitely sweet
to me, my sister. I had minutely
described your oratory to Lucy and
Helene, and these two affectionate
girls have prepared me a heartfelt
enjoyment. In a small, unoccupied
drawing-room I found all my sou-
venirs of Ireland, ... all ... ex-
cepting only your dear presence, my
devoted Kate. Tell me how it is
that so many hearts agree together
in strewing with flowers the path of
your Georgina-

The Odeurs //<: Paris, by Louis

Letters of a Young Irisliivonuin to Jicr Sister.

659

Veuillot, is much spoken of. This
book is a sequel to the Par fit in de
Rome a sort of set-off or contrast
between the unseemliness of Baby-
lon and the beauties of Sion. I
wanted to read it, but Adrien dis-
suaded me, and Rene read me the
preface, which contains some re-
markable thoughts. The modem
Juvenal says of Paris: " A city with-
out a past, full of minds without
memories, of hearts without tears,
of souls without love " ; and else-
where : " To paint Paris, Rousseau
discovered the suitable expression
of ' a desert of men.' ' There is also
a touching complaint respecting the
continual confusion and, as it were,
overturning of this city, which Ga-
bourd calls the city of the Sover-
eign People : " Who will dwell in the
paternal house ? Who will find
again the roof which sheltered his
earliest years ?. . ." Read the Sou-
venirs of Mme. Recamier, and Ma-
ric-Theri'se, by Nettement. The
hitter is written with a royalist and
Christian enthusiasm which delight-
ed me. My mother-in-law is pas-
sionately fond of poetry, and has se-
lected me as reader. I am grad-
ually becoming her pet bird ; she is
so kind and good in her continual
solicitude for her youngest daughter !
Master Arthur, r enfant terrible, con-
fided to Picciola that I was grand-
mamma's spoiled cJiil'd. The fact is
that, having my time more free than
my sisters-in-law, who are absorbed
by their maternal cares, I can occupy
myself more in anything which may

please Mme. de T , whose innate

refinement knows how to appreciate
the smallest attentions. Then, yes-
terday my mother-in-law sent me a
nice little packet, carefully sealed;
guess what I found in it ? A Shak-
sjiere and a Lamartine, bound with
my monogram, and a choice little
volume by Marie Jenna, a name

which pleases me. This is full of
heavenly poetry. There are pieces
which are worth their* weight in
gold, if gold could pay for this de-
licious efflorescence of the poet's
soul. How I love Lamartine when
he says :

" Moi-meme, plein des bicns dont Topnlcnce abonde,

Que j'echangerais volonticrs
Cet or dont la fortune avec dedain m'inondc
Pour une heure du temps ou je n' avals au monue

Que ma vigne et que mon figijier !
Pour ces songes divinsqui chantaientcn mon ame

Et que nul or ne pent payer ! " *

Ah ! yes ; no happiness is worth
the happiness of loving and prais-
ing God.

Helene waited for the month of
Mary to reveal her beautiful voca-
tion to her mother this choice of
heaven which will necessarily be at
the same time the glory and the
martyrdom of our hearts. None
of the austerities of her future life
will take by surprise the newly-
chosen one ; she has prepared her-
self for everything. It is on the
loth, four days hence, that she wift
speak. . . . Help us with youi
prayers, my dearest Kate ! . . .

I am hastening off with Rene tc
Sainte Croix. A thousand lovim
messages.

MAY 9.

The evening of the day before
yesterday was a beautiful triumph ,
the festival of Joan of Arc hac
begun. All day long the belfry
resounded ; a touching and patri-
otic as well as Christian idea seem-
ed, as it were, to call back the past
to life ; and in the evening a large
crowd followed in the torch-light
procession, which was beautiful to
see from the memories which are
attached to it. With more than

* As for myself, abounding in the good things
with which opulence overflows, how willingly won i
I exchange this gold which fortune disdainfully
lavishes upon me for one hour of the time when I
had nothing in the world but my vine and my iii;-
tree for those divine dreams which s.ang within my
soul, and for which no gold can pay."

66o

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

four centuries between, these sou-
venirs are still living with an im-
perishable* life. O pure and fair
Joan of Arc! my chosen heroine,
how I love the fidelity of Orleans
to thy dear memory ! Scarcely
had the cortege reached the ca-
thedral when . . . but let me
transcribe for you the description
of these splendors by a more skilful
hand than mine by the pencil of
an artist, and an artist of genius.
This is what was spoken by Mgr.
Mermillod, on the 8th of May,
1863 : " Yesterday evening, gentle-
men, under the vaulted roof of
your basilica, I followed your
priests and your pontiff, who were
proceeding towards the portico.
The interior of your church was
in silence and obscurity ; one little
light alone was gleaming before the
tabernacle, announcing the Master's
presence. When I reached the
threshold, tears filled my eyes,
while my heart beat with an in-
describable emotion. I had be-
fore me, in an incomparable scene,
a vision of your history, of your he-
roic splendors, of your providen-
tial destinies. You, gentlemen,
were there, ranged in this place ;
your children, your wives, your
aged men, the great ones and the
lowly ones of your city, were pre-
sent at this solemn assembly. Sud-
denly the clarions sound, bands of
inspiriting music fill the air, drums
beat, the artillery thunders, the bells
fling into space their triumphant
clangor, and the choir of Levites
raises on high the hymn of victory.
The standard of Joan of Arc is ad-
vancing, borne by the magistrates
of the city, hailed by all the united
voices of the army and the church.
Is not this the most eloquent ad-
dress, the most moving panegyric,
the living incarnation of an un-
dying, remembrance ? . . . Your

cathedral becomes radiant ; these
grand, sculptured masses light up
with sparkling brightness, pennons,
armorial bearings, and banners
glitter like stars. Your bishop de-
scends the steps, the first magis-
trate advances, and each gives the
other the kiss of peace : I there
beheld an apparition of religion
and our country.

" The pontiff invokes the name
of the Lord, the multitude an-
swers ; soldiers, priests, and people
bend the knee ; the benediction
falls upon these souls. . . . My
gaze mounted from earth towards
heaven, and it seemed as if I could
perceive above the towers of your
basilica forms more luminous than
earthly fires, the ancient witnesses
and workers of the greatness of
your France Ste. Genevieve, Ste.
Clotilda, St. Remy, St. Michael, Ste.
Catherine, Ste. Margaret, Joan of
Arc ; your own saints, St. Aignan
and St. Euvertus, blessing you by
the hand of their worthy successor.
Clergy and people intoned the
psalm of thanksgiving : ' Praise the
Lord, ye peoples : praise him, O
ve nations ! for God hath remem-

bered his goodness ; he hath con-
firmed his loving-kindness towards
us. The truth of the Lord endur-
eth for ever. Praise the Lord.'

" I seemed to hear the stones of
your cathedral, the ramparts of
your city, your own souls, the saints
of heaven, the past, the present, all
your centuries, unite in one immense
acclamation, and repeat the song of
gladness : 'Glory to the Father, who
is strength ; glory to the Son, who is
sacrifice ; glory to the Holy Spirit,
who is light ; glory to God, who
made worlds for himself, the church
for eternity ; France for the church,
and Joan of Arc for France !'

Dear Kate, what can I say to you
after this ? Who would venture to

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

66 1

speak after Mgr. Mermillod, " write
after Chateaubriand, or paint after
Raphael " ? Yesterday the town
was rejoicing ; it was the anniver-
sary of the deliverance. Was pre-
sent at the panegyric by M. 1'Abbe
Freppel, professor of sacred elo-
quence at the Sorbonne. He asks
for the canonization of Joan of Arc.
His text was a sentence out of the
Book of the Machabees. Divisions :
i. The life of Joan of Arc was
marked by all the virtues which
characterize sanctity. 2. She utter-
ed prophecies and performed mira-
cles. It was very fine and elevated.
There was an imposing assemblage.
At half-past twelve we went out
and hurried to the hotel to see the
procession pass by. What a cortege !
All the parishes, each headed by its
banner ; the court, the authorities,
the troops, the corporations, and I
know not what. It was indeed a
day of excitement. Dearest Kate,
in the midst of this encombrement* I
thought of you. Our drawing-rooms
were overflowing with people ; from
time to time I went noiselessly
away to Helene, whom a headache
excused from appearing, and we
spoke of God and the sweetness of
his service. I am so fond of these
conversations. In the evening,
Month of Mary : I would not dis-
pense myself from this for anything
in the world.

I am going to read Sainte Cc'cile,
by Dora Gueranger. Letter from
Lizzy, who announces a most joyful

piece of news: all the M s are

abjuring Protestantism. "Make
haste and sing the hymn of St.
Ambrose and St. Augustine ; El-
len consents to say the Lcetatus ; it
is Mary who has obtained this mir-
acle." When I told you, dear Kate,
that one ought to sing alleluia over

" The obstructions or impediments attendant up-
on crowding together.

her tomb, it was truly a prophetic
saying. What consolation for F.in-
ny and her mother !

I am sending to the post ; I wish
not to delay your happiness.

MAY IT.

To write to my Kate is the con-
dition sine qua non of my existence.
A beautiful sermon yesterday by M.
Baunard, a young and eloquent cu-
rate of Sainte Croix, on visits and
conversations, " in which the Chris-
tian ought always to have three
charming companions Charity,
Humility, and Piety." Went to the
museum with Rene and Adrien, the
most learned and agreeable of cice-
roni. I was captivated by the hall
of zoology, and that of botany also.

To-rnorrow Helene will have
with her mother the conversation
which I dread. Rene proposed to
his niece to select this day, which
will recall to Gertrude (Mme. Ad-
rien) a remarkable favor due to
the protection of Our Lady of De-
liverance. Pray for all these hearts
which are about to suffer, dear
Kate. W r e set out for Paris on
the ist of June ; my mother has
taken an entire house there. We
are going to breathe the burning
atmosphere of the capital, as Paul
says, wiping his forehead ; and your
Georgina adds : We are going to
see Kate. All the beauties of the
much-vaunted Exposition would
affect me little if you were not in
Paris, dear sister of my soul. What
gladness to embrace you, to speak
to you ! This paper irritates me ;
it answers me nothing. It is you^you
that I need ; I thirst for your pres-
ence. And then a new separation,
a new rending away you will take
the veil, and be no more of this
world. Kate, I want not to think
of it.

Could you to-morrow have sev-

662

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

i-ral Masses said at Notre Dame des
I 'ictoires ? Helene begs that you
will ; there she is, near my bureau,
leaning her pretty, pensive N head
against an arm-chair. Ah ! we im-

derstand each other so well ; I love
tier so much, and am scarcely older
than she is. I was mistaken as to
her age ; she is not yet eighteen, and
was like a sister given me by God
to console me for having my Kate
no longer ; and she also is now to
go away.

May all the angels of Paradise
be with you, and may they be to-
morrow with Helene !

MAY 13.

Thanks, dear Kate ! The hea-
venly spirits were almost visible in
our home during the eventful day.
A.drien and Gertrude received, with
a profound faith, the confidences of
Helene, and I know not whether to
admire most the heroism of the
parents or that of the young virgin.
Her father's grief is inexpressible ;
he had formed the brightest pro-
jects for the future of his daugh-
ter. She was his especial darling;
. . . but he is a Christian of the
ancient days, and says with Job :
" The Lord gave and the Lord tak-
eth away ..." Gertrude is like
Mary at the foot of the cross, mute
and immovable, with death in the
heart, and yet happy at the divine
choice. Adrien undertakes to pre-
pare his mother ; ... it is for her
that I fear most.

" This is my Calvary," said He-
lene to me this morning. " To see
them suffer through me ! And I
cannot hesitate ! . . ." I have read
Sainte Ce'cile, and I made Gertrude
read it, who thanked me with a
smile that went to my heart. Rene
is afflicted. " This," he says, " is the
first bird that leaves the nest, to re-
enter it no more. There will be
from this time a great void in our

reunions, a source of distress to my
brother a subject we shall fear to
touch upon. Georgina, you were
saying that we had not a single
shadow in our sky!" Alas! I feel
only too keenly how painful it is,
but also how happy Helene will be !
Thanks for having made me under-
stand this, dear Kate. Gertrude,
the wounded eagle, takes refuge
with me to speak about her daugh-
ter.

Good-by for a short time, caris-
sima sordla.

MAY 15.

A splendid benediction yester-
day, on account of the Perpetual
Adoration. The sanctuary was en-
kindled with light. Behind the al-
tar, a cathedral of lighted tapers
yes, dear, the towers of Sainte Croix
in miniature; all around it pyra-
mids of lights, clusters of flowers
with long, luminous stems, lustres
hanging at an infinite height, the
arches and smaller arcades, etc., il-
luminated. An O Salutaris and a
Regi7ia Cceli were sung that seemed
to carry one away. I stood on the
earth, but my heart was in heaven ;
and near to me Rene, absorbed in
God, brothers and sisters, Helene,
Therese, Madeleine, and grandmo-
ther, who was in tears. . . . How
touched I was ! Adrien had spok 7
en. ... It was a thunder-clap !
And the choir chanted the glories
of the King of Virgins, and all those
beloved countenances beamed with
fervor, as we bent our heads be-
neath the benediction of the Al-
mighty ! . . .

This morning Mine, de T-
asked for Helene. Their conver-
sation lasted two hours. After
dejeuner * my mother said, smiling :
" It is decided we have a Carme-

* Dejeuner, late breakfast, is taken about eleven
or twelve o'clock. The early breakfast is simply a
cup of coffee or chocolate

Letters of a Young IrisJiwoman to her Sister.

663

lite !" The children opened their
eyes in wonder. Lucie began to
sob ; Tic.ciola, pule and trembling,
kissed the happy Helene a hun-
dred and a hundred times over.
The sacrifice is, as it were, accom-
plished.

Johanna, the dear Creole, is as-
tonished at the promptitude of this
decision. The babies will no more
be persuaded to leave the side of
the tall cousin " who did not know
that she was so much loved," she
says. This morning she received
a long, beautiful letter from an in-
timate friend inviting her to a mar-
riage. It is impossible to refuse;
this will be the last worldly festiv-

ity at which that sweet face, made
to delight the angels, will be seen.
The word marriage made Mme.de

T start, and she afterwards said

to me : ' I had planned a brilliant
earthly alliance for Helene ; how
'much there is of human and mate-
rial within us that I should still
regret it when a divine alliance
is secured to her ! Here, Georgina,
read me again the chapter on
abandonment to God." I read,
and, seeing her meditative after-
wards, I opened a book of Ozanam
which Lucy lent me. I will give
you the Christian theory of mar-
riage from this great mind, who too
soon disappeared from a world that
wondered at his works : " In mar-
riage there is more than a con-
tract; above all, there is a sacri-
fice, or rather two sacrifices : the
woman sacrifices that which God
has given her of irreparable, that
which causes the solicitude of her
mother her first beauty, often her
health, and that power of loving
which women only once possess ;
the man on his part sacrifices the
liberty of his youth, the incompar-
able years which will return no
more, the power of devoting him-

self for her whom he loves which-
is only to be found at the begin-
ning of his life, and the effort -of
a first love to make himself a lot
both sweet and glorious. That is
what a man can do but once, be-
tween the age of twenty and thirty
years, a little sooner or a little later,
perhaps never ! Therefore is it
that I speak of Christian marriage
as a double sacrifice. There are
two cups : in one is found beauty,
modesty, and innocence ; in the
other, love intact, devotedness, the
immortal consecration of the man
to her who is weaker than himself,
whom yesterday he knew not, and
with whom to-day he finds him-
self happy to spend his days ; and
it is needful that these cups should
be equally full if the union is to be
happy and deserving of the bless-
ing of Heaven." Is not this an ad-
mirable page? While reading it
I thought of Albert and Alexan-
drine, those two immortal types of
Christian marriage. What a life
was theirs, what happiness, so short
but perfect, and which made the
poor widow say, " I have memories
of happiness which seem to me
as if they could not be surpassed " !
Good-night, dearest Kate !

MAY 20.

The house is transformed into
a convent, dear Kate ; so, at least,
Arthur declares, finding in this fact
an excellent reason for Helene's
being detained in it. Since her
departure has been seriously
thought of, every one is wanting to
have the enjoyment of her com-
pany, and she is literally torn away
first by one and then by another ;
and if you could see her lending
herself with her bright smile to all
the exactions of this affection, ty-
rannical as it has become !

We took a long excursion yester-

66 4

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

day into the open country, among
the wheat ; the rustling of the ears
of corn, the charm ot~ the sunny
solitude, the verdure with its soft
lights and shadows, all the renewal
of the spring, the beauty of the
landscape, which showed in the
far distance the fine towers of the
cathedral all this smiled upon us ;
and yet sadly, like an adieu, we
shall return, we shall look again
next year upon this same picture,
but without Helene. . . . Why is
she so engaging, so sympathetic ?

Letter from Margaret, who will
be at Paris in June. What joy,
dear Kate ! It seems to me that
our friend is more tranquil ; she
describes like a poet her enthusiasm
for Italy -and for the Pope. At
Florence she met with our poor
mistress Ann ah, who had some
trouble to recognize in this brilliant
lady the pale little girl of former
times. Annah is giving English
lessons. Lord William, seeing Mar-

/ o

garet's affectionate demonstrations,
proposed to her to secure the in-
dependence of the aged mistress,
which he has done, to the great sat-
isfaction of the two persons inter-
ested. I like that, and am convinc-
ed that Margaret deceives herself.

Another happiness, darling Kate :
here is your letter, in the joyful
hands of Picciola, who recognizes
your handwriting. Five days with-
out saying a word to you ! Rene
sends you quite a volume. Love al-
ways your Georgina.

MAY 26.

Was present at the ordination.
What an imposing ceremony ! I
had never seen one, and I followed
all the details with the greatest in-
terest. Sixty young men giving
themselves to God, devoting them-
selves to a life of sacrifice ! I
prayed for and envied them : how
much good will they not be able to

do ! What life is so full as that of
a holy priest? That which most
moved me was the moment when
priests, deacons, and subdeacons
fell prostrate ; then the imposition
of hands, the Mass said by all these
voices, which must have trembled
with emotion and with happiness,
the kiss of peace, the communion,
and, lastly, the Te Deum, that hea-
venly song. Oh! that all these souls
to-day . consecrated to the Lord
may one day sing the Sanctus and
Hosanna before the throne of the
Lamb.

On arriving yesterday at Sainte
Croix (the weather was splendid)
I saw myriads of swallows joyously
flying about and warbling among
the towers. Rene began to hum,
' Oh ! that I had wings, to fly away
to God." You dear swallows who
have made your nests on the roof
of the temple of the Lord, in the
bell-turrets, and among the towers ;
ye swallows, my sisters, as said the
Seraph of Assisi, you who fly so
high, have you seen heaven ? You
who in sweet warblings sing the
praises of the Eternal, have you
touched with your wing the portals
of the celestial Eden ? Sing, and
cease not, O gentle swallows ! who
know not what it is to offend God.

Gertrude has confided to me that
for some time past she had divined
Helene, and, as she treats me en-
tirely as a sister, she has given me
the journal to "ead v.iich she wrote
whilst her daughter was at the con-
vent. Observe this passage : "My
beloved girl is seventeen years old
to-day; her father and I have duly
observed this anniversary as a festi-
val. Poor dear child! What will
be thy will for her, my God? One
of these pure creatures, seraphs left
upon earth to sanctify it, whose
life is spent beneath thy watchful
eye, in the shade of the sanctuary ?

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister. 66$

. . . O my God ! Once I thought whom the world never touched

not that it would be possible for me who had no sooner finished her

to live far from her, no more to rest education than she gave herself to

my gaze on her fresh countenance, God, sacrificing even her last vaca-

so bright and open. Thou hadst, tions. A nature so poetic, so rich

C) Lord ! united us so closely that and pure, that God reserved it lor

it seemed as if my soul had passed himself, and at the same time so

into hers. Sweet angel, return to charming and devoted that she spent

spread your white wings over the herself wholly in affection upon

maternal nest ! Oh! I fear lest you those around her. 'Thus have I

should be the first of all to leave it; known and loved her, like an appa-

but if you leave us for God, may rition from another world,

you be blessed, my well-beloved !" Good-by for the present, deaf

O ye mothers ! who may sound Kate. Rene, my so dear and gen-

the depthsof your sorrows ? Happy tie Rene, is more happy because of

as mothers ore in their enchanted my happiness than I am myself-

life of love and innocence, yet tkey happiness moistened with tears,

are also martyrs, and who knows the tears of sacrifice. " What mat-

whether the gall in their chalice ters it where one weeps, or where-

does not absorb the honey? fore, since tears buy heaven?"

Beloved, in a few days 1 shall Helene has given me a share of

embrace you. her heritage a paralytic old wo-

MAY 29. man whose succoring angel she has

God be praised, who is about to been. Every morning she went to
bring us together again, dear sister the lowly room of the poor invalid,
of my soul ! It is settled that we whom she dressed, and then with
are -to return on the ist of July, her patrician hands she made the
once more to salute Orleans, bed, swept the room, and prepared
Helene will at this date enter the the repast. After this she read to
novitiate at - -. The town is be- her out of some pious book, con-
ginning to lose its inhabitants, versed with her a few minutes, and
Helene and I traverse it in all di- on leaving called a little girl of ten
rections to have another look at its years old, who was charged to keep
curiosities : the fine old houses the poor woman company. I shall
richly and deeply sculptured, his- continue Helene's work. . . . In
toric dwellings, which remain stand- summer it is a neighbor who, for a
ing after their inmates have disap- slight remuneration, does all that is
peared. We are shown the house necessary ; but Mari-ette, the femme
of Joan of Arc, of Francis I., of de chambre, who is often employed
Agnes Sorel, of Diana of Poitiers to carry little comforts to the in-
n ames with very dissimilar associa- valid, said to me with tears : " No-
tions. One more visit to Benoni, a thing replaces mademoiselle, and
pilgrimage to Our Lady of Miracles, the old woman says, 'Summer is
a halt at my bookseller's, and my winter to me, for it takes away my
preparations will be ended. sunshine !' What praise, Kate,

Wrote to Sister Louise. I like is it not? Can you not under-

to return to her twice in the year, stand how Gertrude may well

to pay her this tribute of the heart be proud of the treasure which is

with my tenderest affection. What about to be taken from her? Can-

a fine nature an ideal! A soul not you understand also how much 1

666

Letters of a Young' Irishwoman to her Sister.

sympathize with her? for my heart
is bleeding from the same wound.
He happy, beloved Kate; we shall
meet again where there are no
separations to be feared, in our true
fatherland.

MAY 31.

Our departure is postponed; my
mother being unwell, enough so to
keep her bed, and the doctor does
not yet know what to say about
her. Pray for us, my sister. Rene
fears inflammation of the lungs.
Mme. de T , who is very aus-
tere with herself, never complains
until the last extremity.

O my sweet Mother in heaven !
your beloved month is drawing to
its close, and these lines are the
last which I shall trace before the
latest hours of May have fallen into
eternity. Oh ! I entreat you, you
who are all-powerful with the Heart
of your Divine Son, Our Lady of
the Sacred Heart, hear our prayers !

A thousand kisses, dear Kate.

foirtcq'jiq b<ti; T; noocjJftJ JUNE 3.

A mucous fever has declared it-
self; the danger is imminent; we
are scarcely alive. Never was mo-
ther more adored. She has been
delirious; her wanderings were those
of a saint. God, the angels, her
dear ones, both living and dead,
pass in turn before her mind ; when
she recovers her sense of the reality,
she finds the most consoling and
heavenly words wherewith to com-
fort us. Her room, now haunted
by the shadow of death, is become
our universe, and we fraternally
share amongst us the sorrowful sweet-
ness of attending upon this beloved
sick one. All our poor are in pray-
er ; two tapers are continually burn-
ing before the black Virgin. Thanks,
beloved ! I have read your letter
to my mother, who said to me :

Dear Georgina, I am happy to

possess the affection of your good
sister. I feel myself in reality your
mother. ..." To tell you Rene's
distress would be impossible ; as for
me, I have in the depth of my heart
an unconquerable confidence God
will spare her to us !

JUNE 4.

She is as ill as she can be. Rene
proposed to make a vow. Kneeling
all together around this dying bed,
with one voice and one heart we
have promised to go to Notre Dame
de la Salctte. Now we wait. . . .
Unite your vows to ours, we love
her so much ! Oh ! if you could see
her, so weakened, and with only a
breath of life, and yet in possession
of all her presence of mind, all
her attentive solicitude, thinking of
everything and everybody, press-
ing me to take a little rest ! This
scene reminds me of my mother,
her peaceful death, whilst she com-
mended us to the Father of or-
phans. Will not God spare her to
us ? One cannot lose a mother
twice ! Picciola has assembled all
the babies for a perpetual Rosary.

Tears choke me ; and yet I- still
have hope. She has received the
Holy Viaticum, and Extreme Unc-
tion ; it seems as if she were already
in heaven.

JUNE 5.

Always the same hopeless state ;
extreme weakness, and no life left
but in the look, which beams with
love. We are all here, more silent
than shadows, starting at the slight-
est sound. I did not know that I
loved so strongly this mother wor-
thy of my Rene. Yesterday even--
ing, seeing me leaning over her bed,
she made a supreme effort to say to
me: "You will comfort him!" O
my God, my God ! . can it be that
mourning is about to darken our
youth, and that this first year of

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to Jicr Sister.

667

marriage should contain so great a

sorrow ?

JUNE 7.

Nothing but a breath, . . . yet I
hope still. Something tells me that
she must live. .

JUNE 9.

Yes, dearest, she will live ; let us
I hank God. A'' reaction has taken
place; it is now a resurrection.
How happy I am ! You would
scarcely recognize Rene, so great-
ly is he altered ; but he smiles now,
recovering with our beloved suf-
ferer. Your letter of yesterday
brought balm to my heart ; and an
hour afterwards the good doctor
assured us that all danger was over,
though the recovery will be very
gradual. And so this beautiful and

glorious Feast of Pentecost finds us

all radiant. My mother has insist-
ed on sending us to the -services, but
the others could not refuse to let
me remain. " Grandmother and
Aunt Georgina are Ruth and Noe-
mi," observed Arthur. My mother
heard him, and sighed at the
thought of her dear ones dead ; and
now having cheered, comforted, and
attended to her, I see that she has
sunk into a quiet sleep, and so be-
gin to write to you. My darling
Kate, a Te Deum !

They are returned. I went to
the door with my finger on my lips,
and now I am alone again. . . .
No, Rene is by me, light as a
sylph, and together we watch the
blessed slumber which will not be
the last. Kate, I am going to pray
with my brother, who invites me to
do so, and at the same time sends
his love to you.

JUNE ii.

What a new and delightful aspect
everything has regained ! We are
now longing to accomplish our vow.
Why are you not here, my sweet

one, at my side, by this beloved in-
valid, who so touch ingly thanks me
for having made my sister love her?
You recollect her handsome coun-
tenance, so admirable and harmon-
ious in its lines and contours ; it has
become fearfully pale and thin, but
what we were dreading was so ter-
rible that we rejoice without troub-
ling ourselves about anything. I
am writing to you by the side of the
reclining chair on which my mother
is at this moment reposing; I do
not leave her, but have made my-
self her shadow. Rene is gone to
the flower-market ; since the har-
bingers of summer have made their
appearance my room has never been
wanting in decorations and per-
fumes. -Oh ! this intimate life togeth-
er, the quiet chats in the evenings, the
reading, all this richness of youth
and happiness how fair is earth
with all these things !

Picciola enters ; my pretty fairy
whispers in my ear that she would
very much like to look at grandmam-
ma asleep. She is now kneeling at
her feet, saying her Rosary with
the fervor of an angel.

A well-known step, although it
makes itself aerial in order not to
disturb this restoring sleep : it is
Rene ! He smiles and retires : he
knows that I am writing to Kate.
Dear sister of my soul, my better
self, it is to your prayers that we
are indebted for this cure ! Lucy
is anxious. The pretty baby is cut-
ting his teeth; he cries and screams,
so they are obliged to keep him at

a distance from Mme. de T 's

rooms ; and Lucy is not fond of
solitude.

Helene is impatient to know you.
How useful she has made herself to
every one during these sad days !
Kate, dearest, may God be our
guard.

TO BE CONTINUED.

668

Was Miles SidJidish a Cat Italic ?

WAS MILES STANDISH A CATHOLIC?

IN the quaint old town of Ley-
den, somewhere in the year 1619, an
English soldier, who had seen ser-
vice on the battle-fields of the Con-
tinent, came in contact with a little
community of men of his own coun-
try, hard-working, unhappy people,
who had left England to enjoy
greater freedom in the practice of
their religious ideas than they could
expect at home. But if the people
of the United Provinces harmo-
nized with them in doctrinal stan-
dards and principles, their lives and
practice were far from unison with
the English refugees, and these last
were planning a settlement beyond
the Atlantic.

The soldier did not share their
religious views. He did not join
the church at Leyden or swell the
number of the worshippers in the
church of the Beguines, which, on
the principle of religious liberty as
they understood it, the Dutch had
wrested from the Sisters to give to
the strangers. But, how or why no
one knows, the hot-tempered, good-
hearted soldier contracted a strong
friendship for Robinson, the pastor
of the English flock, and that sturdy
upholder of Puritan views seems to
have entertained a warm affection
for the soldier.

When the Mayflower^ after breast-
ing the waves of the Atlantic, near-
ed at last the shore on which the
colony proposed to begin a settle-
ment in midwinter, daring in the
worst season of the year what many
had failed to effect with all the ad-
vantages of the balmiest spring, a
compact for civil government was
drawn up and signed by the chief

men of the expedition. On the
list is the name of Miles Standish.
He landed with them ; became their
military leader ; his exploits as an
Indian fighter are known to all the
children in our schools. He is the
type of those who from the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century

O j

have done battle with the red man.
He died at last, at a ripe old age, in
the colony he helped to found, but
died without joining the church es-
tablished by the pilgrims of Ply-
mouth Rock, though conformity
was as a rule required from all.

New England historians and
scholars seem puzzled to account
for the fact of his never having
joined the church. His life was
beyond reproach. He brought from
his experience of camp and garri-
son no habits to shock the sober,
rigid men with whom his career was
cast. It could not be, they admit,
that the Pilgrims found any objec-
tion to his admission. He evident-
ly never sought it. He was no
hypocrite to seek admission as a
church-member like Captain Under-
bill, whose life set morality at defi-
ance, or like Mayor Gibbons, whose
questionable dealings with pirates
show his unworthiness. Contrasted
with these men, Standish stands out
as a noble, consistent figure. As
Dr. Ellis remarks : " Of the two
captains in the early Indian war-
fare, and in the straits of dangerous
enterprise, the uncovenanted Stand-
ish is to be preferred." He is com-
paring him with Underbill ; the com-
parison will still hold good in regard
to Gibbons or Patrick.

Some years since, the writer threw

Was Miles Standish a Catholic f 669

out in our American Notes and Qiw- " What induced him to connect him-
rics the suggestion that Miles Stand- self with the Pilgrims does not ap-
ish, the military hero of the May- pear. He took up his residence
jlowcr, of the Pilgrims, and of Ply- among them at Leyden, but never
mouth Rock, was a Catholic. A joined the church" (part ii., p. 21).
correspondent, using the initials Palfrey, the author of the History
J. W. T., which seem to denote an of New England, with all the re-
historical scholar of no mean re- searches of the present century,
pute in New England, one who has says of Standish : " He was not a
shown real research and sound judg- member of the Leyden Church,
menu, lost all self-command at the nor subsequently of that of Ply-
suggestion, and raved in this style : mouth, but appears to have been
" If Miles Standish was a Roman induced to join the emigrants by
Catholic, he was also a hypocrite; personal good-will, or by love of
till proof of the latter, he must be adventure, while to them his mili-
considered what the- Pilgrims be- tary knowledge and habits render-
lieved him to be and never before ed his companionship of great va-
doubted a Protestant and an lion- lue" (vol. i., p. 161). Later on
est man. Miles Standish was not in the same work, Palfrey reiterates
the man to sail under false colors, the assertion : " Standish was no re--
He was bold, brave, impetuous, open ligious enthusiast. He never pro-
ds the day, and not double-faced, fessed to care for, or so much as to
His memory should have been safe understand, the system of doctrine
from insult." of his friends, though he paid it all
No distinct assertions are made, respect as being theirs. He never
and the grave historical scholar for- was a member of their church"
got to cite authorities. The Ian- (vol. ii., p. 407-8). At the lay in
guagc infers that the Pilgrims be- of the corner-stone of the Standish
lieved Standish to be a Protestant, monument on Captain's Hill, Dux-
jind that he professed to be one. bury, Oct. 7, 1872, the Rev. Dr.
Hut there is no evidence at all to Ellis, endeavoring as a clergyman
sustain this. The late S. G. Drake, on that day to say all that could
whose acquaintance with the sources be said, makes him only a sort of
of New England history- was cer- " proselyte of the gate," but admits
tainly very great, expressly says on distinctly that "he was not a man
this point : ' I do not remember of ' professions,' nor, so far as we
ever having seen it stated that he know, of 'confessions.' He was
belonged to any church," and no never 'sealed 'or 'covenanted.' We
one has ever cited an authority that are at a loss for the explanation of
connects him with any Protestant this fact, considering the standard
church. Governor Hutchinson, in and the expectations of his associ-
his History of Massachusetts (vol. ii., ates."* On the same occasion,
p. 411), says: "It seems Standish Charles Deane, who certainly did
not of their church at first, not speak without examination of
Mr. Hubbard says he had his subject, said: "He was not a
more of his education in the school member of Plymouth Church, and
of Mars than in the school of there are strong suspicions that the
Christ. He acquired, however, the doctrine of the perseverance of the
esteem of the whole colony." Bay-
lies, in his History of Plymouth, SayS : * Historical Magazine, April, 1873, p. 231.

Was Miles Standish a CatJio'.-ic ?

saints had not taken strong hold of
him."*

It was not that Standish pre-
ferred the platform of Massachu-
setts Bay. He went to Boston, but
never seemed to harmonize with
them or relish their system of man-
agement. He was no adherent of
Mrs. Hutchinson, Roger Williams,
or the Baptists; no one ever claimed
him as a disciple of Fox ; no trea-
sured Book of Common Prayer or
any other proof of adherence to the
Church of England has been pre-
served to justify Episcopalians in
claiming him.

Where, then, is his Protestantism?
He certainly avowed himself a mem-
ber of no Protestant denomination
whatever, and made no professions
of the kind; so that, if he really was
a Catholic, there can be no charge
of hypocrisy, for there is not the
slightest tittle of evidence that he
ever pretended to be a Protestant.
He was an extremely valuable man
to the little community at Plymouth,
and rendered important services.
At that time, to have proclaimed
himself a Catholic would have com-
pelled the Pilgrims to exclude him,
and exposed himself to annoyance
when vi^itino; other colonies or Eiiff-

o o

land. That the leaders knew him
to be a Catholic, too firm in his
faith to be shaken, would explain
much that seems now inexplicable
to New England writers.

The question, then, comes up,
whether ihere is any direct ground
for supposing the famous Captain
of the Pilgrims to be a Catholic.
In his will, he left to his eldest son,
Alexander, a all my lands as heir
aparent, by lawfull decent, in
Ormistock, Boscouge, Wrighting-
ton, Maudsly, Newburrow, Craws-
ton, and in the Isle of Man, and

* Standish Monument^ Boston, 1873, PP- 2I i "5-

given to me as right heir by lawfull
decent, but sereptuously detained
from me, my grandfather being a
second or younger brother from
the house of Standish of Stan-
dish."*

This gives a clue to his family,
and another is found in the name
of the town which he planted
Duxbury. .Some of the earlier
writers of this century made a fan-
ciful derivation for this. Duxbury,
according to them, was from Dux,
captain; that Duxbury meant Cap-
tain's town, and was an allusion to
his position in the colony. f But
turning to English authorities, we
find at once in Lancashire an an-
cient family of Standish, of which
there are two branches, Standish of
Standish Hall, and Standish of
Duxbury. Their arms three sil-
ver plates on a field azure meet
you on tombs and on the churches
erected by them centuries ago.

When the young king Richard II.
rode out to meet Wat Tyler at the
head of his rebels, John Standish
was one of the king's esquires the
very one who slew Tyler. A Sir
John Standish won fame by his
prowess at Agincourt, and the name
occurs frequently during the French
wars of Henry V. and Henry VI.
When the eighth King Henry
sought a divorce from his faithful
wife, Queen Catharine, Henry Stan-
dish, a Franciscan, Bishop of St.
Asaph's (1519-1535)? & most learned
man, assisted the unhappy queen
throughout the shameful trial. Af-
ter the change of religion, the Stan-
dish family adhered to the old faith,
one of them writing vigorously in
its defence; and down to this day
they are reckoned among the Cath-
olic families of England. Standish
Hall, the seat of the elder branch, is

* Hist. Mag., March, 1871, pp. 273, 274.
t Howe's Massachiisetts Collections.

Was Miles Standisli a Catholic ?

671

close to Wigan, twenty miles north-
east of Liverpool ; and Duxbury
Hall, the seat of the younger branch,
is only two miles distant from
Standisli Hall. There have been
frequent litigations between the two
branches, and in one of these, doubt-
less, the immediate ancestor of the
Plymouth soldier lost the property
alluded to in his will.

The family remained Catholic,
and after the fall of James II. was
among his sturdy adherents. The
famous Lancashire plot, formed in
1692 with the object of replacing
James on the throne of England,
was hatched in Standisli Hall.

The wrong of which the gallant
soldier of Plymouth complained
was one that he could have had re-
dressed promptly, even if not in
accordance with the rules of jus-
tice. Had he appeared as a Pro-
testant claimant for the broad acres
of an old Catholic house, courts
and juries would have bent law and
fact to place him in possession.
How the feeling operates we have
seen by instances in our own day.
The feeling in favor of the Tich-
borne claimant in England was
deeply imbued with the desire to
place the heritage of an old and
well-known Catholic family in the
hands of one who was to all in-
tents and purposes a Protestant
one whose Catholicity, if he ever
had any, had completely vanished
in a brutalizing Australian life. In
the claim of Earl Talbot, a Protes-
tant, to the earldom of Shrewsbury,
identified with the Catholic
cause, we see what slight evidence,
or show of evidence, satisfied the
e of Peers. Had the circum-
bcen reversed, a Catholic-
claiming a Protestant peerage, the
doubte of the tribunal would have re-
quired tenfold proof, and the inves-
tigation lasted a generation.

Miles Standisli, by his own avow-
al, belonged to an ancient Catholic
family, which has clung to the faith
to this day. He evidently scerned
to change his religion to enable him
to recover what he deemed his just
rights. Such seems to be a position
that solves all difficulties. Among
the old Catholic families of t he-
British Isles, after the change of
religion was completed, and the
line of distinction between Protes-
tant and Catholic sharply drawn, it
became a matter of honor and pride
to adhere, during the evil days of
the penal laws and the butchery of
the clergy, to the faith so heroically
retained.

Here and there, one who gave the
reins to his wild passions, some man
sunk in vice like Mervyn,Lord And-
ley, or the Duke of Norfolk at the
close of the last century, would con-
form to the state church, though cverv
decent Protestant shrank from con-
tact with them ; or some nobleman
deprived of his estates, like Lord Bal-
timore, wouid renounce his faith to
recover a province like Maryland,
wrongfully detained from him ; or,
like Lord Dunboyne, give up the
faith, even after teaching it for years
as an honored priest, in order to live
as seemed to become his title ; or,
led by ambition, to rise at court like
Waldegrave; but for one to join a
body of dissenters there is on re-
cord scarcely an example.

Descendants of old Catholic fam-
ilies emigrating to America, like the
Dongans, Townleys, and others, fell
away; but in the Old World a sense
of honor made them cling to the
oppressed faith when to desert it
seemed to imply cowardice or vice.
The opening words of Moore's
Tnirds of an Irish Gc?ttlcman in
Search of Religion embody this
feeling.

As a necessary consequence, the

6/2

Was Miles Stan-disk a Catholic f

conversion of one of the members
of an ancient Catholic house by the
Protestant party was a triumph, and
the new-comer was well rewarded.
The conversion of one of the Stan-
dishes would have found mention
somewhere among the events of the
day, and there would be some trace
of office or rank bestowed on the
man who at last conformed. Yet
the county annals of Lancashire and
the memoirs of the time chronicle
no such defection on the part of
Miles Standish, and it is equally
evident that no post was bestowed
upon him as a reward.

That Miles Standish was one who,
turning his thoughts to the great
religious questions then rife, fell
into doubts as to the solidity of the
claims of the Catholic Church, and
with ail zeal and fervor embraced
some form of Protestantism, is a
theory too wild for consideration.
The whole mass of Pilgrim testi-
mony establishes the fact that he
was one who took no interest in
the religious systems of Protestant-
ism ; that he was utterly devoid of
any such enthusiasm in them as
would mark a convert from con-
viction.

From what we know of his origin,
the presumption is strong that he
was and always remained a Catho-
lic, and we cannot shield his me-
mory from insult except by adopt-
ing this presumption. Neither a
life of vicious indulgence nor am-
bitious hopes, and certainly no con-
viction, led him to renounce the re-
ligion of his family and embrace
Protestantism.

Let us, then, gather what is known
of the life of this Catholic soldier
of early New England annals.

He was born about 1584, at Dux-
bury, in Lancashire, England, as is
supposed, from the fact that he pre-
served the name in the town he es-

tablished ; but was, as he claims in
his will, great-grandson of a second
or younger brother of the house
of Standish of Standish. This is a
well-known Catholic house in Lan-
cashire, known as early as the reign
of Edward I., the elder branch of
two in that county, the other be-
ing the Standishes of Duxbury.
With this last he claims no connec-
tion, although the inference is pro-
bable that he was born at that
place. As his just inheritance at
Standish was, he asserts, surrepti-
tiously detained from him, it may
be that his father, unjustly deprived
of his patrimony, took refuge at
Duxbury under the protection of
the other branch. Both branches
were Catholic, John Standish being
a distinguished writer against the
Reformation. A Robert Standish
figures in Parliament in 1654; Cap-
tain Thomas Standish, of the Dux-
bury house, was killed at Manches-
ter fighting bravely for the king.
The Standishes of Duxbury, as their
genealogy shows, intermarried with
the old Catholic houses of Howard
and Townley. Richard Standish
was made a baronet after the Res-
toration, in 1676.

The estates to which he asserts
his rights lay, as expressed in the will,
in Ormistock, Bouscouge, Wright-
ington, Maudsley, Newburrow, Cran-
ston, and in the Isle of Man.

The latest history of Lancashire,
by Baines, unfortunately gives no
detailed pedigree of the house of
Standish of Standish, that of Dux-
bury being given to some extent,
though not in the line of descent of
the younger sons. As, however, he
does not claim at all to have be-
longed to. the Duxbury branch, it
is useless to look there for him.

Standish Hall, the seat of the
branch from which he was descend-
ed, " is a large brick house, irre-

Was Miles Standish a Catholic ?

6/3

gular in form, to which is attached
an ancient Catholic chapel, still
used for that purpose ' (Bain'es,
Jfist. Lancashire, iii., p. 505). Stan-
dish forms a parish in the Hundred
of Levland. " The extensive and

fertile township of Duxbury, at the
northern extremity of the parish of
Standish, stands on the banks of
the Yarrow, by which the township
and parish is divided from the par-
ish of Chorley " (/., p. 517).

Ormistock is evidently Ormskirk,
an adjoining parish, in which Baines
mentions that there are two Catho-
lic chapels (iv., p. 244). In the
Buscouge of the Plymouth record
we easily recognize Btirscough,
where once flourished a famous
priory, suppressed by Henry VIII.
The Lancashire historian notes that
there was formerly a Catholic cha-
pel at Burscough Hall (iv., p. 256).
Of the next place mentioned in
Standish's will, Baines says : " Ad-
joining Wrightington Hall stands a
small Catholic chapel for the use of
the family " (iii., p. 481) ; Mawdsley
or Mawdesley is an extensive flat
and fertile township between Cros-
ron and Wrightington (iii., p. 404) ;
Xewbury and Croston are in the
same Hundred (iii.-, 171, 391-5).

He was thus of Catholic stock,
and born and brought up amid
families where the old faith is still
cherished to this day. Almost ev-
ery place mentioned in his will is
linked with Catholic life in his time
and the present.

Of his early life not a tradition
or trace has been preserved. In
that day the younger men of Catho-
lic, families constantly went abroad
to gain an education and to seek

r vice in the Continental armies,
many too to study for the priest-
hood, and return to England,
unawed by the terrible fate that
awaited them if they fell into the
VOL. xxin. 43

hands of the myrmidons of English
law.

That Miles Standish should have
sought service abroad is therefore
natural. Ignoring his Catholic ori-
gin, New England writers have
sought to explain his military ca-
reer on the Continent. All seem to
assume that he served in the Low
Countries. Baylies, in his History of
Plymouth (part ii., p. 21), says ex-
plicitly that " he served as an offi-
cer in the armies of Queen Eliza-
beth in the Low Countries, when
commanded by her favorite, the
Earl of Leicester."

Captain Wyman, at the laying of
the corner-stone in 1872, goes fur-
ther : " In early life he was trained
to the hardships and trials of war,
having been commissioned at the
age of twenty a lieutenant in the
army serving in the Low Countries
against the armies of the Inquisi-
tion." The Rev. G. E. Ellis and
Charles Deane on the same occa-
sion limit themselves to the asser-
tion that he served in the Low
Countries (pp. 21, 24).

Palfrey is less positive, as he was
writing history, not pronouncing
eulogies. " The ' cautionary towns '
of the Netherlands had been gar-
risoned by British regiments for
thirty years, and Miles Standish
had probably been employed on this
service ' {History of New England,
i., p. 161). "Probably while serving
in an English regiment in the
Netherlands he fell in with the com-
pany of English peasants ' (ii., pp.
407-8).

There seems to be no really au-
thentic foundation for all this theo-
ry. Standish died in 1656, aged 72,
and must have been born, according
to this, in 1584. Leicester was sent
to the Low Countries with eleven
thousand men in 1585-7; but we
can scarcely believe that this pre-

6/4

Was Miles Stan disk a Catholic ?

cocious scion of a Catholic house
served as an officer in this cam-
paign when only one year old, or
three at the most.

The assertion that the Catholic
soldier was commissioned a lieuten-
ant at the age of twenty, that is, in
1604, when James was ruining the
Catholic families by extorting all
the arrears of fines, and producing
the spirit of exasperation which
culminated in the Gunpowder Plot,
can scarcely find any support in
sober history. The armies of the
Inquisition which James was fight-
ing in 1604 elude research.

Savage, in his Genealogical Dic-
tionary, though on what authority
we know not, says that Standish
had been at Leyden some years be-
fore 1620. All that is positively
known is that he had seen military
service on the Continent, and was
living in Leyden with his wife Rose
when the followers of Robinson
proposed to emigrate. A strong
friendship, not based on harmony
of religious views, existed between
Miles Standish and the pastor of
the exiles. Writing subsequently
to Plymouth after receiving tid-
ings of Standish's first Indian fight,
Robinson says : " Let me be bould
>to exhorte you seriously to consider
ye dispossition of your Captaine,
whom I love, and am persuaded ye
Lord in great mercie and for much
good hath sent you him, if you use
.him aright. He is a man humble
.and meek amongst you ; and to-
wards all in ordinarie course."*
This strong feeling of personal
friendship was reciprocal. In his
will Standish writes : " Further, my
will is that Marrye Robenson, whom
I tenderly love for her grandfather's
sacke, shall have three pounds in
som thing to goe forward for her
..two yeares after my decease."

* Bradford's Iffstary..

Whether he had served in the
Spanish armies or the Dutch, or in
English garrison, he was to all ap-
pearance simply a resident of Ley-
den when this friendship grew up.
It evidently led to the proposal or
offer to accompany those of Robin-
son's flock who were to venture to
make the first attempt at coloniza-
tion in North America.

His wife Rose, of whom we know
only her name, agreed evidently to
join him in the voyage. True wife of
a brave man, she was ready to face
all danger and to share all hard-
ships with him. Nothing is record-
ed from which to glean whether she
was some fair English girl from his
own Lancashire, or some one whom
he won on the Continent. Her
name, her faith, and her country are
alike unknown. We know that they
embarked together at Delft Haven,
and formed part of the memorable
body on the May/lower. Among
them Miles Standish was a man of
importance. When the compact
for their government in America
was drawn up, he signed it. and the
place of his signature shows the es-
teem in which he was held and his
recognized position among them.

That document is purely a civil
one, and contains nothing that could
not be signed bv the strictest Cath-

O j

olic.

Reaching in November the poor-
est, sandy part of the coast, the little
colony had a fearful career of hard-
ship. Standish was one of the
pioneers in exploring the land.
After they landed at Plymouth Rock
in December, he saw his compan-
ions sink under their hardships and
breathe their last. Though his
own rugged health triumphed over
everything, his wife Rose sank be-
neath the unwonted trials, and died
on the 29th day of January, 1621,
leaving him alone in the diminish-

Was Miles Standis/i a Catholic ? 675

ing body of settlers, without a tie to The settlements of Weston's law-
bind him to them or the settlement less people near them increased ill-
which they had undertaken. But feeling among the Indians, and ap-
he was not one to falter or easily parently gave them a poor opinion
give up. of the courage and power of the

During that winter of terrible Plymouth settlements. Standish in
suffering ;o heroically borne he was his excursions soon became aware
one of the six or seven who were of this, and felt convinced that a
untouched by disease, and his care general conspiracy against the col-
and devotion to the sick and afflict- onists was on foot. An attempt on
ed are mentioned with gratitude, his own life at Manomet, now Sand-
When spring at last gladdened wich, confirmed this belief. A min-
them, and they resolutely set about ister named Lyford, who came over,
the labors of building, cultivating, sought to have him superseded in
and otherwise preparing for a per- office, declaring that he looked like
manent residence, Miles Standish a silly boy. And outside the little
had been made the first military community of Plymouth slighting
commander of the colony, and, as views prevailed of this offshoot of a
we may infer from some statements, fighting race.

he turned his engineering skill to a From his slight frame, the Wes-

peaceful channel, laying out the ton people at Wessagusset (now

lines of the new town and survey- Weymouth) seem to have given

ing the plots taken up by the set- Standish the nickname of Captain

tiers. The first military organiza- Shrimp, and the Indians had taken

tion of Plymouth dates from Feb- up the slighting tone and openly

ruary, 1621. It was not formidable braved him. Feeling that the dan-

in numbers, but it was necessary to ger was imminent, Standish went in

make it as imposing as possible. March, 1623, to Wessagusset with

Standish felt all this. He threw up eight men, to suppress the plot by

defensive works, a little fort on the striking a blow that would convince

hill above the dwellings mounted the Indians of his prowess and of

with five guns, and prepared to the force of the colony, He found

make the Indians respect the power the warrior who had attempted to

of the settlers. take his life, and when the Indian

As the best linguist, he was sent taunted Standish, he with two of
out to meet the deputations of In- his men attacked the Indian party
dians who came to observe the new- without firearms, and after a des-
comers ; and he was constantly sent perate struggle Standish despatched
to explore the country or test the his antagonist with his own weapon
feelings of the natives. It was wrested from his hand, and the
doubtless a specimen of Standish's whole band was cut off. This en-
style of correspondence with them counter established Standish's re-
that we find recorded in Governor putation. The Western colony broke
Bradford's reply to arrows hid in a up, and an ascendency was soon
snake-skin which Canonicus sent acquired over the Indians,
to the settlement. The snake-skin It was on receipt of the intelli-
filled with powder and ball was an gence of this first collision with the
answer which announced to the natives that Robinson, after deplor-
savages that Standish was ready to ing the fact that they had not con-
meet them. verted some Indians before killing

6/6

Was Miles Standish a Catholic ?

any, expressed his affection to Stan-
dish, and urged the leaders of the

lony not to molest him, as though
there were some ground, which he
ilid not care to express, why he an-
n'cipated that in some way their
military leader might not be alto-
gether at ease in the place.

But Standish seems to have had
no idea of abandoning his asso-
ciates. The ship Annt^ bearing the
third body of emigrants, had among
the number a young woman named
Barbara, whom he subsequently
married, and thus formed new ties
in the land. He is said first to
have sought the hand of Priscilla
Mullins, but, having sent Alden to
open the matter for him, found that
he had acted unwisely, as the lady
bade Alden speak for himself. Long-
fellow bases on this incident his
" Courtship of Miles Standish." He
was elected one of the governor's
assistants, and for nineteen years
held that responsible position. l)e
Rasiere leaves us a pen-picture of
the colony assembling by beat of
drum at Standish 's door, " each with
his musket or firelock. They had

their cloaks on, and placed them-
selves in order three abreast, and
were led by a sergeant. Behind
came the governor in a long robe ;
beside him on the right hand came
the preacher with his cloak on, and
on the left hand the captain, with
his side-arms and cloak on, and
with a small cane in his hand; and
so they march in good order, and
each sets his arms down near him.
Thus they are constantly on their
guard night and day/' This mili-
tary organization was Standish 's
work.

But his labors were not confined
to organizing the colony for mili-
tary purposes, or maintaining peace
with Indian neighbors or trouble-
some white neighbors. In 1625, he

was despatched to England to ob-
tain a supply of goods, and learn
what terms could be made to ob-
tain a release from the English mer-
chants who had advanced monev as

partners in the undertaking. He
reached London to find it ravaged
by the plague. He negotiated with
some advantage for the colony with
the English partners, and in spite
of the disordered condition of af-
fairs he obtained advances, and
brought over some goods for trad-
ing, and other most needful commo-
dities as he knew requisite for their
use. He heard, however, of the
death of his old friend Robinson at
Leyden, and was the bearer of that
sad intelligence to the colony.

\Ve next find him as a trader.
To put the settlement on a better
financial footing, after releasing
themselves through his exertions
from the London partners, Stan-
dish, with seven other settlers, in
July, 1627, entered into an agree-
ment with the colony to farm its
trade for a term of six years. They
assumed the debts of the colony,
and agreed to bring over certain
goods annually, in consideration of
a small payment in corn or tobacco
from each colonist. They put up a
house on the Kennebec, and made
it the centre of a prosperous trade.

In 1630, leaving Plymouth, he
crossed to the north side of the
harbor, and took up his residence
on a spot still called Captain's Hill,
where his house has stood till our
day, and the spring remains as
kerbed with stone in his time. This
place, probably after his birth-place
in England, he called Duxbury, a
name it still retains.

We find him reducing Morton ;
marching to defend the Pokano-
k..^ts, allies of Plymouth, against t
Xarragansetts ; going to Boston to
maintain his colony's rights to the

Was Miles Standish a Cat ho lief 677

Kennebec trade after a collision lery Company of Boston were there,

there with a Boston trader; sent in .Freemasons, Odd Fellows, Good

1635 to reco\er Penobs-cot from the Templars, military delegations, the

French; commanding the Plymouth governor, magistrates, Protestant

(|iiota in the Pequoi war; engaged clergymen, and citizens; but there

against the Narragansetts in 1651, is no record that any bishop or

against the Mohawks and their clergyman of the faith professed

allies in New York; and finally, in by the Standishes of Standish as-

1653, when very old, appointed sisted at the ceremony. The

to command the troops which Ply- Catholic element was ignored. It

mouth raised in anticipation of should have been safe from insult.
hostilities with the Dutch of New But it may be asked, how can we

Netherland. claim Miles Standish as a Catholic ?

This was his last public service. He was of a known Catholic family.
He died in his house at Duxbury, then, since, and now Catholic.
( Vtober 3, 1656, leaving several Though associated with Robinson's
sons, and his widow Barbara. His flock, he never became a member
descendants at the present time of their church in Leyden, Ply-
must be many. "Nature endow- mouth, or Duxbury. His Catholic
ing him with valor, quickness of convictions give the simplest reason
apprehension, and good judgment, for this, which one of the New Eng-
had qualified him for business or land historians regards as " an ano-
\var. Of his other peculiarities, maly in human nature' (Baylies),
nothing has been recorded except If amid all the temptations from
that he was of small stature and of the associations around him he
hasty temper. He had no am- thus persistently declined to con-
bition except to do for his friends nect himself even nominally with
whatever from time to time they the Protestant Church, it shows
thought fit to charge him with that he still clung to that of his
whether it was to frighten the Nar- family.

ragansett or Massachusetts natives, But why should a Catholic thus
to forage for provisions, or to hold isolate himself from all the minis-
a rod over disorderly English trations of the church, and throw
neighbors, or to treat with mer- himself into a Protestant commu-
chants on the London exchange, nity? Deprived of the heritage
In the misery of the early settle- he claimed, he had to seek his
ment especially, the reader does fortune elsewhere. In England,
not fail to reflect what relief must the number of Catholics in pro-
have been afforded by reliance on portion to tlje population was less
a guardian so vigilant and manful ' than in Holland; but he probably
(Palfrey). found life more congenial with

On the yth of October, 1872, the these countrymen of another faith
Standish Monument Association, than with men of the same faith
incorporated by the State of Mas- but of another country. Circum-
sachusetts, . laid the corner-stone stances, too, control our paths in
of a monument to this Catholic life. Catholics count in this conn-
soldier, a round tower, to be sur- try by millions, yet there is many
mounted by a bronze figure of the a Catholic thrown almost entirely
first captain of Plymouth colony, into Protestant circles.
The Ancient and Honorable Artil- But Standish, it may be said,

678 Was Miles Standish a Catholic ?

married out of the church, and similar French posts, where Capuch-
allowed his children to be brought ins and Recollects were maintained,
up -as Protestants, So did Gerard, The report of Mgr. Urban Cerri
one of the founders of Maryland, and the French colonial documents
although there were priests in the show that, for the benefit of Catho-
colony and no Protestant minister ; lies in New England, English-speak-
so did Matthew Carey; so did ing priests were sent to those points
Chief- Justice Taney yet all are and maintained in Canada on the
regarded as Catholics, though we frontiers. Who can say that Stand-
regret their indifference to the sal- ish, who was frequently in Maine
vation of their children. It will on colonial matters and for trade,
not do on these grounds to deny meeting these priests and speaking
his Catholicity. French, for his powers as a linguist

There was not, so far as we know, are mentioned, did not avail him-
a single apostate Catholic in the self of the opportunity of hearing
community at Plymouth, not one Mass and approaching the sacra-
who, having tasted the pure Gospel, ments. It is not likely that when
known the divinely given- faith and he did he went with a file of sol-
the divinely instituted worship, diers and a drum-beating, or that he
turned to wallow in the mire of made a special report to the Ply-
man-made creeds and worship de- mouth government. It would be a
vised by shallow men. Standish fact of which evidence would not
cannot be accused of being in league be heralded.

with known apostates. Yet even In his last days, 1651, Father

had he been guilty of such a step, Druillettes visited Boston and Ply-

we cannot judge him too harshly, mouth with his Plymouth friend

for even in our days one may ad- Winslow, where he must have met

dress a notorious and scandalous the aged Standish.
apostate in terms of eloquent wel- His library, it may be urged, as

come, and yet be deemed Catholic shown by the inventory, contains no

enough to lecture before pre-emi- Catholic works, and several devo-

nently Catholic bodies, and address tional and doctrinal works of the

the young graduates of our literary Puritan school. As his wife was a

institutions as one fit to guide their Protestant, we may well suppose

future career. this part of the family library to

But, it may be said, he must have have been her reading. Surely,
lived in utter neglect of his duties when all New England authorities
as a Catholic. Who can tell this ? concur in admitting " that he never
Like Le Baron, the French surgeon cherished any strong impressions
wrecked and captured on the coast, of their religion," or took any inter-
he may have clung to the faith to est in it, we may put down Rogers'
the end, performed his devotions Seaven Treatises, Wilcock's works,
as he might, and died with the cr.u- Burrough's Christian Contentment,
cifix over his heart. The opportu- Davenport's Apology, and the Com-
nities for approaching the sacra- entary on James Ball Catterkesmer,
ments from time to time were given as her reading and not his ; while
him, and his position gave him we readily recognize the soldier's
greater ease in embracing those taste in Caeser's Comentaryes, Banft's
opportunities. The trading-houses Artillery, the History of the World,
of Plymouth in Maine stood near Turkish History, Chronicle of Eng-

Vittoria Colonna.

679

hind, Yc History of Quce/i Elizabeth,
T/ic State of Europe, the Gannon
(German) History, and Homer's
Iliad.

The whole case is now before the
reader. Miles Standish has been
always classed as a Protestant, but
there is certainly grave doubt on
the point. He never renounced
the Catholic faith in which he was
undoubtedly born ; and therefore,

we Catholics have some claim to
his name and fame. No descend-
ant of his, to the writer's know-
ledge, is now a Catholic, but some
have been in our day pupils of Ca-
tholic institutions. These will, we
trust, follow up our labors, and
bring from the records of the past
more conclusive evidence of the
lifelong Catholicity of Miles Stand-
ish.

VITTORIA COLONNA

Lived in court

Which rare it is to do most praiseJ, most loved,
A sample to the youngest, to the more mature
A glass that feated them, and to the graver
A child that guided dotards.

Cyinbeline.

TWELVE miles from Rome, on an
almost isolated knoll of the Alban
range of hills, more than thirteen
hundred feet above the sea, which
glimmers in the distance beyond
the Campagna, rises the pictur-
esque, mediaeval town of Marino.
Many quiet Romans spend the
villeggiaturn there, to enjoy its
pure air and the shady prome-
nades and beautiful views around
it ; but few foreigners do more
than visit, on the way, a classical
spot, a deep and wooded glen at
the foot of the hill, where the re-
presentatives of the Latin tribes
used to meet for deliberation on
public matters down to the year
340 B.C., and which is noted for
the tragic end of Turnus Herdo-
nius, an influential chief of the
league, who was treacherously ac-
cused, condemned, and drowned,
at the request of Tarquin the
Proud, in the clear pool of water
called by Livy caput aquce Feren-
tincc which wells up so innocently

from under a moss-covered rock
overspread by an ancient, crooked
beech-tree at the head of the little
valley.

We do not intend to sketch the
history of Marino or describe its
local monuments, however interest-
ing, but will simply remark that
during the middle ages it passed
successively from the Counts of
Tusculum to the Frangipanis, the
Orsinis, and, under Pope Martin'V.,
to the Colonnas, in whose favor it
was erected into a dukedom in
1424. The large baronial palace
of the sixteenth century which
stands in the middle of the town is
full of curiosities and ancestral por-
traits of this powerful family, al-
though the rarer and more interest-

ing ones have long since been re-
moved to the princely headquar-
ters near the Santi Apostoli, in
Rome. The stone-work and towers
which still surround Marino and
add so much to its feudal aspect,
were raised in the year 1480, and

680 Vittoria Colonna.

the ruins of the castle, with its possessor of many Neapolitan fiefs ;

battlements and proud armorial and soon after Charles VIII. of

signs upon the walls, are on the France, who had attempted the

most precipitous side of the town, conquest of the kingdom of

overlooking the noisy little stream Naples, began to experience an

of Aqua Ferentina. It was in this evil turn of fortune, Don Fabrizio

castle which, having been made by was detached from his service by

the Colonnas their principal strong- Ferdinand of Spain, who succeeded

hold in that part of the Roman in driving the French out of the

States, was then in the pride of all southern part of Italy. Most of his

its freshness and strength of por- life was spent in courts and camps,

tals, merlons, and machicolations and but little time was passed

that a daughter was born in the in his castles, whither he went

year 1490 to Don Fabrizio Colonna either to enjoy the chase or when

and his wife, the Lady Agnes of called by domestic concerns, such

Montefeltro. As soon as possible as this one that gave a daughter

she was held up at a window to be to his house. Her mother was a

seen by her father's retainers and child of Frederic, Duke of Urbino,

saluted with the discharge of artil- head of an illustrious family which

lery, peal of trumpets, and shouts for three centuries had ranked

of men-at-arms. among the lesser independent

This infant was Vittoria Colon- princes of Italy. Some of Vit-
na, who became one of the most toria's ancestors of this line had
celebrated women of the sixteenth figured in a conspicuous manner
century, and who is even remem- in history, especially as patrons
bered in Italy to this day for her of letters, and during a certain
learning, her poetry, beauty, con- period the court of Urbino was the
jugal affection, piety, and sorrows ; most refined and intellectual of ttai
and yet, strange as it may seem, al- Italian peninsula. She felt its in-
though hardly singular for illus- fluence through her accomplished
trious names of the same p-eriod mother; but her father's family
have fallen into a like obscurity was also remarkable for an heredi-
no date more precise than that of tary genius and aptitude in every
the year can be assigned to her branch of learning ; and a long list
birth; and certainly one of the could be made of men of erudition,
benefits derived by biographers and of writers more or less distin-
from the reforms which followed guished, belonging to the Colonna
the Council of Trent is the better lineage, at the head of which would
keeping of baptismal registers, by stand ^Bgidius Romanus, or Giles
means of which in countries, at of Rome, General of the Augustin-
least, where the church was not ians, and for his profound know-
persecuted nor war made on ledge surnamed Doctor fundatissi-
parochial books sometimes the mus^ whose work, De Regimine Prin-
very hour, often the day of the cipum, composed for his pupil,
week, always that of the month, of Philip the Fair of France, was the,
an individual's birth may be found, model in its general subject and

Vittoria was the eldest, and only didactic form, but without the im-

female, of six children. Her fa- moral maxims, of Macchiavelli's

ther was not only a great nobleman treatise, Del Principe.

of the States of the Church, but the According to the custom among

Vittoria Colonna.

68 1

the great in that age, Vittoria,
while a mere child, being only four
years of age, was affianced to one
not much older than herself. This
was Ferdinand Francesco d'Avalos.
His noble family, of Catalan origin,
had come over to Italy with the
Spanish invaders in 1442, and risen
to considerable importance; Don
Alonzo, son of Inigo, who accom-
panied Alphonsus I. in his expedi-
tion and died at Naples, having
been created Marquis of Pescara, a
fortified town of the Abruzzi at the
mouth of a river that empties itself
into the Adriatic. This very honor-
able betrothal was made at the sug-
gestion of King Ferdinand, who
hoped in this way to attach Fa-
brizio more strongly to himself.
Except this affair, hardly anything
is known of Vittoria's early years,
nor who were her instructors ; but,
judging from subsequent events,
she must have been surrounded by
whatever advantages wealth, social
influence, and political position
could procure ; and the literary ar-
dor which marked the fifteenth cen-
tury having passed from colleges
and universities into the ranks of
private life, her education was such
as to ensure her the highest mental
culture, united with every accom-
plishment befitting her station. At
the age of five she was transferred
to the tutelage of her future hus-
band's family and placed in care of
her sister-in-law, the Duchess of
Francavila, who was castellan for
the king of the fortress and island
of Ischia, at the entrance of the
Bay of Naples. This important
charge could only have been en-
tr-usted to a woman of superior

talents, and justifies the praises
which Vittoria has given in several
sonnets to the " magnanimous Cos-
tanza," as she delights to call her.
The duchess loved study, and cul-

tivated the society of the learned,
being herself well acquainted with
Latin, Spanish, and Italian, in
which last language she wrote a
work on the misfortunes and trials
of the world Degli Infortuni c.
Travagli del Mondo. It was in the
midst of enchanting scener)', of the
fame of martial deeds, and of an
elegant conversation that Vittoria's
youthful happiness was passed. She
grew up beautiful in person, lovely
in mind, and adorned with every
grace of manners. She was tall
and of an easy carriage, the blood
in her veins forming over luir

white skin a delicate cerulean
tracery, while her face was set in a
mass of auburn hair which has
been sung such a color being rare
in Italy by some of the best wri-
ters of her day. Of her personal
appearance, those who have men-
tioned it can never say enough.
That her charms were not the
poetical exaggerations of devoted
admirers we know from several
sources, and particularly from the
very sober prose of a curious
diary * kept by a certain Giuliano
Casseri who had occasion to see
Vittoria at Naples. She was con-
sidered by all except, of course,
by her own sex the handsomest
woman of the age :

Her ivory forehead, full of bounty brave,
Like a broad table did itself dispread,
For Love his lofty triumphs to engrave,
And write the battles of his grear godhead :
All good and honor might therein be read ;
For there their dwelling was. And,when she spake
Sweet words, like dropping honey, she did shed ;
And 'twixt the pearls and rubies softly brake
A silver sound that heavenly music seemed t<
make. Spenser.

After a few years passed in this
family, Vittoria returned to Ma-
rino to prepare for her marriage,
which 'took place at Ischia in 1507,
with all the pomp and nplendor

* Published only in 173$.

682

Vittoria Colonna.

that the two great families and
their numerous friends could com-
mand. The list of marriage gifts
and the names of the personages
who witnessed the matrimonial con-
tract are interesting apart from
the subjects themselves for the
light they throw upon high society
in Italy at a period when it easily
surpassed, in the means of luxurious
living and all the amenities of so-
cial intercourse, that of any other
country in Europe.

The Avalos family, like that of
Colonna and Montefeltro, was fa-
mous for its attention to., classical
literature and its patronage of
learned men. Tiraboschi, in his
History of Italian Literature, says
of this young Marquis of Pescara
that he was no less a diligent stu-
dent himself than a munificent pa-
tron of learning in others. Tall,
naturally of romantic ardor, he
had moved among men who always
inspired him with a taste for the
profession of arms, and he rose to
be one of the greatest captains of
his age.

The first three years of their
married, life were spent very happily
either at Ischia or at Naples. Their
affection was mutual and tender.
They had ratified the choice of
their parents, and their marriage
was one of those which are said to
be made in heaven. In fact, be-
tween her betrothal and final en-
gagement, when the brilliant quali-
ties of her mind and the exquisite
beauty of her features began to be
the talk and admiration of every
one, several great offers had been
made to her father in hopes of de-
taching his daughter from Avalos,
and among these suitors were the
Dukes of Savoy and Braganza.
But while a malicious pen has told
us that the reason they were not
accepted is that one was too old

and the other too far away, the
gentle maiden herself assures us
that she remained firm to the first
love from the purest sentiment of
devotion :

A pena arean gli spirit i intiera vita,

Quando il mio cor froscrisse agni altro oggetio.

In 1512, when war broke out
with France, the young Marquis of
Pescara was summoned to serve his
king, and accompanied his wife's
father, who was Grand Constable
of Naples, her uncle, the renowned
Prospero Colonna, and her five gal-
lant brothers to the scene of action.
Vittorra, meanwhile, remained at
Ischia ; but before many months
had passed she had cause of grief
far heavier than that of separation
her husband was wounded and a
prisoner. It was at the battle of
Ravenna (nth of April, 1512),
which has been so tersely described
by Macaulay as one of those tre-
mendous days in which human folly
and wickedness compress the whole
devastation of a famine or a plague,
that Fabrizio, who commanded the
Spanish vanguard, and Pescara,
who was master of the horse, sur-
rendered their swords. The latter
was carried to Milan and placed in
the fortress of Porta Gobbia. When
the news was brought to Ischia,
Vittoria and Costanza gave way to
their grief, but with a dignified
moderation becoming their lofty
ideals of sacrifice and duty, and
without any of that wild emotion
so common to the tender sentiment
in the sex.

The illustrious prisoner consol-
ed himself during confinement by
composing for his wife a Dialogue
on Love. His captivity did not last
long, and he was liberated after
paying a heavy ransom. He then
returned to his beloved home, where
he was welcomed by all classes as

Vittoria Colonna. 683

a veritable hero, and a little of the In 1521 we find Vittoria at home.
last-fading glamour of chivalry The year before she lost her father,
showed itself among the Italians in whom Italians delight to mention
the attention which was directed to as having lived a life full of gran-
his scarred face, so much so that deur and glory ; but more impartial
one of his fair admirers, the Duch- writers dispute the intaminatis fitl-
ess of Milan, exclaimed that she get honoribns, and assert that his
too would like to be a man, if only desertion of the losing for the win-
to receive a wound across the ning party, when he passed over
cheek, and see how it would add to from Charles to Ferdinand, war,
a fine appearance. All this is very done without principle, and merely
ridiculous, but that it had a hold to save his Neapolitan fiefs. He
upon certain minds at this age, and was a great friend of Macchiavelli,
may therefore be noted, is shown and the well-known contempt and
from many other circumstances of hatred of this political fiend for
the same kind ; for instance, the what he was pleased to call the
delight of Francis of Guise in barbarous domination of the fo-
being surnamed Le Balafre, from a reigner probably influenced him to
severe cut received at the siege of think that it mattered little whether
Bologna, in 1545. lie served Frenchman or Spaniard,

When Pescara was again called since neither had a right to or de-

(in 1513) to join the forces collected served his services. It was to him

in Lombardy against the French, that the subtle Florentine addressed

his wife returned to Ischia, where his seven books on the Art of

she continued a diligent course of War. His wife, the lovely and

reading. Besides studying the pious Agnes, survived him only two

classics, she cultivated Italian po- years, dying after a pilgrimage to

etry, from which her fame, in our Our Lady of Loretto. One of Vit-

day at least, has chiefly arisen, and toria's most beautiful sonnets is on

in her graceful verses displayed a her mother.

charm and musical rhythm not Pescara, being again called to

equalled since the strains of Pe- arms, hurried to the north of Italy,

tra rcli's muse were heard. and after the battle of Sessia be-

Her husband sometimes came to haved with exquisite courtesy to-

see her, but his visits from the wards the wounded and expiring

camp could not be frequent, and Bayard. At the battle of Pavia,

most of the time she was left alone on Feb. 24, 1525, Pescara was

in the midst of the little court at grievously wounded. Although he

Ischia, consumed by that species greatly contributed by his skill and

of domestic grief so poignant to a valor to the fortunes of that day,

loving heart when the marital union he could not conceal his disappoint-

lias not been blessed by issue. Vit- ment at not being more generously

toria mentions this particular sor- rewarded by the emperor, and was

row, this absence of maternal joy, soon afterwards approached by

in a very touching sonnet (No. 22). Morone, the experienced minister

Finally, despairing of children of of the Duke of Milan, with an offer

her own, she prevailed upon he 1 * of the kingdom of Naples for hiiu-

itusband in 1515 to adopt as JMS self if he would join a league which

son and heir his young cousin, .ne was being formed among the Italian

Marquis del Vasto. princes to free Italy of foreign

684 Vittoria Colonna.

rulers, whether French, Spanish, or Pescara received three wounds,
German. Historians differ in their and lay for some months suffering
accounts of his conduct in this deli- from their effects, which he im-
cate affair. Writers in the imperial prudently aggravated by copious
interest from that time to this assert draughts of ice-water. He was too
that he indignantly rejected the weak to travel, and, growing worse,
proposaf, which involved both trea- sent a hasty messenger to his wife
cliery and ingratitude even al- to come to Milan and receive his
though he had not received the full last breath. She started imme-
measure of his merits andSandoval diately, but was met at Viterbo by
says that he showed himself among the fatal intelligence that he had
those double-dealing Italians "ver- died on Nov. 25.* His funeral
dadero Espanol, Castellano viejo" took place on the 3oth, and the
Certain it is that Pescara used to body was afterwards transported to
consider himself more a Spaniard Naples and buried in the church
than an Italian, was prouder of his of St. Dominic. Paulus Jovius, a
Spanish blood than of his Neapoli- contemporary, wrote his life Vita
tan title, and often regretted that JFerdinandi Davali Pescarii in ele-
he was not born in the land of his gant Latin. A literary memorial of
ancestors. On the other hand, .Spanish domination in another ex-
Italian writers say that he fully tremity of Europe, and of the days
committed himself, and was per- when, the great school of war being
fectly willing to abandon and turn transferred from classical Italy to
against his sovereign, but that at the Netherlands, the gests of illus-
the last moment he quailed, and trious soldiers were eagerly studied
basely betrayed his companions to by military men although, as a
the vengeance of the emperor, for rule, no longer in the learned lan-
which reason the rancorous Guicci- guage of Coesar's Commentaries-
ardini (xvi. 189) calls him, with al- is preserved to us in the Historia
most incredible insolence, " Capi- del fortissimo y prudentissimo Capita n
tano altiero, insidioso, maligno, sc/tz' Don Hcrnando de Avalos, Marques
alcuna sincerita" More moderate de Pescara, published at Antwerp in
historians say that he was merely i57-

dazzled by the prospect of a crown, Vittoria's first impulse, following

perhaps even entertained the pro- this shock, was to take the religious

position, and would probably have habit, but she was prudently dis-

thrown himself into the movement suaded by the learned Sadolet,

but for the protest and heroic ab- Bishop of Carpentras, who was then

negation of his wife. The truth in Rome, from a measure which

seems to be, as Gregorovius re- would seem to proceed rather from

marks, that national antipathy has overwhelming grief than mature

biassed the judgment of Italian deliberation. She did, however,

writers. Immediately after the retire for a time to the convent of

battle of Pavia, Charles V. wrote a San Silvestro in Capite, which was

most flattering autograph letter to closely connected with the fortunes
Vittoria. Her answer from Ischia,

May I, I<2<. is Written ill a fair * Philippe Macquer, in his esteemed work,

j ": , Abregt Ckronologzque de I Histoire d Espagne

hand, and preserved among the e t de Portugal (1759-65), 2 vois. 8vo, says that

papers Of the Gonzaga Archives at there is ground for believing that he was poisoned

t * by his. enemies, which we think is very likely tc

Mantua. have been the case.

Vittoria Cohnna.

685

oC the Colonna family. It \vas dur-
ing this pious retreat that she began
that /// Memoriam to her dead hus-
hand which we will mention a little
further on.

The first seven years of her
widowhood were passed in incon-
solable grief. She resided at dif-
ferent periods either with her fa-
ther's family at Rome, Marino, or
in some other of their castles, or at
Naples and Ischia with the rela-
tives of her late husband. Being
still in the prime of life, in the
bloom of beauty, and well provided
tor by Pescara's will, her hand was
sought in marriage by several dis-
tinguished suitors ; but she turned
a deaf ear to all proposals of this
kind, vowing that her first love still
reigned supreme.

A mor le fad sf>ense ove faccese.*
(Love lit his torch, and quenched it in the flame.)

When the Emperor Charles V.
was in Rome in 1536, he made a
ceremonious visit, the more honor-
able as his stay was so short in the
Kternal City, to the widow of his
faithful general. In 1537 she made
a tour among several cities in
northern Italy, and was everywhere
received with the greatest distinc-
tion. We find her with the Ducal

tes at Ferrara, with the cele-
brated Veronica Gambaraf at Bo-

;na, and with the erudite Ghi-
berto, Bishop of Verona. From
a letter of Pietro Aretino it appears
that she was bent about this period
on making a pilgrimage to Jerusa-
lem, but was dissuaded by her
ulopted son and husband's heir,
Del Vastro, who feared that her

Sonnet.

e of the most distinguished females of the

. and for love of letters and literary success

ranking next to Vittoria. She was born in 1485 ;

her f-.iher, the Count Gianfrancesco Gambara of

:or mother, Alda Pia of Carpi ; her hus-

i was Ghibcrto, Lord of Correggio. She died in

health would very seriously suffer.
During this time, also, she assisted
Bernardo Tasso (father of the poet),
who acknowledges the benefit he
received from her religious senti-
ments.

In 1538 she was back again in
Rome, and one of the most interest-
ing episodes of her life her friend-
ship with Michael Angelo was
then begun. The austere artist, who
was sixty-four years old, felt ani-
mated by a fervent but chaste affec-
tion, such as he had never before
experienced. It brought him the
poet's crown to add to his other
crowns of painter, architect, and
sculptor ; for it is chiefly upon his
sonnets to Vittoria that his literary
reputation rests. The few years of
this sacred friendship were the
happiest in his life; and it is no
small part of our heroine's repu-
tation to have inspired in this won-
derful man a muse so chaste and
powerful. His poetic addresses
to her, though marked, says Har-
ford, by the highest admiration of
her mind and heart, are throughout
expressive of the most reverential
respect. They gratefully acknow-
ledge her condescending courtesy,
and the beneficial influence of her
piety and wisdom upon his own
opinions, fluctuating between vice
and virtue, but he never presumes
even to refer to her personal at-
tractions. It was only after her
death, and then but in a single son-
net, that he relaxed in a slight de-
gree his habitual reserve and sang
of her earthly beauty. But the
strain is still elevated fai above the
expressions of carnal love, and de-
scribes a celestial countenance not
unworthy of the Beatrice of Dante.

HowTiighlv she was esteemed by

o j *

all classes is shown, among many
other sources, from the words ot'
an unprejudiced foreigner then in

686

Victoria Colonna.

Rome, the Spanish artist d'Olanda,
who says in his journal that she is
one of the noblest and most fa-
mous women in Italy and in the
whole world ; beautiful, chaste, a
Latin scholar ; adorned with every
grace that can redound to a wo-
man's praise ; devoting herself since
her husband's death to thoughts of
Christ and to study; supporting the
needy ; a model of genuine piety.
From a letter of Cardinal Pole,
dated April 2, 1541, we learn that
she visited Ratisbon, but neither
the motives nor any details of this
long journey have been discovered ;
only it is known that she was re-
ceived with honor by the emperor
and by the citizens. Her fame, then,
had already passed the Alps. On
her return from Germany she rested
for a while in the convent of San
Paolo at Orvieto, whence she wrote
to Cardinal Pole, expressing how
much delight she found in the rules
and society of the sisters, whom she
calls " a company of angels." It was
while in this holy place that the
apostate Ochino sent her a letter,
in which he tried to explain and
apologize for his conduct; but she
indignantly forwarded it to Cervini
at Rome, to be lodged with the
ecclesiastical authorities, as it was
unbecoming in her to receive any
communication from such a repro-
bate. With fine womanly tact she
had long before discovered the
weak points in the character of this
gifted but miserable man, consumed
by pride and lust, and, after hearing
him preach, she used often, as
though struck by some vague ap-
prehension of a hidden conflict in
that eloquent soul, pray for his final
perseverance.

And yet it is from her intercourse
with several persons Valdez,
Ochhino, Vermigli (Peter Martyr),
and some others, who afterwards

became heretics, that her English
biographers especially have striv-
en to make her out a Protestant !
There is not one sentence in her
voluminous writings which can be
honestly made to bear an uncatho-
lic sense. But we perceive every-
where a love of the church, a re-
spect for the pope whom she styles,
in the most orthodox language,
" the Vicar of Christ " an admira-
tion for celibacy and the religious
life,* and, finally, a tender devo-
tion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
If this be Protestantism, Protes-
tants are welcome to it ; and God
grant they may make the most of
it ! Cardinal Pole, who was many
years her junior, used to honor her
as his mother, and assiduously cul-
tivated her friendship. She left
him a legacy of 10,000 scudi in her
will, but he made it over to her
niece. At Viterbo she displayed
a lively interest in all matters of
education, and took the greatest
pleasure in teaching the pupils
entrusted to the religious commu-
nity of St. Catherine.

Vittoria returned to Rome at the
beginning of the year 1547, and
retired to the palace of Julian
Cesarini, who was married to Julia
Colonna. While here she fell very
ill, and, feeling her end approach,
she was filled with the pious senti-
ments of one of her own sonnets,
composed but a short time before,
and which will show her constant
preparation for death and serve as
a specimen of her style. The
translation is by Harford :

" Would that a voice impressive might repeat,
In holiest accents to my inmost soul,
The name of Jesus ; and my words and works
Attest true faith in him, and ardent hope ;
The soul elect, which feels within itself
The seeds divine of this celestial love,
Hears, sees, attends on Jesus ; grace from him

* Writing to Michael Angelo from the convent of
St. Catherine at Viterbo, as late as 1543, she CA Is
the nuns, her companions, " the spouses of Chris',.

Vittoria Colonna.

687

Illumes, expands, fires, purifies the mind ;
The habit bright of thus invoking him
Kxalts our nature so that it appeals
Daily to him for its immortal food.
In the last conflict with our ancient foe.
So dire to nature, armed with P'aith alone,
The heart, from usage long, on him will call."

Sonnet 29.

She died towards the end of Feb-
ruary, 1547 the exact date is not
known in the odor of sanctity,
as one of her Italian biographers
says. By her will she made Asca-
nio Colonna her heir, left one
thousand scudi to each of the four
convents in which she had so often
lived, provided for all her servants,
and disposed of a large sum in
charity, besides making other pious
bequests. Her signature to this
instrument is in Latin, in these
words : It a testavi ego Vitoria Co-
in uma.

Strange it is, perhaps, but yet a
worthy ending of a life of humility
and mortification, even in the midst
of the glories of the world, that no
monument is raised over her re-
mains. In fact, her body cannot be
identified; for having requested to
be buried in the religious habit of the
nuns of Sant 'Anna de Funari, and
in their midst, it was committed
to the common vault of the com-
munity, where it lies undistin-

islied from the others that repose
there.

Her poetry may be classified into

cries composed dining her hus-
band's life and the first years of her
widowhood, and another written
when she had devoted herself to
a stricter manner of living. The
former is taken up with conjugal
love, descriptions of nature, and
miscellaneous subjects; the latter
hisively given up to religious

as : one is the profane, the other
the sacred, series. As an example
of the lofty energy with which her
mind poured its whole current of
feeling into the channel of Christian

devotion, we present her 28th son-
net in Harford's translation :

'' Deaf would I be to earthly sounds, to greet,
With thoughts intent and fixed on things above,
The high, angelic strains, the accents sweet,
In which true peace accords with perfect love ;
F r .ach living instrument the breath th^t plays
Upon its strings from chord to chord conveys,
And to one end so perfectly they move
That nothing jars the eternal harmony
Love melts each voice, Love lifts its accents high,
Love beats the time, presides o'er ev'ry string ;
Th' angelic orchestra one signal sways.
The sound becomes more sweet the more it strays
Through varying changes, in harmonious maze ;
He who the song inspired prompts all who sing."

As an impartial critic we must
confess that, however refined the
language, beautiful the sentiments,
and learned the imagery, there is
too much classical grandiloquence
in her love-songs to permit us to for-
get the head that composed, and
allow us to think only of the heart
that inspired, them. When Pescara
went forth on his first military ex-
pedition, she described her grief in
a long rhymed letter of thirty-seven
stanzas, in which all that is heroic
in ancient Greece and Rome is
summoned to witness her discon-
solate state. The opening address
Eccelso Mio Signore ! (My high-en-
gendered Lord !) while it shows the
reverential homage which the wife
in those days was expected to offer
to her husband, and which, with all
its formalism, was better than the
disrespectful familiarity of a later
age, is the prelude to a style alto-
gether too much like that of the
eccentric Margaret, Duchess of
Newcastle, whose biography of her
husband her Julius Caesar, her
thrice noble, high, and puissant
Prince, as she used to call him is
the acme of connubial admiration.
After the death of Pescara, Vittoria
depicted her own grief and his
great, good qualities in a flow of
verses full of beauty, dignity, and
pathos. Upwards of one hundred
sonnets are devoted to his memory.

688

Vittoria Colonna.

Trollope, with the conceit of his
class, calls these touching expres-
sions of sorrow " the tuneful wail-
ings of a young widow as lovely as
inconsolable, as irreproachable as
noble"; but the more generous
feelings and, doubtless, the Catho-
lic instincts of her French biogra-
pher discover in this exquisite
threnody a form of prayer to God
for peace to the living and eternal
rest to the dead. After seven years
of widowhood a great change took
place in her nature. She gave her-
self up entirely to higher influen-
ces ; aiid the difference of style is
remarkable between her worldly
and her religious poems. The first
are, as we have said, devoted to the
love of a mortal object ; the se-
cond to a divine dilection. This
series is entitled Rime Spiritiiali.
She begins it :

" Since a chaste love my soul has long detained
In iond idolatry of earthly fame,
Now to the Lord, who only can supply
The remedy, I turn . . ."--Sonnet i.

And again we observe in the
following production her resolve
to abandon pagan allusions and
confine her poetry to sublimer sub-
jects :

" Me it becomes not henceforth to invoke
Or Delos or Parnassus ; other springs,
Far other mountain-tops, I now frequent,
Where human steps, unaided, cannot mount.'*

All writers on Italian poetry are
agreed that for delicacy and grace
of style Vittoria ranks next to Pe-
trarch.

Several medals and portraits have
perpetuated her features at differ-
ent periods of life. Of the former,
two were made while her husband
was living both heads being re-
presented and two during her
widowhood. A most beautiful me-
dal was struck at Rome in 1840 on
occasion of the marriage of Prince
Torlonia to Donna Teresa Colonna,
but the face is more or less ideal.

Several portraits were painted dur-
ing her lifetime, but it is difficult
to trace them all. Some are lost,
and others are doubtful originals.

The thoroughly genuine one (say
the Romans) is that in the Colonna
Gallery. It is a fine type of chaste
and patrician beauty. It was taken
when she was about eighteen ; al-
though how it can in this case
(and it certainly represents her still
in her teens) be ascribed to Mu-
ziano, as it is by Mrs. Roscoe,
we cannot understand, because
this artist was born only in
1528, when Vittoria was already
thirty-eight years old. The fact
is that the artist is unknown ; but
there should be some acuteness
even in conjecture. Although it
would be highlv flattering to the

O ^ o

vanity of her race, and of the Ro-
mans in general, to believe that her
portrait was sketched by Michael
Angelo and painted by Sebastiano
del Piombo, they reject with hor-
ror the celebrated picture by their
hands in the Tribune at Florence
in which others see her face and
figure. The best judges, however,
call it simply "A Lady, 1512";
and our ideal of Vittoria revolts
from the voluptuous features and
disgusting pectoral development of
this portrait; but if it were pos-
sible to determine it in her favor (?)
we should have to exclaim :

" Appena si pu6 dir, questa furosa."

All Avriters on Italian literature
mention our heroine at consider-
able length ; but of separate bio-
graphies the principal ones are the
following : Gio. Batt. Rota, Rime e
Vita di D. Vittona Colonna, Marche-
sana di Pescara, i vol. Svo, 1760;
Isabella Teotochi Albizzi, Ritratti,
etc., Pisa, 1826 (4th ed., copy in As-
tor Library) ; John S. Harford, Life
of Michael Angelo Buonarotti . . .

Allies' Formation of Christendom.

689

with Memoirs of . . . Vittoria
Colouna, 2 vols., London, 1857 (As-
tor Library) ; Cav. P. E. Visconti,
rita di Vittoria Colonna, Rom 6,1840 ;
Le Fevre Deumier published a me-
moir of her in French in 1856 ; T.
A. Troll ope, A Decade of Italian
\\~omen / Mrs. Henry Roscoe, Vit-
toria Colonna, i vol., London, 1868.
In 1844 the Accademia degli Ar-
cadi at Rome decreed to have a
bust of Vittoria made and placed
in the museum of the Capitol. It

was inaugurated with great pomp
on May 12, 1845 > an( ^ thirty-two
poems in Latin and Italian were
written to celebrate the event, and
afterwards collected into a volume
and published. The following is
the simple inscription beneath the
bust :

A. Vittoria Colonna.

N.MCCCCXC. M.MDXLVI1.

Teresa. Colonna. Principessa. Romana.

Pose.
MDCCCXLV.

ALLIES' FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM

THE appearance of the third part
of Mr. Allies' great work offers an
occasion for expressing the interest
with which we have regarded it
since the publication of the first
volume in 1865. The author is
well known on both sides of the
Atlantic, and the present work has
been noticed from time to time in
this magazine.

It consists of a series of histori-
cal lectures grouping and classify-
ing the leading features of that
wonderful movement which began
shortly after the foundation of the
Roman Empire, and has survived its
downfall more than a thousand
years.

Mr. Allies proposes to examine
minutely and accurately into these
facts. Those who are familiar with
his other works will fully appreciate
his ability to cope with his present
task, while the need of a calm and

*The Formation of Christendom. By T. W.
Allies. Part Third. London : Longmans, Green,
Reader & Dyer. 1875.

VOL. XXIII. NO. 44

studious presentation of this period
of history is sufficiently evident.

The religious movement of the
sixteenth century boasts, and not
without reason, of having been a
radical departure from the spirit
of the age which preceded it. It
broke with the past ; first, in regard
to particular questions, concerning
which it took issue with existing
belief. But the separation which
ensued in the religious sphere soon
extended to the whole range of
man's spiritual faculties. The fol-
lowers of the new prophets were
associated together in communities
and nations, and became entirely
estranged from the ancient system.

This isolation was bound to pro*-
duce in a short time wide diver-
gence of sentiment, and an ever-
increasing estrangement from the
past.

Americans going abroad find
themselves constantly misinterpret-
ing and being misunderstood by
foreigners.

690

Allies' Formation of Christendom.

We live in another era, and under
circumstances so different that it is
only .by earnest and thoughtful pre-
paration that we can qualify our-
selves to judge of other nations.

Any person who will pause for a
moment will realize the difficulty
of conceiving what the present
state of the world would have
been had the movement towards
a high material development, which
preceded Protestantism, been con- '
ducted under Catholic auspices
alone. Of course, such a concep-
tion is impossible to the common
ignorant Protestant ; but even en-
lightened minds outside the Catho-
lic Church must acknowledge that
it is not easy to acquire a full sym-
pathy with the intellectual epoch
which preceded Protestantism.
Wherever the new religion be-
came dominant, a thorough break
was effected between past and pre-
sent. The American freeman re-
sembles his English great-grand-
father far more closely than the
Protestant of the seventeenth re-
sembles the Catholic of the fif-
teenth century. The French com-
munist still speaks the language in
which the feudal tenant addressed
the seigneur of the last century ;
but it would be rash to affirm his
capacity to understand the senti-
ments of his peasant grandfather.

The change wrought by the six-
teenth century extends throughout
.the world, and affects the deepest,
most powerful, and most mysterious
range of sentiment. This change
occurred just as the literature of
modern times had begun to take
shape and form. Everything has
borne the stamp either of its action
or of the reaction against it. It
was a veritable Lethe ; and those
who passed through it forgot the
images, expressions, and thoughts
of preceding generations.

The results of this tendency were
entirely overlooked by the partisans
of Luther and Calvin. But the most
superficial student of history now-
adays perceives in them irrefragable
proof of two things : first, that the
movement of the sixteenth century
was something altogether new in the
world ; and, secondly, that it was
completely subversive of the entire
order which preceded it. To deny
either of these propositions is to bid
defiance to truth and farewell to
reason. And whereas Catholics
have been abused for predicting
these facts, there are not wanting
Protestants who glory in acknow-
ledging them, now that they can no
longer be controverted.

However, we do not wish to
bring them forward in our condem-
nation of Protestantism, but simply
to illustrate another fact which is
equally true.

Protestantism, amongst other
evils, has brought a spirit of scep-
ticism into historical research
Vhich is one of the most ghastly
symptoms of its present. stage of dis-
solution. We do not mean a spirit
which demands proof, but a spirit
which no amount of proof* can sat-
isfy which denies facts unquestion-
ably true, and endeavors to cast dis-
credit upon the most authentic re-
cords.

It is not hard, to perceive the
cause or to trace the development
of this spirit.

The cause is that Protestantism
was in every sense a break in his-
tory. It was an abnormal and mor-
bid occurrence. The consequences
of its denial its protest extended
into every order of truth. But no-
where was their influence more fa-
tal than in the domain of history.
It lost the thread of sacred history
by denying the authority of the Ro-
man Church. But the isolated po-

Allies' Formation of Christendom.

691

sition into which it was thrown soon
rendered it unfit to interpret any
tradition. In fact, it had no tradi-
tion ; it was obliged to make one in
accordance with its own needs. At
first its doubts were all directed
again si the Papacy, because the
Papacy was irreconcilable with its
existence. Then the histories of
the saints were condemned, because
Protestantism had nothing of the
kind to show. But the irreverent
critic of the claims of the Sovereign
Pontiff at last attacked the Scrip-
ture, which was thrown to him as
bearing its own credentials. Far
worse than this the Bible having
been destroyed, the sacred person
of the Author of Christianity has
been exposed for dissection. Noth-
ing is deemed too blasphemous
either to deny or assert of him.
But now that he has been judged
by the high-priests of the new relig-
ion, and condemned as an impostor,
something has to be done with that
vast system which civilized the
world and endured for sixteen cen-
turies, on the theory that Christ
was what he proclaimed himself to
be the Lord of all things, and that
his revelation was true.

After practically demonstrating
that Protestantism is a denial of
Christianity, we might expect the
age to pause in its career of denial.
This, however, at present seems to
be expecting too much. Having
denied the authority which Christ
has commissioned, the revolution
soon came to deny Christ. Having
denied him, it has proceeded to
deny him from whom Jesus was sent.
It only remains to deny every other
tact which conflicts with the ilega-
tive theory. It is, therefore, con-
M'lered necessary to express doubt
with regard to every historical fact
connected with Christianity. A no-

table instance of this is before our
eyes in Mr. Hare's Walks i;i
Rome, a book quite free from the
more offensive forms of Protestant
vulgarity. Mr. Hare has spent
many years in Rome, and learned
from its antiquarians the history of
its secular traditions. He knows
that the scene of St. Peter's impris-
onment is as well attested as any
other which he describes in his
work. In the course of his remarks
on the Mamertine Prison, he says :

" It was by this staircase that
Cicero came forth and announced
the execution of the Catiline con-.,
spirators to the people in the Forum
by the single word Vivcrunt ' they
have ceased to live !' Close to the
exit of these stairs the Emperor
Vitellius was murdered."

He discusses the age of the
structure, and cites Ampere to
prove it to be the oldest building in
Rome. The author further says :
" It is described by Livy and by
Sallust, who depicts its horrors in
his account of the execution of the
Catiline conspirators. The spot is
shown to which these victims were
attached and strangled in turn. In
this dungeon, at an earlier period,
Appius Claudius and Oppius the
decemvirs committed suicide (B.C.
449). Here Jugurtha, king of
Mauritania, was starved to death
by Marius. Here Julius Cassar,
during his triumph for the conquest
of Gaul, caused his gallant enemy
Vercingetorix to be put to death.
Here Sejanus, the friend and
minister of Tiberius, disgraced too
late, was executed for the murder
of Drusus, son of the emperor, and
for an intrigue with his daughter-
in-law Livilla. Here, also, Simon
Bar Givras, the last defender of
Jerusalem, suffered during the
triumph of Titus."

692

A Hies' Formation of Christendom.

Thus far the writer is dealing
with facts of pagan tradition, which
has been dead for centuries. Ob-
serve the change of tone when he
comes to facts of the living Chris-
tian tradition facts which he is
evidently inclined to believe, but
which must not be spoken of with
the confidence appropriate to pagan
narrative :

" The spot is more interesting to
the Christian world as the prison
of SS Peter and Paul, who are said
to ha^e been bound for nine months
to a pillar, which is shown here."
A little further on : " It is hence
that the Roman Catholic Church be-
lieves that St. Peter and St. Paul
addressed their farewells to the
Christian world " (pp. 94-96).

The testimony of the Egyptian
hieroglyphs is unquestioned. The
most fabulous antiquity is readily
admitted for Indian and Chinese
history. It is gratuitously assumed
that the time of stone implements
was not coincident with the use of
metals in other nations, though the
contrary may be witnessed on our
own frontiers. If human remains
are found along with those of ex-
tinct animals, it is assumed that
they died together. No demand
upon belief is too great unless it
be in connection with Christianity.
This tendency is to make men im-
agine that the era of our Saviour's
advent was purely mythical, and
that the events of his time are as
obscure as those of the siege of

f IT

Iroy.

We think that we have accounted
for the existence of this tendency in
the nature of Protestantism, as de-
veloped in Strauss and the " more
j advanced ' German speculators.
But after having created this artifi-
cial cloud in history, the same par-
ties seek to give the impression that

Christianity was but a natural de-
velopment out of the union of East-
ern with Western thought. Hav-
ing endeavored to reduce it to a
myth by denying or questioning
history, the process is reversed,
and history is appealed to in order
to prove that Christianity was a
purely natural phenomenon which
can be readily explained.

It is, according to these rash
theorists, a syncretism of the best
thoughts of Egypt, India, and
Greece, produced principally by the
agency of the Alexandrian schools.
This explanation is mainly satisfac-
tory to them because it would ex-
plain the rise and establishment
of Christianity without a miracle.*
The hypothesis was eagerly embrac-
ed for this reason. Just so Strauss
leaped for joy at the hypothesis of
Darwin, because it professed to
account for the existence of men
without creation. But just as Par-
win, while able to produce both
specimens and remains of man and
ape, could never find the interme-
diate animal, or even any trace of
him, so this forged account of the
origin of Christianity breaks down
in the very fact which is necessary
to give it even the. semblance of
value, viz., the .warrant of historical
facts. In order still further to
misrepresent the origin of Chris-
tianity, it is necessary to observe
the testimony of history as to the
moral condition of the pagan world.
Tacitus and Suetonius are pagan
authors, therefore it will not do to
impeach their writings in the same
manner as the Gospels and the
Christian Fathers. Being heathens,
their works are certainly genuine,

* It is also necessary on account of its vagueness,
and eminently fits in or rather mixes with the con-
fusion of mind which is so marked a characteristic
in this school of speculators.

Allies Formation of Christendom.

693

and they are to be held as truthful
men a presumption to which the
Evangelists and Fathers are in no
way entitled. But we notice the
tendency to overlook the frightful
picture presented by these histo-
rians, and the attempt, by a judi-
cious comparison of the best speci-
mens of paganism with the worst
scandals or most austere characters
of church history, to draw conclu-
sions injurious to Christianity.

This whole process of doubting
the records, misstating the origin,
and denying the real nature of
early Christianity, is a fraud which
will not bear scrutiny; it is main-
tained by men who avow their will-
ingness to accept any hypothesis
which conflicts with the ancient
faith, and to lend the prestige of
their talents to any effort against it.

The historical warfare has been
vigorously carried on in Germany
by both sides. The movement has
penetrated into the English univer-
sities. Its Echoes have been heard
in our own midst, in the utterances
of certain writers who, being pos-
sessed by the spirit of snobbish-
ness, cleave to outlandish modes of
thought because of their foreign or
novel character.

Mr. Allies' work is a thoughtful
and profound exposition of facts,
and brushes away the cobwebs with
which hostile criticism has sought
to envelop the history of Chris-
tianity. The author does not aim
at a connected narrative. The chap-
ters of his work are lectures, each
one of which is an essay, complete
in itself. The reader is presumed
to be acquainted with the general
outlines of history, and the author
directs his efforts to answer such
questions as naturally arise with re-
gard to the introduction of Chris-
tianity and the foundation of that

order which appeared under the
title of Christendom in the Middle
Age.

Accordingly, after giving his idea
of the philosophy of history, Mr.
Allies draws a graphic picture of
the state of the Roman world. The
civil polity of the Augustan age.
the majesty of the Pax Romana,
appear in their splendid propor-
tions. The reader is brought 'ace
to face with all that is known of
that epoch. Its ideas of manhood
and morality are set forth from the
testimony of eye-witnesses. Then
follows a sketch of the work to be
accomplished by Christianity, en-
titled the New Creation of Individ-
ual Man. This is succeeded by a
series of lectures viewing the results
which were to be expected from the
influence of Christianity upon hu-
man character. Here we find also
the testimony of eye-witnesses of
the growth of the new religion, and
an instructive comparison between
Cicero and St. Augustine, illustra-
tive of two most important ages of
history. The fifth lecture of this
first volume is on the New Creation
of the Primary Relation between
Man and Woman ; and the seventh
lecture deals with an equally Chris-
tian doctrine, viz., the Creation of
the Virginal Life.

A recent German writer, laboring
under a delusion not uncommon in
his country, doubts whether the im-
proved morality which appeared af-
ter the introduction of Christianity
was really due to that religion or to
the German race. This character-
istic doubt is left undecided by the
writer, but will probably soon be
settled adversely to Christianity by
some .more adventurous Teuton.
The public, for whose benefit these,
speculations are likely to be extend-
ed, will do well to read a little his-

6 9 4

Allies Formation of Christendom..

tory, and will not find Mr. Allies'
chapters amiss.

The second volume, which ap-
peared in 1869, treats of the devel-
opments of that, spiritual society
which sprang into existence with
the original ideas of Christianity
and from the same source. The
peculiar characteristics are traced
of that hierarchical order which,
after three centuries of bloody per-
secution, came forth from its hiding-
place in perfect organization, to re-
ceive at once the homage of Con-
stantine and to become the guide
of civilization and the supreme
ruler of nations for more than a
thousand years.

The position of the church at
the time of Constant ine was that of
complete victory. The portent in
the sky which appeared to that
emperor was not more miraculous
than the spectacle afforded by
Christianity. Starting from a dis-
tant point in an obscure race, with-
out means, without facilities of
communication, it had not only
revolutionized the pagan world,
but it had maintained its own
unity as a corporate body in the
face of wholesale treason from
within, and intense intellectual op-
position, accompanied with three
centuries of proscription, from with-
out. Three centuries ago another
movement started in our modern
world. It had all the prestige of
the civilization which germinated
along with it. It has had the sup-
port of the civil power. It has
had the best blood and most vig-
orous races to work for it. No
earthly element of success has
been refused to it. What is the
result ? Where is its unity ? The
very idea is abandoned. Where
are its original convictions ? Not
one remains. What is its present

influence ? It has none. What is
its prospect in the future ? Entire
destruction.

Nothing is better calculated to
give us a correct idea of the differ-
ence between Protestantism and
Christianity than this sort of a
comparison. Such, however, is not
Mr. Allies' design. He aims, in
his second volume, to show that
Christianity had a definite theory
and constructive spirit with regard to
society. As he contrasts in his first
volume the pagan notion of indi-
vidual man with the Christian ideal,
and shows a creative power in the
latter producing results undreamed
of in the heathen character, so the
author traces, in his second volume,
the social ideas brought in by Chris-
tianity.

The unity of the church, as taught
and described by the fathers, was an
idea no less remarkable in its mar-
vellous working than in its utter
novelty. This conception was based
on the fundamental principle of
Christianity, that its divine Found-
er had authorized a corporate body
to teach the world those truths which
he came to bring, and that the power
of God was pledged to the infalli-
bility of his church. This doctrine
is the only constructive idea that
has ever been broached with regard
to society. Protestantism was a di-
rect assault upon the very nature of
Christianity, and is to be held re-
sponsible for the absence of this
idea in modern civilization,

Mr. Allies develops the history
of this Christian idea with great ac-
curacy, filling out his comparison
between Christian and pagan think-
ers in all departments of thought,
and establishing the claims of the
new faith to be a creation fresh
from the Author of all things, and
not a development out of the pu-

Allies Formation of Christendom. 695

trescent civilization of the ancient barrenness and emptiness of Attic

world. thought, up to the time when it re-

That Christianity produced a type ceived the few corrections and ad-

of character wholly distinct and pe- ditions from Christian doctrine

culiar, is a fact of which there can which enabled it to appear for a

be no doubt on the part of those short time as a rival of heavenly

who have the slightest disposition truth.

to consult authentic records. That The author goes with laborious

it possessed a vitality and organiz- scrutiny through that labyrinth of

ing power of which there is no other error which is included under the

instance, is equally certain. But title of Neo-Platonism. Outside

we often hear the sayings of Epic- the Catholic Church, few scholars

tetus, .Marcus Aurelius, and the have read even the principal works

later Stoics quoted, as exhibiting a of St. Thomas Aquinas. Charles

tone of thought almost equal to Simmer was said to possess them ;

that of Christianity, and by the Disraeli the elder and George Eliot

enemies of religion vaunted as refer to them. But the former

something far above the morality never showed that he understood

of the Gospel. No reader of their contents, and the last-named

Plutarch can escape the impression writers show that they have not.

of his gentle and refined philoso* Although such a study is absolutely

phy. Though full of grievous er- necessary towards acquiring a cor-

rors, it has a flavor of truth, a re- rect knowledge of the intellectual

spect for purity, and an apprecia- life of the Middle Age, it is rarely

tion of virtue which are not to be undertaken by non-Catholics. To

fjund in the earlier historians. study the remains of Neo-Platon-

The great error of those who ism is a task of equal subtlety, and

would make Christianity a develop- yet nothing is more common than

ment of heathen thought is simply, to hear shallow speculators on his-

then, mistaking the cause for the tory affirm that Christianity was

effect. A great change was un- greatly affected by the Alexandrian

doubtedly to be expected from the school. But the difference is no

blending of Greek and Roman less marked when we come to find

speculation with the Jewish and out what the views of the leading

Egyptian religions. This change Neo-Platonist actually were. This

actually took place. But its pro- " distracted chaos of hallucina-

duct was acted upon by Christian!-- tions" was the highest effort of pa-

ty, and did not become a factor of ganism. It was an attempt to re-

the new religion. Mr. Allies gives concile and weld together all the

us the summary of ancient philoso- elements of the old world, as a bar-

phy, which he traces down to its rier to the new and irresistible pow-

contact with Christian truth. We er which was everywhere gaining

are able to see the vanity of that ground. It was the development

false reading of history which seeks which was to have been expected,

to represent Christianity as a men- It was the fusion of East and West

dicant receiving crumbs from Plato, to which Christianity has been ere-

Pythagoras, Philo, and the Stoics, dited. But, instead of acting upon,

We perceive from their writings it was radically affected by, Chris-

and the tone of their disciples the tianity ; and, instead of bringing

6 9 6

Allies Formation of Christendom*

forth Christianity, it was the deadli-
est foe of the Gospel. It is from
this old armory of Alexandria that
modern error draws and refurbishes
the clumsy weapons which dropped
thirteen centuries ago from the
hands of the first opponents of
Christianity. It is a good place to
go for this sort of bric-a-brac. It
contains a sum of all the aberrations
of the human intellect. Here, strip-
ped of its modern garb, we find the
cosmic sentimentalism of Strauss.
Here the absolute being of the Ger-
man pantheists stares us in the face.
Here, from lamblichus and Porphy-
ry, we hear the same mournful and
unhealthy drivel which is printed
and sewed up in gilt morocco by
enterprising and philanthropic pub-
lishers of the present day. On ris-
ing from the perusal of Mr. Allies'
third volume, we see clearly the
end of that \vonderful and brilliant
Hellenism which, while ever occu-
pied " either in telling or in hear-
ing something new," slighted the real
truth which had come into the -world,
and served but as a pit to its own pride.
Too much praise cannot be given
to Mr. Allies for the la^bor bestowed
upon his history of the actual de-
velopment of the philosophy of
Greece in the Roman Empire. He
has traced each school of thought
from year to year, and reproduced
a correct summary of its beliefs.
The Neo-Stoic philosophy, which is
especially vaunted by the enemies
of Christianity, is studiously delinea-
ted. The points of agreement and
difference are clearly noted between
its four great chiefs Seneca, Mu*-
sonius, Epictetus, and Marcus Au-
relius. The analogies and contrasts
between the developed Stoic school
and the Christian teachers who
were its contemporaries, are also
brought into relief.

In order to portray the effect of
the Neo-Pythagorean doctrines and
the revived Platonism, the author
gives a complete' analysis of that
most singular and interesting char-
acter, Philo the Jew singular, in
that he was the only one of the an-
cient Hebrew race who became a
great philosopher ; interesting, be-
cause he shows us the precise dif-
ference between Platonism and
Jewish belief, and the immeasura-
ble superiority of the unreasoning
Jew, who believed only that which
he had received by tradition, over
the highest flight of heathen genius
unaided by revelation. The lec-
ture on Philo closes with a sum-
mary of the interval between his
time and Plutarch's, and the change
during that epoch from the old
Roman world of Cicero, together
with the cause of this change.

Following this, another lecture
presents the state of the pagan in-
tellect and the common standing
ground of philosophy, from the ac-
cession of Nero to that of Severus.

Towards the close of his reign,
under the auspices of the Empress
Julia and from the labors of Philo-
stratus, came forth the new gospel
of paganism in the life of Apollo-
nius of Thyana. This work, upon
the strength of which modern infi-
dels have sought to attribute a my-
thical origin to the Gospels, was a
counterfeit of the truth, in which
paganism sought to construct an
ideal teacher, to oppose to that
Master who was now beginning to
be known throughout the world.
This sketch of Apollonius of Thy-
ana is very complete, and shows a
new phase of thought yet more
strikingly affected by that hated
and persecuted power Avhich was
daily growing in the midst of the
Roman world. Having completed

Allies Formation of Christendom. 697

his study of pagan belief and senti- establish the claim of the author to

ments as far as the reign of Severus, a most useful and successful con-

the author is fully prepared for the tributipn to th needs of the time,

difficult and thankless task of re- He has grown into his task, and has

viewing the struggle between Neo- accumulated both facts and re-

Platonism, as represented by lam- flections. There is little reason to

blichus, Porphyry, and Plotinus, fear that the remaining volume will

and their followers, against divine not be equal to the three which

truth. The third volume closes have preceded it.
with a graphic summary of the in- The style is unpretending, and

tellectual results from Claudius to the whole work extremely modest.

Constantine, and a comparative In this respect, it will not meet the

glance at the relative power of the approval of those who prefer rhe-

old order and the new to recon- toric to exact truthfulness. Histo-

struct a society in stable and har- rical works must be plentifully il-

monious proportions. lustrated, either by the engraver or

With this lecture, which seems to the imagination of the author, to

foreshadow the contents of a fourth make them popular nowadays,
volume, Mr. Allies' work stops But the intelligent reader who

for the present. Its publication in will take pains to examine carefully

parts has placed it at a great dis- Mr. Allies' volumes will be well

advantage, inasmuch as ten years repaid, and the author himself
have passed since the first volume . can rest in the conviction that he

appeared. It may seem premature has written a solid and useful book,

to review a work not yet complete, which deserves a place in every

but enough has been published to library.

698

Sir Thomas'More.

SIR THOMAS MORE.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

IN that portion of the attic of
Whitehall Castle looking toward
the west they had, according
to the king's orders, erected an
altar in order to celebrate Mass.
Three persons had assembled there,
and were reflecting on the singular-
ity of the hour and the choice of
the place where they found them-
selves called by this religious cere-
mony.

Lady Berkley, seated upon a high
cane chair, had carefully gathered
about her feet the long train of her
silk dress, to avoid having it sweep
over the floor covered with dust,
and she observed with great atten-
tion the old tapestries, which had
been nailed all around the altar in
order to conceal as far as possible
the unsightly appearance of the raf-
ters of the roof.

Heneage, with his arms crossed,
not far from her, waited, having no-
thing to do, while Dr. Roland Lee,
invested with the pontifical vest-
ments, kneeled on the step of the
altar, inwardly grieved at this new
whim of the king, which he found
as inconvenient as disrespectful;
but being very pious, he endeavor-
ed to pray to God and occupy him-
self only with the holy sacrifice he
was going to offer up.

They had waited very nearly an
hour in this position, when Norris
entered with a light in his hand.

' The king," he said in a loud
voice.

The assistants immediately arose
to their feet, and the king appear-
ed, followed by Lady Boleyn, with
Anne Savage carrying her train,
gleaming with embroidery.

On entering she cast a glance
upon the surroundings of this im-
provised chapel, and she was far
from finding them to her liking.
But Henry VIII. gave her no time
for reflection ; he placed two chairs
in front of the altar, and, putting
himself in one, he made a sign to
her to kneel upon the other ; then,
having called Sir Roland, he an-
nounced to him that he had to pro-
ceed with the marriage.

Although he had presaged no-
thing good from the singular prepa-
rations he had seen made in this
attic chapel, yet poor Dr. Lee was
far from anticipating such an order
as he now received ; he found him-
self in a horrible state of perplex-
ity, and stood without making any
reply.

"Come!" said the king after a
moment's silence, " commence the
prayers."

But Roland turned toward him,
and still continued to stand on the
step of the altar ; he said with a great
deal of dignity :

" No, your majesty cannot marry,
the ecclesiastical authorities not
having yet decided . . .

"What say you, Roland?" inter-
rupted the king brusquely. '' God
alone has power to judge the con-

Sir Thomas More.

699

science of princes, and mine has
decided that I should marry. Go
on and do what I command YOU

now.

)

Sire," replied Roland, who fear-
ed that his days were .numbered,
" your majesty has all power over
my poor body, and I am your very
unworthy and very devoted sub-
ject ; but I cannot solemnize your
marriage without having proof that
you are at liberty to contract it."
Henry bit his lower lip.
kl Roland!" he said.
'' Sire," replied the other, as if he
thought the king had called him.

" The imbecile !" exclaimed Hen-
ry VIII. to himself; but he saw it
would be better to dissimulate.

kk Roland," he replied, with an in-
flection of voice as different as his
ne\v intention, "do you think I
would command you to do any-
thing wrong ? I have received from
Rome the bulls of our Holy Father,
who recognizes the nullity of my
marriage with Catherine, the wife
of my brother, and permits me to
select for my spouse any other un-
married w^oman in my kingdom.
However, in order to avoid scan-
dal, he bound me to do it secretly."
Then I have nothing to say,"
replied Roland Lee, relieved of an
immense weight; "but your ma-
sty will, of course, first show me
the proofs."

' Obstinacy !" thought the king.
' How, Sir Roland," he cried, as-
ming an air of extreme mortifi-
tion, 'the word of your king,
then, is no longer sufficient? Is it
necessary for me to go and bring
i a thing which I affirm to have
in my possession ? Roland," he
led in a severe tone, " until now
i science alone has spoken,
therefore I have not been offended ;
but take care that, instead of com-
mending your course, I no longer

see in you other than an incredu-
lous obstinacy. I pledge you my
royal word on the truth of what I
have stated. . . . But add not a
word more."

Roland dared not reply, and, un-
able to believe the king would dare
to prevaricate in that manner be-
fore such a number of witnesses, he
began, although much disturbed,
to say the Mass. . . . But the
quiet solemnity of prayer influences
the most obdurate heart : man is so
insignificant in the presence of God.

Henry felt more and more trou-
bled. Queen Catherine's letter,
N-orris' description of her de-
parture, the scene of the previous
evening, passed one after another
before his eyes and continued to
torture his memory. The w^ords
of the holy daughter of Kent, " The
woman you wish to marry will dis-
honor your couch and perish on
the scaffold," arose unconsciously
to his lips, and aroused in his soul
a gloomy jealousy. He cast a
glance upon Anne Boleyn ; their
eyes met, .and the miserable woman
was terror-stricken at the expression
of fury that gleamed from his eyes.
Then he looked around him. The
sun had arisen, and brought into
bold relief the old and faded ta-
pestries surrounding the altar.

" Is this place worthy of me ?"
he thought to himself. " Is it thus
I have prayed with Thomas More ?
that quiet, peace, order, and
respect ? . . . There one is
happy; here they are consumed,
devoured by remorse ! Happiness
of the just, I execrate thee, because
I have not been able to attain
thee !" . . . Thus all that was
good excited his envy ; even Cath-
erine, whom he had driven from
the door of his palace a wanderer
on the earth, seemed to him hap-
pier than himself.

700

Sir Thomas More.

But it was still worse when the
venerable priest, turning towards
him, began the ancient and solemn
rites of marriage between the chil-
dren of God, and came to these
words: "You, Henry of Lancas-
ter, do confess, acknowledge, and
swear before God, and in presence
of his holy church, that you now
take for your wife and legitimate
spouse Anne Boleyn, here pre-
sent."

" Ah !" said the king mentally,
" hell would be better than the life
that I lead." He trembled, and
answered in a loud voice :

"Yes!"

" You promise to keep to her
faithfully in all things, as a faithful
husband should his wife, accord-
ing to the commandment of God?"

"Yes," he answered again.

" And you, Anne Boleyn, you
also confess, acknowledge, and
swear before God, and in presence
of his holy church, that you now
take for your husband and legiti-
mate spouse Henry of Lancaster,
here present."

" Yes," stammered Anne Boleyn,
who had no relatives, no friends
around her no one except two
valets and &femme de chambre.

" You promise to keep to him
faithfully in all things, as a faithful
wife* should her husband, accord-
ing to the commandment of God ?"

" Yes," she answered more dis-
tinctly.

Then the priest took the nuptial
ring, and, placing it in the hand
of the king, made a sign to give
it to his wife.

Henry VIII., leaning toward
Anne Boleyn, gave it to her, seem-
ing scarcely conscious that he did so.
The sight of this ring recalled the
one he had given Catherine on a
former and similar occasion, the
sanctity of the engagements he had

contracted with her, the love he
then bore her, her youth, her sin-
cerity, her charms, her virtues, the
tranquillity of his own conscience ;
now, he had dissipated all these
blessings dissipated them wilfully
and through his own fault ; he felt
himself despised and despicable.
His legitimate wife driven forth and
discarded, while he took another
by means of a disgraceful falsehood
which must be very soon discover-
ed. He no longer had children ; he
had renounced at the same time all
the rights of a man, a father, a
husband, in order to recommence,
at his age, a new career, already
branded with disgraceful recollec-
tions and shameful regrets.

" May the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob
unite you, and may he shower his
benedictions upon you ! I now
pronounce you man and wife, in
the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost," said
the priest, making the sign of the
cross over them.

"Amen!" responded the assis-
tants.

" No benedictions ! Don't talk to
me about benedictions, wretches !"
replied Henry in a stifled voice.

" It is truly just and reasonable,"
continued the priest, ascending the
steps of the altar and extending his
hands towards heaven, "it is right
and salutary, that we return thee
thanks at all times and in all places.
O Lord, most holy Father, Al-
mighty God eternal, who by thy
power hast created the universe out
of nothing; who in the beginning
of the world, after having made
man in thine image, gave him, to
be his inseparable companion, the
woman whom thou hast formed
from thyself, in order to teach him
that he is never permitted to put
asunder those whom thou hast

Sir TJiomas More.

701

united in the sacrament them hast
instituted. O God ! them who hast
consecrated marriage by so excel-
lent a mystery that the nuptial al-
liance is the figure of the sacred
union of Jesus Christ and his
church ; O God ! by whom the
woman is united to the man, and
who givest to this intimate union
thy blessing, the only one which
has not been taken away, neither
by the punishment of original sin
nor the sentence of the Deluge ; O
God ! thou who alone hast domin-
ion over the hearts of men, and
who knowest and governest all
things by thy providence, insomuch
that no man can put asunder those
whom thou hast joined together "

' When shall I get out of this
place ?" murmured Henry VIII.

' Nor injure those whom thou
hast blessed unite, we pray thee,
the souls of these thy servants, who
belong to thee, and pour into their
hearts a sincere friendship, to the
end that they may become one in
thee, as thou art the only true and
all-powerful God. Regard with a
favorable eye thy servant, who, be-
fore being united to her spouse,
implores your protection. Grant
that her yoke may be a yoke of love
and peace ; grant that, chaste and
faithful, she may follow the exam-
ple of the holy women of old ; that
she render herself amiable to her
husband, like Rachel ; that she
may be wise as Rebecca ; that she
may enjoy a long life, and be faith-
ful like Sara; that the author of
prevarication may find nothing in
her that proceeds from him ; that
she may abide firm in thy law and

in the observance of thy command-
ments ; that, at last, being attached
only to her husband, she defile not
the marriage-bed by any illicit con-
nection.'*

* Do you understand what the
priest advises you ?" said Henry
VIII., angrily regarding Anne Bo-
leyn, and speaking almost loud
enough for her to hear him.

' That, in order to sustain her
weakness, she may fortify herself
by an exact and well-regulated
life ; that she may conduct herself
with such proper modesty as will
ensure respect; that she inform
herself of her duties in the heaven-
ly doctrines of Jesus Christ ; that
she may obtain from thee a happy
fecundity ; that she may lead a life
pure and irreproachable "

' I will not suffer her to do other-
wise," thought the king.

' That at length she may arrive
at the rest of the saints in the king-
dom of heaven. Grant, Lord, that
they may both live to behold their
children's children until the third
and fourth generation, and attain a
happy old age, through Jesus Christ
our Lord, thy Son, who liveth and
reigneth with thee in the unity of
the Holy Ghost, world without end."

"Amen!" responded the assist-
ants.

" It is over at last," said the king,
rising precipitately.

He motioned Anne Boleyn to fol-
low him ; but she made no reply,
and he saw that she was weeping,
and had put her hands over her
eyes to conceal he.r tears.

He then left her, and immediately
went out.

xr.

ON returning to his apartments, invested with the garb of his new
the king found in his cabinet Crom- episcopal dignity, came with Crom-
well and Cranmer, who, pompously well to thank the king for having

702

Sir TJiomas More.

conferred on him this exalted -posi-
tion.

The sight of these two intriguers
produced a disagreeable impression
on Henry. He was very wearied
already by the scene through which
he had just passed, and longed to
be alone. Instead of that, he found
himself face to face with two new
instruments of torture.

Cromwell regarded the king at-
tentively, and was astonished at the
expression of dissatisfaction visible
on every feature of his face.

" What does he want now ? " men-
tally inquired this unprincipled
man. " Have we not procured the
accomplishment of all his desires ?
Is he not now the very legitimate
spouse of the brilliant Anne Boleyn,
Marchioness of Pembroke?" But
he thought it advisable under exist-
ing circumstances to let the king
speak first, and contented himself
with a profound salutation.

" What more do you want of me ?"
asked the king very brusquely.

" He is not very approachable
this morning," thought Cromwell ;
" but never mind, he will not escape
us for all that."

"We come," replied Cromwell,
" to congratulate your majesty on
the clemency and magnanimity you
displayed yesterday evening towards
that daughter of Kent ; and Dr.
Cranmer has come to lay at your
feet the assurance of his gratitude
and his entire devotion."

" Yes, ' replied the king, happy
to attribute his anger to something
he could confess ; " yo.u are clever
men, and richly deserve to be
driven from my presence for having
risked compromising me with that
fool to whom you have made me
listen ! I am beginning to get tired
of your fooleries ; Sir Cromwell,
understand that well!" And he
emphasized the last words with a

marked intention and an expression
of anger and scorn.

" The marriage has not improved
matters much, it would seem," said
Cromwell to himself ; but he consid-
ered it proper to display a little dig-
nity. " I understand," he replied im-
mediately, "that your majesty may
have at first taken some offence at
the insolent audacity of that woman
of Kent ; but I am astonished that
you should be so unjust as to think
ill of your servants on account of it,
and especially since nothing could
have been more fortunate in putting
us on the track of the infamous in-
trigues of the queen and her parti-
sans."

" Infamous intrigues ! infamous
intrigues !" cried the king. " That
is a word which may be very readily
applied, and often it is not to those
who most deserve it."

An angry flush mounted to Crom-
well's pale visage ; he felt that it
was time to calm the storm about
to burst upon him.

" I implore your majesty to be-
lieve," he replied in an extremely
mortified tone, " that I advance no-
thing without proof; and I ask now
what he will say when he shall know
that the queen, Thomas More, and
the Bishop of Rochester, concealed
in the church, assisted with us at
the examination of the holy daugh-
ter of Kent, in order to assure them-
selves that their instrument re-
sounded loudly in the ears of your
majesty."

"What do you say, Cromwell?
The queen was in the Abbey last
night ? And how did she gain ad-
mittance there ? What ! she has
heard all ? She has enjoyed my hu-
miliation ? Why have I not known
it ? I would have punished her au-
dacity and wickedness on the spot ;
but I will surely have my revcr.

"Sire," replied Cromwell, ''the

Sir Thomas Hfore.

queen is but a woman, and you
should pardon her. The real cul-
prits are the Bishop of Rochester
and More, whose ingratitude to-
ward your majesty exceeds all con-
ception. The queen's partisans
laud More above the clouds, and
publish it abroad that he has re-
tired from your majesty's service
because his conscience would no
longer permit him to remain there.
It is time to put an end to such ex-
cesses, and the honor of your ma-
jesty requires that they shall no
longer go unpunished."

Cromwell intended by this dis-
course to excite the king's wrath
and at the same time strike at his
ruling passions pride, and the fear
of losing his authority. Thus he
held him in his hands, and changed
him from one to the other, like a
piece of soft wax melted before a
hot fire.

'Yes," cried the king, "yes, I
swear it, I will chastise them ! The
whole world shall learn what it is
to try to resist me !" He was near-
ly stifled with rage, which entirely
transported him and rendered him
incapable of reflection.

'You will assist me, Cromwell,"
he cried, " you will assist me ! I
shall have need of you to help me
tame this insolent clergy, who will
raise a loud howl when they hear
I have banished Catherine and mar-
ried Anne Boleyn without their
participation."

' He is caught," thought Crom-
well. " Poor fish ! you have too
many vices to hope to escape my
nets ! I am very happy to see,"
he replied with a satisfied air, "that
your majesty has not been cast down
or discouraged by the trifling diffi-
culties you have until the present
encountered. It is time your cour-
age got the better of your gene-
rosity, and that you should throw

off the yoke which has been so long
imposed on you."

" Yes, that is just what I want !"
cried the king ; " but it is a very
difficult question to deal with."

" Not the least in the world," re-
plied Cromwell ; " let your majesty
continue as you have begun, and
you will very soon see every obsta-
cle fall before you. Not long since
they declared your marriage was
impossible ; to-day it is accomplish-
ed. . . . The clergy will not re-
cognize it ! ... Make Parliament
proclaim it ; then demand of them
the oath of fidelity to the new
queen, to her children, and to the
supreme head of the church ; be-
cause we must not lose sight," con-
tinued Cromwell, " of the fact
that there is no longer any neces-
sity for discretion now ; after the
injury done to the Sovereign Pontiff
of the church, there remains no other
way to proceed than to cast off his
authority at once and substitute
another in his place."

" Softly, softly," said the king ;
' unless the necessity be forced
upon me, I do not wish to go to
such an extremity."

"This is not an extremity," re-
plied Cromwell, who had the plan
already perfectly arranged, and en-
joyed in advance all the ecclesi-
astical benefits he counted on ap-
propriating to himself; "it is a de-
cisive victory, simple and easy to
cariy out. Is it not, Cranmer ?"

." I think so," said Cranmer, who
had taken the habit of a bishop
only that he might be better able
to serve his ambition and avidity.

" Softly," continued the king, with
an air of importance ; " it is very
evident that neither of you are
statesmen, and that you are not
experienced in such matters, nor
acquainted with their difficulties."

" I think, however, I know very

704

Thomas More.

well how to manage my own," said
Cromwell under his breath.

" We know .quite as much, about
it as seme others," thought Cran-
mer.

" It will first be necessary," con-
tinued Henry, " to see if there will
be no means of arranging it other-
wise. It is possible that Catherine
may submit, that she may ask to
become a religieuse, that they may
decide at Rome that it is not neces-
sary to enforce the law so urgently
in my case. At any rate, I wish to
try them," he added in a determined
voice, " by demanding, as is custo-
mary, Cranmer's bulls of the pope,
Afterward ah ! well, we will see."

" Then, sire," replied Cromwell,
" consider well that, by this act of
submission, you destroy all the ter-
ror you have inspired, and that if
Cranmer holds his rank and powers
as Archbishop-Primate of England
from any other than yourself, he will
be obliged to publicly acknow-
ledge the supremacy of the Bishop
of Rome, and to take from him, as
usual, the oath of fidelity."

" Oh ! ' hurriedly interrupted
Cranmer, who feared that this re-
mark of Cromwell would make the
king hesitate, and retard his installa-
tion, " this oath is only a simple for-
mality, . . .an ancient usage,
. . . Nothing could prevent me
later from taking another to the king
in the form and tenor adopted."

"Ah! well; yes, still "saidCrom-
well, whose talent above all con-
sisted in never finding, nor letting
the king find, any difficulty in fol-
lowing his advice.

' These honest individuals ! '
thought the king ; " an oath weighs
no more on their conscience than a
gnat on the back of a swallow."

With this remark his patience was
exhausted with them.

'Well, it is all right," he said;

" we will return to this subject aftei
the council. Go now ; I need rest ;
but keep an eye on Thomas More
and the Bishop of Rochester," he
added, turning toward Cromwell.

They then had to retire, and leave
the king by himself, a prey to his
own reflections.

" They are gone at last ! ' cried
Henry, throwing himself into a fau-
teuiL " I am rid of them ! These
are, then, the agents of hell with
whom hereafter I must manage the
affairs of my kingdom."

And he angrily pushed from un-
der his feet a footstool, which was
hurled against a chair they called
the " queen's chair," because she
had shown a preference for it.

Henry recollected it ; he arose
abruptly, and changed his position
in order to avoid seeing the vacant
chair, that annoyed him.

" Always Catherine," he cried ;
" nothing but Catherine ! I cannot
take a step without being reminded
of her ! So much trouble, and only
to make myself so wretched ! . . .
That doll-baby, Anne Boleyn, was
weeping ! . . . A weak crea-
ture, and with no energy ! . . .
She is not equal to the position
to which I have elevated her. To
weep the day that I married her,
when for her I have torn myself
from the arms of the clergy, the
people, the pope, and the emperor !
... I shall not be happy with
this woman ; . . . she wearies me
already ! ... It will be neces-
sary to make all this known before
the coronation ; . . . otherwise
there will be no time to recede.
... To acknowledge that I have
done wrong . . . it is impossible.

. . More, could you, then, have
been right? Shall I always be
more unhappy iii following my own
will than in conquering it ? . . .
That wretch! always calm, always

Sir Thomas More.

70S

contented. ... I see him no\v,
clown in his obscurity, seated quietly
in his cabinet, working, loving God,
not fearing death, . . . smiling
at poverty and all the circum-
stances of life, which, as he says,
have no power to annoy him. . . .
And I I roll here on these velvet
cushions, with remorse in my heart,
despair in my soul ; and why,
when I have obtained the object I

wanted ? . . . Hell has already
begun for me ! . . . If it is so,
I should not, at least, be ashamed
to acknowledge it ! . . . March
on!"

The king, rising then precipi-
tately, left his cabinet, and ordered
preparations for a grand hunting
party, and for the assembling of
the ladies for a ball and supper
in the evening.

XII.

WHILST they were dancing at
court, and sought, in dissipation
of mind, to drown remorse of heart,
a few leagues distant one of the vic-
tims of Henry VIII. lay on his
death-bed, rapidly approaching his
end.

The night before some travellers
had knocked at the gate of Leices-
ter Abbey. It was opened, and the
Archbishop of York had alighted
from his mule, on which he was no
longer able to sustain himself. He
was carried by the good monks to
a chamber, and laid in bed, where
he still remained confined and nigh
unto death.

All was gloom around this bed ;
two wax lights only burned on a
table at the extremity of the room,
whilst several monks were on their
knees praying for the dying. Not
a sound disturbed the silence
around them save the slight noise
made by the rosary as they turned
it in their hands, and the labored
respiration of the sick man.

4 Monsieur Kingston," he sud-
denly cried in a broken voice, " I
conjure you, say to the king that I
have never betrayed him, that my
enemies have misrepresented me,
that I have always been faithful to
him ! . . . Tell him this, I conjure
you ! ah ! tell him this."

But Sir William Kingston, lieu-
VOL. xxin. NO. 45

tenant of the Tower, had left the
room and returned to the lower hall
among hij guards, with whom he
had been sent, by order of the
king, to seek his prisoner at the
castle of the Count of Shrewsbury,
and bring him to the Tower.

Fatigued by the journey, some
of them were stretched on the
floor, while others slept on their
arms, leaning against the wall, as if
death still required them to guard
their prey.

Wolsey receiving no reply, turn-
ed himself over with a groan, and
saw the shadow of a man standing
near his bed.

" Who is that ?" he asked.

" It is I," replied Cavendish, still
remaining behind the curtain, and
who endeavored in silence to con-
ceal his tears.

"How are you now?" said Wol
sey.

" Well, my dear lord, if your
grace was well also," responded the
faithful servant.

" Ah ! my dear friend," replied
the cardinal, " as for me, I am very
sick. I am rapidly approaching
my end ; but what most distresses
me is to have nothing to leave you,
and not to be able to assure you of
a subsistence."

" Do not trouble yourself about
that," said this devoted servant,

706

Sir Thomas More.

who approached and took the trem-
bling hand of the dying man; "in
a few days you will be better, and
we shall not lose you."

" What time is it ?" said Wolsey.

"Midnight."

"Midnight!" replied the arch-
bishop. " How short the time is !
Before eight o'clock I shall have to
leave this world. God calls me to
himself, and I can remain no longer
with you. Monsieur Vincent," he
continued after a moment's silence
" Monsieur Vincent, say to the
king that it was my intention to
have left him all my property ; but
he has himself deprived me of that
pleasure, since they have seized, by
his orders, everything that I pos-
sessed." \

On hearing his name called,
Monsieur Vincent hurried to the
bedside ; but at these last words
he shook his head in token of in-
credulity and impatience. He was
an employe of the king's treasury,
and his heart was as hard as the
coin he had charge of.

Having learned that Wolsey was
very sick when he left the castle of
the Count of Shrewsbury, and fear-
ing he might die on the road, the
king had despatched this man in
all haste to secure the money and
valuables he supposed Wolsey might
have concealed among his friends.

' I have told you the truth," re-
plied the archbishop, who remark-
ed his movement. " I have no-
thing left in London, and but for
the assistance of Monsieur Arun-
del I should have died of starva-
tion at Asher. I implore you, then,
that the king may have compassion
.on my poor servants, and allow
them the wages now due them."

' We will see, my lord," said
the dissatisfied scribe, who was
waiting for an avowal which he had
continued to solicit, without any

consideration, ever since his arri-
val ; " we will see. But the trea-
sury is so very much impoverished
at this time ! . . . However, we will
do what we can. We will ask the
king, if it is convenient."

" Monsieur Vincent, I implore
you ! " replied the cardinal.

" Master Vincent," said Caven-
dish, " I beg you to leave the
room ; your presence annoys and
excites him. Have mercy, then,
and leave him in peace."

The scribe hesitated, but he did
not go ; he returned to the corner
of the chamber and began to write
as before.

Cavendish followed him with a
look of indignation. It seemed
very hard that his master could not
even be permitted to die without
this avaricious surveillance.

" Cavendish," asked the archbi-
shop immediately, " do you think
she will come ?"

" They expect her every mo-
ment, my dear lord," he replied ;
" she will remain three days here."

"O Cavendish!"

" My dear master !"

And he fell on his knees by the
bed. He bathed with tears the
hand of the archbishop, which he
held in his own.

" She will not see me, my son!
She will not forgive me !"

" Ah ! my dear, my beloved lord. "
He could say no more, being entire-
ly overcome by grief.

" Remember, my son, remem-
ber," continued Wolsey, "that it
was my infernal policy that per-
suaded the king of the possibility
of his divorce ! Is that she ? I
hear a noise. My God ! I am
dying. Spare me, that I may ask
her forgiveness ; yes, her forgive-
ness, even as God has forgiven me.
O my God !" he cried suddenly,
fixing his eyes on a crucifix he had

Sir Thomas Afore.

707

made them hang on the wall in
front of him, " had I only served
thee as faithfully as I have served
this prince in whom I have placed
all my hopes and centred all my
affections ! AVeak mortal like my-
self, what had fye to offer me that
I should attach myself to him ?
Vain splendor of an ephemeral
power, where have you led me ?
O man, crowned with a diadem !
cast a glance upon the bed of a
dying man, and reflect. Why
have I not despised your favors
and the gifts you have offered me ?
How fatal they have proved to me !
To-day, solitary and alone, I must
appear before my God, with hands
empty and void of all those virtues
and merits which you have pre-
vented me from acquiring. Why
have I not come here in my youth,
among these humble monks, and
learned to extinguish the pride that
has governed my entire life ? Lis T
ten, all you who are here present !
Come and behold my emaciated
limbs ; see the flesh that covered
them already destroyed by the
breath of death, that has struck
them ! And my tongue that now
speaks to you, and which was
thought capable of dictating the
decrees of conquerors, will soon
be silenced for ever."

But exhausted by so violent an
effort,' he sank into a state of insen-
sibility.

Seized with terror, the monks
gathered around his bed, recalling
the power and eclat with which the
name of Wolsey was surrounded,
and which had so many times re-
sounded even through the most
remote walls of their solitude. . . .

Yes, it was she it was indeed
Queen Catherine. She had reach-
ed this monastery, where she in-
tended remaining several days be-
fore deciding on the place of her

retreat. Henry VIII., in order to
entirely prove that she had become
to him an object of perfect indif-
ference, had not even offered her
an asylum.

"She is free," he said; "let her
do what she pleases. That is the
widow of my brother, the Princess
Dowager of Wales. Hereafter she
must bear no other name."

However, they had opened all
the gates, and the father abbot, pre-
ceded by the cross and followed by
all his religieux carrying lighted
torches, went before the queen and
conducted her into the chapter-
hall, which had been prepared for
her reception.

There she found carpets, cush-
ions, an arm-chair covered with
velvet, and everything the good
monks could imagine would be
agreeable and testify their devo-
tion.

Catherine felt touched to the
heart by these testimonials of re-
spect and affection.

She seated herself a moment in
order to thank them ; then, rising
with that calm and majestic dignity
which so eminently characterized
her, she said :

" Good fathers, it is no more
your queen whom you receive in
your midst ; it is a fugitive woman,
an outraged mother, separated from
all that she holds most dear in the
world. Do not treat nir^ then, with
so much honor. I have more need
of your tears and prayers than of
your respect and homage."

" Alas ! madam," replied the fa-
ther abbot, " life is very short,
and the judgments of God are in-
scrutable. You come beneath the
shadow of this sanctuary to seek
an asylum, while the first author of
all your woes, a man of whom you
have had great cause to complain,
has sought here a refuge to die."

708

Sir Thomas More.

" What !" said the queen. ' Ven-
erable father, explain yourself!"

" Yesterday, madam," replied the
abbot, " the Archbishop of York
arrived here in a dying condition.
He was accompanied by Cavendish,
his servant, and the lieutenant of
the Tower, who is conducting him
to JLondon, there to be tried on the
charge of high treason."

" IJe here!" cried the queen,
overwhelmed with astonishment.
And Catherine, a Spaniard and a
mother, felt the hatred she had
borne Wolsey revive in her soul
with extreme violence. The feeling
she had vainly sought to extinguish
rekindled with renewed strength
every time she received a new out-
rage, or when the name and con-
duct of the minister who had sacri-
ficed her to his political views and
interests was brought to her recol-
lection.

A sudden tremor seized her.

' Wolsey here !" she repeated.
' No matter where I go, this man
follows me ! . . . Here !" she
said again.

: Yes, madam," replied the fa-
ther abbot, " here, dying, but more
worthy of pity than hatred; he
weeps, he bemoans his past life, he
implores God's mercy. It is suf-
ficient to see him to be touched
with compassion. For two days we
have watched him by turns ; he has
not ceased to pray God, and I
know that to see you will be a
great consolation to him."

'See him?" replied the queen.
j " No ! oh ! no, never. God forgive
him the injury he has done me ; but
I will never see him."

" Will Queen Catherine forget the
charity of Jesus Christ ?" replied
the father abbot in a severe tone.
' Can that virtue be more than a
vain appearance which is stranded
by coming in contact with a resent-

ment, just, perhaps, but none the
less criminal? ... I conjure
you, madam," he continued, falling
on his knees before the queen, "re-
fuse not to see him. Already,
without doubt, he knows that you
are here. He desires to see you
and ask your forgiveness. All of
our brothers ask it with him."

Catherine remained silent, but
she advanced a step forward, which
the father accepted as a mute con-
sent ; and passing immediately be-
fore her, he conducted her into the
chamber where Wolsey was lying.

She advanced to the middle of
the room, and was struck by the
spectacle presented to her view.
Cavendish supported the dying man
in his arms, and wiped the cold
sweat from his face, now as white
as the sheet on which he lay. A
convulsive movement agitated oc-
casionally his extended limbs, and
it was from that alone they saw that
life was not yet extinct.

Catherine approached at once,
and remained standing in silence, in
the face of this enemy, heretofore so
powerful and so formidable.

She made no movement, and her
eyes only were fixed on the dying.
"And I too will die ! ' she said in
her heart. " The day will come when
I shall cease to surfer. O material
life which envelops me ! cease also
to burden my soul, and let it flee
into eternity. Let me find a refuge
even in the bosom of the tomb."

" My daughter, my daughter !"
she suddenly cried, as though be-
side herself; "give her back to me,
you who have torn her from my
arms !"

A shudder passed over the form
of Wolsey; he had heard that
voice. It seemed as though a burn-
ing fire had touched him. He
rose up in his bed, and, gazing at

Sir Thomas More.

709

the queen with wildly staring eyes,
" Your daughter, madam !" he
cried, " your daughter !
Alasl.it is I who have done all.
You accuse me, and yet, as God is
my judge, I threw myself at the
feet of the king, and tried to turn
him from his evil intention; but it
was too late, and I had not fore-
seen the fatal consequences of a
policy which I believed would be
advantageous and beneficial. Alas !
how differently I regard it at this
terrible hour. Pardon me ! par-
don me ! . . . I conjure you, that
I may not bear to the foot of the
throne of the Sovereign Judge the
fearful weight of the malediction
of the widow and the orphan!"
And he stretched towards her his
hands, which he was no longer able
to raise.

" May God forgive you," re-
sponded the queen, " may God for-
give you ! But what can there be
in common between you and me,
unless it is suffering ? You will
soon be delivered from your woes ;
but I I must live !"

"Ah!" cried Woolsey with ex-
pressions of the most profound
wretchedness, "you hear it, bro-
thers, already the voice of God
punishes me by the mouth of this
woman. And thus," he continued,
fixing his terrified gaze on the
queen, "I die at enmity with you,
and you will not have compassion
on the condition to which I am re-
duced ! How can one human be-
ing call down upon another with-
out trembling the vengeance of the
Most High ?. Are we not all formed
of the same flesh and blood ? Are
you not horror-stricken at the
thought of the judgments I must
suffer and the account I must ren-
der?"

Catherine felt her blood con-
gealed by the frightful eloquence of

this expiring man this man whom
but a moment separated from death
and eternity.

At the thought of the nothing-
ness of all created humanity, she
felt the hatred she had borne Woi-
sey entirely effaced.

" Your reasoning enlightens me !"
she cried. " Who are we that we
should wish to be revenged ?. Weak
and blind, should we precipitate
ourselves into the bottomless pit ?
We have received an injury, and
shall we inflict one in return ? Who
are we, and what is our duty ?"

She then advanced toward him,
and, taking in her own the hands
of her enemy, she said :

" I forgive you, I forgive you from
the most profound depths of my
heart. . . . May God, the sove-
reign Creator of all things, bless
you, and blot out from the awful
book of his justice your slightest
fault ! May he open to you the
mansions of eternal bliss ! Then re-
member me, and ask of him that my
eyes also may soon be closed to the
light of that day which you have
rendered insupportable. Tell him
that I want to die, and beg him to
recall to himself the soul that he
has given me ; say that my eyes are
weary with tears, and my heart worn
with suffering ; that sorrow has mul-
tiplied my days, and that I have
lived during the night, keeping tear-
ful vigils ; that I have only enjoyed
the blessings of life long enough to
regret them ; that I am ready, that
I listen, I wait to hear his voice, in
order that I may arise and depart."

Wolsey drank in with avidity all
of her words, and his eyes followed
every movement of the queen's lips ;
but suddenly the fire of his burning
glance was extinguished, his head
fell forward on his breast he had
ceased to breathe ! . . .

What pen can describe, what pen-

7io

Some Odd Ideas.

cil portray, the terrible and solemn
moment when a man is called to
leave for ever the world that gave
him birth the moment when those
who, having surrounded him with
the most constant care, loving words,
and affectionate attentions, fall pros-
trate around the silent couch, which
now contains no more than the de-
spoiled and lifeless clay which a be-
loved and cherished being seems to
have cast aside like a soiled gar-
ment? Let the cold sceptic come,
and, passing through that throng of
afflicted friends, let him place his
hand on the heart that has ceased

to beat, and then turn and dare still
to tell them that man has been cre-
ated to die, and nothing more re-
mains of him after death !
It is easy in the intoxication of joy,
amid the false glare of vanity and
of worldly dissipations, to put our
trust in falsehood and array our-
selves against the truth ; but the day
and the hour will come when she
will appear clothed in dazzling
robes of light, and the splendor of
her irradiated countenance will
strike with terror and annihilation
the last one of her wretched and
presumptuous enemies.

SOME ODD IDEAS.

' OUR intelligence," says the cel-
ebrated Montaigne, " is a kind of
vagabond instrument, daring and
dangerous, to which it is difficult
to associate order or appoint limits.
It is a hurtful weapon to its owner
himself, if he does not know how to
use it discreetly."

No one can doubt the truth of
this observation who has ever stud-
ied the workings of his own individ-
ual mind with some little attention.
And even when we cannot perceive
the beam in our own eye, how very
evident is the straw in our neigh-
bor's ! Though unsuspecting of
the bee in our own bonnet, how
quickly we hear it buzzing in his !

A specimen of some of the extra-
vagant vagaries of human wit may
perhaps interest and amuse. To
begin at the beginning : thinkers
have endeavored to imagine what
was going on before the Creation.

In the seventeenth century, a
mystic writer composed a work on

the occupations of God before the
creation of the universe ! Nearly
all of it is incomprehensible, but a
few sentences will give an idea of
its style :

" To ask what God was doing
before the Creation is an imperti-
nence, a puerility. ... It is certain
that the eternal God who made this
earth by the power of his word had
no need of the world and all the
creatures it contains he had lived
and reigned before Time began,
happy and contented in the para-
dise of his essence and in the es-
sence of himself. . . . He was con-
templating his only Son, not made,
not created, but begotten from ^all
eternity ; in the eternal Word he
contemplated the archetype, the
world of the world, angels, souls,
and all things. In conclusion, we
may say that God, before the crea-
tion of the world, did something
and did nothing. ..."

Singular problems, most daringly

Some Odd Ideas.

711

resolved, have been presented re-
specting the epoch of the Crea-
tion. Chevreau, in his Histoire dit
Monde, 1686, tells us that, ac-
cording to some writers, the earth
was created in the spring ; accord-
ing to others, equally good authori-
ties, on a Friday, the 6th of Sep-
tember, at four o'clock in the after-
noon !

A learned Italian of the last cen-
tury, Monsignor Baiardi, in the
course of a conversation with the
Abbe Barthelemy, mentioned that
he was about writing an abridg-
ment of universal history, and
that he intended to commence his
work with the solution of one of
the most important problems of
astronomy and history. His de-
sire was to determine the exact
spot in the .firmament in which
God had placed the sun when he
made the earth. "And," says Bar-
thelemy, '* he had just discovered
it, and showed it to me on a globe."

Our common father has been the
subject of an infinite number of
curious suppositions, not to say
crack-brained fancies. The Tal-
mudists, for instance, have con-
structed the following programme
of Adam's first day of life :

In the first hour, the Creator
kneaded the clay of which man
was made, and moulded the out-
lines of his form.

In the second hour, Adam was
perfected and capable of action.

In the fourth hour, God called to
him, and commanded him to give
names to the beasts, birds, and
fishes.

In the seventh hour, the mar-
riage of our first parents took
place.

In the tenth hour, Adam sinned.

In the twelfth hour, the penalty
of labor began.

James Salien, a Jesuit of the sev-

enteenth century, tells us in his
A/males Ecclesiastici that, "while
man was being created, the divine
hands, ambrosial face, and admi-
rable arms of his Creator were visi-
ble to him."

The Arabs have a tradition that
Adam, when first created, stretched
from one extremity of the earth to
the other. But after he had sinned,
God pressed him down with his al-
mighty hand, and thus diminished his
height to nine hundred cubits. The
Creator, it is added, did this at the
request of the angels, who regard-
ed the gigantic mortal with strange
fear.

According to Moreri, Adam pos-
sessed a profound knowledge of all
the sciences, especially of astrology,
many secrets of which he taught to
his children, besides engraving two
tables of observations on the move-
ments of the planets. All the learn-
ed doctors of the Middle Ages are
agreed in ascribing the possession
of immense science to Adam. The
angels themselves, they say, were
inferior to him in knowledge ; and
they relate as proof of this that
God, having heard them speak of
man with contempt, determined to
confound them by asking them what
were the names of certain beasts
which he called into his presence
at that moment. The angels could
not answer; man, summoned to the
task, gave each animal its due ap-
pellation without hesitation.

Adam, being thus endowed with
unlimited knowledge, would have
been culpable towards his posterity
if he had left none of it behind him.
We are accordingly told that he
composed two works, one upon the
Creation, the other upon the Divin-
ity. Having been present, we may
almost say, at the first, and con-
versed familiarly with the second,
he was able to tell us something in-

712

Some Odd Ideas.

teresting about both, and it is our
misfortune that the two works have
been lost It is, however, said
that they survived the Deluge, for
a Mahometan author relates that
Abraham, being in the country of
the Sabeans, opened Adam's chest,
and found in it not only our pro-
genitor's writings but also those of
Sethi

Opinions are various concerning
the form the tempter assumed to de-
ceive poor Eve. It has been assert-
ed that Sammael, the prince of
devils, came to her mounted on a
serpent as large in girth as a camel ;
and then again it is said that Sa-
tan borrowed the form of the ser-
pent, and made it more seductive
by the addition of a sweet maiden's
face ! This tradition has been
adopted by poets and painters.

As the name of the forbidden
fruit is not mentioned in the Book
of Genesis, conjecture has had full
scope. Northern nations believe
that it was an apple ; southern peo-
ple that it was a fig or citron.
Rabbi Salomon thinks that Moses
concealed the name of the fruit
purposely, fearing that, if it were
known, nobody would ever eat of it.

According to St. Jerome, Adam
was buried in Hebron ; other learn-
ed authors say on Calvary ; either as-
sertion is difficult of verification, for
both Hebron and Calvary only date
from the Deluge. " Barcepha al-
leges," says Bayle, "that a highly es-
teemed Syrian doctor had said that
Noe dwelt in Judea; that he planted
in the ^plains of Sodom the cedar-
trees with which he afterwards built
the ark; and that he carried Adam's
bones into the ark with him. When
he came out of the ark, he divided
these bones among his three sons ;
the skull fell to the share of Sem,
and when the descendants of Sem
took possession of Judea, they

buried it in the very spot where
the tomb of Adam had once been
situated." The reader will doubt-
less feel that Barcepha's allegation
settles the question !

In 1615, a shoemaker of Amiens
published a treatise entitled DC
Calceo Antique. In this history of
shoes, the writer begins at the be-
ginning of the world, and gravely
informs us that Adam made the first
pair from the prepared skins of
beasts, the secret of tanning hav-
ing been taught him by God him-
self !

In the last century, Henrion, n
French Orientalist, and a member
of the Institute of France, conceived
the idea of composing an exhaust-
ive work on the weights and meas-
ures of the ancients, and presented
a specimen of his labors to the
Academy of Inscriptions, to which
he belonged. It was a kind of
chronological scale of the differ-
ences in man's stature from the
epoch of Adam's creation to the
time of our Saviour.

Adam, he stated, measured one
hundred and twenty-three feet, nine
inches ; Eve, one hundred and eigh-
teen feet, nine and three-quarter
inches ; Noe, one hundred and
three feet ; Abraham, twenty-seven
feet ; Moses, thirteen feet ; Her-
cules, ten feet; Alexander, six feet;
Julius Caesar, five feet.

He remarked upon this scale
that "though men are no longer
measured by their stature, if Provi-
dence had not deigned to suspend
such an extraordinarily rapid rate of
diminution, we, at this day, should
scarcely dare to class ourselves,
with respect to our size, among the
large insects of our globe!"

Towards the middle of the seven-
teenth century, an attempt was made
to wrest from Adam the honor of
being the first man. Isaac de la

New Publications.

713

Peyrere pulished a work in 1655,
entitled PneadamitcR^ sen Exercita-
tio super versibns 12, 13, 14 Capitis
V. Epistohc B. Pan/I ad Romanes,
in which he endeavors to prove
that there were two creations of
men the first on the sixth day,
when God created man, male and
female; which, he asserts, means
men and women in all parts of the
earth, progenitors of the Gentiles,
The second creation, he says, did
not take place until some time after,
when God made Adam to be the
father of the Jews. Those who
adopted this idea were called Pre-
adamites. La Peyrere lived to ab-
jure his opinions at the feet of Pope
Alexander VI.

Such are a few of the many odd
ideas upon the Creation and the
first man which human wit, that
''dangerous instrument " when not
kept within due limits, has been
continually devising ever since the
beginning of history. The logic

of the nineteenth century rejects
them all ; nevertheless, while we
laugh at the extraordinary sup-
positions of our ancestors, it is
pleasant to observe that, even in
the most extravagant about our
common father, the sentiment of
the first man's innate nobleness is
always present. Adam always
shines forth greater and grander
than his sons stronger, both phy-
sically and mentally. The old fa-
thers of the church, nay, even the
pedants of the Middle Ages, ad-
hered to the Scripture text, and be-
lieved that in the "looks divine " of
the first human pair

u The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure."

Is it not curious that the queerest
crank of all concerning Adam
that which strives to prove that
he was an ourang-outang should
have been reserved for our own
days of culture, of philosophical
research and science ?

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SPIRITUALISM AND ALLIED CAUSES AND
CONDITIONS OF NERVOUS DERANGE-
MENT. By William A. Hammond,
M.D. Svo, pp. 366. New York: G.
P. Putnam's Sons. 1876.
It is evident, from the appearance of
this work so speedily after the publica-
tion of a larger volume on Diseases of
the Nervous System, that Dr. Ham-
mond has contracted the cacccthes scri-
bendi in its worst shape. He is not easy
unless the pen is in his hand, and so
delightful must be to him the sensation
of a calamus c wrens that, we fear, he
pauses not to reflect over the fate of the
cyclical writer of old whose long-con-
tinued parlurient efforts resulted in the
production of a ridiculously small ani-
mal. For all that, he must be quite jea-

lous of his reputation as a strong-minded
and rational man, since he has under-
taken the vindication of reason, even at
the expense of reasoning. We give him
credit indeed for research, but of that
doubtful sort which delights in jumbling
together facts gathered from the most
opposite sources

Rudis indigcstaqne moles

in order that a boastful parade of erudi-
tion might impart weight to his other-
wise feather-light conclusions. A cer-
tain lack of method in the handling of
his subject is what first impresses the
reader of Dr. Hammond's latest lucu-
bration, and stamps the writer as illogi-
cal in the last degree. So-called spiri-

New Publications.

tual manifestations are by him included
in the same category as the pious acts
of the saints, who doubtless would re-
ject with horror the fantasies of Katie
King and \^JQ friponnerie of Home. Un-
der the head of " curing mediums" we
read of cures wrought by some obscure
personage called St. Sauveur, which, if
true, we are willing to accept, but which,
like all unauthenticated cases of the
sort, we are free to admit or disallow as
the weight of evidence justifies. But,
we ask, what relevancy to the heading
of this chapter can possess the case of a
woman laying an egg, or of another giv-
ing birth to two rabbits? If any such
there be, we confess our inability to dis-
cover it ; for certainly in those cases there
is no question of curing. Neither can
we perceive what induced the author to
adopt Kerdac's absurd division of spiri-
tual agents into " physical mediums,"
"seeing and auditive mediums," and
" curing mediums," since clearly the
first caption covers the whole ground.
This is a sin against that canon of me-
thod which forbids one branch of a divi-
sion to overlap another. Then the doc-
tor never can discriminate between es-
sential differences and accidental re-
semblances; and if a so-called medium
should, by slight of hand or electro-mag-
netism, produce phenomena resembling
the miraculous achievements of the
saints, pop they both go into the same
category of frauds or victims to a hallu-
cination. He never dreams as being
within the range of possible things that
personal sanctity on the one hand has
any power which does not belong on the
other to deception or mental imbecility.
It is refreshing to see how he gets these
things mixed together, and with what
complacent readiness he relegates all
believers in the supernatural to the re-
gions of blind ignorance and grovelling
superstition, while he calmly stands on
the undimmed hill-tops, or sublimely
soars through the placid atmosphere of
pure reason. Dr. Hammond rejects a
priori the possibility of an occurrence
not due to the operation of natural agents,
and hence he is necessitated constantly
to indicate or suggest an explanation of
what is most marvellous and obscure.
This, of course, is a very difficult proce-
dure, and hence we need not be sur-
prised at the following ingenious, if not
entirely logical, scheme he has devised
for making straight paths that are crook-

ed, and smooth those that are rough.
Whenever he has in hand the considera-
tion of a general principle, he illustrates
it by reference to a case which the com-
mon tenets of science can readily elu-
cidate. This elucidation he deems am-
ply sufficient to establish the principle,
and then he tacks on, as to be accounted
for in the same manner, a mass of cases
of every shade and degree of intricacy,
often having no relation to the principle
by the light of which he pretends to judge
them, or to the case he adduces in illus-
tration of the principle. The chapter on
somnambulism will serve as an example
of this sort of paralogism. He divides
this exceptional condition of conscious-
ness into natural and artificial. Som-
nambulism produces two typical in-
stances of both. In the one case a young
lady rises in her sleep, dresses herself,
goes into the parlor, lights the gas, and
intently gazes on the picture of her de-
ceased mother. Sulphurous fumes are
disengaged under her nose, quinine is
placed on her tongue, the corners of her
eyes are touched by a lead-pencil, and
still she remained motionless and insen-
sible. The same person soon after ac-
quired the power of placing herself in
the somnambulic state by concentrating
her attention on a passage cf a philoso-
phical treatise. These cases arc, we
will grant for sake of reasoning, expli-
cable on the principle of automatism,
but what, we ask, does the case of St.
Rose of Lima possess in common with
these, or how can the principle of auto-
matism be made to apply to her case ?
This saintly personage dwelt in a cli-
mate where mosquitoes were numerous
and vicious, yet she enjoyed entire im-
munity from their sting, while worship-
ping in a little arbor built by her own
hands; and this, she averred, was done
in consequence of a pact by virtue of
which the blood-thirsty little insects
agreed to strike their notes in praise of
the divine Being. Either the statement
of Gorres and its verification in the bull
canonizing St. Rose must be rejected in
tnto, or admitted without any slipshod
attempt at explanation as that which Dr.
Hammond offers. He pretends that if
such a thing did happen, it must be in
consequence of the saint's hypnotizing
the mosquitoes, and thus obtaining con-
trol over them. But is it possible that
hypnotized mosquitoes would continue
to drone out their peculiar music even

New Publications.

715

to a livelier measure than usual, or would
ferociously attack all other persons ex-
cept St. Rose ? for, as Dr. Hammond fa-
.cetiously (?) remarks, she was not filial
enough to include her mother in the bar-
gain. V r c have here, then, a case which
differs essentially from that of the som-
nambulic lady mentioned, and one that
stubbornly refuses to be accounted for
in the same manner. The somnambulic
young lady exhibited a condition strik-
ingly abnormal ; there was complete loss
of sensibility and power to observe what
was taking place around her, while the
mosquitoes became more tuneful than
ever, and followed the natural bent of
their instinct towards all but the little
saint, who made them join her in singing
the praises of their mutual Creator. Yet
Dr. Hammond would have us believe
cither that the story is untrue or that the
mosquitoes were hypnotized. And this
is his mode of conducting warfare against
the supernatural : Doctus iter melius. The
blunt scepticism of Paine or Hobbes is
more tolerable than this skim-milk rea-
soning. He docs not hesitate even to
intimate that the prophet Daniel pos-
sessed this mesmeric power, and thus
escaped the fangs of the enraged and
hungry lions into whose den he was
cast. The same inconsequence of rea-
soning may be traced in the conclusion
drawn from the experiments of Kircher
and Czcrmak ; Kircher having noticed
that a hen with tied legs ceased to strug-
gle, when a chalk-line was drawn before
its eyes, in the belief that the line was
the string which tied it, and that so long as
the line remained all efforts at self-de-
liverance were useless. The good Father
Kircher sought no further explanation
of the phenomenon till Czermak, in 1873,
proved that a true state of hypnotism or
artificial somnambulism had been in-
duced. To place the matter beyond
doubt, he modified and repeated the ex-
periment, so that now we cannot but ac-
cept this explanation, and say of Kirch-
er's merely :

u Si non e vero e ben trovato."

This hypnotic condition of the lower
animals- once allowed, Dr. Hammond
rushes to the conclusion that therein is
to be sought and found the only true so-
lution of the control which at times the
sjints of the church exercised over them.
This is certainly the most perverse logic
that can be conceived of. As well might

we infer from the fact that certain cha-
racteristic features attend death by stran-
gulation, and that these have been scien-
tifically studied, therefore all animals
died this death, and so reject as apocry-
phal all circumstances pointing to an-
other possible mode of exit from life's
cares. The reasoning is entirely parallel
to Dr. Hammond's when he says that
Czermak having demonstrated the hyp-
nosis of hens and craw-fish, and himself
a similar condition in dogs and rabbits,
therefore ^whatever we read or hear of in
reference to a completely different state
of things we must equally set down to
hypnosis as the cause. It is on this ac-
count he scouts the notion of bees de-
positing their honey on the lips of St.
Dominic, St. Ambrose, and St. Isidore,
or of following them into the desert and
obeying their commands. If, indeed, we
accept the lamp which science kindly
furnishes, and, enlightened by its light,
call those miraculous occurrences the
effect of hypnosis, we may perchance es-
cape the charge of credulity.

In this last sentence we confess to
have fallen into an error which, however,
we will not correct for the sake of the
salutary reflection it has stirred up with-
in us. We said : " Unless we accept the
lamp which science kindly furnishes,"
etc., thereby seeming to intimate that we
are enemies to science, whereas nothing
could be farther from our purpose. True
science is founded on the eternal princi-
ples of truth, and, itself shining out with
God's holy light, can never go astray.
But there is a pseudo-science, a spurious
affair, which has donned the garb of
truth and assumed its name, and which
men, calling it science, wonder and are
amazed that science and religion so of-
ten find themselves in antagonism. If
men were always careful to discriminate
between what is founded on unquestion-
able facts on the one hand, and the airy
hypotheses of highly imaginative scien-
tists on the other, and not bestow the
dignified appellative of science on these
latter, they would not be so easily capti-
vated by the gilded sophistries of Dra-
per, or allured by the glitter of Ham-
mond's showy erudition. This en pas-
sant.

In speaking of the cures said to have
been accomplished by St. Sauveur, Dr.
Hammond makes this striking and preg-
nant remark : " If St. Sauveur had really
been the great healer he is said to have

716

Nciv Publications,

been, we should find his doings record-
ed in a thousand contemporaneous vol-
umes, and every school-boy would have
them at his tongue's end. Neither do
facts go begging for believers, nor will
they remain concealed in obscure books."
Now, these two sentences fairly teem with
fallacies. In the first place, the alleged
performances of St. Sauveur are by no
means regarded as authoritatively estab-
lished or widely known, as Dr. Ham-
mond himself subsequently indicates ;
how, then, even if true, could they have
found their way into a thousand contem-
poraneous volumes? Besides, the age
in which St. Sauveur lived differed in
this respect from ours : that the recital
of even the most marvellous occurrences
spread very slowly, and never very wide-
ly ; how, then, even if true, could the ex-
ploits of St. Sauveur have ever obtained
much notoriety at the time ? And chief
of all, there is that inherent spirit of
scepticism in every man which prompts
him, often in the face of the most posi-
tive evidence, to reject whatever is stated
to have taken place in derogation of
physical law, or else to assign a purely
physical reason for it. It is this scepti-
cal tendency which will ever stand in
the way of the ready and universal ac-
ceptance of supernatural events, how-
ever well attested, and, in this respect,
essentially distinguishes them from facts
of the natural order. It is the operation
of this tendency which has driven Dr.
Hammond himself into his illogical po-
sition, and will leave him there till he
subordinates this prejudiced feeling to
the higher promptings of his intellect.
Long before him Voltaire gave expres-
sion to this sentiment when he declared
that he would more willingly believe
that the whole city of Paris had been de-
ceived, or had conspired to deceive, than
he would that a single dead man had
risen from the grave. Herein lies the
whole philosophy of Dr. Hammond's po-
sition, if philosophy it can be called. He
sets out with the conviction that a super-
natural occurrence is impossible, and he
is consequently determined to reject all
testimony of whatsoever sort, no matter
how weighty, and which he would rea-
dily allow in scientific affairs, which goes
to support their authenticity. Historical
testimony is of no avail, the good sense
and discrimination of individuals goes
for naught, when weighed against the
flimsiest and shallowest so-called scienti

fie explanations. Whenever a saint either
performed a miracle or was himself the
subject of a miraculous affection, Dr.
Hammond concludes that he was epi-
leptic or cataleptic, or suffering from
some derangement of the nervous cen-
tres. Of St. Teresa he remarks: "The
organization of St. Teresa was such as
to allow of her imagining anything as
reality ; and the hallucination of being
lifted up, as I shall show hereafter, is
one of the most common experienced
by ecstatics." He thus places the saint
in the light of a feeble-minded woman,
of weak judgment and puny intellect,
whereas all writers agree that in the
various reforms she introduced into her
religious community she exhibited the
rarest good sense, moderation, and vigor
of mind. The same remark is applica-
ble to St. Thomas of Villanova. But
enough. Rational criticism should be
expended on other subjects. The sa-
vant who compares Bernadette of Sou-
birous to the moiiKS of Mount Athos,
who go into ecstasy by placing their
thoughts on God and their eyes on
their navel, cannot expect much digni-
fied criticism. The book is calculated
to produce an unfavorable impression
against the church in the minds of scio-
lists and those who are apt to be influ-
enced by the authority of a name. We
have already expressed our views on
Dr. Hammond's psychological attain-
ments, and this present volume, so far
from inducing us to alter them, rather
inclines us to think that our strictures
were unduly lenient. The comments
which our June article elicited from the
press go far to show that the intelligent
portion of the community will not ac-
cept as genuine science a mere jinglizig
Greek nomenclature e Grccco fonte
parce detorta and that, Draper and
Hammond to the contrary, common-
sense is not yet so rare as but yet to be
common. The style of the book is good,
the English pure, and the description
graphic. It is well adapted, consequent-
ly, for popular reading, and will nc
doubt have a wide circulation tanlpis.

GERMAN POLITICAL LEADERS. By Her-
bert Tuttle. New York: G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. 1876.

If Mr. Tuttle were one of the hired
scribes of the Berlin Press Bureau, we,
should have looked lor just such a book
as he has written. A genuine "mud-

New Publications.

717

bather " cotud not have shown himself
either a more unfair partisan or a more
liippant and inaccurate narrator.

Had the book appeared on its own
merits, and not as one of a series of bio-
graphies, edited under the supervision
of Thomas Wentvvorth Higginson, we
should have passed it by like any other
piece of book-making ; for it is merely a
catch-penny performance, and was most
probably never meant to be anything
else. This volume is of itself sufficient
to show how utterly worthless is the
claim put forth by Putnam's Sons that
the whole series is to be made reliable
i.i every statement of fact Bismarck,
we are told, was a youth of very tender
nature, and is even yet a devout and
pious Christian. " His domestic tastes
were always strong ; his longing for a
wife and household of his own would
seem to have been very acute, till in
1847 it was satisfied by his marriage
with Joanna von Putkammer."

The truth is, Bismarck was a wild and
reckless youth, who distinguished him-
self at the university by fighting some
twenty-five duels and by taking the lead
; ; n the boisterous and riotous debauches
habitual with so many German students.
As a young man he continued this mode
of life on his paternal estates, where he
was known as DerTolle Bismarck Mad
Bismarck. His favorite drink at this
time was a mixture of porter and cham-
pagne. His letters to his sister show
that the "acute longing for a wife" is
only in the imagination of Mr. Tuttle.
' His whole career," says this writer,
' previous to entering the Prussian min-
istry, was one of study and preparation ,
. . . at the university he was a pro-
found and philosophical student of his-
tory, particularly that of his own coun-
try." He never took a degree, and he
was a profound and philosophical stu-
dent of nothing except fencing, boxing,
and hunting. Mr. Tuttle does not even
quote correctly the sayings of Bismarck,
which are known to every newspaper
reader. Bismarck said : " Germany must
be made with blood and iron " ; and Mr.
Tuttle makes him say: " The battles of
this generation arc to be fought out with
iron and blood."

The sketch of Dr. Falk is a still sor-
rier performance. In an attempt to sum
up the relations of the church and the
state in Prussia from 1817 to 1862, he
says : " Accordingly the Catholics made

grave advances along the whole line of
social, educational, and political inter-
ests. . . . The church, or the ecclesiasti-
cal element, wielded paramount authority
in the public councils " (p. 29). Nothing
could be more false, nor would one who
knows anything of Prussian history com-
mit himself to a statement which can be
excused from malice only by being sup-
posed to proceed from gross ignorance.

We might cite fifty passages from this
book in which bitter and vulgar preju-
dice against the Catholic Church has led
the author into palpable and unpardona-
ble blunders. Dr. Krementz is the " ob-
stinate and disobedient bishop of Erme-
land." " The complaints of the Ultra-
montanes are both extravagant and ab-
surd." The leaders of the Catholic party.

as the servants of an infallible spiritual
master, were apparently placed above
those restraints of moderation, courtesy,
and truthfulness which apply in secular
matters. . . . They led their hearers into
tortuous mazes of sophistry, they wrap-
ped the subject in clouds of paltry falla-
cies, at the command of bishops whose
gospel is light." Dr. Falk's courage " has
stood the ordeal required of every states-
man who excites the hatred and exposes
himself to the vengeance of the pupils
of the Jesuit Mariana. He has been
threatened with assassination quite as
often as the emperor and Bismarck."

The fact that a book written by an
American, for Americans, and published
by a leading American house, should
evince the most thorough and earnest
sympathy with the relentless persecution
of the Catholic Church in Germany,
throws a very unpleasant light upon our
much-talked-of love of fair play and reli-
gious liberty.

The will to make martyrs and confes-
sors of the bishops and priests of the
United States is not wanting to Mr. Tut-
tle or Mr. Higginson, if the language
of this book may be taken as an evi-
dence of their real sentiments. The
only Catholic leader whose biography is
given in this volume is Lewis Wind-
thorst, and this is the character which ho
receives : " He would be the most daring
and consistent of sceptics if his interests
had not made him the most faithful of be-
lievers. Even his religious professions
spring from one form of unbelief. To
be a free-thinker requires the exercise of
faith in human reason and in most of the
results of human inquiry, while by es

718

New Publications.

pousing the Catholic religion he pro-
claimed his disbelief in all positive and
uninspired knowledge. He doubts eve-
rything that is true and believes only
what is doubtful." Since he cannot deny
the ability of Windthorst, he makes him
a hypocrite ; and then, suddenly forget-
ting what he has just said, he supposes
Windthorst to be a sincere believer only
to declare him a fool.

We must repeat it. If Mr. Tuttle, dur-
ing the four years which he has passed
in Berlin, had been a pensioner of the
' reptil 3 fund," he could not have written
more unworthily.

FAITH AND MODERN THOUGHT. By Ran-
som B. Welch, D.D., LL D., Professor
io UniDn College. With introduction
by Tayler Lewis, LL.D. New York :
G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1876.
Contrary to the intention of the au-
thor, the title of his work is absurdly
tautological, when interpreted by its con-
tents. The impression conveyed by the
title page would lead us to expect, did
in point of fact lead us to expect, at least
an orderly and careful analysis of the
subjects chosen. In this we have been
disappointed, not by the good-will with
which the author labors, but by his want
of success. The work is composed of
six chapters which might have been pub-
lished independently of one another. Of
these the first is valuable as an aggres-
sive demonstration of the materialistic
and irrational tendency of certain mod-
ern professors. The fifth and, perhaps,
the sixth possess a similar value ; while
the rest of the book, although fairly writ-
ten, is comparatively worthless.

The author is manifestly devoted to
Christianity ; his mind is sensitive to the
repulsive features of modern heathen-
ism ; he seeks to defend the nobler order
of ideas. But the trouble is that his
brief is not full. He does not know his
case. His theological speculations are
crude even to rawness, and the point
tfappui of his structure is not only vague
and inconsistent, but is shored up with
declamation which serves to impart an
additional appearance of insecurity to
that which is already feeble. It is rather
ludicrous to behold an evangelical Pro-
testant, at this late day, endeavoring to
undo the whole work of the Reforma-
tion, by trying to make faith appear rea-
sonable, or by seeking other grounds
for it than his own interior inspiration.

Nevertheless, this is a step in the right
direction. Th3 writer claims to be a
searcher after truth. If so, we can
scarcely imagine that he will rest satisfied
with his present work. The faith which
gave to Christianity its organization, and
which converted the ancient world, is no
such vague chimera as the shadowy r.nri
subjective persuasion to which the au-
thor clings. The pious wish and con-
viction to which Dr. Welch, adheres may
serve to occupy and quiet his own active
mind ; but it is less than impotent to
compel the assent of others. Dr. Welch
seeks to call attention to the ideas con-
tained in the Bible. He muGt have rense
enough to perceive that this very attempt
is something beyond his ability, and im-
plies a living power having the right and
capacity to speak for the Bible. Men
will not listen to Dr. Welch in his well-
meant endeavor to obtain a hearing.
The inconsequent and abortive assump-
tion on the part of the author of that
duty which used to be accomplished by
the teaching church, and which belongs
to her or else to nobody, and the futile
effort to give a coherent account of how
he gtsts from a conviction of the neces-
sity of revelation to belief in evan-
gelical Protestantism, will nullify that
part of the work which is good and* ren-
der it merely another stumbling-block in
the way of thoughtful men. We trust
that it will do as little harm as possible,
and that the author will eventually find
some other occupation more congenial
to his vigorous and reverent spirit than
his present task of attempting to hold
himself and others in unstable equili-
brium.

ACHSAH : A NEW ENGLAND LIFE- STUDY.

By Rev. Peter Pennot. Boston : Lee

&'Shepard. 1876.

This is a capital story, or " study," as
the author very rightly calls it, of New
England life. The character are all siti
generis, such as only a small, narrow,
sufficiently well-to-do New England
town could produce, while one of them,
Deacon Manlius Sterne, is a creation.
Never have we seen that peculiar union
of service of God and service of Mam-
mon, which Christ pronounced to be
impossible, so admirably portrayed as in
this typical New England deacon, who
himself would be the first to quote our
Lord's words condemning such service
to a business rival, but who at the same

New Publications.

time could very easny satisfy his own
conscience on the matter, and find what
he would consider a religious way out
of the difficulty. God's religion looks a
very small and mean affair among these
New England Christians. This very
book, we take it, is a revolt against the
S-iam and littleness of such a life. The
writer seems possessed of the best in-
tentions, thouuh no', of the profoundest
knowledge of Christianity. His reflec-
tions, for instance, on the death of Dr.
S^einboldt ar j a little out of place in a
Christian's mouth. Thus, he apostro-
phizes death : " Sent of God, to rich and
poor alike, to kings and emperors and
peasant?, to all nations and peoples, this
good physician comes to fulfil Christ's
crowning promise of rest to all who are
'weary and heavy laden." To which
we say, all very well ; only that in the
present instance "this good physician 1 '
happens to come in the form of suicide
to a murderer, who, to add to his delin-
quencies, was a quack.

It was a mistake of the author, too, to
make one "of his characters, an excellent
Catholic apparently, attend Protestant
service on the Sunday, instead of going
to the Catholic chapel in the town and
hearing Mass. However, he is evident-
ly very favorably inclined towards Ca-
tholics, so we will not quarrel with him
on so palpable a slip.

"It has pleased God to give us no
very clear idea of the great future, and
so we speculate and wonder and dream,
each after the fashion of his own heart ;
and one is quite as likely to be right as an-
other. Thank God that he has elevated
the mysteries of life and death above the
realms of human reason, and left each
to aspire to the future of his own ima-
gination, to long for the heaven of his
own desires." This sounds to us little
above the Turk's dream of Paradise, who,
by the bye, according to our author, " is
quite as likely to be right" as the Chris-
tian. All this is a mistake. Our Lord
has left us something far more definite to
long for than the heaven of our own im-
agination and desires.

Again : " Madame Wandl, though a
'bigoted Catholic,' was more charitable
than these free and enlightened Dickey-
villians, and, when the two talked together
on matters of religious faith, it was the
harmonious meeting of two extremes of
belief, one elevating the humanity of
Christ to the level of godliness, the

other reducing the character of God to
the level of a perfect and idealized hu-
manity. Those who read this pa'jc \
instantly decide wh'.ch was ri^ht, but or.'
of every ten, five will decide in one u ay
and five in another ; and as for me [the
author], I don't propose to create a major-
ity one way or the other by throwing my-
self into the balance, but shall rest cen-
ter ted if I can preach Christ's gospel of
love acceptably and intelligently to my
people " ipp. 222, 223).

It seems to us very plain fom this and
other passages that the Rev. Peter Pen not
is far from having made up his mind as to
who Christ is. He tells us practically,
in the passage just quoted, that he will
not say that Christ is at once true God
and perfect man. Until he satisfies
himself on this point, it is to be feared
that his preaching of Christ's gospel of
love will not bear much fruit. It is one
thing to preach the Gospel of the Son
of God, another to preach the gospel
of a being about whom we entertain
great doubts.

We have been led aside by such
points as these from the main story.
The a.uthor writes so earnestly and hon-
estly that we cannot but look upon his
uncertainty with regret. For the rest.
Achsah is as enjoyable a story as we have
read for many a day. The author seem s
to us to have all the gifts of a novelist.
He has wit, humor, pathos, and an un-
forced sarcasm that is very telling. His
story runs along without a halt. There
is a pleasant, innocent love-plot, and
some highly sensational matter is in-
troduced in a very unsensational man-
ner.

MEDITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR
A RETREAT OF ONE DAY IN EACH
MONTH. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet &
Co. 1876.

This little book has been composed
for the benefit of those who have or wish
to have the most excellent practice of
putting aside one day in the month for a
religious retreat. Whatever cultivates in
us the habit of serious reflection upon
the affairs of the soul is of inestimable
value, since without some practice of
meditation and self-examination it is al-
most impossible to lead a religious life ;
and we know of nothing better adapted
to create in us this reflective character
of mind than what is called the monthly
retreat. This devotion is general in re-

/2O

New Publications.

ligious communities, but it may also be
easily followed by persons in the world
without interfering with the daily routine
of life enough to attract the attention of
any one. The collection of meditations
before us will, we hope, encourage many
to make proof of the efficacy of the month-
ly retreat. We would suggest, however,
that in another edition an introduction
be added, giving explanations concern-
ing the nature and practice of this devo-
tion, pointing out how persons engaged
in worldly occupations may most easily
perform these monthly exercises.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION : A Lecture De-
livered at Leeds, England. By Car-
dinal Wiseman. St. Louis: Patrick
Fox, 10 South Fifth Street. 1876. (For
sale by The Catholic Publication So-
ciety.)

This lecture is one of the ablest and
most interesting lectures of the late Car-
dinal Wiseman. It proves in a conclu-
sive and at the same time most agreeable
manner that " science has nowhere flour-
ished more, or originated more sub-
lime or useful discoveries, than where
it has been pursued under the influence
of the Catholic religion." In demon-
strating this truth, the eminent writer has
given a great number of facts not gene-
rally known to the reading public, which
prove the deep indebtedness of science
to Catholic Italy for many of its most
valuable truths and discoveries.

The publisher has done his part in a
praiseworthy manner.

REVOLUTIONARY TIMES: Sketches of
our Country, its People and their
Ways, one hundred years ago. By Ed-
ward Abbott. Boston : Roberts Bro-
thers. 1876.

This is a very interesting and tastefully
printed volume of two hundred pages,
containing a great many items of interest
with regard to the habits and customs of
our American forefathers in the begin-
ning of our national history, a glance at
the state of literature, the press, and edu-
cation, with many entertaining sketches
of the "worthies " of that period.

From the chapter on "Political Geo-
graphy " we cull the following extract,
which gives an idea of the style of the
work :

' The colonization of the West w,as yet
a dream of the Anglo-Americans, the de-
signs of France and Spain standing in

the way of its fulfilment. The present
great State of Ohio had not a white set-
tlement. St. Louis was a Spanish town.
What is now Indiana had but a single
settlement, that at Vincennes. Detroit
was a far-distant outpost sheltering a few
hundred pioneers. This whole region
was an unbroken waste, saving at these
few scattered points, which were in large
measure military and trading stations.
Over all the Indian had free range. Ad-
venturers were exploring the lakes and
the rivers, and currents of emigration
were only slowly setting in ; and on
the gth of October, -1776, three months
after the Declaration of Independence,
two Franciscan monks, indefatigable
missionaries of the Roman Church, took
possession of the Pacific coast by the
founding of their mission of San Fran-
cisco, the germ of the modern city of that
name."

THE NEW MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART
OF JESUS. From the original French.
By S. P. Philadelphia : Peter F. Cun-
ningham & Son, 29 South Tenth Street.
1876.

This neat and beautiful little manual
cannot but be of service to every lover
of the Sacred Heart, especially at this
season of the year. This month is pro-
longed into thirty-three days, corre-
sponding with the thirty-three years of
our Saviour's life upon earth, and is
furnished with appropriate meditations
and pious practices, calculated to inspire
devotion and excite the love of Chris-
tians towards the Heart of their Divine
Lord. It is sufficient to say of this little
work what the venerable Archbishop of
Cincinnati says of it in his recommenda-
tion that "it is perfectly free from all
blemish on the score of faith, morals, and
piety." Truly, a high commendation.

NOTIONES THEOLOGIC^E CIRCA SEXTUM

DECALOGI PR^CEPTUM. Auctore D.

Craisson. Parisiis : Benziger Bros. ;

New York : The same.

A certain remnant of Jansenistic ri-
gorism among the French clergy is as-
signed by the author of this treatise as
one of the reasons which induced him to
write on the subjects indicated by the
title of his book. In the work itself we
have failed to discover anything of im-
portance which may not be found in al-
most any text-book of moral theology.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. XXIII., No. 138. SEPTEMBER, 1876.

THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE UNITED

STATES.

THE Constitution of the United
States has these provisions :

" No religious test shall ever be re-
quired as a qualification to any office or
public trust under the United States."
ART. VI.

' Congress shall make no law respect-
ing an establishment of religion, or pro-
hibiting the free exercise thereof."
FIRST AMENDMENT.

It is thus the case that, as origi-
nally framed, the Constitution simply
provided that " no religious test shall
ever be required as a qualification
to any office or public trust under
the United States," but did not, in
terms, prohibit Congress from erect-
ing a state religion or interfering
with the free exercise of religion
otherwise than as regards office.
The First Amendment was therefore
adopted, in order that, as amended,
the Constitution should forbid Con-
gress from intermeddling in any
v;iy whatever with religious mat-
ters; and it has hence passed into the
general understanding that the gov-

ernment of the United States has
no religious character or powers
whatsoever, but is purely a secu-
lar organization, contrived and de-
vised for purely secular ends. As
stated in the eleventh article of the
treaty of Jan. 3, 1797, between the
United States and Tripoli, " the
government of the United States of
America is not in any sense found-
ed on the Christian religion " (Rev.
Stats. U. S., " Treaties," p. 756).

It being thus the case that religi-
ous liberty, as we now understand it,
did not spring full-orbed and com-
plete into existence in the United
States, it may be of interest to trace
the stages of its development. The
provision that " Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment
of religion " owes its immediate ori-
gin to the representations of the
conventions of a number of the
States upon adopting the Constitu-
tion of the United States (i Stats.
97), such States being New Hamp-
shire, New York, and Virginia (4

722

The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

rh. Cong., 1782-8, App. pp. 52,
53, 55). Back of these representa-
tions Jay a first cause which can
only be understood by a reference
to the condition of the colonies at
the outbreak of the Revolution.
From A View of the Constitution
of the British Colonies in North
America and the West Indies, at
the time the Civil War broke out on
the Continent of America a work
published in London in 1783 by An-
thony Stokes (a loyalist Welshman,
who, as a barrister in the British
West Indies from 1762 to 1769, and
the royal Chief-Justice of Georgia
from 1769 to 1783, had peculiar op-
portunities of becoming conversant
with his topic) we learn that the
Church of England was establish-
ed by law in most of the colonies
in 1776. The View says: : The
clergy in America do not receive
tithes, but in most of the colonies
before the civil war (except the
New England provinces, where the
Independents had the upper hand)
an Act of Assembly was made to
divide the colony into parishes, and
to establish religious worship there-
in according to the rites and cere-
monies of the Church of England ;
and also to raise a yearly salary for
the support of each parochial min-
ister ' (p. 199). With the excep-
tion of South Carolina, our author
does not specify by name the colo-
nies in which this system obtained,
but from other sources we have
that information. . The charter of
New Hampshire provided " that
liberty of conscience shall be allow-
ed to all Protestants, and that such
especially as shall be conformable
to the rites of the Church of Eng-
land shall be particularly counte-
nanced and encouraged," which
substantial establishment existed
in that colony up to the Revolution

(Town of Pawlet r. Clark, 9 Cr.
292). The first constitution of
New York, that of April 20, 1777,
recognizes a like establishment by
providing for the abrogation of
" all such parts of the common and
statute law, and acts of Assembly,
as establish any denomination of

Christians or their ministers." Dr.

David Ramsay, the contemporary
historian of the Revolution, says :
"In Connecticut all persons were
obliged to contribute to the support
of the church as well as the com-
monwealth. . . . The Congrega-
tional churches were adopted and
established by law " (i Hist. U. S.,
p. 150) ; also : " The Church of
England was incorporated simul-
taneously with the first settlement
of Virginia, and in the lapse of
time it also became the established
religion of Maryland. In both these
provinces, long before the Ameri-
can Revolution, that church pos-
sessed a legal pre-eminence, and
was maintained at the expense not
only of its own members but of 'all
other denominations" (id. p. 220).
As to the establishment of the
Church of England in Virginia, see
also Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cr. 43.
From art. 34 of the first constitu-
tion of North Carolina, that of Dec.
1 8, 1776, which inhibits taxation "for
the purchase of any glebe, or the
building of any house of worship, or
for the maintenance of any minister
or ministry," it is inferrible that a
like establishment existed in that
colony. In South Carolina Chief-
Justice Stokes mentions the Church
of England as established by la\v
(View, p. 199), and the constitu-
tion of that State of March 19, 1778,
secured " the churches, chapels, 'par-
sonages, glebes, and all other prop-
erty now belonging to any societies
of the Church of England, or any

The Rise of Religious Liberty in tJic United States. 723

other religious societies" (art. 38). At the outbreak of the Revolution,
In Georgia the Church of England then, two-thirds of the colonies were
was established by colonial statute face to face with a religion estab-
of March 15, 1758 {Watkins 1 Dig. lished or favored by law; with a
52). In Massachusetts a colonial clergy appointed by government ;
statute of 1716 established a and a general taxation to uphold
compulsory religious establishment one and maintain the other. The
which remained up to the framing of dissatisfaction thus engendered is
the State constitution in 1780, the best evidenced by the care which
Assembly providing all towns de- the people of the colonies, then
dining to do so for themselves with States, took, in framing their con-
" a minister qualified as by law is stitutions, to forbid the continuance
provided' namely," an able, learn- of such a system where it then ex-
ed, orthodox minister, of good con- istcd, or to prevent its adoption
versation ' -and imposing taxes/for where it was not as yet known,
his support (Chalmers' Colonial The New Jersey constitution of
Opinions, p. 49; i Ramsay, Hist. U. July 2, 1776, provided "that there
S., p. 150). shall be no establishment of any
From the foregoing it will be one religious sect in this province
gathered that at the outbreak of in preference to another " (art. 19);
the American Revolution some " nor shall any person within this
form of church establishment or- colony ever be obliged to pay
darned by law was familiar to 4he tithes, taxes, or any other rates for
people of Massachusetts, Connecti- the purposes of building or repair-
cut, New Hampshire, New York, ing any church or churches, place
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, or places of worship, or for the
South Carolina, and Georgia. * In maintenance of any minister or mill-
Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Dela- istry, contrary to what he believes
ware, and New Jersey there never to be right or has deliberately and
was any established religion" (i voluntarily engaged himself to per-
Ramsay, Hist. U. S., p. 232). One of form " (art. 18) ; and so sacred were
the incidents of the religious estab- these provisions deemed that an
lishments in the colonies where oath was prescribed for all mem-
they existed was that the clergy bers of the legislature, engaging
thereunder were governmental ap- them never to assent to any law,
pointees. In Massachusetts, under vote, or proceeding to annul, repeal,
the act of 1716, the Assembly set- or alter any part or parts thereof
tied ministers in the unprovided (art. 23).

towns; in Maryland the proprietary The Virginia constitution of July

had the advowsons (Chalm. Col. Op., 5, 1776, declares "that religion, or

42) ; aud in the provincial estab- the duty which we owe to our Crea-

lishments or king's governments, as tor, and the manner of discharging

New Hampshire, New York, Vir- it, can be directed only by reason

ginia, North Carolina, South Caro- and conviction, not by force and

lina, and Georgia, the royal gov- violence; and therefore all men are

ernor had the right of collation or equally entitled to the free exercise

appointment (Stokes' View, p. 199). of religion, according to the dictates

Another incident was the church of conscience, and that it is the

rates or taxes, above referred to. mutual duty of all to practise Chris-

724 The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

tian forbearance, love, and charity
toward each other" (art. 16) ; and
while this does not in terms equal
the New Jersey provisions ante, the
Supreme Court of the United States
has construed it as equipollent, say-
ing in Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cr. 43 :
" Consistent with the constitution
of Virginia, the legislature could not
create or continue a religious estab-
lishment which should have exclu-
sive rights and prerogatives, or com-
pel the citizens to worship under a
stipulated form or discipline, or to
pay taxes to those whose creed
they could not conscientiously be-
lieve."

The constitution of Delaware of
Sept. 20, 1776, provides : " No man
shall, or ought to, be compelled to
attend any religious worship, to con-
tribute to the erection or support
of any place of worship, or to the
maintenance of any ministry, against
his free-will and consent. . . . Nor
shall a preference be given by law
to any religious societies, denomina-
tion, or modes of worship" (art. i, i).

The North Carolina constitution
of Dec. 18, 1776, provides " that
there shall be no establishment of
any one religious church or de-
nomination in this State in pre-
ference to any other; neither shall
any person, on any pretence whatso-
ever, be compelled to attend any
place of worship contrary to his own
faith or judgment, nor be obliged
to pay for the purchase of any glebe,
or the building of any house of wor-
ship, or for the maintenance of any
minister or ministry, contrary to
what he believes right or has vol-
untarily and personally engaged to
perform" (art. 34).

The Georgia constitution of Feb.
5, i777> says: "All persons what-
ever shall have the free exercise
of their religion, provided it be not

repugnant to the peace and safety
of the State ; and shall not, unless
by consent, support any teacher or
teachers, except those of their own
profession" (art. 56).

The New York constitution of
April 20, 1777, abrogates "all such
parts of the common and statute law,
and acts of Assembly, as establish
any denomination of Christians or
their ministers."

The early constitutions of Mary-
land, South Carolina, and Massa-
chusetts enunciated substantially
the same principles as the other
organic laws above set forth, but did
not entirely destroy the connection
of church and state. The Mary-
land constitution of Aug. 14, 1776,
says : " Nor ought any person to be
compelled to frequent, or main-
tain, or contribute, unless on con-
tract, to maintain any particular
place of worship or any particular
ministry: (yet the legislature may,
in their discretion, lay a general
and equal tax for the support of
the Christian religion ; leaving to
each individual the power of ap-
pointing the payment over of the
money collected from him to the
support of any particular place of
worship, or minister, or for the poor
of his own denomination, or the
poor in general of any particular
county)."

The South Carolina constitution
of March 19, 1778, says : " No per-
son shall by law be obliged to pay
towards the maintenance and sup-
port of a religious worship that he
does not freely join in or has not
voluntarily engaged to support '
(art. 38), but in the same article
ordains that " the Christian Protes-
tant religion shall be deemed, and
is hereby constituted and declared
to be, the established religion of this
State," extending this description

The Rise of Religious Liberty in tJie United States. 725

to " all denominations of Christian his consent, . . . and tnat no

Protestants in this State." preference shall ever be given by

The Massachusetts constitution law to any religious establishments

of March 2, 1780, says : " No subor- or modes of worship." In Connec-

dination of any sect or denomina- ticut and Rhode Island the royal

tion to another shall ever be estab- charter continued the fundamental

lished by law" (part i. art. 3), but law until 1818 in the former and

allowed taxation to support "pub- 1842 in the latter State; but, lest it

lie Protestant teachers of piety, re- may be thought that in these States

ligion, and morality in all cases no opposition to an established

where such provision shall not be church was manifested, it is proper

made voluntarily ' (*V/.), with this to remark that, upon ratifying the

qualification, however : that " all Constitution of the United States,

moneys paid by the subject to the the Rhode Island Convention sug-

support of public worship and of gested as a highly desirable amend-

the public teachers aforesaid shall, merit " that no particular religious

if he require it, be uniformly ap- sect or society ought to be favored

plied to the support of the public or established by law in preference

teacher or teachers of his own reli- to others' (i Elliot Deb. 334) ;

gious sect or denomination, provid- and in the Connecticut Convention

ed there be any, on whose instruc- Oliver Wolcott, in urging the ratifi-

tion he attends ; otherwise it may cation of that instrument, refers to

be paid- towards the support of the an inclination in that assemblage to

teacher or teachers of the parish or favor a like amendment, and says :

precinct in which the said moneys "Knowledge and liberty are so

are raised " (id.) prevalent in this country that I do

If we state correctly as we have not believe that the United States
not those documents by us the would ever be disposed to establish
New Hampshire constitution of one religious sect, and lay all others
June 2, 1784, provided that ;< no under legal disabilities. But as we
person of any one particular reli- know not what may take place
gious sect or denomination shall hereafter, and any such test would
ever be compelled to pay towards be exceedingly injurious to the
the support of the teacher or teach- rights of free citizens, I cannot
ers of another persuasion, sect, or think it altogether superfluous to
denomination, . . . and no subor- have added a clause which secures
dination of anyone sect or denomi- us from the possibility of such op-
nation to another shall ever be es- pression " (2 Elliot Deb. 202).
tablished by law " (part i. art. 6), We may thus say that, upon be-
but that, subject to these provisions, coming States, the American colo-
the legislature might authorize local nies declared with one voice that
taxation to support " public Protes- no religious establishment should
tant teachers of piety, religion, and possess a legal pre-eminence in
morality ' (id.) ; and the Pennsyl- their several jurisdictions. In the
vania constitution of Sept. 28, 1776, Federal Convention Charles Pinck-
provided " that no man can, of ney proposed to make it a part
right, be compelled to attend, erect, of the Constitution of the United
or support any place of worship or States that " the legislature of the
to maintain any ministry against United States shall pass no law on

'26

The Rise of Religions Liberty in the United States.

the subject of religion ' (Journ., sion. The New Hampshire Con-
May 29), and thus apply to the vention recommended this amend-
p-eneral government the rule previ- ment: ' That Congress shall make
ously adopted by the States, which no laws touching religion or to in-
proposition failed. Mr. Pinckney fringe the rights of conscience '
then submitted this proposition: (4 Journ. Cong., 1782-8, App. p.
"No religious test or qualification 52). The New York Convention:
shall ever be annexed to any oath That no religious sect or society
of office under the authority of the ought to be favored or established
United States ' (Journ.) Aug. 20), by law in preference to others'
which was unanimously adopted (id. p. 55). The Virginia (id. p.
(Journ.) Aug. 30), Mr. Madison 53), North Carolina (id. p. 60), and
giving us this much of the debate: Rhode Island (i Elliot Deb. 334)
" Mr. Pinckney moved to add : ' But Conventions severally proposed
no religious test shall ever be re- ;< that no particular religious sect
quired as a qualification to any or society ought to be favored or
office or public trust under the established by law in preference to
authority of the United States.' others." In the Maryland Con-
Mr. Sherman thought it unneces- vention it was suggested as a de-
sary, the prevailing liberality being sirable amendment " that there be
a sufficient security against such no national religion established by
tests. Mr. Gouverneur Morris and law " ; but, that body concluding

to ratify the Constitution without
proposing amendments at that time,

Gen. Pinckney approved the mo-
tion. The motion was agreed to,

nem. con: (5 Elliot Deb. 498). no final action was had on the pro-
Upon the final revision the words position (2 Elliot Deb. p. 553);

and thereupon the change was
made.

Thus it became a part of the
Constitution of the United States
that " Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of reli-
gion." In many, perhaps we may

' the authority of" were struck out
(Joit-rn.) Sept. 12). When the Con-
stitution was submitted for ratifica-
tion, considerable uneasiness was
manifested at the failure of Mr.
Pinckney 's resolution that " the
legislature of the United States
shall pass no law on the subject of say most, other particulars the Con-
religion," and upon ratifying the stitution was, when framed, an ex-
instrument the New Hampshire, periment, but in this the fathers of
New York, and Virginia Conven- the republic had the lamp of ex-
tions urged the adoption of an perience to illuminate their path,
amendment to that effect. The While a myth to us, an established
North Carolina Convention, while church had been a substantial rea-
declining to ratify at its first ses- lity to them, and their verdict
sion, assigned the same emendation thereupon was, that upon every
as desirable, as did also the Rhode ground of justice, interest, and
Island Convention upon ratifying ; harmony no religious sect or so-
' though, as the First Amendment had ciety ought ever to be favored or
then been proposed by Congress established by law in preference to
and was before the people, the ac- others in these United States.
tion of Rhode Island was not one The second clause of the First
of the causes leading to its submis- Amendment, that Congress shall

The Rise of Religions Liberty in the United States. 727

make no law prohibiting the free ex-
ercise of religion, is substantially
included in the other provisions
cited at the opening of" this paper,
and need not be here specifically
considered. It is a casus owissus
provision which speaks for itself.
The provision that " no religious
test shall ever be required as a quali-
fication to any office or public trust
under the United States " opens,
however, another field of inquiry.

At the outbreak of the American
Revolution the colonists were deeply
imbued with the intolerant spirit of
their English ancestors as respects
Roman Catholics, infidels, and
Jews, and naturally impressed those
feelings on their earlier government-
al declarations and institutions. As
the struggle progressed this aver-
sion wore away, and on the final set-
tlement of the present American
system of polity we find the fathers
of the republic formally renouncing
their original prepossessions in favor
of religious tests. So far as regards
Jews and infidels, the citations now
to be given will need no special
comment ; but as respects Roman
Catholics, it is proper to premise that
the ancestral antipathy of the colon-
ists to those of that faith had been
particularly sharpened by the old
French war, closing by the peace
of 1763.

In 1705 the following questions
\vere propounded to the Attorney-
General Northey : "Whether the
laws of England against Romish
priests are in force in the planta-
tions, and whether her majesty may
not direct Jesuits or Romish priests
to be turned out of Maryland?" In
reply he first takes up 27 Eliz., c. 2,
making it high treason for any Brit-
ish-born Romish priest to come
into, be, or remain in any part of
the royal dominions, and says : " It

is plain that law extended to all the
dominions the queen had when it
was made ; but some doubt hath
been made whether it extendeth to
dominions acquired after, as the
plantations have been." He next
considers n William III., c. 4, sub-
jecting any popish bishop or priest
who shall exercise any ecclesiastical
function in any part of the British
dominions to perpetual imprison-
ment, and says : " I am of opinion
this law extends to the plantations.,
they being dominions belonging to-
the realm of England, and extends,
to all priests, foreigners as well as>
natives." Lastly, he says : " As U>
the question whether her majesty
may not direct Jesuits or Romish,
priests to be turned out of Mary-
land, I am of opinion, if the Jesuits-
or priests be aliens, not made deni-
zens or naturalized, her majesty
may, by law, compel them to depart
Maryland; if they be her majesty's,
natural-born subjects, they cannot
be banished from her majesty's-
dominions, but may be proceeded,
against on the last before-mention-
ed law " (Chalm. Colonial Op., 42)..
And that this was the accepted
state of the crown law as late as.
May 29, 1775, appears from an ad-
dress of that date of the American
Congress to the inhabitants of Can-
ada, wherein they are asked to make
common cause with the other colo-
nies, and told : " The enjoyment of
your very religion on the present,
system depends on a legislature in.
which you have no share and over
which you have no control, and:
your priests are exposed to expul-
sion, banishment, and ruin when-
ever their wealth and possessions-
furnish sufficient temptation ' (i
Journ. Cong., p. 75, Way & Gideon
ed., Washington, 1823). It was also
the case that a number of the royal

728 The Rise of Religious Liberty in t/te United States.

charters under which the colonists ments, throughout the tract of land
had been accustomed to live denied hereafter mentioned, they behaving
religious liberty to Roman Catholics, themselves peaceably and quietly,
The charter of New Hampshire pro- and not using this liberty to licen-
vided "that liberty of conscience tiousness and profaneness, nor to
shall be allowed to all Protestants ' the civil injury or outward distur-
(Town of Pawlet v. Clark, 9 Cr. bance of others ; any law, statute,
292) ; that of Massachusetts read : or clause therein contained, or to
" For the greater ease and encour- be contained, usage, or custom of
agement of our living subjects, in- this realm, to the contrary hereof
habiting our said province or terri- in any wise notwithstanding," and
tory of Massachusetts Bay, and of which, to us, seems to guarantee
such as shall come to inhabit there, absolute freedom of conscience was
we do, by these presents, for us, interpreted by the colonial govern-
our heirs and successors, grant, es- ment as excepting Roman Catho-
tablish, and ordain that for ever lies, Dr. Ramsay saying : " Since
hereafter there shall be a liberty of the date of the charter the form of
conscience allowed in the worship the government has suffered very
of God to all Christians (except pa- little alteration. An act was passed,
pists) inhabiting, or which -shall in- in 1663, declaring that all men of
habit or be resident within, our said competent estates and good con-
province or territory " (Chalm. Col. duct, who professed Christianity,
Of.j 48). The charter of Georgia, with the exception of Roman Ca-
as of force up to 1752, ordains : tholics, should be admitted free-
" There shall be a liberty of con- men" (i Hist. U. S., p. 156).
science allowed in the worship of With this much we come to the
God to all persons inhabiting, or Continental Congress which met at
which shall inhabit or be resident Philadelphia Sept. 5, 1774, to con-
within, our said province, and that sider the relations of the colonies
.all such persons, except papists, to the parent state. It at once
shall have a free exercise of reli- became apparent that one prime
gion ' (White's Hist. Coll. Ga., p. grievance alleged against the crown
9). The charter of Rhode Island was the act of Parliament (14 Geo.
-which recites that it was granted III., c. 83), passed early in that
the petitioners therefor because year, respecting the boundaries and
" they have freely declared that it government of the Province of Que-
is much on their hearts (if they be bee, as Canada was called after its
permitted) to hold forth a lively cession to England by the peace of
experiment that a most flourishing 1763, which extended the limits of
^civil state may stand and best be that province southward to the
maintained, and that among our Ohio, westward to the Mississippi,
English subjects, with a full liberty and northward to the boundary of
in religious concernments "; and or- the Hudson's Bay Company; qua-
dains "that all and every person lifted Roman Catholics to sit in.
and persons may, from time to time, the provincial council ; applied the
and at all times hereafter, freely French laws, dispensing with juric::
and fully have and enjoy his own to civil cases, and the English prac-
and their judgments and conscien- tice to criminal; and secured the
ces, in matters of religious concern- Catholic clergy their estates and

The Rise of Religious Libert} 1 in the United States. 729

full liberty in their religion. Mas-
sachusetts was particularly indig-
nant at this statute, and the Con-
fess had scarcely organized before
the following resolution was pre-
sented with others from Suffolk
County in that State: " 10. That
the late act of Parliament for es-
tablishing the Roman Catholic re-
ligion and the French laws in that
extensive country now called Quebec
is dangerous in an extreme degree
to the Protestant religion and to
the civil rights and liberties of all
America ; and therefore, as men
and Protestant Christians, we are
indispensably obliged to take all
proper measures for our security '
(i Jvuni. Cong., p. 1 1). On the loth
of October Congress, having con-
sidered " the rights and grievances
of these colonies," " Resolved, N.
C. D., That the following acts of
Parliament are infringements and
violations of the rights of the colo-
nists; and that the repeal of them
is essentially necessary in order to
restore harmony between Great
Britain and the American colonies,
viz., . . . the act for establishing
the Roman Catholic religion in the
province of Quebec, abolishing the
equitable system of English laws,
and erecting a tyranny there, to
the great danger (from so total a
dissimilarity of religion, law, and
government) of the neighboring
British colonies, by the assistance
of whose blood and treasure the
said country was conquered from
France. . . . To these grievous
acts and measures Americans can-
not submit" (id. pp. 20-22).

The main work of the Congress of
1774 was the famous "Continental
Association," which is, in brief, a
solemn engagement on the part of
the colonies to break off commercial
relations with Great Britain until

such time as divers obnoxious acts
of Parliament were repealed. It
opens by arraigning the British
ministry for adopting a system of
administration "evidently calculat-
ed for enslaving these colonies,"
and proceeds to specify among
other instruments to this end 'an
act for extending the province of
Quebec, so as to border on the
Western frontiers of these colonies,
establishing an arbitrary govern-
ment therein, and discouraging the
settlement of British subjects in
that wide-extended country, thus, by
the influence of civil principles and
ancient prejudices, to dispose the
inhabitants to act with hostility
against the free Protestant colonies
whenever a wicked ministry shall
choose to direct them " (id. p. 23).
The Congress also resolved upon
addresses to the people of Great
Britain, to the inhabitants of the
colonies represented in the Con-
gress, to the king, and to the people
of Canada, That to the people
of Great Britain says : " Know that
we think the legislature of Great
Britain is not authorized by the
Constitution to establish a religion,
fraught with sanguinary and impi-
ous tenets, or to erect an arbitrary
form of government in any quarter
of the globe" (id. p. 27). It then
charges that at the close of the
French war a plan of enslaving the
colonies was concerted " under the
auspices of a minister of princi-
ples, and of a family unfriendly to
the Protestant cause and inimical
to liberty," and says : " Now mark
the progression of the ministerial
plan for enslaving us. . . . By an-
other act the Dominion of Canada
is to be so extended, modelled, and
governed as that, by being disunit-
ed from us, detached from our in-
terest, by civil as well as religious

730 The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

prejudices, that by their numbers
daily swelling with Catholic emi-
grants from Europe, and by their
devotion to administration so friend-
ly to their religion, they might be-
come formidable to us, and, on oc-
casion, be fit instruments in the
hands of power to reduce the
ancient, free, Protestant colonies
to the same state of slavery with
themselves. This was evidently the
object of the act ; and in this view,
being extremely dangerous to our
liberty and quiet, we cannot forbear
complaining of it as hostile to Bri-
tish America. . . . Nor can we sup-
press our astonishment that a Bri-
tish Parliament should ever consent
to establish in that country a reli-
gion that has deluged your island
in blood, and dispersed impiety,
bigotry, persecution, and murder
through every part of the world"
(id. p. 30). The memorial to the
colonists also refers to the Quebec
act, " by which act the Roman Ca-
tholic religion, instead of being tol-
erated, as stipulated by the treaty
of peace, is established," and says :
" The authors of this arbitrary ar-
rangement flatter themselves that
the inhabitants, deprived of liberty,
and artfully provoked against those
of another religion, will be proper
instruments for assisting in the op-
pression of such as differ from them
in modes of government and faith"
(id. p. 37). To reassure the colo-
nists, it concludes: "The people
of England will soon have an op-
portunity of declaring their senti-
ments concerning our cause. In
their piety, generosity, and good
sense we repose high confidence,
and cannot, upon a review of past
events, be persuaded that they, the
defenders of true religion and the
asserters of the rights of mankind,
will take part against their affec-

tionate Protestant brethren in the
colonies, in favor of our open and
their own secret enemies, whose in-
trigues for several years past have
been wholly exercised in sapping
the foundations of civil and reli-
gious liberty" (/'//. p. 38). The pe-
tition to the king represents as one
of the obstacles to a restoration of
harmony between the colonists and
the crown the act " for extending
the limits of Quebec, abolishing the
English and restoring the French
laws, whereby great numbers of
British Frenchmen \sic\ are sub-
jected to the latter, and establish-
ing an absolute government and the
Roman Catholic religion through-
out those vast regions that border
on the westerly and northerly boun-
daries of the free Protestant Eng-
lish settlements" (id. p. 47) ; re-
minds the monarch that " we were
born the heirs of freedom, and ever
enjoyed our right under the aus-
pices of your royal ancestors, whose
family was seated on the British
throne to rescue and secure a pious
and gallant nation from the popery
and despotism of a superstitious
and inexorable tyrant" ; and ad-
jures him " for the honor of Al-
mighty God, whose pure religion
our enemies are undermining," and
" as the loving father of your whole
people, connected by the same bonds
of law, loyalty, faith, and blood," to
withstand the ministerial plan (id.

p. 49).

The terrific arraignment of the
Roman Catholic religion made in
these various state papers will show
to what an extent the colonists were
unfavorably disposed toward that
faith at the inception of the Revolu-
tionary struggle. The fourth and
last address, however, adopted re-
mains to be noticed, and in this ap-
pears the first indication of that

The Rise of Religions Liberty in tJie United States. 731

spirit of universal religious liberty
and toleration which afterwards be-
came one of the main animating
impulses of the American system
of government. The Journal, un-
fortunately, does not disclose the
name of the wise and just man
who drew up this document, but
the internal evidence points to John
Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who af-
terwards prepared the Articles of
Confederation (i Secret Journ*, p.
290). Oct. 21, Thomas Gushing of
Massachusetts, Richard Henry Lee
of Virginia, and Mr. Dickinson were
appointed a committee to prepare
an address to the inhabitants of
Quebec, and, as adopted, this urges
the Canadians to make common
cause with the other colonists, set-
ting before them their rights as
British subjects, andsaying: "What
is offered to you by the late act of
Parliament in their place? Liberty
of conscience in your religion ? No.
God gave it to you ; and the tem-
poral powers with which you have
been and are connected firmly sti-
pulated for your enjoyment of it.
If laws, divine and human, could
secure it against the despotic ca-
prices of wicked men, it was se-
cured before" (i Journ., p. 42).
The address then imagines the
president, Montesquieu, urging his
countrymen to unite with the Eng-
lish colonists, and concludes : " We
are too well acquainted with the
liberality of sentiment distinguish-
ing your nation to imagine that dif-
ference of religion will prejudice
you against a hearty amity with us.
You know that the transcendent na-
ture of freedom elevates those who
unite in her cause above all such
low-minded infirmities. The Swiss
cantons furnish a memorable proof
of this truth. Their union is com-
posed of Roman Catholic and Pro-

testant states, living in the utmost
concord and peace with one an-
other, and thereby enabled, ever
since they bravely vindicated their
freedom, to defy and defeat every
tyrant that has invaded them " (id.
p. 44).

May 10, 1775, another Congress
met. Blood had been shed ; it
was seen the sword must decide
the event ; and from this time the
American Congress may be said to
have remained in permanent ses-
sion until the government under
the Constitution was inaugurated.
May 26, 1775, John Jay, Samuel
Adams, and Silas Deane were ap-
pointed a committee to draught a
letter to the people of Canada,
which, as adopted, urged them to
unite with the other colonists, de-
claring " the fate of the Protestant
and Catholic colonies to be strong-
ly linked together"; and adding:
" The enjoyment of your very re-
ligion, on the present system, de-
pends on a legislature in which
you have no share and over which
you have no control ; and your
priests are exposed to expulsion,
banishment, and ruin whenever
their wealth and possessions fur-
nish sufficient temptation ' (id. p.
75). This failing, Congress came
closer by directing Robert Living-
ston, Robert Treat Paine, and J.
Langdon, Nov. 8, 1775, to proceed
to Canada, and there use their ut-
most efforts to procure the assist-
ance of the Canadians in Gen.
Schuyler's operations, and to in-
duce them to enter into a union
with the other colonies, the in-
structions mentioning as one in-
ducement to be held out : " And
you may and are hereby empower-
ed farther to declare that we hold
sacred the rights of conscience, and
shall never molest them in the

732 The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

free enjoyment of their religion ' 3). It is further memorable that
(id. p. 170). This also failing, the King of France co-operated with
a third effort was made to the the Americans in the attempt to se-
same end by appointing Benja- cure the accession of Canada to the
min Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Union, and that in accordance with
Charles Carroll of Carrollton the the royal instructions the Count
latter not a member of Congress at d'Estaing published an address on
the time, but selected as a Roman the 28th of October, 1778, in his
Catholic (2 Ramsay Hist. U. S., p. majesty's name, to the Canadian
65) commissioners to Canada, French, adjuring them by every tie
May 20, 1776, instructing them: of lineage and religion to make
" You are farther to declare that common cause with the United
we hold sacred the rights of con- States. The priests, in particular,
science, and may promise to the were besought to use their influence
whole people, solemnly in our name, to this end, and reminded that they
the free and undisturbed exercise might become a power in a new
of their religion ; and, to the clergy, government, and not be dependent
the full, perfect, and peaceable pos- on " sovereigns whom force has mi-
session and enjoyment of all their posed on them, 'and whose political
estates ; that the government of indulgence will be lessened propor-
everything relating to their religion tionally as those sovereigns shall
and clergy shall be left entirely in have less to fear " (2 Pitk. U. S., p.
the hands of the good people of 68). This, however, like all the in-
that province and such legislature vitations of the American Congress,
as they shall constitute ; provided, was in vain. The contemporary
however, that all other denomina- fact was and no doubt the British
tions of Christians be equally en- crown officers took care to have it
titled to hold offices, and enjoy well known throughout Canada
civil privileges and the free exer- that while England was enacting
cise of their religion, and be totally laws to exempt the Canadians from
exempt from the payment of any her anti-Catholic statutes, and to
tithes or taxes for the support of indulge them with full liberty of
any religion' 1 (i Journ., p. 290). conscience in their ancestral Catho-
This failed in turn, but the fathers lie faith, the American Congress was
were long loath to relinquish their solemnly resolving and declaring
hopes of the vaccession of Canada, "that we think the legislature of
The Articles of Confederation pro- Great Britain is not authorized by
vided that 'Canada, acceding to the constitution to establish a reli-
this confederation, and joining in gion fraught with sanguinary and
the measures of the United States, impious tenets in any quarter of the
shall be admitted into and entitled globe," " Nor can we suppress our
to all the advantages of this Un- astonishment that a British Parlia-
ion; but no other colony shall ment should ever consent to estab-
be admitted into the same, im- lish in that country a religion thai
less such admission be agreed to has deluged England in blood, and
by nine States' (art. n); and dispersed impiety, bigotry, perseeu-
guaranteed that each State should tion, murder, and rebellion through-
be protected in its religion by out every part of the world."
the common strength of all (art. sharp a contrast had a powerful ef-

The Rise of Religions Liberty in tJie United States. 733

feet on the sixty-five thousand Ro-
man Catholics who then inhabited
Canada, according to Stokes ( F/Vw,
p. 30), and is, in all human proba-
bility, the reason why that extensive
country is not a part of the United
States to-day. That invaluable con-
temporary authority, Dr. Ramsay,
assures us that the predilections of
the Canadian masses were in favor
of a union with the other colonies,
but "the legal privileges which the
Roman Catholic clergy enjoyed
made them averse to a change, lest
they should be endangered by a
more intimate connection with their
Protestant neighbors."

The founders of the republic
seem early to have perceived the
mistake of yielding to what they
termed in their first overture to
Canada "the low-minded infirmity '
of religious prejudice, and the se-
vere recoil of that error in this case
had much to do with their subse-
quent prohibition of religious tests.

Recurring now to the States, we
find a religious test prescribed as a
qualification to office in a number
of the early constitutions. The
New Jersey constitution of July 2,
1776, provides "that no Protest-
ant inhabitant of this colony shall
be denied the enjoyment of any
civil right merely on account of his
religious principles ; but that all
persons professing a belief in the
faith of any Protestant sect, who
shall demean themselves peaceably
under the government as hereby
established, shall be capable of be-
ing elected into any office of
profit, or trust, or being a mem-
ber of either branch of the leg-
islature, and shall fully and free-
ly enjoy every privilege and im-
munity enjoyed by others their
fellow-subjects ' (art. 19). The
North Carolina constitution of

December 18, 1776, says "that
no person who shall deny the being
of God, or the truth of the Protest-
ant religion, or the divine authority
of either the Old or New Testa-
ments, or who shall hold religious
principles incompatible with the
freedom and safety of the State,
shall be capable of holding any of-
fice or place of trust or profit in
the civil department within this
State ' (art. 32). The Georgia
constitution of February 5, 1777,
says that the members of the legis-
lature " shall be of the Protestant
religion " (art. 6). The South Car-
olina constitution of March 19,
1778, provides for " a governor and
commander-in-chief, a lieutenant-
governor, both to continue two
years, and a privy council all of
the Protestant religion ' (art. 3) ;
that " no person shall be eligible to
sit in the House of Representatives
unless he be of the Protestant re-
ligion " (art. 13); and "that all de-
nominations of Christian Protest-
ants in this State demeaning them-
selves peaceably and faithfully shall
enjoy equal religious and civil pri-
vileges ' (art. 38). In this State
the governor was sworn "to the ut-
most of his power to maintain and
defend the laws of God, the Pro-
testant religion, and the liberties of
America " (Grimke's Laws So. Ca. y
297). The Delaware constitution
of September u, 1776, provided the
following oath to be taken by all
members of the legislature : " I,
A. B., do profess faith in God the
Father, and in Jesus Christ his only
Son, and in the Holy Ghost ; and I
do acknowledge the Holy Scrip-
tures of the Old and New Testa-
ment to be given by divine inspira-
tion ' (art. 22). The Maryland
constitution of August 14, 1776,
provided that " a declaration of a

734 The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

belief in the Christian religion ' pope, priest, or foreign authority on
(Bill of Rights, art. 35) should be a earth has power to absolve them
qualification to office; and "that from the obligation of this oath,"
every person appointed to any of- which was lost yeas, 10; nays, 19;
fice of profit or trust shall, before he one county divided (Sparks' Life of
enters on the execution thereof, . . . Gouverneur Morris, vol. i., p. 124).
subscribe a declaration of his belief The Pennsylvania constitution of
in the Christian religion " (Const., September 28, 1776, required mem-
art. 55). The New Hampshire bers of the General Assembly and
constitution of January 5, 1776, civil officers to sign " a declaration
while not expressly prescribing a of belief in one God, the creator
religious test, is understood by the and governor of the world, the re-
provision continuing the body of warder of the good and the pun-
the colonial law in force to have re- isher of the wicked," and also to
quired all members of the legisla- make " an acknowledgment that the
ture to be of the Protestant reli- Scriptures of the Old and New
gion. The spirit occasioning the Testament are given by divine in-
above tests was remarkably mani- spiration " (Stokes' View, p. Si),
fested in the convention framing It will thus appear that the early
the New York constitution of April constitutions of New Jersey, North
20, 1777. An article granting u to Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina,
all mankind the free exercise of re- and New Hampshire made a pro-
ligious profession and worship " be- fession of Protestantism, and those
ing under consideration, John Jay, of Maryland, Delaware, and Penn-
afterwards the first Chief-Justice of sylvania made a belief in Christi-
the Supreme Court of the United anity, a qualification for office ; and
States, moved to add the following: so the fundamental law of those
" Except the professors of the reli- States remained until after the rati-
gion of the Church of Rome, who fication of the Constitution of the
ought not to hold lands in, or be United States.

admitted to a participation of the In 1787 the Federal Convention
civil rights enjoyed by the members met, and, as has already been stat-
of, this State until such time as the ed, while declining to make it a
said professors shall appear in the part of the Constitution that " the
Supreme Court of the State, and legislature of the United States
there most solemnly swear that they shall pass no law on the subject of
verily believe in their consciences religion," did insert in that instru-
that no pope, priest, or foreign au- ment the provision that " no reli-
thority on earth has power to ab- gious test shall ever be required as
solve the subjects of this State from a qualification to any office or pub-
their allegiance to the same; and, lie trust under the United States."
farther, that they renounce and be- Or, in other words, the Federal
lieve to be false and wicked the Constitution did not inhibit Con-
dangerous and damnable doctrine gress from creating a religious es-
that the pope, or any other earthly tablishment, but did forbid it to
authority, has power to absolve men prescribe a religious test as a qua-
from sins described in and prohib- lification to office ; while, /<?>' contra,
ited by the holy Gospel of Jesus the State constitutions, while pro-
Christ, and particularly that no hibiting such an establishment, ad-

TJie Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States. 735

mitted such tests. We have seen
how the States conformed the Fede-
ral Constitution to their own in the
article of the inhibition of an estab-
lished church, and are now to in-
quire how the State constitutions
modelled themselves upon the Con-
stitution of the United States so far
as respects the prohibition of reli-
gious qualifications for office.

When the Federal Constitution
was proposed for ratification to the
State conventions, considerable op-
position was manifested in some of
those bodies to this prohibition.
It was alleged that, as the Constitu-
tion stood, the Pope of Rome might
become President of the United
States, and there was even a pam-
phlet published to sustain that ob-
jection (4 Elliot Deb., p. 195). In
the North Carolina Convention, in
particular, a hot debate occurred.
Mr. Abbott said : " The exclusion
of religious tests is by many
thought dangerous and impolitic.
They suppose that if there be
no religious test required, pagans,
deists, and Mahometans might ob-
tain offices among us, and that the
senators and representatives might
all be pagans ' (id. p. 192). Mr.
Iredell referred to the deplorable
results of religious tests in all ages,
and said: "America has set an ex-
ample to mankind to think more
modestly and reasonably that a
man may be of different religious
sentiments from our own without
being a bad member of society.
. . . But it is objected that the
people of America may, perhaps,
choose representatives who have
no religion at all, and that pagans
and Mahometans may be admitted
into offices. But how is it possi-
ble to exclude any set of men with-
out taking away that principle of
religious freedom which we our-

selves so warmly contend for ?
. . . I met, by accident, with
a pamphlet this morning in which
the author states as a very serious
danger that the Pope of Rome
might be elected President. I con-
fess this never struck me before ;
and if the author had read all
the qualifications of a President,
perhaps his fears might have been
quieted. No man but a native
or who has resided fourteen
years in America can be chosen
President. I know not all the
qualifications for pope, but I be-
lieve he must be taken from the
college of cardinals ; and probably
there are many previous steps ne-
cessary before he arrives at this dig-
nity. A native of America must
have very singular good fortune
who, after residing fourteen years
in his own country, should go to
Europe, enter into Romish orders,
obtain the promotion of cardinal,
afterwards that of pope, and at
length be so much in the confidence
of his own country as to be elected
President. It would be still more
extraordinary if he should give up
his popedom for our presidency.
Sir, it is impossible to treat such
idle fears with any degree of grav-
ity. . . . This country has already
had the honor of setting an example
of civil freedom, and I trust it will
likewise have the honor of teaching
the rest of the world the way to
religious freedom also. God grant
both may be perpetuated to the end
of time!" (id. p. 193 et sey.) Gov.
Johnston said : " When I heard
there were apprehensions that the
Pope of Rome could be the Presi-
dent of the United States, I was
greatly astonished. It might as
well be said that the King of Eng-
land or France or the Grand Turk
could be chosen to that office. It

736 The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

would have been as good an argu-
ment. ... It is apprehended that
Jews, Mahometans, pagans, etc.,
may be elected to high offices un-
der the government of the United
States. Those who are Mahome-
tans, or any others who are not pro-
fessors of the Christian religion, can
never be elected to the office of
President or other high office but
in one of two cases : First, if the
people of America lay aside the
Christian religion altogether, it may
happen. Should this unfortunately
take place, the people will choose
such men as think as they do them-
selves. Another case is, if any per-
sons of such descriptions should,
notwithstanding their religion, ac-
quire the confidence and esteem
of the people of America by their
good conduct and practice of vir-
tue, they may be chosen " (id. p.
i^). Mr. Caldwell said : " There
was an invitation for Jews and
pagans of every kind to come
among us. At some future period
this might endanger the character
of the United States. ... I think
that in a political view those gen-
tlemen who formed this Constitu-
tion should not have given this
invitation to Jews and heathens '
(id. p. 199). Mr. Spencer said:
" Religious tests have been the
foundation of persecutions in all
countries. Persons who are con-
scientious will not take the oath
required by religious tests, and will
therefore be excluded from offices,
though equally capable of discharg-
ing them as any member of soci-
ety ' (id. p. 200). Mr. Spaight,
who had been in the Federal Con-
vention, said : " No test is required.
All men of equal capacity and in-
tegrity are equally eligible to offi-
ces. Temporal violence may make
mankind wicked, but never religious.

A test would enable the prevailing
sect to persecute the rest ' (id. p.
208). Mr. Wilson " wished that
the Constitution had excluded pop-
ish priests from office " (id. p. 212).
Mr. Lancaster said : " As to a re-
ligious test, had the article which
excludes it provided none but what
had been in the States heretofore,
I would not have objected to it.
. . . For my part, in reviewing the
qualifications necessary for a Presi-
dent, I did not suppose that the
pope could occupy the President's
chair. But let us remember that
we form a government for millions
not yet in existence. I have not
the art of divination. In the course
of four or five hundred years I do
not know how it will work. This
is most certain : that papists may
occupy that chair, and Mahometans
may take it. I see nothing against
it. There is a disqualification, I
believe, in every State in the
Union ; it ought to be so in this
system " (id. p. 215).

In the Massachusetts Convention
there was considerable debate on
the same clause. Mr. Singletary
" thought we were giving up all our
privileges, as there was no provi-
sion that men in power should have
any religion ; and though he hoped
to see Christians, yet, by the Con-
stitution, a papist or an infidel was
as eligible as they " (2 Elliot Deb.,
p. 44). Several members of the
convention urging that the provi-
sion " was a departure from the
principles of our forefathers, who
came here for the preservation of
their religion ; and that it would
admit deists, atheists, etc., into the
general government," Rev. Mr. Shute
said : " To establish a religious test
as a qualification for offices in the
proposed Federal Constitution, it
appears to me, sir, would be attend-

The Rise of Religious Liberty in tJie United States. 737

etl with injurious consequences to
some individuals, and with no ad-
vantage to the whole. ... In this
great and extensive empire there is
and will be a great variety of senti-
ments in religion among its inhabi-
tants. Upon the plan of a religious
test the question, I think, must be,
Who shall be excluded from na-
tional trusts ? Whatever answer
bigotry may suggest, the dictates of
candor and equity, I conceive, will
be, None. Far from limiting my
charity and confidence to men of
my own denomination in religion, I
suppose and I believe, sir, that there
are worthy characters among men
of every denomination among the
Quakers, the Baptists, the Church
of England, the papists, and even
among those who have no other
guide in the way to virtue and hea-
ven than the dictates of natural re-
ligion. I must therefore think, sir,
that the proposed plan of govern-
ment in this particular is wisely con-
structed ; that as all have an equal
claim to the blessings of the gov-
ernment under which they live and
which they support, so none should
be excluded from them for being
of any particular denomination in
religion. The presumption is that
the eyes of the people will be upon
the faithful in the land ; and, from
a regard of their own safety, they
will choose for their rulers men of
known abilities, of known probity,
of good moral characters. The
Apostle Peter tells us that God is
no respecter of persons, but in every
nation he that feareth him and
worketh righteousness is acceptable
to him. And I know of no reason
why men of such a character, in a
community of whatever denomina-
tion in religion, cccteris parilnts, with
other suitable qualifications, should
not be acceptable to the people, and
VOL. xxni. 47

why they may not be employed by
them with safety and advantage
in the important offices of govern-
ment. The exclusion of a religious
test in the proposed Constitution,
therefore, clearly appears to me, sir,
to be in favor of its adoption " (id.

These utterances form so excel-
lent a commentary on the last
clause of the sixth article of the Con-
stitution of the United States that
it is to be regretted that we know-
no more of their admirable and sa-
gacious author than that he was the-
Rev. Daniel Shute, of Hingham, irr
Suffolk County, and voted on what
the original journal calls " the deci-
sion of the grand question " in favor
of ratifying the Constitution ; as did
also his colleague, Major-General
Benjamin Lincoln.

Recurring to the debate, Col.
Jones " thought that the rulers*
ought to believe in God or Christ,
and that, however a test may be
prostituted in England, yet he
thought, if our public men were to
be of those who had a good stand-
ing in the church, it would be hap-
py for the United States ' (id. p.
119). Major Lusk "passed to the
article dispensing with the qualifi-
cation of a religious test, and con-
cluded by saying that he shuddered
at the idea that Roman Catholics,
papists, and pagans might be in-
troduced into office, and that po-
pery and the Inquisition may be-
established in America " (id. p.
148). Rev. Mr. Backus said: "I
now beg leave to offer a few
thoughts upon some points in the
Constitution proposed to us, and I
shall begin with the exclusion of
any religious test. Many appear to
be much concerned about it ; but
nothing is more evident, both in-
reason and the Holy Scriptures,

73 8 The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

than that religion is ever a matter
between God and individuals ; and
therefore no man or men can im-
pose any religious test without in-
vading the essential prerogatives
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Minis-
ters first assumed this power under
the Christian name, and then Con-
stantine approved of the practice
when he adopted the profession of
Christianity as an engine of state
policy. And let the history of all
nations be searched from that day
to this, and it will appear that the
imposing of religious tests hath
been the greatest engine of tyranny
in the world. And I rejoice to see
so many gentlemen who are now
giving in their rights of conscience
in this great and important matter.
Some serious minds discover a con-
cern lest, if all religious tests should
be excluded, the Congress would
hereafter establish popery or some
other tyrannical way of worship; but
it is most certain that no such way
of worship can be established with-
out any religious test " (id. p. 149).
In the Conventions of Virginia
(3 Elliot Deb., p. 204), and Con-
necticut (2 ib. p. 202), and in the
South Carolina Legislature (i id. p.
312), the same clause was discussed,
but more briefly, and after the final
ratification of the Constitution the
principle of the provision seems to
have been universally conceded as
correct. The Georgia constitution
of May 6, 1789, the first new State
constitution adopted after the in-
auguration of the government un-
der the Constitution of the United
States, omitted the qualification
that members ofthe General Assem-
bly should be of the Protestant re-
ligion ; the South Carolina consti-
tution of June 3, 1790, the next
adopted, omitted the same test, as
also all the former provisions mak-

ing the Protestant religion the State
faith, and provided that " the free
exercise and enjoyment of religious
profession and worship, without
discrimination or preference, shall
forever, hereafter, be allowed with-
in this State to all mankind " (art.
8, sec. i), and from this time
forward it may be taken as the case
that as fast as the States remodelled
their constitutions of the Revolu-
tionary era the religious-test / provi-
sions were formally omitted, and in
the interim passed sub silentio.

The immediate cause of this
universal abrogation of religious
qualifications for office was, as we
have seen, the sixth article of the
Constitution of the United States,
but beyond this were some potent
operative causes. The loss of
Canada was one. Dr. Ramsay, who
tells us that he had access to all
the official papers of the United
States up to 1786, when he ceased
to be a member of the Congress
under the Confederation (pref. 2
Hist. U. S.), says : " The province
was evacuated with great reluc-
tance. The Americans were not
only mortified at the disappoint-
ment of their favorite scheme of
annexing it as a fourteenth link in
the chain of their Confederacy, but
apprehended the most serious con-
sequences from the ascendency of
the British power in that quarter '
(i'd. p. 71). It was felt too late
that the indiscreet utterances of
the Congress of 1774 respecting the
Roman Catholic religion had led
to this loss.

Another operative cause was the
yearning desire of the early states-
men of the United States to invite
and secure foreign immigration.
As early as the address of Congress
of Oct. 21, 1774, it was noticed that
the population of Canada was

The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States. 739

" daily swelling with Catholic emi- Congress, and the response of his
grants from Europe "; and after the Christian majesty was 2,000,000
peace of 1783 showed that Canada livres in money and small arms,
was to remain a British possession, 200 field-pieces, the best in the
it was seen that to impress an anti- royal arsenals, a credit for 1,000,-
Catholic character on the govern- ooo livres with the clothier-general
ment of the United States would of the French forces, and the ser-
tend to build up that province at vices of Monsieur Co u dray, the best
the expense of the United States, military engineer in the royal army,
and that only by proffering religious and as many of his officers as were
as well as civil liberty could this needed (i Pitk. Hist. U. S., pp.
country hope to divert that emigra- 3&7> 500). Spain also assisted the
tion to its own shores. Some of Americans with 1,000,000 livres as
the States had already suffered, early as May, 1776 (id. p. 411).
when colonies, from legalizing in- Still another 1,000,000 livres were
equalities in religion, and that, too, added by France before the treaty
had no doubt its weight; Ramsay of 1778; and to appreciate fully the
telling us that the legal pre-emi- various pecuniary aids given by
nence of the Episcopal Church, and this power to the United States
its maintenance at the expense not during the struggle, the reader may
only of its own members but of all well consult the treaties with that
other denominations in Virginia power of 1782 and 1783 (Rev. Stats.,
and Maryland, "deterred great 'Treaties," pp. 214-9). Priortoi778
numbers, especially of the Presby- some 3,000,000 livres were advanc-
terian denomination, who had emi- ed, and from that time to 1782
grated from Ireland, from settling some 18,000,000 more were granted
within the limits of these govern- and an endorsement given to Hol-
ments" (i Hist. U. S., p. 220). land for 10,000,000 in addition.
Another cause operating in favor In 1783 a further grant of 6,000,-
of a removal of religious tests to of- ooo livres was made, making
fice was the eminent services ren- 37,000,000 in all. All expenses
dered the States in the establish- of commissions, negotiations, etc.,
ment of their independence by two were borne by France and made a
Catholic powers, France and Spain, present to the United States, as also
It is currently supposed that it was all the interest accrued during the
not until after the Americans, by entire war on the debt, and the
their capture of Burgoyne at Sara- total principal of the sums forward-
toga in 1777, had demonstrated their ed in 1776, for all of which bene-
power that they received efficient factions the most lively acknow-
assistance from those nations; but ledgments were made by the
the contrary is the case. Before United States in the treaties re-
the Declaration of Independence ferred to above. Nor were French
Silas Deane was sent to France for fleets and armies wanting. In July,
assistance, and contemporaneous 1778, a French squadron of twelve
with the Declaration large supplies line-of-battle ships and four frigates
of money and arms were furnished reached the United States under
by that power. Arms, clothing, Count d'Estaing (2 Ramsay Hist.
and ammunition for 25,000 men U. S., p. 258). In 1779 the same
and 100 field-pieces were asked by commander appeared off the Geor-

74O The Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States.

gia coast with 20 ships of the (id. p. 528). In 1779 she declared
line and n frigates, and some war against Great Britain, and car-
3,500 French troops, infantry and ried on a campaign in Florida with
artillery; and at this time occurred such vigor as to drive out the Bri-
the bloody assault on the British tish from that province. In 1780
entrenchments at Savannah, where an immense Spanish armament ap-
Gen. Lincoln, at the head of 600 peared in the West Indies to co-
Continentals, and d'Estaing at the operate with the French in creating
head of the French infantry, charged a diversion in that quarter, the corn-
side by side, 200 of the Americans bined fleet numbering thirty-six
and 637 of the French being left on ships of the line, crowded with
the field. In July, 1780, still an- troops (2 Ramsay, 374). In 1782
other French fleet arrived at Rhode a grander attempt was made in the
Island with 6,000 troops (2 Pitk. same field, the combined French
117). In 1781 Count de Grasse and Spanish navies numbering sixty
arrived with 28 ships of the line ships of the line, with an immense
and 3,200 French troops under the number of frigates and smaller
Marquis de St. Simon (2 Ramsay, armed vessels, and conveying thou-
p. 427). In 1782 a French fleet sands of land forces. The first at-
of 34 ships of the line, having on tempt failed by the appearance of a
board 5,500, rendezvoused in the mortal disease which decimated the
West Indies to draw off the British Spanish troops, and the latter by
by an attack on Jamaica, and here the bloody defeat of the French by
sustained an appalling defeat at Admiral Rodney. In the course of
the hands of Admiral Rodney, the war the Spanish navy received
The French troops were so crowd- a terrible blow at Cape St. Vincent,
ed on the vessels that in one ship though the Spanish admiral, Don
alone 400 men were killed, and the Juan de Langara, fought till his
total slaughter amounted to thou- flag-ship was a mere wreck and his
sands (id. p. 5). In the same year fleet was sunk or taken. One ves-
we find 7,000 French regulars at sel in particular, the San Domingo,
Yorktown ; and from the contempo- of 70 guns and carrying 600 men,
rary accounts the French engineers blew up, and all on board perished
and artillery were eminently instru- (id. p. 372).

mental in forcing the surrender of To sustain American independ-
Cornwallis, particularly Major-Gen- ence, in short, French and Spanish
eral du Portail, Brigadier-General blood was poured out like water.
Launcy, Col. Gouvion, and Capt. The arms, the gold, the ships, the
Rochefontaine, who were thanked armies of the two great Catholic
and promoted by Congress and powers were given in unstinted
warmly commended to their sove- measure to the United States, and
reign (id. p. 438; 4 Journ. 290). on the establishment of the present
Nor was Spain backward in her polity of the republic it would
efforts. Before the Declaration of have been disgraceful beyond mea-
I independence she sent the Ame- sure to have fixed therein a stigma
ricans 1,000,000 livres (i Pitk. on the faith of those friends in time
411). In 1777 she forwarded several of need. In answering the con-
cargoes of naval stores, cordage, gratulations of the Catholic clergy
sail-cloth, anchors, etc., from Bilboa and laity on his first accession to

TJte Rise of Religious Liberty in the United States. 741

the presidency, Gen. Washington
said: U I presume that your fellow-
citizens will not forget the patriotic
part which you took in the accom-
plishment of their Revolution and
the establishment of their govern-
ment, or the important assistance
which they received from a nation
in which the Roman Catholic faith
is professed' (Cath. AL, 1876, p.
63). Possibly, also, the demeanor
of the French troops may have re-
moved many misapprehensions and
prejudices against their religion.
Madison, who was an eye-witness
of their march through Philadel-
phia, where Congress was then in
session, in 1782, en route to York-
town, highly applauds their regular-
itv and decencv of conduct in his

/ V

letters of that date (Mad. Papers) ;
and speaking on the same subject
Dr. Ramsay, also then in Congress,
says : " The French troops marched
at the same time and for the same
place. In the course of this sum-
mer they passed through all the
extensive settlements which lie
between Newport and Yorktown.
It seldom, if ever, happened before
that an army led through a foreign
country, at so great a distance from
their own, among a people of differ-
ent principles, customs, language,
and religion, behaved with so much
regularity. In their march to York-
town they had to pass through 500
miles of a country abounding in
fruit, and at a time when the most
delicious productions of nature
growing on and near the public
highways presented both oppor-
tunity and temptation to gratify

their appetites. Yet so complete
was their discipline that in this
long march scarce an instance
could be produced of a peach or
an apple being taken without the
consent of the inhabitants ' (2
Hist. U. S., p. 434). Allies of this
character were in high favor with
the American people, and most
gratefully remembered at the time
of the final settlement of civil gov-
ernment in the United States, not
to speak of the influence of the
Continental soldiery, who, no doubt,
bore in mind their brethren in arms
at Savannah and Yorktown, and
recalled Washington's general or-
der whereby the black cockade of
the American army was mounted
with a white relief in honor of Cath-
olic France (2 Ramsay, p. 358).

To conclude, then, the provisions
of the Constitution of tne United
States bearing on religion are not
mere ill-considered generalities,
but positive convictions based upon
long and sore experience. The
prohibition of a national religion
or of any governmental interference
with spiritual persuasions owes
its oricnn to the actual existence in

former days of church establish-
ments, the hierophants wherein
were appointees of the political
power, and the expenses whereof
were compulsorily borne by those
of other creeds. And the inhibi-
tion of religious tests for office
arises out of the fact that the his-
tory of this country demonstrates it
equally impolitic, ungrateful, and
dishonest to require such qualifica-
tions in these United States-

742

Assist.

ASSISI.

St. Francis be my speed !"

THINK of being taken into Um-
bria, preternatural Umbria, where
every olive-sandalled mountain is
full of mysterious influences, and
every leaf and flower of the smiling
valleys seem to breathe out some
sweet old Franciscan legend, by
a steam-engine bearing the name
of Fulton ! It was hard. Not but
we have the highest respect for
nay, a certain pride in that great
inventor; still it seemed a positive
grievance to find anything modern
in what was to us a world of poet-
ry and mediaeval tradition. We
wished, if not to gird ourselves
humbly with the cord like Dante,
at least to put ourselves in har-
mony with one of the most deli-
oious regions in the world, where
at every step the lover of the clas-
sic, of art, or of the higher mystic
lore finds so much to suit his turn.
The name of Fulton sounds well
along the Hudson, but to hear the
shriek of an engine awaken the
echoes of the Apennines, and see
it go plunging insensibly through
the very heart of poetical Umbria,
along the shores of " reedy Thrasi-
mene," through " the defiles fatal to
Roman rashness," was a blow diffi-
cult to recover from. It required
the overpowering influences of this
enchanting region, as every one will
believe, to restore our equanimity.

Umbria is a mountainous region
of the Ecclesiastical States that
gradually ascends from the Tiber
toward the Apennines, now called
the Duchy of Spoteto. It is full
of sweet, sunny valleys enclosed

among majestic mountains, with a
range of temperature that produces
great variety of vegetation, from the
pine and the oak to the orange and
aloe, the olive and the vine. Its
cliffs are crowned with sanctuaries
which are resonant night and day
with prayer and psalmody, or old
towns, each with the remembrance
of some saint whose shrine it guards
with jealous care, or some artist or
poet whose works have made it re-
nowned, or some venerable classi-
cal recollection that clings to it like
the vine which gives so much grace
and freshness to the landscape.
There is Spoleto, whose gates
closed against Hannibal ; Arezzo,
where Petrarch was born ; Cor-
tona, with its " diadem of tow-
ers" and its legend of St. Marga-
ret ; Perugia dolente, which Totila
only took after a seven years' siege,
and which Charlemagne placed un-
der the sweet yoke of the Papacy ;
Montefalco, like a falcon's nest on
the crest of the mountain, famous
for its virgin saint and its frescos
of Benozzo Gozzoli ; and pictur-
esque Marni, where the Blessed
Lucy when a child played with
the Christorello. We pass Orvieto,
with its wonderful proofs of past
cultivation ; the lake of Bolsena,
with its isle where a queen died of
hunger, and its shores verdant with
the glorious pines sung by Virgil,
at the foot of which Leo X., when
ar guest at the Farnese villa, used
to gather around him the artists
and poets of the day, to indulge in
intellectual converse till " the azure

Assist.

743

gloom of an Italian night" gather-
ed around them with hues that
spoke of heaven.

But over all hovers especially the
grand memory of St. Francis, with
which the whole of this beautiful
region is embalmed. Along its val-
leys and mountain paths he used to
go with Fra Pacifico, the poet lau-
reate of Frederick II., singing their
hymns of praise, calling themselves
God's minstrels, who desired no
other reward from those who gath-
ered around them but the sincere
repentance of their sins. There is
the lake of Perugia, where he spent
forty days alone on an island among
the sad olives, fasting in imitation
of our Saviour, in continual com-
munion with God and the angels
a spot now marked by a convent
whose foundations are washed by
the waters of the lake. There is
the blue lake of Rieti, to which, in
his compassion for God's creatures,
he restored the fish alive, with the
four Franciscan convents on the
hills that enclose it. There is Gub-
bio, with the legend of the fierce
wolf he tamed, to which the people
erected a statue an unquestionable
proof of its truth. There is the

u Hard Rock
'Twixt Arno and the Tiber,"

where

11 He froQi Christ

Took the last signet which his limbs two years
Did carry."

Above all, there is Assisi with his
tomb, one of the most glorious in
the world after that of Christ,
around which centred all the poet-
ry and art of the thirteenth cen-
tury. We caught our first glimpse
of it at Spello Spello on its spur
of red limestone where we were
shown the house of Propertius,
' the poet of delicate pleasures, in
full sight of Assisi, where was born

one who sang of a higher love.
Assisi stands on an eminence over-
looking the whole country around,
and we could not take our eyes off
it all the way from Spello, till,
glancing towards the valley below,
we saw the towers and dome of
Santa Maria degli Angcli, which en-
closes the sacred Porziuncula. We
were now in the very " land of won-
der, of miracle, and mysterious in-
fluences," the first glimpse of which
one can never forget. Think of s.
railway station close by the Porzi-
uncula ! We went directly there on
descending from the cars.

St. Mary of the Angels is a vast
church that stands almost solitary
in the plain. It is modern also,
and out of keeping with the venera-
ble traditions of the place, which
was a disappointment. The old
church was nearly destroyed by an
earthquake in 1854. The present
one is of noble proportions, how-
ever, and has been compared to the
garments of a queen that now clothe
the humble sanctuary of the Porzi-
uncula which stands beneath the
dome, the first thing to strike the
eye on entering the church. We
hastened towards it at once, to pray
where St. Francis so often wept and
prayed, and where so many genera-
tions since have wept, and prayed,
and found grace before God. It
was here Picca, his mother, often
came to pray before he was born,
and where his birth was announced
by mysterious songs attributed to
the angels. St. Francis loved this
spot above all places in the world ;
for it was here he was called to
embrace the sublime folly of the
cross, and where he laid the foun-
dations of the seraphic order. It
was here, in the year 1222, he be-
held Christ and his holy Mother
surrounded by a multitude of an-
gels, and prayed that all who should.

744

Assist.

henceforth visit this chapel with
hearts purified by contrition and
confession might obtain full pardon
and indulgence for all their sins.
This was the origin of the celebrat-
ed indulgence of the Porziuncula,
which the grave Bourdaloue re-
garded as one of the most authentic
in the church, because granted di-
rectly by Christ himself. The trea-
sures of the church were not dealt
out so generously in those days as
now, and thousands came hither
from, all parts of Christendom, in
the middle ages, to gain this won-
derful indulgence. When St. Ber-
nardine of Siena came in the four-
teenth century, he found two hun-
dred thousand pilgrims encamped
in the valley around. St. Bridget
spent the whole night of one ist
of August praying in the Porziun-
cula ; and still, when the great day
of the Perdono comes (it lasts from
the Vespers of the ist of August
till the Vespers of the following
day), thousands flock down from
the mountains and come up from
the extremity of southern Italy.
The highway is lined with booths
where eatables and religious objects
are sold. Processions come with
chants and prayer. The great bell
of Predicazione, originally cast for
Fra Elias, is heard all over the val-
ley from the Sagro Convento, an-
nouncing the indulgence. When
the church doors open, an over-
whelming crowd pours in with cries,
and invocations, and vivas for the
Madonna and St. Francis with true
Italian exuberance of devotion.

The Porziuncula has wisely been
left in its primitive simplicity, with
the exception of the front, on which
Overbeck, in 1830, painted the
above-mentioned vision to St. Fran-
cis with true pre-Raphaelite simpli-
city. The remainder is just as it
was in the time of the saint; only

its rough walls have been polished
by the kisses of pilgrims, and hung
with pious offerings. Lamps burn
continually therein as if it were a
shrine.

Back of the Porziuncula is the low,
dark cell St. Francis inhabited, and
where he ended his days. It was
here, while he was dying x two of
the friars sang his Hymn of the
Sun, which breathes so fully his
love for everything created. And
when they ceased, he himself took
up the strain, to sing the sweetness
of death, which he called his " sis-
ter, terrible and beautiful," in the
spirit of Job, who said to corrup-
tion : Thou art my father ; to the
worm : Thou art my mother and
my sister.

Then we were taken into the re-
cess where St. Francis so often chas-
tised his body, which he regarded
as his beast of burden that it be-
hoved him to beat daily and to lead
around with a halter. When dy-
ing, he is said to have begged par-
don of this old companion of the
way for inflicting so many stripes
on it for the good of his soul. There
is also the Cappella delle t Rose with
the Spineto a little court once filled
with coarse brambles, but now aflush
with roses. Here St. Francis, be-
ing tempted to renounce a life in
which he was consumed with watch-
ings and prayers, for his only reply
threw himself among the thorns,
which, tinged with his blood, were
immediately changed into roses.
They bloom here still, but without
thorns, and their petals are stained
as with blood. If transplanted else-
where, the stains are said to fade
away and the thorns to come forth
again. It was twelve of these roses,
six red and six white, the saini
bore with him into the Porziuncula
when the great Perdono of the
2d of August was granted roses

Assist.

745

that for ever will embalm the church,
and that have been immortalized by
artists all over Italy and Spain.

The immense convent of Obser-
vantine friars adjoining is now so-
litary and desolate. The Italian
government has turned the inmates
out of this cradle of their order,
with the exception of two or three,
who are left as guardians of the
church. The hundreds of poor,
once fed at their gates in time of
need, now take revenge on the pass-
ing traveller, and fasten themselves
on him with pertinacious grasp.
But who can refuse a dole where St.
Francis has made Poverty for ever
glorious ?

From St. Mary of the Angels we
went winding up the hill to Assisi.
Its base is clothed with the olive,
the vine, and the fig, but its sides
are as nude and destitute as the
Bride of St. Francis. Above, on
the right, rises the tall campanile
of Santa Chiara over the tomb of
St. Clare. At the left is the for-
tress-like edifice of the Sagro Con-
vento on the Hill of Paradise, once
known, as the Colle a" Inferno, where
St. Francis desired to be buried
among malefactors. This monas-
tery against the mountain side
stands on a long line of double
arches that seem hewn out of the
very cliff. It is one of the most
imposing and most interesting mo-
numents in Italy, and astonishes
the eye by its bold, massive, and
picturesque appearance, quite in
harmony with the old mediaeval
city. It has been called the Sagro
Convento ever since its consecra-
tion by Pope Innocent IV. in 1243
-the Sacred Convent, par excellence.
Santa Chiara and this convent of
St. Francis seem like two strong-
holds at the extremities of the town
to protect it from danger. Between
them it rises in terraces, crowned

by a ruined old citadel of feudal
times. The declining sun lighted
up its domes, and towers, and ven-
erable gray walls as we ascended,
and made it seem to our enraptured
eyes a seraphic city indeed.

Half way up the hill we came to
the Spedalicchio the ancient 'Spi-
tal where St. Francis so often came
to take care of the lepers. It was
here, as he was borne on a litter to
the Porziuncula by the friars, a few
days before his death, he begged
them to stop and turn him around,
not to take a last look at the city
he loved for the eyes that had wept
so many tears were now blind but
to bless it with uplifted hands, in
solemn, tender words that have been
graven over one of the gates :

Benedicta tu civitas a Domino, quia
per te multce animcz salvabuntur, ct in
te multi servi Altissimi habitabunt, et
de te multi eligentur ad regnitm ccter-
num. A city blessed of the Lord art
thou, because by thee many souls
shall be saved, and in thee shall
dwell many servants of the Most
High, and from thee many shall be
chosen to reign for ever and ever !

With what emotion one enters its
gates ! . . . We drove through old,
narrow, ascending streets, silent and
monastic, named after the saints ;
past old rock-built houses of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
with the holy names of Jesus and
Mary over nearly every door; flow-
er-pots with pinks and gillyflowers
in all the windows, even the poor-
est, or on ledges, or set in rings
projecting from the walls ; and wo-
men spinning under the old arch-
ways like St. Clare, who, we are
told, even when wasted and enfee-
bled by her austerities, sat up in
bed and span linen of marvellous
fineness.

Our hotel was close to the Sagro
Convento, and, though extremely fa-

746

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tigued, we at once hastened to the
church, not to examine its treasures
of art, but to pray and find repose
of heart overburdened by the flood
of memories that come over one in
such a place as Assisi. Then we
returned to our room, and sat at the
window looking off at the setting
sun and golden sky, and the shining
dome of St. Mary of the Angels,
and the broad plain where was held
the famous Chapter of Mats in St.
Francis' time, with its narrow river
winding through it. It was like the
page of a beautiful poem laid open
before us. St. Francis loved these
hills clothed with the pale olive,
this valley covered with harvests
and the vine, the free air and azure
heavens, the running stream, a fine
prospect; and we sat long after the
rich, glorious convent bells rang out
the Ave Maria, gazing at the fair
scene before us. Purple shadows
began to creep up the rugged sides
of the hill, the golden light faded
away in the west, the dome over the
Porziuncula grew dim, and the val-
ley was covered with the rising
mists. It was time to close the
window.

We spent most of the following
day in the church. It is the very
inflorescence of Christian art, a great
epic poem in honor of St. Fran-
cis. A pope laid the corner-stone.
All Christendom sent its offerings.
The most celebrated architects and
painters of the time lent the aid of
their genius. One would think it
had grown out of the hill against
which it is built. Its azure vaults
starred with gold, its ribbed arches
that bend low like the boughs of a
gloomy forest, the delicacy of its
carvings, its marble pavement, its
windows with their jewelled panes,
and above all its walls covered with
mystic paintings that read like the
very poetry of religion, need almost

the tongue of angels to describe
them. M. Taine says " No one,
till he has seen this unrivalled edi-
fice, can have any idea of the art
and genius of the middle ages. Ta-
ken in connection with Dante and
the Fioretti of St. Francis, it is the
masterpiece of mystic Christianity."
It was the first Gothic church erect-
ed in Italy.* It is built in the form
of a cross, in memory of the myste-
rious crucifixion of St. Francis. Its
walls are of white marble, in honor
of the Immaculate Virgin; and
there are twelve towers of red mar-
ble, in memory of the blood shed by
the Holy Apostles. It consists of
two churches, one above the other,
and a crypt beneath, where lies the
body of St. Francis. The upper
church is entered from a grassy ter-
race on the top of the Hill of Par-
adise. The lower one opens at the
side into an immense court sur-
rounded by an arcade. This un-
der church, with its low Byzantine
arches, full of the mysterious gloom
and solemnity so favorable to pen-
sive contemplation and prayer, has
often been supposed typical of the
self-abasement and mortified life of
St. Francis. Its delicious chapels,
with their struggling light, are well
calculated to excite sadness, peni-
tence, and tears. The crypt be-
neath, with its horrible darkness, its
damp walls and death-like stillness,
and its one tomb in the centre
awaiting the Resurrection, is a ve-
ritable limbo ; while the upper
church, with its lofty, graceful, up-
springing arches, all light and joy,
is symbolic of the transfigured soul
of the seraphic Francis in the bea-
titude of eternal glory.

But how can we go peering around
this museum of Christian art, as if
in a picture-gallery ? It would be

* The upper church is of the Gothic style ; the
lower one, Lombard ; and the crypt, Grecian.

Assist.

747

positively wicked. The knee in-
stinctively bends before the saint-
ly forms that people the twilight so-
lemnity of the lower church. It was
thus we gazed up at Giotto's match-
less frescos of the three monastic
virtues on the arches over the high
altar, which stands directly above
the tomb of St. Francis Poverty,
Chastity, and Obedience fit crown
indeed for that " meek man of
God." We remember seeing them
during the Forty Hours' Devotion,
when the candles lit them up won-
drously ; the figures came out in
startling relief; the angels seemed
actually hovering over the divine
Host below. The most celebrated
of these paintings is the Spozalizio
sung by Dante the mystic espou-
sals of St. Francis with Poverty, the
lady of his choice.

" A Dame to whom none openeth pleasure's gate
More than to death, was, 'gainst his father's will,
His stripling choice : and he did make her his
Before the spiritual court by nuptial bonds."

This was not an original concep-
tion of Giotto's or Dante's. They
only gave a more artistic expression
to the popular belief. There was
not a cottage in Umbria that did
not believe in these espousals of St.
Francis with Lady Poverty, who
had, says the Divine Poet, lived
more than a thousand years bereft
of her first bridegroom, Christ ;
and it was from the lips of the
poor and lowly they gathered the
significant allegory. It was also
before their time St. Bonaventura
wrote: "St. Francis, jotirneying to
Siena in the broad plain between
Campiglia and San Quirico, was
encountered by three maidens in
poor raiment, exactly resembling
each other in age and appearance,
who saluted him with the words :
4 Welcome, Lady Poverty,' and sud-
denly disappeared. The breth-
ren not irrationally concluded that

this apparition imported some mys-
tery pertaining to St. Francis, and
that by the three poor maidens
were signified Poverty, Chastity, and
Obedience, the sum and beauty of
evangelical perfection, all of which
shone with equal and consummate
lustre in the man of God, though
he made the privilege of poverty his
chief glory."

Dante with all his pride, and
Giotto with his repugnance to pov-
erty, even when consecrated by re-
ligion, chose one of the most demo-
cratic of subjects when they depict-
ed these sacred espousals of St.
Francis ; for it was the people he
identified himself with in this union.
He wedded for better and worse
the sorrows and misery, the mis-
fortunes and groans, of Italy,* and
when dying,

u To his brotherhood,
As their just heritage, he gave in charge
His dearest Lady, and enjoined their love
And faith to her."

The church teaches that the poor
are Christ's suffering members ; that
it is he who is hungered and athirst
in the sick and destitute ; to him is
every alms given. St. Francis gave
his whole being to Poverty thus
identified with Christ a bride chos-
en only by a few elect" souls in these
days of luxury and self-indulgence,
but in whom the Christian philo-
sophers of the middle ages found
an infinite charm. Plato represents
Love with bare feet and tattered,
disordered garments, to signify the
forgetfulness of self that gives all
and reserves nothing. It is in this
sense the choice of evangelical pov-
erty is one of the highest expressions
of love to God in the Catholic
Church.

" O hidden riches ! O prolific
good !" exclaims Dante. And no
one ever understood its value more

* Ozanam.

Assist.

than St. Francis, the glwioso pover-
ello di Christo, who was, says Bos-
suet, " perhaps the most desperate
lover of poverty ever known in the
church."

" O Lord Jesus !" cries St. Francis,
" show me the ways of thy dear Pover-
ty. ... Take pity on me and my lady
Poverty whom I love with so much ar-
dor. Without her I can find no peace.
And it is thou, O my God ! who hast in-
spired this great love. She is seated in
the dust of the highway, and her friends
pass her by with contempt. Thou seest
the abasement of this queen, O Lord
Jesus ! who didst descend from heaven
to make her thy spouse, and through her
to beget children worthy of thee, who art
perfect. She was in the humility of thy
Mother's womb. She was at the manger.
She had her part in the great combat
thou didst fight for our redemption. In
thy Passion she alone did not abandon
thee. Mar}', thy Mother, remained at the
foot of the cross, but Poverty ascended
it with thee.* She clung more closely
than ever to thy breast. It was she who
lovingly prepared the rude nails that
pierced thy hands and feet ; she who
didst present thee with gall when thou
wast suffering from thirst. . . . Thou
didst die in her loving embrace. . . .
And even then this faithful spouse did
not forsake thee. She had thy body
buried in the grave of another. She
wrapped thy cold limbs in the tomb, and
wi h her thou didst come forth glorious.
Therefore thou hast crowned her in hea-
ven, and chosen her to mark thy elect
with the sign of redemption. Oh ! who
would not choose Lady Poverty above
all other brides ? O Jesus! who for our
sakes didst become poor, the grace I
beg of thee is the privilege of sharing
thy poverty. I ardently desire to be
enriched with this treasure. I pray thee
that I and mine may never possess any-
thing in the world of our own, for the
glory of thy name, but that we rnay only
subsist, during this miserable life, on
that which is given us in alms."

How foreign this seems to the
spirit of our age ; and yet it is the

* Dante's actual words :

4 With Christ she mounted on the cross,
When Mary stayed beneath."

science of the cross, of which we
need an infusion to counterbalance
the general worship of Mammon.
Coleridge seems to have caught a
glimpse of the beauty and dignity
of poverty when he wrote :

" It is a noble doctrine that teaches
how slight a thing is Poverty ; what
riches, nay, treasures untold, a man may
possess in the midst of it, if he does but
seek them aright ; how much of the
fiend's apparent bulk is but a fog vapor
of the sickly and sophisticated mind.
It is a noble endeavor that would bring
men to tread the fear of this phantom
under their firm feet, and dare to be
poor !"

Giotto represents St. Francis re-
ceiving his bride from the hands of
Christ himself. Her head is crown-
ed with roses and light, but her
feet are bleeding from the thorns
of the rough way. Her cheeks are
hollow and pale, but her eyes are
full of fire. Her garments are worn
and in tatters, but she is beautiful
with modesty and love. Hers is
the tempered spiritual beauty of
one who has been chastened by
misfortune, but there is nothing of
the degradation of human passion.
It is the poverty of country life,
free, modest, unabashed, but en-
nobled by an expression that reli-
gion alone can give. Worldlings
attack her with blows, and a dog,
that last friend of the poor, is bark-
ing at her with fury. Angels, beam-
ing with joy and admiration, encir-
cle these mysterious nuptials. Be-
low, in one corner, are the vices of
the times personified the rapacity
of the nobility, and the greed of
monks who have become unmind-
ful of their obligations. At the
left is the youthful Francis sharing
his mantle with a beggar, while an
angel above is ascending with tht
garment to heaven. The central
figure in the painting is the radiant

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749

form of Him who took upon himself
the likeness of the poor, on whose
condition he now confers fresh dig-
nity by perpetuating a love of pov-
erty in the person of Francis and his
order. Over all are angels of sacrifice
offering to God the riches that have
been abandoned for the love of him.

Philosophy, poetry, and religion
are all in this wonderful allegory,
which has shone here nearly six
hundred years as a memorial and a
perpetual admonition to the follow-
ers of St. Francis.

Chastity is represented under the
veiled form of a maiden who has
taken refuge in the tower of a for-
tress, defended by a triple wall, and
guarded by Innocence and Forti-
tude. She is kneeling in the atti-
tude of prayer, while angels bring
her a crown and a palm. Before
the castle gates are depicted the
divine means of purifying the hu-
man soul : Baptism, with the cardi-
nal virtues in attendance, and an
angel bearing the robe of innocence ;
Penance, in her hood and garb of
serge, or, as some say, St. Francis
receiving new members into his
fold, among whom may be seen
I )ante in the habit of the Third Or-
der ; and angels of Expiation con-
signing unseemly vices to the puri-
fying flames of a yawning gulf.

Sancta Obedientia, the least pleas-
ing of these paintings, is represented
by the monastic yoke placed on the
shoulders of a novice. Prudence
and Humility are at his side ; the
former, entrenched behind a barrier
with mirror and compass, has two
faces, one examining the past and
the other considering the future.
Humility is bearing a torch. The
old Adam of the human heart, un-
der the form of a centaur, is put to
flight by these virtues.*

* In this allegory we have followed, in part the
interpretation of M. Ozanam.

In the midst of these three price-
less jewels is represented St. Francis
radiant with holiness, in a rich dea-
con's dress, on a throne of gold, and
surrounded by angels who hymn his
praise Never was mortal more glo-
rified on earth than the humble St.
Francis, out of whose tomb has grown
this richest flower of mediaeval art.

On the wall of the left transept is
a sublime painting of the Crucifix-
ion by Pietro Cavallini one of the
most important monuments of the
school of Giotto, who was one of
the first to soften the representa-
tions of the awful sufferings of Christ
by an expression of divine resigna-
tion and beauty of form. The By-
zantine type of the twelfth century,
still scrupulously adhered to, was
repulsive and expressive only of the
lowest stage of human suffering, as
all know who have seen the green,
livid figures of Christ on the cross
by Margaritone, who died of grief
at seeing his standard of excellence
set aside and despised. Cavallini,
whose piety was so fervent that he
was regarded as a saint, had scru-
ples, however, about condemning as
an artist what he had knelt before
in prayer, though he widely depart-
ed from the old school. Nothing
could be more beautiful or pathetic
than the angels in this picture,
who are weeping and wringing their
hands with anguish around the dy-
ing Saviour. . . . Among the figures
below is Walter de Brienne, Duke
of Athens, then (in 1342) at the'
head of the Florentine republic, for
whom this picture was painted. He
is on horseback with a jewelled cap,
clothed in rich robes, and, strange
to say, with a nimbus around his
head, which seems to have been a
symbol of power as well as sanctity
in those days.

It was one of Cavallini's Christs*

* This is carved.

750

Assist.

that spoke to St. Bridget at St.
Paul's without the walls of Rome;
and he was the architect of the
shrine of Edward the Confessor at
Westminster Abbey.

At the foot of the altar beneath
the Crucifixion is buried Mary of
Savoy, granddaughter of Philip II.
of Spain, a member of the Third Or-
der of St. Francis, who often came
here to venerate his tomb and seek
counsel of St. Joseph of Copertino,
then an inmate of the Sagro Con-
vento.

All the chapels of this lower
church are famous for their frescos
by noted artists. Simone Memmi,
the friend of Petrarch, and painter of
Laura, has covered one with the life
of St. Martin, who, like St. Francis
after him, divided his cloak with a
beggar, remaining for ever a symbol
of the divine words : I was naked
and ye clothed me. The Maddale-
na Chapel is covered with the legend
of the

" Redeemed Magdalene,
And that Egyptian penitent whose tears
Fretted the rock, and moistened round her cave
The thirsty desert,"

by Puccio Capana, who became so
attached to Assisi that he settled
there for life.

The melancholy Giottino adorn-
ed the chapel of St. Nicholas with
his usual harmony of color. On
the arches of the chapel of St.
Louis of France a Franciscan ter-
tiary, Adone Doni, painted the beau-
tiful Sibyls which Raphael admired
and imitated at Santa Maria della
Pace in Rome. Taddeo Gaddi, the
godson and favorite pupil of Giot-
to, has also left here many touching
and beautiful paintings. In fact,
all the renowned artists of the day
seemed to vie with each other in
adorning this monument to the
memory of St. Francis, and some
of their works were offerings of

love and gratitude. To the artis-
tic eye they are models worthy of
study, but to us pilgrims so many vi-
sions of beauty and holiness.

In the sacristy is the most au-
thentic portrait of St. Francis in
existence, by Giunta Pisano a lank,
wasted form that by no means re-
flects the charm the saint most cer-
tainly had to attract so many disci-
ples around him, to say nothing of
his power over the beasts of the
earth and the birds of the air.
Two marble staircases lead down to
the sepulchral chamber where lies
the body of St. Francis. This
crypt, or third church, as it is some-
times called, is of recent construc-
tion, and, though not in harmony
with the upper churches, is a pro-
digious achievement, dug as it is
out of the rock on which the whole
edifice rests. It is of the Doric or-
der, and in the form of a Greek
cross, and lined with precious mar-
bles. It is dark and tomb-like, be-
ing lighted only by lamps around
the bronze shrine, which stands in
the very centre. The body of St.
Francis had lain nearly six hun-
dred years in the heart of the
mountain, shrouded in a mystery
that had given rise to many popu-
lar legends. When brought here
in 1230, it was still flexible as when
he was alive, and the mysterious
stigmata distinctly visible. This
was four years after his death. It
was then shown to the people in its
cypress coffin, amid the flourish of
trumpets and the shouts of the mul-
titude, and put on a magnificent car
drawn by oxen which were cover-
ed with purple draperies sent by
the Emperor of Constantinople,
and escorted by a long procession
of friars with palms and torches in
their hands, chanting hymns com-
posed by Pope Gregory IX. him-
self. Legates, bishops, and a mul-

Assist,

titude of clergy followed. But the
car was guarded by the magistrates
of Assisi, and so fearful were the
people lest the body of their saint
should be taken from them that,
when it arrived at the Colle dln-
ferno, they would not allow the
clergy to take possession of it, but
buried it themselves in the very
bowels of the earth. Hence a cer-
tain mystery that always hung over
the tomb.

It is related that the third night
after his burial the mountain was
shaken by an earthquake and sur-
rounded by an unearthly light.
The friars, hastening to the place
where they knew their patriarch
lay hidden, found the rock rent
asunder and the saint standing on
his tomb with transfigured face
and eyes raised to heaven. Gre-
gory IX, is said to have come to
witness the prodigy, and left this
inscription on the wall : Ante obi-
tum mortuus ; post obitiun vivens
Before his death, dead; after death,
living.

It became a popular belief that
this body, which bore the impress
of the Passion of Christ, would
never see corruption, and that he
would remain thus, ever living and
praying, in the depths of his inac-
cessible tomb.

In 1818 Pius VII. authorized
the Franciscans to search for the
body of their founder. After con-
tinued excavations in the rock for
fifty-two days, or rather nights (for
they worked in the silence and se-
crecy of the night), they came to an
iron grate that protected the narrow
recess where lay the saint. It was
then the crypt was constructed to
receive the sacred body. The same
old grate is before the present shrine,
and the sacristan thrust his torch
through the bars, that we might
catch a glimpse of the remains of one

44 Whose marvellous life deservedly were s".n,j
In heights empyreal."

Around this glorious tomb all the
Franciscans of Assisi, before they
were suppressed by the present Ital-
ian government, used to gather every
Saturday at the vesper hour, to
chant, with lighted tapers in hand,
the Psalm Voce mea ad Dominion
clamant, sung by St. Francis when
he was dying. It has been set to
music by one of the friars in a
grand air known as the Transits
because it celebrates the transit of
the saint to a higher life. This be-
came one of the attractions of the
place which kings and princes con-
sidered it a favor to hear, but of
course it is no longer sung. Let
us hope that this forced suspension
is only transitory.

At the door of the crypt are the
statues of Pius VII., in whose pon-
tificate it was constructed, and Pius
IX., a member of the Third Order,
who has surrounded it with twelve
bas-reliefs representing the life of
the saint.

A long flight of stone steps leads
from the lower court to the terrace
before the upper church, which is
grassy and starred with daisies.
This church is as lofty and brilliant
with light as the other is gloomy
and low-browed. Cimabue and
Giotto adorned its walls with paint-
ings that are now sadly defaced,
but they have a fascination no
modern artist can inspire, and we
linger over them as over the remem-
brance of some half- forgotten dream,
hoping to catch a clearer view be-
fore they fade for ever away. Above
are scenes from the Holy Scriptures
a glorious Biblia Pauperum, in-
deed, it must have been when fresh
from the artist's hands ; and this is
especially the church of the people,
as the lower one is that of the friars.
Below is the wondrous life of St.

752

Assist.

Francis, a poem in twenty-eight
cantos, by Giotto, the painter of St.
Francis par excellence, who never
seemed weary of his favorite sub-
ject.

There are over one hundred stalls
in the choir, delicately carved by
Sanseverino, with curious intarsia-
work representing the popes, doc-
tors, and saints of the Franciscan
Order.

The beautiful lancet windows of
the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies are " suffused with lessons
sweet of heavenly lore," glorious in
color, which gives marvellous hues
to Cimabue's angels who hover in
the arches with "varied plume and
changeful vest." The lower church
is that of poor mortals who struggle
with earth and grope for the light.
This one depicts the glory of the
saints, and is a symbol of Paradise.

Connected with the church is the
Sagro Convento, which is entered by
an arched passage lined with por-
traits of distinguished Franciscans.
There are four large cloisters, now
solitary but for the ascetic forms
painted on their walls, and the si-
lent tombs of the dead friars. Long
corridors, lined with saints of the
Order, lead to the narrow cells in-
tended for the living. Two refecto-
ries were shown us, one large enough
to contain two hundred and fifty
persons, with Silentium in great let-
ters on the wall over the fine Cena-
colo by Solimena. Opposite the
latter is a Crucifixion by Adone Doni,
with Jerusalem and Assisi in the
background, and SS. Francis and
Clare at the foot of the cross. Nar-
row tables extended around the
room, with seats against the wall on
which the JBenedicite is carved.

But the most striking feature of
this vast monastery is the immense
gallery on the western side, like an ar-
cade on the brink of a precipice, with

a torrent in the depths below. This
was constructed by Sixtus IV., whose
statue is at one end. It affords a
grand view over the whole Umbrian
valley. Montefalco, Spello, and
Perugia are in full sight ; below is
the Porziuncula ; in the distance the
purple Apennines, with the glo-
rious Italian sky over all. One
needs no better book of devotion
than this page of nature.

On the other side of the monas-
tery the windows look down on the
garden of the friars with charming
walks on the side of the mountain
amid olives and cypresses.

It was not till the second morn-
ing we began to explore Assisi.
What queer old lanes, up and down
hill, we passed along, the walls cov-
ered with moss and ferns out of
which green lizards darted ! The
streets were grassy and noiseless,
being mostly inaccessible to car-
riages. Coats-of-arms are sculptur-
ed over many of the massive old
portals, accompanied, perhaps, with
some religious symbol. On one
was Viva Gesu e Maria ! Another
had Ubi Deus ibi pax. Every few
moments we came to a lovely fresco
of the Madonna too beautiful a
flower to bloom on the rough
highways of life. Everything was
old and quaint, and in harmony
with the traditions of the place ;
everything redolent of the middle
ages and of the memory of St.
Francis. Assisi is full of monu-
ments that perpetuate some inci-
dent of his life. There is San
Francesco il Piccolo Little St. Fran-
cis an oratory on the site of the
stable where he was born, with the
inscription :

Hoc oratorium fuit bovis et asini stabulum
In quo natus est Franciscus mundi speculum ;

This chapel was the stable of an

Assist.

ox and ass, wherein was born Fran-
cis, the mirror of the world.*

The Chicsa Niwva the Nciv
(Church, but over two hundred and
sixty years old was built by Philip
1 II. of Spain on the site of the house
of Fietro Bernardone, the father
of St. Francis, and has always been
under the protection of the Span-
ish crown. It is in the form of a
Greek cross, with five domes in
memory of the five mystic wounds
of the saint. Over the entrance
are graven the arms of Spain. A
Hock of white pigeons was around
the door. A young friar with mild,
pleasant eyes came forward in his
brown habit to show us the church.
Some portions of the original house
of Bernardone have been preserv-
ed ; among others, a low, round
arch with an old door held to-
gether by iron clamps. And at the
left is the low cell in which St.
Francis was confined three days by
his father for selling some of his
goods to repair San Damiano. In
it is a statue of the saint, kneeling
with folded hands, before which we
found flowers and a burning lamp.
Around the central dome are statues
of celebrated Franciscans : St. Louis
of Toulouse, St. Clare, St. Diego, and
St. Elizabeth of Hungary. In the
presbytery is shown St. Francis'
chamber.

In the bishop's palace is the room
where St. Francis stripped off his
garments in the presence of his
father, and the bishop covered him
with his mantle. It contains a paint-
ing of the scene

There is an oratory where once
dwelt Bernard de Quintavalle, the
first disciple of Francis. Here he
saw the saint upon his knees all

* Several other saints have had the happiness of
being born in a stable, as St. Joseph de Copertmo
and St. Caniillo de Lellis ; the latter from a pious
wish of his mother that he might come into the
world like the Son of God.

VOL. XXIII. 48

night, weeping and exclaiming, Dcn\
7UCUS ct ouinia My God and my all !
and conceived such a veneration
for him that he

L% Did bare his feet, and in pursuit of peace,
So heavenly, ran, yet deemed his footing slow."

The church of St. Nicholas is where
they consulted the Gospel to know
what manner of life they should
lead.

On our way to all these places, so
touching to the heart of a Catholic*
we passed the theatre named for
Metastasio, who was enrolled among,
the citizens of Assisi, and whose-
father was a native of the place..
We visited likewise the portico of
the temple of Minerva, now a
church, which is one of the finest
specimens of Greek art in Italy.
Goethe stopped at Assisi on purpose
to visit it, but, like our own Haw-
thorne after him, passed by the mar-
vels of art around the tomb of St..
Francis.

It must not be supposed that all
this while we have forgotten St.
Clare, the moon in the heavens of
the Franciscan Order, of which St.
Francis is the sun, as Lope de>
Vega, the celebrated Spanish poet,
and, by the way, a Franciscan ter-
tiary, says :

" Cielo es vuestra religion
Y como sol haveis sido,
Quereis que haya luna Clara
Mas que su mismo appellido."

We now went to visit her shrine.,
which is in the church of Santa
C/iiara, on the very edge of the hill
at the western extremity of Assisi..
The so-called piazza in front is
rather a broad terrace from which
one looks directly down on the tops
of the olives below. The church,
is of the purest Gothic style of
the thirteenth century, with enor-
mous flying buttresses to preserve it
from earthquakes. Its lofty campa-

754

Assist.

nile with open arches is one of the
prominent features of Assisi. Ad-
joining is the monastery of Clarists,
that looks more like a castle with
ramparts and battlements. We en-
tered the sculptured portal between
two lions growling over their cubs,
and found ourselves in a great
church without aisles, almost with-
out ornament, cold, severe, and de-
serted. It was once nearly covered
with paintings, of which only a few
remain. Over the main altar are
encircled some of the celebrated
virgin saints who early gave their
souls to heaven : Agnes, Cecilia,
Catherine, Lucy, Clare a Corona
Virginum indeed, full of delicacy
and expression, painted by Giottino.
In a side chapel is an interesting
old picture of St. Clare, said to have
been painted by Cimabue thirty
years after her death. It represents
her with noble but delicate features,
a fair complexion and smiling lips,
and majestic in form. In fact, she
was of uncommon stature. The
body of her sister Agnes is in a
tomb over the altar.

This church was first known as
St. George's, but took the name of
St. Clare after her body was brought
here for burial. Here the canoni-
sation of St. Francis took place.
Through a grate that looks into
the nuns' chapel, we saw by the
light of a candle the old Byzantine
crucifix of the tenth century, at

least which spoke to Francis at San
Damiano : Vade, Francisce, et repara
domum meant qua labitiir. It is
painted on wood, with the Maries
and St. John at the foot, and angels
hovering over the arms of the
cross.

A broad staircase leads down
from the nave to the subterranean
chapel recently constructed for the
shrine of St. Clare. Her sacred
remains, by the permission of Pius

IX., were, in 1850, taken out of the
narrow recess in the rock where
they had lain five hundred and nine-
ty years. All the bones were found
perfect. One hand was on her
breast, the other at her side with the
remains of some fragrant flowers.
On her head was a wreath of laurel,
the leaves still green and flexible ;
and scattered around her were
leaves of wild thyme. These re-
mains were borne solemnly through
the city she and St. Francis have
made so illustrious. . Children strew-
ed the way before them with flowers
and green leaves, after the fashion
of Italy, and young maidens follow-
ed with lilies in their hands. In this
manner they were taken to \hzSagro
Convento, stopping at six convents
on the way, and brought back at
night by the light of torches. They
are now in a beautiful Gothic chapel,
partly due to the liberality of Pius
IX. Two nuns in gray showed us
the shrine. St. Clare lies on a rich
marble couch, with a lily in her
hand, and the rules of her rigid
order on her breast, surrounded by
lamps. We also saw some of the
long, fair hair cut off at the Porziun-
cula, and some of the fine linen she
spun with her own hands.

Passing through an old gateway
a little beyond Santa Chiara, we
left the city and strolled leisurely
down the long, steep side of the
mountain, along a charming road
lined with hedges and groves of
olive-trees. The fields were bright
with poppies, the trees melodious
with birds, and the burning sun of
Italy as intense as the soul of St.
Francis, who must often have trod
the same path. At length we came
to a Madonna in a niche, at the
corner of a group of buildings, with
a few faded flowers before her, and.
in a minute more, to an old church
and monastery that looked as if they

Assist.

755

needed again the restoring hand of
St. Francis. This is San Damiano,
homely and simple, but like a bird's
nest on the mountain-side, half hid
among olives which, gnarled and
twisted and split asunder, looked as
old as the convent itself. It seemed
a fit dove-cot for the gentle Clare\
and her companions, whom St. Fran-
cis established here in quietness and
solitude.

A small court leads to the church,
before which is a portico with a
fresco of St. .Clare repulsing the
Saracens. These Saracens were in
the employ of Frederick II. On
their way to attack Assisi, ravaging
the country as they went, they came
to San Damiano, and scaled the con-
vent walls in the night. The poor
aims, in their terror, took refuge
around the bed of St. Clare, who,
though ill, rose by the aid of two
sisters, and, taking the Blessed Sac-
rament in her hands, she went forth
on the balcony, chanting in a loud
voice : " Thou hast rebuked the hea-
then, thou hast destroyed the wick-
ed, thou hast put out their name for
ever and ever!" This unexpected
apparition in the darkness of night,
amid the light that streamed around
the uplifted Host, so terrified the
infidel band that they took immediate
flight. All Assisi resounded with
hymns of joy. But a few days after
they returned anew, vowing to take
the city. Then Clare and her com-
panions covered their heads with
ashes, and, prostrating themselves
before the altar, wept and prayed till
the enemy was dispersed by the val-
iant citizens. This was on the 226.
of June, 1234, on which day the in-
habitants of Assisi vowed an annual
pilgrimage to San Damiano in grati-
tude for their deliverance.

Everything in this convent has
been left in its primitive simplicity.
The bell is merely suspended from

the wall. The rafters are bare. The
buildings are of unpolished stone.
Everything bears the impress of t he-
evangelical poverty its inmates em-
braced. But nature supplies what
is lacking in art. The site is deli-
cious. The view from the terrace
is lovely, with the dear Porziuncula
in the distance, and the fertile val-
ley radiant in the sun.

Several steps lead down into the
little, sombre church, which is only
lighted by two small windows.
There are some old frescos on the
wall, a few votive offerings falling to
pieces, tarnished wooden candle-
sticks on the altars, and faded flow-
ers, as if fresh ones would be out of
keeping. In an oratory at the right
is a miraculous crucifix, carved out
of wood by a Franciscan friar in
the sixteenth century. The head
is said to have been finished by
an angel while the artist slept, and,
in fact, has a wonderful expression,
which changes with different points
of view. Oh the steps of the altar
beneath sat a child with olive com-
plexion and coal-black eyes, eating
a crust. She looked as if she might
have been left behind by the Sara-
cens. Not another soul was in the
church. She had doubtless strayed
in from a neighboring house with
the usual liberty of the free-and-
easy Italians, who have nothing of
the awe of northern nations in the
house of God.

On the left side of the church are
several objects that belonged to
St. Clare a bell with too sharp a
sound for so sweet a saint, her bre-
viary, and the ivory ciborium, curi-
ously carved, with which she repuls-
ed the infidel host.

Going through the chancel, we
came to the choir of the first Clar-
ists, precisely as it was in the thir-
teenth century small, dim, and of
extreme simplicity. The pavement

756

Assist.

is of brick. The stalls are plain
\vooden seats, now worm-eaten,
which turn back on wooden pivots.
There is only one narrow window
with little panes set in lead. The
decayed door turns on a wooden
bar inserted in grooves. Old lec-
terns stand in the centre, and the
list of St. Clare's first companions,
who sang here the divine praises,
hangs on the wall. In one corner
is the recess where the wall gave
way to hide St. Francis from the
fury of his father. The saint is
here painted in the red Tuscan
vest of the time, such as we see in
pictures of Dante.

By this time the guardian of the
church had arrived, and he took us
into the refectory, which is gloomy
and time-stained, with low Gothic
arches, once frescoed. There are
two windows with leaded panes,
and worm-eaten tables around the
blackened walls, with the place in
one corner occupied by St. Clare.
At one end is painted the miracle
of the loaves, now half effaced ; for
it was here Pope Innocent IV., who
had come to visit the saint, com-
manded her to bless the frugal
repast. Confused, she knelt down
and made the sign of the cross over
the table, which was miraculously
imprinted on each of the loaves.

Then we went up the brick stairs,
through narrow passages, past the
small cell of Sister Agnes, with its
one little window looking down
into an old cloister with a well in
the centre, and came to St. Clare's
oratory, where she performed her
devotions when too infirm to de-
scend to the choir. Close by is the
room where she died, poor and
simple, unpainted beams overhead,
and the pavement of brick. The
lover of art finds nothing here to
please the eye, but to the religious
soul there is a world of moral

beauty. Here Pope Innocent IV,
came to see her on her death-bed.
" Know, O my soul !" she exclaimed
as she was dying, " thou hast a good
viaticum to go with thee, an excel-
lent guide to show thee the way.
Fear not. Be tranquil, for He who
created thee, and has always watch-
ed over thee with the tender love of
a mother for her child, now comes
with his sanctifying grace. Blessed
be thou, O Lord ! because thou hast
created me."

One of the nuns asked to whom
she was speaking so lovingly.
" Dear daughter," replied she, " I
am talking to my blessed soul."
Then turning to another sister, she
said : " Seest thou not, my daugh-
ter, the King of Glory whom I be-
hold?" And their eyes being
opened, they saw a great company
of celestial virgins clothed in white
coming down out of heaven witli
the Queen of all saints at their head.
And her soul at once departed to
join them.

The death of St. Clare is the
subject of one of Murillo's master-
pieces, a picture that resumes,- as
M. Nettement says, all the hopes
and fears of Italy. The earth is
wrapped in darkness. The sick-
chamber, with its inmates, is veiled
in obscurity. But the heavenly
Jerusalem opens, dispersing the
gloom and lighting up with its
splendor the face of the dying nun,
which beams like a star on every-
thing around her. Such is the
church, threatened on the one
hand by ( the thick darkness of the
world, but cheered on the other by
a never-failing light from heaven
like a great hope.

Ave, Mater humilis,
Ancilla Crucifix!.
Clara, virgo nobilis,
Discipula Francisci,
Ad coelestem gloriam
Fac nos proficisci. Amen

Assist.

757

A steep mountain-path through
the woods leads north of Assisi to
the Eremo dellc Carcere, composed
of a cluster of houses among the
ilex-trees, and five or six cells hol-
lowed in the cliffs, to which St.
Francis and his first disciples used
to retire when they wished to give
themselves up to the bliss of unin-
terrupted contemplation. No place
could be more favorable for such a
purpose. The wooded mountain,
the wild ravine, the profound si-
lence, the solitary paths, the sky of
Italy and God. What more did
they need ? There is the cave of
St. Francis with the crucifix, carv-
ed with skill and expression, which
he used to carry with him in his
evangelical rounds, and the couch
of stone on which he took his slight
repose. Near by is the evergreen
oak where the birds, who once re-
ceived his blessing, still sing the
praises of God. A place is pointed
out where the demon who had
tempted him. cast himself despair-
ingly into the abyss ; and below
is the Fosco delle Car cere, where
flowed the turbulent stream which
so disturbed the hermits in their
devotions that St. Francis prayed
its course might be stayed ; and
for six hundred years it has only
flowed before some special disaster
to the land. As may be supposed,
it has not failed, as we were assur-
ed, to flow in abundance ever since
the day Victor Emanuel set his
foot in the Pontifical States.

Every branch of the Franciscan
Order has a house' at Assisi, but
most of these communities have
been dispersed by the Italian gov-
ernment. People are at liberty to
dress in purple and fine linen, and
indulge in every earthly pleasure ;
but to do penance, to put on san-

dals and a brown habit, and " clothe
one's self in good St. Francis' gir-
dle," is quite another affair. Be-
sides, the Franciscans are tradi-
tionally the friends of the people,
and the influence they once exert-
ed against the German emperors
who oppressed Italy may not be
forgotten. Frederick the Second's
ministers said the Minor Friars
were a more formidable obstacle to
encounter than a large army. The
tertiaries of the middle ages exer-
cised great influence in the moral
and political world. They created
institutions of mutual credit in the
thirteenth century. At the voice
of St. Rose, who belonged to the
third order, Viterbo rose up against
Frederick II.

This branch of the seraphic or-
der embraced all classes of society.
One hundred and thirty-four empe-
rors, queens, and princesses are
said to have belonged to it, among
whom were Louis IX. of France,
the Emperor Charles V. of Germa-
ny, Maria Theresa of Austria, etc.
Christopher Columbus, Raphael, and
Michael Angelo were also tertiaries.
Princes assumed the cord on their
arms, like Francis I., Duke of Brit-
tany, who added the motto : Plus
quaiitre, as if he, more than any
one, revered the saint whose name
he bore. Giotto has painted a
Franciscan ascending to heaven by
means of his girdle, and Lope de
Vega makes use of the same image
in his ode to St. Francis :

" Vucstra cordon es la escala
De Jacob, pues hemos visto
Por los nudos de sus passos
Subir sobre el cielo empireo
No gigantes, sino humildes." *

* Your cord is the ladder of Jacob ; we have
seen not the mighty, but the lowly of heart, mount
up by its knots to the empyreal heaven.

758

Six Sunny Months.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE HOUSE OF YORKE," "GRAPES AND THORNS," ETC.

CHAPTER III.
A LITTLE PLOT.

THE next morning the girls set
their possessions in order, brought
out the few books they had thought
worth while to take with them, and
the little ornaments they had
bought by the way, and scattered
them about the rooms.

Among these objects was a large
and populous photograph-book,
which Isabel displayed to the Sig-
nora, introducing the strangers to
her, and recalling to her memory
the friends whose faces had changed
beyond her recognition.

" This is Louis Marion," she
said ; " and I shouldn't be surpris-
ed if we were to see him here be-
fore long. We must introduce him
to you that is, if he should call on
us. He used to be a great friend
of ours, but, for some reason or
other, he grew a little cool before
we left, and didn't even come to
say good-by. I never could un-
derstand what was the matter.
May be it wasn't anything; and
we were in such a bustle of prepara-
tion and taking leave of everybody
that there was no chance to ask for
explanations."

The Signora looked with interest
at this picture ; for the person,
though a stranger, had been much
in her mind of late. His looks
pleased her. It was a good face,
not too handsome, but with fine
eyes, and an appearance of strength
softened here and there by some
delicate finish. She had hoped

most decidedly that he would come,
and a letter which she had received
that morning made her desire his
coming more than before.

' I have no patience with Isabel
Vane," the writer declared energeti-
cally. " She is so wrapped up in
herself, and so insensitive, that de-
licacy is quite thrown away on her.
She is one of those persons who
think no one can talk except those
who will interrupt and talk loudly,
and so, with the greatest appa-
rent unconsciousness, she monopo-
lizes all the attention of their
friends, and sets Bianca aside as if
she were a nobody. It never oc-
curs to her that a gentleman may
admire her sister; and yet Bianca
is very much admired, in an odd,
provoking kind of way. Most peo-
ple, you know, attend to the loud-
est talker; and in the presence of
Isabel her sister was sometimes al-
most neglected, even by those who
were constantly thinking of her.
Anybody with two eyes could see
that Louis Marion liked her, and I
am sure she thought he did, and
that there was a sort of tacit un-
derstanding between them. They
didn't talk much together, but I've
seen them manage to be near each
other, and where they could hear
each other's voices, and one of
them never left the company with-
out glancing back and receiving a
glance in return. At length, I
don't know how it came about, but

Six Sunny Months.

759

Isabel seemed to take his attentions
to herself, and may be she said
something about him to Bianca.
Then a coldness grew up between
her and Marion, and a thousand
little complications helped it on,
and he began to absent himself
from the house, and Bianca pre-
tended not to see him unless he
came to speak to her, and so they
separated, and all in consequence
of the stupid conceit of a girl whom
I could shake with a good will."

We need not quote the letter fur-
ther, though the writer, in the ful-
ness of her heart, added several
pages of amplifications on the theme,
all which the Signora had read and
re-read.

Bianca was arranging books on
the table when the photograph-
book was opened. She continued
her employment a few minutes ; but
when they approached the page
where Louis Marion's picture was
she turned away, and when his
name was mentioned she was lean-
ing out of the window, much inter-
ested apparently, in something go-
ing on in the street.

" Whose photographs are these ?"
the Signora asked.

:< Oh ! they are all family friends,"
was the reply. " I might say they
are mine, for I asked for the most
of them. Neither papa nor Bianca
would have thought of it. But they
belong to the firm."

The Signora prided herself on
being a rather exceptionally honest
and straightforward woman ; but
at this moment a very complicated
little plot was forming itself in her
mind. She could guess with how
tender an interest Bianca might re-
gard this photograph, but how- im-
possible it might be for her to show
anything but the utmost indiffer-
ence to it, and how, sometimes, it
might be a pleasure to contemplate

it when she would not venture to
do so. She could guess that it had
been really given for her sake,
though she had not been the one to
ask for it, and what faint bloom of
a downcast smile the gentleman
might have seen in her face when it
was put in its place.

" It is a darkisli face, and the
least in the world too small for the
place," the Signora said ; " and so is
this one next it."

A word of cool depreciation is
enough to take the lustre from -a
star with most people, and Miss
Isabel Vane was no exception. If
one abuses a person's friends or
ridicules their possessions, they
may be stirred to anger ; but that
dispassionate, slighting way gives
the deadliest of shocks to friend-
ship.

" It scarcely does him justice,"
the young lady owned ; " and, as
you say, the photographs are a little
too small for their places. I must
ask Marion for another when he
comes, if he should come. The
other I do not care about. He was
simply put in to fill up. I must
buy four more to put in these va-
cant places."

" Stay !" the Signora said. " I
have some which are worth more
than merely to fill the vacant places ;
they will adorn the book."

She brought from her room a
little box of card-photographs, and
began to select from them. " Here
is the Holy Father on his knees be-
fore what seems to be the statue of
St. Joseph holding the Child ; and
here are four cardinals and a pa-
triarch. See how well they fit in !
Do you mind my taking these two
out ?"

" Oh ! no." Isabel was too much
pleased with these notable additions
to her gallery to care for the two
indifferent acquaintances who made

760

Six Sunny Months.

room for them. But as the Signora
carelessly, and quite as a matter of
course, tossed the two cards into
the box where their substitutes had
been, she saw that Bianca had turn-
ed from the window and was re-
garding them. Even in the half
glance she cast she could know
that the turning had been sudden,
and that the girl's head was held
very high.

The Signora rose. " Well, chil-
dren, if we are going to Santa Croce
we must start in an hour. It is a
great festa there, and I think there
will be a crowd. Didn't Bianca
promise to braid my hair in a won-
derful new way ? I remembered it
this morning, and have only given
my locks a twist about the comb,
and they are on the point of falling
about my shoulders in the most ro-
mantic manner."

She would not seem to see the
faint shade of disturbance with
which Bianca followed her from the
room. She well knew that in seem-
ing to slight the one that tender
heart held dear she had chilled the
heart toward herself; but that was
not to last long, neither the pain nor
the displeasure. She slipped a white
dressing-sack on, seated herself be-
fore the long mirror, and shook her
hair down. " Now, my dear, make
me as beautiful as you like," she
said ; and, taking the box of photo-
graphs she had brought with her on
her lap, began to turn them over.
" You had better take charge of
these," she remarked, laying the
two at the top aside before begin-
ning her survey of the others.

Bianca said nothing, but her
hands, combing out the long, fair
locks, were a little unsteady, and
her face blushed in the mirror, a
swift, startled bl isn.

' Three strands, my dear," the
Signora said. " I never fancied a

braid of any other sort for the hair.
More than three strands always
seems to me like a market-basket
on the head of a market-woman. I
always thought very elaborate hair-
dressing vulgar and unbecoming.
I like the way yours is done this
morning."

Bianca's hair was in a few 1-arge
satin-smooth curls tied back with a
ribbon of so fresh a green as to be
almost gold, and the Signora knew
that, after a careful brushing, five
minutes had accomplished all the
rest. There were no curl-papers
nor hot irons; it was only to brush
the tress about the pretty fore-fin-
ger, and it dropped in glossy coil on
coil.

" Many people do not like curls,"
Bianca said. " But it seems a pity
to straighten out and braid curly
hair. I think nature meant such
hair to have its own way, just like
vine tendrils, though the use may
not be so evident."

She spoke with a certain quiet-
ness, not cold, yet not cordial, and
kept her eyes fixed on the braid her
skilful fingers were weaving rapidly.

The Signora took up the photo-
graphs she had laid aside, glanced
at one, and dropped it, then looked
at the other for some time in si-
lence. " What fine, earnest eyes he
has!" she said at length. "There
is even something reproachful in
their expression, as if he were look-
ing at one who had doubted him.

I do not doubt you, sir. On the
contrary, I am disposed to have the
utmost confidence in you. More-
over, I shall be happy to see you in
Rome."

She laid the photograph carefully
on the other, and, closing her eyes,
resigned herself entirely to the care
of her pretty handmaiden. There
was silence for a few minutes while
the braids were being finished ; then

Six Sunny Months.

761

she felt a soft hand slip down
each cheek with a caressing touch.
lk Open your eyes, carissifna miaj
said a voice as soft, "and tell me how
these are to be arranged. Will you
have them looped or in a crown?"

The thin ice was quite melted ;
and when the hair-dressing was fin-
ished, Bianca went off to her own
room, bearing the treasure that had
been put into her possession in
such an artful manner. " It makes
me feel very twisted to act in such
a crooked way ; but if it is a crook-
ed it isn't a dark way. And the
dear child is so happy!" the Signora
thought.

A shower was passing to the
south when our party came out of
the church at noon, and the sun was
so veiled that they sent their car-
riage on, and walked from Santa
Croce to St. John Lateran. They
could see a pearly stream of water
pouring down far away from a
dark spot in the sky to a dark spot
on the earth ; but the clouds over
their heads were as tender and de-
licate as the shadows of maiden-
hair ferns about a fountain. They
lingered till every one had passed
them, and, when they came to the
last mulberry-tree of the beautiful
avenue, there was left only a conta-
dino lounging O n the stone bench

o o

there. He was a spectacle of faded
rags and superb contentment, and
seemed to have neither desire nor
intention to leave the place for
hours ; but when he saw them look
longingly at the seat, he rose, sa-
luted them with an indescribably
shabby hat, in which were stuck
three fresh roses, and relinquished
the bench to them.

Bianca sighed with delight as she
glanced about, but said nothing.
The others seemed disposed to talk.

' I heard this morning, Signora,
whnt made me understand your ad-

miration for the Italian language,"
Mr. Vane said. " While you three
were in the church I went outside
the door, and presently, as I stood
there, I heard two men talking be-
hind me. Of course I did not un-
derstand a word they said, but I
listened attentively. I never heard
such exquisite spoken sounds in my
life. The questions and replies
made me think of the beautiful in-
cised wreaths and sprigs on your
candelabra. There wasn't a sylla-
ble blurred, as we constantly hear
in our own language ; but I am
sure every word was pronounced
perfectly. When the two seemed
to be going, I looked round and
saw two Capuchin monks with bare
ankles, and robes faded out to a
dull brick-color."

; Those same faded robes may
cover very accomplished men," the
Signora said. "Some of them are
fine preachers. I wish we had more
preaching in Rome. One very sel-
dom hears a sermon. The first one
I heard made the same impression
on me, as to the language, that the
talk of these monks has made on
you. I did not understand, but I
was charmed. It reminded me of
Landor,- wasn't it? writing of Por-
son :

li ' So voluble, so eloquent,

You little heeded what he meant.'

That was in St. Philip Neri's
Church."

" Dulness is inexcusable in a Ca-
tholic preacher in any language,"
Mr. Vane said. "If they should
not have much talent of their own,
they have such a wealth to draw
from all the beautiful legends and
customs, and the grand old authors,
and the lives of the saints. A dull
Protestant preacher has the Bible,
it is true ; but, as a rule, I find that
only the eloquent ones use that
source of wealth freely, or know

762

Six Sunny Months.

how to use it. One of the most
eloquent Catholic preachers I ever
heard used to make his strongest
hits by simply refraining from speech.
I recollect one sermon of his where
he spoke of St. Augustine, whom I
thought he was going to describe,
but whom he made appear more
brilliant by not describing. * His
genius,' he began, then stopped,
seemed to search for words, at last
threw his head back and clasped
his hands. * Oh ! the genius of St.
Augustine,' he exclaimed. Of
course the tribute was more splen-
did than the most rolling period
could have been. Nearly all his
effective climaxes were like that
noble words breaking up into si-
lence, like a Roman arch into a
Gothic."

"You will have to renounce your
Gothic, Bianca," the Signora said ;
" at least, while you are in Rome.
You won't even want to see it here,
and you may lose your taste for it
as church architecture. I some-
times think I have, though I was
once enthusiastic about it. Now
the single column or the massive
pier, with the round arch above,
seems to me the perfect expression
of a perfect and serene faith. It is
a following of the sky-shape. The
complications and subtilty of the
Gothic are more like the searching
for truth of an aspiring and dissatis-
fied soul. When I go from under
the noble arches and cupolas of
Santa Maria Maggiore to the church
of St. Alphonsus Liguori, just beyond
it, I receive an impression of fret-
fulness and unrest."

" I should be sorry to give up
Notre Dame de Paris and the two
churches at Rouen," Bianca mur-
mured half absently, her soft, bright
eyes gathering in all the beauty
within their ken.

Isabel was differently employed.

She was busy noting facts in a little
plethoric book with yellow covers
and an elastic strap that she always
carried in her pocket. " Do you
know how long and how wide this
open space between the two basi-
licas is?" she asked of the Signora,
holding her lead-pencil suspended.

'' Oh ! it is long enough for a nice
walk, you see, and broad enough
to see everything at the other side
without bumping your eyes. That
is the city wall opposite, you know."

" I'd like to know how manv

acres there are," Isabel said to her-
self. " I believe I could measure it
by my eyes. Let me see ! It's a
foot to that stone. Five and a half
feet make a rod, pole, or perch.
Five and a half that distance would
go to the next tree. A rod, then,
from me to the tree. Now for a
rood! Sixteen and a half --no!
How I do forget ! Three barley-
corns make one inch, twelve inche.v
make a foot, five and a half feet
make a rod, pole, or perch, sixteen
and a half rods, poles, or --bah!
that isn't it. Signora, will you be
so good as to tell me how many
rods make a rood ? that is, if it is
rods that they make roods of. I
used to know it, but there's a hitch
somewhere."

' How should I know, my dear?"
asked the Signora with mild sur-
prise.

" Oh ! don't measure things, Bell !"
pleaded her sister. " Remember
London Tower."

For Miss Vane had presumed to
ask the superb " beef-eater " who es-
corted them through the Tower how
thick might be the walls, the soli-
dity of which he was enlarging upon,
and the cool stare with which he
drew the eyes of the whole party
upon her, and the gently sarcastic
" I do not know ; I have never
measured them," with which he re-

Six Sunny Months. 763

plied, had silenced her for the whole infantile little pink convolvuli,
afternoon. " That was because I snowy daisies, and all their blue
had asked something he could not and yellow kin, that had sprung up
answer," she said, in telling the here and there in the gravelled
story. " And his manner was so plain, or the detached tiny plants
imposing that it was hours before that make each its own solitude,
I could rid myself of the impres- spreading its small leaves out over
sion that I had put a very absurd the pebbles, and raising its delicate
and improper question. He didn't head freely, as if to induce the pass-
refuse sixpence, though, for a piece er-by to pause and admire for once
of ivy from Beauchamp Tower," the exquisite grace of the weeds he
she added, .shrugging her shoulders, despised.

" Bell," whispered her sister, ' I wonder if any one but Ruskin
"I'll tell you about the rods and ever stopped to look at weeds !" the
roods, if you won't measure any Signora said. " It was he, I think,
more." Then, having received the taught me. I first thought of it on
promise, she explained the " hitch," seeing an illustration in Modern
which has doubtless left its little Painters. It was a bit of weed-
tangle on many a youthful memory, covered earth seen close, as one

A woman with a white handker- would see it when lying on the
chief on her head came along, and ground only a little tangle of leaves
beckoned to the ragged man with and grasses; but, touched by his
the roses, who was still lounging pen and pencil, its beauty was re-
near, and the two went off together, vealed."

' Did you notice how she beck- " I sometimes think," Bianca

oned ?" the Signora asked. ' I al- said, " that it is a mercy we cannot

ways notice that here. They beck- see all the beauty there is about us ;

on as if indicating the feet, the for, if we did, we should do nothing

palm of the hand being downward, but stand and stare for ever."

the fingers toward the ground. We " One might do worse than stand

beckon with the palm and fingers and stare at beauty for ever," her

upward, indicating the head. It father replied. " I've no great

used to confuse me, and I fancied opinion of business."

myself sent away with a refusal: She slipped her hand in his arm

when I was invited to enter. You before answering, knowing that in-

will have to learn their signs. A action was a subject that always

certain shrug and raising of the eye- found him a little sensitive. " That

brows mean no. Another no an depends, you know," she said,

odious one to me is to wag to and " When the business is to make

fro the uplifted forefinger of the your tea or hem your handkerchief,

right hand. This is nearly always why it wouldn't do for me to be

accompanied by a compression or going into trances."

puckering up of the mouth. But, Isabel took his other arm. " But

my dear friends, it is time for lun- when the business is measuring

cheon. Shall we go ?" places for the pleasure of knowing

They rose slowly, and slowly and telling how large they are, or

strolled across the open space where when it is taking the census, or any

art and nature lived peacefully to- of those countings of units, then he

gether. No busy hands and spades despises it."

uprooted the plots of wild-flowers, " When the business is poking a

764

Six Sunny Months.

nose in other people's business, I
certainly object to it," he said.

Walking along, he drew the two
fair hands that clung to him into
his own, and clasped them together
against his breast, smiling down
into the girls' upturned faces ; and
for a moment the three, in their
mutual affection and confidence, for-
got the Signora. She walked on in
front of them, her eyes cast down,
and seemed to desire to remain
apart. A silence fell upon them
all perhaps a sense of the silence
about them, or perhaps that si-
lence that always follows an ex-
pression of deep and tender affec-
tion, as when through the light and
varied chat of a company is heard
the tone of a musical instrument,
and all the talk ceases for a mo-
ment ; or, it may be, some touch
from within or from without had
reminded them that it was the day
of the Holy Cross.

The drive home was very quiet,
the Signora pointing out now and
then some object of superlative in-
terest, as they passed it. " This is
St. Clement's, an ancient church
over a still more ancient church.
Mustn't it be delightful to go dig-
ging under your house some day to
repair a drain, or do some such
thing, and presently come across
the arch of a buried door, then,
digging farther, find the whole door,
then a mosaic pavement and a
column of verde-antique, and so
on, till a whole temple is revealed
where you expected to find only
earth and stones? Some such
thing happened here. There is the
Roman Forum a little * beyond.
Need I introduce this ruin to you?"

She pointed to the Colosseum,
and then left them to their reflec-
tions. " Drive through the Via
delta Croce Bianca" she said to the
coachman, "and under the Area del

Pontani. Then pass Santa Maria
in Monti, and go up Via de Santa
Pudentiana"

She saw them look eagerly at the
beautiful fragments of Pallas Mi-
nerva and Mars Ultor she had
chosen the route to show them ; but
they asked no questions, and she
volunteered no explanations.

When they reached home the
windows were all closed, and the
curtains and persiane half drawn for
coolness, and there was such a fra-
grance in the rooms that they all
exclaimed. Every tall vase was
crowded full of roses pink and
yellow, and every little one heii
a bunch of deep purple violets.

" Could any one leave a prettier
card ?" the Signora asked, display-
ing her treasures. " When 1 find
heaps of violets and roses in the
spring, I always know who has
been here during my absence. It
is Mr. Coleman," naming her bache-
lor friend of the semi-weekly cup
of tea. " I bespeak for him a kind
place in your regards. He is faith-
ful, honest, obliging, and refined.
I am under obligations to him for
many kindnesses."

" Marion says that violets are the
Mayflowers of Italy," Isabel re-
marked ; " that they come as plen-
tifully at the same time, and are
sold as universally, as the trailing
arbutus in New England."

" And see what a deep blue they
are !" the Signora said, leading the
conversation away from Marion.
" These came from the Villa
Borghese. I know by the color.
Oh ! the fields are full of flowers
now. You will, perhaps, see some
this evening. There are almost
always a few people come in this
night of the week people who
never find me at any other time.
It isn't a reception, you know. I
don't bind myself. Among them

Six Sunny Months.

765

will be your Italian teacher; so you
can arrange when to begin study-
ing. I sent him a note this morn-
ing. And, stay ! Apropos of vio-
lets, I have something lovely to
sho\v you."

She opened a little case that the
servant had given her as she enter-
ed. " These were left while we
were out. I had ordered some
changes to be made in them. See !
they are the Borghese violets set in
dew and petrified."

The case contained a brooch, a
pair of bracelets and sleeve-but-
tons, all of plain and highly polish-
ed silver, in each of which was set
a large, deep-purple amethyst.

" Why did I never think of a
silver setting ?" Bianca exclaimed.
k [ always admired amethysts till
they were set; then I found them
spoilt. It was the ugly purple and
yellow contrast. These are lovely,
and just suit you, Signer a mi a.
How I wish I could wear such
things!"

' And why can you not ?" Mr.
Vane asked, with all the simplicity
of a man who can admire results
without understanding what pro-
duces them.

' Because they would make me
look like a starless twilight," the
girl replied. " I should be obliged
to paint my cheeks if I put on
such colors. Poor me ! I could
wear only rubies, or opals, or dia-
monds, perhaps emeralds set in
diamonds."

Her father's face assumed that
sad and troubled expression a
man's face always wears when one
he loves wishes for something out
of his power to give. " Are you
not rather young, my dear, to wear
much jewelry ?" he asked doubt-
fully.

' He thinks I am pining for trin-
kets," she said smilingly. " Cer-

tainly, papa, I am altogether too
young, and am, moreover, disin-
clined to wear it. Don't look so
sad about it ! My ribbons and
flowers satisfy me quite. I shall
beg some rosebuds of the Signora
for this evening, and you shall see
how much prettier they will be
than rubies, besides having per-
fume, which rubies have not."

Isabel had arranged the brace-
lets around her neck, and fastened
the brooch in her lace ruffle.

! They do make one look three
shades darker," she said, and sigh-

7 7 t-*

ed deeply in taking thenl off. " I
would like to go dressed in jewels
from head to foot," she added.

But, as Isabel was always sighing
to possess every beautiful thing she
saw, and, if it were possible, would
have had the Vatican for her abode
and St. Peter's for a private chapel,
nobody took her longings very much
to heart ; the less so, moreover, as
she managed to live a very gay and
happy life in spite of those unsatis-
fied longings.

Other pretty things had come in
during their morning's absence : a
pile of books, old copies of the
Italian poets newly bound over in
white vellum with red edges to the
leaves, a pile of Roman photographs
which were to be sent to America,
and a collection of little squares of
marbles, porphyries, and alabasters,
a stone rainbow, destined also for
America.

" But we need photographs in
Rome," the Signora said. " Look-
ing at them, we discover a thousand
beauties which we missed when we
saw the original."

A strange croaking sound drew
the attention of the girls to the
windows, and they saw a little cara-
van of crates carried past on carts,
going from the railway station to
the great markets of the city.

Six Sunny Months.

Out of the holes in these crates
protruded heads and necks of
every sort of fowl turkeys, hens,
ducks, and pigeons. The poor
wretches, huddled and crowded to-
gether, seemed to know that they
were on their way to execution,
and to implore the pity of the by-
standers.

Bianca pressed her lips together
and said nothing ; Isabel leaned out
and contemplated them with a smile.
" Those dear turkeys !" she said with
the greatest affection.

" You like them ?" the Signora
asked, rather surprised that any
one should choose pets so gro-
tesque.

" Yes, immensely !" was the reply.
" They're so nice roasted."

And then, obliterating this painful
and awkward reminder of what lay
under the' surface of their daily
comforts, came a piercingly-sweet
chorus of trumpets, twenty trum-
pets playing together. A regiment
was passing, going from a camp in
one part of the city to a camp in
another part. The men were dress-
ed in gray linen, and, in the dis-
tance, were hardly to be distin-
guished from the street, and their
bearing was not very soldier-like ;
but the wild and sunny music gave
a soul and meaning to them, and,
rising through the hot and silent
noon, stirred even the most languid
pulses.

" War will never be done away
with till trumpets are abolished,"
Mr. Vane said. " I have no doubt
that even I should make a very
good fighter if I had a band of them
in full blast at my elbow while the
battle lasted. It wouldn't do for
them to stop, though. Fancy a
charge for which no trumpet sound-
ed ! It would no more go off, you
know, than a gun would without
powder. Why doesn't somebody

take care of that child ?" he con-
eluded abruptly.

For a soiled little wretch was
sitting directly in the street, on a
cushion of dust, and staring con-
tentedly at the soldiers as they
passed, as unconscious and unafraid
as if it had been a poppy sprung up
there between the paving-stones,
instead of a human being with a
body out of which the soul might
be kicked or crushed.

' Somebody is taking care of it,"
Bianca said. " Everybody is taking
care of it."

In fact, the long line of soldiers
made a tiny curve to accommodate
this bit of humanity, and the tide
of life passing at the other side
made another, like a brook around
a stick or stone. At length a
woman, not too much afraid, cer-
tainly, snatched the child away, and,
in the face of the world, admin-
istered a sound castigation, the
meaning of which, it was to be
hoped, the child understood.

"I never saw such countryfied
things happen in any other city,"
Mr. Vane said. " It is, perhaps,
one reason why life here is so pic-
turesque. Nobody, except the small
class of cultivated people, behaves
any differently in public from what
they do in private, and the common
people do not pretend to be what
they are not."

" I wish sometimes that they were
a little less sincere," the Signora re-
marked coldly. " One could spare
that portion of the picturesque
which offends against decency.
They seem to have no respect for
public opinion; though, perhaps,"
she added, " public opinion here is
not worthy of much respect. It
tolerates strange customs, certainly.
The workmen hammer away and
saw stone all day Sunday at the
house opposite, and nobody pro-

Six Sunny Months. 767

tests, that I know of. Some clergy- should never have uttered such

men did think of complaining shocking opinions. Never shake

against the work going on on Sun- your sunny locks at me. It was

day in the piazza above, but it would not I who said it; 'twas hunger,

have been in vain for them, of course. It was Bailey's wolf. You do not

Let us go to luncheon, please. I know Clive Bailey ? He will come

am in danger of becoming ill-natur- this evening, and I think you may

ed, so many thTngs here annoy me. be interested in him. I must tell

Do you remember the old Protes- you about his wolf. The poor fel-

tant missionary hymn about ' Green- low was, at the age of twenty, left

land's icy mountains ' ? Two lines poor indeed ; suddenly found him-

of it often occur to me here : self without a cent in the world,

after having been brought up with

' Thoueh every prospect pleases. , , c

And only man is vile. 1 the expectation of a competency,

and studiously educated to do no-

I shall think better of them when thing. Fortunately, his taste had

I have had something to eat. Hun- led him to read a good deal, and

ger makes one critical. I fancy that he had also a fancy for writing fic-

critics are always badly-fed people, tion. It was being thrown into the

I'm very sure that if Dr. Johnson sea to learn to swim. He began to

had had a comfortable dinner be- write for the cheap newspapers, al-

fore he sat down to my last book, _ways intending to find some other

he would never have cut it up so employment ; but what with the

the book, I mean. A good roast- necessity of writing a great deal to

beef would have taken the edge keep himself alive, and the shock

quite off his blade. A dinner," to his sensitive nature of finding

said the Signora, waxing eloquent himself in such a situation, he only

as she seated herself at a very pret- succeeded in living the life he had

ty and plentiful table " a dinner is stumbled into, without power to

the most powerful of engines, and make another. It was the old

wealth is powerful only because it story of poor writers, with, however,

will procure dinners. A person a pleasant ending in this case. He

whom you have fed is obliged to managed to squeeze a fair novel

serve you, and the person whom out of intervals in his drudge-work,

you are going to feed never finds and that won him a better market,

you ugly or uninteresting." In the height of his success he gath-

Bianca contemplated her friend ered those first sketches into a vol-
with an expression of grieved as- ume, and published them, giving
tonishment. '" How can you talk the name of the author as A. Wolf,
so with all these flowers in the room Esq. When somebody, not know-
listening to you?" she exclaimed, ing the book to be his, asked him
" Besides, you are going to feed me, what Wolf it was who wrote those
but I never saw you so near being sketches, he answered : The wolf
ugly. I think, indeed, you are a at my door.' And he insists that
little bit ugly." the same wolf is the most voluminous

The Signora laughed pleasantly, writer the world has ever produced,

4 If I had known that the dearest and that the title-pages of at least

flower in the room was going to half the books written should bear

find a reproachful tongue for me, I his name. Buon appetito!'

753

Six Sunny Months.

CHAPTER IV.

'A FLOCK OF SHEEP THAT LEISURELY PASS BY.

SEVERAL persons came in that
evening from seven to nine. First
appeared Mr. Coleman, a mild-look-
ing, bald-headed man of an uncer-
tain age. Isabel immediately ab-
sorbed him. Next followed a new-
comer in Rome, on whose card was
inscribed " Mr. Geo. Morton." Af-
ter having seen him once, the Sig-
nora was guilty of dubbing him Mr.
Geometrical Morton. " He is ridi-
culous, but excellent," she told her
friends while describing him. ' He
never laughs, because he thinks
there is nothing laughable in crea-
tion, every whim of nature, human
or inanimate, being the 'result of a
mathematical principle, and every
disorder only order under an extra-
ordinary form. Of course this is
neither new nor peculiar ; but he
announces it as if it were new, and
has a peculiar manner of clapping
his measuring instruments on to
everything. Not a bit of cirrus can
pass over the sky nor your mind,
but instantly he will tell you the
philosophy of it. In fine, he strips
everything to the skeleton^and can-
not see that it is a bore, but calls it
truth, as if the flesh and drapery
were not truths also, as well as
more graceful. I had a quarrel
with him when he was here last or
rather, I got out of all patience,
and scolded him almost rudely, and
he listened and replied with the
most irritating patience and polite-
ness. I suppose he thought there
was some mathematical reason for
my being angry, and was studying
it out with his great, solemn eyes.
He's kind and honest, I am sure,
and as handsome as a picture. I

pity the woman he will choose for
a wife, though. If sl^e should scold,
he will bring out the barometer ; if
she weep, the rain-gauge; if she
should be merry and affectionate,
he will consult the thermometer.
Ugh ! he makes me feel all three-
cornered."

This gentleman made his saluta-
tions with the most perfect gravity
and courtesy, and, after considering
the situation a moment, seated him-
self by Bianca.

" Well, what conclusions have
you arrived at concerning Rome ?"
he asked, after a few preliminary
remarks.

" None," she replied ; " but I
have made a good many begin-
nings ; or I might say I have ar-
rived at some fragmentary conclu-
sions."

" As what ?" he persisted gently,
desirous to make her talk ; for she
had shrunk so shyly from him that
her father had come to her other
side, which was unique. The young
man had not often the oDPor-

> 4. J.

tunity to study a shy feminine spe-
cimen.

" Oh ! well," she said doubtingly,
then laughed ; " apropos of papa's
checked clothes, which distress
me, I have discovered that the
clergy are the only well-dressed
men in Rome. The others do not
look like gentlemen. But the long
robe, whatever the color of it, and
the cloak they are always arranging,
are so graceful, the hat is so pictur-
esque, and, above all, the buckles
on the shoes please me."

' Below all, you mean," her fa-
ther remarked.

Six Sunny Mont/is. 769

The young man looked the least will keep him this winter to wit,

in the world disconcerted; for he to woo."

wore every day a suit of the same "To woo! To who ? ' retorted

objectionable check cloth. Besides, Mr. Vane.

he was not prepared to take on " Not a whit of your to who ! '
himself the instruction of a young replied the other with a laugh,
woman whose tall father chose to " What are you quoting Words-
assist at the lessons, and put in his worth for ? ' asked the Signora,
word in season and out of sea- overhearing the last part of their
son. talk.

At this moment Mr. Clive Bailey * : Apropos of Mr. Adams, Signo-

made his appearance. His bright, ra," Mr. Vane said, looking at her

clever face lighted up at sight of attentively.

the new-comers, whom he had been She blushed and seemed annoy-

expecting with interest, having heard ed, and, as if about to say some-

a great deal about them. thing, finally turned away without

' I hope you intend to make speaking. It displeased her to have

Rome your home," he said to Mr. her name used in connection with

Vane. " The Signora has suggest- that of any gentleman, and, besides,

ed such a possibility." she did not mean to marry Mr. John

1 You compliment me more than Adams.,

you do our country," Mr. Vane re- Here the door opened with a lit-
plied. "I have been told that it tie breeze and three persons enter-
would be unpatriotic for me to pre- ed : a bright-eyed, beautiful young
fer any other country to America lady with a somewhat Jewish cast
as a residence. People talk that of face, who produced the impres-
way. At the same time I should sion that a bird had fluttered in,
like to stay, and I have an impres- . and, following her, a young girl of
sion that North America, as a not more than sixteen, and an el-
whole, will not be aware of my derly woman, evidently a compan-
absence." ion.

' Oh ! I don't mean to dispar- The Signora met the new-comer

age any country," Mr. Bailey said cordially.

promptly ; " only the climate is so " My dear countess, I do not
hard. Those northeast winds whis- know whether you are more wel-
tle through my button-holes. By come or unexpected."
the way, a friend of yours asked "I have but two minutes," the-
me to-day if you had arrived, and young lady said in the prettiest
would have come up to-night to see, breathless manner. " I am just on
if he had not been engaged : John my way to dine out, and stop to ask
Adams. You recollect him ?" a favor. But first let me introduce

: John Adams? Of course I re- my friends."

collect him. But what brought him They were a young baroness

here ? I never heard him speak of from the Azores Islands, who had

Italy but to abuse it." spent ten years in Egypt with her

' Oh !" the young man said, low- father, and was now on her way to

ering his voice a little, and glancing her native country to join her hus-

at the Signora, who was near them, band, and her lady companion.

' he was brought by the same rea- " She has to leave Rome the day

son that brought him before, and after to-morrow," her friend ex-

VOL. xx.ni 49

773

Six Sunny Months.

plained, " and wants an introduction
to Monsignor M- . She wishes to
take some things from him to a friend
of hers ; and you know one doesn't
often have an opportunity to send
to the Azores direct. Now, dear
Signora, if you would be so very
kind as to introduce her to Monsig-
nor. You know I am not acquaint-
ed with him."

" I will take her to him to-morrow
.morning," the Signora said. "But
they need not go now, if you do."

" I was going to ask your hospi-
tality for them while the carriage
takes me, for I have to call for cou-
sin Anne. And now, will you do
me the favor to make me acquaint-
ed with the friends who have come
to live with you? I must apologize
for my abrupt coming and going."

She made her apologies in the most
graceful and simple way, and looked
.at Bianca a little lingeringly in meet-
ing her, as if struck by her face. " I
meant to call on you first," she said
to the sisters, " and will come to-
morrow, if you permit me."

The Signora followed her out to
the landing. " I want a glimpse of
your dress," she said. "You know
I never go out after dark ; and yet
I do so like to see a lady dressed
for the evening."

The countess smilingly threw
back the long white cloak that cov-
ered her from head to foot, and dis-
played a beautiful silk robe of so
pale a blue as to be almost white.
Pink roses fastened the rich lace in
the square bosom and loose sleeves,
and looped the braids of dark hair,
and she wore no jewels but some
large strung pearls on her neck and
wrists.

; ' It is lovely!" the Signora ex-
claimed, and looked admiringly
after the lady as she tripped down
the stone stairs, holding her rustling
robes up about her.

Going back, slie found Mr. Cole-
man and Bianca trying to entertain
the rather stupid lady companion,
Isabel taking her first lesson in ma-
thematics, and the girl baroness, a
dark, plain, talkative little creature,
chatting away in very good English
to Mr. Vane.

" I never saw my husband but
once," she said. "We were always
betrothed since we were babies, but
his father, the Old Baron of Santa
Cruz, had him sent to school in
Lisbon, and I was always in a con-
vent. My mamma was dead, and I
had no brothers nor sisters, and
papa was in Egypt. He has a high
office there. Then Pedro came
home from Portugal, and I went to
papa. Two years ago we met in
Rome and were married, so that I
could go to him later with my com-
panion. Papa couldn't leave to go
to the Azores, and Pedro couldn't
come again for me."

She told the story in a very child-
ish, simple way, and seemed to re-
gard her marriage as quite a busi-
ness-like and proper arrangement.

" You think that you will like
Fayal as well as Cairo ?" Mr.
Vane asked kindly, pitying this
child-wife who seemed to have so
little of family affection to surround
her in the most important time of
her life.

"I cannot think, I cannot re-
member it," she said. "When I try,
it is Paris or Rome that comes up,
and I get confused. If I should
not like it, I shall ask Pedro to take
me somewhere else. He has writ-
ten me that he will always do
everything I wish him to do."

Mr. Vane scarcely felt a disposi-
tion to smile at this perfect trust.
He found it pathetic.

" But I would like to go to your
country," she resumed with anima-
tion. " Pedro's sister Maria went

Six Sunny Months,

77*

there for a journey when she mar-
ried, and she wrote me the most
wonderful tilings. Perhaps she did
not tell the truth. She may have
been writing something only to
make me laugh. You will not
laugh if I tell you?"

Itlr. Vane promised to maintain
his gravity at all risks.

" Well," she said confidentially,
" Maria wrote me that the snow
there is whiter than sea-foam on
the rocks, and that one can walk in
it and not be wet, and that car-
riages drive over and make a solid
road of it, just as if the streets were
paved with smooth, white marble,
and that, at the sides, it piles up
and stays in shape, like heaps of
eider-down. It isn't true, is it ?"

She looked at him doubtfully and
searchingly while he assured her of
the correctness of the picture.

" And, more than that," he said,
' I have seen the snow so deep and
solid that men would cut it in
great blocks like Carrara marble,
and, when they were standing in the
place they had dug, you couldn't
see their heads over the top of the
drifts. Did you ever see ice ?"

* I saw some this morning, but it
wasn't Avhite," she said. " A car-
load of it went past the hotel. It
was grayish and crumbly. The
men had cut grass and weeds and
piled over it to keep it from the
sun."

Mr. Vane, too, had seen this piti-
ful apology for the glorious crystal
blocks of New England ice-cutters
as he looked from his window that
morning, and had indulged for the
moment a feeling of scornful pride.
" Fancy that mat of fresh grass and
wild-flowers trembling over one of
our ice-carts or snow-drifts !" he
had said to Bianca. " Yes," she
had replied, but at the same mo-
ment had pointed out to him a

lovely compensation for the ab-
sence of these frigid splendors in
the land of the sun. Beneath their
window passed two men, bearing
each on his head a large basket,
one flat, and covered with camellias
laid singly, a pink by a white one,
each flower glistening with fresh-
ness ; the other deep, and heaped'
with pink roses and buds, among
which might be seen yellow roses
tied in large, nodding bunches.
Yes, the snow of the tropics was a
snow of flowers.

The Signora passed near enough
to Isabel and her companion to
catch a part of their conversation.
' Since you entered this room," the
gentleman was saying, " you have
doubtless, either consciously or un-
consciously, gone through with a
good deal of swift reasoning. Some
people you have liked more, others
less, and in both cases the feeling,
as you would call it, has been the
result of a certain calculation as
exact as anything in mathematics
could be. You have been pleased
with one for certain manners, or
looks, or for certain qualities which
you believe him to possess; and
there are also exact and mathe-
matically calculable reasons why
these things should please you."

Isabel looked edified, but puz-
zled. " If, then," she ventured,
" there is so much more reason in
us all than we are aware of, why
need we correct ourselves ? I should
think we might be all the better
satisfied with what goes on in our
minds, and let them arrange their
own processes without troubling
ourselves."

" No," he said with earnest gra-
vity. " There are good reasons
and bad reasons ; and by knowing
why we may correct the bad rea-
sons. For example, your tooth
aches ; the reason is because there

772

Six Sunny Mont/is.

is a defective spot in it. You go
to the dentist, and the pain ceases.
Or you do not fancy a person ; the
reason is because that person does
not flatter you, and you are fond
of flattery. You correct your in-
ordinate love of praise, and thus
appreciate the worth of one who
tells you the truth, and also make
it more easy for him to praise you
sincerely."

" But all this takes so much time,"
she said, seeing that he waited for
a response.

" It is for such uses that time
was given us," he replied.

She struggled for another objec-
tion, her mind rapidly becoming
swamped in the conversation.
" Then you think that we can ar-
range and order all our feelings,
and make our hearts as regular as
clocks; and if we lose a friend,
by examining why he died, and why
we grieve for him, we can reason
ourselves into indifference."

" No," he said again. "We can
undoubtedly subdue the violence
of unreasonable grief by such ex-
amination, but there are deep and
ineradicable reasons why we should
grieve when we lose those dear to
us."

The girl's eyes brightened.

'Why," she said, "it all seems to

me onlv a difference of terms. You

mean just what everybody means,
only you say everything, and others
haven't time nor wit for that. It
all amounts to the same thing in
the end. We say, ' Such and such
a thing is natural,' where you say it
is mathematical, voila tout"

He began to say something about
the natural including both good and
bad, while his meaning was to ex-
clude the bad ; but the Signora took
pity on his victim, and stopped his
eloquence by offering him a cup of
tea.

" He will take the tea," she
thought, pouring another cup, " be-
cause the beverage is agreeable to
the palate and refreshing to the
body, and, by consequence, enli-
vening to the mind, and he will see
the whole subject worked out to
its smallest part as he stirs in the
sugar. He will put in sugar be-
cause because. dear me ! I won-
der what is the good reason for
putting sugar in tea ! How un-
comfortable it all is ! I should go
mad with such a man about me all
the time. And yet how well-bred,
and earnest, and handsome he is !
If only it might happen that he
would mellow with time, and learn
to take subjects by their convenient
handles, and not spread them out
so ! He makes me remember that
I am a skeleton, with pah ! How
glad I am I don't know all about
my bones !"

" What are you studying out, Sig-
nora?" asked Isabel at her el-
bow.

' I am trying not to see every-
thing crumble at once into its ele-
ments," she replied distressfully.
' My dear, if you will make that
man talk like a human being,
I shall be thankful. Find out
if he has a heart, or only a tri-
angle instead ; and just watch his
fingers to see if there are little
scales and figures marked along the
insides of them. He is worth res-
cuing. I like him."

The little baroness went, and more
people came in. It was after Avc
Maria, and they were obliged to
light the candles, and close the
windows and shutters on the street.
But the great sala needed not to be
closed, for no one could see into it,
and so the exquisite twilight was
left free to enter, with only the soft
light of a single hanging lamp to
shame its tender radiance. This

A Journey to the Land of Milliards. 773

inner light, the steady, deep-hued gold of the jasmine blossoms into
flame of olive oil, burning in an red gold here and there, and made
antique bronze lamp, made the the snow-white of the orange-flow-
room softly visible, and, shining out ers look like a sun-lighted drift of
into the garden, turned the yellow the north.

TO BE CONTINUED.

V.-

A JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF MILLIARDS.

THERE is much in a title. Many Frenchmen, but also with a justice
an insignificant if not objectionable of reasoning and fairness of appre-
individual is widely welcomed and ciation of which one of his nation
sweetly smiled upon because he dealing with such a subject might
boasts a " handle to his name" ; and not always be found capable,
that which is true as regards man is The work professes to be simply
equally so of books. Many a shal- notes de voyage addressed to a friend ;
low and worthless production, like a series of sketches which introduce
the monstrosities produced in the the reader in a familiar manner-
floral world by fancy horticultu- " looking at everything, listening
rists, becomes ' the rage" from its everywhere" to this new Ger-
pretentious or, as the ^ase maybe, many, such 'as she has sprung
its unpronounceable name. forth, sword in hand, from the

There is, then, much in the title brain of Herr von Bismarck,

of a book ; and yet, had M. Victor . The first part of the book relates

Tissot sent into the world his Voy- to Southern and Central Germany.

age ait Pays des Milliards under the France, before the time of her

sober superscription of ; Travels in misfortunes, was wont to say with

Germany," although it might not so her old university professors, Qui

immediately have attracted the pub- non vidit Coloniam noti vidit Ger-

lic eye, it must ultimately have se- maniam* but now the proverb is

cured the attention and interest it changed, and it must rather be said,

so justly merits, and which have " He who would see Germany must

necessitated the issue of nine edi- see Berlin." In the vast Germanic

tions in the course of a few weeks. body, Berlin has alike usurped the

This interest is sustained through- place of head and heart ; she it is

out the book by the varied infor- who conceives, meditates, contrives,

mation it contains respecting facts commands ; she who deprives and

connected with Prussianized Ger- bestows, legislates and executes ;

many, which are related not only and she who distributes glory. To-

with that happy fluency of style wards her flow the life and warmth

which is the gift of most literary of that Germany which is now no

* Voyage art Pays des Milliards. V. Tissot. * He who has not seen Cologne, has not seen Ger.

Paris: Dentu. many.

774

A Journey to the Land of Milliards.

more the land of picturesque and
simple legends, s\veet ballads, Goth-
ic dreams, holy cathedrals, but the
land of blood and iron. The knight
Albreclit Diirer no more finds his
steps arrested in the enchanted for-
est of poetry and art, but rides
rough-shod over the high-roads of
Europe, armed with a needle-gun,
and with a spiked helmet on his
head.

" Had we but kno\yn," sighed
France, after the war " if we had
only known !" Yes, often enough
has it been repeated that her igno-
rance respecting her neighbors, of
all that they were secretly design-
ing and silently doing, was one
chief cause of her disasters.

" Had we but known !" " Well,
then," writes M. Tissot, "for the
future let us know ! Let us be aware
that the Germans ransack our coun-
try in every sense.; that they study
our language, manners, customs, and
institutions ; following us step by
step, and spying us everywhere, un-
til they know France more thor-
oughly than we know it ourselves.
For thirty years past has their spy-
glass been busily scrutinizing every
corner of our land. . . Let us then
learn to do among them what they
do among us : the weak place in
the breastplate of the German Co-
lossus is not very difficult to dis-
cover."

In going forth to repel invasion,
Germany has suffered herself to be
carried away by the spirit of con-
quest, and has returned home with
a rear-guard of vices which before
she knew not, and under a despo-
tism which it had cost her the strug-
gle of centuries to break. Having
departed from the path of humanity
and civilization, she has gone back
to her wild forests despoiled of her
studious leisure and with the tradi-.
tion of her ancient domestic virtues

well-nigh lost ; while, a prey to all
the material appetites, she forgets
God, or else denies him, and no
longer believes in anything except
th'e supreme triumph of her cannon.

From fear of being attacked by
the revolution, she enters into an
alliance with it. In proof of this,
we have but to observe with what
gratified attention the socialists, not
only in Germany but all over Eu-
rope, watch the moral decomposi-
tion which is going on in this at-
mosphere of materialism and of
pride. They know very well that
the day is sure to come, and is per-
haps not far distant, when ' they
will make a descent into the arena
with their knotted clubs ; and that
this argument will suffice to put to
flight the gentlemen whose wisdom
has discovered the soul to be com-
posed of cellular tissue, and has slrut
up patriotism in a membrane."

The Catholics also act with ener-
gy in the strength of their (for the
most part passive) resistance to an
oppressive and unjust power, whose
hypocritical excuses render it as
contemptible as its tyranny makes
it .odious in the eyes of every up-
right man, whether Catholic or Pro-
testant.

" From a distance," says M. Tis-
sot, " it might be easy to deceive
one's self into a doubt as to the
dangerous nature of so many alarm-
ing symptoms, but on the spot I
know for a certainty that an atten-
tive listener cannot fail to hear the
pulsations of a nation disturbed to
its very depths, and ill at ease. Is
it," he asks, " as a means of escape
from impending dangers, and to
prepare the minds of the people for
a skilful diversion, that the parlia-
mentary orators and the official
Prussian press keep them in a con-
tinual ferment of warlike excite-
ment, and appear to regret the mil-

A Journey to tJic Land of Milliards.

*~ *7 *

775

liards left behind on the banks of
the Rhone and the Garonne ? This
is the opinion of thoughtful minds,
for it is on the field of battle only
that a reconciliation between the
Catholics and their adversaries can
be expected to take place."

Before visiting the , imperial ca-
pital, the traveller on whose work
the present observations are princi-
pally based begins with the south-
ern states, " being desirous of inter-
rogating those ancient provinces
which have sacrificed their autono-
my to a gust of glory, and of asking
if the mess of pottage is still savory,
or whether, awakening from recent
illusions, there is not some regret
for the good old times."

After visiting Ulm, with its enor-
mously increased fortifications ;
Stuttgart, the sunny capital of
Wiirtemberg; and the little univer-
sity town of Heidelberg respect-
ing all which places M. Tissot has
much to say the impression re-
sulting from his observations is that
South Germany was duped and
alarmed into submitting to Prussia.
With regard to Frankfort, no longer
the free city of past times, his con-
viction is that the real population,
quite as much as that of Metz and
Strassburg, detests the sight of the
spiked helmets and the sound of
the Prussian fifes and drums (the
latter shaped like small saucepans),
constantly passing through the
streets.

The particulars of the Prussian
occupation of this city in 1866 are
still fresh in the memory of its in-
habitants. " The history of those
days," M. Tissot tells us, "has
never been written." We will give
in his own words the account he
received from an eye-witness:

" On the 6th of July, the Senate an-
nounced to the townspeople the impend-
ing entry of the Prussians, ' whose good

discipline was a sure guarantee that no
one would be exposed to inconvenience.'

" In spite, however, of this ' good disci-
pline,' all the banking-houses hastened
to place themselves under the protection
of the foreign consuls, and hoisted
American, English, French, or Swiss
colors. The streets were as deserted as
a cemetery.

" The Prussians did not arrive until
nine in the evening, when they made a
triumphal entry. At their head, with
his sword drawn, rode General Vogel
von Falkenstein ; music played, drums
beat ; there was noise enough to wake
the dead. Billeting tickets had been
prepared for this army of invaders, who,
however, preferred to select their own
quarters. The troops divided into
squadrons of 50, 70, loo, or 150 men, and,
led by their officers, forced their way
into houses of good appearance. The
inmates, who had, in some cases, retired
for the night, ran bewildered through
their rooms. The officers, finding ordi-
nary candles on the tables, held their
pistols at the throats of the women, and
ordered them to bring wax-lights. But
their first care was to demand the keys
of the cellar, after which they passed the
night in drinking the best wines, mak-
ing especial havoc among the champagne.

"Next day, General Vogel von Falk-
enstein, surnamed yog-el von Raubenstein,
or the bird of prey, caused to be read
and posted up in the streets a procla-
mation establishing the state of siege.
He suppressed all the newspapers, pro-
hibited all private reunions, and an-
nounced moreover a long list of requisi-
tions.

" On the iSth of July, General von
Falkenstein, who the day before had
compelled the town of Frankfort to
purchase from the contractor of the
Prussian army many thousands of cigars,
now demanded that there should be de-
livered to him 60,000 ' good pairs of
shoes,' 300 'good saddle-horses,' and a
year's pay for his soldiers promising,
in return, to make no other requisition
upon the inhabitants. . . . On the igth
they brought him six millions of florins ;
but as, in the course of that same even-
ing, General von Falkenstein was called
to command elsewhere, the Senate re-
ceived anew, on the morning of the 2Oth,
a note expressed as follows :

"'Messieurs the senators of the city
of Frankfort are informed that their town

A Journey to the Land of Milliards.

is laid under a contribution of war for the
amount of twenty-five millions of florins,
payable within twenty -four hours.

" ' MANTEUFFEL.

44 4 HEADQUARTERS, FRANKFORT, July 30, 1866.' '

" Three of the principal bankers of
Frankfort were immediately delegated
to present themselves before General
Manteuffel, to remind him of the pro-
mises given by his predecessor, and to
entreat him to withdraw this fresh impo-
sition. All that they obtained was a de-
lay of three times twenty-four hours.

" ' I know,' said Manteuffel to them,
'that I shall be compared to the Duke
of Alva, but I am only here to execute
the orders of my superiors.'

" ' And what shall you do if, between
now and Sunday, we have not paid?'
asked a member of the deputation ' you
will not ?'

"'I read the word on your lips,' re-
joined the General ; ' alas ! yes, I shall
give up the town to pillage.'

" ' In that case, why do you not at
once, like Nero, set fire to the four cor-
ners of Frankfort?'

'To this sally General Manteuffel
contented himself by answering : ' Rome
arose only more fair from her ashes.' *

" Before quitting the General, the de-
putation asked whether this imposition
would be the last. .

"'On my part, yes ; I give you my
word of honor for it ; but another gene-
ral may come and replace me, with or-
ders of which I know nothing.'

"The threat of the pillage and bom-
bardment of the city spread with the
rapidity of lightning ; the burghers and
bankers contributed together to pay the
ransom.

"Five days later, General de Roeder
sent for the President of the Chamber
of Commerce, to whom he read the fol-
lowing telegram, which he had just re-
ceived from M. von Bismarck :

" ' Since the measures hitherto taken
have not been found sufficient to obtain
their object, close, from this evening, all
the telegraph and post-offices, the hotels,
inns, and all public establishments ; pro-
hibit the entry into the town of any per-
sons, and of every kind of merchandise.'

" These few facts, selected from innu-
merable others of a similar kind, and
which are of warranted authenticity, are
sufficiently edifying."

* " I have this dialogue from one who was pre-
sent.''.!/. Tt'ssot.

We may add, that with memories
like the foregoing we cannot won-
der that Frankfort, once the free, is
now the irreconcilable, city.

But we hasten on to glance at the
capital, where, more plainly than
anywhere else, may be seen the im-
press of events more recent still.
Space fails us to do more than
merely refer to the descriptions
given of the material city, its pub-
lic buildings, its homely palace, its
long, monotonous lines of streets,
" ruled straight by the cane of the
corporal-king," and built right and
left of the pestiferous Spree ; the
colossal arsenal, piled with the cap-
tured arms of France, and which is
to Berlin what their cathedral is to
other European cities. Leaving all
this, and much besides, we will
briefly consider the effects of the
late war and of the milliards of
France upon the people of Ger-
many.

On entering Berlin the visitor, as
he leaves the railway carriage, is
greeted by the sight of a large pla-
card posted up at the four corners
of the station, and bearing the
appropriate warning, "JSewape of
Thieves." This is a small indication
of a momentous fact ; for if, from
her very beginning, Prussia has
chosen Mars for her tutelar divinity,
her worship of Mercury since the
last war has left him but a divided
throne.*

Like the arsenal, the Bourse
sums up the recent history of Prus-
sia. The greed of gain has in fact
taken entire possession of the peo-
ple, and in no other European city
is covetousness so ferocious or the
thirst for gold so ardent as in the
Prussian capital. Princes, ministers
of state, and high functionaries of

* M. Tissot's book contains some painful pages
having relation to the votaries of Venus also, to
which we need do no more than allude.

A Journey to the Land of Milliards. 777

the crown meditate financial com- to form the lion's share; so com-
binations, and launch into specula- plete an overthrow of the most or-
tive investments, from which they dinary moral principles ; treaties
intend to secure large profits; trades- torn up like false bank-notes ; a pol-
people and manufacturers invent icy at the same time so crafty and
skilful falsifications, whether in audacious, could fail to find sedu-
figures or in merchandise ; students Ipus imitators in a people naturally
of the university arrange lotteries prone to rapine ?
all, great and small, rich and poor, The arrival of the five milliards
are alike in search of prey. upset the equilibrium of the Ger-

In a pamphlet published by Herr man brain. Every form of specu-
Diest-Haber, under the character- lation sprang from the ground like
istic title of Plutocracy and Socialism fungi after a shower ; everything
( u Geldmacht und Socialismus ") breweries, grocery companies,
are to be found revelations which streets, roads, canals was parcelled
are anything but edifying, and sup- out in shares. Houses were sold at
ported by proofs, respecting the the exchange, and in the course of
more than questionable probity of two hours had five or six times
certain ministers of high position in changed their owner. In eight
the state. Gustaf Freitag, also, months, the price of tenements was
wrote in 1872: "Great evils have doubled; fifty or sixty persons
resulted to us from victory. The would dispute the possession of a
honor and honesty of the capital garret. In 1872, the average num-
have greatly suffered. Every one ber of persons inhabiting a house
is possessed by a senseless passion of three or four stories (the usual
for gain : princes, generals, men in height in Berlin) was from fifty- five
high administrative positions, all are to sixty-five, or ten persons to a
playing an unbridled game, preying room. Masons made fortunes,
on the confidence of small capital- worked ten hours, went in a cab
ists, and abusing their position to from the stone-yard to the restau-
make large fortunes. The evil has rants, and drank champagne in beer-
spread like fire ; and at the sight glasses. A simple brick-and-mor-
f of this widely extended corruption tar carrier earned five thalers a day ;
it is impossible not to fear for the and small bankers' clerks, at the
future." present time out of situation and

The army is also tainted. In shoe-leather, paraded in white kid

1873, an aid-de-camp of a small gloves in the first boxes of the thea-

German prince, whose services in tre not to speak of far worse

the war had brought him nothing, extravagances still. Societies of

thought well to indemnify himself, share venders fiercely quarrelled

and by forging his master's signa- with each other over the purchase

ture pocketed the sum of 300,000 of feudal castles in the neighbor-

thalers from the coffers of the hood, which were to be transformed

state. into casinos on a large scale, with

But the example is set in high theatre in the open air, artificial

quarters, where in everything might lakes and mountains, Swiss dairies,

is made to overrule right. Could and games for every taste. But

it be expected that so many thrones this dream of the Thousand-and-one

confiscated, without a thought of Nights did not last a year. The

justice; so many provinces seized, temples of pleasure are bankrupt,

7/8

A Journey to the Land of Milliards.

and " the police have seized Cupid's
quiver." The whole of Germany
" the nation of thinkers," as her
philosophers love to call her was
dazzled by the deceitful mirage,
and so fierce was the eagerness for
gain that at one time it was scarce-
ly prudent to go to the exchange
without a revolver. Fights were
of constant occurrence, and ardent
speculators would collar each other
like stable-boys.* Before the close
of 1872, nearly eight hundred and
fifty different shareholding invest-
ments had sprung up. The middle
classes, the representatives of hon-
est and laborious industry, have
been the principal victims of these
hollow speculations ; and in a public
report made by the Governor of the
Bank of Prussia, January i, 1*73,
it was stated that in the course of
two years several millions of thalers
had been extorted by unscrupulous
adventurers from the credulous
public.

In various ways it is evident that,
if France paid dearly for her defeat,
Germany is paying far more dearly
for her glory, besides having so mis-
managed matters that peace to her
is more costly than war. Herr
Schorlemer-Ast lately declared in
the Reichstag that the financial
burdens of the empire, from her
system of complete and permanent
armament, are crushing all classes.
" The milliards," he says, " that we
have received are already convert-
ed into fortresses, ships-of-war,
Mauser rifles, and cannon ; the mili-
tary budget has this year increased
by nineteen millions of marks, . . .
and into this budget we cast all our
resources, all our reserves, all our
savings, but never can we meet its

* The Tribune for August i, 1872, has the fol-
lowing : " Never has the liquidation been so
quiet as to-day. Net a single box on the ear was
given in full exchange, nor had the syndic to inter-
fere on account of abusive language."

demands; and thus the land becomes
more and more impoverished."
There is another method, also, by
which the "eminently moral" gov-
ernment of the Emperor seeks to in-
crease its resources, and this is by
lotteries. A Protestant minister ob-
serving to his majesty that these
lotteries were a very bad exam-
ple, the latter replied, " You are
mistaken; they are instituted to
punish already on earth the cupidity
of my people : the great prize is
never drawn."

Fresh impost's are also created ;
but the time for these is scarcely
the present, when, according to the
testimony of Germans themselves,
commerce languishes, the manufac-
turing interest is passing through a
crisis of which it is impossible to
foresee the end, and on all sides
arise murmurs and complaints.
And yet we hear of proposals like
that of Herr Camphausen in the
Reichstag, namely, to " demand
more labor from the artisan and pay
him less for it." A profitable sub-
ject, truly, for communist declama-
tion must this be ; and well might
Bebel, the notorious socialist of
Leipzig, say, " Prussia is doing our
work for us ; we need but fold our
arms and v/ait," and his colleague,
Liebknecht, declare that " M. de
Bismarck has done more for the
radical interest than five socialist
ministers could have done. The
people see with bitterness how lit-
tle has been gained by sacrifices so
great. The expense of living has
doubled since the war, but the
salaries have not increased in pro-
portion. ... In the manufacturing
districts theije is fearful distress.
. . , Families of five or six persons
obliged to starve on a thaler a
week ! See what the milliards have
done for us ! No wonder that
month after month sees ten or fif-

A Journey to the Land of Milliards,

779

teen thousand Germans emigrate
to other lands."

We pass over the dark portrai-
ture of " misery and crime " in Ber-
lin, and also the information respect-
ing the reptile agency of the offi-
cial press, the political dye-house
of the empire, whose business it is
to color all communications with
the hue required by the prince min-
ister. .Nor have we space to dwell
on the state of education in Prus-
sia, which is far behind the rest of
Germany,* nor the falsification of
history and even geography in its
educational books. We cannot, how-
ever, forbear producing the lesson
with which the studies of the day
begin in the primary schools.

The master holds up before his
pupils the Emperor's portrait, ask-
ing, "Who is this?"

Making a reverential bow, they
answer, " His majesty the Em-
peror."

"What do we owe
sumes the teacher, in a grave
impressive tone.

"We owe him obedience, fidelity,
and respect ; we owe him all that
we have and all that we possess."

Would any child, unless a Ger-
man or a Russian, find its loyalty
increased after two or three weeks
of this daily exercise ? We doubt
it.

The Catholic clergy proving a
hindrance to the government in
the application of its new cate-
chism, the law on secular instruc-

* " Prussia is of all Germany the country which
contains the largest number of persons unable to
read and wiite," is the testimony of Herr Karl
Vogt.

to him?" re-
and

tion was passed to force them out
of the schools: the state, hence-
forth sole master, can form at the
will of Caesar, not Christians, but
soldiers or slaves, which are more
in accordance with its taste all
that is taught being made to con-
verge to the one end of blind and
absolute submission to secular
power.

God being set aside to make
way for the Emperor and his
Church trampled under foot for
the good pleasure of the prime
minister, we or our children may
see the fulfilment of the prediction
written thirty or forty years ago by
Heinrich Heine, in which, after
announcing the reconstitution of
the Germanic Empire, he says :
" The Empire will hasten to its
fall ; and this catastrophe will be
the result of a political and social
revolution, brought about by Ger-
man philosophers and thinkers.
The Kantists have already torn up
the last fibres of the past, the Fich-
teans will come in turn, whose
fanaticism will be mastered neither
by fear nor instinct. The most of
all to be dreaded will be the phil-
osophers of nature, the commu-
nists, who will place themselves in
communication with the primitive
forces of the earth, and evoke the
traditions of the Germanic panthe-
ism. Then will these' three choirs
intone a revolutionary chant at
which the land will tremble, and
there will be enacted in Germany a
drama in comparison to which the
French Revolution shall have been
but an idyl/'

7 So

A Quaint Old Studio in Rome.

A QUAINT OLD STUDIO IN ROME, A QUEER OLD PAIN-
TER, AND A LOVELY PICTURE

THE exterior does not indicate
the remotest relationship with a
studio. I must have misunderstood
the peres directions. I wish these
artists would show some consid-
eration for errant humanity, and
number their quarters. Now, that
wall which begins on the street and
backs in behind the rubbish-pile
might pass for a parapet but for the
green door with a bell-rope dangling
from the upper panel, which com-
promises its military character at
once. It might pass for a convent
wall. Indeed, the little church
which seems to have been pushed
entire right out of the farther end
might be accepted as a very respect-
able declaration to that effect. But
a more accurate observation of the
premises is fraught with diffidence
in the latter conjecture. A portion
of an unpretentious dwelling-house,
which is incorporated with that part
of the wall abutting on the Via del
Colosseo, and the appearance at one
of the windows of a fossilized old
woman who proceeds to hang out
linen, dispel effectually the monastic
probability intimated above. But
why indulge in speculations ? The
most summary, and after all most
rational, way of solving my doubts is
to approach the green door, pull the
bell-cord, enter, and, si momimentum
quceris, circumspice. Pulling the
bell-rope produced an inquiring
bark from a dog within. Then the
door opened slowly, and just wide
enough to admit a visiting card, in-
sinuated edgeways. But, as if not
liking my appearance, it closed with
a short but very decisive slam. I

took a short survey of my person,
with the view of assuring myself that
there was nothing in my dress or
carriage which would excite a sus-
picion bearing reference to burglary.
I had just come to a conclusion very
flattering to my integrity, when a
shrill female voice screamed from
across the way, " Tira ! spingi !"
Pull ! push ! I turned my immediate
attention to the practical applica-
tion of these laconic instructions.
Nothing to pull but the bell-rope,
nothing to push but the door. An-
other tug at the hemp, a canine re-
sponse from within, the door opened
as before, I pushed, entered, and
the slamming process was repeated.
I turned around with the view of
confronting the slammer a rope, a
pulley, and a weight. He has a
taste for mechanics, thought I. At
the top of a few steps I saw a friend-
ly-looking house-dog, who sniffed
apologetically, and then whisked
himself about, as if expressing a
hearty welcome. If I had not had
positive reason afterwards to arro-
gate to myself this compliment, I
should have gone, away with the
conviction that the dog sniffed with
satisfaction because the mingled
odor of lemon, of orange, and of
a hundred fragrant flowers which
floated on the air was inexpressibly
gratifying. I found myself in a
quadrangular enclosure not unlike
the cloister of a convent. The cen-
tral plot was planted with orange
and lemon trees, and with every
kind of vegetable. It only lacked
the traditional well in the centre,
with the iron-bound bucket resting

A Quaint Old Studio in Rome.

on the edge, and the iron rods for that the builder, some time after the
pulley, wrought into the form of a completion of the lower story, wanted
cross, to make it a perfect little clois- to try the effect of another story;
ter. 'Tis true that the resemblance so, with an utter disregard of archi-
might be impaired by the large chick- tectural designs and proportions, he
en-coop in the corner, which emitted raised the four walls at the fenestral
a chorus of cackling suggestive of apertures of which the fossil ap-
a prosperous barnyard. But a flour- peared. I ascertained afterwards
ishing coop is no contemptible ac- that this addition forms the " apart-
cessory to the effects of a religious ments " of her antiquity. On the
community ; and as for its encum- corner diagonally opposite arises a
bering the cloister, that is very easi- similar portion, which is reached by
ly explained. The consideration of stairs on the outside evidently the
the civil power for religious commu- residence of the lord of the premi-
nities has disencumbered them of ses. A railing extends around the
all their property outside the walls, roof, while vines on trailers and a
and even extended itself to every- great fig-tree, which towers out of
thing within that is worth taking the garden and up to the roof, give
care of. A marble pavement of va- the establishment quite an Oriental
negated pieces, formed into mosa- aspect. We only want a patriarch
i.cs of no definable pattern, extends taking his evening promenade on the
around the garden. The walls of roof, and we have Syria in the sha-
the house are studded with frag- dow of the Colosseum. While I was
ments of sarcophagi and frieze- contemplating all this the dog bark-
work here the hand of a child, ed impatiently, ran ahead to an open
there a lion's head, yonder a foot door underneath a pent roof, and
while these are interspersed with then trotted back, giving me to un-
lamps of terra-cotta, such as are derstand that he was very impatient
found in the Catacombs ; and, high to usher me in there. A Maltese
above all, a row of Roman vases let cat appeared on the scene, walked
into the wall as far as the neck furtively around me, inspected me
gives it the appearance of a battery from head to foot, and finally came
of cannon. The well, which, sunk to a halt in front of me and fixed
in the centre of the garden, would his great, amber eyes upon me with
have completed the picture of a an inquiring look, as which should
cloister, is over against the wall, say, " Are your intentions peace-
An attempt had been made to apply ful ?" My addressing him by the
a fly-wheel and a crank, with some name of "puss ' seemed to satisfy
other complicated machinery of him, and he trotted on with the dog.
ropes and pulleys, to the process of Thefirst object which met my gaze
drawing water, but evidently didn't as I entered the door caused me to
Approach a success, as the crank is start back with a shudder ; for I was
rusty and the rope frayed with age not prepared for such a sight. On
;md exposure. On the other side a table, stretched at full length, lay
<>f the garden stands a large cistern a human skeleton, with the head
of water literally alive with gold-fish, turned towards the door. It seemed
The house itself is built around the to have taken that position of itself,
garden, save the portion enclosed with a view of seeing who passed in
by the wall. It is but one story and out. The floor was littered
high generally. It seems, however, with cartoons and bits of old lum-

782 A Quaint Old Studio in Rome.

ber. In a corner stood an ancient- that is to say, they were very
looking painting of a skeleton seated plump, very short, and kicked and
in a meditative attitude one bony doubled themselves up into the
leg crossed on the other, the elbow most' impossible attitudes for lit-
planted on the knee, and the chin tie fellows of their exaggerated pro-
resting on the hand. It had not the portions. These, coupled with sev-
appearance of a caricature, for the eral chunks of half-wrought clay
lipless mouth and fleshless jaws wore tumbled promiscuously into one
a solemn and awful expression, corner, and a number of model-
which the most intemperate and ling tools, a sponge, and an elevated
frivolous fancy could not associate stool, would perhaps incline the vis-
with the ridiculous. The walls, too, itor to the belief that he was in the
were covered with cartoons of dif- sanctum of a sculptor. The other
ferent sizes, some of which were three walls were covered with pic-
very beautiful. One especially tures representing a variety of sub-
struck me with admiration. It jects, sacred and profane. Here a
represented the Eternal Father muscular, sightless Samson coped
gazing out into the chaotic dark- with the pillars of the temple of
ness which preceded the great act the Philistines, to the seemingly in-
of volition, "Fiat lux." The per- tense interest of a demure cardi-
fection of the actus purus and exis- nal on the opposite wall. There
tentia, which are identical in God, Justice poised her scales in front
was powerfully expressed in the in- of a sketch, which the most un-
tensely active expression of the practised eye would have no diffi-
eyes and forehead. While all this culty in recognizing as the work of
occurred to me, a consciousness of Fra Angelico, portraying the Last
the spirit of love, which mellowed Judgment. The activity of the
and softened the sternness of that devils as they scourged the damn-
face, affected me. Passing another ed into the bottomless pit is strik-
door, I found myself in a large ing. Farther on a " Battle of the
room painted a Pompeian red. My Centaurs" afforded an interesting
first impression was that I had anatomical study. But the sweet-
walked into the laboratory of an est picture of all was a little one
alchemist a very justifiable irn- not over a foot square, which re-
pression. A long table in the mid- presented with vivid simplicity the
die of the room was crowded with dispute between the two hermits,
vials of all sizes and every variety St. Paul and St. Anthony. The
of form, containing liquids of the latter holds up one hand argumen-
strangest colors. Crucibles, mor- tatively, and points with the other
tars, glass tubes, bellows, scales, to the untouched loaf, while his
and spirit-lamps were scattered earnest face seems to say : ' Paul,
over the table confusedly. A take up the loaf and break it."
row of shelves garnished one of Paul looks respectful, but not over-
the walls, and upon them were ar- come. He leans upon his long
ranged, in something like order, staff with both hands, and con-
busts of different sizes and casts templates the loaf with a face be-
in plaster of arms, legs, feet, and tokening his resolution not to touch
hands. From the beams of the it, at least until more conclusive ar-
ceiling dangled a number of little guments be adduced ; and, after
cherubs of Berninian propensities all, it is a quiet, domestic sort of a

A Quaint Old Studio in Rome.

783

picture. Beside this was another
of about the same dimensions -ont'
that pleased the eye not so much
as the heart. It was St. Jerome in
the wilderness. The crucifix is
suspended high upon a thin sap-
ling, and the great doctor kneels
off at a distance, and prays with
his hands joined before his breast.
It is one of those prayerful pictures
which recall Fra Bartolomeo, but
the coloring was Timoteo Vite's, and
none else's. In the corner of the
room nearest the window I ob-
served a ladder, made of iron
bars, fastened into the wall, which
terminated in a trap-door in the
ceiling. At the foot of this ladder,
right under the window, stood what
seemed to be a sedan-chair. It
was covered on all sides with oil-
cloth turned wrongside out. Be-
fore this chair stood an easel, on
the easel a small picture, which I
perceived was being touched by a
brush ; and I observed, furthermore,
that the brush was manipulated by
a hand of powerful proportions,
such a hand as would have been
enough of itself to build up that
strange old house from the founda-
tion-stone. Then a man's head,
adorned with gray locks and an
old cap with a pair of turned-up
flaps, emerged from the darkness,
and I saw a pair of dark, bright,
benevolent eyes smiling up at me.
The face was bronzed, the beard
gray and not heavy, but growing
in a heavy instalment around the
mouth and chin, then light on the
under jaws, and developing into a
bushy abundance in the direction
of the ears. It was a pleasant,
happy face, still possessing the in-
genuous expression of the happy
boy. As he worked himself out of
the nook in which he was ensconced,
and stood up to welcome me, giving
me at the same time a grip of that

powerful hand which I associated
above with the construction of the
house, but which then referred me
to a blacksmith-shop, I had an op-
portunity of surveying his figure-

I should have said, rather, I saw
an old dressing-gown of brown stuff
which buttoned closely at the chin,
was tied around him with a rope,
and terminated in a pair of heavy
brogans. I introduced myself by
stating that the pere had requested
me to call and see how the picture
was doing. u Ah ! there it is," said
the old man, and a smile of happy
excitement mantled upon his face
as he looked at the little picture on
trie easel, La Notte del Correggio.
He gazed more intently than be-
fore, and then sank down quietly
on one knee and scanned the face
of the kneeling Virgin Mother, in
whose face is reflected that wonder-
ful intense light which concentrated
in the face of the Child, as if desir-
ous of seeing underneath the color-
ing. " The spirit of Correggio is
here," continued he in a musing
strain ; " no man living possessed
his secret of blending colors into
one another. I will not touch the
face of the Child."

" Then you believe," said I, " that
this is an original ?"

" I feel it," added he warmly.
" Correggio may repeat himself,
but he cannot be copied, at least
in two pictures, his Giorno and
his Notte. The dominating char-
acter of Correggio's paintings in
oil, that something which proclaims
him on the instant, is the coloring,
penetrating and brilliant as enam-
elling of such a kind that the
lights assume an indefinable splen-
dor, the shadows have a depth and
transparency which no painter, and
much less a copyist, ever produced,
save Correggio. There ' -and he
arose and drew the curtain over

8 4

A Quaint* Old Studio in Rome.

the window, until the room was
nearly dark " you need no light to
see that picture ; it has its own
light in the divinity which is efful-
gent from the face of the Infant.
Tell me the copyist who effected
this, and I will venerate him as
Correggio's other self."

A word of explanation is neces-
sary here. The Notte is a picture
representing the Nativity. The Child
is in the arms of the kneeling Mother.
" The radiant Infant, and the Mother
who holds him, are lost in the splen-
dor which has guided the distant
shepherds. A maiden on one side,
and a beautiful youth on the other,
who serves as a contrast to an old
shepherd, receive the full light, which
seems to dazzle their eyes ; while
angels hovering above appear in a
softened radiance. A little farther
back Joseph is employed with his
ass, and' in the background are
more shepherds with their flocks.
Morning breaks in the horizon. An
ethereal light breaks through, the
whole picture, and leaves only so
much of the outline and\ substance
of the forms apparent as is neces-
sary to enable the eye to distinguish
objects." This picture is at present
in the gallery of Dresden, and the
foregoing is the description of it
given by Kugler. The same writer
adds in a note : " Smaller represen-
tations of this subject, with similar
motives and treated in the same
manner as the Dresden picture, ex-
ist in various places. An excellent
little picture of the kind is in the
Berlin museum, No. 223, and is
there ascribed to the school of Cor-
reggio." That Correggio himself
reproduced smaller representations
of this scene, preserving only the
three prominent figures of the In-
fant, the Mother, and St. Joseph, is
notorious. It was a favorite sub-
ject of the great master's, as is evi-

dent in the very counterpart of the
Notte, because of its wonderful light
St. Jerome, or Gionw "Day."
Coindet, in his Histoire de la Peinturc
en Italic, speaking of the Notte,
says that, on account of the celes-
tial light which emanates from the
divine Child, the picture " has been
called 'Night,' just as the St. Jerome
is often called 'Day,' by the Italians,
who thus express the striking light
of that picture. Is it necessary to
say that that light is as harmonious
as it is brilliant, and that the cele-
brity of those two pictures, ' Night '
and ' Day,' is due above all to the
perfection of the chiaroscuro ? '

The picture which, the old man was
restoring is one of the "smaller rep-
resentations" spoken of by Kugler.
It required no restoration as far as
the coloring was concerned. That
was deep and brilliant as ever. Not
the lights but the shadows needed
retouching, and the old man show-
ed himself a good artist, as well as
a reverent admirer, when he said he
would not touch the face of the
Child. The wonderful durability
of the coloring, which every one
knows to be one of the grand char-
acteristics of Correggio's produc-
tions, is admirable in the little pic-
ture. M. Coindet says that fre-
quent analyses of some of Correg-
gio's paintings, with the view of
discovering the secret of this dura-
bility, have produced results more
curious than useful. Upon the
chalk, he says, the artist appeared
to have laid a surface of prepared
oil, which then received a thick
mixture of colors, in which the in-
gredients were two-thirds of oil and
one of varnish ; that the colors
seemed to have been very choice,
and particularly purified from all
kinds of salts, which, in process of
time, eat and destroy the picture ;
and that the before-mentioned use

A Quaint Old Studio in Rome. 785

of prepared oil must have greatly entrusted with the delicate and im-
c ontributed to this purification by portant commission of restoring the
absorbing the saline particles. It principal pictures in the gallery of
is, moreover, commonly believed the Vatican. That he did justice
that Correggio adopted the method to the little Notte requires no
of heating his pictures either in the proof. He possesses the necessar\
sun or at the fire, in order that the requisites for such a task the skill
colors might become, as it were, ///- of an artist, the love of an artist r
tcrfiised, and equalized in such a and the humility of an artist. The
way as to produce the effect of hav- picture is now in New York City,
ing been poured rather than laid and, as an old painter once said la-
on. Of that lucid appearance conically, in pronouncing his opin-
which, though so beautiful, does ion on a painting, "ex ipsa loqui-
not reflect objects, and of the so- ///;- " it speaks of itself. But I
lidity of the surface, equal to the have left the old man standing out-
Greek pictures, Lomazzo says that side the parenthesis, palette in hand,,
it must have been obtained by some and a smile irradiating his counte-
strong varnish unknown to the nance which would be the instant
Flemish painters themselves, who destruction of legions of blue fits.,
prepared it of equal clearness and He saw me look inquiringly at the
liveliness, but not of equal strength, prayerful St. Jerome, and divined
The history of the little picture in my desire of knowing something,
question is not known to any pre- about it.

rision. It was brought to Rome " Painted by Timoteo Vite," said

from Madrid by the late Cardinal he, "and I'm to copy it for the good

Barili, who received it as a present pere and send it off to America,

from a Spanish nobleman while he Going to be in good company,

was nuncio to the court of Mad- too!" And he pointed his thumb'

rid. After the death of the cardi- over his shoulder in the direction

mil it was exposed for sale with of the lightsome " Night."

many other pictures, mostly of in- Then I turned towards the " Dis-

different merit. The probabilities pute of the Hermits."

are that it would have fallen " That was an effort of mine when

into the hands of some son of Je\v- I was eighteen. I never thought it

ry, and disappeared, perhaps for would go to the New World when I

ever, into a dark and dingy lumber- worked at it."

room of the Ghetto. A better fate Laying down the palette, he asked

was in store for the gem. The/<?;r me if I wished to walk around the

saw it, admired it, purchased it, and house. I was only too glad of the

rested not until he had placed it in invitation. As we passed out of the

the hands of the venerable artist in door he* pointed towards the ladder

the quaint old studio, of whom no in the corner, and said laughingly :

better eulogium can be pronounced " Jacob's ladder when it rains ;

than that implied by the members only there are no angels ascending

;>f the Academy of St. Luke, who, and descending. My room is above

having been requested by Prince an old man's contrivance."

Borghese to hold a consultation on As we walked up on the roof, he

the restoration of Raphael's " Depo- narrated with the complacency of

sition," unanimously chose the old a little boy how he built the house

man to do it. He has since been himself; how he was somewhat dis-
VOL. xxin. 50

;86

A Quaint Old Studio in Rome.

couraged in digging the foundation
when the folks laughed at him ;
how he built the outside wall first,
to hide himself from the observa-
tion of the passers-by, and after that
he got along finely. At this junc-
ture I stopped to examine a large
cage on the roof. It contained
several white mice.

" They are pleasant little fellows,
especially when the moon shines,"
said my host, and, stooping down,
lie opened the little door, whereat
several of the little creatures ran
out into his hand.

Replacing them with some diffi-
culty for they seemed reluctant to
be shut up again we went down
the stairway and over to the part
of the building opposite the studio.
As we passed the door I looked in
again at the grim skeleton, and then
turned away quickly. But he laid
his hand gently on my shoulder,
and said :

" You young people don't like
the sight of skeletons, because they
tell an unpleasant truth very plain-
ly. I call that skeleton the Naked
Truth ; it's a splendid antidote
against a disease called pride."

As we passed the chicken-coop
he had to caress a few favorite
bantlings.- Then came an old store-
room, then a carpenter-shop, then
a blacksmith-shop, where he told
me he did all his own carpentering
and smithing; then a hole in the
wall containing a wheelbarrow,
pickaxes, and spades, with which
he amused himself in the evening,
as, indeed, the lovely little garden
attested. The gold-fish in the cis-
tern seemed to be his especial fa-

vorites. When he dipped his hand
in the water they all flocked around
and nibbled it vigorously. Nor did
they evince the slightest disinclina-
tion to be caught. I remarked that
the cistern was large enough to
bathe in.

"Precisely," he answered; "I
made it for that purpose the fish
were a second thought. I learned
to swim in there. It is very plea-
sant on a warm evening."

I asked him how long he labored
in building up his little home.

" Seven years, like Jacob ; only
the patriarch had the advantage
of me there, too he got a Rachel
in the end, and I have only- He
paused and looked about him. The
friendly dog and cat had appeared
on the scene, a hen began to cackle
boisterously, which left no doubt in
the minds of the neighbors that the
great feat of laying an egg had just
been achieved. The little shadow
which saddened his face for a mo-
ment passed away in an instant, and
he completed the sentence " this
live-stock."

" And your art," I subjoined.
" And my art," he admitted
pleasantly. " Say," he added, as
he saw me moving towards the steps
which led down to the garden door,
'' do you think the good pcre would
like to sell that picture?"

I thought not I was sure he
would not ; and, with a promise to
come and see him often, I left him,
I have gone to the old studio re-
peatedly since, and each visit has
been a new confirmation of my first
impression that he was the hap-
piest old artist in the Eternal City.

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister. 787

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.

(FROM THE FRENCH.)

JUNE 13. population to the fair. The dis-

WHAT a lovely day, my sister ! plays in the open air, under gigan-
Everything is singing, around and tic chestnut-trees, made them wild
within me; my mother is making with delight, but Aunt Georgina
rapid progress in her convalescence, willingly shut her eyes and ears.
Baby has five double teeth, and In the evening there is so much
Lucy is radiant; Adrien, Gertrude, noise and animation, it rather re-
and Helen e left us this morning to minds one of Vanity Fair. Ho\v
be present at the marriage of which sweet is solitude when one returns !
I have already told you ; Rene and Kate, as time goes on, the more my
his brothers are gone out ; Berthe happiness increases in solidity and
and all the darlings in the country ; depth. Rene appears to me still
Lucy is going out, and your Geor- more attractive, more gentle, good,
gina is by the side of the reclining- and handsome than ever. I fear
chair. Poor mother ! how sweet it the future, since happiness is an ex-
is to watch her revive. Johanna's ception.

Bengalese birds, brought hither to Margaret tells me to-day of her
enliven our dear invalid, are hop- arrival in Paris ; you will see hel-
ping about gaily in their gilded before I do. " I can but bless
cage ; my beautiful exotics are flow- God," she writes, " for having min-
ering in the jardiniere j everything gied wormwood with the honey of
is living, animated, radiant. My my golden cup ; I should have
mother can now converse; all her loved earth too well." Poor Mar-
wishes are now for her complete re- garet ! I persist in my opinion that
covery, that the two sisters may she is mistaken, and that her imag-
meet. But first we shall fulfil our ination deceives her. Can you mi-
vow, and go to tread the holy agine what a whole life would be
mountain upon which the Blessed without sunshine and without love ?

Virgin Mary placed her heavenly Mme. de T has long been in-

foot, and hang our ex voto in the be- sisting that I should consent to set

loved sanctuary. To revisit La Sa- out with Rene, but I should not

Ictte without you, my Kate, will be forgive myself if I were to leave her

to me both sweet and bitter. side, feeling that I am necessary to

Helene has no secrets from me ; her. It fatigues her to speak, and

she permits me to read her journal I understand her look. How good

pious effusions of a soul belong- is God to have given me another

ing wholly to God. If I did not fear mother ! Lucy is going to spend

to be indiscreet, I would transcribe two months with hers. Her com-

for you these pages, all palpitating municative gaiety, her cheerful

with divine love. spirit, and her lively chatter make

Yesterday I took all the small her valuable to us, not to speak ot

;88

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to Jier lister.

her excellent qualities. To amuse
our beloved invalid we got up a lit-
tle drama yesterday, and some tab-
leaux vivants. It was superb.

Here I have been interrupted to
give my mother some music. I
played her the Symphony in La.

And hereupon, dear Kate, I make
you my best curtsy, and hasten
away to Rene.

JUNE 1 6.

Thanks to " this ingenious art of
painting speech and speaking to the
eye," we already know that Helene
has apparently enjoyed herself very
much on her last appearance in the
world. Adrien and Gertrude have
despatched quite a volume to my
mother. Gertrude will carefully
keep the white and vapory toilette
of her daughter, who had, she says,
a charming expression, like that of
an exiled angel, in those drawing-
rooms where she was the admired
of every eye. They announced
their return for the i8th. It seems
to us all as if they had been absent
for months. Separations, depart-
ures these are the real crosses of
life.

Read the Beatitudes, by Mgr.
Landriot. It is very fine, this elo-
quent commentary on the magnifi-
cent words of our Saviour. The
beati qui lit gent too often finds its
application.

The last four days I have been

to Helene's paralytic. The poor
woman was quite confused at my
eagerness, while I was so happy to
wait upon her that I would willing-
ly have done so on my knees. My
charities will not be rewarded in
heaven ; I have too much sense of
pleasure in them, too much enjoy-
ment. God is present to me in the
poor. " May God bless you, my
ladies !" This is the most delight-
ful adieu I have ever heard.

Rene, to whom I have given a de-

tailed account of rny morning, says
that he should be curious to see me
doing the house-work for my good
old woman. I have probably done
it very badly, but then I . shall soon
become used to it. Benoni keeps
his sweetest smiles for me, and I
am teaching him your name. A
thought of Mgr. Dtipanloup often
comes into my mind: "The bor-
ders of the Ganges, which send us
Oriental pearls, have not given us
simplicity ; I have found it in the
heart of a child." Picciola is rich
in it in this sweet and charming
simplicity which is the sister of in-
nocence. " Would you not con-
sent to give her to me ?" I said
yesterday to Berthe. This morn-
ing the pretty dove came leaping in-
to my room, exclaiming, " Now I
have two mammas ! Good-morn-
ing, mamma !"

Adieu for the present, my sweet
one.

20.

Dearest, we set off to-morrow.
My mother declares that she will
not be completely cured except at
La Salette. Helene is enthusiastic
about it. What a festival ! What
joy!

'I am pressed for time. We are
packing up. All is commotion ;
every one coming and going ;
everybody calling everybody else.
Picciola runs from room to room
with Outstretched hands, offering
her services. I send you a kiss.
Unite yourself to us. Rene will
write to you when we are in the
train ; an impossibility to me. I
shall pray for Ireland.

LA SALETTE, June 20.
Why cannot we die here, dear
Kate? It is truly the vestibule of
heaven. I have no need to de-
scribe to you the landscape, the
chapel, my emotion on finding my-

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

789

self again in the same place where
we had prayed together so much.
My mother is making wonderful
progress, and would fain not set out
again any more. Rene, to whom I
had described it all, assures me
that the reality surpasses my poetic
pictures. How sweet and good a
thing it is to pray together, and to
be at the very well-spring of graces !
Helene is overflowing with joy.
Adrien and Gertrude weep no
more. . . . And we are soon to see
and embrace you again, to spend a
month near to you. I think we shall
be in Paris on the i2th of July.
Dearest Kate, I regret you here !
Oh ! the inconstancy of my poor
heart, so happy to give up to God
the better part of itself, and then
desiring to take it back again.
The gifts of the Lord alone are
without repentance. O sweet, de-
lightful, perfect friend! nothing can
separate our souls, always fraternal-
ly united in the adorable Heart
which gave itself for us.

La Salette ! La Salette ! To say
to one's self that here, where we
tread, Mary has passed ; that her
voice, more melodious than all the
harps of Eden, has been heard up-
on these heights ; that this sky has
beheld her tears, her propitiatory
and beloved tears, mysterious pearls
which should be gathered up by a.
seraph; to pray here, where the
Mother of the Saviour has herself
taught prayer ; oh ! what felicity :
Ecce quam boinim et quam jiiciindum
habitare fratrcs in iiniun ! Beloved,
I have prayed for you, and soon
now I shall see you. " Dear Geor-
gina," my mother said to me yes-
terday, " may God reward you for
the sacrifice you have made for
me!" Between this super-excel-
lent mother, Rene, Helene, and my-
self there passes a continual inter-
change of thoughts and feelings,

and I could even say amongst us
all.

Yours now and always, my sister.

AUGUST 12, 1867.
What, already ? so soon ? and we
must resume our correspondence !
Again I have quitted you, my Kate,
my visible angel guardian . . . He-
lene is also gone. The heavenly
Spouse has placed in his own gar-
den this delicate and charming flow-
er, for which this world had no dew
that was pure enough. " Let us be
saints," she writes to me ; " it is only
at this price that we may purchase
heaven." And I answer her : " It is
also only at this price that this life
is endurable ; that the departures,
the separations, the pain of absence,
too sensible an image of death, can
be courageously accepted." Dear
Kate, where shall we find each
other now ? May God protect you !
Brittany enchants me. I walk along
the beach ; make people tell me all
the legends of the country ; hunt
with Rene ; but most often slip away
into the little village church, or into
the chapel of the chateau. We
have an organ, and consequently
superb festivals. Our almoner is
a college friend of my brother's ; he
has been kind enough to undertake
Arthur's education for a time, and
we are all very glad of this arrange-
ment ; this good abbe is really a
learned man ; the little girls are
profiting largely by his stores of in-
formation, and we are busy with
collections, botany, maps, etc. This
sai'ant is moreover a traveller : he
is lately returned from the new
world ! And hence we have stories
of most e-xciting interest. My Pir-
ciola dreams about them. In short,
the new-comer has already turned
all the heads of the infantine world,
and our Breton life will be at the

790

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

very least as animated and joyous
as our life at Orleans.

I am expecting Margaret, who
says that she is coming to visit me,
without naming the day. Our habi-
tation is beautiful, antique, vast ;
with halls like those described by
Sir Walter Scott. It is surrounded
by immense woods, an<^ brightened
by a profusion of fiV ,vers. There
too is the sea, blue and profound,
image of life, with its waves and
hidden rocks. I never look at it
without an inexpressible longing to
pass over it to behold again my
Ireland. Kate, Kate, what a charm
do not memories possess !

Rene is writing to you. I have
not described to you my rooms, so
exquisitely ornamented according
to my own taste. Let us praise
God, my sister !

AUGUST 13.

An unexpected visit ; some Irish
friends, the W s. u We come to re-
concile ourselves," said Lady Helen
gracefully to me. My mother-in-law
gave them a most cordial reception,
and they remained with us two days.
You may imagine how happy I was.
What, details we had to communi-
cate ! Marie de S is at rest in

God ; no one had written to tell me.
Beautiful and holy soul, remember
us on high ! The old men, almost
centenarians, whom we left in our
dear native place, are living yet,
and death has stricken down an-
other victim, in the brightness of
youth and future prospects, George

D , only six days older than I am,

and who died far from his home.
He was brought back by his mourn-
ing family to the vault at V , where

his brother already reposed. He
died a really holy death, . . . that
is a consolation. They say that his
father is distracted with grief. Dear
Isa, whose aspirations tended to-
wards the cloister, is giving up her

happiness to remain in the world,
there to pray, suffer, and comfort
her family in their sorrows. Gerty
is grown even prettier than she was
a lily. How much I have been
questioned about my Kate !

A letter to-day from Lizzy who
lovingly reminds me of my promise.
It will be for next spring, I think.
I took our guests to the village, the
presbytery, the church, the asylum,
and the hospital ; all of which are
either founded or supported by the

liberality of Mine, de T . A

carriage ! . . .

It was Margaret, dear Kate ; not
my Margaret of former times, warm-
hearted and open, talkative and
gay, but Margaret pale, suffering,
and yet finding again a spark of
joy as she pressed me in her arms.
I am going to devote myself entirely
to her; she must be cured, and if
possible undeceived. Aid me with
your prayers !

AUGUST 25.

This dear festival of St. Louis
makes me want to write to you. It
is five o'clock; Rene is sleeping
soundly ; I have slipped on a dress-
ing-gown, and now, after a prayer, I
come to you, my beloved Kate, my
sister by nature and affection. A
balmy breeze reaches me through
the half-open window, the aerial
concerts are beginning, the univer-
sal prayer ascends to God. My
soul is glad, like nature. After
many hesitations, much feeling my
way, and on Rene's advice, I ad-
dressed myself to Lord William
himself. ... It was a very delicate
matter, and my timidity was up in
arms ; but Margaret's life was in
question. How I set about it I do
not in the least know ; my good
angel was with me. The excellent
lord thanked me almost with tears ;
the melancholy of our friend was too
evident to him, and he had tried in

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to Iicr Sister.

791

vain to break through the wall of
ice that had grown up between
them. All is now at an end; and
we have convinced Margaret, who
is reviving again to happiness. I
know not what evil tongue had so
poisoned the golden cup of "the
prettiest woman m England.'" 'The
truth is that Lord William's brother
wanted to marry the young, portion-
less maiden of whom I spoke to
you, whose views were above this
world and fixed on heaven. Filial
piety keeps her where she is, for
she attends upon her grandfather
blind, like Homer and Milton, and
like them a poet, says Lord William,
who, being himself enthusiastic
about poetry, was a frequent visitor
to his relative, the aged bard, and
thus unconsciously gave rise to the
absurd story too easily believed by
Margaret. How she regrets not
having sooner sought into the truth
of the matter! I am enchanted at
this explanation, and also because
my mother insists that our " dear
English" shall not leave us for a
month. We are planning excur-
sions without end. Lord William
and Rene are inseparable ; my sis-
ters dispute as to which shall have
Margaret, who is more ravishingly
beautiful than ever. Her fine voice
rings majestically in the chapel ;
yesterday we went en masse to sur-
prise Mme. de T because it was

her fete. You cannot imagine the
effect of our choirs. Rene, Adrien,
Edouard, everybody, the English
peer too, sang. Your Georgina
played the organ not without tears
of emotion. . . . My mother said
she was /// heaven. All day long
bouquets and horn mages were arriv-
ing ; these good Bretons are so
grateful, so pious ! To-morrow we
to Auray, next week to Solesmes,
. . . a long way, . . . but I would
willingly go to the world's end

Margaret 'almost worships the
babies. Alix scarcely leaves her ;
Gaston has his private and his state
visits to her. My Picciola is so in-
telligent that English has soon be-
come easy to. her. I converse with
her in my mother's tongue ; we
pray together. Am I not happy,
dear Kate ? Everything smiles
upon me. Often I meditate upon
the benefits which I have received
from an all-merciful Providence,
and especially upon my happiness
in my friends. Apropos to this
subject, I recollect a sad but charm-
ing remark of Louis Veuillot's
upon departures, those great sad-
nesses of life : " There are flowers
of friendship that we have sown,
and which spring up, but which we
must abandon when their fragrance

is sweetest!" . . . He goes on to
speak of forgetfulness ; the mourn-
ing wreath thrown by the oblivions
world on the tomb of vanished
friendships, and sorrowfully says,
" All the flowers of human life
are perishable !" Is it an illusion
of my youth to believe that my af-
fections are like the flowers of
heaven, inaccessible to decay, strong
against storms ? . . . After the
love of God, the first and greatest
good, the surest element of even
terrestrial happiness, I have friend-
ship, and I rejoice in it with en-
chantment ; then I have the love
of my good Rene, so pure and
Christian a love, which makes of
our two souls one single being, in
an indissoluble union ; then read-
ing, with its varied emotions, study,
the faculties of enthusiasm, of ad-
miration, of comprehension. . . .
Oh ! how fair is life. When I speak
of friendship, it is the tender affec-
tion of my Kate that is especially
in my mind a tenderness to which
I owe all that I am. Dearest and
best beloved, I sometimes ask my-

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

self how it is that you have been to
me a sister so unique, and finding
no other motive for this choice af-
fection than your loving charity, I
bless God, who has permitted this
to be in his merciful designs, which
I cannot sufficiently adore. When
I make my thanksgiving after com-
munion, I am fond of taking a gene-
ral survey in my heart, so as to in-
clude in it names and memories,
and after speaking to Jesus of all
the souls in whom I am interested,
I never fail to ask our rich and
mighty Sovereign to bless, together
with me, all who love or have ever
loved me. . . .

God guard you, carissima !

AUGUST 29.

News from Ireland : Ellen is in
great trouble ; her son has a mucous
fever which leaves small hope of
his life. Alas ! everywhere there is
mourning and death. Poor friend !
so Christian and so pious, so cour-
ageous under trials, how she must
suffer, in spite of her fortitude and
resignation ! Have you often met
with people so sympathetic as this
amiable Ellen ? a heart of gold, full
of tenderness and devotion, in so
delicate a frame. It seems to me
as if the tears which she drives
back by her mother's bed of suffer-
ing (who is still in great danger, as
Margaret has written you word), and
by the cradle of her beautiful little
Robert, fall on my heart. Let us
pray for her !

Rene is telling you about our pil-
grimage to Auray. What happiness
to be there with these good and
dear friends, and with my mother,
whose health is most satisfactory !
Why are not you also here, dear
Kate ? Oh ! I never cease to miss
you, although I repeat to myself
that nothing is wanting to my fe-
licity.

Yesterday was the feast of St.
Augustine, the great doctor of love.
Would that I could love like him !
. . . M. Bougaud has written the
life of St. Monica, which I am toUl
is very fine. Adrien left the book
at Orleans. I had read the intro-
duction, which is Britten in an ex-
cellent and elevated style. " It is
the poem of the most incomparable
love that ever was." O Saint Au-
gustine, pillar of the church, de-
fender of the faith ! pray for those
who fight; obtain for them that
love which purifies and sanctifies
suffering, that holy and perfect love
which alone is the life of the soul !
I have a special affection for St. Au-
gustine. His was so ardent and
enthusiastic a nature; his lofty soul
so great, so indomitable, and so
athirst for happiness ; then, after
his conversion, how courageous
was his faith, how apostolic his
eloquence, and, above all, how
"mighty was his love of God, which,
as it were, consumed him ! In all
this we behold with admiration the
infinite mercy of the Creator. Do
you recollect Ary Scheffer's lovely
picture of St. Monica and St. Au-
gustine by the sea ? One could
spend hours before those already
transfigured countenances, studying
their thoughts, which are rendered
almost visible by the genius of the
artist.

Read a letter by Mgr. Dupan-
loup on the death of Cardinal Al-
tieri. We still live in the times of
men like Borromeo and Belzunce ;
the church never grows old. Cardi-
nal Altieri was Bishop of Albano.
The cholera broke out in that small
town with such violence that a hun-
dred persons died in a night. Mgr.
Altieri assembled his servants nnd
asked if they were willing to follow
him to Albano. He set out, accom-
panied by one alone, and his almo-

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister. 793

ner, and taking with him his will, imperishable monuments to the

to which he added a codicil. After glory of God and the church ! If

three days, spent in heroic acts of our time is one of great errors and

charity and devotedness, he was at- many troubles, it is also a time of

tacked by the malady, and died in great virtues arid noble acts of

the arms of two other cardinals, devotion. Margaret told us that

who, happening to be at Albano when passing through Perigord she

when the scourge appeared, had not stopped at Cadouin, where the holy

quitted the post of honor. This Sudarium of our Lord is offered to

death is a great loss to the church, the veneration of the faithful. J>e-

Mgr. Altieri was Camerlinga of the fore this august relic she prayed

Roman Church, the highest dignity with indescribable emotion for our

after, the Pope. Louis Veuillot, in incomparable Pontiff, who is folio w-

his biography of Pius IX., says: ing in the footsteps of our Saviour

There is no name and no charac- up Mount Calvary. The revolu-

ter more Roman than that of Al- tion is about to march against

tieri." The cardinal was only six- Rome; what will be the conse-

ty-two years of age. Pius IX. at quence ? " Tu es Petrus" . . .

once desired to find him a succes- With this word one can understand

sor. A messenger of the Holy See the peace, serenity, and confidence

was sent to Mgr. Apollini : " It is of Pius IX. Suffer not, O Lord !

necessary to set out immediately for that so many wandering and guilty

Albano." 'I am ready," was Mgr. sons shall die fighting against their

Apollini's reply. Is it not fine ? own Father !

What page of Homer equals this .... .

page in the history of the church ? SEPTEMBER 6.

The Zouaves are also doing won- The sacrifice is consummated :

ders of charity at Albano : making Ellen has witnessed the death of

themselves Gray Sisters for the liv- her baby her joy and pride. "Her

ing, and burying the dead; they are husband comforted and sustained

sublime. May God have pity on her like a Christian," Lizzy writes,

poor Italy ! Mgr. Dupanloup con- The paroxysm of her maternal an-

cludes his letter by a few words full guish was fearful,

of sadness and apprehension. O A child should never die before

my God ! will not the eloquence of its mother ; it is against nature, and

genius, the supplications of thy is almost more than the heart can

saints, the sufferings of thy martyrs, endure ; the help of God is neces-

disarm thine anger ? By the side of sary ; let us pray for her, my Kate,

these solemn scenes yesterday's pa- This dear, much-tried, heartbroken

per contained a curious article : the mother thought of me in her sor-

'' miracles ' of the Zouave Jacob, row, and sent me a few lines. You

of whom you must have heard, dear will read them and will weep with

Kate. What times we live in! On me over this page of woe. I seem

the one hand we have spiritism, mag- still to see that charming group:

netism, all sorts of communications Ellen coaxing Robert to try and

with demons, and on the other the take his first steps, and he sending

wonderful development of noble us kisses. All these joys, that gol-

thoughts, institutions of all kinds den dawn, those earliest days who

in aid of every form of misfortune, can bring them back to Ellen ?

men of the highest genius raising May God console her, and may tb

794

Le tiers of a Voting Irishzvoman to her Sister.

sweet angel who strengthened Jesus
at Gethsemani tenderly wipe away
her tears ! Margaret is as grieved
as I am. Our trip to Solesines is
somewhat delayed ; we are expect-
ing more guests. I have just fin-
ished a splendid chasuble, which I
take the liberty of sending to your
address, my dearest Kate in the
first place, that you may admire it,
and, secondly, that you may kindly
let Mme. G- know about it, as she
will have to complete my work.
Have I mentioned to you a letter
from the Bishop of Orleans to the
faithful of his diocese on the festi-
vals of Rome, and the approaching
opening of an oecumenical coun-
cil ? It is splendid ; there is magic
in his style.

You do not forget Zoe de L ?

Margaret met her in Paris, poor,
and looking terribly aged. Through
some inexplicable folly, she made
an absurd marriage, and the change
of position, her unexpected disap-
pointment, the trials of heart and
mind she has undergone, have alto-
gether upset her. " It was ten min-
utes," Margaret writes, " before I
could recognize her." Perhaps you
could see her, dear Kate, and cheer
her up a little. La belle Anglaise
and I want to be of service to her,
and you must be our medium ; Rene
is writing to his banker, to place
the necessary sum at your disposal.
I will enclose the card on which
Margaret wrote the address of this
unfortunate Zoe.

Dearest Kate, pray for Ellen.
There is, then, no such thing as
perfect happiness in this world. If
it were not for the compassion I
feel for those whose troubles affect
me so deeply, I should be too hap-
py. How kind Rene is ! He is
angelic ! I cannot note down to
you, or I should have to write vol-
umes, the thousand intimate and

charming details which make my
life a paradise.

Helene rarely writes ; when she
does, it is as a seraph might. She
is happy ; she has entered into the
place of repose which she has cho-
sen, in the hollow of the rock, where
the dove loves to hide ; she has
found her ideal. Gertrude reads
on her knees the poetic effusions
of her child.

Dear Kate, may all heaven be
with you !

SEPTEMBER 15.

My dear one, excursions are rob-
bing me of all my ^leisure, but not
of the time to tHink of you. A
pouring rain has interfered with our
projects for to-day, and all the chil-
dren have fled to Mme. Margaret,
who takes a lively interest in these
juveniles. Yesterday was the birth-
day of this delightful friend. We
busied ourselves in preparations,
whilst, at my request, Lord Wil-
liam drew his somewhat wondering
Margaret away to the park. A so-
litary little drawing-room was rapid-
ly transformed ; it looked so pretty
in the evening, with a profusion of
flowers and lights, wreaths of ivy
twining round the mirrors, and an
illumination of the heroine's initials !
She was greatly touched and de-
lighted ; Picciola recited some beau-
tiful verses written by Edouard,
and we presented her with bou-
quets, carvings, and paintings. A
concert brought the entertainment
to a close. Mme. de T- will
not hear of the departure of our
dear friends. " Sisters ought not
to leave each other before they are
compelled," she says. Kind, ex-
cellent mother ! Yesterday we walk-
ed along the coast so often sung by
the poet Brizeux, whom Rene quotes
with so much Breton fire and fit-
ness. " Look there," Adrien whis-
pered to me, " at all that pretty

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister. 795

little brood !" Under the shadow ers. The room of Mme. de Saint

of an oak about a hundred paces A is entirely white, like the

from us a dozen children were pre- soul of the pious lady. It opens

paring a dinette* How handsome into the chapel. On each side of

they looked in their tatters, with the altar several funeral epitaphs

their healthy and intelligent faces ! show this temple of prayer to be

Arthur had a bright thought : he also the temple of memories. Mme.

proposed to Picciola, who was car- de Saint A showed us some

rying the cake-basket, to share theirs water-colors worthy of Redoute,

among the poor little children. All painted by her great-grandmother;

the babies joined in the festivity, and some wood-carving which ex-

and bonbons and delicacies were cited the liveliest admiration of the

freely distributed. Margaret sketch- gentlemen. It was impossible to

ed this pretty picture in her album, quit this Eden ; we admired the

You see our walks are not without grottoes and plantations, and re-

their charm, mained fof dejefiner. We seemed to

On Monday, I visited a pious be in another world in this Thebaid

canoness who lives alone in a sump- of the coast. We kissed the trunk

tuous residence. I was delighted of an immense chestnut whose pro-

with the kind and cordial welcome tecting boughs had overshadowed

she gave me, and spent with her many generations, and which has a

three of the most enjoyable hours I higher title to glory from having in

ever passed -in my life. Mme. de '93 preserved from revolutionary

Saint A is fifty-three years of age, fury the stone statue of the Madon-

though she appears older ; she has na which now guards the chapel,
been exquisitely beautiful. Now I shall never forget this visit
she is better than that she is a twenty leagues from our residence
saint; and next to the deep joys nor the expression of that saintly
of the Eucharistic table, I do not face, the look and words which
think there is any greater enjoy- accompanied the kind pressure
ment than to converse with such as of my hand at the moment of de-
she. The old castle overlooking parture.

the ocean has an antique and lordly Mme. de Saint A has lost all

aspect, with a certain character as .her dear ones by death. God and

of something religious, like a ceno- the poor still remain to her, a heri-

bite whom death has forgotten, tage worthy of her heart. Her ar-

kneeling by the borders of a lake, tistic and literary tastes are a great

The sea in this place forms a sort resource for her in her solitude,

of inland bay, or quiet lake, in which which is occasionally shared by

the great trees of the park seem to some friends at a distance, who are

take pleasure in reflecting them- faithful to this "fragment of thepast"

selves. The dwellinghas been visit- as she said in showing us the castle.

cd by the dukes of Brittany, and One hall, that of "the libraries,"

one wing of the castle still bears contains treasures. Adrien, who is

their name. We ascended the steps an enthusiastic and learned archae-

of the staircase of honor, up which ologist, eagerly examined its con-

the noble mail-clad warriors so tents. Several rare manuscripts

often rode mounted on their charg- have passed into his possession ; we

came home laden with riches. My

*A little dinner, in which everything is usu- . .... .

ally on a small scale. share IS a beautiful W.'lter-COlor

796

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

drawing. Shall we ever see this
hermitage again ?

Dear Kate, Rene and Margaret
have finished their letters before
me. Adieu and d Dieu /

Dreamed of Ireland, her emi-
grants, her martyrs. Oh ! how dear
our sacred island is to me.

SEPTEMBER 20.

Kind, loving, and beloved sister,
three letters in your welcome hand-
writing are come to me at the same
time. Thanks for what you have
done for Zoe ; she has written to
tell me about it, and of your zeal-
ous endeavors to make her more
courageous. I have no more anx-
iety about our poor friend since
you are in her neighborhood.

Rene has procured for me
Femmes Savantes et Femmcs Studi-
cuses* by Mgr. Dupanloup.

It is an excellent book, elevated
and at the same time practical, and
quite in accordance with the views
of my dear husband. Our studies
together are truly profitable ? The
good abbe is very alarming just
now. He says that blood will be
shed in France, much blood ; with
other sinister predictions. May
God guard you, dearest Kate !

The village is in mourning : five
deaths this week. One is that of
the father of seven children ; Mar-
garet is placing six of them with
the Sisters at P . The rich Eng-
lish lady makes herself almost wor-
shipped by our Bretons.

Ellen has written to me ; she is
more calm, but wonders that she
can live. . . . Her mother, broken
down by this last blow, sank three
days after Robert. To force her
away from the sad associations of
home her husband is taking her to
Scotland, where they will remain un-

* " Learned and Studious Women."

til the spring. I wish they were with
us; we would try to comfort them.
Ah ! Kate, how I pity mothers.

Finished the full-length portrait
of Rene for our mother. How 1
have enjoyed working at it dear,
kind husband ! At this moment he-
is playing Thalberg's Moise, and 1
hasten to join him. I should not
be Irish if I did not love poetry
and music.

Love me as I love you, dear sis-
ter.

SEPTEMBER 28.

I am in a state of transport, dear-
est ! For eight days past we have
been almost constantly in the car-
riage, and have seen Solesmes and
its jewels of stone, the handiwork
of artists full of faith such as our
times do not find in their succes-
sors. Only imagine, dear Kate : I
saw nothing at Solesmes but the
church and Sainte Cecile ! On
coming out I closed my eyes, the
better to recall those visions of
beauty before which death wouW
seem more sweet. Beneath an
arched roof on the right two pei-
sonages are placing Our Lord in
the sepulchre ; these are Nicode-
mus and Joseph of Arimathea, the
former in a rich Oriental costume
and the latter in a dress of the time
of Louis XI., which looks singular
enough at first sight. Sitting be-
fore the tomb, St. Mary Magda-
lene, bending low, with her head
resting on her hands, abandons her-
self to grief. It is very beautiful
Kate. Of all that I have seen that
looked living in sculpture, nothing
ever impressed me so much. This
Magdalene is the jewel of the whole.
She seems to live and breathe ; no-
thing could render the expression
of sorrow and of prayer in her coun-
tenance, nor the naturalness of her
posture; one feels as if she might
raise her arms, and that her mouth

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

797

might utter her lamentation ; one
feels that her eyes arc overflowing

with tears. . . . Follow me now into
the chapel on the left. Here is the
swooning of the Blessed Virgin, in
a deep niche over the altar. Again,
our Lady, kneeling in ecstasy, sup-
ported by St. Peter and St. John, is
about to receive communion from
the hands of her risen Son. In this
mystic idea there is to my mind
exquisite poetry. Almost all the
apostles and the holy women are
there ; the figures in this group are
very numerous, and there are among
them heads of an ideal beauty. I
have looked so long at these more
than artistic, almost heavenly, works,
that they will long remain in my mind.
The entombment of the Blessed
Virgin faces that of Our Lord, and
is strikingly effective. The position
of our Lady is admirable, and there
is something heavenly in her coun-
tenance, which love transfigures even
in death. St. John, St. James the
Less, Dom Bouguer, an abbot of
Solesmes, who by a pious anachron-
ism had himself represented in this
solemn scene, and another saint,
hold the corners of the shroud. All
four are excellently rendered. St.
Peter is leaning over our Lady, and
contemplates her with an indescrib-
able expression of love. This figure
is one of the most attractive of all.
Behind are the holy women, whose
looks betoken the deepest grief, and
some of the apostles, who are
speaking to each other. All these
figures are admirably grouped ; not
one lessens the effect of the rest,
and the whole scene is of touching
grandeur. It was difficult to tear
one's self away from the contempla-
tion of those animated and speak-
ing forms. . . . There are other
groups: Jesus in the midst ^f the
doctors, the Assumption, the Coro-
nation ; wonderful works by men

who have remained almost un-
known. Why were you not there,
dear Kate ? This is always the cry
of my heart, which wants you every-
where.

To see Dom Gueranger formed
part of our plan. When one has
read his Sainte Chile and his ad-
mirable pages on the Temporal
Power of tJie Popes, it is a happi-
ness to listen to him in his monas-
tic humility. What a fine head he
has ! a countenance so expressive
of both intellect and sanctity, and
such vivacity and genius in his look !
We were present at the Benedictine
Office, but went first to Sainte-Ce-
cile, a monastery of Benedictine
nuns which Dom Gueranger is
building at some distance from the
abbey. It will be splendid : mag-
nificent cloisters, and in the middle
of the great quadrangle one of
those marvellous fountains that we
used to admire in the pictures of
the cloisters in Spain.

Benediction, in the abbey church,
was very beautiful. At the moment
when the benediction is given a
dove descends upon the altar ; the
sight is striking when the heart is
already predisposed to heavenly
emotions. When, at the conclu-
sion, the monks stood up to chant
the Te Dcum, that song of the eter-
nal Jerusalem which I never hear
without a thrill of inward joy, I
felt an indescribable impression of
happiness and peace. Oh ! how sweet
it must be to serve God thus, and
spend one's life in study and in
prayer.

Dearest Kate, may God bless
you, may he bless us all, and may
he deliver Ireland !

OCTOBER 2.

To-day Sarah B takes a lord

and master. God grant that she
may be happy ; that her heart, so
upright, delicate, and loving, may

798

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

not be disappointed ! She is in
communication with Margaret, to
whom she has related the causes of
her almost rupture with Mary. Both
had suffered greatly from the loss
of that affection which for twenty
years had filled their life ; this mar-
riage draws them nearer together.
Mass has been said for her, in this
sweet corner of our Brittany, this
oasis. Margaret is about to leave
us. What bitterness is linked to
every separation ! How often our
heart is divided, our life cut in
twain, and our happiness destroy-
ed ! We went on Monday to

C , where we have an aunt,

superior of a convent of the Visi-
tation. " Convents do not change,
like the world," said Rene, when we
came out from the parlor ; " it even
seems to me that these ascetic faces
do not grow old. And I know men
of forty years of age who appear
to be sixty, so much have passions
worn them out. Why is not every
Christian house a monastery ? Why
do not all men love our good God ?"
. . . My aunt was very affection-
ate ; promises of prayers were mu--
tually exchanged ... I am prayed
for in many sanctuaries, in many
retreats, pious homes of refuge for
wounded souls and for timid doves,
dwellings where lilies bloom, and
where the Holy of Holies makes
his habitation. And everywhere,
on every coast on which a Catholic
hand has planted the Cross of
Christ, I am prayed for, in virtue
of this great communion of saints,
this dogma so divine and so full
of comfort, the sweetest of all, it
seems to me, giving hope for those
who do not yet pray for themselves !
Oh ! can I wonder that the religious
life, to which our Saviour promised
a hundred-fold in this world and
paradise in the next this life of
self-renunciation and of sacrifice

has stolen my Kate from me ? Ma-
dame de P , Lucy's mother, is se-
riously ill ; and her son the abbe, the
grand-vicaire, the holy priest, the
joy and consolation of her heart,
is with her. All the Edwards have-
just left us; Gaston has been ill,
and is recovering slowly. His pale,
gentle face so little resembles that
of 'the rosy boy who smiled so gaily
upon us only a few weeks ago, that
we are all pained at the change. I
trust God will spare this pretty lit-
tle angel to dear Lucy ; but were
the hosts of heaven to open their
ranks to receive this little brother,
who, however, pitying the mother,
would think of pitying the child ?
Oh ! what have I said ? In my desire
for heaven I was almost forgetting
earth !

Lady Sensible, Marguerite, is grave-
ly working in the embrasure of the
window at a set of baby-linen which
she will have made entirely herself.
This child will be a remarkable wo-
man ; there is something singularly
attractive about her; she talks lit-
tle, but thinks much, and her words
are full of solidity and good sense.
She is charmingly pretty ; last win-
ter, in her little dress of black vel-
vet over a blue silk skirt, she looked
like the daughter of a king.

Dearest, here is your letter, in
the white hands of Picciola, and a
letter from Helene, triumphantly
brought to me by Alix ! Kind
little angels ! who possess the under-
standing of the heart, and so read
mine. Thanks, dear sister ; may
our Mother in heaven repay to you
all the love you bear me !

Margaret leaves to-morrow ; she
is gone to say good- by to her poor
people. What a kind, sweet friend
she is ! and now the ocean is soon
to separate us.

Prxy for the travellers, beloved
Kate, and for your own Georgina.

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to Jier Sister. 799

SEPTEMBER 13. believe that this life, so troublous,

This autumn set in icy cold ; to- so agitated, and so sinful, so far

day the weather has been mild and from God and from the practice of

the sun splendid ; it was like a re- religion, could go out without one

surrection ; my spirit revived with spark of divine light to illuminate

nature. How I miss Margaret ! it, or without some thought of peni-

She has had a prosperous journey, tence finding entrance, which might

u The aspect of everything is chang- obtain pardon before eternity. . . .

ed." God be praised! Alas! I have but one hope, and I

A kind visit this morning from a cling to that in the fulness of my

neighbor, the Baroness de T , trouble like one who is shipwrecked

mother of three sweet children, to a fragment of the vessel; it is
whom she brings tip herself. This that, in passing judgment on a soul,
charming woman is in deep mourn- God is mindful of all the prayers
ing for her brother ; riches are no that will be offered for it !"
shield from the unlooked-for strokes Poor Nelly! how well I tmder-
of death. In positions where peo- stand her. I hope, I hope; who
pie are in possession of everything, knows what passes in that supreme
it must be dreadful suffering to be moment, in that terrible grappling
helpless to detain here below, at the of death with life, between divine
price of all one's gold, those who mercy and the sinner, who may in
are carried off by death. We are one instant make an act of perfect
said to be on the point of a griev- contrition and love ?
ous and terrible crisis ; I can easily Would you like to have a page
believe it ; it is the general expec- out of Helene's journal, the recep-
tation of minds. Everything suf- tacle of her inmost and most secret
fers ; all families are stricken in confidences, which she left with her
those dearest to them, all is trouble mother, and which Rene and I read
and distress. M. V. R. is dead at with enthusiasm ? " ' Knowest thoti
Dublin, without confession, without the land where the orange- tree
hope, without God ! Is there no blossoms ? ' was the vague question
angel for these poor wanderers, to of the melancholy Mignon to all
make one ray of light shine before around him ; and I, for my part, ask
their eyes? Nelly, the mourning everywhere, 'Knowest thoti the land
Nelly, confides her grief to me: whither flows all my love ? Knowest
k What a night of anguish ! and thoti the land to which mount ray
what tears I shed ! No priest be- desires ? Knowest thott Carmej,
side this dying bed ; my mother in the sacred mountain where I shall
despair, I on my knees, my eyes possess my God?' I also could
dried up with weeping, doubting if say, " Knowest thoti this beloved
it were a dream or a reality, and home, where 1 have so often sat
wondering whether so many ardent with gladness in my heart? Know-
prayers must be in vain ! The only est thoti this mother who loves me
religious ornament in the room was with so true a love, this father so
a little picture I had drawn when a fond and tender, these kind, indul-
child, and which my poor uncle had gent brothers, this noble-hearted
not observed, or else tolerated it grandmother, all this charming fam-
on my account ; its subject was the ily who have made my life so sweet
conversion of a sinner. This seem- and golden ? . . . O nature ! and I
ed to me providential. I could not am about to leave all these ! I

Soo

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

communicated this morning, the
Feast of St. Teresa, the illustrious
nnd seraphic lover of God, the fair-
est flower of Carmel, the glory of
the church, a soul so strong and
lofty in her perfection that she no
longer desired any happiness in this
world, and repeated, ' Lord, let me
suffer or die ! ' Edouard Turquety,
the sweet Catholic poet, has written
some beautiful verses on this sub-
lime thought. O great St. Te-
resa, eagle of love ! whose flight
reached to such heights, draw me
after you ; detach me from earth,
gain for me that I forget for God
all which is not God !

" * Emporte-moi, douce pensee,
Effusion d'un cceur jaloux,
Je suis la veuve delaissee
Emporte-moi vers mon Epoux.' "*

Dear Kate, do you not doubly
love our Helene ?

OCTOBER 21.

Do you know the Meditations on
tlic Way of the Cross, by the Abbe
Perreyre ? I find in this book a
comprehension of suffering which
can only belong to a superior mind,
and one which has drunk from one
of the bitterest cups of- life. There
are passages in it which seemed to
thrill me, especially this thought,
that " trial breaks souls and forces
them to shed around them floods of
love.'"' I like to pass before your
kind eyes all that I read and ad-
mire. Rene yesterday quoted me a
beautiful thought of Mgr. of Or-
leans on La Moriciere : " A man is
a prism ; the rays of God pass
through him ; it is not he who is
beautiful it is the rays, it is God ;
but without him we should not see
them." Read on Sunday, by the
same genius, the postscript to the

* Bear me away, sweet thought,
Fruit of a jealous heart ;
From lonely widowhood,
Oh ! bear me to my Spouse.

letter of M. Rattazzi; it is admira-
ble for its power, expression, and
lofty feeling. The Archbishop of
Rennes has written a few lines to
Mgr. Dupanloup full of warmth
and energy. It is said that our
troops are going to Rome. God
grant that it may be so, for his own
glory, for the safety of Pius IX.,
and for the honor of our poor
France ! Oh ! must it be written on
the page of our history that the
eldest daughter of the church has
forfeited her mission, and that she
has failed to say to the abettors of
the revolution, "You strike not
my father with your sacrilegious
hand without first passing over my
body "? I am indisrnant and amazed

at beholding the Catholic world re-
main as if stupefied when it ought
to rise as one man to defend the
holy Pontiff. Rene and his bro-
thers have all served under the Bre-
ton hero in the cause of Pius IX.
Adrien's two sons are gone to fight
under his banner; they set out of
their own accord, after receiving the
blessing of their father, mother, and
grandmother. Pray for them, my
Kate ! Gertrude is on her Calvary.
Our Brittany will be worthily repre-
sented at Rome. Siirsum corda .'
God keep you, my well-beloved !

OCTOBER 31.

Splendid weather ! the air full ot
warm, poetic odors. I have been
rather unwell, but am better again ;
do not be uneasy about me, dearest.
Good news from every quarter, but
sadness at home, for Gertrude and
Adrien are leaving us, having heard
that one of their sons is ill at Rome ;
so they hasten thither with all
speed. I should like to accompany
them, it is so delightful to travel.
Mgr. of Orleans has written to his
clergy, requesting prayers for the
Pope and the army of Italy. There

Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister.

So i

is just now a certain movement
of religious enthusiasm in France.
Numerous volunteers are enrolling
themselves in the pontifical army,
and there are among them those
\vlio leave their children, their
young wife, or their betrothed ; and
the bishop says that if there are at
the present time mothers weeping
over a son who has died a martyr
in the holiest of causes, there are
those who weep still more bitterly
because they have no son. . . .
Is not this the highest expression
of Christian patriotism? Rome is
the fatherland of the Catholic uni-
verse ; happy indeed are her de-
fenders !

Evening. I have just come in
from a long walk, alone, on the
sands. Rene" is gone with his bro-
ther as far as Tours, whence he Avill
not return before to-morrow ; my
mother had to write, and to pray ;
the good abbe had undertaken the
charge of all the children; the
^r own-up people were variously oc-
cupied ; I wanted to enliven my
solitude, and have been to visit my
poor people, and in the presence
of immensity .have lifted up my
soul. It was the hour of twilight,
which had therefore a double at-
traction. I love solitude in the
evening ; the soul, disposed by the
calm of nature for meditation and
prayer, rises without effort to God.
1 do not like to shorten these
moments, and willingly prolong
them until it is dark. There is
always a certain solemnity which
attaches to things that end. If we
thought of it well, how much we
should be impressed by the close
of a day ! How many souls
there are who will not see another !
How many sheep have this very
day quitted the green pastures of
the Good Shepherd ! How many
tears have the angels gathered up !
VOL. xxiii. 51

Tears of the mother shed over the
coffin of her first-born, over a son
who is fighting, over a youth who
is going astray ; tears of sorrow, of
repentance, of holy joy, tears of all,
alas ! and for every cause. Is there
a human eye that knows not tears?
Oh ! how many things one day con-
tains. It may be a prodigal child
brought back ; an upright life sanc-
tified by sacrifice, a martyrdom, a
consecration to God. It may be-
an overflowing of evil and impiety,
and, on the other hand, prayer
poured out in floods before the
altar. A great church-festival, a
first communion, a far-distant isl-
and conquered to the Gospel, a
battle gained over the enemies of
the faith these, these are a day !
Oh ! the history of a day would be
long. . . . Whilst the glittering
world, returned from its pleasures
and festivities, slumbers beneath its
gilded ceilings, the world of charity
has already made the angels smile,
the world of poverty has already
suffered, the world of industry is at
work, the apostolic world embarks
on the vast ocean or sets foot on
unknown shores, the world of sci-
ence studies and sounds the deep
abyss of learning, the world of
prayer, the truly Catholic world,
prays to God, sings his praises,
writes, speaks, teaches, lives for
God ! Everything revives, and in
this immense concert of humanity,
wherein are heard so many discor-
dant notes, to which so many voices
are daily wanting, the Eternal Ear
distinguishes the most imploring
notes the notes of supplication and
repentance. Evening comes, and
the day ends; a useless day for
many of God's creatures, a golden
day for some. And the angels of
night spread the shadows over cities
and solitudes, while the angel of
justice and the angel of mercy, two

802

One Hundred Years Ago.

white-winged seraphs, inscribe in
tiie Book of Life the good and
evil of this day ; while, in the
splendor of eternal light, the hea-
venly concert incessantly continues.
. . . Oh ! when shall we behold this
day ? . . . Pale dawns of this
world, fleeting hours, days without
beauty, you are but a point in a life,
and this life has but one day ; and
this day, what is it " in the ocean
of ages," what is it in Eternity?

Helene speaks to me of heaven :
" Oh ! day of deliverance, cloudless
day, when I shall behold my God,
when I shall drink of the torrent
of eternal delights, and mingle my
feeble voice with the harmonies of
the heavenly Jerusalem, my soul
sighs for thee ! . . ."

Edward and Lucy return to us
to-morrow, glad and happy ; their
mother is recovered. Good-night,
my Kate !

TO PE CONTINUED.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

IT was the December of 1775.
The British colonies in America
were agitated with wild excitement.
News had been received of the un-
successful attack on Quebec by the
Continental troops under Mont-
gomery and Arnold, and of the fall
of the brave Montgomery.

The friends of the colonial cause
had set great hopes on the success
of this enterprise, which would
give them the command of the St.
Lawrence, and deprive the British
of a most important arsenal for
their permanent supply of troops
and munitions of war. They were
grieved and desponding over the
disastrous result, while the loyal-
ists, rejoicing at the check thus
given to the progress of the re-
bellion, looked confidently for its
speedy close, the restoration of the
royal governments, asd the return
of the several provincial governors
who had discreetly abdicated at
the first outbreak, and retired to
safer quarters. No doubt their en-
thusiastic public demonstrations
of joy assisted in fan n in 2 to a

flame the smouldering elements
of resistance among the colonists,
who, exasperated at the persistent-
ly oppressive measures devised and
forced upon them by the mother
country, were even beginning to
utter whispers of an entire disrup-
tion, and a formal assertion of
rights, in a declaration of indepen-
dence.

Near a pleasant village in the
northern part of New Jersey there
stood and may be standing yet,
for the builders of those days had
an eye to permanency in the solid
structures they reared a farm-
house of spacious dimensions,
built in the favorite gambrel-roofed
style then 'customary in country
dwellings. Mr. Foote, the owner
of the mansion, and of manv broad

acres around it, was a fine speci-
men of a country gentleman after
the old English pattern. Bigoted
in his attachment to everything
English, he clung tenaciously to all
the customs and traditions which
his father, in transplanting them to
American soil, had cultivated with

One Hundred Years Ago. 803

an ardor all the more vehement for ations had opened a wide circle of

the difficulty of assimilating them acquaintance in all the cities of

to an order of things so entirely the new world, and his fine social

different from that in which they qualities, combined with the fasci-

had formerly existed. These tra- nations of his gifted daughter

ditional treasures he had bequeath- whose mother had died when she

ed to his children as a sacred was too young to realize the loss

legacy of far more value than the attracted crowds to his hospitable

paltry lands, tenements, and ap- mansion. Great was the surprise

purtenances they would inherit in the fashionable city circle among

from him, and so his son con- whom she moved when she chose

tinned religiously to regard them. from the host of her admirers a plain

Early in life he married a lady country gentleman, of unquestion-
from the neighboring village who able merit, it was true, but of very-
had been reared in the same senti- simple, not to say rustic, manners
ments of devotion to the mother and retiring habits,
country. After a few years of She brought to her secluded
happy domestic life in their retired home all the refined graces and
home, she died, leaving him with a elegant embellishments of her for-
family of five lovely daughters, mer one, and sustained perfectly,
Some years later he married a in the midst of her rural associa-
widow from Philadelphia, whose tions, the quiet dignity that had
only child by her former marriage always distinguished her; while
was the wife of a banker in that she continued to exercise the gene-
city, Mr. von Francke. rous hospitality to which she had

Not far from the dwelling of Mr. been accustomed in her father's

Foote, and still nearer to the vil- house.

lage, was the residence of Mr. Some years previous to the be-

Thorpe, a handsome building con- ginning of the war of indepen-

formed to the fashion of European dence, her father retired from

suburban mansions. He was also active business, left his affairs

an Englishman in his tastes and in the hands of his partner, Mr.

habits, but of a less tenacious cast von Francke, and went to share

than his neighbor, whom he often his daughter's home, now adorned

annoyed by assailing some of his with seven fair sons, so tenderly

cherished whims and humors, beloved by their grandfather that

Nevertheless, they lived on terms he could not bear to be separated

of the most cordial intimacy and from them. New Jersey was then,

friendship. as it is still, a thoroughfare between

Mr. Thorpe married the only the States of tlTfc Atlantic coast,

child of Mr. Earle, a banker in From the first settlement it had

Philadelphia, who was the senior been the most turbulent of the

partner of Mrs. Foote's son-in-law, provinces. Always violently agi-

She was a beautiful and highly ac- tated by territorial and political

complished lady. Endowed with questions, it was prepared to enter

rare ability, discrimination, and with vehemence into the merits of

firmness, no sophistry could mis- those which had arisen between

lead the nice sense of justice which the colonies and the mother coun-

governed all her decisions. Her try. In none of them were the

lather's position and financial oper- exciting topics of the day discussed

804 One Hundred Years Ago.

mere fiercely, pro and con, than in It was my delight the moment

this. school hours were over and the

During the stirring events of the ceremony of dinner despatched

years immediately preceding and for the habits of the stately old

following the memorable ' '76 " the English home, and the late dinners

house of Mr. Thorpe, much to the with their successive courses of

chagrin of his intolerant neighbor, fish, flesh, and fowl, were as rigidly

became the rendezvous of many preserved through all the changes

prominent men, most of them old and chances of founding a home in

friends of his father-in-law, of all the wilderness "as they had been

shades of political opinion, and of under more favorable circumstan-

every religious and non-religious ces to mount the stairs with

party. lf Auntie Francke," now much past

Through the holidays of Christ- eighty, but as sprightly as myself,
mas and New Year's the two fami- and while my companions, the
lies always entertained a multitude daughters of the house, were in-
of friends, and there was a round dulging in a wild game of romps
of festivities between them, in which outside, draw my little arm-chair
the neighboring villagers partici- she had a half-dozen of them pro-
pated. Mr. Foote, who, as might" vided for the small members of
be expected, was a Tory of the the household to her side in the
most malignant type, selected his corner of the cheerful wood fire-
guests from the class who were in place, and listen to her stories of
sympathy with him, and accused other times.

his more moderate neighbor of As I have said, she was then past

treason, because he, his father-in- eighty, but the certainties of a po-

law, and his lovely wife tolerated sition which placed her out of the

persons of different views, and ac- reach of such cares and anxieties

knowledged the force of their ob- as surround ordinary lives, united

jections to British rule. with a serene temperament alive

Fifty years later it was my to all tender sympathies, had pre-

good fortune, among the felicitous served the youth of her heart to

chances of a specially favored atone for the ravages of time and

childhood, to pass the greater por- adorn the decaying shrine with

tion of three years under the roof undying verdure and sweetness,
of a house built after the precise After the lapse of more than fifty

pattern of Mr. Foote's, though of years, how well do I remember the

somewhat smaller dimensions, in a graceful attitudes of the erect form,

little village on the south bank of the carefully-adjusted drapery of

the St. Lawrence. Here his young- her rich, old-time costume, and,

est daughter, Anna, resided, and above all, the loving gleam of her

shared her home with her step- mild black eye as it rested upon me

sister, Mrs. von Francke, from at such times! The maternal in-

Philadelphia, the widow of Mr. stinct of her affectionate heart,

Earle's partner, who occupied a never having found its proper

suite of rooms set apart for her use, object in offspring of her own,

and was always attended by her overflowed towards all the young

waiting-woman, a smiling German within her reach, and her room was

matron somewhat advanced in a perfect museum of winking and

years and very fond of children. crying dolls, strange puzzles, dis-

One Hundred Years Ago. 805

sected pictures, flocks of magnet- woods, and left a trembling, home-
ized ducks and geese, with min- sick little stranger much less as
i at ure ponds wherein to exercise to size, indeed, than in age under
them by aid of a steel pencil of the hospitable roof of these dear
all wonderful toys, in short, which friends of my mother in former
she procured on her annual trips years! On the score of that friend-
to Philadelphia, and was wont to ship I was received there to attend
set as traps to catch the little folk the village school with the daugh-
she so dearly loved. Her waiting- ters of the family, all older than
woman was an apt assistant in pur- myself. Mrs. von Francke's room
suit of such small game ; and it has became at once my solace and de-
often been a wonder to me since light, and even the Tales of the
how, with their precise, methodical Arabian Nights melted into utter
ways and exquisitely tidy, punctil- insipidity before the wondrous
ious habits, they could endure sketches she could give of " the
much less enjoy, the dire confu- times that tried men's souls." For
sion and anarchy which resulted she had entertained daily at her
from these captures. home in Philadelphia, as familiar

For my own part, I was by friends, General Washington, Pu-
nature a quiet, reserved child. Jaski, De Kalb, Rochambeau, La
Though I could join tolerably well Fayette, De Grasse all the foreign
in a wild frolic, I preferred the worthies, in short, together with a
chimney-corner and a story, for host of our own countrymen whose
which I was a most persistent, beg- names will be household words as
gar when there was any chance of long as our nation exists. Her
success. From my earliest child- husband was brought into constant
hood stories relating to history, intercourse with such men by vir-
and especially to the history of our ttie of his occupation, and his in-
own country, enthralled me beyond clination led him to extend to them
all others. This fancy had been most freely the hospitalities of his
fed by constant association in my home.

own home with grandparents who When my companions would
had borne an active part in the break into my chosen hiding-place
scenes of the Revolution. They in search of me, and find me the fas-
entertained many old friends whose cinated listener of their aged rela-
memories were also stored with in- tive, they would warn her to beware
cidents and anecdotes of that pe- what yarns she spun for my amuse-
riod. Thus their interest was kept ment; "for," they said, "she will
alive and their conversation con- surely write them down and keep
stantly directed to the political and the record. If you could see what
social events of those days, which she piits upon her slate in school
opened the mind of their eager that has no relation to the horrors of
young listener, almost prematurely, arithmetic, you would believe she is
to subjects of grave import quite to be of the unhappy number who
beyond what would seem natural take such notes !"
or appropriate for one of tender Whether acting upon the hint or
years. no, I did indeed, when pondeiinu

What a treasure, then, was" Aun- in my own little nest of a room

tie Francke " to me when I was over what I had heard, jot down

taken from my quiet home in the from time to time many scraps in

8o6

One Hundred Years Asro,

the words of my kind old friend,
from portions of which the follow-
ing sketch is gathered.

On the 24th of December, 1775,
a lanre assemblage met at the house

VJ- * '

of Mr. Thorpe. The guests, many
of them former friends and ac-
quaintances of Mr. Earle, were
brought together from different
cities of the Atlantic States, with a
sprinkling of the country friends
of Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe. At the
same time an equally large party
assembled at the residence of my
step-father, Mr. Foote, among them,
of course, my husband and myself.
The object of both was to celebrate
the festivals of Christmas and the
New Year according to old-time
customs. It was arranged that they
should all join in Christmas festivi-
ties at Mr. Foote's, and open the
New Year with Mr. Thorpe.

At that period, when the minds of
the country were fermenting over
questions of vital importance, it was
not to be hoped that such leaders
of the disaffected as were enter-
tained under Mr. Thorpe's friendly
roof with whom it was half-be-
lieved that he and his family were
in perfect accord would mingle
very harmoniously with the guests
selected by Mr. Foote for their
high-toned loyalty to king and
church. I confess to having watch-
ed the social results of intercourse
betweeh such discordant elements
with great trepidation. Thanks,
however, to the crystallizing power
of courtly etiquette, now lamentably
on the decline, the mutual irritation
was suppressed or kept within lim-
its of strict decorum, and the wonted
hilarities of the joyous season were
undisturbed by anything more se-
rious than certain heart-burnings
connected with questions of pre-
cedence on the line of march to the

dining-hall. These questions were
decided according to the political
preferences of the respective hosts,
quite irrespective of rank and sta-
tion. Of course the decision rankled
none the less fiercely on that ac-
count. I noticed, however, that at
the table of Mr. Foote his- nei^h-

bor's guests accepted their alrot-
ments, even when placed " below
the salt " as the most prominent
among them were sure to be with
a graceful nonchalance which, if
assumed, was a height of self-con-
trol unattainable by the haughty
friends of their host.

It was amusing to see how the
' tables were turned ' when it be-
came the part of Mr. Thorpe to
play the host. I was placed near
my step-father, and listened care-
fully to his remarks addressed sotto-
voce, as the different courses were
brought in and removed, to his
particular friend, the former private
secretary of the ex-governor of New
Jersey.

" To think," he exclaimed indis;-

7 O

nantly, " of that young upstart Car-
roll, an acknowledged papist and
open promoter of disaffection and
disloyalty, being invited to take pre-
cedence of such as you in the house
of a friend of mine!"

" I yield the precedence with
pleasure, I assure you," was the re-
ply. " This young Carroll is a man
of no ordinary mark. Of his poli-
tical errors, if errors they must be
called, I can only say it is to be de-
plored that British rule should have
furnished him with the weapons he
wields so powerfully against it. He
is likely to prove a weighty and in-
fluential foe in politics and in his
profession. I have been present in
court when he was unwinding webs
cunningly woven by leaders of the
Maryland bar ; and, analyzing them
thread by thread, he would expose

One Hundred Years Ago.

807

their flimsiness with such convinc-
ing clearness and simplicity that
the most unlettered juryman could
comprehend it as fully as the learn-
ed jurists. He has wonderful com-
mand of language, and, with no
attempt at eloquence, astonishing
power in swaying the judgments
and feelings of his audience."

<; The more shame for him !"
exclaimed Mr. Foote ; " when he
might exert so potent an influence
for king and country, that he should
stoop to pervert his powers, and be-
come the demagogue of. a vile mob,
for purposes of paltry private am-
bition !"

u That could hardly be his ob-
ject. The suggestfons of private
ambition are all in the opposite di-
rection. He has everything to lose
in the probabilities before him, and
but little to gain from the bare pos-
sibility of success in the future for
the cause he has embraced."

' Yes, thank God ! there is
scarcely the bare possibility of
such a result. With the whole
power of Great Britain against them,
the rebels have little to hope for,
and the punishment of this nefa-
rious rebellion will be speedy and
sufe ! Already the first note of
triumph is sounded in the defeat of
their troops before Quebec !"

" Perhaps you are right," his
friend replied ; ' but I have not
been a careless observer of what is
passing, and, if I do not greatly mis-
take the temper of this people, that
disaster will only inspire them with
new energy and determination. I
regard the selection of George
Washington to command their
forces as a far more threatening
'oken for British interests than
this defeat at Quebec is for theirs.
With such a leader, and the great
mass of the people perfectly united
through the length and breadth of

o o

this immense country to sustain
him even admitting that in the old-
est settlements they are sparse, and
those settlements widely scattered,
and that their chief strength for
the struggle lies in the very weak-
ness and insufficiency of their re-
sources I confess 1 have grave
misgivings that the conflict will be
fearful and the victory dearly
bought."

'No doubt they will fight despe-
rately, and will be sure of every pa-
pist in the country to a man ! We
have been altogether too tolerant
with these seditious subjects of the
pope. The rascals have crept in
silently, until the provinces are fill-
ed with them. Scarcely a place of
any size, except Boston, can be
found that has not a popish Mass-
house in full operation. They are
gaining influence rapidly, too, with
the American people. Observe,
for instance, the company invited
by our host. Yonder, next to that
arch-traitor from Boston, John
Hancock, and the plebeian philo-
sopher, Ben. Franklin, sit a number
of printers, five of whom, from as
many different cities, are rank pa-
pists, kindred spirits of the guild,
though not very polished. It is
surprising to notice how many of
the pope's emissaries are printers!
Convenient for disseminating error
and sedition, you know ; make
good fighters, too. Then, on the
opposite side of the table, are those
fiery Irishmen, Fitzsimmons, Barrv>
and Moylan, with a long line of
their fellows rebels and papists
all! Moylan has three brothers, I
am told, of the same stamp. Near
to us are French and Germans, of
whom I know nothing but that they
too belong to the pope, so it is fair
to suppose they favor the rebellion.
Then there is the Maryland delega-
tion, led by Carroll a pretty strong

8o8

One Hundred Years Ago.

showine for his Holiness at the

New Year's banquet of a private
Protestant gentleman ! It is too
late to remedy the evil now, but it
ought to have been taken in hand
longaso. If it had been dealt

O O

with effectually in the beginning,
1 greatly doubt whether the colo-
nies would now be in the condition
we deplore."

" It is not easy to deal with it ef-
fectually. The province of Mas-
sachusetts Bay was very vigilant
and severe from the start to keep
them out, or to exterminate them
when they crept in, but they are
there now in considerable force."

" Yes, indeed ; for I have been
credibly informed that they not
only lent their aid in that villanous
tea-riot, but that the Puritan ranks
at Lexington and Bunker Hill were
largely increased by the pestilent
dogs, who fought like tigers, and
could not be made to understand
when they were soundly whipped !
Well, well ! we shall see what is to
come. It looks dark enough now,
and, if matters are to go on as
they threaten, I shall accept the
invitation of the home government
to loyal subjects, and remove my
family to Nova Scotia."

Here he struck the key-note of
the strain that thrilled my heart
with apprehension. I fell into a
painful reverie, which so absorbed
me that I heard no more. I knew
well that secret agents had been
through the country describing
large and desirable tracts of land
in Canada and Nova Scotia, to be
given to all who would withdraw
from the sections in revolt ; and
proclamations to that effect had
also been recently published.

Should he fulfil his threat, my
beloved mother would be removed
to a great distance from me, and
the difficulties of travelling in

times of such disturbance were so
great that it must be long before 1
could see her again, if ever. Then
I grieved to think of a separation
from my dear Anna, the youngest
and loveliest of the five sisters,
many years my junior, and my spe-
cial darling. I had been permitted
to take her home with me after the
holidays every year, and keep her
through the remainder of the win-
ter. Now I was no longer to en-
joy that privilege. Besides all this,
I knew that a strong attachment
existed between her and Charles
Thorpe, which had been forming
from their childhood with the full
approbation of their parents.
What troubles might now be in
store for them also !

Indeed, as I meditated upon the
public, social, and domestic aspect
of affairs, I could see nothing
cheering or encouraging. Here
was this little rural village, whose
inhabitants were entirely divided
among themselves a type of the
national condition : fathers against
sons, wives opposed to their hus-
bands, sons and daughters-in-law
against their fathers-in-law. It
seemed to form a present and dis-
mal realization of the description
given by our Lord.

The minds of old and young,
and of all classes in society, were
so pervaded with a sense of im-
pending evil as to cast a dark
shadow over the festive season, and
cause its gay assemblies to take
the character of political meetings,
where matters of fearful import
were discussed with bated breath.

It was well known tuat Mr.
Thorpe, his father-in-law, and their
distinguished guests, with other
leaders of the disaffected who were
constantly arriving and departing,
held conclaves every night Unit
extended far into the " wee sum'

One Hundred Years Ago.

809

hours," many of which my husband
was summoned to attend, to the in-
tense displeasure of my irascible
step-father, who denounced them
all as a pack of infamous traitors,
for whose treasonable practices
hanging was the only proper rem-
edy. Upon the whole, rankling
irritation on the one part, and
gloomy forebodings on the other,
took the place of the cheerfulness
proper to the season; and when the
parties at the two houses dispersed
to go their several ways, the leave-
taking was a sad one for all.

Another year passed, and the
Christmas of 1776 arrived. What
changes those few months had
wrought ! Mr. Thorpe and his
three oldest sons, John, Nathan,
and Charles, had joined the Con-
tinental army early in the year.
The father commanded the regi-
ment of militia in which his sons
served as privates. In one of the
first engagements John was killed.
Soon after Mr. Thorpe himself
was brought home wounded and
dying. He survived long enough
to bequeath the cause to his wife
and her father, and to receive the
assurance that their lives and
those of his surviving sons, with
all their earthly possessions, should
be devoted to its interests.

Mr. Foote had fulfilled his threat,
and removed his family to Nova
Scotia about the time when his life-
long friend joined the " rebel " army.
I had a brief and mournful interview
with my mother before they left,
and a stormy parting with my surly
step-father, who was too much
incensed against my husband and
myself, for embracing the cause he
so cordially hated, to be even coolly
civil. His indignation was increased
by the suspicion that we had in-
fluenced my mother's sympathies in
the same direction, though she very

carefully abstained from manifest-
ing any such tendency out of re-
spect for his honest though mis-
guided prejudices.

With him went a multitude of
Church-of-England folk who Avere
greatly regretted in that neighbor-
hood ; for they very generally acted
from a sincere conviction of duty,
and did not meddle unpleasantly
with the opinions and decisions of
their neighbors. A still greater
number of Methodists went from
New Jersey and Maryland to Cana-
da and Nova Scotia, and their de-
parture Avas the occasion for uni-
versal rejoicing to the friends of
the country. The only regret was
that they left a sufficient faction of
their brethren to act as spies and
informers in every village and
neighborhood, and to bring all who
differed from them in politics into
serious trouble. We used to think
we defined their position and char-
acter when we said, "They are all
hand and glove with the Hessians .' '

[rhe Declaration of Indepen-
dence on the 4th of July in that
year had placed the day high in
the calendar of those which mark
the most glorious epochs in the
world's history. Meantime, dis-
couragements .had accumulated
along the track of our army, until
they culminated in that dreary
autumnal retreat through New
Jersey before the British forces
which dispersed the hopes of our
people as the winds scatter the
leaves of the season. A little later
the British took possession of
Rhode Island. In the despair
which followed these disastrous
events society became utterly dis-
organized ; and when Lord Howe
and his brother-commanders of the
British land and marine forces is-
sued proclamations offering full
indemnity and protection to all

8io

One Hundred Years Ago.

who would "return to their alle-
giance," multitudes, among whom
were maisy who had been account-
ed our most steadfast friends, ac-
cepted the offer from alarm, even
while their sympathies and best
wishes were with the cause they
thus abandoned. Not one Catho-
lic was of their number; they had
no faith in British promises.

Great was the revulsion when
our troops rallied to such glorious
purpose at Trenton and Princeton !
Those who had fallen away in the
hour of adversity, and found to
their sorrow how utterly worthless
were Lord Howe's paper " protec-
tions " to shield them from the vile
outrages of the plundering Hessians,
now returned in crowds, offering
themselves and all they possessed
to General Washington to further
his efforts. His headquarters were
made that winter in a town near
the little village where Mrs. Thorpe
resided. Mr. von Francke visited
him frequently at his quarters dur-
ing the winter as the financial
agent of many friends of the cause
in New England and the Southern
States. I improved those occasions
to accompany him and visit my
dear friend, Mrs. Thorpe.

She was exerting all her energies,
time, and money to prepare cloth-
ing for the soldiers and necessary
supplies for the army. The buzz
of spinning-wheels and the clack
of domestic looms were heard in
her house from day-dawn until
late at night. That house was a
workshop of tailors and shoemakers,
and her agents ransacked the coun-
try for leather wherewith to make
shoes. Every friend who visited
her was pressed into the service,
and during each precious moment
the busy needles were plied and
the knitting-needles clicked while
we were visiting and chatting of

the past, the present, and the pros-
pects of the future. Most religious-
ly did she thus fulfil the promise
made to her dying husband, and
seemed to find solace for her great
sorrow in occupying herself con-
stantly to aid the struggle for which
her beloved ones had given their
lives.

My heart ached for poor Charles,
dejected and lonely in his separa-
tion from Anna, and grieving over
the stern refusal of her father to
permit any intercourse between
them unless he would abandon the
rebels and join the standard of
King George. To add to his dis-
tress, he had heard, through a
friend of Anna, that her father had
determined she should accept the
suit of an influential officer of the
government in Nova Scotia, a
very dissolute man, who was cap-
tivated by her beauty upon their
first meeting at a dance in the
house of the governor. Charles
knew so well her father's despotic
rule over his family that he feared
she might be compelled to comply
with his commands.

Deeply as I sympathized with
the young people, I could not afford
them the aid they entreated for
communicating with each other
through my letters to my mother.
The principles of my religion for
bade that I should do any act to
encourage disobedience to a father.
Yet I could not regret that the
kindness of General Washington
made amends for my. refusal, by.
furnishing better facilities for their
purpose than I could have fur-
nished.

The three following years passed
on, marked by fluctuating fortunes
and many hardships for our devoted
troops and their dauntless leader.
The surrender of Burgoyne in the
autumn of '77, and the alliance with

One Hundred Years Ago.

811

France which followed, had awaken-
ed bright hopes of a speedy and
successful termination of the con-
flict, but crushing reverses and bit-
ter disappointments soon came.

The state of the currency baffled
the strongest efforts and exhausted
the resources of wise and able finan-
ciers. My husband, who was ac-
counted extremely clever in affairs
connected with the exchequer, was
often driven to his wits' end to pro-
vide for fearful contingencies, and
then to confess his utter inability to
meet further demands.

Mr. Earle placed his large fortune
at the disposal of his country, and
died soon after. His daughter gave
better treasures when, with Spartan
firmness, she yielded all her noble
sons, one after another, for its de-
fence.

In the terribly hard winter of

1779-80 General Washington ^igain
established his headquarters in New
Jersey, in Mrs. Thorpe's immediate
neighborhood, and I went frequent-
ly to visit her when it was necessary
for Mr. von Francke to go on finan-
cial missions to that place. Upon
one of these occasions, early in the
spring, what was my surprise to be
greeted on the threshold by my be-
loved Anna, and to find that she was
the happy bride of my despond-
ing young friend of yore, Charles
Thorpe, now a dashing lieutenant
and prime favorite with the com-
mander-in-chief. Their happiness
was not unclouded, however; for
they had been married without her
father's knowledge or consent. He
had made every arrangement for
her immediate marriage with the
man whom he had chosen and whom
she despised, and sent her to Boston
to procure her trousseau. Very
opportunely, General Washington
made a journey to Boston about
that time, with Charles in company

as one of his aides. The Avedding
took place at the house of the friend
with whom she was stopping. Many
of Mr. Earle's distinguished friends
were present, and General Wash-
ington gave away the bride.

Her father was so enraged when
he heard of it that he forbade her
to enter his house again, or to ex-
pect that he would ever own her as
his daughter.

When Mrs. von Francke reached
this point in her story, she gave a
bunch of keys and spoke some words
in German to her waiting-woman,
who soon brought forth from some
hidden recess a small mother-of-
pearl casket, with silver binding
and clasps, of exquisite workman-
ship, and a package neatly folded
and enclosed in an embroidered
white linen case. The casket was
first opened, and displayed a superb .
set of pearl jewelry, consisting of
various ornaments for the coif-
fure, ear-rings, necklace, bracelets,
brooch, waist-clasp, and buckles for
the slippers. It was presented to
Anna by Mr. von Francke when she
departed for Nova Scotia. From
the other package, after undoing
many fastenings, designed to shield
its contents from any possible con-
tact with the air and dust, she drew
a magnificent white satin dress, made
in the old-time fashion, with an im-
mensely wide skirt for the crino-
line of those days attained an am-
plitude far beyond the most extra-
vagant expansion achieved a few
years since by the leaders of ton
and a very long train. Around the
lower part of the skirt a heavy pat-
tern in leaves and flowers was em-
broidered with pure silver spangles
and bugles * drawn on with silver
thread; a tiny pair of white satin

"* Elongated beads.

812

One Hundred Years Ago.

shoes which would rival in size
the celebrated glass slippers of the
fairy tale, embroidered with ma-
terial and pattern to match the
dress, with the toes pointed, and the
points turned back until they nearly
reached the pearl buckle on the in-
step ; a splendid white thread-lace
over-dress, much in the mode of the
modern polonaise ; a very long veil
of the same material, attached by
the inevitable orange-flowers these
completed the suit, and, with the
pearls, formed the bridal costume
fifty years before of Anna Foote,
now Mrs. Charles Thorpe.

After showing me two miniatures,
painted on ivory in the most
finished and delicate style, and
mounted in elegant gold lockets
the one of Anna in her bridal dress,
and the other of Charles in the full
military costume of that day the
articles were all carefully returned
to their receptacle and Mrs. von
Francke resumed her narrative.

During the long visit I paid Mrs.
Thorpe at that time the spring of
1780 the village where the army
was quartered, and the town near
by, were the scenes of many parties,
balls, and entertainments of every
kind.

The French minister, M. Lu-
zerne, successor of the first minis-
ter from France, M. Gerard, came
to pass some weeks at the head-
quarters of the commander-in-chief.
He was accompanied by many dis-
tinguished foreigners. Among them
was Don Juan de Miralles, resident
at Philadelphia, from the Spanish
court. He had visited us frequent-
ly in that city with Count Pulaski
and MM. Gerard and Luzerne.
He was a most affable and accom-
plished gentleman and an exem-
plary Christian.

Upon their arrival the gay fes-

tivities were kept up with renewed
zeal and brilliancy. But while in
full activity they were brought to a
sad and sudden close by the death
of this gentleman after an ill-
ness of only two days. Mr. von
Francke brought a Spanish priest
to attend his last hours and conduct
the funeral solemnities, which were
celebrated in the most imposing
and impressive manner. General
Washington and his staff, all the
foreign officers and ministers in full
costume, walked as chief mourners.
Many members of Congress came
to pay this last tribute of respect
to one who had, by his shining
virtues and gentle manners, en-
deared himself to all who knew
h i m .

When Charleston, S. C-, was
taken by the British in May,
1780, Nathan Thorpe was severely
wounded. He was carried to the
house of a German Catholic in that
city to whom Mr. von Francke
had given him letters of introduc-
tion. There he lingered between
life and death, as it were, for many
weeks. He was faithfully attended
night and day by a disabled Irish
Catholic soldier, who brought an
Irish priest to instruct him and
administer the last consoling rites

of the church to him in his extrem-
ity. His youth and a robust con-
stitution prevailed, however, and
he recovered. During this interval
an attachment had been formed
between him and a lovely daughter
of his kind host, to whom he was
married the ensuing autumn. As
his health was not sufficiently rein-
stated to permit his return to the
army, he entered upon the practice
of his profession as a lawyer in
Charleston, and finally achieved
brilliant success and a large for-
tune therein.

In June of that year Knyphausen,

One Hundred Years Ago. * 813

with his Hessians, made a destruc- When even General Gates fled
live raid through New Jersey, spar- from the field, the Catholic, sol-
ing neither friend nor foe; not diers advanced steadily and firmly
even their Methodist cronies and to fight or die with the glorious De-
instigators escaped rough treatment Kalb, who, when he saw others
and severe losses, for which they flying, drew his sword, and, shout-
received but slight commiseration ing to his dauntless soldiers of the
from their fellow-sufferers, whose Maryland and Pennsylvania lines,
interests they had done all they * Stand firm, my boys, for I am too
could to injure and betray. Mrs. old to fly !" fell soon after, covered
Thorpe's property was seriously with wounds. The whole nation
damaged and many valuable ani- was in mourning when the news of
mals slaughtered by the merciless his death was received. Demon-
ruffians. strations of sorrow were made in
In July of the same year the every city, and requiem Masses of-
French fleet under Count de fered in the Catholic churches for
(irasse arrived, and was welcomed the repose of his soul. Congress
with great joy by the whole coun- voted that the country should rear
try. The French troops com- a fitting monument to his memory,
manded by Count Rochambeau It is still cherished by every true
were transported on these vessels. American heart, and will be as long
Soon after their arrival we became as our people are faithful to them-
acquainted with that illustrious selves and to their country. He
commander. I saw him for the was one of Mr. von Francke's
first time at the celebration of Mass dearest friends for many years, and
in our humble chapel. He was ac- we mourned for him as for a
companied by Marquis La Fayette brother.

and Count de Grasse. After Mass Through the remainder of that

Mr. von Francke, who had been in year, and during the spring and

correspondence with them before, summer of 1781, discouragements

introduced me to them, and invited in every form, and disasters that

them to dine with us in our home, would have utterly dismayed a

which invitation they accepted, and less determined people, surrounded

from that time they never failed to our hapless country. The baseless

visit us when they were in Philadel- currency became so depreciated as

phia. to be almost worthless. The ini-

In August the Continental forces, quity of speculators, and the flood

under General Gates, fought the of counterfeits poured upon the

bloody battle of Camden, S. C., colonies by Lord Howe, greatly

and were defeated chiefly through increased difficulties sufficient in

the shameful failure of the militia themselves to overwhelm the na-

lo do their duty. The Maryland tion. Yet the courage and resolu-

regiments, however many of whom tion of the people never faltered,

were Catholics under their brave and were fully responded to and

Catholic commander. Baron de sustained by the firmness of their

Kalb, fought with unyielding firm- representatives in the legislative

ness and desperation, atoning as far assemblies of the different States

as possible for the poltroonery of and in Congress,

their Protestant comrades of Vir- The heavy clouds began to

ginia and North Carolina break and our national prospects

One Hundred Years Ago.

to brighten in the early autumn of
1781. We had so often seen our
fairest hopes suddenly blighted
that we hardly dared to accept such
promising tokens as seemed to be
given from time to time only to
save us from utter despair. Now,
however, we were destined to wit-
ness a consummation, sudden, un-
looked-for, and beyond the wildest
expectations of the most sanguine,
in the entire defeat and surrender of
the British troops under Cornwallis,
on the 1 9th of October in that year
an event which virtually closed the
war and secured our independence.

Intelligence of this astounding
event was conveyed through the
whole country, with the speed of
the wind, by special couriers de-
spatched in every direction. It
was said that the fine horses of
Methodist Tories which had been
spared by the British troops when
they captured all that were of any
value belonging to our people per-
formed splendid exploits of speed
in disseminating the glorious news,
to the unutterable indignation of
their crestfallen owners !

Our nation, so long accustomed
to desolating evils, now burst forth
into frantic demonstrations of joy.
Bonfires blazed on every hill. Pub-
lic parades, and processions with
banners, crowded the streets of
every town. Illuminations and fire-
works turned the darkness of night
into noonday splendor. The rural
populations, old and young, flocked
to the villages and cities to join in
the universal expressions of jubilant
patriotism. Services of thanksgiv-
ing were held by Protestants. High
Masses were offered in Catholic
churches, and the Te Deum was
chanted there by Catholics march-
ing in procession under the floating
colors of the triumphant " Stars and
Stripes."

The members of Congress, of the
Supreme Executive Council, and
the Assembly of Pennsylvania, by-
special invitation of the French
minister, attended in our church in
Philadelphia during the celebration
of divine service and thanksgiving
for the capture of Lord Cornwallis.
Our French pastor, Abbe Baudole,
delivered an eloquent address upon
the occasion.

New Jersey was more noisy than
all the other States in her public
manifestations of triumph. Nor
was it unfit that she should be,
since none had suffered so much in
furnishing a common battle-ground
and thoroughfare for the conflict-
ing forces. Neither was it strange
that she showed little toleration for
the Tories at whose hands she had
received persecutions, injuries, and
insults of untold numbers and
magnitude. Here, as elsewhere,
the Catholi* voice, the first that
was raised in support of the con-
flict for independence, was also the
first to plead, through both clergy
and laity, for toleration and le-
niency toward these relentless foes
of our country in her darkest
hours.

Early in November we entertain-
ed a large and joyful party at our
house. At our request General
Washington and his lady presided
at the reception of the guests. All
the French and German officers with
their attendants, the foreign min-
isters, and many of our own distin-
guished countrymen, military and
civic, were present. Charles and
Anna Thorpe were of my household
at that time.

A succession of splendid private
entertainments and public ban-
quets was given in Philadelphia.

The joyful excitement was kept
up by the nation through the fol-
lowing winter, and Mr. voii

One Hundred Years Ago. 815

Francke was absent frequently as in such a region. With these trials,

the invited guest at public festivals wholly new to us, we have also re-

which would not excuse him from ceived and enjoyed many blessings,

attendance, although his health was She is surrounded by a blooming

rapidly declining. group of sons and daughters, and

In May, 1782, my rejoicing was blessed with smiling, prattling grand-
quenched for ever by the painful children. We have seen a line vil-
event which left me a widow. The lage grow up around us, and our
long-sustained strain and mental country has been crowned with un-
anxiety to which my husband was exampled prosperity,
subjected during all those years The one sole cloud over Anna's
of national embarrassment had so happiness has been the stern refu-
worn upon his frame that, when sal of my obstinate step-father, who
final success was assured and the still lives at a very advanced age,
strain no longer required, he sank to forgive the daughter he so cru-
into a decline, for the arrest of elly banished from his heart and
which all remedies proved unavail- home. I have often thought that,
ing, and survived only a few weeks, if the colonies had been subdued,
No hero that gave his life on any he would have welcomed her back
of those bloody battle-fields was, long ago. She has written many
more truly than he, a martyr for his letters to him, but they are always
country. returned unopened. My own dear

Mrs. Thorpe, Charles, and Anna mother died the year following An-

were with me during the distressing na's marriage. I saw her but once

scene and until I had consigned after her removal to Nova Scotia,

my beloved to his final resting- The separation from her was one

place. He had for so many years of the greatest trials of my life.

belonged to the public that it claim- F"ew indeed who have lived so long

ed the right to conduct the cere- have suffered less from severe affiic-

monial, outside of the church ; and tions than I, and my heart swells with

it was celebrated with most impres- gratitude daily when I recall the

sive solemnity, both as a religious varied blessings which the benefi-

and civic rite. cent hand of Providence has poure<V

F'rom that time Philadelphia be- upon my lengthened pilgrimage,
came intolerable to me. I closed

my house and accompanied my kind Some years later, when Mrs. von

and gentle friend to the home in Francke was past ninety, I was on

New Jersey which was always open a visit to the dear friends of whom

to the afflicted. Here I remained I have discoursed in this rambling

until Charles removed to St. Law- sketch, when they received a mes-

rence County, N. Y. then a dense sage from Nova Scotia that the

wilderness with his family. He aged Mr. Foote was dying, and

had received a grant of lands from could not leave the world in peace

the government, which he exchang- until he had seen and been recon-

ed for an extensive territory in that ciledwith his long-banished daugh-

vicinity. ter. He requested that Charles

To that wilderness I came with should go with her.

my dear Anna to share the hard- There was bustling and packing

ships and privations inseparable in great haste. In a few hours af-

from the attempt to found a home ter the message arrived they were

8i6

Consuclo.

on board a steamer, bound for Que-
bec, en route for Nova Scotia. Mr.
Foote lived some weeks after their
arrival, and would not allow them
to leave him for an hour. They
remained until after the funeral.

Mrs.~~von Francke survived her
step-father but a few months. All
the elder members of the family
have long since passed away.

It is many years sin-ce I have seen
the lovely home of my childhood,
or that other one, on the bank of
the dear old St. Lawrence, where 1
passed so large a portion of child-
hood's happy hours ; but the memo-
ries connected with both, and with
the dear friends who made those
hours so happy, will never pass
away.

CONSUELO.

WHEN, from the countless stars

That gem the azure vault above,

One flames and dies

Across our skies,

We mourn so bright a light

Is lost to sight ;

And then one brighter comes in view.

In trackless wastes

,Our stars point true,

And, dying,

Ever thus renew.

When, from the countless homes

That deck this earth of ours,

One altar fire

Flames but to expire,

We mourn a loved hearth

So lost to earth ;

And then we build a new.

Wandering the world,

Our hearth-fires woo,

And, dying,

Ever thus renew.

Sir Thomas More.

SIR THOMAS MORE.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE IRE.\CH OK THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

XI II.

IN the meantime Sir Thomas
More had returned to his home at
Chelsea. He felt at first a slight
degree of uneasiness on account of
the indiscretions of the Holy Maid
of Kent, the evident malice with
which Cromwell had drawn them
out, and the eag-erness with which
he had interpreted them.

15 ut as he was accustomed to re-
sign into the hands of God the en-
tire care of his future, and as there
appeared to be nothing with which
he could reproach himself in the
short and accidental relations he
had had with that woman, he soon
recovered his former tranquillity,
and thought no more but of how he
might be able to render some new
service to the queen. He knew
she had set out for Leicester Ab-
bey, and he had already found
means of writing to the abbot,
whom he remembered having re-
ceived at the chancelry on some
particular business concerning the
rights of the abbey, and the father
abbot had appeared, as well as he
could remember, to be an honest
and intelligent man.

Feeling satisfied that the queen
had, ere that time, received his
communications, he had gone to-
wards evening to take a walk with
his children in the country.

They were all seated on the green

slope at Chelsea. The Thames

(lowed at their feet ; the freshness

of the verdure, the perfumed breeze

VOL. xxin. 52

that arose from the meadow, the
balmy sweetness of the air, all unit-
ed to render the moment a deli-
cious one.

" See, dear father," said Marga-
ret, who was sitting at his feet (she
always kept as near him as possible),
" see how beautiful the river is !
How it comes with its silver waves
to kiss the rich and verdant mea-
dow which extends so far before us !
Look at those flocks of sheep, fol-
lowing the shepherds to the fold ;
how docile they are and obedient
to their voices ! And those dogs,.
how active and intelligent ! Oh !:
how I love the evening, when the
horizon yet burns with the red glow
of the sun as he descends to light
up other skies." And Margaret
paused to admire in silence the pure
and inspiring beauties of nature by
which she was surrounded, while
her eyes sought those of her father,
as if to interrogate him.

More smiled as he regarded her.

"Well, my dear daughter," he
said, " why not speak thy whole
thought?"

For he loved to listen to the
cible sentiments she sometimes
pressed, so characteristic of
melancholy and enthusiastic
perament.

"Why ask that, father ?" she
plied; "for my thought is sad sad
as all things that end. The day
has gone, never more to return !
It is like a precious pearl that

for-
ex-
her

re-

8i8

Sir Tliouias More.

has been unstrung from a necklace
where all are carefully numbered."
" Thou art right, my daughter,
and may be the happiness I have
enjoyed this day in the midst of
you will never more return !"

"What sayest thou, my father?"
-cried Margaret, alarmed. " Nay,
wouldst thou leave us, then, and
couldst thou live without thy chil-
dren ?"

" No, my child, no ; but observe
you not how the days of man are
like the swift shuttle that flies to
and fro in the hands of the weaver,
and which he uses to trace, one af-
ter another, divers designs?"

" This one pleases me much,"
said Margaret, smiling, " and I
would like it to stop here."

As she said this, she extended
her hand toward Roper, who
brought her a large bouquet of dai-
sies * he had gathered for her in
the fields.

" Here is my name written on my
forehead by the hand of Roper,"
she continued ; and she placed tire
pretty white flowers amid the dark
tresses of her lovely hair.

The father admired his beautiful
young daughter, in whom, indeed,
youth and beauty were united in all
their brilliancy. Her small hands
rested one upon the other ; her
white robe hung in graceful folds
around, denning her perfectly-
moulded form; her eyes, calm and
serene in expression, yet shone
with a thousand fires; one could
read in their depths the strength
and vigor of this young soul just
entering upon life. Those features
so calm and lovely, that union of
ch.irms and perfections, brought
joy and happiness to the depths of
the devoted father's soul. He gazed
at her in silence.

* Margarita, Anglic* Margaret, is the Latin
word for daisy. TRANSL.

"A ray of eternal beauty lights
up this beautiful countenance," IT?
said to himself. " This flower is
born of my blood ; it is being of my
being, soul of my soul. Oh ! bless-
ed, blessed for ever be this child
whom the Lord hath given to me !
Margaret, my daughter," he s,.iict
after a moment's silence, " tell me,
I pray you, what is beauty ?"

"Beauty?" replied Margaret,
smiling at the unexpected question;
and she raised towards him her
eyes, whose lovely expression antici-
pated her answer. ..." Well,
beauty is an undelinable
thing," she continued. " We recog-
nize it in everything. Our souls
are made to see -it, to admire and
love it ; but I cannot, I believe, de-
fine it. It is there, and immedi-
ately we are enraptured with it. It
is a ray of the glory of God ; it is
his power which flashes before our
eyes, and our hearts are at once
transported. The beautiful animal,
full of life, strength, and agility,
whose light and rapid steps. seem
scarcely to bend the delicate her-
bage of the field, his glossy coat
permitting you to count his veins
and admire the graceful and elegant
proportions of his form ; the plants
rich with flowers and weighty with
fruits ; the birds with variegated
plumage and tints of a thousand
colors ; the pure, azure skies of
summer, the stars of night such is
beauty, my father : I feel it, but I
cannot describe it to you other-
wise."

" Then, my dear child, what think
you of the Being who has drawn all
these things out of nothing, and
who, by his powerful word, has giv-
en them everything, and preserves
and watches over them all ?"

" That he is," replied Margaret
earnestly, "the source and the veri-
table plenitude of all beauty ; and

Sir Thomas More.

819

that if we could see him either with
the eyes of the body or those of the
soul, we should be perfectly happy,
since he must be, and is necessari-
ly, the sovereign perfection of all
that delights in this world. And if
you speak to me of eloquence, that
moral beauty of soul which sub-
dues and carries everything before
it, I find in it but a new expression
of that Sovereign Intelligence who
has placed in our hearts the faculty
of feeling and loving beauty, the
strength and elevation of thought,
which an Intelligence superior to
our own is charged by it to com-
municate to us."

" Then, my dear child, what
think you of the unbeliever?"

" What do I think of him ?" said
Margaret, intently regarding Sir
Thomas. " I will tell you : I do not
think he exists."

" How say you ! that he exists
not ?"

'* No, he does not exist, because
he cannot. God has created us
free, but that freedom has bounds.
We cannot uncreate or make our-
selves cease to be, and in the same
way we cannot destroy our reason
beyond a certain point ; we may
deny the truth with our lips, but
we cannot prevent our hearts from
believing it; we may arrange, assert,
relate, or invent a falsehood, but we
cannot convince ourselves that it is
true. The sad science of the athe-
ist compels him to remove God as
far as possible from himself; to call
him by a name formed of several
strange syllables which do not rep-
resent him under any form to his
mind ; then when he has come to
drive him beyond the bounds of
his narrow intelligence, he denies
his Creator with that tongue, with
that life, and in the name of that
reason which he received from him.
Such a man must be a liar, although

lie would not be willing to walk
proudly in the public ways with
the tablet of liar attached to his
shoulders."

More smiled at the strong com-
parison of Margaret ; and as he-
derived an extreme pleasure from
these philosophical conversations,
he continued thus :

' You believe, then, there are no
atheists ?"

"No," replied Margaret, " there
is not one in good faith, because
the most ordinary reason is enough
to prevent all doubt that the admi-
rable chain of all being, over whom
man is established master and king,
has not been created by itself, and
that it is the work of a Sovereign In-
telligence who has foreseen and es-
tablished all things by a science of
prevision and of power far beyond
all that we are able to see, all
that we can feel, and all that we
possess."

" Nevertheless, Margaret, they
will tell you that there is a force, a
blind power, who has created all
that."

; Then," replied Margaret ironi-
cally, " I will ask them what they
understand by a ' blind power ' ; for
power means, it seems to me, that
which can j but that which is blind
can do, can will naught. Those,
then, who by a happy chance
see, wish, and know something, I
would ask to add to the stature
of a man "the height of one cu-
bit ; to organize a head that un-
derstands how to solve mathe-
matical problems, to compose mu-
sic, poetry, to learn, remember, and
speak. What think you, my father :
would it not be very convenient to
have in your cabinet some of those
thinking heads, arranged on a shelf,
as are pitchers and pipkins ? Mis-
erable creatures !" she continued,
indignantly, " how they degrade

820

Sir Thomas More.

and dishonor mankind ! And how
do they dispose of their consciences ?
Why have they a conscience which
commands them to do right and
reproaches them for doing wrong,
if it is not that man, born immor-
tal, must one day render an account
of all his deeds, and receive from
God either a reward or punish-
ment ? No, it is not in weakness
of the intellect that we must search
for the origin of atheism, but in the
corruption of the heart. If, then,
the atheist denies God, he thereby
testifies to his justice and power,
even as the faithful bear witness to
his goodness and mercy in acknow-
ledging and honoring him. The one
fears him because of the crimes he
has committed ; the other hopes in
him because of the virtues he prac-
tises : behold the sole and only dif-
ference between the two men."

" Well, my dear daughter," re-
plied More ; " but the greater
number of men who call them-
selves atheists follow only their
own reasoning, as do you this mo-
ment, being almost always most
profoundly ignorant of themselves
and of their own nature, and en-
tirely indifferent about the means
of being instructed. Occupied sole-
ly with the present life, they attach
themselves to mere sensual enjoy-
ments, and, feeling that it would be
necessary to abandon these in order
to deliver their souls from the yoke
of matter, they prefer thus to vege-
tate in forgetfulness of themselves
and of all their duties."

' Then, my father, you see that
you agree with me on the point
from whence I started out, which
was that there are really no athe-
ists, that the word is false, that it is
taken in a false acceptation, and
that it can only be properly defined
m this way : * One who in his awn
heart is a liar' "

While Margaret was conversing
thus with her father, and the rest
of the family were enjoying the re-
pose of innocence and freedom, a
man silently turned around the foot
of the hill and followed slowly the
path leading through the meadow.
His face was darkly clouded with
care ; envy and malice were hidden
in the depths of his heart. He re-
flected within himself in what man-
ner he should approach the host
whom he came to visit, and whom
he perceived sitting on top of the
hill. Thus in an immortal poem
we find the fallen angel thrice
making the circuit of the ter-
restrial paradise, seeking where he
should enter in order to attack the
man favored of God.

4 Father, here is some one com-
ing!" cried the youngest of More's
daughters.

And she ran, followed by the
house dog, with which she had
been very busy fixing on its neck
a collar of leaves.

" It is a gentleman dressed all in
black, who has a beautiful chain
hanging round his neck."

As she finished speaking Crom-
well appeared.

" Ah ! it is you, Master Crom-
well," said More, rising graciously.
" Let me welcome you among us.
How fares it with you ?"

For the more Sir Thomas thought
he had to complain of any one, the
more he exerted himself by his
kind and polite manner to assure
him that he felt no bitterness in his
heart ; this was the cause of the
cordial reception he gave Crom-
well, whom he would otherwise
have avoided.

"Well, I thank you," replied
Cromwell, casting, as was his cus-
tom, a furtive glance on all around
him.

He at once encountered the eyes

Sir Tiiomas More. 821

of Margaret, which were fixed upon Privy Council of the decision he
him with an expression of anger and lias taken of having the new queen
scorn ; for she could not endure him, publicly acknowledged. The corn-
having learned from the Bishop of munication should be made to-day
Rochester how he had conducted in Parliament, and they will proceed
himself in the hall of convocation, immediately after to receive the
with what impudence he had sat oaths of all the members touching
himself in the midst of the assem- the succession to the throne, the
bly, and the manoeuvres he had supremacy of the king, and the
used to extort from the bishops an separation from the Church of
oath which must be followed by Rome."
such fatal consequences. " Cromwell, can it be ?" said Sir

He laughed to himself at the Thomas More, struck with conster-

young girl's displeasure, and made nation. " How rapidly all this has

her a profound salutation. But she been brought about ! And the

did not return it ; and passing from queen, where is she?"

the other side, she went and seated ' Which one?" replied Cromwell,

herself near her stepmother, Avho already affecting the tone of the

was knitting the leg of a stocking court.

the only employment in which she ; ' Queen Catherine !" added More

was passably skilled. with a profound sigh.

Cromwell remarked this move- " Ah ! I understand. More ob-

ment ; and if he was indifferent to stinate than ever," replied Crom-

it, he at least drew from it an infer- well in a tone of badinage. " She

ence as to the feeling of the family has retired to Easthampstead. We

with regard to present affairs. are occupied with her case now in

" Sir Thomas," he said in a tone council ; she will be summoned to

tinged with raillery, " I come, on Dunstable, where an ecclesiastical

the part of the king, to announce commission will cut short all of her

great news to you; it depends on demands. Oh! all is over so far as

yourself whether you find it good she is concerned."

or bad. The king, our most gra- More felt pierced to the heart,

cious sovereign, is married, and he and each new expression of Crom-

has espoused my lady Anne Boleyn." well wounded him afresh. He

"The king married!" said Sir could not doubt but this cruel man
Thomas. " The king married !" he had been sent to take an exact ac-
repeated. But he felt that Crom- count of his slightest gesture and
well, who was aware of his great most insignificant word ; he there-
attachment to the queen, had only fore vainly endeavored to restrain
come to enjoy his discomfiture, or his feelings, but sorrow and the
to watch him with some malicious honest frankness of his nature
design. He at once put himself on carried him beyond the limits of
his guard, but turned visibly pale. prudence.

" He is married," continued '' Master Cromwell," he said with
Cromwell. "The clergy laughed dignity, " I know not why the king
at him; but, by my troth, he has has sent you to me; but I think
in his turn .laughed at them ! It you know me so well that it would
was necessary that all this should be useless for me, standing face to
come to an end. Yesterday his face with you, to disguise my sen-
majesty advised the lords of his timents ; 1 therefore candidly ac-

822

Sir Thomas More.

knowledge that what you have told
me penetrates me with a mortal
sorrow. My heart is deeply attach-
ed to Queen Catherine, but I am,
by my duty, still more devoted to
the king. It is with the deepest
grief that I see those who surround
him, far from telling him the truth,
think only of flattering him, that
they may obtain new favors from
his hands. And you, who are his
adviser, I exhort and conjure you
never to tell him what he can do,
but what he ought to do ; because,
if the lion knew his strength, who
would be able to subdue him ?
Until this time, as you know, we
have not walked in the same road,
nor have our eyes been turned to the
same end ; but now that I have en-
tirely withdrawn from public life,
when I can no longer cause you sus-
picion, when my sole and only de-
sire is to live in obscurity, surround-
ed by my children, occupying my-
self with naught but the affairs of
my eternal salvation, it seems to me
I can disclose to you my inmost
thoughts. I esteem you too highly
to fear that you would abuse my
confidence. Use your influence,
then, with the king, if there yet be
time, and try to arrest the disas-
ters with which church and state
are threatened !"

Cromwell felt confounded ; come
as a master, a triumphant enemy,
lie endeavored, but was unable,
to recover himself in the presence
of the calm and magnanimous vir-
tue of a great man who seemed to
place with confidence his destiny in
his hands, and to esteem him suffi-
ciently to exhort him still to fulfil his
duty to his king and country. He
experienced a momentary inspi-
ration of good ; but corrupt souls
stifle such inspirations with the
same facility that they are followed
by the pure in heart. An instant's

reflection sufficed for him to recover
his accustomed arrogance.

" That is an easy thing for you
to say," he replied, " having now, as
you have just remarked, retired
from public life. But for me it is
very different ; every day convinces
me how dangerous it would be to
resist the king, and I confess that I
am by no means tired of life, and
do not desire to lose my head on
the scaffold, nor to die in poverty
like that poor cardinal of defunct
memory. That is why I must con-
tinue to act as I have done in Par-
liament, and I advise you to do the
same ; for, hearken, Sir Thomas :
I have not come here of my own
accord, but on the part of the
king, to announce to you his inten-
tions, and at the same time say to
you that he has learned with great
indignation of the correspondence
you have kept up with that nun call-
ed the Holy Maid of Kent ; that, not-
withstanding, he will exercise to-
ward you the utmost clemency, that
he will strike your name from the
bill of high treason which is entered
against her, if he has reason here-
after to be satisfied with your con-
duct, and if you will publicly ab-
jure the prejudices you have until
this time manifested against Queen
Anne, his spouse."

"What say you, Master Crom-
well ?" cried Sir Thomas More. " I
am implicated in the proceedings
they have instituted against that
woman ?"

And the unhappy father looked
round upon his children, who had
gathered around him, and whom
terror and alarm had rendered
motionless.

" Master Cromwell," he contin-
ued after a moment's silence, a your
visit is a cruel one ; my children,
at least, were not guilty, if any one
else here is." And his eyes rested

Sir Thomas More. 823

on Margaret, who stood pale and Master Cromwell, to say to the king

trembling with horror and surprise. I hope to prove it in the most un-

JBut Cromwell knew very well deniable manner."

what he had come to do; it was " This woman is only an instru-

part of his design that the grief ment," replied Cromwell, affecting

and solicitations of More's chil- not to reply to what Sir Thomas

dren should break down his reso- had said ;" they have only used her

lution, and induce him to yield to and her pretended revelations in

all they wished to demand of him. order to cause the conduct of the

lk Margaret ! my beloved child," king to be censured by his people,

said More, especially concerned I very much fear they will be

for her, " grieve not. I fully hope severely punished those, at least,

to prove, as clearly as the light who have employed her for that

of day, that I have nothing with purpose."

which to reproach myself toward " I know not what will come of
my king, and that I am an entire it," replied Sir Thomas in a cold
stranger to the follies of that woman, and quiet manner. " If it is true
Listen, Master Cromwell," he con- that there is a criminal impostor
tinned, turning towards him, with- disguised under the appearance of
out manifesting the least emotion, " I virtue, they would do well to ex-
pray you say to the king, my sove- pose and punish her rigorously."
reign, that nothing could afflict me And there the conversation end-
more than to know I had incurred his ed. However much Cromwell desir-
displeasure. Nevertheless, I hope ed that it should be prolonged, he
to prove that he is mistaken with neither knew how to renew nor to
regard to the acquaintance I have continue it. He concluded, there-
had with that woman. I ha^e seen fore, to affect a degree of zeal and
her but once, in the Sion Convent, friendship, and summoned all his
in a chapel, and then because the hypocrisy to his assistance,
fathers urged me to converse with " Dear Sir Thomas," he said,
her a few moments, and tell them " as you said but now, we have not
what I thought of her virtue. She always been of the same way of
appeared to me simple and trae in thinking. Some day I may change
her conversation. The replies she my opinions; but at this time I
made to the few questions I ad- cannot begin to tell you how much
dressed her seemed to proceed from anxiety I feel on account of the
an humble heart and a pious soul, king's anger in your regard. It ap-
Since that day I have not seen her. pears that they have excited him
This winter some one spoke to me most terribly against you. You
about her, and told me she had must have some secret enemy who
made some predictions about the is using these means for the pur-
king, and asked me if I wanted to pose of lessening you in his esti-
h.ear them. To which I replied- mation and making you lose his
:md 1 remember it perfectly that I favor."

wanted to hear nothingabout it, and, More listened, thinking if irjdeed

if it was true she had anything to it could be Cromwell who spoke

reveal to the king, it seemed to me in this manner.

at least entirely superfluous for any " Verily," he answered, " I must

other man to inquire into it. This fain think as you do, for I have

is the whole truth, and I beg you, naught on my conscience touching

824

Sir Thomas More.

that woman ; and would to God I
was in his sight as free from sin
as I feel myself free from any
thought of wrong or any trans-
gression against our sovereign lord
and king !"

" Sir Thomas, you have let your
attachment to Queen Catherine
show too plainly, and it is right
well known that you are against
the spiritual supremacy of the
king."

More made no reply. Tears
arose in his eyes. He looked at
Margaret. The young girl held
ene of her stepmother's long iron
knitting-needles, and seemed me-
chanically trying to sharpen the
point with the end of her finger,
which she turned rapidly around it.
If Margaret had held a poignard, it
was evident that she would have
wished to plunge it into the heart
of the traitor who stood before her.
She said nothing, but her flashing
eyes followed every movement he
made. The others sat motionless,
and Cromwell felt oppressed by the
attention of allthese souls weighing
upon his own. He no longer knew
what to say ; he looked around, he
hesitated, he tried to resume the
conversation, and again broke down.
Sir Thomas, always kind, always
considerate, wished to relieve him
from this painfully embarrassing
situation.

" Master Cromwell," he said, " I
see that you mid it somewhat pain-
ful to tell me all you have learned
that would be disagreeable to me ;
therefore let us retire from here.
If it please you to sup with us, we
will return to the house."

" I do not think Master Crom-
well is hungry," said Margaret,
changing color. " He is one of those
men who subsist on evil as well as
bread; it is a stronger and more
bitter nourishment, the savor of

which agrees better with their fero-
cious natures."

' You are charming, charming,
damsel !" replied Cromwell, turning
toward her with that trifling man-
ner, coarse and familiar, which he
considered suitable to adopt in his
intercourse with <women farthest
above himself.

" Margaret does not like compli-
ments," replied Sir Thomas More,
who endeavored to repair, without
seeming to have noticed them, the
expressions of anger and scorn
Margaret had permitted to escape
her. " She is very sensitive," lie
added.

" And very frank, it seems to
me," answered Cromwell quickly,
in a tone insolent and easy.

" A little too much so, perhaps,"
replied Sir Thomas gently; "but
that is better than to be deceitful."
" Are all these fields yours ?" ask-
ed Cromwell.

" No, indeed, sir. I own very
little Jand around my dwelling ;
besides, I gave a portion of it to
Margaret, my daughter, when she
became affianced to young Roper."
Saying this, Sir Thomas turned
and walked with Cromwell and
his family towards the house. On
their arrival Sir Thomas conduct-
ed Cromwell into his private cabinet.
" Listen, sir," he said, after he
had closed the door : " I would not
wish to conceal from you that you
have deeply wounded me by declar-
ing in presence of my children that
I had been accused of high treason.
I have not been chief-justice so long
without learning that this is the
weight they will let fall on my head,
and I know perfectly well that this
accusation of high treason is like a
glove, which they can make to fit
any hand. As to what I think
about the supremacy of the king.
that I shall reveal to no man liv-

Sir TJiuinas More. 825

ing. But, at least, be so good as to night at Westminster; but on re-
tell me how this action against me flection he forebore, supposing him
began, and who are my accom- to be entirely ignorant of their pre-
plices." sence in the church.

"The nun," replied Cromwell "Alas!" continued Sir Thomas,
(perfectly well instructed in the ' if I have offended the king, let
particulars of an affair he had in- them punish me ; but Rochester,
vented and intended to direct) what has he done? Devoid of
" the nun is accused of high trea- ambition, occupied entirely with
son toward the king. Her accom- the duties of his bishopric, devot-
plices are Master Richard, Dr. ed to the king, at whose birth he
Baking, Richard Risby, Biering, attended, loved, esteemed by him,
Gold, Lawrence Thwaites, John how can they suspect him of wish-
Adisson, and Thomas Abel. As to ing to injure his beloved sovereign ?
yourself and the Bishop of Roches- Master Cromwell, I beseech you in-
ter, you are accused of connivance; tercede for him !"
but, after what you have told me, I That prayer was very well under-
doubt not you will be able to prove stood by Cromwell, but he feigned
your innocence easily, and your not to hear it. He had not come
name will be stricken out at the to sympathize with, but rather to
commencement of the prosecu- enjoy the sufferings of, a just man,
tion." one whom he still feared, although

The Bishop of Rochester !" ex- he had entirely supplanted him.

claimed Sir Thomas, his hands rest- "Sir Thomas," he replied, "I

ing on the table, and entirely ab- cannot see why you supplicate me

sorbed in reflection. He recalled in behalf of the Bishop of Roch-

the night when Fisher, seated in ester, as though I were able to do

the same chair now occupied by anything in the matter. Justice is

Cromwell, had implored him not there, to be rendered to him, and

to accept the seal of state, and, to you also, if you prove that you

upon his refusing to take his ad- are entirely innocent of this charge."

vice, prayed God never to permit " In sooth," said Sir Thomas, " I

them to be separated, but that their swear to you that I know nothing

lives might terminate in the same about it. I have never considered

manner and at the same moment, it of sufficient importance to inves-

Lost in the recollection of his ten- tigate the character and veracity

der friendship, More forgot the of that woman. I believe, and am

frightful character of Cromwell, very well convinced, that being the

which no one, however, better un- creatures and the children of God,

derstood than himself. He took in whom we exist and from whom

him affectionately by the hand. we have received all things, he will

" Dear Cromwell," he exclaimed, sometimes, in his goodness, mani-

u how is this ? The Bishop of Ro- fest his will to us by some extra-

r.hester? Ah ! I implore y>u have his ordinary means and supernatural

name removed. Let them be re- ways, and also that he can change

venged on me, but not on him. or interrupt in a moment events

Mercy for my friend !" of which he has himself marked

Sir Thomas was on the point of out the course ; but, at the same

telling Cromwell that he had heard time, I believe that this truth can

them both accused on that fatal be abused either by weakness of

826

Sir Thomas More.

the mind, by error, or by folly.
That woman, then, is perhaps guilty
of no other crime than of having
mistaken dreams for revelations ;
:md if it is thus, I find that the
more importance we give to trivial
things, the more dangerous we make
them, if in the beginning they were
the cause of any inconvenience."

" That is true," said Cromwell ;
" but the king is very much wroth,
and intends that this woman and
all those who have believed in her
shall be punished."

" That alters the case," re-
plied Sir Thomas ; and he paus-
ed thoughtfully.

" However," said Cromwell, " there
is a very sure way of conciliating
his majesty, which is by praying
my lady Anne to be your interces-
sor. If you wish it, I will request her,
in your name, to intercede with the
king for the Bishop of Rochester."

"Ah!" said Sir Thomas.

He felt as though Cromwell had
thrust a dagger into his heart. He
bowed his head and was unable to
utter a word. To save his friend
by condescending to a base action
he had not courage to accept the
condition.

" That is an assured way," said
Cromwell (and the vile wretch se-
cretly applauded himself on the as-
tute and skilful means he employed)
" infallible ; a word from her will
suffice."

"No," cried More, "no! The
honor of my friend is as dear as my
own. He would not will it."

"He would not will it!" replied
Croofiwell, in an ironical tone.
" What ! would you, then, consider
yourselves dishonored because she
had interceded for him?"

" Ah ! Cromwell," cried Sir Tho-
mas, regretting what he had said,
4 1 implore you do not betray my
situation !"

" I am far from betraying you,
sir, since I offer you a very sure
and very /simple means of remov-
ing all that is dangerous in that
situation. I can promise you that
if you satisfy the king on this point,
and if you testify that you accept
and recognize him without any re-
pugnance as supreme head of the
church, not only will he pardon
your fault, but he will overwhelm
you with new favors."

On hearing this proposal Sir Tho-
mas looked steadily at him.

"Sir," he said, ' I thank you. I
now understand what they ask of
me, and why they have placed my
name and that of my friend on the
list of the accused, which, in reality,
would not be able to reach or in-
jure us. Now I have no longer
any doubt. When will the trial
begin ?"

"What do you say?" interrupted
Cromwell. " What ! you refuse ?"

" I refuse nothing," said Sir Tho-
mas modestly ; " I only ask when
the trial will take place, and when
I must present myself at the bar."

" But reflect on the wrong you
do !" replied Cromwell.

" I have considered everything,"
responded Sir Thomas.

" Ah ! well, then, do as you please.
. . . To-morrow the commission
will assemble in the Tower, and I
very much fear, from your obstinacy,
that you will remain there."

" In that event I will make my
preparations to-night," replied Sir
Thomas.

At that moment Margaret hur-
riedly entered and announced sup-
per, Cromwell took advantage of
the occasion. He saw with great
vexation the firmness of Sir Tho-
mas, and, having promised the king
that he would make him yield, he

j *

supposed the young girl would as-
sist him in renewing the conference.

Sir Thomas More.

827

" Damsel," he said, inclining to-
ward her, " I am glad you have
come; for, although you have treat-
ed me but ill, 1 am here to ren-
der an important service to your fa-
ther. Persuade him, then, to listen
to me, and not consent to separate
himself from you, perhaps for ever !"

u My God !" cried Margaret, " my
father separate .himself from us ?
What do you mean ? Speak ! what
do you mean ? With ho\v many
maledictions, then, do you come
prepared to strike our house ?"

" To-morrow Sir Thomas is sum-
moned to appear before the coun-
cil. Let him promise to take the
oath the king requires, and his life
will be spared !"

"Stop, sir!" cried Sir Thomas.
" My children are not in the habit
of judging my conduct nor of de*-
signaling the path I should follow !
Your pity is of the cruellest, sir !
May God grant you a more sincere
friend and a more genuine compas-
sion than that you have offered me
to-day ! Go, Margaret ; go tell your
mother I wait for her."

To this formal and decided ex-
pression of her father's will Mar-
garet dared not reply ; she left the
room, but felt that a fearful cala-
mity had befallen her, of which she
knew not yet the entire extent, and
she descended slowly, pausing on
each step of the stairway, wrapped
in painful reflection.

Sir Thomas soon entered the hall
with Cromwell, to whom he gave
the first place at table, and who ac-
cepted without remorse such cor-
dial hospitality on the part of a
man. whom he had resolved to cor-
rupt or ruin entirely.

When night was far advanced,
;md Cromwell had departed from
the abode into which he had enter-
ed only to bring sorrow and deso-

lation, Sir Thomas returned to his
cabinet, which he loved like an old
servant whom we never regret so
much as when it becomes necessary
to part with him. He entered, with
anxiety and sadness in his soul, and
took his accustomed seat ; he put
the light he carried in the same
place where he had placed it for
so many years, and from whence it
had shone on so many visiils and

J O

so many good actions, and he look-
ed around him.

" To-morrow," he exclaimed, " to-
morrow I shall have to leave this
abode where I have so long tended
and seen my father die, where i
have welcomed my first dear wife,
where my children have been born !
. . . When the swallow leaves her
nest, she has a hope of returning to
it again; but I, can I indulge in that
sweet delusion ? Is it not certain
that my ruin is resolved on, and
that the 7 king's indignation means
death ? To-morrow, when the day
shall have dawned, I must assume
a cheerful countenance, a serene
composure, and say to them :
* Adieu, my cherished children !
I will return very soon.' I will
return very soon ! Shall I be able
to utter words that are so foreign
to my heart ? And Margaret Mar-
garet will weep for me all the days
of her life. I shall never behold
her young children, nor bless them
when for the first time their eyes
are opened to the light of day, and
I shall never hear them try to repeat
my name. Alas! why must it be
that the king is annoyed at my
breathing the air? a man, too,
confounded among a million of his
subjects ! Of what importance to
him are the thoughts that lie hid-
den in the bottom of my heart ?
Why, Lord," he cried, raising his
hands toward heaven, " hast thou
not stricken me from his memory,

828

Sir Thomas More.

and why hast thou suffered this
prince of the earth to remember
my name ? Grant me an asylum
where I may be able to finish out
the days thou hast allotted me;
the birds of the air find a shelter,
the bears and ferocious beasts of
the earth possess their dens, and
no one comes to force them away !
However, let thy will be done, and
not mine."

More remained for a long time
leaning on the table. He then
arose and walked the floor to and
fro. He moved from place to place
in the room; for he would be there
no more, if they should summon
and compel him to cave for ever
his modest and beloved abode.

" They are all asleep," he said.
" I have consoled them. They
have heen Cromwell with me, but
they have not suspected that he
brought the death-warrant of their
father. A few hours of peace still
remain for them, and to-morrow
to-morrow they will weep and feel
that I am no longer with them !
My eyes will no more behold my
beloved ones ; I shall no more hear
their voices. They will seek me,
but they will find me no more on
earth."

Here Sir Thomas was unable
longer to contemplate with calm-
ness the picture his imagination
presented of the desolation and
abandonment of his children.
Looking around to be assured that
he was entirely alone, he sank into
a chair, and, bursting into tears,
abandoned himself to the most bit-
ter grief.

For a long time he remained
thus. At length he arose; seeing
that the clock in his cabinet was
a.bout to strike the hour of midnight,
he returned to his table.

Taking up an enormous portfolio,
he opened all the drapers. He

took out a great number of papers
and divers packages of letters ;
some of the latter were letters writ-
ten by Margaret when a child, and
he had preserved them as souvenirs
of the progress of her youthful
intellect; others were from the
Bishop of Rochester; the greater
number concerned a multitude of
persons who had claimed or still
sought his counsel and advice, his
good offices, to reconcile their fam-
ilies, terminate their disputes, save
them from dishonor, prevent their
ruin by means of his credit and his
money, and still more by the confi-
dence and respect inspired in all
by his virtues.

He untied the letters and threw
them into the fire, where they were
immediately consumed; for he knew
with whom he had to deal, and
how the most innocent things, the
most trivial acts, would be brought
up and construed into crimes against
those who had held any intercourse
with him. Those which concerned
these persons he destroyed without
regret ; but when they had been
entirely devoured by the flames, he
turned with sadness to those of
Margaret and the Bishop of Roch-
ester, and could not summon suffi-
cient resolution to cast them into
the fire.

He looked at them and turned
them over in his hands ; they had
given him so much pleasure ! Those
of his daughter had been dictated
by the tenderest love ; the virtues
of his friend shone in every page of
his, and proofs of attachment were
inscribed upon every line, recalling
the joys, the sorrows, and different
events that had occurred during
his entire life !

" Come !" he said with bitterness,
" when Margaret shall no longer
have a father, who will then have
any use for these letters ? Who will

Sir TJ 10 in as More.

829

treasure them up ? And thou, C)
my friend ! No, we shall not remain
separated ; for, O my God ! then
hast declared that he who giveth
up that which he loves for thy
sake shall find it again ; and if
man, thy creature, gives thee an
atom, thou wilt return him an en-
tire world. Have we not received
all things from thee? And what
thou takest from us for a moment,
is it not to return it to us again in
eternity ?''

He cast the letters into the fire,
but turned away that he might not
see them consumed. He then ex-
amined his book of accounts, and
saw that they were correct. Be-
sides, his estate was so small he
found belt little difficulty in admin-
istering it. After retiring from
office he had divided his lands
between his children, and each one
of them knew the lot assigned her.

When he had finished all that, he
again began to walk the room, and
went toward the window ; the night
was intensely dark and the heavens
obscured by a mass of black clouds.

' Weil ! I have some time yet,"
lie said, and turned to sit down.
1 Everything is arranged ; Marga-
ret will send my books. Now I
am prepared to depart. It would
seem that I am dead, and they
come already to blot all traces
of my existence from this place.
Ah ! how harrowing is the thought.
My God ! my courage fails. Help
me, Lord ! Animate by a breath of
thy strength the weakness of thy
servant ; for I am the work of thy
hands ! Have mercy on me and
succor me ; for sorrow hath fallen
upon me and I am utterly cast
down !"

As he pronounced these \vords
he thought he heard a sigh ; he
paused to listen, but heard noth-
ing more, and came to the conclu-

sion that his troubled imagination
had deceived him. Again, how-
ever, he heard a slight noise ; he
then arose and proceeded to listen
at the door opening into the library.
Opening it very softly, what was his
surprise on seeing Margaret ! Her
back was turned towards him, and
a lamp burned beside her. He
perceived that she had taken a
number of books from the shelves,
as she had a pile of them around
her, and was leaning earnestly over
the one she was reading. So in-
tently was she absorbed that she
did not hear her father enter. He
advanced slowly until he stood be-
hind her chair, and saw that she
was reading a book of jurisprudence
written in Latin according to the
general custom of the times, and
which contained detailed reports
of all the trials for high treason ;
her handkerchief was lying beside
her, and it was saturated with her
tears. Sir Thomas turned pale;
he was obliged to rest his hand on
the table, which groaned under his
weight.

Margaret turned around in alarm.

"My father!" she cried, "here
at this hour!" And she ran to
him and folded her arms around
him, while her tears began to flow
afresh.

" Margaret, what do you here ?"
he asked as he sank into a chair.

"My father, my father!" Shn
burst into a torrent of tears, and
could say no more.

" I thought you slept," she added';.

" Margaret, you should be i':i
bed!" said Sir Thomas, endeavor
ing to control his feelings.

She fell on her knees before him,
and, burying her face in her hands,
sobbed aloud; her hair, loosened
from its fastening, hung in dis-
hevelled masses down to her feet.
' Margaret, you are weak!" said

830

TJionias More.

More in an altered voice. ' Is
this the fruit of the lessons I have
given you ?"

" Dare you, then, say that I am
weak, and reproach me because I
weep for my father?" she replied,
raising her head haughtily. " Do you
no longer remember that I have
never known a mother's love, and
that, since the day I left my cradle,
you alone have directed all my
movements, that in you alone have
been centred all my affections, and
to you have I always confided the
most secret thoughts of my heart ?
You say that I am weak, when not
a word of complaint has escaped
my lips, when I have concealed my
tears, weeping in the darkness of
night, and when I have sat at table
face to face with your executioner !"

" Margaret, my Margaret !" cried
Sir Thomas; and he bowed his
head on the shoulder of the child
he so cherished, and pressed her to
his bosom.

" Have I asked you," she con-
tinued, ' turning away from him,
" what you would do to escape from
these tigers thirsting for blood ?
Have I advised you to recoil before
them and lick the prints of their
feet ? No ; I have come in silence
to take counsel of the dead, some
advice as to the crimes of the hu-
man race, because I have thought
you would conceal your secret in
your heart, and I would not be ad-
mitted to share it ; that you would
tell me what you did not believe,
and I would not receive the truth
from you. The truth !" she cried
vehemently, and with a strength
only lent her by excitement and
suffering. " I know it now ! I know,
I feel, I have found out that very
soon I shall see you no more ; that
I shall be alone upon the earth
where I have found such joy and
happiness in existing ; that nothing

will remain to me, and the future
will be to me without a hope, and
darkened for ever !"

" Margaret," said Sir Thomas.
1 have compassion on your father!"

She then said no more, and they
sat in silence, she with her arms
clasped around his neck. She wept,
and the tears continued to course
slowly down her cheeks, whilst the
lamp she had* brought cast a feeble
glimmer of light throughout the
lengthy apartment, and over the
rows of books arranged on the
shelves; and thus the hours fled
rapidly toward the fatal moment
which she saw advancing with an
agony indescribable.

O wicked and voluptuous prince !
raise your head from your bed of
down, draw aside the triple drape-
ries of silk and gold that surround
you ; for your crimes keep vigil
around your couch, and the justice
of God numbers every tear you have
caused to be shed ! Far better would
it be for you to sleep on an infected
dunghill, in some obscure retreat ;
that your limbs, weary with toil
and the heat of the mid-day sun,
should tremble beneath the frosts
of night, and that your hands were
pure and free from iniquity in the
presence of the most high God ; for
we cannot believe that man op-
presses man without justice being
meted out to him, or that the weak
shall remain the prey of the strong.
The day will come when a terrible
vengeance shall fall upon the head
of the impious, and he will see ar-
rayed before him all the crimes
he has committed. Then shall he
cry aloud : " Why have I eVer lived,
and why has my mother ever borne
me in her womb?" But light then
will no longer be measured, night
will have disappeared, century will
no more follow century, and time
shall be no more.

TO BH CONTINUED

A Protestant Bishop on Confession.

831

A PROTESTANT BISHOP ON CONFESSION.

BY A CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

Eisner ATKINSON, of North Caro-
lina, in a " Charge " to the clergy of
his diocese, took occasion to inveigh
against auricular confession. To
this Bishop Gibbons replied. The
Protestant prelate now appears in
" A Defence," the purport of which
we propose here to examine. Omit-
ting any comment on the personal
retort, we make our first quotation
from the eighth page of this pam-
phlet :

" To object to the power of the
priest to forgive sins is, according
to this [the Roman Catholic] view,
equivalent to objecting to the power
of Christ to forgive sins. Is this to be
maintained ? Is this true ? ' Since
to doubt Christ's declaration is to
call his power in question, we affirm
that this is true and is to be main-
tained. If the words of Christ are
fallible, it must follow that he
who spoke them is also fallible.
' Whose sins ye shall forgive they
are forgiven," and " Whatsoever ye
shall loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven " : Falsify these state-
ments, and we make God a liar.
Of the exercise of this power St.
Paul says to the Corinthians : " If I
forgave any, for your sakes forgave I
it, in the person of Christ " ; and in
condemning the incestuous Corin-
thian he judges him "with the
power of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Now, if St. Paul was indeed acting '
with the power of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and in his person, his abso-
lution and condemnation were iden-
tical with Christ's. If not, his arro-
gations were blasphemous and vain.

But Bishop Atkinson asserts that
" priestly absolution and the abso-
lution of Christ are two entirely dis-
tinct things," because the priest can-
not have God's infallible knowledge
of the state of the soul, on which
condition forgiveness depends.

Here is a confounding of things
wholly different the power of ab-
solution, and knowledge infallible.
Forgiveness docs depend upon the
state of the soul, and, whether it be
Christ or one of his ambassadors
pronouncing absolution, the condi-
tions requisite are absolutely one.
Nor Christ nor his priest can par-
don the impenitent; but infallible
knowledge of the state of the soul
affects in no way the power of abso-
lution. God reveals to any man
his own soul's condition, but to no
man is given the power of self-ab-
solution. So, also, he grants the
power of absolution apart from
the gift of infallible knowledge.
The things are distinct and separate
from each other. The latter of
these powers our Lord alone pos-
sesses, but he seems not unfre-
quently, in the exercise of his min-
istry, to have purposely excluded
all its influence over the former, to
teach us that the two have no ne-
cessary dependence. Thus, he in-
vests St. Peter with the power of
the keys a short time before the
fall of that apostle, and administers
to Judas the clean Bread of An-
gels when he knows him to be a
devil. Could a priest's want of in-
sight have results more appalling?
But Bishop Atkinson here proposes

832

A Protestant BisJiop on Confession,

a method most ingenious for testing
priestly power, a " practical test '
to be applied as follows : " When
the power of Christ to forgive sins
was doubted, he wrought a miracle
to prove it, and thereby silenced the
gain say ers. When the power of
the priest to forgive sins is doubted,
as it very frequently and very seri-
ously is, can he work a miracle to
demonstrate it?"

To demand a miracle in the sac-
rament of penance as a " practical
test " of sacerdotal power is also to
require it in every other sacrament
and sacerdotal function. Has Bi-
shop Atkinson tested by this rule
his baptisms, confirmations, com-
munions, and, first of all, his or-
ders? A "practical test >: is of
general application. When a child
is baptized, the Episcopal clergy-
man thus speaks to the sponsors :
" Seeing now, dearly beloved breth-
ren, that this child is regenerate
and grafted into Christ's church,
let us give thanks unto Almighty
God for these benefits." Here,
should his " practical test " be de-
manded to verify this statement,
could the bishop produce it ? Again,
at the end of a marriage he says :
"/ pronounce you man and wife,"
and "Whom God hath joined to-
gether let no man put asunder." Is
the clergyman then God ? Else
whence this change from first to
third person ?

How far, we are asked, in the
judgment of a " thorough-going
Roman Catholic " one who is
blind enough to take God at his
word, while all the world smiles
at his childish credulity does the
priest's power of absolution actually
extend ? In the ordination service
of the Episcopalian Prayer-Book
stands this Catholic formula :

" Receive the Holy Ghost for the office
and work of a priest in the church of

God, now committed unto thec by the
imposition of our hands. Whose sins
thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ; and
whose sins thou dost retain, they are re-
tained. And be thou a faithful dispen-
ser of the word of God and of his holy
sacraments ; in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen/'

Now, the Catholic believes the
church means what she affirms; that
the literal declaration is the literal
truth, since God himself spake it.
He therefore receives the priest in
Christ's person, believing that the
sins which he remits are remitted.
But he knows the conditions upon
which depends his cure when he
seeks divine remedies. He knows
that Christ himself cannot pardon
the impenitent, and that the humble
priest is not greater than his Master ;
but, upon the same conditions that
the Son of God required, he believes
the priest's decision must be ratified
in heaven. He remembers, too, the
promises vouchsafed to those re-
ceiving, and the overwhelming curse
pronounced on those rejecting, the
messenger of Christ a judgment
more dread than that on Tyre and
Sidon.

Though Bishop Atkinson denoun-
ces auricular confession, we are not
to understand that, he opposes all
confession. Nay, he deems it some-
times salutary, "sometimes even ob-
ligatory, from the ignorance and
doubts of the penitent, from the
enormity of his crime, from his con-
sequent tendency to despair. But
it is a drastic medicine, not to be ta-
ken regularly, for thus taken it en-
feebles the patient." Does Bishop
Atkinson really mean to tell us* that
a state of too great sanctity is one
to be discouraged ? that some bile.
of imperfection is essential to the
health of the moral constitution ?
and that this the drastic medicine

A Protestant Bis/top on Confession.

833

would too thoroughly remove ? If
not, what does he mean ? Did he
look upon confession as a wicked
imposition, we could readily com-
prehend his aversion to its practice ;
but this he denies, directing his at-
tacks against auricular confession,
which by the Council of Trent is
thus denned: "A confession of all
mortal sins, however secret, icith all
their circumstances, to a priest, in se-
cret." Here the bishop shudders
that secret mortal sins, with their
attendant circumstances, should be
matter of confession, and to a priest,
in secret ! To commit them in broad
daylight would rto? be half so terri-
ble ! Confessing them in secret is
that which most appalls him. Such,
he gravely tells us, is not the rightful
mode. The proper thing to use is
a very mild dilution of this potent,
drastic medicine something that
will soothe and lull the troubled
conscience, not purge it of its guilt.
To support his strong assertions, he
appeals to Holy Scripture and to
the early fathers. Here we have a
long quotation from a work of Bi-
shop Hopkins. From this we learn
that '* the apostles exercised their
office of remitting or retaining sins ;
for the sins of those whom they
thought Jit (mark well the restriction)
were remitted in baptism, while the
sins of those whom they judged unfit
were retained." Again: "These, in-
spired men required repentance to-
wards God and faith towards our
Lord Jesus Christ, and then admin-
istered baptism for the remission of
sins to those whom they judged to be
truly penitent." In a word, they
acted always in accordance with
their judgment. Now, the basis of
sound judgment is a thorough un-
derstanding of the cause to be ad-
judged, and without this- understand-
ing there can be no prudent judg-
ment. Were our Lord's apostles
VOL. xxm. 53

gods who could read man's secret
conscience ? And if not, how could
they know the matter they were
judging, or give a righteous judgment
until they knew the matter ? And
just here we would ask, What con-
stitutes matter, if not mortal sins ?
Not venial sins, surely; for these no
Roman Catholic is called upon to
mention.

But why, some one may ask, must
particulars be stated in making a
confession? and what is your author-
ity for the secrecy observed ? To
this we ask in turn, If a sin be strip-
ped of its aggravating circumstances,,
will any man maintain that it is
honestly confessed ? and since God
does not require us to confess our
sins in public, should his faithful
representative demand more of the
penitent? Yet it is to these condi-
tions that the bishop makes objec-
tion, and thus his "drastic medi-
cine" is a talent in a napkin, a use-
less, dormant power not intended to-
be exercised. But what says the
Church of England on this subject
of confession ? According to the
bishop, she has left it "strictly vol-
untary"; but in her Visitation of
.the Sick we find this rubric : "Here-
shall the sick man be moved to-
make a special confession of his
sins, if he feel his conscience trou-
bled with any weighty matter. After
which confession the priest shall ab-
solve him (if he humbly and heartily
desire it) after this sort :

" ' Our Lord Jesus Christ, who-
hath left power to his church to
absolve all sinners who truly repent,
and believe in him, of his great
mercy forgive thee thine offences;;
and by his authority committed to-
me I absolve thee from thy sins.'
" Here shall the sick man be mov-
ed to make confession." Is it left
so " strictly voluntary " as the bishop
has declared it? And. \vhy now

834

A Protestant Bishop on Confession.

to the sick man does the church
propose confession, when in the
time of health she never urged it
on him ? Is he now in a condition
for this strange and stem require-
ment ? But Bishop Atkinson would
say : " It is only weighty matter he is
called upon to tell." Are not secret
mortal sins the weights that now
oppress him ? And why is he ex-
horted to a special declaration ? Is
it not that death is near ? But who
is he that reckons the number of
his days, and can certify unerringly
how long he has to live ? The thief
in the night does not warn us of
his coming. Behoves it not, there-
fore, that we live as dying men, lest,
in an hour we think rjot, the Son
of Man should come ? If so, the ru-
bric cited is appropriate to all. Thus,
in his own communion, Bishop At-
kinson will find that special" confes-
sion to a priest is recommended,
and that this confession has all that
constitutes auricular, except the
bond, of secrecy which silences the
priest. This is left to his honor or
personal discretion, untrammelled
by all vows. But the bishop fur-
ther tells us he himself has heard
confessions "which, if divulged,
would not onlv have caused shame

and anguish, but very probably have
caused bloodshed - confessions,"
he continues, " which I keep as sa-
credly as any Roman Catholic can
those made to him." This, in our
humble judgment, seems to border
-on auricular.

We come now to the question of
doctrinal development a process, as
the bishop thinks, for hatching any
novelty that priestcraft may devise.
To this system he attributes auri-
cular confession, which, according
:to his reckoning, w r as first imposed
upon the church by Innocent III.
-at the Fourth Lateran Council, in
1215. "And that this," says he,

" to the extent to which it was tnen
carried, was a novelty in the church,
is apparent from the tenor of the
canon itself; for it requires that it
shall be often read publicly in the
church, so that none may plead ig-
norant of the case." In the Book
of Common Prayer, at the baptis-
mal office, appears the following-
rubric : " The minister of every
parish shall often admonish the people
that they defer not the baptism
of their children," etc. Here, in-
structed by Bishop Atkinson, we
learn, to our amazement, that the
baptism of infants at a very tender
age was first known in England
after the Reformation, when this
rubric was inserted. By his own
line of argument we are forced to
this conclusion : Had it not been a
novelty, what need of this injunc-
tion ? But, returning to our sub-
ject, does Bishop Atkinson forget
that there existed heresies before
the thirteenth century, and that
their watchword, like his own, was
" Purity of Faith " ? All remnants
of these sects, of however ancient
origin, are in unity with us upon
this point of doctrine. To the Pro-
testants alone belongs the honor of
rejecting it, and hence they stand
at variance, not only with the Pope,
but with the rest of Christendom.

With regard to the new dogmas
that have lately been defined, as
Moehler well expresses it, our unity
of doctrine is in substance, not in
form. As the Infant in the manger
and the Victim on the cross, iden-
tical in substance, were yet unlike
in form, so also truth, in broader
light, assumes more striking aspect.
Calculus is but a form of primary
arithmetic. As in the natural or-
der, so in the order spiritual, de-
velopment is but the pulse of vigor
and vitality. Even in the life of
heaven itself they go " from strength

A Protestant BisJiop on Confession. 835

to strength." The loftiest branches must hold to be infallible. Now,
of the oak were once within the the general truth that the Bible is
acorn ; nor could they have devel- infallible the Catholic and Prote.s-
oped save as they there existed. tant both equally maintain. To
Thus, to a grain of mustard-seed doubt it would be heresy. But ad-
our Lord compared the church, and mitting, as we do, the general pro-
to the mite of leaven that leavened position, how many minor differen-
the whole lump. She is " the pillar ces remain to be adjusted ! The
and the ground of truth," which if Catholic believes that the church
once shaken, truth itself must fall, alone is able to interpret Holy
To her alone is man responsible, Scripture, and that without her
since God commissioned her to guidance men may wrest God's
teach the world and bring all men very word unto their own de-
to knowledge of his truth. To her struction ; that the written Word
St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine requires some infallible interpreter
bowed ; to her St. Ambrose and St. before we can rely upon its mean-
Bernard yielded entire submission, ing as infallible, since the Scrip-
Like Bossuet and Fenelon, the doc- tures, though infallible, inspire not
tors of all ages whatever their con- every reader with their own infalli-
tentions and discussions, however bility. But the common run of
wide their difference of opinion Protestants receive their Holy Bible
have ever looked to Rome, and as if it had been printed and hand-
sought her final judgment as the ed down from heaven in the Ian-
decree of God. guage, form, and binding with which
Bishop Gibbons, in reply to the they are familiar. They forget that,
" Charge" of Bishop Atkinson, re- after ail, it is a mere translation,
marked the contradictory doctrines and as liable to corruption as an}'
that prevail in the Anglican com- other text in the hands of a trans-
munion with regard to confession ; lator. The Pope they think pre-
some execrating it as a Romish in- sumptuous ; the printer and trans-
novation, while others, holding ten- lator infallible. But even here be-
ets identical with ours, preach and lievers may hold diverse opinions
practise its observance as a sacra- with integrity of faith. " How far,"
ment of Christ. Bishop Atkinson one may ask, " extends infallibil-
professes to discover a parallel to ity ? Is it only in the spirit, or in
this in the various opinions of the the letter also ? * Unless a man
Catholic theologians with respect to hate his father and his mother he
the limits of the Pope's infalli- cannot be my disciple.' ' If ye
bility. Let us see upon what shall ask anything in my name, I
grounds he establishes compari- will do it.' With what exact re-
son, and how far the compari- striction are these words to be
son is supported. Papal Infallibil- received ? Can errors typographi-
ity is a dogma of the church, an ar- cal, misrenderings, etc., affect in
ticle of faith, to be by all accepted any way the truth of the infalli-
under the last penalty of excommu- ble ? Are all the dates and num-
nication. With the Protestant the bers, in their common acceptation,
force of this dogma is experienced, infallibly correct ? Does inspira-
not, indeed, as to the Pope, but tion equally pervade the whole Bi-
with regard to Holy Scripture, ble, the Old and New Testaments ?
which, as the word of God, he How must we understand St. Paul's

836

A Protestant Bishop on Confession.

teaching by command and teach-
ing by permission? Was he in
each infallible ?" All these ques-
tions might arise among sincere be-
lievers holding the general truth
that the Scriptures are infallible.
As we have before observed, Papal
infallibility is an established dogma,
an article of faith, and the ques-
tions now at issue among Catholic
theologians are precisely of the na-
ture of those among all Protes-
tants with regard to Holy Scrip-
ture. When a definition of a dog-
ma of faith has been promulgated
to the universal church, it is ac-
knowledged as infallible by all ;
but the Pope sometimes teaches in
a less determined species, and then
only can even the most lax theolo-
gians raise the question how far
his teaching binds. Are disputes
among the Anglicans analogous to
these ? Bishop Atkinson would
stickle for his sacerdotal charac-
ter; Bishop Whittle, of Virginia,
would hoot the very notion. At
Mount Calvary, in Baltimore, a
child becomes regenerate in the
sacrament of baptism ; at St. Peter's,
five squares distant, no such change
can be effected. At the former
Mass is said and the Sacred Host
is worshipped ; at the latter the
Host is bread, and to worship it is
idolatry. For whether it be bread
or the golden calf adored, such
worship is idolatrous. And if the
Host be Christ, not to worship is
denial of our Blessed Lord's Di-
vinity.

Are the Quaker and the Mormon
more at variance in faith ? But Bi-
shop Atkinson interrupts us. " I
am not the church," he says, " nor
is Bishop Whittle, nor the pastors
of the churches to which you have
referred." Be it granted; but we
ask, then, What is your church's
teaching? Surely, one of you is

wrong, and has the church no voice
to decide the question for us ? Can
idolatry be taught in her commu-
nion with impunity ? For, in Dr.
Gramnici's judgment, this is Mr.
Richie's crime : the worship of the
creature instead of the Creator. It
is too true. All that the Church of
England boasts is latitude of doc-
trine. She has no power of utter-
ance to define or to condemn.
The wranglings of her children
have silenced her for ever. The
enormities of Darwin, if they threat-
ened, could not rouse, her ; nor, rous-
ed, has she the unitv to utter an

7 ^

anathema.

Having noticed many points on
which we differ from Bishop Atkin-
son, in conclusion we remark one
on which we quite agree. This is
when, speaking of St. Bernard, he
styles him "the great saint." But
the question upon which he ap-
peals to this great father is hardly
one on which we hoped to find the
bishop laudatory. Haying chosen
him, however, to plead his cause
against us, we needs must think that
he supports his advocate, and holds
him orthodox, at least, upon the
point at issue the Immaculate
Conception. Let us hear what St.
Bernard has to offer on this point.
"Thou art that chosen Lady," says
he, " in whom our Lord found re-
pose, and in whom he has deposit-
ed all his treasures without mea-
sure. Hence the whole world, O
my most holy Lady ! honors thy
chaste womb as the temple of God,
in which the salvation of the world
began. Thou, O great Mother of
God ! art the enclosed garden into
which the hand of a sinner never
entered to gather its flowers. Thou
art the paradise of God; from thee
issued forth the fountain of living
water that irrigates the whole
world. The day on which thou

A Day among tJie Kiowas and ConiancJies.

837

earnest into the world can indeed
be called a day of salvation, a day
of grace. Thou art fair as the
moon ; the moon illumines the night
with the light it receives from the
sun, and thou enlightenest our dark-
ness with the splendor of thy vir-
tues. But thou art fairer than the
moon ; for in thee there is neither

spot nor shadow. Thou art bright
as the sun I mean as that Sun
which created the world. He was

chosen amongst

all men, and thou

wast chosen amongst all women.
O sweet, O great, O all-amiable
Mary ! no tongue can pronounce
thy name but thou inflamest it with
love."

A DAY AMONG THE KIOWAS AND COMANCHES.

IT was rather cold and frosty in
the early January morning as we
rode eastward from Otter Creek to
the Kiowa and Comanche reserva-
tion, in the Indian Territory. To-
ward noon, however, the sun came
out, brilliant and warm. The ef-
fect on the transparent covering of
the trees and shrubs was dazzlingly
beautiful. Some were encased in a
bright armor, cunningly linked in
chains of crescents. I detached a
perfect " ice-plant," with every curve
of the stem, every nerve of the
leaves, taken in ice. The humblest
weeds on the prairie sparkled with
frosty diamonds. But as the sun
grew warmer they began to bend
under their gorgeous burdens, as if
wearied by their splendor, like tired
beauties after a ball.

In the afternoon the weather was
as clear and balmy as on a day in
June. Our way lay through the
most beautiful part of the Indian
Territory. We skirted the southern
slopes of the Wichita Mountains.
These, as if in honor of our coming,
exhibited all their jewelry in its
brightest lustre. Down their dark
slopes ran shining streams, like
chains of silver adorning their
broad breasts. Stones of gray and
yellow and green and purple were

heaped together in distracting pro-
fusion, the whole seen through the
most surpassingly tender of violet
tints, too delicate to be compared
to the filmiest marriage-morning
lace. As we proceeded the country
became more and more diver-
sified. Upland and vale succeed-
ed each other in delightful variety.
Beautiful glens, wooded slopes, bold
mountain-crests, filled the landscape.
The day had become warm enough
to free the babble of the scores of
pretty little streams that flow into
the Cache. We rode through
groves of mesquite and forests of
oaks. The long, straight paths
through the oak-woods made one
think of the long alleys of Versailles.
We pass along the Main Cache ;
the scenery is ravishing. To the
right flows the stream. It is thick-
ly wooded ; and through the English
effect, produced by the smoke of a
prairie fire in the far distance, it
brings back the memory of a rail-
road glimpse of the line of Windsor
Forest. Occasional circles of oaks
in the midst of noble stretches of
upland render more striking the
likeness to the park scenery of old
England. To the left nre the
mountains. They actually furnish
the luxury of rocks, covered with

838

A Day among the Kiowas and ComancJies.

moss and mould as green as you
could see upon Irish ruins. What
a joy was the spectacle of so lovely
a region to our eyes, that had been
starved for months on sand-hills
and treeless deserts !

We passed hundreds of lovely
sites for cottages, in pleasant nooks,
sheltered from all cold winds by
wooded slopes that opened towards
the south and bounded semi-circu-
lar vales of marvellous fertility.
Indeed, in beauty of scenery and in
richness of soil I think this portion
of the Indian Territory may be
considered the garden of the west-
ern world.

But, alas ! nothing earthly is
perfect. The brightest prospect
has its shadow. Over this seem-
ing paradise, where you can see in
a day's journey the loveliest charac-
teristics of the most favored climes,
malaria spreads its black and bale-
ful wings.

I visited the reservation of the
Kiowas and Comanches soon after
it was entered by one of the expe-
ditions that operated against the
hostile bands of these Indians and
of the Cheyennes in the winter of
187-. This force had driven in a
number of Kiowas and Comanches
It was a close race between the
troops and the Indians. But the
latter, having the great advantage
of the start, throwing away all im-
pedimenta, leaving their line of
flight marked by abandoned lodges,
lodge-poles, ponies, cooking uten-
sils, etc., had won the race by a few
hours only, and surrendered not a
moment too soon. I wanted to see
all I could see of Indians while
opportunity offered. I visited the
commanding officer of the adjoin-
ing military post, and made known
to him my wishes. He received
me with great courtesy and kind-
ness, pla.ced a vehicle at my dispo-

sal, and instructed his interpreter to
accompany me through the Indian
camps. The Indians had pitched
their tepies in the timbered bottoms
along the streams for several miles
around the fort.

The interpreter was an " old In-
dian man." I found him intelligent
and polite. He had evidently been
well brought up and fairly educat-
ed. His language was generally
good ; and when he indulged, occa-
sionally, in a graphic, frontier mode
of expression, it was easy to see that
this was an after-graft, though not
the less apt and piquant on that
account. The Indians on the re-
servation were divided into two
great classes, those under civil and
those under military control. The
former were under charge of the
agent ; the latter under that of the
commander of the fort. These
were again subdivided into the
incarcerated, the enrolled, and the
paroled (pronounced by the em-
ployees of the post and reservation,
pay-rolled}.

The imprisoned were again sub-
divided into two classes : the more
guilty and dangerous, who were
placed in irons and confined under
strict surveillance in the post guard-
house ; and the Indians of less
note and guilt, who were in confine-
ment, but not in irons. Of the first
the principal was White Horse, a
Kiowa chief, a murderer, ravisher,
and as great a general scoundrel as
could be found in any tribe. These
really " bad Indians " did not num-
ber more than half a dozen. The
Comanches and Kiowas belonging
to the second subdivision were
confined within the walls of an ex-
tensive but unfinished stone build-
ing, intended for an ice-house, one
hundred and fifry feet by forty.
They numbered about a hundred
and twenty.

A Day among tJic Kiowas and CoinancJics.

839

I told the interpreter I should
like to begin by a visit to White
Horse.

" Then," said he, " we shall have
to see the officer of the day ; for the
sergeant of the guard has orders
to let no one visit White Horse
without special instructions."

Two old squaws, evidently in
great distress, now came up to the
interpreter,and, having shaken hands
with him, began to talk to him with
great eagerness.

"You're in luck," said the inter-
preter to me. " These are two of
his mothers who want permission to
see him."

" Two of his mothers !" I exclaim-
ed. ' How many mothers has he,
for heaven's sake ?"

" Only one regular one," he re-
plied, laughing. " The other is his
aunt; but among these Indians
the aunts also call themselves mo-
thers."

Accompanied by the two squaws,
we went to seek the officer of the
day. We soon found him. He
was a tall, fine-looking, genial, im-
pulsive Kentuckian, a cavalry of-
ficer. He went with us to the
guard-house. He first took the
interpreter and myself into the
prison-room where White Horse's
five companions were confined.
They looked greatly dispirited.
They all shook hands with us with
great warmth. I noticed the eager-
ness of the last hand- shaker, who
seemed to fear that we might leave
the cell before he had gone through
the ceremony with each of us. Poor
wretches ! 1 presume they thought
their hour was nearly come, and,
like drowning men, they grasped
even at the semblance of straws.
They evidently had some rough
idea of "making interest " with the
victor " pale-faces " in a forlorn
hope for pardon. They were effu-

sive in thtir manifestations of friend-
ship for the officer, who, with his
revolver in his belt and his long
cavalry sabre clanking at his heels,
represented Force to them. Force-
is something Indians understand,
and they respect its emblems. In-
deed, most of them have been af-
forded but poor opportunities to
understand anything else.

The officer then conducted us to
a private room, into which he or-
dered White Horse to be brought.
A clanking of chains was heard
along the corridor, and White
Horse, doubly ironed, stood in the
door-way. He entered, not with-
out a certain untutored majesty of
gait, maugre his irons. He put out
his manacled hands, and energeti-
cally went through the ceremony of
hand-shaking, beginning with the
officer of the day, and giving him
an extra shake at the end.

White Horse was a large, power-
ful Indian. He wore a dark-col-
ored blanket which covered his en-
tire person. I could discern no in-
dications of ferocity in his counte-
nance. His face, on the contrary,
had rather what I should call a
Chadband cast. His flesh seemed
soft, oily, and "puffy."

White Horse's mother and aunt
were now permitted to enter. The
mother rushed to her son, threw
her arms around him, kissed him
on both cheeks, while the tears
rolled down her face ; but she ut-
tered not a word. The aunt kissed
him in like manner. White Horse
submitted to their embraces, but
made no motion of responding af-
fection. He seemed a little ner-
vous under their caresses, and pro-
bably under our observation. The
mother took hold of his chain, look-
ed at it for a moment, and then
came another paroxysm of silent
grief, revealing itself in tears alone.

840

A Day among the Kiowas and Comanches.

They sat on a rough wooden bench,
White Horse in the centre, his mo-
ther on his right, his aunt on the
left, each holding one of his hands
in both of hers. White Horse ut-
tered no sound ; no gesture be-
trayed any emotion, yet I thought
1 could detect a moistening of the
eye. This made me feel that I had
no business there, gazing on his
grief and that of the poor Indian
women. I suppose I ought to be
ashamed to say it; but the truth
must be told, and I must confess
that, villain as he was, I could not
help feeling for him. Of course it
was a weakness, but I am miserably
weak in such matters. I believe I
should have pleaded for mercy to-
wards him, though he showed little
mercy to others. There are few

human beings who do not, at some
time in their lives, need mercy
shown them ; and when they them-
selves cry out for it, it must be
a great consolation to them to re-
flect, as they look back, that they,
in their time, have not been deaf to
the cries of others.

I signified a wish to withdraw,
and left, accompanied by the officer
and the interpreter. Before we were
permitted to depart, however, we
had to shake hands with White
Horse and the two squaws. The
women looked at us with an ap-
pealing expression, as if, in their
poor, simple minds, they thought it
possible that, in some way or other,
we might have an influence on the
fate of the son.

We next visited the unfinished
building in which the one hundred
and twenty lesser Indian criminals
were confined. They were bestow-
ed in a sufficiently comfortable man-
ner. Common tents were ranged
along the walls, and there were fires
burning at proper distances down
-the centre of the building. The oc-

cupants of the tents were mostly en-
gaged in gambling with monte cards
and in various other ways. Your
Indian is unfortunately " a bom
gambler." They quitted their play,
however, and crowded around us,
eager to shake hands with us, and
uttering the Indian monosyllabic,
expression of satisfaction, which
sounds as if written ." how." This
hand-shaking took some time, as
every Indian insisted on going
through the ceremony. When I
supposed I had shaken my way
through the crowd, I was touched
on the arm, and, turning, met a face
which was evidently not that of an
Indian, though its owner was garb-
ed in Indian guise. He put out
his hand, saying " how ' in the
usual way. I said to him in rather
" Brummagem ' Spanish that he
was not an " Indio."

He shook his head and replied :
" No."

"Mejicano?" I asked.

"Si," he replied with a broad
grin.

The other Indians crowded around
us, laughing and nodding their heads,
ejaculating : " Mejicano ! How !
how!" and turning towards each
other with gestures of wonder or
admiration (exactly as I have seen
the chorus do at the Italian opera).
This was no doubt done with a
rude idea of flattering me on
my perspicacity. There are worse
judges of human nature than the
untutored Indian. I suppose there
is very little doubt that, had I any
power over their fate, the compli-
ment would not have been thrown
away on me, or on most men for
that matter.

Of course they wanted tobacco,
and we gave them what we had
about us. They had a good deal
to say to the interpreter. Every
one had some little grievance to

A Day among the Kiowas and Coinanclies.

841

complain of or want to be satis-
tied. At length, after some more
hand-shaking, we escaped from
them.

On leaving the prison-house we
learned that we should not find the
principal Indians in their camps un-
til later in the day, as they were
then collecting in the commanding
officer's office to talk about sending
a party to find some of the Chey-
ennes, who, having been driven
from the brakes of the Staked
Plains, were supposed to have
gone to southern New Mexico.
The interpreter said I should have
a good opportunity to see the
" head men" there ; we could visit
the camps afterwards. To the of-
fice we went, and found there
about fifteen or twenty chiefs,
among them Little Crow and
Kicking Bird, the head chief of
the Kiowas. If ever there were a
good Indian and there are many
very honest people west of the
Mississippi who think that no live
Indian can be good I think Kick-
ing Bird was a good Indian. Dur-
ing the recent troubles he never
left his reservation, was constant in
using his influence in favor of the
whites, and never wavered in his
fidelity to the government.

He was a fine-looking Indian,
and had as winning a countenance
as I have looked upon anywhere.
The expression of his eyes was
remarkably soft and pleasing.
There was a quiet, natural dig-
nity in his manners, tempered by
great natural grace. I was taken
by his appearance from the first,
and shook hands with him with
pleasure and sincerity, which was
not the case on every occasion of
hand-shaking that morning. Kick-
ing Bird, as nearly as one can judge
an Indian's age (an Indian is gen-
erally as great a chronological diffi-

culty as a negro), was then about
thirty-five years old. He was some-
what above the middle height, rich-
ly but not gaudily dressed. Hang-
ing by a loop from his left breast
were a pair of silver tweezers.

After the " talk" was over and
the arrangements for sending out
the party agreed upon, every chief
except Kicking Bird had some pri-
vate " axe to grind " something
to ask for. As the presentation of
these " private bills" was likely
to take much time, we withdrew,
mounted our wagon, and drove to
the Kiowa camp.

The camps of the three tribes,
Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches,
were pitched in the fringe of tim-
ber that borders Medicine Bluff
Creek and the Main Cache. The
day was bright and warm for the
season. The scarlet and white
blankets of the Indians, seen here
and there among the trees, gave
life and color to the landscape.
Crowds of children gambolled and
shouted, and seemed to enjoy them-
selves intensely. They had no idea
they were the children of a doom-
ed and dying race. There was no
trace among them of the stoicism
of the Indian of maturer years.
No crowd of French urchins play-
ing around' the Tour Saint Jacques
in the grounds of the Palais Royal,
or the gardens of the Tuileries, was
ever more full of gayety and cspti-
glerie than these little savages.
They threw their arms about and
"kicked loose legs" as naturally
and with as much abandon as any
white children could have done.
Some, more industriously inclined,
built little tepies, or lodges ; others
made tiny camp-fires, playing " war-
party "; others, with miniature bows
and arrows, skipped along, shooting
at the small birds that crossed their
path. Now an urchin, more bold

842

A Day among tJic Kioivas and Comanches.

than the rest, would hop alongside
our wagon and return our ' how,
how" with compound interest. Em-
boldened by his example, others
would follow, until we had a crowd
of little red-skins of both sexes
about us, hopping, laughing, and
" how-how"-ing. Occasionally they
indulged in a general shout of good-
natured merriment, which may very
probably have been caused by some
more than usually good joke at our
expense.

Our first visit was to Kicking
Bird's lodge. It was quite roomy,
being a tepie of twenty-four poles.
In rear of the lodge, and carefully
covered by a paulin, like the carriage
of any civilized gentleman, stood our
friend Kicking Bird's " buggy."

Kicking Bird had not yet return-
ed from the talk at the post. His
wife, a buxom young squaw, pro-
fusely beaded, brightly blanketed,
vermilion-cheeked, but not over-
washed, did the honors. She had a
child about ten months old a live-
ly, stout little red rascal, whose flesh
was as firm as vulcanized rubber.
The little wretch was just begin-
ning to walk. He was in puris, of
course. He took wonderfully to
us. He would try to walk across
the lodge to each of us in turn,
falling at every other step, and get-
ting up again with a loud crow of
determination. Then he would
toddle from one to the other, hold-
ing by our boot-tops as we stood
in a circle around him, and being
jumped as high as arms would ad-
mit of by each in turn, to his in-
tense delight and the great enjoy-
ment of his mother.

We walked through the camp
and watched the squaws tanning
buffalo-ltides and preparing ante-
lope-skins. I was very anxious to
get a papoose-board, as a telegram
from a medical friend had just in-

formed me that there was an op-
portunity of utilizing such a piece
of furniture in the family of a very
particular friend. But I could not
beg or buy one, even with the help
of my friend the interpreter. We
asked several squaws, but not one
of them would sell. I heard after-
wards that an extravagantly high
price, backed by the Indian
agent's influence, failed to procure
one. The squaws no doubt con-
sider it " bad medicine ' to sell a
papoose-board.

A gaudily-dressed Indian, whose
cheeks were streaked with paint of
all the colors of the rainbow, ap-
proached us. In my civilized sim-
plicity I supposed that this glaring
individual was some very big chief
indeed. I asked the interpreter
what great chief he was.

"Some Indian plug" responded
that gentleman; " no chief at all."

" How comes he to be so extra-
vagantly adorned?"

" They can wear anything they
can beg, buy, or steal."

My mistake reminds me of a sim-
ilar one made by Indians with re-
gard to some white visitors. Col.
visited an Indian camp, ac-
companied by some officers and a
cavalry escort. The colonel and
the officers were dressed in fatigue
uniform, with merely gold enough
about them to indicate their rank
to a close observer on close inspec-
tion. The observed of all the In-
dian observers, however, was a
"fancy" Dutch bugler, with his
double yellow stripe and his bars
of yellow braid across his breast.
To him the most respectful homage
and the greatest consideration were
paid.

As we passed one of the Kiowa
lodges, a young man, seemingly
about twenty-five or twenty-eight
years old, came out to 'meet us

A Day among tJic Kioivas and Comanchcs. 843

with outstretched arms. With the made the war-path too hot for him.

exception of Kicking Bird, he was Mats were placed around the lodge,

the most pleasing Indian I met. On these we sat tailor-fashion. Va-

He was very fairrskinned for an lises, made of buffalo-hide, scrap-

Indian, bright, intelligent-looking, ed and painted in the usual Indian

with a frankness of manner rare fashion, were placed at intervals

among Indians. Pie was present- around the tcpie. The fire was in

ed to me as Big Tree, a paroled In- the centre, in a hole eighteen in-

dian. ches or two feet deep. The lodge

The interpreter told me that, up w r as pleasantly warmed, and there

to the time Big Tree was taken was not the least smoke. Two

with Satanta, the former was an In- young bucks occupied about four

dian of no note. He was innocent yards of the lodge. They lay

of crime, and achieved a reputation stretched at full length on their

merely by his accidental associa- backs. Each had a bow and arrow,

tions with Satanta. with which he amused himself by

Notwithstanding the lesson I had toying. The arrow was in its place,

received, when we met some gaudi- ready to be sped. Ever and anon

ly-bedizened Indian I could not re- they would draw the arrows back to

frain from asking who he was. the head, and then relax the strings

The interpreter's answer was in- again. I felt that the rascals would

variably : " Only some Indian////^." have sent the barbs through us with

We drove to the Comanche camp, pleasure, if they could only do so

and visited the lodge of Quirz- with safety. We were unarmed, it

Quip, or " Antelope-Chewer." I is true; but there were thirteen

had met him at the u talk ' in the companies of cavalry and five of

morning. He recognized me and infantry within a mile and a half,

shook hands in a very friendly and the chances of ultimate escape

manner. Quirz-Quip's counte- were more than doubtful. I should

nance was not an attractive one. not wish to meet even my worthy

tt was at its best then, however, for friend Quirz-Quip off the reserva-

he was in high glee at his good for- tion, if I were unarmed and no help

tune in reaching the reservation, near.

even with the loss of almost every- The young men merely nodded

thing he had, and the troops close to us as we entered, without chang-

at his heels. He only got in a few ing their positions or intermitting

hours ahead of them, and they had their bow-play. They gave us a

been gaining on him hourly. As half-careless, half-supercilious smile,

his dinner was ready, Antelope- and glanced at each other, as if they

Chewer invited us in to join him in should say :

the repast, and I accepted the invi- "Buffalo-Heart, my boy ! what

tation eagerly. does the governor mean by bringing

The lodge was a large and com- these fellows here ?"

fortable one. No doubt it had They seemed to look upon us as

been kept standing on the reser- a pair of young scions of the old

ration for the use of the squaws French noblesse might have looked

and children while Antelope-Chew- upon a republican guard detail en-

er was on the war-path, and for a tering their private apc\nments in

pleasant and safe resting-place for their ancestral chateau,

that gentleman when the troops We shook hands and exchanged

844

A Day among the Kioiuas and Comanchcs.

grunts with the squaws and chil-
dren. The interpreter joked Quirz-
Quip about his race with the troops.
The Indian laughed, indulged in
several " how-hows ' and buenos
(the Comanches use a good many
Spanish words), -and shook hands
with me again with great seeming
cordiality. He was evidently very
much elated by his good fortune in
getting to a place of safety, and
showed it by repeated chuckles.

Dinner being ready, we drew
closer to the festive fire-hole in
which the viands were cooking.
As a not very comely old squaw put
forth a not very clean hand and
arm to serve the first course, a
young gentleman who had joined
our party made a precipitate re-
treat. The young fellow was troub-
led with a delicate stomach. Another
gentleman, having tasted of the first
course, said he found the tepie rather
close and withdrew. There remain-
ed of our party, then, only the in-
terpreter and my unworthy self to
do honor to Antelope-Chewer's hos-
pitality.

The party assembled around the
hospitable stew-pan consisted of
the old squaw who did the honors
of the camp-kettle ; a younger
squaw, plump and dirty, evidently
the latest favorite; Antelope-Chew-
er and several little Chewers, rang-
ing from six months to twelve years
old ; the aristocratic young bucks
(whose food was handed to them
by the old squaw), the interpreter,
and the writer. The repast con-
sisted of stewed buffalo meat serv-
ed in the vessel in which it was
cooked. Each convive takes his
clasp-knife in his right hand, seizes
one end of the piece of meat with
the thumb and forefinger of his
left, and cuts off a piece of the re-
quired size. It is " bad medicine,"
as well as mauvais goAt, to take

more than you can consume. The
manner in which salt was used
struck me as being an improvement
on our civilized mode of usine it

It was served dissolved in water in
a shallow vessel, and each guest
dipped his piece of meat in the
fiuid. Of course if this method
were adopted in our hotels or
boarding-houses, I should wish to
have my salt and water served in
an "individual " salt-vessel.

There was no bread. The In-
dians on the reservation had re-
ceived no flour for weeks. We had
the Indian substitute for bread
the fat of the meat cut off in strips,
pressed, and served separately, cold.
There are worse substitutes. A
cup of coffee (without milk, of
course) concluded the repast. It
was by no means bad. It was hot
and strong, though not quite sweet
enough, as the ration of sugar is-
sued to the Indians was insufficient.
I enjoyed it, however. It is only
justice to say that Quirz Quip's
coffee was much better than some 1
have tasted in railroad eating-houses
and "end of the track " towns.

Dinner being over, we left the
lodge to walk through the camp,
and especially to visit and view a
bridge made by the Indians them-
selves across the Medicine Bluff.
It was a structure of mud and logs
quite creditable to Indian ingenuity
and industry. It showed that the
lessons of their teacher the beaver
: had not been thrown away upon
them.

We invited Antelope-Chewer to
come with us to the fort bakery,
and we would make him a present
of a dozen loaves of bread. He
consented, but said he wanted his
squaw to go too.

" He wants her to carry back the
bread," said the interpreter.

We agreed, and got into the wa-

A Day among tiie Kioivas and Comanckcs.

845

gon. Quirz-Quip desired that the
plump and dirty squaw should ride
inside with us. To this we would
not submit, and insisted that she
should take the seat beside the
driver. Indeed, I felt already an
itching sensation all over me no
doubt the effect of imagination ; for
the interpreter assured me there
was no clanger of anything of the
kind, unless I should spend a night
in a lodge. I assured him that such
a thing was not at all probable.
Nevertheless, and notwithstanding
two or three baths, it was some
days before my epidermis regained
its accustomed tranquillity.

We drove to the Apache camp
for our young friends who had fled
from Quirz-Quip's hospitality, and
returned by the Comanche .chief's
lodge to pick up the plump and
dirty squaw. She had become tired
of waiting, and had gone aw r ay,
much to her lord's disgust and our
satisfaction.

We drove to the bakery and
bought a dozen loaves of bread for
Quirz-Quip. He wished us to drive
him back to his camp with the
bread. The interpreter told him
we could not do it. Then the mo-
dest Comanche asked us to lend
him the wagon to take the- bread.
The interpreter shook his head, and
assured him that it was impossible.

" Then," said Quirz-Quip, " how
am I to get the bread to camp ?"

' If you are too lazy to pack it,"
said the interpreter, " you can leave,
and be confounded."

As we drove away, we saw him,
with a rueful countenance, spread-
ing out his blanket on the floor to
receive the coveted bread but hated
load.

On our return from the camps
we passed by the agency. I asked
what kind of a man the agent was.
I was answered that he was " a

good sort of man," but ;i he knows
nothing about Indians or their
ways."

" He is a Quaker, I suppose."

" A kind of a made-up Quaker,
like a good many of 'em."

We stopped at the agency door,
and I was introduced to the agent.
He was a gentleman in his manners,
and looked to me like an honest
man. There was to be an issue of
blankets on the following day. The
agent kindly said he would be glad
to have me present, and if I would
come he would send a wagon for
me. I accepted at once.

The Indian agent was as good
as his word. He sent a carriage
for us about half-past eight next
morning. The issue was to take
place about half-past nine. It was
nearly half-past eleven, however,
before the Indians began to arrive.
Your Indian is invariably unpunc-
tual. You may set what hour you
please, but you cannot make him
come until he is quite ready. By
half-p'ast twelve they began coming
in considerable numbers and the is-
sue commenced. The women and
children were out in great force,
and were in high good-humor, chat-
ting and laughing in the gayest
manner possible. Each family
ranges itself in a semi-circle ; the
chief, or male head thereof, stood
about the centre of the chord.
Each chief, after receiving the num-
ber of blankets to which he was en-
titled, tore in two a double blanket
of each color ; there were only
black and white blankets to be is-
sued that day, no scarlet ones,
greatly to the disappointment of the
squaws and children. Beginning
at one end of the semi-circle, the
chief threw a piece of each color at
the head of the person for whom it
was intended. It was caught with
a shout of glee and many remarks,

846 A Day among the Kiowas and Comanclics.

evidently of a humorous nature, ''making medicine" />., perform-
jtidging by the laughter with which ing incantations. As we went from
they were hailed. Sometimes the the hospital to the carpenter's
dignified chief, with as near an ap- shop, I met young Satanta, a parol-
proach to a smile as his dignity ed prisoner, son of the notorious
would allow, threw a joke with the Satanta who was delivered by the
blanket at the head of a dependant. War Department to the civil au-
His jokes, like those of all persons thorities in Texas to be tried for
in power, were always greeted with murders and robberies committed
applause. When the blanket was by him within the boundaries of that
so thrown as to strike the recipient State. Satanta, Jr., was a bright-
full in the face, the merriment was eyed young man of twenty. He
uproarious. Our friend Quirz-Quip wore a long, straight red feather in
was present, of course. He was his hat, and carried in his hand a
very busy, getting all he could, and bow, from which ever and anon he
dividing what he got among his in- discharged an arrow as he went,
te resting family. He was harder and picked it up again,
to please than if he had always An Indian, who evidently thought
been a good Indian and had never he was suffering under a very great
left the reservation to go on the grievance, now met us and talked
war-path. very earnestly and excitedly to the

The blankets were of very good interpreter.

quality. They were marked with " That Indian is smarting under
the letters U. S. I. D. It was found the sense of some great wrong,
necessary to stamp the blankets to real or fancied," I said,
prevent the Indians from gambling " Yes," said the interpreter, smil-
or trading them away tq Mexicans ing ; " he has trouble with another
in the summer. Indian about a greyhound pup. I
Here and there some wretched promised this fellow and another a
squaws stood apart from the general pup each (I have the finest grey-
throng, as if they were Pariahs hounds in the Territory). The
among their sisters. They seemed other fellow, while I was away, took
utterly forlorn and miserable. They both the pups, and won't give this
took no interest in the busy scene fellow his. They are just like chil-
before them. Their faces wore an dren in many things."
expression of blank hopelessness. There was little doing in the
The world had nothing for them in carpenter's shop. I was shown
the present, nothing in the future, some work done by a young Indian
They came to the issue as mere which was fair, for an Indian,
drudges, to carry back the blankets There were no Indians at work, but
to the camps. They had each an I was told that Kicking Bird's son
angular piece cut out of the nostril, was to begin his apprenticeship the
This is the Scarlet Letter of the following week.

Comanches. Nor was there anything doing at

When the issue was over I visited the school. There were hopes of

the Indian hospital and had quite opening it the following month, with

an interesting chat with the doctor, twenty Apaches, twenty Kiowas,

The Indians were then suffering a and the same number of Coman-

good deal from colds, influenza, etc., ches.

brought on by exposure at night, The trader at the military post

A Day among the Kioivas and Comanches. 847

was also the trader for the Indians, the Indians on this reservation

The store was thronged from morn- have been without bread. Is this

iftg to sunset by Indians of both true ?"

sexes. Comanches, Kiowas, A pa- " It is. The freight contractors

dies, hung around in groups, stand- have failed to deliver the flour. 1

ing in the doorways, blocking up the cannot issue what I have not. To

windows, when they were closed, make up for the lack of flour, 1

with their faces against the panes, or issue four pounds of beef to each

their heads and the upper part of Indian daily."

their bodies thrust in when they " It is charged that the beef is

were open. The majority of the poor. Is this charge true ?"

trader's store-idlers are women, " It is. What can I do ? Like

young girls, and children. They a quartermaster or commissary, I

are by no means backward in can only issue what I have on hand,

begging. The clerks told me it If I had not this beef, the Indians

was not wise to leave anything on would have nothing to eat. I can-

the counter even, for a moment not throw it back on the contrac-

when the red brethren and sisters tor's hands, and wait for a better

were in the store ; they had to be quality of meat ; for while I was

watched as narrowly as fashionable waiting the Indians would starve

white kleptomaniacs. or leave the reservation to find

I was rather pleased with the ap- subsistence where they could."

pearance of the Indian agent. He " What is the allowance of coffee

seemed honest and frank. Of and sugar ?"

his ignorance or knowledge of In- '* Four pounds of the former and

dians and their ways I can say no- eight of the latter to one hundred

thing. ' Old Indian men " are apt rations."

to think that, in the way of know- I now took a friendly farewell of

ledge of Indians, they have pulled the Indian agent, and went away

the ladder up after them. with a vague impression that it is

I thanked the agent for his po- not the poor, subordinate official
liteness, and said that, if he did not who makes most money out of the
think it impertinent, I should like Indians, but freighters and " big
to ask a question or two for my contractors," and perhaps more
own information and satisfaction, especially their financial "back-
He replied that he would be very ers," the speculators of the great
happy to give me any information Eastern cities,
in his power. On our way back to the post we

'Well," said I, "not to mince met Kicking Bird returning to his

matters, you know they say a great camp. He was mounted on a large

many hard things about Indian cream-colored mule. We stopped,

agents." shook hands with him, and chatted

" Of course I (Jo. When I re- a little. The interpreter joked him

ceived this appointment, one of my about riding a mule. Kicking Bird

most intimate friends wrote to me laughed, and said that as he was

not to accept it, warning me that, going to live hereafter like a white

were I as pure as snow, I should be man, like a white man he should

denounced by everybody as a swin- ride a mule,

dler and a thief before six months." It was the last time I saw Kick-

" It is said that for several weeks ing Bird. Shortly afterwards he de-

848

De Veres "Thomas & Bcckct!

livered up to the military authori-
ties a number of the revolted In-
dians. Among them was a brother
of one of his squaws. In revenge
she poisoned the faithful chief.

Poor Kicking Bird ! He had
given his gorgeous war-bonnet to

a veteran officer of the army as a
token that he had left the war-path
for ever. He proposed to teach his
children the white man's language
and the white man's peaceful arts.
He fell a martyr to his fidelity to
the government.

DE VERB'S " THOMAS A BECKET."*

IT is doubtful whether two years
ago even the admirers of Aubrey
de Vere looked for anything strik-
ingly new or startling from his pen.
His measure seemed filled. He
was known and read as a poet
whose melodious verse was the ex-
pression of thoughts lofty as well as
tender, of profound meditations and
large aspirations, of purity without
fleck, yet cold almost as it was chaste.
This were an enviable fame at any
time, infinitely more so just no\v,
when the ambition of our poets
seems 1 to be that of the prodigal,
to waste their divine birthright on
worthless objects, to live riotously,
and finally, when all else is gone,
to feed themselves and their readers
on the husks of swine. Suddenly
Alexander the Great appeared, and
in the author we beheld a new man.
At once his fame took wings, while
he, with the unconscious ease of
one who took his place by right,
strode beyond the men of to-day,
and entered into that narrower cir-
cle of larger minds whose names
are written in brass, whose works
live after them and become part
and parcel of the English tongue.
One sign of Mr. de Vere's undis-

* St. Thomas of Canterbury. A Dramatic Po-
em. By Aubrey de Vere, author of Alexander
tke Great. London : Henry S. King & Co. 1876.
(For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

puted success was significant. It
is only such a transcendent gen-
ius as that of Dr. Newman that can
overleap the barriers which preju-
dice has set around the Catholic
name. It is still true, though less
so than formerly, that the grand old
name of " Catholic" blazoned on a
literary scutcheon is regarded as
a bar sinister by the non-Catholic
press. Yet even this difficulty of
caste was overcome by Mr. de Vere,
and his Alexander the Great was
hailed by critics of every class and
kind of thought to be a return to
the palmy days of English drama,
and a welcome addition to English
literature.

Two years have- passed, and a new
drama is presented to us by the
same author. From Alexander the
Great to Thomas a Becket is a long
stride and a trying one. It is a
passage from the height of pagan-
ism to the height of Christianity.
The hero of the one is the personi-
fication of the pride and the pomp,
the glory an$ shame, the greatness
and essential littleness, of paganism.*
The hero of the other is one of
those men who throughout the
Christian era, even up to our own
times, have been found to stand up
in the face of the princes of this
world, and, if need be, pour out
their hearts' blood in confessing

DC Veres "Tiiouias a Beckett

849

Christ and upholding his kingdom
on earth.

We may as well say at once that
in the new drama we miss many
things which in Alexander the Great
won our admiration. We miss the
sustained magic of those lines, al-
most every one of which is p.oetry
of the highest order, yet so skilfully
adapted that whosoever speaks them
speaks naturally and in keeping
with his character. In no place in
Alexander the Great could one say,
" Here speaks the poet," " Here the
rhetorician," " Here the dramatist."
This much, indeed, is true of Tho-
mas d Becket. We miss, too, the
brilliant epigrams, the proverbial
wisdom of the brief sayings thrown
so liberally into the mouths of this
character and that. We miss the
sharp contact and contrast of char-
acter so perfectly worked out among
the different types of Greeks. There
is no place in the later drama for
such a conception as Alexander
himself, the slow growth and devel-
opment under our eyes of his many-
sided character, with his strong re-
solve, his dreams, his daring hopes,
his insane ambition, his thorough,
practical manner of dealing with
tilings as they pass, his slow-com-
ing doubts, his wonder at the world,
at his own mission in it, and at the
unseen power that rules them both
from somewhere. Indeed, we can-
not call to mind a like conception
to this in any drama.

The reason for the absence of
such features as these is plain. In the
one case the poet was freer to fol-
low the workings of his own imagi-
nation ; in the other he is more
closely bound down to history, to
facts, to the very words often spo-
ken by his characters. And how
thoroughly he has studied his sub-
ject may be seen in the preface to
the drama, which is an admirable,
VOL. xxin. 54

though condensed, history of the
whole struggle between St. Thomas
and Henry II. But in compensa-
tion for what we miss we find*' a
robustness, an off-hand freedom be-
tokening real strength, a truth and
naturalness of coloring, a noble
manner of dealing with noble
things, a straightforward honesty
that winks at no faults, on which-
ever side they lie, a boldness and
vigor that never flag from the first
line to the last. There is less art
than in the other, but much more
of nature's happy freedom. More-
over, the interest of the drama is
none the less really of to-day be-
cause it represents men who lived
and events which occurred seven
centuries ago. Has this century
seen no Henries or his like? Who-
shall say that we have no Beckets ? ;
Are there no men to-day ready to
stand up in the face of princes call-
ing themselves Christian, to risk land
and life and all they have in the-
cause of Christ, at the same time
that they obey their princes, be
they Catholic or non-Catholic, " sav-
ing their order " and " saving God's-
honor"?

The whole world makes sad re-
ply. And though in these scienti-
fic days it is not the fashion to
dash the brains of God's priests
out in the sanctuary, a method
equally effectual is adopted to
quench, if possible, the spirit within
them. They are drained of such
means as belong to their offices by
fine upon fine ; every effort is made
to compel them, as was the case with
St. Thomas, to betray their trust, to
recognize rebellious, apostate, and
recreant priests. And at length,
when there is not a penny left, they
are either driven into exile, as was St.
Thomas, or cast into prisons where
their martyrdom consists of a thou-
sand petty insults and deprivations,

850

De Veres "TJionias a Becket!

and where, to take up recent ex-
amples, they are regaled on soup
which is scientifically bad. After
all, does there not seem something
more magnanimous in the fierce bru-
tality of the Plantagenet and his
men ?

The whole drama of Thomas
d Bcckct turns on the struggle
between the archbishop and the
king, and there is no hesitation on
the author's part in deciding which
side to take in the contest. Mr. de
Vere has certainly the courage of
his convictions, and he is bold in
their expression in days when St.
Thomas is still regarded by the
great majority of English readers as
a mischievous and meddlesome pre-
late who courted, if he did not rich-
ly deserve, his fate. Let us, with
Mr. de Vere's permission, picture
to ourselves a moment his lost op-
portunity of making himself infa-
mously famous. Had he, with his
great gifts and acknowledged place
in the ranks of literati, only taken
the other side ; had he painted
St. Thomas according to the ortho-
dox Protestant reading, how his
book would have been devour-
ed, and what reviews written of
it down all the line of the anti-
Catholic army of writers! What
comfort Mr. Gladstone would have
found in such a convert in his next
tilt with the Rock ! Were it not a
thing simply natural in any honor-
able man to adhere to the side of
truth, and, more, to satisfy himself
of the truth where doubts were
raised, we should call it noble in
Mr. de Vere thus to spurn the ex-
ample of so many gifted writers
of his time whose great ambition
seems to be to pander to the vices
around them. Indeed, not the least
interest attached to this drama lies
in the treatment, by a calm, poetic,
yet deeply philosophic mind, of the

momentous struggle which it por-
trays the struggle ever old yet ever
new between church and state.

The drama is in five acts. The
first opens at Westminster with the
election of Thomas to the primacy,
embraces his resignation of the
chancellorship and first rupture
with the king, and ends beautifully
and solemnly with his consecration
as Archbishop of Canterbury. This
act is very interesting. It plunges
at once in medias res. Not a line
is wasted, and so natural is the col-
oring that one lives and moves
among the men of long ago as com-
pletely as in Shakspere. Becket's
friends and foes come and go, and
have their say about the new pre-
late and his appointment to the
"Rome of the North." Naturally,
the appointment to such a see still
filled men's minds while the mem-
ory of Anselm lived,

" Stretching from exile a lean, threatening arm'

against the first Henry. It is
plain from the start that Beck-
et's mitre is not to be wreathed
with roses. Even were the king a
tamer soul, the new archbishop
leaves enemies behind him time-
serving prelates who" hate an honest
man, others who envy him his
place, nobles, knights, and rascals
who have felt his strong hand while
chancellor. The scene shifts to
Normandy and shows us Henry's
court at Rouen, presided over by
his perfidious and vicious queen,
Eleanor, whose bitter tongue ever
fans the flames that threaten Beck-
et, whom she hates. Here we see
Henry at his best, when, as he
thinks, all is going well with his
scheme.

u Thomas, Archbishop

That hand which holds the seal, wielding the staff
The feud of Grown and Church henceforth is past.

. . . Henceforth I rule !
None shares with me my realms."

De Veres "Thomas a Becket.'

Here we have, too, a thrilling pic-
ture of his wrath when this pleasant
scheme is at once knocked to pieces
by Becket's resignation of the chan-
cellorship. And now the fight be-
gins.

In the second act come up the
memorable scenes at Northampton
with the question of the " Royal
Customs." In these trying scenes,
where king and prelate enter the
lists against each other, the drama-
tist has exhibited a power worthy
the occasion, and, to our thinking,
they are the finest in the drama.
We can only glance at them and
pass on. The forces are marshalled :
on the one side the power of the
king with the bandit nobles for
most of them were little else and
the craven prelates ; on the other
Becker, his oath, and his conscience.
The scene between Becket and the
bishops, where they strive to break
down his resolution, is admirable,
as showing the inner character of
the man, the steadfast churchman,
military half, who has not yet quite
lost that outspoken scorn he used
so freely while still in and of the
world. His brief replies are full of
negative meaning, and, when he does
break forth, the scorn of the king
is puny beside his words.

" My lords, have you said all ? Then hear me

speak.

I might be large to tell you, courtier prelates,
That if the Conqueror's was an iron hand,
Not less 'twas just. Oftenest it used aright
Its power usurped. It decked no idiot brow
With casuat mitre ; neither lodged in grasp
That, ague-stricken, scarce could hold its bribe,
The sceptres of the shepherds of Chris? s
flock r

And never were
words than these :

there nobler

" Bishops of England !

For many truths by you this day enforced,
Hear ye in turn but one. The church is God's :
Lords, were it ours, then might we traffic with it ;
At will make large its functions, or contract ;
Serve it or sell ; worship or crucify.
I say the church is God's ; for he beheld it,
His thought, ere time began ; counted its bones,

Which in his book were writ. I say that he

From his own side in water and in blood *

Gave birth to it on Calvary, and caught it,

Despite the nails, his bride, in his own arms.

I say that he, a Spirit of clear heat,

Lives in its frame, and cleanses with pure pain

His sacrificial precinct, but consumes

The chaff with other ardors. Lords, I know you.

To-day the heathen rage I fear them not ;
If fall I must, this hand, ere yet I fall,
Stretched from the bosom of a peaceful gown,
Above a troubled king and darkening realm,
Shall send God's sentence forth. My lords, fare-
well."

And surely Becket might have
spoken this :

" My king I honor honoring more my God ;
My lords, they lie who brand mine honest fame
With fealty halved. With doubly-linked alle-
giance
He serves his king who serves him for God's

sake ;

But who serves thus must serve his God o'er all.
I served him thus, and serve."

But we could quote all this mag-
nificent scene.

In the third act Becket escapes
to France, visits the exiled pontiff
at Sens, and finally takes refuge at
Pontigny. The calm of this holy
and peaceful abode seems to per-
meate this portion of the drama,
offering a happy relief after the late
fierce storms. There he abides,
"musing on war with heart at
peace," and his spirit, without slack-
ening in its strong purpose, grows
insensibly calmer, milder, and more
humble. From this dwelling he is
driven forth by order of the king,
only, as the king himself bitterly says,
to "stand stronger than before."
The persecution is turning against
the persecutor, who confesses in
words Shakspere might have writ-
ten :

" I have lit my camp-fires on a frozen flood ,
Methinks the ice wears thin."

But he is a man as full of device
as resolution, and at his back are
men still fuller of device. The plot
thickens, and at last even Rome
seems to fall from the archbishop,
and give him over to the power of

852

De Vere's "Thomas a Becket.'

his enemies. Something of the old
fierce spirit leaps up, and Rome
itself is not spared, until he is re-
minded by John of Salisbury, his
tried and faithful friend, of the
Pope that

"Who sits there
Sits on God's tower, and further sees than we."

Whereupon Becket breaks out into
a speech full of beauty and of
truth, which we regret our limited
space forbids us to quote. At the
end of it the two cardinals enter to
endeavor to find a way for patching
up a peace between the archbishop
and the king. It must be borne in
mind that in those days the church
was in sore straits : the pope in
exile at Sens ; an anti-pope back-
ed by all the power of the German
emperor. As Cardinal Otho truly
says : !

*' A mutinous world uplifts this day its front
Against Christ's Vicar ! Save this France and

England,
I know not kingdom sound.'

And here was Becket, the cham-
pion of the church, doing, in the
eyes of many, what best he could
to drive England also into the ene-
my's camp. All these circumstances
render the intellectual and spiritual
duel between the archbishop and
the cardinals one of intense interest,
which again confirms what we noted
in Alexander the Great, that Mr. de
Vere has the true dramatic instinct
of bringing together at the right
place and right time opposing ele-
ments. It is the clash of contra-
ries that imparts greatest interest to
a drama, and the right working of
the conflict that shows the drama-
tist's skill. The contrast between
the plausible, keen, politic, Italian
nature, as it would be called by
some, of Cardinal William, and the
straight, unbending, single-minded
nature of Becket, who is so rooted

in his position that nothing but
death could tear him from it, is per-
fect. The cardinal builds up a
very strong case in a negative man-
ner against the archbishop. He
hints at mistakes on the latter':;
part ; he counsels yielding here and
there, or rather puts it to Becket
why such and such might not be
instead of such arid such. In fact,
his Eminence shows himself a tho-
rough diplomat in cases where the
issue was not a duel to the death.
It would be amusing, were it not
something of a far higher order,
to see how Becket, with a strong,
straight sentence or two, cuts merci-
lessly, half scornfully, through the;
cardinal's fine-spun webs one after
the other as they appear, scarcely
giving them time to rise. Cardinal
William is at length nettled into
breaking quite through the diplo-
matic ice, and bids the archbishop
resign. Becket refuses to listen to
any voice bat that which proceeds
from the chair of Peter, and with
this the act closes.

The fourth act opens with a
beautiful scene between the nun
Idonea and the aged Empress Ma-
tilda, whose character, small part as
it plays in the drama, seems to us
one of the most finished of all.
Henry is back in England, only to
find

" All's well ; and then all's ill : who wars on Becket
Hath January posting hard on May,
And night at ten o' the morn."

On the other hand, Becket, with
half-prophetic eye, seems to see the
beginning of the end. After each
new struggle, each new humiliation,
he rises greater because humbler,
leaving the dross behind him. Here
is his own estimate of himself :

u Once I was unjust.
The Holy Father sees as from a height ;
I fight but on the plain : my time is short,
And in it much to expiate. I must act.

De Verfs " Tl.omas fi Becket.'

853

{After a pause.)

I strove for justice, and my mother's honor ;
For these at first. Now know I that God's truth
Is linked with these as close as body and soul."

How true is thfs we all know. It
only required a Luther to make of
Henry II. a Henry VIII., and he
had not stood so long in doubt as
did the latter. The plot deepens.
What an admirable touch it is that
shows him, when the gravest news
arrives from England, falling back
a moment on his happier days at
hearing of a smart retort given by
his old pupil, the youthful prince !
At last the king and Becket are
brought together, and again in this
long, historic meeting Mr. de Vere
rises fully and easily to the level of
the event. The inner vein of
deceit for which he was marked
shows through the monarch's speech,
and once a lurid burst of passion
flashes forth like li^htninsf and as

O O

quickly disappears. This prolong-
ed scene, at the end of which the
mask is almost openly thrown off
by the king, ends the act, and is a
fitting preparation for the consum-
mation which is to follow.

The fifth act opens with prepara-
tions for the return of the archbi-
shop to England. His heart and
those of his friends are filled with
the gloomiest forebodings. Ill-ru-
mors thicken around them. Becket
himself, in a speech of wonderful
beauty and pathos, describes the
' sinking strange" at his heart as,
standing still on the French coast,
he looks towards England. It is
the flesh asserting itself and gain-
ing a momentary victory over the
spirit. He sails at length, and his-
tory tells us how he was received.
It was a matter of life or death to
his foes. There was only one end
to a contest with a man of his
stamp either submission on their
part or death to him. The drama

hurries on towards the catastrophe.
The queen fans the flame. As Li-
sieux says :

" Year by year

She urged his highness 'gainst my lord the primate :
Of late she whets him with more complicate craft :
She knows that all she likes the king dislikes,
And feigns a laughing, new-born zeal for Becket,
To sting the royal spleen." ,

The short scene in which the
barbed words of the queen draw a
contrast between Becket's triumph
and the king's humiliation is one
of the many dramatic gems set in
this drama. So graphic is the
scene as she rises on the throne,
cup in hand, and cries :

" A toast, my lords ! The London merchant's son :
Once England's primate henceforth King of
England !"

that we scarcely need Leicester to
tell us :

" Behold her, Lisieux !
That smile is baleful as a winter beam
Streaking some cliff wreck-gorged : her hair'and

eyes
Send forth a glare half sunshine and half

lightning,"

At last falls that memorable feast
of St. Stephen, and the end comes.

'' The man is changed. Seldom he speaks ; his

smile

Is like that smile upon a dead man's face,
A mystery of sweetness."

The saint is already looking be-
yond this world. Standing at the
window, as we are told he stood, he
lo'oks out and beholds the ground
robed in snow. Here is how his
poet makes him speak of it :

" How fair, how still, that snowy world ! The

earth

Lies like a white rose under eyes of God ;
May it send up a sweetness !"

What other poet in these days
could give us so pure and perfect an
image as that a flower plucked,
surely, from the paradise of poets ?
The sweetness is sent up. It rises
from the martyr's blood.

Such is an outline of this drama.
The character, of course, on which

De Veres "Thomas & Bcckct"

the attention fastens chiefly is that
of Thomas a Becket, and we think
that in the portrayal of this great
character Mr. de Vere is as happy
as in his Alexander. Becket is a
very easy man to write about, but a
most difficult one to set living and
real before us. In him for a long
time the layman and the clerk strug-
gled for mastery. There is no pos-
sible doubt that up to the time of
his elevation to the primacy he was
a man who lived in, and to a very
great extent of, the world. He re-
joiced in pomp and pride, in large
retinues, in splendid appointments,
in ostentatious display. He was
not at all averse to showing that the
arm of the cleric could tilt a lance
with the bravest knight. Yet
through all the temptations of
such a life as his he undoubtedly
retained his purity of heart, a right
sense of his true vocation, and an
honesty of purpose that never
swerved. Certain it is that, in pro-
curing his appointment as' primate,
Henry thought he had, if not ex-
actly a tool, a devoted friend and a
sensible man, who would not for-
get the favors his monarch had
showered on him, and would be
troubled by no such nice scruples
as vexed his predecessor, Anselm.
Becket had shown himself to be a
keen-eyed, resolute, active, honest
minister, with no sordid touch in
his nature, with an intense sense of
duty to his king and country. In-
deed, had he not been a Catholic
cleric, in days when clerics lawfully
assumed many a civil office, there
can be little doubt that he would
have been pronounced, even by
Protestant historians, to be one of
the best and truest English chancel-
lors that ever held the seals.

At a day's notice this man, by
the express command and desire of
the king, is sent back to his real

duty the tending of Christ's fold.
He obeyed against his will, foresee-
ing already something of the issue.
But the fashion of the world is not
brushed off in a day, however
changed may be the heart and
conduct. To-day he is the gay
and brilliant chancellor of Ens-

land, highest in the favor of his
king ; to-morrow, primate of Eng-
land, and appointed to that post, as
he knew, to betray it. The man is
not yet a saint very far from it ;
and in his seizing of this character
just as the robes of the world were
falling from him and he had donned
the livery of heaven ; in his awaken-
ing to the new and tremendous re-
sponsibility that had fallen upon
him ; in the gradual taming of his
fiery and impetuous spirit ; in the
struggle between personal love for
his royal master, pity for the disas-
ters necessarily brought upon the
kingdom by his action, and his clear
conception of duty throughout all ;
in the slow braying of this spirit in
the mortar of affliction until speck
by speck all the dross was shaken
and cast out, and the whole man
left clean and pure for the sacrifice
in all this Mr. de Vere has shown
the skill of a great artist. The
obvious temptation for a Catholic
in treating such a theme was to
make Becket a saint too soon, Mr.
de Vere has not fallen into this
mistake, and the result adds largely
to the effect of the drama. Not
till the very last scene do we feel
that Becket lives already above
this world, and only awaits his
translation. The night before his
death the flesh still urged flight
when he knew that death was com-
ing surely and swiftly. And when
the curtain drops for the last time
on that terrible scene of the out-
raged sanctuary and the murdered
archbishop, then do we surely feel

De Veres "Thomas a Beckett

that the spirit of a saint and mar-
tyr has flown to heaven.

The conception of Henry is al-
v?iost equally good. The following
picture of him will be remembered :

" Your king is sudden :

The tidings of his march and victory reach us
Like runners matched. That slender, sinewy

frame,

That ardent eye, that swift, onstriding step,
Yet graceful as a tiger's, foot descending
Silent but sure on the predestinate spot
From signs like these looks forth the inward man.
Kxpect grave news ere long."

Excellent foils to Becket and to
each other are Becket's two fast
friends, John of Salisbury and Her-
bert of Bosham. The contrast be-
tween the two is well drawn by
themselves :

u JOHN OF SALISBURY. Herbert, you jar me with

your ceaseless triumphs,
And hope 'gainst hope. You are like a gold leaf

dropped

From grove immortal of the church triumphant
To mock our church in storm ! For manners'

sake,

I pray you, chafe at times. The floods are out !
I say the floods are out ! This way and that
They cor.ie a-sweeping.

"HERBERT. Wheresoe'er they sweep

The eye of G^d pursues them and controls :
That which they are to him, that only Are they ;
The rest is pictured storm."

A mightier hand than Mr. de
Vere's might own so graphic a pic-
ture as this :

" Go where I might, except among the poor,
'Twas all one huge conspiracy of error,
Conspiracy, and yet unconscious half;
For, though, beneath, there worked one plastic

mind, }

The surface seemed fortuitous concurrence,
One man the hook supplying, one the eye,
Here the false maxim, there the fact suborned,
This the mad hope, and that the grudge for-
gotten.

The lawyer wrote the falsehood in the dust
Of mouldering scrolls ; with sighs the court-priest

owned it ;

The minstrel tossed it gaily from his strings ;
The witling lisped it, and the soldier mouthed it.
These lies are thick as dust in March."

And the " reptile press " had not
yet come into being !

There is not a weak line in this
drama. It will be welcomed by all
Catholics as a glorious illumination

of the history which it pictures.
Our boys should dwell on it in the
schools. From no book can they
gather a better idea of one of the
most marked epochs in English
history. It will, like Alexander the
Great, bear reading and rereading,
disclosing each time new beauties
of thought and expression. Many
of the speeches set one's veins
a-tingling, so vivid and real are
they. The pictures of churchmen
are a study. There is the pre-
late courtier, the prelate politician,
the false ascetic, the blasphemous
apostate, the timid prelate, who
trembles between his conscience
and his king. In striking contrast
to these stand out Becket and his
true men, while to and fro among
the cleric gowns stalk the stalwart
nobles, half-bandits, most of them,
sick in turn of prelate and king.
Mr. de Vere makes masterly use
of these many opposite elements,
groups, parts, and rearranges them
with the highest dramatic effect.

The general tendency of English
poetry in these days is downwards.
It has gained nothing ; it has lost
much. It is least strong in its
highest, the dramatic form. With-
out pretending to be at all dogmat-
ic in mere literary criticism, we take
this last statement to be indisputa-
ble. The failure, however, is not
from lack of effort. There is sure-
ly some strange fascination about
the drama. It would not be at all
hazardous to say that nine out of
every ten men with any literary
pretensions, if they have not actual-
ly written dramas, have at least
had the ambition and intention at
some time or another to write them.
What may be the precise reason
for this general tendency towards
that peculiar form of literature, un-
less it is that so very few succeed
in it, we do not kno\v, and do not;

856

De Veres " Thomas a Becket:

care to inquire just now. The
unattainable, however, always pos-
sesses a strong fascination for aspir-
insr minds; and as the dramatic

literature of all countries is that
which, though the least in quantity,
has fastened itself most upon the
hearts of the people, it is at least
a worthy ambition which aims at
this royal road to fame. The dis-
covery of the North-west Passage
has not been a more fatal lure
to mariners than the drama to lit-
erary adventurers. Even men of
approved position in other branches
of literature, poets of fame, novel-
ists whose names were household
wordsf statesmen and philosophers,
have failed at this last fortress that
fame seems to hold only for her
most favored sons. Here no art
can win an entrance ; the sweetest
strains cannot charm the locks
asunder, the profoundest thoughts
cannot melt them. Nature and
nature only holds the key.

A glance at a few of the writers
of the century will reveal how true
is this. Even Byron with his pas-
sionate soul, his strangely mixed
nature, his bitterness and sweetness,
his loftiness of thought and ex-
pression combined, his marvellous
power over words, has written
dramas which as poems are splen-
did, but as dramas wretched. Shel-
ley was the only poet of his day
who produced a really dramatic
work, but its revolting subject un-
happily removes it from clean hands.
The lesser lights of our own day
have each in turn attempted a like
flight only to meet with disaster.
Who thinks of Browning's Straff ord
now ? Who has cast a second
glance at Swinburne's Chastelard or
Bothwell ? Notwithstanding the
" gush " with which it was at first
hailed by some English critics, Ten-
nyson's Mary Tudor has fallen flat,

both on the stage and oft" it, and
honest men have come to the con-
clusion that it rather detracts from
than adds to the well-earned and
well-worn fame of the author. The
only good purpose it has served was
to bring to light a real drama on
the same subject by the father of
the author whose latest work now
claims our attention. Of that we shall
have something to say at another
time. Even that proverbial philo-
sopher, Mr. Tapper, was seized with
the inspiration in this centennial
year of ours, and we heard some-
thing of a drama wherein George
Washington was to figure as the
hero, but it faded out of sight be-
fore it had well appeared. Sad to
say, our own Longfellow's Spanish
Student, the only drama he ever
published, happens to be about
the worst of his productions. Mr.
Disraeli even, in his wild youth, per-
petrated a drama which was pre-
sented some years since at a second
or third class London theatre, and,
we believe, almost ruined the man-
agement. At all events it failed.
And Bulwer Lytton's best known
drama is not one-fiftieth part as
good as his poorest novel.

Bold then is the man who would
tread this royal road which is strewn
with so many a brave wreck. Rash
the man who, with name and fame
established, with the well- won lau-
rels of a lifetime on his brow, would
add a final and a crowning leaf
plucked from this garden of death.
Happy the man who, in face of the
thousand dangers that beset his
path, goes on his way boldly, grasps
and holds the prize that a thousand
of his fellows have missed. Mr.
de Vere has won this prize. His
dramas are dramas and nothing
else. They are not verses stitched
together without a purpose and a
plan. They are not mere descrip-

TJie Prisoner of C I till on.

857

tion ; they are instinct with act.
We hope and believe that one who
lias accomplished so much and so
well in so short a time may, as we
do not doubt he can, do much
more. The prizes to be won in
this, to Mr. de Vere, new field are
as many as the aspirants; but the
winners are few. As Catholics we
are proud of such a poet. As

readers and observers we rejoice
in these degenerate days at see-
ing so resolute a return to loftier
thoughts and purer, to great con-
ceptions, to real English, which is
free at once from the affectation of
the archaic and from the flimsy
jingle that tries honest ears, to a
right depicting of scenes and events
that have stirred the world.

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

IT has been the lot of more than
one disreputable character to be
glorified by great poets. From
Spenser to Tennyson have the
praises of " Gloriana" been sung,
to the no small detriment of truth,
and of far worthier personages than
she who, although in some respects a
great queen, was guilty of ferocities
almost beyond the capabilities of
man, and of prolonged and calcu-
lating cruelties contrary to the very
nature bestowed by Gocl on woman.
Again, Satan himself is portrayed
in Milton's stately poem as a being
more magnificent than malignant.
He "hates well' certainly, but his
own utter hatefulness, and the base
ingratitude to his Creator of which
he is the first example, is sufficient-
ly veiled to incline one to feel some-
thing akin to admiration or pity
for the arch-rebel against God, the
crafty seducer and pitiless destroyer
of the souls of men.

Passing over other instances of
false renown, and undazzled by the
halo of romance cast around the
" Prisoner of Chillon" by Lord By-
ron's melodious lines (it would be
more plain-spoken than polite to
write this word, as here it ought to
be written, />, without the //), let us

examine, by the sober light of his-
tory, into the merits of this more-
than-doubtful hero, rendered by his
captivity a person of interest, al-
though there is every proof that
the story of his arrest, in violation
of a safe-conduct granted him by
the duke of Savoy, is an invention.*
Still more, however, does Bonivartl
owe his celebrity to Lord , Byron,
who apparently knew nothing of
the " Prisoner" whose imaginary suf-
ferings he sang, beyond his name,
his Protestantism, and the fact of
his imprisonment. The poem opens
with a string of fictions, among
which it is amusing to read that
Bonivard was loaded with chains
for the religion of his father, and
that the said father had died on the
rack, a martyr to a creed he refused
to abjure, etc.

But imagination has had the up-
per hand long enough. Certain of
our contemporaries abroad having
recently referred to the " Prisoner
of Chillon " as a martyr for liberty
of conscience, it is time to brin<>-

down from his pedestal this Calvin-
ist apostate, pointed to by Protes-
tants as one of their models of vir-

* See, especially, Spon, Histoire de Geneve^ torn,
i. pp. 203, 204.

85 8

The Prisoner of CJiillon.

tue, and who, we readily allow,
turns out to be a fitting companion
to'similar "models " even more fa-
mous in their annals.

The Bonivards were an old bour-
geois family of Chambery, who from
the thirteenth century had pos-
sessed a certain extent of feudal
property. Thus they were subjects
of the princes of Savoy, whose worst
enemies were then the Genevese
and Swiss. Now, it was under the
protection of these latter that Boni-
vard, himself a Savoyard, came, in
the vain hope of preserving the rich
revenues of his priory of Saint Vic-
tor, to plant his batteries against his
.native country. At Geneva, he
took his place among the first pro-
moters of the freedom of the future
republic, but no sooner did the Re-
formation become a movement of
importance, from the standing of
some of its leaders, than Bonivard
disappears from the front, and falls
into a lower rank; since, although
a writer of some power and pos-
sessed of real talents, he was ut-
terly lacking in energy and dignity
of character, as also in firmness and
consistency of purpose. In proof
of this, it is enough to observe the
continual applications for money
with which he harassed the coun-
cil of Geneva, while he was at the
same time playing fast and loose
between Savoy and Geneva, in the
first place, and afterwards between
Geneva and Berne, according to the
advancement of his own interests,
self being apparently the sole ob-
ject of his worship. This " vain
and versatile beggar " * was called

* See notice in the Revue Catfiolique for June,
1876, by M. Leyret, to whom the present paper is
argely indebted. Those who wish for full infor-
mation on the subject will find it in the Notice sur
Francois de Bonivard, Prieur de St. Victor et
sur ses Ecrits, par M. le Dr. Chapponviere
{M 6 moires de la Societe d'Histoire et d'Archeo-
logie de Geneve, tome iv.), also in the Mate'riaiix
rtistoriqu.es and the Notices Gensalogigues of

by one of the chiefs of the republic,
the ' Stultus M. de Sans-Saint-
Victor."

Dr. Chapponniere, a Protestant,
says that " Bonivard, exalted by
some as a hero and a martyr for
liberty, and by others charged with
every vice, merited neither the ex-
cess of honor he received on the
one hand, nor of condemnation on
the other." With regard, however,
to this verdict, which would repre-
sent Bonivard as a man of simple
mediocrity, we put the following
questions : Was not Francois de
Bonivard a traitor to his religion,
which he abandoned ? to his eccle-
siastical character, which he vio-
lated ? to his country, which he in-
jured to the utmost of his power?
to history, which he falsified ? and
lastly, to his wives, whom he de-
ceived, and one of whom he aban-
doned to torture ?

The " Prisoner of Chillon ' had
earned his detention in that for-
tress by fifteen years of open revolt
against his lawful sovereign ; and if,
by reason of his six years of im-
prisonment he is to be accounted a
great man, it is but just to allow his
fourth wife, Catherine de Courta-
ronel, to share his greatness. Like
him, she apostatized ; like him, she
quitted her convent and broke all
her vows ; like him, she was driven
out of Geneva because of her evil
life ; like him, she was allowed to
return thither on promising amend-
ment ; with him she lived, for some
time unmarried, until the two were
compelled by the Genevese autho-
rities to submit to a marriage cere-
mony ; like him, she was accused of
adultery, and, more unfortunate than

Galiffe (tome iii.\ but above all in the remarkable
work by Canon Magnin, now Bishop of Annecy, on
Bonivard and the Chronicles of Geneva (Me moires
de f Academic de Saroie^zeme Series, tome iii.)
who by even his moderation, as well as the pitiless
logic of facts, crushes the pseudo-confessor.

New Publications.

859

he, was made, by the application of

frightful tortures, to avow herself
guilty of the crime (which, how-
ever, has not been proved), her
husband making no attempt what-
ever to save her from the torture.
In consequence of the confessions
thus extorted, she was condemned
to be drowned ; the sentence being
duly executed.

We have here a terrible pendant
to the six years of prison, and one
which, this time, can neither be im-
puted (to quote M. Fazg) to " an
infamous duke of Savoy," nor yet

(to quote Bonivard himself) to " a
rascally pope."

This brief sketch, notwithstand-
ing its incompleteness as to details,
which would, however, only darkly
shade the outline here given, is
sufficient to portray the real Boni-
vard, the avaricious and time-serv-
ing apostate, stripped of the inter-
esting fiction which envelopes the
Prisoner of Chillon, and to prove
his worthiness of a niche by the
of Cranmer, Luther, Calvin,
, John of Leyden, and the rest
of the reforming race.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SANCTA SOPHIA, OR DIRECTIONS FOR THE
PRAYER OF CONTEMPLATION, ETC. Ex-
tracted out of more than Forty Trea-
tises written by the late Ven. Father
F. Augustin Baker, a monk of the
English Congregation of the Holy
Order of S. Benedict ; and methodi-
cally digested by the R. F. Serenus
Cressy, of the same Order and Congre-
gation. Now edited by the Very Rev.
Dom Norbert Sweeny, D.D., of the
same Order and Congregation. Lon-
don : Burns & Gates. 1876. (For
sale by The Catholic Publication So-
. ciety.)

Next in importance to the choice of a
spiritual director comes, no doubt, the
^selection of the kind and quality of spir-
itual reading proper for individual souls.
Ordinarily they go together, and, grant-
ing the first choice to have been well
made, the second should be left to be de-
termined by it. One advantage, how-
ever, a suitable book presents even when
compared with a suitable director. It is
always accessible, a consideration of
some importance, when one remembers
how urgently spiritual writers seek to
persuade the soul that in case wise direc-
tion can be had at no less cost, she
should travel " a thousand German
miles " to find it. It is true that with
certain classes of religious reading, and
especially with that class to which the

Sane fa Sophia belongs, there is danger
that indiscreet readers may mistake their
own needs, and nourish pride on what
is proper food for humility only. An-
other peculiarity belonging to them is
one which we hardly know whether to
class as an advantage or a disadvantage.
Put into the hands of mature readers for
whom they have been esteemed suitable
on account of some natural tendency to
introversion, and possibly of converts, to
which class, by the way, the author of
the Sancta Sophia himself belonged, we
have observed these charts of the more
interior ways of spiritual life to create a
temporary difficulty almost as serious as
those they were intended to remove.
The clearness and certainty with which
the road is pointed out, and the obsta-
cles to be surmounted described, fill
the mind at first with such a sense of
security as one feels who places himself
in charge of an experienced guide to
travel to regions by report well known
but as yet unvisited. The objects of
faith assume a new vividness, and the
soul, beholding its own struggles and
its own weariness reflected in the page
before it. takes up its line of march 'vith
new vigor and readiness to endure what
its predecessors also have endured. But
it will be strange if its enemy do not
avail himself of the very weapons used
against him to raise the contrary diffi-

86o

New Publications.

culty, and to suggest that the very accu-
racy with which the internal conflict is
described shows that nothing has been
really achieved by the spiritual writers
except the dissection of the soul itself,
and that, considered as evidence for the
existence of anything beyond its own
struggles, their works are simply worth-
less. H6wever, to " well-minded souls,"
as Father Baker would say, such temp-
tations against faith are not in reality
more dangerous than any other, and may,
with the help of prayer and prudent coun-
sel, be fled from even while their imme-
diate occasion is retained and put to its
uses. For such souls, once fiAly
grounded in Catholic faith and wi a
natural predisposition for " the internal
ways of the Spirit," we know no better
guide than the Sancta Sophia, now so
happily reprinted. No doubt it is not
adapted to general reading ; the caution
of the Benedictine father, Leand'er a St.
Mavtino, is as necessary to-day as when
it was prefixed to the earliest editions of
the work. These instructions, he said,
" are written precisely, and only for such
souls as by God's holy grace do effectu-
ally and constantly dedicate themselves
to as pure an abstraction from creatures
as may with discretion be practised ; . . .
consequently, for such as abstain from
all manner of levity, loss of time, notable
and known defects, vain talk, needless
familiarity, and in a word do take as
much care as they can to avoid all venial
sins and occasions of them, and all
things which they shall perceive or be
warned of, to be impediments to the di-
vine union of their souls with God."

Let us hope that even the strict appli-
cation of this rule would not too greatly
narrow the circle of readers likely to be
profited by the reissue of a volume which
those well qualified to judge rate as the
most solid and valuable work on prayer
ever written in the English tongue. A
more effectual barrier, perhaps, against
indiscriminate readers, is raised by the
style of the work itself than by cautions
such as these. For while the quaint,
sweet sobriety of its manner most hap-
pily matches the gravity of its matter, it
is marked by an utter absence of all
things likely to gratify curiosity simply,
and makes no effort to do more than
guide souls called to contemplative
prayer along the secure road of abnega-
tion and self-denial. Certain blemishes
which pertained to the work in its origi-

nal state are sufficiently guarded against
in this edition by notes ; and in its pre-
sent form the Sancta Sophia is undoubt-
edly better fitted than before both to the
needs of the contemplative orders for
whom it was originally written, and to
those of devout souls living in the world.

MITCHELL'S GEOGRAPHICAL TEXT-
BOOKS. Philadelphia: Published by
J. II. Butler & Co.

One of the best proofs of the excel-
lence of these text-books is the continual
popularity which they have enjoyed, in
spite of the publication of so many com-
peting works by other authors. Of
course they have been kept up to the
times by additions, and improvements
corresponding to the increase of geo-
graphical knowledge.

The series consists of eight books,
two being occupied with ancient geo-
graphy, and is progressive, so as to suit
every age and capacity. For Catholic
schools it is, so far as we can see, not
open to any objection, and as good as
any set of books not expressly written for
them can be.

We are particularly pleased with Prof.
Brocklesby's PJiysical Geography, which
forms part of the series. It is full of in-
formation for grown persons as well as
for the young, is profusely and finely
illustrated, as is the rest of the se-
ries, and will be found to be a most
readable and instructive book.

The maps and charts are throughout
the series executed with that clearness
and beauty which have always charac-
terized Mitchell's atlases.

THE LIFE, LETTERS, AND TABLE-TALK OF

BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
MEN AND MANNERS IN AMERICA ONE

HUNDRED YEARS AGO. New York.

Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1876.

These two volumes are the first instal-
ments of the " Sans-Souci Series," in-
tended as a companion to the " Bric-a-
Brac Series" The life of Haydon the
artist is full of painful interest. The
present volume is a condensation by
Mr. R. H. Stoddard of the larger Enj;-
glish life.

Men and Manners in America One
Hundred Years Ago, edited by II. G.
Scudder, tells pleasantly enough how
men and women lived and moved and
had their being in this country a century
ago.

AP The Catholic world

v.23

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